How Can One Compromise with Those Holding Such Positions?

One of the leading representatives with Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, Jibril Rajoub, was giving an interview on Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen TV when he allowed the truth to leak out. Mr. Rajoub when queried as to whether the Palestinian would ever plan to return to negotiations with the Israelis replied that negotiations would be considered only if the Palestinian Authority’s preconditions are met. It was in further explaining what he viewed as the Palestinian Authority’s desire in place of negotiations that he stated, “Listen. We as yet don’t have a nuke, but I swear that if we had a nuke, we’d have used it this very morning.” Rajoub is the Deputy Secretary of the Fatah Central Committee and chairman of the Palestinian Authority Olympic Committee. This should make for some serious doubts as to the sincerity of any position including compromise with the Israelis the Palestinian leadership express in interviews given to western media outlets. As many other as well as we have pointed out, if only the world would take the time, investing some effort even if only to satisfy curiosity and translate what the Palestinian spokespeople express when speaking in Arabic translating and placing them in their reports with equal prominence they give their articles denouncing Israeli efforts at self-defense, the public would be well served in making an informed and balanced evaluation of the realities of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Unfortunately, it appears that truth and honest reporting are the first two casualties in the mainstream media coverage of virtually all things concerning the Middle East and its relevance and importance to the current world struggles.

 

In another recent television appearance, another senior PA official, Sultan Abu al-Einein on Palestinian Authority TV stated about the recent stabbing murder of Evyatar Borovsky by a Palestinian terrorist recently released from Israeli custody, Salam al-Zaghal, “We salute the heroic fighter, the self-sacrificing Salam al-Zaghal. He insisted on defending his honor, so he went against the settler and killed him. Blessings to the breast that nursed Salam Al-Zaghal.” Such comments being broadcast on Palestinian, Lebanese, Egyptian and other Arabic broadcast media are far from being the exception, they are by far the rule. It is solely due to the willful negligence of our Western mainstream media that prevents such claims from being widely known and the hidden truth behind who are the true impediments to peace being more broadly recognized. When covering the Middle East much of the media either omits information or represents misinformation unchallenged as if it were fact. There is a near constant drumbeat claiming that the presence of Israeli communities on established Palestinian claimed land which prevents any possibility for peace and stands in the way of negotiations. What is not explained are the facts that the Palestinians not only claim the areas known as the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem but also the rest of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Galilee and all of the land that makes up Israel, every single square inch. The Palestinian leadership reserves the right to continue the resistance until all of Palestine is freed which is an actual declaration that the terrorist attacks must continue even after any peace accord which may be signed in the future. Whenever this fact is admitted in the Western media it is portrayed as belonging only to Hamas and Fatah and the Palestinian Authority are represented as being moderates who are willing to make peace. The unfortunate truth is that the Fatah, the PLO, the Palestinian Authority and the entire Arab League all hold fast to their claim to replace all of Israel with an Arab state and the eradication of any trace of Judaism as their only acceptable goal. Since the Khartoum conference of 1967 the entire Arab World has held to the Declaration of the Three No’s; No peace, No negotiations, and No recognition. Such a position does indeed make holding peace talks rather difficult.

 

The truths which are lost because of the ruse known as the Palestinian’s claim to reconstruct their ancient homeland called Palestine are that there never was in all of history such a place as Palestine, the British used the term Palestinian to describe the Jews who resided within the British Mandate, The Balfour Declaration addressed the rights of the Arab populations residing within the British Mandate, Transjordan (currently called Jordan) was created as the Arab State for those Arabs living within the British Mandate and required the Jews to relinquish their legal claim to 78% of the British Mandate, Israel was not required by UNSC Resolution 242 to relinquish any of the West Bank but to relinquish only those lands acquired as a result of the 1967 War that were not determined by Israel to be vital for secure borders. Of the lands under UNSC Resolution 242 Israel has already relinquished well over 75% of the area by returning the Sinai Peninsula to the Egyptians, and lastly the original conflict was never between the Israelis and the Palestinians but between the Arab World and Israel.

