In today's episode of Why the Middle East is Fucked, we learn about the Balfour Declaration of 1917, how it conflicts with the Sykes-Picot Agreement, and how Sykes-Picot and Balfour REALLY conflicted with the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence. And silly you, thought all this stuff started in 1948 because the Allies were feeling guilty about six million Jews getting killed by Nazis and not really doing anything about it even though you knew it was happening? WRONG! They felt even MORE guilty because if they had re-established Israel after World War I, there wouldn't have been that many Jews left in Europe for Hitler to kill! They would have all been in the Eastern Mediterranean fighting militant Arabs who had been living on the land for the last 1500 years instead. But of course us Westerners are so good at reneging on deals. The British went on creating solidarity among the Arabs eventually leading to the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks. This lead to a solidarity between Arabs that had not been seen until this time. They now viewed the Arabs in Palestine as brethren being oppressed by these new Jews. The new Jews made an easy focus for all their hate and anger, even though that should really be directed at their oppressive but very wealthy monarchs and dictators. So we ended up screwing the Jews first and then the Arabs! Birds...glass houses...sinners...doesn't really matter. You know how us Westerners love to throw stones! And we're getting better and better at it...throwing stones that is! Good thing the Middle East is so far away, and all we have to worry about is high gas prices...oh and terrorists...nuclear weapons...lots of dead and wounded soldiers...economic collapse...global warming...World War III...loss of freedom...rising extreme fundamentalism...fear...fear...fear...