More Missed Opportunities in Arab-Israeli Relations
Exploring the historical 'what-ifs' of the Zionist movement and the shaping of modern Israel
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A fortnight ago, I asked how different the whole twentieth century could have been, had Baron Rotschild been receptive to Herzl’s request to help Ottoman finances in return for establishing, for the first time in almost two thousand years, a country where the Jews would rule.
Alas, neither Rotschild nor the Sultan did trust Herzl, and a different path was taken.
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Before WW1, the Ottoman Empire ruled over the lands today known as Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Palestine. Before the War, the Jews had started to migrate to Palestinian lands. Herzl, referred to this migration as “experiments in colonisation” and he did not favour it. He thought that gradual infiltration of a country by Jews was bound to end badly because it would eventually bring out a confrontation between the native population and the migrant Jews. The history proved his prescience.
In spite of Herzl’s cautioning, the Jewish migration into Palestine continued before and during the War.
In 1917, the Balfour Declaration ambiguously promised Palestine as a "national home for the Jewish people," overlooking the complexities of a land already promised to Sharif Hussein of Mecca. This British statement, aimed more at controlling the Suez Canal than establishing sovereign states, set the stage for decades of conflict.
The 1920s presented a missed opportunity. Post-war displacements and the nascent stage of Arab states might have allowed for easier acceptance of a Jewish state. However, British interests in the region overruled this possibility, favoring control over genuine state-building.
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Fast-forward to post-Holocaust 1947: The UN's partition plan for separate Jewish and Arab states was accepted by the Jewish community but rejected by Arab states and Palestinian Arabs. Upon Israel's declaration of independence in 1948, it faced immediate Arab military action, marking the start of a prolonged conflict.
Interestingly, the rapid mobilization of Arab states against Israel in 1948 raises questions about the influence of former colonial powers. With many Arab states under British influence or newly independent, their actions could have been expected to be different, potentially altering history's course.
Opportunities for peace and mutual recognition persisted post-1948. Had Israel's leaders embraced Palestinians within their vision, animosity from neighboring Arab countries might have been harder to sustain. Unfortunately, this inclusive approach was not pursued.
Early Israeli leaders like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir envisioned a state that would set a progressive example in the Middle East. However, the reality differed. Visitors like Tony Judt noticed an implicit segregation, a missed chance for integration that could have bridged divides.
"(in my seven week stay in 1963) I never met an Arab: left-wing kibbutz movements avoided employing Arab labor … I do recall wondering why I never saw an Arab in the course of my lengthy kibbutz stays, despite living near the most densely populated Arab communities of the country." (Judt, 2003, p 107)
The aftermath of the 1967 war further strained relations, with a shift in Israeli attitudes and missed opportunities for reconciliation. The West's reluctance to critique Israel post-Holocaust, and Israel's subsequent belief in its infallibility, only compounded these issues.
The 7th October events and Israel's response highlight another lost chance for a peaceful resolution. A more considered, international approach could have broken the cycle of violence, but this path was not taken.
In conclusion of this two-part series, the Arab-Israeli relationship has been marred by a series of missed opportunities. In the ROGUE Age, with the changing global landscape, Israel must seek new strategies and allies for a sustainable future, as the old ways of the 20th century no longer suffice.
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References
Shavit, Ari (2013). My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel . Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Judt, T. (2003). Israel: the alternative. New York Review of Books, 50(16), 8-8.
Short Takes
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A REALLY exciting new energy storage technology
Power Magazine, 12 December 2023, Darrell Proctor
This is a very exciting new technology and if it scales up as promised, it will be a very effective solution to the intermittency problem of renewables such as solar and wind. Fourth Power is a Boston-based company commercialising a high-temperature thermal energy storage system developed by MIT. The company recently received $19 million in funding to help scale its technology from a consortium led by the venture capital firm DCVC, a San Francisco Bay Area-based group that provides capital for companies in the high-tech sector. Other investors include Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV), founded in 2015 by former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, and the Black Venture Capital Consortium, a group representing HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities).
If this technology scales up as the $19m grant is supposed to demonstrate, it will kill all prospects for Hydrogen in utility-scale energy storage applications.
The founder of the company is Asegun Henry, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. The concept is simple: convert excess electricity to heat graphite blocks to very high temperatures (up to 2400 oC). The heating is achieved by circulating liquid tin through the graphite blocks. The thermal energy is converted back to electricity using thermophotovoltaic cells.
A 2021 Nature paper by Professor Henry reports on “two-junction TPV cells with efficiencies of more than 40%” at temperatures between 1,900 and 2,400 °C. Since the losses associated with heating and circulating molten tin should be relatively low, this means a round trip efficiency of around 40%. This is twice as high as the round trip efficiency I posted for the Duke Energy that is converting one of its GE turbines to hydrogen. Moreover, its projected cost is very low. The aforementioned Nature paper projects the capital cost per unit energy (CPE) to be less than US$10 per kWh. In other words, if this technology scales up as the $19m grant is supposed to demonstrate, it will kill all prospects for Hydrogen in utility-scale energy storage applications. As I keep telling on these posts, we are living through very exciting times in terms of technology development.
