Hi Pasha
Thanks for the link about British involvment in Palastine and your initial history of the region earlier in the thread. Both have been very informative and I will be reading the Britains Small Wars site with interest over the next few weeks.
I have to confess that I don't have the greatest amount of knowledge about the situation and so apologise if my comments are out of turn but... (there's always a but isn't there?!!
)
...while I don't dispute the fact that Britain was under a lot of pressure to leave Palastine and while their conduct was, as you say, the model of restraint in difficult circumstances, I would argue that, for these very reasons, Britain should have remained involved. Britain had the most experience of the region at the time and the most even handed view of the situation and they withdrew knowing that their successors had other, unworkable, agendas for the region.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to point the finger; the situation already was out of control when the British got involved. My point about the British was simply to illustrate something we should be trying to avoid - namely a situation where a nation with experience and a reasonably successful approach to a problem pulls out due to the difficulty of the task and outside criticism.
Would the crisis have been resolved by now if Britain had remained? I don't know for sure but the I do feel that the time taken for the US and UN to realise the nature of the problem allowed the situation to deteriorate in a way that might not have happened under the British. Now we face a similar situation - the US and UN finally understand what they are dealing with and are taking some positive steps (at least in my view) and yet we seem just to be pulling them down.
I would tend to agree with Frank S in that there is an issue as to what the international community classes as legitimacy. I would further add that the notion of legitimacy based upon religious belief seems somewhat shakey to me. After all there are many religions that claim rights over land and claim to be the 'one true way'. This very fact precludes any one of them having a stronger claim to a piece of land than any other. As a result I can't see how the international community can acknowledge religious beliefs as legal grounds for sovereignty over a geographical area. In fact the very idea seems to me remarkably similar to that of Aryan sovereignty over Germany in the 30's and 40's...
Precisely because of the complexity of the situation and the difficulty of reaching a resolution I feel the best approach is one of consistency and continuity from those outside countries involved.
But then thats just my two pence worth...
