HEARD ABOUT THE ARAB ISRAELIS?

THE pro-Palestinian and thus anti-Israeli lobby in the UK is large, numerous and extremely vocal. But there are some things about that extraordinary country that never seem to get mentioned. One is that there are 1.2 million Palestinian Arabs who are citizens of Israel and choose to remain.

That is not just a small handful of quislings. It is the equivalent of a second nation inside the borders. So why do they stay? They do not have to. It could be because they have more civil rights there than anywhere within a 1,000-mile radius of where they live. They have access to better schools, better healthcare and more benefits if they are unemployed.

They have their own political party with 15 MPs who sit in the Knesset and some serve in the armed forces and the police, though in non-combat roles. Their mosques are protected (ever heard of a synagogue in Palestine?) and their culture is respected.

They descend either from the Palestinians who decided to stay after the division of Palestine by the United Nations in 1947 to create the Israeli mini-state or to stay on in lands conquered by the Israelis during the three calamitous wars launched by the Arabs in 1948, 1965 and 1973 whose cumulative effect was virtually to treble the size of the original UN allocation. They all have Israeli passports and use them, but not to emigrate.

Also unmentioned is that Gaza, after being handed back by the Israelis to Gazan control, received billions in donations but is still a slum.

Shrewdly invested, that money could have made Gaza a gem mini-state of the eastern Mediterranean. Instead about half has been embezzled and the other half spent on weapons.

The Israelis have the occasional corruption scandal but it is always chickenfeed compared to the wealth the Palestinians have caused to disappear.

It is hard to see this 60-year-old dispute ever being resolved but those 1.2 million Israeli Arabs are hard to explain away. Which could be why they are never mentioned.