JB Shreve presents the End of History show

JB Shreve presents the End of History

Summary: the End of History tells the stories of history that created the problems of the world today. It's honest and intelligent perspective without the screaming.

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 What Is Going On in the Congo - SPECIAL INTERVIEW - Podcast Episode | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:11:59

Reading Time: 1 minuteOn December 30, the Democratic Republic of the Congo held elections that should have taken place more than two years ago. Last week the government announced the official winners of the elections. While much of the world celebrated the DRC’s first peaceful and democratic transition of power since independence in 1960 a select few voiced concerns. The official winners of the election did not match what the exit polls revealed on election day. Today much of the world stands concerned over the fate of the DRC’s elections and its people. Rising voices of protest and rebukes for fraud at the polls are facing the DRC and Kabila regime across the world.   Today I speak with Kambale Musavuli and Friends of the Congo about what is going on in the Congo and how we got here.   Show Notes:   See this link for the petition mentioned by Kambale in today’s episode See the Friends of the Congo here Read my backgrounder on What is Going on in the Congo and How Did We Get Here   A Message from the Friends of Congo

 Lovers of Self | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 1:35:26

Reading Time: 6 minutesIn 2 Timothy 3:2 there is a warning of terrible times in the future when (among other things) people will be lovers of themselves. This podcast episode looks at this reality of our current day and age. At no point in the history of the world can an entire generation even come close to competing with our own for the unfortunate title of being a people totally in love with themselves.   But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves… 2 Timothy 3:1,2   I look at the history and the dysfunction of this horrible reality and these terrible times.   Show notes are below. Please consider becoming a Patron to JB Shreve and the End of History.    Sigmund Freud and the Self Our story begins with a look at the work and philosophy of Sigmund Freud. The self, as Freud identified it, was captured in the subconscious. He believed the tension between the conscious and subconscious had to be resolved for man to be whole and healthy. This idea became incredibly popular in the western world during the first half of the 20th century.   What is significant is that this was the first time in human history that the idea of personal health, safety, and happiness was rooted to the internal state of a human being. In the past avoiding plague, starvation, marauding armies, or other external threats were the primary needs for securing human happiness. Things changed now. Another doctor, Abraham Maslow captured this in his idea of the human being’s hierarchy of needs. This hierarchy could be scaled out to all of society and at the pinnacle of human development and requirement for personal happiness was a deep and significant encounter with the self. Edward Bernays and Engineering Consent for the Lovers of Self Next in the story comes the nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays. Freud wanted to heal the self. Bernays wanted to manipulate the self. As he read the writings and philosophy of his uncle he was not concerned with what would be right and wrong when it came to the discovery of the self and its needs. He was concerned with how money and power could be gained by manipulating the self.   Bernays wrote a famous book titled Propaganda where he noted:   The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, and our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of…. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.   ↑ Grab this Headline Animator       Bernays is noted as the father of public relations and his work and research triggered a revolution in the marketing industry. This impacted everything from the type of cleaning products we buy to the politicians we vote into office.   There was a terrific documentary from the BBC I utilized as a key source for this section of the podcast. All four parts of the documentary are available on YouTube below.

 Global Military Spending, Marine Le Pen, Wealth Inequality: 3 Stories in 15 Minutes October 3, 2018 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 18:15

Reading Time: 3 minutesStory #1: Global Military Spending The world spent more on its military last year than at any time since the end of the Cold War. The US was top on this list spending more than the next 7 countries combined. What has this increase in military spending gained us? Are we more secure? Another consideration would be taking a portion of that global military spending an directing it toward improving standards of living in the most insecure areas of the world. Additional Reading: * See the original report on Global Military Spending from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute * Whose Got Nukes INFOGRAPHIC   Story #2: Marine Le Pen Mental Stability, and Demonizing the “Other” Side Marine Le Pen is leader of the far right political party in France. Last week she was ordered to take a psychiatric test by a French judge. The Marine Le Pen mental stability question is the same pattern or tactic we have seen repeated time and again in global media and politics. This is how politics and political accusations work now.  If we want to delegitimize the other side, we only need to cast shadows of either sexual impropriety or mental instability onto them. These political accusations frequently have little to do with facts or truth. We need to recognize what is taking place if we want to avoid being deceived ourselves. Additional Reading and/or Listening: * Marine Le Pen to Undergo Psychiatric Testing * This is a podcast episode I did on the topic of “Post-Truth” some time back. Many have mentioned how it changed their perspective on looking at the warring factions in our politicized information age. * Playing Politics with Mental Illness (Psychology Today)   Story #3: US Federal Reserve Says Inequality Continues to Grow A new report from the Federal Reserve shows that even while the stock markets, housing markets, and labor markets are showing excellent numbers and results – economic inequality in America continues to grow. This story explains why that inequality is growing and why looking at the US economy from the perspective of these three measurements (stock, housing, labor) is no longer an effective way to measure the modern US economy. Additional Reading: * Report from the Federal Reserve * The American Caste System * If you would like a better understanding of the history and development of the modern American economic system you will enjoy this podcast series on Economic Inequality in America.   ↑ Grab this Headline Animator 3 Stories in 15 Minutes is a current events podcast and feature from JB Shreve and the End of History. 3 Stories in 15 Minutes is not focused on breaking news or deep information dives like many of my others posts at the web site. 3 Stories in 15 Minutes is looking at news stories and accounts y...

