Refuting Myths Against Israel and the Jews Made Simple

There are an unbelievable number of lies, distortions and misconceptions about Israel, the Jews, the Palestinians and the histories of each. First thing that is needed to do is to dispel some of the most common myths. The Jews were given Israel as retribution made because of the Holocaust the biggest lie. The idea of Israel as the Jewish State in modern times began with the first Jews returning to Israel in the 1850s. The Zionist movement was founded by Theodore Herzl as a response to the Trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus for treason by France which has become known as the Dreyfus Affair. Captain Alfred Dreyfus was wrongly accused and convicted of treason on the flimsiest of evidence, a single scrap from a note, mostly because he was a Jew. The scandal was eventually revealed after Émile Zola wrote his famous article, J’accuse. All of these events took place before 1900 and eventually led to the Balfour Declaration which was written in November 1917. The League of Nations set aside lands for the Jewish State to be founded upon under the Mandate System which established the French and British Mandates; the British Mandate was tasked with the establishment of the Jewish State in July 1922 and became effective following the ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne in September 1923. All of these events were as a response to the end of World War I and were made between the winning nations and signed by representatives of the losing nations with the addition of representatives for the Jewish Zionists and the Arabs independent from the Ottoman Empire, which was dissolved as part of the settlements. Finally, the Faisal–Weizmann Agreement, which recognized and formalized the Balfour Declarations and related treaties and accords, was signed by King Faisal bin Hussein representing the interests of the Arab World and Dr. Chaim Weizmann representing the World Zionist Organization in January 1919. With all of these steps in place the formation of Israel as the Jewish State was set in motion and ratified by every conceivable interest more than a decade before the first stirrings which led to World War II and the Holocaust.

 

Another myth is that the Jews, Zionists and Israel have never made any territorial concessions. On this topic one can almost ask as to where should one begin? Let’s begin by taking things in reverse chronological order. The latest territorial concession Israel made was the complete and total removal of every single Jewish resident and IDF troop and any other Jewish or Israeli citizen or interest from the Gaza Strip turning it all over to the Palestinian Authority. When this was completed in August 2005 there was no Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip as none was deemed necessary while the area was under Palestinian Authority control. After Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip after a revolt in June of 2007, Israel then initiated the blockade in order to prevent Hamas from having the ability to import heavy weapon systems and larger rockets and missiles with which to launch attacks on Israeli civilians living in neighborhoods and towns near the Gaza Strip. When incorporating the Oslo Accords Israel relinquished both security and civilian control over all towns, cities, and lands within Area A and relinquished civilian control with coordinated security responsibilities within Area B in Judea and Samaria which is also called the West Bank in 1993.

 

When Israel and Jordan reached their peace agreement in 1994, Israel offered to return most of the West Bank but Jordan relinquished any claims to these lands leaving them under Israeli possession. Previously, when Israel and Egypt signed their peace accords in 1979, Israel returned all of the Sinai Peninsula after removing more than twenty Israeli settlements which had been constructed south of the Negev Desert in the Sinai while Egypt relinquished any claims to the Gaza Strip. This was a major compromise made by the Israelis as had they retained the Sinai Peninsula, which was an option available as they had won the territory in a defensive war, as it gave them access to one side of the Suez Canal, complete control over the Straits of Tiran, and they surrendered lands which would have quadrupled the size of the State of Israel. United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 Israel was required to retreat from the disputed areas retaining those lands as deemed necessary for the security and defense requirements of the State of Israel in order to secure the peace in the future. Israel had technically met all requirements of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 once they had relinquished their control over the Sinai Peninsula. Just for the record, perhaps it would serve to denote the first lands which the Zionists relinquished and the guarantee they received in return for their sacrifice. After all of the papers, treaties, accords and Mandates had been established, the British were left with one nagging problem, their promise to the Arabs during World War I for their assistance with Lt. Colonel T.E. Lawrence, the Hashemite Family in particular who had lost their positions ruling over Mecca and Medina to the Family Saud. The British approached the Zionists demanding that they relinquish the lands east of the Jordan River for the establishment of a Palestinian Arab State ruled by the Hashemites. In return the Zionists were offered a guarantee that they would retain all lands west of the Jordan River and that these lands would be indivisible in perpetuity. This agreement is known as the Churchill White Papers of 1929, an agreement also ratified in principle by all the victors of World War I. The lands east of the Jordan River are today the nation of Jordan while the indivisible lands which were promised the Zionists west of the Jordan River are currently being divided up with the acquiescence of those same nations. So much for guarantees initiated by the British and backed up by the promises of the signatories to the Versailles Treaty among numerous other agreements, treaties, accords, and Mandate.

