A TIME TO SPEAK
Vol. II:11 (No. 23)
November 2002 - Heshvan-Kislev 5763
ROADMAPS INTO THE WHIRLWIND
They sow wind and they shall reap whirlwind. --
Hosea 8:7
"People dislike the Jews because when you make them a promise they
expect you to keep it."
-- British General Orde Wingate
THE RESOLUTION AND THE IRRESOLUTE:
In 1967, five months after the Six Day War that the United Nations had done
nothing to prevent or discourage, it took it upon itself to lay down principles
for a peace settlement.
Among the principles laid down in Resolution 242 was that, in a context of
such peace, Israel would withdraw from "territories" lost by the Arabs, to
"agreed and secure boundaries".
There was no mention or hint that the Arabs in the disputed territories west
of the Jordan River constituted a nationality, or would or should have a
separate state of their own. Even the Arabs themselves had not yet invented
that fantasy.
The sponsors of the Resolution, Great Britain and the United States, explained
precisely what was meant:
Lord Caradon, British ambassador to the UN and author of the text:
"It was not for us to lay down
exactly where the border should be. I know the 1967 border very well. It
is not a satisfactory border, it is where troops had to stop in 1947, just
where they happened to be that night, that is not a permanent boundary .
. . "
George Brown, British Foreign Secretary when the resolution was adopted:
"The phrasing of the Resolution was very carefully worked out, . . . The
proposal said 'Israel will withdraw from territories that were occupied',
and not from 'the' territories, which means that Israel will not withdraw
from all the territories."
Subsequently, British Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart, was asked in Parliament:
"What is the British interpretation of the wording of the 1967 Resolution?
Does the Right Honourable Gentleman understand it to mean that the Israelis
should withdraw from all territories taken in the late war?"
Mr. Stewart replied:
"No, Sir. That is not the phrase used in the Resolution. The Resolution speaks
of secure and recognized boundaries. These words must be read concurrently
with the statement on withdrawal."
He later added:
"As I have explained before, there is reference, in the vital United Nations
Security Council Resolution, both to withdrawal from territories and to secure
and recognized boundaries. As I have told the House previously, we believe
that these two things should be read concurrently and that the omission of
the word 'all' before the word 'territories' is deliberate."
Fast forward to October 2002:
British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued an ultimatum that Israel must withdraw
unconditionally to the 1948 ceasefire lines. In a few words he thereby:
1] double-crossed Israel -- which had accepted Resolution 242 on
the basis of the earlier statements
2] discredited the earlier British officials who had made the statements,
apparently in good faith
3] set an example that the word of a British Government was not
to be trusted
The United States was a co-sponsor of the resolution. Arthur Goldberg, US
ambassador to the UN, registered this comment:
"Historically, there have never been secure or recognized boundaries in the
area. Neither the armistice lines of 1949 nor the cease-fire lines of 1967
have answered that description ... such boundaries have yet to be agreed
upon. An agreement on that point is an absolute essential to a just and lasting
peace just as withdrawal is . . ."
President Lyndon Johnson, September 1968:
"We are not the ones to say where other nations should draw lines between
them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear, however, that
a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must
be secure and there must be recognized borders. Some such lines must be agreed
to by the neighbours involved."
Joseph Sisco, Assistant Secretary of State, July 1970:
"That Resolution did not say 'withdrawal to the pre-June 5 lines'. The Resolution
said that the parties must negotiate to achieve agreement on the so-called
final secure and recognized borders. In other words, the question of the
final borders is a matter of negotiations between the parties."
Eugene V. Rostow, expert in International Law, Under-Secretary of State for
Political Affairs when the resolution was adopted::
"It is, therefore, not legally possible to assert that the provision requires
Israeli withdrawal from all the territories now occupied under the cease-fire
resolutions to the Armistice Demarcation lines."
Even the representative of the Soviet Union, that had instigated and supported
the Asrab attack on Israel in 1967, admitted:
"There is certainly much leeway for different interpretations which retain
for Israel the right to establish new boundaries and to withdraw its troops
only as far as the lines which it judges convenient."
