For a Palestinian State - in Saudi Arabia

The Saudis are rich. The Palestinians are poor. The Saudis have a country. The Palestinians don´t. So why shouldn´t there be a Palestinian state – in Saudi Arabia?

Let´s rewind for a minute and ask: Why are the Saudis rich? They have oil. This is obvious. Not so obvious is this question: Why are the Palestinians poor? Month after month, the Palestinian Authority keeps being fed millions of dollars through the generosity of the European Union, the United States and fellow Arabs, namely, in fact, Saudi Arabia. This money could have been used to enrich the lives of Palestinians living in lands that had been awarded to them through the Oslo accords. Oslo gave them half of the West Bank and most of Gaza and would have given more, had they not resorted to terrorism.

That´s it in a nutshell. They did resort to terrorism. Rather than use those millions to build an economic infrastructure, Arafat and company opted for a terrorist infrastructure. Instead of building homes, they built bombs.

The Saudis? Why shouldn’t they be replaced, as the Taliban were replaced from Afghanistan? No amount of double-talk can obscure the fact that the Saudis are the enemy – the enemy to all that is Christian, Jewish and civilized. The Saudis – the Saudi 15 – gave us 9/11. The Saudis gave us Osama bin Laden. Saudi schools and mosques promote hatred of all that is Christian, Jewish and Western. Saudi princes raise millions to support Palestinian terror by means of American-style telethons. Over the past few months, Congress has listenined to testimony from bereaved American mothers whose daughters have been kidnapped, brutalized, raped and enslaved in Saudi Arabia. They ask, "The Saudis are supposed to be our friends." They say, "But they´re our biggest enemies." Is oil that thick? Is Saudi oil thicker than American blood?

Talk about a homeland for the Palestinians always centers around Israel. Why Israel? There never was a Palestinian state within Israel, not when it belonged to the Turks, not when it belonged to the Europeans, and not even when it belonged to the Arabs. Why all of a sudden now? Because it´s in the hands of Israel, and the Jews turned it from a swamp into an oasis? Talk about a capital for this Palestinian state always centers around Jerusalem. Why Jerusalem? Jerusalem was never the capital of any nation except Israel, from the days of King David. But – it keeps being said – the Palestinians want Jerusalem for their capital. On what basis? They want even more, according to a recent survey. Seventy percent of the Arabs polled want all of Israel. They want it all to themselves, cleansed of Jews. Seventy percent.

Given that they refuse to live with Jews as neighbors, they ought to be much more at home with fellow Arabs. Hence, Saudi Arabia. The Saudis won´t even have to leave – though, given their criminality and war crimes they really should be cowering in caves along with their Taliban brothers. But that may be too much to ask. They do have all that oil, and therefore all that influence. Besides oil, however, they also have room, plenty of room to accommodate a Palestinian homeland.

This kind of a deal makes sense. First, Yasser Arafat would no longer merely be Chairman Arafat. He’d become Prince Arafat, or maybe even King Arafat. Second, if Jerusalem is holy to Islam, Mecca is even holier. That´s in Saudi Arabia.

Jack Engelhard is the author of the international bestseller Indecent Proposal, a former radio and newspaper editor covering the Mideast and a former American volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces.

Saudi would be OK, but it would easier to just send them home to their own country, Jordan. It wasn't that long ago that it was forbidden in Jordan to refer to 'palestinians' and Jordanians as seperate people. Official dictates were issued concerning government paperwork to ensure this was not done. As the Jordanian Prime Minister said in 1959: "We here in Jordan, led by our great king are the government of Palestine, the army of Palestine, and we are the refugees." And as his 'great King' said in 1965: "those organizations which seek to differentiate between Palestinians and Jordanians are traitors who help Zionism in its aim of splitting the Arab camp." If the Jordanians that we now call 'palestinians' would just apologize to the hashemites for their previous treachery, maybe they could GO HOME. (I recycled a post, but it seemed to fit.)

When did the Palies try to overthrow the king?

In 1970, generally speaking. The palies started off demanding sharing of power and then more and more autonomy from the king's government. At first he foolishly tried to negotiate with them and actually granted most of what they asked for (there's a lesson here). But that wasn't enough. The king had signed a deal with Arafat in July. On September 1, an attempt was made on Hussein's life, and and on September 6, the palies began their wonderfully famous series of airliner hijackings, bringing planes and hostages to Jordan. During the height of the airliner hijacking dramas the palies declared the northern part of Jordan a "liberated region" and said they were prepared for the showdown with Hussein. All during this time and before, even after the deal, there had been clashes between the hashemite forces and palie groups. On September 16, Hussein declared martial law, and the next day began a military operation against the palie forces in the camps (they were home to a terrorist army back then too) and the PLO headquarters in Amman. On September 18, Syria intervened in support of the palies, driving tanks into northern Jordan to open another front. By the next day they had an entire armored division inside Jordan. Hussein defeated the Syrians, and went back to concentrating on the palie insurgents. The other arab states intervened diplomatically, and a ceasefire was reached. Another "deal" was made with the palies and Jordan, under pressure from its arab brothers, stopped the operation. In October, Arafat signed an agreement to give Hussein complete control of the country again, and agree that the palies would dismantle their bases and obey Jordanian laws. About this same time the Palestinian National Council met and adopted the proposal that parts of "trans-Jordan" would be part of an independent palie state someday, another open act of defiance to Jordan. The two groups leading the fight for the adoption of the proposal were not under Arafat's control, but the Palestinian Council, which represents the palies as a whole, did adopt the proposal. This of course set off more clashes between the palies and the King's forces. The palies were supposed to disarm according to the "deal" made with Arafat, and over the next few months the King's forces attempted to enforce that provision. Much fighting resulted. On June 5, the palestinian organizations, including Arafat's, issued a decree on Radio Baghdad calling for King Hussein to be deposed. The reason, they said, was to prevent a peace deal between Israel and Jordan. Soon after, the Jordanian security forces finished mopping up the palie opposition forces and Hussein declared the insurrection over. Arafat's Fatah, thoroughly humiliated by Hussein's forces, formed its "Black September" group to get revenge for it's defeat that began in 'black september'. On November 27, 1971 four of them assassinated Wasfi al-Tal, Jordans Prime Minister, in Cairo. His dying words were "They've killed me. Murderers, they believe only in fire and destruction."

Do a google search under "black september" and you should find some good pages with lots of details. What I gave above is a brief synopsis. Here's a link to one page LINK that has the basic story.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.