It is almost a forgone conclusion these days that a Palestinian state should be established on the lands of the West Bank and Gaza. Hardly anyone questions this assumption. After all, it seems only natural, since many Palestinian Arabs live there. However, though no one would try to build a skyscraper on any plot of land without first conducting a proper survey and geodesic work, doing a special traffic study and other pertinent investigations, this incomparably much more complicated task of state-building is approached absolutely irresponsibly.



The world has known countless historical examples of forcing unworkable solutions on people and nations. Born of noble-sounding politically correct slogans, these solutions culminated in disasters at the price of millions of innocent lives. Just recall the clamor all over the world for democracy in Congo and compare it with today's ethnic strife and civil war raging in the now Democratic Republic of the Congo. The price of this "democracy" is evident from a recent demographic study by the International Rescue Committee, which reported that during the last five years "between three million and 4.7 million people in Congo have died? mostly from hunger and disease thought to be preventable during peace time."(1)



Let us take another example, this time of a struggle against "colonial injustice." Not long ago, Zimbabwe was productive enough to feed the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. In 2000, Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe started to evict white farmers from their farms, in order to return land to dispossessed black farmers. As a result, the country's once-prized national herd dwindled from 1.4 million to 125,000 heads in three years, the level of inflation in December 2003 reached 620%, and unemployment now hovers near 70%. The number of people in Zimbabwe requiring food assistance "?will rise to 6.2 million from January to March of 2004, taking the total [in need of food aid] to well over half the country's population." (2)



These essentially genocidal crimes do not seem to discourage the world community from continuing with new experiments. A particularly ill-fated one is the intent to squeeze several million destitute Palestinian Arabs into two tiny disconnected parcels of land and label this entity a "viable, independent Palestinian state." This author has already presented some major problems with the viability of this artificial pseudo-state in "The Stillborn Palestinian State", written in May 2002. However, it is extremely important to understand that the establishment of such an entity, first and foremost, presents an existential threat to the Palestinian Arabs themselves. We will concentrate here on two aspects of this threat: The inevitable moral demise of Palestinian society and the total economic non-viability of this artificial entity.



First, let us briefly trace the bloodstained history of the Palestinian Arab leadership, and examine the effect this has had on the Palestinian Arab society of today. For many years, the Palestinian Arabs have been used as cannon fodder for the destructive political ambitions of their leaders. They have been kept in refugee camps in sub-human conditions with only one purpose ? to breed hatred against Jews, who "usurped their land." For decades they have been incited to see the Jews as their archenemies. And while occasionally hope glimmered that coexistence between the Palestinian Arabs and the Jews might be possible, the rule of Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has made the situation irreversible.



The severity of the injustice that has befallen the Palestinian Arabs derives from the simple fact that the PLO, which has been given carte-blanche by the international community to rule over the Palestinian Arabs in West Bank and Gaza, always was and still remains, a terrorist organization, capable only of murder and destruction. It did not matter to Arafat and his PLO whom to kill. Whether the victims were Moslems, Christians or Jews, the PLO basked in killings.



In fact, the more free rein the PLO was given, the more disastrous were the results. The first case was Jordan, in September of 1970, when the PLO under Arafat's command tried to usurp power from the Jordanian king. In the ensuing massacre several thousand Palestinian Arabs were killed (Fatah reported that 30,000 fedayeen perished, while the official figure given by the Jordanian army was 1,500).



After this failed uprising, Arafat and his PLO fled to Lebanon, where they immediately set about their next attempt to gain power. Their activities succeeded in plunging Lebanon into a civil war that lasted from October 1970 through November 1976. Thus, Arafat and the PLO played a key role in the destruction of the Switzerland of the Middle East (as Lebanon was called). "Out of a population of 3.2 millions, some 40,000 people, perhaps more, had been killed, 100,000 wounded, 5,000 permanently maimed, and 500,000 displaced from their homes. About 300,000 Lebanese had fled to other lands."(3)



In spite of this barbaric history, the PLO and Arafat were given a free hand again in 1993, under the Oslo Accords. We are all witnesses of the destruction and devastation that has followed after their latest ascension to power. Just the last three years have seen over 3,400 Jews and Arabs killed and more than 30,000 maimed and wounded in the war unleashed by the PLO. We are not even taking into account the economic disaster that has befallen the Palestinian Arabs, with skyrocketing unemployment, pervasive corruption and widespread poverty.



However, the worst and most devastating blow throughout the past ten years was struck against the moral fabric of the Palestinian Arab society. A thirst for killing and death was ingrained into the souls of the people, who became slaves of the PLO's regime. Over two million people delivered to Arafat's control under the Oslo Accords were daily and nightly bombarded with messages promoting hatred and glorifying death in PLO-controlled newspapers, radio and TV stations, and schools.



The first victims of this incessant campaign became children. It is therefore no surprise that after watching videos provided by Itamar Marcus of Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch, New York Senator Hillary Clinton said that the Palestinian Authority is engaged in "horrific abuse of children." Poll results gathered by Palestinian Arabs show that "72% of the children sampled from all the districts of Gaza expressed the hope of becoming shahids in the confrontations..."(4) In a different poll, "79-80% of the children expressed willingness to be shahids."(5)



Just one example from Marcus' documentary will suffice to underline the poll results. In June 2002, official Palestinian Authority TV interviewed two 11-year-old girls. Among other topics, they spoke of their personal yearning to achieve shahada, or martyrdom ? death for Allah. As one of the girls said: "The children of Palestine have accepted the concept that this is shahada, and that death by shahada is very good. Every Palestinian child aged, say 12, says 'Oh Lord, I would like to become a shahid.'"(6)



While it is understandable that the vulnerable minds of children are easy prey for the PLO's and other terrorists' "martyrdom" campaign, the concurrent desire of parents to see their children dead is shocking. Truly frightening statistics come from poll results gathered by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion (PCPO) in October 2003 among adult Palestinian Arabs in West Bank, and eastern Jerusalem. The poll showed that 18.2% (!) of them "believe that it is important to raise a child to be a shahid [or martyr]." That means that nearly every fifth mother or father dreams of death for their children!



Of course, they do not want their children simply to be killed. They want them to die while killing Jews. The Jews are an obsession for the Palestinians, and the popularity of terrorist groups depends on how successfully they inflict death upon Jews. This tendency was clear from elections to the student governing body at Bir Zeit University (considered to be the most liberal of the Palestinian higher education institutions), conducted in December 2003. Hamas won 25 seats of the 51 on the council, Fatah took 20, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) - a radical PLO faction - won five and the lesser-known People's Party got the remaining seat.



Ludna Abdel Hadi, a university spokeswoman said, "The Bir Zeit elections are like a barometer to measure the political mood on the Palestinian street."(7) This barometer clearly points towards a poisoning of the Palestinian society by pervasive hatred, because "the election campaign focused on which party killed more Israelis. ?At a debate, the Hamas candidate asked the Fatah candidate: 'Hamas activists in this university killed 135 Zionists. How many did Fatah activists from Bir Zeit kill?'"(7)



[Part 1 of 3]



Footnotes:

1) http://www.zimbabwesituation.com

2) Fred Bridgland, "Beef herd nears extinction", The Washington Times, Jan. 5, 2004.

3) Jillian Becker, The PLO. St. Martin's Press, New York, 1984 p.13

4) "Sout Al-Nissa-Voice of the Women", Al-Ayyam, January. 24, 2002

5) PA official daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 18, 2002

6) "Letter of the People", PA TV, June 9, 2002

7) "Hamas wins West Bank Election." Associated Press. 12/10/03