Trans-jordan existed before the state of Israel came into existance. The formation of Israel was pretty much a way that Europe tried to atone for its sins over the past 800 years during which anti jewish pogroms became a national sport in almost *all* parts of Europe but particularly Germany & Spain. Some links ...

[link|http://carolinanavy.com/fleet2/f2/zreligion/Islamhall/cas/2551.html|Persecution of Jews in Europe]
[link|http://www.yovel.org/yovel_history_latermedieval.asp|Interesting chronology]

A group of Jews in the 1890s who became known as Zionists - [link|http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/zion.html|(link to history of Zionism)] had been lobbying for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine so the Jews could once again get control of their own destiny. For obvious reasons they had little to no faith in anyone else having their interests at heart, even the US (at that time). Then the second world war Hitler created the 'Jewish Problem' & had a solution this in turn created what was known afterwards as the 'Jewish Question' & Great Britain began to champion the cause of a Jewish homeland. US also began to support the idea where the Zionists had established a solid base of support among American Jews. Jews began moving into the Palestine region throughout the 1st half of the 20th century & the Palestinan Arabs became increasingly alarmed & hostile.

Just before the declaration of the state of Israel, there were three sides all armed to the teeth. The Jews with home made & smuggled guns & bombs - the Arabs with the same and also backed in part by the soon to be formed Jordainian army & other Arabs, - and The UN force (mostly British). Once the state was declared in 1948, the next day was war & Israel lost part of its territory but survived, they also managed to capture some small areas. Terror and mayhem was committed by both sides (e.g. 'Deir Yassien' one of the worst attacks - [link|http://www.pnic.gov.ps/arabic/quds/quds_e_infring1.html|A list of the attacks the budding Israelis carried out on Arab villages]

The Arabs also did similar to the Jews but perhaps not in the numbers the Jews achived against them).
[link|http://pnews.org/art/4art/shofar.shtml|Palestinians blowing up Jews started a long time ago] ----- [link|http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_independence_refugees_jews_why.php|a better history of the massacres of Jews]

Many Arabs panicked after the Deir Yassin massacre & their fear was whipped up by other Arabs esp ther grand mufti of Jerusalem. The fleeing of these Arabs created the 'Palestinan Problem'. Israel closed its borders after the ceasefire & refused to allow any of them to return to their homes. Over time the Palestinans began to adopt terror tactics against the west in order to get attention to their demands for their own homeland and the right to return to Arab lands left behind in the new Israel. War by the Arabs had only led to greater losses to the Jews. This created even more refugees. The occupied lands were those lands the Jews siezed in the 1967 war, from Jordan. In 1973 there was also the 'Yom Kippur' war which was a surprise attack against Israel that nearly succeeded but ended when the US stopped Israel from invading & surrounding the defeated Egyptian army in Egypt.

Subsequently the Jews in an attempt to resolve the Palestinian problem attempted peace with Jordan & Egypt (for which Egypt's PM, Mr Sadat, was assasinated). This was supposed to lead to the setting up of a homeland for the Palestinains but neither side really made it. The Oslo seemed to be the great breakthrough but common hatred & mistrust & the inability to resolve all the issues esp refugees, caused the peace effort to fail. Arafat was mostly to blame for the failure by he and Barak (of Israel) to seal a deal under Clinton's presidency. That really was their best hope. Now it will be a 'peace' forced on the Palestinians by aggressive Jews under Sharon who have no more patience for negotiations. Not a good omen.

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As bizzare as it sounds, this 'Jewish Question' problem goes right back to the inability of the Romans to control Jewish extremists who resented Romans being in their holy land (now does this story begin to sound in any way familiar ???). The romans after 100s of years of trouble & insurrection decide to wipe out Israel.

After two major (66AD & 132AD) and many minor Jewish revolts the Romans in 70AD went in and sacked Jerusalem & tore down their holy temple. Both then and in 132 AD [link| http://ancienthistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cyberessays.com%2FHistory%2F95.htm|(Bar Kochba Revolt}], the Jews that weren't slaughtered in these insurrections were rounded up & in a sort of act of humnity, the Romans dispersed them to all parts of the Roman empire - these Jews became known as part of the great 'Diaspora'. Because of their piety & intensity (special relationship with God) most Jews kept their religion & customs and because of this tended to be persecuted as being different. The Romans also under the Christian church of Saul (St Paul) shifted the blame for the death of Jesus to the Jews which added a religious reason to persecute them.

Mohammud at first regarded the Jews with some respect but in time he developed a hostility to them & was responsible for slaughtering some in a famous incident where he gave a particular group the choice of Allah or death, that subsequently set the scene for the Arab attitude to them (this was pretty odd because they had the same God).

Anyway back to Palestine.

Most people agree that the Palestinains need their own country. The problem is getting there.

Doug Marker

You asked for this <grin>

" I was reading some of the post around here about the "NO Fly Zones" and I have a question to those people that don't think they are legal:

1. We have had the damn things in place for about 13 years now. If the UN thinks they are wrong, Why aren't they asking us to stop? We have always said we were supporting resolution 668(688?). Don't give me that we'd veto it bit. Koffi is always glad to disagree with us in public and he would be all over the news if he was saying the no fly zones were bad..."

1) 'legal' ??? - what f*** has legality got to do with it. When you are the world's only superpower & impose a no fly zone on another country it is 'enforced' !!! - whoose legality are you looking for ???? - most of us were happy
to see US correct their appaling f***-up re encoutraging the kurds to revolt then being left to Iraqi massacre when US failed to back them up. I for one felt the shame of seeing those poor bastards fleeing in panic from the Iraqi army after they had first siezed control of northern Iraq at our urging.

2) "UN thinks they are wrong" ??? - who the f*** said that - all we said was that the no-fly zones were (read my lips) *not* imposed by the UN !!! - where is the mystery or problem with that ??? - certain brainless people claimed or directly implied that the no-fly zones were legal UN orders - Bush even tried implying this but his implications were (if not dishonest) plain wrong.

There are many of us here who are smart enough to know the difference between facts - mistakes - deceptions - misleading impressions & plain lies.

It seems that are also many who just can't tell the difference & who are dumb enough to go into print without checking their facts or the quality of their information - this would be forgiveable if ever these people acknowledged their mistakes instead of (as is the case with certain people (or bots)) rolling on to the next set of 're-interpretations of the facts'

Cheers

Doug Marker
(not all aimed at your post)

#2 Just wanted to add - today I read that many of the German Bader-Meinhoff gang were originally (before they became murderous terrorists) just young Germans pissed off at their elders for so willingly supporting Hitler - they were so pissed off they started killing ex NAZI officials in Germany.

Watchout that your own children or grandchildren don't form such a gang & come after you or your peers - some of you are in serious danger of it.