Driving the last nails into the coffin: Ending the Palestine-Israel debate

And this time, we will seriously get this over with, starting with the subsequent wars after 1948.

>>>Myth #1: For several times have the Arabs tried to push the Jews into the sea, but they did not start any of the wars.

Actually, the notion that the Arabs "just wanted to push the Jews into the sea" is a false notion. In Fateful Triangle, Noam Chomsky argues that there is no such quote from the Arab archives that claims that they wanted to "push the Jews into the sea".

But did the Arabs start all of the wars? Not at all. In fact, Israel openly admitted to starting at least three of its wars against the Arabs after 1948. The "war of independence" was clearly an Israeli aggression, as pointed out by myself in the first debunking.

Donald Neff of WRMEA cites a speech made by former Israeli prime minister, and brutal terrorist, Menachem Begin, who said,

The first, the war of independence, which began on Nov. 30, 1947 and lasted until January 1949. What happened in that war, which we went off to fight with no alternative? Six thousand of our fighters were killed. We were then 650,000 Jews in Eretz Israel, and the number fallen amounted to about 1 percent of the Jewish population.

This is just to confirm the assertion that the Zionists started the 1948 war which resulted in the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of Palestinian villages.

In a response to a letter by Michael Bokerelli, Hassan El-Najjar writes on the 1956 war,

The October 31, 1956 war, in which Israel participated with Britain and France in attacking Egypt and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, was Israel's second major war of aggression against Arabs. Because you have not mentioned it, I assume that you agree that it was an aggression.

Ok, you might be thinking that Gamal Abdul Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal was an act of war that "endangered the Jewish state". However, infoplease tells a different story:

From 1949 to 1956 the armed truce between Israel and the Arabs, enforced in part by the UN forces, was punctuated by raids and reprisals. Among the world powers, the United States, Great Britain, and France sided with Israel, while the Soviet Union supported Arab demands. Tensions mounted during 1956 as Israel became convinced that the Arabs were preparing for war. The nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egypt's Gamal Abdal Nasser in July, 1956, resulted in the further alienation of Great Britain and France, which made new agreements with Israel.

On Oct. 29, 1956, Israeli forces, directed by Moshe Dayan, launched a combined air and ground assault into Egypt's Sinai peninsula. Early Israeli successes were reinforced by an Anglo-French invasion along the canal. Although the action against Egypt was severely condemned by the nations of the world, the cease-fire of Nov. 6, which was promoted by the United Nations with U.S. and Soviet support, came only after Israel had captured several key objectives, including the Gaza strip and Sharm el Sheikh, which commanded the approaches to the Gulf of Aqaba. Israel withdrew from these positions in 1957, turning them over to the UN emergency force after access to the Gulf of Aqaba, without which Israel was cut off from the Indian Ocean, had been guaranteed.

Let's get back to Menachem Begin on this issue. He claimed,

In November 1956 we had a choice. The reason for going to war then was the need to destroy the fedayeen, who did not represent a danger to the existence of the state. Thus we went off to the Sinai campaign. At that time we conquered most of the Sinai Peninsula and reached Sharm el Sheikh. Actually, we accepted and submitted to an American dictate, mainly regarding the Gaza Strip (which Ben-Gurion called 'the liberated portion of the homeland'). John Foster Dulles, the then-secretary of state, promised Ben-Gurion that an Egyptian army would not return to Gaza. The Egyptian army did enter Gaza .... After 1957, Israel had to wait 10 full years for its flag to fly again over that liberated portion of the homeland.

What he is literally trying to say is that they consider any conquest of what was in their minds "Greater Israel" a "liberation".

On the other hand, Wikipedia tells of a different story, on how Israel launched a series of aggressions into the Sinai Penninsula.

From 1953–1956 the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a number of strikes. These attacks were assisted by the future prime minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, who interrupted his studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to become the military leader of the first special forces unit of the IDF: the elite Unit 101. This policy of reprisals was a major source of internal dispute between hawks, led by David Ben-Gurion, and doves, led by his successor for a short time, Moshe Sharett. It sometimes led to strong external criticism from the United Nations and even Israel's supporters.

The nationalization of the Suez Canal was obviously no act of aggression, and did not endanger Israel's existence. Moreover, Moshe Dayan openly admitted that the fedayeen were not a threat at all, and could just have easily been warded off if they stuck to defending their positions instead of invading the Sinai Penninsula and grabbing a whole chunk of land for themselves.

