The world has such a short memory:
UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Egypt’s foreign minister called on Israel Wednesday to follow its withdrawal from Gaza by launching final status negotiations with the Palestinians and halting the expansion of settlements in the West Bank.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit told the U.N. General Assembly’s annual ministerial meeting that until Israel reaches the goal of a complete withdrawal from Palestinian territories, it also should stop building the West Bank separation barrier and improve the humanitarian situation of Palestinians.
“As we welcome the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and few settlements in the northern part of the West Bank, we also call upon the Israeli government to continue the withdrawal of its troops from all the Palestinian territories,” he said.
Aboul Gheit, who previously served as Egypt’s U.N. ambassador, called on Israel to meet all its commitments under the road map peace plan so Arabs and Israel can reach their common goal – “the establishment of two independent states, Palestinian and Israel, coexisting in peace and security.”
From 1948 to 1967, the Gaza Strip was part of what country? Say it with me now: EGYPT!
Funny how the Egyptians didn’t think Gaza deserved to be part of its own state back then.
You’re mixing up Egypt and Jordan.
Jordan annexed the West Bank; Egypt turned Gaza into a giant prison. They were glad to be rid of it in 1967, and refused to accept its “return” in the peace treaty with Israel.
Meryl’s point is still valid, the Egyptians did not champion a Palestinian Arab government for Gaza. A Palestinian state became an Arab goal only after the Six-day War. The PLO became the “sole representative of the Palestinian People” only after King Hussein refused to join in the thrid Arab war to destroy Israel and annihilate its Jewish inhabitants. That was payback for his good sense.
Michael–
Sorry, Michael, but your history is just wrong. Every Arab state with the exception of Transjordan voted in 1948 to establish an Arab Palestinian government. Only Jordan annexed Palestinian land and offered citizenship to the “Palestinians.” No pther Arab state recognized Jordan’s annexation, because the land was considered to be Palestinian land. (Only two countries in the entire world recognized the annexation. Can you name them? Hints: only one was an Islamic country, and only one was a permanent member of the Security Council.)
The PLO, which was formed principally under the auspices of Nasser in 1964, claimed a right of Palestinian national self-determination. However, it had to thread the needle between the Jordanian and pan-Arab positions. On the one hand, the 1964 Charter proclaims Palestine to be indivisible. On the other hand, as a pan-Arabic document, Article 24’s disclaimer of PLO jurisdiction over Palestinian territory administered by other Arab states is not entirely contradictory.
That provision was of course dropped in the 1968 version of the Charter, inasmuch as the pan-Arabist argument against PLO jurisdiction over the West Bank and Gaza no longer applied.
The bottom line is that, with the sole exception of Jordan, which got with the program in 1974, the Arabs have consistently supported Palestinian statehood since 1948.
Meryl, if it’s hypocrisy you’re looking for, try this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4274680.stm
Five years after Israel pulled all its troops out of Lebanon, after Lebanon failed to fulfill its obligation to police its side of the border, and after Lebanon and Syria manufactured a pretext for Hezbollah to continue attacking Israel – all of which is acknowledged by the UN in multiple reports – Annan is now suggesting that it’s up to Israel to solve the problem, by leaving Sheba’a Farms!
Or this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4216244.stm
The BBC has just made a discovery: “[T]he picture that the world has of Gaza, is not the whole story.” Having recently received a Welcome Wagon brochure from the Palestinian Authority, the Beeb now realizes that Gaza is not just a place of “Israeli soldiers opening fire in refugee camps, and sending bulldozers into Palestinian homes.” It is also “a place where people get educated, have careers, dance at weddings, raise their children, and make the best of life by the Mediterranean.” How could the world have got such a distorted picture? If only someone had told the BBC sooner.
Ben F,
You’re only sort-of right yourself. Egypt set up a Palestinian government in exile, in Gaza. Egypt’s interest was not in the Palestinians, but in blocking Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank (not because it was Palestinian, but to stop Abdallah gaining prestige and power). Other Arab governments granted it recognition, but it was clearly a sham – the Egyptians had no intention of leaving it in charge of its own affairs. According to Howard Sachar, (A History of Israel, Ch. 13):
(I wish I could have been a fly on the wall.)
