To hear each side's version of the current situation between Israel and the Palestinians is like watching Rashoman in Yiddish. In attempting to determine who is right and who is wrong in the situation, people seem to follow either the Jack Webb "Dragnet" approach - "Just the facts, Ma'am." ? or the "I Love Lucy" - "Don't confuse me with the facts" - approach. In life, when in doubt as to which of two roads to take, taking both is usually the best course of action. So, let's just talk facts, but facts so simple that even Lucy would not be confused.



We never subscribed to the "I got here first" school of deciding ownership of anything ? particularly a whole country. If that were the case we in America would all be living in tepees and paying our rent in colored beads and firewater. It is interesting, however, to note the following: Jews have had a continuous presence in the land of Israel for the past 3,300 years, with dominion over the land for a thousand years, while the only Arab dominion since 635 CE lasted no more than 22 years.



As far as the city of Jerusalem, whose fate seems to be a central issue of concern: It was founded by King David. Mohammed never even stopped by for a bagel or anything else. Jerusalem has remained the Jewish capital for over 3,300 years, while at the same time it has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Also, for the bean counters, it should be noted that Jerusalem is mentioned over 100 times in the Jewish Scriptures, but never mentioned, even once, in the Koran. Jews pray facing Jerusalem, while Muslims not only turn the other cheek, but they pray with their backs to the city. So they know where to face when praying, Arabs all over the world stop cars on highways and ask the drivers, ?Which way to Mecca??



The entire country of Israel is less than half the size of San Bernardino County in California. The Arabs, not counting the Palestinians, have more than twenty countries, as opposed to the sliver of mineral and oil-poor land that is Israel. Therefore, when the Palestinians claim they have nowhere to live except Israel, this is only because their brothers don't want to let them into their own countries. We can understand why a person wouldn't want his brother-in-law to live nearby; we can't understand doing that to one's own brother - particularly if you were the one that told him to move out of his old neighborhood in the first place.



The Arab nations initiated all five wars against Israel, and lost all five of them, but if you put an Arab alone, particularly if you let him hide somewhere with a rifle where nobody can see him, he is deadly ? provided the person he shoots is half a mile away, defenseless and preferably a woman or child. Jews are the opposite. If somebody meets a Jew in an alley and points a gun at him demanding his money, the Jew will negotiate - ask the robber to ?...sit down, let's talk, have a piece of cake, a cup of coffee. Why do you need all my money? How about half ...?? and then he offers to sell the robber some shirts at ?below cost.? But put the Jew in an army and the army is invincible.



Israel is, of course, a vibrant democracy. Not one of the Arab states has a leader that has been freely elected by the people. In most of them,women have little or no rights. Jewish women, on the other hand, have all the rights possible in life. A Jewish man is lucky if his wife lets him put his name on his tombstone. Everything else is in his wife's name.



In 1948, when Israel achieved independence, they invited the Arabs to stay in peaceful co-existence, but the Arab governments encouraged the Israeli Arabs to leave Israel. Sixty-eight percent of the Arabs did, in fact, do just that, but the 630,000 who left were not allowed to be absorbed into the Arab population of the surrounding countries. About the same number of Jews were forced to flee from the Arab countries because of persecution and pogroms, but they were completely integrated into the general Israeli population.



In the Second World War, six million Jews perished because of Nazi persecution. Virtually all of the Western world opposed the Nazis. The Arabs, on the other hand, were strongly pro-German. The long-term Arab policies seem designed to trade Arab oil for Jewish blood. The rest of the civilized world has also been subjected to oil-fueled Arab blackmail. Sadly, the size of the lines at American gas pumps and rises in the price of crude oil has a profound effect on the U.S. Department of State, with which the Arabs have enjoyed a long-standing cozy relationship.



The September 11th attack left the Western world no choice but to join America in its crusade. Since pure hatred of the United States is patently an absurd explanation for the heinous events of September 11th, the fanatics who call themselves ?Muslims? - but who have little in common with the majority of decent and law-abiding true Muslims - ascribe as motive, in their chicken-scrawled notes of hatred, the United States' support of Israel.



The nation of Israel was established around two thousand years before the rise of Islam. What bin Laden and his fellow cave dwellers hate more than Israel is modern Western civilization itself and particularly its centerpiece: the United States. Living a pre-medieval existence, they view America ? with its culture and democratic institutions, whose economic system dominates the world, that is the world's premier military power and that has a substantial presence in the Middle East - as a threat to their way of life. Unfortunately, people are beginning to swallow the nonsense that couples militant Muslim madness with the Palestinian problem. Most of the world still resists this con job, but for how long? Sadly, three things are certain: death, taxes and anti-Semitism. Let's therefore hope for a short and decisive war.

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Originally published in the Jewish Press. The article is posted with permission of the authors.



Jackie Mason is a renowned comedian/commentator, and currently hosts the US-nationally syndicated "Jackie Mason Show." Raoul Felder is a lawyer, a legal commentator, and US-nationally syndicated radio talk show host (The Felder Report).