Palestinian Pretense & Israeli Reality(Victor David Hanson)

[I TO DA GEEZY]

Palestinian Pretense & Israeli Reality
What the world knows, but can’t say, to be true (NRO, Mar 18, 2003)-

common theme throughout classical literature is the role of pretext (prophasis) contrasted with the actual cause of complaint (aitia) — the great divide between what aggrieved people say publicly and what they feel privately. Nations, the historian Thucydides reminds us, also adopt such strategic postures. Their spokesmen often voice complaints that are either groundless or — even if partly justified — at least different from the "real" or "true" causes of their discontent.



   
We know the prophasis of the Arab states at the heart of the Middle East question: Israel's occupation of the West Bank. But the aitia — the truest cause of the Palestinian lament — cannot be voiced so easily, either openly or in detail. Why? To do so would involve a systematic cultural, political, and social review of the entire Middle Eastern contemporary world — one that might explain, in terms other than the few thousand acres of the West Bank, why a tiny Jewish state is so prosperous, free, and confident amid dozens whose half-billion inhabitants are not.

Do any in Europe and the Middle East really wish to open the Pandora's Box of secular rationalism, religion, capitalism, democracy and a host of other issues that might hurt Middle Eastern feelings, cost real money, and incur danger — when chanting Zionism, colonialism, racism, and other alleged -isms and -ologies do not?

The Palestinians publicly allege that once given back 100 percent of the West Bank they will recognize Israel and thus the dispute will at last end with recognition by the entire Arab world of the Jewish State. Fair enough. Palestine will thereupon be democratic and prosperous, and so for the first time in its history live in peace side-by-side with Israel. Most Americans welcome just such a vision.

Of course, few in the Islamic world really believe that. Indeed, a number of its more impolitic spokesmen have already written that such a withdrawal would merely be the first step in a renewed struggle to end Israel altogether — as the Arab world was energized at a sign of "weakness," and the citizens of Israel demoralized by concessions made under duress. If one peruses translated newspapers and magazine articles from the Middle East, the rhetoric of destroying Israel is far more ubiquitous than the gospel of mutual coexistence. The Arab League will soon meet to promise acceptance of Israel's right to exist with the return of the West Bank — of course with the caveat that we can hardly expect the crazies like Syria, Iraq, and Libya to sign on publicly to such a "surrender." Mr. Arafat himself to domestic audiences screams "jihad," and "infidels," as he praises suicide bombers as "martyrs" and "heroes," and promises the capture of Jerusalem.

Europeans likewise publicly advance this prophasis, but in private conversation admit that within a few years of "peace" the Israeli-Palestinian relationship would return to its pre-1967 status of conflict over the very existence of Israel. Afraid of terrorism, desirous of trade, eager for steady supplies of oil, nervous over large groups of Islamic immigrants, eager to court third-world favor, and playing good cop to our bad, Europe can hardly express publicly what it privately knows to be true.

Indeed, if the West Bank were to be returned and a general peace declared, there might well be a decade of peace. But then after the hiatus, the madrassas, the autocrats, the theocrats, and the coffee-house intellectuals would, according to their station and methods, all move on to the next round of recovering "all" of "Palestine" — a task made somewhat easier in their mind by Israel's new nearly indefensible borders.

Unlike the Europeans and some others in the West, much of the Arab world does not see distinct and lasting periods of peace and war, but rather interprets the conflict as a continuum — one that will properly and only end eventually with the end of Israel itself. In this view, the Middle East discord is not unlike the first and second Peloponnesian Wars, the three Punic Wars, the First through Fourth Crusade, or perhaps even the interpretation of World War I and II as part of the larger Anglo-German conflict. Such a series of individual "wars" spanning decades ends not with mutual concessions and a brokered peace, but when one side — an Athens, Carthage, Crusader kingdom, or Germany — is militarily defeated and humiliated.

