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Fact No.3 The Arab world does not accept the legitimacy of a sovereign Jewish state

In the foreseeable future, the Arab world will not accept the legitimacy of a sovereign Jewish state and will do everything in its power to destroy Israel. This is an unpleasant fact but one which must be faced if Israel is not to continue to repeat the blunders, wishful thinking and blindness to reality that brought about the disastrous Oslo process.

In order to appreciate why this is true, it is necessary to understand the nature of the Arab- Jewish conflict. I choose the definition "Arab-Jewish" and not ""Israeli-Arab" because the conflict is not confined to the existence of the state of Israel but it reaches deeper into the Moslem, particularly Arab, perception of the Jewish people. The Arabs are opposed to the existence of the State Israel because it is perceived as an outpost of the West and, worse, as the sovereign entity of the Jewish people. The Jews are considered by the Arabs to be a protected people - dhimmi - that are not a nation and that have no sovereign rights, particularly the right to rule over Moslems.

In order to clarify the real nature of what is commonly called the Arab-Israel problem, it is necessary to place it in the proper historic and geopolitical perspective.

Nagib Azoury, an Christian Arab nationalist, wrote in his book The Awakening of the Arab Nation (1905):

“Two important phenomena of the same nature but nevertheless opposed which have not yet attracted attention manifest themselves at this time in Asiatic Turkey. They are the awakening of the Arab nation and the latent efforts of the Jews to reconstitute the ancient monarchy of Israel on a very large scale. These two movements are destined to fight each other until one prevails over the other. Upon the final outcome of that battle between these two peoples representing opposing principles, the fate of the entire world depends.”

In 1994, two leading spokesmen for the Moslem position made typical statements indicating that absolutely nothing has changed since Azoury’s prescient remarks almost a century ago. Ibrahim Ghawshal, head of Hamas in Jordan said:

“We think that the conflict between Arabs and Jews, between Muslims and Jews, is a cultural conflict that will continue to rage throughout all time.”

Sayyid Muhammed Husayn Fadlallah, spiritual head of Hisballah in Lebanon noted that:

“the struggle against the Jews in which Muslims are engaged is a continuation of the old struggle of the Muslims against the Jews’ conspiracy against Islam. Israel is not merely a group that established a state at the expense of a people. It is a group which wants to establish Jewish culture at the expense of Arab culture.”

At the twelfth Palestinian National Council which convened in Cairo in June 1974, it was decided that the Palestine Liberation Organization was ready to accept any territory that would be liberated and would set up a national authority on it (Article 2), and would continue the struggle for completing the liberation of all Palestinian territory (Article 8). In the concluding announcement of the thirteenth PNC it was stated that "the strategic goal of the PLO is liberation of Palestine from the racist Zionist occupation, in order for it to be the homeland of the Palestinian people, in which the Palestinian democratic state will be established, in which the inhabitants who cast aside the racist-zionist identity will live without discrimination of color or race."

Professor Edward Sa'id, one of the most well known, articulate and dishonest spokesmen for the terrorist cause said "There is no symmetry in the conflict. One side is guilty and one side is a victim. The victim's war must be fought to total victory, and it is legitimate. Israel is an occupying power over the whole territory of Palestine. The territories [of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza] by themselves have no relevance for the Palestinian cause. Israel will always be guilty if it does not give up its Zionist state and identity."

In a blurb describing his new book (released in September, 2003), Professor Alan Dershowitz wrote: "In the conclusion to the book I argue that it is impossible to understand the conflict in the Middle East without accepting the reality that from the very beginning the strategy of the Arab leadership has been to eliminate the existence of any Jewish state, and indeed any substantial Jewish population, in what is now Israel. Even Professor Edward Said, the Palestinians' most prominent academic champion, has acknowledged that "the whole of Palestinian nationalism was based on driving all Israelis [by which he means Jews] out." This is a simple fact not subject to reasonable dispute. The evidence from the mouths and pens of Arab and Palestinian leaders is overwhelming. Various tactics have been employed toward this end, including the mendacious rewriting of the history of the immigration of Jewish refugees into Palestine, as well as the demographic history of the Arabs of Palestine. Other tactics have included the targeting of vulnerable Jewish civilians beginning in the 1920s, the Palestinian support for Hitler and Nazi genocide in the 1930s and 1940s, and the violent opposition to the two-state solution proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937, then by the United Nations in 1948. Yet another tactic was creating, then deliberately exacerbating and exploiting, the refugee crisis.

