Palestinians: The Arabs Do Not Care about Us

"The PA sees Arab meddling in Palestinian affairs as harmful and counterproductive. It has yet to recover from the days when each Arab country had endorsed its own Palestinian faction."

That would be a legacy of Arab states long using The Question Of Palestine as a convenient foil to distract their respective populations from problems at home. It is far easier for the governments in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc. to caterwaul ineffectively about "Palestine" than face pressure to right their own sorry economies and gangster societies.

Arab states have used the "Palestinians" as a weapon against Israel since 1948 by cooping them up in camps and funding the poisoning of their minds against Jews.

The trouble is that the "Palestinians" have also become a radicalised political force which does not accord the regimes of their Arab brothers any respect or deference.

Accordingly, the "Palestinians" can never be let out for there is a risk that all the (anti-democratic) neighbouring Arab regimes, being shaky, may crash to the ground.

Fatah and Hamas don't want this conflict to end...they will lose their relevance & cash.
Fatah is never going to change.
They've been making billions by saying no for 70 years.
Read the Panama papers how Fatah has stolen billions in aid meant for regular Palestinians that Fatah uses to lavish its leaders

It is unhealthy for Palestinians to continue on the same route. Time to depend on themselves. No more US $ to the Palestinians.

Well? What did they expect? Keep whining that no one likes them. Everyone is against them and the handouts would keep funneling in? They could go eat some worms!

How exactly are the Arab states obligated to care about anybody?

The Arabs don't care about the Palestinians, and, for the most part, never did care. The Palestinian "cause" was a mostly an excuse to try to eliminate Israel, and now that the more intelligent Arab leaders have found how difficult destroying Israel would be, and that it can be a valuable ally in opposing aggression from Iran, the Palestinians have lost much of their value.

The Palestinian leadership has no interest in any peace settlement, or a Palestinian state. Peace would put them out of business, since their power and wealth depends on keeping their public inflamed against Israel -- It's not likely their people would tolerate tyrannical rule by these terrorists and thieves, without a focus for their hatred on Israel to distract them from what their "leaders" are doing to them. They already have two de facto Palestinian states, and a great deal more latitude and freedom from scrutiny in tyrannizing the population, and stealing from the aid money than they would as a legitimate government. They will oppose any sort of peace settlement, regardless of how favorable the conditions might be -- it would undermine the basis of their power and wealth.

The Arab countries and Israeli Left have allowed this "Palestinian" farce to go on for too long. Arabs in Israel were given Jordan. That is their homeland. Get used to it. Any "peace" plan that tries to give away Israeli land for a terror regime- or ANY Arab state- west of the Jordan River will fail.

Palestinians experience some of the most rapid population growth on the planet due to their high birthrates in pursuit of Demographic Jihad.
The negative environmental and social consequences of this rapid population growth, they blame on Israel.
At some point, unless the ever increasing spigot of foreign aid dries up, the laws of mathematics will dictate a political solution to their liking.
The same can be said for much of the Islamic and Developing World.
Europe is only an election or two away from 'refugees' having sufficient political clout to dictate the permanent erasure of borders that separate Europe from the Third World.
Demographics is fueling everything from global climate change, to mass migration, to the 'Palestinian issue'.
And a comatose media pretends this fundamental root of all issues does not exist.

The clear, succinct, fact-filled reports of Khaled Abu Toameh are welcome. Might I add an historic perspective - There are no Palestinian people. A reading of Fmr Sec. of State Seward and Mark Twain (A Traveller Abroad) writing/reporting in the 1860's from the 'Holy Land' speak of a Jewish population in Jerusalem and little else in the 'Holy Land', 19th centuries term for present day Israel, the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. They do report on the desolate nature of that land, a land no longer 'a land of milk and honey', a land in the 19th century largely bereft of fruitful fields and forests, inhospitable to habitation.
There are no Palestinian people, Yasser Arafat 'created' them. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/yasser-arafat

The Palestine Arabs are a sad story. Apparently they preferred being Ottoman peons than Israeli citizens. In any case, most rejected partition and statehood, in 1948, opting instead to act as proxies for the neighboring Arab states, in a ceaseless war of annihilation against Israel -- 70 years of bloodshed and rancor for something they were offered from the start.

