Reagan's Palestine solution shows ignorance of history

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Reagan's Palestine solution shows ignorance of history WASHINGTON - There is still some chatter at the State Depart- ment over President Reagan's pro- posal to turn over the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan as an "associat- ed" political entity.

This proposal IN MY OPINION RALPH DE TOLEDANO derives from the false myth that there will be no peace in the Middle East until there is a "Palestine so- Harb).

The Koran teaches that lution." Islam must subjugate the rest of But as Professor Arnold Soloway the world, and that non-Moslems of the Center for Near East Policy must "pay tribute with their own Research has noted in a brilliant hands until they are humiliated." monograph, the hundred-years war All worldly "Power belongs to going on in the Middle East would Allah, his Apostle (Mobammed), continue, and perhaps worsen, if Is and believers." Christians and Jews rael disappeared in a puff of smoke. - the "Dhimmi" - are seen as in- What President Reagan would ferior and subject peoples to be realise if be had any sense of histo ruled by their Moslem masters. ry, is that the probleme in the re- This puts the Ayatollah Khomeini pon go back many centuries and in the mainstream of fundamental- are partly rooted is Islamic beliefs. ist Islamic dogma.

But in spite of this Pan-Islamic The Koran divides mankind toko dogma, there are conflicts within the House of Islam (Der al-Islam) the Arab nations and among them and the House of War (Der al The Alawi, a Shite sect, maker up but 12 percent of Syria's popula- tion as against the 70 percent that is Sunni, yet it controls the country - and has happily slaughtered Sunnis - 25,000 in the 1982 Hama massa- cre.

The Sunnis are 25 percent of Iraq's population, but they domi- nate the 55 percent Shia majority. The Saudi monarchy trembles at the pro-Khomeini Shiites in its midst and at the 80 percent of a skilled labor force made up of "for- eign" Arabs.

Jordan, 78 percent of a British Palestine Mandate which was to become a Jewish homeland, is ruled by a Hashemite dynasty im- ported from Saudi Arabia by the British after World War I. Its con- tribution to the Palestinians was to drive out the Palestine Liberation Organization after the bloody fight- ing of "Black September." Is there an Arab nation?

In 1980, a Syrian foreign minister said: "If tion" to the Palestine problem that we look at a map of the Arab home- would have taken them into consid- land, we can hardly find two con- eration.

But he managed to come tries ... which are not either at war up with one which pleases no one or on the road to war." These wars and which, in fact, would exacer- have nothing whatsoever to do with bate the situation. Israel or the West Bank. "The legitimacy of Hashemite The map gives us the picture: rule over Palestine - Jordan - re- Morocco vs. Algeria; Libya vs.

Tun- mains far from universally accept- isia; Libya vs. Egypt; Libya vs. ed in the Arab world," Soloway Saudi Arabia; Saudi Arabia vs. points out, and be adds: Bahrain and Qatar, Saudi Arabia vs. South Yemen; South Yemen vs. "Not only was Jordan's illegal North Yemen; Abu Dhabi vs. Dubai; annexation of the Palestine Man- Iraq vs. Kuwait; Irag vS.

Syria; date districts of Samaria and Syria vs. Jordan; Syria vs. the PLO; Judea, after the 1948 war against Iran vs.

Egypt; Shite fighting Sunni Israel, not recognized by any Arab in Lebanon and, of course, the big country, but one or another of Jor- Middle East booting war between dan's neighbors has repeatedly at- Iran and Iraq. tempted to bring down the Hashem- ite monarchy by assassination, Given these conflicts and rival- coupe and threats.

In the years be ries in the Middle East, one would fore 1967, the Jordanian regime have thought that President was repeatedly shaken by popular Reagan and the State Department rebellions east and west of the Jor- would have come up with a "sols- dan River which had to be forcibly repressed by the government." That President Reagan should have proposed turning over the West Bank and Gaza to Jordan showed an appalling ignorance of the history and politics of the re gion - and a startling insensitivity to the sentiments and policies of other Arab countries.

Someone at the State Depart- ment should have known that Egyp tian troops moved into Israel in 1H8 more to prevent Jordanian he gemony over the region than to bash Israel. The last thing Egypt and Saudi Arabia want is to see Jordan return to the West Bank.

As for Syria, it sees not oaly Israel and Lebanon as its own territory, bat Jordan as The balkanised Middle East is a tinderbox, but the conflicta tbere are far older than Israel, which bas become an excuse for bad and das- gerous diplomacy.

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"Reagan's Palestine solution shows ignorance of history," Daily News, 13 December 1985. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1985-010. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1985-010