It seems to me that, until Arafat wrested control of the PLO from Egypt and Syria after the Six Day War, the Arabs treated the idea of “the Palestinians” as a joke – a useful fiction to fight Israel with, but certainly not anything real. They seem to have been surprised when that particular golem came to a life of its own – though Israel was even slower to catch on to the new reality of an actual Palestinian people.
The bottom line is that this is mostly academic. “Palestine” was nominally a separate nation among the Arabs, but in reality a wholly-owned subsidiary of Egypt. So you’re right and Michael’s right too, but so far as Meryl’s original point is concerned, the essence is still true.
Well, yes and no, Ben. When Egypt occupied Gaza and Jordan the West Bank, the issue of a Palestinian state didn’t exactly come to the forefront, the Vatican didn’t say much about internationalizing the Holy City, and everyone managed to get around without tripping over the idea of a Palestinian state. If anyone, especially Arab governments, applied actual pressure on Egypt and Jordan to set up such a state, it was very, very quiet.
In any case, I proudly take Meryl’s website to announce another hidden principle that tacitly guides debate on the Arab-Israel conflict; note that I do not call it the “Palestinian-Israel” conflict because that does not tell the whole story. It’s an Arab war against Israel, not just a Palestinian one. With my usual modesty I call it the Bensky Bifurcated Historical Analysis Principle.
Here it is: when it comes to the Arab-Israel conflict history is bifurcated. On the one hand, with respect to general Arab history, if the Arabs are still smoldering over the Reconquista, which happened five hudnred years ago, or for that matter the Crusades, that only shows how authentic they are, how in touch with their unique culture, as opposed to us deracinated Westerners. Aren’t they picturesque?
On the other hand, when it comes to Israel, history began this morning, and it’s unfair and irrelevant to bring up what happened yesterday, much less how it happened that Israel came into Gaza in the first place. This is why Israel’s retaliation for yesterday’s rockets simply continues the cycle of violence. The rockets were sent over yesterday, so it’s unfair to take them into account when we criticize Israel’s activities today.
As with the Bensky Corollary to Everything, which Meryl persists in calling merely the Exception Clause, I challenge anyone to show me that this principle is not in operation even if no one actually refers overtly to it.
Ben?
Every Arab state with the exception of Transjordan voted in 1948 to establish an Arab Palestinian government.
What vote in 1948 are you talking about? UN Resolution 181, which, among other things, called for the establishment of an Arab state in “Palestine,” was passed on November 29, 1947. The countries that voted AGAINST: Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen. Jordan didn’t become a member of the UN until 1955. Not one Arab state voted in FAVOR of the resolution.
If, on the other hand, you’re talking about the so-called “All Palestine Government,” well, yes, Jordan was the fly in the ointment there but of course Abdullah claimed that Jordan and “Palestine” were synonymous (“Palestine and Transjordan are one, for Palestine is the coastline and Transjordan the hinterland of the same country”). In any case, Arab interest in an independent Arab palestinian state was always directly proportional to Jewish demographic, political and military gains in the region and, as Paul already pointed out, the ill-fated APG itself was mostly aimed at curbing Abdullah’s ambitions.
The bottom line is that, with the sole exception of Jordan, which got with the program in 1974, the Arabs have consistently supported Palestinian statehood since 1948.
Correction: The Arabs have consistently supported palestinian statehood in “all of Palestine” since 1948. Another way of saying the same thing is that they’ve consistently supported the destruction of the State of Israel, even if it takes putting up with a palestinian state to do it.
Sadat didn’t want Gaza “back?” I would think not. Even if he had had the slightest political ground to stand on (which he didn’t), Gaza was already a teeming slum full of pissed off palestinians that Egypt had kept locked up there for two decades. Not exactly a prize.
Meryl’s point, though, which is indisputable, was that Egypt illegally occupied Gaza for 19 years with nary a peep from the Arab world and with no apparent crisis of conscience — an occupation which, BTW, ended quite involuntarily. So at this juncture, Egypt’s belated concern for “palestinian rights” in Gaza can hardly be taken seriously.