 Remembering the 2008 Economic Meltdown | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 23:07

Reading Time: 2 minutesToday’s post is the anniversary economic meltdown podcast episode. I know there are a lot of 2008 economic crisis podcast episodes out there but this one explains it from a personal perspective. If you want a good option for the 2008 economic crisis podcast that explains how the crisis happened without pushing a specific political perspective, try this one. Ten years ago today the global economy was in chaos. The collapse of Lehman Brothers pushed an already simmering mortgage crisis into overdrive. Unemployment in the US rose to its highest peak in decades. Foreclosures and bankruptcies skyrocketed. From coast to coast evidence of corruption was partnered with new calls for government bailouts. Today’s post features the anniversary of the economic meltdown podcast episode. We have heard the narratives and listened to the debates on the causes. This episode looks at what it was like to live in the middle of unfolding history. This 2008 economic crisis podcast episode on the anniversary of the economic meltdown will be a quick trip down memory lane for many of the listeners. From high gas prices, bank closures, foreclosure crisis and the 2008 Presidential election the 08 economic meltdown was a unique set of moments in modern history. If you enjoyed this podcast episode you should also check out my series on the Economic Inequality. Think of it is a history of the modern US economy. Also check out my blog series on The American Caste System. Additional Reading: * Fed Study Says Economic Crisis Cost Every American $70K * How the Great Recession Changed the Job Market for College Grads * The Great Recession   the End of History  Episode 197: Remembering the Economic Meltdown  ↑ Grab this Headline Animator

 3 Stories in 15 Minutes: Tragedy Anniversaries, Afghanistan Waste, and STDs | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 15:57

Reading Time: 2 minutesThis week’s stories include:   Story #1: Tragedy Anniversaries: We had a number of high profile American tragedy anniversaries this week. It was the 9/11 anniversary (17 years), the Benghazi attack anniversary (6 years), and tomorrow is the 10 year anniversary of the 2008 economic meltdown that launched with the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Story #2: Afghanistan Waste: A new report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) reveals a load of financial waste that has been poured into America’s longest running war. Additional Links: * SIGAR Report * Reason Magazine Story #3: Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs) After decades of sex ed financing and education a new report from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows STDs diagnoses are at their highest rate in American history. What does it take to prove this strategy is wrong? Additional links: * Atlantic Magazine     3 Stories in 15 Minutes is a current events podcast and feature from JB Shreve and the End of History. 3 Stories in 15 Minutes is not focused on breaking news or deep information dives like many of my others posts at the web site. 3 Stories in 15 Minutes is looking at news stories and accounts you might have missed this week and offering a bit of perspective. It is your current events touch point for the end of the week. You can listen to previous editions of 3 Stories in 15 Minutes podcast episodes here.     ↑ Grab this Headline Animator

 History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Wars and Rumors of War | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 20:10

