I have great respect for Fred Maroun, however, the UN Partition Plan of 1947 was the most egregious betrayal of the Jews. On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted 33 to 13 (with ten abstentions) to implement the new partition as Resolution 181. Absent in all the media hailing of the “compromise” was any mention that the Jews of Palestine had already relinquished 75 percent of the area promised in the Balfour Declaration. Media and diplomats alike would declare that the Jews were gaining 53% of “Palestine” when in fact they were left with roughly 12 percent. rsk
We Arabs managed our relationship with Israel atrociously, but the worst of all is the ongoing situation of the Palestinians. Our worst mistake was in not accepting the United Nations partition plan of 1947.
Perhaps one should not launch wars if one is not prepared for the results of possibly losing them.
The Jews are not keeping the Arabs in camps, we are.
Jordan integrated some refugees, but not all. We could have proven that we Arabs are a great and noble people, but instead we showed the world, as we continue to do, that our hatred towards each other and towards Jews is far greater than any concept of purported Arab solidarity.
This is part one of a two-part series. The second part will examine what we Arabs can do differently today.
In the current state of the relationship between the Arab world and Israel, we see a patchwork of hostility, tense peace, limited cooperation, calm, and violence. We Arabs managed our relationship with Israel atrociously, but the worst of all is the ongoing situation of the Palestinians.
The Original Mistake
Our first mistake lasted centuries, and occurred well before Israel’s declaration of independence in May 1948. It consisted of not recognizing Jews as equals.
As documented by a leading American scholar of Jewish history in the Muslim world, Mark R. Cohen, during that era, “Jews shared with other non-Muslims the status of dhimmis [non-Muslims who have to pay protection money and follow separate debasing laws to be tolerated in Muslim-controlled areas] … New houses of worship were not to be built and old ones could not be repaired. They were to act humbly in the presence of Muslims. In their liturgical practice they had to honor the preeminence of Islam. They were further required to differentiate themselves from Muslims by their clothing and by eschewing symbols of honor. Other restrictions excluded them from positions of authority in Muslim government”.