Why should we put credence in such a pessimistic appraisal of Arab intentions? History supports it. The first three wars were waged when the West Bank was in Arab hands; so why would the premises for the next war be any different from those of 1947, 1956, or 1967, when the goal, as Egyptian General Saad Ali Amer once put it plainly, was "the realization of our common goal — the elimination of Israel"?

The current conflict is surely not over the grievance of dead Muslims — Iraq and Iran make Israelis look like amateurs in that regard. Nor is the lament really over the cruel expulsion of Palestinians en masse — Kuwait garners that prize for expelling a quarter million after the Gulf War. Nor is there much historical precedent of according Palestinians any privileged position based on land lost through war. Compare the current borders of Germany with those of 1914, and then try and make the case for returning soil from France and Poland that was German since antiquity — and the world will answer back with a stern lecture about the wages that a state incurs when it repeatedly attacks its neighbors and loses.

Economically, there is no reason to believe that an autonomous Palestinian state will operate any differently from its other Arab neighbors — statist, corrupt, tribal, and unfree, with an intolerable situation of sending workers into a hated Israel to earn what they could not garner in a beloved Palestine. And without the grievance of the West Bank, the stark reality of such economic disarray might be more, not less difficult, for thousands to stomach.

Politically, the situation is depressingly similar. Why, if Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq are run by autocrats, will Palestine be any different? Why, if he were granted his entire agenda, would Mr. Arafat suddenly surrender his ironclad control of the media, and thereupon become the first truly democratic leader of the entire Muslim world to welcome discussion of his policies, Islamic religion, and Westernization?

The best to be hoped for would be a Palestine more similar to Jordan — a "nice-guy" autocracy without real democracy or freedom that supported Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War, and lives in fear of its own Islamic extremists. So we continue with the present Orwellian scene in which loud Middle-Eastern journalists and intellectuals, who have never known true freedom at home, lecture the United States about Mr. Arafat's democratic demands for his own unfree Palestinians.

If the world knows the bleak prognosis, why all the idealistic demands for granting "freedom" and "democracy" to the Palestinians? To be crass, I think much of the discussion is simply a matter of anti-Semitism and the power of oil. Those two themes are central in many angry letters that I receive daily from critics — and not all of them are from Middle Easterners or survivalists in the northwest, who nevertheless exhibit a spooky commonality. If the Arab world were without crude oil, there could be an honest assessment of the true nature of Mr. Arafat's regime, and enlightened people could talk of a great faultline between a free democracy and a one-party autocracy. And if this dispute did not involve Jews — that is, if it were seen in the context of hundreds of murderous border disputes over lost lands now going on between Indians and Pakistanis, Chinese and Tibetans, Colombians, Congolese, Irish, Rwandans, Kurds and Turks and other aggrieved, the world would merely sigh.

Much of the problem, then, quite simply is also psychological and arises because a Jewish state is right smack in the middle of the Arab world — and by every measure of economic, political, social, and cultural success thriving amid misery. Without oil, without a large population, without friendly countries on its borders, without vast real estate, and without the Suez Canal, it somehow provides its citizenry with a way of life far more humane than what is found in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, or Egypt. Yet the world listens to the Palestinians' often-duplicitous leadership — despite the corrupt nature and murderous past history of Mr. Arafat's regime — because its sponsors sell a good part of the globe's oil. And to risk their wrath, one would have to support a few million Jews, not hundreds of millions of, say, British, Swedes, or Italians.

And so we give not a damn over millions of innocents elsewhere butchered over millions of acres each year worldwide, but instead focus on what the Palestinians lost while attempting to destroy their neighbors. For those who laugh at such reductionism, imagine the world's moral outrage if China were tiny and Jewish, while Tibet was backed by Asian nations with the world's oil reserves. I have not recently heard any European demanding an instant redress for the theft of Tibetan land, the destruction of its cultural heritage, and frequent forced expulsion of its population by a government that is neither democratic nor free.