Despite the Islamist charter of Hamas, the Palestinians are not a Muslim monolith. Some of their notable apologists -- Edward Said -- and militants -- George Habash -- were Christians! Nor are Palestinian Arabs demographically monolithic. All one can say is that they are/were Arabs living in the geographical region designated as Palestine, including Arabs who hail from the Jordan River region, and Gazan -- actually Egyptian -- Arabs, bordering the Mediterranean. (Arafat was Egyptian.) So, until Israel came along there never was a sense of a Palestinian nationhood which transcended parochial identities. As an important Gatestone article indicates, the "Palestinian people" is a contrivance to facilitate and justify the Arab war against Israel. Everyone should bookmark it: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11401/palestinian-people

The tragedy is that here are people -- cynically programmed by Arab states and reënforced by credulous or malign Westerners to believe in a fraudulent nationhood defined by hatred of Israel -- who, having served their purpose -- presumably that of making life miserable for Israeli Jews and Arabs -- are now regarded as nuisances, to be discarded by their erstwhile patrons.

"This Arab apathy towards the Palestinians is the result of a long-standing belief in the Arab world that the Palestinians are an ungrateful people who do not hesitate to bite the hand that feeds them."

This is not a belief Mr. Toameh; it is a fact. In the late 1960's king Hussein of Jordan accepted the Palestinians (PLO really), led by Yassar Arafat, within his country. By 1970 the king had found out that Arafat was planning a coup to kill the king and put himself in power. A war between Palestinian forces and the Jordanian army ensued. Ultimately, the Palestinians lost and they were forced to flee (so-called Black September). Luckily, Lebanon, thanks to Christian charity, was willing to accept the Palestinian 'refugees' from the failed coup. [The Lebanese were about to learn that no good deed goes unpunished.] The Lebanese were repaid for their charity when the PLO set up its own 'state' within Lebanon and, as they did in Jordan, implemented procedures intended to cause civil war and the ultimate takeover of the country by Arafat.

In 1995, when Moammar Gadhafi expelled 30,000 Palestinians within Libya; no Arab state at the time wanted to accept the refugees. Gadafi used the PLO's acceptance of Israel's right to exist (Oslo process) as a pretext for their expulsion but you can be sure he did it because such a large force within his borders was a danger to his rule. Obviously, the Arab states thought along similar lines by refusing to offer these Palestinians a refuge. As far as I have been able to establish, the Arab nations, to this day, still refuse to welcome Palestinians within their borders. Actually, that is not quite true. Up to 2008 the Gulf States accepted the Palestinians but according to the CIA, the Palestinians knew it was just a matter of time before they would be asked to leave this area ( https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP84S00556R000300070003-4.pdf )

Regarding "bitting the hand that feeds it" that is an overly quaint way of putting it. It is obvious, in my estimation, that like the Fenris Wolf, this predator intends to consume whole those who befriend it. Even the Arabs recognize that in this case; the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend.

The "Palestinians" are like a spoiled child sitting in the middle of the floor of a school classroom clutching all of its toys while refusing to share with others. Is is any wonder no one wants anything to do with them when their petulant "leadership" exhibits nothing but contempt, not only for those nations surrounding them, but for all who have funded its People's very existence?? Making oneself a pariah has never been a formula for a successful relationship with others. The question is, will they ever learn this fundamental truth? Thus far, the answer seems to indicate "NO!".

I continue to marvel that no one calls out the Pals as the elephant in the room.

That they train their children starting at age 3-4, that it's their obligation to murder Israeli Jews. That Jews are pigs and monkeys deserving of death. Then when these little ones grow up, they kill as many Jews as they can. And the pal "government" honors the murderers with pensions, paid for by the idiot Western governments, and by naming streets and squares after the murderers.

Who can "negotiate" when one sides's starting and ending position, is that the entirety of Israel should be given to the pals, "from the river to the sea?"

The Land for peace deal will result in the invasion of a weakened ISRAEL at some point. There are so many deceived and half blind Israelis and especially AIPAC types who are willing to give Israeli security to the SUNNI alliance which includes the US and the EU. Why not just buy the Brooklyn Bridge at half price.

Multilateralism is both a strength and a weakness. It is vital inorder for some modicum of cross-cultural communication, alone, in the Middle East. It would seem to me, that if this small group of very adversarial people are advocating that the USA be "ineligible" to lead them in their peace negotiations, that multilateralism is NOT a concept they easily understand. They proclaim we are NOT multilateral with our diplomacy, but they easily "take" our money and try to exclude us from the multilateral position. Contradictory goals can destroy any significant progress in the effort just to get everyone on the same page for peace.

