Yitz Dekel, M.A.
Blazer-JLTV, OP-ED, March 20, 2010
During this Passover season, Israel faces an unprecedented angry White House, a very hostile pre-Atomic Iran, a threatening axis of Syria, Hamas & Hezbollah, boasting their enormous stockpiles of advanced missiles, and a tightening chokehold of International Isolation. While Obama’s White House increases its pressure on Israel to accept the Two-State-Solution, which includes the bizarre and counter-historical Division of Jerusalem. Ironically, the White House & the Pentagon may need Israel’s “unilateral surgical preemptive strike” on Iran’s select nuclear targets before Jan. 2011. Regardless from what perspective or position of the political-ideological spectrum does any Israeli or Jewish person come from, vocalizing passionately their opinions these days, most Israeli politicians and citizens within the diverse body politics of Israel are very worried and stressed this Passover season. So are the majority of the Jewish people worldwide. More than a few may argue very openly, often fiercely, while criticizing past and current Israeli policies and governments for “harsh” actions and attitudes toward the Palestinians throughout the West Bank, since the 1967 Liberation/Occupation Six Day War. Many more however will argue that Israel did its very best, while defending itself against focused, brutal, and stubborn Pan-Arab enemies, under endless threats and conventional and terrorist attacks since 1948.
Yet, after 1900 years of dispersals, exiles and being deprived of our own homeland and sovereignty, it has been practically impossible for Israel to suddenly emerge, since the 1948 War of Independence, as a “perfect” victor-liberator-occupier. While at the same time, Israel has been continuously challenged by all 22 Members of the Arab-League, who have not concealed until today, their full agenda and ultimate goal to destroy the Jewish State of Israel, thru conventional military aggression and boycotts, or through the strategy and tactics of terror. Thus, Israel has no need to apologize for defending itself and for repelling and surviving on the winning side all these 63 years of Arab-Palestinian onslaughts of fanatic aggression. Nor does Israel have to explain to the world or to history, its historical and legal rights to engage in any activities of construction, expansion, repairing or developing housing and infra-structure, anywhere in the parameters of its Capital city of Jerusalem.
The national and international public debates and growing frictions will always depend on “who says what, when and to whom” in the ever-changing fluidity of political and military events, between the two opposing camps, much more so within the splintered Arab-Palestinian rival camps. Enemies are by definition strictly subjective, never objective. But to Israel’s misfortune, so is the international media, far from being objective and balanced, when it concerns Israel’s actions, policies and image. But at least in Israel, its 1.2 million voting Arab citizens, can freely exercise their political and civic rights and freely express their political opinions. Such extended freedoms do not exist or apply to almost 100% of all Arab citizens in the 22 Arab-League States, nor within the Palestinian Authority West Bank controlled territories. Since its independence in May 1948, all Israeli Governments were made up of Coalitions of several, mostly disharmonious political parties, with a strong opposition by excluded parties in the Knesset and thus, Israel’s dynamic and restless Democracy is still alive. None of this applies to all of Israel’s Arab neighbors dictatorial and oppressive regimes. Sadly and outrageously, the Jewish and Israeli pro-Palestinian Peace Camps, lead by Peace-Now, J-Street and New-Israel-Fund, as the most active NGO’s, must be gloating, while watching up-close these days, Israel’s predicaments and rifts with the White House, being internationally ostracized and squeezed on all sides.
The Israeli announcement of another 1600 new housing units to be constructed in East Jerusalem, made on March 10, 2010, the very day of VP Joe Biden visit in Israel, was a major political & diplomatic fiasco, upsetting the United States, Israel’s greatest ally and supporter since 1948. This unfortunate Peace Negotiations-spoiler incident, is marginal when compared to the full picture of the totality of the Pan-Arab-Palestinian wars against the Jews in Turkish & British Palestine and against the State of Israel (since 1948), for the last 120 years or so. Let us focus here on some of the more recent events and variables in the National-Nationalistic conflicting forces between the Arab-Palestinian bloc and Israel.
The highly promoted American-Pan-Arab “Two State Solution” requires also the absurd re-partitioning of Jerusalem, to make the eastern part the city the future Palestinian Capital, which it never was in history. In June, 1967, Israel liberated and unified Jerusalem during the Six Day War from Jordanian military conquest of 19 years since 1948. The aggregate of threats and hostilities of the Pan-Arab-Palestinian gigantic camp, against Israel and on world Jewry, is becoming rapidly more oppressive and more depressive. We are also witnessing a steady growth in worldwide old fashioned Anti-Semitic incidents and attacks on Jewish institutions and even cemeteries, only 65 years after the Holocaust. While on more and more American campuses, zealous Palestinian and Arab students are intimidating Jewish students with their extreme and noisy aggression.
