Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Benny Morris - The myth of a secular Palestine

The Palestinian national movement started life with a vision and goal
of a Palestinian Muslim Arab-majority state in all of Palestine -- a
one-state "solution" -- and continues to espouse and aim to establish
such a state down to the present day. Moreover, and as a corollary, al-
Husseini, the Palestinian national leader during the 1930s and 1940s;
the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which led the national
movement from the 1960s to Yasser Arafat's death in November, 2004;
and Hamas today --all sought and seek to vastly reduce the number of
Jewish inhabitants in the country, in other words, to ethnically
cleanse Palestine. Al-Husseini and the PLO explicitly declared the aim
of limiting Palestinian citizenship to those Jews who had lived in
Palestine permanently before 1917 (or, in another version, to limit it
to those 50,000-odd Jews and their descendants). This goal was spelled
out clearly in the Palestinian National Charter and in other
documents. Hamas has been publicly more reserved on this issue, but
its intentions are clear.
The Palestinian vision was never -- as described by various
Palestinian spokesmen in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s to Western
journalists -- of a "secular, democratic Palestine" (though it
certainly sounded more palatable than, say, the "destruction of
Israel," which was the goal it was meant to paper over or camouflage).
Indeed, "a secular democratic Palestine" had never been the goal of
Fatah or the so-called moderate groups that dominated the PLO between
the 1960s and the 2006 elections that brought Hamas to power.
Middle East historian Rashid Khalidi has written that "in 1969 [the
PLO] amended [its previous goal and henceforward advocated] the
establishment of a secular democratic state in Palestine for Muslims,
Christians and Jews, replacing Israel." And Palestinian-American
journalist Ali Abunimah has written, in his recent book, One Country:
"The PLO did ultimately adopt [in the late 1960s or 1970s] the goal of
a secular, democratic state in all Palestine as its official stance."
This is hogwash. The Palestine National Council (PNC) never amended
the Palestine National Charter to the effect that the goal of the PLO
was "a secular democratic state in Palestine." The words and notion
never figured in the charter or in any PNC or PLO Central Committee or
Fatah Executive Committee resolutions, at any time. It is a spin
invented for gullible Westerners and was never part of Palestinian
main-stream ideology. The Palestinian leadership has never, at any
time, endorsed a "secular, democratic Palestine."
The PNC did amend the charter, in 1968 (not 1969). But the thrust of
the emendation was to limit non-Arab citizenship in a future Arab-
liberated Palestine to "Jews who had normally resided in Palestine
until the beginning of the Zionist invasion" -- that is, 1917.
True, the amended charter also guaranteed, in the future State of
Palestine, "freedom of worship and of visit" to holy sites to all,
"without discrimination of race, colour, language or religion." And,
no doubt, this was music to liberal West-ern ears. But it had no
connection to the reality or history of contemporary Muslim Arab
societies. What Muslim Arab society in the modern age has treated
Christians, Jews, pagans, Buddhists and Hindus with tolerance and as
equals? Why should anyone believe that Palestinian Muslim Arabs would
behave any differently?
Western liberals like, or pretend, to view Palestinian Arabs, indeed
all Arabs, as Scandinavians, and refuse to recognize that peoples, for
good historical, cultural and social reasons, are different and behave
differently in similar or identical sets of circumstances.
So where did the slogan of "a secular, democratic Palestine"
originate? That goal was first explicitly proposed in 1969 by the
small Marxist splinter group the Democratic Front for the Liberation
of Palestine (DFLP). According to Khalidi, "It was [then] discreetly
but effectively backed by the leaders of the mainstream, dominant
Fatah movement ... The democratic secular state model eventually
became the official position of the PLO." As I have said, this is pure
invention. The PNC, PLO and Fatah turned down the DFLP proposal, and
it was never adopted or enunciated by any important Palestinian leader
or body -- though the Western media during the 1970s were forever
attributing it to the Palestinians. As a result, however, the myth has
taken hold that this was the PLO's official goal through the late
1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
And today, again, and for the same reasons -- the phrase retains its
good, multicultural, liberal ring -- "a secular, democratic Palestine"
is bandied about by Palestinian one-state supporters. And a few one-
statists, indeed, may sincerely believe in and desire such a
denouement. But given the realities of Palestinian politics and
behaviour, the phrase objectively serves merely as camouflage for the
goal of a Muslim Arab-dominated polity to replace Israel. And, as in
the past, the goal of "a secular democratic Palestine" is not the
platform or policy of any major Palestinian political institution or
party.
Indeed, the idea of a "secular democratic Palestine" is as much a
nonstarter today as it was three decades ago. It is a nonstarter
primarily because the Palestinian Arabs, like the world's other Muslim
Arab communities, are deeply religious and have no respect for
democratic values and no tradition of democratic governance.
And matters have only gotten worse since the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
For anyone who has missed the significance of Hamas's electoral
victory in 2006 and the violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, a
mere glance at the West Bank and Gaza today (and, indeed, at Israel's
Arab minority villages and towns) reveals a landscape dominated by
rapidly multiplying mosque minarets, the air filled with the calls to
prayer of the muezzins and alleyways filled with hijab-ed women. Only
fools and children were persuaded in 2006-07 that Hamas beat Fatah
merely because they had an uncorrupt image or dispensed aid to the
poor. The main reasons for the Hamas victory were religious and
political: the growing religiosity of the Palestinian mass-es and
their "recognition" that Hamas embodies the "truth" and, with Allah's
help, will lead them to final victory over the infidels, much as Hamas
achieved, through armed struggle, the withdrawal of the infidels from
the Gaza Strip in 2005.
-Excerpted from One State, Two States by Benny Morris. Published by
Yale University Press. © 2009 by Benny Morris. Reprinted by permission
of Yale University Press.

 of Yale University Press.
hai rotto i coglioni di brutto. Non vuoi che i palestinesi abbiano uno
stato? Sucateli in israele, che nelle riserve indiane non ce li potete
tenere