Guardian delusions over the Palestinians can't change the hard facts
The tragedy of the Palestinian people is a tragedy of their own making. Guardian columnists need to learn the basic facts.
It takes a lot these days to raise hackles among decent and reasonable people at anything written in the Guardian about the State of Israel.
This is a paper, after all, that back in January slated the Palestinian leadership for being “weak” and “craven” after it was revealed they had accepted – as any sane and normal person would – that practically all the so called “settlements” in east Jerusalem would become part of Israel under any real-world peace agreement.
So after you’ve effectively described even the most obvious concessions in meaningful negotiations as the actions of surrender monkeys, the sheer fanaticism of your antipathy to the Jewish state is established once and for all.
Thursday’s piece on the paper’s flagship Comment is free website by the Belgian-Egyptian writer Khaled Diab plumbs no such depths of depravity. It’s just an exercise in pathological self-delusion.
The central point is that with all the revolutions taking place across the Middle East it’s surely time for the Palestinians to rise up in a peaceful uprising to bring unity and democracy to Palestinian society in order to end the occupation. Palestinian youth would join hands with Israeli peaceniks and the conflict would finally be resolved.
“Being the dreamer that I am,” says Diab, “I cannot shake the vision in my head of the joint Israeli-Palestinian activism infecting the masses, with large-scale joint action as the most effective way to end the occupation and bring about peace”.
Diab calls himself a “dreamer” so I suppose he at least has a defence for his ideas in that he came up with them when he was asleep. Those of us who try to generate our thinking in the cold light of day can tell him the following:
1. The Palestinians don’t need a revolution to get a state. They just need to accept Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people and put aside dreams – that word again – of annihilating it. It’s really that simple. The rest is detail.
2. A Palestinian state has been on offer from day one of the conflict. The Jewish/Israeli side accepted a Palestinian state under UN Resolution 181 – the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, which was adopted in November 1947. The Arab/Palestinian side rejected it and opted for war and violence. That’s why there’s a conflict.
3. Up until the Six Day War in 1967 the so called “occupied territories” were ruled by Jordan and Egypt. “Occupation” took place after the Arab armies again went to war with the aim of destroying Israel.
4. Since 1967, Israel has tried numerous times to give the Palestinians statehood, only to be rejected, as in 2000 and 2001, by the Palestinian leadership.
5. The Palestinian leadership inculcates hatred of Israel on a daily basis in schools, in the mosques and on television. That is why the large majority of Palestinians oppose a two state solution.
6. A comprehensive poll by the Israel Project in November 2010 showed 60 percent of Palestinians supporting the proposition that: “The real goal should be to start with two states but then move to it all being one Palestinian state”. 66 percent supported the proposition that: “Over time Palestinians must work to get back all the land for a Palestinian state”. And 71 percent said Yasser Arafat was right to reject Bill Clinton’s peace proposals in 2000 and 2001.
Amid all the complexities in this conflict, these are the hard facts that simply won’t go away. And the hardest fact to internalise, and the one that encapsulates all of the above, is that the tragedy of the Palestinians is a tragedy of their own making.
Khaled Diab and his friends at the Guardian can “dream” and “hope” all they like. But until the Palestinians put aside their delusions and see the world for what it is, their national tragedy is destined to continue.
Robin Shepherd is owner/publisher of the Commentator. His book, A State Beyond the Pale: Europe's Problem with Israel, is out in paperback.
Print
Brilliant summing up of the situation. One to cut and paste.
"The Palestinians don’t need a revolution to get a state. They just need to accept Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people and put aside dreams – that word again – of annihilating it. It’s really that simple. The rest is detail."
That is it...
The above is The Plain Honest Truth. The Truth is always self evident and no amount of squirming lying deception can ever alter the real facts on the ground concerning Israel.
The "Palestinians" - so called - don't want a state. That's not the object of the exercise and never has been. The "Palestinian" scam solely exists to bring about the destruction of Israel. Any deals signed are meaningless. Any "Palestinian" state that results will purely be used as a platfrom for getting even closer to and destroying Israel. And, once that's happenned, whatever "Palestine" is will be absorbed by the surrounding arab countries, and it will magically no longer exist despite all the fighting to "re-establish" it - it will have served its purpose. And that's that.
What a pleasent change to read an article that actually tells the truth about the Isreali/Palistinian problem. There has never been an independent state called Palistine, the concept was created as a sop to the arabs. In the original scheme of things, Jordan and Lebanon were to be viewed as "Palistinian Homelands". Isreal was formed from part of the Jewish homelands taken over by the Roman Empire.
Excellent article and good responses. The Arab League has a policy, in place since '48/'49 that Palestinian Arabs may not be allowed citizenship, passports or meaningful employment in any Arab state, the intention being that they should always be a thorn in Israel's side, and that policy has paid off wonderfully.
The mindset of most Palestinian Arabs therefore is that everything is Israel's fault, never the fault of the real villains, the Arab League. Until they wake up and realise or accept just who has kept them in their current predicament for 63 years, nothing will change. If there was any justice in this world the Arab Spring would include a revolt by the Palestinian Arabs against their true tormentors.
As the late Israeli PM Golda Meir so famously said: "Peace will come to the Middle East when the Palestinians love their own children more than they hate Israeli (Jewish) children".
Robin,
'Revolutions" might be popping up all over the Middle East, but have you got any idea what sort of govts will finally emerge?
Will have democratic elections every 5 yrs using AV or first past the post?
Should the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt should follow Nick Clegg's lead and go for AV?
It upsets me that these questions aren't regularly asked in The Guardian.
From a Darwinian perspective, it seems the Palestinians are set, subconsciously, of course, on defeating Israel the only way they know how, by pumping out children to sacrifice for their cause.
It might help if we were to acknowledge, rather than deny and demonise, our Darwinian nature, so that we can develop an understanding of it, how it has shaped and continues to dominate society, and learn how to direct it consciously along more rational, just, humane and sustainable lines.
-
Leaving the politics aside, Scotland deserves freedom
-
Bad week for The Guardian
-
Cameron loses to Miliband, but beats the Speaker
-
Noam Chomsky’s half-truths and distortions are still loved by the British Left
-
PMQs: Luckless Miliband won for the third time in a row, but there was one rather large problem
Sign up to receive updates from
The Commentator website!
Beautifully summed up. Whilst I've always seen Israel's building of settlements in the West Bank as a foolish enterprise, it is a more recent and far less significant issue than Arab Islamic racism. Arabs see Palestine as 'Muslim land', as if given the choice, the land would go to the mosque on a Friday. Jews / Israelis are seen as total foreigners, despite their ancient and unique ties to the area. Given this mindset, it's hard to see a peaceful solution in the offing.