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Many plans for resolving the Arab-Israel conflict have been proposed. Those tried, failed, costing many lives. Those untried make no sense. After all, the plans ignore the conflict's causes.
We propose a new approach, summarized as a think piece to stimulate constructive suggestions. We ask your help in critiquing it and filling it out. We present the essential elements here, within the context of global issues. Our emphasis is on those primarily involved: Israeli Jews and Arabs, but no examination would be complete without commenting on the role of successive U.S.A. administrations that have been determined to help but, more often than not, have hindered a realistic resolution.
The plan is controversial, in part because it doesn't follow the familiar scenario where Israel is continuously pressured into making foolhardy concessions while the Arabs are allowed to break their promises without penalty. Although it is an obvious solution, standard diplomacy rejects practical and just solutions. Diplomats prefer the comfort of their rut and the familiarity of their bias. World leaders vie for the honor of shoveling deeper into the rut.
These days controversy encounters more false analogy and defamation, than evaluation of substance. Too many lives are at stake for us to pursue the usual, unsuccessful political correctness or to be dismayed by the inevitable vituperation.
We anticipate objections based on many misconceptions about the conflict. Let's clear these misconceptions out of the way, first. Then we take up the problems with the existing approach, the bases for a new approach, and the proposed new approach.
What commentators formerly called the Arab-Israel conflict, they now dub the "Palestinian-Israeli conflict." Clever switch! It diverts attention from the conflict's true depth and nature.
The new label makes the Arab side seem the underdog, rather than acknowledge that Israel's six million Jews are boycotted and besieged by about 50 times as many Arabs and a billion Muslims. Indeed, Arab states made war on Israel several times. They did not do it for Palestinian Arabs. How do we know? When they ruled the Territories, they oppressed the local Arabs and did not foster independence. Some Arab states that acquired Palestinian Arab refugees mistreated them (and the PLO mistreated some host countries). Their professed concern for Palestinian Arabs is cover for their actual interest, ending the non-Muslim independence of Israel.
Muslims have since Mohammad's time fought against any country in their midst that they didn't control. Nevertheless, the conflict is often presented as beginning with Israel's birth, when many Arabs became refugees. That the Arab countries invaded Israel is soft pedaled. The creation of Israel has become the reason for the formation of the Arab refugees.
Actually, there were two sets of refugees, with wide differences in their behavior. Jews in Arab states were good citizens. Arabs in Israel committed civil war. Arab states discriminated against, confiscated the wealth of, tortured, and more or less expelled their Jewish populations. When commanded by their leaders, Arabs fled from Israel; none were robbed or tortured, and only a few were expelled.
Since the conflict arises from the ideology of the whole Arab world and much of the wider Muslim world, and since our proposal deals primarily with the Palestinian Arabs, the proposal is not a total solution. It tries to resolve the most acute part of the problem. This is like removing the pus but not yet healing the whole infection. More remedies are needed for that.
Calling the conflict "Palestinian-Israeli" also makes the conflict seem territorial, a matter of setting boundaries, rather than religious, a matter of Islamic conquest and re-conquest. The misleading labeling of the Abbas regime as secular reinforces the mistaken notion that the conflict is not religious. However, the Palestinian Authority and its founder Arafat constantly cite Islamic authority to justify their struggle against Israel.
It is not politically correct to acknowledge that the conflict is religious. This religious conflict is ideological. It cannot end until the aggressors reform the Islamic intolerance and imperialist violence behind the aggression.
How did the false notion that the Arabs merely are reacting to (non-existent) Israeli oppression become politically correct? Hatred of Jews, which many imams preach, especially in the Palestinian Authority, is a psychosis that has nothing to do with how Jews behave. Like the other forms of anti-Semitism, it has everything to do with what non-Jews believe. When one considers that Zionists bought, not seized, land, that most Arab families in Israel and the Territories are relatively recent immigrants, that the Arabs attempted to drive the Jews out or exterminate them, and that the Arabs still attack innocent people, the great sympathy for Arabs who suffered from the consequences of their aggression is misplaced. So is the disproportionate nit-picking over Jewish "settlements" which arose after the Arabs tried to take over Israel.
A related and common misconception is that terrorism arises from poverty. Demonstrably false! Most impoverished societies do not indulge in terrorism. Many upper and middle class and educated Arabs do.
The misconception seems plausible to Westerners who have not investigated the facts. Westerners generally have stronger economic motives than religious ones. Westerners are more likely to blame economics than religion. They imagine that everyone does. But Arab Muslims have stronger religious motives than economic ones. The minds of the Arab masses and of certain other Muslim societies have remained in the 8th century mode of holy war. They constantly compare the modern conflict to their ancient period of conquest and gory glory.
Westerners have inconsistent perceptions about that. On the one hand, they believe all the false assurances of peacefulness that Arab leaders give them. This is true to form, just as much of the West believed all the false assurances that Nazi and Communist leaders gave them. On the other, the West rarely takes seriously (or studies) Muslim Arab statements to their own people of their real objectives. This is true to form, too. The West hardly took seriously Nazi and Communist doctrine about their real objectives.
Another misconception is to consider the conflict merely regional. The conflict's context is global jihad. Israel is one front in it. Israel is like a breakwater for American beaches. Israel helps keep the waves of holy warriors from washing over America. This reality has not dawned on American policymakers. Blind they are to the commonality of interest in survival between Israel and the U.S..
Radical Islam is the third global, totalitarian, antisemitic and otherwise bigoted, imperialist movement of the past century. The earlier two were Nazism and Communism. The West woke up to them almost too late to save itself. Many in the West accepted their propaganda or hoped to buy off the enemy by appeasement -- conceding to enemy demands. That historical reaction is repeating itself. It is worse, now. Our contemporary enemies move in and organize against us, and we are told that if we oppose their intolerant demands, we are prejudiced. Leaders in Europe, the U.S., and Israel more or less side with the enemy or oppose resistance to it.
The pendulum may be swinging toward realism, as Israelis increasingly reject their Far Left politicians, and as Europeans grope to an understanding of their civilization's peril.
