here.<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
And be sure to mark your calendar!<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some additional extracts from James Zogby,\u00a0Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us, and Why It Matters<\/em> (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010):<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1971, I took my first trip to the Middle East and got my first lesson in Arab realities on the ground. \u00a0After visiting Beirut and my family\u2019s home up in the mountains, I continued on to a Palestinian refugee camp, Ein al Hilweh in south Lebanon, where I planned to conduct research for my doctoral dissertation. . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nOne day during my visit, I talked to an old woman who, as was common, carried on a string around her neck the key to her old house in Palestine \u2014 now appropriated by Israeli settlers.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cDo you want to see my home?\u201d she asked. \u00a0When I replied, \u201cYes,\u201d she pulled out an old, faded picture album of her house. \u00a0This gesture certainly revealed a sense of loss, but remarkably, her simple nostalgia and longing for her past life far exceeded any raw bitterness. \u00a0(19-20)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zogby briefly tells of the 1919 American commission to Palestine led by Dr. Henry King, president of Oberlin College, and Charles Crane, a businessman and diplomat. \u00a0It was, he says, \u201cthe first-ever Arab public opinion survey\u201d:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The results showed particularly adamant views on certain issues. \u00a0According to the report, \u201cThe non-Jewish population of Palestine \u2014 nearly nine-tenths of the whole \u2014 are emphatically against the entire Zionist program. . . . \u00a0There was no one thing upon which the population of Palestine were more agreed than upon this.\u201d \u00a0This feeling was also shared by the broader population of the entire Arab East: \u00a0\u201cOnly two requests \u2014 those for a united Syria and for independence \u2014 had a larger support.\u201d \u00a0(22)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
This plainly didn\u2019t matter to Arthur Balfour, the former prime minister of Great Britain (1902-1905) who was serving as Foreign Secretary in the government of David Lloyd George between 1916 and 1919. \u00a0It was Lord Balfour who issued the famous \u2014 or, depending upon one\u2019s point of view, the infamous \u2014 1917 Balfour Declaration that committed\u00a0the British government to support the establishment of a \u201cnational home for the Jewish people\u201d in Palestine:<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Palestine,\u201d he declared, \u201cwe do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country, though the American commission has. . . . \u00a0Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.\u201d \u00a0(23)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thus the stage was set for the multiple conflicts that have plagued the region ever since. \u00a0(24)<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lord Balfour had been academically trained as a philosopher, and he is reputed to have had a markedly detached attitude to life. \u00a0(For what it\u2019s worth, he also never married.) \u00a0\u201cNothing matters very much,\u201d he is quoted as having said, \u201cand few things matter at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
A strange attitude, one might think, in a prime minister or a foreign minister.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Massive Jewish settlement in Palestine against the strenuous objections of its prior Arab residents has clearly mattered a very great deal.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 Newly published on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: \u00a0 \u201cBook of Moses Insights:\u00a0Introduction to the Book of Moses\u201d \u00a0 \u201cBook of Moses Insights:\u00a0Enoch\u2019s Prophetic Commission (Moses 6:26\u201336): Introduction\u201d \u00a0 And, while we\u2019re on the subject, be sure not to forget about the upcoming 18-19 September 2020 conference on \u201cTracing Ancient Threads in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[195,2328,8349,10991,9176,1152,1149,10997,7227,10994,11008,9433,10069,7206,11000,1579,2331,8388,11006,9595,11003,10850],"class_list":["post-84794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arab","tag-arabs","tag-arthur","tag-balfour","tag-book","tag-brigham-young-university","tag-byu","tag-commission","tag-conference","tag-crane","tag-declaration","tag-james","tag-king","tag-moses","tag-opinion","tag-palestine","tag-palestinians","tag-poll","tag-public-opinion","tag-survey","tag-views","tag-zogby"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>