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THINK-ISRAEL |
The factual history of the modern state of Israel and its neighbors is straightforward and easily accessible. When the Western allies conquered the Ottoman Empire in World War 1, they carved out Arab states from 99.99% of the land, including Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen and Iraq. They set aside a tiny part of the region for the Jews to reconstruct their ancient State. These states were authorized by the League of Nations via binding contractual arrangements, the San Remo Conference of 1920 being particularly important. England, being England, split off 70% of the land intended for the Jews before ratification by the League; it became Transjordan. That left the land west of the Jordan River in an irrevocable trust for the Jewish people. The obligations of the League were transferred to the United Nations when it was created.
Even with the vast lands that they owned, the Arabs invaded Israel the day it was re-created as the modern state of Israel. For years, Israel was forced to fight Arab invasions just to survive. Despite Israeli victories, despite Israel's desire to share her remarkable technological, scientific and community-building skills with them, the Arabs never accepted Jews coming back to their homeland. It was against Islam's most fundamental belief: Islam must be or become the dominant religion everywhere, especially if Muslims had ever ruled the land, no matter how briefly. Today the conquest of Spain is on their to-do list, because they had once held it.
What the Arabs accepted was that they weren't going to win militarily, so they needed more cunning ways to rid themselves of the Jews. They made the local Arabs who fled the Arab invasions into Israel in 1948 and 1967 into a unique group of refugees. Unlike every other refugee in the world, an Arab refugee could hand his refugee status to his descendants forever more. Like winning the lottery, hundreds of thousands of Arabs and their descendants (they now claim to be some seven million) were entitled to be fed, medicated, educated and housed for free by the United Nations. They virtually conquered the U.N., which became a steamy cesspool from which flowed evil propaganda whose purpose was to demonize the Jews, demoralize Israelis and create sympathy for the Po' Palestinians, who supposedly had lost their land to the Jewish invaders. Can anyone who saw them forget the posters of sad-looking Arab children that hung in the U.N. lobby in NYC?
The rebranding of the Arabs that left Israel or that stayed put during the Arab invasions or that came in legally under family reunification or that entered illegally, attracted by economic opportunities and welfare benefits, was even more spectacular. Under Russian tutelage, the PLO no longer emphasized it was dedicated to killing off Israel; its mission was to liberate Palestine. Practically speaking, its liberation activities did not change, but its motivation sounded better. Creating an instant people was part of the new tactics. Arafat decreed that the people who lived in Palestine, or had lived in Palestine, were the Palestinian People and it was the duty of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and all Palestinians to liberate Palestine. Yet PLO leaders spoke openly that they had invented the Palestinian people and had declared them distinct from generic Arabs only to counter Israel's land claims. (See here and here.) Few Western historians attempted to counter the lie that there ever was a sovereign entity named Palestine or a Palestinian people even though they knew that most of the so-called Palestinians or their (grand) parents had immigrated from the Arab lands after 1900 because the return of the Jews revitalized land that had laid fallow for hundreds of years.
The definition of what Palestinian territory was to be liberated shifted. In 1964, when the PLO was established, its sights were on Israel proper. It didn't lay claim to Jordan, Gaza, Samaria and Judea (80% of Mandated Palestine). In the Territories and Jordan, Article 24 declared "[i]ts activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields." (see here). The scope of the liberation of Palestine was revised to include Samaria and Judea and Gaza in 1968 (see here), when Israel conquered them.
What the ultimate unification would be was still evolving. Some claim Palestinian nationalism as it is now defined started in the early 1920s. That may or may not be but certainly, even into the 1970s, many PLO officials envisioned a political unit that included "Palestine", Gaza, Jordon, Lebanon and Syria, thus reinstating the Greater Syria administrative division of the Ottoman Empire.
Who may claim "Palestinian" citizenship is apparently still undecided. The Palestinian Authority has announced that the Arab Palestinian refugees living in some 132 countries and including the refugees actually living in Samaria and Judea are not going to be made citizens of the new Palestinian state when it comes into being (See here.) As David Meir-Levi put it, "For years, the world has supported the concept of a Palestinian state, and forgiven the endless relentless Palestinian terrorism, on the grounds that Palestinians are stateless people who deserve a country of their own. And now, a senior Palestinian official has announced that once they have received a state, most Palestinians will still be stateless — even those who actually live in 'Palestine.'"
After the Six Day War in 1967, Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt and made an agreement with Jordan. Egypt gave Israel a cold peace, while demonizing Israel when it could. Jordan's King Abdullah graciously allowed the Israelis to protect his throne while slandering Israel verbally whenever he could. There was no change of heart among the other Arab states. There were no more peace treaties.
