|
'Will to Truth' on peace and Paleostine
Our boy Brad at 'Will to Truth' opines on the difference between 'shalom' and 'peace'. While he may understand semantics, he's got a problem with the big picture. I gently try to correct him in the comments, but I don't know if he'll accept my comment. So I provide it here:
-----
There is no Paleostinian 'right of return'.
There is propaganda about that. There is a claim advanced by Paleostinians. But there is no 'right of return'.
Arabs living in 1948 in what is now Israel had a choice to make: stay put and live in a Jewish state, or leave and hope to return to live in an Arab state. In 1948 they weren't hoping to live in 'Palestine', because there was no such thing. There was TransJordan; Gaza was a part of Egypt. The neighboring Arab states that invaded the UN mandate in 1948 weren't planning to establish 'Palestine', they were planning to rip off chunks of real estate for themselves. Had they succeeded, the Paleostinians today would be Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians and Lebanese.
But the Arabs living in the Mandate had a problem: the Arab states failed. Spectacularly (as is usual for Arab states when they go to war). Some Arabs hit the road because they didn't want to live with the evil Jews, some were encouraged by propaganda from the neighboring Arab states that asked them to get out of the way so that the Arab armies could crush the Jews, after which they'd move back. That didn't happen.
Indeed, 'Palestine' as a national concept didn't come into existence until the early 1960s, and as an idea of a specific patch of land didn't come about until after the Six-Day War of 1967 -- you know, when the Arabs lost more land to the Jews.
So now it's almost 60 years later. A boy of 15 in 1948 is today an old man. And boys of 15, and men and women of 30 today, weren't around in 1948. To what, exactly, are they supposed to return? Palestine? There is and was no such thing. The land is now Israel, and as you may have noticed, the Israelis have spent the last 60 years building a country.
And they aren't about to hand it over.
And since they have an army and an air force, the Arabs -- be it the 'Palestinians' or the neighboring Arab states -- aren't likely to force the Israelis to hand it over.
That's reality. Now then, the Paleostinians have three choices (as I humbly see it) -- 1) they can move to other Arab countries and assimilate (ask the Kuwaitis how well that was working in 1990). 2) they can work to turn the West Bank and Gaza into a Palestinian state of some kind, or 3) they can continue to live in squalor in UN refugee camps (in which there are few, if any, refugees from 1948, thanks to Father Time).
But there is no 'right of return', because the Israelis can't and won't recognize it. Ever. Never. To do so is the death of Israel, and the Israelis know it.
So do the Arab states.
And, frankly, so do Westerners, such as yourself, who advocate it.
Which is what you want. The death of Israel. Just come out and say it, 'k?
Steve White
Moderator, Rantburg |
Posted by: Steve White 2005-12-01 |