 

Even should one look at the Oslo Accords one would almost immediately draw some interesting conclusions. The Oslo Accords drew three distinct areas within what is often referred to as the West Bank, and was historically referred to as Judea, Samaria and Benyamin (which kind of explains why those wishing to prevent Israel from claiming these areas had to rename them), into three separate areas, A, B, and C. Area A was given over to complete control of the Arabs under the auspices of the PLO and Yasser Arafat. Area C was given over to total Israeli control. Area B was jointly controlled by both the Arabs and the Israelis. This makes an obvious demarcation suggesting the intended solution originally was that Israel required all of Area C as their minimum needs to have basic security and the Arab population already, as it existed, was concentrated within Area A. This left Area B which held some concentrations of Arab villages and farms, some open lands, and some lands claimed by Jews who had their lands confiscated by the Jordanians after the 1948 war which the Arabs referred to as the war to eradicate the Jews and Israel calls their War of Independence, which gives some insight to the perspectives of the two sides. Since Area B was placed under dual control one might be led to think that these were the lands disputed between the two sides as originally observed when the Oslo Accords were enacted. It also would be prudent to believe that the negotiations should have been over where the border should be placed in order to fairly divide the lands within Area B. Instead we have muddied the original intents to the point that there have been discussions of granting the Palestinian Arabs a corridor across the Negev Desert so that their areas near the Jordan River have easy access without entering Israel to Gaza and the Mediterranean Sea, never mind that by doing such Israel is cut in two and is no longer contiguous, as long as the Palestinian areas are contiguous everything should be wonderful. There was a period when Mahmoud Abbas felt he had such a strong position he began claiming the entirety of Jerusalem as the capital city for the Palestinians. Fortunately, somebody managed to disavow him of such a felonious concept. All of this is a prime example of how far removed today’s perceived realities are from the original ideas of the Oslo Accords, let alone from the decisions, treaties, conferences, and even the White Papers which were all ratified soon after World War I and blessed by the League of Nations, the United States, Russia, and even the leadership of the Arab World, King Faisal. Sometimes time worsen wounds, not heals them.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Palestinian State a Concealed Islamic Arab Weapon

Bring up the subject of a Palestinian state and you are virtually guaranteed to begin a heated debate at any gathering. Everybody has their own idea of who is to blame for the frozen negotiations, what it would take to restart the negotiations, where to place borders, all the way to whether the Palestinians who resort to violence terrorists or freedom fighters and millions of arguments inbetween. What is almost never discussed is the period after such a state would be formed and what a future with a country Palestine formed and independent alongside of Israel. This should be a situation that should be given serious consideration before even thinking of entering any negotiations which could result in allowing such a state to come into existence.

 

Everybody gets all stuck on things such as placement of borders, control over the Holy Basin and the Old City of Jerusalem. Another important debate concerns the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees into Israel, a really hot button issue. But it is rarely discussed except as an alternative to the Right of Return is allowing the refugees to return into the newly founded Palestinian state. This issue should not be seen as an alternative to the Right of Return for refugees to inside Israel but what allowing them to return from the numerous camps into Palestine would mean going forward. The Palestinian state will have sufficient problems becoming economically viable with its current population but should another five plus million Palestinian refugees who likely have few employable skills after spending their entire lives sequestered in camps where they were denied virtually all basic rights with extreme limitations on employment positions that were permitted. The plight of the Palestinian refugees who were kept almost in prison camp conditions in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and others have been denied any opportunities to live a normal life. Considering the population of Palestinians currently in the West Bank and Gaza is currently approaching five million so if all the refugees kept in camps in other countries were to return the population would basically double. With the current unemployment in the Palestinian population approaching twenty percent, adding in such a large number of new refugees who would also pose a challenge to find appropriate employment along with the fact that once the Jewish businesses are moved back behind the borders, many of the Palestinians employed in these industrial parks will end up losing their jobs as the border between Palestine and Israel will not likely be very porous. But the real problem would come much later down the road.

 

The one prediction which many people hold is that whatever form the Palestinian state ends up taking, if it is designed to be a stand-alone entity then it very likely will become a nonfunctional state as the foreign aid from the world began to dwindle. As the state began to experience life without the financial support it currently enjoys there would be those who would turn to terrorism as old habits die hard. Should things get really bad, desperate even, and terrorism rose to a level similar to either intifada, then it may become necessary that Israel make an incursion into the Palestinian state even if it meant causing a war. The likelihood of such  becoming a reality is increased when one recalls that Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Salafist groups, and even Fatah and the PLO which make up much of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank have all reserved the right to continue the struggle until they have liberated all of Palestine from the River to the Sea. That alone is a guarantee that terrorism is planned to continue even after the Palestinian state has been established. So, with this as the likely scenario, what would be the result?

