Failure of Palestinian Arab Society

 

The world decries the sad state of life for the average Palestinian Arabs residing under the Palestinian Authority (PA) which is run completely by Fatah (we will be using Fatah as synonymous with Palestinian Authority) and Mahmoud Abbas or those residing under Hamas rule in Gaza. The one favorite reason given for these failures, despite their coming from two opposing systems, is that Israel has not permitted them to succeed. This excuse was prevalent under President Obama and pervades throughout Europe and the main sign has been the presumed lack of elections under Hamas or Fatah. The Europeans blame Israel for this situation despite all evidence to the contrary. In Gaza, Hamas holds dictatorial power only changing leaders when Hamas decides this is necessary usually after a single individual has accrued sufficient money stashed in banks around the world that they are assured a comfortable retirement, as recently occurred with Khaled Mashaal stepping down with Ismail Haniyeh being promoted to take his place while Yahya Sinwar was promoted from being leading officer of the military wing to now take political charge in Gaza. Khaled Mashaal is estimated to have collected a self-worth of approximately $2.5 billion. While in Gaza upon the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004, the emergency election placed his second in command, Mahmoud Abbas in charge of Fatah, the PLO, the PA and the Central Committee. Abbas was to serve a five-year term and is currently in his thirteenth year in office with no elections being held as Abbas knows that he would be replaced by whomever Hamas decides to place on the ballot. Abbas is also aware that once he loses his position, he loses his armed guards and would be fortunate to get out of the area alive. There will be no election held for the Palestinian Arabs in either camp as Hamas and Fatah will continue to hold their power in their respective regions.

 

Then there are the constant attempts to reconcile the differences between Hamas and Fatah and unify rule over the Palestinian Arabs, as this has been a demand by Europe such that a single entity or state can be formed once this is accomplished. As long as there exist two separate entities, the feeling is Israel can claim they have no peace partner, as nobody represents the complete Arab community. The current attempt is being taken by Egypt and was announced a few months back as having all the appearances of coming success. The negotiations have since collapsed and are stymied at an impasse. This is unsurprising as there can be no common ground between Fatah and Hamas. The base problem is that Hamas is a religious movement based in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood and Fatah is a nationalist political movement. The two are like oil and water, no matter how much you shake them trying to find some unity, they simply do not mix. Currently the situation is very counterintuitive as in Gaza the people desire a return of Fatah ruling them as they are tired of the corruption of Hamas stealing all their funds and supplies to fund terrorism and enrich their leadership while in Judea and Samaria the Arabs under Fatah desire Hamas as they are tired of the corruption of Fatah stealing their funds for their leadership to enrich themselves and live lavish lives. Even should both entities get the change in leadership, the corruption will remain the same and the people will continue to suffer. The problem is that neither group, be it Fatah or Hamas, is willing to provide honest and fair leadership and instead end up like every other Islamic governance no matter if its base is political or religious, they will end up as dictatorial with all the wealth going to those at the top and nothing being used to provide for the people. Even in the one place where Islam and good governance had existed, Turkey after Mustafa Kemal Atatürk provided the Turkish people with a Constitution and governance which served the people and separated Mosque and government which functioned for many decades until Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came to power promising to return to Islamic principles. Erdoğan delivered on his promise and now he sits as the head of the government and even should he change titles from President to Prime Minister or Prime Minister to President, the power follows the man and not his title and he has taken Turkey down the road to ruin. Turkey was a wealthy and prosperous nation and had almost run through its vast reserves and will soon begin to resemble Egypt, the Sudan or other functional Islamic governances where the people face high unemployment and moving to a modern society is so slow it does not even rate being called a crawl.

