An Obstacle to Peace
In 1947, the United Nations approved UN Resolution 181, which called for the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, with the city of Jerusalem as a corpus separatum (Latin: “separate entity”) to be governed by a special international regime.
Israel wholeheartedly embraced and accepted the resolution.
By contrast, the Arab nations, rejected it out of hand.
The Arabs’ reaction should not have come as a surprise since the eventual formation of the Palestinian national movement was premised on rejecting Israel as a Jewish state.
So instead of using their vast financial resources to establish a twenty-third Arab state alongside the one Jewish state of Israel, five nations Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, immediately initiated a war against the nascent state in 1948. The Arabs followed their loss in 1948 with a succession of wars in 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, and 2006, all of which they also lost.
But for some, Israel is “an obstacle to peace,” despite the fact that the very raison d’être of the Palestinian national movement is to rid the Middle East of the Jewish State of Israel.