This post is taken form The Indictment by Sabina Citron, pages 143-147. The entire book is available for free download in pdf format here
Most Israelis consider the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and the PA a
dead letter — null and void — having witnessed how a peace accord based on
the PLO foreswearing violence and terrorism in exchange for local autonomy
and self government gave Israel nothing but bloodletting. Particularly after
Arafat decided Israel had not sacrificed enough, and officially restarted terrorism
in October 2000.
Nor was Oslo the first time that Israel offered the local Arabs of Judea,
Samaria and Gaza a peaceful resolution. So far, to no avail.
One would think that Western leaders, and especially President Bush,
would finally understand that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not about reasonable
agreements with reasonable people. It is not even about the “refugees,”
nor even about compromise on land. If it were, there have been dozens of
opportunities for the Arabs to address all their so-called grievances.
But what grievances, you might well ask?
It is the Arabs who committed aggression against Israel, not the other way
around. And not once, but many times, through several wars of aggression,
numerous violations of accords and countless acts of terrorism, since long
before the Six Day Way of 1967.
To many people, it is abundantly clear that the Arabs do not want a peace
accord with Israel, but rather to dismantle Israel piece by piece.
In every war of aggression against Israel by the Arabs since 1948, the Arabs
promised to destroy the Jewish state, to drive the Jews into the sea. This language
is about genocide, not about peace. And while two Arab countries
finally signed peace accords with Israel — Egypt and Jordan — the hostility
is ongoing both in the press and other media in those countries; a variety of
spokesmen still advocate that nothing short of total destruction of the Jewish
people will satisfy these, our “peaceful” neighbors.
The PLO, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other assorted terrorist groups are by
no means alone in their aim.
Most Arab states are still officially in a state of war with Israel. Most Arab
states still support terrorism against Israel, and have for a very long time. It’s
only since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the US that the Americans
started investigating these various terrorist groups, and began to put pressure
on their Arab benefactors (Saudi Arabia chief among them).
But whether the Americans fully appreciate (or care) to what extent the
Arab states are involved in keeping the misnamed “Palestinian”-Israeli conflict
alive is still a somewhat open question.
On the one hand, we see the United States’ unconditional and total war
declared against al-Qaeda terrorists and its leaders since September 11, and on
the other, the US attempt to hamper every necessary policy of Israel towards
terrorist groups within its own territory; this appears at the very least a double
standard. But many Israelis still wonder if there is more to this strange and
incomprehensible phenomenon than meets the eye.
Do American leaders really believe that they can convert the Middle East’s
tyrannical rulers to democrats (or Islam to a peaceful religion) by appeasement,
or is this just a game?
Do the American leaders really not understand the Arab policies toward
Israel, or are they willing to sacrifice Israel on the altar of expediency and
realpolitik as they play for time?
Israel is a friend and ally of the United States, but the Americans, during
their various administrations since 1948, have treated Israel shabbily to say the
least. Israel may be an ally, but it is not a subjugated vassal state, nor should
it be treated as such.
Admittedly, there have been some good things the US government did
for Israel, but more often than not, begrudgingly, and mostly at a very high
price.
Supporting Israeli statehood at the UN vote in 1948 came only at the last
moment. In 1973, just before the Arab war against Israel, the US counseled
Israel to ignore the Egyptian troops gathering at the border as if in preparation
for war. In June of that year, Israel did call up the reserve force, and the
Egyptians held their fire; but in October of that year, Israel, in deference to
the US government, did not call up the reserves. On the holiest day of the
Jewish people, Yom Kippur, the Egyptians and the Syrians attacked, and Israel
suffered severe casualties on the Egyptian front particularly. The country was
in dire danger, and yet the Americans withheld to the last moment military
equipment which was, in fact, a matter of life and death.
There were other instances when the Americans withheld loan guarantees
1. The entire US administration was reportedly against it. Truman himself, who made
the decision at the last moment, according to his diaries, was not exactly a friend of
the Jewish people. He was moved to act based on some basic decency perhaps but,
according to some, he was a man of his time — an anti-Semite.
and the like, as when Israel refused, under Yitzhak Shamir, to succumb to US
dictates concerning Judea and Samaria. In 1991, too, following their first war
against Iraq, the US, feeling obliged to repay the Arabs for being part of their
so-called “coalition” against Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, tried to repay them by
endangering Israel.
So the Road Map is really not a new invention. Only the name is new. This
time, too, the US president feels obliged — not only to the Arabs who agreed
to sit out the invasion of Iraq, but also to his friend, the British PM Blair, for
being one of very few leaders who joined his coalition against Iraq — to repay
them, not by ceding US territory, but Israel’s territory!
We are often told that states have no friends, only interests. Israel is still
a young state, and it’s still suffering from the outmoded notion that allies
could and should be friends. But Israel is learning the hard way. Israel too
has interests. Its primary interest, its primary function is to protect its citizens
and its borders!
