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.
Read more by the Author
June
10, 2012
As many have already noted, June 5th through 10th of
this year marks the forty-fifth anniversary of the
Six Day War. Up until then, Arabs had refused to
accept an Israel that was a mere 9-15 miles wide via
the 1949 armistice lines. For some perspective, many
people travel farther just to go to work or for a
visit to the shopping mall. Indeed, President George
W. Bush stated that Texas had driveways larger than
that.
Israel is the problem--not its size. As I like to
suggest, find it on a world globe without a
magnifying glass…I dare you.
Armistice lines are not borders. They merely mark
where fighting officially stops in wars. Those in
question here designated where fighting ceased after
the invasion of Israel by a half dozen Arab nations
in 1948. The U.N. did nothing to halt that blatant
aggression, but jumped in only after Jews turned the
tide to limit Arab losses.
Recall that from 1949 to 1967, Arabs controlled Gaza
and the West Bank, and no one demanded a second Arab
state in the original April 25, 1920 Mandate of
Palestine’s territory at that time. Jordan was
created in 1922 from almost 80 percent of the area,
a gift from British imperialist shenanigans. So much
for the Arab claim that Jews got most of Palestine.
Having been (once again) blockaded by Egypt at the
Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba (a casus
belli); witnessing over 100,000 Egyptian troops,
tanks, and so forth amassed on the armistice line
after Egypt ordered the U.N. peacekeeping force out
of the area; and subjected to other hostile acts as
well, a beleaguered Israel desperately struck out to
cancel Arab plans for another Holocaust. In six days
in June 1967, it was over…at least temporarily. I
have a large cooler filled with original newspaper
articles from those frightening days--pictures of
tens of thousands of Arabs calling for Israel's
destruction, the massacre of Jews, and so forth.
In this current analysis, however, my intent is not
to rehash this amazing story of survival. There's
plenty of great material--including
videos--available on the Internet and elsewhere. At
the time, however, no one knew how things would turn
out.
What I am going to try to do is provide you, dear
readers, with perhaps the most important outcome of
that war…the determination of what Israel's final,
real political borders will be. And, after all,
that's what the settlements and building freeze
issues and the Obama White House and State
Department tizzy fits are largely all about. Let's
get started…
President Obama and his crew constantly declare that
his approach to Jews living beyond those suicidal
'49 armistice lines referred to above (where most of
Israel's population and infrastructure are
concentrated)--the so-called "settlements issue"--
is the same policy as that of the American leaders
who preceded him.
There is no nice way of responding to that
assertion. The cost of allowing this to go
unabashedly unchallenged is potentially too great.
Simply put, the President is either deliberately
telling a falsehood or is accepting the falsehoods
of advisers--from his many Arab friends, the forever
hostile towards Israel State Department (and its
allies in petro-dollar-addicted industries), and/or
elsewhere.
Truth be told, what President Obama demands of
Israel amid the daily turmoil, massacres, and
uncertainty coming out of the despotic neighborhood
in which it lives is exactly what the architects of
the final draft of UNSC Resolution 242--the main
guideline for post-'67 peacemaking between Arab and
Jew in the region--sought to avoid.
Furthermore, contrary to Obama's claims, American
leaders such as Johnson, Reagan, Schultz, and others
understood this as well…as did the very leader who
immediately preceded Obama in office, President
George W. Bush.
While it's true that Obama can point to the pressure
exerted by his now good buddy, Bill Clinton, on
Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Barak back in 2000 at
Camp David and Taba to cave in to Arafat on several
key issues (including abandoning the reasonable
territorial compromise envisioned by 242 and counter
to the earlier statements of American leaders),www.ekurd.net
Arafat turned down that offer--so Israel was/is
under no obligation to stick by it. Besides the more
honest Hamasniks, Mahmoud Abbas and his latter day
Arafatians in suits reject peace for similar
reasons. Like their deceased leader, the "peace"
they seek also involves the destruction of the sole
state of the Jews..
Ehud Barak, now Israel's Defense Minister, comes
from the far Left in Israeli politics, and like
others of his ilk such as Shimon Perez, still
believes that if only Israel will keep on baring the
necks of its kids further and further to those who
won't accept it anyway, the Jews will finally gain
peace. He's right--the peace of the grave.
Clinton got him to play ball in 2000--and that
precedent now haunts Israel today with Obama's
claims. While Israel would have retained a very
small portion of the actual territory which a
reasonable compromise, providing for more secure,
defensible borders (a la 242), envisioned, Barak's
concession was dangerously foolish--no matter how
much his arm may have been twisted (and in his case,
probably not much). An abandonment of some 96% of
the territories in Judea and Samaria does not an
effective compromise make.
By the way, in addition to providing Obama with an
earlier lesson in how to get Jews to forsake the
justice (in the form of real, more secure borders)
finally promised to them via UNSC Resolution 242,
among other things, Clinton had hosted Arafat to his
White House numerous times. Scores of millions of
dollars soon came to Clinton after he left the White
House via grateful Arabs in support of his
presidential library, foundation, and so forth. It
pays handsomely to shaft the Jews. But, I've jumped
ahead--so let's backtrack a bit…
Soon after the '67 War, the architects of the final
draft of 242 studied the conflict very studiously
and arrived at (for a frequently hostile and
duplicitous UN dealing with Israel, that is) a rare,
balanced decision.
While Israel was not simply granted the right to
annex the conquered territories from which it had
been repeatedly attacked (other nations--including
America--had indeed acquired lands that way or for
even less compelling reasons), it was also not
expected to return to the absurd status quo ante
either.
