The Question of a Palestinian Homeland
     
In my opinion, there already is a "Palestinian" homeland.

It's called Jordan.

"Palestine" in fact never existed. Prior to the modern state of Israel, that area was part of the Ottoman Empire and any Arab residents there were refereed to simply as Arabs. The majority of the population even then was Jewish and when the term "Palestinians" was used, it referred to the Jewish residents of that region, not the Arabs.

The designation "Palestine" was first given to the area by the Romans following the destruction of the Temple in AD 66 and the formal dissolution of old Israel (thus differentiating it from Modern Israel, by the way) The Romans took the name of Israel's old enemies - the Philistines (and their land, Philistia, now known as the Gaza Strip) and named the country after them as a way of supremely insulting their vanquished enemy.

The actual Philistines of the time were of Greek sea-fairing origin who maintained scattered settlements throughout the Mediterranean region from Carthage to Crete to Phoenicia - different locations, different names, same people. The actual, historical Philistines  were completely defeated during the reign of King David and were subsequently either assimilated into Israeli society or drifted out towards those nations with whom they shared a common ancestry.

The folks who - in the modern day - are referred to as "Palestinian Refugees" in Israel are actually those Arabs who fled the area to Jordan and Egypt voluntarily under direction of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during the 1948 war.

 

A Short History

Setting aside all that may have happened before, the pertinent history to today's dilemma is as follows:

Immediately after World War II, the British announced their intention to withdraw from the Middle East at which time, the United Nations General Assembly proposed partitioning the area into two states: an Arab state and a Jewish state with the city of Jerusalem to be administered by the United Nations itself due to its importance to the opposing groups. While most Jews accepted the proposal, most Arabs rejected it hotly.

Violence ensued almost immediately. Most Arabs of the region were determined to prevent the formation of an independent Israel. However, the Jews announced Israeli independence on May 14, 1948 in accordance with the 1947 UN Partition Plan. Refusing to recognize the State of Israel, more than 36,000 troops of Syrian, Iraqi, Transjordanian, Lebanese and Egyptian origin lay siege to Israel accompanied by tens of thousands of former "Israeli-Arab" irregulars who fought under the command of Haj Amin al-Husayni.

Sidebar ...

Ah, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni (أمين الحسيني) ... what a guy. What can you really say about the man? Well, to start, he is, I believe, the crux of modern Arabic-centered anti-Semitic sentiment (say that three times fast). At the very least, he is responsible for the vehemence with which that sentiment lives on today. Regardless, this guy bears studying in any examination of the "Palestinian" question.

al-Husayni was born in 1893 and had from an early age established himself in the annals of history as a life-long and extreme anti-Semite.

As early as 1920, al-Husayni (while a teacher at the Rashidiya school) fomented unrest in Arabic crowds, urging them towards violent opposition to a Jewish presence in Jerusalem. For this, he was sentenced to a ten year prison sentence which he evaded by fleeing to Transjordan.

While there, al-Husayni turned from a Damascus-oriented Pan-Arabia view to a Palestinian ideology where Jerusalem would be the center of Islamic governance and the Jews (and all other foreigners) would be expelled by force. Extreme force. Thus, in his mind, Jerusalem and the whole of Arabia would be restored to Dar al-Islam.

In 1922, al-Husayni was appointed the position of Mufti of Jerusalem. Despite having the fewest votes of the four candidates, he was chosen due to a need for balance amongst the two rival ruling families in the region. In any case, he spent his time in the position fostering greater Arab accord and fomenting deeper anti-Semitic sentiment.

In 1933 - only a few weeks after Hitler's ascension in Germany - al-Husayni approached the German Consul-General praising their ideology, stating that he  wanted very much to spread that sentiment throughout the Middle East and offering his personal services in doing so. A month later, Al-Husayni met German Consul-General Karl Wolff and expressed his sincere admiration for the anti-Jewish sentiment in Germany and to request that Germany not send its expelled Jews to Jerusalem-controlled territories. He reportedly carried a well-worn copy of Mien Kampf with him and praised Hitler's unapologetic and open telling of deep, personal truths.

