Subject: Re: Hmmmm
IOW, the author probably read it not as "Jews are responsible for killing Jesus" but rather "Those are responsible for killing Jesus, as opposed to us Jews who realize he was the Messiah."

Who are "those"? Non-xian Jews? So xianity likely was regarded as the Mormons of Judaism at the time (i.e. a splinter, adding another tome to the "established" doctrine). Still not sure why they wouldn't heap more blame on the Romans. They were the mutual enemy (i.e. occupying power, punishing/torturing for religious ideology, etc).

Also, yeah...I missed that bit. The Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza (and Sinai) in '49 after routing the Egyptians. They must have had a lot of help (from the US and Britain), since they were barely a state and already at war. Hard to pull a military organization together in such a short time, and then expect them to be effective. Which they were, apparently.