Arab Refusal not Israeli Settlements Prevents Peace

 

The Arab Israeli conflict could have been avoided had the Arabs dealt honorably with the situation. The greatest part of the problem is the Arab refusal to assist and eventually absorb the refugees they made. While there are actually two distinct and separate groups of refugees, they both originate from the same side, the Arab nations. There are the almost one-million refugees the Arab world created largely during the 1950’s as they expelled, deported, threatened and otherwise demeaned their Jewish populations forcing almost all to depart often with merely a suitcase or just the clothes on their backs. These refugees had their property stolen and gifted to Arabs the ruler favored, had their businesses destroyed, their bank accounts seized and anything of value taken from their baggage as it was inspected before allowing them to board the boat or plane which would take them to Israel. Then there were the six-hundred-thousand Arabs who heeded the call by the Mufti of Jerusalem to vacate their homes and wait behind the Arab lines while their armies decimated Israel killing everyone they encountered. They were promised a share in the Jewish wealth which would be the great bounty the conquering Arabs would find once they had defeated these Jewish upstarts trying to make a nation for Jews. Something went terribly wrong for the Arabs as they never quite succeeded in the realization of the Mufti’s dreams. These Arab nations, primarily Lebanon, Syria and Jordan; had the hundreds of thousands of homeless Arabs who had left their homes in Israel believing the Arabs would easily win the war of annihilation they planned for Israel and her Jews. When the war ended with the Arabs having gained control of Gaza and parts of Judea and Samaria, the Arabs had to figure out what to do with these refugees. They could have allowed them to return to Israel which the Israelis would have permitted early in the 1950’s or they could have absorbed them back into their countries which was where many of them had lived before moving to Israel due to economic factors providing better opportunities for employment. But the Arabs chose a third alternative, they locked their brothers and sisters into camps making the Arab refugee problem. Every other similar situation resulted in a population exchange, except this one. Allowing this refugee situation, it is not a problem as it was a direct result of intentional actions in order to make a bludgeon with which to pound Israel into submission, was the world’s means of backing the Arab desires to destroy Israel as most of Europe wished to be rid of a Jewish State forcing the Jews back to living completely vulnerable to the shifting moods of the surrounding populations. Allowing a Jewish state with a Jewish military was just too unsettling for many Europeans as they prefer their Jews defenseless.

 

This has been the situation for over seventy years, but the argument has changed and names have been adopted in order to steal, bend, fold, spindle and mutilate actual history presenting a bastardized form which was self-serving the Arabist claims that Israel was an illegal entity deserving of destruction. The first alteration came in 1964 with the formation of the PLO by the Arab League in conjunction with the KGB which had trained Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas during the times each spent in Moscow. Yasser Arafat, was born and raised as an Egyptian in, of all places, Egypt, imagine that. He became the face of the Palestinian Arabs who were assuming the title as being Palestinians as previous to the formation of Israel, and even up to this point, anyone referred to as a Palestinian was a Jew and the Arabs were simply the Arabs. Now that they were calling themselves Palestinians, the next thing was to give the world a few years to become comfortable with the denotation of the Arabs as Palestinian and then they claimed that they were the Palestinians who were supposed to have the lands from the River to the Sea. Now they were claiming that they were the people under Roman rule when the region was renamed after the 135 AD Jewish revolt. But why stop there, which they did not. Over the years they have claimed that they were the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Phoenicians, that they have resided in the Holy Lands for over five thousand years thus were there before the Jews ever arrived, claimed that they invented the first Palestinian-Canaanite language and written alphabet five thousand years ago (a full two thousand years before cuneiform came to be which was credited with being the first written language). They have made other equally ludicrous claims such as Jesus was the first Palestinian murdered by the Jews, Moses was a Palestinian, Noah was a Muslim and even Adam and Eve were Muslims. The Jews do not claim Adam, Eve or Noah as being Jews as they predate Avram who was the first Jew at the point that Hashem changed his name to Avraham. But these people who just barely predate Muhammad, only if you use the formation of the universe as your timeclock, they claim were Muslims because they knew the Quran before Muhammad presumably transcribed it from his visions, dreams, meeting the angel Gabriel. So, Yasser Arafat, an Egyptian citizen raised in Cairo was the first Palestinian Arab who was trained for the position in Moscow. Can it get any more convoluted? Oh, it can, as the first act was to co-opt the name Palestinian in order to appropriate the history of the Jewish people who had lived in what was now Israel, and some resided in areas which came under Jordanian rule and were evicted from their homes and most of their possession stolen making a few thousand additional refugees for Israel to absorb from the Arab world, for over two millennia and a few for over three millennia.

