alternatehistory.com

In 1948, the United Nations voted to recognize the British Mandate of Palestine as a dominion in a near-unanimous vote. Jews and Arabs would share the responsibilities of governing the new nation.

For 61 years, Palestine has enjoyed unparalleled peace and prosperity. It has also weathered crises such as the Stern Gang's refusal to recognize the dominion of Palestine and its terror campaign to make the country into a Jewish state. Fortunately, the country fought back. Thanks to a mole in the Stern Gang, the bombing of the al-Aqsa mosque and assassination attempt on the King of Jordan were prevented. The Stern Gang went out of business after its leaders, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir were sentenced to life in prison.

Palestine was victorious in its wars with Egypt in 1967 (Six Day War) and 1970 (Yom Kippur War), both started by Egypt in its attempts to annex it into the United Arab Republic that it formed with Syria and Iraq.

When the first war ended in 1967, many British and Palestinian politicians wanted to put Nasser in jail and abolish the UAR but Prime Ministers Harold Macmillan and Yasser Arafat accepted minor land concessions at its common border from Egypt in exchange for peace. Enoch Powell blasted Arafat for allowing the Suez Canal to become a "river of blood". Moshe Dayan resigned as Palestinian Defense Minister and predicted there would be another war with Egypt. In the 1970 elections, Edward Heath and Elias Freij were elected Prime Ministers on the promise to be tougher with the UAR.

Dayan's predictions proved correct when a group of Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi undercover commandos broke into a synagogue in Tel Aviv and the Western Wall in Jerusalem and machine-gunned Jews worshiping there for Yom Kippur. Over 500 Jews were killed. The British, Palestinians, Jordanians and Lebanese declared war on the UAR and vowed to remove its leaders.

A week before Thanksgiving, Palestinian and British tanks rolled into Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad. When the dust settled, Nasser was dead, UAR Vice President Hafez Assad of Syria was taken into custody by Lebanese soldiers and tried for war crimes, and UAR Prime Minister Saddam Hussein of Iraq was arrested by his own military officers and hung.

Under the provisions of the Treaty of Bethlehem: (1) The UAR was dissolved, (2) Iraq and Syria were ordered to pay $15 million dollars in reparations from its oil reserves, (3) The Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi armed forces were forbidden to form governments (these countries would become parliamentary democracies), and (4) said countries were required to turn over Palestinian nationals who spied on their behalf. Syria deported Dr. George Habash, founder of Black September. Despite a personal plea from the Pope, Habash was executed by firing squad on September 11, 1971.

At the insistence of King Hussein of Jordan, the Iraqi monarchy was restored but it would be a constitutional monarchy.

Freij retired as Prime Minister in 1985. He was succeeded by Mahmoud Abbas (1985-1996), followed by the government of Edward Said (1996-2002) and Hanan Ashrawi (2002-2009). The recession cost Ashrawi her job and the Social Democrats lost the elections to the Palestine Liberal Party. Tzipi Livni became the first Jewish Prime Minister of Palestine.

I read history books indicating that if Palestine became a Jewish state instead of a dominion, there would have been war between the Jews and Arabs and the Middle East would have been anything but peaceful.

What is your opinion?
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