Popping the Myths of Israeli War of Independence

 

We do not care how the wars sporadically started and stopped from May 15, 1948 onward with them lasting into mid 1949 before attaining armistices. Peace would be coming later with Egypt and even later Jordan, while technically Israel is still in a state of war with the other four Arab invading nations; Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Don’t worry if you did not realize this, probably a fair number of Israelis are unaware of the fact Israel is still at war. There are likely a set of armistice agreements ending hostilities, but we were unable to find any reference to such between Israel and Iraq or Saudi Arabia. Perhaps we will have to settle with the fact they are not shooting at us currently and be happy with that. But the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9 was not born in a vacuum, there were a series of initiatives which were rejected outright and even the United Nations sought some settlement which also failed and so much more to talk about and see how we got to where we are today, celebrating our independence which was established the nightfall before the dawn brought on the war. So, where do we begin.

 

What is difficult to believe, but just the same is true, there was a point in time when the Arab world welcomed the founding of the Jewish State and agreed over borders and everything. The year is 1920, late April to be more accurate, in beautiful San Remo, Italy where the San Remo Conference set up the preliminaries for the Mandate System. Included in this were two Mandates which are of interest to our telling, the French and British Mandates. These were set along with Italian and Spanish holdings (see map below). France was charged to form a Christian State and an Arab State while Britain was charged with establishing a Jewish State and subsequently also an Arab State. France divided their region forming Syria (Arab) and Lebanon (Christian) while Britain divided its region into Jordan (originally Transjordan and Arab) and Israel (originally referred to as Palestine and Jewish). The French attempt to make a Christian state in Lebanon was fragile from the very beginning and is close to becoming ruled by Hezballah who has military control and shares Parliamentary control. Were things to come to a head in Lebanon, the Christians would be hard pressed to mount any resistance to a complete Islamic takeover. The British never actually established a Jewish state and instead simply announced they were pulling out as of mid-May 1948 and washing their hands of whatever developed.

 

Colonial Structure Post World War I defined by Treaties from initial surrender in 1919 through the San Remo Conference setting up the Mandate System in 1922 plus Sykes-Picot redrawing of much of the Middle East

 

This is where we start our story, the British are leaving and, on their way out, they are confiscating as many weapons as they can find in Jewish towns and Kibbutzim and for expediency’s sake, they are turning these weapons over to the Arab towns which were preparing to join the war against the Jews. The evening of May 14, 1948, Jewish day begins at sundown, so for Israelis it is the next day while the remainder of the world insists on daybreak or midnight, but it is almost sundown of May 14, 1948, or 6 Iyyar, 5708 on the Hebrew Calendar. So, it is Friday, May 14, 1948 at 4 PM, a full eight hours before the official end of the British Mandate, David Ben Gurion read out Israel’s Declaration of Independence at a moving ceremony at the Tel Aviv Museum (video below). There was no shooting, no artillery, no tanks, just celebratory cheers, singing of songs and general state of joyous exhilaration from the Jewish and even some Arab towns, farms and villages. That was it, the official beginning to the Jewish State followed by recognitions which can be viewed here. The celebrations carried on into the morning, especially in Tel Aviv. The Jews and their Arab friends knew what the morning was likely to bring, so they made the most of the few hours of peace that remained.

 

 

The next morning was to bring an assault with an intent which we have found was best described so succinctly by Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League at that time, who stated, “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.” This was what was intended by the six Arab armies from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan which were perched on every border just awaiting the command or simply the sun to rise so they could swarm across the lands on their way to the Mediterranean Sea wiping the Jews from the land retaking the region for Allah. Their invasion routes can be seen on the map below. For weeks ahead of the morning of May 15, 1948, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini implored the Arabs who were living between the Arab forces and the Mediterranean Sea, in Israel in simple terms, to evacuate to behind the Arab lines for their safety. His claim was this would permit the Arab armies to simply slaughter every single person they came upon. There were exceptions, namely those Arab villages and towns which were to assist the Arabs by sabotaging Israeli supply and communication lines and ambushing the Israelis from behind as they faced the Arab armies advance. The Mufti promised that the Arabs could follow the armies to the sea and partake of the riches of the Jews and all the spoils of war. This was awaiting the next morning after the joyous celebratory evening and night of the Jewish People returning to their ancestral homelands after approximately a two-thousand-year absence of Jewish rule over these lands. There was great joy and few worried about the next day, but there were the select people who did exactly that as they were the ones who were to defend this precious return.

