Let me check my stock of Giveadamn ...

... Nope, fresh out

The usual.

Apparently the phrase “Palestinians being, well, Palestinians” did nothing to endear me to some folks on one of the less … balanced … social media platforms.

Well, drat. How ever shall I sleep?

One of the less-corrosive comments opined as to what problem could I have with the Palestinian people?

I needed blog fodder, so I suppose I should be thankful. Or not. Anyhoo —

Let us turn the Wayback Machine to 1970; the location: the country of Jordan.

After the Six-Day War, Palestinian thugs relocated their operations to Jordan, and began launching their kittenish little assaults upon Israel from the safety of that country.

Well, as one might guess, the Israelis didn't take this as well as one might have hoped, and started smacking back.

Things went about like anyone with any sense would have thought, but to the Arab world, the Palestinians were seen as David standing against the Israeli Goliath, and -- being the closet romantics that they are -- the Arabs showered the Palestinians with glory. And money. Lots of money.

As is wont to happen the fame and gilt went to Palestinian heads, and before you know it they're calling for the overthrow of the Jordanian royal family. Their hosts¹.

When they figured out that the rest of Arabia — romantics though they were — didn't quite cotton to this turfing off of the Jordanian king (and his family), they initially crawfished on that idea, but — as Palestinians throughout recent history have a habit of doing — they became a massive pain-in-the-ass to their Jordanian hosts. They ignored laws, declared themselves to be "countries inside of a country", and started occupying — forcefully — Jordanian cities.

To include Amman, the capital city of Jordan and the seat of Jordanian King Hussein².

After many, many negotiations betwixt King Hussein and Yasser Arafat (most of which were spectacularly ignored, or outright broken by the PLO³), and culminating in a couple of assassination attempts by the PLO on King Hussein, the Jordanian Royal Army flat had enough of their bushwa, and on 16 SEP 1970, the Jordanian troopies brought the hate.

18 SEP 1970 — two days later — a Syrian force with newly-painted Palestinian Liberation Army markings crossed the border. 22 SEP 1970, after much hemming and hawing by the Syrians about what the force was actually about, the Royal Jordanian Air Force got a case of the arse and started putting the boot to the Syrians⁴, to the point that what was left of the Syrian division unassed back to Syria.

13 OCT 1970, Hussein and Arafat signed a cease fire, with certain conditions. Anyone want to guess how the Palestinians regarded the conditions? Yeah.

So, 17 JUL 1971, the Jordanian military kicked every single Palestinian who even thought about being stupid the hell out of the country; followed by a bloody⁵ massive purge of idiots from the Jordanian government, bureaucracies, media, and military.

While this was, indeed, a Good Idea, two Unintended Consequences occurred — as they are wont to do:

1) Most of the Palestinians wound up in Southern Lebanon. I don't have enough booze to describe to y'all how that turned out later; and

2) The Palestinians promptly formed the Black September terror group -- named after the month in which the Jordanians Had Enough Of Their Bushwa, and one of the first things Black September did was assassinate the Jordanian Prime Minister, followed up by the massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany.

Let me be perfectly clear — the Arab world considers the Palestinians to be pariahs. They are rightfully regarded — see above — by Arab lands as troublemakers, an irredeemable burden, and most Arab nations outright deny any path to citizenship for Palestinians, with a shockingly large percentage of Islamic nations denying basic civil rights to Palestinians inside their borders.

The only reason that most Arab states tolerate the Palestinians is because of the inbred antipathy that the Arab-in-the-street has for Israel. That’s it⁶.

Not to mention that we have our very own Marxist-Palestinian politician. What a mature, calming, definitely-not-controversial breath of fresh air she’s been.

Nah, I don’t like Palestinians. I saw what they did to Beirut — one of the most charming, urbane, and civilized cities on this little green dirt-ball; I’ve read their history; I’ve seen their politicians and terrorists wade through innocent blood up to their eye-teeth; I’ve experienced how other Arabs feel about them; and I’ve witnessed the average Palestinian dancing and celebrating slaughter and terror in the street.

They’re a known quantity. Bugger ‘em.

Ian

1. Rude.

2. Overconfident much?

3. My shocked face, let me show you it.

4. Syria lost 120 of the tanks they “loaned” to the Palestinians, and about 600 dead Syrian “advisers”.

5. Metaphorically. Ish.

6. “Go be a pain-in-the-ass somewhere else” isn’t the glowing recommendation you’d think.