Neither the wording of the resolution nor these unequivocal statements deterred
Arab propaganda from insisting that Resolution 242 demands that Israel immediately
and unconditionally retreat to the 1949 cease-fire lines. Professional journalists
too lazy to bother to read the text, helped them perpetuate this fraud.
As late as 1991, the government of the United States had not yet accepted
this fraud, nor the fantasy of a PLO state in Palestine. In that year, the
administration of President George H. W. Bush officially assured Israel in
writing that:
"In accordance with the United States traditional policy, we do not support
the creation of an independent Palestinian state. [. . . .] Moreover, it
is not the United States' aim to bring the PLO into the process or to make
Israel enter a dialogue or negotiations with the PLO."
Fast forward to 2001: All previous US positions and guarantees are scattered
into the whirlwind:
President George W. Bush announces the discovery that it is been a "long
standing vision" of U.S. policy to cut up the Land of Israel to create a
PLO state in the heart of it.
In July 2002 he did add a qualification that the PLO must become democratic
and peaceable to be given the prize -- the seal of approval to be given by
a State Department that congenitally whitewashes Arab activities and provides
false reports to Congress.
For more than 54 years, no inhibitions had been imposed on Arab aggressions
and crimes against Israel. Then it suddenly became urgent to impose a pro-PLO
solution at reckless speed: preferably within a year, within three years
at the most. To oversee the execution of the deed, a Quartet was assembled
in which three of the musicians -- the European Union, the United Nations
and Russia -- are rehearsing a Funeral March for Israel.
As a prelude, the State Department in October 2002 composed a "Roadmap to
Peace", that reviewers have called "a roadmap back to Oslo" or "to disaster"
or "to perdition". The
Jerusalem Post calls it "A
Road Map to Misery":
The road map calls for the IDF to withdraw to the positions it held on September
28, 2000, ahead of any Palestinian action to dismantle terror organizations
and confiscate of illegal weapons.
The plan further dictates that Israel must hand over billions of shekels
in tax revenues to the Palestinians now. That is, the funds must be given
to Yasser Arafat's men, who today head the wholly unreformed Palestinian
security services and dictatorial bureaucracy.
The road map calls on the IDF to cease all of its anti-terror operations
immediately in order to ease the humanitarian conditions of the Palestinians.
The plan further calls for Palestinian statehood without any benchmarks really
being met to ensure that such a state will not simply be another state supporter
of terrorism.
On the gross folly of inventing a PLO state in the Land of Israel. Ariel
Sharon in an interview in The Wall Street Journal in 1989 covers only
the strategic issues:
There are some things that must be stressed. One is that Jerusalem will be
united... Second that there will not be a second Palestinian state west of
the River Jordan. Third that [under] any arrangement that will take place
Israel will be responsible for security in Samaria, Judea and Gaza -- will
be responsible and will have its forces in Samaria, Judea and Gaza.
When the Jews say that they want to protect their lives by having their forces
in Judea and Samaria, is that a terrible thing? .What is Gaza? Gaza is the
southern security belt... What is Samaria and Judea? I don't speak about
the historical fact that they are the birthplace of the Jewish people, [though]
by itself that may be the most important thing. [. . . .]
What is Samaria and Judea? This is the eastern security zone. NATO commanders
and leaders were always worried about the fact that they don't have enough
depth. So to speak about depth in Europe -- let's not take the deepest place
-- let's say 700 kilometers. They have 700 kilometers and they are not satisfied!
From the river Jordan to the Mediterranean it's less than 70 kilometers,
and we are facing thousands of tanks. If they understand they have to do
it, why is it that Israel cannot do it? We have to defend ourselves, exactly
the same thing....
Unless the Jews and their friends around the world unite, the situation might
lead to the creation of a Palestinian state very soon, and that will bring
a war, not peace. It will bring a war. [There would] be terror, we will react,
the Arab countries will come to the rescue, UN forces will be brought in,
the terrorists will be acting from behind a cordon of UN forces and observers.