Reading Time: 12 minutesSummary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict   In my final post in this series it would be good to look at a summary of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that we have been reviewing. Understanding the history helps us to better understand the present state and the future of the conflict. Over the course of this series we have looked at the idea of Israel and Zionism and how it developed. These are old ideas and ideals but not necessarily the same things that are talked about in Christian and Jewish scriptures. The idea of the land was only one piece of Jewish culture and identity that maintained them during the diaspora. The persecution from Christians in Europe throughout the Middle Ages and even into the Spanish inquisition did not provoke a return to the land or the Middle East.   It took the formation of the ideas of European nationalism in the 19th century combined to the continued persecution from Europeans to give rise to an idea that was held only by a fringe group at first. The idea was at the core of modern Zionism; returning to a Jewish homeland.   Even then it wasn’t about Israel or Palestine. It was just about a homeland for the Jewish people, a state of their own. Soon the target for that homeland became Palestine. This became more legitimized with the Balfour Declaration during World War I. The influx of Jewish immigrants into the Palestinian homeland during the interwar period led to an inevitable escalation of tensions that finally erupted with extremists and terrorists on both sides.   Those on the Jewish side had to compete with the more diplomatic statesmen like David Ben Gurion within their own ranks. Ben Gurion and the statesmen would end up winning the internal conflicts among the Jewish Zionists just in time for the declaration of statehood following World War II and the holocaust. Summary of the History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Since 1948 The turn of fortune for the Jewish people in securing their own homeland was a victory from their perspective but a catastrophe for the Palestinians who were displaced there. That Palestinian catastrophe was compounded decade by decade as the number of Palestinians who lost their homes to what they perceived as a growing Israeli occupation took full form.   This hit a zenith after the 1967 Six Days War in which Israel more than doubled its territory and the amount of Palestinians outside the borders of Palestine who were living as refugees and not allowed to return to their homes. Those who remained in Palestine under Israeli rule learned to live as foreigners in their own occupied homeland. The political nationalism of the 1960s gave rise to political terrorism in the 1970s. When that failed the rise of Islamic terrorism rose in the 1980s with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others. The failed peace process empowered these organizations while at the same time disempowering the PLA whom Israel had finally decided to legitimize and work with.   By the turn of the century, as the state of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict entered more than half a century of existence, the shape and feel of the conflict began to take on a life of its own. A lot of these realities were contradicting and strangely irrational. Summary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Peace Process Following President Jimmy Carter’s successful initiate for peace at Camp David it became a right of passage for American Presidents to involve themselves in the Israeli Palestinian peace process.   With the exception of George Bush in the early 1990s after the Persian Gulf War, these efforts usually came about in the second terms of sitting presidents where they supposedly had less political capital to lose and could take greater risks for peace.

 History of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Democracy in Palestine | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 16:34

Reading Time: 10 minutesIn my last post we looked at the return of violence between Israel and the Palestinians after the failure of the peace process in the 1990s. Today we look at the missed opportunity to end this violence with democracy in Palestine and how that democratic option was turned away when Israel and the US refused to work with Hamas.   By 2005 tensions between Israel and Palestine in the course of the al Aqsa intifada had descended into a siege like status.   Israel was building a 20 foot wall around the Palestinian settlements and holding the Palestinians at bay, civilian and militants alike, with checkpoints and harsh controls over what remained of their infrastructure. Much of the occupied territory had become a sort of prison under Israeli rule during the second intifada.   Hamas meanwhile was rising as the new representative of the Palestinians after Fatah had been discredited and disempowered during the course of the second intifada. This newer version of Hamas had two fronts, a social front and a militant front. The militant front included bombings on Israeli civilians and rocket firings into Israeli settlements. The social front was where they were gaining the most inroads, filling the gaps in Palestinian life that had been created by the harsh Israeli control tactics.   Hamas was keeping the people from starving and being annihilated. In exchange, the Palestinian people were putting more and more of their trust and dependence into Hamas. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Hamas We first saw the Muslim Brotherhood in this story of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict way back in the 1948 Arab Israeli War. Prior to the last few years the Muslim Brotherhood was a vague piece of Middle Eastern history that very few knew about or recognized unless middle east studies happened to be your specialty. That all changed with the so called Arab Spring when the Muslim Brotherhood came to power for a short while in Egypt.   That is the modern story. Their original claim to fame was the bravery and devotion they displayed for the Palestinian and Arab cause in the 1948 Arab Israeli War. Their fighters were distinguished in contrast to of the Arab nations’ armies who seemed less organized and less committed to the struggle. After 1948 the Muslim Brotherhood retreated back to their home base in Egypt. They became an underground organization throughout the 50s and 60s when Gamal Nasser saw them as a threat to his own power.   In the 1960s however, there arose a Palestinian member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Yassin was born in Palestine. In 1948 he lived through the humiliating defeat against Israel and the loss of his home. He and his family were forced to a refugee camp in Gaza. At age 12 he was injured in a soccer accident and paralyzed for life ultimately being confined to a wheel chair.   For a refugee in Gaza this was not a promising start to life and it was far from the more comfortable middleclass lifestyle he had been born into before the 1948 war. He finished his schooling and then moved to Cairo where he continued the life of a scholar. He was soon focusing his studies on a more militant interpretation of Islamic law and the Koran.   Living in Cairo with these interests and during this time period it was inevitable that he would eventually come in contact with the Muslim Brotherhood. Yassin became a member of the Muslim Brotherhood but doing this put him at odds and conflict with Egypt’s ruler Gamal Abdel Nasser. In an effort to keep out of harm’s way regardin...

