Palestine Primer

This is a stiff reminder of the history of the Palestinian cause.  We have forgotten just how poorly populated nineteenth century Palestine actually was.  Ancient irrigation systems had been abandoned in the reduction of Judea in the time of the Romans and the resulting collapse was never reversed for almost two thousand years.

Jewish immigration began changing all that by the simple expedient of purchasing near waste land and making it productive.  Twentieth century scientific agriculture and modernism achieved the rest to produce a presently highly productive land.

That was actually never an issue.  As mentioned, the resident Arabs welcomed this influx of money and enterprise as the Jewish community was extant throughout the Middle East.

The real toxin was the introduction of the anti-Semitic virus brought on and supported by the Nazis which joined with fundamentalist Islam to form a focus for their hatreds and also their ambitions.

It has never been removed and it continues to distort ideas and politics throughout the Middle East.  Has anyone ever asked why it is even possible for such thinking to exist in Iran?  One can understand Medieval Europe and perhaps later the Eastern lands were the community became the commercial servants to the landholders.

I have no sense in the historical record that Judaism got treatment different from any other nonbeliever and that Islam depended mostly on economic persuasion to force coercion.  That was why the communities survived down through the centuries.

Perhaps, we are still fighting the Second World War through a different set of proxies.

What has happened in the past half century is that Jews have been forced to leave Arab countries and many other areas, massively increasing the population of Israel and this has progressively changed the facts on the ground.  Sheer strength has prevented another outright war of any scale for thirty years outside of incursions aimed at suppressing indiscriminate bombardment.  It is in its own way stable while Israel waits for their enemies to sort themselves out.

 

New Israeli Settlements in the West Bank: Middle East Peace?: Not in Our Lifetime

Posted: Tuesday, October 26, 2010

http://searchwarp.com/swa645163-New-Israeli-Settlements-In-The-West-Bank-Middle-East-Peace-Not-In-Our-Lifetime.htm

by        Paul Schroeder

"There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist. " 

Golda Meir 

Sunday Times, 1969-06-15; The Washington Post, 1969-06-16

Israel has lived daily with many 911's, at the hands of terrorist threats within and terrorist threats without and has learned very harsh lessons that America with its one singular 911 terrorist attack is now only beginning to have an inkling of; what is Israel's true attitude about the Palestinians? 

The false legend of an Arab Palestinian nation is a myth created and marketed worldwide.

There is no spoken or written language known as Palestinian, or any Palestinian culture distinct from that of all the Arabs in the Middle East area. 

There has never been a sovereign land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians.

"Palestinians" are Arabs completely indistinguishable from Arabs throughout the entire Middle East.

The predominant Arab population in this contested area, in truth, migrated into Israel and Judea and Samaria from the surrounding Arab countries during the past 100 years. They have no historical claim to any property within the State of Israel. 

When the political rebirth of Israel was accompanied by economic prosperity in the region, Arabs migrated to this contested area to find work and to relish a new higher standard of living.

In documents over hundred years old, the area contested and now over populated was always described as a very scarcely populated region.

Jews were by far historically the majority living in Jerusalem compared to a very small Arab minority. 

Up to the Oslo agreement the only source of money for Arab residents in this falsely claimed area were jobs in the Israeli sector. 

All of these Palestinians have come from other Arab countries who should now repatriate them.

All of the Arab leaders there, including the past so called Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Arafat , was not a "Palestinian", but was born in Egypt. This is true for all the 'elders'. 

The famous "Palestinian covenant" states that Palestinians are originally "an integral part of the Arab nations" -- nations with a sparsely populated land mass 660 times the size of tiny Israel (Judea, Samaria and Gaza included). 

The operative word is "sparse" 

Arab sovereignty claims over Israel should be seen for their one real stated intention, the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state, the one and only democracy and true foundation of the Judeo-Christian civilization in the Middle East.

Palestinians have no legitimate claims to be even called "Palestinians" let alone have any legitimate claims to any territories within.

The Israeli government should in my opinion pack all of them all up lock, stock and barrel and deport them, deposit them in neighboring so-called sympathetic Arab abundant lands. 

It is true that the Jews' claims to this land are indeed Biblical; that is their clear argument regardless of whether it is legitimized in your mind or in my mind. 

The Jews were indeed a predominate majority in that contested land, who became "Israelis", as such, only when the United Nations gave them that national identity.

These newly nationalized Jews begged their Arabs neighbors who lived there to remain with them and to build a homeland with them.

But, the Arab Mufti leaders demanded that all Arabs should leave all their properties and that they should return armed, en masse, to wrest it from the Jews' hands; when these Arabs did this, when they left, they, in the newly defending Israeli's mind set, relinquished all rights to their previous lands.

It was only then, at that point, that Jews took up arms to defend their new homeland

I should expect, in any skewed and stilted comparison of this Middle East conundrum to the European American's horrid treatment of indigenous Native Americans, a suggestion that Israeli Jews give the Palestinian Arabs casino rights.

Palestinians are not the only group of Arabs devoted to eliminating the Jewish State of Israel.