Later that year, al-Husayni again approached Wolff to seek assistance in establishing an Arab National Socialist (Nazi) party. Germany officially disapproved on three grounds. First, they didn't want to become involved in a British sphere of influence, second, the Nazis desired further Jewish emigration out of Germany and into Jerusalem and third, the Nazi party was restricted to German speaking Aryans at the time. Unofficially, Wolff told his superiors in numerous correspondences that Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husayni's vehement hatred of the Jews made Germany's Final Solution look tame.

In July of 1937, al-Husayni repeated his desires to Wolff's replacement - German Consul-General, Hans Döhle - who accepted in 1938. Thereafter, al-Husayni received military and financial aide from Germany and Italy in his quest to "scrub the taint of Jewish blood from Arab lands"

Subsequently, during WWII, he was an eager ally of Nazi Germany (attaining the rank of Colonel in the Waffen SS) recruiting Muslims across Europe and the Middle East to join the Waffen SS. In fact, His only discontent was that Hitler wouldn't allow him the right to exterminate his own Jews.

No, really ... I'm not kidding ...

On November 30, 1941,  al-Husayni met with Hitler and asked for a public declaration that recognized and sympathized with the Arab struggles for independence and liberation and that it would support the elimination of a national Jewish homeland and peoples. Earlier, al-Husayni submitted to the German government a draft of such a declaration, containing a clause:

Germany and Italy recognize the right of the Arab countries to solve the question of the Jewish elements, which exist in Palestine and in the other Arab countries, as required by the national and ethnic interests of the Arabs, and as the Jewish question has been solved in Germany and Italy.

Hitler refused. Instead, he ordered his staff to make the following official declaration and - as a thinly veiled threat - urged al-Husayni to lock it deep in your heart:

He [the Führer] will carry on the fight until the last traces of the Jewish-Communist European hegemony are obliterated. In the course of this fight, the German army will - at a time that can not yet be specified, but in any case in the clearly foreseeable future - gain the southern exit of Caucasus. As soon as this breakthrough is made, the Führer will offer the Arab world his personal assurance that the hour of liberation has struck. Thereafter, Germany's only remaining objective in the region will be limited to the Vernichtung des Judentums [litt. "destruction of the Jewish element"; coll. "annihilation of the Jews"] living under British protection in Arab lands.

al-Husayni  was a vehicle for German-styled anti-Jewish sentiment throughout Europe, and often made radio and newspaper announcements decrying the need for the fight to continue. For instance, al-Husayni spoke on March 1, 1944 for Radio Berlin, saying:

Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you.

Well, eventually the war ended and left al-Husayni with a dearth of refugee Jews traveling into and through Jerusalem to deal with but he quickly had a solution.

In May of 1948, spurred on by the audacious Jewish proclamation of an Independent Israeli State, al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, urged all Arabs living in soon-to-be Israel to flee their homes so that the combined Arab forces could completely exterminate the Jews without consideration for collateral Arab deaths. Specifically, he urged all Israeli Arabs to ... withdraw from Israel and let the Arab armies drive the Jews into the sea ... and to ... join all true Arabs in the extermination of the Jews.

In his memoirs after the war, al-Husayni wrote:

Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews. The answer I got was "The Jews are yours."

al-Husayni died in Beirut, Lebanon in 1974. Though he wished to be buried in Jerusalem, the Israeli government refused this request. Imagine that.

Heeding the call of al-Husayni (that whole withdraw from Israel and let the Arab armies drive the Jews into the sea ... and ... join all true Arabs in the extermination of the Jews) some 600,000 Arabs left Israel and entered Jordan and Egypt where they were met with open arms while tens of thousands stayed behind to fight. Some Arabs stayed loyal to Israel, however, and today such "Israeli-Arabs" (roughly 18% of the Israel's total population) enjoy complete citizenship, land ownership, voting rights, business ownership, and 14 seats in the Knesset - Israel's Parliament.

