What's the real story about the Palestinians? Are they in an "intolerable situation," as President Obama said in his groundbreaking speech in Cairo? David P. Goldman says, "The simplest explanation is that [the Palestinians] like it there [West Bank and Gaza], because they are much better off than people of similar capacities in other Arab countries."

How's that? Palestinians are better off than many other Arabs? Goldman, in his article "Palestine problem hopeless, but not serious," gives the facts. "The standard tables of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita show the West Bank and Gaza at (US)$1,700, just below Egypt's $1,900 and significantly below Syria's $2,250 and Jordan's $3,000. GDP does not include foreign aid, however, which adds roughly 30 percent to spendable funds in the Palestinian territories."

Goldman doesn't accept population figures from UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees. He says, "Adjusting for the Begin-Sadat Center population count [www.biu.ac.il) and adding in foreign aid, GDP per capita in the West Bank and Gaza comes to $3,380, much higher than in Egypt and significantly higher than in Syria or Jordan. Why should any Palestinian refugee resettle in a neighboring Arab country?"

From the U.N. website: "Under UNRWA's operational definition, Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab- Israeli conflict." In contrast to the counting of any other refugee population, the U.N. gives refugee status to subsequent generations of Palestinians. The result is that the grandchildren and greatgrandchildren of Arabs who may have lived in Palestine for only two years are counted as "Palestinian refugees."

U N R W A receives compensation per capita, so the more refugees, the more money pours into the agency, which itself employs tens of thousands of Palestinians. Obviously this situation encourages the over-counting of the population and underrecording of deaths. The population figures from the Begin-Sadat Center show an UNRWA disparity of more than one million people!

Goldman writes, "Without disputing Obama's claim that life for the Palestinians is intolerable, it is fair to ask: where is life not intolerable in the Arab world? When the first U.N. Arab Development Report appeared in 2002, it elicited comments such as this one from the London Economist: 'With barely an exception, [the Arab world's] autocratic rulers, whether presidents or kings, give up their authority only when they die; its elections are a sick joke; half its people are treated as lesser legal and economic beings, and more than half its young, burdened by joblessness and stifled by conservative religious tradition, are said to want to get out of the place as soon as they can.' "

"Palestinian Arabs are highly literate, richer and healthier than people in most other Arab countries, thanks to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the blackmail payments of Western as well as Arab governments. As refugees, they live longer and better than their counterparts in adjacent Arab countries. It is not surprising that they do not want to be absorbed into other Arab countries and cease to be refugees."

Goldman avers that the Palestinians are blackmailing the West, which is reluctant to defend itself against Palestinian terrorism. He says they have no other obvious source of income other than handouts, due to a lack of industry, natural resources and infrastructure. "The Palestinians cannot form a normal state. They cannot emigrate to Arab countries without accepting a catastrophic decline in living standards, and very few can emigrate to Western countries. The optimal solution for the Palestinians is to demand a state and blackmail Western and Arab donors with the threat of violence, but never actually get one [a state]. That is why the Palestinian issue is hopeless, but not serious." I find Goldman's argument compelling, given the fact that the Palestinians concentrate more on destroying the Jewish state than building a state of their own. The West condones this behavior, preferring that Israel bears the brunt of Palestinian terror.

What's the real story about Palestinians being made homeless in Jerusalem? President Obama has declared that Israelis (that is, Jews) have no right to evict two families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, a predominantly Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem. Actually, Obama has said that Israelis shouldn't build anywhere near the Palestinians, neither in Jerusalem nor in the West Bank. What's up with that?

Sheikh Jarrah is as good an example as any of the misperception about Palestinian "rights" to the land. Seth Frantzman, in his recent article, "Terra Incognita: East Jerusalem's Lost Years," outlines the history of the neighborhood, putting the situation into its proper context. "What is today called Sheikh Jarrah, in the 19th century included two Jewish neighborhoods known as Nahalat Shimon and Shimon HaTzadiq. The latter commemorated Simon the Just, a Jewish high priest from the 4th century AD and was purchased by Jews in 1876. Nahalat Shimon was built by Sephardic and Yemenite Jews in 1891. Sheikh Jarrah was primarily a Jewish neighborhood in the late 19th century and remained so up until 1948."

Muslims began building in the neighborhood around the same time as the Jews. By the end of the 19th century, Sheikh Jarrah was a "cosmopolitan neighborhood that included the American Colony compound, St. George's Anglican Cathedral, an ancient Muslim mosque commemorating a soldier of Saladin and the 'Graves of the Kings,' a site with graves of various Jewish figures, which had been acquired by a Jewish family and given to the French government in the 19th century."

Frantzman continues: "In December of 1947 fighting broke out between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem. Initially the leading Muslim families asked Arab fighters from outside the city to leave their neighborhood, and the Jews [residing] there, in peace. By March 1948, however, Arabs from a unit called "al Shabab" (The Youth) invaded the neighborhood [Sheikh Jarrah] and set the Jewish synagogues and houses on fire, causing the residents to flee. In April, the Hadassah Convoy massacre, where 79 Jews were murdered, took place in the neighborhood."

Other Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem were destroyed in Israel's War of Independence, including parts of Silwan (David's City), where Yemenite Jews had settled in 1882, and the Old City's Jewish Quarter, which was razed in 1948 by the Jordanians.

After 1948 East Jerusalem was occupied by Jordan, dividing Jerusalem into Jordanian controlled East Jerusalem and the modern, Jewish West Jerusalem. The Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, was closed to Jews. The Christian population of East Jerusalem during Jordanian occupation dropped from about 30,000 to 11,000. The U.N. settled Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem, including in the disputed houses in Sheikh Jarrah. Beginning in 1956, Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives, Judaism's most storied gravesites, were destroyed. Some 38,000 grave stones were removed and used in construction by the Jordanians.

Frantzman's conclusion: "In fact, none of the rampant destruction of Jewish sites in Jerusalem was condemned by the U.N. during the period of Jordanian rule. Had the international community cared then as much as it does now, perhaps the disputes would not have come about. If people understood more about the period of Jordanian rule and the dynamic Arab changes of Jerusalem, one might better understand the actual history of the city, rather than focusing merely on Israeli actions and Palestinian victimization."

Both Goldman and Frantzman point out the emphasis by the media on Palestinian victimization, with little mention of Jewish victimization and Jewish rights. Jews have an ancient history in Israel. Even in the modern period, Jewish claims often precede those of the Palestinians. The Palestinians will never have their own state unless they are willing to recognize that Israel is the Jewish state. That's the real story about the Palestinians.

Stephen Kramer resided and worked in the Atlantic City area until 1991, when he moved to Israel with his wife, Michal Langweiler, and two sons. He can be reached at Sjk1@jhu.edu.