This brings us to UN Resolution 242, accepted by all parties to the conflict
in the aftermath of the 1967 war of aggression by several Arab states against
Israel.
According to international law, the aggressor does not dictate the terms of
cease-fire, armistice or indeed peace. Even if Israel did not have a historical
right to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, international law dealing with aggression
would confer on Israel superior rights over the territory.
UN Resolution 242 did not change any of these rights, but provided that
Israel could, in exchange for a complete and comprehensive peace agreement
with all its Arab neighbors, make some concession to its former enemies
provided that such bilateral negotiations would be held in a spirit of reconciliation
— without threats or coercion — and would lead to secure and
recognized borders for Israel and its neighbors.
Such negotiation of course never took place. On the contrary, the Khartoum
Conference of the Arab States, August 29-September 1, 1967, issued the three
infamous “no’s”: (1) no negotiations (2) no recognition, and (3) no peace with
the state of Israel!
Even during the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations (in 1977–79), Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat attempted to dictate the terms of a peace treaty. The
US, under President Jimmy Carter, twisted Israeli arms. Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin resisted as best he could — he had international law on his
side, but not the US president.
Israel was quite prepared to give the Egyptians the Sinai Peninsula, under
certain conditions and guarantees. But Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria are quite
a different matter. In the end, Israel got nothing, just a piece of paper, and a
very cold peace. Sadat was assassinated by an Islamic faction soon thereafter.
His successor, Hosni Mubarak, no less sly, coached Arafat how best to extract
concessions from the Israelis during the Oslo process while Arafat’s terrorists
smuggled illegal arms over the Egyptian border, in clear violation not only of
Oslo, but of the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty!
As for Judea and Samaria, these were not even discussed in UN Resolution
242. The Jordanian aggressor had no historical or legal rights to Judea and
Samaria in the first place, and the PLO was not even part of the equation.
The Arab population in the areas grew through illegal infiltration, marriage
with outside partners, etc., not merely by natural growth.
Israel, not wishing to lord over this Arab population of Judea and Samaria
and Gaza, offered various compromises to the Arabs since 1967, always getting
the belligerent answer “no negotiations, no recognition, and no peace” from
the Arab League.
There has not been much change in Arab-Muslim attitudes toward Israel
even despite the peace treaty with Egypt, which got something very tangible
for nothing. The peace treaty with Jordan followed the Oslo process where
again the Arabs stood to win by weakening Israel. The hostile propaganda
against Israel continues in both Egypt and Jordan, and not “merely” by the
local Arab population in Judea and Samaria. The PA says it is using Jordanian
schoolbooks when confronted about the hate propaganda in those books
instilling hatred and violence against Israel in impressionable young Arab
minds!
Considering the Arab “education system,” is it any wonder that 70 to 80
percent of the population of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, most of whom were
subjected to anti-Israel indoctrination during the half-century they were
forced by the Arabs to remain in the “refugee” camps, support terrorism and
suicide bombers against Israel?
But Israel should not have tolerated such a hostile population dedicated
to its destruction. Israel does not owe these people anything. It certainly does
not owe them land historically Israel’s, and it does not owe them a state.
What other country would be asked to do such a preposterous thing?
History — notwithstanding vile Arab propaganda regarding Judea and
Samaria — is clear, and so is international law.
Let the countries that asked these people to leave their homes take them
back. Those Arab states bear full responsibility for the welfare of these people
— now scandalously allowed to remain “refugees” for three generations — and
their resettlement.
Many Arab countries also bear the responsibility for the expulsion of
Jewish families from their homes in their countries, families who lived there
from time immemorial, long before the creation of Islam. These refugees,
who were forced to leave all of their belongings and much of their way of life
behind, were long forgotten in the shuffle.
Arab propaganda made a case for “Palestinian refugees,” bogus refugees
who left Israel in 1948 of their own accord, despite Israel’s leaders’ urging
them to stay. Israel attempted several times to resettle these “refugees” in
proper housing — to no avail — they preferred to listen to Arab leaders who
told them to stay in miserable refugee camps, which by now have turned into
towns (though slum towns, to be sure).
Israel built five universities for the local Arabs, only to see them turned
into hotbeds for terrorist activity, no different than the “refugee camps.” Any
other country would deport such hostile people, or force those who wish to
stay to swear an oath of allegiance and to obey the laws of the state.
The Americans fight terrorism halfway across the world in Afghanistan,
following September 11. Israel is living daily with terrorist attacks — on its
civilian population — people indoctrinated from early childhood to become
killers, not unlike the Hitler Youth of the Nazi era in Germany. Israel has
every right to defend its citizens against this menace, which presents a clear
and present danger!
Neither the US president Mr. Bush nor anyone else has the right to
impose on Israel a solution not of its own making, and not in its best national
interest.
Mr. Bush should be reminded that Israel is a sovereign state, with all the
rights that implies. Israel is not the aggressor in the Arab-Israeli conflict, and
the US has no right to force its surrender.
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