Pat Condell: "Patronising the Palestinians"

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Any 'corner' they've backed themselves into is of their own making. All they have to do is stop the violence. It is that simple.

They have a choice in life. They can either choose to keep killing Jews and trying to wipe Israel off the map and drive the Jews into the sea or they can sit down around a negotiating table and seriously sort out the foundations for a Palestinian state. The Palestinians need a complete change in outlook and leadership and they come and sit down with Israel themselves (i.e. not through other Arab governments, who have their own reasons to use and abuse the people in the West Bank and Gaza), and if the Israelis believe they can work with them things will then happen very quickly.

The Jews of Mandatory Palestine, and later the Israelis, have supported a Palestinian (or, rather, separate Arab) state in the area since the 1930s. Hell, they didn't contest the fact that 80% of the land of Mandatory Palestine went to Jordan, which has an overwhelmingly Palestinian population.

A Palestinian state is no good though if the people running that state are just going to use it as a massive launch pad to further attack Israel. It's not about a two-state solution, or a one-state solution. It's about the mentality of the people (a little bit like the constitutional status in Northern Ireland), and as Condell rightly points out, much of the blame is on the heads of the Palestinians themselves (especially their terrorist leaders) and the other Arab governments. You can argue all you like about Israel's settlements in the West Bank (and, yes, some of the Jewish settlers there are absolute w*kers of the first water), but these can all be ironed out at the time of any deal and all will be on the table. It's not at the root of the problem. Settlements didn't exist in 1948 or 1967.

For any remote chance of peace to be even remotely considered though, Hamas must not only be defeated but wiped off the face of this very Earth. Their own Charter makes this crystal clear that that is the only way we'll see the last of them - through total annihilation. They should be about as welcome to peace-loving people as turds in a bathtub.

A sea change in the political outlooks of all the Arab governments would need to happen as well, and the Palestinians would need to ditch their anti-Semitism which, at the end of the day, is at the root of the problem. The 'Palestinians' never attacked Jordan when it was occupying Palestinian land (i.e. the West Bank) for 19 years even though they had less rights under them than under Israel after the Six-Day War. Why is that?

If they can do all those things, and work with the Israelis they'll be on to a winner. Palestine would then be a prosperous, free, secular country and the money would roll in. Everyone would be better off, apart from the Islamists.

Good for you, but you might want to take note of which countries don't want such a thing. There was recently a vote at the UN.

Also, none of your response on page 1 relates to what I was talking about. You left out the most interesting part of the story - what happened during and after the 1948 war.

Apparently, for you, the 1948 war is a cute little proof of how wonderful Israel is, that it could beat a bunch of countries ganged up on it! Such bravery! Such an underdog!

For most people, the 1948 war is the start of the illegal expansion.

What complete nonsense.

There is a vast difference between maintaining the position that Palestine presently lacks the attributes of statehood in international law (which is self-evidently the case); and maintaining a position that Palestine should never have those attributes.

If Palestine can be a non-member observer state of the UNO, then what of Taiwan? It lacks the attribute of recognition, but it's government is clearly exercising sovereign control over territory with defined borders. Is the UN going to confer "statehood" on Taiwan in this fashion? What about Kosovo? Chechnya? The Principality of Hutt River? Where does the line end?

We should not allow sentimentality to get in the way of way of responsible decision making. The Palestinian people are a nation, to be sure. But until their institutions of government can demonstrate sustainable control over a defined territory, they are not a nation-state, and no political action of the UN General Assembly is going to change that.



Most people? Don't try and cobble together a majority based on your own biases.

The only people who matter in this are the people of Palestine and the people of Israel, and whatever means will bring a negotiated, sustainable peace between them. Your drum beating only serves to reinforce Israeli intransigence.

"Self-evident"? You're not just arguing with me, here. The UN vote was 138-9 in favour.

The vast majority of countries who do not have a vested interest voted in favour of the proposition. In fact, the only countries who voted against the proposition were those with an obvious vested interest.



It's quite obvious where the majority lies. If the UN votes aren't enough for you, public polling says the same thing.



