"God Bless Israel: George Bush"
It is indeed said that God has amply blessed Israel. If not now, then. You know, awaaay back then? When God said to his flock that they are the blessed of the earth and must go forward to illuminate the world, to demonstrate a manner in which all humankind may live in peace and prosperity...? Remember that? Now, the current president of the United States wishes all the best for Israel, and that's very good to know.In being so kind to Israel this man risks the wrath of the Arab street, amplified by the headlines in Quds al Arabi, Al Hayat and Tishreen. Mr. Bush is viewed in those venues not as a peacemaker, not as the most powerful man in the most powerful country of the world, but as a disturber, anintervenor when none of his ilk is required. He's on a roll, so to speak, having visited and taken tea with the president of Israel and the head of the Palestinian Authority.
Canada too, incidentally, has a visitor in the area, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maxime Bernier, who has reminded Mahmoud Abbas that the hundreds of millions of dollars committed by Canada to the Palestinian Authority will only materialize if and when the PA recognizes the need to desist from its business-as-usual of demonizing Israel and directing anti-Semitic slurs against its people, encouraging deadly onslaughts by affiliated terror groups. But that's another story.
For his part, Mr. Bush has correctly reminded Israel of the need to halt its encouragement of settlements in the West Bank. While reminding the PA that it really should do something about all those deranged Palestinians intent on rampage and slaughter, for this is not polite and acceptable behaviour from those with whom Israel seeks to find a foundation for peace betweencontiguous nations living "in peace and harmony".
Oops, a misstatement - but one that has great resonance in the world at large - that Israel must lift its "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza. As though the country is thrilled with the need to have a military presence among a hostile population willing and eager to stand by and watch - and take part in on occasion - the dismantling-by-terror-and-conquest of a country which it believes has unlawfully taken its rightful place on the land. A land, incidentally, under the unsanctioned control of Jordan.
As for offering compensation to the original 600,000 Palestinians who fled the area in 1948, now swollen to 5,000,000, this is rejected outright as a solution rather than accepting their presence within the country and in the process dying a swift death as a nation. The PA has foxily agreed that Israel exists as a nation, steadfastly refusing to recognize that the State of Israel was established for a singular purpose, and is in fact, a Jewish State. For to do so would be to effectively strangle their argument for "right of return".
Surrounding Arab countries have yet to come out in favour of the alternate; some like Lebanon, denying its feasibility outright. And if the message doesn't quite penetrate, vowing to continue withholding the kindness of citizenship to the 400,000 Palestinian refugees living within its borders in a state of nasty neglect and miserable impoverishment. For few Arab states - with the exception of Jordan - are willing even now to accept the permanence of Palestinians within their borders.
As for Hamas, the resolute voice of many within the Arab world, Ismail Haniyeh states the case: "A Palestinian state in the pre-1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, the destruction of all the settlements, the release of all the Palestinian prisoners, the "right of return" of all the Palestinian refugees - and continued adherence to the strategy of not giving up on even one inch of Palestine." And there you have it. Or you don't. The Arab connivance in creating the festering sore of Palestinian refugees was to accomplish just that.
Documented history tells a story of manufactured refugees - as, for example, a published report in the Jordanian newspaper Filastin in February, 1949: "The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies." An Arab-sponsored Institute for Palestine Studies view was that "the majority" of the Arab refugees in 1948 were not expelled.
In 1950 furthermore, the Arab National Committee of Haifa informed the Arab States: "The removal of the Arab inhabitants ... was voluntary and carried out at our request... The Arab delegation proudly asked for the evacuation of the Arabs and their removal to the neighbouring Arab countries."
In 1977 the Dutch daily Trouw published the result of an interview with a PLO member of the Executive Council: "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 ... Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people ... to oppose Zionism."
Since that time history has been written and re-written, revised and re-interpreted to suit the ears of whoever was listening. Land won in a battle to protect a country from invasion has ordinarily never been returned to the aggressor. Nor has land taken in a war of conquest. Israel faces demands from the international community to return land designated by the United Nations as territory to be occupied in a split-solution creating Israel when combined Arab armies sought to dislodge the country from the geography.
Israel took that land in a desperate existential attempt at preserving herself and her population from the determined onslaught of surrounding nations concerned with her presence as an alien entity on land claimed to be dedicated to Islam. Israel stands ready to give up most of that land. Arab countries and the PA demand Jerusalem (under the pretext of accepting only eastern Jerusalem) be abandoned also by Israel.
To revert to the situation where the most signal places sacred to Judaism will no longer be available to Jewish worshippers as was the case when Jordan had oversight. This is considered to be reasonable balance. The equal numbers of Jews living in Arab lands when Palestinians became willing refugees, who were expelled and accepted within Israel have not been offered restitution. This is considered to be the way things are.
God bless Israel indeed.
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, January 13, 2008
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