The goal of this "Arab Exodus" as it has been called, was to allow the Arab armies to kill every living thing in Israel, wipe Israel clean off the map, exterminate all fleeing Jews, and to re-settle the land thereafter. All they had to do was to wait for the inevitable Arab victory, then return home and all would be as Allah had intended.

Except, of course, for the minor complication of Israel having won the war. Unfortunately for the Arabs, Israel prevailed and established borders which remained in place until the 1967 Six Day War. Henceforth, Arabs would refer to their bad bet as "al Nakba" (النكبة - litt. "the Catastrophe"). Interestingly, they also blamed Israeli Jews for pushing them out of their ancestral homelands, which brings us back to the point: the ubiquitous  "Palestinian" homeland problem.

With that untidy faux-pas staring them in the face, the defeated Jordanian and Egyptian governments insisted that the "refugees" return to Israel or otherwise find a new home. Either way, they were not welcome and both countries refused to offer lands or asylum to their erstwhile guests.

The Israelis - having just won their independence - were not about to allow half a million militant Arabs back into the country who left of their own accord in order to wait out Jewish extermination. In my opinion, probably a smart move. However, Israel did accede that these refugees are what were once originally a number of the residents of the region that used to be what recently has become the now-independent State of Israel (what?) and so allowed them refugee status and some nominal lands bordering the Gaza Strip (at the time, a district of Egypt) so they could gather themselves and decide what to do. In my opinion, probably not a smart move.

But we're not done yet, boys and girls ...

In 1967, the "Palestinians" were occupying a variety of territories including  the region of Israel bordering Egypt's Gaza Strip. Well, Israel found itself at war again (the Six-Day War) with the usual suspects: Egypt, Jordan and Syria declared war while Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Algeria contributed troops and arms. Israel prevailed. Arabs should learn.

Well, during the war, the "Palestinians" - much to the confusion of both Israel and Egypt - surged west across the Gaza Strip and deeper into Egypt's dessert with the same plan they had in 1948 ... await Israel's imminent destruction. Evidently, the tragic failure of the first attempt at this plan hadn't sunk in yet.

Well, having beaten Egypt soundly and assuming the "Palestinians" had fled (you know ... because they had) Israel took over what was assumed by everyone an unoccupied Gaza Strip ... only to have the "Palestinians" re-enter it crying that now Israel was taking their refugee camp as well as their ancestral homeland!

Now, that takes an iron-clad set of ... never mind.

  

Conclusion

The so-called "Palestinians" are Israeli Arabs who fled Israel in 1948 because the Grand Mufti told them to clear the way for an extermination of the Jews. They left under their own power, they waited, and they  lost their gamble when Israel did not fall. Later, they tried the same ploy, fleeing their refugee camps in Egypt's Gaza Strip and leaving the region wide open and unoccupied. They gambled twice, lost twice, and twice demanded that Israel pretend to loose instead.

Well, I'm sorry folks. These Arabs do not get to first flee in hopes that Israel will die, come back and demand that - not having all died - Israel must now simply move out of Israel so that the Arabs can have it. They certainly don't get to do it twice.

Imagine the following:

I run up to my wife and say Hey, babe! ... I've always hated your guts. By the way, there's some guys gonna come over and rape and kill everyone in the house so I'm leaving for a while. When they're done, I'm gonna come back and then I'll have the house all to my self! Yeah! Eat that!

Then I wait ... and she guns down the intruders and the police come and clean up the mess and she's OK.

Well, you know what? I don't get to go back and demand she let me live their like nothing happened. She'd kick my ass out, divorce me, and probably have me up on criminal charges for collusion, conspiracy, criminal neglect or what have you. That's assuming she didn't shoot me on sight.

But no matter what happens, I certainly don't get to go back. I'm also pretty sure that my sleeping on the porch or in the yard wouldn't fly, either.

