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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...

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...

What if the Zionists had chosen Judeo-Aramaic as their preferred national tongue, rather than a revived Hebrew? In many ways it serves the same function as Hebrew. It is (1) written in Hebrew script, (2) neutral among different Jewish subgroups, (3) associated with a history of Jewish...

In 1933(?) Ben Gurion suggested to Musa Alami the idea that a Jewish-majority Palestine be a component of a wider Arab Federation. At this point, Arab Federation typically referred to either Greater Syrian politics or a Hashemite Federation of Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. The...

What if Israel had only captured about half of the West Bank in 1967? Let's assume Jordan enters the fray a few hours later, or the following morning. Historically, Nasser ordered the Jordanian forces to retreat and avoid complete destruction. But a few hours later, King Hussein learned of...

In the tail end of the Black September War, Syria intervened with the ostensible intention of establishing a PLO safe zone at Irbid. The Fedayeen meanwhile weren't defeated until the Ajiloun offensive in 1971. In the meanwhile, the Iraqis were in control of Eastern Jordan throughout much of the...

If the PLO and its allies had taken control of Jordan in the Black September War - what happens to the West Bank? During the OTL Black September War, the Israelis were internally sort of divided about what to do. On the one hand, Hussein was preferable strategically and the Israelis operated...

What if Bachir Gemayel had not been assassinated? Gemayel was somebody who could make peace with Israel, but he put Lebanon first. He viewed Lebanon as something other than an Arab country, though with Arab characteristics (for comparison, think of Malta or Sicily I suppose). He rejected...

I came across an interesting tidbit about the Arab Kingdom of Syria. At one point, the British sought to exchange more German colonial territory in Africa (I am unsure how much) for Faisal getting Syria (meaning the Syrian interior). The French said no. What if a slightly sweeter deal were...

A thing I find interesting about a lot of Israel-Palestine debates is how the sense of identity and the land just takes the Mandatory borders subsequent to Jordan being established as a given. There wasn't a unique Palestinian identity at first (as a national one, rather than perhaps a local...

Apparently (according to one YouTube video) Grover Cleveland considered offering to just purchase Cuba from Spain at one point during the 1890s rebellion. What if that had occurred?

For a stretch along the US-Canadian border from the St Lawrence River to the State of New Hampshire, the US-Canadian border is along the 45th Parallel. What if (with slight adjustments) this was the case from the Kennebec in the East to the Mississippi in the West? These are still fairly...

Let's say the Battle of France is a colossal flop for the Germans. It was a lot of rolling 6s OTL, and the prospect of a German invasion force with its shoestring thing supply chains getting cut off, surrounded, and so forth isn't hard to imagine. With a couple million troops captured, supplies...

What if Japan, having secured more following WWI, remained a Democratic Empire? The idea I'm thinking of is that Japan exchanges their WWI spoils in Shandong, along with other concessions/spheres of influence (Fujian, Tianjin concession, etc.) for complete cession of much of Manchuria...

Let's say there is no Louisiana Purchase, and only a "Missouri Purchase" - i.e., France only sells the lands north of the Red River or Arkansas River, plus a right of access to the Port of New Orleans. Could the US have built a canal, Erie-Style, along the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway to...

What if Quebec had joined the American Revolution, but afterward became an independent republic as well? The British would still have Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and so forth. The same would be true of Rupert's land. I suppose they would try to retain the Gaspe Peninsula and...

Napoleon III in 1865 pledged French citizenship to all Arab Algerians who sought is, so long as they renounced any legal rights to polygamy or immediate divorce. He reform would also have opened jobs in Algerian administration to muslim candidates. In 1867-1868, the colonial lobby was able to...

Many online like copy + pasting the historic German revanchism onto France in Central Powers victory discussions. But I think this is unlikely. Revanchism. Unlike Germany, which from the average person's perspective seemed to be on the verge of victory before suddenly surrendering, here the...

As the saying goes, the British historian Seeley remarked as follows: "We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind". Generally this referred to the lack of planning in imperial expansion, but it also reflected how some imperial endeavors were the...

In the Obamacare case, Roberts voted with the Conservatives to nix the individual mandate as beyond the commerce clause. The Justices didn't even vote on the tax issue after oral argument because so little attention had been directed to the matter by the litigants. But Roberts was always the...