 History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Al Aqsa Intifada | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 15:44

Reading Time: 10 minutesThe 1990s were a time of great transition within the Israeli Palestinian Conflict. Forces both within and without Israel and Palestine would come to play a mighty role in steering the conflict back toward violence and war. As the decade ended the start of a new second intifada, the al Aqsa intifada was about to begin. This time would be different. The al Aqsa intifada was saturated with violence on both sides as Hamas and religious extremists within Palestine rose to greater prominence. Global Events That Unintentionally Brought About the al Aqsa Intifada   In the story of international relations, no matter how well conceived or well intentioned the plans of statecraft and statesmen might be, one of the forces that often have the most devastating effects upon a situation is the law of unintended consequences.   This law means that while we think we are going one way and have it all planned out, the unintended consequences of our actions or the actions of someone else come out of nowhere and wreck the whole plan. The story of the Israeli Palestinian conflict or at least its constant escalation since 1948 falls into this category. The law of unintended consequences has played a huge role in helping the conflict escalate in severity one decade at a time. This would prove true as events led to the al Aqsa intifada.   At the beginning of the 1990s big things were happening in other places around the world that seemed unrelated to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The cold war was ending. The Iron Curtain was falling and the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were opening up to the rest of the world. But with this glorious liberation and new day that was dawning, hundreds of thousands, of European Jews were finding they could leave these lands where no economic opportunity was available to them. They could leave and go to Israel, the Jewish homeland. The problem was where would Israel put this new and massive surge of Jewish immigrants as they arrived at the borders of Israel.   It was here that many of the hawks of the Israeli government found their greatest opportunity to subvert the peace process that had been launched in the early 90s. The peace process and its terms were to be implemented incrementally, one year at a time.   Remember from my last post on this topic, one of the big pieces of the peace process was the incremental withdrawal of Israeli defense forces from the occupied territories which would then become ruled by a Palestinian National Authority.   But what if the withdrawal of Israeli defense forces meant abandoning Israeli citizens to be surrounded by Palestinians and terrorists? How would this change the unfolding intentions and plans of the peace process?   To answer that question, hardliners within the Israeli government initiated a special and deliberate effort to build new settlements. These settlements were not within the Israeli territories but within the occupied territories that Israel was supposed to withdraw from in the coming years. The death of the two state solution and the peace process was already in place.   Israeli Settlements   It is important to understand what is included when we hear about Israeli settlements in the news. These Israeli settlements did not start in the 1990s but they were drastically increased during that time period. They were part of a deliberate effort of some Israeli hawks to sabotage the peace process. The settlers who were chosen for these locations were often among the most radical of new...

 History of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Illusion of the Two State Solution | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 17:45

Reading Time: 10 minutesIn my last post in this series we looked at the intifada of the 1980s. This was a major turning point in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. It was the first time the Palestinians had really struck out on their own to protest and resist the Israelis and it helped open the door to the peace process and the two state solution proposals of the 1990s. Before the Peace Process and Two State Solution   Before the intifada the plight of the Palestinians had always been a sort of proxy struggle between Israel and the Arab states. Even in the 1970s with the rise of political Palestinian terrorism, a lot of the fight and struggle seemed to be more about a proxy fight than it did a real struggle between those Palestinians living in Israel and those who were planning and producing these terrorist attacks outside of Israel.   The intifada changed all of that. It gave the real Palestinian people, those living within the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a voice and a face within the conflict. As the world turned on their nightly news they no longer saw masked men holding innocent people captive or hijacking airplanes. They saw Palestinians children throwing rocks at Israeli tanks that were moving down the streets of their neighborhoods. For the first time it seemed people began to question the justice of the whole situation. How was it that Israel came to be in these streets anyway? Why did the Palestinians not have their own homeland? Israeli Society Slowly Opens to the Peace Process and Two State Solution Ideas   There were changes in Israel too. After the debacle of Lebanon and the atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers and leaders there, many in Israel were beginning to question their own government and the issue of what was right and wrong regarding the Palestinians.   By the end of the 1980s an entirely new generation was coming of age in Israel whose only experience of war had been Lebanon. This was not an experience of David versus Goliath like their parents had experienced in 1973, 1967 and 1948. This had been more akin to an oppressive state attacking a smaller state and unleashing the dogs of war on innocent people.   Many Israeli soldiers returning from Lebanon began to vocalize their opposition to the Israeli government’s actions there. A whole new political movement arose within Israel and the hawkish, defensive and victimized self-image represented in leaders like Menachem Begin was soon out of popularity. Palestinians Open Up to Peace Process and Two State Solution Ideas   The intifada meant a huge change for Palestinian politics too. Arafat had been almost destroyed by what happened in Lebanon. The intifada was not born by his efforts but by the Palestinian people themselves. If any one group could claim credit for stirring up and leading the intifada it was not the PLO but this new group, Hamas.   Hamas was a new thing not only in Palestinian politics but in Middle Eastern politics. It was a politicized religious organization who was willing to use the gun to make their point and achieve what they saw as their divine purpose.   Arafat had been an enemy of the Israeli government but Hamas was going to prove a dreadful nightmare. It was one thing to have an opponent who was acting in his own self interests. This provided some level of predictability. That is who Arafat was for the Israelis. Hamas was different though. In future years, as they introduced suicide bombers into the equation Israel realized this was not something they would ever be able to corral.   That was in the future though. For now, as the 1980s drew to a close and the intifada was winding down, Arafat,

