| On this Yom Ha?tzmaot, a day of celebration for Jews in Israel and elsewhere, it should/could also have been a day of celebration for Arabs in "Palestine." Most conveniently forget that by virtue of the 1947 UN partition vote of 1947 the land West of the Jordan river was carved into 2 unnamed states one for the Jews the other for the Arabs(not withstanding that the Kingdom of Transjordan and nearly 20 other surrounding states were Arab). For Jews it was clear that it was purposely carved up into a narrow indefensible sliver, under considerable effort to mollify feudal Arab hostility. Nonetheless our leaders accepted this historical opportunity. "All" the Arabs did not. If they had, all of us would have been enjoying simultaneous national independence days. However, because of a lack of leadership by those displaced Arabs, this 60 year old conflict has become a zero-sum "game" in which at every historical turn what is left for compromise is again squandered for either stupid/selfish ideologically bereft leaders that cause their masses to lose all - 1947/1949/1967/1988/2000/etc. And this leadership always wishes to go back to "what was." The problem is history, like time, always moves forward and one needs to deal with the situation as it is. At this junction it would be wise to remind those who call themselves "Palestinians," that they risk losing all in a zero-sum "game" unless they rid themselves of a confrontational leadership bent on leading them down the dark path of another naqba. It would be wise to recall the words of the Arab poet Khalil Gibran: "The moving finger writes and having writ moves on." |
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