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Palestinian Leaders' Intransigence Perpetuates Their People's Suffering
[National Post-Canada] Barry Kay - At any time through 1967, the Arabs then in complete control of the West Bank and Gaza could have declared a state, as not one Jewish settlement existed on their land, but refused to do so. All Arabs then, and for many years afterward, refused to accept the legitimacy of any Jewish state, the position Hamas maintains to this day. The Israeli-Palestinian dispute is not a conflict between good and evil, but rather between two peoples, each of which is entitled to a homeland. That one is immeasurably stronger than the other makes it neither right nor wrong. The intransigence of Palestinian leaders suggests they are masochistic in preferring to perpetuate their people's suffering rather than to reach a compromise. The writer is a political science professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.