The West does not know when to go to war, with whom, or why. The U.S. wages wars but refuses to identify the broad enemy, the ideology of jihad. Identifying that real enemy is not politically correct. (We had better abandon political correctness, just retain common tact.) So we wage wars without studying the culture of our enemy, how they think, the meaning behind their propaganda, and how we might win. We kill 10,000 jihadists, but the madrassas graduate 100,000. We are spending, but are we coping?
There is no basis for that assertion. Polls, deeds, and ideology prove otherwise. The leaders are terrorists, elected by a people who tell pollsters they approve of suicide bombing. The leaders make some accommodating statements to the West, but indoctrinate their people in the desirability of killing Jews and seizing Israel — all of Israel. Pretending to be moderate is a recognized tactic of Islamists. We should not fall for that tactic.
The PLO doctrine of seizing all of Israel disproves that the problem is one of territorial adjustment with the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). Isn't it amazing that our leaders cannot grasp that simple refutation of the whole "peace process?"
Just as we could not resolve differences with the Nazis and Communists, we cannot make peace with Islamist fanatics bent on conquest. How unrealistic of governments that urge Israel to make peace with fanatics who do not want peace!
When Sec. of State Clinton proposes a peaceable, democratic Palestinian Arab state "side-by-side" with Israel in peace, one should ask whether she is serious. Tell her to think of Gaza, a bellicose dictatatorship. Placing a state "side-by-side" with Israel would just make it easier for the Arabs to fire rockets into Israel without missing their targets.
The Arabs imply that they might make peace with Israel if it met certain conditions. These conditions would deprive Israel of secure borders and would flood Israel with hostile Arabs. These conditions are designed to make Israel non-viable if accepted, and under threat of war if rejected. Therefore the Saudi Peace Plan, which embodies those conditions, is phony. Ask yourselves why U.S. leaders pretend the Plan is worthwhile.
Another pretense is that whatever boundaries are proposed, proposals that exclude from Israel the tank-trap, (early-warning posts on the Golan, Judean, and Samarian heights,) would still leave Israel secure. U.S. officials merely pay lip service to the principle of "secure borders;" we should recognize the dissembling pretense.
Palestinian Arabs who are imbued with hatred, prone to violence (having, with popular support, often rioted and murdered thousands), and accustomed to reneging on pacts, do not deserve much. Ask Sec. of State Clinton why Palestinian Arabs and allies, who attempted genocide, deserve the sovereignty that would facilitate their importing heavy weapons and waging the war their covenants vow.
Note that even after Israel decided to let all non-military goods into Gaza upon inspection, activists from Muslim states try to break the limited blockade of Gaza. Their motive is to remove Israeli inspection for Gaza importation of heavy weapons. What else could it be?
Humanitarian? The Radical Muslims behind the flotillas approve of terrorism — hardly humanitarian. They do get some Westerners on board their ships, but the Soviets also managed to get fellow travelers on board their propaganda campaigns, fellow travelers whom Lenin appropriately called "useful idiots."
Israel's PM Netanyahu now suggests giving the Palestinian Arabs a state but keeping it demilitarized. He has been advised that once sovereign, a state need not honor pre-statehood agreements. What excuse has he for fostering the illusion of a demilitarized state?
As some P.A. leaders and the PLO Covenant candidly admit, they are not a separate nationality. Why should they have a state? Why should the Arabs, who deny independence to the millions of Kurds, Copts, Druse, southern Sudanese, and Berbers, get even more than the 99.5% of the Mideast they already control?
Suggesting that the conflict is territorial, people chant "land for peace." Arafat explained his intent to use any land he acquired from Israel to conquer the rest. "Land for peace" is the same tactic Hitler used. We got World War II from it.
The Arabs proved the fallacy of land-for-peace when they invaded Israel in 1948, conquered the eastern part of Jerusalem, killed or expelled all the Jews living there and brought in Arabs to colonize the area. Jordanian troops destroyed the synagogues, ripped up Torah scrolls, vandalized Jewish gravestones on the Mount of Olives, and shot at Israelis on the other side of the fence. To restore that siege would be foolish. Israel withdrew civilians and soldiers from Gaza, but instead of making peace, Gazans fired thousands of rockets at Israel.
To induce Jewish withdrawals, the U.S. offers Israel "guarantees" and military aid. To depend on U.S. or international guarantees would be naïve. The U.S., including the present Administration, has reneged on guarantees several times. Israel would be imprudent to rely upon new guarantees. As for military gadgets, they become outmoded or worn. The U.S. sometimes tries to blackmail Israel to make concessions to the Arabs or be denied shipments of military replacements. Where, then, would Israel be, if it gives up the strategic borders of the hills and aquifers of Judea, Samaria, and Golan, and the U.S. withholds needed shipments?
Consider the State Dept.. Is it an honest broker? The U.S. demands that Jews not build houses in the Territories and in parts of Jerusalem, but does not demand the same of Arabs. That is discrimination. Can Israel trust a foreign government that discriminates against its people? Let's stop fooling ourselves that the U.S. Executive branch is pro-Israel.
International guarantees are worse. The UN has an anti-Israel majority. Israel cannot expect fair treatment from it. Foreign countries tire of terrorist attacks, and withdraw troops. UNIFIL has a record of ignoring or facilitating jihadist attacks against Israelis.
The guarantee of foreign forces implies that the Palestinian Arabs cannot be trusted. Since these Arabs, the U.S., and the U.N. cannot be trusted, Israel is liable to get neither peace nor fulfilled guarantees.
International hostility to Israel is said to derive from abuses by Israel. That is as ridiculous as the claim that anti-Semitism derives from abuses by Jews. Anti-Israel hostility, like the anti-Semitism behind the drive to disenfranchise the Jewish people, is not rational. It is rationalized. International scapegoats do not have to do anything wrong to be blamed; whatever Israel does is condemned. Israel can compare its actual behavior favorably with the behavior of its critics.
The real reasons for the hostility are Islamist imperialism, more traditional anti-Semitism, appeasement of Muslim states and sectors, ignorance, and the new notion spreading from Europe that nationalism and vigorous self-defense by supposedly advanced societies is wrong and vigorous self-defense is wrong. Such a notion paralyzes advanced societies facing assault by backward ones. Being emotional, those reasons are not amenable to fact and logic. Fact and logic can persuade people who have not been indoctrinated, just are uninformed.
