By Husam Dughman
In 1973, the renowned Israeli diplomat Abba Eban quipped, “The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Many educated Arabic-speaking people I know agree. But why? To put it bluntly, if there is one single factor that can explain the never-ending conflict between Israel and other countries in the Middle East, it is the consistent refusal of those nations- including the Palestinians- to genuinely recognize Israel’s right to exist. This, in a nutshell, is the core of the problem. Things first came to a head when the state of modern-day Israel came into being in 1948 in accordance with the United Nations proposal of 1947 which had allowed for a two-state solution, one Jewish and the other Arab. While the Jews accepted the UN’s proposal, the Arabs rejected it. The Palestinians and a number of countries in the region sent armed forces to attack Israel in 1948. They lost. It was that failure, not the resulting displacement of Palestinians, which was described as an-Nakba (The Catastrophe) by the Syrian historian Constantin Zureiq who coined that word for that particular purpose.
- Husam Dughman
- Vigilance
- Posted On
