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Additionally, it must
next accept millions of allegedly "returning" jihadi
Arab refugees raised on murderous Jew-hatred for
decades. Recall that more Jews fled from "Arab"
lands than vice-versa after a half dozen Arab states
attacked a resurrected, microscopic Israel in 1948.
In return, Israel supposedly will get a vague
"normalization"--after giving up all the concrete
tangibles minimally required just to be able to
exist if the Arabs renege for whatever reason they
will surely find.
While I didn't see mention of the returning refugees
in the short, new article mentioned above, recall
that this stipulation was at first played down years
ago as well. Nonetheless, it remains an integral
part of that plan to this very day--one which Abbas
insists he will never retreat from.
The reality, of course, is that this allegedly "new"
Obama initiative is nothing more than the same old
Saudi version of the Arabs' well-known, openly
admitted destruction-in-stages "Trojan Horse"
schemes as described in direct quotes from earlier
Arab "moderates" themselves.
Let's take a stroll down memory lane to see how we
got to where we are today...
At a State Department briefing on January 9, 1992,
spokesperson Margaret Tutwiler was asked about
accepting the word "Palestinian" when referring to
the territories of the West Bank, Gaza, and
Jerusalem. She replied that the U.S. had accepted
this usage since 1979, but that it was for
"descriptive" purposes only...Typical Foggy Folk
gobbledygook.
When later asked, "if it's a long-standing policy,
why wasn't the word 'Palestinian' used in Security
Council Resolution 338...or in 242 which underpins
the current peace process?," Tutwiler replied," I do
not know... I'll be happy to ask somebody for you."
Some five years later, in a May 21, 1997 briefing,
spokesman Nicholas Burns focused on the
"settlements" issue...a harbinger of things to come.
Is it not "interesting" that in numerous State
Department briefings over the decades--and in all
the discussions and elaborations which have ensued
to this very day with the Obama/Clinton foreign
policy team running the American show--the ties
never seem to be made between those settlements and
the spirit and intent of UNSC Resolution 242, the
basis for peace making between Arab and Jew in the
region?
Perhaps a coincidence...most probably, not.
It seems to have taken Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld to remind his State Department counterparts
in an August 6, 2002 speech, "If you have a country
that is a sliver and you can see three sides of it
from a high hotel building, you've got to be careful
what you give away and to whom you give it to."
Much has been written about 242. Some claim it's
ambiguous...It's not.
Adopted in the wake of the June 1967 War, started
when Arabs blockaded Israel at the Straits of Tiran--a
casus belli--and other well-documented hostile acts,
242 is as famous for what it did not say as for what
it did.
As anyone who has studied this subject knows, among
other things (and besides the references above),
there was no mention of a total withdrawal by Israel
to the 1949, U.N.-imposed armistice lines...lines
which were never meant to be final political
borders. This was reinforced by a call for the
creation of "secure and recognized",www.ekurd.netdefensible
borders to replace those lines...lines which turned
Israel into a 9-15 mile wide sub- rump
state--forever at its neighbors' mercy, an easy
target for terror, invasion, and prone to be sliced
in half.
A reading of Lord Caradon, Eugene Rostow, Arthur
Goldberg, and other architects of the final,
accepted draft of 242 (not the French and Russian
version) clearly shows that Israel was not expected
to return to the deadly, absurd status quo ante.
As Ambassador Dore Gold and others have pointed out,
President Lyndon Johnson summarized the situation
this way on June 19, 1967:
" A return to the situation on June 4 (the day
before outbreak of war) was not a prescription for
peace but for renewed hostilities."
Johnson then called for "new recognized boundaries
that would provide security against terror,
destruction, and war. He was then backed up by
General Earle Wheeler of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
and many others as well.
Recall that on the West Bank, Israel took these
lands in a defensive war from an illegal occupant--Transjordan--which
subsequently renamed itself Jordan as a result of
its 1949 illegal acquisition of non-apportioned
lands of the original 1920 Mandate west of the
Jordan River that Jews, as well as Arabs and others,
were legally entitled to live on.