Now Prime Minister of Israel, Sharon abandons his own perceptions and convictions
and speaks of a PLO state as "inevitable". This irresolution is considered
by Yossi ben-Aharon, former Israeli ambassador to the United States:
Something happened last week to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that should cause
concern to all of us. In a television interview recently he said that a Palestinian
state is already an established fact. [, , , ,]
Sharon's statement is all the more astonishing
because, in essence, it is a repetition of a previous
expression of support for the idea of a Palestinian state, for which
he was roundly reprimanded by the central committee of the Likud. The prime
minister's cavalier attitude toward the unanimous opposition to a Palestinian
state by his party's membership is unprecedented and alarming.
[. . . . ]
Anyone with a sane head on his shoulders should have
realized by now that a Palestinian state would be nothing less than
a terrorist entity poised against the very heart of Israel. The moment it
gains sovereignty, it would be free to conclude military agreements with
rogue states such as Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria and Sudan. Israel will not
be able to take measures such as those we are at present taking in Nablus,
Jenin and the surrounding villages. Our only option would be to invade and
conquer an independent, internationally recognized state and incur the condemnation
and wrath of a multitude of governments.
[Both these items focus on the threats to security. For historical, moral
and political points see A Time To Speak's "Twelve Bad Reasons for a State
of Palestine" and "History and Meaning of Palestine and Palestinians" and
"Thy Dwellings, O, Israel".]
* * * * * * *
While the United States and Europe and even Israel have strayed down the
road of concessions, the Arabs themselves have not shifted an inch from the
position they have held all along:
1] All of Israel is on "occupied Palestinian land".
2] The existence of Israel will never be accepted.
3] Israel must be destroyed, and all of Palestine be taken by the Arabs.
Of prospective citizens of the PLO State, 81 percent approve of mass murder
of Jews.
Of the children it is raising, more than half of those 6-11 years old aspire
to be jihad-bombers, to blow themselves up with as many Jews as possible.
The Quartet blares all the louder to drown out an inconvenient note of these
realities. Many of such notes are sounded in the score of "Telling It Like
It Is -- The Only Process for Peace", by Max Singer,
National Review, 20 November
2002:
[. . . .] The United States, American presidents often remind us, is Israel's
greatest friend in the world. This is certainly true, and the contrast between
American sympathy and European hostility has only become clearer during the
current conflict. But if the U.S. is serious about promoting peace . . .
it has to start doing something simple: The U.S. must tell some basic truths
that it knows, but does not state out of deference to Arab opinion.
Until now, America has been giving Israel protection from international pressure
without challenging the false premises on which that pressure is based. By
doing this, the U.S. encourages Israel's enemies to hope that someday the
U.S. will stop protecting Israel. They can believe that the U.S. support
for Israel results from the "Jewish lobby" or other political considerations
and contradicts the requirements of justice and peace, or international security.
West Europeans and Arabs regularly call on the U.S. to become more involved
in reaching a 'solution' to the Israel-Arab conflict. They assume that if
the U.S. is more involved it will force Israel to accept an agreement more
favorable to the Palestinians than the offers Israel made at Camp David and
Taba. [. . . .]
It is natural to assume, based on the traditional diplomatic discussion,
that a major U.S. peace effort would involve pressure on Israel to go beyond
its previous offers. But that standard discussion is far removed from reality
and cannot lead to peace.
A major component of a new approach that the U.S. requires is to speak the
truth to Arab governments — instead of diplomatically avoiding the truth
in order to avoid offending them. There are two reasons for the U.S. to switch
to a revolutionary truth-telling policy: It is the best way to pursue peace.
And it meets the needs of the current U.S. fight against militant Islam.
The truths that the U.S. have not been willing to say clearly to Arab governments
include: Israel is a legitimate state based on law and justice.
The Jewish people have ancient roots in Palestine
The League of Nations established the international authority for a Jewish
homeland in Palestine — and its decision was formally endorsed by the U.S.
and never superseded by the U.N.
U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 does not require that Israel relinquish
all territory acquired in 1967. Since 1967 Israel has stood ready to negotiate
a division of the West Bank and Gaza as envisaged by Resolution 242.
Israel is not occupying Palestinian land. It is occupying disputed territory
to which it has a substantial claim and which was never under Palestinian
sovereignty, while trying in good faith to negotiate about the disposition
of that land as required by Resolution 242.