I agree. But one of those means is international pressure. So I guess it does involve all of us after all.

And if I was a member at the UN, I'd have voted against Palestinian statehood as well, even though (in principle) I see nothing wrong with the Palestinians having their own state. Neither do most Israelis. You might want to think about why that is. It's not because I'm anti-Arab or anything like that, but I am pro-responsibility.

I agree with political autonomy for all people who want lasting peace (not victory and wiping out an ethnic group, but genuine independence and peace) - in this I include Scotland, the peaceful elements of Basque and Irish nationalism, the South Islanders of New Zealand and so on and so forth. I'm not against a Palestinian state.

I am against these calls simply being used to further a war of blood vengeance against Israel, which, if you look at the Arab media and the language of the two Palestinian authorities, is exactly what's happening. I could post here hundreds of videos from TV stations all over the Middle East calling for the death of Israel and the killing of Jews. The speakers in these videos don't recognise any Jewish sovereignty in the Middle East. None. Not even an area the size of a peanut. They openly talk of driving the Jews into the sea, of denying the Holocaust, and print all sorts of other hateful nonsense on a regular basis. You can read the Hamas and PLO Charter if you like, and you can look at what Hezbollah have to say.

I'd love to support a Palestinian state but it's actually the Palestinians themselves that make it nearly impossible to do so due to their attitude. Which leads me to think it's not about territory at all.

You don't give someone their own state if you know that they're going to use it to further the destruction of yours.



You also don't want to mention what the Arab governments told Arab citizens living in Palestine to leave so that they could massacre the Jews and then they could return?

Israel actually stated a year later that they'd start accepting Arab refugees back into Israel - although perhaps not to their original homes. This was rejected by the Arab governments.

What, you mean when the Jordanians invaded the West Bank, expelled the Jews and razed Jewish holy sites to the ground? That's very interesting, too.

Could I also mention the decades-long fleeing and expulsion of Jewish refugees from a long, long list of Arab countries? Coincidence, ain't it.



Yes - a whole bunch of Arab countries ganged up on Israel unprovoked with the intention of annihilating it. They wouldn't have done that if the country being founded was a Muslim country. It was a Jewish one, and there is a rich vein of anti-Semitism (as there is a dislike of most things non-Muslim) in the Quran, so it stands to reason that they hate the idea of any Jewish state in the Middle East.

The Palestinians will never recognise Israel. For as long as they do that, the Israelis have nothing to talk with them about.



The Jews finally got their own country, at long last. A tiny piece of land of which to call their own. I don't begrudge them that, and neither do I begrudge them taking territories in the Six-Day War either. If you attack a country, expect to suffer the loss of land if you lose.

A nation and an identity that didn't even exist before the late 1960s.

Also, there is a massive Palestinian state just to the east of 'Palestine' - Jordan. Funnily enough, they show no interest in merging with them.

This isn't a good argument. The United States of America is a nation and an identity that didn't even exist before the late 1700's.

The General Assembly cannot create borders. It cannot create the institutions of government to create sustainable control over the territories within those borders and it cannot create diplomatic relationships between a putative nation-state and other nations.



Again, complete nonsense. Where is the Czech Republic's vested interest? Panama's? Or, for that matter, Canada's?

What of the 41 abstentions? What are we to read into that?

And can we suppose for a second that the French don't have enormous vested interests on the other side? Are we to believe that the French vote in favour was altruistic, while the Panamanian vote against was rooted in some obvious vested interest?



Polling where? Among whom? When have the people of India or China ever been polled on how their governments should reply to the issue of Palestine?

I might well believe that a majority of New Zealanders uncritically support Hamas and its campaign of violence. But what is the relevance of the opinion of people half a world away?



"International pressure," is what allows dilletantes to have a nice easy life and a nice easy conscience without having any right to either.

