Who Jumped What Gun?

Submitted by Sofa Sogood (United States), Jan 27, 2008 at 16:09

Thanks, Infidel, for your many terrific and knowledgable comments.

I have this to add to your last one.

Who Jumped What Gun?

Didn't Blackspeare also leave a few little nothings out.

Like for instance, that Ben-Gurion didn't "jump the gun" until AFTER the Arabs "jumped the gun" -- by refusing to accept any partition or compromise at all -- even though that partition gave them, by far, the better portion of that already super-downsized Palestinian territory; by refusing to accept any Jewish self-rule whatsoever; by stating that they would wage war on the Jews and "push them into the sea? -- backing that up with murders and attacks on Jews in busses and villages prior to and just before Ben-Gurion declared a state in 1948?" Who jumped what gun?

Is Blackspeare proposing that had Ben-Gurion not declared a state when he did, that everything would have been fine and there would have been two states? It's interesting to contemplate what might have been the result if Ben-Gurion and the Jews had said, "Okay, never mind, we don't want it said that we jumped any guns, even if they attack us first." Is that an absurd idea, or what?

Doesn't leaving out the subject in the sentence, "It was always the intent to have two nations carved out of the area..." tend to give the impression that it had been agreed to by all parties (including the Arabs?), and everything was going along just fine -- until "Ben-Gurion jumped the gun?" Now, why would anyone want to give that impression?

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