The most unforgivable historical omission from all the international debates, are the critically missing facts about the full “Middle East Refugees Exchange” of some 590,000 to 700,000(?) Palestinian Arabs against about 1,000,000 Jewish refugees from the bellicose Arab states since 1948. Israel has laboriously embraced and settled successfully the Jewish Refugees from the Arab countries into its social, cultural, economic and political fabrics within a few decades. On the other hand Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, were most Palestinian Refugees fled to, kept them status-less and in perpetual misery of refugees enclaves, ever since. The full facts of this distorted picture and incomplete history of the Middle East Refugees, unfortunately still continues, but rendering wrong, obsolete and irrelevant any discussion about the assumed Palestinians geopolitical and economic “Rights”, lost “de-facto” & “de-jure” to the far greater material and civil Rights of the Jewish Refugees.
This state of affairs is not only unbelievable; it is totally and utterly unacceptable. The large majority of our Jewish People worldwide (a mere 14 million Jews as compared to 1.3-1.4 billion Muslims alive in the world today) are recoiling with growing anger these days. We are justifiably suspicions and impatience, ready and willing to react, not just defensively, but to hit back and attack pre-emotively, at any enemy that threatens Jewish lives, in Israel or anywhere else… Naturally, this Siege against Israel and the growing incidents of international anti-Semitism, re-awaken historical Jewish-Tribal reflexes, a state of increasing alert and awareness coming from historical memories of many centuries of exiles, persecutions, pogroms and the Holocaust. Thus we address a Twitter-like question to the very progressive President Obama: When in the last 3,000 years was a divided Jerusalem, or any divided Capital city in war regions, a key to Peace?
The growing claustrophobia closing on Israel has been evident even before the March 10th 2010; huge blunder by Israel announcing the constructing of additional 1600 new housing units in East Jerusalem, during Biden’s visited in Jerusalem. As widely noted by the media, VP Biden has condemned Israel publically in his address at the Tel Aviv University, the following day. Then, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton found it Necessary to scold Bibi Netanyahu over a 45 minutes phone call, accusing his Government of delivering a slap on the face of America and gravely upsetting the peace Process. Obviously, this political public relations fiasco was very disturbing to both, Israel’s historically close relationships with the United States on the one hand, as well as a correct interpretation by the Palestinians and the Arab world, discouraging their interest in pursuing “indirect proximity peace negotiations”. Inadvertently however, beyond damage control and apologies, Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, means business by being firm and consistent on his One-Jerusalem policy. Namely, that Jerusalem, was never an Arab or Muslim capital of any nation-state in history, but will remain the eternal Capital of the Jewish People and of the modern and democratic state of Israel, united, open to all Faiths worshipers and accessible to all regional and worldwide Jewish, Christian and Jewish Pilgrims.
Why should the Jewish State of Israel, one of the smallest nation-states on the planet, that lives continuously under threats and failed attempts to destroy her by its surrounding Arab neighbors since 1948, accept any foreign ideas or policies that favor the creation of yet another Arab state squeezed into unbearable congestion of the narrow West Bank, thus automatically laying all the foundations for its own destruction? Why should Israel consider or accept the built-in entrapments that are included in the unrealistic “Oslo Accords” signed under international pressure in Washington DC, on Sept. 13, 1993, by President Clinton, the late PM Yitzhak Rabin, by uniformed PLO Chairman and PA President Yasser Arafat and his deputy Mahmud Abbas, when at the Camp David Summit with Clinton and PM Ehud Barak, in 2000, Arafat rejected Israel’s best offer yet of withdrawal to pre-1967 borders and even from East Jerusalem. Clearly, the Pan-Arab-Palestinian camp remains consistently focused on ultimately destroying Israel by replacing it, militarily, politically and demographically over time.
Concerning Israel’s rights to construct housing projects anywhere in the greater Jerusalem area we must remind ourselves and the international community at large including the 22 nation-states of the Arab League, as well as the Palestinians, that Jordan had full control as an occupier of most of the disputed West Bank territories, and most remarkable, the whole of East Jerusalem, for 19 consecutive years (1948-1967). Similarly, Egypt had full control of the Gaza Strip for the same 19 years. It is hard to find anywhere, United Nations or UNRWA reports and documents about Palestinian Refugees complaints while languishing under Jordanian and Egyptian iron-fisted controls, living without civil right and liberties in poverty infested refugee camps.
