With the US and the world economy in such a sad state it may seem somewhat ridiculous to be worrying aloud about whether or not the United Nations recognizes Palestine as a state. But believe me, it is one of the moments in history that can be spoken of and will be written of as a “tipping point.” It is so important that the vote itself may well produce a new world order.

I continue to believe the Palestinians are not nearly so interested in a state of their own as they are in totally destroying the state of Israel.

There is a heck of a lot of history behind this Palestinian and Israeli conflict. Let’s review a bit of that history.

Did you know that the area and the people, erroneously called Palestinians, were offered a state of their own back in the 1930’s? Bet you didn’t know that.

It seems we have to go over the history of the rejected Palestinian state over and over and I can only surmise the public school system and the university and college systems in the US simply don’t teach it!

Look, the plain truth is… the people, calling themselves Palestinians, have been offered a state of their own at least three times since the 1936 Arab revolt. They have flatly turned it down every time! Yes! The first offer made by the Peel Commission in the 1930s offered them a vast piece of real estate much larger than that offered to the Jews… and … they turned it down!

UN Resolution 181 passed soon after the Second World War gave Israel 55% of the so-called Palestine and the Palestinians 45%. The Jews accepted and in doing so recognized that Palestine would become a state next door to them. They accepted that. But the Arabs rejected it, flat out, and started another war against the Jews, which they promptly lost.

It has been 60 years now and the whining and moaning is still coming from the “woe is me” crowd who called themselves Palestinians.

The problems between Israel and the Palestinians are not because Israel has settled some disputed land. No! The cause of all the trouble in that “center of the earth” strip of land is due entirely to the Arabs refusal to accept the existence of a Jewish state called Israel, or called anything else, for that matter. That is the crux of the problem.

“Right of Return” is far more dangerous to the state of Israel than an all out attack by their Arab neighbors. You’re going to hear more and more about the Palestinians demand for a Right of Return.

So what is the Right of Return? “The idea of the right of return is to demand that Israel allow the descendants of the 750,000 Palestinians who were displaced in 1948 and their families (which now stands at almost 4 million) back into Israel and give them full compensation for their troubles. Even if only half of these Palestinians returned, it would alter Israel’s identity as a Jewish state and effectively create a second Palestinian state. One assumption made under the right of return is that all the Arabs that lived in Israel proper were forcibly expelled from their homes in 1947 and 48. This is a myth. While historians know for a fact that a small number of the 750,000 displaced Arabs were forcibly expelled by Zionist militias (a famous example being Deir Yassin), honest and impartial historians also know that a large number of this 750,000 strong population left on their own, either to avoid an upcoming war between the Zionists and the Arabs, or to join the Arabs in the fighting against the newly established state.” (From: http://www.themiddleeastnow.com/nopalestinianstate.html)

The Palestinians will obfuscate, and delay, and continue to carry on their war to wipe Israel from the face of the map. They will use any means to do it. This requested vote in the UN is just another tool they will use in their never ending attempt to destroy Israel.

So why do I continue to insist that a Palestinian state will lead, almost immediately, to war between Israel and the State of Palestine? The answer is so simple it is appalling to me that the world does not see it.

Look, the moment Palestine occupies a piece of ground that is considered strategic to the survival of Israel the shooting war will begin. When the war begins there will be a re-alignment of nations supporting both the Palestinians and the Israelis. The nations of the world will be, once again, at each other’s throats.

So, YES, this coming vote in the UN is important in the extreme. I do not think it possible to over estimate just how important it is to the entire world.

The Palestinians are running a “con game” on the entire world and on the UN in particular. Otherwise, they would have taken their request to the General Assembly where that would have won, at least, “Observer State” status most likely in an overwhelming vote. But instead — they are said now to have decided to take their request to the UN Security Council where it is sure to be vetoed by, at least, the United States. Why? Because if the US vetoes it, THAT will be considered a political victory for the Palestinians and will add another tool to their arsenal for use against Israel AND the United States.

That maneuver alone should underscore that their intent is not so much statehood as it is the total destruction of the state of Israel.

If the nations of the world want the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian to end, then they should get out of the way and allow them to go at each other until one or the other is wiped out. As a student of history, I have no doubt who will be standing when the dust clears.