 

The last libel we will discuss is the claim that the Jews have no claim to any lands in the Middle East, never resided in or around Jerusalem, the Jewish Temples never existed, the Jews have had no presence in the Middle East for at least 2000 years, and the Jews in Israel are exclusively from Europe. As noted earlier, Jews started returning to Jerusalem and the lands around Jerusalem, especially in Judea and Samaria, since the middle of the Nineteenth Century. Even after the dispersion of the Jewish people by the Romans there has been a remnant of the Jewish people living in and around Jerusalem for the last three-thousand years. Even if one does not care to believe either the New Testament or the Jewish Bible (Old Testament) which both denote the Jewish existence in Jerusalem and surrounding areas including Judea and Samaria, there is corroborative evidence from Egyptian pictographs, Persian hieroglyphs, Greek historical records and manuscripts, Roman manuscripts and historical records, Byzantine records, Crusader histories, Ottoman tax and historical records, British histories, censuses and agreements, and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and other writers bibliographies of their travels in the Holy Lands over the past two millennia. For the decades after the founding of the State of Israel there were over three-quarters of a million Jews expelled from across the Arab and Muslim Worlds, many of which ended up residing in Israel as well as some remnants in the United States and Europe. The population of modern Israel is almost of equal parts Ashkenazi and Sephardic. Modern DNA testing has revealed a common maternal root for both the Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews that predates their separation.

 

With the volumes of records from separate sources detailing the presence of Jewish communities in and around Jerusalem and their related histories, those pressing a denial of these facts are simply relying that most people will not do any research on their own and will simply accept their propaganda. With the historical contempt for the Jewish people throughout history, they are very likely correct that people will simply take their lies as facts as they simply reinforce their preconceived prejudices. Everything above can be validated simply by entering the names of the people or agreements into any search engine and follow the links. Some of these links will also tend to mention other histories but the original documents are available online and can be read in their unadulterated form. The body of evidence backs the right of the Jews to reestablish their historic homelands. There are other ancient peoples who also are entitled to their homelands but have been denied such by history and the powers which shaped it. Some examples, but not a complete list by far, are the Kurds who were victims of the European redrawing of the Middle East after World War I and their overriding preoccupation with their Arab allies, and the Tibetan Buddhists who had their country erased by Mainland China (it is non PC to call them Communists anymore) and have been victims of forced relocations and the involuntary immigration of Chinese citizens from all sides of the Chinese peoples. Perhaps the day will come when the indigenous peoples who have, despite the ravages of history and circumstance, kept a higher than normal cohesiveness will be permitted to reestablish their ancient homelands. Just because other such dispossessed peoples have yet to regain such privileges is no reason to prevent the Jewish People from reestablishing their ancient homelands, especially since they possess a guarantee in a treaty, the Churchill White Papers.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Looming Disaster in American-Israeli Relations

What would be a faster way to turn the American public against Israel than to have United States troops returning in caskets from Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank, where they were serving as peacekeepers presumably protecting the Palestinians from the Israelis and vice versa. If such a thing exists we have been unable to think what it might take. The problem is that the path that President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry may be taking in order to force a peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis includes American troops placed within the new Arab State of Palestine as a guarantee to Israel to prevent terrorism and a guarantee to the Palestinians against any Israeli interferences and guarding against IDF responses even if somehow a terrorist event should be committed. This idea is fraught with potential calamities and disasters beyond all imagination. Judging from the current situation in Iraq one can easily envision exactly how useless American troops would be in preventing all terrorist attacks while also being committed to performing their tasks while obeying all restrictions and limitations placed upon them by the Palestinian leadership. Add that the main function of American troops as peacekeepers would soon be realized that they are actually just potential hostages held whenever such were needed to make demands for concessions from either Israel or the United States. The best bet is that American peacekeepers stationed in Palestine to act as a deterrent against terrorism and to be guarantors of peace while enforcing the agreed upon border would be pulled either at the insistence of the American public or the demands of the Palestinians within the first year.

