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Twenty Facts about Israel and the Middle
East
Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp,
and Jeane Kirkpatrick
http://www.newsandopinion.com
- The world's attention has been focused on the Middle East. We are
confronted daily with scenes of carnage and destruction. Can we understand
such violence? Yes, but only if we come to the situation with a solid
grounding in the facts of the matter--facts that too often are forgotten,
if ever they were learned. Below are twenty facts that we think are
useful in understanding the current situation, how we arrived here, and how
we might eventually arrive at a solution.
ROOTS OF THE CONFLICT
- When the United Nations proposed the
establishment of two states in the region--one Jewish, one Arab--the
Jews accepted the proposal and declared their independence in
1948. The Jewish state constituted only 1/6 of one percent of
what was known as "the Arab world." The Arab
states, however, rejected the UN plan and since then have waged war
against Israel repeatedly, both all-out wars and wars of terrorism and
attrition. In 1948, five Arab armies invaded Israel in an effort
to eradicate it. Jamal Husseini of the Arab Higher Committee
spoke for many in vowing to soak "the soil of our beloved country
with the last drop of our blood."
- The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
was founded in 1964--three years before Israel controlled the West
Bank and Gaza. The PLO's declared purpose was to eliminate the
State of Israel by means of armed struggle. To this day, the Web
site of Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) claims that the entirety
of Israel is "occupied" territory.* It is impossible
to square this with the PLO and PA assertions to Western audiences
that the root of the conflict is Israel's occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza.
- The West Bank and Gaza (controlled by Jordan
and Egypt from 1948 to 1967) came under Israeli control during the Six
Day War of 1967 that started when Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran
and Arab armies amassed on Israel's borders to invade and liquidate
the state. It is important to note that during their 19-year
rule, neither Jordan nor Egypt had made any effort to establish a
Palestinian state on those lands. Just before the Arab nations
launched their war of aggression against the State of Israel in 1967,
Syrian Defense Minister (later President) Hafez Assad stated,
"Our forces are now entirely ready---to initiate the act of
liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab
homeland...the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation."
On the brink of the 1967 war, Egyptian President Gamal Nassar
declared, "Our basic objective will be the destruction of
Israel."
- Because of their animus against Jews, many
leaders of the Palestinian cause have long supported our
enemies. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem allied himself with Adolf
Hitler during WWII. Yasir Arafat, chairman of the PLO and
president of the PA, has repeatedly targeted and killed
Americans. In 1973, Arafat ordered the execution of Cleo Noel,
the American ambassador to the Sudan. Arafat was very closely
aligned with the Soviet Union and other enemies of the United States
throughout the Cold War. In 1991, during the Gulf War, Arafat
aligned himself with Saddam Hussein, whom he praised as "the
defender of the Arab nation, of Muslims, and of free men
everywhere."
- Israel has, in fact, returned most of the
land that it captured during the 1967 war and right after that war
offered to return all of it in exchange for peace and normal
relations; the offer was rejected. As a result of the 1978 Camp
David accords--in which Egypt recognized the right of Israel to exist
and normal relations were established between the two
countries--Israel returned the Sinai desert, a territory three times
hte size of Israel and 91 percent of the territory Israel took control
of in the 1967 war.
- In 2000, as part of negotiations for a
comprehensive and durable peace, Israel offered to turn over all but
the smallest portion of the remaining territories to Yasir
Arafat. But Israel was rebuffed when Arafat walked out of Camp
David and launched the current intifada.
- Yasir Arafat has never been less than clear
about his goals--at least not in arabic. On the very day that he
signed the Oslo accords in 1993--in which he promised to renounce
terrorism and recognize Israel--he addressed the Palestinian people on
Jordanian television and declared that he had taken the first step
"in the 1974 plan." This was a thinly-veiled reference
to the "phased plan," according to which any territorial
gain was acceptable as a means toward the ultimate goal of Israel's
destruction.
- The recently deceased Faisal al-Husseini, a
leading Palestinian spokesman, made the same point in 2001 when he
declared that the West Bank and Gaza represented only "22 percent
of Palestine" and that the Oslo process was a "Trojan
Horse." He explained, "When we are asking all the
Palestinian forces and factions to look at the Oslo Agreement and at
other agreements as 'temporary' procedures, or phased goals, this means
what we are ambushing the Israelis and cheating them." The
goal, he continued, was "the liberation of Palestine from the
river to the sea," i.e., the Jordan River to the Mediterranean
Sea--all of Israel.
