Israel Owes Gaza Nothing…Except An Ultimatum

By Gerald A. Honigman

In May 1948, Egypt was one of a half dozen Arab states which tried to nip a nascent, resurrected Israel in the bud. And for the same reasons Arabs and Arabized have slaughtered, subjugated, and committed genocide against Kurds, black Africans, Berbers, Assyrians and others besides "their" kilab yahud-Jew dogs-who dared insinuate that they too-besides Arabs-have rights in a region proclaimed by the latter as purely Arab patrimony. One half of Israel's Jews today consist of Jews who pre-dated Arabs in that region but who fled to Israel…the refugees no one talks about. Over another million of these folks fled abroad to the Americas, France, and elsewhere.

Armed to the teeth with weapons left over by the Brits from World War II, Egypt seized Gaza while a British officer-led Arab Legion in Transjordan (created itself in 1922 from almost 80% of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine) seized Judea and Samaria on the west bank of the Jordan River. Transjordan, now controlling both banks, soon renamed itself Jordan. Its occupation of those non-apportioned-not purely Arab-parts of the Mandate was recognized by only two other states.

The same above Arab pair-along with Syria and a few others as well-took another shot at their 1948 goal in June 1967. Big mistake…

Egypt blockaded Israel at the Straits of Tiran (a casus belli), amassed 100,000 troops, tanks, and aircraft on Israel's border, and convinced Jordan to jump on board. It then ordered the United Nations peacekeeping force out of the area so it would be able to invade the Jewish State unimpeded. Like a fireman who flees the moment a fire starts, the U.N. simply complied. It would repeat its uselessness this way many times later-stepping in only after Israel turned the tide of repeated Arab aggression, not preventing it or punishing the aggressor. Indeed, it did just this in 1948. That's how Israel wound up with mostly Auschwitz/armistice lines, not borders. Ralph Bunche, America's U.N. rep, understood this quite well.

That's how Israel wound up in Gaza and in the "West Bank"…in all of six days. I have all of the newspaper articles from that time period stored in a box.

As has been written many times, during the almost two decades that Egypt and Jordan occupied those areas, no one clamored for the creation of a second state for Arabs within the borders of the Palestinian Mandate. In 1947, Arabs were offered about half of the 20 % of the territory left after the creation of Transjordan and rejected this partition. Some 90% of the total area wasn't enough. They had to have it all.

That was over sixty years ago-and nothing has really changed regarding the same Arab mindset that refuses to grant scores of millions of non-Arabs living in the region even a tiny sliver of the same political rights Arabs insist upon for themselves. That, in a nutshell, is the Arab-Israeli conflict.

A few years back, a now comatose Prime Minister Sharon-under intense pressure from Washington-agreed to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza, a coastal area which had been repeatedly used since the days of the Pharaohs to invade the land of the Jews. It was also the land of Goliath's non-Semitic, Aegean "Sea People," the Philistines (as in Palestine), who gave both Egyptians and Jews earlier shared headaches.

Sharon's withdrawal plan was highly controversial, but there was enough potentially positive aspects to it that it seemed to at least some folks worth a try. The problem is that all of the worst case scenario results soon emerged instead.

Gaza was a test-and the Arabs flunked it horribly.

Being the target of repeated Arab attempted destruction, Israel was under no obligation to return any territories used for those purposes before treaties of real peace-not hudna and such ceasefires-were signed.

Borders and territorial possessions all over the world have historically changed for far less than what Israel has faced…including America's. And does anyone remember the Falkland War the Brits fought with Argentina? Now imagine the Brits (along with numerous other hypocrites) lecturing Israel-as they constantly do-about what the Jews allegedly need to do in their own very backyard (not thousands of miles away from home) regarding Arabs who deliberately disembowel and slit the throats of their kids and other innocents.

With the withdrawal of Jewish organic farmers and so forth (Gaza thus becoming Judenrein), did the Arabs offer Israel any semblance of peace?

The only thing Arabs did was to congratulate themselves about how nicely their well-known destruction in stages scenario for Israel was playing out.

Before the setback in '67, they called for a one fell swoop plan for the Jews' demise. Afterwards, this was replaced with a strategy to force Israel-via diplomacy (arm twisting by its "friends")--back to its 1949, U. N.-imposed, microscopic armistice line, not border, existence. The final draft of U.N.S.C. Resolution 242 was drafted, in a rare display of true justice, to rectify that wrong after the Six Day War.

