tl;dr - What if there was a clearly Western European-descended population in Levant that lasted to the modern day? Not necessarily a big community, but on that subscribes to a traditionalist Roman Catholicism, and speaking an old variety of French or some other Latin language, or maybe German. This community being descended either from the crusades themselves, or a 19th century attempt to reestablish the crusader states.
Much longer premise:
Back in 2009, a bunch of vaguely liberal to conservative wonks had a debate about what if Israel had lost the Six Day War and a Palestine had been declared instead. With the roles reversed, would the U.S. still condemn terrorist attacks from the radical Jews against the Arab state? It was actually a counterfactual examining the role of the Israel Lobby, but the important thing is it led to the Angevin Counterfactual, which I quoted in full in this thread:
tl;dr it's yet another "alternate-Israel-type restorationist state founded in the territory of Israel" thought experiment that examines how U.S. foreign policy would react. But as AH goes, it's fairly implausible. But it also led me to this idea:
Not really Zionist as well, more like a desire by Europeans, especially French but I suppose Austrians or perhaps even the British might work, to create a latter-day Kingdom of Jerusalem because of either Napoleonic romanticism or 19th century romanticism. As pointed out in that thread, there were numerous examples of this actually happening in Europe- Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech nationalism were all constructs of romanticist hearkening of prior polities lost in time. It's just the gulf between that era to the Crusades would be much greater, and so is the geographic distance to have feasible logistics. (Maybe if they worked with a friendly Khedive of Egypt and/or the Russians to weaken Ottoman power?)
Either way, perhaps such an attempt whether it succeeds or not creates a Neo-crusader movement that causes Europeans to settle in the Levant, getting into conflicts with the locals and so forth? And eventually France or whomever colonizes in full in Lebanon and Syria and so forth and these communities get some support. There's also @carlton_bach 's idea of Napoleon III just doing this from the top. Decolonization comes and these communities are left in the lurch, but they still remain unlike the Pied Noir. Let's say the Neo-crusader movement has an ideology of Christian "Zionism" in the sense of remaining in the Holy Land (to protect it and so forth). So this minority lives to be a factor there, though they aren't exactly numerous.
How does Middle East history develop?
Much longer premise:
Back in 2009, a bunch of vaguely liberal to conservative wonks had a debate about what if Israel had lost the Six Day War and a Palestine had been declared instead. With the roles reversed, would the U.S. still condemn terrorist attacks from the radical Jews against the Arab state? It was actually a counterfactual examining the role of the Israel Lobby, but the important thing is it led to the Angevin Counterfactual, which I quoted in full in this thread:
Low Butterfly Zone: Angevins in Israel
Only paragraphs two to four are actually about the AH. http://theamericanscene.com/2009/01/16/the-angevin-counterfactual As Andrew Sullivan notes, there's been a lot of interesting debate about Stephen Walt's counterfactual from a few days ago. See, for example, here and here and here...
www.alternatehistory.com
tl;dr it's yet another "alternate-Israel-type restorationist state founded in the territory of Israel" thought experiment that examines how U.S. foreign policy would react. But as AH goes, it's fairly implausible. But it also led me to this idea:
Outremerism: French Catholic Zionism
What if in the 18th and/or the 19th centuries there was an international political movement, more romantic than practical but eventually rather influential, to reestablish a Kingdom of Jerusalem and maybe the other Crusader States in the Levant? Points if there's also a movement to recreate the...
www.alternatehistory.com
Not really Zionist as well, more like a desire by Europeans, especially French but I suppose Austrians or perhaps even the British might work, to create a latter-day Kingdom of Jerusalem because of either Napoleonic romanticism or 19th century romanticism. As pointed out in that thread, there were numerous examples of this actually happening in Europe- Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech nationalism were all constructs of romanticist hearkening of prior polities lost in time. It's just the gulf between that era to the Crusades would be much greater, and so is the geographic distance to have feasible logistics. (Maybe if they worked with a friendly Khedive of Egypt and/or the Russians to weaken Ottoman power?)
Either way, perhaps such an attempt whether it succeeds or not creates a Neo-crusader movement that causes Europeans to settle in the Levant, getting into conflicts with the locals and so forth? And eventually France or whomever colonizes in full in Lebanon and Syria and so forth and these communities get some support. There's also @carlton_bach 's idea of Napoleon III just doing this from the top. Decolonization comes and these communities are left in the lurch, but they still remain unlike the Pied Noir. Let's say the Neo-crusader movement has an ideology of Christian "Zionism" in the sense of remaining in the Holy Land (to protect it and so forth). So this minority lives to be a factor there, though they aren't exactly numerous.
How does Middle East history develop?