They Speak as if Somebody Will Care

 

This particular terrorist attack took the life of an Israeli, in this case twenty-five year old Danny Gonen, pictured below, while his friend who was accompanying him on their day trip was also shot at close range and is being treated at Tel Hashomer Hospital with gunshot wounds to his limbs and is expected to survive. As stated by Ambassador Prosor before the United Nations, which we will discuss more deeply below, the two young Israelis had just completed a trip to a nearby spring and were just leaving when an Arab flagged them down requesting assistance. It was as they stopped and were approached by an Arab asking them for water and as they were distracted reaching for their water that they were shot, Danny at point blank range mortally wounding the young Israeli. The attacker fled to a nearby Arab village and will likely be shielded by the occupants as the IDF begins an investigation seeking to locate the terrorist. We wish and pray for a quick recovery from his wounds for Mr. Gonen’s friend and for Hashem to comfort the family and friends of the diseased, Danny Gonen.

 

Danny Gonen age 25 shot at point blank range murdered during Arab Palestinian who flagged him and a friend down asking for a drink. Danny Gonen’s friend remains hospitalized and will likely recover while Danny Gonen will be buried.

 

 

Responding to this horrific and meaningless shooting of two young Israelis, murdering one and hospitalizing the other, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor gave a pointed speech in the General Assembly Main Hall of the United Nations to an indifferent audience, at least those who even bothered to attend and not simply walk out as many Ambassadors have been known to do when any Israeli Ambassador is allowed to speak; especially if the address comes the day after or close to another Arab Palestinian committed terrorist attack. Ambassador Prosor plainly stated Israel’s case, “on the eve of Shabbat, a Palestinian man shot two 25-year-old Israeli civilians at close range, killing one of them. The terrorist attracted the attention of his victims by asking for their assistance. When they approached to help him, the terrorist pulled a gun out of his bag and shot the two in cold blood. This terrorist took advantage of the compassion of these young men to commit this heinous crime.” Additionally, Ambassador Prosor pointed out the fact that this act of vicious, violent, horrific, premeditated cold terrorism was not any form of “cycle of violence,” as so many from around the world; from government leaders, spokespersons, NGOs, United Nations Agency representatives and Islamic institutions claim; but was as Ron Prosor called the situation responsible for, “These violent acts are ignited by the constant incitement by the Palestinian leadership. Instead of leading their people towards peace, these leaders are leading the whole area into instability.” Further, Ambassador Ron Prosor fired off a scalding letter to the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, and the UN Security Council, urging that the UN abandon its “so-called balanced response that is calling on both sides to show restraint.” Ambassador Prosor pressed further that, “During this period of Ramadan, Israel has taken steps to reduce tensions, removing restrictions in order to allow Palestinians to celebrate, and enjoy maximum freedom of movement for the holiday prayers.” He pointedly exclaimed that the international community had a special obligation to “insist that the Palestinians prevent violence, and refrain from inciting emotions during this sensitive period.”

 

In Israel we are expecting absolutely no positive actions or other responses from any corner of the globe as past history has taught us unfortunate lesson that only Palestinian lives matter to much of the world. We realize things that Ambassador Prosor must refrain from ever stating as should he actually speak the truth too forcefully, too explicitly, too poignantly, then he would face aggravated, heated and personally hurtful accusations and denouncements while excuses would be presented glorifying the murder of one Israeli and complain that the other ‘oppressor’ was surviving the military operation, as much of the world believes that any Palestinian murdering an Israeli is justified and to be honored and protected from Israeli oppressive enforcement of what Israel denotes as acts of terror and too many across the globe believe are honorable acts towards the liberation of the land from the occupying colonizers. What is the sole thing which does upset Zionist and nationalist Israelis are the Israeli Jewish run and named NGOs who join with those from the uncouth in the world who denounce Israel for producing the situation which presumably drove this Arab Palestinian to the point where in his desperation he committed this action, an action the extreme leftist accept as the result of the ‘settlements’ and other Israeli improprieties and often instigate Arab Palestinian protests often turning them into riots and other violence targeting Israeli IDF or other security positions in efforts to provoke a reaction from the soldier that they catch on camera where they edit out the violence of the riot and replace it with films showing a peaceful protest tying the two together in a damning presentation. What is irresponsible is the infinitesimal amount of verifying performed on these propaganda films which are almost unilaterally taken at face value and considered to be accurate to the finest detail. It is the readiness around the world to accept any damning evidence or even rumor which is immediately considered the gospel truth as the people accept everything as a confirmation of their thoughts of the Jews as evil by their nature and only capable of acts of random and unprovoked violence at any moment. It is this belief which allows the world to accept any act of terrorist violence as deserved.

