Do Palestinians Deserve Statehood? Part IV

 

4^th part of 4

Links and footnotes.

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[1][1] Leaving aside the question whether this is beside or in place of the State of Israel.

[1][2] Press release, “Commission recommends to start negotiations with Turkey under certain conditions”, Brussels, 6 October 2004. See:  http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/04/1180&format=HTML&aged=0&language=en&guiLanguage=en. (11410)

[1][3] Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission.  “Commission's recommends to start negotiations with Turkey under certain conditions,” EU press release, October 6, 2004, at: http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/04/1180&format=HTML&aged=0&language=en&guiLanguage=en. (11406)            

[1][4] Press Release: “Commission recommends to start negotiations with Turkey under certain conditions”, Brussels, 6 October 2004. See:  http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/04/1180&format=HTML&aged=0&language=en&guiLanguage=en. (11410)

[1][5] See “EU Enlargement - A Historic Opportunity,” Copenhagen European Council at: http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/intro/criteria.htm. (11407)

[1][6] Olli Rehn, "Turkey and the EU: a Common Future?", at http://www.europaworld.org/week205/speechrehn171204.htm. (11408)

[1][7] Turkey's future hopes for accession to the European Union (EU)(3) rest in its ability to integrate into the European common market, and this integration includes enforcing strict environmental legislation.. See: http://www.globe-net.ca/market_reports/index.cfm?ID_Report=317. (11409)

[1][8] Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission.  “The Commission's Report and Recommendation on Turkey's Application Presentation to the European Parliament” EU press release, October 6, 2004, at: http://www.mefacts.com/cache/html/eu/11406.htm. (11406)

[1][9] 2004 “Regular Report on Turkey's progress towards accession,”  Commission of the European Communities, October 6, 2004, at http://europa.eu.int/comm/enlargement/report_2004/pdf/rr_tr_2004_en.pdf. (11405)

[1][10] Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission.  “The Commission's Report and Recommendation on Turkey's Application Presentation to the European Parliament” EU press release, October 6, 2004, at: http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/04/440&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en. (11406)

[1][11] Olli Rehn, “Turkey and the EU: a Common Future?,” speech to the Group meeting of the Greens/EFA of the European Parliament, Istanbul, October 20, 2004, at: http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/04/466&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en. (11408)

[1][12] For instance, French finance minister Nicholas Sarkozy – a key figure in French politics – has already demanded that Turkey's membership be brought to a referendum in France. See:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3693042.stm. (11415)

[1][13] Germany's opposition Christian Democrats say they do not want Turkey to be offered automatic and full membership of the European Union when accession negotiations start, fearing it could overstretch the EU and even lead to its collapse. See: http://www.iht.com/articles/539315.html. (11416)

[1][14] Ariel Merari “The Psychology of Extremism,” University of Michigan, February 2002 quoted in “The Genesis of Suicide Terrorism,” Institute for Social Research – University of Michigan, at http://www.isr.umich.edu/news/isrupdate-2002-05.pdf. (11417)

[1][15] See opinion polls conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, at: http://www.mefacts.com/cache/html/israel-security/11332.htm. (11332)

[1][16] For details see the Palestinian Human Rights Monitor Group's report, Leonie Schultens,  Intra'fada, April 2004,  at http://www.phrmg.org/intrafada.htm. (10538)

[1][17] Helena Smith, “Turkey gets to grips with ‘honour killings',” Guardian Online, July 5, 2004, at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1253922,00.html.. (11418)

[1][18] See Turkish president approves new penal code, at: http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/041011143521.5d1h2kog. (11442)

[1][19] In the Middle East, families often have a brother who is a minor commit ‘honour crimes' to ensure a lighter sentence. 

[1][20] Roundtable on Strategies to Address “Crimes of Honor- A Summary Report,” Center for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, London University, p. 7, at http://www.soas.ac.uk/honourcrimes/Meet_RoundtableReport.pdf. (11419)

[1][21] “2004 Regular Report on Turkey's progress towards accession”, p. 45

[1][22] The Diyanet is a unique Turkish institution, a government body responsible for religious affairs, established in Ottoman times to find a balance for coexistence between Islam and the modern secular state. For more on its origins and functions, including its role in the reform process, see the Diyanet http://www.diyanet.gov.tr/turkish/englh.asp?id=104.  By contrast, Palestinian Authority controlled-mosques have been a center for incitement. (11420)

[1][23] “2004 Regular Report on Turkey's progress towards accession,” p. 55.