I'm sorry, but the "Palestinian" Israeli-Arabs don't get to call a "do-over". Not once ... certainly not twice.

The problem here is that the "Palestinians" are not displaced. They left of their own free will hoping for the destruction of their neighbors who subsequently won the war. They backed the wrong pony and now they not only don't want to make good on their wager, they want to kill the pony that won! So the real problem in my mind is this: How can anyone be surprised that the pony isn't volunteering to eat the bullet?

 

So, what to do?

This morass has continued to the present day chiefly because no Arab country will take in these refugees: the very people they claimed to be fighting for - their collaborators and allies. Apparently, loyalty to one's own is not an Arab virtue. The situation is further exacerbated by Israel's past appeasement policy. The whole mess should have been far more simple, but is now complicated beyond a reasonable extent. However, I have some ideas.

Sidebar ...

While this situation is deplorable from a moralistic and humanitarian view, it is a militaristically brilliant plan on the part of neighboring Arab nations (specifically, Egypt, Jordan and Syria). It ensures that there is always an enormous pool of disenfranchised, angry, and violent people who are more than happy to commit deplorable acts of violence. Furthermore, it ensures that these and other nations (specifically, collectively, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Algeria, Yemen, UAE, and Oman) have a large population within which you can occasionally "loose" politically inconvenient people or groups such as terrorists, spies and the like.

In my mind, the "Palestinian" question and terrorism are inextricably intertwined: "Palestinians" and many Middle-Eastern terrorist organizations collaborate on a great deal of issues and one can not be solved without coming head-up to the other. In that light light:

  1. The United States and Russia should collaborate in helping to develop each others oil resources, thus gaining energy independence. This should be done on general principle, but so long as the two larges oil-consuming nations need Arab oil, Arabs will be able to hold them in the middle of any debate over "Palestine". Both nations have tremendous reserves (Alaska, GOM, Lower Siberia, Arctic Circle, etc) that should be exploited responsibly ... but exploited none-the-less.
     
  2. Once Russia is not longer dependent on Arab resources (and it is closer than most people think) it should slap aggressive embargoes on Arab nations that promote terrorism in any fashion. First, Russia needs to reach out to those nations formerly under Soviet domination (most of which are heavily Muslim and heavily fragmented due to internal sectarian terrorism) and offer their whole-hearted assistance in combating terrorism. Not in suppressing Islam, but in destroying terror groups. Offer oil, arms, money, troops ... whatever it takes. Russian security would only improve.

    Likewise, once the US is no longer dependent on Arab oil, it should use every opportunity it has to launch a public relations attack on Arab dictatorships. The US needs to promote to a world-wide audience, the concepts of free market capitalism, free trade and free and public elections as well as extolling the virtues of a constitutional republic. The US further needs to publicly condemn despotic dictatorships (such as that in the former Iraqi) and nepotistic dictatorships (such as the totalitarian rule in Saudi Arabia by the Sa'ud family).

    Sidebar ...

    By the way ... The United States is not a democracy and should stop "spreading democracy" and extolling the virtues thereof. The United States of America is a Constitutional Republic with elected officials (ideally) representing the will of the people and making decisions of governance. The people do not vote on every issue equally: representatives make decisions based on the desires of their constituents.

    The push for "global democracy" is a misnomer at best and a tragic scam at worst. Every government in the history of the world that has purported to be a democracy has eventually (usually sooner than later) committed suicide as the majority votes to confiscate (in one fashion or another) the wealth of the minority and thus drive the creative and industrious peoples into impotence and obscurity.

    As the United States continues convince itself of the delusion that it is a free democracy, it has made it easier to slip blindly and leisurely into the corruption of classical fascism wherein big business is in bed with government to the fleecing of the average citizen.

    But, again, I digress ...


