Was it fair when the United Nations divided Palestine?

In the context of the question, it would be unfair to lay the blame of Palestinian division on the United Nations. At least from a Western civilization viewpoint The history of Palestine and the state of Israel is a long and complex story that has many perspectives. However, on May 14th of 1948 when Israel was established as the modern Jewish, or as some would call it Zionist state, there was no official "Palestine" and no Arabs that had declared a sovereign state of Palestine and therefore, technically speaking there were no Palestinians.

That being said if you Google the phrase; "Plight of the Palestinians" there are more than half a million results which clearly gives meaning to the term Palestine and Palestinians The history of a Jewish presence in Israel dates back at least 3.400 years to the early days when Judaism was first formed as a religion. Throughout their history both the Jews and Palestinian Arabs have been dispersed and then have returned to the land of Israel or Palestine. The origin of Judaism is sketchy at best but seems to go as far back as the beginning of civilization itself.

This answer being a distinctly Western Civilization point of view, the history of Islam is even sketchier and while many accounts date the origin of the Muslim religion as forming in the 7th century the history of Islam is more complex and many Arabs and Middle Easterners believe the very same prophets and figures of Judaism are prophets and figures of Islam. From Adam to Noah to Abraham to Jesus and Muhammad the Qur'an declares them all prophets of Islam. There are, of course, the Christians who have become as much a part of Palestine's history as both Muslims and Jews but in the beginning there were either Jews who were monotheistic or Arabs either being Islamic, (monotheistic), or more pantheistic.

The divisions began long before 1948 It is in between the area of 1400 and 1100 BC that most scholars place the Israelites Canaan Egypt. Around 1050 BC the Jews formed their own independent kingdom but around 950 BC that kingdom was split into the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel. While the historical accuracy of this remains controversial, it is less historical accuracy that matters in understanding the current divisions and more important to understand both the Judaic and Islamic or Arab perspectives.

Indeed, it was the efforts to form a Hebrew Monarchy that in many ways began much of the divisions, not only between Arabs and Jews but between Jews themselves. Prior to the establishment of Hebrew Monarchies the covenant with God was just that. God, or Yahweh was the law and the Jews were subject to that law and that law alone.In the Book of Samuel the Prophet Samuel warns the Jews that would be a price to pay for disobeying God and instead obeying the laws of man.

The fist Monarch of Israel was Saul, who not interested in Samuels warnings, broke with that Prophet and began the descent into arbitrary despotism. There are today divisions of rabbinical view on the status of Saul as some see him as a hero to the Jewish people and others as the one guilty of breaking with the covenant with God In 720 BC, the Assyrians conquered and then exiled the Israelites and this became known as the time of the lost tribe of Israel. For those Arabs of this region it was a time that saw Babylons power give way to the strength of the Neo Assyrian Empire which many historians consider to be history's first real empire.

The Neo Assyrian Empire had grown strong enough to become a major threat to the 25th dynasty of Egypt and given the long history of Egypt and surrounding Arabs and Jews, the modern day notions of an uncivilized Middle East tends to forget that civilization itself began in this region. Egypt, with her many gods and idols, was in many ways the predominant culture of civilization. But the time of Neo Assyrians brought a new dimension to culture and law and it was during this time that Aramaic was made the official language of the region and even the ancient Babylonians, long regarded as the epitome of wickedness had been the civilization that brought us the highly regarded, then and today, Code of Hammurabi, a set of common law records that gives profound meaning to common laws since time immemorial In 586 BC the Jews were again exiled only this time to Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar conquered the Kingdom of Judah.

Then in 538 BC Babylon was conquered by Cyrus the Great who proclaimed the Judean's free and approximately 50,000 Judeans returned to Israel. Cyrus the Great had been the founder of the Great Persian Empire that essentially ruled the Middle East until Alexander the Great, in a blink of an eye, turned the world into a prototype of what it is today. The Greek influence on the world essentially began with Alexander the Greats conquests bringing to much of the world the cultures of Greece which has been in many ways the foundations of Western Civilization and even profoundly influenced the Islamic Golden Age.

But this Great Greek Empire took from the Palestinians, Jewish or Arab, a relative time of peace under Persian rule and brought the internal wars of the Greeks and power struggles between Ptolemy, who inherited Egypt, and Seleucus, the Middle East. Israel found itself, after two centuries of relative peace under Persian rule, conquered by a Greek Empire that lasted as long as Alexander and watched as the ambitious generals of the West fought for control over real estate. Yet through this time Jews clung to their faith and accepted this seeming chaos as punishment for breaking the covenant of God However, in between 174 and 135 BC there was the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus IV Epiphanes who attempted to do away with Judeaism in favor of Hellenism.