The 1967 war started under similar pretenses. Menachem Begin again states,

In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him. This was a war of self-defense in the noblest sense of the term. The Government of National Unity then established decided unanimously: we will take the initiative and attack the enemy, drive him back, and thus assure the security of Israel and the future of the nation.

The point here is that the closing of the Tiran Strait was not really affecting Israeli forces, and the Egyptian contingent present in the Sinai Penninsula was not as strong. The Arabs did not want to attack the Israelis, it seems, so Israel conducted "pre-emptive" strikes against these nations. This source proves that the first aggressions were by Israel, resulting in the destruction of airbases throughout. Jordan only attacked much later, and Syria played a limited role in the war. Moreover, the source argues that,

The war could have lasted longer than it did, and the result could have been different and less humiliating for the Arabs, as their the power of their armies was far from depleted. But there were mainly 2 reasons why the Arab nations gave in: 1. The lost territories held relatively few inhabitants (as was the case with Sinai for Egypt and Golan Heights for Syria) or was occupied territory (as was the case with Gaza Strip for Egypt and West Bank for Jordan). 2. The capitals of each of the three countries were threatened (Israeli troops were less than 100 km from Cairo and less than 50 km from Damascus and Amman).
[...]

The war left Israel with the largest territorial gains from any of the wars the country had been involved in: Sinai and Gaza Strip were captured from Egypt, East Jerusalem and West Bank from Jordan and Golan Heights from Syria.

For the international society the war resulted in a closure of the Suez Canal for 8 years, resulting in increase of freight prices in international trade.

Unfortunately, the Israelis are already struck deep in the propaganda that the Egyptians started the war. The idea is that the war was a "war of choice" for Israel, and that the Israelis were already strong. Menachem Begin slipped in his speech, but for the reason to rally support for the war on Lebanon.

The only war of aggression fought by the Arabs was that of 1973, which was a backlash against the humiliation that they suffered in these wars. The war on Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War deserves a long rant of its own, but Israel definitely aggressed for no obvious reason other than "to drive the terrorist PLO out of Lebanon". In reality, it was meant to crush the Palestinian cause and destroy all hopes for a Palestinian states.

>>>Myth #2: Israel exercises self-defense, even in its attacks.

Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada argues,

The Israeli claim that its attacks on the Palestinians constitute "self defense" ignores the fact that its posture in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip is, by definition, not defensive. Since 1967, Israel has maintained tens of thousands of heavily armed troops outside its borders for the purposes of stealing land from the Palestinians and forcing them to live as non-citizens under a foreign military dictatorship.

Seized Palestinian land has been used to build Jewish-only settlements linked by a network of Jewish-only roads, in flagrant violation of UN Security Council Resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention. This colonization is, and can only be, carried out by the violent suppression of any and all Palestinian resistance to the occupation.

Throughout the years of the "peace process" during the 1990s, Israel continued to construct settlements, doubling the number of settlers in the West Bank from about 100,000 to 200,000 according to the Israeli group "Peace Now." At least 34 new settlements have been built since Sharon took office.

The settlement colonization policy is, and can only be carried out by the violent suppression of any and all Palestinian resistance to the occupation. Throughout the years of the "peace process" Israel continued to construct settlements, doubling the number of settlers according to the Israeli group "Peace Now."

The entire international community has recognized that Israel's military occupation must end, and that its continuation, along with the settlement policy, and the massive repression they entail is a guarantee of continued bloodshed. Israel's brutal actions in the occupied territories are designed to consolidate and entrench the occupation and expand Israeli colonization, and are therefore, by definition, not defensive in nature.

Also, if one was to look at a timeline of Palestinian and Israeli attacks, you will realize that Palestinian attacks always proceed after Israeli acts of aggression in the occupied territories. Although the source, AP, fails to mention the Palestinian civilians killed since then (a lot like Rabin's "kill ten Palestinians for every Israeli killed"), a lot of Palestinians have suffered even before then.

Now, to the moment we've all been waiting for.

>>>Myth #3: Israel has made two generous offers at Camp David and Oslo, but the Palestinians rejected both.

This, of course, is false. The offer at Oslo was far from "generous", and was in fact a submission to even more occupation.

