RE: Who Are The Palestinians? Part 2
※→ Ventura77,
et al,
I don't disagree with all of this.
The U.N. recommendation to partition Palestine was rejected by the Arabs. Many commentators today point to this rejection as constituting a missed “opportunity” for the Arabs to have had their own state. But characterizing this as an “opportunity” for the Arabs is patently ridiculous. The Partition plan was in no way, shape, or form an “opportunity” for the Arabs.
(COMMENT)
There is no question that since the very outset of the San Remo principles, the Arab Higher Committee had stated their objections to the Allied Powers; and in particular, to the selected Mandatory (UK).
Missed opportunities can best be evaluated in the annuals of history. It is about the opportunity costs versus the cost at the end of a long-term outcome.
First of all, as already noted, Arabs were a large majority in Palestine at the time, with Jews making up about a third of the population by then, due to massive immigration of Jews from Europe (in 1922, by contrast, a British census showed that Jews represented only about 11 percent of the population). Additionally, land ownership statistics from 1945 showed that Arabs owned more land than Jews in every single district of Palestine, including Jaffa, where Arabs owned 47 percent of the land while Jews owned 39 percent – and Jaffa boasted the highest percentage of Jewish-owned land of any district. In other districts, Arabs owned an even larger portion of the land. At the extreme other end, for instance, in Ramallah, Arabs owned 99 percent of the land. In the whole of Palestine, Arabs owned 85 percent of the land, while Jews owned less than 7 percent, which remained the case up until the time of Israel’s creation.
Yet, despite these facts, the U.N. partition recommendation had called for more than half of the land of Palestine to be given to the Zionists for their “Jewish State”. The truth is that no Arab could be reasonably expected to accept such an unjust proposal. For political commentators today to describe the Arabs’ refusal to accept a recommendation that their land be taken away from them, premised upon the explicit rejection of their right to self-determination, as a “missed opportunity” represents either an astounding ignorance of the roots of the conflict or an unwillingness to look honestly at its history.
(COMMENT)
As I have said before, the ownership of property, which is a civil law real estate matter, is completely different from:
• Sovereignty and Independence
• The Protection and Preservation of a Culture
The idea of the "land of Palestine to be given to the Zionists for their “Jewish State," was not the specific intent at the time of the San Remo decision. The San Remo decision mandated a "Jewish National Home," which is not the same thing as the "Jewish State." The evolution from the concept of a "National Home" to that of a "Jewish State" was a consequence of the irreconcilable differences and deadly political clashes between the two cultures.
By 1923, when the Arab Palestinian rejected the participation (several times) in the creation of an autonomous government --- to the development of the Muslim Mufti's active participation in antisemitic activities, --- to the Muslim Cleric that assembled the Palestinian Black Hand, the idea of an assimilated population (Jewish - Arab), peacefully living together, was becoming ever more distant possibility.
Included in the 1930 White Paper on the development of self-governing institutions, the following observations was made:
“that the time has now come when the important question of the establishment of a measure of self-government in Palestine must, in the interests of the community as a whole, be taken in hand without further delay.”
But, there was no question that by the mid-to-late 1930's
(sometimes called the Period of Arab Rebellion 1936-1939) The Supreme Arab Committee,
(becoming more and more popularly know as the Arab Higher Committee) heavily influenced by the Grand-Mufti of Jerusalem decreed that a called a general strike, which had started earlier --- (territorial wide work stoppage) --- should continue until
Jewish immigration was suspended. This was viewed as a form of coercion directed against the Palestine Administration; to attain what they could not achieve through diplomatic of political means. Many outside and independent observers saw this as evidence that the Arab Palestinian was not yet able to stand-alone and an emerging government.
As history has shown, every single regional country immediately surrounding Israel since the end of WWII, as been involved in self-destructive and violent overthrows of the original self-government established at the termination of their associated Mandate.
On the 1939 outbreak of war, the Jewish people were once again in peril. And it appeared that the principle players in the Arab Community in Palestine, had sided with the Axis Powers. This strained the Jewish-Arab relationship even more. Following the conclusion of WWII, the animosity between the two cultures lead many to believe that a single-state solution would be unworkable and would destabilize almost immediately.
In the thumbnail view, this is what drove support for Jewish Nationalism independent of the Arab Community. No one trusted the Arab Community in Palestine, to act as the guardian of the Jewish People. No one trusted them then, no one trusts them now.
Most Respectfully,
R
