The idea of such a state exists only in the minds of those who for decades have been building careers on this issue, like officials of international organizations, politicians whose competence is difficult to gauge and numerous “experts” who are now multiplying like rabbits.
And this is it: a proper professional would never talk about it, because their conscience would not allow it. Remarkably, this idea is not very popular among the Palestinians either. And this should not be surprising, because who knows them better than they know themselves?
After all, the Palestinians as a single society are a myth. And there has never been, nor is there, a “Palestinian people” in the minds of the Palestinians themselves. Descendants of Sudanese slaves and their former masters, ethnic Greeks and Armenians, offshoots of Circassians and Kurds, natives of the Hijaz, Bedouins and natives of Syria and Egypt: this is the wild, random cocktail they call “Palestinian Arabs”.
Add the division into tribes and clans. Starting with the Gaza Strip, where half of the four main clans marry their children only among themselves, since they do not even recognize the others as Arabs. And if anyone thinks that a man from, say, Ramallah can command those from Jenin, Tulkarm, Jericho, Hebron or Nablus, then they are sorely mistaken.
The only one who could unite these people for a while was Yasser Arafat. But he was a unique, extremely cruel man who would get rid of any rival instantly, leaving no bones, except as a cautionary tale. So many Palestinians were killed by other Palestinians in internecine squabbles and power struggles—the IDF and Israeli security services can only dream to catch up. But even Arafat could not sign a final settlement agreement with Israel and get his “tribesmen” to honor it.
The current Palestinian leaders, whatever wing they belong to, are all the more incapable of doing it. Not now and not in the foreseeable future.
Nobody is asking another interesting question: why do today’s Palestinians continue to live in “refugee camps” for decades, from Gaza, Judea and Samaria to Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, rather than settling down properly? Setting aside nuances and complexities, the main reason is that the “Palestinians” themselves believe that they cannot build a state WITH Israel—only INSTEAD of Israel.
Those “refugees”, according to all other Palestinians and their foreign sponsors, must return to the towns and villages where they came from. Otherwise, they will remain forever uninvited guests, even for their own people. And nothing can fix this local mental dislocation.
Here is another remarkable thing. Year after year, opinion polls are conducted in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. And year after year, no less than 70 percent of the “Palestinian” population answers that they do not need an independent state at all. That they are quite satisfied with their current status, because, first, they receive international aid, even if 90 percent of it does not reach them.
And second, they can work in Israel in their current status. With proper medical insurance and security guarantees. And that suits them just fine.
The conclusion is self-evident. The issue is not an independent Palestinian state. Because if it happens to come into existence, the international community will have a lot of problems with it because of internal massacres between Palestinian groups. The issue is removing those warring factions from the “Palestinian” population. Firmly. Completely. Only then will there be any real platform for a real solution to the Palestinian problem. As long as there is Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Hamas-like groups with their foreign sponsors, nothing will change. All negotiations will simply be an exercise in futility, occasionally generously sprinkled with the blood of both Palestinians and Israelis.
Ikram Nur
Translated from Haqqin.az
