A fascinating look back at the origins of the Palestinian people in 1947 and their constant refusal of statehood. Their leaders are doing this to themselves and then crying to the general public that they are aggrieved.
From The Washington Free Beacon:
How the Palestinians Created Their Own Plight
It is easy to forget that, in 1947, when the United Nations recommended the creation of a Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine, the international body also recommended the creation of an Arab state—what would today be a national home for the Palestinians. The idea was to partition the land into two separate entities—in other words, a two-state solution. Indeed, in 1988, the Palestine National Council described the partition resolution as what "still provides those conditions of international legitimacy that ensure the right of the Palestinian Arab people to sovereignty." Yet at the time of the resolution, the Arabs—no one used the term "Palestinians" then—boycotted the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine, which the General Assembly empowered to make recommendations about the future government of the territory, rejecting both the partition and a single, binational state. Then the Arabs completely, and unambiguously, rejected the General Assembly's partition plan, believing that, once the British left Mandatory Palestine, they would defeat the Jews and control the entire area. Of course the Arabs failed, despite the help of several armies. The Jewish state of Israel, established in 1948, endured, and the Palestinian Arabs, who could have had their own state, remained stateless.
Since then, the Palestinians have repeatedly turned down offers of statehood. First, they did not seek the West Bank when Jordan controlled it from 1949 to 1967. Only when the land was back in Israeli control following the Six-Day War did the Palestinians again call it disputed. Twelve years later, Israel worked to offer the Palestinians autonomy, which would have been a major step toward full independence, to no avail. Then in 2000 and 2008, Israel offered the Palestinians control of virtually all of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with a capital in East Jerusalem. Each time the Palestinians rejected the offer, even waging a violent uprising against the Israelis following the failure in 2000. One would be hard-pressed to find another national independence movement, beyond the Palestinian one, that has turned down formal offers of statehood in the territory they claim. Indeed, the Palestinians have, time and again, set new standards for stubbornness.
And yet, despite this history, most of the world seems to blame Israel for the Palestinians' situation. Just look at the recent wave of articles and comments assailing the Jewish state that followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's election victory earlier this month. Naturally, the New York Times led the charge, "reporting" that, with Netanyahu's reelection, Palestinian families see "no light at the end of the tunnel." In a front-page feature, the Times discusses how the Palestinians are despairing about the stalemate in the peace process. Importantly, the article notes that many Palestinians see the Palestinian Authority, or P.A., for the corrupt, ineffective regime that it is, and that at least some want to make peace with Israel.
Much more at the site - this is all a matter of the historical record. These are facts you can look up. Another fact is that Palestinian "leader" Yasser Arafat studied in Moscow for nine years before moving back to become their leader. His operation was bankrolled by the USSR, specifically the KGB, which feared a strong Israel and wanted to destabilize the region.
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