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No visa required for six countries to enter China
Zichen Wang on Substack, Pekingnology, 28 December 2023
On November 24, 2023, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs made a significant announcement regarding its visa policies. The country has decided to grant unilateral visa-free access to ordinary passport holders from six countries: France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Malaysia. I wish Australia were also included, given that obtaining a visa for China, while not difficult, can be a time-consuming and cumbersome process.
This policy change is primarily motivated by a desire to boost tourism. China's inbound tourism revenue currently stands at USD 77.1 billion, contributing just 0.5% to its national GDP. This figure is relatively low compared to other major economies, where inbound tourism has a more significant economic impact. For instance, in the United States, tourism revenue accounts for 1.05% of GDP, nearly 2% in the United Kingdom, 2.38% in Italy, 2.43% in France, over 7% in Spain, and more than 10% in Thailand.
Interestingly, the countries chosen for this visa-free treatment are not the main contributors to China's inbound tourism, with the exception of Malaysia, which is among the top six sources of tourists, as indicated in the provided chart.
The You Tube video
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The following YouTube video is about a Texan woman who had an IQ of 228. But the highlight of the video is her arguing with the university professors about the correct answer to the so-called Monty Hall problem. The Monty Hall problem, named after the host of a popular 1960s U.S. game show, presents an intriguing probability puzzle. In this scenario, a contestant is faced with three doors. Behind one door is a coveted prize – a car – while the other two doors conceal nothing.
In this specific instance, the contestant initially chooses Door #1. The host, knowing what lies behind each door, then opens Door #2, revealing it to be empty. At this juncture, the contestant is offered a choice: stick with the original selection, Door #1, or switch to the remaining unopened door, Door #3. The dilemma lies in deciding which option maximizes the contestant's chances of winning the car.
Watch the video for the answer:
Besides the Monty Hall problem, Marilyn vos Savant really looked like an exceptional woman.
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Diary
Before the pandemy, we used to spend December and January in Istanbul. Therefore, we would miss most of the summer heat in Brisbane. Last three summers we were in Brisbane and it was not too bad. This year it is very hot. It is very hot and variable weather. Most of the time, the sky is blue and the tempeatures climb 35oC and higher. Then late afternoon, the clouds congregate and devastating thunderstorms with severe wind and buckets of rain follow afterwards. It has been like this most of last 10 days.
Faruk, my brother-in-law, is getting three houses built. He is lucky that the internal work was finished and the building were sealed a short while ago. After last week’s thunderstorms, we thought an inspection was in order just to make sure that nothing was exposed. These are two houses. The third one is only a concrete slab at the moment.
It is good to get the chance to test the weatherproof features while the builders are still on site. We thoroughly checked both buildings. All is good. Not a wet spot anywhere.
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Pascal Hagi
The other day, Hagi flied onto my shoulder and started licking inside my ear. That is what he does. Pascal does not care for my earwax but is jealous when I seem to caremore for Hagi. So, while Hagi was drilling into my ear channel, Pascal also came and bit my earlobe. He did not bite hard enough to make it bleed but it was very painful. I shooed both of them into their cage and closed their door. Below, you see see Pascal repenting: “No biting … no biting”.
What I read
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I read two books by Richard Osman.
Richard Osman is a BBC producer and presenter. The Thursday Murder Club is his first book and revolves around four residents of a retirement village who meet weekly to investigate unsolved murders. The plot is quite standard but the character descriptions and the humour are excellent. Maybe I liked it because I also am getting close to Retirement Village age. The retirement village depicted in the book sounds like really a good place to retire to. I read the second book straight after the first one because Yi said that the second book was better. And indeed it was. The four members of the Mystery Club are all interesting characters. Elizabeth is former British Intelligence; Ron is a labour activist who seems to have been present at every major failure of British labour movement; Ibrahim Arif is an Egyptian nigrant and a successful psychiatrist. Joyce is the only one who comes from an unexceptional background but she compensates with emphaty and perceptiveness.
Some samples from the two books:
After a certain age, you can pretty much do whatever takes your fancy. No one tells you off, except for your doctors and your children. The Thursday Murder Club, p 18
Many years ago, everybody here would wake early because there was a lot to do and only so many hours in the day. Now they wake early because there is a lot to do and only so many days left. The Thursday Murder Club, p 42.
‘Some people in life, Sue, are weather forecasters, whereas other people are the weather itself.’ The Man Who Died Twice, p. 198.
‘You must die before your children, of course, because you have taught them to live without you. But not your dog. You teach your dog only to live with you.’ The Man Who Died Twice, p. 8.
You get the idea. They are nice easy reads with life-coach aphorisms to go with it.
Zika Statistics
I stop taking Zika statistics. After a Japanese baker took over three weeks ago, The new sourdough rye is of the same shape every week. In terms of quality, it is doughier than what Mr Zika used to bake. It is not too bad but I used to like the old one better. Still, it is the best bread in the neighborhood.