 

Initial Invasion Routes by Arab Armies on May 15, 1948

 

This was, very simply put, an Arab initiated war of intended annihilation, not Israel’s War of Independence. Israeli independence came the second David Ben Gurion finished his speech. There was no war necessary. Israel had been declared and that should have been the end of everything except for the celebrations. There was no war, the Jews did not make some amphibious assault on the beaches and push the Arabs out of their nation of Palestine. There was no nation of Palestine and the Jews were already in the land with many having come in the late 1800’s and others who could trace their ancestry back to the times of Kings Saul, David and Solomon. These were the Jews who the Romans had allowed to remain and had resided in these lands for over three-thousand-years. That is an impressive family history to be able to recount, and they can do exactly that. Others returned over the centuries and had resided in these lands for hundred upon hundreds of years. Whenever the British had used the term Palestine or Palestinian, they were referring to Israel and the Jews. The Palestine Post became the Jerusalem Post, the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra became the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra and so on with names of banks, hardware stores, plumbing businesses and so much more. The Arabs had their own reference at that time, they were referred to as Arabs or Jordanian, Syrian, Egyptian, Iraqi or whatever nation their family names implied. The first time any Arab became a Palestinian was with the birth of the PLO in 1964. Why did the Arabs decide to take the mantle of Palestinians? That is easy to figure out once you understand the history, they intended to steal the history of the Jews claiming that the Arabs were the ones called Palestinians and the Jews were called, well, they never said what the Jews were called because their intent was always to be rid of them so who cares what names they were called by, anyway, that would just confuse things. Their hope was that nobody would bother with the actual history and they could pull a fast one. Well, what timing, just as the Western World decided not to actually teach history, the Arabs bet that nobody would know history, what timing.

 

World Recognition of Israel

 

Well, the celebrations ended rather abruptly around dawn as the first shots fired by the advancing Arab armies starting what would be more appropriately called The Arab War of Intended Annihilation instead of the Israeli War of Independence. Israeli independence had already been established and the war was over whether Israel would continue to exist or be killed at her birthing. The other misleading tale was that Israel won this war and took over additional lands. The only way this would have been true would be if Israel had extended her rule across the Jordan River, over the Golan Heights, into Lebanon and into the Sinai Peninsula. None of these were the result. What happened instead was Israel lost control of lands which included the Golan Heights, the Shomron (Jordan controlled this renaming it the West Bank) and the Gaza Strip which Egypt took control over. These are that troubling thing called facts. When the Arabs show maps showing Israel gaining land, they use the map of the plan offered by the United Nations in the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine under United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181. This was a nonbinding resolution which suggested a division of the land into Arab and a Jewish states. The Israelis were willing to accept this partition but the Arab League refused the plan planning on the annihilation of the Jews in its stead. When a United Nations General Assembly Resolution is rejected by any of the parties involved, it is forever negated and considered void as if it had never been proposed. So, the Arab League refusal ended any application of the division and the lands reverted to the original borders which was the Jordan River and the border between the Negev Desert and the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights (see maps below). The armistice lines have become the Arab definition of what the Israeli borders should revert to now despite when they were agreed upon the Arab League insisting that these armistice lines were not to ever be interpreted or expected to be actual borders. Their intent was to deny the existence of Israel as it did not have actual borders. Now they demand a return by Israel to those armistice lines so they can have a redo on the Six Day War, another war which was intended to destroy the Jewish State which failed. During the June 1967 Six Day War, Israel liberated the lands lost in 1948-9 as well as gaining the Sinai Peninsula and some claim the Golan Heights.

