Jewish Homes in Israel Infuriate the World

Jewish Homes in Israel Infuriate the World

Israel had promised the Palestinian Authority that should they actually go through with their petition to the United Nations for recognition as a nonmember observer state that Israel would consider the Oslo Accords rendered dead and there would be consequences. Israel announced the consequences when they announced plans to construct three-thousand new housing units in and around Eastern Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim. This almost instantly roused a universal outcry by virtually the entire world. Britain, France, Italy and others called their Israeli Ambassadors onto the carpet demanding an explanation as to what had possessed the Israeli leadership to build housing for Jews in and around the capital city of Israel. Oh, the audacity. Additionally, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and numerous others decried the injury this move by Israel was going to have on the peace process and the likelihood that the Two State Solution could continue to be viable. There were announcements from President Obama’s administration and others from the United States decrying the Israelis effrontery by building housing for Jews. Apparently the idea of Israel building housing anywhere near Jerusalem, and especially if it was built between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim, was causing more damage to the possibility for a negotiated peace between Israel and the Palestinians than was the application earlier this week to the United Nations for recognition of statehood bypassing any negotiations with Israel by the Palestinian Authority.

The problem with the World reacting with such virulent bile to Israeli building of housing is that the number one complaint that by doing so Israel is breaking International Law is dishonest and most of these people are fully aware of their deceit. When the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 181 on November 29, 1947, the suggestion for a partition of the lands which remained from the British Mandate was fully rejected by the Arab League, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Sudan, Transjordan, Yemen, numerous Arab entities and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and instead many of these same entities immediately attacked Israel with the intent of driving all the Jews into the sea or the grave. Their refusal to accept Resolution 181 made it null and void. By refusing and annulling Resolution 181 they then forced all the remaining lands of the British Mandate Lands to return to the previous negotiations between the British and the Zionists. The previous state of these lands was defined by the Churchill White Papers which established the country of Transjordan, later to become Jordan. In this agreement between the Arab Leadership, the Hashemites and the Zionist leadership it was decided that the 78% of the land existing east of the Jordan River to the border of Iraq to be given as the Palestinian Arab State and ruled by the Hashemite Family and the remaining 22% of the Mandate Lands west of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea would remain undivided and constitute the Jewish homeland. Presumably, these lands cannot be divided again unless the Israelis choose to allow such additional partitions of these lands.

Even if one were to claim that Israel has given their intent to further partition the lands by signing the Oslo Accords, let us look a little deeper. The current divisions of the lands of Judea and Samaria, also referred to as the West Bank, are the only part in question as Gaza has been ceded by Israel to the Palestinian Authority who then lost it in a revolutionary coup by Hamas who now possesses all of Gaza. The areas of Judea and Samaria have been divided into three separate areas, Areas A, B and C. Area A is under complete Palestinian Authority control and over 80% of the Palestinian Authority population resides within Area A. Area C is under complete Israeli control and over 80% of the Jewish communities are within Area C. Area B is under Palestinian legislative control and joint Palestinian-Israeli security control and the area contains communities of both Palestinian and Jews. This is the closest the Israelis and Palestinian Authority have ever come in attempts to reach an accord acceptable to both sides. Logic would dictate that the presumed eventual peace accord which the World holds as the pinnacle of Middle East peace would leave Area A and Area C to be held by the Palestinian Authority and Israel respectively and Area B would be divided between the two entities thus setting the boundaries between the two sides. But it is much easier to spend a week granting the Palestinians recognition of statehood and demonize Israel for building housing for Jews within the areas which they have already reached agreement with the Palestinians that the area in question, all of which is within Area C, is under complete and undisputed Israeli control, both security and legislative. Something tells me that the World, if left to their innermost and deepest desires, would gladly hand all the lands over to the Palestinians and tell the Jews that this was for their own interests and to find a way to live with it. We know how that idea ends, but why would that upset most of the World.

Beyond the Cusp