Incomprehensible Negligence
On any given day in both the Arab Press and most of the Western Press you are told that it is Israel's occupation of Palestinians' lands that is the source of the conflict over here. Today I turned to one of the several dozen news sites I read each day and I was not disappointed. Here is such an example of the aforementioned misrepresentation of truth:"Jean Ziegler, the UN special rapporteur on right to food, castigated the Israeli occupation and described it as the only "colonial regime" which refuses to abide by any international law, calling on the UN to adopt an effective policy forcing Israel to respect human rights and the Geneva Convention.The difficulty is, of course, there is yet another inconvenient truth that is not being told-the root problem of events here in Israel and with her Arab neighbors has nothing to do with "Israel's supposed illegal occupation". I would also argue that the nation of Israel has not carried on in a thoughtful nor committed manner a proactive program to justify its positions. The truth is that this is negligence of the first order and Israel has allowed its enemies to do in the media (in the fight for hearts and minds of others) what it never could do in war. They are winning and Israel is losing the public relations battle and in turn policy development is grounded in inaccurate data. The world has been engaged in a massive campaign of revisionist history, fueled by incorrect facts and outright lies. The reasons for its success lay in part at the feet of the Israeli government. I join others who now challenge the decades of misappropriated stories and suggest that today's wars are fought not only on the battle fields but also in the homes of everyone watching or reading the media reports.
"The Israeli occupation is a colonial regime and an illegal military occupation from the UN's point of view, it continues to annex more Palestinian lands; and thus the Israeli occupation is the worst in the history of colonialism," Ziegler stated in a TV interview"1
Rachel Neuwirth, wrote a most interesting and enlightening piece addressing the need for establishing the records accurately.2 Currently the media is awash with stories that if left unchallenged will doom the future of Israel and ultimately the Western World as we know it today. In addition, the USA University Campuses have become less than the bastions of inquiry and debate as noted often and most recently by the response on over 100 major campuses to Islamo-fascism week.3
The root cause of our problems over here in Israel must be clarified. The following factual chronicle of events is designed to shift your perception of what heretofore you might have considered the truth. Here are the facts and now we can engage in honest debate rather than rely upon political "talking points", informational sound bites or contrived revisionist propaganda.
I begin by selecting a point on the Israeli timeline of May 1967. Conditions in the region consisted of the following: Israel did not "occupy' any of the current sites that Arabs demand in 2007 be free of Israelis. The Golan Heights, Gaza, eastern Jerusalem and the "West Bank" (Judea and Samaria), were all in Arab hands-not even the Arabs dispute this fact today. "All of the bloody wars that had transpired after June 1967 had not yet happened to exacerbate Israeli-Arab relations."2 This is a critical moment in time-Israel was declared a nation state in May of 1948 and until May of 1967 no occupation existed. Mind you, the Arabs argue that it is the "occupation' that is the root cause of all difficulties. Look deeper. The Arab League, in 1964, created the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The group's name itself suggested "liberating" Arab land from the Jews. Well, there were no "occupied" lands needing liberation. We know that their objective was simply masked-they wanted the Jews gone and for Israel to be eradicated.
What evidence do I have? The PLO Covenant of 1965 declared the existence of Israel null and void, along with the PLO's intention to exterminate the Jewish State; they offered nothing of peace under any conditions. How did the USA respond to a UN member nation being threatened for annihilation? The existing USA leadership chose to remain neutral.
Prior to June 1967, the Golan Heights was in the hands and control of Syria. The Syrians treated the Israelis with a daily bombing and shooting spree, killing many and wounding still more. The Israelis, almost all simply doing farming chores, on their own land, ran for cover every day.
What about Gaza? This was under the control of Egypt-actually Egypt had illegally annexed it after Israel gained statehood status. Yet, Arab murderers regularly crossed into southern Israel and murdered Jews. The Egyptians did little to nothing to stop this.
