Israel's Roguish Response

Posted by Gopal Unnikrishna

 

 Less than 24 hours after the vote on Palestinian status was held at the UN, a caviling Israel in an angry response announced the augmentation of its settlement plans in the strategically sensitive area of occupied land near east Jerusalem. Israel authorized 3,000 additional housing units a day after the UN voted to upgrade Palestinian status. About 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.

  In a separate development the petulant Israeli government also said that it would be stopping a $100m (£62m) transfer of tax revenues that it collected on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. The ostensible pretext given out for this stand was that  the Palestinians had not settled a $200m debt to an Israeli electricity firm.

 Israel's knee-jerk reaction has aroused widespread indignation. The move was seen as one that would represent an almost fatal blow to remaining chances of securing a two-state solution. In a strong admonishment of Israel, UN head Ban Ki-moon warned Israel that the settlement plans would deal "an almost fatal blow' to peace hopes. He pointed out that  Palestinians in East Jerusalem could be completely cut off from the rest of the West Bank. The UK government lost no time in summoning Israeli envoy to express its concern and told him that Israel should expect a "strong reaction" if it went ahead with its plans. Agence France-Presse quoted an Israeli embassy spokesman in Paris as saying that the ambassador there had also been summoned over the issue. The US said earlier, the expansion plan was counter-productive and would make it harder to resume peace talks, and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she was extremely by prospects of large-scale construction. Mahmoud Abbas returning from UN told a flag waving crowd that Palestinians have a land now and called for an end to settlement building and a return to peace talks.

However, Israel's reaction to rest of the world's condemnation was characteristically defiant. It held out that Palestinian campaign was in gross violation of earlier agreement with Israel and that it will carry on building in Jerusalem and in all the places that are on the map of Israel's strategic interests.

Israel's intransigence and such defiance of international opinion will only serve to further isolate that nation. It is obvious that it's continued occupation of the West Bank and its untenable developmental efforts there cut at the very roots of settlement chances of the long simmering dispute, and peace hopes in the region.  Such development will prevent the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state. It destroys the two-state solution, (establishing) East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine and practically ends the peace process and any opportunity to talk about negotiations in the future.

Israel should realize that the time has come to rethink its hawkish attitude which it could no longer afford to maintain and that sooner it has to play a constructive role in securing its own security not through aggressive postures but by sagacious cooperation with world opinion.

Israel-Arab Conflict

Arab Countries

Posted by Gopal Unnikrishna


Israel-Arab Conflict

Jews are one of the people who originally inhabited the historical Semitic speaking region of Canaan, the area roughly corresponding to Levant, ie present -day Israel, Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan and Syria.  Israel became a nation for the first time in about 1300 BCE. King David established the city of Jerusalem as the capital of the whole Land of Israel. . With their conquest of other people in the area in 1272 BCE., the Jews had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuos presence there for the past 3,300 years.

Then about 2000 years ago Romans conquered Jerusalem. Jews were expelled and dispersed to diaspora in Babylon. After the Romans, Jerusalem was ruled by the Christian and Muslim crusaders, followed by Turkish Muslim Ottoman Empire from 1571 to 1917, and thereafter by the British till 1948.. Throughout this time, for centuries, Jews prayed for their return from the diaspora to their lost homeland.

During the first half of the 20th century there were major waves of immigration of Jews back to Israel from the Arab countries and from Europe. The formation of a land for the Jews became a major international issue. The area called Palestine included the territories of present day Israel and Jordan. Under Lausanne agreement of 1923 Turkey transferred all claims to Palestine to mandatory power Britain. In 1922 Britain allocated nearly 80% of Palestine to Transjordan. In 1947 UN partitioned this remaining land into two states, a second Arab state, Palestine, and Israel. Thus In 1948 Jews reestablished their sovereignty over their ancient homeland with the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

It was only after the Jews re-inhabited their historic homeland of Judea and Samaria, that the myth of a Palestinian nation was created and marketed worldwide. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs indistinguishable from Arabs throughout the Middle East. The Palestinian National Charter adopted by the PLO states this fact in the first article. .

The UN partition plan of 1947 was rejected by all the Arab countries. Arab leadership in Israel and in the countries surrounding Israel, planned a Jihad, holy war, against Israel and encouraged the Arabs to leave Israel promising their return after they purge the land of Jews. The great majority of Arabs left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.  Then the  Arab nations initiated four wars against Israel: 1948 War of Independence, 1956 Sinai War, 1967 Six Day War, 1973 Yom Kippur War.  Israel defended itself each time and won. After each war Israeli army withdrew from most of the areas it captured. This is unprecedented in World history.

The number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries is estimated to be a million. This number is greater than the number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948, estimated as 343,000. Today, the majority of the people in Israel are the descendants of Jews from Arab countries. The great majority of Arabs in greater Palestine and Israel share the same culture, language and religion. The Arabs in the area began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel

Arab refugee problem was created by the seven Arab countries that attacked Israel in 1948. Arab refugees were intentionally not integrated into the Arab lands.. Theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has not been absorbed into their own peoples' lands.  Arab nations still maintain generations of the descendants of the refugees in so called "refugee camps" under squalid conditions with the hope that someday they will dislodge the Jews in Israel.  Since 1948, after three generations the descendants of the Arab refugees are still called "refugees" and are supported by UN "refugee" funds! With the highest birth rate in Arab countries this population has now grown to about four million. In negotiations, Arab leadership requests the "right of return" of this mass of millions into the tiny land of Israel. The settlement of millions of Arabs in Israel would immediately eliminate Israel as a Jewish state. This is the real aim of the Arab countries, to achieve by supposedly "peaceful" means what they could not achieve by unceasing violence in whole scale wars and daily terrorism. The responsibility for keeping the Arab population who are descendants of the Arab refugees, rests only on the shoulders of the Arab countries that created the problem by attacking Israel in 1948.. The Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as open sore, as an affront to the United Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don't give a damn whether the refugees live or die

The Arab nations are represented by 21 separate countries. The combined territories of Arab countries is 650 fold greater than Israel (see map above comparing size of Israel versus those of Arab countries). Their population is 50 fold greater than Israel. The average per capita GDP in Arab countries is $3,700 versus $18,000 for Israel. This despite the fact that many Arab countries have world's richest oil resources.

It is said that If the Arabs (Muslims) put down their weapons today there would be no more violence, and if the Israelis put down their weapons today there would be no more Israel.