It's amazing to think that an event that occured so many years ago, still affects us today. Before taking this class, I knew that WWI was one of the bloodiest conflicts in history. I mean abviously not as bad as the 2nd World War, but you get my point. One major thing I learned was that it was supposedly, a "war to end all wars." And it obviously didn't turn out to be one. The Treaty of Versailles, which did technically end the war, still left a lot of damage unrepaired. First off, Germany was left to pay the whole cost of the war. At first, when I read this, I felt happy inside, because of how the Germans and Hitler treated the Jews. But then I considered how much they owed, and then my eyes were opened. No country should be forced to pay that much, that's basically insanity. Germany's condition was already rough enough. Two wrongs do not make a right. Another major thing I learned was that a few countries lost a lot of their territories. For example, Germany and the Ottoman Empire lost their colonies or possessions outside of Europe. And they were turned into "mandates" by the League of Nations. Speaking of mandates, the British Mandate for Israel included what is known as Israel today, Jordan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This reminded me of our Palestine Israel Conflict discussion in class, and the powerpoint presentations. What the mandate included led up to an agreement in 1993 between Israel and Palestinian leaders, granting the Palestinians some control of the West Bank and Gaza, in hope of a new Palestine state. But there has been no progress. That's what the mandate led up to; false hope. At least Obama has promised that he is going to do his best to make the tensions between Israelites and Palestinians go away. Sadly, I feel not much is going to improve...
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