Argument Against Claims Israel Occupying Palestinian Lands

In a recent article discussing how Prime Minister Netanyahu should respond to any pressures from President Obama if he should demand or simply pressure Israeli leadership to provide a schedule for the withdrawal of Israelis from Judea and Samaria, aka the West Bank, my advice was that Prime Minister Netanyahu should “refuse to give the withdrawal even the dignity of discussion.” A comment posted in reaction to the article Rumor Obama Will Demand Timetable for Israeli Withdrawal West Bank Looking Credible insisted that I withdraw the word ‘dignity’ from my article. But they were not finished with my dressing down as they went on stating, and I quote the whole of the comments exactly as written, “I think you should remove the word dignity. Regardless of your views, which seem to be(this is not an absolute statement) pro-Israeli at any costs, there is still the case of an occupation that never ends. Occupation is not a picnic, it’s a horror trip, no matter how much we try to doll it up. And refusing discussion of any kind is the worst advice anyone can receive. Israel is a super-power, not some half-starved wannabee state with Katuscha fireworks, stop pretending that it isn’t. Unfortunately, anyone who doesn’t support the occupation regime(policy) is immediately set upon, whether friend or foe: the world does not support it – it’s wrong and unbecoming of the Jewish/Israeli people. Talking/Dialogue is always the right way forward, and anyone who says otherwise, is a warmonger.” Well, let us look at the reality according to treaties, agreements and other pertinent items and see if I truly must be considered a warmonger.

The crux of the commenter’s argument is bound to the opinion that Israel is in occupation of lands which belong to some other nation and that Israel is the militarily superior power in the region possessing immense military and in comparison we see, and I quote, ‘some half-starved wannabee state with Katuscha fireworks.’ Apart from the misrepresentation of the presumed limited firepower possessed by the Palestinian terror forces who, in addition to the presumably harmless Katyusha fireworks, which are actually dangerous and potentially deadly rockets and not merely harmless fireworks, also have rockets capable of carrying payloads of up to a one ton warhead with a range capable of reaching the outskirts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem from their launching grounds in Gaza. Should one actually be fully honest they would also need to include the rocket stores held by Hezballah in Lebanon which will someday very likely be loosed on Israel which include scud rockets provided by Syria and Iran which are capable of being armed with chemical or biological warheads supplied by Syria’s President Bashir Assad. The representation of the forces allied against Israel as being represented solely by the Palestinians, or even including Hezballah, is a misrepresentation as the reality is that Israel’s enemies include numerous other Arab and Muslim countries some of which are still in a state of war with Israel. What is commonly ignored is that of the countries who declared war on the nascent state of Israel in 1948 only Jordan and Egypt have made a technical peace with Israel. That means that Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Algeria, Sudan, Lebanon, and the entirety of the Arab League nations remain in a state of war with Israel. In addition to these countries which continue to hold themselves as in a state of war with Israel since her founding in 1948, we must add the name of Iran as they have declared themselves in a state of war with both Israel and the United States but have simply chosen to not turn from their declared cold war into an active hot war. Stating that the entire conflict between the Arab and Muslim world and Israel consists of just the Palestinians is ignoring the larger threats which are very real and will be acted upon should the situation ever appear to favor these forces being able to defeat Israel. Should these other nations decide to renew active warfare with Israel we can assume with a fair amount of confidence that Egypt and very likely Jordan will renege on their peace treaties with Israel and join the assault. So, the truth is that Israel’s adversaries when viewed in their true entirety are armed with far greater sized military forces than Israel could ever dream of fielding.

