Join On The Issues
Receive information and updates via email.
On You Tube
Visit On The Issues Magazine's YouTube ChannelSend us links to your favorite, progressive videos to add to our favorites
Featured Video:
 summer 1990 |
Palestine/Israel: Another View of the Middle East |
Contrary to popular conception, the identity of the Palestinian Arabs as a nationality is a recent phenomenon. As has often been observed, it was ironically the creation of the state of Israel which created Palestinian Arab nationalism. As recently as 1967, United Nations article 242, pertaining to the disposition of borders in Israel, did not refer to a Palestinian Arab people. The view of the problem between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs as "a Greek tragedy of two equal nations locked in mortal combat over the same territory," caters to a modern intellectual appetite for spurious parallels in reasoning: As A is to B, so C is to D.
The prospects of a Palestinian Arab state was not a problem for Israel, which accepted the idea in its formation; nor was it Israel's fault that such a state which did, in fact, exist for 24 hours, was never implemented. It was destroyed by Syria, Jordan and Egypt which grabbed the land assigned to the Palestinian Arabs after their war against Israel in 1948. The bedeviling complexity which has evolved since then is that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), invented by Egyptian President Nasser in 1964 as an instrument of Pan Arabism strategy, acquired the leadership of the Palestinian Arabs, overriding Jordan's King Hussein's declaration that the Palestinian Arab people formed a natural cultural unity with Jordan.
The idea of a PLO-led state on the West Bank, in distinction to a Palestinian Arab-led state, should cause consternation to everyone concerned with peace in the Middle East. The PLO has endangered and corrupted every community it has been part of, including the United Nations. Jordan was forced to expel the PLO in 1970 in order to protect itself. Lebanon was subject to a reign of terror from 1976 -1982 during the PLO's stay there. Jillian Becker's book, The PLO: The Rise and Fall of the Palestine Liberation Organization, (St. Martin's Press, 1984) records public executions at traffic crossings, rapes, kidnappings, and the indiscriminate murder of citizens, including children, leaving a trail of "desaparecidos" that has not yet registered on the mind of the western world. One incident speaks for many: In Damour, during a massacre of Lebanese by PLO, "In a frenzy to destroy their enemies utterly, as if even the absolute limits of nature could not stop them, the invaders broke open tombs and flung the bones of the dead into the streets."
The PLO also has commitments to international terrorism besides its nationalistic identity with the Palestinian Arabs, or commitment to their welfare; and their ranks are filled with international extremists. It is the tragic fate of the Palestinian Arabs to have had their national movement identified with this organization. Nor can they, for reasons of personal safety, attempt to dissolve this identification. Only a responsible world leadership, determined to penetrate beneath the artificial liaison between the PLO and the Palestinian Arabs, can help dissolve this dangerous Gordian Knot.
Author Area.
The Cafe
Newest titles:
We’re now taking comments!
Enter the Cafe
CURRENT ISSUE
Winter 2012
Realities of The Waiting Room: Constantly Shifting by Lori Adelman
Anti-Abortion Harassment and Violence Still Stifle Access by Eleanor J. Bader
We're Not Sorry. Still. by Jennifer Baumgardner
The Poet's Eye From Poetry Co-Editor Sarah Browning
Calling Black LGBTQ Institutions: Where Are You? Where is Reproductive Justice? by Jasmine Burnett
Privacy at Stake: Patients, Clinics and Electronic Medical Records by Corinne A. Carey
Can We Choose Move Forward on Reproductive Justice? -- And How? by Ayesha Chatterjee and Judy Norsigian
"Love Means Second Chances": Reproductive Freedom in a Novel by Susan Elizabeth Davis
Satirist's View: Same Old Dilemma, or The Virgin Rebirth by Susie Day
As Access Slides, Feminists Need to "Extract" From Our Self-Help Past by Carol Downer
Abortion: On The Issues Magazine - by The Editors
How Anti-Abortion Protesters Got Me: Letter From a Young Activist by Sarah Flint Erdreich
The Grand Folly of Focusing on "Common Ground" by Gloria Feldt
Before "Roe": Legal Battles, Involuntary Servitude, My Mom by Justine Goodman
Next Generation Access: Medical Students Fill A Void by Mary Lou Greenberg
The Power of Theater: "Words of Choice" Touches Hearts by Alexis Greene
Where the Reality of Abortion Resides: Intimate Wars by Merle Hoffman
Gone Too Far? Reproductive Politics in the Time of Obama by Carole Joffe
Lila Rose: A Sweet Face to Accompany Extreme Anti-abortion Claims by Kathryn Joyce
Glorifying the Fetus While Ignoring the Fetal Environment by Margie Kelly
Reframing Compassionate Care: Of Madame Restell and Other Outlaws by Jeannie Ludlow
Helping Bloggers To Help: Tips for Reproductive Health Organizations by Amanda Marcotte
What To Do When They Say Holocaust by Carol Mason
"Silent Choices": African American Women Open Up on Film by Faith Pennick
Fine Thoughts On Fertilized Personhood by Marge Piercy
Heading Toward Menopause, Still Caring about Abortion by Andrea Plaid
Letter to a Young Activist: Don’t Drop the Banner by Barbara Santee
Redefining Chutzpah: More Bad Ideas to Burden Women by Aram A. Schvey
Sharing the Wealth of Knowledge on Abortion by Ria Sen and The Feminist Press
An Abortion Miracle? Let's Try the First Amendment by Priscilla Smith
Related Stories: Bold Discussions of ABORTION in On The Issues Magazine by The Editors
The Art Perspective: Ursula O'Farrell curated by Linda Stein
Student Think Tank
Print page
RSS Feed