For some, the very idea of Palestinian statehood alongside a Jewish state has itself been a tactic -- a first step -- toward the elimination of Israel. Between 1880 and 1967, virtually no Arab or Palestinian spokesperson called for a Palestinian state. Instead they wanted the area that the Romans had designated as Palestine to be merged into Syria or Jordan. As Auni Bey Abdul-Hati, a prominent Palestinian leader, told the Peel Commission in 1937, "There is no such country. ... Palestine is a term the Zionists invented. ... Our country was for centuries part of Syria." Accordingly, the Palestinians rejected the independent homeland proposed by the Peel Commission because it would also have entailed a tiny Jewish homeland alongside it. The goal has always remained the same: eliminating the Jewish state and transferring most of the Jews out of the area.

The realistic Jewish response to the Arab attitude was expressed pithily by Arthur Ruppin, a Zionist leader, in 1936:

“The Arabs do not agree to our venture. If we want to continue our work in Eretz Israel against their desires, there is no alternative but that lives will be lost. It is our destiny to be in a continual state of warfare with the Arabs. This situation may well be undesirable but such is the reality.” Recently, Israeli Arab MK Mohammed Barakei declared that Israel can never be accepted as a "Jewish" state, while MK Azmi Bishara demanded: "Does the Arab world have to join the Zionist movement and recognize [Israel] as the Jewish state? Who ever heard of such a thing?" Further evidence is provided by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, whose findings were that 80 percent of Palestinians, as well as large majorities in all four of the other Arab countries polled (ranging from 65 percent in Lebanon to 90 percent in Morocco), agree with the statement: "The rights and needs of the Palestinian people cannot be taken care of as long as the State of Israel exists." In other words, far from assuming that a resolution of the conflict involves a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish one, the vast majority of the Arab world believes that the only real solution is for Israel to cease to exist. Moreover, when the Pew researchers asked which global leader people most trusted to "do the right thing" in world affairs, the Palestinians' top choice was Osama bin Laden, with 71% of the vote. In Jordan and Morocco bin Laden came in second, with approval ratings of 55 and 49%, respectively. In other words, most Palestinians and many Arabs consider mass murder a la September 11 "the right thing" to do to achieve their goals a view that would seem to preclude peaceful coexistence with a state whose very existence they deem incompatible with Palestinian needs. Without Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, any "peace process" is obviously doomed to failure.

Thus, Arab hostility to Israel is not based upon any action or inaction on the part of the Jewish state. It is fundamental to the Arab/Moslem belief and self image. As such, it does not lend itself to the types of conflict resolution that are so favored by the Western world.

This is extremely difficult for the Western secular and rationalist world to accept since it finds it almost impossible to posit spiritual passions as independent primary forces in history. Yet they can be and in the Middle East, unfortunately, they actually are.

The two so-called peace treaties made between Arab nations (Egypt and Jordan) and Israel were not peace agreements in the true sense of the word. They have neither brought peace between these nations, nor normalized relations at any level nor curtailed the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activities that are sanctioned by those governments. Both Egypt and Jordan entered these agreements as strategic steps in gaining American support. Hussein of Jordan and Sadat of Egypt wisely perceived that the road to Washington (and America's money and arms) led through Jerusalem.

