How Jews Living in West Bank Affect the Palestinians

We hear so much noise about the areas known historically as Judea, Samaria and Benyamin which were recently retagged as the West Bank in order to make them sound less Jewish. We hear about the need for the Palestinian Authority to be granted full autonomy of an independent nation with complete control over this West Bank as well as Gaza. Part of the problem with this presentation is that the Palestinians have two completely separate, mutually exclusive, actively competitive, viciously antagonistic governing agents with Hamas controlling and ruling over Gaza while the Palestinian Authority Fatah organization controlling and ruling over Area A the West Bank. Hamas is led by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh while the Palestinian Authority leader is President Mahmoud Abbas. Since the two factions split after the Hamas violent coup which placed them in control of Gaza in June 2007, all efforts to reunite the two groups have utterly failed. Part of the problem is that Hamas is based in Islamic religious governance while the Palestinian Authority is aligned with Fatah which is secular socialist governance and such philosophies are very much similar to oil and water, they do not mix well. The power struggle between these two groups drips with the avarice and hatreds such that the resultant atmosphere is not conducive to healthy economic policies therefore depressing economic growth potentials due to crippling corruption. The situation has resulted in totally failed governance in almost every category which has become completely reliant on foreign generosity lurching from one financial catastrophe to the next. Such poor governance constantly leads to the need to plead to the world for emergency funding. This has resulted in high unemployment for the Palestinian Arab people living under the direct controlling rule of either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority in either Gaza or Area A in the West Bank. Yet there is one group who has 100% employment as the Palestinian Authority places every Palestinian terrorist or criminal who has been sentenced to prison in Israel, whether they are members in the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, or any other terror related group, where they receive some of the highest salaries which are directly proportional to the number of Israelis they were able to maim and murder. This would almost be the guaranteed condition over the entire areas of Gaza and the West Bank should the entirety of these areas be placed under solely Palestinian governance.

 

Should anybody desire to find a more optimistic and promising atmosphere where the overwhelming majority of the people are employed and making significantly higher salaries resulting in a higher standard of living, one need not leave the West Bank, one simply needs to visit the areas where modern governance encourages economic ventures and the size and scope of government is limited. These areas are not under either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians living in these areas are largely employed with comparatively no unemployment when compared to the Palestinians living in Area A. The major difference in the condition for these Palestinians is they live among Israeli settlers. Much of the world decries the supposed conditions under which Palestinians are forced to live in areas where they share the lands with the Israeli settler who are mostly Jewish. There are so numerous different origins of the Israelis living in Samaria and Judea that any attempt to stereotype them as just religious Jews is not only pointless but in complete denial of reality. The Jews who have chosen to live in what the world refers to as the West Bank consist of religious and secular Jews, Israeli Arabs both Christian and Muslim, Secular Jews, Zionist Jews, Jews seeking a more relaxed atmosphere in which to live, farmers, people working locally as well as many whose work is in Tel Aviv who commute, IDF soldiers, physicians, nurses, computer programmers, entrepreneurs, and people from every walk of life one can find. There is a major Israeli University in Ariel called, oddly enough, Ariel University.

 

But what is most interesting is the completely impossible situation under which the Jews and Palestinian Arabs face living close to each other with all the serious relationship problems which are the constant fare in the mainstream media coverage of the Jewish settlers living beyond the Green Line. For the best example of how all of this has an effect, all one need do is visit Ariel University, Barkan Industrial Park, Shahak Industrial Park, and the other industrial parks, farms, vineyards, wineries, business parks, and other businesses and witness a bit of the truth about the Israeli controlled areas of Judea and Samaria. What becomes evident very quickly is that there is no distinction between Jews, Muslims, Christians and those of other religions, Jews and Arabs, Asian ancestry and European ancestry, or religious and secular. Approximately half of the employees along with their supervisors and management in both large and small industrial enterprises are West Bank Arabs employed there right next to West Bank Jews. The same goes for students and professors to a great extent at Ariel University. Throughout the main settlement areas of the West Bank the Jews and Palestinian Arabs live and work together in harmony without any trouble, violence, oppressions or any of the myriad of misconceptions that spring from a media more interested in forcing the issue of the oppressor Jews dispossessing the unfortunate Arab victims of Jewish hegemony. The fact that the Palestinian Arabs who live and work among the Jewish settlers in Judea and Samaria have a much higher standard of living is a little secret of which the mainstream media refuses to inform the world. The fact that the rule is cooperation and an improved life for those Palestinians fortunate to reside in the developed mixed Jewish and Arab areas and that the terrorism and violence are the exception must be suppressed as there exists an entire industry based upon the Jewish oppressions of the Arabs. The problem is people living and working in harmony just does not sell newspapers or newscasts anywhere near as well as explosions and violence. The real truth is that the standard of living for the Palestinian Arabs throughout Gaza and the West Bank was among the fastest growing GDP of anywhere in the world from 1973 through 1992. Then, starting in 1993 when Yasser Arafat returned and the very same Palestinians were placed in a semi-autonomous self-ruled areas under the Palestinian Authority the GDP and standard of living reversed and has continued to drop ever since. The wonderful and hopeful truth which the media insists does not exist is that where Palestinian Arabs live together in relative harmony and mutual tolerance with Jews in Area C of the West Bank, sharing the advantages of the rule of law and entrepreneurial opportunity live better lives than their Palestinian brothers living in Area A and Gaza where the leadership is under the Palestinian Authority or Hamas which consist of dictatorial regimes. If people throughout the world truly wish the best of possibilities for the Palestinian people, perhaps they would be better able to decide where to place their efforts after taking an actual investigation of the separate Areas in the West Bank and Gaza and ask the Palestinians who reside within and amongst the Jews in Area C and those living in Palestinian autonomous areas of Area A and Gaza and then decide which group lives a more productive and preferred life. Finding the truth would definitely be an eye-opening experience which would likely deliver a viewpoint not covered by the mainstream media and actually actively hidden by the mainstream media.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