 

We can once again witness the celebrations of this brutal and craven act throughout many of the Arab towns and cities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. There may even be some of the Arab enclaves within the Israeli Green Line, the demarcation of the ending positions of Israel’s first war of annihilation started by seven nation’s armies the morning of her declaration of statehood, an act which so many desired making temporary, that is until the Arab forces believe they have finally gained the upper hand and once again launch their assault from the same borders as in 1967. What is amazing is setting this Green Line as the Israeli borders is supported by Israeli friends and foes alike and even to such who have earned the title of fiend such as Mahmoud Abbas, Khaled Meshaal, Ismael Haniyeh, Saeb Erekat and some others who are responsible for so much of the torturous relations and the refusal to make any peace which would leave even a single building in Tel Aviv as Jewish. Some, like Hamas, would not be satisfied to force every last Israeli Jew to be wading out into the Mediterranean Sea towards many waiting boats where they would tour the world being refused entry by every nation, with some sending their remnants of what had been a thriving Jewish community ejected to board those very same boats in a permanent limbo until every Jew was forced from what had been their family homelands for as much as two thousand years with some being even longer. Such treatment should be expected as the story has been the same for longer than most people’s histories are traceable; the Jewish people’s history is traceable as the Hebrew Bible and numerous other writings spanning both good times and bad relating the history of the Jews going back three-thousand-plus years to the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt. Placing longevity aside, the Jewish history starts a mere thousand years before Christianity was born during the Roman Occupation and based on the preaching and life of Jesus and the writings collected in the New Testament and seventeen-hundred years before the founding of Islam based on the life and visions of Mohammad which were collected and make up the Koranic verses. The Roman Occupation was a seminal point in Jewish history as they were responsible for the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, the dispersal of the Jews across the face of the Roman Empire in an attempt to destroy the Jewish People and for the name Syria Palaestina in an attempt to erase any Jewish ties to the Holy Lands just as Palestine, term derived from the Roman distinction, is attempting to accomplish today and which is why the nation of Israel rid itself of ties to that name which was a reminder of the evils of the Roman rule.

 