Israeli neighborhoods and settlements in Jerusalem and the disputed territories
are not illegal. Nor are they in violation of any Israeli agreement or understanding
with the Palestinians (unlike many Palestinian "settlements" in the territories).
There are arguments for and against the separate position that new settlements,
even though legal, made it more difficult to make peace. It is not clear
whether the positions the U.S. has taken against settlements represent a
genuine judgment on the question or merely a diplomatic decision that disagreeing
with the Arabs on this issue will hurt either U.S. interests or the cause
of peace.
Palestinian refugees do not have a 'right of return.' The Arab interpretation
of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194, which is the supposed source of
this "right," is incorrect. They must be resettled like all other refugees
in the world. Most Palestinian refugees should be on their way to permanent
resettlement in Arab countries as a prelude to realistic peace negotiations.
Jerusalem as a city is central to Israel and to Judaism; it is primarily
a negative concern for Muslims. Israel should not be expected to agree to
any arrangement for Jerusalem that threatens its ability to continue to be
a successful working city as it is today and the capital of Israel.
The claims and interests of Palestinians and Israel in Jerusalem are profoundly
asymmetric; therefore reasonable agreements between the parties should not
be expected to provide equality or symmetry between the rights of Israel
and the rights of Palestine in Jerusalem. This does not speak to the question
of whether there can or should be a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem, nor
to the question of protection of Muslim interests in holy places.
The deliberate killings of innocent Israelis is terrorism. The Palestinian/Arab
position that anything done to "resist occupation" is not terrorism cannot
be accepted. This definition undercuts the fight against international terrorism.
The PLO is an organization that supports and harbors terrorists. Therefore
although it also does other things, it is a terrorist organization.
Israel has been exercising its right to self-defense with remarkable restraint.
There certainly are a large number of cases where Israelis made deadly mistakes
or deliberately inflicted more harm on the Palestinians than necessary to
pursue Israel's security requirements. But in comparison to the way any other
Western democracy would act in response to such attacks, Israel has shown
great concern, and taken great risks to avoid civilian casualties on the
Palestinian side.
The current approach is to attempt to achieve peace without publicly establishing
any of these truths, which American diplomats would privately not deny, as
a basis for diplomacy. The current approach cannot work, because it is based
on an attempt to satisfy the Arab world, without confronting the Arab belief
that Israel's very existence is unjust and essentially illegal.
If the Arab world succeeds in fooling or pressuring the U.S. and Europe to
impose an agreement on Israel, there will not be peace, because they will
believe that they can use the same measures to take the next step to destroying
Israel. (Just as Hezbollah's success in inducing Israel to leave southern
Lebanon convinced Yasser Arafat that similar measures would induce Israel
to leave the West Bank and Gaza.)
The result of an imposed agreement will be more war, in more difficult circumstances
for Israel, quite possibly requiring Israel to be less constrained than it
is today.
The only hope of peace is to go in the opposite direction: to help the Arabs
to recognize that Israel cannot be removed, and compel them to give up their
main weapons, which are terrorism and the cruel denial of resettlement opportunity
to Palestinian refugees, because both weapons are illegitimate and stand
in the way of peace.
Fundamental peace obviously requires that the Arab states and the Palestinians
accept Israel's presence as a Jewish state in the region. This suggests that
a policy intended to achieve peace should be designed to induce the Arab
states to change their current position. And a big step in this direction
is for the U.S. to state the facts that Israel's enemies refuse to recognize.
Instead, the U.S. has been following the theory that either the Arab states
really do accept Israel now, or that they would do so if Israel only retreated
to the 1967 borders and made an accommodation on Arab refugees that would
save face for the PLO and the Arab countries.
While perhaps there was some chance in 1992 that this policy might have worked
— although even then there was much evidence that this was wishful thinking
— it is now clear that playing along with the pretenses of Arafat and some
Arab states set back the cause of peace. [. . . .]
To fight international terror, the U.S. must show that it cannot be fooled
or pressured into accepting false or illegitimate Arab positions. In particular,
the U.S. has to demonstrate that it is willing to confront Arab governments
that use lies or special definitions to deny that they harbor or support
terrorists.