Just as the Jewish people have been subjected to a double standard, so, now is their proxy, the Jewish state. The excuse for this double standard is that Israel is supposed to be advanced, so Europe expects more of it than it does of the Arabs. That may be a compliment, but no thanks. It is unjust.
It is unjust to dwell on imagined or occasional and accidental Israeli mistreatment of Arabs, and ignore the constant and actual Arab mistreatment of Jews and of Arabs. Indignantly protesting when some Jews purchase houses in Jerusalem but ignoring that the Arab population approves of Arab terrorism typifies the perversion of moral equivalency. Heatedly denouncing legal construction by Jews in the same area that Arabs build more and illegally, and mildly mentioning that the Palestinian Authority should eradicate terrorism, while pressuring Israel and not the Arabs to desist, as the State Dept. does, is not ethical.
In the name of justice, much the world is disparaging Israel so as to prepare the stage for dismantling the Jewish state. Likewise, anti-Zionists malign Jewish "settlers," equating them, at best, with the Arabs. This is to set the stage for dispossessing the Jews. But the settlers try to live in peace, and Arabs, aided by self-righteous leftists, try to drive them out. Moral equivalency is unjustified and unethical.
We have seen that the existing approach, in its various guises, is misguided. It makes false assumptions about the causes and culture in the struggle. Hence it repeatedly fails.
The moral flaw in the existing approach is its appeasement of the Arab Islamic aggressors. Appeasement does not work with fanatics. It whets their appetite for more concessions. And they do keep demanding more. Nor is it proper to reward terrorism and to suggest that the weak Arab claim to the land is at least equal to the strong Jewish one.
The Arab claim is based largely on ignoring their imperialist aggression and oppression of minorities and on ignorance of history and of international law. Jewish civilization originated in Judea-Samaria. The Arabs conquered the land in 638 A.D. and ruled for 4 centuries. Control passed to the Crusaders, the Ayyubids and then the Mamluks. From 1517 on, the Ottoman Turks ruled for some 400 years until the British took charge and then the Jews reestablished their State. There has never been Palestinian Arab rule there.
Under Muslim rule, the area decayed. The population had dwindled into insignificance by the 19th century. At the end of that century, modern Zionism began restoring the Jewish people to their homeland. By reviving the ruined countryside, Zionists created employment opportunities that Arabs entered to enjoy.
The Allied victors of World War I dissolved the Turkish Empire. They allotted most of the Mideast to Arabs. They reserved for the Jews a small area, which they called "Palestine" because of its association with the Jewish people. The intent was to rectify the historic injustice whereby the Jewish people had been squeezed mostly, but not entirely, out of their homeland, first by Roman rule and then by Muslim rule, then squeezed in European states where they had taken refuge.
The League of Nations endorsed the plan into international law, eventually incorporated into the UN Charter. Britain unilaterally withheld 79% of the Palestine Mandate from organized Jewish development. That 79%, now called Jordan, is a Palestinian Arab state.
Until the 1960s, the Arabs of Israel and the Territories vehemently denied that they were "Palestinians." They were aware of having the same religion, language, and culture as the surrounding Arabs. Most of them immigrated into Palestine from these countries.
Then their leaders realized that claiming they were "Palestinians," as if they were a separate nationality, would bolster their claim to Israel, a claim made to appeal to the West as cover for their religious attempt to drive out the Jews. Their covenants and some of their leaders admit that they are not a separate nationality. Their claim of being a separate nationality, entitled to sovereignty, is fraudulent. This fraud is accepted by those with an anti-Israel agenda. It's the old story of acting unjustly in the name of justice.
Unlike the old approach, our new approach acknowledges the facts of the conflict, the causes, and the international law. It would not reward aggression and terrorism. It is just.
A total and permanent solution would require an Islamic reformation and renunciation of jihad and oppression of minorities. Meanwhile, the task of the civilized world is to stave off jihad and defeat its ideology. Ordinary Muslims need to realize that Radical Islam would severely oppress them. In certain war zones, they are coming to realize that.
Therefore, the solution we propose is an interim one. It would help defeat jihad and strengthen the Israeli breakwater against it. It would reduce the chance of war. Since, as we have shown, Israel cannot expect peace before an Islamic repudiation of jihad, the next most important goal is to prevent war.
The new approach would be implemented step-by-step. People who share the goal of the approach may prefer a different sequence of steps and additional or different steps.
We believe that the program must be implemented in steps, because the human mind accepts gradual change more willingly than sudden changes. Each step gains momentum from earlier steps. Each step would encounter opposition, but as new steps are approved, the world would become inured to earlier ones.
Before Israel can adopt and implement a plan for dealing with its Arab enemies, it must get its own mental house in order. That means general unity. Israeli unity once seemed impossible. The decades of failed appeasement, the thousands of Muslim Arab murders of Jews that it produced, and the extreme unfairness of the outside world have strengthened Israeli public opinion against the leftist advocates of appeasement.
1. Jews should revise their mental outlook
Normal people uphold their interests reasonably. To what degree is a matter of opinion. Israeli appeasement of the Arabs and of the U.S. demands of it have been extreme. This attitude has risked national security and survival. It enabled thousands of murders of Israelis. That is not normal. Nor is it normal when people accuse Israelis who would defend themselves and their national interest of being extremist.
Jewish people are too other-directed. Centuries of powerlessness and oppression have imbued them with a craving for gentile approval. Whereas every nation acting in its own interests tries to present its actions as decent, the Jewish people tries to present itself as decent by acting against its own interests, by not being decent to themselves.
Appeasement fails. Anti-Semites cannot be placated, because they hate Jews for being Jews. The reasons they cite for hostility are rationalizations. Jews address the rationalizations, but facts from Jews cannot persuade people afflicted with the psychosis of anti-Semitism or with indoctrination in religious jihad. Likewise, the stubbornness of State Dept. anti-Zionism over the generations has proved impervious to the American need for Israeli support against first the Soviets and now the jihadists. Moreover, a Saudi prince once boasted that the prospect of lush, post-retirement consultancies with Saudi Arabia keeps State Dept. diplomats still employed by the U.S. in line with Saudi policy.
