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To: H. Paul Pressler IV
Without the break-up of the Ottoman Empire there would likely be no Israel and the Empire would now control all the oil on the Arab Peninsula as well as in Iraq.

Of course we wouldn't have the continuous unrest that we have there now, and Iraq (a contrived nation) wouldn't exist either. I'm not sure how you can say Israel wouldn't have existed. The Ottoman Empire, as with all empires, would have eventually fallen from within.

17 posted on 05/14/2006 10:56:13 AM PDT by billbears (Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. --Santayana)
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To: billbears
Of course we wouldn't have the continuous unrest that we have there now, and Iraq (a contrived nation) wouldn't exist either. I'm not sure how you can say Israel wouldn't have existed. The Ottoman Empire, as with all empires, would have eventually fallen from within.

Iraq is not as contrived as people like to say. It's contrived from the standpoint of people who think in terms of nice neat national borders encompassing distinct religions and ethnicities. In terms of the reality of power and the people who make these decisions, weapon in hand (as opposed to academics, chalk in hand) - throughout Arab history, Middle Eastern geography has been a game of winner takes all. If the Brits and the French had not jumped in, the Middle East might have become a single Arab empire (to replace what was a Turkish empire on Arab soil) rather than the mish mash of nations it has now become. Which one of the Arab leaders would you like to have in charge of the entire Arab portion of the Middle East's oil reserves? The Saudi king? Muammar Gaddafi? Bashir al Assad? Saddam Hussein?

If the British had not taken chunks of the Middle East from the Ottoman empire, Israel would not exist, at least not in its present location. Israelis like to rail against the Brits for not being impartial with respect to Jews and Arabs in Palestine, but the reality is that British rule in a fragmented Middle East provided a shield behind which Jews accumulated and grew strong. A single Arab empire would have smothered the baby in its crib. And there is simply no chance that Jewish refugees would have flooded into what is now Israel if it had become a war zone involving dozens of Arab claimants to the title of ruler of the Arab nation after WWI.
28 posted on 05/14/2006 11:30:43 AM PDT by Zhang Fei
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