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FORGET ABOUT ALADDIN, ALI BABA, AND SINBAD...

by Gerald A. Honigman

Have you heard about the 1002nd Arabian Nights Tale, Abu Alaa And The Tightening Screws?

Well, his story really begins, for those non-Arabians reading these tales, when Israel's Rabin shook hands with Arafat, at President Clinton's prompting.

During that 1990's "Oslo Peace," Ahmed Qurei' -- Abu Alaa -- was one of Arafat's chief marionettes. Prior to that, he was just another Fatah plotter or disemboweler of Jews...Diplomacy as war by other means.

Predictably, Israel got non-stop barbarism for each unilateral, concrete concession it was pressured to make. A similar scenario would take place bit later at Camp David and Taba when Clinton, seeking to salvage his stained reputation, gave Israel's Barak an offer he couldn't refuse. And Barak did offer to give away the store...despite the Arab spin masters' twist of this today.

While Arafat confirmed, by refusing Taba, that it makes no difference how big Israel is, but that Israel is. That's the Arab problem. How dare Jews want in one tiny, resurrected state what Arabs have created almost two dozen of for themselves, mostly by conquering and forcibly Arabizing non-Arab peoples -- the ghosts of Arafat and Taba still haunt us today. Taba is now the Arabs' starting point for "negotiations."

In the Arab vision of justice, virtually the entire region is "purely Arab patrimony." Hence the millions of dead, subjugated, and so forth Kurds, Copts, Berbers, black African Sudanese, native kilab yahud -- Jew dogs -- and so forth. Dr. Butros Butros Ghali -- Egypt's Sadat's Uncle Tom Copt Foreign Minister -- put it to Israel this way. I'll paraphrase him: If you want to gain acceptance, you must consent to Arabization.

A translation by the highly respected Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) on July 3, 2003 dealt with an interview with Abu Alaa. When asked about the Arabs' problem with having the word "Jewish" placed in front of the words "State of Israel" at the summit leading up to the evolution of the current Roadmap, here was his response:

It is not unusual to hear critics of Israel, even some academics, proclaim, "if Jews can have a state, then why not Catholics, or Protestants, or Hindus, and such?" a la Alaa.

Someone from England is English, from Poland is Polish, from Ireland is Irish, and so forth.

Indeed, while there are other ways of describing nationality or ethnicity, the addition of the suffix "-ish" denotes this as well. That's how Webster's Collegiate Dictionary primarily defines it.

If the Abu Alaas admit that Jews are a nation or a people, it makes Arab rejection of their national movement -- Zionism -- more difficult to defend; i.e. how could Arabs demand a twenty-second state for themselves -- and second, not first, one in "Palestine" (Jordan carved out of the lion's share of the land) while denying Jews their one?

When the Roman historian, Tacitus, wrote the following amid the Jews' struggle for independence against their imperial Roman conquerors, ask yourselves if he was only referring to a religion or to a people who coincidentally had specific religious beliefs. Tacitus and other contemporary Roman historians, like Dio Cassius, wrote extensively on this topic, and I quote them frequently to those who babble as Abu Alaa does...

So, Abu Alaa's tale is the ongoing saga of Arabs denying everyone in "their" region even a miniscule portion of the very same rights they demand for themselves. That's what the Anfal Campaign was against Kurds in Iraq; what Ismet Cherif Vanly wrote about in his book, The Syrian Mein Kampf Against The Kurds, (Amsterdam, 1968); what Arab genocide in Darfur and the Sudan is about, along with murder and intimidation of Copts in Egypt, Berbers in North Africa, and what's left of native Jew dogs, in "their " lands. The latter now make up one half of Israel's Jewish population...the refugees no one ever talks about.

On October 31, 2007, the Associated Press wrote of Abu Alaa -- now Arab chief negotiator at yet another American President's attempt to improve his legacy by consenting to traditional State Department Arabist arm-twisting of Jews -- "raising the stakes" prior to the proposed gang-up-on-the Jews "peace" summit at Annapolis.

Dalia Nammari wrote..."Queria tightened the screws Tuesday" and demanded a specific deadline for establishing a Palestinian state.

Since Olmert and the Israeli leadership are now incapable of responding to Abbas, Querei' and all the other State Department alleged Arab good cops properly (Condi knows how to twist such Jews' arms well too), let me propose the following Israeli response to Abu Alaa's modern Arabian tale...

No nation is obligated to take part in its own suicide...despite what Czechoslovakia was forced to do by its "friends" via Munich in 1938.

Israel is not obligated to withdraw to U.N.-imposed 1949 armistice lines, which made it 9-miles wide in parts and a constant invitation to be attacked. Those lines merely marked the point where invading Arab armies were stopped after the rebirth of Israel in 1948 on roughly 11% of the original 1920 Palestinian Mandate created after the collapse of the Ottoman Turkish Empire which ruled it for four centuries.

After the latest Arab attempt on Israel's life in 1967, UN Resolution 242 made this quite clear. A reading of all of its final draft architects, quotes from Presidents Johnson and Reagan, Secretary of State Shultz, and others understood this well.

Israel was to get "secure and recognized borders" -- not armistice lines -- in return for any withdrawal from territories it came to occupy in a defensive war, and this was to be done in the context of real peace treaties, not hudna-type ceasefires.

Regardless of State Department Arabist attempts to bury this over the years (the same folks who fought Israel's very rebirth ), Israel must hold its ground and demand that Judea does not once again become Judenrein, and seek a fair territorial compromise on that "West Bank."

Again, Arabs are already controlling most of the original territory -- just in Jordan alone. All of Gaza has since been handed over -- with Arab mortars and rockets constantly launched from there against Israel anyway. This occurred under Fatah's watch as well as Hamas's, for those bent on excusing the good cops. Much of the "West Bank" is now also under Arab control , courtesy of the one-sided concessions of Oslo.

As Arabs show themselves true partners for a true peace -- not their well known "hudna" games -- then more steps can be taken towards that Arab goal.

No nation would consent to being a partner with another whose school text books, maps, television and radio stations, children camps, religious leaders, and so forth are unrelenting in calling for the other "partner's" destruction. All of this was supposed to change as of Oslo. None of it did. And Abbas, Abu Alaa, & Co. insist that they will flood a miniscule Israel, after it withdraws to the '49 armistice lines, with millions of jihadist alleged refugees. Recall Abu Alaa's problem with a "Jewish" Israel...

The Arab leopard does not change its spot on this "purely Arab patrimony" issue.

The Jews will once again be pressured to cave in to the Arabs' post-'67 destruction in stages plans, courtesy of their American friends...Munich 2007.

Hopefully, Israel will quickly snap out of its stupor and have its own say at how this latest tale of the Arabian Nights will end.

Gerald A. Honigman, a Florida educator, has created and conducted counter-Arab propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has publicly debated Arab spokesmen. His articles and op-eds have been published in both the print media and on websites. Contact him at honigman6@msn.com or go to his website: http://geraldahonigman.com/blog.php