[1][24] Killing of Women on the Basis of Family Honor, Monitor, August 2002, at http://www.phrmg.org/monitor2002/Aug2002.htm. (11212)

[1][25] Roundtable on Strategies to Address “Crimes of Honor,” Center for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, London University, pp. 5-7, at http://www.soas.ac.uk/honourcrimes/Meet_RoundtableReport.pdf. (11419)

[1][26] Roundtable on Strategies to Address “Crimes of Honor,” ibid.,  pp. 5-7.

[1][27] Leonie Schultens, “Honor' and domestic abuse: violence against women,” in Intra'fada, April 2004, pp 21-23, at http://www.phrmg.org/intrafada.htm. (10538). See also Luma A'jlouni, “Honour Killing,” at http://www.phrmg.org/PHRMG%20Documents/Honor%20Killing/English/honor_killing.htm. (11421)

[1][28] See, for instance, the 2003 “Annual report on human rights,” October 10, 2003, at http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/human_rights/doc/report03_en.pdf. (11422)

[1][29] Extension to ‘external' self-determination or statehood was not addressed in the Oslo Accords, but left open for Final Status talks. See Eyal Benavenisti, “The Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles:  A Framework for Future Settlement, European Journal of International Law, 1993, No. 4, pp. 542-554.

[1][30] For the text of the Road Map, see http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/20062.htm. (10067)

[1][31] The Quartet is comprised of the United States, Russia, the EU and the United Nations.

[1][32] Sharm el-Skeikh Summit (Oct 2000), Mitchell Report (April 2001), Tenet ‘Ceasefire' Plan (June 2001), countless attempts at shuttle diplomacy by senior US officials (up to the secretary of state and the president), European envoys and Arab leaders.

[1][33] “Fischer meets Arafat in Ramallah, consults with Abu Mazen,” Haaretz, April 9, 2003, at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=282317&sw=Joshka+Fisher. (11423)

[1][34] “EU's relations with West Bank and Gaza Strip,” May 2004,  http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/gaza/intro/index.htm. (11424)

[1][35] Leonie Schultens,  Ibid, April 2004,  at http://www.phrmg.org/intrafada.htm. (10538)

[1][36] See the most recent, by the Palestinian Human Rights Monitor Group, Fabio Forgione, “The Chaos of the Corruption,”  October, 2004, at http://www.phrmg.org/Corruption%20in%20the%20Palestinian%20Authority.htm. (11425)

[1][37] Extracts from the conclusions of the General Affairs and External Relations Council, European Commission's website, at:  http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/med_mideast/intro/gac.htm. (11426)

[1][38] For the January 2003 report, for example, see http://www.cfr.org/pubs/5536_english.pdf. (11427)

[1][39] “Reforming the Palestinian Authority:  An Update, Report by the Independent Task Force on Strengthening Palestinian Public Institutions, April 2004, at http://www.aman-palestine.org/english/documents/Reform%20Update%20-%20final%20version%20pdf.pdf. (11428)

[1][40] “Shikaki:  No Political Will for Palestinian Elections, August 11, 2004, at  http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=7243.

[1][41] See Roger Wilkinson, “EU Tries to Keep Mideast ‘Roadmap' Alive,” Voice of America, November 2, 2004.

[1][42] “Solana unveils Mid East plan,” EU Observer, November 2, 2004, at http://www.euobserver.com/?sid=9&aid=17673. (11429)

[1][43] “Brussels European Council 16/17 December, 2004 Presidency Conclusions,” Council of the European Union, Document 16238/04. at http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/gac/pres_concl/december_2004.pdf. (11430)

[1][44] “Palestinian Schoolbooks,” General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union, May 15, 2002 press release, at:   http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/misc/70923.pdf. (11432)

[1][45] “Reforming the Palestinian Authority:  An Update April 2004,” p. 10. (11428)

[1][46] Forbes magazine's 17^th annual survey (2003) of the richest people in the world shows Arafat has used his position to amass a personal fortune estimated at $300 million, stashed away in Swiss banks. Ranked among heads of state, Arafat's personal fortune was reported to be one notch below that of the Queen of England.  See Jerusalem Post report at:  http://www.forbes.com/global/2003/0317/068.html. (11433)