If such a bleak appraisal of prophasis and aitia is accurate, is there any hope for Israel when the entire world knows the truth that it cannot confess without endangering its economic interests or moral pretenses? What then can Israel do as the West watches and wonders whether the supply of suicidal murderers will be exhausted before the weary Israeli public concedes? Such a strange place, the Middle East — where Klansmen-like terrorists in hoods, who blow themselves up in Israeli restaurants, and fire machine guns up into the air at funerals, try to pass themselves off as noble, underpowered freedom fighters because their fiery supporters in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Jordan have learned long ago not to send any more of their own plentiful planes and tanks to destroy Israel.

Given pressure from all sides and short of an all-out war, Israel may well have to exist as a fortress next to Mr. Arafat's state, after unilaterally returning what it considers it can afford of the West Bank. It would then brace for a cold war of the type the United States waged against the Soviets and Eastern Europe, holding firm against a Palestinian state behind barbed wire and concrete for decades until (fat chance?) true democracy and secularism might appear among its neighbors. West Germany prospered for a half century behind mines, guard towers, and police dogs; apparently that was better than having Communists crossing the border to kill free German citizens.

But there is one final consideration for those smug utopian architects in our state department and Europe that is completely forgotten in all this. There will be no second Holocaust. If almost all of the West Bank is returned, as is likely, and in a few years hostilities nevertheless resume as they did during phases 1-3 of the Middle East wars, as is also likely, the battle will be over Israel itself, not Palestinian land. That will be a war Israel will not lose, and it will be fought outside not inside the Jewish state. And that will be a nightmare compared to the current crisis. Those in Europe and in the United States who now lecture about morality will then prove to be not only amoral, but also answerable for far, far more still.

[I TO DA GEEZY]

Your thoughts!

[J @ M @ L]

European Jews have occupied Palestine.

[I TO DA GEEZY]

Would you rather let Egypt, Syria or Jordan occupy the land?

Because that is what would happen if it wasn't for Israel\Zionism.

[I TO DA GEEZY]

Fact is there would be no Palestinian Self Determination if it wasn't for Zionism- there would be no need within the totalitarian Arab world to create a counter-zionist force to prevent the creation of a democratic state in the midst of Arab autocracies.

Why do you think the partition plan was rejected? you keep avoiding this, most of the territory would belong to the Palestinians why was it rejected then?
The Arab Higher Committee that rejected it was suppose to represent the Palestinian interest why then did it serve the interest of the totalitarian Arab states?
The Palestinian refugees from 47-49 are an indication of a consent\surrender of the Palestinian population to the totalitarian Arab states' agenda allowing them to invade and conquer Palestine<<<FACTS....Where exactly was their Self Determination, why didn't they resist the Arab states?- Becuase essentially the Palestinian Arabs' Self Determination and subsequent nationalism as distinguished from Arab (general) nationalism emrged not until after World War 1 meaning that before the Palestinians were no different from any other Arabs( didn't exist by definition) and may have as well claimed any other land in possession of the Arab states<essentially Palestinian Self Determination=Arab states' interest to eliminate Israel- A HOAX. If any Arab has ever been seeking to distinguish himself from the rest of the totalitarian Arab states, Israel, would be his best chance and this is why the partition plan was rejected< Because this is\was a well known FACT in the middle east.





*Arab Higher Committee
Radical group established in 1945 by Arab League that represented Palestinian Arab interests, rejecting all compromise on rights of Jews to Eretz Yisrael.


*UNSCOP (United Nations Special Committee on Palestine)
Appointed in April 1947 to investigate the situation in Palestine and propose solutions. The majority of the committee recommended to partition Palestine, giving the Negev and a small part of the western part of the country to the Jews and giving what is now the West Bank and most of the northern part of the country to the Arabs. The Arab Higher Committee rejected the partition plan, the Jewish Agency accepted it.

[Kassem]

how da fuck woould egypt occupy the land bitch.if britian controlled egypt at that time.how stupid and biased can somebody be

[Kassem]

http://www.boycottisrael.org/gallery.htm

[I TO DA GEEZY]

how da fuck woould egypt occupy the land bitch.if britian controlled egypt at that time.how stupid and biased can somebody be

Go back to your history class mate! I'm starting to understand how the anti-Israeli propaganda manages to pull it off being that the world is filled with history illiterates.