 

The path leading to this catastrophe waiting to happen will occur quickly and be in place before anybody either in Israel, the United States or the Arab World has time to react and prevent such idiocy. The most likely scenario will go something like this. Secretary of State Kerry will convince Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to forgo his litany of preconditions in return for a guarantee that the 1949 Armistice Lines, also called the 1967 Lines, will be the basis for the borders and that the Palestinians will have their Capital in East Jerusalem with complete control over the Temple Mount. Secretary of State Kerry will coerce Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to come to the talks by guaranteeing that the United States will enforce Israeli access to all Jewish Holy Sites especially in Jerusalem and that the United States will be the guarantor preventing any future terrorist attacks including rocket attacks. There will be a great meeting very likely in Washington on the East Lawn or the Oval Office with a signing ceremony where a tentative peace agreement will be signed. The agreement will spell out a proposed solution to such final issues as borders, Palestine being a non-military State defended by the United States, a solution to the Palestinian refugee resettlement with some ten to twenty thousand who have provable claims to lands lost within Israel being accepted by Israel with the remainder being absorbed by Palestine and possibly some remaining in the countries where they have resided with some having lived there over sixty years. And the cherry on top of this peace of cake will be American peacekeepers placed in the State of Palestine as the guarantors of all the implementations, peace, safety, and security for both sides. Presto, instant Americans placed in harms’ way under what will be the worst possible of conditions.

 

In order to appease the Palestinians, the American troops will answer to the Palestinian leadership operating under similar restriction as the UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon), who operate in a nearly complete ineffectiveness in containing Hezballah in Lebanon from rebuilding south of the Litany River, having to request permission in order to operate outside of their bases and perform any of their supposed duties. The American troops will find that their service will be utilized in such a manner that they will only have the effect of preventing any Israeli response to terrorism. The ability of the American forces to control or prevent terrorism will be virtually nullified by restrictions placed on them by the Palestinian government. They will become a protective force for the terrorist functions by blunting any operational abilities of Israel in anti-terror operations within Palestine, the only thing restricting terrorism on a massive scale currently. Eventually there will be American soldiers kidnapped by such groups as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, Salafists or even al-Aksa Brigades, who are part of Abbas’s Fatah Organization, should the Americans actually manage to hold any terrorists from any of these groups or simply to make demands for any purpose from freeing terrorists held by Israel or any country worldwide or any other purpose where a hostage would give sufficient leverage. The American troops would also be living day and night wearing a virtual target on their backs and be targeted by any terror groups or individuals who are not supporters of Mahmoud Abbas; this is a very large and possibly majority of the Palestinian Arab population. Once Americans are taken hostage or murdered while presumably making Israel safe from the Palestinians, and this is how it will be played in the press and across the media, the relations between the American public and Israel will begin to grow strained. At some point Israel will likely ask that the Americans cut their losses and return to the United States as the price of American troops being harmed would be too high a price that Israel would rather the United States not pay. Israel has, in their entire history, never requested for American troops to come to their aid. Israel has always preferred to be responsible for the security of her people and country and have been consistently reluctant to allow others to be placed in harm’s way preferring to take such risks for their security themselves. This idea of injecting American troops into the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is an awful idea whose time must be avoided and seen as poisonous to Israeli-American relations. Nothing positive can come from such a mistaken idea, such an abhorrent and noxious idea.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israel in Need of New Approach to Peace Negotiations

To even the most casual of observers the Israel Palestinian peace negotiation under the Oslo Accords, Roadmap, Saudi Plan, or whatever metric one uses to measure the progress the entire peace process is a dismal failure which has become moribund in a coma for at least two years if not much more, even possibly more than a decade. Since the Oslo Accords were first introduced the formula for peace has not changed despite that with each incoming new Presidential Administration the name of each rendition of the plan has changed. In every case the general theme was for Israel to make concessions in order to entice the Palestinians to rejoin the talks followed by a televised and highly photographed meeting, often with a White House backdrop, where the sitting Israeli Prime Minister would shake hands with either Yasser Arafat or Mahmoud Abbas after Arafat’s death, the United States President would take credit for the great accomplishment of restarting the peace process and praise the sacrifices taken for peace by both sides and a subsequent meeting schedule was announced. The schedule collapsed after one or two meetings or even without any further meetings taking place. Then the arm twisting would begin in efforts to get Israel to make concessions and the cycle would repeat. The Palestinians make ever changing demands for preconditions pocketing Israeli concessions as they slowly advanced their positions one concession at a time while the only concessions offered by the Palestinians were the exact same as their initial promises, to work to disarm terrorists, remove anti-Zionist and anti-Israel lessons from their education system, act to prevent further terror attacks, and act to end incitement of terror. These intended promises by the Palestinians have never been met, and truth be told, have never even been attempted to implement and thus allowing for these same concessions to become the permanent promise offered by the Palestinians. Since everybody acknowledges that the Palestinian promises are not being made in good faith, their constantly ignoring and reneging on their promises has become accepted as unalterable and thus no further demands are ever made upon the Palestinians. Instead of forcing the Palestinians to actually make any sacrifice or adjustment towards coexistence, the world simply accepts the Palestinian deceit as unavoidable and beyond any chance for change and thus all pressures are placed upon Israel to make concessions until Israel has reached well beyond the point where concessions have become a dangerous threat against the continued existence of the State of Israel. Despite this known fact the world still demands that the Israelis offer just one more round of concessions, for now, and then they will ask for one more the next time, and the next time. The modus operandi has been established but perhaps it is time for a change.

