palestinians: get us out of gaza, page-5

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



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Footnotes and Further Reading

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[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