This is an astonishing video and an astonishing question. Why didn’t the Arab governments establish a Palestinian state when they controlled the West Bank and Gaza for 20 years? I’ll just add that this question is bigger than the obvious Israeli takeaway that Arab states don’t actually care about Palestinians. One of the recurring undercurrents of Palestinian history and identity is the sense of profound betrayal by the Arab and Muslim nations. This theme is already present in 19th-century frustrations at the Ottoman government over the very earliest waves of Jewish immigration. Today, too, it is everywhere. One of the more pervasive critiques of Hamas among Gazans right now is the argument that the organization was unforgivably stupid to have assumed that the Arabs and Muslims would come to Gaza’s rescue, an assumption that flies in the face of the entirety of Palestinian Arab history. I’ve lived most of my life in Jerusalem. I’ve encountered this theme hundreds of times in conversations with every kind of Palestinian, from PA ministers to ordinary shopkeepers - the sense that their cause is a convenient ideological banner for their would-be supporters, but that it mostly serves the ideological needs of the supporters, not the real-world needs of Palestinians. So pay attention to this question. Israelis and Palestinians all notice it and think about it. https://bird.makeup/@verminusm/1772004295300284566
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