Further, after the disastrous Oslo agreement resulted in handing parts of Palestine to the PLO, the Arabs began an intensive and so far successful effort to destroy all historical evidence of Jewish presence in the Holy Land. This has included systematic destruction of irreplaceable archeological relics in such areas of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem that are irrefutable proof of Jewish life and sovereignty as far back as 3000 years ago. The Arabs deny the very legitimacy of the Jews as a historical people in the Holy Land. The Arab attitude concerning the Jews and Israel has been consistently reinforced by the educational systems, the mosques, and the media in the Arab countries and in the area controlled by the PLO. Today, Egypt is the Arabic source of virulent anti-Semitic propaganda comparable only to that produced in Nazi Germany including such discredited lies as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" which also was produced as a television series. This brainwashing against the Jews, Judaism and the Jewish State has been a staple of Arab education, preaching, and propaganda since, at least, the creation of Israel and, to a certain degree, even before Jewish sovereignty was established. Fifteen year old male and female suicide/homicide bombers don't grow on arid soil. One of the worst aspects of the Oslo agreement is that it entrusted the education of a generation of Palestinians to Arafat, thereby ensuring that the Palestinian people would be far less prepared for reconciliation than it was before the process began. Young Palestinians in the Oslo era were educated to see Israel as illegitimate, Jews as demonic, and genocidal terrorism as a choice career option. To call that "incitement" is to understate the crime. Just recently Arafat told a group of visiting Palestinian youth on "Children's Day" that martyrdom was their highest national and religious calling. Only in Palestine does the nation's leader celebrate Children's Day by telling children to kill themselves.

One of the most meaningful gauges of the integrity of any peace process and its likelihood of success is the degree to which the parties educate toward peace. It is by this yardstick that the Palestinian Authority's education apparatus, formal and informal, has been such a dismal disappointment. Instead of seizing the opportunity to educate future generations to live with Israel in peace the PA has done everything in its power to fill young minds with hatred.

The truth about the PA schoolbooks is that they contain anti-Semitic content, delegitimize Israel's existence, and incite to hatred and violence. For example, the new 6th-grade Reading the Koran openly presents anti-Semitic messages as children read about Allah's warning to the Jews that because of their evil Allah will kill them: "...Oh you who are Jews ...long for death if you are truthful... for the death from which you flee, that will surely overtake you..." In other sections they learn of Jews being expelled from their homes by Allah, and in another Jews are said to be like donkeys: "Those [Jews] who were charged with the Torah, but did not observe it, are like a donkey carrying books...."

This religious-based anti-Semitism is particularly dangerous because children are taught that hating Jews is God's will. Islam also contains positive attitudes toward Jews yet PA educators chose to incorporate only hateful teachings. The new PA schoolbooks compare Israel to colonial Britain: "Colonialism: Palestine faced the British occupation after the First World War in 1917, and the Israeli occupation in 1948." Moreover, the book refers to Israel exclusively as Palestine. For example: "Among the famous rocks of southern Palestine are the rocks of Beersheba and the Negev" and "Palestine's Water Sources - ... The most important is the Sea of Galilee."

But the Negev, Beersheba and the Sea of Galilee are in Israel and do not border the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria. So why are PA children taught these areas are Palestine?

Educating against Israel's existence is further cemented through tens of maps in the schoolbooks in which Palestine encompass all of Israel. Israel does not exist on any map, within any borders at all. Another new book teaches what must be done for "occupied Palestine" and the "stolen homeland." "Islam encourages this [love of homeland] and established the defense of it as an obligatory commandment for every Muslim if even a centimeter of his land is stolen. I, a Palestinian Muslim, love my country, Palestine..." The complete and total message Palestinian children are taught is that Jews, according to Allah, are like donkeys; Israel is a colonial occupier that stole their land; the cities, lakes and deserts of Israel are occupied Palestine; and that the children have an obligation to liberate it if even a "centimeter is stolen."

All the books cited above were written during the most optimistic periods of the peace process, before the violence began in September 2000. They are not a reflection of the war, but they were a contributing factor to it. By dismissing the criticism and retaining this hateful material the PA is planting the seeds of the next war in their young people. And the defenders of this PA hate-education including some Israelis are nurturing those seeds of war. Four generations of Arabs, especially Palestinian Arabs, have been consistently brainwashed to believe the worst canards against Jews, and indoctrinated with hate. This is not the kind of thing that can be eliminated by signatures on a piece of paper. It will take generations. Even if there were a complete turnabout today in the Arab attitude toward Israel and Jews, the Arabs will not be ready for peace with Israel in the foreseeable future.

 

>>> Continud in Part 3