Jews act against their own interests in many ways. One example will have to suffice. Consider checkpoints. Israel has set up checkpoints to block terrorist access to Jewish communities. The U.S. demands that Israel remove the checkpoints. To please the State Dept., Israel removes many of them. Terrorists then get through and murder Jews. Israel often had to restore the checkpoints. The U.S. renews its demands. Israel complies. More Jews murdered. Israel did not act in its own interests. Israeli officials must have forgotten the Talmudic advice that if they act mercifully towards the unmerciful (terrorists), there will be no mercy for the merciful (Israelis).
Israeli officials also seem to have forgotten to study Arab culture. The officials believe that if Israelis are nice to the Arabs, the Arabs will be nice to them. Unfortunately, the Israelis confuse being nice with being obsequious. When Israel makes concessions to the Arabs, Arab culture interprets this behavior as weakness. And isn't it? The Arabs then become contemptuous and demand more.
An example is Israel having given the Muslim Wafq the keys to the Temple Mount. The Wafq abuses its custodianship by preventing Jews from praying on the Mount, by illegal construction that gradually usurps the whole Mount, and by destroying ancient Jewish artifacts as they excavate. They threaten to riot against Jews who ascend the Mount or even pray at the Wall below it. The Israeli police acquiesce, contrary to court orders. In the face of that Israeli demonstration of weakness, the Arabs riot anyway, egged on by the supposedly peaceful Palestinian Authority. Thus the pot of war keeps boiling!
2. Israeli reforms, prerequisite for asserting Jewish rights
Although the Israeli people have rediscovered the justification and value of Jewish nationalism, the Left remains sufficiently powerful there to block most nationalist reform. Therefore, Israel needs democratic reforms of the abuses described below, as well as the previously mentioned change in its emotional attitude, before it could set up our proposed steps in dealing with the Arabs.
a.The High Court is a self-perpetuating, far-Left clique that has usurped power unrestricted by U.S.-style separation of powers. It overturns law in favor of its members' personal preferences, however unjust, in behalf of the Arabs. The Court does not follow the rule of law. Lower Court justices often follow its line, in order to be considered for promotion.The Court's justices should be nominated by the Prime Minister and ratified by Knesset. Politics would intrude, but it would be more democratic.
b. Let the Knesset limit judicial power to overturn legislation! We recommend that the new Court welcome Jewish Law as precedent. The leftist majority ignores Jewish Law.
c. Israel has proportional representation. That system sounds democratic but is the opposite. In combination with a low minimum vote for Knesset representation, it gives disproportionate power to minority parties to extort from the majority. Worse, it aligns parties with party bosses who place favorites higher in the slate of candidates for Knesset.
To better reflect the will of the people, Israel needs Knesset districts. Although not perfect, this would be a great improvement.
d. The Attorney-General has usurped power much as has the Supreme Court. A balance should be restored.
e. The media is controlled largely by leftists. The government should grant radio broadcasting rights to nationalist groups, not solely to leftist groups.
f. Israeli lower education mostly has ignored Zionism and Jewish history. It sometimes even teaches the Arab doctrine that the formation of Israel was a tragedy for the Arabs and based on evil. It does not monitor the seditionist textbooks used in Arab-language schools. That may be changing now, but not enough.
g. Israeli higher education in social studies is dominated by leftists. They hire poorly qualified fellow leftists, who abuse their positions to indoctrinate students in anti-Israeli theory and to repress dissent. Propaganda is not education.
h. Israeli police do practice brutality, but against Jews. Israel is partly a police state, with pre-emptive detention of Jews, beating of lawful and peaceable demonstrators, lengthy detention without trial, false accusations, framing of dissidents (as revised verdicts proved), etc.
Past regimes instituted special harassment of Jews in Judea-Samaria and Gaza. Altercations between Arabs and Jews there usually arise from Arab stone-throwing or attempts to destroy Jews' crops or rustle livestock or usurp fields. The government arrests Jews on the word of Arabs whose testimony is patently false, and rejects the word of Jews. Without checking, police take the word of Arabs on whose land is involved. (This discrimination may be because Israeli governments usually strive to exchange land for the broken and still unreliable Arab promise of peace. Jewish residents are in the way of that striving.) We acknowledge that in reaction to Israeli government failure to protect Jews in the Territories, a small number of Jews there have been taking revenge on Arab property.
i. Foreign governments and NGOs have been subsidizing Israeli Arab and fringe leftist organizations to engage in subversive projects up to and including expressing bigotry against Jews and calling for the destruction of Israel.
Israel has begun reacting. A proposed bill would require such subsidies to be declared. In such a small country struggling for survival, the threat of those subsidies to national security may outweigh the problems of censorship in banning such subsidies. Just as boots on the ground invade, so, too, in a sense, do hostile masses of immigrants and subversive subsidies invade. A country has a right to resist any type of invasion.
In the related matter of illegal foreign subsidy of Israeli elections, two Israeli Prime Ministers, Barak and Sharon, were involved, but only underlings were convicted. Since national independence is at stake, judicial crackdown should be sweeping and severe.
j. Many foreign countries, being pro-Arab, oppose most Israeli measures of self-defense. We propose more such measures. If adopted, more foreign countries or companies are likely to boycott Israel. Therefore, Israel must strengthen its economy to withstand the anticipated pressure.
Two ways of strengthening the economy, some of which were started by Benjamin Netanyahu when Finance Minister, are to eliminate unnecessary government regulation and spending.
1. Israel collects and remits Palestinian Authority (P.A.) excise tax revenues. Why help finance a government that endorses terrorism and threatens war?
2. Israel sometimes arms P.A. forces, and P.A. forces sometimes open fire on Israelis. This treachery is predicted and repeated. Crazy, isn't it, to continue arming the P.A.?
3. Israel allows foreign governments to train P.A. forces in counter-terrorism and in infantry operations. But the P.A. is terrorist and threatens to attack Israel. It can use its training to counter Israeli counter-terrorism. When PM Rabin told the P.A. the names of Israel's Arab agents in the P.A., the P.A. hunted them down. What does that tell you?