 

To date the assessment of the peace process has taken for granted that the Israelis desire for peace will drive them to make compromises and concessions while the Palestinians are seen to have a dysfunctional society incapable of change thus unable to make compromise or concessions so no such demands are made of the Palestinians. This has led to a stalemate where Israel has given to the point where there is nothing left for them to compromise on if the Israelis expect to receive anything remotely resembling a compromise. The Palestinians through intransigence have moved the debate over borders to the point where Israel returning to the 1949 Armistice Lines and dividing Jerusalem has become the initial starting-point for further negotiations, some form of ‘right of return’ for Palestinian refugees has begun to be accepted by even some Israelis, and there are supporters in the world for including Hamas in the negotiations. The time has certainly come for a change in the going trends and presumptions. The concept that Israel wanting peace must surrender on every front constantly until they surrender themselves out of existence must be declared dead and buried before it reaches the obvious conclusion. It is time for Israel to take the initiative and reinstate the original concepts of UNSC Resolution 242 which guaranteed that Israel had only to return some of the lands gained in the Six Day War in June of 1967 and retain all lands Israel found necessary to provide them with secure and defendable borders. Israel need take the position that her return of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip was sufficient land returned to meet the requirements of UNSC Res. 242 and that Israel requires all of Judea and Samaria up to the Jordan River as their eastern border in order to provide Israel with defensible borders. Make this the eventual target for all negotiations with the Palestinians and before each offer presented to the Palestinians take one step towards that finality. The slow and inexorable reclaiming of lands of Judea and Samaria as time passes will act as a much better stimulus to bring the Palestinian to the negotiating table to honestly reach a real peace with mutual stability, recognition, security and peace. It has become obvious that making concessions will never lead to honest negotiations from the Palestinians because as the metric currently sits they get rewarded for not negotiating. It is well past time to make a new metric where not honestly negotiating will cost the Palestinians instead of rewarding them.

 

Many make the false premise that Israel cannot take such steps because they would lose their Jewish majority if they annexed all of what the world dishonestly calls the West Bank because of the large numbers of Arabs residing within. There are a number of falsehoods hidden in such claims. The first is that even should Israel grant all of those residing west of the Jordan River Israeli citizenship they would remain with a two to one Jewish majority. Furthermore, there is no requirement in International Law which requires Israel to grant any of the Palestinian Arabs who were Jordanian citizens prior to the Six Day War Israeli citizenship. Israel would be within their rights to declare them as resident aliens continuing to view these refugees as remaining to be Jordanian Citizens and could even generously offer to compensate them for any properties they may wish to sell and aid them in returning to their country of origin, Jordan. Such is the default from many previous examples of similar situations such as India and Pakistan where Muslims emigrated into Pakistan and Buddhists and Hindus emigrated in the opposite direction into India. Not all of these peoples chose to relocate, but the vast majority did so. It is well past the time that Israel must demand that they be treated no differently than other nations of the world and that they be permitted the same options, rights, and privileges as are granted without even a second thought to every other nation on Earth. The world demanding a different metric with which to measure Israel and a unique set of rules be applied to Israel while denying Israel the comforts, rights, definitions and pleasures allocated to every other nation must be brought to an end as to allow such to continue is to formalize anti-Semitism on an international scale. Time to end the charade, the injustices, the separate and unequal treatment and demand that Israel be accepted as an equal among nations and an end of all traces of bigotry and hatred concerning Israel resultant from anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism once and forever.

 

Beyond the Cusp