THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 141, August 2, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE PALESTINIANS, ALONE
By Dr. Efraim Karsh
IS RESOLUTION OF THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT A PREREQUISITE TO PEACE & STABILITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST?
HOW GREAT AN INTEREST DO ARABS & ARAB STATES HAVE IN THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI PEACE TALKS?
WHAT ARAB POLICIES SINCE THE MID-1930S SUGGEST -- ARAB STATES & THE DEGREE OF THEIR CONCERN FOR THE
WELL-BEING OF PALESTINIANS -- ARAB REGIMES & THEIR INTEREST IN FIGHTING FOR PALESTINIAN NATIONAL RIGHTS --
THE HISTORY OF ARAB LEADERS MANIPULATING THE PALESTINIAN CAUSE FOR THEIR OWN ENDS, WHILE IGNORING THE
FATE OF THE PALESTINIANS -- IN WHAT DOES THE ONLY HOPE OF PEACE BETWEEN ARABS & ISRAELIS LIE? WHAT
THE PALESTINIANS NEED TO UNDERSTAND -- WHAT THEY MUST DO?
FULL STORY:
It has long been conventional wisdom that the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a prerequisite to peace and
stability in the Middle East. Since Arabs and Muslims are so passionate about the Palestine problem, this argument runs,
the Israeli-Palestinian stalemate feeds regional anger and despair, gives a larger rationale to terrorist groups like Al-Qa'ida
and to the insurgency in Iraq and obstructs the formation of a regional coalition that will help block Iran's quest for
nuclear weapons.
What, then, are we to make of a recent survey for the Al Arabiya television network finding that a staggering 71
percent of the Arabic respondents have no interest in the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks? "This is an alarming indicator,"
lamented Saleh Qallab, a columnist for the pan-Arab newspaper Al Sharq al Awsat. "The Arabs, people and
regimes alike, have always been as interested in the peace process, its developments and particulars, as they were
committed to the Palestinian cause itself."
But the truth is that Arab policies since the mid-1930s suggest otherwise. While the "Palestine question" has long been
central to inter-Arab politics, Arab states have shown far less concern for the well-being of the Palestinians than for their
own interests.
For example, it was common knowledge that the May, 1948, pan-Arab invasion of the nascent State of Israel was more a
scramble for Palestinian territory than a fight for Palestinian national rights. As the first Secretary-General of the Arab
League, Abdel Rahman Azzam, once admitted to a British reporter, the goal of King Abdullah of Transjordan "was to
swallow up the central hill regions of Palestine, with access to the Mediterranean at Gaza. The Egyptians would get the
Negev. Galilee would go to Syria, except that the coastal part as far as Acre would be added to the Lebanon."
From 1948 to 1967, when Egypt and Jordan ruled the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the Arab states
failed to put these populations on the road to statehood. They also showed little interest in protecting their human rights
or even in improving their quality of life — which is part of the reason why 120,000 West Bank Palestinians moved to the
East Bank of the Jordan River and about 300,000 others emigrated abroad. "We couldn't care less if all the refugees die,"
an Egyptian diplomat once remarked. "There are enough Arabs around."
Not surprisingly, the Arab states have never hesitated to sacrifice Palestinians on a grand scale whenever it suited their
needs. In 1970, when his throne came under threat from the Palestine Liberation Organization, the affable and thoroughly
Westernized King Hussein of Jordan ordered the deaths of thousands of Palestinians, an event known as "Black
September."
Six years later, Lebanese Christian militias, backed by the Syrian Army, massacred some 3,500 Palestinians, mostly
civilians, in the Beirut refugee camp of Tel al-Zaatar. These militias again slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians in 1982 in
the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, this time under Israel's watchful eye. None of the Arab states came to the
Palestinians' rescue.
Worse, in the mid-1980s, when the PLO — officially designated by the Arab League as the "sole representative of the
Palestinian people" — tried to re-establish its military presence in Lebanon, it was unceremoniously expelled by
President Hafez al-Assad of Syria.
This history of Arab leaders manipulating the Palestinian cause for their own ends, while ignoring the fate of the
Palestinians, goes on and on. Saddam Hussein, in an effort to ennoble his predatory designs, claimed that he wouldn't
consider ending his August, 1990, invasion of Kuwait without "the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israel
from the occupied Arab territories in Palestine."
Shortly after the Persian Gulf War, Kuwaitis then set about punishing the PLO for its support of Hussein — cutting off
financial sponsorship, expelling hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers, and slaughtering thousands. Their
retribution was so severe that Arafat was forced to acknowledge that "what Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is
worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in the occupied territories."
Against this backdrop, it is a positive sign that so many Arabs have apparently grown so apathetic about the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict. For, if the Arab regimes' self-serving interventionism has denied Palestinians the right to
determine their own fate, then the best, indeed only, hope of peace between Arabs and Israelis lies in rejecting the
spurious link between this particular issue and other regional and global problems.
The sooner the Palestinians recognize that their cause is theirs alone, the sooner they are likely to make peace with the
existence of the State of Israel and to understand the need for a negotiated settlement.
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, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
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. Efraim Karsh, Editor of the Middle East Quarterly and author most recently of the book, Palestine
Betrayed (Yale University Press, 2000), is Professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College,
University of London, U.K. A graduate in Arabic and Modern Middle East History from Hebrew University in
Jerusalem and holding the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in International Relations from Tel Aviv University, Dr. Karsh has
held academic posts at Harvard University, Columbia University, the Sorbonne, the London School of Economics,
Helsinki University, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the Kennan Institute for Advanced
Russian Studies in Washington, D.C., and the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.
Founder and Editor of the scholarly journal Israel Affairs, Dr. Karsh has written extensively on Middle East
politics, Soviet foreign policy, and European affairs. A regular media commentator, he has appeared on U.K. and U.S.
television and radio and contributed articles to leading newspapers in Britain and the U.S.A., among them the Wall
Street Journal, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Daily Telegraph, and The
Times (of London).
The foregoing article by Dr. Efraim Karsh was originally published in the New York Times, August 2, 2010, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(URL: http://www.meforum.org/2696/palestinians-alone)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
August 2, 2010
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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