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At
press conferences and other public presentations,
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other State
Department spokesmen increasingly emphasize the need
for the emergence of a viable, contiguous
Palestinian state. They do this with full knowledge
that in order to accomplish this, the security of
the sole, tiny state of the Jews must indeed be
seriously compromised. And they do this also knowing
full well that U.N. Security Council Resolution 242,
passed in the aftermath of the June '67 War,
promised that Israel's rump state status would at
long last be addressed with the creation of secure
and recognized borders to replace its vulnerable
1949 armistice lines.
Most of the settlements Israel established on the
disputed -- not purely Arab -- lands (where Jews
have thousands of years of history and owned
property until they were massacred by Arabs in the
1920s and '30s) were set up in the very areas Israel
would need to create the buffers envisioned by
242... the very same buffers now deliberately being
ignored by Rice and her crew.
I earlier had thought that the good doctor knew
better and had what it took to resist the
traditional anti-Israel bias of most of her foggy
colleagues. Unfortunately, it looks like I was
wrong. And it looks like Dubya flipflopped here as
well. He seems to be singing a far different tune
than before his last re-election campaign. Think
about his April 2004, well-publicized statement, for
example, about Israel not having to return to its
1949 armistice line existence... his own words, not
mine. Now contrast that with his statement a year
later in which he claimed that Israel must get
permission from Arabs for any deviation from those
lines. The latter don't accept a 9-mile wide Israel,
let alone anything bigger.
Yet, both President Bush and former Secretary of
State Powell stressed these same issues at earlier
roadmap summits: the emerging 22nd Arab state --
second, not first, Arab one to be created within the
borders of mandatory Palestine as Britain received
it on April 25, 1920 -- was to be no bantustan. The
Brits created the first one, (Trans)Jordan, on the
lion's share (some 80% of the total area) in 1922.
So much for the Arab claim that the Jews got all of
Palestine.
Many have repeated these same points in voicing
concerns that Israel's security fence, for example
(being built to keep Arabs from deliberately blowing
up Jewish innocents), does not exactly follow the
"green line" which demarcated Israel's pre-'67,
9-mile wide armistice line existence. The original
"Bantustan" was a disconnected entity created for
blacks under the apartheid regime in South Africa
and no substitute for a real state.
Before we proceed any further, it would be most
useful to first find a regional map of the Middle
East and North Africa. Next, try to find Israel
without the aid of a magnifying glass. If you only
have access to a map of the world, better switch to
a microscope... Get the picture?
All people should be able to live in dignity, and
this rule applies to Jews also. This, unfortunately,
proved often to be impossible both in the Christian
West, where Jews were considered to be the deicide
people (and treated accordingly), as well as in the
Muslim East, where they were considered to be kilab
yahud -- "Jew dog" -- killers of prophets. Hence the
necessity of the rebirth of Israel on less than one
half of one percent of the territory of the Middle
East and North Africa.
In creating those "Arab" states on over six million
square miles of territory, millions of non-Arabs --
Berbers, Copts, Kurds, Black Africans, Jews, and
others as well -- were conquered and forcibly
Arabized, often having their own native cultures and
languages outlawed, suppressed, and so forth.
Indeed, it's instructive (in a sickening way) to see
how Rice and Co. have treated another people's quest
for justice in the region... some 30 million truly
stateless, non-Arab Kurds.
The one best chance this people had at independence
was sacrificed on the altar of British petroleum
politics and Arab nationalism after World War I. A
promised Kurdistan was aborted in Mesopotamia so not
to anger Arab nationalism. Arab Iraq emerged
instead, and the Kurds have been perennially
victimized and massacred ever since. Yet, the
moralists at Foggy Bottom and elsewhere -- while
forcing the issue of a rejectionist Palestinian Arab
State in Israel's very backyard -- will hear nothing
of a roadmap for Kurdistan.
As National Security Advisor, Dr. Rice spoke at the
U.S. Institute of Peace on August 19, 2004. Some of
what she said was morally indefensible... real
politik at its worst.
While she was delivering words of wisdom regarding
the necessity of creating that 22nd state for Arabs
at the Institute of Peace, she totally shot down
questions relating to Kurdish fears, anxieties, and
aspirations in Iraq. Things have gotten even worse
since then, and Arabs of any stripe -- be they Shi'a
or Sunni -- have no long term intention of granting
Kurds (or any other non-Arabs) the equality and
security they seek. Here's some of what Rice had to
say, however, about Arab aspirations:
"The President believes that the Palestinian people
deserve not merely their own state, but a just and
democratic state that serves their interests and
fulfills their decent aspirations."
Despite the non-stop bloodshed and turmoil in the
Arab areas of Iraq; despite the fact that hundreds
of thousands of Kurds have been killed by Iraqi and
other Arabs over the decades; despite the fact that
the Kurds have been marked as traitors because of
their close ties to America; despite the fact that
the most stable and democratic areas in Iraq are
undoubtedly in the Kurdish areas... indeed, despite
all of this and more, Rice simply brushed off a
question regarding a Kurdish referendum on
independence (which showed that at least 80% of the
Kurds wanted this) with the following disdain:
"...It's the role of leadership to convince people
that they really ought to stay in the same body."
