[Part one of this article can be read at http://www.israelnn.com/article.php3?id=4468.]
Despite all of the history of the disputed territories, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sought to break the Arab-Israel log jam with his April 2004 unilateral withdrawal proposals.
So, the world should have applauded Arik's decision, correct? Guess again.
The Arabs, of course, viewed it simply as another victory in their "destruction in phases" scenario. Terrorism works; Lebanon again; and so forth. That's the message, unfortunately, they got from Arik. And rather than feeling compelled to come up with some real conciliatory moves of their own, they simply made more demands for additional, unilateral Israeli concessions.
Since the failure of their "one fell swoop" plan for Israel's destruction in June 1967, they adopted a strategy to politically force a return to the indefensible armistice lines of 1949. Given new technologies, massive buildups of Arab armed forces, the continuing Arab birth rate and the like, the return of Israel to its pre-'67 lines, coupled with a demand for a "return" of millions of Arabs to the Jews' rump state, would be the beginning of the end. The Arabs openly acknowledged all of this. Even their "moderates" called Oslo and other so-called plans for "peace" merely a Trojan Horse, designed to bring about Yasser Arafat's so-called "Peace of the Quraysh" (the temporary hudna designed to buy time while weakening the Jews for the same final blow Muhammad dealt to his pagan enemies almost fourteen centuries earlier).
That Arabs have responded this way was no shock. But they have been supported in this behavior by most of the world as well.
And then there was the magic of April...
There had been talk before Sharon came up with his withdrawal plan that he would get some backing from Washington on some other key matters.
There is an indisputable set of facts regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. If there will ever be peace between Arab and Jew, Arabs will have to give up their eternal plans for Israel's destruction. Had they done this, Arabs could have had their second state in Palestine decades ago. Fair and just plans were presented and rejected over the decades by the Arabs themselves -- certainly far more than Arabs had ever offered to any of their own national competitors. The reality is that they still want that additional state to exist in place of, not alongside of, the Jewish one.
Enter George W. Bush.
Standing near Sharon, in a news conference being watched on television all over the world, an American President -- for the first since President Truman in 1948 -- finally took a political stance that might yet lead to peace. "Dubya" stated, before millions watching him, the two key ingredients for such a recipe: Israel should not be expected to return to the indefensible armistice lines of 1949 (and he called them just that, not "borders"); and real and fudged Arab refugees would have to go to the proposed new Arab state, not overwhelm the Jews in Israel. In any case, half of Israel's Jews were refugees from Arab/Muslim lands.
Einstein was not needed to figure this recipe out.
But Arabs had long been given reason, via the world's actions, to hope that Israel would yet become an updated Czechoslovakia, with the West Bank as its Sudetenland. All that was missing was a proper Chamberlain and conditions allowing for another Munich sellout to achieve "peace."
President Bush's words, as simple as they were, are the magic ingredients necessary if there is ever to be peace between Arab and Jew in the Middle East.
Unfortunately, they proved to be fleeting. No sooner than they were spoken, the Foggy Folks began to water them down. Again, no surprise here. They fought Truman over the very rebirth of Israel a half-century earlier.
But, to make matters worse, something even more disturbing next transpired. America's Iraq prison scandal erupted. This, added to an already increased overall level of Arab animosity surfacing regarding Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict, etc., led the State Department to quickly search for additional ways to appease the Arabs.
Puff...
Gone, apparently in an instant, was the magic of April.
Both the State Department and the President himself soon made statements that basically retracted much of what Dubya had said earlier.
Even more recently, Dubya gave a speech before the international den of anti-Semites (a.k.a. the United Nations) in which he further attacked the Israeli presence beyond the "Green Line", complaining about Israeli settlements that were built on the very territory that Israel would need to rectify those earlier territorial injustices he alluded to in April. Recall, again, that the territories in question are in unapportioned areas (with a long Jewish history) of the original Palestinian Mandate, open to settlement by all residents of the Mandate, not just Arabs. And massive numbers of Arabs poured into these disputed lands themselves from all over the Middle East and North Africa. More "native Palestinians"...
What does this say to Israel?
At the first sign of problems, its best friend, America, is willing to retract its support of what all other nations would naturally expect - the right to protect itself from an alleged "peace" that is really designed to bring about its very destruction.
President Bush still has time to make this right. Perhaps Dubya was testing the waters after all.
Whatever. But if the Arabs expect to get anything meaningful regarding that additional state the world insists that they must have (while thirty million Kurds are still declared not deserving of one), they will have to come to understand that others, besides themselves, also have a right to a bit of justice in the region. When they do this, they will find an Israel forthcoming in its willingness to meet them far more than half way - certainly far more than Arabs have ever offered to any of their own national competitors, be they Jews, Berbers, Kurds, Black Africans, Copts, Semitic but non-Arab Lebanese, etc.
Until that day arrives, however, Israel must stop letting Arabs dictate the rules of the bloody game they've initiated. It will lose a war of attrition with the Arab baby-making machine (quoting Yasser Arafat himself), so it must start playing some real hardball and taking its rejectionist enemies out exponentially and unpredictably with each new atrocity committed against Jews.