J. D. Longstreet

 

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I was eleven years old when Israel declared its independence and sovereignty in 1948 with the blessing of the United Nations. World War Two and the Holocaust were over barely three years and many of Europe’s Jews needed a state of their own to rebuild their lives. Jews from throughout the Middle East were forced to flee nations in which they had lived for centuries. Over time Israel would absorb Russian Jews and others from around the world.

Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon attacked Israel days after its formal establishment. They were defeated. They would attack again in 1967 and 1973. In the course of these wars, the Arabs that had been living in Palestine, as Israel was known due to the post World War One British mandate, fled or were displaced.

They would become the world’s oldest refugee group and the only one to which a UN agency would be solely devoted, absorbing U.S. and other funding to maintain their status as opposed to helping them assimilate into neighboring Arab nations.

The Zionists, mostly secular and mostly socialist Jews from Europe and Russia who had come to Palestine earlier to prepare the path to statehood were rather surprised to find so many Arabs living there. At the time, Palestinians regarded themselves mostly as people living in southern Syria. Others were Bedouin. They were not “Palestinians”, nor had there ever been a Palestinian state.

Debating what the Israelis should do regarding the Palestinians has become a constant topic of U.S. foreign policy as well as that of most nations. It is, however, a debate that can only be decided by the Israelis and Palestinians and it is a cliché to say that one cannot achieve peace with someone who repeatedly says they want to kill you.

I have written about Israel over the years and maintained that it had a historic right to the land. After more than sixty years of ceaseless jihad—happening still—I have come to regard Palestinians as (1) intractably intent on driving out the Jews and (2) and incapable of establishing a state of their own.

Granting the Palestinians statehood when they have been denied the right to vote by their own leaders since 2005 says it all. Israel has been a true democracy since its founding. Neither the Palestinian Authority, nor Hamas, has any intention of permitting true democracy for their own people.

After reading Hirsh Goodman’s new book, “The Anatomy of Israel’s Survival”, it has made me realize the terrible choices Israel faces. The problem that confronted the original settlers of Israel still challenges its existence. Resolving the issue of the Palestinians says Goodman must be recognized IF it is at all possible.

As much as I hated and rejected the term “occupier” as applied to Israel the truth is that it has been an occupier of the West Bank as the result of wars waged against its right to exist, but an occupier nonetheless. That said, the Palestinians have always refused to accept any peace terms offered, as often as not greeting them with terror campaigns directed against Israel.

Hirsh is a senior research associate at the Institute for National Security at Tel Aviv University. Between 1986 and 1989 he was the strategic fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Born in South Africa in 1946, his family immigrated to Israel in 1965 where he has lived in Jerusalem. He’s been a journalist and, as such, has had a front row seat on the politics, the wars, the intifadas, and all other aspects of life in Israel.

The Israel he describes is one with a parliamentary government that is divided by far too many political parties, each representing competing views and agendas, and largely dysfunctional except in the unifying threat of an attack. It is a very small nation; its population largely concentrated in its major cities.

In Jerusalem, Jews went from being 74% of the population in 1967 to 64% by the end of 2010. “Today there is virtual parity between 5.7 million Jews and 5.4 million Arabs in Israel and the territories.”

In a decade the Arabs will outnumber the Jews of Israel.

It is demography, the study of population increases and declines that poses a greater challenge to the future of Israel than even hostile neighbor states. It is increasingly essential to establish peace with the Palestinian Authority to provide Israel’s Arabs with a nation of their own, though many who are already Israeli citizens will likely choose to remain citizens in the only Middle Eastern nation to offer them freedoms found in no other.

Hamas in Gaza, hostile even to the PA, is a problem that will have to be dealt with later.
Hirsh puts it bluntly. “Can Israel survive? Of course it can. The question is what kind of Israel it will be and what kind of neighbors it might enjoy. How Israel tackles the internal issues of the Hareidim (ultra orthodox) and the Israeli Arabs is important, even critical.”

“But even more important, the nature of Israeli survival depends on whether it remains an occupier or a tyrannical overlord. In continued occupation lies the deepening of internal dissent between the settlers and the rest of Israel, between the Right and the left, those who claim to speak in the name of God and the rest of us. Occupation will lead to the erosion of Israel’s moral fiber.”