The founding of Israel and its survival through the near two years of war resisting, even, if unable to fully repulse, the assault by the combined forces of seven Arab national armies aided by numerous militias including one made up of Arabs who had been the Jews’ neighbors, some of whom waited for the troops to pass their seemingly peaceful villages only to then follow and make a rear assault to coincide with the Jewish engagement with Arab forces from the front thus forcing the Israelis to fight many battles from two fronts, one was their engaging of actual armies with all the resources one might expect from an established army and the other a well-armed militia closing in from the rear. This was the practice which led to the Jewish and other forces supporting the survival of the formation of Israel to force those Arab towns and sectors of cities which could not be vouched for as friendly to be either sent to a camp for the duration. There had already been a mass exodus of Arabs who fled their farms, towns, cities, enclaves and neighborhoods taking positions behind the Arab armies engaging the Jews and their allied fighters for their lives and very survival because a loss would have meant another annihilation, this time on the soil of our native soil, a risk many Jews gladly made. The aim of that assault on May 15, 1948 was an assault with the intent to drive the Jews into the sea or to murder every last Jew found after Arab victory was secured. That was thwarted as the Jewish forces fought the Arab armies to a standstill initially and then began pushing them from the Jewish lands which made up Israel west of the Jordan River. Once the Jewish forces had started to make gains and appeared to be defeating the opposing forces the United Nations at the request of the British, Americans and the Arab League to impose an end to the fighting, thus bringing an end to the war which for all intents and purposes had been being fought since the imposition of the British Mandate and the idea of forming a Jewish State between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea was an anathema to the Arabs as they firmly believed that all the lands which had formerly been a part of the Ottoman Empire were supposed to be sacredly kept in Arab Muslim hands and guaranteed by Allah. To allow a Jewish State in the heart of the Middle East was beyond acceptable and must be erased even before it starts. This is part of the reason for the riots by the Arabs against the Jews starting in the early 1920s and continuing right up to the official founding of the Jewish State of Israel. From that point the fight was joined by the armies from over a half dozen Arab Nations with the blessings of the Arab League and were supposed to slaughter every last Jew casting their lifeless bodies into the Sea. As the Jews and their few Arab allies as well as some of the other tribal units including many of the Druze halted the advancement and began to back the Arab armies back across the Jordan River, into Lebanon, onto the Golan Heights, back into the Sinai Peninsula and Egyptian lands and out of Jerusalem, a major task left unfinished as time ran out approximately one year three months and so many days into 1949 and which had officially been declared as intent by the combined forces of the Arab League starting for them on November 30, 1947. The Arab countries signed armistice agreements with Israel in 1949, starting with Egypt (Feb. 24), followed by Lebanon (March 23), Jordan (April 3) and Syria (July 20). Iraq was the only country that did not sign an agreement with Israel, choosing instead to withdraw its troops and hand over its sector to Jordan. The rapid placing of a deadline soon after Israel was gaining the upper-hand was something which was to be repeated throughout Israeli history and up to and including the present. The intent of every move made even by those considered as the closest of friends to Israel almost as if aiding those seen as Israel’s enemies who are pushing the return to the 1967 Lines, just as President George W. Bush based and pushed with the Roadmap to Peace and as President Barack Obama has adamantly held as sacrosanct from day one and was a centerpiece of his infamous Cairo speech which was seen to also empower the Muslim Brotherhood and being chiefly responsible for their rise to power in Egypt only to be overthrown by the people and the military and the election of General Sisi as Egyptian President forcing him to surrender his military career and once again placing a military leader at the helm of Egypt.

 

These facts are important because within hours there will be those, even including some foreign funded Israeli NGOs such as Adalah, Itijah, and the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions and others including the New Israel Fund (NIF) which is utilized by numerous nations and is a darling getting billions of dollars from leftist Jews in the United States, many of whom voted for President Obama twice and agree that Jerusalem should be shared with any Palestinian State which is formed and claim that if Israel would just sacrifice and offer the Palestinian a deal that they would perceive as just and fair then peace would break out and flowers bloom ending wars in every corner of the world and proving the leftist blame Israel firsters to have been right all along. What they refuse to realize, let alone believe, is that in reality the only deal Mahmoud Abbas, like Yasser Arafat before him, would accept is the turnover of the entirety of the state of Israel and while most of the Jews would be permitted to seek refuge wherever they were offered sanctuary, there would be those seen as the most adamant Zionists and members of the IDF, present and past and largely commanders, be turned over to the Palestinians to be tried for war crimes and then promptly executed as a message to all Jews to never return to Eretz Yisroel as it is now and will forever be part of Dar al-Islam. The real question would be where would those Jews who were amongst the nearly one million Jews rejected from their homes across the Arab and Muslim worlds and their descendants go to take refuge? There is absolutely no possibility their former home nations while they were in the Diaspora would ever accept them. Further, where would those Jews who either escaped or were allowed to emigrate from the Soviet Union and from Russia after the fall be permitted to reside. Finally, there is Europe where there would be massive violent protests and quite possibly pogroms forcing the remaining Jews from their homes and sending them to live with their kind on this floating nation, and that is quite likely what the ships would eventually come, the world’s first floating city (assuming Atlantis was an Island and not a floating city which got tired of humanity and simply pulled up the earthly anchor chains and fled to greener, or maybe not so much greener but some other color, say golden color like wheat pastures.

