(NNPA)—The loudest shouting after the announcement of a thaw in the U.S.-Cuba icy relationship may not have been in Havana or Washington, but in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians in the West Bank about 10 miles north of Jerusalem and among the Sahrawis exiled in Morocco, Mauritania and five refugee camps near the city of Tindouf in southwestern Algeria.
Of the two struggles, the Palestinian plight is the better known.
Joel Beinin and Lisa Hajjar, writing for the Middle East Research and Information Project, observed: “Jewish claims to this land are based on the biblical promise to Abraham and his descendants, on the fact that the land was the historical site of the ancient Jewish kingdoms of Israel and Judea, and on Jews’ need for a haven from European anti-Semitism.
“Palestinian Arab claims to the land are based on their continuous residence in the country for hundreds of years and the fact that they represented the demographic majority until 1948. They reject the notion that a biblical-era kingdom constitutes the basis for a valid modern claim. If Arabs engage the biblical argument at all, they maintain that since Abraham’s son Ishmael is the forefather of the Arabs, then God’s promise of the land to the children of Abraham includes Arabs as well. They do not believe that they should forfeit their land to compensate Jews for Europe’s crimes against Jews.”
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