What Does Naqba Day Commemorate?

There can not be a celebration of Israeli Independence Day without an Arab Palestinian commemoration of Naqba Day, the day of catastrophe. Taking the most cursory look these two days will always have to be observed on the same day but have completely separate views of the events from the day Israel declared their existence and what actually occurred. Israelis celebrating Independence Day are joyously remembering the declaration by David ben Gurion signifying the resurrection of an ancient land birthing its new incarnation for the modern day that would celebrate, honor, and reconstruct the ancient customs and traditions of the Jewish nations from two thousand to three and a half thousand years in history while incorporating those items from antiquity into a modern state where technology, scientific developments at the cutting edge of modern research also exist, ancient farming mixed with modern discoveries in order to produce the highest quality crops possible, and a blend between all that was with the hopes for what can be. The celebration of the declaration of this new and brave mix of challenges with promises of renewed hopes while fulfilling the prophesies of antiquity making a blend which melds items which should clash over anachronisms yet are smelted together forming something new and wonderful. Israeli Independence Day is the celebration of the realization of a people of their collective dream which has waited almost two-thousand-years to come to fruition.

 

The commemoration by the Arabs of Naqba Day are mourning not only the coming into existence of the Jewish State but also the inability of the invading Arab armies allied with the Palestinian Arabs to squash the nascent Jewish state and commit a genocidal massacre of the Jews while destroying their hopes. The Armies from Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon combined with the organized militias under the Mufti of Jerusalem with additional units coming from as near as Saudi Arabia all the way to as far as Yemen and Algeria in an all-out military push to utterly destroy every vestige of the new state of Israel. The war to extinguish the nascent state of Israel continued through cease-fires for over a year before the fighting was finally permanently halted with the front-lines as of the exact hour the cease-fire order passed became the 1949 Armistice Lines also known as the Green Line. The Naqba commemorates the simple truth which had sent shockwaves throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds; the little Jewish state of Israel had managed to resist the onslaught by these combined Arab forces against all the odds and stood defiantly holding more land at the close of the conflict than they held at the onset. The catastrophe was that despite massive odds and facing overwhelming military superiority of those forces gathered against them, the newly declared Israelis managed to initially hold out and eventually to push back and by the end of the conflict was routing the combined Arab forces. This impossible loss and the fact that Israel survived and the Israeli Jews remained and were not vanquished in a glorious slaughter reminiscent of Mohammed’s slaughter of the Jews of the Banu Qurayzah Tribe in the year 627 was the reason for the catastrophe, the Naqba, in the eyes of the Arabs, particularly the native Arab populations who had been promised all the wealth, possessions, lands, properties and all else that belonged to the Jews once they had been completely vanquished.

 

Another misconception concerning the reasons behind the whole concept of the Naqba was the Jews had pushed the Arabs from their towns, farms, homes and properties forcing them into refugee camps where they and their descendants continue to languish today. Some have gone as far as to claim that the Jews when declaring the state of Israel call upon their fellow Jews to rise and expel the Arabs and all other non-Jews from their midst and this was the impetus which caused the combined Arab armies to arrive to rescue the native Arabs from the planned Jewish slaughter. There was no organized extermination of Arabs conducted by the Jewish forces defending the nascent state of Israel. There is some truth to the claims that Jewish forces pushed Arabs from their lands, homes and possessions but most were usually committed due to security purposes. When Israeli units passed by Arab towns they originally attempted to bypass them and not interact. Should the residents attack the Jewish units then these towns were cleared in order to prevent an enemy force to gather behind the front lines of the Jewish forces. After having some towns attempt to allow these Jewish units to pass and then use a tactic of following them and engaging them from behind once the troops became engaged with the Arab front lines. This resulted in great danger and difficulties and resulted in the Jewish troops finding it necessary to at the least remove the fighting age males from any Arab town in order to keep a secure rear area free of antagonists. Even with this added situation, these removals proved to be fairly minor in scope with the vast majority of refugee Arabs resulting from the Arab population’s response to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem making a request for all Muslim Arabs to pick-up their families and move them to safety behind the attacking Arab forces. This was requested so that the advancing Arab forces could concentrate on simply shooting everybody they would meet simply assuming that all the Arabs had fled as told. In return for clearing the area so the Arab armies could have free-fire zones the Arabs were promised a generous share in the spoils of the conquest to come. The defeat of the Arab armies meant that these Arabs were cut-off from their homes and properties when the fighting ended. Despite an invitation to return to their property had they chosen to do so being extended by the Jewish ruling body, the Arabs were prevented from returning to their towns, farms, homes and belongings and were instead forced by their own brother in arms from the Arab armies into refugee camps where they became political pawns in a campaign of lies and distortions in order to work to destroy Israel.

