Stephen R. Shalom writes about about the origin of the conflict from it’s inception to the present. A presentation most ardent Zionist will find very challenging. It seems mostly accurate, as far as it goes, but he does leave out some important facts (such as the fascist connections of Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem and a Palestinian nationalist). In any case it is a relatively dispassionate presentation of the Palestinian position.
“The Zionists declared that having gone through one of the great catastrophes of modern history, the Jewish people were entitled to a state of their own, one into which they could gather Jewish refugees, still languishing in the displaced persons camps of Europe. The Zionist bottom line was a sovereign state with full control over immigration. The Palestinians argued that the calamity that befell European Jews was hardly their fault. If Jews were entitled to a state, why not carve it out of Germany? As it was, Palestine had more Jewish refugees than any other place on Earth. Why should they bear the full burden of atoning for Europe’s sins? They were willing to give full civil rights (though not national rights) to the Jewish minority in an independent Palestine, but they were not willing to give this minority the right to control immigration, and bring in more of their co-religionists until they were a majority to take over the whole of Palestine.”