 

The original claim made by the PLO was that the parts of Judea and Samaria under Jordanian control and Gaza under Egyptian control, both from 1948 until June of 1967 and the Six Day War, were legal Jordanian and Egyptian lands and the PLO was going to liberate the rest of the lands between the River and the Sea, all of Israel, and then divide it between Jordan and Egypt. The PLO, the terror group revamped into a political entity called the Palestinian Authority (PA), originally was targeting Israel to make all of it ruled by Muslims, preferably Arab, and free the land of the Jewish contamination. The Six Day War of early June 1967 resulted with Israel in possession of all of Judea and Samaria having liberated them from Jordan, Gaza liberated from the Egyptians, the Sinai Peninsula which Egypt lost in the war and the Golan Heights which Syria had lost in the war. As Egypt initiated the war and Syria massed troops also threatening Israel with destruction, Israel could have retained all the lands gained against these nations. Jordan joined the war soon after its inception believing the Syrian and Egyptian media reporting the two nations closing on Tel Aviv from both sides and the King of Jordan was not going to be left out of claiming the lands after the Jews were defeated. The Israelis attempted to dissuade the King of Jordan which he mistook for their begging for Jordan not enter the war as begging Jordan not to add to the apparent humiliation of the Israelis as only one who is weak dissuades their enemies from attacking, as the strong invite conflicts they know they will win. This meant that Israel has a double claim to the parts of Judea and Samaria held by Jordan, the fact that they are part of the lands intended for the Jewish state and they were retaken in a defensive war. Israel reached peace agreements from Egypt who relented any claims to Gaza and Jordan who relented any claims to lands west of the Jordan River. Syria and Israel have an armistice agreement while technically remaining at war and Syria is currently too busy fighting Syria to worry about Israel.

 

Israel annexed the Golan Heights under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 which was carefully argued over the wording of the resolution making sure certain allowances were available to Israel as the aggrieved party in the Six Day War. The two main guarantees, promises, were that Israel should have defensible borders and was obliged to return land, not the land, all the land or any reference which might imply that Israel had to return all the lands. The Golan Heights was one of the regions that Israel was assumed to annex as it is a defensible area giving whichever side holds them a great advantage by overlooking the lands below, be they in Israel or Syria. Some of those who argued for terms which would be more liberal and favoring Israel expected that Israel would retain the regions on their side of the central mountains including at least half of the passes and the surrounding mountains. Israel actually returned the entirety of the Sinai in stages (see maps below). The final border Israel was expected to retain was along the Jordan River, the region which the PA is attempting to force Israel to surrender for the formation of Palestine. The longer the so-called peace process continues and terrorist attacks continue to increase, the more likely it is that Israel will annex all the lands west of the Jordan River and allow the Arabs residing under the PA the choice of living under Israeli rule or taking a one-time offer to relocate outside of Israel and promise never to return. There will be those who take the former except they will have no intention of living under Israeli rule or Israeli laws and will continue their terror war against Israel. These individuals will be deported and told if they return, they will face either execution or life in prison. We know the world will howl and wail lamenting the pain and suffering of the poor, wretched Palestinian Arabs deprived of their dignity. That is what they are doing now, so that will not have changed one iota.

