What if Arabs had Recognized Israel in 1948?

A Saudi Naval officer asks an interesting question that should be asked a lot more in the Arab world: What would have happened if the Arabs had just recognized Israel in 1948?

If Israel was recognized in 1948, then the Palestinians would have been able to free themselves from the hollow promises of some Arab dictators who kept telling them that the refugees would be back in their homes and all Arab lands will be liberated and Israel will be sent to the bottom of the sea. Some Arab leaders used the Palestinians for their own agenda to suppress their own people and to stay in power.

Since 1948, if an Arab politician wanted to be the hero and the leader of the Arab world, then he has a very easy way to do it. He just shouts as loud as he can about the intention to destroy Israel, without mobilizing one soldier (Talk is cheap).

If Israel was recognized in 1948, then there would have been no need for a coup in Egypt against King Farouq in 1952 and there would have been no attack on Egypt in 1956 by The UK, France and Israel. Also there will be no war in June 1967 and the size of Israel will not be increased and we, the Arabs would not have the need for a UN resolution to beg Israel to go back to the pre-1967 borders. And no war of attrition between Egypt and Israel that caused more casualties on the Egyptian side than the Israeli side.

After the 1967 war, Israel became a strategic ally of the US because before this war, the US was not as close to Israel as people in the Arab world think. The Israelis fought in that war using mainly French and British weapons. At that time, the US administrations refused to supply Israel with more modern aircraft and weapon systems such as the F-4 Phantom.

The Palestinian misery was also used to topple another stable monarchy, this time in Iraq and replacing it with a bloody dictatorship in one of the richest countries of the world. Iraq is rich in minerals, water reserves, fertile land and archaeological sites. The military led by Abdul Karim Qassim killed King Faisal II and his family. Bloodshed in Iraq continued and this Arab country has seen more violent revolutions and one of them was carried out in the 1960s by a brigade that was sent to help liberate Palestine. Instead it made a turn and went back and took over Baghdad. Even years later, Saddam Hussien said that he will liberate Jerusalem via Kuwait. He used Palestinians misery as an excuse to invade Kuwait.

Read the whole thing. I wonder how many other Arabs realize just how badly they messed this up.

Labels: Arab democracy, Arab denial of Jewish history, Saudi Navy

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:42 PM

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1 Comments:

At 3:26 PM, Blogger kranky said...

While this officers comments are not only brave, they are largely correct, the arab world as a whole, and the larger muslim world as a whole, would not be able to accept the shame from admitting that they have been wrong.

It takes a special sort of person to realize that a mistake has been made. Its far too easy to cast your faults upon others and use them as a scapegoat. The entire arab and muslim world do this apart from occasional glimpses of sanity, such as from this officer.

Why else would they be unable to admit that the 19 9/11 terrorists were muslim arabs. Why else would they be unable to admit that Osama and his merry mad men are muslims. Take every atrocity that the muslims and arabs commit, and you can find a sizable group denouncing them as not being true muslims, and not acting in accord with the quran.

Denial does nothing to help that society realize the horror it spawns, or to stop it from spawning more. This society values death over life, when you listen to their very numerous, very vocal firebrands. These are not isolated nutjobs, these are the mainstream.

The author is wise, and is correct in all aspects. The arab and muslim world made one terrible mistake after another. They did not miss any opportunity to miss opportunities. This person is likely to be branded unislamic, an apostate, or worse. He is liable to be killed by the followers of the firebrands.

And he is an intelligent, well thought out, well spoken, but isolated, and lonely voice in the wilderness, surrounded by a deep sea of unreason, unthinking, and apoplectic but unwarranted rage. It would be great if we could see more of these people out there. Millions more. And if Israel reached out to him to congratulate him on his courage in voicing this, it would bring about his rapid destruction.

This is a multigenerational problem now. The firebrands and those the author called out have inculcated Israel and Jew hatred so deeply in their society, it will take them numerous generations after they stop incitement, for their society to start to accept Israel and Jews.