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The 1948 War Through Arab Eyes

(Ha'aretz) Salman Masalha - As the UN Partition Plan gathered steam following a change in the position of the Soviets, the secretary-general of the Arab League expressed Arab opposition: UN Ambassador Andrei "Gromyko's declaration about the establishment of two states, Arab and Jewish, or a binational state in Palestine, is a proposal that is unacceptable to the Arabs....The only practical solution is the establishment of a state under Arab rule in which the Jews will be a minority" (Falastin, May 16, 1947). Dr. Constantin Zureiq, a Syrian historian at the American University of Beirut, in his 1948 book The Meaning of the Disaster, attributed the Zionist victory to the structural, societal and cultural differences between Zionists and Arabs. "Zionism is deeply implanted in Western life, while we are far from it....They live in the present and look to the future, while we are drugged-up and dreaming of a magnificent past....When the battle broke out, our public diplomacy began to speak of our imaginary victories, to put the Arab public to sleep and talk of the ability to overcome and win easily - until the nakba happened." "We must admit our mistakes...and recognize the extent of our responsibility for the disaster that is our lot."
2017-03-10 00:00:00
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