     
  3. Israel should force the Arab nations (chiefly Jordan and Egypt) to deal with their own. Israel can start by declaring the Gaza strip a district of Egypt (just like it was before the war in 1967) and cut it off financially, militaristically and legally. Then Israel should move to reinforce its borders thereto and treat any trespass from the new Egyptian Gaza appropriately. Let Egypt deal with the "Gazans" like they should have been doing all along. Historically, Gaza was originally Philistia, so the "Palestinians" - who, as I mentioned, are really Arabs - can have their "ancestral homeland" back.
     
  4. When Egypt fails to do for the "Gazans" what Egypt insisted (for the past 35 years) Israel do for the "Palestinians", Israel should waste no time in decrying Egyptian hypocrisy.
     
  5. The harder part will be in Samaria and Galilee where Israel should go in and completely clean out all of the terrorist cells with military efficiency. Stop treating it like a law enforcement issue and use that brutally efficient Israeli army. Of especial importance are Arafat, Hamas and Hezbollah as they have the strongest ties to Jordan, Iran and Egypt - Israel's three biggest threats. Israel will also have to institute a program targeting terrorist propaganda and media outlets such as the outfits that disseminate anti-Israel and anti-Semitic textbooks, radio broadcasts, television broadcasts, etc.
     
  6. Israel must formally annex the "occupied territories" bordering Jordan and declare them an inviolate part of the State of Israel. Israel will probably have to either go to war with Jordan or threaten to do so, but Israel must make undeniably clear the reality that Jordan (along with Egypt) must take responsibility for any and all Arabs then living in Israel who do not accept Israel sovereignty as politically unquestioned.
     
  7. Arabs who live in Israel should be expected to accept all aspects of Israeli law and accept Hebrew as the official language and the primary language of civic life: you live in France, you accept that the signs are in French, you live in Israel, you accept that the signs are in Hebrew - that simple. This means that all local and national government business is conducted in Hebrew. if you want a driver's license, you take the test in Hebrew, If you want a business license, that application is in Hebrew as well. This also means that all Arabic language broadcasts be subtitled in Hebrew and all Arabic publications be bi-lingual: Arabic and Hebrew. Enough of this Arafat-inspired double-talk where Arab leaders preach peace to the world while calling for Israel's extermination in Arabic when the world's back is turned. The Arab world needs to learn that Israel is not as stupid as they want to believe, and this would be a good way of teaching that lesson.

    Now I can hear the backlash already ... "Well, that's just not right! What happened to freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom to express yourself ..." Well, those would be American freedoms guaranteed by the American Bill of Rights and we are not talking about America here - we are talking about Israel, which is under no obligation to give so much as a wink nor a nod towards such freedoms.
     
  8. Lastly, any Arab-majority districts remaining in Israel need to be able to hold their own free elections and be able to send elected representatives to the Knesset (initially without voting privileges, but eventually, with them) and those elections must be protected by Israeli authorities. Let Israeli-Arabs elect their own leadership so they are not further subjected to the absurdly corrupt Arafat-styled "Palestinian Authorities". Let the Arabic people in Israel experience the benefits of representation and free market opportunities and I predict (with admittedly overt optimism) that the hope of the Arabic future will blossom in the districts of Samaria and Galilee and that this hope will spread through the rest of the Arab world.

    Culturally, Arabs are astute, hard working, shrewd and agile entrepreneurs who have shown their abilities in the form of immigrants to the United States, Canada, England, etc who have risen from (in many cases) abject poverty and refugee status to middle class and higher status in less than a single generation, given a free market and the opportunity. So, let Israel create a free and open market opportunity for the remaining Israeli-Arabs that will stand as a city on a hill to the rest of the Arab world while the present dictatorships and petty despots are finally exposed for the moral hell-holes they are.

    On the optimistic side, perhaps the more corrupt Arab nations may even be forced to clean up their acts but more likely, this would simply rob them of the ability to point at supposed Israeli evils of inequality and oppression. Propaganda is powerful, but reality and truth are more-so.

 

On a final note ...

For those who may say that I simply do not understand the plight of the Palestinians, perhaps you're right ... what could I possibly know about a persecuted and displaced peoples who want simply to go home?