4. As mentioned before, PM Netanyahu risks Israeli security by removing checkpoints, in order to facilitate the P.A. economy.
5. For college admission and scholarships and for certain government jobs, Israel discriminates against Jews and in favor of Arabs.
6. Most Arabs living in Jerusalem are not citizens. Israel grants them welfare benefits and permits to travel in Israel. If they move away for some years, they are supposed to forfeit their Jerusalem residency permits, but protest embarrassed Israel into not rescinding the permits. Israel must learn to stand up to, and parry, attempts to embarrass it.
7. The central government of Israel encourages municipal profligacy by covering municipal over-spending. Arab towns are known to forfeit tax collection from their residents, and then bill the central government for the difference between expense and income.
8. Israel has not fully reformed the law permitting Arabs from the Territories to marry Israeli Arabs, sometimes sincerely but sometimes as pretext for gaining residency. This increases Israel's Arab population and pressure against survival of the Jewish state.
1. Israel prides itself on being a country of law, but as mentioned earlier, Arabs threaten riots unless they get their way, which they often get. Israel should face down Arab riots despite ensuing criticism from the hostile European press. A few years ago, Israeli Arabs attacked Jews and started crowding in on a few policemen. To save themselves, the police opened fire. Under great and indignant protest domestically and from abroad, Israel condemned the police. How much law enforcement against Arab violators can one expect from police now?
2. Israeli tax collectors fear entering Arab towns. They need protection. Arabs should pay their fair share.
3. Arabs in Israel and in the Israeli-administered territories have usurped thousands of acres of public and private land. On that land and on some land that they actually own, they have built tens of thousands of houses without building permits. Israel has been discouraged by foreign critics from enforcing the law.
By contrast, domestic and foreign anti-Zionists encourage the government to demolish the small number of Jewish houses they call illegal, but which are not. They are built within authorized municipal boundaries and with authorization for almost all of the many, bureaucratic stages of official approval. (Note that we are not referring to outposts -- a fancy name for what most often are a couple of trailers -- usually built without permits. But why don't outposts get permits when built within municipal bounds?) Most are, up to the last stage, approved by the Defense Minister. Defense Minister Barak heads the Labor Party that opposes Jewish retention of the Territories. For that political reason, he withholds approval and demolishes houses. Arbitrary abuse of power! Such discretion should be modified to prevent demolition orders for politics and without cause.
4. Ban the Israeli Islamic Movement, which organizes Arabs in support of terrorism, though it may not engage in it much.
5. Remove radical imams, who, under cover of religion, incite to war in Israeli mosques.
Israel offers some religious Jews a national service alternative to military draft. The national service draft should be extended only to the Arab sector, presently exempt from the draft. This would test Arab loyalty to their country. It also would entitle them to veterans' benefits and the resulting higher ranking on job applications.
The IDF set up a few ultra-Orthodox units to meet their religious requirements. As the Jewish population becomes increasingly Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox, the Army needs its full participation. So does the economy.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews have been stretching the limits of student exemption, to a great extent because the military generally is hostile-secularist with an atmosphere of too much sexual libertinism for those Jews. Let the IDF make military service comfortable for ultra-Orthodox and then expect them to enlist.
Ending subsidy and discrimination in favor of the Arabs, enforcing the law against their wholesale seizure of land, illegal building, tax evasion, and rioting, and extending national service requirements to the Arabs would prompt many to emigrate. This is the opposite of PM Netanyahu's policy of building up the P.A. economy, which has helped raise that economy without lowering P.A. bigotry and pro-terrorist sentiment.
If Israel ends its appeasement, and if it pursues the Jewish national interest, and if the Muslim Arabs become less of a "critical mass," the Arabs might lose hope of taking over an Israel that they now perceive as weak. They certainly would pose less of a danger. The fewer their numbers, the less likely is war.
As other steps in our program reduce the numbers of Arabs in Israel and in the Territories, their political strength would abate. The Israeli Left considers the Israeli Arabs an automatic blocker of Jewish nationalist (patriotic) bills. These Arab parties, however, are seditious. They uphold the Arab case for destroying the Jewish state, they support terrorism, their leaders promote riots, and their leaders illegally advise declared enemy states, among other things. What should Israel do about those parties?
Israel has brought charges against only one Arab Member of Knesset. He fled after being accused of acting as an artillery spotter for Hizbullah rocket crews. If Israel wants to preserve itself, and if it wants to be a country of law, then it should prosecute other Arab Knesset members who commit treason.
If Israel prosecutes Arabs for treason, why not prosecute far Left Jews for such acts as organizing boycotts in behalf of the Arabs against Israel?
Should Israel ban the Arab parties? What would Israel gain? Arab voters could switch to Jewish parties and influence them against Zionism.
The Jewish state has been acting as the custodian of the Territories in behalf of the Arabs, and Jews have moved to only 3-5% of the Territories. That is not a Zionist policy and not fair to Jewish claims to the Territories. This policy of appeasement is left over from the dashed hope that the Arabs might make peace if they could regain the Territories, which Jordan, a Palestinian Arab state, controlled from 1948-1967. The Palestinian Arabs didn't start the conflict to gain the Territories but to destroy Israel.
Keeping the Territories available for the weak Arab claim to them perpetuates Arab imperial ambition and facilitates terrorism. Israel should move to fulfill Jewish claims to the Territories, and not wait for phony peace conferences. Subordinating Jewish claims to negotiation with imperialistic and fanatical Arabs, cannot resolve the conflict. As noted, the Arabs demand too much for a resolution, and keep war as an option. Meet their demands, and Israel cannot defend itself. The Arabs would go to war, because they could win.
Therefore, Israel should nullify the Oslo Accords on the basis of continuous and major Arab violations such as endorsing rather than eradicating terrorism. Israel should annex all the contiguous Jewish towns and all the relatively vacant territory adjoining them. As Arabs abandon other areas, Israel should annex them.
Israel has three national languages, at least on street signs: Hebrew, English, and Arabic. As the Israeli Arab population dwindles, the status of Israel as a Jewish state would be enhanced by disestablishing Arabic as a national language.
After many Arabs will have emigrated, should the remaining ones be expelled? This last step would be the most controversial. It requires much discussion before deciding whether to adopt it.