After 1968, Israel tried to deal directly with the Arabs in the Territories (Gaza, Samaria and Judea). Yasir Arafat, head of the PLO, had declared these Arabs Palestinian just a few years earlier. (The name was not copyrighted and the Jews who were called Palestinians from 1920 on had no more use for it when Israel became a state in 1968.) Israel built them schools, improved their health care, gave them jobs and welfare benefits. To no avail. Then came the 1993 Oslo Accords, whereby the local Arabs were given control of much of Samaria and Judea and Gaza for them to develop the institutions of self-governance, under the deluded belief that these Arabs were hankering for a State of their own. The chief troublemakers, the thugs of the PLO, were declared to be rehabilitated and the PLO was renamed the Palestinian Authority. It was given charge of the Palestinians. Israel treated it as a partner for making peace.
If one ignored the reality that the Arab States and the local Arabs stated clearly and often that their goal was to see Israel dead, the Oslo Accords seemed to offer a way for Arabs and Jews to live in peace. In actuality, for the enemies of the Jewish State, the major virtue of another Arab state was it took away land from Israel. Western politicians insisted the Accords would lead to peaceful coexistence, even though, curiously enough, in their own Western countries, they were aware that Muslims never stopped pushing for more privileges for themselves and less freedom for the natives to do anything that conflicted with Muslim demands.
The demands made by the Accords on the Arabs seemed simple enough. All the Arabs had to do was stop attacking Israel and they could start constructing the infra-structure for a state in the Territories. They started collecting lavish monetary and political benefits but they ignored their obligations. In fact, they never made any motions toward peaceful coexistence. What the Oslo Accords did was to give the Palestinians, now autonomous and not under Israel's control, the opportunity and resources to wage an irregular but effective war on Israel. They developed more deadly ways to kill more Jews from their expanded territory.
As we know, the local Arabs didn't develop a viable state. They stayed on welfare — only now the funds were passed through the sticky fingers of the Palestinian Authority. The leadership split between the good terrorist state run by Arafat and Abbas and the bad terrorist state run by Hamas.
As we know, once Israel was committed to "working with her peace partner", her politicians ignored the fact that more Jews were being killed than ever before. The increased slaughter of innocent Jewish civilians did nothing to make the Jewish leadership brake the asymmetrical war, where the Arabs set the terms of engagement and the Jews were chastised for disproportional response. Rejoicing in each gruesome bombing, shooting, stoning and knifing, the Arabs became more and more confident they would destroy Israel.
We know now that the Israeli politicians lied to the Israel public, which was led to believe that if the Arabs didn't hold up their end of the bargain, the Agreement would self-destruct. The politicians themselves internalized the lies they told. In their eagerness to make the unworkable work, they ignored that the Arabs were increasing the conditioning of their people to hate Jews, training them to become genocidal murderers from the time they were toddlers. The Jewish politicians never countered the lies the Arabs told with Western media collusion. In living memory, the Jews had suffered Arab aggression, invasion, and occupation. In what was politely called the Arab narrative, these were done by the Jews to the Arabs. The Arabs persuaded a sympathetic world to invert subject and object and believe it was the Jews who were the aggressors, the invaders, the occupiers. Aside from the Arabs buying political, academic and media support, the acceptance of the Arab misinformation, distortions, half truths and whole lies was made easier because Israeli government spokesmen never called their bluff.
To foster peace, the Israeli governments from Rabin through Netanyahu engaged in a great conspiracy of silence as the local Arabs conditioned the world to believe they were a people and Israel was occupying their country, Palestine. The Jews never pointed out that Israel and the Territories, including Gaza, was theirs by the same authority that had divided the Ottoman Empire into a large group of Arab states. They never disputed the Arab propaganda — the Arab "Peace Partners" were sincerely after peace; the Palestinians had actual claim to the Land of Israel; what was blocking peace was that the Israelis weren't giving enough to make peace attractive. In doing so they contributed to making Israel the bad guy, the evil invader and the occupier of land that was not theirs.
Over the years, the Palestinian Arabs took money, goods and services from Israel, the USA, the European Union and the UN but trained their children from the time they were toddlers that the Palestinian mission in life is to destroy Israel. Israel unilaterally left Gaza in 2005. Hamas took charge, but instead of developing the infrastructure of a normal state as we were reassured they would as soon as they had the responsibilities of statehood, they renewed their chartered vows to destroy Israel. (See Pat Condell, "Peace in the Middle East" here.)
Many Israelis now recognize that the peace process was destructive. It was a way to demoralize Israel. It was a way to paralyze Israel. It was a way to nibble away land from Israel's tiny domain. It was a way to put Israel's enemies close enough to lob missiles into every part of Israel. It was a way to guarantee that Israel would never have peace. Despite the bad press, the spinelessness of successive governments, the teaching that Israel must be moral and supine while the Arabs try to destroy it, many if not most Israelis no longer believe a Peace Process will bring peace. It follows that the culmination of the Peace Process — the creation of one or two Palestinian States near/in/around/next to Israel — would not signify peace was at hand. For many Israelis, the Two-State Solution is as dead an issue as it has always been for the Palestinians.
