Letter: Palestinian Leaders Have Shown No Interest in Building a State

It’s sad, but true, Palestinian leaders have shown no interest in building a state in which their people could become productive citizens and build better lives for their children. Indeed, the leaders’ interest is more focused on delegitimizing and destroying the nation-state of the Jews than on building a Palestinian state.

It’s ironic that Palestinians are still claiming that Israel stole their land and that Israel is responsible for their statelessness. The modern State of Israel sits on land of religious and historic importance to Jews, land which had become a poorly developed and sparsely populated section in the Southern Syrian administrative district of the Ottoman Empire. The Zionists bought land and improved its productivity, built schools and hospitals, and lobbied world leaders for their. cause (building a place where Jews, frequently persecuted in many parts of the world, could not be refused safe haven (i.e., a Jewish homeland).

Nonetheless, the Arab population of Palestine increased significantly as Zionist activity raised the area’s living standards and the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine, calling for dividing the twenty percent of British Mandatory Palestine (not used to establish the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan) into a Jewish state and a second Arab state, offered the Arabs of Palestine their first-ever chance of autonomy.

Unfortunately, Arab leaders said the Arabs of Palestine were not a distinct group and had no right or need for a state of their own. Instead of helping the Arabs in Palestine prepare for self-rule, Arab states went to war against the Zionist community and against the Mizrachi Jews living in the Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa, resulting in the creation of two refugee groups (Israel absorbed and uplifted 800,000 Mizrachim whose descendants comprise the majority of Israel’s current Jewish population and between 400,000 and 700,000 Arabs whose descendants have become 6,000,000 “Palestine refu􀀔ees” on UNRWA’s rolls, 99.5% of them born into refugee status and barred from citizenship in many Arab countries.

Arab-initiated violence in the 1940’s did not prevent the emergence of the modern State of Israel, but it did see Egypt grabbing Gaza and Transjordan grabbing eastern Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria (dubbing these areas “the West Bank” and dropping the “Trans” from the kingdom’s name). Israel liberated these Arab-occupied areas in the Six Day War and, shortly thereafter, offered to withdraw from newly liberated areas in exchange from recognition and peace. The offer was refused by the Arab League (Khartoum, 1967). There is no record of Palestinian leaders urging acceptance of the deal so they could build a state on the land.

Israel’s signing the Oslo Accords gave Palestinians their first opportunity to live under the administration of leaders of their own choosing. But neither the Palestinian Authority nor Ha mas has made any attempt at state building. The president of the Palestinian Authority openly states that its primary financial responsibility is maintaining the liquidity of the Martyr’s Fund which pays lifelong stipends to Palestinians who answer the call for violent resistance to the “Occupation.” The size of the stipend is tied to the number of Israelis killed and the money goes to the murderer’s family if he (or she) is killed or imprisoned.

Although Israel withdrew all Israeli soldiers and citizens from Gaza before Hamas took over, Ha mas claimed that an Israeli blockade prevented it from developing the enclave’s economy. But Hamas managed to spend $1,000,000,000 building its extensive network of terror tunnels, embedded deeply amid the Gazan populace to ensure that Israel’s exemplary efforts to avoid hurting noncombatants would not be 100% effective.

Instead of “recognizing” a nonexistent state, world leaders should be encouraging Arab­ nations to admit the wrongs they have done the Palestinians.

The Abraham Accords should be expanded, with member (Arab) states offering Palestinians (including the “Palestine refugees”) the choice of becoming citizens in Arab countries or working to build a Palestinian entity which might become a state, on condition that it would co-exist with the nation-state of the Jews.

Toby F. Block
Atlanta, GA