Indeed, Jews have thousands of years of history
connecting them to these lands and owned property
and lived there up until their massacres by Arabs in
the 1920s and 1930s. Additionally, many, if not
most, of the Arabs themselves were also relative
newcomers, pouring in--as the Minutes of the
Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of
Nations, Colonial Secretary and later Prime Minister
Winston Churchill's writings, and other
documentation show--from Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere
in the region.
General Wheeler's document also envisioned Israel
acquiring an adequate buffer zone atop the West Bank
mountain ridge, in command of the high ground,
giving it at least some semblance of in depth
defense.
During President Richard Nixon's term in office,
official U.S. policy seemed to erode somewhat
vis-a-vis Johnson's position. Whether this was due
to Nixon himself or the State Department's Arabists
(who fought President Truman and opposed Israel's
rebirth in the first place) reasserting themselves,
on December 9, 1969 Secretary of State William
Rogers allowed for only "insubstantial alterations"
regarding the 1949 armistice lines. This is echoed
by the Obama White House and the Foggy Folks today.
After having to answer to the late Senator Henry
"Scoop" Jackson and others as well, soon
afterwards--until recently--the U.S. refrained from
such deviation from both the wording and intent of
242.
Moving ahead, and once again utilizing Ambassador
Gold's useful summary, here's what President Ronald
Reagan had to say about all of this on September 1,
1982
:
"In the pre-1967 borders, Israel was barely 10-miles
wide...the bulk of Israel's population within
artillery range of hostile armies. I am not about to
ask Israel to live that way again."
In 1988, Secretary of State George Shultz declared,
"Israel will never negotiate from or return to the
1967 borders." A rare exception to the State
Department's typical attitude, Shultz fought his own
crew to give Israel a fair shake.
In the 1990s, during the Clinton years (despite the
later pressure brought to bear on Prime Minister
Ehud Barak to sweetin' the pot by offering Arafat
far more than 242 called for at Camp David and Taba
in 2000), official policy, as expressed by Secretary
of State Warren Christopher in 1997, was that,
"Israel is entitled to secure and defensible
borders," a la 242. Yet Clinton undermined Israel
from this point forward. While Arafat rejected the
offers, the latter became the expected starting
point for any future "negotiations"... i.e., Jew
arm-twisting.
So, what happened between the days of Reagan and his
latter day successors and son of his vice-president?
From Reagan's 1982 statement that Israel would never
be expected to return to its former vulnerable
existence, we later came to President George W.
Bush's May 26, 2005 White House statement that the
1949 armistice lines must be the basis of peace
between Israel and the 22nd Arab state--second Arab
one in "Palestine"-- which Bush and his new
successor plan to create. Yet, just a year before,
he echoed Reagan himself, stating virtually the
opposite of his May 26th statement in a much
publicized letter he gave to Prime Minister Sharon.
As Rogers and Hammerstein's King of Siam said, "Tis
a puzzlement!"
Indeed.
Yet, there was one constant ingredient that seemed
to have constantly been at work for the erosion of
support for both the vision and the spirit of 242:
James A. Baker, III.
During Bush II's dad's days in office, best pal
Secretary of State Baker promised the butcher of
Damascus, Hafez al-Assad, a total Israeli withdrawal
from the strategically important (and once part of
the original Palestine Mandate) Golan Heights...his
personal idea about what to do with 242.
Baker has been in the background for decades,
especially since his close friends, the Bushes,
gained ascendancy in American politics. His law firm
represents Saudi and other Arab interests in this
country and typifies how people move through the
revolving doors of businesses tied to Arab interests
back and forth into government positions--especially
those in Foggy Bottom. Baker's law partner,www.ekurd.netRobert
Jordan, was appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia by
President Bush in 2001. Casper Weinberger and many
others have been through these lucrative doors as
well. Most often, their influence has spelled
trouble for an Israel trying to get a fair hearing
and has been involved in eroding such positive
developments as Resolution 242 and so forth.
In a Time magazine article back on February 13,
1989, Baker spoke of Israel as being a turkey to be
hunted and carefully stalked. He has referred to
Jews working for him and doing his bidding
(including the recent American Ambassador to Israel)
as his "Jew boys."