 

Shrinking Israel

 

How did we get to this state of affairs? Well, all of the problems stem from one central theme, the Arab refusal to recognize or allow a Jewish state at all. This was why they attacked at dawn of May 15, 1948, mere hours after Israel declared her independence. They had been offered half the lands west of the Jordan River but preferred to destroy the Zionist Entity and kill every accursed Jew they found. They did not succeed but did take some valuable lands, especially those parts of Judea and Samaria which Jordan occupied. Then again, they believed that they were ready and able to destroy Israel in June of 1967. They lost this time and now Israel held the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights and had liberated those lands of Gaza, Judea and Samaria. Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula, and area several times the size of Israel and containing oil. Israel left their oil platforms and refinery in the Sinai for the Egyptians benefit. Israel, as we stated, annexed the Golan Heights and has stated intention of bringing regions of Area C, all of which under Oslo is solely Israeli land, under Israeli civil law as preparation for annexation. The Golan Heights are a military necessity which becomes obvious when looking at the relief map below. Israel has annexed eastern Jerusalem making the city whole once more and granted voting rights in Jerusalem elections though not in Israeli national elections. According to all the relevant applicable treaties, Israel is to provide religious, civil, economic, social and other rights but is not required to give political rights to any Arabs and other non-Jews living within Israel. Before you start screaming Apartheid, listen for one sentence; Israel granted voting rights and gave full citizenship to all who were residing within her boundaries upon the end of the 1948-9 wars with her neighboring nations of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. That included the Arabs, the Druze, the Bedouins and numerous other minorities. When Israel took in approximately three-hundred Vietnamese Boat People, she offered them full citizenship if they desired such.

 

Topographic Map of Golan Heights and Jordan River Valley

 

Now for the main argument for Israel retaining all the lands west of the Jordan River, something sort-of made obvious by the above picture as well, but there is another picture which tells the story even better below. The Jordan River is not the most difficult river to cross even if there were no bridges. It is not the river, per sé, but the deep valley and the surrounding cliffs which make both sides great defensive positions and any attempt at crossing places one’s forces in peril. Were Israel to allow a twenty-second Arab state to be formed, as envisioned by far too much of the world, on all the lands illegally occupied by Jordan up to 1967, then there would be no reasonable expectation that such would lead to peace. The Europeans love to claim that such a state would not be permitted a military and would only have police. These are the same Europeans who guaranteed that they would prevent any arms from crossing into Gaza from the Sinai and within the first week abandoned their posts returning to their Tel Aviv hotel rooms only leaving them to head to Ben Gurion International Airport to fly home. After that and while Egypt was ruled by President Morsi, arms poured across that border. Please do not hold us to relying on European promises any time in the near future. Such a state would be armed with whatever the Arab world and/or Iran desired to gift to them. This would include heavy weapons and possibly tanks and aircraft. Within a year that nation we assume would be named Palestine would be bristling with weapons just egging for a fight.

 

Cutaway View of Tactical Advantage and Necessity
of the Jordan Valley and Judean Hills for Defending
Coastal Plains and Israel Alongside the Mediterranean Sea

 

We will make an even easier to understand argument against forcing Israel back to the Green Line, the 1949 Armistice Line which the Arab League insisted was never ever to become a border. Now they are the cheerleaders for the Green Line as the border for their new Arab nation. They will still insist that it is not a border for Israel as that would give Israel borders all the way around making it a state, and the Arab claim is that there can be no Jewish state because Allah never allowed for such an entity. Allah cursed the Jews to live as people without a country, strangers in every land, to be cursed and degraded as one’s whims dictate and every other form of disgrace was to be heaped upon the Jews wherever they were to be found. But Jews ruling themselves was a complete impossibility as the Arabs did not believe the Jews had such higher functions of intelligence necessary to rule. Jews were supposed to rely on the good graces of others and accept whatever treatment was dished out as they deserved whatever they got. So, the Green Line is not the end of the conflict, just another stage in destroying Israel in stages. Taking back the Sinai was a stage. Wresting Gaza was another stage which did not go according to plan as Hamas took over in a coup and thus separated Gaza from PA rule. But Arabs rule Gaza and that will have to do for their side for now. Their next aim is to get as close as possible in regaining the lands Jordan lost, the lands Jordan illegally occupied but now that illegal occupation is their argument that the land must belong to Arabs as Israel did not rule over these lands ever. That is not entirely true as Israel ruled over the lands west of the Jordan River for at least twelve hours before the Arab invasion. But they want the Green Line as that includes all of the Judean Hills, the high ground in the above cutaway view. The reality of the situation such an agreement would bring is explained by simply stating that one can see central Tel Aviv, the Mediterranean coastline, Netanya, Herzliya and over three-quarters of Israeli infrastructure, population as well as Dimona, the Haifa nuclear electric plants and so much more. This allows for the terrorists being able to use rockets with no guidance systems as they can adjust their targeting by line-of-sight. When you can watch your first rocket fly, you adjust and fire again and watch and adjust until either you hit your target or the Israelis target you. An idea of what it would look like before such an agreement and after the world forces Israel to give the land to the PA and the terrorists would see the bottom picture. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, well, this one is probably proof.

