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Fantasies About Palestine, Circa 1958

Many newspapers publish symbolic or symptomatic excerpts of what they had published 100, 75 and 50 years ago.  The Forward this week published a news item from itself exactly a half-century back.

Here it is:

Reports from the Middle Easts indicate that Egypt's president, Gamel Abdel Nasser, is preparing to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state in Gaza on March 14, a year to the day that Israeli forces pulled out of the Egyptian-ruled area (after the Sinai war.)  Because Egypt and Syria are now considered one country--the United Arab Republic--it is expected that Palestinian refugees in Syria will declare their loyalty to the new state, which will then become an entity within the United Arab Republic.  It is alleged that this plan is also meant to cause unrest among the 500,000 ruled by Jordan, which recently became part of a federation with Iraq.

A state here, a federation there.  Everywhere a state, state.