Do Palestinians Prefer Victimhood to Statehood?

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Since their arrival on the world scene as a “quasi-national” entity in 1948, the Palestinian Arabs have been cynically exploited by their own brethren. The best public relations mechanism that money can buy has turned the theme of the “underdog” into a deliberate operational strategy. This well-oiled and well-funded propaganda machine has turned the tables, and transformed tiny, beleaguered Israel, surrounded by millions of hostile Arabs, into an apparently belligerent and ugly Goliath. As Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote on June 16, 2006, “the Palestinians prefer victim-hood to state-hood”: http://http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/15/AR2006061501794.html"

My heart truly goes out to the Palestinian Arabs living in the Gaza Strip – spurned by the Egyptians and the Arab world from 1948 until 1967, living under Israeli occupation from 1967, and now forced to live in a war zone by their incompetent leaders. They live in squalor and poverty. They have no jobs to go to, and no food to put on the table. They deserve better. Ironically, their quality of life was considerably better under the Israeli occupation. Now they have nothing. Their hatred and bitterness is nourished by their leaders, and directed against Israel. But who is ultimately to blame for their plight?"

In one of our first presentations, “History in a Nutshell”, we wrote that if the Arabs had accepted the United Nations’ Partition Plan, they would already have celebrated the 58th year of Arab Palestine as an independent state. But it seems that nothing has changed in their mentality. There are now no Israeli soldiers or military facilities inside Gaza. There are no Israeli settlers in Gaza. In fact, since the disengagement last summer, [b]Gaza IS the first independent Palestinian Arab state. Instead of laying the foundations for a new and vibrant nation, Gaza has become an area of rampant anarchy, a launching-ground for missiles against Israeli civilians well inside the Green Line, with rival terrorist factions chaotically fighting each other inside Gaza at the same time as they continue hostilities against Israel. We wonder if the Palestinian Arabs are even capable of living in a democracy."