Palestine – Failing the test of history

Palestine – Failing the test of history

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After a quarter –century, all the Palestinians have managed to establish is a corrupt kleptocracy under Fatah & a tyrannical theocracy under Hamas.

It appears this week on the following sites (in alphabetical order):

ISRAELI FRONTLINE: http://www.israelifrontline.com/2018/06/palestine-failing-the-test-of-history.html
ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/22260
ISRAPUNDIT: https://www.israpundit.org/palestine-failing-the-test-of-history/
JERUSALEM HERALD: https://www.jerusalem-herald.com/single-post/2018/06/13/Palestine-Failing-The-Test-Of-History
JNS: https://www.jns.org/writers/martin-sherman/
JEWS DOWN UNDER: https://jewsdownunder.com/2018/06/08/into-the-fray-gaza-the-humanitarian-hoax/
UNITED WITH ISRAEL: https://unitedwithisrael.org/palestine-failing-the-test-of-history/

Several short excerpts:

Merit is no qualification for freedom…. Freedom is enjoyed when you are so well armed, or so turbulent, or inhabit a country so thorny that the expense of your neighbour’s occupying you is greater than the profit.- From a letter by T.E. Lawrence (a.k.a.”Lawrence of Arabia”) published July 22, 1920, in The Times of London setting out a case for the political independence for the Arabs in the Middle East.

Despite being written almost a century ago Lawrence’s diagnosis is still extremely pertinent in assessing the validity of the frequently aired view that “the Palestinians deserve a state of their own.”…Indeed, such views have been explicitly expounded by US Administrations for well over a decade from George W. Bush to Barack Obama ,who both incorporated the idea into their “visions” for the Middle East.

Cannot condition national sovereignty on regime type …if tolerant pluralistic polities, in which the rule of law and civil equality flourished, were the sine-qua-non for recognition of national sovereignty, such recognition would have to be denied a slew of states across the globe – from authoritarian monarchies through military dictatorships, and tyrannical theocracies. Indeed, many of the states in the international system, and the Middle East, would not qualify – including several that Israel recognizes as having a major role to play in the region…To adopt these positions would be to demand from the Palestinians criteria for national independence that are demanded from no other people…

Palestinian failure undeniably staggering

However, the Palestinians have indeed undermined – even invalidated – their claim to statehood by the eminently less stringent and clearly measurable empirical criterion set out by Lawrence above. For the Palestinians’ ongoing failure to achieve statehood reflects the converse – but necessary – corollary of the simple practical yardstick he stipulates….After all, if success in achieving statehood is the sole criterion by which to judge whether such statehood is indeed merited, then surely it follows that the reverse is true: Failure to achieve statehood is the ultimate indicator in determining that it is not.

Despite highly favorable conditions for success

After all, as a purported “national liberation” movement, the Palestinians have enjoyed hugely favorable conditions:..Yet in spite of these highly conducive circumstances, the Palestinians have been utterly unable to produce any semblance of a sustainable productive society…Clearly then, a quarter-century after the Oslo Agreements, the Palestinians have shown the world that they simply cannot “cut it.”

Tyrannical theocracy and corrupt kleptocracy

All they have been able to establish has proven both tenuous and dysfunctional, from a corrupt kleptocracy under Fatah to a tyrannical theocracy under Hamas. Indeed, the Palestinian state has perhaps the unique, if dubious, distinction of attaining “failed state” status before it was in fact established.

Failing the test of history

Accordingly, the time has come to remove the issue of Palestinian statehood from the international agenda – for the Palestinians themselves have shown that they are patently incapable of attaining or maintaining such statehood…The time has, therefore, come to challenge the tenets of conventional wisdom which unquestioningly hold that “the Palestinians deserve a state of their own” –not because of any objections raised by the opponents of such a state, but because the Palestinians themselves have failed the test of history—and have done so resoundingly.

As usual your talkbacks/comments/critiques welcome,
Best wishes,
MS

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