 

Tel Aviv Now Before Green Line Peace
and
Tel Aviv the Day After Green Line Peace

 

The picture was taken from the Judean Hills overlooking the Central Plains of Israel. It was taken from land which would be gifted to the Arabs were the Europeans and United Nations, amongst others, to get their way. There has already started claims that the entirety of the Negev belongs to the Bedouins. Only in Israel do Bedouins, who elsewhere are considered landless nomads, become claimants to lands. But that would be the next stage of chopping up Israel until it is completely unable to defend herself. Mahmoud Abbas has regularly claimed Tel Aviv, Haifa, Akko, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Tiberius which are all within the Green Line and recognized by the United Nations and even the European Union as properly parts of Israel. Abbas has made clear that any size Jewish State is completely unacceptable. Iran has also stated their intent to destroy Israel and eradicate the Jews worldwide. Most Arab leaders have, when referencing who they are currently fighting or about to invade, always included Israel when making threats to places which have nothing to do with Israel. Whenever Iran or Arab nations threaten the United States, they just have to add a chant of death to Israel just for good measure. We also know that Jerusalem is on their list as the number one city they desire to conquer simply because that is exactly what making a city the third holiest site in Islam means. Before Jerusalem, that position was held by Damascus, Constantinople, Rome, Paris, London, Vienna and many other cities which have come within Islamic sights. The main problem is that the Western World has almost no understanding of the Islamic religion, rigors, aims, restrictions, demands and especially its eventual claims of how they will perfect the world. Just give all a starting point, the eventual end all of Islam is their ruling the world, Islam being the only religion on earth and those who are not yet converted given a simple choice of conversion or death, often by beheading. Islam is not the religion of peace as their definition of peace is their ruling and only Muslims having rights. Find a copy of the Quran with the Hadiths in chronological order and each time you find one entry which contradicts a former entry, the later entry supersedes the former.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Jews Did Not Mold the Middle East

 

Since the conquest of Judea by the Babylonians, the Jews briefly were permitted self-rule as a province of the Persian Empire after their defeat of the Babylonian Empire. Just a historical footnote, years before these other empires rose with great clamor, there was a time when the Hebrews, the Jews, had an empire as well which reached from the Euphrates River to the Wadi of Egypt (not the Nile as many claim). This was the period of a Greater Israel and modern Jews and Israelis in general do not seek empire or a Greater Israel reaching the Euphrates, though the modern border between Israel and Egypt is very close to the location of the Wadi of Egypt (see map below). But that was the before anyone recorded history except for the Egyptians and a Jewish Empire was never to be celebrated, only made into a modern fear that the Jew wants to rule the world. Back to recorded history where the Persians fell to the Greeks who fell to the Romans who dispersed the Judean, by then even the Romans were referring to them simply by the shortened term, Ju (pronounced the same a Jew). The point is that from approximately 597BCE until May 15, 1948, the Jews had no homeland anywhere and were dispersed throughout most of the world. The Jews wielded power and influence throughout many periods but were always suspect and often treated as second-class people or even as subhuman. The truth was that there were initially two main groups of Jews by the time we reach closer to modernity but before the colonizing of the New World and the rise of Europe as the main power and the Europeans, though ruled as separate nations, were unified in their common cause in resisting the expansionary conquests by the Islamic Empire, be it the Caliphate or the Ottomans. The Europeans coordinated efforts to retake the Holy Lands, in particular Jerusalem, which resulted in the Crusades which were not an offensive war but a response to the conquest of the area and their being pushed from the lands after the fall of Rome and later the Byzantine Empire by Islamic forces.

