For The Palestinians It Will Always Be 1948

I'm as happy as any peace-lover that a truce has been struck between Hamas and Israel.  But, will this lead to a lasting peace?  Hardly, and here's why.

I just heard on the radio that Abbas congratulated Hamas on their victory.  Victory?  I don't believe Hamas did gain a victory, but even if they did, and let's suppose they did?  Is that what you say to further peace?  When the Union troops defeated the Confederate troops in the course of our Civil War, was Lincoln in a celebratory mood such as that express by Abbas?  Did Lincoln cry out , "We won.  Hurray.  Hurray?"

The Civil War ended the idea that the slavery of blacks was acceptable.  But, it didn't end the mindset that  blacks were inferior to whites.  The Civil War was followed by decades of Jim Crow.  Only through the peaceful efforts of black leaders like Martin Luther King and their white supporters were federal laws passed that put the spike into heart of segregation.

No such efforts have been begun in the middle east.  Hamas doesn't even agree that Israel has a right to exist.  They call Israel the aggressor ... and this after launching hundreds of rockets prior to Israel's response.    The children in Palestinian classrooms continue to be taught to hate Jews and Israelis.  Egyptian reporters, who want to see for themselves what Israel and Israelis are like, and who manage to visit Israel, are treated like pariahs and traitors to the Muslim cause when they return to Egypt.

I was listening to a person who had put his defense of Israel on YouTube.  Listed besides his clip was the response of a Palestinian.  To me the defense of Israel was straightforward.  I had heard it often before.  I was in total agreement.  The Palestinian response struck me as bizarre.  Israel was the aggressor.  The Palestinians were the "resisters." They were responding to Israeli aggression and repression.  It all sounded like Alice in Wonderland conversing with the Queen.

But, if we assume that the Palestinians believe in what they are saying and if indeed they are not demented, how do we make sense of their response.  The key is to realize that the Palestinians continue to live in 1948.  As they see it, a bunch of Europeans sat around a table and decided to give Arab territory away to the Jews.  And, indeed, there is a rational for this view.  But, it's a view that is so nearsighted and so out of step with all that went on before in Palestine and all that followed that, while dividing the territory of Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs seems out of step with how we today think things should be done, it is not out of step with history.

First, Palestine was a territory, not a nation.  As a nation, it had been part of the Ottoman Empire.  As a territory, it had been lived in by Druze, Christians, Jews, Circassians and a number of other ethnic groups.  Under Ottoman rule, Palestine became a Muslim country.  (It might be noted that Saladin, the Muslim conquerer of Palestine as well as other territories that fell under his sword, was a Kurd -- a relatively minor player in today's Islamic world.)  And, while even as a Muslim state, Palestine contained Jews and Christians, these other ethnic groups were viewed as second-class citizens with lesser civil rights than the Muslims.  While that might have been acceptable in those days, it's not acceptable today.  Nevertheless, most Muslim countries e.g. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc., don't get that, even today.

What really galls the Muslims is that Palestine was Judah before it was Palestine.  Indeed, many  Muslims today deny that Jerusalem was ever a Jewish city or that the Western Wall was ever a part of a Jewish temple.  These denials are especially strange, not simply because they fly in the face of history, but because they serve to alienate the world's Christians for whom these are historical cornerstones and are critical elements of their faith.  In the Judah of the Torah, or in that land in the time of the Christian's New Testament, there were Philistines and Samaritans and perhaps some others, but there were no Muslims.  Mohammed had not yet been born.

There have been territorial changes almost without number.  Parts of Poland were given to Russia.  Parts of Germany were given to Poland.  China still maintains that Taiwan is part of China.  Korea was arbitrarily divided between a North and a South.  Turkey grabbed a corner of Cypress. Puerto Rico and the Philippines were removed from Spain, who had earlier taken them from their native populations.
And, so the list goes on and on.  The Arabs in the Middle East had allied themselves with the Nazis and, for this reason those whose territories were part of the Ottoman Empire found their lands arbitrarily subdivided and rearranged.  That was not only true of Palestine but also of Syria, Iraq and other lands.

The fact that the State of Israel has been established and has survived and grown culturally, militarily, and economically over the last 60 plus years is a reality that can probably be changed only through a successful atomic strike by the Iranians.  The fact that Palestinians,  indeed all Muslim nations, would serve their people far better by working in harmony with Israel and emulating in their own lands what the Israelis have done in theirs, can hardly be contested.  Let the Palestinians celebrate, or mourn, their Nakba.  But, if they become obsessed with it to the exclusion of all else, it will poison the well of prosperity for them and for all the people in the region.

Today, the middle east is more or less five parties dancing on the edge of a knife.  At one end you have Israel.  At the other, you have Hamas, Fatah, Morsi of Egypt, Iran.  You also have the U.S., in there somewhere.  But, where?  The U.S. understands the danger Iran represents, but seem to have no clear idea as to how to deal with Iran as that countries pursues its nuclear ambitions.  America does have some leverage over Egypt through their foreign aid.  And, it is true that they have judged Hamas to be a terrorist organization.  But then they seem to be on the side of the Palestinians, and Abbas,  in their negotiations -- or what passes for negotiations -- with the Israelis.

Good luck in working out this Rubic's cube.