Posted on 05/20/2008 11:12:41 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
By Daoud Kuttab
As the state of Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, Palestinians remember the naqba, or “catastrophe” - their story of dispossession, occupation, and statelessness. But, for both sides, as well as external powers, the events of 1948 and what has followed - the occupation since June 1967 of the remaining lands of historic Palestine - represents a tragic failure.
Israel is most at fault for this failure, owing to its continued military occupation and illegal settlements. Despite paying lip service to peace, the Israeli refusal to leave the Occupied Territories continues to be in direct contravention to what the preamble to United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 termed the “inadmissible taking of land by force.”
But the international community, Palestinians, and Arabs all bear responsibility as well, albeit at different levels. Indeed, the list of disappointments predates Israeli statehood and the naqba itself: the King-Crane Commission of 1919, the 1937 Peel Report, the British White Paper of 1939, the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry of 1945, and the UN Partition Plan of 1947. Since then, we have had UN General Assembly Resolution 194, and Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, the Rogers Plan, the Mitchell Plan, the Tenet Plan, Camp David, Taba, the Saudi plan, the “road map,” the unofficial Geneva Initiative, the People’s Choice, and the Beirut Arab Peace Initiative of 2002.
To be sure, Palestinians and Arabs are also to blame for their inability to empathize, recognize, and understand the plight of the Jewish people. Although Palestinians had nothing to do with European anti-Semitism and the Nazi Holocaust, they should not have turned a blind eye to the Jews’ tragedy. Palestinians were so locked in their opposition to Zionism that they were unable to appreciate the Jews’ existential needs, just as they failed to appreciate the effects of indiscriminate acts of violence against Israeli civilians.
Consumed with legitimate anger, Palestinians and Arabs failed to come up with a serious approach to reach out to Israelis and failed to devise a workable political strategy that would address daily Palestinian needs and national aspirations. Cross-border attacks, hijackings, Arab and international diplomacy, secret talks, non-violent resistance, suicide bombings, rockets, regional Arab initiatives, international peace envoys: Nothing has succeeded in ending the occupation. With each approach, Palestinian leaders, believing the Arab states’ hollow proclamations of solidarity with their cause, have failed to measure accurately their own powers vis-�-vis the Israelis.
Indeed, the Arab states have come nowhere close to matching the level of US and European aid to the Palestinians, much less the even higher level of Western support - political and military, as well as financial - that has been the key to Israel’s ability to withstand Palestinian demands for freedom. While European public and private support to Israel, especially in its founding years, is believed to be very extensive, the US has created a firewall of vetoes and political protection for Israel, in addition to providing massive financial support. Writing in The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Shirl McArthur, a retired US Foreign Service officer, estimates that direct US aid to Israel between 1949 and 2006 totaled $108 billion.
After the US, Germany is the principal donor of both economic and military aid to Israel. By far the largest component of German aid has been in the form of restitution payments for Nazi atrocities. Total German assistance to the Israeli government, Israeli individuals, and Israeli private institutions has been roughly $31 billion, or $5,345 per capita, bringing combined US and German assistance to almost $20,000 per Israeli.
In the face of Israel’s strength, the Palestinian national movement’s failure has now played into the hands of Islamists. The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, which emerged during the first intifada in 1987, grew more powerful in the 1990s, after the return of the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Yasser Arafat and the creation, as a result of the Oslo Accords, of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas’ rejection of the Oslo Accords bore political fruit as it became increasingly clear to Palestinians that the handshakes on the White House lawn would not produce the coveted end to the Israeli occupation, or even of Israel’s illegal settlement activities.
Yet, despite history’s long train of failures, Hamas’ June 2007 seizure of control of Gaza, and its pariah status in the West, we are repeatedly told by the US that 2008 will be the year of a peace agreement. Meanwhile, the Arab peace proposal, which calls for a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders and a fair solution to the refugee problem in exchange for normalization of Arab states’ relations with Israel, appears doomed.
After 60 years of failures, and as the generation that lived through the naqba passes from the scene, a political settlement that can provide Palestinians with freedom in an independent state alongside a secure Israel and a fair solution of the refugee problem is more necessary - but also appears less possible - than ever.
Daoud Kuttab, an award-winning Palestinian journalist, is currently a visiting professor of journalism at Princeton University. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project Syndicate (c) (www.project-syndicate.org).
And pressured England to keep Jews out by turning away refugee boats and sometimes sinking them in international waters.
