⚫ One of the Arabs' best-kept secrets, skillfully obscured over the years, is the true reason behind their refusal of the 1947 UN partition plan:

For those less familiar, here's a quick summary:
After WWII, the British, looking to exit the complicated situation they found themselves in in the Middle East, planned to hand back the mandate they had received from the UN.

The UN dispatched the UNSCOP committee to determine the region's future. The committee proposed several plans, with the well-known Partition Plan eventually being accepted by the majority of its members.

The Jewish community accepted this plan, and a majority of UN members voted in favor of it.

However, the Arabs rejected it, similarly to their earlier refusal of the Peel Commission's recommendations (a topic for another post).

So, why then did the Arabs reject the partition proposal?

Primarily, they were confident in their ability to swiftly defeat the Jews, eliminate them, and seize the entire territory.

This conviction also had a significant contribution to the Nakba as it led them to advise many Arabs to temporarily vacate their homes during the conflicts, expecting to return post-victory - a victory that, of course, never materialized.

Yet, this is not the core reason.

Pay close attention now:
The primary reason Arab leaders rejected the UN's partition proposal was their own disbelief in the Palestinian people's right to self-determination. In fact, they were opposed to it! Indeed, that's exactly as it sounds.

Arab leaders never recognized Palestinians as an ethnic group with self-determination rights, but rather as a part of the larger Arab nation.

As those knowledgeable in history (and not propaganda) understand, there were originally no 'Palestinians', only Arabs.

The Arabs' national goal was to create Greater Syria, covering today's Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Israel, a vision outlined in the McMahon-Hussein correspondence of 1915-1916.

Therefore, they rejected any proposal that independently defined the Palestinians, as such a distinction simply did not exist.

(Interestingly, this truth is widely recognized in the Arab world. While not often acknowledged publicly, it occasionally surfaces, as seen in a video I'll share in the comments)

So next time Palestinian history, culture, or their right to self-determination is discussed, remember that while the world, Jews included, were willing to acknowledge this, the refusal came from the Arabs themselves, who recognized the idea of a Palestinian nation as a UN fabrication.

@OrenBarsky

🇮🇱 @israel_report