[. . . .] The argument will be made — by the U.S. State Department among
others — that after its show of power in Iraq, the U.S. should balance its
strong demands on Arab countries to stop harboring terrorists by continuing
to accommodate their views on Israel. Some may even argue that to make up
for the insult of overthrowing Saddam, the U.S. should avoid pushing too
strongly against continued Arab protection of terrorist organizations.
These arguments should be rejected because they misunderstand Arab politics
and society. Telling the Arabs the truth about their conflict with Israel
will be a twofer. It is the beginning of a realistic pursuit of peace, and
it shows that the U.S. has the understanding and the will to eliminate governmental
support for international terrorists.
* * * * * * *
"If you come to a fork in the road, take it." --
Yogi Berra
The organization Human Rights Watch -- not usually sympathetic to Israel
-- has decided that Arab suicide-bomber terrorism is a "crime against humanity".
It does not explain why the bomber has to commit suicide for the bombing
to be a crime. The Arabs have denounced Human Rights Watch as Zionistic.
* * * * * * *
In November, the United States used a rocket attack to kill five high-ranking
Al-Qaeda terrorists in their vehicle in Yemen. State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher hastily explained that the United States nevertheless continues
to oppose Israeli attacks on PLO-Hamas-Jihad terror chiefs.
The distinction, he explains, is that Al-Qaeda attacked the United States.
The terrorists operating against Israel, in contrast, should be dealt with
via political settlement since they are acting "for a cause".
* * * * * * *
Men whose paths are crooked . . . and who are devious in their course.
-- Proverbs 2:16
Current Events Quiz:
It is okay to murder Jews:
a]. everywhere
b]. everywhere in the Land of Israel
c]. only in the part of the Land of Israel between the Green Line and the
Jordan
d]. all of the above
The European Union ponders the question, while meeting with delegates to
a terror convention in Cairo. Its work is surveyed in a report of the Israel
Foreign Ministry analyzed by Uri Dan in The New York Post:
Representatives of the European Union Javier Solana, Miguel Moratinos and
Alistair Crook have in recent weeks been maintaining contact with Palestinian
terrorist organizations (Fatah, the Aksa death squads, and Hamas) with the
aim of persuading them to declare a cease-fire.
The general direction of these contacts is a Palestinian declaration of a
cease-fire within the boundaries of the Green Line, while the struggle against
the occupation outside them receives legitimacy in keeping with the general
European view which regards the Palestinian Authority as an emerging state,
and with its concept of the struggle against occupation.
In essence, the Europeans are proposing a form of selection: who will live
and who will die . But it is unthinkable that Israel, a democracy that has
been the victim of a two-year campaign of terror, should permit the European
Union to give the Palestinians a license to kill its citizens beyond the
Green Line in the name of 'the struggle against the occupation'.
What this scandalous Foreign Ministry report reveals is actually only the
tip of the iceberg of the European Union's subversive activities against
Israel and its elected leader, Ariel Sharon. If from time to time you see
giant notices in the newspapers "against the occupation," "in favor of withdrawal
to the 1967 borders," signed by fly-by-night European and Israeli organizations,
you should know that they are financed by the EU.
European Union funds are also being used to invite Israeli politicians and
journalists from the Left to conferences throughout Europe with or without
Palestinians to declare that the policy of the Israeli government is "leading
to a catastrophe."
. . . Consequently the EU representatives are engaging in overt disinformation.
. . . .[false stories ]
All these intentionally deceitful releases by EU representatives are aimed
at undermining the legal government of Israel in order to replace it by a
leftist regime unless, that is, it gives in to the demands of the Palestinian
terrorists who desire to destroy it.
The EU hypocrites are, by their actions, pouring oil on the flames of this
conflict. They are responsible not only for encouraging the continuation
of Palestinian terrorist attacks, but also for the wretched situation of
the Palestinians themselves.
The EU's multi-million-dollar annual subsidies to the Arafat regime are supervised
by Commissioner Sir Christopher Patten. Sir Christopher has rejected massive
documentation on the use of these funds to pay the expenses of terrorism.