Even though Israelis no longer believe wishing for peace will make it so, Israeli governments seem stuck in the peace rut. Israel is now down to begging for peace from a single man, Mahmoud Abbas, who is no longer even legally president of the Palestinian Authority. Their major accomplishment was to give Abbas delusions of grandeur — he promptly applied to the UN to grant him a state. He didn't quite make it, but as consolation prize, the General Assembly upgraded whatever the Palestinian Authority is to "a nonmember state observer."
Most recently, people have been reminded by the Levy Report that by international law, what was Mandated Palestine was given to the Jews legally and with more historic underpinnings than most of the newly-created Arab states could claim. (Many of these states were created without regard to family or clan or sectarian ties.) It says something about how much some Jews cling to the belief they can sway their truculent neighbors to make peace that many prominent Jews, rabbis and laymen asked the Israeli Government not to act on the Levy Report. Daniel Greenfield (see here) sarcastically characterized the signer of one such request this way: "[He] did not take issue with the legal basis for the Levy Report, arguing that even though 'Israel has no partner with which to make peace', accepting it would make it appear that Israel is no longer committed to creating a Palestinian state. And it would be a terrible thing if Israel stopped being committed to an unworkable program that is destroying its diplomacy and killing its people."
Why didn't the Levy Report and the renewed interest in the San Remo resolutions immediately wipe out the peace industry? Why are some still hoping — and this includes the American administration — that they can continue the discredited Peace Process? Several factors seem to be in play: inertia, inertia, inertia; not wanting to admit the commitment to a particular set of operations called "the peace process" was wrongheaded; the tendency for people to go-along and get-along; and the clever propaganda that made the peace process seem inevitable, sacred, untouchable, and inseparable from Israel's security.
But the buggy whip of the Palestinian narrative that they are the victims of Israel's occupation is not the wave of the future. The Jews of Israel understand that in the current regional turbulence, peace in the Middle East, in the large and in the small, is a mirage. It certainly isn't in their power to make it happen, no matter how cooperative they are, no matter what they are willing to sacrifice. For them to continue to go through the motions of "making" peace makes them look like the Cargo Cult natives of New Guinea replicating the motions that seemed to bring magical showers of food and goods during World War 2. Peace depends on the Arabs, who don't want it. They are fixated on destroying the Jewish state, not living in peace with it.
Through each iteration of the peace process, Israel has gotten further and further away from the intent of the Palestine Mandate, which was based on international recognition of the historical association of the Jews and their land.
Caroline Glick in a video called "Myth of the two-state solution" (see here) points out Israel can't bestow peace. Israel can't make peace. Peace is not under Israel's control. Peace is impossible because of the Arab rejectionism of the Jewish state's right to exist, no matter how small its size. Peace can not be even be started until the Arabs sincerely accept Israel's right to be what she is where she is, a Jewish state in the midst of squabbling Muslim states. Glick suggests Israel must change direction. Israel needs a stabilization plan, not a peace plan. Israel needs to stop appeasing unappeasable terrorists. The only thing Israel has accomplished in these years of making concessions to the Arabs is to make the Arabs more certain that they are doing the right things to eventually win. Rewarding them for bad behavior will not motivate them to change their ways.
By all criteria — by Bible, by history, by devotedly coming and living in the land under dreadful conditions throughout the centuries, by reviving and redeeming their homeland, by international law and by conquering the land after they were invaded by their hostile neighbors — the Jews are the legitimate owners of Israel and the Territories. Yet the media and western politicians have chosen to be guided in their Middle East policy by an Arabian fantasy that Israel is occupying Arab land, a myth accepted even by main stream Western churchmen, to justify the Arabs trying to get rid of the Jewish "invaders" by any means. Israeli governments know this is nonsense, yet since Oslo they have chosen to keep mum, never to rebuke the Palestinian Arab claim. In fact, in P.M. Olmert's heyday, they often spoke on T.V. as if their dearest wish was the advent of another Arab terrorist state.
I believe that what Israeli politicos feared more than the death and demoralization of their citizenry was that the meaningless activities that ritualized the "peace process" would collapse and the Jews would be blamed. They have continued to beg the Arabs shamelessly for peace. The Israeli public has been more clear-eyed. They question the virtue of installing an Arab state in its midst, particularly as conditions in the Middle East become more chaotic. (See e.g., Matthew Hausman, "Annexation Wins Hands Down over a Two-State Solution" here in the January-February 2012 Issue of Think-Israel.)
