In an op-ed today, Efraim Karsh writes about “The Palesitnians alone.” The thrust of his article is that over the years the Palestinian cause has been adopted by those who don’t have Palestinian interests in mind.
Not surprisingly, the Arab states have never hesitated to sacrifice Palestinians on a grand scale whenever it suited their needs. In 1970, when his throne came under threat from the Palestine Liberation Organization, the affable and thoroughly Westernized King Hussein of Jordan ordered the deaths of thousands of Palestinians, an event known as “Black September.”
Six years later, Lebanese Christian militias, backed by the Syrian Army, massacred some 3,500 Palestinians, mostly civilians, in the Beirut refugee camp of Tel al-Zaatar. These militias again slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians in 1982 in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, this time under Israel’s watchful eye. None of the Arab states came to the Palestinians’ rescue.
Worse, in the mid-’80s, when the P.L.O. — officially designated by the Arab League as the “sole representative of the Palestinian people” — tried to re-establish its military presence in Lebanon, it was unceremoniously expelled by President Hafez al-Assad of Syria.
I still recommend Daniel PIpes, How Important is the PLO? from 1983. The gist of his argument then was that the PLO does whatever its sponsors wanted. Karsh’s specifics are different, but the conclusion is the same. (I also think that to some degree the effect of Karsh describes, was covered in the articles I blogged about yesterday.)
In the end, despite the apparent interest shown by Arab world in the Palestinians, Karsh concludes:
Against this backdrop, it is a positive sign that so many Arabs have apparently grown so apathetic about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. For if the Arab regimes’ self-serving interventionism has denied Palestinians the right to determine their own fate, then the best, indeed only, hope of peace between Arabs and Israelis lies in rejecting the spurious link between this particular issue and other regional and global problems.
The sooner the Palestinians recognize that their cause is theirs alone, the sooner they are likely to make peace with the existence of the State of Israel and to understand the need for a negotiated settlement.
I don’t see this happening any time soon.
Palestinians find themselves at the center of international attention, their leaders are feted in capitals around the world and they receive billions in aid. They have no incentive to look out for their own interests and make peace.
Crossposted on Yourish.
More and more, Meryl, I see the Munich Olympic massacre as one of those world-historical events, an event whose impact is massive and goes far beyond its immediate effects. The Palestinians did something even the Axis nations and Stalin apparently never even considered, murdering Olympic athletes during the games.
The response of the world was not to rise as one in revulsion at the murders and at any organization that would even contemplate such savage and barbaric action; it was to let the games go on and try to understand whatever could have motivated people to engage in some desperate tactics. In short, the Palestinians learned that terrorism worked. Most of us will live with the effects of this for the rest of our lives.