They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. They also say denial is not just a river in Egypt. They also say if we don’t learn from history we are bound to repeat the same mistakes. As I was cleaning out some drawers this morning during my summer vacation, I came across an old newspaper from August 17, 2005, exactly nine years ago. As I looked at the front cover of the newspaper, there was a big picture of anguished settlers being confronted by Israeli troops under the orders of then-premier Ariel Sharon to withdraw these peaceful and productive Jewish families from Gaza. I still remember that day: surreal and bizarre and so sad. I remember crying as I watched the strange images on television of Jews being forced from their homes. The project was called the Disengagement Plan. Funny how we try to sanitize evil actions with fancy titles.
That infamous day will always be marked with tragedy and grief, as that was the day the Israeli government carried out one of the most perfidious acts in history, agreeing to appease the world by dragging 10,000 Jewish men, women, and children from their homes, synagogues, schools, and businesses and hand it over to the so-called Palestinians for their new state. Jews who have always been hated but desperately desire to be loved by the masses, agreed to this bizarre, racist, and immoral deal. The fact that both the Fatah and Hamas charters call for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people made no difference. The “peace process” was set into motion back in 1993, and the process needed to go forward. It didn’t matter whether you were a Democrat or Republican in the White House. Clinton, Bush, and Obama, together with the European Union, had decided this sham must go on, even if it meant Israel’s slow destruction and loss of its sovereignty. Even though thousands of Jews were brutally killed or injured by the Palestinians between 1993 and 2005, the process had to go on for the sake of “peace.”
It didn’t matter that the billions of dollars of aid that was sent to the so-called Palestinian people was squandered by their corrupt leaders. It didn’t matter that the glorification of terrorists continued in the so-called Palestinian territories. It didn’t matter that Palestinian children continued to be brought up on a diet of Jew hatred in their schools and camps. It didn’t matter that the Palestinian media was filled with Nazi-like propaganda when it came to the Jews and Israel. It didn’t matter that Abbas refused to agree to call Israel a Jewish state. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that the “peace process” had to continue.
And how did the Palestinians react to this morally sick gesture of good will by the Israeli government? Well, we all know history. Within two days of making Gaza Judenrein, the Palestinians proceeded to do what they do best. They torched the beautiful synagogues, schools, and greenhouse businesses that were left for them. For several days after the pull out, they engaged in an orgy of rioting, looting, and destruction. Then, in 2006, the Palestinian people voted in Hamas during the elections. It still didn’t matter. Everyone continued to pretend and ignore the inevitable. Billions of dollars of aid continued to flow from the U.S. and Europe. Even Israel turned the other cheek as both the Fatah and Hamas Palestinians built up a 600 million dollar electricity bill debt that is yet to be paid. And of course, let’s not forget how, in the past eight years since, Israel has had to periodically enter the Gaza territory to get rid of some of the terror networks, only to pull out again and have the Palestinians rebuild their terror tunnels time and time again.
During the past nine years, as everyone was pretending that peace and a two-state solution was just a process away, the Jew and Israel hatred among the Palestinian people continued and culminated in a unity government between Fatah and Hamas, in the spring of 2014. Only now, the terror state that was created back in 2005 is a lot more dangerous, because the Middle East has gotten a lot more dangerous. This has resulted in groups like Al Qeada and ISIS being entrenched on Israel’s border as well. All in all, it is a mess. Hitler must be dancing in his grave.
This time, Binyamin Netanyahu says he really means to get rid of the Hamas terror network in Gaza once and for all with his latest Operation Protective Edge. But already, even as the dead bodies on both sides continue to rise, there is talk of a ceasefire. At the same time, Obama and others are encouraging Israel to stop the fighting, so the Israeli government can come back to the table to put the final finishing touches on the two-state solution. But now, everyone is pretending that once Israel gets Hamas under control (sort of), things will be better. The sham continues. Fatah and Hamas have the same goal.