Considering that the Arab Spring is leading to the conquest of much of the Middle East by promoters of a retrogressive 7th century barbaric Islamic Caliphate, annexation of Samaria and Judea becomes more attractive. As Hillel Fendel wrote in the January 3, 2013 issue of the Jewish Press about the Third Annual Conference on the Application of Israeli Sovereignty over Judea and Samaria: "the drive to apply Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria — all or parts thereof — is now a bona-fide, full-blown national drive, with the support of government ministers, Knesset Members and candidates, academics, and members of the media."
Annexation of Samaria and Judea would make it clear that appeasement is finished. Annexation would put all of Israel's citizens equitably under Israeli law. It will not solve all the problems, but it will stop the suicidal actions Israel has engaged in since the Oslo Accords. It will stop the massive drain on Israel's confidence and initiate the return of self-respect. It is also likely that when the "world" sees that Israel is no longer willing to be a patsy, it will stop treating Israel like one. It will look for another easy target.
Many, Think-Israel included, believe annexation is insufficient. As in every other host country, the more the Muslim population grows, the more they insist on sculpting the environment to suit them and their Sharia law. The more unruly they become. Catering to the local Arabs doesn't make them more willing to be good citizens. Even though the demographics show that the Arab birthrate has slowed, nevertheless thanks to illegal and legal entry of Arabs and other Muslims into Israel, Israel appears to be following the pattern of how Arabs behave as they become a large percent of the population.
Stories of Arabs stealing animals from Jewish farmers (see here) and demolishing Israeli olive groves suggest this has become habitual. The appalling fact that Jews aren't allowed to pray on the Temple Mount highlights the problem of Arab intimidation. The authorities fear the wrath and riot response of the Arabs were Jews allowed to pray on the Jewish Temple Mount. As a result, Jews can be arrested if their lips move in what might be prayer while they are on the Mount. Arabs watch them and report this criminal activity to the police, who are quick to respond to the danger of a Jew praying at his Most Holy Site. Arabs can pray in the two mosques they insultingly built upon the ruins of the Second Temple. Arabs can destroy Jewish artifacts going back to Temple times, and no one seems to care enough to stop them. Arabs can insult the sacredness of the Temple Mount by playing soccer there. They can walk around the entire area of the Temple Mount without fear. And here again, the more the police and the Administration appease the Arabs, the more they demand, the more outrageous their lies. They even insist that the Jews have no historic connection with Jerusalem or the Temple Mount.
It is likely that Israel will sooner or later be confronted by a choice that can be stated this way:
Phrased thus, the solution becomes obvious.
Just as the Jews were forced from the Arab countries, it is time for the second phase of this population exchange, moving the local Arabs to some part of the vast land area controlled by the Arabs. This would be an upgrade. They would have more space while living in the same environment, life style and culture they are accustomed to having. It would allow them — and this includes all the Arab refugees now scattered in the different Arab countries — the ability to govern themselves. Or carry on their way of death,but only against each other. Their choice.
There are enormous tracts of open land in the area controlled by the Arabs. The Palestinians could be moved there. Or they can be distributed and become citizens of the Arab countries where they now reside in refugee camps. Either would be an improvement for them. And it would eliminate a major source of the problem: UNRWA's sustaining the myth that eventually they will return to homes that most never had.
Our own choice is to move out the local Arabs in the Territories and those Arabs in Israel who have proven to be treasonous to their own home in some part of the Arab holdings. Our proposal for a Palestinian homeland to be called Palestina is to be found here.
You can read Howard Grief, "The Origin of the Occupation Myth," by clicking here. His landmark article on "Legal Rights and Title of Sovereignty of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel and Palestine under International Law" can be read here. See also "Is Israel occupying the West Bank?" here. Additional Material on San Remo and Israel's ownership of Mandated Palestine include: "The San Remo Mandate" here.
Interview with Howard Grief in Norway March 21, 2011 on
"The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under international Law."
Part 1 is at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zkjC7tNOrI
Part 2 is at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF4_hM8kbfc
Another set of videos interviewing Howard Grief are at:
1. watch?v=ROumSVr7MFc&list=PLE3AB68BC6C75748F&index=2
2. watch?v=ROumSVr7MFc&list=PLE3AB68BC6C75748F&index=3
3. watch?v=ROumSVr7MFc&list=PLE3AB68BC6C75748F&index=4
Yoram Shifftan has written a series of articles on Israel's ownership of Mandated Palestine by an irrevocable trust to the Jewish people. See e.g., here, here, and here.
See also inter alia: Wallace Edward Brand, "Israeli
Sovereignty over Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria,"
here.
"A Landmark Work" by William Mehlman here.
Michael C. Duke, "Jerusalem: Our Redeemable Right" here.
Ted Belman, "Summary Of Israel's Legal Rights To Judea And
Samaria,"
here.
Google San Remo, irrevocable trust and Israel's legal right to the land for a more complete selection of relevant articles.
Bernice Lipkin is managing editor of Think-Israel.