- To this day, the Fatah wing of the PLO (The
"moderate" wing that was founded and is controlled by Arafat
himself) has as its official emblem the entire state of Israel covered
by two rifles and a hand grenade--another fact that belies the claim
that Arafat desires nothing more than the West Bank and Gaza.
- While criticism of Israel is not necessarily
the same as "anti-Semitism," it must be remembered that the
Middle East press is, in fact, rife with anti-Semitism. More
than fifteen years ago the eminent scholar Bernard Lewis could point
out that "The demonization of Jews (in Arabic literature) goes
further than it had ever done in Western literature, with the
exception of Germany during the period of Nazi rule." Since
then, and through all the years of the "peace
process," things have become much worse. Depictions of Jews
in Arab and Muslim media are akin to those of Nazi Germany, and
medieval blood libels--including claims that Jews use Christian and
Muslim blood in preparing their holiday foods--have become prominent
and routine. One example is a sermon broadcast on PA television
where Sheik Ahmad Halabaya stated, "They (the Jews) must be
butchered and killed, as Allah the Almighty said: 'Fight them:
Allah will torture them at your hands.' Have no mercy on the
Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them,
wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them."
- Over three-quarters of Palestinians approve
of suicide bombings--an appalling statistic but, in light of the above
facts, an unsurprising one.
THE STATE OF ISRAEL
- There are 21 Arab countries in the Middle
East and only one Jewish state: Israel, which is also the only
democracy in the region.
- Israel is the only country in the region
that permits citizens of all faiths to worship freely and
openly. Twenty percent of Israeli citizens are not Jewish.
- While Jews are not permitted to live in many
Arab countries, Arabs are granted full citizenship and have the right
to vote in Israel. Arabs are also free to become members of the
Israeli Parliament (the Knesset). In fact, several Arabs have
been democratically elected to the Knesset and have been serving there
for years. Arabs living in Israel have more rights and are freer
than most Arabs living in Arab countries.
- Israel is smaller than the state of New
Hampshire and is surrounded by nations hostile to her existence.
Some peace proposals--including the recent Saudi proposal--demand
withdrawal from the entire West Bank, which would leave Israel 9 miles
wide at its most vulnerable point.
- The oft-cited UN Resolution 242 (Passed in
the wake of the 1967 war) does not, in fact, require a complete
withdrawal from the West Bank. As legal scholar Eugene Rostow
put it, "Resolution 242, which as undersecretary of state for
political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I helped produce, calls on the
parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories
it occupied in 1967 until 'a just and lasting peace in the Middle
East' is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel is required
to withdraw its armed forces 'from territories' it occupied during the
Six-Day War--not from 'the' territories nor from 'all' the
territories, but from some of the territories."
- Israel has, of course, conceded that the
Palestinians have legitimate claims to the disputed territories and is
willing to engage in negotiations on the matter. As noted above,
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered almost all of the
territories to Arafat at Camp David in 2000.
- Despite claims that the Israeli settlements
in the West Bank are the obstacle to peace, Jews lived there for
centuries before being massacred or driven out by invading Arab armies
in 1948-49. And contrary to common misperceptions, Israeli
settlements--which constitute less than two percent of the
territories--almost never displace Palestinians.
- The area of the West Bank includes some of
the most important sites in Jewish history, among them Hebron,
Bethlehem, and Jericho. East Jerusalem, often cited as an
"Arab city" or "occupied territory," is the site
of Judaism's holiest monument. While under Arab rule (1948-67),
this area was entirely closed to Jews. Since Israel took
control, it has been open to people of all faiths.
- Finally, let us consider the demand that
certain territories in the Muslim world must be off-limits to
Jews. This demand is of a piece with Hitler's proclamation that
German land had to be "Judenrein" (Empty of Jews).
Arabs can live freely throughout Israel, and as full citizens.
Why should Jews be forbidden to live or to own land in an area like
the West Bank simply because the majority of people is Arab?
In sum, a fair and balanced portrayal of
the Middle East will reveal that one nation stands far above the others in
its commitment to human rights and democracy as well as in its commitment
to peace and mutual security. That nation is Israel.
* The official
Palestinian National Authority Web site (pna.org) is currently not
operation. Various reports provide different reasons and the web site
should be operating again in the near future.
Bill
Bennett, Jack Kemp, and Jeane Kirkpatrick need no introduction. This
report was produced by Americans for Victory Over Terrorism, a project of Empower
America.
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