The Palestinians have carried the banner for making demands against false enemies. If you create enemies, then most participating parties in the peace negotiations, will eventually pull back to a more disinterested position. That's just a rational, logical reaction to putting up "road blocks". Palestinian politics sounds like the TYRANNY of the few, attempting to control more than they actually have the ability to understand. I personally praise ALL the Arabs who have tried to ethically reduce the Palestinians adversarial approach to any negotiations. Historically, they are a very difficult partner in negotiations: secretive(permissable), inconsistent, unreliable, and more concerned with politics than peace. They also seem to thrive on hatred of the Jews and conflict with Israel, rather than even thinking of peace and what it could mean for their progress. It seems more like the petulant child whose self-loathing has made them disdainful of any truly constructive progress or help from authority.

When nation's, concerned with peace in the Middle East, stop enabling this adversarial hypocrisy: "biting the hand that feeds you!",perhaps, we will see some understanding within the PA regarding the truth and their rightful position within the global community.

Yes, after Arafat sided with Saddam, Arab support for the Palestinians changed. Many Palestinians were summarily kicked out of the Gulf states. After Saddam died, the Iraqis kicked the Palestinians out of the houses that Saddam had built for them in Iraq.

But, now it's Iran, the Syrian conflict, the decline in oil prices, national revenues, the inability to create jobs and opportunities for an exploding population, social instability, and the dead end policies of the PA (PLO) which have caused them to wash their hands of the whole situation. While still "supporting" the Palestinians, that support is merely token rhetoric.

Today, the Palestinians have nothing to offer, other than getting in the way of Arab nations' larger agendas. They contribute nothing to those aspirations, and only divert attention to their narrow goal, which is the ultimate destruction of Israel, which is now even more remote than ever. They divert aid for infrastructure to build rockets and terror tunnels, and stealth rest for there leadership. The Americans are cutting back on that aid. The EU continues to nurture its own delusions about Israel.

We can count on a massive terror demonstration from the Palestinians before they go down in flames. Maybe the Palestinian survivors will wake up to reality after that? Not likely.

The "secret" is they never did care about you. That is why under Jordanian occupation of the so called "west bank" from 1948 to 1967, they never built schools or hospitals for you and never "gave" you the state, they easily could have. If the Arab League coalition had actually defeated Israel, the land you always talk about would have been carved up among the Arab countries and all you would be left with would be the homes and possessions of the Jews they killed or exiled. That is how much they care about you.

First I would like to make a general comment that it is simply wrong to call those Arabs living within the area of Judea Samaria and Gaza "the Palestinians". Jordan has more Palestinians in it than exist in Judea Samaria and Gaza. It is like calling the millions of "Mexicans" living both legally and illegally in the US, "the Mexicans" and ignoring the nation, Mexico.

But to comment on the article at hand, any agreement, Trump inspired or not that refers to Israel as "the Jewish Nation" will not be signed by any Palestinian group. Nor if Jerusalem remains united under Israel's authority. Nor if Israel refuses to allow itself to be cut in half so "Palestinians" can have a continguous state. Nor if there is a unqualified demand for the "state" to be de-militarized.

Palestinians wouldn't mind "accepting" an "imposed" deal if the deal did not contain any of those points because making a big cry about it being imposed allows enough "wiggle" room to toss it aside later and begin the terrorism all over again. But this time they would have something more solid to work with then they do now. They would demand language that gives them the "right" to give the back of the hand to any provisions they say refutes their "inalienable rights as a people".

Still, what we are seeing is the end of an era where the palestinian narrative was the basis for the Arab League and all Arab nations to go to war to destroy Israel. That desire although still desirable, has proven to be too difficult and costly for Egypt, Jordan, etc. to continue. And with the age old Shi'ite vs Sunni conflict taking on new dimensions with a Nuclear Iran and a Hezbollah carving out Syria, it is far more ominous for the Arab parties which are the core of any war against Israel. And what Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, iraq and others could not do, the weak terrorist only palestinians surely cannot do. Since the collapse of Arab Unity against Israel with the Egyptian and Jordanian Peace treaties, the Palestinians have moved into "Diplomatic intifadas" which worked well enough under Obama but now with Trump, that is failing too. Abbas is desperate but he is a man on a plank with little to convict others to let him back on the ship and do his biding.