It is ironic that the world, which refuses to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, gathered in Israel’s ancestral capital less than two weeks ago for the funeral of Shimon Peres. Some observers were delighted that President Obama’s speech recognized the ancient bonds between the Jewish people and Israel, as well as the Jewish national liberation movement, Zionism. However, the international community led by President Woodrow Wilson already recognized these fundamental truths a century ago at the San Remo Peace Conference.
Obama’s transcript even put Jerusalem in Israel, before the White House discovered its ‘error’ and erased the word Israel, while reassuring the world that it remains committed to politically correct narratives, not historical facts. Obama perpetuated the false narrative that the Arab-Israeli conflict is rooted in the absence of an Arab state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. It conveniently ignores that the Arabs have systematically rejected a peaceful two-state solution: the Peel Commission in 1937, the UN Partition Plan in 1947, Camp David in 2000, Annapolis in 2007, and Netanyahu’s Bar Ilan speech in 2009.
This narrative disregards the fact that the PLO was established in 1964, three years before the disputed territories came under Israeli control because of the Arab aggression in 1967. It also overlooks that Israel’s offer to vacate the disputed territories in exchange for peace after the war was met with the three Arab No’s in Khartum: no negotiations, no recognition and no peace with Israel. Finally, the narrative rewrites history by insisting that a fictitious Arab state somehow existed west of the Jordan River.
...the universal principle of self-determination does not include the right to wipe out your neighbor.
Obama quoted Shimon Peres, who once said, “The Jewish people weren’t born to rule another people.” While this is essentially true, it is equally true that the universal principle of self-determination does not include the right to wipe out your neighbor. Hamas and Fatah prioritize aggression against Israel over the well-being of their own population, which they overwhelmingly misrule. The core of the Arab-Israeli conflict was never about specific borders but about the systematic Arab refusal to recognize a reborn Jewish state within any borders.
While Jerusalem’s future borders are uncertain, Israel’s parliament and government in Jerusalem are permanent. The world’s refusal to recognize this fact encourages further aggression against Israel and undermines the prospects for a genuine peace.
Jerusalem was Jewish long before Paris became French or London became English. Modern Jerusalem was rebuilt by the Jewish people and has had a Jewish majority for the past 150 years. Yet, the Jews are the only people on earth who are told that their presence in their ancient capital constitutes an “obstacle to peace”.
Pretending that the Arab-Israeli conflict is territorial, rather than existential, only encourages Israel’s enemies to pursue the genocidal Phase Plan, which has been operational since 1974. According to this original PLO plan, every territory vacated by Israel will become a new base for further aggression against the Jewish state. Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Gaza and parts of Judea and Samaria, did not result in peace but in a massive increase of terror against Israel, as well as anti-Semitism worldwide.
The authors of the key UN resolution 242, deliberately stated “territories” and not “the territories,” since they were fully aware of the fact that a return to the 1949 armistice lines would not provide security for Israel. The resolution also demands an end to Arab aggression against Israel. Yet, the international community hypocritically ignores the genocidal threats against the Jewish state and demands that Israel unilaterally withdraw from all the disputed territories and that it must accept a genocidal Islamist state on its doorstep – something that no other country would ever accept.
A genuine Arab-Jewish peace requires that the Muslim Arab world ends its genocidal Jew hatred and recognizes that Muslim Arabs do not have a monopoly on national rights in the Middle East. A potential 22nd Arab state depends on the Arabs coming to terms with the one and only Jewish state.