Should there be an independant Palestinian state&;#063;

Many people in the United States, Europe and elsewhere are clamoring
for an independent Palestinian state.
Supporters of such a state claim that it is the only way that peace
will ever be achieved in the Middle East, but is there any reason to
believe that?
If one looks at the history of the Jewish state it is not hard to see
that such a move would be unlikely to bring about peace, in fact, it
might just make matters worse.
For one thing, prior to the end of the British mandate in 1948, the
founders of Israel were in favor of an independent state for the
Palestinians, but that did not keep every Arab nation from attacking as
soon as the British pulled out.

It is also true that everything the Palestinians claim they want was in
Arab hands prior to 1967, why didn't Syria and the other Arab nations
that held that land at the time make a state for the Palestinians
then?

It is also true that so many people look at the Arab-Israeli conflict
as the only problem in the Middle East, thereby pretending that if only
peace could be brought about between the Jews and the Palestinians, the
whole area would become one big peaceful, happy go lucky area.

It is so easy to forget the Iran-Iraq war that lasted from 1979 to
1988 and the 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, neither of which had a
thing to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict.

But, lets forget history for a moment, why am I so sure that a
Palestinian state would not bring peace, TODAY.

Well, all you need do is look at the land that a proposed Palestinian
sate would sit on, the west bank, Gaza and maybe East Jerusalem.

There is no oil beneath that land, no really good sources of wealth of
any kind. In no time at all, a Palestinian state would be one of the
poorest nations in the region and what would they be saying then?
You can be quite sure that they would blame their problems on the fact
that they don't have their ENTIRE country, therefore, we would be right
back to square one.

One of the biggest problems that such a state would have is a lack of
leadership, who would run such a state anyway? Yassir Arafat? Does
anyone really believe that he could govern a country?
And not just any country, but a country that would be located in one
of the roughest neighborhoods in the world, where he and his people
would, more often than not, be used as political pawns by their larger
and far richer and more powerful neighbors.

It is also true that in no time, a Palestinian state would very likely
become one of the largest havens for terrorists in the world.

Well after all, a truly autonomous nation can allow anyone they choose
to live in their country and you can be sure that terrorists of many
different stripes would soon find a happy home there.

Given all of these facts, why are so many people pushing for an
independent Palestinian state?

I believe that many of the supporters of such a state are suffering
from what radio talk show host Michael Medved calls the "do something
disease." They see a terrible situation unfolding and they feel the
need to do something.
While that may be understandable from a emotional/psychological point
of view, the fact of the matter is that it is rarely better to do
something that is counter productive than to do nothing at all.

The Arab Israeli conflict is one of the most intractable problems in
the world today; the basic problem is easy to understand. The Arabs
want the Jews out of Israel and for that matter, the entire Middle East
and the Jews don't want to go and they have the military muscle,
including nuclear weapons, in order to ensure that they won't have
to.

I do not know what the ultimate solution to that problem is, but I do
know that giving an impoverished angry people an impoverished angry
nation on a diminished Israeli border is not the answer.