The Jews accepted the UN partition, although some did hope to adjust the borders. The Palestinians rejected it and chose war instead. The surrounding Arab states were preparing for war the whole time, intending to take land for their countries.
The United States indirectly helped the Arabs by suspending the importation of arms into the region The UK helped by selling arms to Arab militias and blocking additional Jewish migration. Although, the US was the first to recognize Israel when they declared independence.
The different countries and groups against the Jews had different interests and different levels of commitment.
Many of the villages that the Jews forced to evacuate, were supporting Arab militias attacking Jews, so having them evacuate was a defensive strategy to not leave a population of enemy combatants scattered around the area. The combatants blended back into their villages, so it’s not like just the combatants could be arrested. Some of these combatants didn’t just fight Jewish armed forces, but attacked civilians.
Overtime, ideas of expelling all Arabs had been advocated for, but the actual expulsions were defensive military operations. Such ideas were often driven by the determination of the Arabs to expel and kill the Jews, so, the thinking was: if you can’t be peaceful and accept us here, then we will kick you out. Nevertheless, the actual expulsions were focused on villages supporting violent militias in the midst of war.
We really don’t know how many expulsions were completely unjustified and how many were battlefield necessities.
Jewish refugees, many from the holocaust, moved into the abandoned settlements.
Many Arabs fled on their own, encouraged to do so by some Arab leaders.
There was two steps to the war. First, the civil war between the Jews and local Arab militias, then, the Jews against the invading Arab states.
The oldest surviving structure built by a Muslim ruler is the Dome of the Rock, built on the location of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. It was a real imperial dominating occupier move.
Different entities better survived the bronze age collapse than others. Does the United States have the planning and nimbleness to well-survive nearby challenges?
India could have stretched from Yemen to Burma. Some of the divisions led to mass refugees and massacres. Some of these nationalisms and national identities were relatively new. The actual history of much of this, is underplayed in all countries involved.
A more accurate translation of the Old Testament is not that ‘in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’, but that ‘when he began to create the heavens and the earth’…meaning, this is just when he began to create them, and…it is not the beginning of time.
Nolan’s central trick: “Nolan has smuggled the core of Judeo-Christian ethics into the center of The Odyssey.” Zeus’s Law in Nolan’s Odyssey is more similar to the Christian and Jewish golden rule than ancient Greece’s Xenia. The problem with the modern right isn’t that they haven’t obeyed the golden rule, it’s that they detest it. Cruelty toward the weak, the poor, the stranger, the immigrant…is glorified. Trump’s policies are built on the logic of tribute, not compassion, love, or reciprocity.
To Homer, Odysseus’s trick, using their common religious beliefs to fool the Trojans and to destroy Troy and slaughter its people…to Homer, Odysseus was a hero, but to Nolan, it was a great crime and that Odysseus needed redemption.
In Homer’s time, slaughtering innocent people wasn’t bad as long as they were the other. After Jesus and eventually the enlightenment and eventually applying these principles to societies…we don’t believe slaughtering people is okay just because they aren’t us. Using our common moral principles to trick each other is not heroic. We believe that from a long chain of history, but that chain’s strongest seed was Jesus.
Nolan made the Odyssey about the values of Jesus. Not the values of the ancient Greeks. Not the values of Homer. Not the values of Trump.
The modern right cares about power and the need for cruelty. Jesus cared about love.