Connect the Dots

GS Don Morris, Ph.D.
August 7, 2007

If you believed the media, Israel is acting responsibly and independently in opening talks with Abbas. Furthermore one would think that there is a real chance for peace. After all, President George Bush has once again become a player in starting such peace talks. This is a wonderful fairy tale-let us examine what has occurred and is going on as I write.

The following events have occurred within the last week:

• Prime Minister Fayyad has told Israeli officials that the PA is not ready to assume control of Palestinian cities.
• A truck laden with multiple explosives was stopped short of its homicide target-this "bomb on wheels" was assembled in the disputed territory of Judea
• Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has less than 3% approval rating from the Israeli people, has promised to release more security prisoners, remove IDF checkpoints in the West Bank and allow the return of Palestinian gunmen who were deported to the Gaza Strip and Europe after barricading themselves inside the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem five years ago-these same terrorists destroyed the inside of this Christian church.
• Abbas announces today that he will not talk with Hamas, no matter what the pressure; meanwhile, this same day top Hamas official says militant group is holding secret talks with Fatah (AP). So much for trusting Abbas!

For some reading this piece the argument is that this is but a small price to pay if peace is finally possible. Those who utter such words are either na•ve, ignorant or replete with their own anti-Israel agenda. Nothing could be further from the truth. If I have learned one thing these nearly ten years I have lived in Israel, this is one of the most complex and complicated places in the world; particularly when it comes to the so-called-"Israeli-Arab conflict". The media does not provide you with anything other than snapshots of events and history. We all know about snapshots. Remember what happens immediately after the photo is taken? The "camera" smiles disappear and the reality remains as it was. So, too, do things exist here in the Middle East.

Until a few days ago every Israeli leader and administration had refused to agree to "the right of return" of so-called displaced Arabs. Without providing a history lesson, suffice it to say there was and is a clear rationale and justification for this action. However, this has all changed and the action lays at the feet of Israel's least admired, least supported and most inept PM, Olmert. This is what he has done:

A group of Iraqis recently given Israeli citizenship assert they are descendents of Arabs who lived in the British Mandate of Palestine and claim to still have family ties in the Palestinian controlled areas of Israel. On this basis, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided to allow their immigration to Israel.

You say, "what's wrong with this? It is only a kind gesture for those poor Iraqis who have been pummeled by the dastardly USA illegal invasion of Iraq?" This is wrong, it represents the most egregious betrayal of a government in recent history.

An estimated 5 million Arabs fall into this category. If their "right of return" were approved, the result would be the end of the Jewish majority in Israel, thus undermining Israel's status as a Jewish state.

While Israel will probably never accept such a large number back into the state, now that 41 have proved it is possible, other Arabs will be lining up.

Already, the Palestinian minister of information, Riad Maliki, told the Ma'an News Agency that now that he had "succeeded in returning part of them," the Palestinian government will pursue negotiations with the Israeli government to return another 18,000 Palestinian refugees from Iraq.

The Palestinian information minister told Associated Press it was "symbolic."

This decision may have temporarily bolstered Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas, but it is bound to come crashing down on Israel. Fatah explains on its own website that "to us, the refugees issue is the winning card which means the end of the Israeli state." With this in mind, it is no wonder all other Israeli governments rejected the issue of Palestinian right of return. This latest goodwill gesture by the current Israeli government is just another step toward the demise of Israel.

Today, Abbas has announced that much has been accomplished and now all of the demands including Jerusalem, return to the 1967 "borders" and more are again "in play". This coupled with the full support (code for demands) by the USA government place Israel in harms way. What the media NEVER reports is the amount of international pressure that is mounted to force Israel to "stand down". This is a story for another time-the untold willingness to sacrifice Israel for world powers failures in the Middle East!

Israel is being squeezed by its "supporters", threatened with curtailment of Western goods and services; with closure of markets for its goods and so much more. This is being done away from view of the public eye and Israel's enticement is to agree to all of this lest we lose the new "increased" amount of military funding. Of course, the USA offers this as an incentive because it increased its military aide funding to our enemies, e.g., Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Israel in a sense has to agree to this extortion or we fall behind in military readiness-so goes the story. America does not care that both the Saudi and Egyptian governments are "hanging on by a thread" and can be toppled by Israel's worst enemies in the very near future. Thus our future has been "mortgaged" by a "subprime" credit lender!

One final set of dots to connect. All of the preceding has occurred against this backdrop:

• Syria has moved more battalions close to Israel's border
• Hizzbollah has rearmed itself, its leader says all is ready
• Egypt allows the weapons transport tunnels to operate daily-the end result is a Gaza that has become "Hamastan"
• Rockets are fired daily onto several southern Israeli towns-this has become "accepted" by the world's media and unless someone is killed, you will not hear about it.
• Thanks to our still wonderful security agencies we have stopped multiple homicide bombers enroute to murder Israeli citizens
• Iran's leader continues to call for the destruction of Israel.

Imagine the state of New Jersey having to address all of this from its surrounding border states. I sit here in Netanya but 10 miles from the disputed territory of what America calls the West Bank. I watch "Palestinian" television and see the ongoing children's' shows that preach hatred; that promote violence and justify to another generation of people the need to rid themselves of Israelis. I work with Israeli public schools and students and nowhere, even with all that surrounds us, does there exist hatred or even condemnation of these same people who have been taught and socialized to despise us.

Explain to me, given these events/circumstances/ and people why the West does forsake Israel? Justify for me why Israel should be held hostage as a chip in the international playing field of failed terrorism policies? Convince me that peace will exist if only Israel would hand over land the size of the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport property. This land that the international legal system says that Israel also has a right to contest.

The "land for peace" ideology only works because of extortion and/or blackmail by the international community-it is a failed strategy-you only need to know your history to realize this fact. I await an Israeli leader who is willing to stand up, courage in hand, willing to say, "After forty years of failed land for peace attempts, Israel no longer offers this as part of any negotiated peace. Furthermore, from this moment forward, if attacked and lands captured we will not offer to return them to our enemies who tried to destroy us." I await an American and British leadership who will stand shoulder-shoulder with us and make the same pronouncement!