 

Greater Israel the Kingdoms of Kings David and Solomon Between 1050 and 930 BCE

 

The rise of Islam ended what had been a century of Jewish preeminence in many regions of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) under the remnants of the Persian Empire which rose again after the fall of Rome, in Egypt which returned to indigenous rule also after the fall of Rome, and under other tribal rule across the region with but a remnant of the Jews who remained or had returned to the area which had been their ancestral homelands with the majority residing in Jerusalem, Tiberius, Caesarea, Be’er Sheva and other towns and cities. Still, even in Jerusalem despite often being either a plurality or sometimes and outright majority, they never were permitted self-rule for two-thousand-five-hundred-forty-five year period, from 597BCE until May of 1948, just in case you wish to check our math. The Jews who resided within Europe and Russia have a history which well documented and tells a depressing story of pogrom, evictions, forced conversions, torture, inquisitions, purifications and the Protestant Reformation where virtually every new faction of Christianity attempted to prove their righteousness and superiority in having a pure faith compared to the Church in Rome each attempted to outdo the rest in their persecution of Jews and others not of their particular denomination of Christianity. Even after the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the industrial revolution which brought on the modern age, the Jews remained persecuted and forced to work only in professions which were permitted to them and throughout Europe, they mostly were forbidden from owning land. Many Jews fled to the New World hoping that things would improve, and depending on where they went and under which European power they resided determined their plight. Often they found that the Christian dominance remained a stumbling block to the Jews gaining equal rights and they were again relegated to only being permitted certain fields of endeavor and often were still denied land ownership. But what about the Jews who did not reside under the European Christians, the Jews of MENA?

 

Starting in the year 622, Muhammad began the Islamic conquest of the Arabian Peninsula where Muhammad often ordered the slaughter of the men of the Jewish tribes, taking the women to use to produce fighters or as wives, trained the male children in Islam and Jihad and raising the girls to become wives. After the death of Muhammad, the leaders of the Islamic tribes continued to expand their reach and by 725 had conquered Persia, Egypt and virtually all of the region of MENA and were making their way up the Iberian Peninsula (see map below). The spread of the Muslims was halted in the west by Charles the Hammer Martel at the battle of Tours and in the East by the Byzantines and the seemingly impervious walls of Constantinople. Our apologies to our regular readers who have suffered through this story repeatedly, but from here we will be giving a different twist. Between the Caliphates and the Ottoman Empire, the Islamic religion was preeminent ruling over almost all of MENA for 1200 years. During this period, despite what European history states as they simply restated the propaganda fed them by the Muslims and seldom questioned this perfect society where all were presumably equal and everything was sugar and spice and everything nice, the Jews did not have such royal treatment under Islamic rule. At best the Jew were Dhimmi, a form of second-class people who are forced to pay a special tax called the Jiyza. The Jiyza could be an affordable amount or it could be set such that the Dhimmis would be impoverished very rapidly. When a Dhimmi was unable to pay the Jiyza, they were often given a choice to convert or die. Jews, Christians and other Dhimmi were often forced to convert to Islam or face beheading and even after conversion they were still suspect and the slightest sign that they held to their former religion would result in their death. This was the lot of Jews under Islamic rule.

 

Expansion of Islam Across MENA and into Europe before Ottoman Rule

 

There was another period which the Jews were facing persecution no matter which way they turned with the only difference being whether they wished to be tortured, forced to convert and then often killed anyway by the Spanish Christians or the Muslims who were being pushed from the Iberian Peninsula and also facing the Spanish Inquisition. Both the Muslims, who were losing to the forces of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, and the Spanish Christian forces who were facing fierce resistance from the Muslims believed that the Jews were spies or in other ways supporting their foes. Whichever side the Jews found themselves, their best hope was to hide and not be seen as to be seen would result in torture and likely death as they were seldom able to provide information which was worthy of sparing their lives as after they spilled whatever they knew or whatever they invented when they lacked actual knowledge, they no longer served any purpose and thus were eliminated. So, up until World War I from the period of the Babylonian conquering of Jerusalem, the Jews resided constantly under foreign rule even inside of the region which had been their homelands. What is important for this article is that they never had much if any influence on the way the MENA world was fashioned as they were simply powerless and as Dhimmi often lucky if they avoided much notice by their local rulers or any ruler over them all the way up the Caliph, King or whatever title the highest ruler desired for themselves. The Jews who lived in the holy lands did go through a rough period whenever there was a Crusade as when the Christians from Europe liberated a town from its Islamic ruler, they would go through and persecute and kill the Muslims and the Jews. When the Islamic forces would take these regions back, they would persecute and kill the Christians and Jews. The underlying reality was that when your city changed hands, if you were only tortured and not killed, that was being fortunate. This all ended with World War I which changed the face of MENA, something the Arabs to this day resent and blame for their economic and other woes, but the Ottoman Empire was not the only empire broken up, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and Greater Germany were also split into numerous nations (see map below).

