18 March 2009
Misunderstanding the Palestinians
Exactly What Opportunity is Being Missed?
Both before and since the creation of Israel, a series of proposals for an Arab/Palestinian state have all been violently rejected by the Arabs/Palestinians. This has produced regular repetitions of the observation that they “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”. Behind this sarcasm is the assumption that an Arab/Palestinian state is in fact the primary Arab/Palestinian aim. The impression given by this view is that the apparent Arab/Palestinian failure to seize any of a succession of opportunities represents an example of serial ineptness.
The repeated rejection of statehood by the Arab/Palestinians stands in sharp contrast to the Jewish example. In 1947, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 proposed a way out of the Arab-Jewish conflict in Palestine. Although the proposal for a small Jewish state alongside an Arab state was far less than previously promised by the Palestinian Mandate, the Jewish leaders in Palestine immediately accepted. In comparison, the repeated refusal of the Arab/Palestinians to grasp similar opportunities seems explicable only by incompetence.