And Hirsh knows that “Israel is not totally the master of its own destiny. It cannot make peace by itself. It cannot alone influence, let alone control, what happens in the region.”
What is happening is the widespread movement of Arabs to rid themselves of the dictators that have run nations from the Maghreb nations where Africa meets the Mediterranean, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, and others such as Syria’s Assad and even some Gulf nations like Bahrain.

How the Middle East looks after the dust settles is anyone’s guess. If history is any guide, these nations will simply replace old despots with new ones.

So long as the Palestine issue exists it conveniently provides Israel’s neighbors and others the excuse to condemn it. Until the election of President Barack Hussein Obama, the United States had always been a steadfast ally, but he has undermined that long relationship.

Thus Israel, a pariah among nations with far worse records in war, peace and human rights faces some terrible choices. One choice, its right to self defense and to exist as Jewish state is non-negotiable.

(Mr. Hirsh’s data regarding Israel’s demographic makeup is challenged by others with alternative data.)

© Alan Caruba, 2011

 

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The creation of a Palestinian state will do nothing to bring stability to the Middle East region. In fact, there will be more war, more instability, and more suffering.

A Palestinian state would effectively open up a front that starts ten miles from Tel Aviv and reaches 1,000 miles deep across the Arabian Peninsula to Teheran. That, alone, will be cause for Israel to go on their highest military alert and stay there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In other words… all the time.

The buffer zone Israel counts on to give her time to activate her reserves and get them mobilized will no longer exist. That short period of time, so vital for the defense of Israel, will be gone. Therefore, Israel will have no choice but to adopt what, for all practical purposes, will be a “state of war” as a normal, everyday, lifestyle.

There is a school of thought, in Israel, which says Israel would not be the first target of a Palestinian State military. That distinction, according to this theory, must go to the country of Jordan whose population is 80% Palestinian. This line of thinking has it that the Palestinians will want to complete the coup against the Hashemite Kingdom they began back in 1970.

A new Palestinian State will certainly want to clear the region of its one remaining moderate, western-oriented Arab state. Once that job is completed and their military enlarged by the “Jordanian/Palestinians,” THEN they can turn their attention to Israel.

How dimwitted is it for the US to put any trust in the government of a state whose children’s textbooks teach “holy war” against Israel?

Lets see: Right now we have Libya, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, and Afghanistan giving The United States a pain in the posterior and the Obama Regime is dead set on adding even more trouble with a state of Palestine? Again, I ask, how dimwitted is this?

But, I forget! We have the “creame de la creame” in DC, the “best and the brightest” of the academicians, many of whom seem to be educated beyond their collective abilities, concocting these schemes from left-wing dreams of “group-hugs” among nations.

So, we must ask ourselves just how prepared are the Arabs (aka Palestinians) for statehood, anyway? Has there been any preparation for oh, say, industrialization? How about their work on developing export markets? Have they given any thought to negotiating trade arrangements with their next-door neighbor, Israel? I think we all know the answer to all the above is… NO.

So, it is safe, then, to assume that a state of Palestine would be wracked with poverty which will require billions of dollars in foreign aid from which the chieftains will bleed off their shares and get rich while piling up hordes of cash in numbered bank accounts far from the Middle East.

A recent report from Arutz Sheva(www.IsraelNationalNews.com) said the following: “ … Meanwhile on Wednesday, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren said the PA statehood bid would likely jeopardize all existing agreements between the PA and Israel.

In an interview with Foreign Policy magazine, Oren said the move would render invalid economic treaties, including export, import, and water sharing, as well as security cooperation agreements.

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Wednesday the statehood bid at the United Nations is a greater threat to Israel than terrorism.

“This Palestinian initiative represents a more serious threat than that posed by Hamas,” Steinitz told Voice of Israel radio.”

Too, there is the very real concern that should the UN grant Palestine statehood, Iran will very quickly turn it into an Iranian state. The conflagration we are experiencing in the Middle East today is a stroll in the park compared to what would happen with Iran and Israel sharing a common border.

No, a Palestinian state will only ensure the continuation of war, terrorism, and bloodshed. The one thing we can be sure of is — it will not bring anything resembling peace to the Middle East.

