When it comes to discussing Israel, Middle East ignorance, fiction, fable and downright disinformation flows forth from the many "experts" in world media outlets and more than a fair sprinkling of politicians.
A hundred years after the signing of the Sykes-Picot agreement (see map below) - essentially a divi-up of Middle East territory between the Brits and French - neither of whom were remotely concerned about anything except their own selfish national interests - now Arab Spring chaos, Islam's civil wars and the Caliphate Crew, Islamic State fight it out across the region.
For many decades, quite a few western powers have been happy to go with the oil flow and be nose lead by a variety of nefarious nations now with a seat at the U.N. With a membership grown to 193 countries, the current U.N. has evolved from it's once lofty, founding ideals, into a blatantly, biased organisation fixated with Israel. Why not the annexation of Tibet by China or the other 135 border disputes around the world?
In the previous 12 months alone, the U.N. spent oodles of time debating and then hammering Israel - the only democracy in the Middle East - with (22) condemning resolutions. Meanwhile, war ravaged Syria got (1) Sudan (1) and nuke wannabe Iran received (2).
The latest UN scam being run by U.N.E.S.C.O - who are about to rewrite history - by voting on a Muslim sponsored resolution that the Temple Mound in Jerusalem has no historical link to the Jewish people. I guess, two temples and a 3,500 year history don't count! At the U.N. the one and only small Jewish state gets challenged with its right to even exist, never mind the question of ultimate borders. Israel certainly doesn't need any lectures on ethics and morality from the U.N.'s assortment of despots, dictators, one party states and the ever expedient West.
As if borders have ever been set in cement. In the past 50 years alone, there's been the formation of a dozen new countries. This is nothing new, and has been happening since time immemorial. From 400 AD, empires were being partitioned into smaller countries; lost wars, followed by collapse being the main reason for rearranged borders.
The Palestinians: There were no Arabs in Judea and Samaria or many of them living outside the Arabian peninsula until the 7th century; and there never was a Palestinian Arab state - not that this gets in the way of the Arabs oft times ridicules claims: like they buildt the pyramids in Egypt, or invented the so call "Arabic" numerals. (The numerals - including the genius of the zero "0" - were created by the Hindus. The positional decimal system also takes its origins in Hindu mathematics during the Gupta period. Around 500 BC, the astronomer Aryabhata used the word kha ("emptiness") to mark "zero" in tabular arrangements of digits...but I digress)
In 135 BC, Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina by the Romans after they crushed Bar Kokhba in the Jewish Revolt. During the Ottoman rule (1517-1917), “Palestine” referred to the land south of Syria, and many Ottomans and Arabs living there referred to the area as “Southern Syria.” During the British Mandate, “Palestine” also included present-day Jordan.
It was not until years after Israeli independence that the Arabs living in Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip called themselves Palestinians! As Jews worked the land and literally made the desert bloom, many Arabs from the region migrated to the area to avail themselves of the new economic opportunities.
In fact, Arabs cannot even correctly pronounce the word “Palestine”. Instead referring to area as “Filastin.” The word “Palestine” or “Filastin” does not appear even once in the Koran. The term “peleshet,” meaning migratory or land of invaders, appears in the Jewish bible no fewer than 250 times.
In 1948, the Palestinians could have accepted the proposal of Partition; Israel accepted, but they didn't. Why? Because the Arabs thought they'd easily win any war against the Jews. The Arabs - who had backed Nazi Germany to win WW2 and had Muslim SS divisions fighting for Hitler - boasted beforehand that they would, 'drive the Jews into the sea'. Instead, the Arabs lost; and have continued to lose every war against Israel since 1948 through to the present time, thus resulting in pieces of strategic territory still being held by Israel.
Each year, in cities around the world, anti-Israel protesters - often lead by the odious BDS Movement - commemorate Al-Nakba Day on May 15. (“Nakba” is Arabic for “catastrophe.”) This is the day on which the Jewish state, Israel, was re-established in 1948 as recommended by the resolution to partition Palestine into two states; one Jewish and one Arab.
Instead of establishing an Arab state, the armies of five Arab states (Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon) arrived with tens of thousands of well equipped men to invaded Israel. The then British Labour Government and U.S. State Department allowed arms to flow to the Arabs, but not the Jews; and you can work out your own reason as as to why.
The obliteration of the nascent Jewish state and an Arab grab for as much territory as possible was therefore predicted; but somehow the Arabs failed. It is the Arab failure to destroy Israel at birth that is commemorated on Al-Nakba Day. (Egypt having lost wars against Israel - in 1948, 1967 and '73 - have since had all their territory returned, after a peace agreement with Israel was signed in 1979).
However, the same age old hatred and anti-J mentality still exists towards the only democracy in the Middle East a.k.a. the Jewish State... the only people who, as it happens, have a 3000 year old written title deed to the slender strip of land they cling to.
For 68 years now, Israelis and ordinary Palestinians deal daily with the consequences of the Palestinian leadership's inability to accept a reality of their own making. The real "catastrophe" is the *Palestinian leadership; who have over the years, lined their pockets with hundreds of millions of donated dollars, while consistently rejecting every peace deal put forward - whatever it's content and authorship.
Mahmoud Abbas, the present head honcho of the Palestinian Authority - who's net worth is put conservatively at $100 million dollars - was once responsible for Palestinian Education. The content, still much in vogue, would have made Goebbels blush.
Abbas was elected to a four year term in 2005 but is somehow still in post; and I guess not calling elections and bumping any opposition off helps keep the moolah flowing. The so called Palestinian Authority is really just the re branded Palestine Liberation Organisation. (*In a poll of Palestinians taken only a few weeks ago, 98% called their leaders corrupt.)
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But the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has never just been about territory (see Arab map in green below) though that's the Palestinian mantra. After all, the Arabs have conquered zillions of sq. miles that's barely had a camel across it. Nope, it's really more about a clash of cultures, mentality and beliefs.
The biggest impediment to a lasting and comprehensive peace in the region, is Islam's intolerance of most things in their midst not Islam. Try taking a Bible into Saudi Arabia or finding a church, synagogue etc in any Gulf State.
To have peace, at a minimum one expects the folk across the table are not out to totally annihilate you. Hamas and PLO-Fatah may have different strategies, but each desire the same outcome; Israel to be wiped off the map.
Until such times the Palestinians and their leaders accept that Israel is going nowhere, there will be no peace deal - however much pressure and arm twisting Israel has to endure from it's "friends".
Notes: From the 7th century onwards, the Arabs fought their way out from the Arabian peninsula newly armed with brand Islam. They went on to take by force every inch of land they now hold. The major losers? The Imazighen, Kurds and Maronites; various other ethic groups, Christian converts, Egyptian Copts, the Jews and Armenians . The Armenian Apostolic Church was founded by Christians as early as the 1st century AD. But between 1915-17, during the Ottoman Empire, the biggest single atrocity committed against the Armenians - and sanctioned under Ottoman jurisdiction - was the genocide of well over a million Armenians by Muslim Turks.
Most recently - and by a large majority - the German Parliament voted the mass killings as "genocide" - Germany being latest E.U. country to do so. Turkey still lives in denial, calling the genocide an "incident". Indeed, the present Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in a recent speech to his faithful Islamist followers stated, "Infidels. Good for nothing. They try to destroy our Islamic values.”
The Forgotten Refugees: There were around 900,000 Jews, dispossessed and deported from Arab countries with barely the clothes on their back; though Jews preceded the Arabs in these lands by many centuries. Anyone interested in the history that most of the world and media have never heard of, or have conveniently forgotten, go to:
