Do you know the answer to a history question about the Middle East 1948 war?

A lot of this mess started with British colonialism and the UN interference. These two groups established the separate Arab and Israeli areas. That started a lot of grief in the area with attacks by both sides on the other. The Arab League was made up of Lebanon, the Trans-Jordan area, Syria, Iraq and Egypt. Basically every country surrounding Israel. When British forces withdrew from the area Israel declared independence and the fighting intensified. By the end of that conflict Israel hadn’t really any extra lands except possibly the Negev. The Palestinian area was still much as it is today.

I think it was the Six-Day war in 1967 that ended with Israel really taking control of the Palestine area and the Gaza strip. They expanded even further with the Yom Kippur war. The Camp David Accords settled that with Israel moving back out of some of the area they occupied following that conflict.

Yes, a lot of this could have been avoided if the Arabs just accepted Israel from the start. As for historical events where an aggressor nation lost and their opponents had to give back land they had taken during the conflict? Not sure. I think with the Arab-Israel conflicts it happened as a negotiated way to end the conflict, which it never really did.

Basically the Israelis had a problem at the formation of Israel: Jews were a minority in the “Jewish State.” They had to depopulate the Arabs and so there were several massacres and forced evictions of Palestinian Civilians. Remember that the British prevented the Palestinians from owning weapons, but the Israelis were well-armed. Many left, vowing to return in force later to reclaim their homes.

And yes, there was anti-semitic violence in the period leading up to all of this, but I believe there was a pretty extended period where Muslims, Jews and Christians seemed to all get along reasonably well. in the 1800’s and before.

There is no way Ukraine is going to claim parts of Russia even if the war swings dramatically in Ukraine’s favour. The USA and NATO will support Ukraine only so far and will not support a land grab for fear of provoking Russia, a state with nuclear weapons.

To answer your last question first: yes. Japan and Germany being the most obvious recent examples.

Yes there are historic roots to everything, with plenty of blame to go around, but the reason these problems persist is because those in power today continue to allow them to. There is a process to peace, like there is a process to most goals of statecraft. I don’t think bemoaning that “the Arabs” didn’t just roll over for peace at one particular point in history is particularly useful. You would still have an apartheid situation projecting pain and hatred through generations at the root of the modern conflict, or are you suggesting apartheid wouldn’t have happened if “the Arabs” had just been good in ‘48?

Because many of the Arab countries were angry at the fact that Israel simply moved into Palestine and took over a vast swathe of land without negotiation or talks some of these countries decided to try to drive the Israelis out.

Many defeated countries have been given their land back by those countries who defeated them.

Take the 2nd World War Germany was given back their country after they surrendered even though the part of Germany that Russia took was held by them from the end of the war right up to when Gorbachev in November 1989 tore down the Berlin Wall and unified East and West Berlin.

Italy began to fight for and with Germany against the Allies but eventually the Allies attacked Italy who surrendered and the Allies basically allowed Italy to continue to run their country and Italy turned tail and began to fight for the Allie against Germany.

There are many cases of a defeated country being given back their country and allowed to govern themselves.