Gaza Strip
Narrow, 25-mile long strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea that Israel captured from Egypt in the 1967 War. One of the most densely populated areas in the world, the 140 square-mile area is home to more than one million Palestinian Arabs and approximately 8,000 Jews(at least used to be).


Gaza is often refered to as "occupied territory" since Israel captured it from Egypt in 1967 but just like the west bank(that was captured from Jordan during the same war) it wasn't captured from the Palestinians but from a totalitarian neighbor Arab state.

JAMAL!
I wonder if you have ever considered Egypt and Jordan to be occupiers of Palestinian land?

p.s
Just so you know( and I hate repeating myself):

Pan-Arabism
Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser sought to unify the Arab world into one Arab state. This goal was referred to as Pan-Arabism.

NOW WHAT WAS YOUR QUESTION AGAIN?

[I TO DA GEEZY]

http://www.boycottisrael.org/gallery.htm

Hmmm does this seem Propaganda free? - I DON'T THINK SO(lol@boycotisrael)
What do you think J?



*PROPAGANDA-dissemination of information—facts, arguments, rumours, half-truths, or lies—to influence public opinion.
Propaganda is the more or less systematic effort to manipulate other people's beliefs, attitudes, or actions by means of symbols (words, gestures, banners, monuments, music, clothing, insignia, hairstyles, designs on coins and postage stamps, and so forth).

[J @ M @ L]

European Jewish Zionists have occupied Palestine, and the Palestinian people have been victims of Zionism and the Israeli state. Fact.

[I TO DA GEEZY]

The PLO's "Phased Plan"
In the October 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Arab states launched a surprise attack against Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. Once again they tried to eliminate Israel, further motivated this time by the desire to redeem their honor after their major defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War. Though Israel was initially caught off guard, it then regrouped and repelled the Arab attack, but not before incurring heavy casualties.

The war convinced the Arabs that they would not be able to destroy Israel militarily within its post-1967 boundaries. Thus they embarked upon a new three-stage strategy for Israel's destruction, embodied in the PLO's 1974 decision commonly known as the Phased Plan (the text of which is below).

The plan in brief:

Through the "armed struggle" (i.e., terrorism), to establish an "independent combatant national authority" over any territory that is "liberated" from Israeli rule. (Article 2)
To continue the struggle against Israel, using the territory of the national authority as a base of operations. (Article 4)
To provoke an all-out war in which Israel's Arab neighbors destroy it entirely ("liberate all Palestinian territory"). (Article 8   )
Today, the Phased Plan remains relevant. Speaking just after the 1993 revelation of the Israel-PLO accord, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat announced that the historic agreement "will be a basis for an independent Palestinian state in accordance with the Palestine National Council resolution issued in 1974.... The PNC resolution issued in 1974 calls for the establishment of a national authority on any part of Palestinian soil from which Israel withdraws or which is liberated." (Radio Monte Carlo, 1 September 1993)

It is worth noting that the PLO's term for the self-rule council now in place in Gaza and the West Bank is the "Palestinian National Authority," echoing the language of the Phased Plan.

Also note that Articles 5-6 call for a revolution in Jordan to establish a new Jordanian regime which will ally itself with the Palestinian National Authority. Historically, Jordan comprised the bulk of the Palestine territory, and a majority of its residents are of Palestinian origin. The PLO has never recognized the legitimacy of Kingdom of Jordan as a state independent of Palestine.