 

Resolution 181 Division,
Israel on the morning of May 15, 1948,
Israel after the War and losing lands of Gaza and West Bank

 

That is why calling the war which began the morning of May 15, 1948, the Israeli War of Independence is actually a misnomer. Israel would have had her independence even had the Arabs not attacked that morning as she had declared her independence the afternoon before. The celebrations had gone on well into the night and even until the Arabs invaded the established nation of Israel. A better name for this war might be the Arab War of Intended Annihilation of Israel or the Failed Arab War to Erase Israel. Now that war is being fought by Arab proxies of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza which might be named Hamastan. Over the years, the Arab world acquired great amounts of financial assistance from the Western nations along with the United Nations and for a while the Soviet Union into the coffers of these terror entities all with the hope of peace or an end to Israel. Many of those contributing to these entities desired the latter while all claimed otherwise simply claiming they desired for the Palestinian Arabs to have their homeland back. There never has been an Arab homeland or a nation called Palestine and the main reason that so many Arabs resided in what became Israel was due to the British in cooperation with the Arab League kept moving Arabs into the land to prevent the Jews from being able to declare their homeland. The Palestinian Arab refugee problem is largely, if not entirely, due to the Arabs heeding the Mufti and then when the fighting was over, instead of allowing them to return, something Israel was willing to allow, they placed their brothers and sisters into refugee camps and have kept them there ever since. They basically incarcerated just over six-hundred-thousand fellow Arabs in these camps. Over the ensuing decade, the Arab world expelled over eight-hundred-thousand Jews after denuding them of all assets and anything of worth which Israel took in and remarkably simply incorporated every last one into their society despite much hardship and difficulty. Israel did not incarcerate them permanently in camps to use as a political weapon against the Arab nations which expelled them, Israel accepted their fellow Jews with mixed joy and hardship but in the end, we are all living together mostly in harmony. Give Israel another fifty years and there will be no differentiating who came originally from where and there will be more Israelis like myself with a European father and an Arab national origin mother. In my case it was due to World War II as my British father fought in Burma and when injured he was treated in Bombay (Mumbai) where he met my Iraqi origins mother, and the rest is history. The majority in Israel is simply a case of opposites attract and Jews are intermarrying which will allow us to become completely reinstituted as a single people whose histories and futures are forever to be intertwined.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Is Israel Necessary?

 

Most of the animus and hatred towards Israel is against the Jewish People as well. The scorn and defamation used against Israel are simply adjusted forms of anti-Semitism modeled to target the Jewish State instead of targeting the Jews themselves. Many of the accusations heard against Israel today can be traced linearly to the anti-Semitisms in both the East and West, in Christian and Muslim worlds which permeated their lexicons throughout centuries since the inception of both religions. Both Islam and Christianity claimed to have replaced the Jews defining the Jews as cast from Hashem and now a tool of Satan. Islam also claimed to have replaced Christianity which should make them just as wary and nervous over Islamic extremism (in reality it is actual essence of Islam and not some stray sect but the mainstream in Islam) and the threats they pose and even proclaim loudly for all to hear. But is Israel necessary or is its existence a causal effect stoking stronger anti-Semitism as a result of Israel’s existence. This will depend on whether people are willing to be objective and honest when addressing the problem just existing has been for the Jew living in much of the world, specifically the Christian West and the Islamic East.