 

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

 

World War I brought the end of the Ottoman Empire and Islamic rule across MENA countries with the exception of Persia which remained ruled under Islam. After World War I, the European nations divided up the regions of the Ottoman Empire with the intent of educating and installing European styled nations. As these assigned colonial rules were established under the numerous treaties and conferences and all approved by the League of Nations and signed by the former ruler and now the leader of the forerunner for the Arab League, these mandates and colonies were considered perfectly acceptable. This is the advantage of being the winners in the war. One of the conferences was the San Remo Conference which was where the British Mandate to set up the restored Jewish homelands was born. The idea and restoration of Israel in the Promised Land was a result of World War I and was not as a result of guilt over the Holocaust. The guilt over the Holocaust canard was invented to make it appear that the Jew received their lands due to European guilt over the Holocaust and not due to the restoration of indigenous peoples to their ancestral homes. This was the driving force behind the new maps drawn for MENA and for Eastern Europe. This was a redrawing of much of the maps of all of the old world and the birth of a new world. The British were not satisfied with giving the Jews the entirety of their Mandate lands as they owed the Arab King Faisal a promise to give each of his sons their own lands to rule as he was of assistance during World War I (watch Lawrence of Arabia for a Hollywood version of why). One son of the King received Iraq and the other was granted Jordan. This meant that the Jewish State was shrunk to a mere 22% of the Mandate lands, those west of the Jordan River, and the Arabs were given 78% of the Mandate lands east of the Jordan River. The Jordan River was to be the border between the Jewish State and the Arab State. The Kurdss were also to receive their own nation but when the British found oil around Mosul, they made a deal with the King or Iraq that in exchange for the area which was to be Kurdistan, he would allow J. Paul Getty to exploit the Mosul oil fields. Thus, the Kurds had their homelands squandered away for oil by the British, which might mean that Israel was lucky that there was no oil found west of the Jordan River. The map below depicts the nation responsible for what regions and the date in which they received their independence. As World War I ended in 1918 and much of the making of these colonies and Mandates took through 1920 to 1922, the Europeans colonized the region for mostly under fifty years, which is a very short period when compared to the Islamic conquest and rule which lasted 1200 years and then these nations have largely, if not completely, returned to Islamic rule to some extent or another except for Israel.

 

Dates that the MENA nations received their independence after colonial rule many since the times of the Persians or even earlier

 

So, as history tells us, the Jews had no part in formation of the Middle East as the mess that it represents today. The indigenous peoples across northern Africa were conquered by the Romans and then the Caliphates and Islamic rule followed by the Islamic Ottoman Empire. After twelve-hundred years of uninterrupted Islamic rule, these nations faced around fifty years of European rule before being left to their own devices which resulted in near unanimous return to Islamic rule under various kings, royal families and dictators. The real question as to who molded the current Middle East and all of the various conflicts and problems falls to the Islamic rulers of over a millennia, the borders decided by the European colonial enterprises resulting from World War I and the current rulers who took control of these various nations with borders drawn by the Europeans without regard for the tribal and religious variations of the region. The nations which retained much of their original ethnic history were Saudi Arabia, Iran (Persia), Syria, Turkey and the rebirth of Israel. The rest of the nations were inventions of the European map makers which were drawn, some claim, with the intent of making for internal strife which would require a strong dictatorial ruler who would keep order through brute force. Whether the problems resulted from the subjugation of indigenous peoples by the Islamic rulers or if you would rather blame the short span under European rule and the resulting borders, either way, the Jews had little to nothing to do with any of the problems. Even the internal problems faced by Israel are largely due to the British importing Arabs in an attempt to prevent the Jews from establishing their homeland. The problem with the Palestinian Arab refugees is actually predominantly the result of the Arabs and their attempt in 1948 to destroy the Jewish State at her inception. The vast majority of the Arab refugees was the result of the Mufti of Jerusalem insisting that the Arabs leave the region where Israel was to be formed such that the six invading Arab armies could simply slaughter everyone as they were to presumably breeze through the new state of Israel in a victorious slaughter whose intended result was best described 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.” The reality turned out quite different but the result left the Islamic forces occupying areas of Gaza, Judea and Samaria. Egypt was granted rule over Gaza and Jordan over Judea and Samaria which they renamed West Bank as the historic names were far too Jewish. The one thing which never existed in the entire history of the region was any nation named Palestine or any nation which used Jerusalem as their capital other than the Jews and their ancestors.