------------------------------------------

THE PLO'S PHASED PLAN
Political Programme
Adopted at the 12th Session of the Palestinian National Council
Cairo, June 9, 1974
Text of the Phased Plan resolution:
The Palestinian National Council:

On the basis of the Palestinian National Charter and the Political Programme drawn up at the eleventh session, held from January 6-12, 1973; and from its belief that it is impossible for a permanent and just peace to be established in the area unless our Palestinian people recover all their national rights and, first and foremost, their rights to return and to self-determination on the whole of the soil of their homeland; and in the light of a study of the new political circumstances that have come into existence in the period between the Council's last and present sessions, resolves the following:


To reaffirm the Palestine Liberation Organization's previous attitude to Resolution 242, which obliterates the national right of our people and deals with the cause of our people as a problem of refugees. The Council therefore refuses to have anything to do with this resolution at any level, Arab or international, including the Geneva Conference.
The Liberation Organization will employ all means, and first and foremost armed struggle, to liberate Palestinian territory and to establish the independent combatant national authority for the people over every part of Palestinian territory that is liberated. This will require further changes being effected in the balance of power in favour of our people and their struggle.
The Liberation Organization will struggle against any proposal for a Palestinian entity the price of which is recognition, peace, secure frontiers, renunciation of national rights and the deprival of our people of their right to return and their right to self-determination on the soil of their homeland.
Any step taken towards liberation is a step towards the realization of the Liberation Organization's strategy of establishing the democratic Palestinian state specified in the resolutions of previous Palestinian National Councils.
Struggle along with the Jordanian national forces to establish a Jordanian-Palestinian national front whose aim will be to set up in Jordan a democratic national authority in close contact with the Palestinian entity that is established through the struggle.
The Liberation Organization will struggle to establish unity in struggle between the two peoples and between all the forces of the Arab liberation movement that are in agreement on this programme.
In the light of this programme, the Liberation Organization will struggle to strengthen national unity and to raise it to the level where it will be able to perform its national duties and tasks.
Once it is estabished, the Palestinian national authority will strive to achieve a union of the confrontation countries, with the aim of completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory, and as a step along the road to comprehensive Arab unity.
The Liberation Organization will strive to strengthen its solidarity with the socialist countries, and with forces of liberation and progress throughout the world, with the aim of frustration all the schemes of Zionism, reaction and imperialism.
In light of this programme, the leadership of the revolution will determine the tactics which will serve and make possible the realization of these objectives.
The Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization will make every effort to implement this programme, and should a situation arise affecting the destiny and the future of the Palestinian people, the National Assembly will be convened in extraordinary session.

[I TO DA GEEZY]

POLITICAL DECOY my friend!^^


P.S
Cross reference the 3 statements underlined...doesn't something strike you as wierd?

[I TO DA GEEZY]

One more thing.... COMPARE NATIONAL ANTHEMS:


National Anthem of Israel:
While yet within the heart - inwardly
The soul of the Jew yearns,
And towards the vistas of the East-eastwards
An eye to Zion looks.
It is not yet lost, our hope,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free people in our land
In the land of Zion and Jerusalem,
To be a free people in our land
In the land of Zion and Jerusalem.


National Anthem of Palestinian Authority:
My country, my country
My country, the land of my grand fathers
My country, my country
My country, my nation, the nation of eternity
With my determination,my fire and the volcano of my revenge
The longing of my blood to my land and home
I have climbed the mountains and fought the wars
I have conquered the impossible, and crossed the frontiers
My country, my country, the nation of eternity
With the resolve of the winds and the fire of the guns
And the determination of my nation in the land of struggle
Palestine is my home, Palestine is my fire, Palestine is my revenge and the land of eternal
My country, my country, the nation of eternity
I swear under the shade of the flag
To my land and nation, and the fire of pain
I will live as a guerrilla, I will go on as guerrilla,
I will expire as guerrilla until I will be back
My country, my country, the nation of eternity

--------------

Noticing something man?

[J @ M @ L]

None of that disproves that Palestinians have been and are victims of Zionism... all you've done is tell me for the millionth time that their leadership has failed them, which I've already stated... and then you feel the national anthem means something to me... LOL... I don't care if the Israeli government puts up a big banner in Tel Aviv that says We Love Palestinians...