[1][47] “Turkey and the EU, The EESC says ‘yes' to membership negotiations - if a ‘point of no return', notably regarding human rights, is reached by 31st December 2004,” September 9, 2004, at:    http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=CES/04/101&format=HTML&aged=0&language=en&guiLanguage=en (11434)

[1][48] The Europeans have already said that there will have to be strict limits to movement of Turkish labor into Europe

[1][49] Beside the impact on the fabric of European society, “under a new population-based voting system, Turkey would have as many votes as Europe's smallest 18 countries combined in the Council of Ministers, the EU's most powerful institution.”  Owen Mathews, “Ready for Europe, or NO?”, Newsweek,  May 3, 2004, at: http://www.keepmedia.com/ShowItemDetails.do?item_id=461232&oliID=255&bemID=3qKDRHtFxeIMt49I3B+e3Aaa6084. (11435)

[1][50] Newsweek, ibid.

[1][51] The Guardian cites a Die Welt opinion survey that puts the number of Germans opposed at 62%.  See “Schroder faces Turkey basting,” Guardian Unlimited, December 15, 2004, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1374238,00.html. (11436)

[1][52] Cited in Olli Rehn, “Turkey and the EU: a Common Future?,”  Group meeting of the Greens/EFA of the European Parliament, October 20, 2004, Istanbul. See:  http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/04/466&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en. (11408)

[1][53] See “EU braces for crunchy summit on Turkey,” EU Business, December 12, 2004, at: http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/041212015243.ww6ex5pg. (11437)

[1][54] Romano Prodi, “The Commission Report and Recommendation on Turkey's application,” presentation to the European Parliament - Brussels, October 6, 2004, at  http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/04/440&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en. (11406)

[1][55] Yitzhak Ravid, “The Demographic Revolution:” http://home20.inet.tele.dk/otetens/guide/dokumenter/palestinian_demography.htm. (11438)

[1][56] Cited by EU External Relations Commissioner Christopher Patten in a talk before the European Parliament, “Situation in the Middle East,” October 12, 2004, at http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/news/patten/sp04_456.htm. (11439)

[1][57] “EU's relations with West Bank and Gaza Strip,” May 2004,  http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/gaza/intro/index.htm. (11424)

[1][58] UNRWA statistics, at http://www.un.org/unrwa/publications/pdf/figures.pdf. (11440)

[1][59]  The world average is 2.7 children per family.

[1][60] Yitzhak Ravid, “The Demographic Revolution:” http://home20.inet.tele.dk/otetens/guide/dokumenter/palestinian_demography.htm. (11438)

[1][61] “Employment and Social Policy - Turkey: Adoption of the Community Acquis” at:  http://www.europa.eu.int/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/e02113.htm. (11441)

[1][62] Romano Prodi, “The Commission's Report and Recommendation on Turkey's application Presentation to the European Parliament” at:  http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/04/440&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

Palestinians ‘Peoplehood’ Based on a Big Lie.

By Eli E. Hertz

The Palestinians claim that they are an ancient and indigenous people fails to stand up to historic scrutiny. Most Palestinian Arabs were newcomers to British Mandate Palestine. Until the 1967 Six-Day War made it expedient for Arabs to create a Palestinian peoplehood, local Arabs simply considered themselves part of the 'great Arab nation' or 'southern Syrians.'

"Repeat a lie often enough and people will begin to believe it."
Nazi propaganda master Joseph Goebbels

"All [that Palestinians] can agree on as a community is what they
want to destroy, not what they want to build."
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman

There is no age-old Palestinian people. Most so-called Palestinians are relative newcomers to the Land of Israel

Like a mantra, Arabs repeatedly claim that the Palestinians are a native people. The concept of a 'Stateless Palestinian people' is not based on fact. It is a fabrication.

Palestinian Arabs cast themselves as a native people in "Palestine" – like the Aborigines in Australia or Native Americans in America. They portray the Jews as European imperialists and colonizers. This is simply untrue.

Until the Jews began returning to the Land of Israel in increasing numbers from the late 19^th century to the turn of the 20^th, the area called Palestine was a God-forsaken backwash that belonged to the Ottoman Empire, based in Turkey.

