Wednesday, March 09, 2011

Historical Quiz

Who said this and when?

A short while ago they presented their report. That report makes it clear that partition, as proposed by the Peel Commission, is impracticable. That report makes it clear that if we were to divide Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State and a Mandated area, then the Jewish State would have a great surplus in its budget every year, but year after year the budgets of the Arab State and the Mandated Territory would show great deficits. The Commission therefore reported that under their terms of reference they were unable to recommend boundaries for the proposed areas which would afford a reasonable prospect of the eventual establishment of self-supporting Arab and Jewish States. I think that is itself a remarkable tribute to the achievement of the Jews. It is impossible, without the continuous aid of the Jews, for the people living in Palestine beyond the Jewish settlements to maintain the standard of government and the social services to which they have become accustomed.


^

__________



Give up?

Sure?


Malcom MacDonald, November 24, 1938, p. 1993-4

1 comment:

NormanF said...

This has turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Despite almost 20 years of autonomy, the Palestinian Arabs have yet to develop the basic mechanisms for independent statehood, such as a free market, an industrious labor force and independent political and judicial institutions to make them a reality. Instead the PA has developed into a corrupt, repressive kleptocracy wholly dependent on Western aid for its survival and whose legitimacy is sustained not by the consent of its own people but by a steady diet of incitement and hatred of Israel it has nurtured in its own people.

There won't be a Palestinian Arab state come September no matter how many countries the PA gets to recognize it in the meantime when none of the basic elements required for a functioning Arab state to exist are even in place. They aren't today and may well never be.