 History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - The Palestinian Intifada | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 45:47

Reading Time: 12 minutesThe first Palestinian intifada represented a significant game changer for the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (FYI: The story of the second intifada is coming up later in this series.) It was the first time that many in the world began to see or consider the levels of injustice which the Palestinians were living under within Israel. It caused the people of Israel to begin to question themselves and their own government when it came to the question of the Palestinians. It also changed the nature of the conflict from something that was being acted upon outside of Israel’s borders, either at the United Nations or in the surrounding Arab world, to something that was being fought and forcibly discussed within Israel itself. The Timing of the Intifada   It is unlikely that the intifada could have come about at any other time in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Conditions were almost perfect for this unique stage of the conflict.   The Palestinians’ old patron, the Egyptians, had recently concluded a peace treaty with Israel. The Palestinians were barely mentioned in the peace negotiations. They were no longer the concern of Egypt.   The Jordanians would have been next in line among the Arab states to take up the cause of the Palestinians but in 1970 the events of Black September severed those ties. In the mid 70s even the Syrians turned against the PLO when they invaded Lebanon.   The PLO had been ejected to northern African after the United Nations intervened in Lebanon. The Palestinian people were without representation and without a voice in the global order. The nation of Israel had existed on lands that many of the Palestinians believed was theirs for more than 40 years now. The occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza were now approaching the 20 year mark of Israeli dominance. In these lands the Palestinians had lost their homes and faced oppression and persecution under the Israelis with no end in sight. If anything, by the mid 1980s, things had only gotten worse.   The final years of the Begin administration saw increasing pressure and oppression upon the Palestinians who still lived in Israel. Many Israelis feared the Palestinians who lived in Israel represented a sort of fifth column threat in their conflict with the PLO and the surrounding Arab states. At any moment the local Palestinians could rise up and turn against Israel.   Israel was pursuing aggressive settlement policies where Jewish settlers were building homes on occupied lands that had once belonged to the Palestinians. The Jewish settlers represented some of the most ideologically driven elements of Israel, frequently given to promoting injustices against the Palestinians in an effort to push the Palestinians once and for all out of Israel. Even if a peaceful solution was ever going to be found in the future of the conflict, no one was going to remove these settlers who had built and settled their homes in the occupied lands. Conditions that Led to the Intifada   The state of affairs for the Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied territories by the mid 1980s was one of perpetual victims. They had no power or voice to fight back against increasingly assertive and humiliating Israeli domestic policies which were aimed at limiting and controlling the Palestinian people.   Economically the Palestinians were struggling. Even those who were college educated had difficulty finding jobs. Those who did find jobs were typically forced into day labor as a means to provide for their families. Among the humiliating tactics frequently afflicted upon these Palestinians included being hired to build Jewish settlements on the very lands that had been forcibly taken from them by Israel.  

 History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Black September to Lebanon | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 58:39