But what can be said about this so-called occupation? I believe my commenter is referring to the misconception that Israel is in occupation of the Palestinian people and refusing to permit their constituting their country of Palestine. For Israel to be in occupation of a nation called Palestine it would have been necessary for Israel to have been at war or in a state of hostilities with a country called Palestine and have defeated them and taken over their recognized lands. But Israel has never been at war with a country named Palestine; not now and not even in antiquity. Israel did have a period where there was a state of war between the Israelis (also known then as the Hebrews) with the Philistines from the nation of Philistine. This conflict has been settled history for over three-thousand-years and the Philistine people melted into the pages of history and no longer are a recognized people. The Palestinians, despite modern mythology, are Arab peoples originating from Syria, Egypt, Iraq and small numbers from other Arab nations. The mislabeled West Bank was given this false name by Jordan after they conquered Judea, Samaria and the eastern half of the city of Jerusalem during the 1948 war of annihilation declared by several Arab nations who intended to completely erase the newly formed Jewish State from existence. Israel, through a miracle from Hashem, managed to survive this onslaught but lost some lands which included Judea, Samaria and the eastern half of the city of Jerusalem lost to Jordan, the Golan Heights lost to Syria, and the Gaza Strip lost to Egypt. Egypt never claimed Gaza so there was no international decision as to whom Gaza actually belonged. Syria claimed the Golan Heights and was recognized as rightfully possessing the land. Jordan claimed what they called the West Bank to obscure the Jewish roots of the actual names of the lands they held. The rest of the Arab world did not recognize the Jordanian claim and neither did the majority of nations. The only countries which recognized the Jordanian claim were Great Britain and Pakistan. So, Jordan was seen as an occupying force when they held what they called the West Bank.

That begs a question; whose lands did Jordan occupy when they claimed the lands of Judea and Samaria along with the eastern half of Jerusalem? Jordan was occupying Israeli lands as the lands from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea were the recognized borders for Israel when the Arab League refused the partition plan refusing to establish an Arab state side by side with Israel in 1948. So, as Jordan was occupying Israeli lands after the 1948 war, when Israel reestablished control over Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem they were liberating these lands and reestablishing their rightful ownership. By International Law the Arabs who were residing in the areas of Judea and Samaria along with eastern Jerusalem who moved there after the end of the 1948 War along with any residents who took the Jordanian offer of citizenship would be returned to their country of origin and would be resettled in Jordan. Those who resided on these lands before the 1948 War would be eligible to petition for Israeli citizenship and if accepted be Israeli citizens and if refused could remain on the lands as legal foreign residents where they would own their land and would be permitted limited rights including being allowed to seek employment and if doing so to pay taxes, they would not be granted full citizenship and would not be granted the vote. Israel is not occupying any lands as they liberated what were previously their lands from Jordanian occupation. Even the presumed granting the Jordanian rights to the land to the Palestinians are meaningless as Jordan never rightfully owned these lands.

The final argument over the rightful ownership of the lands of Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem we need to look back at the history of treaties and other legal documents and edicts. The original division of the lands was declared in the Balfour Declaration which set aside lands between the Mediterranean Sea and the border with Iraq for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people. The League of Nations ratified the Balfour Declaration and codified it as an International Agreement including setting up the Mandate system from which many of the countries in the Middle East were formed. These included but not limited to Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman. The Jewish homeland was initially including everything from the Mediterranean Sea and the border with Iraq. The British decided to renege on this agreement and approached the Zionist leadership and made them an offer which they were not in any position to refuse as the English were a world power and the Zionists were a committee and some settlers without any military might. The agreement was written out in the Churchill White Papers taking the area of the British Mandate Lands from the Jordan River to the Iraq border and founded Transjordan which is known today simply as Jordan. That removed seventy-eight-percent of the lands originally intended for the Jewish State. The British and the member States of the League of Nations promised that the remaining twenty-two-percent of the Mandate Lands, including all from the Jordan River west to the Mediterranean Sea, were to be held sacrosanct and indivisible for the Jewish homelands. The founding of the United Nations included in its Charter in Article 80 the full recognition of the Mandates and all that was formed from these lands which had been tasked to France and Britain to dispense and establish nations. The only treaty which pertained to the lands of Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem subsequent to the United Nations Charter was the Jordanian Israeli Peace Treaty in which Jordan recognized the return of Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem to Israeli control. As an afterthought and in recognition of Yasser Arafat and his efforts against Israel, the King of Jordan claimed that he had actually deeded the lands of the West Bank to the Palestinian people to establish their own State in the treaty with Israel. No such denotation is written in that peace treaty where it states that the lands which Jordan referred to as the West Bank, also known as Judea, Samaria and eastern parts of Jerusalem, were ceded back to Israeli control.