 

Should Israel face an ever growing terrorism problem where the attacks of any form, be they suicide bombers, rockets or full-fledged incursions by armed groups raiding and terrorizing Israeli citizens, destroying property, burning crops, and stealing herds, eventually Israel would have to respond with the IDF. Once the Palestinians are living in their own universally recognized state then any terrorist attacks would be tantamount to an act of war. A repeated and growing terrorist threat would definitely be interpreted as acts of war. What would be the result if Israel had to take military interventions to attempt to destroy terrorist infrastructure? How would the world react in such an instance? Taking into consideration how the world reacts to current uses of force by Israel in response to terrorist attacks, any such endeavor by Israel would probably result in the United Nations holding panicked meetings to determine how to prevent Israel from simply annexing the Palestinian areas undoing everything that it took to establish the Palestinian state. And what might be even worse is if Israel intervention did result in the annexation of the Palestinian areas sending everything back to square one, there would be a dangerous difference as the Palestinian population would be double resulting from the refugee influx. This would mean that Israel would find it necessary to monitor and police twice the number population while attempting to pacify any terrorist cells or forces. Such a situation would be today’s problems on steroids with demonstrations and riots reaching levels and sizes which would eventually result in a situation where the resultant casualties could easily become horrific. Such a calamity would be guaranteed if the Palestinians used a similar tactic as was utilized during the second intifada where men with semi-automatic and full-automatic assault rifles stayed concealed behind youths both male and female and would open up when the from behind the youths throwing rocks and bricks waiting to get in close range and then open fire. These situations potentially become high casualty clashes with very unfortunate results. Simply put, allowing a Palestinian state has problems of unimaginable proportions should the full numbers of refugees be allowed to be repatriated into the Palestinian state. It would be advantageous to address this potential situation before allowing the formation of the Palestinian state and set a reasonable number on the refugees allowed to return while making as many as possible to be finally absorbed by their host nations just as Israel absorbed and repatriated the nearly eight-hundred-thousand plus refugees who entered Israel from the combined expulsions and other violent actions taken by the Arab and Muslim world in the first decade after the formation of Israel. This is something that should have been addressed long ago but instead the Arab and Muslim world made the fateful decision that the Palestinian refugees and their families for the ensuing generations were to be utilized as a bludgeon with which to pound Israel rather than accept them as fellow human beings and shown them the respect due any person, especially those who turn to you for help. But we must deal with things as they are, not as we would have wished them to be. The problem is that now these unfortunate victims have swelled in numbers to the point that they are now potential human threats to the possibilities for a successful Palestinian state in the future.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Sometimes Size Really Does Matter

The way many groups, NGOs, politicians from numerous countries, human rights spokespeople, United Nations experts or officials, journalists, editorialists, newscasters, and others who pride themselves on their high standards of respectability in standing for the truth without slant or bias, have at one time or another, especially during those brief moments between terror attacks and incidences, have condemned Israel for exerting disproportionate force in defense of her people. These terror instances include but are not limited to bombings, rockets raining on Israeli civilians, large sharply jagged rocks hurled at motorists windshields, knife attacks, mob muggings of Jews visiting holy sites such as Kever Yosef, Kever Rachel or Cave of Machpelah (Cave of the Patriarchs) as they travel through predominantly Arab neighborhoods, and numerous other types of terror attacks which often places their lives in danger. When these people condemn the force Israel often needs to apply they paint this picture of the all mighty Israel lording over the Middle East as if Israel is equivalent to the Britain, France, Germany, Iran, or sometimes Israeli power is so misrepresented that one might even compare their military abilities as equaling the United States or Russia. I have asked people at demonstrations to describe the size of Israel and give their perception of the IDF’s (Israeli Defense Force) military capabilities. The answer I have often received betray the complete ignorance and the extent of the misconceptions many people hold when they think about Israel, her size and military capabilities.

 

Let me list a few of the descriptions that stick out in my memory. One person described Israel as rivaling the size of Great Britain and as a rival of the combined military power of the European Union. I have heard that Israel is about half the size of Iran and with a military that is twice the size of all the Arab nations combined. With the exaggeration I have heard I can only think that if only it was true Israel would have no problems. The one oddity about these descriptions is that under the original document which was agreed between Great Britain and the League of Nations with the Zionist leadership actually called for an Israel close to the size of Great Britain as not only was all of the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea to be part of Israel but also all of what is today Jordan. Had the world actually been committed to their promises then Israel would stretch from Iraq to the Mediterranean Sea and from Syria and Lebanon to Saudi Arabia and the Sinai Peninsula. But alas, Great Britain under the guidance of Winston Churchill and others reneged on their promise and offered a new promise in the Churchill White Papers which guaranteed the Zionists that if they allowed for all the lands east of the Jordan River, that is 78% of the British Mandate lands originally promised for the Jewish State, to be ripped away and used to form a state for the Arabs of the British Mandate area and ruled by the Hashemite royal family, who the British owed a large debt and had just been supplanted from their rule over Mecca and Medina by the Saud family, then the British and the rest of the League of Nations promised that the Jewish State the Zionists dreamed of would be granted on the remaining lands west of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea and these lands would never be sacrificed or divided in the future. That left the Zionists a mere 22% of the original promised lands which kind of puts to rest that the Zionists never gave up any land in a compromise to the Arabs living in the areas of the British Mandate.