 

So, the Naqba is less a result of action by the Jews and Israel unless you were to find fault in the Israelis defending themselves. What the Arab demonstrators commemorating the Naqba within Israel will never bother to tell the world is that their forbearers were among the Arabs who did not take up arms against their fellow Israelis just because they were Jews. Their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents remained on their farms or in their homes or possibly even fought alongside their Jewish neighbors helping to save the nascent state of Israel and remained within Israel with full rights and privileges as a citizen of Israel. Their main complaint concerning the Naqba was likely their regret that friends, family and acquaintances that fled at the request of the Mufti of Jerusalem were betrayed by their fellow Arabs and ended up being forced into refugee camps in the surrounding Arab lands. The vast majority of the Arabs incarcerated into the refugee camps found themselves in Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, and other Arab countries but there were no Arab refugees within the borders of Israel at the end of the fighting. No Arab refugee was denied citizenship in Israel, was denied decent housing in Israel, was refused a decent education by Israel, or was imprisoned behind barbed wire by Israel. These conditions were imposed by their brother Arabs who refused to allow them to return to their residences inside Israel despite the invitation which was initially extended by the Israelis. It was not until after time had passed and the Arab expatriation of their Jewish populations which within ten years of the founding of Israel had caused the immigration of over three-quarters of a million Jewish refugees entering and being absorbed by Israel. This is the reason that today there are no camps with Jewish refugees in Israel and the Israeli population consists of Sephardic Jews in near even numbers as there are European Ashkenazi Jews. Meanwhile the unfortunate Arab generations which have grown-up inside permanent refugee camps have served their purpose of extending the fiction of the Naqba caused by the Jews while suffering an Arab imposed catastrophe. Oddly enough, there are Arab refugee camps which exist today in Area A of the West Bank and within Gaza who are within areas under the complete political, security and physical control of Palestinian leadership, one group under the rule and restrictions by the Palestinian Authority while the other are under the rule and restrictions by Hamas. If either of these presumed defenders of the Palestinian Arab people would commit a simple act of decency by granting these refugees citizenship, they could relieve these tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Palestinian refugee’s sufferings. Since the refugee camps consist of cement block apartments, all that would be required is granting them citizenship for these Palestinian refugees in their respective Palestinian societies which are already ruled by Palestinian leaders and their refugee status and demeaned lives would be transformed immediately to free citizens within an area of Palestinian autonomy. Now their condition being perpetrated any longer qualifies as a true Naqba.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Why Does Inaction on Syrian Chemical Weapons Use Matter?

I tried to think of an idea to write about that was important and almost everything I thought about came back to the situation of the use by Syrian troops loyal to Bashir al-Assad of chemical weapons. The problem is that when one thinks about this subject, it just does not appear all that overly vital yet it affects every other problem in one way or another. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the entire Syrian civil war touches on every vital subject facing the world at the moment. It ties to the terror bombing in Boston as the arch-terror group Hezballah is actively aiding the Syrian forces loyal to al-Assad and are responsible for most of their gains of late. It reflects on the problems in Egypt and Tunisia as the Muslim Brotherhood which currently rules both of these countries is the main impetus behind one of the two major rebel factions trying to overthrow al-Assad. On the human rights front, what could be a bigger situation for them to address than the over seventy-thousand civilians murdered and the many millions forced into refugee camps by the Syrian civil war, yet despite this the main impetus of human rights remains obsessively focused on the purported evil acts of the Israelis. But what is likely the most central importance over Syria has to do that the outcome in Syria is seen as the most central item currently addressable regarding Iran and the entire Iran-North Korea alliance which is by far the biggest threat to the world currently.

