Pearly, you may want to take a small history book, for instance on a sub-segment of the Muslim population that emigrated to Palestine, the Circasian Muslims in Israel. The Circasian Muslims came from the Caucasus. They were a brave nation fighting for almost 100 years the Tsar's yoke, finally, in 1864, they suffered a great defeat, and in the following 30 years, almost all the Circasians left Russia, some of which ended up in Israel (then actually not even Palestine, but the Southern district of Syria) , just at the same time (around 1880) that Montefiori (actually, Montefiori first land buying was in 1834, and through his efforts, the seed of "New Jerusalem" were laid outside the wall, (Yemin Moshe) and Rothschild started to buy land from Syrian Effendies and started the first modern time Jewish settlement of the land. Rothschild supported both Zikhron Yaakov and Rishon Le Zion, where he established wineries (and the supporting grape growing vineyards). Prior to that wave, there were, of course major Jewish centers in the cities, particularly Hebron (a lot of them were massacred in 1936, by their Arab neighbors, the rest escaped), Zafed, Tiberias and of course Jerusalem. I happen to know the Circasian story from a Circasian friend I used to have in Israel, and later, I verified his "stories" through historical sources. If the Palestinian adopted Kuwaiti laws for citizenship, probably no more than one in 4 so called, "Palestinians", could past the "test". (g). All that is, however, just "history", and right now there are some 4 or more million people that by their own definition, the only one that counts, call them selves "Palestinians". They have missed numerous opportunities to reach national self determination, mostly due to corrupt and failing leadership, and heartless exploitation as political pawns first by the "East/West conflict, and in the last ten years, their own leadership. It is high time to end their tragedy, and that without having to dismantle the state of Israel, as some of their own leaders keep promising them, they can and will do.
Zeev |
