A short course in Zionist-Arab relations.

David Meir-Levi has written an extensive piece about the land purchases of the Zionists who first came to the region that would become Israel. He begins by describing Ottoman policies that resulted in the dispossession of large numbers of Arab peasants as a direct result of land purchases by wealthy Arabs. Zionists who bought land from these Arabs often paid surcharges to the resident peasants and in some cases actually purchased other land for them.

Fast forward to 1937 when Lord Earl Peel visited the region and subsequently came up with a partition plan, under which Arabs would have received 92% of the original Palestine Mandate.

Here's part of the story of what happened next:

Thus was created the "Peel partition plan" in which the Arabs in the area west of the Jordan River would receive about 85% of the land, and the Jews 15%. . . . The Jews accepted this arrangement. The Arabs rejected it . . . and they went to war.

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. . . Had Arab leadership accepted this compromise, and created Palestine alongside of Israel as the Peel Commission recommended, the Palestinian people would have had their own state in 1937 on about 85% of what is today Israel and Palestinian Arabs would be living on 92% of the original Palestine Mandate (in a new Palestinian state west of the Jordan River and in the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan east of the river).

By preaching Jew-hatred and provoking the revolt against the British, the Hajj and his cohorts betrayed the interests of their own people and condemned them to a war they could not win and to the loss of a Palestinian state. After their defeat, the Arab leaders of the revolt who escaped the British dragnet initiated their own "night of the long knives," executing as many as 3,000 of their own people whom they accused of collaboration.

At every turn Mr. Meir-Levi shows how Arab leaders did all in their power to avoid a solution that today would have left Arabs in control over much more territory than they have now, with the added advantage that the bloodshed, economic waste, and population transfers would have been avoided. (The execution of the 3,000+ might be seen as further evidence of the Arab leadership's penchant blaming others for their own failures.)

As for the refugees that were created by the various wars with the Jews, Mr. Meir-Levi tells a very different story than the one peddled by the Arabs.

Who Is Really Oppressing the Palestinians?." By David Meir-Levi, FrontPageMagazine.com 2/3/06 (emphasis added).