Now he rejects even the suggestion of an inquiry. Douglas Davis cites a rerport
from London, Jerusalem Post, 10 November 2002:
European Foreign Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten has told a leading European
legislator that wants an investigation into alleged illegal use of European
Union (EU) aid to the Palestinians like a hole in the head.
Patten's remark came in response to a question by Charles Tanner, Conservative
Foreign Affairs spokesman in the European Parliament, about charges that
European aid to the Palestinians - currently running at 10 million euros
a month - is being diverted to fund terrorist activity.
In a letter to the London Sunday Telegraph, Tanner said that "if there
is to be any chance of securing a lasting peace in the Middle East, we must
settle beyond all reasonable doubt such serious allegations of fraudulent
and violent misuse of EU taxpayers' money".
Otherwise, he said, "aggrieved Israelis will feel entitled to sue the EU.
Commissioner Patten should be the first to accept that he has all to gain
by clearing the air once and for all".
He said he and colleagues in the European Parliament have launched a bipartisan
bid to obtain the 157 signatures needed to set up an inquiry "to investigate
allegations that EU funds are being illegally diverted to fund terrorist
activity against Israeli civilians".
"Rather unexpectedly," he wrote, "the European Commission [the cabinet of the European parliament] has resisted this initiative. Commissioner Patten's response to my intervention at Question Time was that he wanted the issue investigated 'like a hole in the head'.
On the point of incitement to violence the Arab press and broadcasts, EU
official Sandro Javier explains "We have no way of knowing what they are
saying in Arabic." If the EU cannot afford translators, they can get translations
free through the websites and e-mail subscriptions of MEMRI [Middle East
Media Research Institute] and PMW [Palestinian Media Watch].
* * * * * * *
Most Arab leaders object to aliyah of Jews from the Diaspora to Israel, Hassan
Nasruallah of Hezbollah welcomes it:
"If they [the Jews] gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going
after them worldwide"
.
Nasrullah recently attended the conference of Francophone nations in Beirut,
accepted as a colleague by Presidents Chirac of France and Chretien of Canada.
* * * * * * *
The realities of Israel and the Middle East have been set forth repeatedly
in many sources. But facts so frequently ignored, forgotten or distorted
need frequent repetition. Some of those realities are put forth in "The Truth
About the Middle East", by David G. Littman:
It's time to look back on 14 fundamental geographical, historical, and diplomatic
facts from the last century relating to the Middle East. These basic facts
and figures were stressed in recent statements to the U.N. Commission on
Human Rights and its subcommission, to the surprise of representatives of
both states and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
* After World War I Great Britain accepted the 1922 Mandate for Palestine,
and then _ with League of Nations approval _ used its article 25 to create
two distinct entities within the Mandate-designated area.
* The territory lying between the Jordan River and the eastern desert
boundary "of that part of Palestine which was known as Trans-Jordan" (nearly
78 percent) thus became the Emirate of Transjordan. This new entity was put
under the rule of Emir Abdullah, the eldest son of the Sharif of Mecca, as
a recompense for his support in the war against the Turks, and of Ibn Saud's
seizure of Arabia (Faisal, Abdullah's brother, later received the even vaster
Mandate area of Iraq).
* Turning a blind eye to article 15, Great Britain also decided that
no Jews could reside or buy land in the newly created Emirate. This policy
was ratified _ after the emirate became a kingdom _ by Jordan's law no. 6,
sect. 3, on April 3, 1954, and reactivated in law no. 7, sect. 2, on April
1, 1963. It states that any person may become a citizen of Jordan unless
he is a Jew. King Hussein made peace with Israel in 1994, but the Judenrein
legislation remains valid today.
* The remaining area west of the Jordan River (comprising about 22
percent of the original Mandate) was then officially designated "Palestine"
by Great Britain. As stated in the 1937 Royal Commission Report, "the primary
purpose of the Mandate, as expressed in its preamble and its articles, is
to promote the establishment of the Jewish National Home." This was now greatly
restricted.
* U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 (November 29, 1947) authorized
a Partition Plan in this area: for an Arab and a Jewish state _ and for a
corpus separatum for Jerusalem. The plan was rejected by both the Arab League
and the Arab-Palestinian leadership. Aided and abetted by the neighboring
Arab countries, local armed Arab Palestinian forces immediately began attacking
Jews, who counterattacked. On May 15, 1948, the armies of five Arab League
states joined these militias in the invasion of Israel, but their armies
failed in their goal of eradicating the fledgling state.
