Ajami claims that the Palestinian downfall has been a long time coming. It has been in the making in fact for 59 years. It began May 15, 1948 when the British rule ended and they pulled out of the area known as Palestine which the United Nations had divided into two rather uneven and Gerry rigged sectioned parts of which some parcels was to be the State of Israel and the others was to belong to the Arabs. On this day the war between the new State of Israel and its Arab neighbors began and a large number of the Arabs in the Israeli sectors ran for the borders and begged sanctuary from these same Arab neighboring states. I remember well as a child seeing in the news reels shown in the movie theaters the Israelis going thru the streets in jeeps with loud speakers asking the Arab people to remain in their homes, that this was their home just as was the Jewish peoples home. Many Arabs stayed and tho they didn't have the full rights of citizenship as the Jewish people they had the rights of citizens to live free and own their homes and businesses. For those who left it was another story all together. (The history of this area is really fascinating reading. Wikipedia has a fairly good account, and knowing the history will make it easier to understand the problems between the peoples today. If you aren’t that familiar with this history please do take the time to read it sometime.)
I agree with Ajami when he claims that “No other national movement has had the indulgence granted the Palestinians over the last half-century, and the results can be seen in the bravado and the senseless violence, in the inability of a people to come to terms with their condition and their needs.” The Israelis were condemned again and again by the United Nations which demanded more and more from the Israelis in the way of concessions to the Arab refugees and nothing from the refugees themselves. It was only after the 1968 war that these refugees became known as the Palestinians. Neither were the Arab neighbors who were constantly warring against Israel sanctioned by the world body for their agression.
The Arab neighbors for their part rather than offering the refugees sanctuary pushed them into concentration camps and used them as pawns against Israel on the world stage. The refugees leaders were no better. “…..for four decades, the vainglorious Yasir Arafat refused to tell his people the basic truths of their political life. Amid the debacles, he remained eerily joyous; he circled the globe, offering his people the false sense that they could be spared the consequences of terrible decisions.” In other words, he was a petty little man enjoying the attention of the world and had no intentions of telling his people that the Jewish state was there to stay and that they would never be able to oust them and recover the entire piece of land known as the Palestine Mandate. In fact, the Palestinian refugees as they became known would never be able to claim even the land that they had originally been given, but would have to settle for the small pieces that became know as the “Occupied Territory” after the 1968 Six Day War when the Israelis captured this last bit of territory that made up the Mandate.
Ajami sums up Arafat’s betrayal of his people and thus their ultimate fate best when he says, “……in the late 1990s an American president, Bill Clinton, eager to redeem Palestinian claims and an Israeli soldier-statesman, Ehud Barak, who would offer the Palestinians all that Israeli political traffic could bear and then some.”
“But it was too much to ask of Mr. Arafat to return to his people with a decent and generous compromise, to bid farewell to the legend that the Palestinians could have it all “from the river to the sea.” It was safer for him to stay with the political myths of his people than to settle down for the more difficult work of statehood and political rescue.”
“For their part, the Arab states have only compounded the Palestinian misery. The Arab cavalry was always on the way, the Arab treasure was always a day away, and there was thus no need for the Palestinians to pay tribute to necessity. In recent years, the choice was starkly posed: it was either statehood or a starring role on Al Jazeera, and the young “boys of the stones” and their leaders opted for the latter.”
“After Mr. Arafat’s death, the mantle passed to a fairly decent man, Mahmoud Abbas, a leader for a post-heroic era. He is free of Mr. Arafat’s megalomania, and he seemed keen to cap the volcano; he promised, as he put it, “one law, one authority, one gun” in the Palestinian street. But he has never been a master of his world; by the time he had been given his political stewardship the culture of the Palestinian world had succumbed to a terrifying cult of violence.”
“A terrifying cult of violence”! Filled with hate and false promises and more hate over 59 years the Palestinians were doomed to failure when at last given the opportunity to form a viable state of their own. They had no tools with which to form a state and make the compromises necessary for a people of differing views to live together. Palestinians always cherished the belief that Palestinians would not war against other Palestinians. This belief came to an end when the two Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, destroyed the dream of a Palestinian Gaza in 18 months of fighting. No tools for compromise.......
The Palestinian people in their misery see little difference between the two groups. Fatah under Arafat was corrupt and cruel and this legacy which lead the people to choose Hamas in the first free election. Hamas was able to easily win the votes because they gave the people some considerations and elemental needs such as food, water, schools, medical care. However Hamas was not willing to give up it’s sworn hatred for Israel and it’s claim to wipe Israel off the map, so the world had no choice but to continue to back and deal with the corrupt Fatah government and isolate Gaza and the Hamas government. All Hamas had to do at any time was to give up the impossible dream and deal with Israel, and they refused.
So now Hamas has overtaken Palestinian Gaza and Fatah is in place on the still occupied West Bank. Is there any hope? Mr. Ajami doesn’t think so. The cult of violence and gunmen still hold forth as the norm in both places. He says, “There is no way that a normal world could be had in the West Bank while Gaza goes under. There is no magic wand with which this Palestinian world could be healed and taught the virtues of realism and sobriety. No international peacekeeping force can bring order to the deadly streets and alleyways of Gaza. A population armed to the teeth and long in the throes of disorder can’t be pacified by outsiders.”
“For decades, Arab society granted the Palestinians everything and nothing at the same time. The Arab states built worlds of their own, had their own priorities, dreaded and loathed the Palestinians as outsiders and agitators, but left them to the illusion that Palestine was an all-consuming Arab concern.”
“Now the Palestinians should know better. The center of Arab politics has shifted from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, a great political windfall has come to the lands of the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula, vast new wealth due to the recent rises in oil prices, while misery overwhelms the Palestinians. No Arabs wait for Palestine anymore; they have left the Palestinians to the ruin of their own history.” Dear Lord could a people be more used and betrayed than the Palestinians? Betray by their leaders and their neighboring Arabs and Muslims.
“Arab poets used to write reverential verse in praise of the boys of the stones and the suicide bombers. Now the poetry has subsided, replaced by a silent recognition of the malady that afflicts the Palestinians. Except among the most bigoted and willful of Arabs, there is growing acknowledgment of the depth of the Palestinian crisis.” “An Arab debt is owed the Palestinians. The gift of truth and candor as well as material help.” But will the Arab world ruled by corrupt dictators and Islamic fanatics accept their culpability in the destruction of the Palestinians and reach out a hand to help these people understand and grow beyond their divisions and violent legacy? Will the Arab world together subdue the aspirations of a radical Iran and work with the West to bring peace and stability to the entire Middle East? It is totally in the Arab states hands. No Western leader, or leaders, can bring about the changes in attitudes necessary to achieve peace in the area. Israel has long agreed that only a free Palestinian state could assure their peaceful co-existence and has been ready fopr decades now to cooperate with any plan that offers hope of fulfillment. So will the Arab States step up to the plate? Only time will tell, but hope is really slim in the minds of those most familiar with the history and the peoples thinking in the Arab world.