 

The answer to the problems in the Middle East is to force a separation between Islam and the governance and to educate the people and develop industries and provide jobs and real wealth for the people. The problem is that under Islamic rule the leaders are rewarded with great wealth while the people wallow in dire poverty. The Imams take whatever wealth is available in exchange for not opposing the government and allowing the leadership to remain in power and well to do. Where there is oil, the people have better lives but still have no future and once the oil runs its course, there will be nothing to finance the government and things will turn for the worse and they will end up just like the other Islamic nations either in civil war, popular uprising, dictatorship backed by the military, dictatorship backed by the Imams, or theocracy with the Imams or Mullahs holding the real power. Find an Arab or Middle East and North African (MENA) nation where there is a government which is different from the above mentioned. Unfortunately, such a search is pretty much doomed to failure as are the nations with these forms of government. Egypt may be the closest thing to an actual democratic government but the government still has a former military chief as its President and the one person most likely to replace him is another military officer.

 

The people are largely uneducated and there is a civil war against their Coptic Christians. This is the bogeyman in most Islamic states, the non-Muslims are blamed for every problem and thus routinely struck with violent hatred and uprisings often backed by the military which only steps in to end the violence once the people are satisfied that they have struck fear into these minorities. The world saw all so plainly what happens to minorities in Islamic governance that the Islamic State started to wipe out the Yazidis in Iraq and what the Islamic State did to the libraries and remains of ancient civilizations simply because they were not Islamic. A similar thing happened in Afghanistan to the Buddhas of Bamiyan which were many hundreds of years old and were some of, if not the, largest such Buddhas in the world destroyed simply because they were considered idols and un-Islamic (see images below). This is the fate of anything which is not considered Islamic under the current form of governance and intolerance in the Islamic world. This includes people who are tortured and forced to convert and if refusing, then they will be put to death. Even should one believe differently and still be a Muslim, such as the Shiites and the Sunnis, they will not tolerate any diversion from what the current leadership considers to be the correct form of Islam. This intolerance is found throughout the Islamic world and the most strong evidence is the war Iran is waging to make Shiite Islam the dominant form.

 

Buddhas of Bamiyan before pictured on the left and
being destroyed with explosives by Taliban forces on the right

 

The Iranians leadership, the Mullahs, believe that they have been tasked to bring the end times and spread Shia Islam to the entirety of the world or subject the world to their rule and only then can they consider their charge to be complete. They desire to impress their form and only their form of Islam despite Sunni Islam outnumbering Shia Muslims by multiples as they know that if they can prevail and defeat Saudi Arabia and take their oil fields and the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, they will have become the strong horse which will then gain the allegiance of the rest of Islam. This is very likely the first priority of the Iranian leadership once they solidify their Shiite Crescent to surround Saudi Arabia. The Iranians also intend to be the Islamic force which annihilates all the Jews of Israel and eventually the world. They believe very strongly in the Quranic calls which translate as, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.” (Sahih Bukhari volume 4 book 52 number 177) There are also references which equate Jews to pigs and apes or also rats. There are verses throughout the litany of Islamic literature which denigrates Jews often doing so while including Christians but sufficiently often alone that one could conclude the Islamic hatred against Jews is particularly virulent and pervasive. The Iranians wish to be the ones who are able to claim they have begun the first stages of the end times and the coming of the Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam. This is the belief of the Twelvers, a group of specifically ardent Shia Muslims who believe that the Twelfth Imam hid in a well to escape assassins sent by the Sunni and lives there to this day near the holy city of Qom. The Mullahs have built a causeway from Qom to Tehran so the Twelfth Imam can easily make the voyage before declaring the beginning of the Islamic end times and their imminent conquest of the world in a great conflagration filled of chaos, violence and great carnage where the unbelievers will be decimated. But Iran is a peaceful trading partner, just ask Germany, France and many other European nations.

 

Shiite Crescent including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran

 

