28 August 2008
Arab Failure to Support Palestine
It was reported in August, 2008 on the Internet newsletter of the Development Gateway Foundation that the Iraqi government has launched a registration process for Palestinian refugees who arrived between 1948 and 1967 - and their descendants - to help ensure they benefit from government aid programs. Apparently, the new Iraqi government has decided to devote part of its oil revenue windfall to alleviating the hardships of the Palestinians on its soil who were displaced by the Arab-Israeli conflict.
As generous as they have been to individual victims of the establishment and expansion of the Jewish state, wealthy Arab governments have never really effectively helped Palestinian Arabs as a group to recover from bearing the brunt of the West’s expiation of anti-Semitism over the centuries. Yes, that atonement came at the expense of Arabs in Palestine, not of the perpetrators of pogroms and the Holocaust.
The Arab states neighboring Israel and the West Bank, however, treated the founding of Israel as the centerpiece of a zero-sum game; they sought to avenge its injustice by striking at the Jewish state, not at its puppet-masters in the West. When they tried to target the West by imposing an oil embargo in the 1970s, they found they paid just as dearly themselves for that futile action. In the meantime, Palestinian Arabs have languished under leadership that pursued terrorism against Israel and its sympathizers with the financial support of misguided patrons in the Mideast oil patch. Instead, they could have been enabled to redeem their future by investment in their own enterprises and public works from their Arab brothers.
This pathway to Palestinian dignity is still possible, assisted particularly by booming oil prices. It demands, however, the suspension of Arab suspicion towards their Palestinian brothers. Using oil revenues to provide refugee aid is laudable; but it demeans a nation of entrepreneurial individuals whom other Arabs regard as potential threats to their own regional dominance. This jealousness has historically been a detriment to Arab advancement. If it is abandoned, it could also help lead the rest of the world away from the dismal expectation of constant conflict in the Middle East.
It was reported in August, 2008 on the Internet newsletter of the Development Gateway Foundation that the Iraqi government has launched a registration process for Palestinian refugees who arrived between 1948 and 1967 - and their descendants - to help ensure they benefit from government aid programs. Apparently, the new Iraqi government has decided to devote part of its oil revenue windfall to alleviating the hardships of the Palestinians on its soil who were displaced by the Arab-Israeli conflict.
As generous as they have been to individual victims of the establishment and expansion of the Jewish state, wealthy Arab governments have never really effectively helped Palestinian Arabs as a group to recover from bearing the brunt of the West’s expiation of anti-Semitism over the centuries. Yes, that atonement came at the expense of Arabs in Palestine, not of the perpetrators of pogroms and the Holocaust.
The Arab states neighboring Israel and the West Bank, however, treated the founding of Israel as the centerpiece of a zero-sum game; they sought to avenge its injustice by striking at the Jewish state, not at its puppet-masters in the West. When they tried to target the West by imposing an oil embargo in the 1970s, they found they paid just as dearly themselves for that futile action. In the meantime, Palestinian Arabs have languished under leadership that pursued terrorism against Israel and its sympathizers with the financial support of misguided patrons in the Mideast oil patch. Instead, they could have been enabled to redeem their future by investment in their own enterprises and public works from their Arab brothers.
This pathway to Palestinian dignity is still possible, assisted particularly by booming oil prices. It demands, however, the suspension of Arab suspicion towards their Palestinian brothers. Using oil revenues to provide refugee aid is laudable; but it demeans a nation of entrepreneurial individuals whom other Arabs regard as potential threats to their own regional dominance. This jealousness has historically been a detriment to Arab advancement. If it is abandoned, it could also help lead the rest of the world away from the dismal expectation of constant conflict in the Middle East.
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