The land's fragile ecology had been laid waste in the wake of the Arabs' 7th-century conquest. In 1799, the population was at it lowest and estimated to be no more than 250,000 to 300,000 inhabitants in all the land.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Arab population west of the Jordan River (today, Israel and the West Bank) was about half a million inhabitants and east of the Jordan River perhaps 200,000.

The collapse of the agricultural system with the influx of nomadic tribes after the Arab conquest that created malarial swamps and denuded the ancient terrace system eroding the soil, was coupled by a tyrannous regime, a crippling tax system and absentee landowners that further decimated the population. Much of the indigenous population had long since migrated or disappeared. Very few Jews or Arabs lived in the region before the arrival of the first Zionists in the 1880s and most of those that did lived in abject poverty.

Most Arabs living west of the Jordan River in Israel, the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza are newcomers who came from surrounding Arab lands after the turn of the 20^th century because they were attracted to the relative economic prosperity brought about by the Zionist Movement and the British in the 1920s and 1930s.

This is substantiated by eyewitness reports of a deserted country – including 18^th-century reports from the British archaeologist Thomas Shaw, French author and historian Count Constantine Volney (Travels through Syria and Egypt, 1798); the mid-19th-century writings of Alphonse de Lamartine (Recollections of the East, 1835); Mark Twain (Innocents Abroad, 1867); and reports from the British Consul in Jerusalem (1857) that were sent back to London.

The Ottoman Turks' census (1882) recorded only 141,000 Muslims in the Land of Israel. The real number is probably closer to 350,000 to 425,000, since many hid to avoid taxes. The British census in 1922 reported 650,000 Muslims.

Aerial photographs taken by German aviators during World War I show an underdeveloped country composed mainly of primitive hamlets. Ashdod, for instance, was a cluster of mud dwellings, Haifa a fishing village. In 1934 alone, 30,000 Syrian Arabs from the Hauran moved across the northern frontier into Mandate Palestine, attracted by work in and around the newly built British port and the construction of other infrastructure projects. They even dubbed Haifa Um el-Amal ('the city of work').

The fallacy of Arab claims that most Palestinians were indigenous to Palestine – not newcomers - is also bolstered by a 1909 vintage photograph of Nablus, today an Arab city on the West Bank with over 121,000 residents. Based on the number of buildings in the photo taken from the base of Mount Gerizim, the population in 1909 – Muslim Arabs and Jewish Samaritans – could not have been greater than 2,000 residents.

Family names of many Palestinians attest to their non-Palestinian origins. Just as Jews bear names like Berliner, Warsaw and Toledano, modern phone books in the Territories are filled with families named Elmisri (Egyptian), Chalabi (Syrian), Mugrabi (North Africa). Even George Habash – the arch-terrorist and head of Black September – bears a name with origins in Abyssinia or Ethiopia, Habash in both Arabic and Hebrew.

Palestinian nationality is an entity defined by its opposition to Zionism, and not its national aspirations.

What unites Palestinians has been their opposition to Jewish nationalism and the desire to stamp it out, not aspirations for their own state. Local patriotic feelings are generated only when a non-Islamic entity takes charge – such as Israel did after the 1967 Six-Day War. It dissipates under Arab rule, no matter how distant or despotic.

A Palestinian identity did not exist until an opposing force created it – primarily anti-Zionism. Opposition to a non-Muslim nationalism on what local Arabs, and the entire Arab world, view as their own turf, was the only expression of 'Palestinian peoplehood.'

The Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini, a charismatic religious leader and radical anti-Zionist was the moving force behind opposition to Jewish immigration in the 1920s and 1930s. The two-pronged approach of the "Diplomacy of Rejection" (of Zionism) and the violence the Mufti incited occurred at the same time Lebanon, Syria, Transjordan and Iraq became countries in the post-Ottoman reshuffling of territories established by the British and the French under the League of Nation's mandate system.

The tiny educated class among the Arabs of Palestine was more politically aware than the rest of Arab society, with the inklings of a separate national identity. However, for decades, the primary frame of reference for most local Arabs was the clan or tribe, religion and sect, and village of origin. If Arabs in Palestine defined themselves politically, it was as "southern Syrians." Under Ottoman rule, Syria referred to a region much larger than the Syrian Arab Republic of today, with borders established by France and England in 1920.