* The armistice boundaries (1949-1967) left Israel with roughly 16.5
percent, or 8,000 sq. miles, of the original 1922 Mandate area (about 48,000
sq. miles), while about five percent _ less Gaza, which was occupied by the
Egyptians _ was conquered and occupied in 1948 by British General Glubb Pasha,
the commander of Abdullah's Arab Legion. The historic regions of "Judea and
Samaria" _ their official names as indicated on all British mandate maps
until 1948 _ were annexed and became the "West Bank" of the Hashemite Kingdom
of Jordan in 1950. All the Jews were expelled from the area and from the
Old City of Jerusalem; their synagogues, and even tombstones on the Mount
of Olives, were destroyed.
*Until King Hussein attacked Israel on June 6, 1967, Jordan's recognized
de facto boundaries covered 83 percent of Palestine (78 percent east of the
Jordan river, and five percent to the west). Following its military defeat
in the Six Day War, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan lost the "West Bank,"
which it had illegally annexed 19 years earlier, retaining the huge "Transjordan"
portion (78 percent) of the original League of Nations territory.
*Of Jordan's current population of five million, about two-thirds
(over three million) consider themselves "Arab Palestinians." They are the
descendants either of the original Arab Palestinian inhabitants of the Trans-Jordan
region, or of roughly 550,000 Arab refugees from west Palestine who lost
their homes after the Arab League armies failed to eradicate Israel first
in 1948, and again in 1967. Nearly two million Jordanian Bedouin citizens
and others do not identify themselves as Palestinians.
*After the 1967 disaster, an Arab League Summit Conference held in
Khartoum that November reacted negatively to U.N. Security Council Resolution
247: "No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with
Israel, no concessions on the questions of Palestinian national rights."
This was also the determined position of the PLO. Apart from Egypt's 1981
peace treaty with Israel, there was little change, for the next two decades,
in this refusal to negotiate according to U.N. Resolution 242.
*In those "West Bank and Gaza" areas, designated by the Oslo Accords
of 1994 to be placed under the administration of the Palestinian Authority
(covering about 5.5 percent of the "Greater Palestine" area on both sides
of the Jordan), there is now a population of over 3,200,000, of whom about
35,000 are Christians, but none are Jews.
*The population of the Jewish state - a state envisaged in the 1922
League of Nations Mandate, and confirmed by the U.N.'s 1947 decision - is
now roughly 6,500,000, of whom roughly 20 percent are Arabs (120,000 Christians),
Druze, and Bedouin citizens of Israel. Of the more than five million Jewish
citizens, about one-half are those Jewish refugees from Arab countries, and
their descendants, who fled or left their ancient homeland when massacres,
arrests, and ostracism made life impossible (a further 300,000 emigrated
to Europe and the Americas, where they number over a million).
*Today, a tiny, vulnerable Jewish remnant _ scarcely 5,000 persons
_ remains in all the Arab world, less than half of one percent from the near
million who were there in 1948 (this does not include the 50,000 in Turkey
and Iran, left of about 200,000 in 1945). These are the forgotten Jewish
refugees from Arab lands, from countries that will soon be totally judenrein
just as Jordan has been since 1922.
*The 22 Arab League countries cover a global surface of over six
million square miles, over ten percent of the land surface on earth. Israel,
by contrast, covers barely 8,000 sq. miles.
*Security Council Resolution 242 has now become the panacea for Arab
states, yet their interpretation of its key operative paragraph does not
correspond to the English original, which version alone is binding. In March
2002, a Saudi "peace plan" was approved by the Arab League in Beirut, but
behind it lurks the former 1981 "Fahd Plan" - with a facelift - that would
leave Israel with impossible borders . . . .
* * * * * * *
In October 2002, Arab terrorists struck at a French oil tanker off the coast
of Yemen. It was pointed out to a terror-spokesman that France is very pro-Arab
and anti-Israel, and therefore seems an odd choice of target.
The answer was simple: "They are all
infidels".
END