 

The very first item one need get their arms around is that people in the West have been fed a romanticized version of the history within the Islamist world. The Jews know this first-hand as in Israel our population is spread fairly evenly between those who fled, were exiled or otherwise forced from Christian lands and those who fled, were exiled or otherwise forced from Islamic lands. The stories bare a striking commonality, when things went well, the Jew was left to live on the fringes of society and not permitted equality with their hosts and always eyed nervously and when things were less than exemplary, then it was the Jew who bore the brunt of the blame and was the group which was always just a crisis away from persecution, torture, pogrom, being run out of town or simply being executed for being a Jew, the obvious source of all ills. Most of the Jews who came to Israel from Europe after World War II and soon after her declaration of independence arrived with the clothes they were wearing, often tattered and torn to the point of not being recognized as suitable clothing and maybe a small satchel with everything they had left in the world, often worth next to nothing as many carried pictures of their relatives who perished in the death camps. The decade after Israel survived her initial war, where six Arab armies and a slew of militias attacked the nascent state on the first morning of her existence in what was supposed to be a simply slaughtering of the Jews, the Arab World spat out their Jews after stealing everything of any value. Fortunately, nobody informed the Jews about this and Israel, despite losing Gaza to Egypt and Judea and Samaria to Jordan, retained the remainder of what was allotted Israel by international treaties and conventions convened after World War I. The reestablishment of Israel was decided in the aftermath of World War I and thus was a fact in the making before the Holocaust, so Israel was not founded because of the holocaust, the Holocaust was partly due to the British refusing to permit the Jews to declare their independence and working behind the scenes with the Arabs in attempts to delay and eventually renege and not permit Israel to be born. The Jews are a pesky bunch as once they get their mind set on something, they usually attain that goal, and Israel was no exception.

 

During the decade after the birthing pains inflicted by the Arab invasion which cost the lives of nearly ten percent of the population of the state of Israel, the Arab world had their cleansing ritual where over eight-hundred-thousand Jews were expelled by various means from across the Middle East and Northern Africa, mostly the Arab Islamic world plus Iran, and were taken in by Israel. These Jews from the Islamic world had been stripped of all wealth; most of their possessions, family heirlooms, businesses, homes, vehicles, jewelry even down to ornate picture frames and anything that glittered were stolen. They arrived in Israel with their clothes on their backs and if fortunate, a suitcase or two per family. Unlike their Arab refugee brethren, mostly the Arabs consisted of those who heeded the Mufti of Jerusalem when he bade them to take refuge behind the Arab armies and then they could return in a few days and share the wealth of the Jew; the Jews welcomed their brothers and sisters and despite financial hardship, they took them to their bosoms and built Israel together. The Arab refugees waited and after two years of fighting where the Arab armies failed to destroy Israel, the Arabs rounded up their faithful who had done as the Mufti demanded, and they placed them in refugee camps where they and their offspring have languished to be used as a weapon against Israel and the Jew. This is why truth be told, Israel Never Placed a Single Arab in a Refugee Camp. That is true despite all the lies you may have heard about what the terrible Israelis did forcing all these Arab refugees into camps for generations; it was, is and apparently will continue to be an all Arab project loaded with their spin of propaganda which they employ in their attempt to destroy Israel.

 

The Arab League, after the Six Day War, met that September and adopted the Khartoum Resolution with what is known as the “Three No’s”, “No peace with Israel, No recognition of Israel, and No negotiations with Israel;” which can be translated into a single no, no Israel. This has been their starting and ending point for all attempts at finding a solution, including the results even if not obviously the exact words of the Khartoum Resolution, they kept the spirit. So, exactly what do the Arabs and Islamic world desire? That is an easy one to answer, they will accept any peace where Israel is placed under Arab rule, the Jews are to be treated with the same respect as they were in Medina, and then there will be a second Holocaust, as close to seven-million Israelis who are Jewish will be murdered and the over one-hundred-thousand Christian Israelis will be made to be Dhimmi if they are fortunate and murdered with the Jews as there will be an attempt to make the prediction from 1948 so succinctly by Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League at that time who stated, “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.” But the main reason that there exists a necessity for the state of Israel does not have to do with her current population, they are safe for as long as the IDF remains strong and motivated. What it does have to do with are the Jews still living in the Diaspora as they will sooner or later face times of oppression and active attempts at extermination and their only refuge will be Israel.