 

As has been noted here before, there will be only one solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the eradication of one group from the lands west of the Jordan River, south and west of the Golan Heights, potentially including the Druze enclaves north of Mount Hermon, very possibly, depending on the actions from Hezballah and whether their efforts continue against Israel and thus require a definitive and defendable border which rivers provide, south of the Litani River in Lebanon and including all the Christians and Druze who cared to become Israeli citizens, an offer that should be given a set date after which it will be too late, and along the Gaza and Sinai Desert borders with the Negev Desert including the retention of Eilat and all of Jerusalem with liberal allowances for Arabs and all others to visit the Temple Mount for prayer or simply to visit the Holy Sites. Israel has proven over the years to offer and protect religious freedoms and has many such minorities as members of the Israeli Knesset, the parliamentary body which is chosen to rule over Israel. Gaza can remain as it is providing that there are no, zero, rockets fired into Israel and further there be no infiltrations through tunnels and other entry devices or deceptions. Any Judean or Samarian Palestinians desiring to remain under Palestinian rule can be relocated to Gaza as the concentrations of people which provide pictures to back up the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others’ claims are the only places so overcrowded. Much of Gaza is farmland which is why the Hamas and Islamic Jihad demand open borders for the farmers to sell their goods and pay confiscatory taxes to finance terrorism and the lifestyles of their rich and infamous leadership. A map showing the population densities across all of the Gaza Strip is below. The reality is that nowhere in the world can the over six-million and rising Jews be quartered as Europe would simply turn them away and the United States would do the same as each governor would refuse to allow such an influx as such would be interpreted as a complete change in the state’s economy as almost anything the Israelis, known as start-up nation around the world, would produce would be additive to the Alaskan economy, but even that positive note would likely cause a drastic alteration in the Alaskan demographics and then there would be the problem of retaining them in Alaska as many speak fluent English and actually came from the United States and retain their United States Passport (it comes in handy if one desires to see the pyramids). So, even the United States would likely have cold feet when facing this dire situation and putting such a question to the people would likely put on display the ugly realities of anti-Semitism, giving it a venue to be on display for the world to see, and if Jews who had been deposed and deprived of their homelands were to need to find refuge the world would very quickly become a very dangerous place to be Jewish. The masks would be removed and any residual or other ugliness and would rear its grotesque head for all to see and the mobs of what had been normal citizens the day before would turn on the American Jews likely expunging them from within the society carrying out the first American purification pogrom expelling the Jews from their midst and adding another five and a half million plus Jews onto the boats to join their dispossessed brethren. It would not be a pretty site nor would anybody desire to step forth and offer a solution with approaching twelve million Jews into its hinterlands where they could guard and protect these lands and all the inhabitants therein, especially the those threatened beasts, such as all are given a chance to thrive. The other potential ending is that should Iran become a nuclear power, they would most likely provide Hamas and/or Hezballah with a device knowing full well it would be deployed in Israel. These are dangerous and perilous times made all the more so as there exists no force countering the evils being perpetrated while America sleeps. Be worried, very worried, should she wake to view the evils and wayward actors strewn from pillar to post attempting to impose their will all in the hope that America continues to be transfixed only on her bottom line. The economy is about to change and the job market with it as robotic units can be made more lifelike and replace workers, especially at repetitive tasks. This high unemployment future is just around the corner and it will have a great impact on life in every corner of the job market. As Bob Dylan sang, “The World she is a-changin’.”

 

Display shows large open areas with little population where Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other combatants could operate without threat to the population.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

 

Existential Crisis Most Likely to Bring New Elections

 