The Iranians are once again being sought by Hamas to provide rockets, missiles and weapons to use against Israel. Iran will support both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the latter being a paid subsidiary of Iran much like Hezballah, just smaller. Iran is all but drooling over the possibility of also gaining inroads to Fatah and the PA. This would provide for them a knife pointed at the center of Israel and when combined with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, the IRGC in the Sinai Peninsula and Syria and the Iranian Army and Air Force in Syria and the Iranian Navy in the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea near Eilat, and Hezballah in Lebanon with approaching 200-thousand rockets and missiles of varying sizes and ranges with some capable of reaching Cairo and Riyadh, let alone all of Israel, allowing an assault on Israel on every front with only the small stretch of border with Jordan south of the Dead Sea along the eastern edge of Israel, assuming Jordan has not fallen to Iran; they believe that is the magic formula for the destruction of Israel. They apparently have not learned history as in 1948, without an actual functioning military, with virtually no air force plus nobody willing to sell Israel even a BB-gun outside of Czechoslovakia, Israel was attacked by Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia along with some select forces from Turkey, Yemen, the Sudan, Algeria, Libya also including the forces fighting under the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini with German (Nazi) officers advising and several militias and families attacked Israel on the day of her founding. As well as having been fighting them for the two years previous, but at a less obvious level so as not to have the British interfere which was required to prevent a few pogroms, invading from every border and fighting the Jews from within (the Jews did have a small number of Arabs who fought with them to preserve the nation as they did not wish to live under Islamic rule) and somehow over the next two years of on and off warfare, the Jews survived. Iran believes that they now have the magic combination with the addition of nuclear, including thermonuclear, weapons that they can wipe Israel from the map along with everyone they have at the borders.

 

All of this is simply further proof of why the Arabs, especially the Palestinian Arabs, are unable to establish functioning governance. Their entire governance is based on destroying Israel with no concern for building an economy and providing necessities for the people. That is a recipe for failure on all fronts. Israel has developed one of the most robust and accurate anti-missile systems with overlapping layers. There are the Arrow Systems; there are three systems in use, David Sling and Magic Wand, Iron Dome, Trophy Systems for vehicle and installation last line of protection and additional measures including from space and ground based installations which are so secretive that some only have their military nomenclature and have not even been named as of this article. Needless to add, the Israelis have systems in place and operational which can take out ICBMs and CBMs anywhere from their initial launching to any point in their trajectory and no matter their path or other measures as Israel probably developed the countermeasure for these offensive systems before the offensive systems were fully tested and placed into service. Attempting to strike Israel with missiles is possible, but it is not financially effective for the attacking nation (or for Israel except Israelis think it well worth the cost if they get to live). Israel has prepared sufficient defensive measures to prevent effective missile strikes such that their layered system has as many as three or even four systems overlapping at many distances. There is a reason why Iran gave Hezballah approaching 200-thousand rockets and missiles; their intent is to overload the Israeli defenses with numbers hoping that some make it through and if they are lucky, actually cause distress and damage possibly also some number of casualties. There is the final level of Israeli preparedness; the public is well trained through experience in finding and taking cover in shelters in case of rocket or missile attack. It is this training and practice which prevents catastrophic casualties as there often are in Gaza where Hamas had not built shelters and often sacrifices civilians to protect their rockets and launchers. Visit the Internet and search for Gaza children rocket launcher and there will be pictures and videos showing the use of children to protect these weapons. Israel will remain despite the attacks and the Arab people, especially the Palestinian Arabs who are on the front line and thus the ones demanded to make the most sacrifices, as Israeli governance treats lives as precious, even Palestinian Arab lives which they attempt to prevent, but one cannot prevent casualties when your opposition has as its main intent to have the maximum number of civilian casualties to show the world. They get their own people killed and then blame Israel and the world drinks this up with great gusto. The one piece of good news in everything thusfar, Hashem will provide that Israel survives and does so with minimal casualties and even minimal damages. This has been proven thusfar and there is no reason to doubt it continuing. Unfortunately for the Palestinian Arabs, you are left being the pawns sacrificed by your leaders such that they can have lavish lives and live the good life. If you reside in Gaza and your apartment building has been destroyed, go visit the westernmost areas where your leaders reside and see the complete lack of damage. Do you desire to know why this is so? The reason is that they never launch rockets or mortars from these areas and thus the Israelis do not launch at these areas. Perhaps you should ask the IDF to target these places and make your leaders also enjoy making great sacrifices you have been called upon to make.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Negotiations Palestinian Style