J. D. Longstreet

 

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Palestinian Authority officials say if Israel and the Palestinians fail to reach an agreement to create a Palestinian state, the Obama administration will support a resolution at the United Nations that would unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state (SOURCE).

In a report at World Net Daily, the following is reported: “Last year, Ahmed Qurei, former PA prime minister and member of the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee, told WND in an interview that the PA “reached an understanding with important elements within the administration” to possibly bring to the U.N. Security Council a resolution to unilaterally create a Palestinian state.

Asked to which “elements” he was referring, Qurei would only say they were from the Obama administration. (SOURCE).

All of this just confirms our worst fears about Obama and his Regime. He is, quite likely, the least prepared President to ever hold office.

You know, I used to wonder if Obama or, at the very least, someone within his regime had actually read the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Now I add to that list of critically important documents nothing less than the Holy Bible. Obama is meddling in a situation that predates the United States of America by thousands of years. Much of the history, which leads up to the problems with Israel and their less than neighborly neighbors, is recorded in the pages of the Bible.

When one does a tiny bit of research, one finds that Israel has a claim to the Holy Land that dates back as far 3,700 years ago. They created a civilization on that terrain and developed a national language, which they have managed to maintain for at least 3,700 years.

Yes, they claim that land and they have a right to it. First, God promised the land to Abraham, then, the Jewish people moved onto to it and began to develop it and they made it their home. The world community saw it — and recognized Israel as the home of the Jewish people and granted Israel recognition as a sovereign country ON THAT LAND.

So, how did Israel grow to the size it is today? As a result of wars that were perpetrated upon Israel by her mischievous neighbors. Israeli military forces captured the land Israel grew into as they attempted, successfully, to defend their homeland. Now, that land, too, is a part of the nation of Israel.

So, what about the name Palestine? In the second century A.D., after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans first applied the name “Palaestina” to Judea. Judea was the southern portion of what we now call the West Bank. It was an attempt, by the Romans, to isolate Jewish identification from the land of Israel.

There was never an independent Arab or Palestinian state in Palestine. It never existed, in all of history. In fact, when the Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history, absolutely not.” In fact, Palestine is never explicitly mentioned in the Koran, rather it is called “the holy land.”

Going back to 1937 we learn that “a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: “There is no such country [as Palestine]! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.” (SOURCE)

Until, roughly, 1967 the Arabs referred to that piece of ground as “southern Syria. “The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations submitted a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 that said, “Palestine was part of the Province of Syria” and that, “politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity.” A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: “It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria.” (SOURCE)

One must consider God’s promise to Abraham, the creation of a Jewish homeland with Jewish settlements upon the land as far back as 3,700 years ago — up to today. Then, one must consider so much more including the Balfour Declaration of 1917; the League of Nations Mandate, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration; the United Nations partition resolution of 1947; and Israel’s admission to the UN in 1949. And, finally, add to all of the above the recognition of Israel as a sovereign nation by most of the country’s of the world. I suspect the Israeli Jews would ask that an observer also note their thriving society.

Now, when you consider all of the above, you must ask yourself why anyone would want the people of Israel to give up their ancestral homeland, the land God gave them, to the people of a country that never, in all of history, EVER existed.

Remember, too, that these people, of a fantasy country, want nothing more than to push the Jews off their land and into the sea — wiping them out of existence.
THAT is where Obama’s policy toward Israel and the so-called Palestinian people will lead.

When all of this is considered — aren’t we justified in asking if Obama’s ties to the Muslim world are so strong that he has adopted their cause as his — and pushing the Jews of Israel into the Mediterranean Sea is the desired result for both the so-called Palestinians – and — for the Obama Regime?

J. D. Longstreet

J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom at: http://www.csadispatch.blogspot.com/

 

WesternFront America

There has been much talk lately of creating a state of Palestine with Jerusalem as it’s capital city. Many of us take a dim view of this approach to peace between Israel and the so-called Palestinians.

Jerusalem is known to many as “The City Of David.” (Actually only the southeastern portion of The Old City is the historic “City of David”. But to many Jews and many evangelical Christians the entire city of Jerusalem is recognized as “The City of David.”) Jerusalem is at the heart of Jewry no matter where on the face of the globe a Jew happens to be.