What Ahmadinajad has said about Israel is that they should be "erased, wiped out, away, from the World's map".

This monster is now in the process of developing Iran's, his country's thermonuclear weapons, to achieve that stated goal, the very Jewish mass genocide that Hitler could only have dreamed

Israel has never said that 'Iran should be erased from the map"; Israel did not develop atomic weapons as a stated goal to expunge Iran from the map.

Israeli youngsters do not strap toy explosives to their chests the way Palestinian youngsters do, trained by their adults in rehearsal for future suicide bomb attacks. Arabs hate us; do we hate them?

"Hate" has nothing to do with Israeli political thinking.

To have ANY sense of "peace", we must have a political 'partner', in peace, and the current "Palestinian" 'partner' simply isn't a suitable ' partner'' in any negotiated sense of the word 'peace' as at this point in time their only political desire is the Jews' destruction and the destruction of the Jewish state. 

Israelis do indeed believe and echo, that only perhaps after several successive generations of 'Palestinians' shall we find that we may indeed have found such a suitable 'partner' required for that Israeli much sought after peace; any other belief in a peace, now, is delusional, given their unqualified murderous intent to our nation. 

So a fallacy of any argument that Israel does not want peace is that it does not recognize that Israel needs a partner in peace. 

We used to think of the Communist Russians as our true cultural enemies, but their culture is and always has been much like ours. 

Russians go to churches(when allowed to ), love making money, have a healthy disrespect for religious fanatics of all ilks, they frequent cafes, believe in evolution, drink alcohol ; especially vodka, they go to operas and party with gorgeous babes. 

In many ways their culture is not and has never been a threat because they are so very much aligned with what America seeks as "fun".

The real cultural enemies of our nation's culture and our nation are the fundamentalist islamics who want to exterminate us as well as our culture and replace it with theirs.

Much like the Kamikaze death pilots of WW2, Islamic fundamentalists are unafraid of death within the context of Jihad, in perpetrating their so called cultural superiority.

They want to dress our women, like they force their women to, in bee-keeper outfits, to indoctinate free thinking and replace Democracy with mindless rote religion, to kill all infidels who do not subscribe to their religious fanaticism, to eliminate all eating of pork as well as to stop any drinking of alcohol and smoking.

This is a real cultural war and illustrates the insanity of embracing any state enforced religion that dictates watching beheading, in a public stadium, as fun on a Saturday night, for crimes of minor infractions of their religious laws. 

I conclude with a quote that the leader of Israel most recently made when he addressed the U.N. General Assembly the day after the rabid president of Iran again denied the Holocaust publicly: 

"Netanyahu Speech at UN 

International News

By William Light 

on Monday, September 27, 2010

'Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, 

Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland. 

I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.

The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events.

Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth. Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.

Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942 , after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments. Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie?

A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler's deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie? 

This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie? 

And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie? One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife's grandparents, her father's two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis. Is that also a lie? 

Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries. 

But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency?

A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state.

What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations! Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You're wrong. 

History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.

This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries. In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times.

Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated. The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization.

It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death. 

The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day. Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially.

It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.

What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come. We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.

I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances - by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment. These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise. 

But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after an horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind. That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction. 

The most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?

Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood? Will the international community thwart the world's most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism?

Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?

The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

The jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging. Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted.

For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks. We heard nothing - absolutely nothing - from the UN Human Rights Council, a misnamed institution if there ever was one.

In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza . It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We didn't get peace.

Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare. You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.

Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond. But how should we have responded? Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country's civilian population. It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II. During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. Israel chose to respond differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians - Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers. 

That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances. Israel , by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas. 

We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave. Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy's civilian population from harm's way.

Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel . A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot. 

By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth. What a perversion of justice.

Delegates of the United Nations, 

Will you accept this farce?

Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.

If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely populated areas, you will win immunity. And in condemning Israel , this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Here's why.

When Israel left Gaza , many hoped that the missile attacks would stop. Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense. What legitimacy? What self-defense? 

The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our right of self-defense now accuses us -my people, my country - of war crimes? And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense. What a travesty!

Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists?

We must know the answer to that question now. Now and not later. Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow. Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

All of Israel wants peace. 

Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace. We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat. We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein. And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and the people of Israel , will make peace. But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace. In 1947, this body voted to establish two states for two peoples - a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted that resolution. The Arabs rejected it. 

We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years: Say yes to a Jewish state. Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel . This is the land of our forefathers.

Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision of peace: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more." These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city, in the hills of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem .

We are not strangers to this land. It is our homeland. As deeply connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also live there and want a home of their own. We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity. 

But we must have security. The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel.

That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized. We don't want another Gaza , another Iranian backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.

We want peace. 

I believe such a peace can be achieved. But only if we roll back the forces of terror, led by Iran , that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel and overthrow the world order. The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate them. 

Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the "confirmed unteachability of mankind," the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.

Churchill bemoaned what he called the "want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong." 

I speak here today in the hope that Churchill's assessment of the "unteachability of mankind" is for once proven wrong.

I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history -- that we can prevent danger in time. 

In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come. "