Eye On Israel/Palestine

That is simply untrue steissd, nearly every single Arab nation around Israel has agreeed to recognize the Jewish state of Israel when the territorial conflict in the Plestinian territories is resolved.

This Saud proposal was met with both agreement and disagreement by the Arab street.

I think streissd took that into account when he said "(I mean the grassroot ones and not an establishment)"

Source: http://www.lightforthelastdays.co.uk/docs/israel_mideast/perils_of_palestine.html
Muslim sources treat perfidious behavior of Muhammed as a sign of his stateman's wisdom. Islam prohibits signing permanent peace treaties with infidels; only temporary armistice is permitted, and its purpose is to make it possible to regroup, to rebuild military potential in order to defeat the enemy. Noteworthy, that while the left-wing Israeli governments made statements and performed actions in order to achieve the permanent peace treaty with the future Palestinian state, Arafat and his top brass used the Arab term "hudna" meaning the temporary truce, first mentioned in the Hadith (commentaries to Koran).
Here is an excerpt of Arafat's speech delivered in one of the Johannesburg mosques while he visited the South African Republic: "This agreement, I am not considering it more than the agreement which had been signed between our prophet Mohammed and Koraish, and you remember the Caliph Omar had refused this agreement and [considered] it a despicable truce."
Source: http://www.iris.org.il/quotes/joburg.htm

Theat's why I mentioned the street reaction and not just the governmental proposal.

He's framed it in a difficult way, because some grassroots groups have formed that support ISrael's existence completely, and those he'd probably call an "establishment".

It's an easy way of culling most of the opinions from one side. Since groups like Hamas are also "establishments" the converse would also be difficult to illustrate because the criteria is setup in a way that cuts out the fronts to the opinions.

Nevertheless, his claim is inaccurate.

The grassroots in the non-democratic countries readily submit to their rulers' will. If Arafat (Asad-Jr., Saddam when at power, etc.) orders his subjects to kill Jews, they will do it regardless of their having or not having personal ties with any of Jews. And there will be no service refusers (in Israel those having refused to serve on the occupied territories served 56 days in military jail, in any of the Arab countries it is eligible for capital punishment).

steissd,

You take that whole cultural superiority thing too far. There is, in fact, less dissent but hardly the mindless drones you envision and describe.

Steissd, I oppose anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, I think people should understand how Palestinians see Israel. I am not Palestinian, so I can never be fully right; I am also not Israeli, so I can never fully understand what an Israeli thinks. Now, why do Palestinians oppose the Palestinian State? Is it plain anti-Semitism?

With the rising of nationalism in Europe, a lot of European Jews saw Zionism as a way to escape the threatening situation. Especially Eastern-European Jews from the Russian Empire, being confronted with pogroms and other forms of anti-Semitism, tried to leave. Most went to the New World; a smaller part wanted to start a new life in Palestine - a very hard life. The Arabs living in Palestine knew what Jews were - they had (almost) always been there - in relatively small numbers. They were different than the European Jews who were driven to Palestine out of the Zionist ideal. Arabs got suspicious; more and more European Jews came to Palestine, and bought land. There were tensions. The Arabs saw their share in the population going down.

In the 1930's the Jewish population grew more and more. Predominantly German and Austrian Jews, fleeing the Nazi's, found a shelter in Palestine. A lot of them did not come out of Zionist ideal, but because they wanted to flee Europe - and the quota for America and other Western countries were full. The Arabs felt really threatened. They could not understand this Zionist ideal. They did not share the same history with the European Jews. They seemed to be confronted with an European problem, which they never asked for. But there seemed to be no choice, and no going back.

1948. Israeli independence. The (Palestinian) Arabs could not accept that. THEY never asked for the European Jews to come to Palestine. Now, they were driven off their land for a Jewish state. That's how the Palestinians saw it. They were - and are - frustrated; they had a history with Palestine, and now had to flee and live in another country, or in refugeecamps, where the conditions were bad. They had no nationality.

This is the Arab side of the story. Whether or not it is fully true, is not relevant. Relevant is that this is how the Palestinians seem to look at the situation. Because of that, they are frustrated. They don't want to live in refugeecamps, even after three generations. They do not understand how they are being "forced" to understand why the Jews wanted to create their own state.

I may be wrong on this, but from what I have read I consider Craven to be an expert on Israeli-Palestinian relations as far as members of A2K go. Not to say that others are not (I have to add this amendment on so Bi-Polar Bear doesn't accuse me of arrogance) experts, but Craven has demonstrated his knowledge well on this topic.