Reading Time: 10 minutesFor the Palestinians, the 1970s were a dark decade. We have already looked at the beginning of this in my post on Palestinian terrorism. Today we look at the event known to Palestinian history as Black September. If you recall, the group who conducted the terrorist attack on the Munich Olympics in 1972 was named Black September. This is the event from which that organization took their name.     Brief Recap of Palestinian History Before Black September   Let’s quickly retrace the Palestinian history before we jump into Black September.   * They had lived as Arabs in the land of Palestine under the Ottomans for centuries but their history actually goes back farther than that. It was always an Arab or Ottoman history though, not necessarily a Palestinian history. * After World War 1 they began experiencing the contest for Palestine with the influx of Jewish immigrants. Much of this flared up into an uprising 1936-39 that failed. In that failure much of the Palestinian leadership was lost and they were unprepared for events after the World War 2. * In 1948 the British left Palestine and Israel declared statehood. This triggered the Arab invasion and many Palestinians lost their homes. Much of their homeland was now under the control of Israel, Egypt, or Jordan. * In 1967 the Six Days War took place and they lost their homes again. The Israelis moved into the West Bank and Gaza and uprooted thousands of Palestinians. This left them without homes, without homelands and without a lot of hope going forward.   As we have already seen, it was within this sense of a loss of hope and homeland that the rise of Palestinian terrorism was initiated. This would only worsen as the decade of the 1970s went on. A rise of Palestinian terrorism would feed a rise of Israeli counter measures which would feed into a greater hopelessness on the part of the Palestinians which would feed into a wider amount of Palestinian terrorism. It was an unending cycle of self-destruction. I think it is also important to note that most Palestinians were not and are not terrorists. Most of the Palestinians were husbands and wives, sons and daughters, people simply trying to make their way in life for themselves and their families. These average citizens were frequently caught in between the actions and counter actions of the different actors within this conflict since 1948. Therefore, many of the actions of the Palestinian terrorists were reprehensible but did not necessarily represent the will and nature of the Palestinian people. And many of the counter measures of Israel and the IDF were justified against the Palestinian terrorists but frequently landed upon the lives of these ordinary Palestinian people. This is where much of the tragedy of the story lies. Setting the Stage for Black September   After the Six Days War tens of thousands of Palestinians retreated behind the lines of the Jordanian border for safety. They, like many of the refugees from the 1948 war were expelled from the newly acquired lands of Israel in the midst of the fighting. From Jordan Palestinian guerillas began launching raids into Israel at this point. Israel would counter these raids with strikes on the Palestinians within Jordan itself. The most infamous of these of these Israeli strikes was the Battle of Karameh which we looked at in an earlier post. The Jordanians backed the Palestinian guerillas in the fighting against Israel and effectively achieved a victory over the Israelis. The success at Karameh resulted in a massive boom in Palestinian confidence in the PL...

 History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Political Revolution in Israel | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 45:27

Reading Time: 11 minutesThe most recent posts on this series looking at the History of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have focused on what was occurring among the Palestinians in the late 1960s and 70s. I will continue with that story tomorrow but for today I want to pause and look at what took place in Israel during the 1970s. This will include the rise of Anwar Sadat and the Yom Kippur War, a central person and event that is part of the revolution that took place in Israel during this time. That revolution had a significant impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The revolution, as I call it, within the Israeli government during this time period helped to further polarize and inflame the conflict. Due to the extremist actions that were taking place among the Palestinians and then also among the Israelis, things went from really bad to even worse in the history of the conflict by the 1980s. This is the story of the Israeli side of that worsening of conditions. Israeli Hubris After the Six Days War    After the Six Days War Israel was riding high. From a geopolitical perspective the nation was experiencing the greatest sense of strength and security they had encountered since the declaration of statehood in 1948. The Israeli victory in 1967 had been so overwhelming and absolute that it seemed no one in the Middle East could come close to rivaling Israel and so they had no need to fear any of their belligerent neighbors. Israel was the hegemon! What made this so real in the late 60s and early 70s was that, although it was not spoken of publicly, the Arab states realized this too. They might talk a big game when it came to the nation they saw as a colonial imposition in their region – but after 1967 they weren’t going to do anything about it.   The Six Days War had ended the power of Nasser. I mentioned already in this story how he resigned from office after the truth of Egypt’s losses became public after the short war. The people of Egypt took to the streets and demanded he come back to office, which he did. But Nasser’s power was finished. He would never again be the strongman of the Arab states in the Middle East. In fact, three years later he died.   The Rise of Anwar Sadat   Nasser’s replacement was Anwar Sadat. Few imagined Sadat would amount to much of a leader when he assumed the office. He had always been the quiet one in Nasser’s shadow. There were whispers that his time as leader of Egypt might be short lived and might possibly even come to an end by way of a coup or assassination. As it turned out, Sadat’s critics would be the ones who were surprised. He would end up leaving far greater a mark on the history of Egypt and the Middle East than Nasser ever did. To begin, Sadat wanted to end the fighting and tension between Egypt and Israel. If he could end it between Israel and all of the Middle East, fine; but as leader of Egypt he recognized it was time for a change. Egypt’s foreign policy and even its economy to some extent had been warped ever since World War 2 by the constant posture of war and belligerence with its nearest neighbor. As Sadat saw things, it made no sense to continue the fight with Israel. It had been proven that Egypt could not defeat the Jewish state. Maintaining the threat of war was bad for Egypt’s economy, international relations and public policy.   So Sadat began to quietly push for peace with Israel. The only problem, Israel had no interest in the peace that Sadat was offering. Sadat suggested a return to the pre-Six Days War borders. In other words, Israel would leave Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights which they had taken in the war.   Why would Israel do this? If it was simply for the sake of being at peace with Egypt, they already had peace.

