Palestinian 'nationalism' is all about looking for Zionism's worst interests
Op-ed: Any national movement's basic aspiration is establishing a state; the Palestinians have routinely failed to do so, preferring violence towards Israel with national aspirations as the repeated excuse.
The point of the ouster law that was recently approved is to limit the public identification of MKs with Palestinian nationalism and its violent expression. But it raises a more basic question: Is Palestinian nationalism something real or a fiction designed to try to get rid of us? The question of whether it's real or invented has an impact on us, and it requires examination. The basic aspiration of any national movement is the establishment of a nation state of its own. Larger, smaller—the point is a state. A national movement, by its nature, should deal with acquiring that dream: a state.
A quick look at the Palestinians for the past 100 years doesn't show actual acts in this direction. In the first decades of Zionism, there was no Palestinian nationalism whatever. At the most, the Palestinians had a surplus of pan-Arab nationalism, which was revealed to be an oriental fairy tale. (Pan-Arabism fizzled with Nasser.) Leading to the UN Partition Plan of 1947, Zionism was vigorously building up its institutions and preparing for the establishment of a state.
What were the Palestinians doing at that time? Were they simultaneously involved in preparations for the establishment of their own state? No. They were focused on attempts to prevent the establishment of the Zionist one. If the Palestinians had accepted the Partition Plan, they would have a state the same age as Israel. All the land that they now demand—and more—would be in their hands, and there wouldn't be one Palestinian refugee. But they didn't even consider the possibility. Refusal was, in their opinion, the only and obvious option. Why, though? Because establishing a state didn't interest them—only negating ours.
Nearly 70 years have passed since then, and from the perspective of Palestinian ambitions, nothing has changed. For 19 years, between the War of Independence and the Six-Day War, they didn't establish a state. Furthermore, Article 24 of the original Palestine National Charter (the one that they're trying to forget), released in June 1964, states, "This Organization (the PLO) does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank…, on the Gaza Strip…"
Why, in their founding document, do the Palestinians declare that they have no aspiration for sovereignty for the area for which they today demand sovereignty? Because the results of the Six-Day War were the excuse, not the reason, for Palestinian violence; it was already here before. It's also the reason why Barak didn't reach an agreement with Arafat in 2000 and why Olmert didn't reach one with Abbas in 2008 and why it won't be possible to reach any agreement with them.
Is a nation whose children's grandest dream is attaining the identity card of the enemy actually a nation? Only three Muslim nations live in the region: The Egyptians, the Persians, and the Turks. All the rest are at best tribes.
Palestinians are hitchhikers on the back of Zionism. Many of them came here following Zionism to make a living off it. Their discredited nationalism is our by-product; it wouldn't exist without Zionism and wouldn't remain without it.
And after all this, we need to do what's best for us—not get involved with them and or trust them, because it's not their best interests that they're seeking, but rather our worst.
