May 1949: Israel supports a Palestinian Arab state; Arabs oppose

Wafa quotes Mahmoud Abbas:

It has been our right to establish a Palestinian state since 1948, but the conditions were difficult. Now, we’ll get our right through the United Nations,

As I have shown, when he says "the conditions were difficult" it really means "our leaders were dead-set against it."

But what most people don't realize is that Israel was the only country in the Middle East that supported an independent Palestinian Arab state before Jordan and Egypt occupied the territories!

Here is an amazing article from the Palestine Post, May 15, 1949:

Here's the text:

LAUSANNE, Saturday (Reuter). — The Palestine Conciliation Commission today heard a preliminary outline of Israel's views for territorial settlement given by Dr. Walter Eytan, held of the Israel delegation. 

(Dr. Ertan challenged the right or any Arab state to act in the affairs of Palestine Arabs, and said that Israel was not prepared to recgonize the incorporation of Arab Palestine in any other Arab state, according to Jon Kimche, ONA correspondent.)

 It was undentood he told the Commission that the first step toward territorial settlement must be the withdrawal of forces of neighbouring Arab States from all Arab territory, and was believed to have insisted on observance of the U.N. General Assembly Resolution of November 29, 1947, providing for independent Jewish and Arab States. 

An independent sovereign Jewish State had come into existence despite the Arab War and the only result of that war had been to prevent the creation of an independent Arab state, he said. Dr. Eytan was also understood to have insisted that the future of Arab Palestine must be decided by the Arab inhabitants themselves. The General Assembly gave the neighbouring States no title to any part of the country, he said. 

Kimche reports that the Commission had proposed the Partition resolution as the basis for discussion. He further reports that Dr. Eytan suggetsed that the Commission hold a plebiscite in the Arab area to ascertain the wishes of the inhabitants, and assist in the establishment of a genuine representative body for Arab Palestine.

Yes, Israel supported a democratic Palestinian Arab state that reflects the wishes of its inhabitants atthe same time that Arab states refused that idea and at the same time the Palestinian Arab leaders in the West Bank chose instead to become part of (then) Transjordan.

Now, after decades of rejectionism, Abbas is pretending that it is time for a "do-over." Let's all pretend that Palestinian Arabs leaders chose not to have a state, that repeated wars meant to exterminate Israel never happened, that the terrorism that the majority of Palestinian Arabs still applaud is imaginary, that the Jews who fought for and died for the land so their people could live in security are worthless, that the Arab ethnic cleansing of Jews from the territories - and indeed all Arab countries - never happened. Nope, let's pretend it is 1947 again and the UN just voted for partition.

What will stop the next Palestinian Arab leader from saying, a few years from now, that "we have the right to all the land from the river to the sea, but we didn't insist on it in 2011 because conditions were difficult. But now we want to exercise that right." That is what they believe today, after all.

And nothing Israel could give up nowadays would change that.