In his book Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition, Daniel Pipes explains:

        "Syria was a region that stretched from the borders of Anatolia to those of Egypt, from the edge of Iraq to the Mediterranean Sea. In terms of today's states, the Syria of old comprised Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Jordan, plus the Gaza Strip and Alexandria."

Syrian maps in the 21^st century still co-opt most of Greater Syria, including Israel.

The Grand Mufti Al-Husseini's aspirations slowly shifted from pan-Arabism – the dream of uniting all Arabs into one polity, whereby Arabs in Palestine would unite with their brethren in Syria - to winning a separate Palestinian entity, with himself at the helm. Al-Husseini was the moving force behind the 1929 riots against the Jews and the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt against two non-Muslim entities in Palestine – the British and the Jews. He gathered a large following by playing on fears that the Jews had come to dispossess, or at least dominate the Arabs.  

Much like Yasser Arafat, the Grand Mufti's ingrained all-or-nothing extremism, fanaticism and even an inability to cooperate with his own compatriots made him totally ineffective. He led the Palestinian Arabs nowhere.

The 'Palestinian' cause became a key rallying point for Arab nationalism throughout the Middle East, according to Oxford historian Avi Shlaim. The countries the British and French created in 1918-1922 were based largely on meridians on the map, as is evident in the borders that delineate the Arab states today. Because these states lack ethnic logic or a sense of community, their opposition to the national aspirations of the Jews has come to fuel that fires Arab nationalism as the 'glue' of national identity. (see details on the ramifications of British and French policy, which plague the Middle East to this day in the chapter "The European Union.")

From the 1920s, rejection of Jewish nationalism, attempts to prevent the establishment of a Jewish homeland by violence, and rejection of any form of Jewish political power, including any plans to share stewardship with Arabs, crystallized into the expression of Palestinianism. No other positive definition of an Arab-Palestinian people has surfaced. This point is admirably illustrated in the following historic incident:

    "In 1926, Lord Plumer was appointed as the second High Commissioner of Palestine. The Arabs within the Mandate were infuriated when Plumer stood up for the Zionists' national anthem Hatikva during ceremonies held in his honor when Plumer first visited Tel Aviv. When a delegation of Palestinian Arabs protested Plumer's 'Zionist bias,' the High Commissioner asked the Arabs if he remained seated when their national anthem was played, 'wouldn't you regard my behavior as most unmannerly?' Met by silence, Plumer asked: 'By the way, have you got a national anthem?' When the delegation replied with chagrin that they did not, he snapped back, "I think you had better get one as soon as possible."

But it took the Palestinians more than 60 years to heed Plumer's advice, adopting Anthem of the Intifada two decades after Israel took over the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 – at the beginning of the 1987 Intifada.

Under the Mandate, local Arabs also refused to establish an 'Arab Agency' to develop the Arab sector, parallel to the Jewish Agency that directed development of the Jewish sector (see the Chapter "Rejectionism").

In fact, the so-called patriotism of indigenous Muslims has flourished only when non-Muslim entities (the Crusaders, the British, the Jews) have taken charge of the Holy Land. When political

control returns to Muslim hands, the ardent patriotism of the Arabs of Palestine magically wanes, no matter how distant or how despotic the government. One Turkish pasha who ruled Acco (Acre) between 1775 and 1804 was labeled Al Jazzar, The Butcher, by locals.

Why hasn't Arab representative government ever been established in Palestine, either in 1948 or during the next 19 years of Arab rule? Because other Arabs co-opted the Palestinian cause as a rallying point that would advance the concept that the territory was up for grabs. "The Arab invasion of Palestine was not a means for achieving an independent Palestine, but rather the result of a lack of consensus on the part of the Arab states regarding such independence," summed up one historian. Adherents to a separate Palestinian identity were a mute minority on the West Bank and Gaza during the 19 years of Jordanian and Egyptian rule - until Israel took control from the Jordanians and the Egyptians in 1967. Suddenly a separate Palestinian peoplehood appeared and claimed it deserved nationhood - and 21 other Arab states went along with it.

Palestinianism in and of itself lacks any substance of its own. Arab society on the West Bank and Gaza suffers from deep social cleavages created by a host of rivalries based on divergent geographic, historical, geographical, sociological and familial allegiances. What glues Palestinians together is a carefully nurtured hatred of Israel and the rejection of Jewish nationhood.

 

Eli E. Hertz

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

 

What to do about terror attacks in Jerusalem.