A sickening disgrace. America can and should do
better than this. Did she council a post-Tito
Yugoslavia to remain as one?
Keep this "justice for Arabs only" mentality in mind
as we return to the issue of bantustan and the
creation of yet another state for Arabs.
Are there local differences between Arabs which
warrant all of this attention and real estate?
Sure... like there are differences between North
Carolinians and New Yorkers.
But just as Jews didn't ask for dozens of different
states because their people came from dozens of
different countries (including Jews whose families
never left the land of Israel since the Roman wars
and one half of Israel's Jews who were refugees from
so-called "Arab" lands), justice does not demand
dozens of states for Arabs at the expense of one for
Jews, Kurds, Berbers, Black African Sudanese, or
others as well. Yet that is precisely what Arabs
expect. Indeed, that sums up the Arab-Israeli
conflict in a nutshell.
Keep in mind that after already receiving some 80%
of Palestine in 1922, Arabs next rejected the 1947
partition plan which would have divided the 20% of
the Mandate left roughly in half... so the Jews
would have wound up with about 10% of the original
area.
Then, as now, for most Arabs, it's not how big
Israel is that's at the crux of the issue... it's
that Israel is that poses the problem. And it still
does, even with the emergence of the so-called
"moderate," Mahmoud Abbas. The new Palestinian Arab
leader ran on a platform of Israel's destruction...
but by "other" means.
So, Mr. Bush and his two Secretaries of State's
comments have been largely misdirected.
It's not Jews who rejected fair and honorable
solutions over the decades. And similar compromise
partitions and such between competing national
movements elsewhere have not been uncommon,
involving population exchanges, and the like. The
one which created Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan at
the same time Arabs rejected the 1947 partition plan
for Palestine especially comes to mind.
Israelis have no desire to rule over several million
Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza. But they also don't
want a good cop/bad cop, Arafatian/Hamas state set
up in their backyards which only temporarily allows
quiet to further its still retained "destruction in
stages" goals. The so-called Arab moderates Israel
has been forced to deal with by its "friends" openly
call any dealings with the Jews a "Trojan Horse."
Would Condy accept such "peace partners" for
America?
Abbas and the P.A. offer a temporary ceasefire -- a
hudna -- not peace -- to their Jewish neighbors,
designed merely to strengthen their own position.
That ceasefire has been broken by the Arabs numerous
times. And as soon as the Jews don't cave in to all
that they demand, they threaten to unleash even more
terror.
Both Abbas and the other Abu -- Ahmed Qureia -- now
running the show are on record refusing to recognize
Israel as a Jewish State. Their openly admitted
intent is to insist on Israel being swamped by
millions of "returning" real or fudged Arab
refugees. Again, half of Israel's Jews were refugees
from "Arab"/Muslim lands... but without some two
dozen other states to call their own.
Now, let's face some obvious, if politically
incorrect, facts.
There really is no room in that miniscule space
between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River
for another state. Again, please look at a map. But
if the world insists that yet another Arab state
indeed pop up there -- in addition to the one Arabs
already have east of the Jordan River on some 80% of
the original Palestinian Mandate, Jordan -- then its
birth must cause Israel the least amount of risk as
possible. And there will still be, undoubtedly,
plenty of risk, regardless.
More than lip service is required to grant an
extremely vulnerable Israel the security any other
nation would demand. Yet Condy & Co. seem intent on
not allowing the Jewish State anything more. Day
after day there are only more and more statements
about what the next unilateral Israeli concessions
must be after the retreat from Gaza.
Think about this a bit... What other nation would
permit the emergence of a state openly committed to
its destruction to be set up a stone's throw away
from its kids... in Israel's case, those very same
kids Arabs repeatedly deliberately target?
So, this means that Arabs should not be able to get
all that they demand in the disputed territories.
That's what's meant by "compromise." And that
compromise must have a territorial component to
it... whether Rice and the rest of the world's
hypocrites and practitioners of the double standard
like it or not.
America toppled Noriega in Panama thousands of miles
away from home in the name of its national security
interests. Likewise, the British fought the
Falklands War off the coast of Argentina... and the
list goes on. For Israel's minimal security needs to
be addressed, this means that the additional Arab
state that the world insists upon -- while telling
those thirty million truly stateless, endangered,
used, and abused Kurds that they are still
undeserving of one -- cannot be very large and will
have to have some restrictions placed upon it.
The contiguity, conveniences, and such of that 22nd
Arab state must not come at the expense of the
security of the sole, miniscule state of the Jews.
And that's the missing half of all of those
statements about viability and bantustan that those
of us who care about the long-term health of Israel,
worry about.
While a reasonable territorial compromise a la
Resolution 242 is in order, a unilateral retreat
forced upon Israel to the '49 Auschwitz/armistice
lines by its friends a la Munich 1938, is not.
Views expressed by the author do not necessarily
reflect those of israelinsider.
www.israelinsider.com
Gerald A. Honigman is a contributing writer
for Jewish Xpress Magazine, a monthly publication
based in southern Florida.
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