Prime Minister Netanyahu and Prime Minister in his own mind Yair Lapid had their fateful meeting where the real Prime Minister basically laid out what would be required from Yair Lapid and his party members in order to continue the current coalition. One of the problems which have struck the coalition has been the idea by the other party leaders that they should be the Prime Minister and run the government. Yair Lapid was rumored to even have attempted to patch together his own coalition and exercise a coup of sorts and take over the government through a deal with opposition parties thus forcing a new government without having new elections. Then we have the twisted dreams of Tzipi Livni who believes that she is fated to be Prime Minister because she honestly feels she has been robbed of her opportunity to lead the nation and will likely continue to pursue this phantom reality for the rest of her political life. There is the expected leader and head of the opposition parties Yitzhak Herzog, the leader of the Labor Party, has already claimed his rightful position as Prime Minister in waiting convinced that new elections will serve as the cleansing of the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu and instead bring a liberal wave sweeping Herzog into the Prime Minister slot. He was quoted speaking of the inevitable results of new elections stating, “The Labor party will lead the bloc that will win the election and give hope and a new reality for the citizens of Israel.” Apparently these Prime Ministerial candidates holding these delusional beliefs have either not read any of the polling done or they believe, as Yitzhak Herzog stated just the other day, that the polls are meaningless as they have sampled those they know and all of the people in their circle agree that new elections will place them at the head of the next government. If I were to ask those closest to me if I would win the coming elections and get to form the next coalition government I am sure that at least one or two would play along and assure me that I was not delusional, but they would also realize I was joking. Unfortunately for Israel, these Prime Minister wannabes are not joking and believe their own propaganda that they are the next chosen one.

 

This crisis was brought to a head when the proposed Jewish State Law which was intended to restate and reaffirm that Israel is the home of the Jewish People as well as a democracy where every citizen is guaranteed their respective rights as citizens. To any casual observer this law would be a no brainer but instead it became the initial protest vote where both Yair Lapid and Tzipi Livni threatened their voting against the Jewish State Law should it be brought to the Knesset for a vote. This led to rewording the bill in attempts to make it palatable to the few who insisted on remaining unappeasable. The reality is that both party leaders were actually more upset that the governing coalition refused to tow their line and follow their agendas and instead were following the agenda put forth by the Prime Minister and originally voted for as part and parcel of joining the coalition upon its formation. So, it now appears that Israel is about to go into another election with all the usual posturing and backstabbing starting with each party holding their disparate meetings or votes or some combination thereof in order to present their list of proposed Knesset Ministers for well past their polled expectations to receive once the election results are finalized. The expectations from current polling, something that is almost meaningless as elections have historically brought surprises and twists beyond belief, has Likud remaining the largest block of Ministerial positions and thus most likely to be chosen to form the next coalition. There are indications that the next largest party might be Jewish Home which will be a surprise to the leftist parties who are expecting the Israeli voters to cast off both Likud and Jewish Home in favor of Labor, Meretz and Yesh Atid. The polling has also indicated that Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party will only manage to win half the number of seats in the Knesset than they did in their initial and surprising success in their inaugural presentation before the voting public in the last election. These polls also depicted Tzipi Livni’s HaTnuah Party as barely making a minimal entry number of seats if even breaking the threshold required to be represented in the Knesset, let alone receive the nod to form the next government. The one hope all of those vying to be the next Prime Minister can invest their aspirations upon is that the least likely thing which was unexpected by all the pollsters, party leaders, experts and prognosticators and initially dismissed as insignificant can still resonate with the Israeli public while remaining below the radar and surging forth on election day to produce the unexpected results in the next elections completely throwing all the news outlets an unseen curve which they will be at a loss to explain. The elections may prove once again that there is no such thing as a sure bet when the voting public gets to make the decisions.

 

Of course new elections are not yet guaranteed as it will take a vote in the Knesset to dissolve the parliament and hold elections and there is the possibility that Yair Lapid will return to the fold and swallow his pride for the good of the coalition and by such an action garner some new supporters which always is a desired result for any politician. Lapid was given five acts he must agree to if he desires to avoid new elections. These were to stop attacking the coalition and especially to end his criticisms of the building plans in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and the Israeli relations with the United States. Next he was to transfer the six billion shekels to the defense budget as promised for their development of Iron Dome systems and armored personnel carriers. Third was to release the funding for the IDF relocation to the new Negev as was agreed upon by coalition agreements, something Lapid was blocking going so far as to have frozen this funding taking what he referred to as a principled stand. Fourth was for him to support the final version of the Jewish State Law. Finally he would be required to surrender and shelve the zero percent VAT relief bill he had been pushing for very determinedly. This final demand is expected to be the last straw and the one Lapid will refuse to meet thus likely forcing new elections.

