The Pan-Arabists seek to unite all the lands that have a majority Arab population, into one unit.
Isn't this what the Germans attempted to do in the late 1800's? And didn't that new found German nationalism, and warlike culture drag the world into decades of its bloodiest history?
I'm not particularly keen on seeing Arab unity until they learn some human tolerance, and a rule of law, including individual and property rights..
Especially when such unity will merely be a facade for some totalitarian, or dictatorial, regime.
The essential difference between Pan-Arabism, and Zionism, is that the Pan-Arabists seek to unite land they already live on, while Zionism's project is to conquer and colonize land where non-Jews are the majority population.
I guess it depends on who's history books you are reading. The ones I've read, and I believe to be more objective and credible, reflect that the Zionists were prohibited by the British Mandate authorities, from seizing land from the locals. They were required to purchase it from them, despite the fact that many of these "Palestinians" held no legitimate title to the land they had "squatted" on. This included significant absentee landownership by those who had been given land grants in return for their loyalty to the Ottomans.
But people of your ilk seem to believe that Arab claims to Palestine pre-date the British and the Ottomans. That somehow even living in the proximity of land that was never even farmed, or even arable/inhabitable, prior to the advent of Jewish/Western technology, gives them some inalienable right to that land.
And I just reject that concept. It's a "blood and soil" mentality that I don't wish to encourage. And it also increases Jewish claims to the region, since they predate the Arab who conquered Palestine in the 600-700's...
Hawk |