We will consider how it might work, whether it should depend on a loyalty oath, civil rights arguments against it, and reasons for it.
1. How it might work
First question is whether the expulsion should apply to all Arabs or all Muslims in Israel. Which ever group is decided on, their Israeli citizenship would be rescinded. No more welfare benefits.
The Arab population would be divided geographically into, say, fifths. After initial preparation, each year, a fifth would be reimbursed for legally owned land, buildings, and businesses it did not sell off on its own. The process would start with the fifth living in the most sensitive areas, such as near a border. That first contingent would be given several months notice, allowing them and the government time to prepare. Obviously the other contingents would have additional year(s) notice, plus the initial preparation time. The whole process would take about five years.
The King of Jordan, custodian of the Muslim holy places in Israel, would maintain the Temple Mount's al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock. The other Muslim buildings on the Mount, erected illegally, would be demolished. Time would be made available for Muslim dignitaries to visit the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
2. Should expulsion depend on whether the Arabs take a loyalty oath?
My state, New York, had a loyalty oath. New York's Feinberg Law required teachers to swear allegiance to the U.S. The oath was aimed at Communists and their fellow travelers.
People of principle objected to this test. My non-Communist history teacher refused to sign it. He got fired. My Communist English teacher signed it. She stayed. Her Communist code, like Muslim ethics, permit deception for the cause. Loyalty oaths do not prove much.
3. Civil rights arguments against expulsion
Muslims, Europeans, the State Dept., and leftists would denounce a proposed expulsion as a discriminatory violation of civil liberties. They are not qualified to judge, having a discriminatory bias against Jews, Christians, Hindus, Copts, Druze and Kurds and a strange record on civil liberties.
Countries controlled by Muslims more or less repress civil liberties. More germane, they seek to repress them in countries where they are sizeable minorities. They are working within the UN to repress critical discussion of radical Muslim oppression as "hate speech" to be banned. Some European countries seem to agree. Who can respect opinions of Western Europeans, too self-indulgent to maintain their native population, who refuse to pay for adequate military defense, and who are letting themselves gradually be taken over by Islam? The State Dept. long has subsidized dictators. It demands discriminatory banning of Jewish but not Arab construction in the Territories and some annexed parts of Israel. Leftists have been allying themselves with Islam. On many North American campuses, leftists have forced out invited speakers with whom they disagree.
Another argument against expulsion is that it equates all members of that faith or nationality. Aren't some law-abiding? Yes, of course some are. But there are two problems with that argument.
First, they can become radicalized. Second, they vote primarily for seditious parties; they overwhelmingly wish to destroy Jewish statehood. Israel trusts them at its own risk.
4. Other arguments for expulsion
This is the age of global jihad. Radical Muslims are attacking in at least a dozen countries. There is much more to jihad than that.
Jihad proceeds more or less in phases, depending on how numerous, powerful, and radicalized Muslims are in non-Islamic countries. When they first immigrate, they are few and politically weak. They lay low and seek acceptance of their presence.
Meanwhile, their neighborhoods afford hiding places for terrorist agitators and fundraisers. Saudi Arabia staffs many mosques with radicals. The mosques provide radical meeting and recruitment venues. Some Arab states try to supervise the mosques to keep radical politics out. The West does not.
Another phase is pressure on Muslim females to adopt Islamic dress. It seems innocent, but is a way of exerting control. Similarly, Muslims seek by force to make their neighborhoods exclusively for their own people, as an alien enclave where the national law does not apply, and the radicals have a free hand. They set up schools to indoctrinate. Thus the Muslims are levered into anti-national attitudes and behavior.
When emboldened, Muslims assert that they soon will take over. They demand privileges for themselves and less freedom for the majority, gradually imposing Islamic law on the whole country. They press for a ban on criticism of their threats. In France, they force teachers not to cover certain aspects of history, claiming it "insults" them. Otherwise, say Muslim leaders, who exploit Western ignorance and political correctness, the majority is being biased. If that does not work, they issue death threats, and intimidate critics into hiding and silence. They exploit libel law to repress writers and editors who cannot afford the costs of legal defense. They have the run of the country, as they put articulate patriots on the run.
Experience shows that a large Muslim minority is not compatible with majority survival.
Therefore, it is better to expel that sector of the population of Israel and the Territories that is increasingly dedicated to expelling, forcibly converting, or murdering the rest.
Current diplomacy is counter-productive, assuming not just Hollywood or fairy tale endings. Equally counter-productive would be emotional over-reaction to our proposal. Such reactions are smoke screens to avoid facing reality in a harsh world.
The established ideas are founded on misguided emotion and a poor knowledge base. People cling to their emotional ideologies more than to their spouses. It should be the reverse, but people, even radicals, are too conservative psychologically. They stick by political correctness and make-believe; our proposal breaks with those shackles of the mind.
The first serious criticism would be that the proposal is unrealistic. Actually, as this paper demonstrates, the current proposals have been proved unrealistic. Current diplomacy rests on unreal factoids and unrealistic or malign hopes. Our proposal would work. It would solve a significant part of the problem.
Do people in other countries want to live under constant threat of terrorism and fatwa for expressing informed and honest opinion? Must Westerners become hostages in their own countries? If our proposal were adopted by the rest of the world for itself, they would save themselves and civilization. Now that is realistic!
We can see the beginning, in a stumbling fashion, of a reaction in Europe that may lead to a similar program as we propose. The liberal Europeans are learning that being liberal to barbarians barbarizes liberal bastions. Remember what happened to Rome when it invited the barbarians in?
When will our leaders realize that jihad uses diplomacy to advance its goals, not peace? When will they realize they were deceived by North Korea and Iran by means of negotiations?
A slew of criticisms would come in the name of humanitarianism, as if protecting the inhumane Islamist assault on civilization were humane.
One can expect some of those criticisms to misrepresent what the proposal suggests. Misrepresentation and false analogy have become as standard as ad hominem attack. Anything not to have to confront the issues or admit certain problems! Anything not to admit mistakes and to avoid learning from them!
The most unprincipled politicians will burst out with self-righteous statements of principles against the proposal. Their outbursts follow a record of foolish betrayals that enabled thousands of murders.
