Both are victims of skewed narratives

Submitted by MC (Canada), May 7, 2010 at 01:49

The British had no moral or legal justification to offer the Jews a homeland in the 1921 Balfour Declaration-no colonial power has the right to decide the fate of an indegenous peoples land. (or artificially draw up borders). In this context accepting the partition plan of 48 was unfathomable to arabs because half their land was being taken. Of course the Jews were happy to accept it-any land offered would be a victory. This was never a matter of compromise for the Arabs-it was about right and wrong. Israeli's did have a ancesteral/religious claim to the land but they were largely foreign transplants and majority were arabs. Seen in this context the arabs could not view this as anything but colonial intrusion.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".