Arabs' 1947 Refusal to create Palestine a Mistake

[Keepitsimple]

That's all they had to do. Say yes. Israel accepted the UN offer. The Arab countries said no and immediately declared war and attacked the newly created state of Israel. And look where we are today. But lets not forget how it started.....and let's not forget that since then, successive Arab voices have called for the destruction of Israel. Having said that, it's refreshing to see a Pelestinian leader acknowledge the horrific mistake of 1947. Perhaps there is some hope after all. By the way, shouldn't this have merited front-page coverage? I don't really recall any coverage at all to speak of.

Arabs made a "mistake" by rejecting a 1947 UN proposal that would have created a Palestinian state alongside the nascent Israel, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview aired on Friday.

Palestinian leaders have always insisted that General Assembly Resolution 181, which paved the way for Jewish statehood in parts of then British-ruled Palestine, must be resisted by Arabs who went to war over it.

"At that time, 1947, there was Resolution 181, the partition plan, Palestine and Israel. Israel existed. Palestine diminished. Why?" he told Israel's top-rated Channel Two television, speaking in English.

When the interviewer suggested the reason was Jewish leaders' acceptance of the plan and its rejection by the Arabs, Abbas said: "I know, I know. It was our mistake. It was our mistake. It was an Arab mistake as a whole. But do they punish us for this mistake (for) 64 years?"

Link: http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=208545

[Guest Peeves]

The mandate of groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and Fatah, the Egyptian Brotherhood and other militant Arabs, or for that matter Persians and possibly Turks {?), is to destroy Israel (any Kafir, non believers on Islamic soil is unacceptable.)

The Palestinian problem is not that they want a two state solution, but that the Middle Eastern Muslims want only one, an Islamic one with Israel gone.

Anyone reading mandates of those groups will see there is two chances of a resolve, slim, and none.

[Keepitsimple]

At almost the same time, Pakistan was "created" by a similar process. It led to battles and an uneasy truce to this day and involved the transplanting of millions of Hindus and Muslims. It was messy - but they did it.

Funny how Abbas' statement has not been played up by the media. You would think that any reconciliation - the resetting of the Peace process - would start with such an admission. A simple - "we made a mistake".

[Guest Peeves]

At almost the same time, Pakistan was "created" by a similar process. It led to battles and an uneasy truce to this day and involved the transplanting of millions of Hindus and Muslims. It was messy - but they did it.

Funny how Abbas' statement has not been played up by the media. You would think that any reconciliation - the resetting of the Peace process - would start with such an admission. A simple - "we made a mistake".

There will never be any agreement that recognizes Israel's right to exist.

This has never been about concessions by Israel. No concession will ever be acceptable to the likes of Hamas or other anti-Israel groups. Iran has said what the Islamic aim is as does the charters of those like Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood, and Fatah.

Islamic countries (like Syria)treat Arab Palestinians worse than the Israelis do, but that goes unnoticed.

Turks treat Kurds worse, and Arabs have taken more land from others than the West bank, but that too goes unnoticed.

Israel is the world's whipping boy as Jews have been in millennium.

[wyly]

Anyone reading mandates of those groups will see there is two chances of a resolve, slim, and none.

anyone who believes all the zionist propaganda and are unable to think for themselves will understand there two chances of seeing the real story, slim and none...

[GostHacked]

Interesting.

[Guest Peeves]

anyone who believes all the zionist propaganda and are unable to think for themselves will understand there two chances of seeing the real story, slim and none...

So pray tell us the 'real' story.

I doubt any country in the history of the world has faced the scrutiny, attacks, malicious lies, blood libel, and discrimination that Israel is faced with. But hey, if you can show otherwise, puke on.

[Post To The Left]

I think you're missing the point. In your article Abbas was raising a valid point:

When the interviewer suggested the reason was Jewish leaders' acceptance of the plan and its rejection by the Arabs, Abbas said: "I know, I know. It was our mistake. It was our mistake. It was an Arab mistake as a whole. But do they punish us for this mistake (for) 64 years?" -- Arab's refusal of 1947 UN plan a mistake

Why indeed are the Palestinians being punished for a 64 year old mistake? Other posters have raised valid points i.e. Arab countries have shat on the Palestinians for decades, Hamas has declared that it would only accept a long term truce with Israel, "Turks treat Kurds worse" (not sure what that has to do with anything)

But the Palestinians aren't the only ones who made mistakes:

-Israeli's should never have started the settlement program

-You talk about how Hamas, a political party in the occupied territory refuses to recognize Israel but why the double standard? Likud the party of the current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did the same thing, "Israel's Likud Party has passed a resolution saying that it will never agree to an independent Palestinian State. "

-As the American government officials have stated Israel should have never birthed Hamas, "U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer made the connection between the growth of the Islamic fundamentalist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and Israel's promotion of the Islamic movement as a counter to the Palestinian nationalist movement. "

[Moonlight Graham]

Palestinian leadership has made many mistakes over the decades, and everyone knows it. A bunch of infamous "lost opportunities", like the Peel Plan not long before it (though Israel wasn't keen on that one either), that would have left them with much more land than they have now.

[Post To The Left]

Palestinian leadership has made many mistakes over the decades, and everyone knows it. A bunch of infamous "lost opportunities", like the Peel Plan not long before it (though Israel wasn't keen on that one either), that would have left them with much more land than they have now.

So have the Israelis.

[Moonlight Graham]

So have the Israelis.