One is not a warmonger to claim that the contested lands rightfully belonging to Israel. The Arab League could have established an Arab country on half of the lands in 1948 but instead opted to use an attempted war of genocidal aggression to erase the Jewish State and murder its peoples. The combined Arab armies were, blessed be Hashem, unsuccessful and only managed to steal some of the lands. Among the stolen lands are the contested lands that my commenter believes belong to a mythical people who populated a nation called Palestine which was subsequently conquered through Israeli reactions to aggression, as if it existed and had lost a war of aggression against Israel. Even if this were a reality, Israel would still be entitled to retain the lands under International Law which allows any State which gains lands responding to the aggressions of another State is entitled to retain those lands. So, even if the lands belonged to Jordan or anybody else, since the war in which they fell to Israeli control was brought upon Israel and she fought a defensive war against efforts of aggression, then Israel still retains the lands and there is no occupation. No matter how one approaches the ownership of Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem, International Laws and agreements and treaties all grant Israel sovereignty over the lands if she so chooses to exercise her rights under International Laws and Agreements.

Beyond the Cusp

Formation of Palestinian State no Solution to Middle East Violence

For the entire twenty years since the fiasco named Oslo was perpetrated on Israel and the entire world we have heard the constant drumbeat droning out the mantra that the founding of a Palestinian State living side-by-side in peace and security with Israel will result in peace and calm over all of the Middle East ending all strife and violence. Even after experiencing over two years of unrest and turmoil of the Arab Spring, more aptly called the Arab Winter, we saw uprisings, violence, protests and revolution replacing longstanding dictators in the hope of founding something better all without even the mention of Israel or the Palestinians. How could it be that we had a popular uprising that replaced the government of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen with further unrest ongoing or soon to come in Syria, Jordan, Mali, and possibly Lebanon and others. Again, none of these will be about Israel or the Palestinians with the possible exception of Jordan whose population largely consists of Palestinians. Yet still we hear the drumbeat droning out the mantra that the Palestinian Statehood being established and carved out of Israel will end all Middle East problems and the world will enter a period of blissful peace.

 

How can anybody expect a thinking person to believe such foolery after witnessing the Middle East of the recent past? The Palestinian leadership itself has demanded that one of the conditions which must be granted when forming a Palestinian State in any form other than having it completely replace the State of Israel that they retain the right to resist and fight against the Zionist existence in the rest of their homeland until all of Palestine from the River to the Sea is liberated from the Zionist influences. So, by granting the Palestinians statehood a country established in all of the lands beyond the Green Line that includes every inch of land lost by Jordan in the West Bank, all of Gaza that Egypt lost, and half of Jerusalem including all of the Old City and the Temple Mount, there still will not be peace because as long as the Jews retain any land which was once under Muslim control there can be no peace. This is not my opinion but is the opinion of the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, Palestinian Authority, Arab League, Hezballah, al-Qaeda, and countless rulers, Imams, and Islamic leaders worldwide. So, it is obvious by their own words of intent that the two state solution as a final agreement is unacceptable to the vast majority of the followers of Islam and that they will only accept the entire eradication of Israel and replacing it with a Palestinian Islamic governance where the Jews will initially be allowed to remain as long as they accept the status of Dhimmi. But, even if this result were to be implemented, would that then lead to complete calm and peace throughout the Middle Easy? I think not and here is why.

