the Whitehall plaint. “When we came we found a jungle. They br

ate each other; they fought each other; they died young; they br

were poverty-stricken. We found a jungle and turned it into civ- br

ilization.” Of course, the reply of the “natives” was: “Yes, but br

it was our jungle, and now it is your civilization.”

One would have hoped that Prime Minister Rabin, as he br

mounted the rostrum on that June day in 1976 to give his views br

on the Israeli Arab problem, understood that the heart of the br

Jewish-Arab problem in Israel is the same as that of the dispute br

between Israel and the Arab states. All Arabs, including those in br

Israel, believe that the Jews are thieves, robbers who came to an br

Arab Middle East and stole a part of it. It does little good to br

bemoan the fact that the Arab will not “compromise” or accept br

the arguments given by Jews (the bad as well as the very good). br

He is not interested in a British promise to Jews as embodied in br

the Balfour Declaration (“Who were the British to promise ‘our’ br

land?”); he is not moved by tales of Jewish suffering under the br

Germans or other Europeans (“Let them compensate Jews by br

giving them part of their countries”); and he is not even swayed br

by the oft-heard boast that the Jews turned a desert into a br

garden (“Yes, but it was our desert, and now it is your garden”).

Even to begin to believe, in our time, that it is possible for br

two large nations to occupy the same land in peaceful coex- br

istence when they differ in every possible aspect is an illusion of br

the first magnitude. When you add the fact that the present mi- br

nority was once a majority, the hopelessness of the situation be- br

comes even more apparent. And when the minority knows that br

it has massive support from brother Arab states with potential br

and power to “free” it; and when it sees a vast majority of the br

nations of the world supporting its cause; and when it knows br

that all but one of the superpowers are sympathetic and that the br

one supposed ally of Israel is slowly but surely moving to pres- br

sure and to weaken her fatally; when the knowledge that a br

“Palestine” will sooner or later exist alongside the Israel that br

the minority is struggling against, the hope of “liberation” be- br

comes more and more a certainty in the breast of that minority.

The Declaration of Independence of Israel is not relevant to br

the Arabs of the Jewish state. Let the Jews have their declara- br

tion, they say; give us our independence.