THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 1, January 1, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
PALESTINIANS WHO PREFER ISRAEL
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
PALESTINIANS VERSUS THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: THE NUMEROUS PALESTINIAN ARABS CURRENTLY LIVING
INSIDE THE
BORDERS OF ISRAEL WHO PREFER ISRAELI GOVERNANCE TO POLITICAL CONTROL & DOMINATION BY THE PALESTINIAN
AUTHORITY -- PALESTINIANS WHO WANT TO KEEP OR GAIN ISRAELI CITIZENSHIP & WOULD RESIST ANY ATTEMPT TO
TRANFER JURISDICTION OVER THEM FROM THE STATE OF ISRAEL TO THE CORRUPT, VIOLENT, AND UNSTABLE REGIME OF
MAHMOUD ABBAS, AL-FATAH, & HAMAS -- THE ADVANTAGES & BENEFITS OF ISRAELI GOVERNANCE PERCEIVED BY
MANY PALESTINIANS: THE RULE OF LAW, EFFECTIVE MAINTENANCE OF LAW & ORDER, FAIR & REASONABLE
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE UNDER LAW, OPPORTUNITY TO LIVE IN PEACE & RAISE ONE'S CHILDREN UNDER ORDERLY
CONDITIONS, GOOD SCHOOLS, & HEALTH INSURANCE
FULL STORY:
Palestinians have a hidden history of appreciating Israel, a history that contrasts with their better-known narrative of
vilification and irredentism.
The former has been particularly evident of late, especially since Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, floated a trial
balloon in October, 2007, about transferring some Arab-dominated areas of eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinian
Authority. As he rhetorically asked about Israeli actions in 1967:
"Was it necessary to annex the Shuafat refugee camp,
al-Sawahra, Walajeh and other villages, and then to state
that these are part of Jerusalem? One can ask, I admit,
some legitimate questions about this."
In one swoop, this statement transformed pro-Israel statements by Palestinians (for a sampling, see my 2005 article, "The
Hell of Israel Is Better than the Paradise of Arafat") from the mostly theoretical into the active and political.
Indeed, Olmert's musings prompted some belligerent responses. As the title of a Globe & Mail news item puts it,
"Some Palestinians prefer life in Israel: In East Jerusalem, residents say they would fight a handover to Abbas regime."
The article offers the example of Nabil Gheit, who, with two stints in Israeli prisons and posters of "the martyr Saddam
Hussein" over the cash register in his store, would be expected to cheer the prospect of parts of eastern Jerusalem
coming under PA control.
Not so. As Mukhtar of Ras Khamis, near Shuafat, Gheit dreads the PA and says he and others would fight a handover.
"If there was a referendum here, no one would vote to join
the Palestinian Authority. … There would be another
intifada to defend ourselves from the PA."
Two polls released last week, from Keevoon Research, Strategy & Communications and the Arabic-language newspaper
As-Sennara, survey representative samples of adult Israeli Arabs on the issue of joining the PA, and they
corroborate what Gheit says. Asked, "Would you prefer to be a citizen of Israel or of a new Palestinian state?" 62 percent
want to remain Israeli citizens and 14 percent want to join a future Palestinian state. Asked, "Do you support transferring
the Triangle [an Arab-dominated area in northern Israel] to the Palestinian Authority?" 78 percent oppose the idea and 18
percent support it.
Ignoring the don't-knows/refused, the ratios of respondents are nearly identical, preferring to stay within Israel – 82
percent and 81 percent, respectively. Gheit exaggerates that "no one" wants to live in the PA, but not by much. Thousands
of Palestinian residents in Jerusalem who, fearful of the PA, have applied for Israeli citizenship since Olmert's statement
further corroborate his point.
Why such affection for the state that Palestinians famously revile in the media, in scholarship, classrooms, mosques and
international bodies, the state that they terrorize on a daily basis? Best to let them explain their motivations in direct
quotations.
Financial considerations: Ranya Mohammed says:
"I don't want to have any part in the PA. I want the health
insurance, the schools, all the things we get by living here.
I'll go and live in Israel before I'll stay here and live under
the PA, even if it means taking an Israeli passport. I have
seen their suffering in the PA. We have a lot of privileges
I'm not ready to give up."
Law and order: Israeli-Arab journalists Faiz Abbas and Muhammad Awwad note:
"Gazans miss the Israelis, since Israel is more merciful than
[the Palestinian gunmen] who do not even know why they
are fighting and killing one another. It's like organized crime."
Raising children: Jamil Sanduqa says:
"I want to live in peace and to raise my children in an orderly
school. I don't want to raise my child on throwing stones, or
on Hamas."
A more predictable future: Samar Qassam says:
"I want to keep living here with my wife and child without
having to worry about our future. That's why I want Israeli
citizenship. I don't know what the future holds."
Others raise concerns about corruption, human rights, and even self-esteem ("When the Jews talk about swapping me,
it's as though they are denying my right to be a person").
These earnest views do not repudiate the vicious anti-Zionism that reigns in the Middle East, but they reveal that
four-fifths of those Palestinians who know Israel at first-hand understand the attractions of a decent life in a decent
country, a fact with important and positive implications.
© Daniel Pipes 2008
Originally Published in the Jerusalem Post, January 2, 2008
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List,
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is the Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
the Founder of Campus Watch, a signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S.
Institute of Peace, a former adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the
U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and
Technology, and a former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the
University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the New York
Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and developments in the Middle East
have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network television, as well as at universities and
think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on
BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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