These people are occupied. And it's their land. - Helen Thomas
On March 31, 1977 the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. His statements were also later published in the Boston Herald and you’ll find them at various Internet sites as well. Here’s what he said:
The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism.King Abdullah in his 1948 memiors: “Palestine and Jordan are one.For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
Prince Hassan of the Jordanian National Assembly on February 2, 1970:
Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine; there is only one land, with one history and one and the same fate.Abdul Hamid Sharif, Prime Minister of Jordan in 1980:
The Palestinians and Jordanians do not belong to different nationalities. They hold the same Jordanian passports, are Arabs and have the same Jordanian culture.King Hussein in 1981: “The truth is that Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan.’
The Arab National Committee in Jerusalem on March 8, 1948, per its instructions to the Arab Higher Committee, ordered women, children and the elderly in various parts of Jerusalem to leave their homes: "Any opposition to this order...is an obstacle to the holy war...and will hamper the operations of the fighters in these districts" (Morris, Benny; Middle Eastern Studies, January 1986).
In early May of the same year, units of the Arab Legion ordered the evacuation of all women and children from the town of Beisan. The Arab Liberation Army was also reported to have ordered the evacuation of another village south of Haifa. The departure of the women and children, "tended to sap the morale of the menfolk who were left behind to guard the homes and fields, contributing ultimately to the final evacuation of villages. Such two-tier evacuation-women and children first, the men following weeks later-occurred in Qumiya in the Jezreel Valley, among the Awarna bedouin in Haifa Bay and in various other places." (Morris, op. cit.)
We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down. - Prime Minister Nuri Said (Iraq)In his memoirs, Haled al Azm - Syrian Prime Minister (1948-49) - admitted the Arab role in persuading the refugees to leave:
Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return.Monsignor George Hakim (a Greek Orthodox Catholic Bishop of Galilee) was quoted in the Beirut newspaper Sada al-Janub (August 16, 1948)
The refugees were confident their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two. Their leaders had promised them that the Arab Armies would crush the 'Zionist gangs' very quickly and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile.In the New York Lebanese paper, Al Hoda - June 8, 1951 - quoted Habib Issa, himself quoting The Secretary-General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, that
...the occupation of Palestine and Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade. He [Pasha] pointed out that they were already on the frontiers and that all the millions the Jews had spent on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw Jews into the Mediterranean....Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property and to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down.One final embarrassing concession:
The tragedy of the Palestinians was that most of their leaders had paralyzed them with false and unsubstantiated promises that they were not alone; that 80 million Arabs and 400 million Muslims would instantly and miraculously come to their rescue. - Jordanian King Abdullah (memiors 1948)Those Arabs who chose to remain in Israel are currently full fledged citizens of Israel (having all the rights and priveleges thereof). Those who chose to heed the Mufti, and Arab League admonishments, have for a generation been relegated - by their Arab bretheren - to the squalor of the dung heaps of 'refugee camps'. Any 'occupation' is entirely the result of the failures of the attempted Arab military conquest of Israel in 1968 and 1973.
There can be no reasonable, nor rational negotiation with a people who in the epic-fail of 1968, wherein their collective gonads were bruised to the size of basketballs - having the audacity to concede merely to a cessation of continued abuse to their own genitalia - proclaiming the famous Three No's a mere 3 months later (and then spend 5 years equiping themselves for a mulligan).
The whole 'Palestinian' issue would presently be a moot point, if but for the efforts of Richard Holbrook, who interceded on the behalf of the PLO - their collective genitalia firmly ensconced in industrial vice grips of the Israeli military in Beruit - with no hope but an immediately forthcoming obliteration, that is, until the U.S. Marines where tasked to be 'peacekeepers' and said PLO where allowed to evacuate to Cyprus. Furthermore, and the foregoing notwithstanding, the Israeli's handed the keys to the candy store to Yassar Arafat in exchange for peace in our time; he spit in their face for their having the audacity not to collectively off themselves as part of the bargain.
No, there can be no negotiation with such delustional, arrogant and vicious people. The Arab League leaders lied to the hoi polloi in 1948, the strategic military command lied to their subordinates during operations in 1968 (a la Bagdahd Bob), and unit commanders lied to their superiors in 1973. I have NO sympathy for any of these people whatsoever. Nada, none, zilch. Israel needs to stand firm against all comers, whether Arab, Moslem or the world community at large.
No, Helen, whatever occupation 'these people' may be subject to is entirely of their own devising and epic failure therein.