Dear Editor,
I refer to the article entitled ‘Guyana recognizes Palestine’ (SN, January 14). The recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state is an act of folly that denies the facts the evidence provides. On occasions, Guyana’s foreign policy seems to be defined by an illogical series of whimsical spurts, sometimes spurred on by Brazilian beckoning. However, Guyana’s government has no mandate to be in lock-step with Brazil, only to assess the facts and the truth in the interest of the national ethos.
And surely the opinions of regular Guyanese matter in that effort? The constitution provides for consultation on complex issues such as these the last time I checked, but this provision continues to be exercised sparingly.
Historical Palestine is a farce and Israel’s position is unassailable at international law, but is apparently an open target for political grandstanding.
More significantly, the government’s position as stated completely ignores the insatiable Arab appetite for more Israeli land, and one is saddened by the fact that no one at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs realizes (or is prepared to admit) that Israel gave up 77% of its allocated land under the British mandate to allow the creation of the Arab state called Jordan (which even today refuses to accept the so-called Palestinians, like many other Arab states with millions of square miles of territory of their own.
Arab greed for Israeli territory next resulted in the creation and accommodation of a West Bank and a Golan Heights, but the still unsatisfied voracious appetite led to an astonishing act of barefaced aggression in 1967 as troops from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan massed to invade Israel, having assumed that the Israeli commitment to peaceful co-existence was a sign of weakness. Israeli retaliation was swift and sure, returning the borders of Israel to the area defined by the British mandate.
Israel should not and indeed surely will not, despite this latest action by Guyana, relinquish another inch of the geographical territory called Palestine. Pandering to insatiable Arab greed is not good politics, only short-sighted in the extreme. The decision by the Government of Guyana therefore flies in the face of reason, and one is again shocked at the lack of national consultation on this important issue. Recognizing ‘Palestine’ at the expense of Israel’s rights may have been expedient politically to a short-sighted few, but was an act of folly that ignored the evidence.
Yours faithfully,
Roger Williams
