Oh, Say Can You Sing
“In 1926, Lord Plumer was appointed as the second High Commissioner of Palestine. The Arabs within the Mandate were infuriated when Plumer stood up for the Zionists’ national anthem Hatikva during ceremonies held in his honor when Plumer first visited Tel Aviv. When a delegation of Palestinian Arabs protested Plumer’s ‘Zionist bias,’ the High Commissioner asked the Arabs if he remained seated when their national anthem was played, ‘wouldn’t you regard my behavior as most unmannerly?’ Met by silence, Plumer asked: ‘By the way, have you got a national anthem?’ When the delegation replied with chagrin that they did not, he snapped back, “I think you had better get one as soon as possible.”
[Christopher Sykes, “Cross Roads to Israel – Palestine from Balfour to Bevin” London, Collins, 1965, pp. 92-93]
Thanks to Eli Hertz
they have one now baladi baladi
In 1926, there was no Palestinian People. It is futile to go back to that era to try to explain to our Arab neighbors why they don’t deserve a state of their own. I do not know if they even really want an independent Palestine. If they did, wouldn’t they have been more willing to play along with Israel since Oslo? Today, events have overtaken history. The entire world expects that in the near future there will be three states in Eretz Yisrael, Israel,Palestine and Jordan. No one at all opposes that on the international scene. What is holding it up is the inability of the Paestinians to get their act together and do what they need to do to have their own mini-state. They really don’t want it, they want the whole land. None of the Arabs really accept Israel’s legitimacy and giving them a little State totally controlled by outside forces will not quench their desire for honor, manhood, religious supremacy. I bet they have an anthem now, but it isn’t about living peacefully in 20% of historic Palestine.