 

By Ami Isseroff

 

The recent spate of terror attacks in Jerusalem has sparked calls to "do something" from all quarters. Everyone offers a 'solution' that suits their ideological convictions and political needs. Following the latest depraved bulldozer attack, there were again demands to destroy the houses of suicide terrorists.

The problem with the suggestion of destroying homes of terrorists is that other than letting off steam, it seems to serve no purpose. An IDF study had earlier indicated that the policy did not deter terrorists, which is why it was discontinued. It makes sense, If a person is willing to blow himself to bits or face certain death, they are unlikely to worry about having their house destroyed. A man who abandons his family and gives up his life to kill Jews is probably not really concerned about whether or not his family will have a place to live while he is enjoying his 72 perpetual virgins in paradise.

On the other hand, dovish Israelis suggest that acts of terror originating with Jerusalem Arabs should be a motivation for giving up Arab parts of the city. There are perhaps good reasons for compromising on Jerusalem and turning over Arab areas to Palestinian rule. Jabel Mukaber and Shuafat were never Jewish national or religious symbols. That is a matter for political consideration. But responding to terror by making concessions is a really bad idea. When I lived in Jerusalem, in the area that had been part of Israel since 1949, a Katyousha rocket landed a block from my apartment, on Kaf Tet November Street. Should Israel have given up Kaf Tet November street in order to avoid terror attacks? In the fifties, terrorists infiltrated and attacked just south of Rehovot. Should we have given up Rehovot to avoid terror attacks?

The most obvious solution has not been suggested. Retreating in the face of terror and blowing up houses are not taboo, but this solution apparently is. The last three attacks, the two bulldozer attacks and the attack on Yeshivat Merkaz Harav, were carried out by Arabs who worked for Jews. Without advocating denial of employment to all non-Israeli Arabs, is it nonetheless too much to suggest that if more Jews were available to do these jobs, there would be less non-Israeli Arabs doing them, or to demand periodic in depth security checks? If some Yeshiva students had studied bus driving, not a forbidden occupation by Jewish law, perhaps the tragedy of Merkaz Harav Yeshiva would have been averted, and if there was an adequate pool of Israeli bulldozer operators, offered a reasonable salary, the bull dozer attacks would not have taken place. A fanatic with an Islamist skull cap who works for less money than Israelis but goes on a rampage and injures or kills people is not a great "bargain." Apparently however, advocating decent wages and Israeli labor is a forbidden idea, unlike retreating in the face of terror or destroying houses of presumably innocent relatives.

Ami Isseroff

Original content is Copyright by the author 2008.

 

Justice: For Arabs Only?

By Gerald A. Honigman

Well, the day has finally arrived. I now find myself in agreement with the Secretary General of the Arab League.

Recently, at the end of the Arab League Summit, Amr Mussa declared that peace could not arrive until there was withdrawal from occupied territories, the creation of another state, and the return of refugees.

He's basically correct. Except he has a few details mixed up.

Native Copts in Egypt—millions of them—had their country overrun by conquering, settling, subjugating, and occupying Arabs.

To this day, they never know when the next murder will occur, the next church will be burned down. They have learned that to survive they must consent to the forced Arabization process. Their leaders have even written that for Israel to 'get along,' it too must consent to a variation of this. Pretty pathetic. Uncle Butros instead of Uncle Tom—but the same breed, if you know what I mean. Just imagine the world-wide outcry if Israel's Jews did this sort of thing to Israeli Arabs.

The majority Berber population of North Africa saw its lands overrun as well over the past centuries by conquering, settling, and subjugating Arab hordes creating Arab empires. Imperialism is evidently only nasty when non-Arabs indulge in it. Berbers who dared to insist on keeping their own pre-Arab language and culture have been murdered for trying to do so. A look at any number of websites dealing with Berbers on these subjects will be revealing indeed.

In 1968, Ismet Cherif Vanly wrote The Syrian Mein Kampf Against the Kurds. A Kurdish nationalist, he described the murderous and brutal Arabization policies—Syrian settling, conquering, and occupying Arabs—employed against Kurds who predated them in the land by thousands of years. Settling, conquering, and occupying Iraqi Arabs did likewise to Mesopotamia's ancient native Kurds (the Hurrians, Guti, Kassites, and Medes of old), Assyrians, and other non—Arab peoples as well—Jews included.

