My knowledge about this area of the world was deeply flawed when I decided in 2015

to undertake a serious study about it.

Of course in my decades as a Trotskyist I had accumulated more information about it
than most people, including some of those who write essays and books on this topic.
However, not only there were gaps in this knowledge and a lack of depth in various
aspects, the main problem was my overall approach which had been affected in a
negative way by its Marxist theoretical underpinnings.

Thus I tried to outline a detailed STUDY PLAN, which is reproduced at continuation

with a few modifications; I'll follow it on a further post with a few more comments.

[Due to the length of this article, the English and Italian versions are published
in two separate posts]

Israel and the Middle East: A Study Plan

1. The Jews at the start of the 1900s: how many are they, where are they, how are
they integrated (or not) in the different situations.

2. The Palestinian region under the Ottoman Empire: population, territory, socio-
political situation.

3. The First World War, the Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations Mandate
over Palestine: population, territory, socio-political situation. Churchill's role.

4. Mandate Palestine: Jewish immigration, pogroms (Arab revolts) and British

policy (or should it be "policies"?).

5. The situation in 1947. The role of the USSR, of the United States and of Great
Britain. In which ways did the Holocaust condition the situation: the Jews can's go
back to Poland or Germany or the rest of Europe; they can't go in America or in
Britain.

6. The UN and the 1947 partition. The position of the Arab states.

7. 1948-49. Proclamation of the state of Israel. Arab aggression. The Arabs flee. The
war.
8. The invention of the Palestinian refugees. The real refugees, the Jews expelled
from the Arab countries.

9. The Arab determination to refuse accepting the existence of Israel. Creation of

armed gangs of Fedayins to undertake sabotage activities in Israel. The Israeli
response (Dayan-Sharon).

10. Israel's inner policies toward the Arab population in Israel. Their rights and
limitations to their rights. How did this change between 1949 and 1967.

11. 1956. Nasser. Suez. The United States against Israel. The decision to build the
atom bomb.

12. 1967. The Six-Day War. Arab provocations instigated by the USSR. The Soviet
nuclear threat against Israel.

13. The Arab refusal after the defeat.

14. Palestinian terrorism. First stage. Airplane hijackings. 1970: Black September
in Jordan. 1971: Munich. The Israeli response (See: Munich, the movie).

15. 1973. The Ramadan or Yom Kippur War. Egyptian-Syrian offensive and Israeli
counteroffensive. Failure of Israeli intelligence and military blunders. (Dayan-Sharon
vs. everybody else).

16. Peace discussions and Peace treaty with Egypt in 1978. Begin-Sadat. The
Palestinian refusal.

17. 1981. Osirak. Israel stops the Iraqi nuclear bomb before the start.

18. Palestinian terrorism. Second stage. 1982. Lebanon and the Israeli invasion.
Objectives, results, tragedies (Sabra and Shatila). A misguided political move in a
context that Israel does not fully understand.

19. Israel's inner policies toward the Arab population in the territories conquered in
1967. Their rights and limitations to their rights. How did this situation evolve
between 1967 and 1993 (the Oslo Accords).
20. Status of the Arab citizens of Israel. Their rights and limitations to their rights.
The situation today.

21. Palestinian terrorism. Third stage. After Oslo. First and Second Intifada.

22. Israel as a Jewish State. Safe borders. The Jerusalem question.

23. The Israeli policy of "settlements". Between 1948 and today.

24. "Two peoples, two states" vs "One [Arab] state" vs "One [Jewish] state" vs "One
[Israeli (?)] state" vs. "A Soviet Socialist Federation of the Middle East". (Comparing
different options)

25. Gaza. The so-called "refugees" and the fraud of the UNRWA, the UN body that
deals with them since 1948 (not to be confused with the UNHCR, which deals with
real refugees from everywhere else in the world).

26. Iran, the 1979 revolution, the war with Iraq (and Israel's
ambiguity/ambivalence). The 2015 agreement is the "new Munich (1938) of the 21st
Century.

27. An existential threat against Israel. A new Holocaust and a future world without
Jews?

[Critical considerations about this plan are forthcoming in another post]