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By Refusing to Negotiate, Palestinian Losses Will Continue to Grow

(JNS) Jonathan S. Tobin - On May 15, as they do every year, Palestinian Arabs relive the sorrow of 1948. Their narrative is integral to their identity. Their yearly vow to reverse the verdict of history is so deeply embedded that it has made it impossible for any of their leaders to even consider formally giving it up. The Palestinians are the only refugee population out of the hundreds of millions who were rendered homeless throughout the world since 1945 that has refused to be resettled. Under no circumstances will they ever concede that the fault for the catastrophe that befell them was largely their own. The Palestinian Arabs could have compromised and gotten a state. But they refused to accept anything less than their maximal demands and, as the years went by, their options in terms of territory and support from the rest of the Arab world dwindled. Not even after Israel repeatedly offered the Palestinian Authority a state would they agree to end their century-old war. At any point, the Palestinians could have accepted one of the deals offered them. The lesson of the nakba is the folly of maximalism, in which by seeking everything, they consistently wind up with nothing. If all you care about is preserving a victim status, the price of intransigence will continue to rise.
2020-05-22 00:00:00
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