It was the belief of Antiochus that slaughtering thousands of Jews for practicing Judaism would discourage them from worshiping God but, as it has been all along, he greatly misjudged the Jews. For the Jews this great Maccabean revolt is known as the Hosmonean period or the Period of Independence.It was the great and rebellious Matthias who had brought a sense of rebellion to the Jews and along with his five sons Matthias formed his brand of a guerrilla army and forged what is known as the Maccabean revolt. It was, however, with the violent death and betrayal of his last surviving son Simon that this period of Israeli independence came to an end In 64 BC the Roman known as Pompey conquered Judea, but in 66 AD the Jews revolted and to distinguish themselves from Rome named their newly formed independent state Israel.

This Great Revolt marked the first of three revolts against the Romans and this first began over Greeks sacrificing birds in front of a Synagogue. This offense to the Jewish people was dismissed by the Romans as a non issue but as non issues go, it became an issue of great Importance to that famous fiddler known as Nero. It was Nero who was Emperor of Rome at this time and it was he who sent the legions of Rome along with future Emperor Titus in 70 AD to quell the Jewish revolt and Titus and his legions systematically destroyed Israel beginning with the great Temple of Jerusalem In 135 AD it was the third Jewish revolt where they again named their state Israel.

Prior to the Romans conquering the Jews it was, as noted, the Mesopotamians of that day that were at war and conquering Jews. They were all peoples from the middle east. The European relationship with Jews first began with Alexander and then Pompey and by 130 AD it was Hadrian who was dealing with them.

Before Hadrian the attitude of Rome was one of a paternalistic view and few of the Emperors had many dealings with the Jews directly. But Hadrian was a different matter and in his accounts, we come to better understand how and why Europeans came to view Jews as they have Hadrian, unlike most of his predecessors, showed a keen interest in the Jewish faith and saw great opportunity to combine the monotheistic faith of the Jews with his own Hellenistic views. He spent much time with the learned rabbis and recognized how fiercely loyal these "chosen people" were to their one God.

Hadrian tried to convince the Judeans to join with him in alliance to create his own personal brand of a Hellenistic religion. The negotiations ultimately failed because Hadrian, as had many before him, misjudged the Judeans and their commitment to God. He misunderstood the whole notion of the covenant with God that factored so greatly into the Jewish faith.

Hadrian never understood how they came to believe they were the chosen people of their God and it fascinated him how this gave the Jews an air of superiority.It is important to to understand how early on Europeans viewed the Jews as a people that looked down their noses at others and tended to behave as they were separate from others. Whether this attitude among Jews is true or not is irrelevant and misses the point entirely. The point is that Europeans began viewing the Jews in this manner as far back as Hadrian and probably before that.

The Book of Genesis makes great pains to make clear that all of humanity is descended from Adam and Eve and as such all people whether Egyptian, Arab, Jew or Christian and the many pagan peoples of the world are all brothers and sisters from the same lineage For the Mesopotamians, that seemed to always surround the Jews, there was a commonality in Ishmael who both the Muslim and Jewish religions accept as an ancestor of the Northern Arabs. Ishmael is believed to be Abraham's eldest son and Abraham is considered to be the patriarch of both Muslims and Jews. Thus, both Arabs and Jews are descended from the same family.

A complex family feud that began thousands of years ago is part of the problem today between the so-called Palestinians and the Jews. The problems and mistrusts between certain Europeans and the Jews tends to be more subtle and not so easily discerned. The problems and tensions between Christians, Muslims and Jews is even harder to understand and greatly adds to all of the confusion.It is easy to oversimplify it all and reduce it to racism or bigotry, sadly shake our heads and chalk it up to ignorance but it doesn't really help us understand the problem any better.

Between Arabs and Jews, and even Christians, besides family politics, there is the issue of real estate, always real estate, and indeed, in the beginning for the Greeks and Romans it was all about real estate as well. Israel was, and still is today property, which means somebody at any given time owns it When Hadrian finally left Israel the Judeans with their rebellious nature rebelled again and it was, for Hadrian, a sense of betrayal. Hadrian had offered peace and reconciliation but instead the Jews, in his mind, defiantly rejected his offer and chose war.

Hadrian's resolve was fierce and an all ready beaten down and tired Jewish people finally saw their defeat, again, being barred from their capital Jerusalem, which the Romans had renamed Aelia Capitolina. The Jews, well acquainted with dispersal, began their world wide dispersal during this time. Thousands were sold into slavery, again, and the once all important Temple of Jerusalem diminished out of necessity and a more rabbinic approach to their faith began.