Palestinians were so locked in their opposition to Zionism that they were unable to appreciate the Jews’ existential needs..."
such as existing.
"just as they failed to appreciate the effects of indiscriminate acts of violence against Israeli civilians."
Yup. Actively perpetrating "indiscriminate acts of violence against Israeli civilians" sure qualifies as "failing to appreciate the effects. If only somebody would have told them that the Jews would eventually start fighting back, and in 1948 defeat them, they might not have annihilated entire communities.
Kuttab is playing a pc lie. Islamists and Arab Nationalists were allied with the Nazis, and the leader of the “Palestinians” Haj Amin Al-Husseini raised units for them.
- the occupation since June 1967 of the remaining lands of historic Palestine -
What is "historic Palestine" exactly? Jerusalem, as we all know was built by the Jewish kings, was destroyed several timess in antiquity, and rebuilt over more than 1,000 years. So the "occupation" of "historic Palestine" is in fact a re-occupation of "historic Judea".
Moving back in history, we see the "historic capital of the Jews" occupied or owned by: The Assyrians, the Macedonians (Alexander), Ptolemaic dynasty, the Seleucids, before being retaken by the Jews. The Jews lost ground to the Roman Empire, who had asserted control by the time of Herod, who was still the vassal ruler. Revolts led to the destruction of the Second temple in 70AD. Hadrian ejected the Jews in 140AD. From Rome rule passed to the Byzantine (Eastern Roman Empire) then was lost to the Persians around 600AD.
In 638, as part of the first jihad Jerusalem came to fall under Moslem control. The Crusaders conquered in 1099, recaptured by the Moslems in 1187, returned to the west in 1228, and lost to the Turks in 1244, who in turn lost it to the Mamelukes after only 20 years.
In 1517 it fell again to the Ottaman Turks. The Ottaman's held defacto control though much influence slipped away to the Egyptians and several European powers that had large presense there.
The British controlled Jerusalem from the fall of the Ottaman empire, a side effect of WW1, from 1917 to 1948.
The Jordanians captured one half of Jerusalem in 1948, rather than allow the UN rules (international city run by UN to be followed by and election in 10 years to determine political fate) to take effect. The new state of Israel captured the other 1/2. The two halves were reuinted in 1967 after Israel defeated Jordan and her allied Arab partners in the six day war.
So, in all this history, these thousands of years of war and conquest where, exactly, are the "Palestinians" of whom the author speaks??
If one assumes the Palestinians are in fact Jordanians it seems odd in 2008 to view the relatively minimal 19 years period of time that Jordan ruled 1/2 of Jerusalem as some how definative in terms of ownership. Why does the 20 years of Jordanian rule count for more than the ensuing 41 years of Israeli rule, or the hundred of years of Turkish rule, or the almost 700 years of Roman rule?
Perhaps we should give it back to the Italians?
The rest of this artical is equally vapid and ahistorical.
High volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel, WOT
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palestinians angry, as usual, that they lost in 1948, lost in 1956, lost in 1967 and lost in 1973 and it's all the Zionists fault. Which I suppose it is.
High volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel, WOT
..................
palestinians angry, as usual, that they lost in 1948, lost in 1956, lost in 1967 and lost in 1973 and it's all the Zionists fault. Which I suppose it is.
High volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel, WOT
..................
palestinians angry, as usual, that they lost in 1948, lost in 1956, lost in 1967 and lost in 1973 and it's all the Zionists fault. Which I suppose it is.
This entire article is a gold mine of lies and obfuscations. Here’s a juicy one: “After 60 years of failures, and as the generation that lived through the naqba passes from the scene, a political settlement that can provide Palestinians with freedom in an independent state”
If Palestinians are not free in a Palestinian state, it’s because the Palestinian authority is corrupt and oppressive. A political solution would be to end the corruption and oppression.
” alongside a secure Israel and a fair solution of the refugee problem is more necessary - but also appears less possible - than ever. “
It’s entirely possible. Just stop keeping your fellow Arabs shut up in refugee camps. The Israelis did that to the nearly one million Jewish refugees from Yemen, Iraq, Morocco, etc. They are now Israelis. The Palestinian “refugees,” however, have been refugees for sixty years. “Refugee” is not an inherited title, passed on from generation to generation. Unless, of course, the host country refuses to absorb them.
A fair resolution of the refugee problem is possible. Is it probable? Not unless the surrounding Arab countries stop treating their kinfolk like animals.
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