Mr. de Kere, I come from the country (the USSR, where I had citizenship in 1963-90) where there were no democratic liberties, at least, until 1988. People were not drones, they had opinions of their own, but they never expressed it either verbally, or as an action. And the late Soviet authoritarism of 70-80s was much milder than this of the Arab dictatorial regimes, in terms of actions taken to dissenters (Solzhenitzyn was expelled to the USA and Sakharov was transferred to remote city, but none of dissenters was executed; only those of dissidents that maintained contacts with CIA (like Sharansky) or other foreign intelligence services got prison terms; in Arab countries and Iran the main punishment for public dissent is a death penalty preceded by tortures).

Mr. McGentrix, Mr. de Kere is surely an expert on the issue, but I am afraid, I cannot call such an expertize completely free of taking certain side in the conflict.

2Mr. d'Israeli: There are several points in your posting that require additions.
First of all, not all the Arabs were forced to leave, but only those that cooperated with aggression of 5 Arab countries (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon) against Israel after it having declared its independence. They lost their case and were necessitated to leave. Palestinian tribes and clans that either remained neutral or cooperated with Israelis remained in the country and these people and their successors stay here up to date.
Second, no one has ever invited Arabs to settle in Palestine either. They have nothing do with indigenous population of the area. A small part of them are descendants of the Arab conquerors that took over vast areas in the Middle East in the early Middle Ages (I hope, you will not deny that Jews used to live in the same area for several centuries, long before the Arabs having appeared there). Majority moved there as a result of economic development of the area, caused by Zionist colonization. European immigrants brought with them modern technology and investments (for example, these of the Rothschields); this created jobs; since Israel did not exist there as an independent state, but was a part of the Ottoman empire, it could not implement an efficient immigration policies aimed to stop influx of Arab population from the other Ottoman areas (Ottoman empire included territories of all the modern Arab countries in Asia). Palestinians try to claim their origin from the Philistines. But the problem is that Philistines, unlike Arabs and Jews, were not Semites, they had common origin with Ancient Greeks. Palestinian Arabs are Semites.
And it is strongly relevant whether Arab claims are true or false. If I, for example, erroneously consider that it is permitted to me to take other people's money without proper authorization, my innocent ignorance will not exonerate me if I am caught.

You consider yourself an Israeli, right, although you come from the USSR. People should respect that because you were granted citizenship and feel Israeli - or at least that's what I think. In your words, most - I will say - Arabs were in the same situation as you: they moved to Palestine, though maybe out off another reason than you. And then, they had to leave, because they supported the five countries you mentioned in your post.

Than I say: how can you say here that these Palestinians have less rights on the land, while this accounts also for most of the Israeli's? What would your opinion be on the subject when the Arabs had forced the Jews to leave the Holy Land? In that case, Arabs could claim the same; that most of the Jews are not from the country originally. This sounds rude, but what made the Jewish Israeli's more the directors of the county than the Arabs living there? Even if they were immigrants, they lived there too eventually, right?

Palestinians should live in the future Palestinian stete (that may appear on the world map if they start behaving in sane way and stop terror) and Israelis in Israel. The so-called refugees (unlike other refugees in the world these became refugees due to their taking active part in hostilities, so they cannot be called innocent victims and the like) should be accomodated in the future Palestinian state.
Mr. d'Israeli, yo indirectly support Palestinian claims for returning of so-called "refugees" to the territory of State of Israel. Why should not you support an idea of returning of German civilians to Sudetten (they were expelled from there by the Czechoslovakian Communist government in late 40-s just for being loyal to Berlin during the WWII), to Eastern Prussia, Pomeranien and Koenigsberg area? I believe that you will never support such ideas, since this will mess up life in the European Union where you happen to live. So, while rejecting turmoil at home, you do not mind it to occur somewhere else?

I happen to reject the "right of return" (and Arab nations have given up on this demand to some degree as well, replacing it with "fair and equitable settlement" which opens up possibilities of other forms of compensation other than return) but your claim that the refugees took "active part in hostilities" is false.

The overwhelming majority did absolutely nothing of the sort.

Arab nations have abandoned this, I agree, but not the leaders of Palestine. Arafat mentions the so-called "right of return" in all his public speeches, both in English and Arabic. The leaders of the other Palestinian organizations support it as well.
If the Palestinian leaders do not give up this thing, there will be no partner to negotiate, and Israel will have to undertake unilateral steps: both in favor of Palestinians, like gradual withdrawal from the territories, and not in their favor, like military operations aimed to eliminate the enemy's military potential.

I think that cartoon illustrates only a completely circular argument:

they destroy homes because thats where the people live who wish harm to Israel because Israel destroys homes and steals land from those who would bomb Israel because their land has been stolen.....etc

i.e. it illustrates no point at all

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Palestinian people do not exist

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Posted: July 11, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern


© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com


A provocative headline? It's more than that. It's the truth.

