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A Palestinian Warns against Small States
- Abstract
The association of the two concepts statehood and smallness contains a fundamental absurdity. Where there is smallness—literal and physical—there can be no true statehood. Some human phenomena are viable or durable only in so far as they are large. As soon as they shrink in size their existence becomes unjustifiable, and inevitably ridiculous and tragic.
The famous Russian fabler, Krilov, tells of a frog who wanted to be as big as an ox. So it inhaled air and swelled itself up and swelled and swelled until—it burst. Like every other creature on earth, this frog had a full right to existence—but only within the limits of its natural capacity. As soon as it made the mistake of thinking that it could equal the ox and become “big,” it lost its right to existence.
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