Any withdrawal of Israel from territories was to be in the context of real peace treaties and to secure and somewhat defensible real borders-not armistice lines. It was expected that the travesty of the '49 lines would be rectified as Israel withdrew from territories-not all territories. Indeed, the U.N. fought very hard over the precise wording of 242 for just this reason. A reading of its architects, such as Lord Caradon, Eugene Rostow, and others, makes this very clear. Here's Lord Caradon…

It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial. After all, they were just the places where the soldiers of each side happened to be on the day the fighting stopped in 1948. They were just armistice lines. That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them.

Nevertheless, for a very cold peace, Israel handed Egypt back the best tank trap it had, buffering itself from latter day Pharaohs', as well as oil fields it developed, major airbases, and some real semblance of strategic depth.

With Sinai thus returned, Gaza was the next piece to fall in the post-'67 Arab destruction in stages game plan.

Indeed, Gaza was a failed test.

Arabs had an opportunity to prove doubters such as myself wrong…and we really wanted that to happen, though knew better.

The "peace offering" Arabs gave Israel in return was to elect Arabs to power in Gaza who didn't even feel it necessary to play Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah's Palestinian Authority's phony game of acceptance of a Jewish neighbor. Actually, Abbas and his crew don't do this either and still refuse to speak of a Jewish Israel. Arabs can claim almost two dozen Arab states (created mostly from non-Arab peoples' lands), but how dare Jews speak of one miniscule state of their own…

Yet, to prop up the West's sweet-talking, latter day Arafatian darlings, Mahmoud Abbas (one of Arafat's chief lieutenants) & Fatah had to be made the good cops by an American State Department long hostile to even the very idea of Israel (opposing President Truman on its rebirth and so forth) to the Hamas bad ones to twist the arms of the Jews. In reality, both have the same long-term plans for Israel. Check out their own official assorted websites, books, speeches to their own people, and so forth if you doubt this. In the Internet age, this is easy to do. Check out the Hamas Charter while you're at it…and the PLO/P.A.'s as well.

While attacks against Israel from Gaza were launched before Hamas gained control there, they increased afterwards…hundreds of rockets, mortars, and such being launched against Israel proper after the complete, unilateral Israeli withdrawal.

Instead of a hand being offered to an Israel which could indeed be very generous in peace, Arabs elected those who openly (to their credit-no game playing here) call for Israel's total destruction…the same folks who were blowing up school kids and others on buses, in restaurants, teen nightclubs, pizza parlors, and such a while back. They even set up a museum commemorating their heroism complete with fake Jewish body parts hanging from ceilings for all to sing praises to.

Think about what Israel really needs to do with such an enemy. Does America's own Powell Doctrine ring a bell? Here's some of what Wikipedia has to say about it…

"…Powell expanded upon the Doctrine, asserting that when a nation is engaging in war, every resource and tool should be used to achieve decisive force against the enemy, minimizing US casualties and ending the conflict quickly by forcing the weaker force to capitulate. This is well in line with Western military strategy Lately, there was supposedly a ceasefire in effect. Hamas got tired of losing too many of its folks to Israel's pinpoint strikes. Yet, during this "ceasefire," Israel ceased, but the Arabs still fired.

Because of this, the Jews stopped the flow of goods and services to the people who elected those who want both Jews and the Jewish State dead and who cause death, maiming, and destruction in nearby Israeli towns and cities.

How unreasonable of those Jews!

Just ask the U.N.'s Ban Ki-moon, the European Union's Benita Ferrero-Waldner, NGO Oxfam's Jeremy Hobbs, and so forth. They simply expect Jews to keep on out-Christianing Christians by turning cheek after cheek after cheek…not that any "Christian" country would ever put up with such murderous manure that Israel is simply expected to accept from Arabs.

Tit for tat responses have never worked well with Arabs. They know there's hundreds of millions of them and about six million Israeli Jews. Now, why am I nervous about that number? Arafat used to claim that the Arab mother was his best weapon.

To be taken seriously, Israel must treat Gaza's Hamas and those who elected it according to America's own Powell Doctrine. If firing rockets, mortars, and such at one's cities is not considered acts of war, then what is? If calling for the death of a nation and its people and acting on those threats are not acts of war, then what is?