Jerusalem can NEVER be the capital city of a non-existent state known as “Palestine.” NEVER! Even if the world finally has it’s way and declares such a thing as a Palestinian state, the city of Jerusalem will forever remain the capital city of Israel.
Here are some facts a few minutes research on the Internet will reveal:

Jerusalem has been inhabited since at least 3000 BC. It was originally built around a water source known then as the Gihon Spring, to the south of what is known today as the Temple Mount. King Solomon expanded the limits of the city beyond that area known as the City of David.

There are those who will argue that Jerusalem did not exist at the time of David or the time of his son, Solomon. I respect their right to believe what they will, but I choose to believe that it did. See, I am one of those old “Hard Heads” who maintain the plausibility or validity of the Biblical account of a conquest by King David who, as described in the Bible, captured the city by climbing upwards through the ancient water system at the Gihon Spring.

It was around the year 1010 BC, when King David defeated the Jebusites in Jerusalem and decided to make the city his administrative capital. David brought the Ark of the Covenant to the city.

When David brought the Ark to Jerusalem he intended to build a great Temple for God as a permanent resting place for the Ark of the Covenant. According to Jewish tradition, as reported in the Bible, David was not permitted to build the Temple because he had been a warrior. Building the Temple would fall to his son, Solomon. The Temple became the focus point of Jewish veneration from that point to today.

We would do well to remember that Jews have been living in Jerusalem continuously for nearly two millennia. They make up the largest single group of inhabitants there since the 1840′s. Today, the total population of Jerusalem is approximately 662,000. The Jewish population in areas formerly controlled by Jordan exceeds 160,000, outnumbering Palestinians in “Arab” East Jerusalem.

Ever since the day King David declared Jerusalem the capital city of Israel some 3,000 years ago, the city has been at the center of Jewish existence. The last remaining wall of the ancient Jewish Temple, the Western Wall, located in the Old City, is the holiest site in Judaism. It is the object of Jewish veneration and the focus of Jewish prayer. For thousands of years, three times a day, Jews have prayed, “To Jerusalem, thy city, shall we return with joy,” and they have repeated the Psalmist’s oath: “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.”

And, yes, Muslims also revere the Holy City. According to Islamic belief, the prophet Mohammed was miraculously transported from Mecca to Jerusalem, and it was from Jerusalem that he made his ascent to heaven. But, please remember, even though Muslims controlled the city for more than a thousand years, Jerusalem was never the capital of any Arab entity, or country.

For Christians, on the other hand, Jerusalem is also thought of as holy. It is where Jesus lived, where he preached, where he died, and, most importantly, where he was resurrected. Even though it is the heavenly and not the earthly Jerusalem that is emphasized by The Church, places mentioned in the New Testament as sites of Christ’s ministry and passion attracted pilgrims and Christian worshipers for centuries and they continue to do so today.

Jerusalem can NEVER be the capital city of Palestine. Never!
Now, I’ll do a little prophesying myself. It is not too difficult to see a near future in which the UN recognizes a state of Palestine. And it will make no difference whether Jerusalem is designated the capital city of the new state of Palestine. Here’s why: At the first international incident between the state of Palestine and the state of Israel, Israel will invade, conquer, and occupy the new state of Palestine and very soon it will become a part of the newly enlarged country of Israel… again!

If the US really wants to do something constructive toward peace between Israel and the so-called Palestinians the best thing it can do is get out of Israel’s way. Allow Israel to take care of business and, fairly soon, the Palestinian problem will be solved. There will be no peace between Israel and the so-called Palestinians as long as BOTH of them exist on this earth. Remove the Palestinians and –Walla! — THAT problem solved.

Maybe Israel should consider the grant of statehood, to a state called Palestine, as a boon, really — sort of a gift from the UN to Israel. It would open the door for Israel to solve their ongoing problem with the so-called Palestinians once and for all.

However, I personally believe, as do the Evangelical Christians, that Israel will never know peace until the Prince of Peace returns. Then, that’s just me.

There is a piece of scripture, from the Bible, of which, I’d like to remind the Obama Regime. It reads thusly: “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”… Genesis 12:3. Oh, may I suggest the White House fax this lttle snippet of scripture over to the State Department and share it with them?

Happy Hanukkah!

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J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom http://csadispatch.blogspot.com/

longstreet1862@gmail.com

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