Arafat was talked out of declaring 'Palestinian' reichlet in the '70's
Recently released British foreign office documents show that Yasser Arafat was talked out of declaring a 'Palestinian'One cable released by the National Archives on Friday records a meeting a diplomat had with Rashad al Shawa, a Palestinian leader in the Gaza Strip, in February 1974, shortly after Shawa had met Arafat to discuss independence.That would explain why three years later Sadat made a separate peace with Israel. Had he lived, the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty would look very different than it does today.
"Rashad rejected the suggestion made to him by Yasser Arafat on the grounds that any attempt to form an independent Palestinian state would provide the Israelis with an opportunity to insist on maintaining their sovereignty over the whole of Palestine for security reasons," the diplomat wrote.
"Rashad says the vast majority of the people of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are in favour of the formation of an independent Palestinian state because of their hatred to the Jordan regime but they do not realise that such a state would not survive without foreign help."
...
Some Arab leaders at the time, principally President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, were encouraging Arafat to declare an independent state, but Shawa warned Arafat that Egypt was merely trying to rid itself of any obligation to the Palestinians.
"Sadat and other Arab leaders are getting fed up with the Palestinians and they are only interested in the welfare of their own people," a diplomat quoted Shawa as saying.
I feel no loyalty to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which is Israel's biggest and most devious enemy. At the end of the day, there is no such thing as a 'Palestinian' and there is no such thing as 'Jordan' either. There are only Arabs. The sooner we can combine Jordan and the 'Palestinians' so that Jordan is 'Palestine' the safer Israel will be.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:29 AM
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