 

Today, Israel is approaching the point where half the World’s Jews reside in our homelands. These are the homelands of ours after many painful compromises, surrenders as without a nation and an army, how does one contend with the British Empire whose soldiers populate the entirety of your lands and refuse to leave. This is where the tale actually begins. After World War I and the defeat of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Greater Germany and the Ottoman Empire by the Allied powers, the lands of the losing side were cut into numerous nations with each of the allies given lands from the Ottoman Empire to oversee reconstituting some form of governance. (For a map of the resultant division in Eastern and Central Europe and the Balkans click here) Below is a map of what was the British Mandate for the establishing of a homeland for the Jewish People. The British made a clerical decision that their mandate to use these lands for a homeland for the Jews meant that some of the land would be used for such and the British could do as they pleased with the remainder. Their initial desire was to keep their promise to the Hashemites and provide a kingdom for both of Hussein ibn Ali al-Hashimi’s sons. Thus, Faisal and Abdullah were crowned with Faisal becoming the king of Iraq and no lands for Abdullah. But the British had a solution and they approached the Zionist Congress, a group of Jews armed largely with pens with which to write to newspapers and officials, but nary a useable gun between them, and proposed that the British Mandate become two lands, one Arab and one for the Jews. The British suggested the Jordan River would make for the perfect boundary with the 78% to the east of the River becoming Jordan under Abdullah, and the remaining 22% would be for the Jews, they promised, solemnly, which means they did not mean to leave well enough alone. The Zionist Congress agreed as what else could they have done. So, any Jews who were residing, farming, tending herds or anything east of the Jordan River found themselves forced to abandon their stake and hastily make for the western side of the Jordan where they would be safer. When the United Nations, which under Article 80 of the Charter is supposed to enforce the Mandate system as received from the League of Nations, broke their support for the original British plan and decided that there needed to be two states for two peoples west of the Jordan River. This is the original two state solution. Once again, those responsible for making decisions for the Jews accepted the United Nations compromise, as they did not see any alternative at that point. The Arab League rejected this proposed solution as they had already planned to take care of these upstart Jews as soon as they claimed to be a nation. As this was a General Assembly Resolution, as soon as one side refused it, the resolution is considered dead and buried, well, except this one. The Arabs have claimed that they would accept this solution now but it is no longer considered viable. Truth is, Israel is residing on 22% of the lands initially set aside for the Jewish State and this is too much for the world, they want Israel to be smaller. How much smaller? Well, how small can you make it; can you make it so small that it disappears? That the world would accept with great fanfare and celebratory parties around the globe.

 

British Mandate as prescribed division between Arab State of Jordan and Jewish State of Israel

 

But Israel has managed to not only survive, but to thrive, and this rankles a great number of people. But despite all of her successes, Israel has not yet fulfilled her true purpose, a purpose which despite our hopes that this never becomes the case, we see the world and know the true test for Israel will soon be upon us. Israel is the safety catch for Jews which we have had to survive without for approximately two-thousand years. During the Holocaust and all the horrors which were World War II, for Jews there was a specific horror as it opened wide the world body and revealed a darkened heart which had no mercy, concern, care nor compassion for the Jew. This was the Voyage of the Damned, the ship was the luxury cruise liner M.S. St. Louis which left Germany with over nine-hundred Jews fleeing the Nazis who had papers and all the right permissions to disembark at Cuba. Bending to pressures from within and without, the Cuban government reneged on their permissions cancelling their papers refusing to allow them to disembark. The M.S. St. Lois made her way back to Europe with every nation she passed along the way refusing to take any of the Jews except for a small number, some who had British citizenship and some who found any means of not returning to Germany. Most of the passengers who were returned to mainland Europe did not survive the war with many finding death at the hands of the Nazi death machines at Auschwitz and Treblinka. These Jews had no Israel, and this is why the world required an Israel.