If ever a nation had reason to level an enemy, then who if not Israel? It certainly has the means. Not doing so and trying to be humane to the inhumane only brings hypocritical charges leveled against Jews anyway.

There are few innocents in Gaza. Arab non-combatants hide murderers who in turn use the former as human shields after they deliberately attack Jewish civilians-all contrary to the Geneva Conventions, by the way. Think Perfidy Clause and such…Sad, but true.

Yet, none of this matters to the U. N., the European Union folks, Oxfam, the State Department, and so forth. Arabs and Arabized are still committing atrocities, waging genocide, and so forth in black Africa and elsewhere, and all they can do is insist that Jews allow the re-supply of those who would butcher them if they had the chance. No doubt… Egypt has allowed hundreds of tunnels to be dug from its territory to supply Gaza with the means to kill Jews.

Imagine if this was reversed. Pharaoh now supposedly has a peace treaty with Israel. Here's an idea…let them smuggle food and so forth instead. Furthermore, why smuggle? Let Pharaoh supply his Arab brothers with those supplies. By the way, Israel has been permitting essentials to cross into Gaza anyway.

Jews aren't obligated to supply their executioners and wannabes with anything. Would any other people be expected to do this? Should be a no brainer, right? But it's that Jew thing again... Israel needs to hold elections as soon as possible…before its current non-leaders can cause even more damage.

David Ben-Gurion, Golda, Jabotinsky, and Begin must be rolling in their graves.
Prime Minister Olmert is soon scheduled to have some additional last minute arm-twisting done by another soon leaving official, Secretary of State Rice. Dubya, too, will likely join the gang up on the Jews party. Hey, Clinton received many millions of bucks for his Library and such from the Arab oil spigot as a gift for forcing Jews into the deadly Oslo debacle and agreeing to forsake 242's promise of secure borders, why not the scion of the Bush oil family too? He's certainly been acting that way these past few years…and I (reluctantly) voted for him.

Like many other State Department types, Rice's career of squeezing Jews is sure to pay off later. Just ask James Baker III (Dubya's virtual uncle). As I like to remind folks, Condi already has one oil tanker named after her in the Chevron fleet. Shafting Hebrews and Arab potentate derriere-kissing have been lucrative business decisions for decades…

Israel must have new leaders who will act as if their private parts are still intact-regardless of the consequences. If America threatens to cut off aid, then so be it. With a man who has dozens of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel friends, advisors, and supporters ready to move into the White House (he's already sent one of these folks, Robert Malley, as his senior foreign policy to Lebanon's slave master, Syria), Israel must be ready to draw its lines in the sand beyond which it will no further budge.

Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion Airport, and such must not be subjected to what Sderot and Ashkelon now frequently receive…and that's exactly what is realistically to be expected if Israel does in Judea (i.e., land of the Jews) and Samaria (aka the West Bank) what it did in Gaza. A three thousand mile wide America will be shamed if it forces Israel into another Munich 1938 style "peace."

Israel must insist on reasonable but effective territorial compromises regarding the remaining territories in dispute…be they the Golan Heights or the West Bank. Presidents Johnson and Reagan along with Secretary of State Shultz (an amazing exception to the Foggy Bottom rule), military commanders, and others understood this quite well. It appeared that President Bush II did too…at least for a while.

Arabs (even those few Israel has "peace treaties" with) still refuse to accept the permanent reality of a'49 armistice line, 9-mile wide Israel-let alone anything beyond the virtually microscopic. Think about that purely Arab patrimony thing, the Dar ul-Islam vs. the Dar al-Harb, and so forth. And, again, think gassed Kurds, Darfur, and southern Sudan while you're at it…

Given all the above, as for Gaza…Israel must send an ultimatum, not supply it.
And the U. N., Oxfam, the European Union, and other assorted hypocrites and practitioners of the double standard?

Let them go to where they're really needed but to where they never will…to relieve the real-not mostly self-inflicted-plight of scores of millions of non-Arab peoples still being slaughtered, enslaved, subjugated, and so forth throughout the region on behalf of Arab nationalism and its "purely Arab patrimony."

arrived at this article at http://www.paktoday.com/mwtoday/honig21.htm