re: miles; palestinians: get us out of gaza
I was once part of what may be called the Hopeful Left.
The Hopeful Left is a species associated with the Arab-Israeli dispute. It believes that the Arabs fighting Israel are waging a classic struggle for national liberation. All they want is a state of their own in Judea and Samaria, otherwise known as the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Since Arab violence is viewed as stemming from supposed Israeli suppression of national aspirations, the Hope is that if Israel showers Arabs with concessions, extremists will be isolated; moderates (once meaning Yasser Arafat and now meaning Mahmoud Abbas, otherwise known as Abu Mazen, President of the Palestinian Authority) will be empowered; peace will reign.
Such is the Hope of the Hopeful Left.
Beginning three years ago, I was forced by the tremendous escalation of media attacks on Israel to study the facts about the Arab-Israeli dispute. I now believe the Hopeful Left is dangerously wrong. There is much evidence that the so-called Palestinian movement is not an outgrowth of the history of some Palestinian people, but an artificial creation of the Arab states, with much help, at various times, from Great Powers, such as the former Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and others. [1]
A lot of evidence caused me to change my mind; a humbling process, since it meant I had been remarkably wrong since the early 1970s. Some of that evidence involved the origins of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Surely if the Arabs who are currently called Palestinians have been waging a legitimate national liberation struggle, the PLO has been its leading voice.
Among the things I learned was that, according to the Egyptian State Information Service, the PLO was formed in 1964 by 13 leaders of Arab states at an Arab League summit meeting:
"They approved many decisions, including holding the summit annually, establishing the unified supreme Arab command and forming an organization representing the Palestinian people." -- From the Egyptian State Information Service's history of Arab Summit meetings. [2]
Odd, isn't it, that Hopeful Leftists are able to ignore the fact that the PLO was created by some of the most regressive regimes on earth? Regimes (e.g., Saudi Arabia) that allow the stoning to death of women for having extra-marital affairs? [3] This blindness is a tribute to the human capacity to avoid facts that rudely contradict one's beliefs.
In any case, since the Arab states were in 1964 (and are now) waging a war of words and guns against Israel's existence, the fact that the PLO was formed by the Arab leadership does not speak well for the legitimacy of the PLO.
And consider the following text, included in the founding charter of the PLO, which I stumbled upon by chance during an internet search a couple of years ago:
"Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area." --The 1964 charter is backed up at http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/plochart64.htm
Odd, isn't it, that a national liberation movement now claiming to be focused on the demand for a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip included in its founding document an acknowledgement in principle that Palestinian sovereignty does not include the West Bank and Gaza Strip? The only part of historic Palestine, as the PLO calls it, that the PLO then demanded was the part then comprising Israel.
If you look at the current charter of the PLO, you will search in vain for the above-quoted text. Why? Because the charter was rewritten in 1968. Article 24, as quoted above, excluding the West Bank and Gaza from Palestinian sovereignty, was removed. [4]
What happened between 1964 and 1968 to transform historic Palestine?
What happened was that the Arab states lost the 1967 war against Israel.
Consequently, Egypt and Jordan lost control of Gaza and the West Bank, respectively. That is, these areas went from being controlled by Arab regimes that were not, according to the PLO definition, 'Palestinian,' to being controlled by Jews, whereupon they entered the realm of 'Palestinian' sovereignty. Doesn't this support the conclusion that the so-called Palestinian national liberation movement is, in fact, not a movement for liberation at all, but an attack force cloaked in the rhetoric of national liberation, a rhetoric chosen as a public relations device, because it has worldwide appeal? That this 'movement' was not created to strive for national liberation, but as a weapon against Jews?
Let us test this thesis in terms of the current so-called "disengagement" from Gaza and four settlements in Samaria (the West Bank). As everyone has seen on TV, this means the forcible removal of the Jewish population of these areas and the destruction of their homes and workplaces, indeed of everything they built over many years. (As of early September, it will mean the return of the Egyptian army to the Gaza Strip, a development that the Western media has barely reported, but which, in my opinion, is a strategic disaster for Israel and for the cause of peace. [5])
So let us look at 'disengagement' in terms of this question: is the PLO involved in a movement for national liberation? Or against Jews?
Arabs live in Gaza; until now, Jews have lived there too. Gaza Jews built towns and villages out of what was previously considered un-farmable land. Junk land. In 1967, when Israel seized Gaza from Egypt, that land was inhabited by nobody. These are indisputable facts.
Arab leaders tell the world that their struggle is not against Jews per se, but against a supposedly expansionist Israel. All they want is a state for the Palestinians; so, for national liberation, not against Jews.
As a recovering Hopeful Leftist, I remember believing this. I began recovering from my Hopeful condition when I began testing this belief against reality. For example, if Arab organizations were really fighting for a positive (self-determination) and not a negative (against Jews), what would have been their attitude towards the Jews who lived in Gaza for 38 years?
The answer is, they would have welcomed Jewish individuals to stay. The Palestinian Authority would have published official documents guaranteeing protection of the rights of what would be, upon the departure of Israeli forces, a Jewish minority. And they would have guaranteed that attacks on Jewish people, prior to the proposed pullout, were punished as sharply as possible, thus making an international statement. This would be a brilliant stroke, creating the impression that Arab leaders were anti-racist. It would have weakened Jewish opposition to turning Gaza over to full Arab control.
Why haven't Arab leaders taken this politically shrewd stand?
There is a substantial Arab minority in Israel, with normal rights; indeed, Israeli Arabs enjoy more rights than those in any Arab state. For example, in what Arab state can Arabs organize and campaign for government office without fear of police repression?
Israeli Jews who physically assault Israeli Muslims are subject to the extreme penalties of the law. In Israel it is a hate crime, and one that is actively prosecuted, to call for physical attacks on Muslims or make remarks considered insulting to Muslims.
So, even if the Arab Palestinian movement is based on hatred of Jews, it would have been smart for Arab leaders to welcome Gaza Jews to remain, thus telling the world that the Arab movement is just as humane as Jews.
What has been the reality?
* Continued * Part II should be sent out in an hour, or you may continue reading at http://emperors-clothes.com/israel/hope.htm#II
[1] Today most people are unaware of the role Britain played in inciting, guiding, covering up and apologizing for Arab terror against Palestinian Jews in the months before 5 Arab armies invaded the newborn state of Israel, in May 1948. The left-wing Nation Magazine wrote a UN memorandum, using British intelligence reports to document British actions. The Nation memorandum can now be read online, in both text and pdf format, along with comments by TENC editor Jared Israel, at http://emperors-clothes.com/history/br.htm
[2] http://www.sis.gov.eg/league/html/6.htm
[3] Arab states are attacked for the practice of stoning women to death for adultery on a Muslim web site http://www.free-minds.org/stoning.htm As far as I can make out, this web site argues that, according to Muslim texts, instead of stoning women accused of adultery, their punishment should be 'limited' to 100 lashes (with a whip). I guess after that they would not be engaging in adultery, or much else.
[4] The revised PLO charter, which no longer excludes the Gaza Strip and West Bank from 'Palestinian' sovereignty, can be read at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/plocov
[5] Under US pressure, Israel has agreed to pull out its forces patrolling the so-called Philadelphi corridor, a security zone set up to locate and destroy tunnels used to smuggle heavy weapons (including rockets) from Egypt into Gaza. These weapons have been used to attack Israeli civilians. For a graphic illustration of the weapons smuggling operation and the Philadelphi corridor, go to http://emperor.vwh.net/israel/tunnels.htm