 

One reading the polls would expect that Lapid would find it easier to remain in the current coalition where his Yesh Atid Party enjoys nineteen seats in the Knesset, a far cry better than the nine seats which many polls have indicated he would receive from new elections. The guessing here believes that Yesh Atid would probably suffer an even bigger embarrassment and only manage six or maybe seven seats and be on its way to extinction unless Yair Lapid could find a path back to the promises and apparent ideals he initially presented as the guiding essentials set forth in the last election. Those who suspected that much of the Zionist and nationalist line that Minister Lapid had professed was more ruse than ideological foundation as it was presented. These suspicions proved to be valid as once in the government Yair Lapid appeared to inexorably veer to the left and discard much of his nationalist agenda and instead attempt to inject his liberal slant into policy even at the expense of manipulating the budget which he had promised certain arrangements and allocations which he in the end did not deliver on. And this may only be the tip of the iceberg of potential changes which might be produced by holding new elections. The largest changes are always the ways in which the factions and parties arrange their own coalitions’ makeup. The most evident breakup has already taken place in which the one-time marriage of Likud with Yisrael Beiteinu which will also mean that Avigdor Lieberman will be leading his own party rather than being second on the combined ticket with Bibi Netanyahu taking the top slot. Netanyahu is probably expected by most to continue to take the top slot on any Likud ticket but that may not be as guaranteed as one might believe. There will be a credible challenge to Netanyahu in the voting for the Likud ticket as Danny Danon is expected to give Netanyahu a challenge from the right and even more nationalistic Zionist side of the party. We could potentially see a Likud ticket with a new face at the helm which may signal a changing of the guard within Likud even should Danny Danon fall short in his challenge. Danon is definitely one of the future leaders in Likud and the time is rapidly approaching for these new leaders to step forth. Other than the breakup of Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu, there may be other alterations to more parties and combinations than could be readily covered in this article and are best left for after the parties have all filed and made public their intents. Then there will be the leadership challenges in parties other than Likud. We have to wait and see if the somewhat controversial leader of Jewish Home, Naftali Bennett, remains the top man on their ticket and whether they will continue with their current makeup or if some factions might go it on their own. Then there may be a contest for the leadership position of the Haredi parties, largely concerning in Shas and whether the more liberal and left leaning Arye Deri remains in the number one slot or if Eli Yishai or Ariel Atias will make a successful challenge from the more nationalist and right leaning side of the party. With the passing of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef there can now be a true contest for the leadership of the Shas Party. Labor just recently had a change in leadership with Yitzhak Herzog taking the top spot replacing Shelly Yachimovitch. After all is said and done the next government may very well have a similar outward appearance to the current coalition but within there will be some changes, just how many and how far this difference proves to be remains to be seen. If Likud has a new person topping their ticket, such a change could excite the electorate or perhaps the shock of Bibi Netanyahu being replaced will be too much for the Israeli public. Then there are some polls which have shown Jewish Home Party actually replacing Likud as the leader in the Knesset and thus very likely making their first name on their Knesset list the next Prime Minister. It still remains to be seen if that name will continue to be Naftali Bennett. And then again, there is still hope for yours truly as, after all, those I have talked to still hold out hope for me to be picked to form the next government, and why not? Talk about strange happenings, that would take the cake.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Arab Fallacy the World Chooses to Ignore

 

