powerclown

I don't think you are taking into consideration the history of continous displacement of Jews since the time of the Roman Empire, so that is a dubious statement as it relates to the middle east being arbitrarily sliced into 'states' by the British and French after WWII. It was a period of consolidation of power in the entire region, and so I have no problem taking into consideration irgun, haganah et al activities to these ends. If you want to blame someone for opening pandoras box here, blame European anti-semitism. Being displaced from their homes en masse is nothing new to Jews so a Palestinian army capturing the negev pre-1948 would mean the jews peacefully resettling elsewhere, as they've done for ages. Palestinian rejectionism preceded Israel's occupation and is an independent cause of the conflict. Violent rejectionism will not evaporate when the occupation ends, but it would be easier to combat if moderates on both sides are heeded. While in the court of public opinion, Israel's right to self-defense has been branded illegitimate, while the the Palestinians remain unquestioned.

Perhaps the worst consequence of these emphatic public marches and hysterical demonstrations is that it will reinforce Palestinians' faith in their own innocence and victimization, and preclude a self-examination of their responsibility in maintaining the conflict. That suicidal self-pity has led Palestinians from one historic calamity to another, and is precisely the reason why Israel is so adamant about its self-defense (aka occupation, to some).

Palestinian political history follows a depressingly predicable pattern. First, a peace offer is presented by the international community, to which the mainstream Israeli leadership says yes, while all factions of the Palestinian leadership say no. Then the Palestinians opt for war and pay a bitter price for their failed attempt at politicide. Finally, the Palestinians protest the injustice of their defeat which, after all, was supposed to be the fate of the Jews.

From the Palestinian perspective, there have always been compelling reasons for rejecting each of the compromises that could have resolved this conflict in a two-state solution. The UN partition plan, Palestinians still argue, offered the Jews a state on a majority of territory though they were only a minority of the population. The argument ignores the fact that 62 percent of the Jewish state envisioned by partition would have consisted of desert, while the Palestinians were offered the most fertile land. The argument is even more absurd because the Palestinians, and the Arab world generally, would have rejected Jewish statehood in any form.

As for the Camp David offer, Palestinians argue that it would have left them with a series of non-contiguous cantons, not a real state. Yet a few months after Camp David, Palestinians rejected the offer of a contiguous West Bank under the Clinton Proposal and at Taba. The reason for that Palestinian rejection was, and remains, their refusal to waive the demand for refugee return to pre-67 Israel - that is, to accept the Israeli offer to cede the results of the 1967 war in exchange for a Palestinian acceptance of the results of the 1948 war.

The end result of each Palestinian rejection was that history moved on, and the map of potential Palestine that remained to be negotiated invariably shrank.

Under the Peel Commission, the Palestinians would have received 80% of the territory between the river and the sea; under the 1947 UN partition plan, 45%; under Camp David, around 20%. Where are the Palestinian voices demanding an accounting from their leadership for the self-imposed decisions of the past? Where is the debate about whether years of suicide bombings were a wise response to the Israeli offer of Palestinian statehood - let alone a debate about the moral and spiritual consequences of turning Palestinian Islam into a satanic cult?

During the first intifada, Israeli society underwent a self-confrontation. For the first time, non-leftist Israelis conceded that the Palestinians have a grievance and a case, and that, by not offering the Palestinians any option besides continued occupation, they shared at least partial responsibility for the conflict. The result was that a majority of Israelis came to see the conflict as a struggle between two legitimate national movements (rightly or wrongly), and that partition wasn't only politically necessary but morally compelling.

Rather than undergoing a similar process, though, Palestinian society has regressed even further into a culture of denial that rejects the most minimal truths of Jewish history and Jewish rights. Both intifadas should have been the Palestinians' moment of self-confrontation. Yet Palestinians still refuse to take the most minimal responsibility for their share of the disaster. By passing the blame to others, Palestinians absolve themselves of responsibility for change, incapable of challenging those who speak in their name, and indeed, casting their free and democratic vote in favor of a continuation to the violence.

If Palestinians continue to replace self-examination with self-pity, it's because their avoidance mechanisms are reinforced by the international community, whose sympathy for Palestinian suffering becomes support for Palestinian intransigence.