 

What will be the final ending result of the numerous attempts, 1948-9, 1967 Six Day War, 1973 Yom Kippur War and the terrorist enterprise which has lasted since the turn of the Twentieth Century predating even the establishment of Israel? This is the question which is troubling the world as they are doing everything humanly possible short of the world declaring war upon Israel to destroy the Jewish State ignoring International Law and the promises made in treaties and conferences across recent history, especially when one stops to consider that the Jewish history in the areas of the Promised Lands originates close to four-thousand years ago. Under International Law which includes but is not limited to the San Remo Conference, the Mandate System, the British agreement with the Zionist Congress and all enforceable by the United Nations under Article 80 of the charter, though one would be hard pressed to recognize this, the eastern border for Israel is the Jordan River. The reason the world appears to pressing so hard to have Israel recognize a new Arab state is because unless Israel signs away her rights to the lands west of the Jordan River in a treaty or similar document with equal footing, the International Law leaves the Arabs with no actual claim or recourse to the lands west of the Jordan River. The reason the conflict continues between the Palestinian Arabs (a misnomer as there was never a Palestine for them to be Palestinian) and Israel is because the world refuses to keep their promises to the Jews. The reality is that the Arab world spat out the vast majority of their Jews, some nations wiped their lands completely of their Jews, sending over eight-hundred-thousand Jews moving to the sole nation on earth which would take them in, Israel, and they were incorporated into the new nation and not placed in camps from which they could demand all they wanted for their former nations to repatriate them and return to them their properties, the exact opposite of the Arab response to their refugees which are still in camps along with their third and fourth generation children still waiting for the world to destroy Israel so they can, as Azzam Pasha stated before the 1948 invasion to destroy Israel and wipe out her Jews, return to their region and take of the spoils of the defeated and dead Jews. This conflict will end in one of two ways, either the Arabs will finally accept Israel and care for their own people or the world will attempt to destroy Israel be it Iran using nuclear weapons as they have threatened, the Arabs finally defeating Israel, or the entire world will declare war upon Israel probably through the United Nations in stages. The first stage will consist of the United Nations General Assembly petitioning the Security Council to strip Israel of her membership in that body and the Security Council accepting their petition favorably. The next stage will likely be another General Assembly petition of the Security Council to revoke the November 29, 1947 UNGA Res 181 which was offering another partition of the lands west of the Jordan River which the Arab League refused making it void anyways, but by doing so the move will be treated as the United Nations invalidating the establishment of Israel. Then Israel will exist and continue to exist but the world will have turned their backs on the Jewish State and pretend that Israel has no right to exist. Eventually, this will lead to a coalition of nations which will set to destroying Israel by whatever means are necessary. What the Bible predicts about this final conflict does not bode well for the coalition as the arrival of the Messiach will be the deciding factor and the world will one last time feel the wrath of Hashem. The one thing which we can be assured of is that the Jews had nothing to do with the mess the nations stretching across the MENA region are suffering and if they would simply allow it, Israel could do much towards making these nations productive and their people wealthy and comfortable. There is so much they would gain by working with Israel instead of attempting to destroy her, but that would take common sense which Voltaire, Will Rogers or Mark Twain noted, “Common Sense is not so common.”

 

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