And it must ignore the hypocrites who will be sure to condemn it for trying to survive.
Despite all of the history of the disputed territories, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sought to break the Arab-Israel log jam with his April 2004 unilateral withdrawal proposals.
So, the world should have applauded Arik's decision, correct? Guess again.
The Arabs, of course, viewed it simply as another victory in their "destruction in phases" scenario. Terrorism works; Lebanon again; and so forth. That's the message, unfortunately, they got from Arik. And rather than feeling compelled to come up with some real conciliatory moves of their own, they simply made more demands for additional, unilateral Israeli concessions.
Since the failure of their "one fell swoop" plan for Israel's destruction in June 1967, they adopted a strategy to politically force a return to the indefensible armistice lines of 1949. Given new technologies, massive buildups of Arab armed forces, the continuing Arab birth rate and the like, the return of Israel to its pre-'67 lines, coupled with a demand for a "return" of millions of Arabs to the Jews' rump state, would be the beginning of the end. The Arabs openly acknowledged all of this. Even their "moderates" called Oslo and other so-called plans for "peace" merely a Trojan Horse, designed to bring about Yasser Arafat's so-called "Peace of the Quraysh" (the temporary hudna designed to buy time while weakening the Jews for the same final blow Muhammad dealt to his pagan enemies almost fourteen centuries earlier).
That Arabs have responded this way was no shock. But they have been supported in this behavior by most of the world as well.
And then there was the magic of April...
There had been talk before Sharon came up with his withdrawal plan that he would get some backing from Washington on some other key matters.
There is an indisputable set of facts regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. If there will ever be peace between Arab and Jew, Arabs will have to give up their eternal plans for Israel's destruction. Had they done this, Arabs could have had their second state in Palestine decades ago. Fair and just plans were presented and rejected over the decades by the Arabs themselves -- certainly far more than Arabs had ever offered to any of their own national competitors. The reality is that they still want that additional state to exist in place of, not alongside of, the Jewish one.
Enter George W. Bush.
Standing near Sharon, in a news conference being watched on television all over the world, an American President -- for the first since President Truman in 1948 -- finally took a political stance that might yet lead to peace. "Dubya" stated, before millions watching him, the two key ingredients for such a recipe: Israel should not be expected to return to the indefensible armistice lines of 1949 (and he called them just that, not "borders"); and real and fudged Arab refugees would have to go to the proposed new Arab state, not overwhelm the Jews in Israel. In any case, half of Israel's Jews were refugees from Arab/Muslim lands.
Einstein was not needed to figure this recipe out.
But Arabs had long been given reason, via the world's actions, to hope that Israel would yet become an updated Czechoslovakia, with the West Bank as its Sudetenland. All that was missing was a proper Chamberlain and conditions allowing for another Munich sellout to achieve "peace."
President Bush's words, as simple as they were, are the magic ingredients necessary if there is ever to be peace between Arab and Jew in the Middle East.
Unfortunately, they proved to be fleeting. No sooner than they were spoken, the Foggy Folks began to water them down. Again, no surprise here. They fought Truman over the very rebirth of Israel a half-century earlier.
But, to make matters worse, something even more disturbing next transpired. America's Iraq prison scandal erupted. This, added to an already increased overall level of Arab animosity surfacing regarding Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict, etc., led the State Department to quickly search for additional ways to appease the Arabs.
Puff...
Gone, apparently in an instant, was the magic of April.
Both the State Department and the President himself soon made statements that basically retracted much of what Dubya had said earlier.
Even more recently, Dubya gave a speech before the international den of anti-Semites (a.k.a. the United Nations) in which he further attacked the Israeli presence beyond the "Green Line", complaining about Israeli settlements that were built on the very territory that Israel would need to rectify those earlier territorial injustices he alluded to in April. Recall, again, that the territories in question are in unapportioned areas (with a long Jewish history) of the original Palestinian Mandate, open to settlement by all residents of the Mandate, not just Arabs. And massive numbers of Arabs poured into these disputed lands themselves from all over the Middle East and North Africa. More "native Palestinians"...
What does this say to Israel?
At the first sign of problems, its best friend, America, is willing to retract its support of what all other nations would naturally expect - the right to protect itself from an alleged "peace" that is really designed to bring about its very destruction.
President Bush still has time to make this right. Perhaps Dubya was testing the waters after all.
Whatever. But if the Arabs expect to get anything meaningful regarding that additional state the world insists that they must have (while thirty million Kurds are still declared not deserving of one), they will have to come to understand that others, besides themselves, also have a right to a bit of justice in the region. When they do this, they will find an Israel forthcoming in its willingness to meet them far more than half way - certainly far more than Arabs have ever offered to any of their own national competitors, be they Jews, Berbers, Kurds, Black Africans, Copts, Semitic but non-Arab Lebanese, etc.
Until that day arrives, however, Israel must stop letting Arabs dictate the rules of the bloody game they've initiated. It will lose a war of attrition with the Arab baby-making machine (quoting Yasser Arafat himself), so it must start playing some real hardball and taking its rejectionist enemies out exponentially and unpredictably with each new atrocity committed against Jews.
And it must ignore the hypocrites who will be sure to condemn it for trying to survive.