The Palestine Papers

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Governments are highly efficient when it counts. They have the guns, the money, the law, the information gathering assets, and retain a monopoly on the use of force. They also have, when required - usually to maintain their own interest - a highly concentrated sense of purpose.

Self interest, especially to stay in power, is certainly something that can clarify government. I don't think that appertained, particularly at the outset.

You think it was done on a whim?

A whim, no. Too quickly and influenced by guilt and a sense of high-handedness, yes. The original UN effort sort of pre-supposed that the then-locals would be okay with the idea and/or that their opinion was pretty secondary. It also pre-supposed that, having been granted a homeland, the new Israelis would be perfectly content with what they'd been handed. I'd call that incoherent planning.

Of course, the whole re-drawing of the AH empire at Versailles had a lot of that thinking going on too. Israel's formation was another in a long series of just too-cavalier efforts.