We already talked in a previous editorial about the real dimensions of the conflict.
The "expansionist" State of Israel has 22,145 km2 and 10 million inhabitants, of which 2.1 million are Arab Israelis with full citizenship rights.
Surrounding it are 22 countries of the Arab League with 13.5 million km2 - 600 times larger than Israel - and 460 million inhabitants.
Let's remember:
The Gaza Strip: 365 km2 - with 2.1 million inhabitants. Part of the enormous Egypt until 1967.
West Bank or Judea and Samaria: 5,860 km2 with 3.4 million inhabitants. Part of the Kingdom of Jordan until 1967.
In total: 5.56 million "Palestinian" inhabitants.
And this is where the great historical lie begins.
Until May 28, 1964, there was no "Palestinian people" as a political entity. What existed were Arabs who first lived in the British Mandate, then in Egypt and Jordan. That day, 422 notables gathered in Jerusalem, under the auspices of Nasser and the Arab League, to invent the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Its objective was the destruction of the State of Israel, not the creation of a "Palestinian" state - which they do not even mention in their founding Charter, because Gaza was Egyptian and the West Bank was Jordanian. They did not claim the borders of 1967 as that war with its territorial implications had not yet occurred.
Only in 1974 did the UN recognize the PLO as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people." This is where, by political decree, the "Palestinian" issue is born.
That said, let's ask the uncomfortable question.
If the Arab world had really wanted to solve the problem of its own creation, could it not have solved it in one afternoon?
It would have been enough to invite that "Palestinian" population to live in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Emirates, Kuwait, with possibilities and a quality of life infinitely superior.
You will say, rightly, that no one wants to leave their land. That's true.
But it happened to 8.5 million Venezuelans, 9 million Syrians, 6.5 million Ukrainians, 5.5 million Afghans. The world received them. Colombia received 2.8 million Venezuelans. Germany received 1.2 million Syrians.
And when there is a will, there is a way. Just ask Israel.
This country of 22,000 km2 absorbed almost 1 million Jews expelled from Arab countries between 1948 and 1970 - from Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco, without anyone calling them "refugees" and over 1.5 million Jews from the former Soviet Union from 1990 onwards. It welcomed them, provided them with housing, language, work, and a future. Without the UN, without eternal UNRWA.
That is absorption. The other is exploitation.
Only the Arabs of Gaza and the West Bank are denied that right. Why?
Because for the Arab League, which attempted to eliminate the Jewish state in 1948, 1967, and 1973 and failed, that poor "Palestinian" population became a perverse instrument, much more useful than as citizens.
It is more useful as a weapon than as a people.
Those who scream and march for Palestinian victims are not interested in solving a problem, but in having a false utopia, which incidentally delegitimizes the Jewish right to have a state. They do not care about the Palestinian state; they are bothered by the existence of a Jewish state.
Let's be clear: historically, countries win and lose wars and with them territories. Just ask Ukraine about Crimea. Poland, which lost 20% of its territory in 1945. Germany. India and Pakistan, which exchanged 15 million people. I don’t recall many cases where the victor returns the territory conquered in a defensive war and takes care of the population that declared war on it for life. Look at our old continent with borders that have changed a hundred times in the last two centuries.
As Nathan Alterman wrote in his poem "The Silver Tray," inspired by words from Chaim Weizmann, no state is handed over on a silver platter. Israel was no exception.
As Ephraim Kishon ironically remarked in his satire "Sorry, We Won," Israel lost the opportunity to be loved by all the day it decided not to become a museum that remembers a vanished people, but a living state.
The Jews and Israel decided that we do not want to be a museum piece.
If Egypt and Jordan really cared, Gaza and the West Bank would have been empty for 50 years and their inhabitants would be doctors in Cairo, engineers in Amman, or workers in Qatar. But they prefer them poor, trapped, and armed. Because a "Palestinian" alive in Dubai is of no use. A "Palestinian" dead in Gaza does indeed have a price in the UN.
Miguel Steuermann is a journalist and Director of Radio JAI, the Jewish radio of Latin America.
Comments