There is one very basic and simple question which nobody dares to ask and if asked the answer is drowned out by the bellicose cries of Israeli Apartheid is the reason and the debate is settled. How dare you challenge the accepted narrative! Well, when the quiet truth goes orphaned from the conversation, how in all that is holy and logical falls to the side and gets discarded as useless to the discussion. The problem is that the discarded realities are the sole reason that there is an Arab-Israeli conflict today and the truth is so simple and easily validated that it surprises almost every curious individual who inspects the historical records. So, what exactly occurred that spawned the modern discontent which threatens peace and tranquility and has been the source of casualties of a terror war for almost a century. The history goes back to the 1917 Balfour Declaration which declared the existing Jewish rights and claims to the lands on both sides of the Jordan River and on to the Mediterranean Sea just as described in the Old Testament and also recorded by the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire and the Roman Empire as well as written of by the Crusaders, Mark Twain wrote of the area in his treasured work describing life in the Holy Lands and other historic writings and records from the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate records. The Jews had always resided in this area even if only a remnant of the entirety of the Jewish peoples. They had almost exclusively made up the majority of the population of Jerusalem and a large proportion of the population of Hevron. The return of the Jews to their ancient and historic homelands began about the midpoint of the 1800’s and continued throughout the decades that followed independent of any outside forces. During World War I there was a Palestinian Brigade which was completely made up of Jews from the Holy Lands. These Jews and their bravery were much of the impetus for the Balfour Declaration. Contrary to popular myths, Lord Balfour was not Jewish. The Balfour Declaration was adopted by the winning nations of World War I at a conference named after the city where it was held, the San Remo Conference of 1922. Immediately after the Balfour Declaration and kicking into a higher gear after the San Remo Conference, Arab unrest threatened even the British troops charged with facilitating the conclusions of these two treaties. In an attempt to placate the Arab demands for their own state on the same lands as those reserved by the aforementioned treaties the British made a deal with the Jewish Zionists. They guaranteed that all of the lands of the British Mandate west of the Jordan River would be preserved into perpetuity for the Jewish State guaranteed by the British Crown in exchange for permitting a state for the Arab residents of the British Mandate, also referred to as the Palestine Mandate, for the Arabs in over seventy-five percent of the lands which covered all the lands east of the Jordan River to the Iraqi border. Thus was Jordan born initially called Transjordan. The Jewish State was not initially declared as it was presumed that over time Jews would eventually become a majority. Reacting to Arab pressures the British placed one difficulty after a blocking of Jewish immigration on and on assuring all the time that an Arab majority remained preventing the declaration of the Jewish State. Eventually came World War II and once again there was a Palestinian brigade which was constituted of Jews from the Holy Lands. Once again the British promised to form the Jewish State immediately after the war. Again they broke their promises to the Jews and did everything in their powers to prevent the Jews from Europe, the refugees of the concentration camps, from reaching Israel instead herding them into what could be called concentration camps without the crematorium. Eventually, even the British were unable of preventing the Jews from making their way to Israel, to what they believed to be the only salvation which would provide for Jewish freedom and a future.

 

At long last the United Nations in its formation took on the promise for founding a Jewish State when they internalized the edicts from the San Remo Conference and the Mandate System when under Article 80 of the United Nations Charter took those specifics under the auspices of the United Nations to finalize the ideals and ideas of these historic treaties. This is where the real sources for the problems today became inevitable despite any and all efforts to mediate an equitable resolution, the one thing the Arab world could not accept. The United Nations General Assembly on November 29, 1947 made a nonbinding resolution proposing an even division between Arab and Jewish States within the lands remaining from the British Mandate west of the Jordan River. The Arab League simply need only accept the offer and the Arabs within these lands would have gained their nation on the vast majority of the choicest lands west of the Jordan River. The Jewish relegated lands would consist half being the Negev Desert, a coastal strip from Tel Aviv to Haifa and a small section in the northern ridges of Judea and Samaria leaving the entire farmlands of the Galilee as part of the Arab declared state. The Arab League met and issued their response to this proposition. They refused to accept the formation of a Jewish State no matter how segmented, no matter how much was wastelands and desert, no matter any area as they refused to recognize any size of Jewish State. The Arab League refused to accept half of the lands simply because they refused to accept a Jewish States of any dimensions or size. The Zionist Jews agreed anxiously and willing to accept anything as their own lands from where they could begin to build and make a future for themselves and to form a state in which all Jews could eventually come to and make their homes as a people. From the declaration from the General Assembly of the United Nations the Arabs living in the lands west of the Jordan River began a series of pogroms attempting to destroy any chance for the formation of a Jewish State. This was the beginning of the Arab war efforts to destroy the Jewish State both before it was founded and ever since. Despite the Arab riots of Hevron where Jewish businesses and homes were set to the torch and dozens of Jews were murdered and scores injured. In response to the violence the British took harsh actions and relocated the Jews to Jerusalem gifting Hevron to the Arab rioters. This led inexorably to the Arab riotous pogroms in Jerusalem where the British again stood aside initially only intervening when the Arab rioters threatened the British troops themselves.