World Suffers from Palestine Fever

Last Friday Finland and Denmark became the latest European countries to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Authority diplomatic missions to full-fledged Embassy status placing them on an equal status with every other nation in the world. The Palestinian entity is now treated by the United Nations, UNESCO, many countries, NGOs, many religious organizations as well as their ruling councils and now also by Google as being a real nation despite their glaring deficiencies. The Palestinians have no independent currency, no borders, no established capital city, and the population possesses no individual identity which serves to differentiate them from the surrounding native populations. But why allow such minor items get in the way of granting premature recognition to the Palestinian entity and in the process snub Israel presenting them with what amounts to a preemptive establishment of Palestinian statehood without demanding them to reach an agreement and have an actual treaty with Israel when one can simply forgo such technicalities. I would like to be able to believe that when Mahmoud Abbas has gathered sufficient nations who have granted them equal status as a national state as they have such others as the United States, France, England, China, India, Brazil, Australia, and the rest of the almost two-hundred nations of the United Nations that he will also receive their support in declaring whatever borders he chooses.

 

I can honestly visualize the day coming within a decade when Mahmoud Abbas will stand before the United Nations General Assembly and demand that they resolve to have the member nations to assist in every manner necessary to establish the state of Palestine within its natural borders from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean sea and receiving a standing ovation right before an overwhelming consensus vote affirming his request. This vote would necessitate another vote follow it where the United Nations finally would affirm that it has discussed but never approved before, a vote to rescind the United Nations General Assembly declaration which allowed the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel. Then the world will have chosen to stand behind the Palestinians and enforce their desire to not just form their state within borders sharing the land with Israel, but to form their state in place of and atop the corpse of the state of Israel. Can there be much doubt as to the inevitability of such a ruling when the vote to establish a Palestinian state over the objections and in denial of United Nations Security Council resolutions pertaining to the establishment of said state by the astounding affirmation of one-hundred-thirty-eight votes in favor, nine votes against and forty-one abstentions? And once this precedent has been established, what country would remain safe, independent, and free from being dissolved by a vote of the United Nations that was then used to align all the power of all the world’s militaries against them to erase whatever state fell on the wrong side of the masses who would then hold the powers of fate to thusly destroy any nation they so desired.

 

Would anybody actually be surprised if the United Nations General Assembly once they had established the legitimate power to dissolve any nation that the Non-Aligned Movement groups of one-hundred-twenty member nations and seventeen observer nations would not use their overwhelming majority in the United Nations General Assembly to realign the world in their favor at the expense of those whom they accuse of having oppressed, exploited and pilfered them and their resources by the colonial and imperial nations as well as the industrialized world? The only reason such has not yet been acted upon has been that limitations placed on the powers of the United Nations General Assembly while the main authority and the right and power to resolve for the use of force was reserved solely to the United Nations Security Council. This is much of what has been behind an ever growing demand to reform the Security Council to allow a realignment of those countries holding permanent status, removal of the veto power of the permanent status members allowing them to prevent any action by their simple vote without having to give any reasons, and strip or dilute the powers of the Security Council and transferring many of those powers either exclusively to the General Assembly or at a minimum a share of such powers. Once such a revolutionary reconstruction and redefinition of the powers and responsibilities within the branches of the United Nations has been enacted even should it require a complete rewrite of the United Nations Charter, does anyone really feel safe that this would not lead inevitably to a conflagrative conflict that would envelop the world and leave in its wake a world in ruins with most of its major cities having been laid waste and starvation being the normal state of existence persisting for an indeterminate amount of time while the world attempted to rebuild from the ashes. This would not be the aim or even the desire of those who would initially support dissolving the Jewish state of Israel and replacing it with the twenty-second Arab state established for those claiming to be a separate peoples known as Palestinians, but it would be the eventuality which such inevitably would spawn. That is the one problem when expedience trumps thought, there will always be unexpected consequences hiding in the shadows of the future, and they would often be dire and extremely undesirable. But caution has proven not to be a welcome element when emotions run hot and actions are the result of the moment coming into fruition free of restraining contemplation. I have realized that if you do not think things through before acting you usually find yourself later asking yourself what was I thinking.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Kerry and Abbas Meet Today in Turkey

