Chloe Valdary: Beyond Repair: Racist Revisionists, Injurious Illusions
Arab countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria have a hand in promoting this bigotry. These countries deny basic rights to Palestinian Arabs in order to keep them in their dejected state, in part because they seek to make Israel look bad, but, more importantly, because of their own prejudices against them. This, however, is no surprise. It is important to remember that historically, Arab countries have never actually cared about Palestinian Arabs. In Israel’s war of independence, 7 Arab countries sought, not only to destroy Israel but also to set up their own imperialistic empires (Greater Syria) throughout the Middle East. This was certainly Jordan’s goal, as has been shown in recently unclassified cables between the King of Jordan and Golda Meir. Yet this history is largely ignored by statesmen who, in seeking to find quick solutions to problems neglect to examine the psychological makeup of the people being dealt with. Fathom the hypocrisy of an Arab country which persecutes its Palestinian Arab brothers and sisters by denying them basic rights, and then insists that their inferior status is what makes them special in the first place. This prejudice is endemic, because the Palestinian Arabs believe them.The Muslim Colonists: Forgotten Facts about the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Thus, Palestinian Arab Nationalism in its current form (and to be frank I do not know if any other form could ever exist since the very idea of Palestine as a nation is academically defunct) is a form of self-hatred, because it is rooted in the notion that the non-Palestinian Arab is eternally superior and the Palestinian Arab is irrevocably oppressed. Palestinian Nationalism is inherently discriminatory because it contends that a separate distinct “special” Arab race exists, that that special Arab race ought to be oppressed, and that that oppression is what deems it worthy of existing. This is orientalism in its most extreme form, for discrimination can at least be outlawed and even self-hatred can potentially be corrected. But taking pride in one’s self-hatred, well that, is beyond repair.
Justin McCarthy, a professor of history at the University of Louisville, writing in his Annotated Map, “Forced Migration and Mortality in the Ottoman Empire,” also notes that there were about five million Muslims displaced due to the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Crimean War, Balkan wars, the Turkish war of independence and World War I.David Singer: The Key to Peace Lies in the Past
Sergio DellaPergola, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in his paper “Demography in Israel/Palestine: Trends, Prospects and Policy Implications,” provides estimates of the population of Palestine in different periods. As the demographic data below shows, most Muslims living in Palestine in 1948 when the State of Israel was created had been living there for fewer than 60 years:
1890: Arab Population 432,000
1947: Arab Population 1,181,000
Growth in Arab population from 1890 to 1947: 800,000
The Yazidi in Iraq and the Christian Copts in Egypt are not “settlers” and “occupiers;” neither are the Jews in Israel. They are victims of a common enemy that seems to want a Middle East free of non-Muslims.
The period 1920-1947 without doubt covers a host of critically important legal and historical signposts that cannot be forgotten or buried.The Ties Between the Nusra Front – the Syrian al Qaeda Affiliate – and Hamas
Whilst the two-state solution ultimately created between 1946-1948 as a result of the San Remo Conference is ignored – attempts to resolve sovereignty in today’s highly volatile West Bank and Gaza – are destined to certain failure and renewed conflict.
The two-state solution posited by the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap creating a 22nd independent sovereign Arab State in the West Bank and Gaza between Jordan and Israel for the first time ever in recorded history has failed to materialize – despite twenty years of intensive political and diplomatic efforts by the international community.
The PLO (founded in 1964) and Hamas (founded in 1987) both seek to unravel the decisions made at San Remo in 1920.
They need to be replaced as Israel’s Arab negotiating partners by the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine – Jordan and Israel – and possibly Egypt – to determine and allocate sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza between their respective States.
Unearthing the past still remains the key to peacefully resolving the future.
Hamas Leader Khaled Mashaal Expands His Terror Domain
The Lebanese news website Ertikaz published important information on the circumstances behind the establishment of the two movements in the Yarmouk camp, and it is clear that no less a figure than Hamas’ Khaled Mashaal stands behind both of them — almost certainly from the time he was given protection by the Syrian regime prior to the Syrian rebellion.
According to Ertikaz, Khaled Mashaal’s bodyguard was Muhammad Zaghmout, whose family lives in Gaza. Zaghmout and additional Palestinians who hold key positions in both movements are “graduates” of Afghanistan fighting and filled various posts in Khaled Mashaal’s military organization. According to this report, Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis is the leading organization and al Nusra coordinates with it.
Zaghmout — Mashaal’s former bodyguard — serves as the commander of both the Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis and al Nusra, Ertikaz reports.
As long as the terror groups were combatting Syrian President Assad, Al Nusra and the Islamic State (previously ISIS) cooperated on several fronts. After they defeated Assad’s forces, however, they began to fight among themselves for exclusive control in those same areas, such as Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour and the Lebanese front. Right now in the area of Arsal in Lebanon, the Islamic State and al Nusra are fighting together against the Lebanese Army and Hizbullah.