[New Republic] Marty Peretz - In the midst of heavy fighting 60 years ago, many Palestinians found themselves in the great and neighborly Arab homeland of what they called "the one Arab nation." A crossing of maybe 25 miles into an abutting province where people speak the same tongue, practice the same religion and purport to be of one ethnic seed is not truly an exile. It is a fact that the Palestinians were not over time truly made welcome. This shows something of the sham of the fraternity of their Arab brothers. But the Palestinians - many thinking themselves South Syrians, others Jordanians, and still others in some way Egyptians - were not exactly thankful guests. In Iraq, they aligned themselves with the tyrant. In Jordan, they stirred up a revolution that brought "Black September" on their heads. In Kuwait, they cheered when Saddam invaded. In southern Lebanon they set up a brutal mini-state run by Yassir Arafat and his minions that over-lorded their hosts. The Saudis were canny: they did not allow them in in the first place.
2007-05-25 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive