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I come across this on Wikipedia Furthermore If the Azerbaijanis join Iran willingly, Iran would have more troops in the area than little Azerbaijan did historically. The Soviets would not be able to just march on in. I also suppose the British would stick a few troops in the area, since...

The Soviets will have irridentist claims on it like they did Bessarabia, Kars, etc. But OTL they didn't take Kars from Turkey. Menshevik Georgia may have better survival odds

I heard about the Allon Plan of course. Eshkol considered just doing the Allon Plan annexation and setting up a Palestinian State (with extraterritorial road connections to conjoin the three parts, I assume) which apparently would have been an actually fully independent country with regard to...

The Sharon Plan is from 1977. The Drobles Plan first dated late-1978/early-1979. The Israeli government adopted a follow up plan (drafted September 1980) in January of 1981. I am unfamiliar with what Kimche said. Which book or article is this?

I suspect it would be seen as a neat thing for trivia purposes, but I doubt anything more than a token amount of Japanese would be in Iraq. The racial equality provision provoked too much ire in Australia and the USA to pass, I think. On the other hand, the language could be construed narrowly...

The US decision to not declare war on the Ottoman Empire was a tricky one. Americans were very very incensed about the late-Ottoman genocides, but the concern was that if the US stepped into the conflict there it would expose American missionaries and humanitarian workers to great risk...

A notable tidbit also would be that Nasser would not come out of the Suez Crisis as a great big hero if he still loses some land by the end. His denunciations of the Baghdad Pact may not prove as persuasive. Accordingly, the Iraqi monarchy (and Hashemite Arab Federation) may survive. Nor will...

Palestinian Christian identity is quirky. Man do embrace a Maronite-like tendency to say they were "arabized" and not "arab." Much of Palestinian national narrative - the idea that Palestinians are descended from Canaanites - comes from others taking what is largely true of the Christians and...

The "Islamization" of Nazareth had a lot to do with simple urbanization, so I suspect Ramallah and Bethlehem would become muslim-majority over time for similar reasons. Much of the OTL Palestinian Christian emigration that occurred after Oslo due to the unpleasantness of being squeezed between...

Moshe Dayan wanted to annex Bethlehem and Ramallah after 1967 along with East Jerusalem, extend citizenship to all people there, and have a single Greater Jerusalem urban zone. What if Israel had done that? I think it's noteworthy that this wouldn't prevent Israel from continuing its...

You could also just have the borders of the region drawn a bit differently. The Zionists at the Paris Peace Conference wanted Jabal Amil and Golan. Britain also had an interest in Suwayda. France wanted Mosul. Orthodox Christians consistently played a disproportionate role in Syrian and...

After the famine, the Maronites believed they needed more land. When France surrendered Alexandretta to Turkey, the Syrians demanded Tripoli be ceded to them as compensation. Emile Edde went further, and proposed surrendering Akkar and Baalbek too.

IIRC, Billions were pledged for investment into the Gaza Strip because people rally wanted to make the pullout work. Hamas not running the place like a plague of locusts would be a big boon for economic development. Dahlan, I assume, would remain Gaza strongman. Dahlan was corrupt, but he was...

The Second Intifada killed the pro-peace left. The wombo-combo of Hezbollah and Hamas both attacking in 2006 put a dampener on the "screw it, we're gonna downsize our West Bank presence mostly unilaterally" center and center-right. Bush was supportive of the Sharon-Olmert downsizing idea, and...

The Bush Administration pushed for Hamas participation on the theory that participation in electoral politics would moderate them. The example they pointed to was Hezbollah ... who proceeded to trigger a war the following month. Whoops! Hamas would throw a stink if they weren't allowed to...

Thank you! It's certainly possible. There were about 200,000 refugees, so resettling less than a third in North Sinai didn't really undermine the project of using them for points-scoring purposes. Even with UNRWA assistance, the concentrated poverty was a headache for Egypt. Also Nasser when...

A possible map. Green = Refugees in Gaza returned to some pre-1948 city or reconstructed village. Dark Green = agricultural zones mainly for Gazans. Red = Mixed Arab-Jewish village, city, or agricultural zone. Blue = Canal Dark Blue = Jewish Settlement or agricultural zone. Black Star = Power...

Alexander III of Imereti swore an oath of allegiance to Tsar Alexis of Russia in 1651. Russian control wasn't super firm, but Western Georgia was already a vassal of Russia by the mid-17th century sort of. Russia moved into the Caucasus as part of its campaigns against the Turks. They grabbed...

So a couple thoughts. First, the 15 kilometer zone includes the location of OTL Yamit. At Yamit, the Israelis considered a Mediterranean-Dead Sea Canal (Med-Dead Canal). The Dead Sea is below sea level, and the idea of using the natural elevation difference as a means to generate electricity...

Eisenhower later said his decision in the Suez Crisis was the worst he'd made in his Presidency. I am unsure if this less to do with his respond to the naked aggression of Britain and France, and more to do with his forcing the Israelis out of the Sinai. OTL he quipped that if he'd had a "Jewish...