The Jewish Problem Examined: Part 2
Israel, The Little Nation that Could
A so-called “Green Line” marks the boundary between Israel and its Arab neighbors. On a sliver of mostly desert land (without oil), Jews created abundance (hence, the metaphorical “Green” Line). Arabs were allotted nine times the acreage of Israelis, but chose instead to sit on its aridity and nurture poverty and resentments.
Today, the Jabalia refugee camp is as dismally poverty stricken as it was decades ago; but whose fault is that? Unfortunately, the worse off the Palestinians become, the more pressure the world brings to bear on Israel. You see, Jews were the supposed cause of poverty in Gaza; but, truth be told, that was a political ploy. Arab politics (not Jews) get in the way of making life easier for Palestinian refugees.
That Palestinians are kept in a state of disenfranchisement, poverty, and desperation further incites hatred of Israel. Jealousy is strong motivation, hard to overcome. It would seem, however, that Palestinians want destruction of Israel more than they want a better life. Otherwise, they would have accepted ninety-five percent concessions to Palestinian demands. Ehud Barak’s concessions were met instead with a renewed explosion of anti-Jewish violence.
Islamic Grand Design
The present Middle East conflict is said to be about Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, which Israel refuses to give up; but this simply is not true. Truth be told, the 2003 Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research revealed that only ten percent of those questioned expressed any desire whatsoever to return to supposedly “occupied” territories.
Hamas’ founding documents insist, “The war is open until Israel ceases to exist and until the last Jew in the world is eliminated” – not until Palestinians are safe-and-sound in their supposed homeland. Former President Akbar (meaning “the greatest”) Hashemi Rafsanjani explained Islamic fundamentalism’s “Grand Design” as follows: In uniting all Islamic nations under the leadership of a coalition led by Iran and Syria, the West first must be driven from out of the Middle East, thus “liberating” Palestine. Next, the Judeo-Christian World Order must be supplanted with an Islamic one.
The bottom line is to impose seventh-century Islamic cultural imperialism. It is not to “liberate Palestine.” Throughout the first two decades of Arab-Israeli conflict, Israel controlled neither the West Bank of the Jordan, nor the Gaza strip. After the 1948 war, when Jordan annexed the West Bank, and Egypt annexed the Gaza strip, no Arab outrage ensued. Yet the war against Israel continued.
Jews, not Arabs, are the Returning Diaspora
More than ninety percent of the Palestinians now in the West Bank and Gaza persist in claiming unfounded “right to return,” but have never lived a day in territorial Israel. Demand that five million Palestinian refugees be returned to Israel is more than ten times the number who actually left the Jewish sliver of the British Mandate in 1948.
While more Arabs than Jews occupied the Jewish portion, Jews were legally barred from settling in the thirty-five thousand square miles of Palestinian Transjordan (eventually, Jordon). Moreover, no one talks about the Jews forced out of Arab lands (Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Yemen). In fact, Jews (not Arabs) are the returning diaspora (meaning “that which is sown”). With creation of Israel, hundreds of thousands of Arab Jews, known as Mizrahi, came to Israel as refugees. The word aliyah(Hebrew for “ascent” or “pilgrimage”) conveys the religious significance of Jews returning to Israel.
This is evident throughout history. Long before Mohammed was born, Jews “returned” to the land in 538 B.C. in order to rebuild their temple. In the 1800s, Zionists settled in Palestine to create a Jewish homeland. In 1897, the First Zionist Congress convened in Switzerland to discuss creation of a homeland in Palestine for the then-scattered Jews (diaspora). Many started moving to Jerusalem, under Turkish control at the time; and Hebrew (not Arabic) became the state language. In 1917, the British Balfour Declaration drew even more Jews to Palestine.
Legal, Bought-and-paid-for, Continuously Inhabited Land
Keep in mind that a state of Palestine has never existed. Neither does Israel hold “occupied territories” of some nonexistent nation-state. Some two thousand years before the rise of Islam, Israel became a legally recognized nation. Theirs is legal, bought-and-paid for, continuously inhabited land.
Egyptian author Nonie Darwish asks of the international community, “What’s so difficult about accepting the presence of 5 million Jews in an ocean of 1-½ billion Muslims?” Good question. For three thousand years, Jewish people have always lived there. In fact, for a period of 1,637 years (from 1000 B.C. to A.D. 637), Jews constituted its primary population. At the beginning of the 20th century, Jews were recorded in nearly every town today considered “purely Arab.”
After World War I (April 1920), the San Remo Peace Conference legally recognized a continuous chain of Jewish possession of the land. Tired of hearing that Jews “stole the land,” the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir countered that, from 1904 and beyond, a great deal of money changed hands; and because of it, many Arabs became very rich.
America’s Folly
In The Islamic Invasion, Dr. Robert Morey warns that Islamic fundamentalism is both organized and well funded. Arguably, radical Muslims are in the process of buying the U.S. Congress, and already they own vital news media outlets. While Westerners are curtailing procreation, Muslims worldwide are creating huge families (sometimes with multiple wives). By the year 2020, there will be over twenty-five million Muslims in the U.S. alone.
President Obama’s plan is to give Israel “the basic right to exist,” but without “permanent occupation.” Palestine, in his view, should be recognized as a viable, sovereign state (bordering Israel, Jordan, and Egypt). While exercising self-government, the parties in question are expected to negotiate swaps to implement 1967 borderlines.
Think of it this way: Never having borne distinction of a “nation-state,” disgruntled Palestinian refugees (many of whom have no interest in “returning”) nonetheless are to be favored recipients of a land continuously and legally inhabited by Jews since ancient times.
Sadly, Obama’s plan is based on fallacy, not fact. Plainly, the root problem has less to do with “occupied” territories, and more to do with viral hatred of Jews. Folks religiously committed to slit necks and smite finger tips off infidel Jews – folks responsible for repeated, egregious acts of terrorism – are being called to exercise civil self-government around negotiating tables inhabited by the very ones they’re intent on banishing to the sea. Nothing less than Israel’s complete annihilation will do.
Even so, by the grace of God, Israel has proved throughout history to be the little nation that could. Better with America’s help than without it.