That's a silly point to start with as the driver of the conflict. The creation of the state of Israel is the driver of the conflict. The Pals refusal to give up the war is what perpetuates the conflict, but it certainly didn't start it - Israel's decision that certain land (where loads of non-Jews lived) is now a Jewish homeland is the start of the conflict. The Pals ongoing resistance is a reaction to that, not a beginning of something.
Actually, the Pals didn't resist at first, having not organized themselves into a country or even thought of themselves as Palestinians. The Pals fled, mostly, or stayed, but only the Mufti's men, village fighters, actually fought. The upper class of Pals all went to Cairo or Damascus.
Look at the accounts from 1948, and you will see that only the Zionists were called "Palestinians". The Arabs of Palestine were just called "Arabs." Even then, it could have been settled differently if the Pals had had a different leader than the Mufti. He brooked no talk of compromise.
So far, it's not different from the much larger partition of Pakistan and India at the same time. The difference is that all the Arab states made a decision to not to settle the conflict, but to perpetuate the crisis as an open sore - and they got the UN to pay for it. That's why people still speak of "refugee camps" 60 years after the war. You think Syria and Lebanon are paying for them? No way! UNWRA pays!
Palestine in the wake of the Ottoman Empire was a lightly populated political vacuum. The Arabs had not ruled themselves there for 400 years. That conflicting factions should have vied for it is not a surprise. It is the conscious decision of all the neighbors to keep the conflict going on artificial life support, no matter what the local people want, that is the difference. The Pals themselves did not become politicized as "Palestinians" until the 1960s. Then they rewrote their history.
Stop buying into the Arab propaganda that only the Zionists made decisions. |
