Why Palestinian Suffering?

Why Palestinian Suffering?

Dannielle (Dossy) BlumenthalBased on the scholarship ofProfessor Richard Landes,Boston University

Posted: October 29, 2015

“To those who do not know the history of the conflict, the image of the Palestinian David throwing rocks and the Israeli Goliath in his tanks and planes seems not only accurate but poetically ironic.”

- Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

We Are All Human Beings

We Are All Human Beings

We Are All Human Beings

We Pray

We Pray

We Pray

Most People Are Good People.So Why Do They Suffer?

People Create Suffering

What We Do To Each Other

• Mass Kidnapping• Rape Camps• Illegal Trade• Corruption• Diversion of Funds• Dictatorship• Forced Illiteracy• Forced Labor

How Can We Live With Ourselves?

Simple: We Blame Religion.“It Says So In The Holy Book.”

So Why Palestinian Suffering?

“No negotiations, no recognition,

no peace!”Arab League, The Khartoum Resolution, 1967

Their Suffering Is Real.

But Who Is Really Responsible?

“Few people have suffered more constant misery and daily oppression in the last 50 years than the Palestinians.

The key issue, however, concerns…the source of that suffering.”

Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

Israel

“While some Zionists…argued for kicking Arabs out, many more continued to argue for a productive collaboration.

So we now turn to the other sources of Palestinian suffering, those who have either forced or encouraged the Palestinians to see it only as a zero-sum game, and to see the Israelis only through the lens of their own political rules: Dominate or be dominated.”

- Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

Arab Political Culture

“Arab political culture before Zionism was among the most autocratic and exploitative of the many ‘traditional’ political cultures: With Turkish administrators, wealthy Arab landlords living in Egypt, and Bedouin tribes raiding whenever they could, the plight of the Palestinian peasant had involved plenty of suffering.

“That kind of suffering continues endemically throughout the Arab world today, regardless of whether the populace lives in an oil-rich state or not.”

- Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

“Fundamentally committed to zero-sum outcomes in this conflict – Israel should not exist, and nothing short of the elimination of the “Zionist entity” could resolve the conflict – Arab political culture has consistently chosen wars they lose to resolution in this conflict.

“In the inability to succeed in this goal, Arab political culture has largely preferred negative-sum solutions than exploring mutually beneficial solutions.”

- Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

“In 1958, Ralph Galloway, former UNWRA director wrote:

‘The Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations, and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders do not give a damn whether Arab refugees live or die.’

“One might even make a more damning assertion: they do care; they want and need them to suffer.”

- Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

The Arab League

“When the UN resolution of 1947 created two states, with the Palestinian one significantly greater than the Israeli, which consisted of three scarcely contiguous units, the largest of which was desert wilderness, the Arab League, without consultation with the Palestinian people (just coordination with the Nazi ally al-Husseini, rejected the partition and prepared for a war of annihilation.”

- Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

The al-Naqba

“(After the Arab League intentionally started a war that would produce a sea of refugees): Rather than negotiate the best possible situation for the refugees, the Arab League unanimously chose to continue the war and confine the Palestinian refugees to camps, as a weapon against Israel.

“The Palestinians became the sacrificial pawn of Arab politics, forced to live in squalor, indoctrinated with Nazi-inspired propaganda in their schools, and held up to the world as an example of Israeli crimes against humanity. And of course, the worse they suffer, the worse the crime.

- Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

Palestinian“Leadership”

“Palestinian political culture, from the earliest period of Zionist settlement, has fostered the zero-sum mentality whenever possible.

“The uprising of 1936-9, supposedly fighting the British and the Zionists, ended up killing far more Arabs (vendettas, looting) than either English or Jews.“

- Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

“The pattern whereby the Palestinians suffered more from the militant policies of their leadership than Israelis became a standard feature of all the ‘uprisings.’

“….In general, terrorists almost never limit their aggression to the “enemy”, and since their own populations do not have the protection that enemies can mobilize, they tend to suffer the daily impositions of their ‘militants’ far more.

“.…Until it becomes completely unbearable, most people in such terror-dominated societies stay silent.”

- Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

The PLO

“Rather than demand the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, governed by Jordan, as a sovereign nation in which they might begin the long-overdue process of getting people out of the refugee camps and into decent housing and work situations, they ignored the plight of their brethren, and focused on the elimination of the Zionist entity.

“National Liberation consistently took second place to the annihilation of another nation.“

- Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

“Collaborators”

“The widespread practice of executing ‘collaborators’ without trial, even women, has throttled any“moderate Palestinian leadership from emerging.“

- Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

Rape

“Rape and sexual assault of women is a common form of intimidating other Palestinians into cooperation and as a way of rewarding one’s “soldiers” for their efforts.”-

Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

Islamic Militants

“The emergence of a powerful culture of Jihad in Palestinian circles (Islamic Jihad and Hamas) have intensified the dynamic of self-inflicted suffering.

“Promoting a culture of death that encourages youth to die trying to kill Israelis has contributed immeasurably to the casualties among Palestinian youth, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

“The notion that suffering in this world wins rewards in the world to come gives a particularly powerful motivation to self-destruction.“

- Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

International Foreign Policy

• Lauding Yasser Arafat despite how badly he treated the Palestinian people

• Encouraging Palestinian violence• Frequent condemnation of Israel by the U.N.

MisguidedLeftists

“Rather than urging the Palestinians to develop the kind of qualities necessary for a progressive state that takes care of its citizens and encourages freedom of thought and expression (e.g., public self-criticism, protection of dissidents), the Left has systematically “explained” Palestinian violence as the result of Israeli (and American) policies.

“As a result, the Left reinforces the most regressive and fascist elements in Palestinian culture, even as they claim to work for peace and civil society.“

- Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

The Media

“The nature of media coverage – if it bleeds it leads – has always favored violence, and in particular fed the need of terrorists for attention.

“Its superficial and dramatic news has encouraged the systematic victimization of Arabs for the purposes of international sympathy.

By ignoring or playing down the Palestinian calls for genocide against Israel and hatred of the West, while at the same time portraying Israel as the cause of war and of whatever damage Palestinians do to themselves, the media have contributed to a profound misunderstanding of the sources of – and therefore the solutions to – the conflict.“

- Prof. Richard Landes, Boston University

Why Do Palestinians

Suffer?

Because We Let Them.

Make Peace

Demand It

Read More

http://www.theaugeanstables.com/reflections-from-second-draft/palestinian-suffering/