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Source: http://www.bitterlemons.org/issue/isr1.php
Palestinians Have Avoided Opportunities for Statehood
[bitterlemons.org] Yossi Alpher - The Palestinians, backed and at times manipulated by the Arab world, have done nearly everything possible to avoid setting up their own state. They rejected UN Resolution 181 in 1947 and attacked Israel, thereby precipitating war and exile. They avoided creating a state in the West Bank and Gaza between 1949 and 1967, created UNRWA which perpetuated rather than solved their refugee problem, rejected Egypt and Israel's offer of autonomy in 1978, failed at state-building under Oslo after 1993, invoked suicide terrorism that alienated some of their most ardent Israeli supporters, and failed again at consolidating the territorial foundations of a state after Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in 2005. The writer is former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.