According to all expectations, negotiations between Israel and the terrorist entities out of Gaza led by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, but reputed to also have elements from al-Qaeda, PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), PLFP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Fatah, ISIS and others; are scheduled to resume later this week. These negotiations have been delayed so as to have them coincide with the Jewish High Holidays starting the day before Rosh HaShana which starts that evening. They are also scheduled to begin within two days of the termination of the month-long cessation of hostilities which some Hamas spokespeople have promised that rockets will resume raining down on Israeli cities, towns, homes, shopping malls, houses of worship, actually virtually anywhere as these rockets are launched with the expressed accuracy of a blindfolded darts shooter. All hopes within Israel are that those threats were simply more of the bluster often emanating from Palestinian spokespersons. Perhaps one way of laying out the difficulties these negotiations will present is to simply reference some of the bandying of demands and rejections which have been reported in various media sources.

Israel has repeatedly stressed their demand for the demilitarization of Gaza and the Hamas and others have simply stated that such is not even a subject to be breached at the negotiations as their weapons are necessary to their ability and actions to resist and destroy the occupation and the occupiers. Hamas spokesman and political leader Khaled Mashaal gave the media the following. “The subject of the resistance’s weapons isn’t open for negotiations. Those weapons are for fighting the occupying enemy. They are not for internal affairs.” Furthermore, there is the demand reported in the Arabic daily Al-Hayat that Doha warned it would deport Mashaal if he approved the agreement for the ceasefire framework as put forth by Egypt without insisting that Hamas’s demands construction of a seaport and airport in the Gaza Strip be incorporated as part of the agreement. Additionally, Osama Hamdan said Saturday that Israel must either accept its demands including lifting of the security blockade on Gaza and allow the construction of an airport and seaport or face “a war of attrition.” But these are the official demands and maximalist positions put forth by both sides, Israel demanding the demilitarization of Gaza to prevent the continued aggressions as constantly threatened as seen above, and on the other side, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the others insisting the end to the United Nations validated embargo which is designed to prevent, or at least minimize, the import of heavy weapon systems, more terrorist fighters and provisions for the construction of infiltration tunnels and other military bulwarks, and permit, if not assist, the construction both of an international airport and a fully equipped seaport allowing for unfettered importation of any and all goods as desired by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other terror entities.

All of this aside, what are the attitudes of the people, the Palestinian street, towards Israel and the ending of the near constant levels of violence which has become so commonplace that the media does not even bother to cover such violence unless it results in fatalities, often multiple Israeli fatalities or any Palestinian fatalities or even injuries. Perhaps relating a recent series of events might shed some light on this situation. Sixteen year old Mohammed Abu Sankara was participating in one of the regular afternoon rioting in Jerusalem and was reported to have joined with others hurling rocks, some shot from slings and the throwing of Molotov cocktails. The Israeli police responded shooting sponge anti-riot shot aimed for the low at the rioters’ legs. Mohammed Abu Sankara was struck in the leg and while running, retreating, he stumbled and fell striking his head on the road surface. His injuries were of a sufficient severity that the police had him transported to a hospital. Mohammed Abu Sankara was conscious at the point of transport but subsequently fell into a coma and died two days later. What is telling was the response from his mother when approached by the press at his funeral as well as the celebratory mass parade adjoining the passage of his casket to the cemetery.

Below is a report gathered from Palestinian Authority official television by PMW (Palestinian Media Watch) but first a few comments and quotes. The one thing one needs to know is that the Palestinian Authority still grants the families of those imprisoned or who die in terror related activities, which includes those participating in their scheduled rioting and other violence, a generous stipend for life. I am not sure that any entity could give me sufficient cash rewards what would have me celebrate any of my children sacrificing themselves as they are more precious than any monetary rewards. She exclaimed to the cameras, “This is the first time I see joy in my heart. This is the first time I see such joy. Thank Allah for giving him martyrdom.” I pray for the sake of this woman’s soul that her actions were simply a rehearsed part played out for the cameras in order to provide fuel for the cause and that she had to be forced to play the part and it took many, many takes before they got the desired enthusiasm. If this was her actual emotions and pride, I feel for her and am unable to understand the motivation which could bring a mother to celebrate the tragic death of her son. I further noted in the short clip the celebratory mood of those participating in the march presumably from the remembrance ceremony to the cemetery. The exuberance and joy was the same as in numerous similar situations where a martyr was being taken to their resting place. Thusly, I realize that the majority of those participating are not friends or family but rent-a-mob participants which are readily available to the Palestinian Authority as well as to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and on and on and are able to be gathered for the cameras with only mere moments preparation. They know their role and they play their parts to perfection, or close enough for government work, which it actually is, as often these are people on the Palestinian Authority government rolls receiving a salary simply to demonstrate when needed. The unfortunate reality is this mother’s action before the cameras are indicative of other mothers from previous such celebrations for the martyrs when they are ceremoniously given their splendid and well-choreographed funerals.

