OPINION:
What is wrong with the Arabs who have called themselves Palestinians since 1964, when the PLO was founded in Egypt to get rid of the “infidels” in the Middle East and North Africa (“Pending power vacuum: Younger Palestinians despair over aging, flailing leadership,” Web, May 21)?
In British Mandate Palestine, only Jews were called Palestinians. Have today’s Palestinians not yet figured out that no one cares about them? Do they not remember that in the 1948 war for Israeli independence, Egypt took Gaza and Jordan occupied the West Bank? Why did these two not then create “Palestine?” The answer is that they did not recognize any Arabs called Palestinians. Their goal was to drive out the infidels and split up the land.
It is very convenient for them to have the United Nations designate any Arab who lost a home in the war a refugee if he had lived more than two years under the mandate. The Jordanians offered anyone in the West Bank citizenship. The Lebanese, Jordanians, Syrians and Egyptians set up refugee camps and sucked money out of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), supposedly to help the destitute. Later Fatah and Hamas joined in.
Now is the best time for the Arabs to work with Israel and set up two states. Now, while non-Arabs are still willing to pay and Iran and Hezbollah are being kept at bay, they can make a deal with Israel. They can enjoy the prosperity their Israeli-Arab brothers enjoy and develop a prosperous society. However, perhaps the Palestinians would rather kill the infidels than have a country. That is their dilemma.
LEN BENNETT
Ottawa, Ontario
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