To call it biased is to ignore how shockingly ignorant it is. He took semester after semester of middle eastern history and this is what he learned? Columbia should be embarrassed.

Let's go bit by bit.

First, why start at 1947? The Feisal Weizman Agreement of 1919 fully recognized the Balfour declarations pledge to a Jewish national home in Palestine so long as European powers upheld the Hussein McMahon agreements for Arab independence. They didn't.

In return, Britain issued a number of white papers and declarations promising the Palestinians that although the Jews would have national home as they'd pledged there would be immigration limits, and the creation of that home would be as part of a federal Palestinian state. For instance, the Chruchill White Paper of 1922: "the terms of the Declaration referred to do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded "in Palestine." In this connection it has been observed with satisfaction that at a meeting of the Zionist Congress, the supreme governing body of the Zionist Organization, held at Carlsbad in September, 1921, a resolution was passed expressing as the official statement of Zionist aims "the determination of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people on terms of unity and mutual respect, and together with them to make the common home into a flourishing community, the upbuilding of which may assure to each of its peoples an undisturbed national development."' and "'it is contemplated that the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian, and it has never been intended that they, or any section of them, should possess any other juridical status."

This too, was broken.

Now to get to the 1940s I don't want to be misunderstood as passing judgment. Anyone with an interest in this should reach Manachem Begin's memoir "The Revolt" which makes clear the link between the struggle to found a Jewish state and the experience of the holocaust. It's a profoundly moving account and I challenge anyone reading it to not feel sympathy for their cause.

That said, it is less concerned with the international/political machinations that led to the creation of Israel.

Those are as follows: even before the end of World War II the UK faced a major Jewish uprising in Palestine which it decided it could not, or had no desire to, win. It was for that reason that in 1947 they sent the matter to be adjudicated to the UN, which brings us back to the video.

Now, why did the Arabs reject the 1947 plan?

First off, partition was an enormous broken promise from what Britain had guaranteed them. Secondly, although Jews were probably the majority of urban dwellers in 1947, they were maybe 1/3rd (or a bit more) of the overall population, and a small fraction of the rural population. Yet the UN commission would have given to Israel 80% of the arable (no pun intended) farm land.

"Partition" also meant, for the first time, ethnic cleansing. In order to accept partition huge communities with centuries of history would have to be deprived of their land and move elsewhere.

All of this, prior to the creation of Israel in 1948, is happening basically in the context of an all out civil war. There is no clear body of people who could either reject or accept such an offer, not that they would accept it. There was no Palestinian equivalent of the Jewish Agency or of Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary that would become the IDF.

That is partly the result of British policy. In the 1930s Britain quashed a major Palestinian uprising by arresting the leadership, clearing villages, and arming Jewish paramilitary defense groups.

Now to 1948.

Did the Arab states seek to destroy Israel entirely? The answer seems to be pretty clearly no. If that were the case, why did Egypt stop it's advance in the south? Why did Jordan seek only to hold its position in the West Bank/East Jerusalem?

The fact is that the Arab states had only decided to intervene a couple weeks prior. Their objectives had as much to do with each other as they did with Israel. If they could have prevented Israel from forming as result of the war that may have been a tenuous goal, but the objective was not genocide, or to "destroy Israel." There was no singleminded "Arab bloc" to formulate such a goal.

That brings us up 1:41 seconds in the video.

Now I basically have to stop because I have no more than a layman's understanding of events after ~1960, but it's noteworthy and highly suspect to me that he doesn't mention the Suez crisis.

With that much bad history in the first two minutes I think it's safe to say, yes, this is a mess. For a much better a account see Eugene Rogan's "The Arabs: A History" or Tom Segev's "One Palestine, Complete."

edit: Palestinian revolt was in the 30's not 20's.