 

Looking around Europe and the rest of the world and witnessing the ever-climbing occurrences of Jew hatred in all the forms of anti-Semitism, and the need for an Israel becomes excessively evident. Jews have been denied marching in LGBTQIA events, the Women’s Day March and numerous other events which are part and parcel of the intersectionality definition of those causes which are acceptable and those which require the exclusion of all who support it or are suspected of supporting those unincluded causes. Israel is at the very top of the list with a whole set of sub-causes attached. One of the disqualifying traits is being too obviously Jewish and thus appearing to support Israel. The sole means of breaking from such labeling is to openly and with great ardor supporting the Arab cause and denouncing Israel louder and longer than anyone else, then, just then, maybe you will be permitted to join the intersectionality club. When the people of the far left and their endeared ones such as Ms. Omar, Ms. Tlaib, Ms. Sarsour, Ms. Perez and Ms. Mallory take the helm of the progressive causes in a decade or so, the relationship between Israel and the United States will be on thin ice. Each election will decide whether Israel is favored or targeted. From that point, it is but a slip on a banana peel to the complete rejection of Israel and the rejection of the Jews within the nation. When the United States reaches the point where her Jews are endangered, the signs should be noticeable, as this will follow after Europe has tread that same path a short while earlier. This is why the world needs Israel, if all the discoveries, cures, life improving technologies, agricultural miracles and all the other contributions which come from Israel were not sufficient, which apparently they are not. Israel has been a repository from more than Jews needing a safe place to which to flee. Israel, from 1977 to 1979, permitted approximately three-hundred-sixty Vietnamese boat people fleeing the 1975 Communist takeover of Vietnam to take up residence in Israel offering them citizenship if they so desired. Some of these refugees went so far as to convert to Judaism and their families still reside in Israel. Israel has treated thousands of Syrians who have fallen victim to the horrific civil war raging in that nation. Israel provides medical care for thousands of Palestinian Arabs each year despite the constant threat of terrorism coming from the Palestinian controlled areas. Additionally, Israel is often the first to have a fully operational field hospital set up wherever in the world a natural disaster or other calamity has taken place. These are just a small sample of the reasons that Israel should be viewed as a treasure and not shunned as a pariah as is proven all too often when votes are counted at the United Nations General Assembly and other activities by numerous United Nations agencies. Still, the number one reason the world needs Israel is simply as the place where they can send their Jews when they decide that they are no longer desired. That is a sad commentary on the world, but it is an unfortunate truth.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Arab Compromise to the Conflict

 

In early September of 1967, after the Arab defeat in the Six Day War, the Arab League released their Khartoum Resolution which could be boiled down to its central concept, the Three No’s; No peace with Israel, No recognition of Israel, No negotiations with Israel. This was after Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian and other Arab news reports had claimed their offensive against Israel was a huge success and they would have taken Tel Aviv if only the world had not forced them to pull back. The reality was something entirely different as Israel had defeated the Arab armies on every front. Against the Egyptians, the Israelis had liberated Gaza, which Egypt had illegally held since the 1948-9 Arab War to eliminate Israel as well as taking control of the entirety of the Sinai Peninsula. Against the Jordanians, the Israelis liberated eastern Jerusalem including the Old City and Temple Mount along with the areas of Judea and Samaria, which Jordan had held illegally and moved thousands of Jordanians into the region to Arabize it and they called it the West Bank as that sounded far less Jewish than Judea and Samaria. Against Syria, Israel took control of the Golan Heights bringing an end to the constant harassment using sniper fire, artillery and rockets fired into the Israeli towns, kibbutzim and farm lands which the Golan Heights overlooked. Once more, in October of 1973 the Arab nations of Egypt and Syria attempted once again to destroy the Jewish State and after initial gains were routed once again with only the world demands preventing Israel from taking Damascus, Cairo and Alexandria. By the end of the Yom Kippur War, the borders returned to the armistice lines established after the Six Day War, (see map below).