 

What I find most interesting about the Iran-North Korea alliance is how everybody attempts to separate these two problems and behave as if one has nothing to do with the other. This would be like pretending that in World War II the Japanese had nothing to do with the Germans except that Iran and North Korea are far more intertwined than they were. It is ridiculous to address the missile problem posed by North Korea while ignoring the joint research being performed largely in Iran to improve both countries missile technologies and upgrade their missile systems with longer range and more accurate heavy launch systems along with increased diversity of missile weapons systems for multiple and varied uses. Even more evident is how both Iran and North Korea have been interdependent in their pursuit of nuclear weapons as most of the research into nuclear weapons constructions has been carried out almost exclusively of late in North Korea while uranium enrichment as well as plutonium manufacturing have been pursued full-bore in Iran. Yet despite the evidence the United States and their allies have been addressing these two as completely separate threats rather than a unified front who are mutually supportive in aims of the same ends. The strongest evidence of their mutual cooperation leads us back to Syria and the fact that as Iran supplies Syria with weapons, intelligence reports, and manpower in their civil war, it was North Korea who provided Syria with their nuclear facility that Israel destroyed back on September 6, 2007.

 

But despite all of this evidence, it is the seeming lack of resolve in addressing the Syrian blatant disregard of the warnings over utilizing their chemical weapons stores that presents the biggest situational difficulty. It is blatantly obvious that the weakest link in the Iran-North Korea alliance is definitely Syria but that it is also a vital link in their chain which connects them to the Mediterranean Sea through Syria and Lebanon which is controlled for Iran by Hezballah. Syria is very much like Italy was to the German-Japanese alliance in World War II in that Italy guarded the underbelly of the European theater, Syria is the vital link to the Mediterranean Sea and through that the Atlantic Ocean as well as all of Europe. The threat to act against Syria and al-Assad if and when he introduced chemical weapons into the Syrian civil war was less important strategically about protecting the Syrian battlefield from such threats as it was about being the wedge that allowed for a casus-belli for intervention leading to the removal of Bashir al-Assad from power thus breaking the link for the Iran-North Korea axis connecting them to their Mediterranean ports and the Hezballah who serve as their enforcers. Losing their Syrian connection also wounds the Iranian Shiite alliance from their crescent of power that stems from Iran across Iraq, Syria and Lebanon presently and thus allows Iran to have influence and the ability to apply pressure throughout the Arab World and most of the Muslim world. Syria and the Mediterranean ports are also vital for the growth of the Iranian influence in South America which they have been carefully and slowly cultivating and growing for the past decade. For these reasons as well as the human rights and prevention of the potential catastrophe that could result from chemical weapons attacks make Syria the center-point of too much of the current world situation to not make each and every step well thought out and treated as the crucial elements that they are.

 

Despite all that is resting on the outcome of the Syrian civil war, President Obama appears to be taking the most passive interest in responding to the latest reports of chemical weapons use by al-Assad despite the hard evidence presented that Sarin gas was utilized. The reports of such use came from Israeli, British and French intelligence sources and not simply made by the rebel forces that could be doubted due their interest in removing al-Assad by any means available. President Obama not only reacted to this evidence by not taking any actions which would indicate the possibility of a military response, but simply restated his warning of dire consequences should chemical weapons be used by any side in the Syrian civil war. By refusing to even place some military forces on a higher alert status signaling the readiness to take the steps necessary to interdict any further use of chemical weapons, President Obama has virtually given al-Assad a pass on using these weapons as long as it is not overt and made undeniable. Why the President would refute the evidence presented by every allied intelligence report and allow al-Assad a pass is honestly disturbing. Such inaction could lead to wonder as to what outcome the United States would prefer to come as a result of the fighting in Syria. Could President Obama desire to simply allow the fighting to continue in order to drain Iran of resources and force them to be tied down by the open front threatening their Syrian connections? Time will tell but should al-Assad take the inaction by President Obama as permission for more extensive use of chemical weapons in the fight against the rebel forces one can only fear the full repercussions and the potential for unimaginable horrors should such weapons be used in an overt fashion in order to turn the tide and go for a quick end to the rebel fight. The potentials for a humanitarian disaster are too great for such a risky route to be taken. President Obama might still have an opportunity to enforce his edict of not accepting any chemical weapons usage before more general use is implemented and all the horrific consequences to the Syrian people become realized. Nobody could desire the consequences of the liberal use of such weapons and the indiscriminate and horrendous death which can be so easily dispersed literally on the winds across large swaths leaving a desolate ruin in their wake.