There were Jews that remained in the middle east and there were Jews that were exiled or sent to Europe, and North Africa. This dispersion is known as the Jewish disporia Throughout this time the Jewish people never lost faith in God nor that they were the chosen people and in the Middle East Jews continued to revolt in 351, 438 and 614 AD never giving up on the idea of a nation state. While the Jews spent much of this time being defeated by conquering nations so did the ancestors of the very same people who now claim to be Palestinians. The descendants of Ishmael have been defeated by ancient Egyptians, they were defeated by Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians and then by the Romans, Muslim Arabs, Mamlukes, Ottoman's, the British and finally the Zionists.

That they have existed in the lands of Israel or Palestine is not a matter of question The difference between these two peoples who have lived amongst each other for thousands of years is great and varied but in the context of this question a major defining difference lies in the ambition for sovereignty. Since 1050 BC the Jews and their ambitions of sovereignty have been clear but the first real clear sign of any such movement amongst the Arab people of that region only becomes noticeable, at least in terms of a Western perspective, in the mid 19th century with the Arab revolt of 1834 in Palestine.It should be noted that this perspective is in regards to those Arabs who lived in the regions of Palestine and not to be confused with the many Arabs associated with Islam and the Muslim religion. Not that many of the Northern Arabs of Palestine should necessarily be distinguished from Islam or the Muslim religion.

It should be somewhat clear at this point that this cursory look at the history of Israel and Islam is not intended to make clear the problems that exist today, but rather, better illustrate how complex and confusing it can be The origins of Islam, being as controversial in their historical accuracies as the origins of Judaism, began, for many, in the 7th century AD, with Muhammad 's Divine Revelations which were memorized and written down into what is now known as the Qur'an. After the death of Muhammad the Islam religion was ruled by the Caliphs who were known as the Rashidun, or the "rightly guided" of the Islamic portion known as the Sunni Islamic faith. The Rashidun was followed by a series of Caliphates that moved their Capitol from Damascus to Baghdad and the Islamic Empire forged by the Rashidun and kept alive by the Caliphates is considered to be one of the ten largest Empires known to humanity.

Soon after the birth of this Empire the Great Golden Age of Islam was born and much art, music, science, and philosophy was contributed to the world by these Muslims.It was in the 8th century that we begin to see the Christians become noticeably involved in the affairs of the Middle East with the Crusades. Beginning with the Reconquista of Spain with her battle with the Moors, Pope Urban II, being inspired by this and feeling the pressures of a nervous Eastern Roman Emperor declared the first Crusade and soon after Jerusalem was under the control of Christendom This Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted almost two hundred years from 1099 to 1291 AD when it was finally defeated by the Mamluks. Before the defeat of Christian Jerusalem the European rule was distant and the Christians, Jews and Muslims of the vast regions of the Middle East that came under European control had little to no dealings with Europeans.It was the great Muslim leader Saladin who, along with an increasingly united Muslim world, recaptured Jerusalem in 1187 AD and this began what is sometimes called the Kingdom of Acre.

Muslims united at first by Ayyubid and later by the Mamluk dynasties in Egypt reduced the once powerful Kingdom of Jerusalem of Christianity to nothing more than a pawn in the great chess board of struggle for land and power in the Middle East It was the Mamluks who united both Syria and Egypt and that unity reigned until the rise of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was vast and many Muslim nations fell to her reign but beginning with Mehmed II and continuing with his grandson Selim the Muslim Caliphate tradition was carried on within the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire slowly eroded as the rise of European power began its own rebirth of Empirical ambitions and by the 19th century were Europe and now America went, so went the world.

Before this, however, there was Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab who sought to purify Islam after so much dilution from so much dissolution of the Muslim religion due to all this struggle over power and land. This new brand of purity is known as Wahhabism which tends to be a more conservative view of Islamic teachings and rejects the "religious innovations" as a corruption of the Muslim faith.As we have already noted the sharp divisions seen within Judaism here we note the divisions amongst Muslims. As rabbinical teachings vary and argue so do the caliphate teachings and an already divided Middle East becomes even more so.

Wahhab made an alliance with the House of Saud at this time and eventually defeated the Rashidis to gain control of central Arabia where many revolts against the Ottoman Empire ensued and culminated in the creation of Saudi Arabia To further add to the divisions and confusion there is the matter of oil. While oil or petroleum was nothing new to the world of the 19th century, indeed as far back as 4,000 years there is historical evidence of humans using oil as some form of power or construction. Oil was used in the asphalt of Babylon, Ancient Persian tablets mention the use of oils for medicinal and lighting use and the earliest known oil wells were drilled in China in 437 BC.

But the 19th century brought with it a new understanding of oil and that greatly influenced the industrial revolution that brought Americans and Europeans to power enabling them to easily conquer the bewildered and unprepared Arabs of the Middle East. While oil had not yet been "discovered" in the Middle East at this time, it soon would be and with that discovery and new understanding of the value the Middle East held to the world began. Yet before this would take place there was, as mentioned earlier, the Great Arab Revolt.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.