Actually, if people want to stop the charade, they may want to start by first debunking two central myths about the Middle East. As journalist Joseph Farah writes so articulately and with such moral clarity, the first myth is that the conflict in the Middle East today is about the struggle for a Palestinian state, because Palestinian Arabs were displaced by the creation of Israel and the world is now responsible to assist in the establishment of a Palestinian homeland. However, it is important to realize that the Palestinians are not a distinct people; there is no Palestinian culture or language separate from that of the Arabs. Further, there has never been a Palestinian state governed by Palestinians in history, nor was there ever a Palestinian national movement until after the 1967 Six-Day War when Israel seized Judea and Samaria. The Palestinian national movement has one primary goal: to destroy Israel and create a Palestinian state to supplant it. The second myth, says Mr. Farah, deals with the issue of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. The myth is that Jerusalem is really an Arab city and the Temple Mount is the third holiest site in Islam and a central focus of Islam. The truth is that the Palestinians expressed very limited interest in the Temple Mount before 1967. Further, Jerusalem has always been a city with a substantial Jewish population, even during the period of Ottoman rule, 1517 to 1917.
It is time to stop this myth of the Palestinian claim to Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem. Palestine is merely the name the Romans gave the country when they were determined to obliterate the presence of the Jewish people there. It comes from the Plishtim people, implacable enemy of the Jews. In addition, according to the Koran, Palestine has no significance in the Muslim religion. Muslims at prayer face Mecca, not Jerusalem. On the other hand the Temple Mount is considered the holiest Jewish site, as mentioned in the Bible. It is also the place where the first and second Temple were built and where masses of Jews prayed daily long before there was a Muslim religion or even an Arab people.
With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, in 1918, Britain and France were handed five million square miles to divvy up, and 99 percent of that was given to the Arabs to create countries that did not exist previously. The tiny bit that was left was given to the Jews to reestablish their Jewish State on both banks of the Jordan River. However, in 1921, even that was truncated as the British carved up the Jewish land once again, giving three-quarters of it as a gift to the Arabs to create TransJordan.
It is a moral outrage for the world to continue to accuse tiny Israel of stealing the land from the fictitious Palestinian people. It is a bigger outrage that Israeli leaders have enabled this myth to happen. If you look at any map, and you will see that the Arabs have a vast territory of land, with 22 countries of their own, compared to the tiny sliver of land that is Israel. Actually, very few Arabs were interested in living in Israel until the Jews turned it into a virtual paradise. (There is a reason one of the 10 Commandments is “Thou shalt not covet….” The Arabs were not interested in Gaza either until the Jews transformed that desert area into a paradise as well. In fact, until the toxic Oslo agreement, Jews for the most part got along with their Arab neighbors and provided them with opportunities for employment to support their families.
Goebbels, Hitler’s propagandist, said that if you tell a lie often enough, people will believe it. Well the Arabs have been using falsified history as their main political weapon when it comes to Israel, and unfortunately the rest of the world is willing to let these lies flourish for various reasons – whether because of Jew hatred or just plain ignorance!
It is time to tell it like it is. The peace process agreement was a pernicious deal that negatively impacted Israel’s sovereignty, including giving up many historical connections to the land, freeing thousands of terrorists, arming them with thousands of weapons, and allowing a terror state to be created in Gaza! The eviction of the Jews from the Sinai, back in the seventies, resulted in a hotbed of terrorism there. The eviction of the Jews from Gaza has resulted in a terror state there. Both Fatah and Hamas are unified in their goal of seeking the destruction of Israel and the Jews. Any further attempts to move this two state solution forward will unfortunately, G-d forbid, mean the final solution for the Jewish people. The handwriting is on the wall. Those who naively promoted this fraudulent deal in the past should have known better. However, those who continue to support this deal now, in spite of all the facts on the ground, are no friends of Israel and the Jewish people. In fact they are enablers of terror!
Israel embraced and accepted nearly one million Jewish refugees from hostile Arab countries during the past century. It is time for the Arab world with all its vast territory and resources to offer a home for their fellow Arabs. Those that want to live peacefully in Israel may do so. However, those who promote terror and mayhem – it is time for them to leave.
