The Arab Land Grab

Front page Mag ^ | Aug1/08 | David Solway

[tedbel]

The historical record makes it nonsense to regard the formation of a Palestinian state as anything other than a collective, internationally-approved land grab in itself in an area mandated by the League of Nations as a Jewish homeland.

For too much truth, at first sight, ne’er attracts. - George Gordon, Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto XIV

The Israeli government’s present intention of holding on to a sliver of the West Bank within the perimeter of the security fence is an issue of serious import and is widely regarded as an illegal land grab. Yet the issue is by no means as simple as it has been made out to be and cannot be cursorily decided to the advantage of the hypothetical Palestinian state. First and foremost, this is the same West Bank from which Jews were expelled in 1929. It was never “Palestinian” territory in the first place and no political entity called “Palestine” ever existed except as a Roman provincial designation revived in the twentieth century as a Mandatory appellation. The West Bank was conquered from Jordan in a defensive war and Jordan subsequently waived its claims and rights to the area. Military and demographic considerations remain justifiably paramount in official Israeli thinking. Along with the entirety of Gaza, fully 94% of the disputed territory (altogether, 97.5% if one includes Gaza in the calculation) would be ceded to the Palestinian Authority.