 History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Palestinian Terrorism | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 41:10

Reading Time: 9 minutesYesterday we looked at the ascent of Yasser Arafat and the new footing of the PLO that followed the Six Days War in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. That was not the whole story of what was going on in the conflict. Another trend, beginning in this same time period and continuing to the 1980s was the rise of Palestinian terrorism.   What Palestinian Terrorism Was NOT   As we look at this topic of Palestinian terrorism during this time period it is important to recognize the differences in what we are and are not talking about. We are NOT talking about religious extremism or terrorism. That is part of the story but it has not arrived yet. We’ll get to that. In the late 1960s and up until the 1980s, the story of Palestinian terrorism is a story of political terrorism. The religious stuff hasn’t touched down yet.   The Palestinian terrorist groups are looking at political ideals and philosophies and objectives, not a religious creed. So some of them are communists, some or democratic, some are Baathists. The Palestinian terrorists fit into a lot of what was going on throughout the world during the period between World War 2 and the 1980s. There were politically motivated groups active from Latin America to Europe to Asia and Africa. This was not something unique to Palestine. This Palestinian terrorists also weren’t born because the Palestinians are uniquely inclined to violence. The opposite is probably closer to true, or at least it was in the beginning. This was a people who by the 1960s had been humiliated, suffered injustice and felt they had no voice. The Six Days War only made things worse. The rise in Palestinian terrorism was the result of frustration and anger. Terrorism is usually an appealing and easy pathway of resistance for the weak to utilize in their fight against perceived injustices. That was certainly the case for Palestinian terrorism in the 60s and 70s.   We also need to keep in mind the difficulty in defining terrorism when we look at Palestinian terrorism or any other group of political or religious terrorists. In the 1960s the Palestinian terrorism we are looking at today went beyond the guerilla warfare of the war of attrition that we have previously looked at. The guerilla warfare could reasonably also be included as Palestinian terrorism but if we include that we should also include the Israeli practice of demolition of Palestinian homes as terrorism.   The Palestinian terrorism of this time period is more closely related to the practices and acts pioneered by Menachem Begin and the Irgun in the 1930s and 40s. Of course, by the end of this part of the story the Palestinian terrorists became pioneers in the field of terrorism in their own right. Palestinian Terrorism – Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)   This was a notorious organization founded in 1967 by the Palestinian Christian George Habash. Habash had been a medical student in the 1948 Arab Israeli War. When his family was expelled from Palestine he marched with them for three days as refugees searching for a place to call home.   For Habash the loss of Palestine was not simply about the Palestinian people. It was about the ongoing triumph of European imperialism upon the rest of the world. He believed that the Palestinians had failed and been routed out of their homeland because the Europeans were too powerful but also because the Palestinians themselves had failed to move into the modern world and order. He imagined a new era of Palestinian thought and perspectives. They needed a revolution not only within Israel to bring the Palestinian people back to their homes but also within the Palestinian mindset itself.

 History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Yasser Arafat | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 20:13