Here we go one more time. It is not like whatever is decided will be the main theme for restarting the so-called peace process as whatever it is it will end with the same disappointment for the world when Israelis refuse to surrender their entire country to Arab rule. The presumed theme this time is how to energize the Palestinian economy thus making agreements more viable. The problem is that the talks aimed at improving the Palestinian economy will be crafted to carefully avoid one subject, the kleptocracy which has ruled over the Palestinians since the return of Yasser Arafat after the Oslo Accords. Nobody ever mentions the million if not billions of dollars nestled away in European banks in the accounts of Mrs. Arafat. Nobody mentions the others who have benefited monetarily at the expense of the Palestinians. Of course there will be mention of the Israeli withholding tax incomes collected by them presumably for the Palestinians despite their having been released over a month ago when the Palestinian Authority made their desperate plea for more treasure from the entire world to repair their shortfall and inability to meet the payroll. This brings into the argument the fact that the Palestinian government has on its payroll an inordinate percentage of the population and includes many Hamas employees in the Gaza government. But there will be the economy destroying Israeli checkpoints which prevent free traffic of goods. Abbas will turn every discussion into a point of how it is the Israelis who are preventing the Palestinian economy from blossoming. No mention will be made that with Israeli assistance the Palestinians have one of the highest standards of living in the non-oil producing Arab world and that despite any difficulties their GDP has grown faster than the rest as well. Surprisingly to many, the Gazan economy has been even far healthier under Hamas than the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. This is actually due to the odd fact that Hamas has far less corruption and graft as Hamas is funded largely through fees and taxes upon goods brought through the smuggling tunnels. It almost seems completely lacking in logic to claim that Hamas provides greater economic opportunity through honest government than does the Palestinian Authority seems to be able of providing.

Eventually Secretary of State Kerry will likely decide to agree that the economic difficulties are mostly due to Israeli malevolence and attempt to move on to restarting the peace negotiations. This is where the groundwork of blaming Israel will be utilized by Abbas to claim injury and that he will require a number of steps to be taken by the Israelis in order to prove their honest intentions to act fairly and that they truly seek a real and just peace. Then will Abbas start to list the preconditions which he fully knows will prevent the possibility of any talks ever being recommenced. All the parties to this dance already are familiar with these preconditions and are aware that they are a fairly complete list of every of the final status disagreements demanding full Israeli surrender. A partial list include the 1949 Armistice Lines be used as the basis for the border (also misnamed the 67 border), Palestinian Capital to include all of East Jerusalem including all of the Old City and Temple Mount, the removal of all Jews from Palestinian territories, the release of most if not all Palestinian terrorists and prisoners from Israeli prisons, the submitting a map showing the final borders proposed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the two biggest one which are a complete building freeze in claimed Palestinian lands, and the “Right of Return” for five million plus Palestinian refugees into Israel itself given full rights as citizens. There has also been one more precondition which, like the building freeze came from the mouth of President Obama in his abortive attempts believing Israel needed to be forced to negotiate rather than Abbas and the Palestinians being the ones blocking negotiations, comes from Secretary of State Kerry’s statements to Abbas during their previous meetings that Israel transfer all of Areas B and a large portion if not all of Area C from any Israeli controls over to complete and total Palestinian control. It is very likely that Secretary John Kerry will be a sympathetic captive to Abbas and his claims of Israeli intransigence as Kerry is another believer that it is Israel who has prevented peace talks and that Palestinians are simply more victims of Western, in this case Israeli, aggressive policies and domination. Every accusation Abbas will give as evidence of Israeli acts of aggressions and colonialism will be naively received by Secretary Kerry as confirmations of his preconceived notions fitting the progressive model of Western oppressions and colonialism. Perhaps Secretary Kerry should read some history of the British Mandate period and learn about the formation of Transjordan out of 78% of the Mandate Lands which were to have formed the Jewish State and how Israel has also been one of the main victims of Western colonialism and that the current insanity of attempting to form another Arab state out of the remaining 22% of the British Mandate lands is yet one more colonialist theft of land set aside by the League of Nations and confirmed by the United Nations Charter in Article 80. But often the truth falls secondary to personal preconceived notions.

Beyond the Cusp