It's easy to demonize Israel. We all have a romantic soft spot for the underdog. But the fact remains that your idealistic, romantic and sentimental notions are not worth a penny when it comes to the actual relationships on the ground between the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Were the Palestinian Authority to be instantly transformed into a nation state with her 1967 borders tomorrow, she would be a failed state embroiled in Civil War within the year. She would be the new field of war for Iranian and Arab rivalry, and intra-arab rivalries. The last thing that the Palestinian people need is to become a pawn in Egypt's ongoing battle with Saudi Arabia over who is the primate state in the Arab League.

Israel--unlike every other country in the region--is a parliamentary democracy with all the hallmarks of a pluralist, democratic society. The government is answerable to the Knesset, which is, in turn, answerable to the electorate (Jewish and Arab, alike). Your international pressure is doing nothing but encouraging Hamas to continue its campaign of violence which, in turn, does nothing but encourage further Israeli intransigence.

So maybe the best thing to do is for all of us to shut up, and let the Palestinians and the Israelis get on with the job of negotiating.

Last edited by visagrunt on 04 Jan 2013, 5:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Chicken and egg. My parents always say "fake it until you make it". I think it applies to nations as well. The Palestinians are not just going to wake up one day and not be angry anymore, and go around begging for forgiveness for all the nasty things they said. If they are ever going to stop being angry, it's going to be after they get a state.



Israel is indestructible. Don't pretend you don't know that. It's not a tiny country threatened by neighbourhood bullies, it's a protectorate of the most powerful country in the world.



That's a strange word to use. There was an ongoing dispute over what should happen to the area after the British Mandate. It's not as if Israel was just minding its own business and then was suddenly attacked. Rather, the whole idea of Israel was part of a plan which a lot of people didn't agree with.



Firstly, it isn't actually a common idea that every ethnic group deserves their own country. Secondly, there is no reason it had to be in the exact same place it used to be. But, what's done is done. I'm more worried about the crimes which are still taking place as we speak.



Really? I could understand "expect to meet with resistance", but "expect to suffer the loss of land"? I mean, if Iraq had somehow won the recent war, would it have been reasonable for them to launch an invasion of the US?

I don't understand where we got this idea that groups of people deserve or don't deserve a country. You can either protect your territory or you can't. If you declare yourself a country and then turn around and defend it, you've earned your country.

And on the second point, if you attack a country and lose, you can expect the victors to pretty much do anything they want. If the aggressors win, they are certainly going to take your land. Why would you think that it's unreasonable to take their land?

It's really disturbing how weak "western" society has become. It's going to be our downfall.

What a wantonly irresponsible sentiment. If you want to be a nation state, start behaving like one. If you can't police your own people, how can you possibly expect to survive as a nation state?



No one and nothing is indestructible.



The British had been crystal clear about their intentions for the Mandate for over two decades. The Arab States rejected half a loaf in the mistaken belief that they could take the whole. And 19 years later, they tried again, and lost the half loaf that they had been holding onto.

I don't disagree that many people objected to the creation of Israel. But you don't have to agree with a decision in order to abide by it.



Then what, pray, is the basis of any suggestion that Palestine should exist? If the Palestinians have a right to self-determination, that right is no different than the right of Jews to self-determination.

And even if we accept that Palestinians have the right to organize themselves into a nation state, why should it exist in the territory currently occupied by Israel? Could we not carve our a nice piece of Jordan for them? Or perhaps something in the Mexican desert? Could the Navajo be persuaded to take them in?

It's the height of stupidity to argue in one breath that Jews had not right to create a nation in 1948, and then claim in the next that Palestinians do have such a right in 2013.



I'm actually with you on this--with the caveat that restoration to the status quo ante is conditional upon negotiation in good faith. The Palestinians have been very late arriving at that condition. But having done so, I am wholeheartedly of the view that Israeli settlement in the West Bank must be stopped; existing settlements must be made available for a land deal, and that Israel is entitled to financial compensation for the cost of the infrastructure that gets transferred as a result.

Not my point. I don't claim to know much about the details of what was being decided at the UN. My point is, much like a climate change skeptic, you have to somehow come up with an explanation of how the vast majority of the world's experts got it wrong.



There are obvious answers for all three, but I admit that it would be easy to fall into circular logic here. They are not exactly unusual candidates for members of a US-led voting bloc, put it that way.