Reading Time: 9 minutesIt might be going too far to call the post 1967 Six Days War era as the peak of Israeli dominance in the Middle East. That was still to come. But it was definitely the lowest of lows for the Palestinians. Out of this despair would arise the first man who would truly represent the Palestinians – Yasser Arafat. Consider what this small people group had experienced in the course of 20 years. First they had lost Palestine to the partition plan of the United Nations. Then they lost even their part in that as the Israelis took a portion of what was to have gone to the Palestinians after the 1948 Arab Israeli War. Their patrons, the Arab state took even more than the Israelis though as after 1948 the West Bank was considered part of Jordan and Gaza was considered part of Egypt. Then, even those territories where the Palestinians had lived under the oversight of the Arab states was taken by the Israelis in the 1967 Six Days War. There was little to hope for or expect any longer for the Palestinians.   There was no Palestine!   In fact, it was during this time period that the Israeli politician and leader Golda Meier made the famous statement that there was no such thing in history as a Palestinian people. This was a famous myth that many still believe today. It’s a historical perspective painted by politics instead of facts. (Check out this interesting article from the Israeli publication Haaretz.)   By the end of the Six Days War however there was reason to believe that while there certainly had been a people known as Palestinians in local history, there might not be such a people much longer. They were without homes, without lands, without a voice. The Arab states that had previously supported them had been thoroughly defeated in the recent fighting.   The Palestinians of 1968 had zero leverage or negotiating power. We could add to this list that by the end of the 1960s, the Palestinians were finally running out of hope.   The PLO Before Arafat and the Six Days War   We saw the creation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in an earlier post in this series. At its inception it was a far cry from what it would one day become. It was more a mouthpiece for Nasser’s dreams of pan Arabism.   Its ranks were made up mostly of the Palestinian elite and upper middle class. This in itself separated it from any true representation of the Palestinians. Most of the Palestinian people were poor. The original design of the PLO allowed it to present a constant voice of outrage, anger and cries of injustice towards the Israelis on behalf of the Arab states but it did little for the Palestinians themselves who the PLO claimed to represent. Therefore the PLO had the strange status of representing the Arab states in the name of the Palestinians but not the Palestinians.   In the early years most of the politics presented by the PLO were cries that Israel had no right to exist or Israel should be wiped off the map. It was highly focused on Israel – not the Palestinians. For the rest of the world, the PLO represented the Palestinians. For the Palestinians themselves, this was not a living reality.   The 1967 Six Days War changed all of this.   Yasser Arafat   In yesterday’s post, when we looked at the buildup to the Six Days War I mentioned the “war of attrition” that was taking place throughout the early 1960s between Palestinian guerillas and Israel. These small Palestinian fighter units would creep across borders and into Israel, usually at night. They would carry out bombing or sabotage missions and then creep back across the border leaving Israel to counte...

 History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - The Six Days War of 1967 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: 47:28

Reading Time: 14 minutesIn order to tell a factual account of the Six Days War we have to first separate a lot of the myth from the reality. Growing up in the Bible Belt the story of Israel’s miraculous victory over the surrounding Arab armies that were set to push the Jews into the sea was told to me almost like a story from the Bible. It was a story full of legend, heroes and villains and also a lot of exaggeration.   (Here’s an example of one of these recent recounting of the myth of the Six Days War.)   As I separate the myth from reality let me begin by noting Israel’s victory was fantastic and overwhelming. But it was not miraculous. For most outside observers it was expected at the time. US President Lyndon Johnson was surprised by how well Israel did in the fighting compared to the Arab states but not by the fact Israel won the war. By 1967 Israel was already setting itself a part as a different caliber of nation in the Middle East compared to the surrounding Arab states.   Even the name “Six Days War” sounds like this fast and incredible victory that no one could have expected. After all, wars last for years, not days, especially wars that are this overwhelming in their victory. That assumption is not really true though. Most of Israel’s wars, have been short. The nature of the conflicts between Israel and its neighbors must be short when they are fought on Israeli soil. A long war would almost by definition mean a war which Israel was losing. The Yom Kippur War in the 70s lasted 19 days. The Suez Crisis lasted 8 days. Build Up to the 1967 Six Days War   The Six Days War had been coming on for some time. A general trend in the history of the conflict between Israel and the Arab states during this time period is that a good fight was needed every few years or so to let the tension off. If there was not an outright fight taking shape then citizens of the region knew it was just a matter of time The rhetoric and tensions could not go undealt with for too long.   The idea of Pan Arabism was dying and the sides of the Cold War still had not been totally settled in the Middle East. The rulers of the Arab states found it much harder to rule than they had imagined and for most of the region instability was a key characteristic of the states. Egypt was the exception as Nasser was still in charge and still regionally strong. In Jordan the Hussein monarchy was still in charge but largely because the king had learned to balance a dance between secret friendships with the Israelis and public alliance with Nasser. Just as important as the weakness of the surrounding Arab states, the Palestinians began to change in the 1960s. We will look at this more in depth in the next piece in this series but suffice it to say that the first generation of Palestinians born as refugees was now coming of age in the Middle East – and they were ready to do something about their own plight.   Throughout the early and mid 60s and continuing even after the Six Days War small bands of Palestinians began to take up cross border guerilla actions against Israel. It became known as “the war of attrition” because each strike resulted in a counter strike from Israel and the stakes and costs of the actions kept growing higher and higher.   Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan all held large Palestinian refugee populations who wanted their homes of their families back. They would sneak into Israel and conduct bombing missions. Israel would then counter. They could not find the Palestinians though so they would punish the state who was hosting them and bomb either Syria, Lebanon or Jordan. Nasser Escalates Tensions for the Six Days War While all of this was going on Egypt’s strongman,

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