The Galactic Question Center

Obviously, there are various ways for Israel not to have formed.

One would have been for the Zionist movement to have dissipated in the
1940s. In this case, even in the absence of Israel, I expect anti-
Semitism to have continued to increase in the Middle East to the extent
that the hundreds of thousands of Jews living there in 1940 would
sooner or later have been obliged to move. As actually happened, with
peaks in 1948 and 1967. There being no Israel, this could have led to
a refugee crisis. Had no country been willing to accept so many Jews
as rapidly as Israel did (assuming that's what happened to the many
refugees?), many may have been killed. A second holocaust, albeit on a
smaller scale.

Had the Zionist movement remained strong, yet Israel not been founded
(is that consistent with your scenario?), groups such as the Stern Gang
may have continued their terrorist campaign for much longer. (Assuming
that sufficient Stern Gang members were already resident in the Middle
East by 1940; i.e., did not flee from Europe during the war. I don't
know whether that was the case.)

All very speculative, of course. I wonder whether any "alternative
histories" have been written about "no Israel"?
(Nick)
 

Hard to day. Then there's those who don't recognize Israel's right to
exist. So to them, Israel is a fiction.....but they must think it's real
enough to wage so much violence about it. (April)
 

Hadn't jews been settling in Palestine since the early 1900s? They had to smuggle the majority of Jews into Palestine during and after WWII.

Having said that, there's no certainty that Israel will continue to exist, any more than there's a certainty any nation will, including us. All too often we tend to think the present is a permanent state of affairs. It isn't. The boundaries and the very existence of nations come and go. Our turn will come, too, which brings up another statement/question:
I believe eventually the United States will become Balkanized, similar to what happened to the USSR, Yugoslavia, and too many others to list. That's assuming a nuclear war doesn't destroy most nations before then. Does anyone else share this opinion? And if so, which areas do you think would separate into individual nations? (Darrell)
 

If Israel had not been formed, most of post WWII Jewry settled there would probably be in the US and assimilated there instead, and the Middle East would not have its whipping boy state to pin all its frustrations and failures on. Somehow I think the Middle East would still be a miserable place for the majority of its residents for causes more deep seated than anything Israel-related. Personally, I think Israel is the best thing going in the Middle East.
 

Frankly, I think the Middle East would have been deprived of a "common enemy" that was easily accessable.

Lastly, does anyone see the temporal discrepancy between the general Arab and the specific Palestinian historical claim on Jerusalem versus the age of Judaism as a religion/culture?

Maybe it's just me.
 

The problem with hypothetical history is: "A World Without Palestine?" Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like today had the State of Palestine never formed on Nov 15 1988 -- for example, if the Palestinians seeking a state after World War II went to various countries outside the Mideast and maintained their lives in these new locations instead of in the land we now call the State of Palestine. How would the world be different today?

The real answer to both questions is similar.. Israelis or Palestinians exiled to various non-mideast contries would sit and pine for a homeland, perhaps in conjunction with other jews or mohammedans they might produce radical terrorist cells and send them on forays into the mideast. And then there's the logistical problem of moving the Wailing Wall and foundation of the Temple of Jerusalem or moving the Mosque of the Rock to some new location in one of those various distant foreign countries. Doesn't make sense does it? Social engineering will never adjust an ancient semitic family blood feud to anyone's liking. Sharing might work but seems antithetical to current religion with its historic practise of merciless barbarism. Anyway, which of these hypothetical "various countries" would invite such a solution? Wouldn't this set up either of these semitic populations for further disparagement and scapegoating, even holocaust in one or another host country?
 

This is purely a guess from the images & happenings in the middle east in the last few decades.
I don't know of an area on earth where there is more hatred between bordering countries & ethnic groups within countries than the middle east- & thats without Israel.
Israel simply perpetuates what is already there. Without Israel there would still be wars, continual discontent, up to & including attempts at genocide.
There seems to be a multitude of serious problems, many dating back to biblical times. If Israel was "wiped off the map" as the president of Iran & religious leaders want, the aftermath would just cause greater war & unrest.
Some one once said "If you have one religion, there is tyranny. If you have two religions, there is civil war. If you have thirteen, we all live together."
The problem is the one religion and evidently the religious leaders have interpreted it to mean you live & go forward by the sword.
 

I can't go along with the idea that the ripples would continue to increase if there were no pebble tossed. That's lyrics, not reality. Anti-semitism (by the semitic arabs, no less) wasn't a big problem until the zionists started angling to turn Palestine into a "Jewish State". The various ethnic groups in Palestine got along fine for a long long time before that.

Skipping that argument for a few moments, it is an interesting overall question. The U.S.' CIA helped to overthrow the democratically elected Musharraf government in Iran and replace it with a despot, the Shah. The repercussions of this and of the U.S.' constant and continual support of the Shah would've been unchanged. To the extent that those effects are exacerbated by the U.S' unflagging support for everything Israel does, there might have been some change.

Would Egypt have nationalized the Suez canal if Israel hadn't existed and would Britain have attacked without the support of Israel? That dust up had global ramifications.

The U.S. always had Israel as a client state (though only a quasi-client in reality), so without Israel, the cold war maneuvering in the area might have been vastly different. The effect of the U.S.'actions in Iran, as well as the oil company ties to some other states might have mitigated against too different of a scenario, though.

There is a large end-times movement in the U.S. that is driven by the existence of Israel. It would be vastly smaller and less influential if there were no Israel.

Now, the rest - it appears that most of the "Arab-Isreali" grief is a reaction to the creation of Israel through force, the pogroms and other attacks on the Palestinians as a result of the zionist leadership's determination to 1) drive out many Palestinians in order to increase their infinitesimal popular majority and 2) to drive the Palestinians out of the rest of Palestine and add it to their state, the seizure of Palestinian property then and now, and the continual and continuing colonization of ever more and more of Palestine. That simply wouldn't have happened without the creation of Israel, assuming that, instead of working to make Palestine into a Jewish State, the Brits had simply allowed statehood for Palestine shsortly after WWI as they should have done.
 

Thier would third world war and nuclear one. if Israel not thier keep Arabs in line.Both USSR and the USA both need the oil run ecomany.Arab coutries as much like say did. Arab nations do not get along will.Their would war between differnt oil rick nations Africa and MIddle east.This pull USSR and the USA into world war.Both side fear other gain cotrol over oil supplies set back watch Arab nations play out no go war.Thier goes human races
 

A world without Israel equals;

a world with less misery
a world with less hate
a world with less violence

Without Israel the world would be a better place.