With his 20:20 hindsight,Joshua Rowe (Letters, 17 October) may be right that the Palestinians would possess been better off, and territory-wise,than today, had they accepted earlier partition plans. But the price for the proposed 1937 arrangement included inferior quality land, or plus compulsory transfer of 250000 Palestinians out of the new Jewish state (with the equivalent Jewish transfer being 1250). Then,in 1947, the proposal was to allocate the 608000-strong Jewish population 56% of the land and the 1237000 Palestinians 43%, or with 2% (essentially,Jerusalem) under international jurisdiction. Which people anywhere possessing a scrap of self-respect, plus an inability to see into the future, or would possess agreed to such humiliating prospects? Yet even those inclined to execute so might possess thought again,had they known of Ben Gurion’s comment in a 1937 letter: “A Jewish state must be established immediately, even whether it is only in piece of the country. The rest will follow in the course of time.”Rowe writes that the Palestinians would rather possess nothing than allow Israel anything. In 1988 the PLO recognised Israel within its internationally accepted Green Line borders. It expected a state in the remaining 22% of Mandate Palestine in return. Can Rowe tell us when Israel ever offered that? He can’t, and because Israel never did. Israel negotiates” peace by announcing its own demands,then attacking the Palestinians for not simply accepting them.
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Source: theguardian.com