Principles, like rights, have priorities and context. The politicians' statement of principles will omit both, missing the "big picture."
What they call a peace process more realistically should be called a war process. Some "peace process" that seeks to empower terrorists, and inflicts casualties in the process!
More specific criticisms may be constructive and some should be incorporated. But the finished proposal should not be a half-measure. Half-measures do not end problems.
Half-measures were tried, before. Israel is suffering now from the past British wont to put incompatible peoples into the same country and to offer half-measures as solutions: (1) Britain and the League of Nations set aside Palestine as the Jewish homeland and the rest of the Mideast for the Arabs. But they left Arabs in Palestine; (2) Churchill then divided Palestine into an Arab area (now called Jordan) and a Jewish area, but left masses of Arabs in the Jewish part and let more enter while barring Jews and letting the Nazis and their Arab SS allies get to them; (3) Now our brilliant U.S. diplomats propose partitioning the non-Jordanian area into an exclusively Arab area and a Jewish state area with a million Arabs. Those Arabs will demand autonomy and independence, too. It is time to change strategy. Our proposal is a different strategy
The same findings that led us to propose steps by Israel to resolve the Arab-Israel conflict prompt this analysis of U.S. Mideast policy. We shall show that U.S. policies promote strife and not peace.
Like our recommendations for changing Israel's outlook and policies, these recommendations for changing the U.S. governmental outlook and policies initially would encounter vigorous opposition. Change requires thinking outside the familiar conventions, which people are reluctant to do. It means admitting policy failure, which officials resent and fear.
People usually react to new ideas by reflex and rejection, calling them impractical and impossible. But how feasible is U.S. policy on the Arab-Israel conflict, failing for at least 60 years?
For context, note that U.S. policies are failing not just in foreign policy, but also in economics, medical insurance, and education. Many students cannot meet employers' needs. Medical insurance premiums are rising, and doctors are abandoning Medicare. The "stimulus" sedated the economy. National debt is soaring. The government deliberately sees to it that people living off savings earn fewer dollars and each dollar buys less. Tax increases are threatened. Foreign countries are losing respect for the U.S..
Those debacles were predicted. They result from how American government makes policy. Our governments start with ideology and theories. Politicians use tax revenues or debt to reward campaign donors and to please voters. The government subsidizes too much. Those are the real costs of our elections and a real measure of American corruption.
What greater failure was U.S. aid against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which we distributed through Pakistan without U.S. supervision? Pakistan gave the funds to Radical Islamists, who then took over Afghanistan. We have been fighting there ever since.
The U.S. definition of "ally" seems to be whoever accepts U.S. aid. Many of those "allies" work against us. The U.S. has made many other deals with evil forces. We gain a reputation for helping foreign oppressors.
We enter wars without studying enemy ideology and values. When the policies fail, the government sticks with them. What a backward process!
When I designed systems for business, I gathered and analyzed facts before proposing solutions. By contrast, the U.S. starts with ideology and lobbying, failing to analyze the problem. When my colleagues' projects failed, I had the information to devise new solutions.
The U.S. should study the enemy we spend a fortune fighting without victory. Americans are tiring of wars that tread water.
Is it too much to ask of our President that he stop criticizing or betraying allies and appeasing enemies? He is forfeiting the trust of allies and friends such as Honduras, Czech Republic, Poland, South Korea, Colombia, and Israel. Appeasement of China and Russia has not helped us against Iran. Although Iran has deceived the world during decades of negotiations, our leaders still claim to rely upon negotiations. Decision difficult? Defer it until someone else's incumbency! That will not do.
Foreign countries expect the U.S. to police the world for them, mostly at our expense. A world power must maintain and enhance its resources. We let ours decline. We must rebuild our economy and fight smarter.
Free trade agreements could boost our economy. Unfortunately, Americans are turning against them.
The U.S. cannot afford to boycott as many countries as it does. We should be more selective.
The U.S. should recognize that the new totalitarian, imperialist, bigoted movement for world conquest is Radical Islam and jihad. We should acknowledge that the Arab-Israel conflict is part of jihad, which targets the U.S. as well as Israel. This conflict is not over territory but over Radical Islam's intolerance of other faiths. The U.S. should be bolstering Israel as an ally against jihad. Instead, as you will see, it bolsters jihadists.
What the U.S. calls a peace process is phony. Jihadists do not resolve conflicts, they cause them. Calling negotiations part of a peace process is fraudulent. The purpose of Islamist negotiation is to gain military objectives by diplomacy or to stall action against them. Complicit with that fraud, the U.S. presses Israel, a fellow victim of jihad, to make deadly concessions to Islamist aggressors. That stance is not one of an honest broker. This U.S. policy harms the innocent, impairs U.S. national security, and perpetuates conflict. Hitler and Stalin had phony peace processes, too. They deceived many.
The State Dept. has had a pro-Arab orientation for decades. The incumbent President's advisers are particularly biased against Israel. A Saudi prince once boasted that he hired retired U.S. diplomats as high-paid consultants, thereby inducing active-duty diplomats to think of their future and to work in Saudi Arabia's interest. Remember, it was the State Dept. that let Saudi travel agents distribute visas to its local customers, without our government vetting them. After 9/11, Pres. Bush ordered this practice ended. The State Dept. persisted. Bush had to insist.
We need to clear biased and subversive officials out of the State Dept. and to forbid our diplomats to join hostile foreign services soon after retiring. A similar "revolving door" infests other government agencies, as when corporate leaders switch into regulatory agencies, and back, again. Business ends up regulating government. Rather short-sighted of those who demand massive regulation!
Many university Mideast studies centers are run by leftists or jihadists. They are subsidized by Muslim Arab interests and by Congress. These Centers failed to alert our policy-makers to many new problems. Contrary to hopes for them, they gave the government counter-productive advice.
Congress should not subsidize such centers. Considering that jihad is the major foreign menace to the U.S., the U.S. should not allow Saudis to subsidize the centers or school textbooks or mosques in the U.S..
The U.S. should bar radical imams from mosques, for being terrorists under the false guise of religion.