I'd like to direct you to this map, organized by the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs. As you can see, more than 80% of the land, as agreed by Oslo, would be under Israeli occupation. Moreover, Jerusalem is walled off, and surrounded by a militarized zone, to wall off the Arab districts from the rest of the West Bank. Unfortunately, the Israeli immaturity in the claim that Jerusalem should be exclusively Jewish is racist and apartheid in nature, and I for one can not believe that such a plan was purposefully implemented to drive Palestinians into little Bantustans, reminiscient of South African apartheid and racism. There is also the control of air, land and sea assets in the West Bank. Thus, Oslo is null and void.

Now, that's settled. Let's turn to another more recent offer, made in 2000 at Camp David, Washington, D.C., under the presidency of Bill Clinton. The plan was fabricated by the Israeli sleazeball Ehud Barak. He promised that the Palestinians will receive a state, but it will be under an Israeli military jurisdiction. Here's a map of the final Camp David accord. Notice the map, and you'll realize that the offer meant four things:

1. No territorial Contiguity for the Palestinian state. This means that the proposed Palestinian state will again be divided into little bantustans, albeit larger and a bit more connected than that proposed in 1995.
2. No control of its external borders. The Allenby Bridge, the main route into Palestine from Jordan, is lined with Israeli military checkpoints all over, and the agreement sees to the notion that these checkpoints will stay there.
3. Limited control of its own water resources. Resources controlled by the Jewish state in the West Bank are being done with at the expense of the Palestinian people. From the agreement, it seems that they are willing to continue this practice.
4. No full Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory as required by international law. According to UCLA Stanislaus Political Science professor As'ad Abu Khalil, Israel has always had a practice of not leaving Arab lands that it grabs. A full withdrawal from the occupied territories is a benchmark for achieving peace.

Nigel Parry of the EI argues against the false notions that the Barak offer was generous. The Barak plan also meant more concessions from the Palestinians, which was actually more than the so-called "2%" that the Palestinians were "not promised". The Barak plan also meant four things additional to the constraints above:

1. included continued Israeli military control over large segments of the West Bank, including almost all of the Jordan Valley;
2. codified the right of Israeli forces to be deployed in the Palestinian state at short notice;
   
3. meant the continued presence of fortified Israeli settlements and Jewish-only roads in the heart of the Palestinian state; and
   
4. required nearly 4 million Palestinian refugees to relinquish their fundamental human rights in exchange for compensation to be paid not by Israel but by the "international community."

In short, the Israelis were promising a sort of curtailed sovereignity over the West Bank, let alone the Gaza Strip, which is still under Israeli air/sea control (refer to my post on why the Gaza "Disengagement" was really a farce). Robert Malley of the New York Times goes the extra yard to argue on why any state in place of the Palestinians would not accept such an offer. He writes,

"Many have come to believe that the Palestinians' rejection of the Camp David ideas exposed an underlying rejection of Israel's right to exist. But consider the facts: The Palestinians were arguing for the creation of a Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967, borders, living alongside Israel. They accepted the notion of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory to accommodate settlement blocs. They accepted the principle of Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem -- neighborhoods that were not part of Israel before the Six Day War in 1967. And, while they insisted on recognition of the refugees' right of return, they agreed that it should be implemented in a manner that protected Israel's demographic and security interests by limiting the number of returnees. No other Arab party that has negotiated with Israel -- not Anwar el-Sadat's Egypt, not King Hussein's Jordan, let alone Hafez al-Assad's Syria -- ever came close to even considering such compromises."

On the other hand, the demographic issue of the "Jewishness" of the Israeli state is racist in nature, and this is something I will argue upcoming, as it is now a developing issue these days.

The New York Times reported on January 28, 2001:

"Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials concluded nearly a week of stop-and-start negotiations in Taba, Egypt, tonight by saying jointly that they have "never been closer to reaching" a final peace accord but lacked sufficient time to conclude one before the Israeli elections on Feb. 6..... At a joint news conference in Taba, Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami of Israel called the two-way talks, from which the Americans were conspicuously absent, "the most fruitful, constructive, profound negotiations in this phase of the peace process." He said the two sides hoped to pick up where they left off after the elections -- although his boss, Mr. Barak, is expected to lose."

Of course, the Taba plan was full of holes, as it made Swiss cheese out of such a proposed Palestinian state. This, of course, never led to any fruitful negotiations.