Hasn't cost them the massive land loss though.

[wyly]

Hasn't cost them the massive land loss though.

or nearly five million dispossessed people...

[grogy]

or nearly five million dispossessed people...

Decisions have consequences.

[Rue]

or nearly five million dispossessed people...

One day take the time do determine how you define dispossessed and apply it to alleged Palestinians differently then any other group of alleged refugees in the world.

Its interesting how you trot the above number out with no thought to how you define dispossessed let alone Palestinian.

You haven't a clue of what I am saying and therein lies the joke-the joke of revisionists whose ignorance of history depends on others to join along with their ignorance.

For everyone else let me say this:

1-Anyone who has travelled to the West Bank from Arab countries as a labourer and stayed more than 2 years is now called a Palestinian which means these "new" Palestinians who settled long after Israel was created were never dispossessed;

2-of those Palestinians who were in fact dispossessed they are all mostly dead-under the laws of refugee definition only those actually dispossessed by a war are called refugees, the children of the refugees born outside the refugee parent's original country are not defined as refugees-except one people-Palestinians-the UN created a special definition of refugee only for Palestinians and no one else in the world that says, a child of a dispossessed Palestinian is a refugee;

3-there were in Palestine prior to Israel's declaration of independence Jewish Palestinians who came there from outside Palestine who to this day are defined by people like Wyly as colonial oppressors who occupy the land-interestingly people like Wyly do not distinguish them from Jews who have lived in Palestine and now Israel

continuously since ancient days. Also interestingly you will never have Wyly acknowledge that of the non Jewish Palestinians-they were a small group and the vast majority of people who now call themselves Palestinian today, are descended from Arab peoples who moved to Palestine and displaced actual Palestinian Arabs and so are just as outsider

and foreign as Jews who came to Palestine-yet in the world of Wyly anyone Arab who wants to call themselves a Paletsinian is, any Jew who wants to call himself an Israeli is a colonial invader. An Arab who moves to Palestine is not a foreigner. A Jew who did is and remains one.

Therein lies the revisionist lie and double standard of the Wylies who have repeated a lie over and over again to the point where they expect everyone else to accept it as gospel truth.

The fact is the actual Palestinian Arabs dispossessed were more likely to have been dispossessed by their fellow Arabs than Jews-all one has to do is look at the growth of the Arab population that moved to Palestine and displaced them. Its public record where these Arabs came from and in what numbers. They came as a result of the British deliebrately imposing an immigration scheme to flood Palestine with Arab Muslims to outnumber Jews coming to Palestine to prevent an Israeli state. Churchill in his memoirs admitted that was his plan and that was what he and the High Commissioner of Palestine Mr. Samuels set out to do and ironically Mr. Samuels was a Jew.

So we can continue to toss around the number 5 million but its a crock. The actual number of dispossessed Palestinians is in the thousands. The number of dispossessed Arab Muslims who moved to Palestine and displaced Palestinian Arabs and then found themselves fleeing as well, was about 350 thousand.

The number of Jews expelled from the Arab world was 900,000 with 700,000 forced to move to Israel in the 50's.

Here is the point. The people of the West Bank are Palestinians. Why beat around the bush. No other Arab country wants them. They have nowhere to go. Calling themselves Paletsinian is a practical reality. But to call them dispossessed is a crock of shit. They were born in the West Bank. No one forced them there. They were born there.

The actual people forced to flee to the West Bank dwindles each day as such people die out.

Wyly can reinvent history all he wants but the fact is the Palestinians of today are not dispossessed nor are they even descended from the actual Palestinian Arabs forced to flee.

Its also more likely though that Palestinians in the refugee camps of Lebanon, etc., who were never dispossessed but born in the camps are descendants of non Palestinian Arabs who moved to Palestine and dispossessed Palestinian Arabs.

Ah but why let history get in the way of today's narrative. In today's narrative all Israelis are Zionist colonial Jews, and anyone who wants to call themselves a Palestinian, presto is.

Name me one other country in the world where if you live there two years, presto, you automatically become a member of that country. Hey in the West Bank, no problem. In fact you want to claim you own land, just say so. The PLO blew up the land title office to make it impossible to know who actually owns land on the West Bank and in so doing have

enabled squatters to come from other Arab countries, steal land from people born on the West Bank and then re-sell that land over and over.

But hey why talk about such things.

[Post To The Left]

Name me one other country in the world where if you live there two years, presto, you automatically become a member of that country.

Israel. You don't even have to live there to become a member, you just have to be Jewish.

You of course realize that by saying people who aren't born in a country have no claim over totally negates the argument that Israel is for the Jews. After all they lost their claim after the first generation was pushed off their land thousands of years ago.

[DogOnPorch]

Israel. You don't even have to live there to become a member, you just have to be Jewish.

You of course realize that by saying people who aren't born in a country have no claim over totally negates the argument that Israel is for the Jews. After all they lost their claim after the first generation was pushed off their land thousands of years ago.

Their 'claim' is holding up rather well by the looks.

[wyly]

Israel. You don't even have to live there to become a member, you just have to be Jewish.

You of course realize that by saying people who aren't born in a country have no claim over totally negates the argument that Israel is for the Jews. After all they lost their claim after the first generation was pushed off their land thousands of years ago.

ya I think the max for a jew is 2 months according to their Law of return, but strangely Palestinians born there fleeing the zionist ethnic cleansing campaigns has no such right...