Its Cute How You Think I’d Give Up An Identity Forged As Opposition To Your Existence Just For Some Economic Gain

by Fadi Shuhade, Palestinian activist

Ramallah, November 2 – OMG you’re adorable. You seem to operate under the assumption that better access to jobs, a moderate improvement in standard of living, and some token territorial concessions will undo the sense of self I have cultivated that specifically seeks to supplant you and denies your right to be here at all. It’s so cute.

Let’s review: you and your like-minded Pollyanna-types in Western “progressive” circles – not “progressive” as in “Stalinist,” as many self-proclaimed progressives really are, once you scratch their surface – but genuine progressives, the educated, liberal elite – assume that all it takes for us Palestinians to lay down our weapons and commit to living side-by-side in our own state next to Israel is some economic incentives, a taste of democracy, a little but of government accountability, and a chance to build a better material life. I know this sounds condescending, but that’s just precious. A distinct Palestinian Arab culture only came into being in opposition to the emergence of Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land – how could anyone expect us to retain a coherent national identity if it’s not predicated upon destroying Israel and finally driving its Jewish inhabitants into the Mediterranean? I would call it idiotic to your face for suggesting it if you weren’t so sweetly sincere.

The term “Palestinian” itself never referred to Arabs until the 1960’s. That’s when Yasser Arafat and his crew rode Soviet funding, training, and propaganda to power over an amalgam of guerrillas whose idea of a good time was massacring Jewish schoolchildren on buses. It was Arafat who spearheaded the hijacking not just of airplanes, but of causes, slogans, and terminology. All of a sudden “Palestinian” started to refer to a group that never thought of itself as a single group before. We were just a bunch of clans, and if we had any notion of a larger political entity that included us, we’d have called it Southern Syria. But now to be Palestinian meant something! Specifically, the need to undo the establishment of a Jewish state in the ancestral Jewish homeland – which our own culture acknowledged, until it became politically inconvenient. But you think an identity forged specifically to oppose the existence of a Jewish entity on land that by our doctrine must always remain under Islamic rule can be unlearned through some trade deals and better access to luxury cars.

It’d be pure imbecility if not for how cute it is. Makes me want to just pinch those cheeks.

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