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The Truth About Israel and Palestine: Part Twelve

NOTE: This is Part Twelve of a series. For your convenience, the first eleven parts are linked below, followed by today's article.

The Truth About Israel and Palestine: Part One

The Truth About Israel and Palestine: Part Two

The Truth About Israel and Palestine: Part Three

The Truth About Israel and Palestine: Part Four

The Truth About Israel and Palestine: Part Five

The Truth About Israel and Palestine: Part Six

The Truth About Israel and Palestine: Part Seven

The Truth About Israel and Palestine: Part Eight

The Truth About Israel and Palestine: Part Nine

The Truth About Israel and Palestine: Part Ten

The Truth About Israel and Palestine: Part Eleven

 

The theme behind this series was a simple one: Israel is not guilty of any illegal occupation. The “occupied territories” were taken during the Six Day War in response to a declaration of war from Israel’s neighbors. They took this land as a defensive posture to protect themselves from genocide, a genocide promised shamelessly by the Arabs. Even so, most of this was the same territory already promised to them under the Balfar Declaration, not to mention that this land had been their home for several thousand years before the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and changed the name of the land to Palestine.

 

There has never been a country named Palestine or a people named Palestinians. This was a publicity ploy that sucessfully deceived many under the leadership of Yassar Arafat.  And Arafat was never interested in a two state solution. He was interested in the annihilation of Israel.

 

So where does this leave us today? Would a two state solution bring peace to the Middle East?  Well, the Arabs were offered a state in 1948.  They turned it down. At that time, they already had a separate Palestinian state, Jordan and this was not enough, even though it had been carved out from 75 percent of what had been promised to the Jews. In March of 2000, after years of violating the terms of the Oslo Accords (1993) Arafat was offered  over 90 percent of the land he wanted. He turned it down. Why?  Because the man never really wanted peace. He would have had no reason to exist any more if real peace came about.

 

Today Arafat is dead. The new Palestinian leader, Mahoumad Abbas says he wants peace. But this man has written about the Holocaust in ways that would make Iranian leader Ahamadinnejad blush: Yes, more nonsense about how the Holocaust never happened.  And we are supposed to put our hope in this latest "peace lover"?  As I once heard it aptly stated, “Abbas is nothing but Arafat in a suit.”

 

The Palestine National Covenant was adapted in 1964 (once again, prior to Israel’s “illegal” occupation of the West Bank) It was revised again in 1968. This document contains 33 articles which define the specific objectives of the PLO.  Allow me to share just a few of its attractive highlights:

 

Article Two allows absolutely no provision for a Jewish state in the Middle East.

 

Article Twenty denies that the Jews have ever had any historical or religious claims to the area.

 

Article Twenty-One rejects all solutions which fall short of “the total liberation of Palestine.” Incidentally, such total liberation cannot take place until Israel ceases to exist.

 

Article Fifteen calls for the elimination of Zionism in Palestine.

 

The Oswald Accord called for the canceling of any clauses which did not recognize Israel’s right to exist but such clauses were never removed.

 

In 1993, on the same day in which Arafat signed an agreement on the White House lawn, he gave a public discourse to Palestinian Arabs on Jordan TV:

 

“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 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.”

 

The PLO’s Abu-al Aynawn also said: “We have to accept the deal and wait for a change in the circumstances that could lead to the elimination of Israel.”

 

Today Israel does not even show up on the maps in Palestinian schools. Kindergarten classes are taught that Jews are devils, to be hated and exterminated.

 

I myself had a chance to watch a Palestinian children’s TV Show, with a Sesame Street like costumed character talking to a cute little five year old girl in the audience.

 

“What do you want to do when you grow up, Sweetheart?” he said.

 

“I wanna kill Jews,” the adorable little girl replied.

 

The mascot winked at the audience with a big smile and then turned back to the child. “You do?  How many Jews do you want to kill?”

 

“All of them!”

 

“All of them?”

 

Isn’t that sweet?  Now exactly why would we believe that peace will come to this region if its children are taught that hating Jews is as natural a breathing?

 

When two nations make a peace treaty, there is supposed to be give and take on both sides. Israel’s deal (brokered by the U.S) always goes like this. “You give the Palestinians back some land and here is what they will do:  They’ll promise to stop killing you.”  That’s the deal. Then one day after the deal, the promise is broken and missiles are fired into Israel from Gaza (where the Palestinians were finally offered their own autonomous rule) or a suicide bomber kills women and children on a bus.

At the time of this writing, the Bush administration is still putting pressure on Israel to cooperate with “The Road Map to Peace.”  Wow!  More peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians!  This could be the greatest thing since Chamberlain met with Hitler.  I’ve been so excited; I can hardly sleep at nights.

Let me be as straight with my readers as I possibly can.  Nothing Israel does, no gesture, no concession, no discussion, will make a hill of beans of difference. They can sign a peace treaty. They can jump on board for a two state solution. It doesn’t matter.  Hezbolah wants Israel dead. Al-Qaeda wants Israel dead. Hamas wants Israel dead. But it isn’t limited to the terrorist groups. Palestine itself wants Israel dead. The surrounding Arab nations want Israel dead. The Persian nation of Iran wants Israel dead.

My advice to Israel: Just do what you have to do. Do what you need to do. Do what is right. The world will hate you no matter what action you take and the Arabs will try to kill you no matter how much flowery talk you participate in with our State Department.  You may as well just do what’s right.

 My advice to Christians: I hope you have discovered a better reason to side with Israel than theological reasons. Fascinating as prophecy may be (and I am a big believer in Bible prophecy) the issue in the Middle East is a human rights issue.

Israel is hated not because of any occupation. Israel is hated for the same reason the United States is hated: We are not Muslims. You will discover that defending Israel is only the beginning of defending the entire world.

 

Bibliography

1) From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters

2) The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Middle East

Conflict by Mitchell G. Bard, PhD

3) Philistine, by Ramon Bennett.

 

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