The question is how can one reach an agreement for a lasting peace with a society which really does treasure death and seek death by martyrdom as their highest aspiration when you treasure life, all life including those who martyr themselves amongst your people in their public places such as the actions by Ahlam Tamimi who planned the suicide bombing on 9 August 2001 at one of Jerusalem’s Sbarro Pizza Parlors. In an interview posted on the Hamas website Ahlam Tamimi was quoted saying, “It was a calculated act, performed with conviction and faith in Allah. Jihad warriors are always ready to die as martyrs, to be arrested or to succeed. I managed to overcome the barrier of prison and was released. Why should I repent?” Speaking about those terrorists who remain in prison after the releases as part of the Gilad Shalit deal of which she was one, Ahlam Tamimi said, “We left with our heads held high. All attempts to keep us in prison, and those who remain, will soon be forsaken.” For peace there needs be some common ground between the two parties on which to construct any peace agreement, after all, it is called an agreement for a reason.

That is where the problem arises seeking a permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The mistake the world makes is believing that the conflict is over territory, that is a lie and will perpetuate endless time wasting negotiations attempting to reach a border which will be honored by both sides. The Palestinian idea for making peace possible is for every last Jew to be eradicated from what they demand is their lands which include all of Israel, or as they state, from the river to the sea Palestine must be free. As recently stated by the Palestinian Authority ambassador to Iran, Salah Al-Zawawi stated, “All those people who have gathered to occupy our land must return to their countries of origin, leaving behind only the Palestinian Jews, with whom we had lived in love, respect, and fraternity. I would like to reiterate my gratitude to the Islamic Republic of Iran for the training, financing, and weapons it has provided us, as well as for its political and diplomatic positions regarding Palestine. Iran has helped us to attain our great victory. I am not saying that Palestine will be liberated tomorrow, but we have made real strides on the path to liberation. A missile with a 200 kilogram warhead will carry a warhead of 100 tons in the future, because weapons change as men change. We just need to cross the scientific threshold to get to our goal.” That makes their position amply clear except there is a small problem with his assertions, the Jews in Israel are finally home in their original country, it is the Jews dispersed around the world who needs to be brought home to Israel. Further, even if his intentions were accurate, would the Arab nations be acceptable reaccepting the descendants of the eight-hundred-fifty-thousand Jews who were dispossessed between 1945 and 1955? I honestly have my doubts. Further, there is a reason that the Jews who live in the many and various locations in the nations of the world other than Israel are referred to as the Diaspora; that is that they have not returned home and are still residing in where their wanderings have led them as a result of their families’ original dispersion to the far corners of the world, or at least the far corners of the Roman Empire, depriving them of the right to live in their homelands, the land that all the Jews originally came out from. So, sure, bring all the Jews to the one and only land which has ever been their home, bring them back to Eretz Yisroel.

Beyond the Cusp

Palestinians Dream Equals an Israeli Nightmare

The commonly held myth that all the Jews and Israel have to do is recognize the Palestinian right to their homeland and return the lands, ownership and governance to the pre-1967 status making a Palestinian homeland in what are referred to as the West Bank and Gaza is a fairytale. This is made evident with every statement made by the leadership of Hamas, Fatah, the PLO and every other Palestinian group whenever they speak in Arabic. Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal has been proclaiming such during his first visit ever to Gaza having been in exile for over four decades. His first declaration was that the day would soon come that he would make such proclamations from Ramallah and then soon after from Jerusalem. His meaning was plain to every member of Hamas and anybody truly familiar with the ethos of the Israeli-Palestinian problem. His statement refers to the eventual ascension of Hamas to replace Fatah and become the sole leader of the Palestinians and their eventual supplanting Israel with the state of Palestine and the eradication of the Jews and Israel.