The U.S. now usually sells the same advanced weapons to the Arabs as to Israel. We forbid Israel from inserting most of its own technical improvements in purchased weapons. Then we assert that we are maintaining Israel's "qualitative edge." Are we? Not like that.
The Islamist ideology is one of imperialist aggression. Selling arms to Arab states tempts them to war on Israel. There is an excuse for some such sales. The excuse is that otherwise, Radical Islamic forces could attack those Arab purchasers. But we built up the un-menaced Egyptian military into a menacing, first class force, capable with its allies of fighting against Israel. In addition, at any time, Egypt may fall to the Moslem Brotherhood, who would inherit that military, not for constructive purposes.
Egypt's people call for war; its military doctrine posits war against Israel. To cite the Egypt-Israel non-aggression pact as proof Israel need not worry about the Arabs, who violate their treaties, is dangerously naïve.
For examples, Egypt and Jordan violate many parts of their treaties with Israel dealing with normalization, i.e., with peace-making. Under its treaty, Egypt asserts a right to join other Arab states already at war against Israeli "aggression." Bear in mind that they call Israeli self-defense "aggression." Scenario: Iran and Syria attack Israel, Israel retaliates, and Egypt then feels entitled to pile onto Israel.
For another example, the PLO signed and continuously violates agreements to end indoctrination and incitement to violence against Israel and to eradicate terrorism.
Pretending that the Lebanese armed forces are independent of Hizbullah, the U.S. gives arms to those forces. Actually, those Forces are informally allied with Hizbullah. Hizbullah partly controls Lebanon's government. Therefore, the U.S. indirectly fosters Lebanese terrorism.
The U.S. also subsidizes the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). The P.A. is run by two terrorist organizations, Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in Judea-Samaria (a.k.a. West Bank). The P.A. gives part of the money directly to maintain the Hamas government. The P.A. media, schools, camps, and mosques indoctrinate their congregations in hatred of Jews, claims to the whole of Israel, and violence to capture it. P.A. leaders whom we call "peace partners" honor slain terrorists and threaten war unless their negotiators get all they demand. They demand what would destroy Israel. That is, they demand that Israel give up secure borders, much of its scarce water supply, its holiest sites, and that Israel let in millions of vengeful Arabs.
Congress has barred some of that foreign subsidy, but the President falsely asserts that the subsidy is a vital U.S. interest and that the recipients are meeting requirements, as of anti-terrorism. We showed how false is that claim about anti-terrorism. Congress should rescind options for Presidents to waive requirements.
Since much U.S. foreign aid is stolen or wasted, consider ending it altogether.
The Bush and Obama administrations have been unable to distinguish Radical from Moderate Islamic Organizations. The White House invites Radical leaders and appoints some to represent or advise the U.S.. The FBI Director graced a Radical organization's convention with a speech. If our leaders do not know who our enemies are, how can we properly oppose these enemies? We should be working with Moderates.
1. Stop taking the Arab side or equating the two sides. The Arabs started the Arab-Israel conflict for conquest, expulsion, and genocide; Israel just wants to live in peace in its homeland.
2. Stop discriminating against Jewish housing in Jerusalem and the Territories in favor of Arab settlements. The U.S. wrongfully proposes apartheid here. Nor is it ethical and logical for the U.S. to equate Jewish housing with Arab terrorism.
Actually, the U.S. does not even equate the two. The Administration sternly rebukes and pressures Israel over housing, but just pays lip service to ending Arab terrorism. The PLO pledged to eradicate terrorism as long ago as 1993, but has taken no steps to end it. It promotes terrorism. It upholds an alleged right to fight against Israel "by any means."
Why should the Arabs take steps against terrorism, when the U.S. increases taxpayer subsidy of it and carries water for P.A. diplomats?
3. Stop demanding that Israel dismantle checkpoints. Checkpoints block and apprehend terrorists. Removing checkpoints lets terrorists approach more victims. Murder of Israelis often ensues. U.S. policy results in murder!
4. The U.S. acts as if any border would be secure for Israel. It pays lip service to UN Resolution 242's and Israel's requirement for secure borders. The U.S. Chiefs of Staff study found that for security, Israel needs almost all of the Territories, especially their strategic hills.
5. Stop proposing a PLO state and the misleading claims that such a state would be democratic, "deserved," and "live side-by-side" in peace with Israel, happily ever after. The P.A. is not democratic now. Why expect it to be democratic when independent? The Arabs in the Territories overwhelmingly support terrorism and conventional war on Israel. What do they deserve?
As for peace, the PLO Covenant holds that any territory Israel relinquishes to it would be used to make war on the rest of the "occupied" area, which P.A. schools and leaders define to include all of Israel. (Hence the conflict cannot be resolved by territorial "compromise" nor by leftist calls to "end the occupation.")
6. Drop the false Arab narrative about history and international law. The P.A. claims that Jews had no history in the region. By contrast, the League of Nations precursor of the UN recognized in the early 1920s the Jews' history, entitlement to their homeland, and a return to it as correcting the historical injustice done to the Jewish people. The League set up the Palestine Mandate for the Jewish people. Therefore, the Jewish people have, under international law, the best claim to the unallocated areas of the Mandate: Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.
The definition of "occupation" is to hold by force all or part of another country. Because those Territories were not allocated, they were not in any country. The Palestinian Arabs never had any country until Jordan was formed. Therefore, Israel is not occupying the Territories.
People misread the Geneva Conventions to claim that Israel has no right to keep areas taken by force. However, Israel took the Territories in self-defense against Arab aggression. International law allows a country to retain captured areas needed for security against further aggression. Deny this, and consequences occur. Aggressors could repeatedly attack, without forfeit. The popular misconception of international law encourages aggression. Indignation against Israel as occupier is misplaced.
People also misread the Conventions as denying Israel a right to let its people live in the Territories. What could be more ridiculous for Jews not to be allowed to live in their own homeland that the Mandate set aside for them, after the great powers allocated all the rest of the Turkish Empire, outside Turkey, to the Arabs?
Richard Shulman is a veteran defender of Israel on several
web-based forums. His comments and analyses appear often on
Think-Israel. He provides cool information and right-on-target
overviews. He distributes his essays by email.
visit his website: at
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-7095-NY-
Israel-Conflict-Examiner/x-7
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