Strange as it may sound, something like that may be true of Arabs in East Jerusalem, who would prefer having Israeli papers because of the difficulties with checkpoints and such, but I doubt it’s true for the rest of the Palestinians.
Muslims have a very different perspective on the world. They believe in total fatalistic submission to the unavoidable will of Allah, but they also believe that their ultimate world dominion is inevitable, just hasn’t come yet. The more the US pressures Israel into stupid concessions, the more convinced they become that they day’s ‘come ‘round at last (Yeats)’ and the more bellicose they become. So the piece process causes terrorism and violence in a vicious cycle.
There’s a Pali cleans our house every other week. Nicest fellow you might care to meet. For a while he was helping me improve my Arabic, until it became clear to me that I just don’t have to time for serious language study. We tried to do some business which isn’t entirely out the window yet.
He’s well-known and well-liked in our yishuv, and he’s built like a brick wall. If he were to become violent, the cop who’d take him down would have to empty a magazine in him just to bring him down. But he’s peaceable, hard-working and earns a modest living cleaning houses. I think he enjoys his life. But he’s a devout Muslim, never misses his five-time-a-day hokey pokey thing, carries beads around with him. So if he thinks the 12th Imam is here at last, or that somebody’s insulted his wholely profit, he’ll forget his peaceful ways in an instant.