[I TO DA GEEZY]

None of that disproves that Palestinians have been and are victims of Zionism... all you've done is tell me for the millionth time that their leadership has failed them, which I've already stated...

Except that it does:


The Fate of Palestinian Moderates
Arafat's thugs don't murder only Jews.

Saturday, April 20, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT

Israeli actions in cities like Jenin, we keep hearing, are only creating a whole new generation of suicide bombers. But as we learn whether the deaths there number in the hundreds or dozens, other news reports shed light on the radicalization of the Palestinians. To wit:

April 7: GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP)--In a secret session before dawn Sunday, a Palestinian military court sentenced six Palestinians to death for collaborating with Israel, Palestinian security officials said. . . . Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat must approve the death sentences before they can be carried out. Some 40 similar sentences await Arafat's approval.

April 5: RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters)--Masked Palestinian gunmen shot dead three men suspected of collaborating with Israeli forces in their West Bank village of Toubas . . . Friday, Palestinian sources said.

April 1: NABLUS, West Bank (AP)--In the West Bank town of Tulkarem, gunmen from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade entered an apartment where seven suspected collaborators were being held by military intelligence Monday, the officials said. The gunmen took the prisoners into the street and shot them, leaving their bodies behind, the security sources said. . . .

In Qalqilya . . . the bodies of Iyad Abu Ishab, 20, and Walid Radwan, 22, were found riddled with bullets in a side street Monday. Palestinian security sources said the two men, who had been arrested on charges of collaboration more than a year ago, were killed by their prison guards. . . .

The body of Mahmood Rahamie, 21, was found in Bethlehem near Manger Square, the traditional birthplace of Jesus. The Al-Aqsa Brigades, which is close to . . . Arafat's Fatah movement, said in a statement that Rahamie had been killed after he was caught sending information to the Israelis through the Internet and e-mail.

March 15: NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters)--A group linked to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction said it executed two alleged Palestinian collaborators Friday in the West Bank city of Nablus.

March 14: BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP)--Palestinian militiamen shot dead two alleged collaborators with Israel on Thursday, then tied the body of one to the back of a pickup truck, dragged him through town and attempted to hang him from a rooftop overlooking the traditional birthplace of Christ.

March 12: RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP)--In a grim warning, the blood-streaked body of a Palestinian shot to death for allegedly collaborating with Israel was strung up by the ankles Tuesday in the middle of this West Bank city. Raed Naem Odeh was left dangling in a traffic circle downtown.





It may be that some of these victims were guilty, from a certain perspective, of treason. But the summary executions have certainly had the effect of silencing all voices of dissent. But then, this is nothing new.
Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem and Arab leader during the British mandate in Palestine, killed many Palestinians inclined to tolerate a Jewish presence in the region. In 1967, after Israel captured the West Bank in the Six Day War, Yasser Arafat's Fatah brought back the practice. During the uprising in the late 1980s, some 800 "collaborators" were murdered, many of them simply Palestinians who had prospered under Israeli occupation.

After the 1993 Oslo accords gave him a statelet, Mr. Arafat quickly set about criminalizing "collaboration"--most famously with a law making the sale of land to Jews punishable by death. But those who get a trial are the lucky ones. Seven decades of "collaborator" killings have silenced or driven out many who would be open to coexistence with Israel.

It's yet one more reason to believe there will never be peace so along as the dictator and his brownshirts run Gaza and the West Bank.





and also take a look at this:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/gaza/intro/index.htm

summary:
This was in July 2000, before the start of Arafat's terror war against Israel in Sep 2000 trying to "kill Israel", the client which gave the Palestinians more than 80% of the business. Today it is easy to see that Arafat's terrorism ruined the whole Palestinian economy.
Examples from modern history, just don't forget how we got THIS FAR.



p.s This is without mentioning the "indirect" assaults of the Palestinian leadership at its citizens like brainwashing the population,starving the population while funding terrorism and the deliberate coercing of Israel to handle the Palestinian internal affairs that casted on its (Israel's) national security something that would result in further loss of human lives.