A Palestinian state: when?

As I noted yesterday, Barry Rubin published a timely essay recalling how the Palestinian blew a chance to prevent Israel from ever existing – 70 years ago. I didn’t think it required any further comment. But then I read something, which just confirmed his conclusion. This was the scenario 70 years ago:

Let’s set the scene. The British knew that another war was on the horizon with Germany and Italy ready to disrupt their control of the Mediterranean and Middle East. Fearful of Arab revolts in alliance with their fascist enemies, London was ready to give lots of concessions to them.

On the Palestine issue, the British government was so desperate that it offered an amazing deal. A single Palestine state (the British had conceded to Arab opposition over the word “federal”) would be established in ten years with an Arab majority. Land sales to Jews would be prohibited in most of the country and Jewish immigration would be strictly limited. If the Arabs had agreed, Israel would never have been established. As it was, the British implemented the immigration restrictions any way, dooming hundreds of thousands of Jews in Europe to horrible deaths.

But the Arabs in Palestine rejected the proposed political deal to put them in charge of the government with a timetable for turning the country over to them. They walked out of negotiations with Britain, ostensibly over the ten-year waiting period. Most importantly, they believed that their goals could be achieved more quickly and completely through a combination of an Arab uprising and an Axis military victory in the coming war.

Now read this interview with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

It appears Mr. Netanyahu has not accepted your conditions for resuming direct negotiations. As long as there are no talks, then what is your strategy for advancing the Palestinians toward statehood?

First, let me say that these aren’t preconditions. We don’t have conditions to go to negotiations. There is a road map binding on all and that all agreed to. There are obligations to Israel and obligations for the Palestinians. There is a part [of the road map] that talks about an independent Palestinian state and ending the occupation of ’67. The Arab peace initiative also became a main part of the road map. It calls on Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories and 57 Arab and Islamic countries will normalize relations with Israel.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu says ‘I call on Abbas to negotiate, but he has to understand that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel, that’s not up for discussion. The refugees — there will be no talk about them at all. He has to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.’ So who is putting conditions. I’m not putting them. He is putting conditions. Now the ball is in the international community’s court and specifically in America’s court. It should see how Europe addressed the problem. Europe stressed that the Palestinians’ lands of 1967 are occupied lands, and east Jerusalem is occupied and at Annapolis all the states participating without exception called for stopping the expansion of settlements. The international community supports our position, and so it’s up to them to move to apply international law and not to take a position just to take a position.

Forget for a moment that Abbas is reading a lot into 242 and 338 that just aren’t there. Here’s he’s abdicating any responsibility for creating a state. It’s up to the Americans, according to Abbas, to come to the biased position of the EU and force Israel to accept Abba’s definitions.

Of course his protestation that he’s for peace and has been since the 1970’s, is false. And his endorsement of Marwan Barghouti as “…a man who has a good reputation and a good history of resistance …” further erodes his claim to being for peace. Others have been keeping track of the PA’s compliance with the terms of Oslo. Again, contrary to Abbas’s claims, PA compliance is spotty at best.

The question becomes, when will it be in the Palestinians best interests to have a state of their own? Apparently we haven’t yet reached that point yet.

UPDATE: Elder of Ziyon catches another Abbas falsehood.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.