 

Six Day War Beginning and Resulting Positions from June 5, 1967 to June 10, 1967

 

These were the results of the first three wars the Arab world waged against Israel. Israel, in the 1948-9 was often called the winner simply because she was not destroyed. The world likes to refer to this as the Israeli War of Independence. The reality was that when Israel announced their independence, which was recognized by most of the world on May 15, 1948 (Israel announced their independence as of sunset of May 14, 1948 as Israeli day begins at sunset of the evening before and not at midnight. This war was predicted so succinctly by Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League at that time who stated, “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.” It turns out that he was slightly overly-optimistic about their success. Israel was not supposed to have been capable of withstanding an assault by six Arab Armies bolstered by numerous militias. Still, Israel lost Gaza to Egypt and the greater parts of Judea and Samaria to the Jordanians. It actually took a daring assault in the final hours for Israel to have been enabled to retain Western regions of Jerusalem and a roadway connecting the area to the main body of the remainder of Israel. During all of these wars, there was absolutely no nation called Palestine and previous to this, the term Palestinian was most often used to describe the Jews. The Arabs were referred to as Arabs or as Jordanian, Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, Saudi or whatever Arab nations their names indicated. It was before this war that the Mufti of Jerusalem announced that all Arabs should leave the regions where the Jews were so the invading Arab armies could simply slaughter everyone they would come across. There were over half a million Arabs who responded and fled to behind the Arab armies. After their failure to destroy Israel and kill every Jew, the Arabs immediately placed these Arabs, and any others who had fled to their side during the fighting, into camps and have held them there along with their progeny demanding that they be repatriated into Israel using this as a different means of destroying the Jewish State. These are the Palestinian refugees which there is so much arguing over their having been dispossessed. We discussed this in greater depth in our article “Israel Never Placed a Single Arab in a Refugee Camp.” These Arabs are the unfortunate victims of a society which refuses to admit the right of the Jews to their own nation in their ancestral homelands. The reason the Arabs provide is simple, once lands have been ruled by Islam, they must never be permitted to fall or return to any other rule. With Israel, this becomes a double problem for them as they regard Jews to be inferior and incapable of self-rule and as a people, if they ever recognize Jews as actual people, requiring the kind hand of Islamic rule. That kind hand of Islamic rule deported over eight-hundred-thousand Jews from their lands between 1950 and around 1960. The vast majority of these Jews had no place to go as Europe and the remainder of the Western World refused to allow them to immigrate into their countries just as the world had closed their doors to the Jews during World War II leaving them at the mercies of the Shoah. Where does everyone think these Jews went? Well, listening to the youth on Western College campuses, they claim that Israel was made up of only Jews from Europe and they will refuse to believe the truth, that half of the Israeli population came from the Middle East, North Africa and other places around the world completely away from the Western World. When anti-Semites claim that the Jews can simply return to their nations of origin, well, two things, first is Israel is our nation of origin and second, half came from countries who would murder them as soon as they attempted to return as they are parts of the Islamic Arab world.

 

Why is it that when people challenge the right of the nation of Israel to exist, it is referred to as anti-Semitism. That is actually more easily explained than accepted. The reality is that if the only nation one claims has no right for self determination is the only Jewish nation and no other nation is decried the right to exist, then you are making your accusation based on a single point, that Israel is the home of the Jewish People. When one claims that if a Jew supports Israel, then they are guilty of dual-loyalties and one does not make the same claim against Japanese, Germans, Australians, Russians, Chinese and the rest of the world, then you are making your denial of equal rights about the Jews. There are a number of means for testing if the claim you are going to make about Israel is anti-Semitic or true criticism, simply replace Israel and Israeli with any other groups or minority. Change Israel to gay or lesbian or Hispanic and if it then sounds sexist or racist, then your attack on Israel or Israelis is probably more anti-Semitic than true criticism. Then there are the claims which are simply ridiculous if one were to go so far as to honestly think what their saying through. One obvious accusation is that the Israelis use the IDF to murder Palestinians whenever they have an opportunity. If this statement were true, does anybody honestly believe there would still be a conflict and Palestinians left to protest and carry out terror strikes? Another was the claim that Israel was to be held responsible for the Honor Killings in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority regions which Israel allows the Arab relative to full autonomy and Israel does not enforce laws or even enter the regions under semi-autonomous Arab rule. The picture below shows a sign placed at the entrance to the Palestinian Arab semiautonomous region in Judea and Samaria and it is quite strict and accurate in the warnings. There are no similar signs for the Arabs entering Israel though they are often required to pass through a checkpoint, something quite ordinary when entering a foreign nation as the Palestinian Arabs are not Israeli citizens.

