Today is "Palestinian Independence Day"

In one of those useless gestures that PalArab leaders have been so fond of, eighteen years ago Yasir Arafat declared November 15th as "Independence Day" - from exile in Algiers.

They even wrote a meaningless Declaration of Independence. It includes this gem:

Despite the historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian Arab people resulting in their dispersion and depriving them of their right to self-determination, following upon U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947), which partitioned Palestine into two states, one Arab, one Jewish, yet it is this Resolution that still provides those conditions of international legitimacy that ensure the right of the Palestinian Arab people to sovereignty.

Unmentioned is the fact that the Palestinian Arabs at the time, along with all Arab nations, rejected Resolution 181 because they didn't want to recognize a certain other people's claims to nationhood that elsewhere in the Declaration they say is the "destiny of all other peoples."

It goes on to this farcical statement:

By stages, the occupation of Palestine and parts of other Arab territories by Israeli forces, the willed dispossession and expulsion from their ancestral homes of the majority of Palestine's civilian inhabitants, was achieved by organized terror; those Palestinians who remained, as a vestige subjugated in its homeland, were persecuted and forced to endure the destruction of their national life.

This is particularly funny as one would be hard-pressed to find any of those "persecuted" people willingly move out of their "subjugated" status to live in an Arab country or in the territories.

Even better, later on the document describes their mythical state as one where "The rights of minorities will duly be respected by the majority, as minorities must abide by decisions of the majority." This sounds like subjugation to me!

It goes without saying that the "Declaration" in no way limits its sights to only the post-1967 "occupied territories;" it remains purposefully ambiguous as to its real objectives.

Either way, as a fifth-grade PalArab girl interviewed said yesterday, "tomorrow is a strike day." To her, this is just another day off of school. She understands the futility of this mythical independence better than her elders, although most of them interviewed by "Palestine News Network" were quite cynical.

Beyond the complete unimportance of this day, which the PalArabic media is trumpeting as a major holiday, is the simple fact that if they want to truly declare independence in Gaza, they could. All the high-sounding words in the "Declaration" could become reality - if they wanted it to. They could issue stamps and flags and get immediate recognition from 75% of the UN member states.

For over a year, not a single Israeli soldier stepped foot in Gaza. For over a year, the PalArabs had every opportunity to prove that they were not a nation of terrorists and criminals, but that they were a peace-loving and progressive people. For over a year, they could have built industry and an economy. They had industrial zones they shared with Israel; they had greenhouses that brought in millions of dollars in revenue bought by American Jewish money, they even had a border crossing with Egypt that was not being monitored by Israel directly where they could import and export goods and services. They had an election where they could have voted in a government that cared about their day-to-day lives.

Each and every opportunity was not only wasted, but turned into a means to terrorize and wage war against Israel. Gaza is now a lawless wasteland, far worse than when it was under the dreaded "occupation." The only manufacturing industry of note in Gaza is the Qassam industry.

It was an experiment in statehood that not only failed, but it backfired on them. It proved that this "nation" is anything but a real nation.

Reading the Declaration today is the definition of irony as we see what sort of an independent nation they would actually build, given the chance.

And the eighteen years of pretend independence will stretch out for decade after decade, as the PalArabs trade one "occupation" for the far worse situation of being governed by their own immature and destructive leaders.