 

Finally came May 15, 1948 and Israel declared her independence and was invaded by the armies of more than a half dozen Arab nations and numerous independent militias including the one fanatical group led by the Mufti of Jerusalem who had recently returned after spending almost the entirety of World War II as a guest of the Nazis and supervising the Muslim troops who were left to cleanse the Balkan States and did so with efficiency and a great zeal pitted in hatred leading to brutality that even shocked the Nazi troops in the area to the point that they attempted to distance themselves from those troops under the Mufti’s command. By the eventual end of the conflict which continued off and on for almost two years only coming to an end in 1949, this led to Israel holding the borders referred to as the Green Line, the 1967 Lines. These were actually formed as the 1949 Armistice Lines which the Arab League demanded they be denoted as simply Armistice Lines and never to be used as a border as to allow them to be a border would mean they had recognized the existence of the Jewish State of Israel. From 1949 through to June of 1967 Jordan had control of Judea and Samaria, renamed the West Bank, and Egypt held the Gaza Strip. During that entirety of near eighteen years there was absolutely no attempt made to form an Arab state by any name as Muslims already held the lands so all was as they perceive it should be. The PLO was founded with the assistance of the Soviet Union and the KGB in 1964 with the called for in its charter the liberation of Palestine by which they meant all of Israel as there was no occupied lands before 1967 unless Israel is the lands you consider occupied. That is the dirty little secret, Israel is the occupied land at any size, be it including Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, or be it before June 1967 and Israel inside the Green Line without Judea or Samaria, the West Bank, and without Gaza.

 

Across Europe countries are recognizing an Arab state without any declared border being declared by Mahmoud Abbas or any other Arab leader. The one constant that is known is that should Abbas and the Arabs be granted a state and its borders are restricted to the areas of Gaza, Judea and Samaria outside of the 1967 Lines that they refuse to consider such recognition as being a reason to end the conflict with Israel. Mahmoud Abbas has made a point as part of his refusals of offers which included as much as ninety-five percent of Judea and Samaria and all of Gaza with land swaps to make up all differences, he has refused these offers because they include the end of hostilities. The problem with the making of an Arab state west of the Jordan River by any name is meaningless as far as ending the conflict as long as it allows for the remaining existence of a Jewish State. As long as Israel continues to exist the Arabs will continue to make claims that the Jews are occupying their land. The problem has never been the lack of an Arab homeland; it has been the existence of the Jewish lands. All one need do to realize this truth is to peruse MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, translations of speeches made by Abbas and his fellow Arab leaders as well as the speeches of leading Arabs from throughout the Arab world and one will realize the reality that it is the existence of Israel that infuriates the Arabs and the destruction of Israel is their sole raison d’être. Perhaps the European governments might ask Abbas and the rest of the Arab leadership exactly what borders they are willing to accept to end the violence and terror war before they decide to grant them a state which is undefined and left to their wildest hopes to define after the fact. The response would likely be informative and potentially surprising. But the Europeans are simply attempting to feed the alligator hoping they will be eaten last and they would gladly sacrifice Israel for fifteen minutes reprieve from their eventual self-imposed coming fate. Israel does not plan on accepting the role of sacrificial lamb for the continued existence of Europe for an extra few months or so. Perhaps Europe and the whole world would be better served to repair their own houses rather than attempt to sacrifice Israeli homes. Israeli homes are not up for being sacrificed no matter what the eventual desires of the rest of the world may decide. Israel was before, Israel is now, and Israel will remain after.

 

Beyond the Cusp