Sunday, March 20, 2011

What if Arabs had recognized the State of Israel in 1948?

I have seen and read about the lives of the Palestinians in the US and other places. They are very successful in every field. And at the same time I saw the Arab countries at the bottom of the list in education and development. And I always ask the question: What if the Palestinians and the Arabs accepted the presence of Israel on May 14, 1948 and recognized its right to exist? Would the Arab world have been more stable, more democratic and more advanced?

Comment: The decision to oppose recognizing Israel was not made in 1948. As the aims of the Zionist project become known to them I think it was met by Arabs with revulsion at the idea that a place in the middle east would exist where a Jew could not be abused at the whim of an Arab. That is why in 1899 the Mufti of Jerusalem not only opposed the project, but specifically proposed terror as the preferred weapon,a plan which the Turks opposed [The Arabs and Zionism before World War I, by Neville J. Mandel, page 41. link] but which spread like fire among the Arabs after the Turks agreed to dissolve their empire and divide their captive nations into states, just as was happening in Europe with the dissolving Russian and Austrian empires. That is why the Arabs, displaying what psychologists call displacement, proclaim that Zionism is racism.

It isn't accepting Israel as a State or fact that is the problem. It is accepting - not merely tolerating - Jews as individuals with rights AND collectively as a people who deserve not to be abused any more. This is the attitude that has not changed in a hundred years.
...If Israel was recognized in 1948, then the Palestinians would have been able to free themselves from the hollow promises of some Arab dictators who kept telling them that the refugees would be back in their homes and all Arab lands will be liberated and Israel will be sent to the bottom of the sea. Some Arab leaders used the Palestinians for their own agenda to suppress their own people and to stay in power -
I believe this is the first time I have read such a confession from the pen of a high-ranking Arab officer. The author concludes:
Now, the Palestinians are on their own. Each Arab country is busy with its own crisis. From Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, Somalia, Algeria, Lebanon and the Gulf states. For now, the Arab countries have put the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on hold.

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