I have to confess. I love to disagree with Jonah Goldberg. In today's G-File he wrote: "Regardless, I do agree that the Palestinians must eventually have their state. I agree: They are in a struggle for national liberation."
This leads me to question whether the terms "nation" and "state" are appropriate for Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority.
It's no overstatement to say that the Thirty Years War was significant to the development of Western Civilization. As a result of this conflict and others, arose the idea of religious toleration. Since ancient times warfare had been brutal, a sack of a city meant the leveling of a city. After the Thirty Years War, European conflicts became more civilized. The European wars became set piece battles, seemingly more concerned with manuver than engagement. And most importantly, the peace treaty of that war, the Peace of Westphalia, is credited toward the development of the nation-state in the West.
Some commentators have noted that the Muslim world did not have its Thirty Years War. They usually attach the religious significance to the wars. And some commentators will remark that the Arab culture is essentially tribal in nature, and that Islam is tribal as well. I don't really want to research the overlap of the two set of commentators, but rather I wish to point out that there is a common thread between the two facts.
Mr. Goldberg pointed out in his G-File, Orwell's Orphans, that Orwell noted the correspondence of "bad thinking and bad language" (Orwell's essay was "Politics and the English Language").My assertion is that "nation" and "state" are inappropriate when discussing various Arab peoples. Especially when given the well know rejection of Western civilization by Arab and Muslim leaders and teachers. To talk about a Palestinian nation and a Palestinian state is a deception. It hides the fact that Arafat is nothing more than a would-be tribal chieftain in a world of tribal chieftains. He is better compared to a street hoodlum who leads a gang of ruffians than a president who leads a people.
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