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

Empty Threats

President Obama has managed to take the full might and power of the United States of America and make it as impotent as a child who threatens to hold their breath until they turn blue. Once again this week President Obama stepped up and reiterated his willingness to act should Bashir Assad or either rebel group utilize any of Syria’s extensive stores of chemical weapons. His actions were necessitated by reports of possible use of said chemical weapons as reported by the intelligence agencies of France and Britain. These reports coincided with a more strongly worded statement from the head of Israeli military intelligence that President Bashir Assad had indeed used his chemical weapons. The Israeli communicated that they had proof that Syrian troops had released Sarin nerve agent on two occasions and not just military grade tear gas whose use had been reported earlier. This was likely stressed as President Obama had discounted the use of the military grade tear gas as not being sufficient to cross President Obama’s red line on chemical weapon use. The Israeli report was initially confirmed by United States Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel who later retreated from his position claiming to have been surprised by the Israeli claim as they had not informed him while he had been visiting Israel earlier on the week. So, where does that leave things?

 

The thing about the Israeli claim is it was backed up by the Syrian rebel forces which are currently receiving nonlethal supplies from Western powers when they admitted to knowledge that Israeli agents were working within Syria and would quite likely have first-hand evidence of any chemical weapons use. For the rebels to actually admit to the presence of Israelis inside Syria is a rather bold statement that would not be issued lightly. Despite the mounting evidence that Bashir Assad has resorted to using his chemical weapons, President Obama has chosen inaction and a simple restatement of his initial threat that any use of chemical weapons by either side would result in immediate action by the United States. When the initial reports of potential use of chemical weapons was issued by Britain and France President Obama requested clarification as to which chemicals were known to have been released. When it was then reported that there were suspicions of possible caustic chemicals as well as the aforementioned tear gas, President Obama dismissed the rumored use of caustic agents dismissing them as equally possible industrial chemicals such as chlorine being accidentally released as a result of the use of explosive munitions. When President Obama backed off these initial reports it might have been understandable that the American threshold to qualify as chemical weapons use was higher than that of their European allies and Israel. But with the reports of Sarin gas being released on the battlefields of Syria one might expect a reaction from the United States at least somewhat stronger than words, especially a stale repetition of the President’s original warnings. Does President Obama really believe that setting a red line and then when it is violated, simply resetting the red line will gain respect from the likes of Bashir Assad, a treacherous dictator who has already murdered tens of thousands of his own countrymen and sent millions into exile will recoil in fear from mere words that President Obama has given indication he never intended to back with actual actions?

 

And Bashir Assad is far from the only world leader watching to see if President Obama is a credible leader who backs his words with actions. There is always North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, another one who likes to hear himself threaten. The one thing absolutely necessary to keep the likes of Kim Jong-Un impotent is to mean action when one threatens to use it. If Kim Jong-Un expects for a minute that any threat of action by the United States is not going to be actually executed, then he is very likely to act on his threats in the belief that there would be no real consequences. And Kim Jong-Un is not the most dangerous of threats on the international stage. There is Iran and the Ayatollahs with their nuclear project which thus far words have proven to be less than useless, yet here too President Obama appears to be satisfied to talk until a nuclear Iran is a verified fact and a half a dozen cities around the world lie as smoldering ruins. With new leadership in Mainland China there is a need for the words of the President of the United States to have great weight, not great doubts. It is for exactly such reasons that President Obama must not allow his word to become a matter for questions rather than being taken at face value and his every word heeded. It is for reasons of credibility that President Obama may find necessity requiring him to act against the Syrian chemical weapons threat. It is not necessary for United States military forces to put boots on the ground as all that is required to fulfill President Obama’s warnings against the use of chemical weapons would be to destroy the chemical weapon storage facilities. My bet would be that should President Obama decide to commit a couple of B-2 stealth bombers, as he did in a show of strength to Kim Jong-Un, to actually bomb the Syrian chemical weapon stores, Israel would be more than agreeable to provide accurate coordinates and might even offer to turn off the Syrian radar grid, though such would not be really necessary with stealth bombers. The old children’s rhyme, “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never harm me,” does not apply in the realm of world politics where words can do one great harm, even break more than bones.

 

Beyond the Cusp