Finally what about Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem? Jordan controlled these and, you guessed it, Arab murderers often crossed from Jordan into Israel to kill Jews. Jerusalem was special. . The Old City, containing Judaism's holiest shrines, was in the hands of Jordan, an American client. Jordan denied access to Jews wanting to pray at Jewish holy sites. Jordan destroyed Jerusalem's synagogues, uprooted Jewish burial sites and used the tombstones for latrine covers.2
Furthermore, there was no US consulate in the Israeli part of Jerusalem, thus showing a one-sided preference for Arab domination of that city. (Even today, the US Consulate in Jerusalem provides all of its services for Arabs and not for Jews. You are starting to get the picture? Again, please understand that Jordan also had illegally annexed Judea and Samaria aka "the West Bank" in 1950. In spite of all this, the US and the entire Western countries stood idly by and watched the destruction. These accurate facts remain unchallenged.
Put all of this together. Israel became a nation state in 1948. From 1948 until 1967 the Arabs controlled all of the so-called present day "occupied areas". These same Arabs, living on these lands NEVER once asked for the creation of a "Palestinian State." What did they do? They constantly attacked Israelis living within the borders or Israel proper-the world remained sublime to this for the entire 20 years. These same Arabs during this time frame actively called for Israel's destruction. Imagine Mexico attacking citizens in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas for 20 years on a daily basis! Then in June of 1967, Arabs from surrounding countries attacked Israel for the sole purpose of eliminating it.
Now, any intelligent, thinking and authentic person would put two and two together. If we only examined the first 20 years of Israel's state existence, clearly the Arabs upset had NOTHING to do with "occupation"- because it did not exist. The upset was with Jews living in a country called Israel-nothing more or less. Thus, to use the argument that it is the "occupation" that is the root cause of the "Palestinians' problems is utter nonsense and not grounded in fact.
The Arabs lost the war in six days. Their defeat caused a change in strategy. They switched their arguments and after another failure in 1973 the Arabs realized they could not defeat the Israelis militarily. They launched a 40- year plan that has focused upon the victimization of the Palestinian people coupled with an attempt to re-write history as well as re-interpret international documents. They created an internal public relations team that has used the old adage: "repeat a lie often enough and others will think it is true". It has worked well for them and to the detriment of Israel. International pressures and policies are the end result of this deceitful plan. At this moment, we have a Western community of leaders, media outlets and special interest groups that have fallen prey to all the inaccuracies and we are being backed into the corner.
The Israeli governments from the 1970's to the present have never truly and authentically taken on the challenge of public relations and getting out the truth. Their actions in this regard confirm my accusation. I have personally met with and spoken at great lengths with high Israeli officials who "off the record" endorse my statement. The results speak for themselves. In the "peace years of Oslo" in the1990's the government dramatically reduced its PR budgets. During last year's Lebanon War, the person in charge of PR nary made herself visible to the public to counter the lies being told by Hizzbollah. How many times have I been told, "Well, it doesn't matter, the whole world hates us Jews (Israelis)." This justifies in their minds that it is not important to have a PR plan comparable to a military plan. This is incomprehensible negligence of the first order.
The desire for exterminating Israel and requisite actions by Israel's enemies precedes by two decades the concept of illegal occupation as the root cause for all the problems in this area. Clearly, the root cause was and remains the fact that Jews exist in the country of Israel. Of course, the Arabs learned that this did not and would not "play well in Peoria" so they cleverly developed the current "occupation" argument. It does resonate particularly given the quantity and quality of the Arabs' PR campaign. History demonstrates that there is more than one way to defeat an enemy-our military is excellent and we are ready for anyone. To remain negligent is this other arena makes no sense at all! There is still time and we need to get busy.
Notes
1. Staff, Ziegler: Israel is the worst colonial regime, The Palestinian Information Center, Oct. 292. Rachel Neuwirth, "May 1967 A Forward Looking Retrospective", http://www.israelnationalnews.com/, Oct. 14, 2007
3. Maureen Dowd, Op-Ed, NY Times, Oct17, 2007, "Rudy Roughs Up the Arabs".