 

But we still have the case of the wildly inflated idea of Israel’s size that way too many people hold. Perhaps if we put it in perspective that most everyone can understand simply by having a map of the United States that depicts all of the States, we can paint a more familiar picture. Just for the sake of self-analysis, look at the states and pick the one you believe is slightly smaller than Israel and the one slightly larger than Israel. An example would be possibly, though I guarantee these are not the two, Utah as slightly larger and Idaho as slightly smaller. If your choice was further south than Virginia or west than Pennsylvania you might wish to choose a different pair. Israel measures approximately 8,020 mi², which makes New Jersey slightly larger as it measures approximately 8,720 mi², and makes Connecticut smaller as it measures approximately 5,545 mi². The only other states smaller than Israel are Delaware measuring around 6,450 mi² and Rhode Island measuring around 4,000 mi². What makes Israeli accomplishments so astonishing, especially those in agriculture, is the fact that 55% of Israel is taken up by the Negev Desert which covers approximately 4,700 mi² leaving a mere 3,320 mi² as arable land.

 

But this is only half of the story, to get a complete picture one needs to also research the size of the entire Arab Muslim world which stands opposed to Israel’s existence. For sake of making this easier, I am only going to consider the countries which are members of the Arab League, a body that has repeatedly stood unanimous in their condemnation and desire for the eradication of Israel. There are 22 countries in the Arab League and they are, Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, UAE, Yemen, Syria (currently suspended pending end of civil war and depending on who proves victorious). Rather than compare these allies against Israel to any one state of the United States, let’s compare them to the entirety of the United States. The total area of the fifty states plus Washington D. C. covers approximately 3,794,085 mi². The total area covered by the twenty-two nations of the Arab League cover an area of approximately 5,148,050 mi². That makes the nations of the Arab League slightly more than 1.35 times the size of the United States. That means you can fit the entire United States plus slightly more than one-third of another United States, which is more than equal to all of the continental United States east of the Mississippi River plus Texas. One more item that must be taken into consideration is that the Arab League does not include all the nations in the Middle East and neighboring areas which are antagonistic towards Israel such as Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan. When adding these countries, all of which are relatively large, especially when compared to Israel, and combining them with the Arab League nations their area easily exceeds that of twice the size of the United States. If you still are having difficulty picturing the relationships of size between Israel and the Arab and Muslim world that demands Israel’s existence to be eradicated from the map, please check the map with this article or simply search with any browser for “Muslim world vs Israel” and you will see a host of maps from which to choose.

 

There are some additional concerns when one views the current attitudes towards Israel and their relations with the Arab world and the Palestinians in particular. When viewing much of the rest of the world, those opposing Israel, though not physically attacking Israel, add much in the ways of funding and political support in world bodies, particularly the United Nations. There are numerous other ways and means which countries can work against Israel, such as but not limited to hosting NGOs; shielding activists along with their activities from legal repercussions by providing them sanctuaries; joining boycott, divestment and sanction movements and also providing general support of all manners of anti-Israel, anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist activities such as conferences, programs, legislations and funding of groups related or supporting BDS goals and providing monetary, spiritual and psychological support. Taking these additional matters into perspective and it becomes evident that all of Western Europe along with much of Southern Europe are among the nations opposing Israel. The notable exception almost all came from Eastern Europe and the former satellite nations of the Soviet Union including the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Greece and to a lesser extent Poland. Then there is the Russian Federation itself which would need to be placed against Israel along with the vast majority of the NAM (Nonaligned Movement) nations which tend to follow the Muslim nations lead on most issues. The few other nations of the world standing with Israel among which we find the United States, Canada, India, with many South American nations and to a lesser extent and not on every issue, China. The picture this paints does not exactly change the original comparison and might be seen to only make things appear worse. The other seemingly unavoidable trend has been away from Israel and towards supporting all efforts against the Jewish State. The one fortunate fact in the favor of Israel is that in many nations there are a good number, if not an outright large majority of the peoples who support Israel even against the actions of their own government’s position regarding Israel. Perhaps, in the end, that little blessing may prove the smallest of regarded items by those in the limelight center of the world stage and will become both the unmovable anchor to hold Israel fast and safe while also being the irresistible force which proves out in the end.

 

Beyond the Cusp