AN OUTSIDE VIEW

The Palestinian cause gets lots of support from well-meaning people in the west, who stand outside shops like Marks and Spencer and ask customers to boycott Israeli goods. The intensity of anti-Israel protest has naturally stepped up in reaction the Israeli action in Gaza in response to the ongoing rocket attacks. At its inception in 1948 Israel was about one third of its present size and was immediately attacked by Transjordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria - ie all its neighbours. Their aim was to get rid of Israel entirely. Holocaust phase II, it would have been. They very nearly succeeded and from the point of view of the Arabs and their sympathisers, the fact that they did not is regrettable. But one result was that Israel ended up bigger than it would otherwise have been and this was the beginning of the Palestinian refugee problem, which remains to this day as other wealthy Arab countries have barely lifted a finger to help. At the same time Jews from Arab countries migrat...