One thing that must be clarified is that there is, in all honesty, not Israel-Palestinian problem, just an Israeli-Arab and Muslim problem. The truth the real reason that we now talk about the Israel-Palestinian problem is that by framing it in this manner the Arabs replaced their obvious numerical, land area, military and other massive advantages over the little country of Israel by inventing a Palestinian people who could be portrayed as weak and completely dominated and helpless against the obviously superior Israeli military power. Then they set about making a Palestinian historical claim and story line which, when carefully examined, exactly matches the Jewish history and have been repeating these lies loudly, and constantly, counting on repetition to make their story accepted as valid and at the same time deny the history of the Jewish people. The one easy to verify fact that the Arabs are counting on is that the majority of the world will ignore the facts which have been plainly obvious to generation after generation back thousands of years. This proof can be found simply by attending Church, Synagogue, and even Mosques as the Old Testament, the New Testament, and yes, even the Quran all tell of the promises made to Abraham and Moses that the lands of Israel belongs to the Jews. Please, check for yourself as it is easily referenced with a simple search of “Quran Israel Jews” with any search engine.

But do not expect that little fact to change the drive by the current adherents to militant Islam to give such any credence as they practice their own version of replacement theology. They realize that the first step to what is a belief of Islamic supremacy over the entire world is the defeat of the Jews and the taking of Israel and Jerusalem. The main reason that Jerusalem is so important has little to do with Islamic holy sites; it has everything to do with the fact that Jerusalem is holy to Jews and Christians. They have as much reverence for the holiness of Jerusalem as the Taliban Islamists had for the ancient Buddha statues in Afghanistan, the ones they wired with explosives and utterly destroyed with little care of their meaning to the world’s millions of Buddhists or of their historical and artistic significance. The entirety of what constitutes the Palestinians, the supposed culture, history, origins in the area as far back as nine millennia ago, the holiness of Jerusalem, their claims to all of the lands of Israel, and their claims to many of the Jewish holy sites such as Kever Yoseph and Kever Rachel are all a fine fabrications spun totally out of threads of Taqiyya, the Islamic pretext that all fabrications and even outright lies are not only forgivable but required if their use is to further the spread or needs of Islam and as such are actually blessed acts.

Fortunately, as is often the case when a narrative is based in falsehoods, the truth has at times come to the surface and been revealed, sometimes even by presumed leading Palestinians. One of the more well known of such statements was made by a man from the inner circle of Yasser Arafat and a PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein in a March 31, 1977 interview for the Dutch newspaper Trouw where he stated, “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.” And there is this gem from the late Syrian President Hafez Assad to PLO leader Yasser Arafat. “You do not represent Palestine as much as we do. Never forget this one point: There is no such thing as a Palestinian People, there is no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria. You are an integral part of the Syrian people; Palestine is an integral part of Syria. Therefore it is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the true representatives of the Palestinian people.”

