Some very intresting analysis of the Palestinian failure to deal with reality, and why they haven't accepted the formation of a State of Palestin. http://www.primerct.org/index.php?content=opeds/20070107-stein&title=Peace, Not Propaganda Comment: "Under the plan the proposed Jewish state would acquire 54 percent of the territory despite comprising only 30 percent of the population and owning only 6 percent of the land. The Arab state would incorporate 45 percent of the area despite 70 percent of the population." Analysis: See above; the 54 percent refers to 54 percent of the 23 percent remaining after the first partition. The proposed Jewish state would actually get only 12 percent of Palestine. The population figures are also skewed because of the massive Arab immigration that had been allowed by Great Britain at the same time they were severely restricting Jewish immigration. Aligata conveniently leaves out the (unknown) percentage of land owned by Arabs, leaving the false implication that since, according to her, Jews owned 6 percent of the land (most estimates are 7 or 8 percent), the Arabs must own 94 percent of the land. In reality, the vast majority of the land was not privately owned but was the property of the sovereign. Comment: "The Israelis wanted more; here is trouble brewing." Analysis: This is true, but misleading. Of course the Zionists wanted more, but the nature of a civilized society and compromise is the acceptance of less than what one wants. The Zionists, despite wanting more, accepted half a loaf. (In reality, it was more like a tenth of a loaf.) The trouble brewed from the Arabs, who didn't just want more but insisted on everything and have launched war after war designed to destroy Israel. Comment: "The Arabs rejected the partition idea and advocated a single binational state based on democracy and equal rights, though certain restrictions made this plan unacceptable to the Jews." Analysis: They didn't just reject the partition plan; they launched war after war to prevent and then reverse it. At this point, I must confess my own ignorance; despite extensive reading about the Arab-Israeli conflict, I have never before read about the Arabs advocating a state based on democracy and equal rights. It's also relevant to note that even today, nearly six decades later, there is not a single Arab state which is democratic and there is not a single Arab state which provides equal rights to minorities. Comment: "Where was consideration for the Arab state here?" Analysis: There was ample consideration not just for the Arab "state," but for the Arab "states" there. The Arabs already had one state in Palestine, then called Transjordan (referring to the portion of Palestine across the Jordan River), now called Jordan, taking up about 77 percent of it. The United State had voted to give the Arabs nearly half of the remainder. We had just come out of a war that would have been prevented had one intransigent maniac (Hitler) not been appeased; the Arabs had already been given more than due consideration and there was little reason to appease their unrelenting hostility to the re-establishment of Israel. Comment: "A homeland for Jewish people was created at the expense of the Arab people and future peace." Analysis: The Land of Israel has been the homeland of the Jewish people for thousands of years, long before it contained any Arabs. Far from being created "at the expense of the Arab people," the Arabs living in Israel have more rights than Arabs living anywhere else in the Middle East. The "expense" to the Arab people has come from their own refusal to accept the existence of a multi-cultural oasis of Western freedom and democracy in the predominantly Arab and Muslim Middle East in which, as shown on the accompanying map, Israel is barely a speck. Perhaps the most revealing comment I've heard recently came from Ms. Hanadi Soudah-Younan, a staunchly anti-Israel professor at Bethlehem University. At a conference at the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme December 3, the president of PRIMER made a comment followed by a question. The comment was the conference had ignored the core issues, that the Arabs had turned down the establishment of a state in 1937 and 1948, could have established on anytime between 1948 and 1967, and had again rejected the establishment of a state in 2000 at Camp David. The question was "what can be done to get the Palestinian Arabs to finally accept peace?" Soudah-Younan never answered the question, but insisted it was "most important" for everyone to recognize the Palestinian Arabs had invested so much in the pan-national Arab project and it took some time to realize that was a failure. In other words, she acknowledged the Palestinian Arabs hadn't been interested in a state in Palestine, since they considered themselves Arabs, not Palestinians, and shared Nasser's dream of a single Arab nation. Only after that dream died did they begin calling themselves "Palestinians" and start demanding a state. It's enlightening to remember the PLO was founded in 1964, when the currently disputed territories were occupied by Egypt and Jordan, and its charter still calls for the destruction of Israel. Soudan-Younan added "besides, we wanted all of Palestine - why should we settle for less than half?" Of course, the less than half wasn't less than half of Palestine, but less than half of the small part that hadn't already been given to their Arab brethren.
