James Veverka: From the Palestinians' viewpoint, there'll be no peace on stolen land

To The Daily Sun,

Sheila Kufert naively claims, "If the enemies of Israel laid down their arms, there would be peace." When the first Zionist Congress met in 1897, Arabs in Palestine comprised 95% of the population and owned 99% of the land. So from the beginning, they said "No" to the idea that a people who last lived in Palestine in large numbers over 2,000 years ago could claim rights to the land where the current inhabitants had been living for over 1,500 years. "No" to the idea that Jews arriving from Europe could use their religion to support a political project of a Jewish state in a settled land. "No" to the idea that land in Palestine should be transferred from Arabs to Jews, by force or partition schemes. "No" to the religious conversion of a land that had been overwhelmingly Arab and Muslim for 1,500 years. "No" to paying the price for longstanding European/Christian persecution of Jews. "No" to the idea that immigrant Jews cared for the land more than they did. "No" to the idea that they should welcome Zionism because of planned economic prosperity. "No" to the Jewish settlement enterprise. "No" to the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the Peel Commission in 1937, and the UN in 1947. From the Palestinians' viewpoint, there'll be no peace on stolen land.

"This opposition is based upon the unwavering conviction of unshakeable rights and a conviction of the injustice of forcing a long-settled population to accept immigrants without its consent being asked and against its known and expressed will; the injustice of turning a majority into a minority in its own country; the injustice of withholding self-government until the Zionists are in the majority and able to profit by it." — Albert Hourani, statement to the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry, 1946.

James Veverka

Laconia