The uncontroversial facts are the same today as they were in June of 1967. The 1949 Armistice Agreements ended the initial Arab-Israeli War and the Green Line was established as the 1949 Armistice Lines with each of the neighboring combatants. At the time of each signing Gaza was in placed in Egyptian hands, Judea and Samaria, falsely labeled as the West Bank for the same reason the Palestinians were later invented, to remove any obvious historical links to the Jews and Judaism, were placed in Jordanian hands, and the Golan Heights were in Syrian hands. Israel had fought against seven Arab countries’ armies, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. There were additional Arab militias one of which was under the leadership of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. There was no country of Palestine and there was no army of Palestine and up to this point in history when the word Palestinian was used, it referred to the Jews living within the British Mandate Lands. The Arab denizens of the British Mandate Lands were referred to as Arabs, Syrians, or occasionally Palestinian Arabs. From the dates of the Armistice Agreements until the Six Day War in June of 1967 the lands now supposedly making up the country named Palestine were under Arab control where establishing such an entity would not have required any actions from Israel or a single Jew anywhere on planet Earth yet no such state was formed. Subsequent to the defeat of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in the June 1967 Six Day War, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the so-called West Bank, actually Judea and Samaria came under Israeli control along with the entire Sinai Peninsula. When Egypt and Israel made their peace with the signing of the Camp David Accords on March 26, 1979 by Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in Washington DC Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egyptian sovereignty while Egypt ceded all of Gaza to Israel. When Israel and Jordan finally reached a peace accord which was signed on October 26, 1994, Jordan accepted the Jordan River to be her western boundary with Israel and ceded all of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) to Israel. Israel has subsequent to the Six Day War officially annexed Jerusalem and the Golan Heights declaring them to be permanently part of Israel and no longer negotiable, facts that much of the world continues to contend.

Where things currently sit are that Gaza is held by Hamas with Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda in Gaza, PFLP, and other terror groups vying to supplant Hamas; Judea and Samaria (West Bank) divided into three sections; Section A under complete Palestinian control; Section B under Palestinian legislative control with joint Palestinian and Israeli security; and Section C, which includes all of East Jerusalem, under total Israeli control. There currently exists a ceasefire between Hamas and affiliated groups in Gaza and Israel, the two entities are still in a technical state of war and the peace remains an uneasy one with it deteriorating into violence a constant threat. The Sections that make up Judea and Samaria are subject to a low to moderate levels of constant violence with rock and Molotov cocktail attacks occurring regularly along with shootings and stabbings on occasions and where demonstrations are weekly series of events (some even scheduled for the same day and time each week with differing confrontational levels). Any hope of peace talks, as remote as they have been as Mahmoud Abbas refuses to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu unless Israel fulfills what Abbas terms as Israeli obligations which also just happen to include virtually every one of the final status topics and these presumed obligations entail a complete surrender to the Palestinian demands on each and every item. Some examples are that Israel retreat to the 1949 Armistice Lines; surrender all of East Jerusalem including all of the Old City and Temple Mount; allow for the ‘Right of Return’ for all Palestinian refugees, allow the Palestinians in their new state to import any forms of weapons and build their own military; the Palestinian state be allowed to enter military agreements and treaties with other entities including holding training exercises within the borders of the state; a connecting corridor between Gaza and the West Bank across Israel; the removal of every single Jew from Palestinian lands; the release of every Palestinian prisoner who was arrested before the Oslo Accords were effective; and the right of the Palestinians to continue their struggle to liberate all of their lands which means all of Israel. Somehow, Israeli refusal to acquiesce to this blackmail is interpreted by much of Europe, the Muslim world, and much of the rest of the world as a lack of serious interest in achieving a workable peace by Israel. This was made more than obvious by the recent vote in the United Nations General Assembly where only nine nations rejected Mahmoud Abbas’s request to upgrade the Palestinian standing from nonmember observer entity to nonmember observer state granting de-facto recognition of statehood to the PLO. Armed with this vote the PLO and the Palestinian Authority will now be permitted to apply for membership in any United Nations agency; to petition the ICC for redress of grievances with claims of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and territorial claims against Israel; membership in a wide variety of NGO’s; recognition of statehood with whatever borders they wish to claim by other countries leading to establishment of embassies, exchange of diplomats, and even petitions for assistance in defending their claimed borders against Israeli aggressions or presence; and a whole raft of other items reserved to recognized states that leave the imagination free to contemplate. The vote taken by the United Nations General Assembly simply granted the Palestinian entities everything they were supposed to gain solely through compromise and negotiations with Israel and they received these guarantees without necessitating any actions or concessions from the Palestinians and without even having to recognize Israel’s right to exist, let alone to be the Jewish state. The real danger will come when the PLO and the Palestinian Authority reunite with Hamas and then hold elections in which Hamas will win by a comfortable margin and then Hamas will control this monster just granted free reign by the United Nations. This cannot end well.

Beyond the Cusp