Truth does not change. Truth is truth. If something was true 50 years ago, 40 years ago, 30 years ago, it is still true today.

And the truth is that only 30 years ago, there was very little confusion on this issue of Palestine.

You might remember the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir making the bold political statement: "There is no such thing as a Palestinian people."

The statement has been a source of ridicule and derision by Arab propagandists ever since. They love to talk about Golda Meir's "racism." They love to suggest she was in historical denial. They love to say her statement is patently false – an intentional lie, a strategic deception.

What they don't like to talk about, however, are the very similar statements made by Yasser Arafat and his inner circle of political leadership years after Meir had told the truth – that there is no distinct Palestinian cultural or national identity.

So, despite the fact that conventional wisdom has now proclaimed that there is such a thing as the Palestinian people, I'm going to raise those uncomfortable quotations made by Arafat and his henchmen when their public-relations guard was down.

Way back on March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:


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.


That's pretty clear, isn't it? It's even more specific than Golda Meir's statement. It reaffirms what I have written on this subject. And it is hardly the only such statement of its kind. Arafat himself made a very definitive and unequivocal statement along these lines as late as 1993. It demonstrates conclusively that the Palestinian nationhood argument is the real strategic deception – one geared to set up the destruction of Israel.

In fact, on the same day Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn in 1993, he explained his actions on Jordan TV. Here's what he said: "Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel."

No matter how many people convince themselves that the aspirations for Palestinian statehood are genuine and the key to peace in the Middle East, they are still deceiving themselves.

I've said it before and I will say it again, in the history of the world, Palestine has never existed as a nation. The region known as Palestine was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their ancestral homeland. It was never ruled by Arabs as a separate nation.

Why now has it become such a critical priority?

The answer is because of a massive deception campaign and relentless terrorism over 40 years.

Golda Meir was right. Her statement is validated by the truth of history and by the candid, but not widely circulated, pronouncements of Arafat and his lieutenants.

Whose Jerusalem ?
Whose Land ?

"PALESTINE" - Never an Arab Country
One of the myths of our time is that Israel, before it was settled by the “alien” Jews and “stolen” from the Arabs as a result of “imperialist machinations,” was an independent state called “Palestine” whose majority residents were Moslem “Palestinians”. Unfortunately for those who would propagate such misinformation, the truth can be easily and historically seen.
The historical fact is that until the defeat of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire in World War I, there was no geopolitical entity called “Palestine,” no Arab nation ever set historical roots on this soil and no national claim was ever made to the territory by any national group other than the Jews.

Between the time of the expulsion of the Jews by the Romans in the year 70 to 132 AD and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, Israel (“Palestine”) was occupied by fourteen conquerors over thirteen centuries, until in 1948 the Jews once again declared their independence. The following table shows the historical periods of the various rulers of “Palestine”:


1. Israel Rule (Biblical period) 1350 BC to 586 BC
2. Babylonian Conquest 587 BC to 538 BC
3. Israel Autonomy (under Persian & Greco-Assyrian sovereignty) 538 BC to 168 BC
4. Revolt of the Maccabees 168 BC to 143 BC
5. Rule of the Hashmoneans & their successors 143 BC to 70 AD
6. Jewish Autonomy (under Roman & Byzantine sovereignty) 70 AD to 637 AD
7. Rule of Moslem Caliphs
Mecca 637 AD to 661 AD
Umayyides 661 AD to 750 AD
Abbaaside 750 AD to 870 AD
Fatimides 969 AD to 1071 AD 637 AD to 1072 AD
8. Seljukes Rule 1072 AD to 1096 AD
9. Crusaders
Ayyubids (in parts only) 1175 AD to 1291 AD 1099 AD to 1291 AD
10. Mamelukes Rule 1291 AD to 1516 AD
11. Ottomans (Turks) 1516 AD to 1918 AD
12. British Mandate 1918 AD to 1948 AD
13. Israel rule under democracy 1948 AD --- .

Thus, during the entire period of recorded history “Palestine” was never ruled by so called “Palestinians”, the name adopted today by the Moslem residents of the Holy Land. The rule of the various Moslem Caliphates, which was a foreign rule, extended for a period of 432 years – Jewish rule of “Palestine” extended over a period of over 2000 years.

The inhabitants of the land consisted of the conquering soldiers and their slaves, and only during the Moslem conquest of the area were these diverse ethnic inhabitants compelled to accept Islam and the Arabic tongue, or be put to the sword. The Jews, on the other hand, are in fact the sole survivors of the ancient inhabitants of “Palestine”, who have maintained an uninterrupted link with the land since the dawn of recorded history.

It is one of the failures of our media today that, while an almost complete acceptance is granted to an absurd, fabricated lie, no attention at all is paid to the fascinating story of the Jewish families and communities who have resided in the Holy Land without interruption since Biblical times. These people have, throughout hundreds and thousands of years, kept their national claim to God's given ownership of their homeland.