Ironically, these very territories controlled by Jordan and by Egypt between 1948 and 1967, were within the intended future Palestinian State as designated by the Partition Plan of the UN Resolution # 181, of Nov. 29, 1947 that the Arab world rejected vehemently. Why didn’t Jordan & Egypt start building brick by brick and block by block the infra-structure of the future Palestinian State on the very ground they were standing and living on? Meanwhile, Israeli official sources estimate that since 1948, Israeli Arabs constructed some 100,000 illegal dwelling houses or extensions and other buildings throughout Israel, without all, if any of the required civil engineering, safety, utilities and waste management required inspections and permits. Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria should find the territorial solution for the Palestinian Refugees living status-less in their midst, in poverty, since 1948.
Most international observers and strategic-military experts agree that the “Two State Solution” is a fast shrinking mirage. It is geographically, strategically, culturally, politically & demographically, “Dead On Arrival”. Because the West Bank is already by far too small and congested to allow for such diametrically opposed National, Religious and Cultural entities to tolerate each other in mutual respect and harmony, while competing economically and technologically-scientifically so unevenly, in blissful peace. Will a future Palestinian state allow for Jewish residents within its boundaries, like Israel has 1.2 million Arab citizens, or will it be “Yuden-Rein” (free of Jews) as a strict Muslim entity? What does Obama expect?
It is historically a very stinging irony to recall and draw a comparison between two American presidents in two remarkable geopolitical situations. At the waning years of the Cold War era between the United States and the Soviet Union, President Reagan launched a cluster of geopolitical and strategic initiatives to end the Cold War. A brilliant move by President Reagan was his visit in West Berlin on June 12, 1987, speaking to the German people of West Berlin (and thus addressing East Germany, the Soviet Union and to the world at large, for all intents and purposes), aggressively pursuing the reunification of the walled city of Berlin, since its construction by the Communist East German government in 1961.
President Reagan’s words were heard around the world and definitely in the halls of the Kremlin when he loudly said, “Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down this Wall!!”
This resounding call has become the beginning of the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. This event echoed another powerful statement by President John Kennedy, addressing West Berlin citizens, the Soviet Union and the World, on June 23, 1963, near the Berlin Wall, when Kennedy declared ”Ich Bin Ein Berliner” (I Am a citizen of Berlin).
In stark contradiction to these two great American Presidents historical statements that changed Europe and the world, it is a bone chilling surrealistic experience, to hear President Obama, a surprise Peace Nobel Prize Laureate, pushing aggressively in 2010, even demanding, to re-divide the Holy city of Jerusalem. It is an artificial, fabricated condition to appease the 57 Muslim nation-states of the world, including the 22 members of the Arab League countries, to supposedly achieve a very illusive Peace in the Middle East, by imposing the Two States Solution on Israel! Is there really Mr. Obama, sufficient living, functioning and developing, living and growing space for both Peoples, on the miniscule West Bank?
Should a Palestinian nation-state arise in the West Bank after all, will it help President Obama win the American wars in the greater Middle East? Or will it help defeat international Jihad? Or will it wipe out the Taliban or Al Qaeda from South-West Asia and from the international geopolitics? Or will it stop Iran from becoming a military nuclear power? Or will it slow down the Islamization of Europe and the West? Absolutely Not! Thus, pragmatically, Israel remains America’s and western civilization’s most natural, greatest cultural-democratic ally, fortress and hope in the midst of the chaotic Middle East. In the possible, although most improbable event, that an independent Palestinian state will be founded and declared, twisted geographically side by side along Israel on the West Bank and Gaza, will it suffice and satisfy the ambitions, aspirations, dreams, goals and geophysical requirements of the Palestinian state?
It is incomprehensible that the U.S. under President Reagan, lead the free world and was pivotal in uniting Berlin in 1989/90. But in 2010 President Obama, wishing to appease a hostile Muslim world, is leading the world with the initiative to Disunite Jerusalem and Break it up into 2 artificial halves, as a required condition for the Palestinian-Israeli Peace process? Israel, supported by the majority of world Jewry, will reject and foil such a suicidal “Two State Solution”. Supporting a strong Israel these days is imperative. We shall overcome and survive this siege and crisis as well. Our heritage of 4000 years’ old journey has endured and survived greater existential challenges. A very strong Israel is here to stay and survive and its united Capital city of Jerusalem will continue to grow and to thrive…
Happy Passover!
(© Yitzchak Dekel, Los Angeles, March, 2010)
No comments:
Post a Comment