Thanks for the good, thoughtful, and historically informative post, Andy.

Let me give a hypothetical example of what I think would be "right and justified" in America, had America not moved beyond its oppressive treatment of the Indians. They should get all of, say, Rhode Island for their own country, and the current inhabitants there would just have to leave. Not today, because the USA did redress many wrongs and stopped oppressing the Indians. However, if oppressive laws and customs were still in force today against the Native Americans, and Americans showqed no sign of changing those laws and attitudes, I'd say the Indians should get all of a state, perhaps even Connecticut or Massachusetts (guessing at size as relates to respective population).

Now that's obviously a contrived example, and somewhat ill-fitting, but hopefully it should serve to illustrate a point. The FAULT lies with prior American attitudes and laws--and the size of Rhode Island is quite small compared to the rest of the country. Likewise, the FAULT of long-standing Arab/Muslim oppression and oppressive laws against Jews in the Middle East, lies with long-standing Arab/Muslim laws, attitudes and customs. Israel is even smaller in size compared to the Arab land mass, than Rhode Island is compared to the United States. So I think the Jews simply deserved and needed such a sanctuary even if necessarily and unfortunately at the expense of some Arabs. And as I've previously posted, if American treatment of blacks had not reformed, before now the blacks would have a similar moral claim to a place of sanctuary within the United States--to even have as their own country, something say the size of Wyoming (again guessing at population vis-a-vis respective land mass size).

So yes, the Jews did contribute to some of the mutual antipathy with Arabs in the latter half of the 20th century, as you point out. However, the initial fault lies very much with the Arabs and their customs and beliefs and traditions and laws.

Likewise, if Europe had not reformed its laws and treatment of the Jews, Ahmadinejad's suggestion would have more merit. If, hypothetically speaking, Germany had never truly reformed its oppression of Jews, perhaps carrying over anti-Semitic laws and customs even after defeat in WWII, then I can see good reason that the Jews might well be entitled to some land in Germany as a sanctuary as well or instead (f they so wished). But Europe and Germany did enact reform to the largest extent in their actual treatment and laws regarding Jews, and the Jews wanted their ancestral homeland instead.

Jordan (and Syria?) should not have stolen parts of the Palestinians' partitioned land, either. Why aren't the Palestinians in an uproar and intifada against that?