 

Does anybody actually hold that should Palestine be formed and meet even the wildest of demands of the most radical of Palestinian leaders that this would result in the end of the violence and uprising in Syria? Of course not. That alone should be sufficient to disprove the claim that all of the violence in the Middle East has as its root cause the Palestinian/Israelii conflict. Would founding Palestine end the violence against Christians and other non-Muslims in Mali or Nigeria? No chance that would end simply because Israel and the Palestinians reached an agreement. Would all the terror induced violence in the West immediately terminate once the State of Palestine was founded and borders were established between the Israelis and the Palestinians? Nope. What about the eternal standoff which flares up with consistent levels of animosity and violence between Pakistan and India over the lands which were formerly Kashmir, would that come to a conclusion after the peace was signed between Israel and the Palestinians? That would rank as highly unlikely. Would stable governance and an end to the conflicts suddenly fall over all of Somalia, especially in its capital city of Mogadishu? Not a chance. Would Iran cease their drive to attain nuclear weapons and establish a Shiite crescent and hegemony over the entirety of Muslim lands and then spread this new caliphate to encompass the entire world? Never happen as their goals would remain unfulfilled. The simple fact is that most of the violence and terrorism which exists or is rooted in the Middle East has nothing to do with Israel or the Palestinians and whatever should come to pass between Israel and the Palestinians would have absolutely no effect on the rest of the Islamic world and those places where they have extended their influence or interests.

 

Solving the impasse between the Palestinians and the Israelis with the intent of solving all the violence and situations currently existing in the Middle East is a fool’s errand which only the most misguided would believe or expect such a result. That begs the question as to why in the world is it taken as fact that solving the Palestinian/Israeli conflict would be the cure-all of all the problems in the Middle East? The reason is the most obvious of reasons. An often used excuse for not addressing a difficult problem or not tackling a pervasive threat is to blame it on some unsolvable problem that is only loosely tied to the situation. The Middle East violence is a pervasive problem which would be extremely difficult to address, let alone solving. Much of the violence in the Middle East is of ancient origins with no resolution as long as the two sides of each conflict exist. The conflict between the Sunni and Shiite Muslims will not reach any conclusion in the foreseeable future. So, blame it on Palestinian/Israeli conflict and its lack of resolution. It does not matter if transferring the responsibility for tackling near impossible conflicts is a total ruse which anybody who takes even a moment to inspect would find the complete insanity of the claim as nobody wishes to see the truth. Seeing the realities as they truly are would require actions that nobody is prepared to undertake. Blaming the Palestinian/Israeli conflict for the entire bundle of turmoil, violence, and conflicts throughout the Middle East and related problems traceable to the Middle East is simply a way of kicking the can down the road, just somewhat more insidious.

 

This begs another question, what would happen if the Palestinian/Israelii conflict were to be resolved? Obviously, those blaming every ill or at least the majority of them, on the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians are counting on that problem never ending which is why there is never any pressure placed on actually forcing a solution. The pressures for solving the Palestinian/Israeli conflict are almost universally placed upon Israel while the Palestinian side rarely has any pressures applied to make concessions towards solving the conflict. The reasons for this is that Israel is actively seeking to meet and solve the problem while the Palestinians do not wish a solution as they are only being paid great amounts of money for as long as their “difficulties” continue. The Palestinian society is setup as being dependent on large infusions of money and on not taking the responsibility for governing themselves and simply blaming Israel. This fits perfectly with the desired situation of an insolvable situation which will continue without end allowing for a plethora of other problems to also be avoided and left unsolved. Making the finding of a solution acceptable to both sides of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict as the prerequisite for tackling the other myriad of problems which is the Middle East is exactly the same as promising to weed your garden after the last rainfall had passed. There will never be a last rainfall within reason thus the garden never needs to be weeded. The Palestine/Israel conflict also will never be resolved as long as the actual only result the Palestinians will accept is the instillation of a Palestinian State over all of Israel replacing the Jewish State and subjugating the Jewish population of Israel at best and an unspeakable alternative at worst. Since the Israelis are never going to submit to Palestinian rule over their entire homeland, the problem will never be resolved. Even if a Palestinian State is formed with recognized borders, the conflict will continue if this recognition includes a Jewish State of Israel existing beside the Palestinian State. That insures that the rest of the world can simply kick the can down the road rather than making the difficult decisions to address the rest of the problems in the Middle East. Simply stated, it is much easier to blame Israel for not completely surrendering to the Palestinians while never expecting them to do so. That is the path of least resistance when one considers that all the other paths are just as insolvable and much more dangerous to become involved. That is why the claim exists that the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is the root of all evil in the Middle East and why there will be no truthful attempts to address any of the plethora of problems involving Islam.  