Nothing, really.



Enormous? About the same amount of vested interests as Canada has on the other side, I would say. Anyway, I wasn't thinking of France when I was thinking of countries with no vested interest.



Well, here for example:

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/jul08/WPO_IsPal_Jul08_packet.pdf

As you can see, most people don't think their countries should get involved, but in general people are more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than the Israeli cause. But actually, that's not what I said. I said that most people associate Israel with illegal expansion. Here is something pretty close - whether people generally view Israel negatively as a country. Answer: yes they do.

http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=270291



I don't actually think this is a very important point. It just got picked up from me using the word "most". But international pressure is definitely part of the solution, since it can give a reality check to US citizens about how isolated their country is. And it's US citizens who can really make a difference here.



I don't think so. In fact, I think the opposite. International pressure only exists because people see the Palestinians as the victims. The violence of Hamas undermines that image, and embarrasses Palestinians who want to keep their international celebrity status.

I said that because the Arabs living in Palestine didn't even have a national identity called 'Palestinian' in the late 1940s. They just didn't want Israel to exist. They weren't Palestinians in 1967, either, when they also ganged up (for a second time) with other Arab countries and tried to drive the Jews into the sea. They didn't want a separate Palestinian state next to Israel - they wanted Israel's territory (as Hamas and Fatah still want) and, along with many other Arab countries, conspired to destroy the newly-formed State of Israel.

And I support the idea of a Palestinian (or, rather, Arab) state in theory. I just think we should be honest with ourselves and quit this mollycoddling of hatred.

I don't want to see a Palestinian state because I think that Palestinians are an "ethnic group" and therefore deserve a state. Maybe I finally figured out why Israel supporters love to say that the concept of "Palestinians" is fictional! It never seemed very relevant to me.

I want to see a Palestinian state because it is a way of giving a legitimate voice to the victims of an ongoing crime, and because it is part of the solution to an ongoing conflict. It needs to be in the same place because the crime is so recent that the threads of the old life can still be picked up again.

Exactly.



Yup. They're just not responsible enough at the moment for many, many well-documented reasons, all of which should be obvious even to the most stupid amongst us. Rockets and the daily diet of hatred and the glorification, promotion and endorsement of terrorism towards their neighbours for a start. To add to that, they've got serious, serious problems with human rights even with regards to their own people living in the PA and Hamas areas and the endemic corruption (i.e. the massive siphoning off of EU and other aid) and gangsterism in the PA, as well as a complete failure to take care of their own, long suffering, people. A perfunctory search online will easily bear this out.

I could start by quoting this:


And that's without even beginning to mention the utter barbarity of the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip.

...for instance.

Anyone for a UN boycott? How about calling in ambassadors? Or getting airhead left-wing actors and public figures to speak out about this disgusting abuse of the Palestinian people?

No, I thought not. You really couldn't pick worse advocates for a Palestinian state.

That doesn't necessarily mean that they'll never have the qualities of such a state. It just means that any situation is nearly unimaginably different from that which pertains at the present time.



What about Somaliland? I'd support Somaliland independence, as in spite of everything they appear to be making a decent fist of their autonomous status.



Very true, and Taiwan is a much more prosperous, liberal, peaceable and free territory than the Disputed Territories in the Middle East.



Or plain Western 'liberal' racist stupidity.



I'd pay to watch them raving Islamic lunatics they have on Al-Aqsa TV demonstrate their 'fitness' for such a state. Perhaps they could even rope in 'Andy' Choudary. Pass me the pork scratchings!



At the end of the day, this is essentially true. The EU need to stop funding the Poor Palestinians, the U.S. need to let the Israelis stand on their own two feet (I'm sure they'd actually welcome the challenge, and it would be good for them anyway), and the Arab countries need to wind their necks in and look after their own people better. Some of those clerical ignoramuses could do with a shave too.

And what is the end solution to this conflict? Go on, regale me.

It's not the destruction of Israel is it?

And you're a fine one to talk about invaded and occupied land. Where is it you live again?