The Palestinian Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Game

(Source here)

After the ignoble Palestinian terrorist attack, in which the Fogel family – father, mother and their 3 little children from the Itamar settlement, where brutally massacred in their sleep, you ask yourself: how can you make pace with such an horde of predators?

It seems that in the aftermath of the massacre, Arab-Israeli Lawmaker Ahmed Tibi, pretty well understood that this sort of satanic ‘heroism’ is the shortest road to nothing including the nothingness of a Palestinian state, so he says:

“The Palestinian nation is ashamed”… and more… “A struggle must be moral, conscionable and fair. There are rules to the struggle against the occupation.”see here “Tibi: Palestinians ashamed of Itamar attack”

Now here is a curious historical event dating from 1921, concerning another facet of the Israeli-Arab conflict, and related in some way to the impossible road taken by those assassins who call themselves freedom fighters..

Contrary to my practice I will quote integrally this little piece of history found on IsraCast and named “Winston Churchill on Palestine” :

( Photo credits: on Google and Flicker)

…In March 1921, twenty six years before the The United Nations General Assembly voted to partition Palestine, Mr. Winston Churchill visited Palestine and met a delegation of Muslim leaders. They protested that the ultimate objective of political Zionism was to give the natural resources of Palestine to the Jews. They pointed out that the Arabs had occupied Palestine for over a thousand years. They asked Churchill to use his influence to correct what they considered a great injustice.

‘You ask me to repudiate the Balfour Declaration and to stop (Jewish) immigration. This is not in my power … and it is not my wish … It is manifestly right that the scattered Jews should have a national center, and a national home to be re-united, and where else but in Palestine, with which for three thousand years they have been intimately and profoundly associated?
We think it will be good for the world, good for the Jews, good for the British Empire, but also good for the Arabs who dwell in Palestine…they shall share in the benefits and progress of Zionism.
I am told the Arabs would have done it for themselves. Who is going to believe that? Left to themselves, the Arabs of Palestine would not in a thousand years have taken effective steps toward the irrigation and electrification of Palestine. They would have been quite content to dwell–a handful of philosophic people– in the sun-scorched plains, letting the waters of the Jordan continue to flow unbridled and unharnessed into the Dead Sea!”

Well isn’t here more than irony in Churchill’s proposal that the Palestinian ..”share in the benefits and progress of Zionism.”?

I wouldn’t go so far. The Palestinians, I would like to believe, know very well that there are many forms of cooperation , see here for instance:

..”On the side of the Jordan Valley road the extensive agricultural activity is visible from afar. Dozens of greenhouses and long lines of palm trees add ornamentation to the roadside view and demonstrate the economic cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians, which is carrying on quietly, far from political problems.”..

…”According to Snokrut (former Palestinian Economy Minister), ‘This is an Israeli-Palestinian connection that has created trust between the two sides. We are working with no enemies here. We have joint creation with many companies from the Israeli economy – we buy their technology and seedlings and through them export to Europe and the US and even have Israeli agronomists here.’ “…see more: “Joining forces on agriculture”.

So, President Mahmoud Abbas and PM Fayyad, make your own Palestinian choice : to be Dr. Jekyll or to be Mr. Hyde… The game is open.