Let's review the maps one more time. On the issue of water resources, we can see that most aquifers flow into the Jewish state and out of the West Bank. Moreover, the Apartheid Wall, built under the Sharon administration but planned before then irked even the most dovey Palestinian peace supporters. Uri Avnery provides better background information on Barak's sinister plan of control over the West Bank.

Now, on to the final myth, which was about a special incident.

>>>Myth #4: Arafat started the intifada and planned it before it started.

This, of course, was a lie, based on the fact that he was literally an American-Israeli stooge. According to Ali Abu Nimah,

Although the Camp David summit ended almost three months before the beginning of the Intifada, and negotiations continued between the Israelis and Palestinians even as violence raged, many pro-Israeli commentators maintain that Arafat launched the Intifada as a direct response to the Camp David proposals, just because he prefers war to peace! This is belied by all the evidence.

The Intifada was a reaction to years of worsening conditions in the occupied territories during the period of the so-called peace process, when Israel doubled the number of settlers on occupied Palestinian land, and tightened its noose around the Palestinian population. But the spark was Ariel Sharon's visit to the Haram Al-Sharif with 1,000 armed men on 28 September 2000, a deliberate desecration of a holy site whose purpose was to send a message that Israel would always control the Palestinians by brute force.

That was just a premonition for terrible things to come. The New York Times reported on 30 September 2000 that:

"Four Palestinians were killed at Haram al Sharif, known to Jews as Temple Mount, in a second day of rioting that began when Ariel Sharon, the rightist opposition leader, visited the Muslim compound on Thursday to assert Jewish claims to the site. Wearing full riot gear, Israeli police officers today stormed the Muslim area, where they rarely set foot, to disperse Palestinian youths who emerged from Friday prayer services to stone first a police post at the Moghrabi Gate and then Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall."

"Dr. Khaled Qurei, director of the Makhased [sic: Maqassad] Hospital on the Mount of Olives, said the hospital had treated more than 150 men, women and youths, many of whom were wounded by rubber bullets and some by live ammunition. The Israeli police denied that live bullets had been used."

Source: "Battle at Jerusalem Holy Site Leaves 4 Dead and 200 Hurt," New York Times, 30 September 2000.

The Sharm El Sheikh Fact Finding Comittee Final Report on the intifada found several things. According to US Senator George Mitchell,

The [Government of Israel] asserts that the immediate catalyst for the violence was the breakdown of the Camp David negotiations on July 25, 2000 and the "widespread appreciation in the international community of Palestinian responsibility for the impasse." In this view, Palestinian violence was planned by the PA leadership, and was aimed at "provoking and incurring Palestinian casualties as a means of regaining the diplomatic initiative."

[...]

In their submissions, the parties traded allegations about the motivation and degree of control exercised by the other. However, we were provided with no persuasive evidence that the Sharon visit was anything other than an internal political act; neither were we provided with persuasive evidence that the PA planned the uprising."

"Accordingly, we have no basis on which to conclude that there was a deliberate plan by the PA to initiate a campaign of violence at the first opportunity; or to conclude that there was a deliberate plan by the GOI to respond with lethal force."

[...]

"The Sharon visit did not cause the "Al-Aqsa Intifada." But it was poorly timed and the provocative effect should have been foreseen; indeed it was foreseen by those who urged that the visit be prohibited. More significant were the events that followed: the decision of the Israeli police on September 29 to use lethal means against the Palestinian demonstrators; and the subsequent failure, as noted above, of either party to exercise restraint."

The report is blaming both sides, but the ongoing Israeli violence, even during the negotiations, as well as the continuing racist allegations being made against the Palestinian people to downplay this event, made it clear that the Israelis are up to no good and that they have been, yet again, and as always, hitting the Palestinians below the belt.

Well, that's about it. To read more about the Israel-Palestine conflict, take a look at the links present in this page, and look up books on the Middle East. I prefer books like Chomsky's Fateful Triangle if you want an in-depth understanding of what is going on, Shlaim's The Iron Wall which is a premonition of horrible things to come after the 1948 war, Edward Said's The Question of Palestine which is a comprehensive review of Palestinian history, Simha Flapan's The Birth of Israel which reveals many things about the not-so-pure "purity of arms" birth that is Israel, Benny Morris's The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, and others.

Until then, I bid you farewell and God bless.

Salaam, from
Saracen