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Ultimate Scheme Behind Abbas’s Palestinian Statehood Bid and Peace

Mahmoud Abbas has been seeking a serendipitous path to statehood on the Palestinian claimed areas with the 1949 Armistice Lines including half of Jerusalem which includes all of the Old City, Temple Mount, Western Wall, and the plaza adjacent the Western Wall known as the Kotel for well over two years. His quest will be reaching its critical moment today as Mahmoud Abbas once again attempts to have the United Nations recognize a Palestinian State. The Palestinian Authority’s quest for full membership as a fully recognized State last year was rejected as it failed to gain the nine Security Council votes required to allow it to proceed to the General Assembly for final approval. Not one to give up on finding a path that avoids having to ever deal with Israel, Mahmoud Abbas promised at the opening ceremonies of the United Nations General Assembly this past September that he would again petition the United Nations for recognition for statehood. This time Mahmoud Abbas will avoid the more difficult path through the Security Council and instead will seek a simple upgrade of Palestinian status from that of an observer entity to an observer State which only requires the approval of a majority vote of the General Assembly. It has been predicted, as if it really would matter, that between eleven to fifteen European Union countries will vote to approve Palestinian recognition as an observer State. Even without a single European countries’ vote or that of any Western nation, the Palestinians are guaranteed attaining the long sought recognition as a State simply due to the votes which they expect to receive in any General Assembly vote from just the nations in the NAM (Non-Aligned Movement) countries which is made up of most of the Arab, Muslim, and developing nations touting one-hundred-twenty member States, easily enough to make a majority of the one-hundred-ninety-three member nations represented in the General Assembly.

So, why did Mahmoud wait until nearly the end of November to make his appeal for upgraded status instead of simply petitioning the General Assembly back in September if approval was so guaranteed? One reason that was floated at the time was that with the run-up to the elections for President of the United States likely causing more people than normal to be paying attention to the news cycle and Mahmoud Abbas wished to avoid critical attention to his petition and instead likely prefers to make his petition for Statehood under less stressful conditions. Where this may have been one of the influencing reasons, there is another reason which would lead Mahmoud Abbas to petition the General Assembly on the date of November 29. The reasoning for this date is so Mahmoud Abbas could make reference to the General Assembly ruling on November 29, 1947 which recommended for the formation of a Jewish and an Arab State on the remaining lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea of the British Mandate Lands. Abbas is likely to point to the ensuing war which broke out the day after the Jewish State of Israel declared independence and that after the war there was no Arab Palestinian State formed as was proposed by the General Assembly and that the Palestinian people have been refugees ever since due to the war between Israel and the neighboring States. The implication will be made by inferring that Israel was the initiator of the war in May 1948 which is untrue as the war was initiated by Syria, Egypt, (Trans)-Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Palestinian Arab Militias, and other militias and other irregular forces who declared a war of annihilation with the grand promise to the Palestinian Arabs that after a cleansing genocide removed every Jew from the lands, they could return and inherit all the spoils of the Jews and the land. Mahmoud will point out that the Palestinians were driven from their lands and that this needs to be rectified and granting them nation state recognition would be a good first step. Left out is the fact that the lands he now wishes to claim as an independent nation at the end of the war in 1948-9 were in the possession of (Trans)-Jordan and Egypt with (Trans)-Jordan holding the West Bank and Egypt occupying Gaza. These lands remained in Arab hands until after the Six Day War of June 1967 where initially Egypt and Syria declared war on Israel and believing that the combined armies of Egypt and Syria were winning, Jordan subsequently declared war on Israel in order to join in the glorious victory which was inevitable. When the fighting was stopped by United Nations intervention along with demands for a halt by the United States, Soviet Union and many other countries from Europe and the Middle East, the Israelis had control over the Golan Heights from Syria, Judea and Samaria (West Bank) from Jordan, and Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. It was after the results of the Six Day War that the claim of the loss of the Palestinian State first surfaced as the fact that these lands now belonged to Israel was something that was not to be allowed and simply must be returned to Arab Muslim ownership.

