Receiving massive foreign investment, ruling your own country and being the founder of a nation sounds too tempting to just dismiss with "they don't want to". You think the leaders of Hamas are going to not even consider the chance to change their status from the world's most pathetic refugee people to founders (and rulers) of a new nation (which then received massive outside aid)? Not even consider it?
Sounds tempting to you, maybe. It doesn't tempt Hamas. It doesn't tempt Abu Mazen.
How many ways, shapes and forms does it take for them to refuse to build Palestine and refuse to declare Palestine before the penny drops that they don't WANT Palestine?
They want Israel.
If they declared Palestine, they would have to give up Israel, and say to their people that they will have to compromise and live next to Israel. They people would rise against such "treachery"; they have been trained for war for a generation.
The international community might expect them to get their own living like other countries instead of being the world's most spectacular collection of helpless victims who need welfare. The international community might even consider that Israel had a right to defend itself against attacks coming across what was now an international border.
Naw, scratch that last one, too much of a stretch.
In short, it would be terrible for The Cause of Palestine, the conflict, the one the Arab regimes like and are paying for.
When you read the Arab sources, it becomes clear that an independent Palestine is not some prize the Palestinians desire, as the West supposed in the 1990s and many still suppose. It is instead a shameful booby prize the West is trying to force on the Palestinians in lieu of giving them "justice", i.e. all of Israel. |
