Or Wyoming, choose any empty state with not much going on. Perhaps Florida or Texas for some access to the ocean.
Imagine a world where instead of the jews trying to found their new state surrounded by hostility they went to more friendly territory, the US. We have indian reservations, why not something more advanced?
Now I know this idea is insane, will never happen, but since when has that stopped me from making posts?!? And if you had the power to wave a magic wand and rewrite history, or offer it up as a choice to Israelis living in Israel, do you think they would prefer abandoning their ancestral homeland in the pits of hell vs a new world surrounded by friends and allies?
I’ve actually thought of the same idea. Montana, even. 
But, even if you could get past the logistical / practicality issues: Israel is where it is because it’s the same location (roughly) as the historical Kingdom of Israel. I suspect that many of the Jews who were involved in setting up the modern Israeli state would not have been willing to settle for a location that wasn’t historically significant to their people, much less one in a different hemisphere.
Me too. Just move it to a friendlier neighborhood.
A Muslim taxi driver I once had tried to convince me that the region of Israel had never been owned or lived in by the Jews, until modern times. They’d always been usurpers to the region.
At the time, I didn’t know enough to really refute him. I was aware that when Israel had been an occupied region, by the Romans, that the Jews were in charge of - so at least at one historic time period, they had been in control of that region - but I wasn’t sure otherwise.
Now, I can pretty definitively say that the region of Israel is pretty exactly the region where the Jewish people originated, and their religion, and there isn’t even a previous claim to that even if you go back into prehistory. The Arabs were South and Southeast of the Jewish people (and were practicing Arabic polytheism at the time) and the two groups stayed pretty well separate from one another.
Though, certainly, by the time Israel was re-established in modern day, the Jews had long since been displaced by various other groups.
As a bunch of Europeans, having displaced a bunch of Native Americans, I’m not sure we have much place to say that length of occupation reigns supreme over current occupation. I wouldn’t say that the Israelis were owed Israel back, in its original location.
On the other hand, I don’t subscribe to the idea that the Middle East is more chaotic and violent than the rest of the world. I’ve heard of plenty of revolutionary and terrorist groups throughout Asia and South America, just as I’ve heard of plenty of violence throughout sub-Saharan Africa. The Middle East just gets more attention in the media thanks to our involvement in that area, due to our interest in oil. If oil came from Angola, for example, I’m sure that we’d have all heard a lot more about the Angolan Civil War, that ran from 1975 to 2002.
And of course, as an atheist, I don’t think there’s much to the idea that there’s a mystical bond between the Jewish people and the Levant. Plenty of religions have figured out ways to explain away inconvenient truths. I have no doubt that, if Israel had been created in Montana, a suitable explanation would have been made and a prophecy found in the Tanakh that foretold it. Everyone would have been happier.
That’s all true, but it should be noted that the Muslim Israelis & Palestinians are mostly just as native to the area as the Jewish Israelis, so focusing on Arabs isn’t saying much.
Why play Alternate History…how 'bout we play a game of Alternate Future?
Israel already exists, so it’s kind of hard to move.
But Palestine doesn’t yet exist, and there are lots of people who are working hard to create it.
(including some pretty important Americans–i.e. Obama and Kerry.)
So how 'bout we carve Palestine out of Montana?
What, do ya think anybody would object?
(Obama’s still the prez for the next 17 days…that should be enough time, right?)
This Thread isn’t the first time the idea has been proposed (though I don’t think I’ve seen Montana suggested before).
There was an offer to carve a bit out of British East Africa, which even got some support from prominent Zionist Theodor Herzl. That Wiki link doesn’t go into explanation as to why it didn’t come to be but when I first heard about it in a Jewish History class in college the explanation was that wide spread support could not be found precisely because there was no connection to the ancestral homeland (sorry, no cite).
There was even an attempt tp make a Jewish Homeland on Grand Island, NY.
The Soviets had an idea of their own.
Even the Nazis, during one of their more fanciful flights of whimsy, had an idea.
Well, just as an extension to the thought experiment, what do you think would happen if an indian reservation started randomly starting settlements well outside their designated area on land they didn’t own, and enforcing those settlements with internal military force?
Oh right, they’d be gunned down by the US military, if racist rednecks with shotguns didn’t beat them to the punch.
Just thought that would be worth mentioning.
At first I thought this was going to be about how the US forced tribes to move to new “homelands”. I guess a more analogous situation would be if the Oklahoma Cherokee did the same in the Smoky Mountains area (there are even some Cherokee in the region just like in Palestine re: Jewish people.)
And if they were successful after over half a century of children growing up knowing nothing else but Smoky Cherokee nationality, their individual and national rights should be recognized since the vast majority of citizens grew up knowing nothing else and did not take part in whatever wrongs occurred to put them in their current situation.
I don’t know the history of the Palestinians, so perhaps you are correct. I’ll do some research. (May as well, give as I know the ancient history of the region, now.)
The rather obvious answer to the OP is that there weren’t any Jews in Montana. (Okay, there’s Mr. Jacoby, who runs the grocery store.) Prior to World War II, there were many, many Jews in Israel. While they did not control the place yet, they’d been emigrating there for some time.
It’s not as if they just showed up in 1948. Tel Aviv, for instance, was founded by Jewish immigrants in 1909.
There is nothing stopping Israeli Jews from emigrating elsewhere if they want to do so. In fact, some rather prominent ones have done just that - examples include Natalie Portman and Gene Simmons. Jews are not imprisoned in Israel. They ones who want to leave by and large can do so.
The problem with moving the nation of Israel somewhere other than where it is currently located is that a significant chunk of Jews believe their God gave that land to them forever and ever, regardless of who else might be also living there. Needless to say, non-Jews living in that area see things a bit differently.
So no, you can’t “carve Israel out of Montana” because it’s not about having some real estate, it’s about having a particular area of real estate.
- Locate Burning Bush [Hey, Burning Bush, Montana has a certain ring to it!]
- Inform Israelis
- Profit!
We’ve had several threads on this MB about the idea. Just do a search on “Israel”.
Just popping in to mention the novel “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” by Michael Chabon, which posits an alternative history:
“For sixty years Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a “temporary” safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. The Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. But now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end.”
They’ve already got West Palm Beach. Not really much of a homeland, though.
The Land of Israel was the perfect spot for the Tiny Jewish State (Not Alaska or Macedonia )
Yes, I can imagine no better place for a state than a tiny patch of land, largely made up of inhospitible, unfarmable rocky desert, surrounded on all sides by either water or groups of people who didn’t like you before and who really hate you now that you’ve started taking their land and driving out their neighbors.
Israel is where Israel is because it’s where Israel was. It can’t be anywhere else any more than Montana can be in Mongolia instead of in Montana.
Yes, they’d have to do something crazy and call it “New Israel” or something. My mind can’t stretch that far, OP, alternative reality or not!
The Israelis I’d give New York, the whole state, they’d do well with it …
Interesting that just up until a few years ago, the United States had the largest Jewish population of any country in the world, including Israel … today Israel is slightly higher than The USA … mainly because the USA has never gone through slaughtering her Jews like the European countries were doing on a fairly regular basis …
Moving all the Palestinians to Montana is actually not a bad idea … whatever else can be said of the American Dream … everybody else’s dream is a work visa in the USA …