But Baker is best known for his following piece of
wisdom: " F _ _ _ the Jews, they don't vote for us
anyway!"
And if you believe that Baker is alone among the
power brokers with these attitudes, I have two
bridges to sell you.
The team running President Obama's current foreign
policy is a Democratic clone of the above when it
comes to such issues. Obama's admiration,
friendship, key appointments, and so forth of the
likes of Farrakhan, Rezko, Prof. Khalidi, Rev.
Wright, Jessie Hymietown Jackson, Zbig Brezinski,
Apartheid Israel Carter, Robert Malley, George Soros,
General McPeak, Khalid al-Mansour, etc. and so forth
have to be beyond the coincidental.
That, indeed, says it all regarding what Israel can
expect from such circles. If you wonder why the
vision of justice in 242 has been replaced by a
constant bickering over settlements instead--never
tying the two together--look no further.
President Bush's winning a second term in office and
his appointment of Baker as his Special Middle East
Envoy combined with the recharged influence of the
State Department's old and new generation Arabists
and the Bush family's massive oil connections to
negate any alleged influence of Evangelical
Christians seeking justice for Israel. And since
Bush II couldn't run again, he had nothing to lose.
Things took a turn for the worse with the election
of President Obama.
Under his watch, and with Hillary Clinton as his
appointed Secretary of State, the assurances
regarding key issues such as the return of refugees
and no withdrawal to the '49 armistice lines that
George W. Bush gave to Prime Minister Sharon several
years back ( in that famous letter which accompanied
the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza) have now either
been denied as even existing or considered as a
joke.
Only time will tell how this will all play out.
But, at this point, Israel will have to depend on
the integrity, courage, and fortitude of its own
leaders, expecting them to act as the leaders of any
other nation faced with the same circumstances would
act.
Only they can insist that Israel gets the justice
Resolution 242 promised it.
And, while it would be nice to have support from
elsewhere, that's the way it should be anyway. Let's
hope Prime Minister Netanyahu is up to the task.
Please
check it out at
http://q4j-middle-east.com The Quest For Justice In The Middle East--The
Arab-Israeli Conflict in Greater Perspective. by
Gerald A. Honigman
Copyright by Gerald A. Honigman. eKurd.net,
January 23, 2010. You may reach the
author via email at: honigman6 (at) msn.com .
Gerald A. Honigman is a Florida educator who has
done extensive doctoral studies in Middle Eastern
Affairs. He has created and conducted counter-Arab
propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured
on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has
publicly debated many Arab spokesmen. His articles
and op-eds have been published in dozens of
newspapers, magazines, academic journals and
websites all around the world. Visit his
website at
http://www.geraldahonigman.com/
-
Articles by
Gerald A. Honigman
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There They Go
Again... 26.2.2010
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Syria . . . Seriously
(Take # 2) 8.2.2010
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President Obama's
Old/New Plan: Resolution To Kill The Resolution
23.1.2010
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Mr. Prime Minister, Make
Your Decision... 11.1.2010
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Apology Not Accepted...
25.12.2009
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How Not To Treat A
Friend... 23.11.2009
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A Proper Response To The
White House Rebuke... 6.9.2009
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Hallelujah...It's About Time! By Gerald A.
Honigman 11.7.2009
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Obama, Settlements, and
the Missing Two-State-Solutions 7.6.2009
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Hamas, Gaza, And The
United Nauseating Nations 26.1.2009
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Kurds, Jews, and Shi’a
shoes 22.12.2008
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Of Kurds and Arabs: beyond
ignorance…The allegedly free press 7.8.2008
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My Friends, Dare To Think
About What The Future Could Be… 2.3.2008
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Hamas, Fatah, & The
Missing Kurdish Dual Track. By Gerald A. Honigman
31.12.2007
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The 1002nd Arabian
Night...By Gerald A. Honigman 4.11.2007
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Turks, Kurds, and Jews. By
Gerald A. Honigman 24.10.2007
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President Bollinger? Keep
Your Promise. By Gerald A. Honigman 24.9.2007
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Imagine For One Moment. By
Gerald A. Honigman 6.9.2007
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Fall Foolishness. By Gerald A. Honigman
20.7.2007
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