WI: Jerusalem is declared an international city in 1946

And ironically, a lot of the Western Left that despises Israel in OTL, would despise the Palestineans instead. Not least because McCarthy liked them. Not to mention that with the Soviets as their main patron, *Israel would probably have to have a more secular and socialist internal politics.

Which strengthens the Democratic Party of the US after the late 60s--as their stance as the party of doves, the non-anti-Communist party, and all that no longer conflicts with Jewish support. (Assuming butterflies haven't changed all that.)

On the European Left, Palestineans are not seen as victims of imperialism, but as religious reactionary neo-Nazis. In this world, it's a LOT easier to claim that Christian fundamentalists and Muslim fundamentalists are exactly the same thing, and that both are Nazis.

The UN General Assembly may end up passing a resolution that Anti-Zionism is racism, to stick a thumb in the US's eye.

Note that none of this requires that the *PLO be much different.

Well, they might also despise them for a different reason: having US weaponry instead of Soviet is not going to make Yasser Arafat a good general. He was a lousy, terrible war-wager who never won a war or even arguably a battle in his life (depending on how we categorize Karameh the credit, if it goes to Arabs, should be to the Jordanians, not Fatah). He'd be even worse than Rhee and ARVN in this scenario and further perpetuate the question of why Soviet puppets beat up on US proxies. Depending on the cultural butterflies, this could actually backfire horribly on the USA.

OTOH, if the USA's that involved with the PLO, we may never hear of Arafat and instead be speaking of that bungling idiot Shuqeri.
 
Okay, I must ask, why do the Arab states automatically have horrible generals? Is it not possible for countries like say, Lebanon, to have decent generals? Or are there systematic issues they can't solve?
 
Okay, I must ask, why do the Arab states automatically have horrible generals? Is it not possible for countries like say, Lebanon, to have decent generals? Or are there systematic issues they can't solve?

It's got a number of interrelated causes. First, Arab armies invariably fight in coalitions. 99 times out of 100 a coalition against a good single enemy will get walloped by that single enemy, which will have the advantage of being better able to concentrate forces for a single objective to meet a single interest. The moreso when that enemy has what it feels is a literal backs to the wall mentality behind it (though of course Backs to the Wall is also what happens to lead to IJAs that fight stupidly in terms of losing lives, not intelligently as it can actually lead to results in the right situation that are positive).

Second, Arab armies if they have really good, initiative seeking generals generally spend that initiative scheming to replace first the existing leadership and then each other. This means that the army becomes a political party more than a combat force. Think ARVN-type dysfunctionality with a similarly intractable Catch-22: the current people in charge naturally don't want to be the next victim of a coup, but they can't permit their generals to be too good or they very much are likely to be such a victim. Thus Arab generals get hobbled for the perfectly sensible reason of wanting to retire by death from natural causes.

Third, because of the first two factors Arab armies tend to be very poor in terms of taking initiative. In a more static situation they never really did that badly as even Israeli sources noted. If all you have to do is keep the enemy from taking a hill, that requires relatively simple tasks. If you have to take the hill from the enemy, that's a rather more difficult one, and it's the people who are best at that this that want, so to speak, to be dictator instead of the dictator and are willing to play King of the Mountain to get there.

Finally, the greatest irony of Arab military history is that where these armies win victories, it's invariably at the expense of the Fatah wing of the PLO. Because as bad as they are, there is always someone who's worse.

To fix these issues with a 1940s POD is anything but simple, not least because colonialism discredited for the short term any civilian power base, while the Israeli leadership under guys like Ben Gurion is relatively speaking far more able to maximize its resources than the Arabs. Not, admittedly, that given all this this necessarily is as impressive in practice as it looks on paper.
 
Okay, I must ask, why do the Arab states automatically have horrible generals? Is it not possible for countries like say, Lebanon, to have decent generals? Or are there systematic issues they can't solve?

It's a systematic problem. Promoting good ambitious officers opens a government up to a coup. Arab governments are normally more interested in the tribal, family, loyality and party ties than military skill. But it's not just an Arab problem look at Latin America or Africa.

Jordan's Arab League had very good leadership until the 1960's. Of course they were mainly British or British trained but that's another story.
 
In which case the USA backs the Arab states and Israel gets an asswhupping by the 1960s/1970s.

Why do you think President Truman will support the Arabs in 1946 when he didn't in 1948? I can't think of a single that that happened inbetween that would cause people to think Truman would come to a different decision if he had to make it earlier in regards to Israel.
 
Why do you think President Truman will support the Arabs in 1946 when he didn't in 1948? I can't think of a single that that happened inbetween that would cause people to think Truman would come to a different decision if he had to make it earlier in regards to Israel.

Because Israel would have to bleed the British in a very ghastly fashion to make a 1946 declaration possible.....
 
Top