So, this is the reason for the demand for Palestinian statehood and the claims of an ancient country having existed before the Israelis destroyed and conquered the land making the Palestinian people refugees without a country.  Mahmoud Abbas goes even further with the claim that if only the United Nations would grant statehood for the Palestinians then peace would then be possible. Mahmoud Abbas claims that there is no possible way to negotiate a peace with the Israelis before he is granted statehood. Is this claim valid or is their some subterfuge at work here? What one must realize is how Mahmoud Abbas defines peace. Peace does not mean coexistence without violence between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Peace, when used by Mahmoud Abbas means that there is no more resistance to his demands and that he now dictates the resultant conditions and facts. The meaning of a peace resulting from the United Nations General Assembly granting Palestinian statehood is that the borders included by Mahmoud Abbas in his petition are now the internationally recognized borders for the Palestinian State and Israel therefore has no claim to any lands that now go to make up the State of Palestine. This will be used over time by Mahmoud Abbas to demand that the world, through the United Nations and the ICC (International Criminal Court), force Israel to remove every Jew and every IDF personnel from within the Palestinian State and return behind the Green Line. That is what many call the 1967 Lines but are actually the 1949 Armistice Lines which the Arab League stressed were never to be used or implied to be an actual border as by making them a recognized border would imply recognition of Israel. Mahmoud Abbas will make the point that the borders that he has the United Nations set are not real borders because the real borders are actually supposed to be the Partition Lines established by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 from November 29, 1947. This will be the new demand which Mahmoud Abbas will demand that Israel negotiate over with his now declared and recognized State of Palestine. Mahmoud Abbas will claim that these are the real borders which the world had promised to the Palestinian people and these are the borders which must be reapplied and Israel made to comply with UNGA Res. 181 and that the Palestinian people will never rest or end their resistance until these proper borders are reestablished.

What has to be remembered is that Mahmoud Abbas stated in a letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu that was leaked that, “We agreed to establish the State of Palestine on only 22% of the territory of historical Palestine-on all the Palestinian Territory occupied by Israel in 1967.” This statement has more than one way in which it can be viewed. The majority of the Middle East experts say that Mahmoud Abbas was simply making claim to the West Bank and Gaza. When it was pointed out that the West Bank and Gaza combined make up over 23% of the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, some claimed that was close enough while other then put forth the claim he simply meant just the West Bank and was not including the areas under Hamas control, the Gaza. The problem with this was that the West Bank alone makes up just under 21% of the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The only section of land, and what we believe Mahmoud Abbas was referencing, that makes up exactly 22% is all the lands from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea when compared to the entirety of the British Mandate Lands of which Jordan takes up exactly 78%. We feel this is the reason for the ‘-‘ between the part of the sentence containing the reference to 22% and the part referencing  ‘Palestinian Territory occupied by Israel in 1967.’ So, this claim is the real objective of Mahmoud Abbas, the complete replacement of Israel by the State of Palestine and is the only end result he will ever accept. This move before the General Assembly is simply the acquisition of areas that make up the first step in the complete annihilation of Israel and replacing it with the State of Palestine by stages. One must remember whenever interpreting anything Mahmoud Abbas may say that Taqiyya is an honorable tenet of Islam which not only allows Abbas to state bald-faced lies, but demands that he use deceit and misdirection in order to further any goal which benefit Muslims or damages non-Muslims.

Beyond the Cusp