The Land, as Promised: A Palestinian TL (Mk 2)

Huh, it's a wonder why this timeline was never updated. Given that I had re-read and noticed how the French have given the Algeria treatment to Lebanon and made it part of metropolitan France, I wondered how things will proceed on there.

It's not a wonder, it's very simple: the cease in updates corresponded with me joining the army. I also got major Arab-related writer's block. Anyway, after I finished basic training, I had some time...but I've decided that I prefer a "depth" rather than "width" approach, developing each topic (education, government, economy, military) rather than a year-by-year approach. So now I'm finishing that, and then I plan to "publish" in an system by which I will alternate updates with "general topics" and "history" (e.g., the first update with be government, the second update will be 1922-1926, the third update will be geography, the 4th 1926-130, etc). And I don't plan on doing that until the TL's complete, sadly. Two stillbirths mean that I don't want to start until I can guarantee finishing. Since I'm leaving for Officer School in two months, that's not likely to happen in the next year or so, sadly.

Oh, and Lebanon-wise: it works out better than in Algeria. Alawite and Alexandretta...well, you'll just have to see.
 
Bahad 1. It's going to be a little less intense than those places, I suspect, since I'm doing the lowest of the three levels of training offered there.

Not exactly the same, those places are pre-army IIRC. Besides, we always tend to do things differently then the rest of the world. My deputy division (Ugdah) commander finsihed his regular service as a tank driver. did what you do now and finished where he is now all during his reserve duty.

Anyway, I guess we'll just have to wait for an update. Good luck to you until then.
 
Looking at this, I am quite skeptical that Palestinian nationalism wouldn't arise on its own in this kind of scenario, *especially* with what you're structuring this as here. It'd be extremely oriented against *Palestine but it'd be a different animal altogether from the OTL model, probably led by the Nahashashibis as opposed to the Husseinis. I certainly think the rise of the Dominion has appeared without any Arab violence or reactions at all, which is extremely unrealistic, as is the absence of any kind of native Palestinian voice in all this. I especially found this bit verging completely out of realism altogether:

This issue – known ominously as “the Arab Problem” – was so concerning that PM Weizmann nearly created a cabinet position of “Minister of Arab Affairs”. This measure was considered excessive by many, however, and so in the end the problem was given to a Knesset subcommittee headed by Minister for Interior Affairs Ben Gurion. Including members from across the political spectrum despite Ben Gurion’s status as head of the Labour Party, the Subcommittee for Demographic Forecasting produced a number of ideas, most of them completely unworkable: the outright expulsion of the Arab populace, setting up of a stratified society like in South Africa or India, or encouraging/forcing conversion to Judaism. In the end, the only solution hit upon that would simultaneously deal with the demographic issue while not violating humanitarian principles, and help with land survey at the same time: passed on 23 May 1924, the National Land Act called for the establishment of a series of survey and appraisal teams, composed of one Jew, on Briton, and one Arab (typically a Lebanese or Syrian educated in a Western university). These teams would travel across the entire country, appraising every house and piece of land. The law further compelled the Jewish National Fund (a private non-profit company owned 100% by the Palestinian government) to purchase any land offered at 105% of its appraised value, while illegalizing all land sales between private individuals. Land would, in general, be leased out from the JNF for periods of 49 years. Interestingly, most of these notions had been considered anyway in other contexts, but were ultimately incorporated into the “Arab Solution” as a way to garner support from the rightists, who tended to support corporatism as well as nationalism.[3]

Simultaneously, Faisal I played on Syria patriotism and offered massive tax benefits to any immigrants to Syria from Palestine, and free land to any willing to settle in the underpopulated southern portion of his country, in particular in and around the city of Aqaba, which he hoped to transform from a dusty caravanserai into a mighty port. The end result was that some 200,000 Arabs are estimated to have emigrated from Palestine between the 1922 and 1930 censuses, over 90% to Syria, with perhaps 30,000 (likely mostly Egyptian) immigrating. Though numerous historians have failed to demonstrate anything conclusively, rumors persist of immigration control refusing to admit Arabs and the JNF refusing to lease land to non-Jews, a fact somewhat supported by the large number of documentless workers found following the 1952 crackdown.


Trying to boot out Palestinians like this will create Palestinian nationalism if it hasn't already existed by this point. And the idea that they'd simply leave for Syria shows a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of how Palestinian nationalism of the time actually worked. There were plenty of more popular leaders than the OTL Mufti who'd take one look at this and start rioting and shooting at the Zionists here. It's a good Israel-wank, but it's got precious little resemblance to how these issues worked IOTL.
 
Trying to boot out Palestinians like this will create Palestinian nationalism if it hasn't already existed by this point. And the idea that they'd simply leave for Syria shows a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of how Palestinian nationalism of the time actually worked. There were plenty of more popular leaders than the OTL Mufti who'd take one look at this and start rioting and shooting at the Zionists here. It's a good Israel-wank, but it's got precious little resemblance to how these issues worked IOTL.

You're completely right, which is why I've completely reworked this part of the TL :D. It's going to be much...messier.
 

abc123

Banned
I'm actually spending a lot of time trying to figure out how the Nazis react to the Jewish state. Part of me thinks that Hitler will - initially - support the idea and try to export all of Germany's Jews to it (while keeping their money, of course). IOTL, there was a current in Nazi thought that supported a Jewish nation (the infamous Madagascar plan). Palestine was rejected at the time due to Nazi concerns that it would cause humanitarian (no, really), and because they were trying to garner Arab support against the British. I think that, at least initially, the Nazis will be supportive of Palestine, and I think that most of the Jews in Germany are going to get out. By the time they get around to invading Poland and France, though, they're not going to be wanting to give extra soldiers to a hostile power.

As for the Saarland, the British give France more colonial concessions and a freer hand in the Saar in exchange for throwing Sykes-Picot out the window. I'm not sure if it'll actually go as far as trying to impose French language, though it's possible it'll become part of a "Greater Alsace-Lorraine" type arrangement in the minds of Paris.


The main issue is going to be the fate of the Jews in Europe, though, again, I could take steps to either minimize it or blow it up.

I agree with that part of Nazi attitude about Palestine... I agree that many Jews from Europe will go there, but IMO in not so big numbers like OTL after the Holocaust..

Bot POD, it doesn't seems to me as too plausible.

Also, it is too early for Palestine to become a dominion in 1922, way too early and way too small number of Jews there at the time...
 
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