Really the ultimate cause for all of that pain and suffering is the failure of the Ottoman Empire which was quite cosmopolitan while it lasted.

There is plenty to criticize about the actions taken by many parties post-collapse, but I strongly doubt it's at all possible for external powers to take a failed empire and keep all the pieces happy in the aftermath. Those people have to do most of that themselves, and in this case they didn't for many reasons. Europe was ready for the transition away from monarchy and empire, the middle east wasn't. Russia/USSR tried a path that worked but not particularly well. Luck and circumstance also played a part.

A century of war and strife post empire collapse isn't exactly unusual.

Well it was cosmopolitan because it conquered many people in an area that was cosmopolitan from the start (in particular Constantinople) and as long as they didn't fight back for their independence they were tolerated.

That's not much different from the current state of Israel which allows Arabs to live in it (and even have political representation!).

I don't know how to square the elevation of the tolerance in the ottoman empire while at the same time decrying the apartheid within Israel's borders.

The situation is fucked up. It's hard to have justice and peace.

> I don't know how to square the elevation of the tolerance in the ottoman empire while at the same time decrying the apartheid within Israel's borders.

Well for starters I don’t test the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century and Israel in the 21st against the same standard. We’re not saying the Ottomans were great by a modern western standard, but compared to most of the west in their day they were quite good.

yeah, fair enough. I don't think there one "right way" of looking at all this. I think it's important to keep all those things in mind at the same time, including what you're saying about standards and how they change over time.

My point was that when we look back at times of peaceful coexistence within empires, it was often the results of suppression of dissent. Empires are fundamentally at odds with national self determination. Empires are by definition violent subjugation of people and self-determination movements often require violence to counteract that.

It's easy to take past empires for granted and assume they are "how things are"; but when they fail and crumble they do so for a reason, they contain the seed of their own destruction, because they impose stability and order over internal and extern forces that push against them.

depends on who you ask, for german jews under the nazis before world war 2, it was almost the only place to go to, and definitely saved them from certain death in places like the netherlands. not to mention after world war 2 for those who came back from the camps and found their homes taken.

moreover zionism did not start with the balfour declaration, but decades before with mass killings of jews in eastern europe

the western allies certainly could and should have done much pre-war, and arguably in the war (mosquito strikes on the camps, for example). my point was that few can dispute that, as we see today, the whole imposition of israel on its neighbours has been a disaster.

that's only when taking only palestinians into account. When the balfour declaration was signed already 10% of then population was jewish.

Mass killings of jews had already started in eastern europe decades before the holocaust. which was what prompted zionism. This is not a singular event, but a movement that would happen with the british or without them.

And any result of the conflict would cause serious "disaster" for one people or another