Furthermore, as has been repeatedly discussed, not
only was Israel not expected to withdraw from all or
the territories, but it would not have to withdraw
from any territories at all until real treaties of
peace--not hudna ceasefires-- were signed.
Obama pretends that none of this matters. Nor does
the fact that all the hard, tangible, territorial,
and other concessions Israel made for the few peace
treaties it does have are now in grave danger as a
result of the ascendancy of folks like the Muslim
Brotherhood in the wake of the so-called "Arab
Spring."
Now, please state aloud the following words very
slowly and carefully…
There will be no peace if Israel is forced to return
to the indefensible Auschwitz/armistice lines which
only invited renewed aggression in the past. The
latter simply invited an extremely exposed Israel to
be bisected at its mid section. 242's envisioned
territorial compromise is therefore a must--yet that
is precisely what President Obama now insists that
Israel forsake for his updated 1938 Chamberlain and
Munich vision of "peace for our time."
This issue is so paramount that a bit more detail
and substance is in order…
Most of the remaining territories in question
(Israel has already completely returned Sinai and
Gaza) are in Judea and Samaria (aka the "West Bank"
only since 20th century British imperialism renamed
them to distinguish the area from Transjordan,
created on the east bank of the Jordan River). They
were non-apportioned territories where all the
original 1920 Mandate of Palestine’s people--not
just Arabs (most of whom were newcomers
themselves)--were allowed to live. That Arabs claim
otherwise is no shock. Despite the presence of
scores of millions of various subjugated non-Arab
peoples, Arabs simply refer to the entire region as
"purely Arab patrimony."
The land Israel took in a defensive war in Judea and
Samaria, after first being shelled by Jordan in its
collaboration with Egypt and Syria in 1967, had been
itself illegally occupied by (Trans)Jordan in its
assault against a newly-reborn Israel in 1948. The
paragraph above and this fact nullify any claims
that Jews are simply "illegal occupiers." Judea was
never supposed to be Judenrein. And Jews owned land
and lived there until they were massacred by Arabs
in the early 20th century.
Furthermore, for a Brit fighting a war 8,000 miles
from home in the name of sovereignty of islands off
the Argentine coast; for America staking claims in
American Samoa, Guam, and elsewhere; for Russians
conquering Chechnya and numerous other lands in the
name of its national interests; etc. and so forth,
the mere thought of these same would-be sources of
ethical enlightenment demanding that Jews remain in
their 9-15 mile-wide, '49 armistice line sardine can
of a state and refrain from living in adjacent areas
(including East Jerusalem, where the Western Wall
and Temple Mount sit) to which history has tied them
for thousands of years would be funny if not so
grotesquely unfair. (What a run-on sentence that
was…sorry!)
With signs that some Jewish support may be slipping
(he got 78% last time around), President Obama has
increased the pace of his claims that his policies
towards Israel are not new.
One earlier article back on May 23, 2011 was titled,
"Obama: Mideast Policy Not New."
But, as we've already seen, 242--the main guide for
peacemaking since 1967--calls for Israel to finally
receive real, more secure borders to replace those
very armistice lines Obama insists Israel return to.
Recall that all the architects of 242 realized that
Israel could never return to the way things
were--which had only invited repeated attacks.
While some of us have written of these things often
in the past, President Obama and those supporting
his positions are relentless in repeating them again
and again. Those who disagree are thus forced to
revisit the issue themselves as well. So, please
forgive me…
Here’s Britain’s Lord Caradon, the chief architect
of the final, accepted draft of 242:
It would have been wrong to demand Israel return to
positions of June 4, 1967 … those positions were …
artificial … just places where soldiers of each side
happened to be on the day fighting stopped in 1948 …
just armistice lines. That’s why we didn’t demand
Israelis return to them...
Contrary to Obama’s claims regarding his intense
pressure on Israel, earlier American leaders
supported Lord Caradon's position and the need for
Israel to get a meaningful territorial compromise as
a result of any peacemaking deals with Arabs who
repeatedly sought its destruction..
Here’s President Lyndon Johnson on June 19, 1967,
soon after the war ended…
A return to the situation on June 4 (the day before
hostilities) 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."
President Ronald Reagan stated this on Sept. 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’m not about to
ask Israel to live that way again.
And more recently, President George W. Bush, gave
Israel an official letter upon its withdrawal from
Gaza which also promised that it would not be
expected to return to the 1949 armistice lines (and
he called them just that--not borders).
Now, the State Department opposed Israel’s rebirth
from the get-go and has since mostly fought against
it becoming anything more than the ghetto of a state
that it was left as via the 1949 lines--which the
President says Israel must return to. While Obama
later added the possibility of some possible
trade-offs, Israel would still be left with
extremely vulnerable borders. 242 did not speak of
such land swaps. Its authors knew, given the
perpetual hostility of its neighbors, that Israel
could not return to its former existence as a mere
zipper of a state.
Despite some word games now being played by both the
President and his defenders, Obama is simply wrong
to imply that his demand that Israel once again
become an indefensible, sub-rump state so that a
22nd Arab nation--and second, not first, in the
original 1920 Mandate of Palestine-- can arise does
not represent a significant change in American
policy. He fools only those who allow themselves to
be fooled.
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/
Gerald A. Honigman, a longtime contributing writer
and columnist
for ekurd.net. Honigman has published a major book,
"The
Quest For Justice In The Middle East--The
Arab-Israeli Conflict In Greater Perspective."
By Gerald A. Honigman for EKurd.net, June 10, 2012. You may reach the
author via email at: honigman6 (at) msn.com.
Copyright © 2012 ekurd.net.
All rights reserved
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