I have pointed out that the Arabs who resided in the territory of the Palestine Mandate, intended to be reconstituted as the historic Jewish national home,
consistently adopted a policy of rejection of all diplomatic solutions.
Most know the 1937 Partition Plan and that of 1947 by the UN which were rejected.
No compromise.
The Khartoum Conference's Three Noes from September 1967 continued that negative tradition.
Here, from the British White Paper of May 15, 1948, are the two earliest examples:
A.
[in 1922] an Order-in-Council was issued providing for the creation of a Legislative Council, to consist of the High Commissioner, 10 official members and 12 elected members, of whom 8 were to be Moslems, 2 Christians, and 2 Jews. The Arabs refused to take part in any form of government involving acceptance of the Jewish national home and boycotted the elections held in 1923, thus making it impossible to set up the Legislative Council.
The High Commissioner then attempted to reconstitute the Advisory Council on the lines of the abortive Legislative Council, but, of the 10 Arabs nominated by him, 7 withdrew their acceptance under political pressure, thus preventing the transformation of the nominated Advisory Council into a representative body.
B.
The High Commissioner then attempted to create an Arab Agency analogous to the Jewish Agency, to which Article 4 of the Mandate had assigned the duty of “advising and cooperating with the Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jewish national home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine,” but the Arab leaders refused this offer on the ground that it would not satisfy the aspirations of the Arab people, adding that they had no desire for the establishment of an Arab Agency on the same basis.
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The official leadership repeatedly rejected the creation of Israel, but I wonder how representative they were. Numerous accounts of life in the Yishuv indicate that some Arabs were quite friendly and cooperative. I have read reports even of Muslim Arab children attendings Jewish schools for the sake of a good education. And of course the fact that so many Arabs immigrated, attracted by the increased economic opportunity, improved health care, etc., indicates that many Arabs found life together with Jews attractive. I don't know if there were any reliable polls, but I wonder what percentage of the Arab population opposed the creation of Israel?
Granting Arabs who were born in Israeli citizenship (and guarantee that their rights would be respected) would solve this whole problem quickly. But then you would not have a clean Aryan ... sorry, clean Jewish population.
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