>There exists a long line of national groups out there around the world who are a MUCH BETTER FIT for statehood than the Palestinians.
This idea, that homogeneity of ethnicity, language and culture are somehow not only badges of statehood but pre-requisites to it is a curiously American one. Wilson subscribed to it quite vociferously and insisted it be used as the basis for fixing the boundaries of the new states brought into existence on the break-up of the Habsburg and Ottoman empires at the end of the First World War against the judgment of the other allies and we're all familiar with how well that worked. In brief, because of the facts of geography, it proved impossible to create ethnically/culturally homogenous states but, because the states had been created primarily on the basis of ethnicity, minority populations were, in some cases, discriminated against. Even if they weren't the idea of ethnicity as defining the "correct" territory of a nation proved useful to aggressor states. It formed the basis of the German claim to the Sudentenland, for example.
The idea also ignores the self-evident fact that hardly any, in fact I would go so far as to say NO, nation in the world has an ethnically or culturally homogenous population. And people who argue that states should be like this are, rightly, branded racist.
To be a state 'all' you need is population, defined territory, government and capacity to enter into relations with other states (Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States 1933 Art. 1) There is no theoretical or practical reason the Palestinians could not have all of these. They arguably have the first two already, the only reason the don't have the last two is because the Israelis object to it. Fundamentally, of course, that is exactly what the conflict is about. |