Arabs Recognize Jewish Sovereignty
These facts were well known and publicly recognized by the international community in 1919, during the Allied peace Conference in Paris, to which representatives of the Middle East Moslems, as well as the Jewish people were invited. At this conference, Emir (Crown Prince) Feisal, son of king Hussein (great grandfather of the present king Hussein of Jordan), who headed the Moslem delegation, agreed that “Palestine” should be earmarked as the specific area in which Jewish sovereignty was to mature.
He announced acceptance of the Balfour Declaration of November 2nd, 1917, and concluded an agreement with the World Zionist Organization, confirming that “all such measures shall be adopted as will afford the fullest guarantee of carrying into effect the British Government's Balfour Declaration”.

These same sentiments were expressed by Emir Feisal in a letter (dated March 3, 1919) to Prof. Felix Frankfurter, Justice of the United States Supreme Court: “Our deputation here in Paris is full acquainted with the proposals submitted by the Zionist organization to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as modest and proper. We will do our best, insofar as we are concerned, to help them through. We will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home.”

Jewish Areas Reduced
The two sets of promises officially made by Britain – one to the Moslems and the other to the Jews – were originally fully reconcilable ones.
The interesting historical fact is that between World War I and the United Nations partition of “Palestine” in 1947, British promises to the Moslems were over-fulfilled, while their promises to the Jews were constantly violated and whittled down. Far from being the victims of imperialism, the Moslems were handsomely rewarded when 20 sovereign states were artificially established by the British after carving up the former Turkish Empire. These new countries had no previous national history or independent culture.

The development of the part of “Palestine” allocated by the major Powers for Jewish sovereignty took a different course. The area originally designated and agreed to by Hussein and Feisal was first reduced by four-fifths. Four-fifths of the Jewish homeland was given in a “land for peace” agreement and on this land today's kingdom of Jordan was established. On one-fifth of the remaining land, the democratic country of Israel exists today. In 1948, in the wake of 7 invading armies, Israel declared independence. The State of Israel consists of less than 8,000 square miles. Against this, only five Moslem States – Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq – cover an area of 1,200,000 square miles.

It should be pointed out here that at that time over 70% of today's Israel consisted of Crown lands transferred from the outgoing Ottoman Power to the Incoming British Mandatory Authority. The remaining 30% of the land was largely swamp and barren hillside: It was in these areas that Jewish settlement began through land purchase from absentee Moslem owners. At no time did the Jews seek to displace the indigenous Moslem population.

The distribution of land in 1949 in the part of “Palestine” after Israel was re-established was as follows:

8.6% of the land was owned by Jews.
3.3% of the land was owned by Israeli Moslems.
16.5% of the land was owned by other Moslems.
70% of the land was the property of the British Mandatory Government, after 1948 transferee to the Government of Israel.
Under the Mandate, the Jewish population continued to grow but while their immigration was progressively restricted, that of Moslems from the surrounding countries (Syria and Jordan) was completely free. As a result, attracted by the Jewish development of the country, the Moslem population increased rapidly and had attained majority by 1947.
Palestinian Arabs Never a Nation
“Palestinian” Arab nationalism today is a product of recent political and religious currents. Until the 1920's no such national community had even existed in “Palestine”. This is why both the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations Mandate charged the Jews of the National Home with guaranteeing the civil and religious rights of other inhabitants. No mention was made of other national rights of other inhabitants, as it was recognized that the only national claim to the area was that made by the Jews.
But the fiction of Palestinian Arab nationality is still being exploited. If the Palestinians were in fact a separate nationality then their anger over the past 20 years would have been directed as much against Jordan and Egypt as against Israel, for it was the invading armies of these countries which captured, in the 1948 war, a substantial portion of the territory allotted under the United Nations' plan to the Palestinian Moslems. This included the West Bank, which was occupied by the Jordanian Army, and added to their Kingdom, and the Gaza Strip, which was seized by the Egyptians.

The one people that have, in fact, maintained its historic connection with the area called “Palestine,” over a period of 2,000 years, is the Jews. Of course, the Bible never uses the term “Palestine”, but prefers to call this land “Judah” or “Israel”.

Indeed, the Jewish right to the land of Israel is not based only on history and the Bible, but is claimed by the physical process of work invested in transforming it into an area capable of supporting life. It is the fruits of this work that motivate mythological Arab claims to the territory.

Believe it or not, but I am opposed to the right of return. I don't know where you get the idea from I support this. Understanding Palestinian claims does not mean I support them in action. I do understand that the right of return doesn't solve anything. It will probably make the whole situation even worse.

My earlier reply was only a reply to what you said steissd.