For 19 years they had the opportunity to exercise the principle of "self-determination" in those areas that Jordan had invaded and held. In Jordan itself, such Palestinians are the majority of the citizens, and serve as high officials and members of the Jordanian government. Yet they did not create a "Democratic Secular State." Why? The reason lies in the intentions of the PLO leaders.
"There are two initial phases to our return," said Farouk Kaddoumi, head of the PLO political department, last year. "The first phase to the 1967 lines, and the second to the 1948 lines...the third stage is democratic state of Palestine [that is, the destruction of Israel]. So we are fighting for these three stages."
The PLO information office in Oslo followed the same theme last year, declaring, "There is no new policy by the PLO to recognize Israel...The declared program of the PLO is to bring about the destruction of the Zionist entity of Israel."
It is only fair now to quote what Professor Said himself says about this: "The present Palestinian position therefore is [notice the careful formulation--he says the present position, i.e. subject to change] Israeli withdrawal from the West bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza; the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on those territories..." But in a recent television interview, Professor Said stated that the PLO demands self-determination for the Palestinians not only in these areas mentioned above, but also in Israel as Israeli citizens.
The intention of the PLO leaders is clear. It is not the grave problem of the miserable refugees that they want to solve. It is the destruction of the state of Israel that they seek with inflamed desire. It is not themselves that they want to "determine;" it is Israel that they want to exterminate, just as their brothers did to the Curds in Iraq two years ago and as they have tried to do to the Christians in Lebanon.
In one aspect I must commend Professor Said's approach because it reflects an attitude that social and national activities should be seen and explained in a wide historical context. For every individual's life is composed of elements, physical and spiritual, that he inherits from his ancestors. Moreover, for an individual to transcend his finiteness, he must relate himself to his heritage and bequeath it to his children.
Professor Said is correct when he writes that "to its victims, history often seems to be an accumulation of sufferings and injustices; but it also has a certain compensating logic, a part of which is that people do not disappear under oppression, they sometimes grow..." It takes a man of letters such as Professor Said to write such a moving passage. It moved me because this is the exact story of Zionism and the Jewish Nation.
For the last 1907 years, since most of us were forced from the land of Israel, there has been no country in Europe or the Middle East which did not oppress us. During those years, Jews all around the world prayed three times daily for the return to their beloved Holy Land.
During those years, Jewish life was punctuated by the creeds based on, or taken from, the Bible, the creation of our ancestors when they were living on their own land, in Eretz-Israel. Eventually all those prayers and yearnings took the form of Zionism, a national liberation movement, and Jews began to come home and rebuild the country.
"Displacement," "hatred," and "killing" have always been repugnant to the Zionists. Our main objectives have always been to cultivate the deserted land, to revive our original language and culture, and to form a peaceful creative society. This is what makes Zionism such a fascinating movement and one of the most exciting national phenomena of our century.
No one is more aware of this than the Arabs in Israel and the surrounding countries. Yet only when these Arabs adopt such a spirit, can peace come to our region. Then the Palestinian refugees will say aloud what they feel in their hearts.
They do not want to be used any more as a propaganda weapon for Arab Pan-Arabism; they want to be absorbed by their brothers in the vast and rich Arab countries that desperately need manpower for their economies. Just as the 750,000 Jews who escaped from the Arab countries were absorbed by their brothers in Israel.
Then they would agree that possessing 75 per cent of "Palestine" (which is both banks of the Jordan) is a settlement more than fair to them. That is bound to happen, just as Sadat's visit to Jerusalem was bound to happen. And that day may be closer than we think it is.
Nissan Degani, an official in the Israeli Ministry of Education, is currently a Visiting Fellow at Harvard studying the philosophy of education.