 

Sign Warning Israelis it is Illegal to Enter Arab Region for Safety Reasons

 

The continuing rise of anti-Semitism around the globe will never lead to a resolution of the Arab Israeli Conflict. The first thing one need understand is that Israel has accepted any number of solutions which the Arabs have rejected. Israel accepted the original plan by the United Nations General Assembly, against the promises of Article 80 of the UN Charter, to divide the lands west of the Jordan River evenly which the Arab League rejected opting for the 1948-9 war to annihilate Israel and her Jews. Israel has accepted a series of offers all of which were turned down by the Arabs and immediately followed with an Intifada or increased terrorist bombings. The problem goes back to the Khartoum Resolution and the fact that the Arabs will only accept a solution where the Jews do not rule themselves, Israel is erased, and they get to decide what the eventual result will be for the Israeli Jews and other non-Islamic minorities. As for what would be done with the Jews, we need look no further than to what Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League predicted would be the result when the Arabs defeated the Jews in 1948, something which blessedly did not happen as the Israelis, though losing land, remained viable though precariously close to indefensible. Further, the reason the world insists that Israel recognize an Arab state cut from the heart of her lands is because all the lands west of the Jordan River belong to Israel under international law and unless Israel releases claim to the lands, there is no other means of taking away these lands. The Arabs know the laws as they signed onto these agreements after World War I and the defeat of Germany, Austrian-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire by the allied powers. The claim that only the Arab lands had new boundaries is another lie as Germany lost lands to form Poland, Austrian Hungarian Empire was torn into numerous smaller nations, and the maps of Eastern Europe looked very different after the peace was reached (see map below). Many of the claims against Israel depend on the modern lack of knowledge of history, especially history which goes back before six-weeks ago, or so it seems with many of those who protest Israel and their lack of knowledge of the history, the Mandate System, World War I and the resultant changes made in the world. Many of today’s youth could not tell you within ten years when World War II ended, let alone World War I.

 

German Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire Before WWI and After WWI

 

Between the lack of historical knowledge and the heavy propaganda the Arab world, financed with petro-dollars, wages against Israel, it is no wonder why Israel is on the losing end world opinion. When one throws in anti-Semitism and the predilection to finding fault with the Jews and automatically siding with those who oppose the Jews and you have a near perfect storm. The one catch is that the Jews have outlasted every empire which has attempted to destroy us over the last four-thousand years. The Arabs claim that they will outwait the Jews because they are a desert people and have patience. The Jews are one of the first desert people and we waited longer than Islam had been in existence to return to our ancestral homelands and we are not leaving, ever. The Jews are probably the only peoples on the planet who can claim to having patience equal if not longer than that of the Chinese, Indians or Japanese or any other group known for longevity. Then there are those who claim where is our deed to these lands, and the answer is it is in the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, and our claim predates the Arab people emerging from the Arabian Peninsula, and that says something there. The Jews had established their homeland of Israel while the Arabs were still idolaters living in the Arabian Peninsula. In closing, all we wish to add is that Israel has returned and Israel will remain and will not fall again, ever. Or, to put it succinctly, Am Yisroel Chai!

 

Beyond the Cusp