Literally millions of native African Blacks have been butchered, maimed, enslaved, turned into refugees and seen their lands forcibly Arabized. All of this still going on today, and not just in the Sudan.

Half of Israel's almost six million Jews originated in the Arab/Muslim world. They too predated the Arabs in many of those lands that they were forced to flee as refugees, leaving far more property and valuables behind than Arabs who fled in the opposite direction after the latter's brethren invaded a reborn Israel in 1948.

The famous Jewish community in Alexandria, Egypt, was prominent centuries before Jesus. The Jews of Iraq had been in that country at least since the days of the Babylonian Captivity and Nebuchadnezzar. The Jews of Yemen were on the Arabian Peninsula before Muhammad was born, and the latter Prophet of Islam fled Mecca to Medina, a Jewish date palm oasis on that peninsula where the Jews were still prominent when Muhammad sought refuge there during the Hijra. When they would neither convert to his new faith (based largely on their own), nor accept his religio-political leadership, he butchered and enslaved them. Jews also took part in the resistance against the Arab imperial invasions of North Africa in the 7th century C.E. Recorded history, replete with similar instances, is difficult to reconcile with Amr Mussa's demand that the Jewish state submit to the will of the Arab world.

A better course for the Middle East might be the following:

It's time that the Africans of southern Sudan gain independence from the Arabs who have butchered, subjugated, and enslaved them over the centuries—long before the hypocrites in the United Nations raised so much as a mutter.

It's time for thirty million truly stateless people—such as the Kurds—to finally get their own state. They were promised one after World War I but saw it sacrificed at the altar of British petroleum politics and Arab nationalism. An Arab Iraq was pieced together in its stead.

Trusting Arabs—whether Shi'a or Sunni—is probably an unwise decision, given the track records of Arabs of any stripe towards these people. With almost two dozen states already—including one carved out of almost 80 percent of the original 1920 borders of 'Palestine' and today called Jordan—Arabs now have an American-sponsored roadmap to help create yet another for themselves. Yet even as they demand justice for Arabs, they seem deaf, dumb, and blind to the plight of the Kurds.

It's time for the subjugation of North Africa's huge Berber populations to come to an end and for those folks to be able to decide if they want to remain forcibly tied to Arabs or not. If not, then why should they not get territory to create a Berber State if Arabs can get to have yet a second one carved out for themselves in 'Palestine?'

You see, Mr. Musa, justice should not be exclusively for Arabs.

Unfortunately, for the Copts, not too much to offer here...So many more will become refugees.

And the above Arabs' victims' list is by no means complete. Just ask native Christian, Semitic but pre-Arab Lebanese—as just one other example.

The hypocrisy of the conquering, racist, and subjugating Arab League is nauseating enough. That the latter, however, is widely supported in its demands on Israel by much of the rest of the world should be appalling to anyone with any notion of fair play.

Despite all of the international pressure on it to consent to becoming a reincarnated 1938 Czechoslovakia, ready to sacrifice itself for another 'peace for all time,' Israel must now muster the strength to do what it must do.

The only appropriate response of Israel to all of this should be to counter offer the Arab League peace for peace. Israel must not consent to slowly being eroded via the Arabs' openly admitted 'Trojan Horse' destruction in stages plans. And it must free itself from the belief that it must allow Arabs to determine the rules of the road if widespread violence erupts again. Abbas' folks have said that they would support quiet only as long as Israel continues to cave in to all of their demands. And they're the 'moderates.'

Millions upon millions of non-Arabs became refugees because of the Arabs. Many of these people fled to America, Great Britain, Germany, and elsewhere. They're not returning to those 'Arab' lands. Likewise, Arabs will have to take care of their own refugees, created in a war that they started and far fewer in number.

The occupied territories Amr Musa mostly speaks of are disputed lands. They are not purely 'Arab.' Jews had as many, or more rights to be on those lands as Arabs had. Much has been written about this, including UN Resolution 242, and leading experts such as Eugene Rostow, William O'Brien, Arthur Goldberg, Lord Caradon, and others have been quite vocal on these matters as well.

Jews have a word describing demands such as those made by Amr Musa. It's called chutzpah. Israel must have leaders who will respond to such so-called Arab prerequisites for 'peace' by telling them where to stuff them.

 

Gerald A. Honigman

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