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
July
27, 2012
Governor Romney is about to visit Israel during the
increasing heat of this summer's presidential
election season.
While running for office, almost all candidates say
what they feel the voters want to hear. Yet that's
not always the case…unless you also believe that you
can get away with doing the opposite--for one reason
or another.
Case in point…
Among the biggest headaches Israel has with
President Obama is his insistence that Israel return
to its 1949, U.N.-imposed armistice lines which made
it a mere 9 to 15 miles wide at its waist, where
most of its population and infrastructure are
located. Most folks have to travel farther than that
just to go to work or to the shopping mall. Israel
existed this way until the June 1967 Six Day War
(started when Arabs blockaded it at the Straits of
Tiran and Gulf of Aqaba --a casus belli--and other
hostile acts), and those lines did nothing but
constantly tempt Israel's enemies to sever it in
half.
In the wake of that war, as many have frequently
noted, Israel was promised by the architects of the
final draft of the main official guide for
peacemaking, UNSC Resolution 242, that it would
never have to return to those vulnerable armistice
lines. Since I've written extensively about this
myself, I won't pursue this further here. Nothing
more really needs to be added, so please check, for
example,
http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2012/6/article142.htm
to fill in the details.
Besides Israel and the Jewish people's several
thousand year connections (including land ownership
right into the 20th century) to the disputed
territories such as Judea and Samaria (called that
for millennia before British imperialism also named
them the "West Bank" after World War I), Israel had
been promised, via 242, more secure, defensible, and
real borders to replace its previous
Auschwitz/armistice lines. And, again, this is what
the nastiness between Israel, Obama, and the
ever-hostile State Department (which fought
President Truman over Israel's very resurrection in
the first place in 1948) is largely all about.
If Israel is to get the buffer 242 promised, Jews
must be able to live--as they did throughout history
when they were not physically prevented--beyond the
'49 armistice lines. That's what the "settlement"
issue is really all about.
Now, say what you want about President Obama
regarding his approach to this matter, but one thing
is certain. He has been honest and has not waffled.
Many folks--especially Lefty Hebrews--may not have
listened, but he has stuck to his same position for
years now. My own book documents this very carefully
(http://q4j-middle-east.com).
Both Senator and President Obama have repeatedly
stated that Israel would be crazy (his exact words)
to not accept the alleged Saudi Peace (of the grave)
Plan, and one of its main provisions insists that
Israel return to the '49 armistice lines.
Arabs can conquer, forcibly Arabize, and subjugate
scores of millions of non-Arab peoples in what they
subsequently proclaimed to be "purely Arab
patrimony," but how dare Judeans--Jews--return to at
least parts of Judea…or even to east Jerusalem.
Brits can grab the Falkland Islands, over 8,000
miles away from home off the Argentine coast, the
Russians can conquer Chechnya, America can stake
claim to Samoa--but how dare Jews return to Samaria.
And when at least some Israeli leaders have dared to
protest, they have been treated in the most
disrespectful of ways--especially by the Obama
Administration.
For this and some other troubling reasons (like the
Obama folks constantly leaking information
detrimental to Israel's security), Governor Romney
has repeatedly spoken of how Obama has thrown Israel
under the bus.
While the bus saying may be catchy, it's not
specific. And, as is also said, talk is cheap…
The Governor is due to arrive in Israel as Jews
observe one of the most solemn days on their
millennial-old calendar, Tisha B'Av (the 9th of the
Hebrew month of Av). It is the date that both
Temples (which Obama's Arab good buddies deny ever
existed) were destroyed; the second major revolt of
the Jews for their freedom and independence under
the leadership of Shimon Bar Kochba was crushed by
the Emperor Hadrian's forces in 135 C.E. (reported
by the Roman historians themselves); and so forth.
Romney must spell out very clearly how his actual
policies and actions will differ from the man whom
he hopes to convince Jews and others back home in
America to not vote for.
What will President Romney's position be regarding
the promise of UNSC Resolution 242 for Israel to
finally receive real, more secure borders--which
must thus involve a territorial compromise--from the
disputed territories? Will he say one thing now, but
expect another after November?
While Arabs demand recognition and creation of their
22nd state, they still insist that Israel will never
be recognized by them as a State of the Jews. How
will a President Romney handle this issue? It
doesn't bother Obama a bit…The only demands and
pressure he knows how to apply is on Israeli leaders
who don't prostrate themselves low enough to his and
the State Department's demands.
Speaking of the State Department, there's talk of
former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice being a
possible running mate for Romney. She was as nasty
as Hillary and almost as bad as James Baker on these
same and related issues.
So, I have some additional advice (besides some
earlier
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11921
) for Governor Romney as he touches down in the land
of the Jews…
Back in 1998, when President George W. Bush was
still a governor like himself, he visited his friend
Ariel Sharon In Israel. Here's an excerpt from a
December 3, 1998, press release from his office
quoting him:
...was able to learn about security needs.... Hard
to believe, as a Texan, how small Israel is... we're
used to huge spaces.... Just got off the campaign
where I spent nearly everyday in a King Air trying
to get from one stop to the other. Had I gotten on
that same King Air and I took off out of Jerusalem
it would have been no time before I'd be in either
Jordan or in Syria. It's a small country...
important for our host to remind our delegation of
how really small it was, so I got on a helicopter...
flew with foreign minister Ariel Sharon to see
firsthand how small... between enemy lines and
population centers.
It was on this helicopter flight that, according to
his press secretary, Ari Fleischer, Bush also
commented, regarding the tiny strategic waist of
Israel, "In Texas, we have driveways longer than
that."
Perhaps at least partly as a result of this
experience, and despite some later backtracking
under Arab, Big Oil, and State Department pressure,
when Bush became President of the United States and
Prime Minister Sharon unilaterally totally withdrew
from strategic territory in Gaza from which Israel
was repeatedly attacked, at an April 2004 news
conference, Bush took a stand that might yet some
day lead to peace between Jews and Arabs--if only a
new American administration regains the courage
displayed back then.
With millions watching him, President Bush
proclaimed the two key ingredients of such a recipe:
Israel should not be expected to return to
indefensible armistice lines (and he called them
just that, not "borders"); and,
Any and all real or fudged Arab refugees would have
to go to the additional, new Arab state, not
overwhelm Jews in Israel (as Arabs indeed have in
mind). Recall that half of Israel's Jews were
refugees themselves from so-called "Arab" or Muslim
lands.
By the way, another major provision of that Saudi
Peace (of the grave) Plan that Obama insists upon
calls for Israel to be flooded by Arab refugees.
Recall that this is the very plan that Obama says
Israel would be crazy not to accept. Now just
imagine what will happen if he gets re-elected in
2012 and doesn't have to worry about running again?
Returning to more positive thoughts, for Romney to
truly catch what is meant by saying such things as
throwing Israel under the bus, it would be useful
for him (and more convincing for others) for the
Governor to take the same helicopter flight that his
friend President Bush did years earlier.
For anyone who has truly studied Obama, the company
he keeps, his good buddies, key foreign policy
appointees, close advisors, and so forth, unless
one's head is stuck in the sand (which too many
folks' are), there is no doubt that (except at
Hebrew fund-raising time) he is more concerned about
creating a 22nd state for Arabs (and second, not
first,www.ekurd.net
in the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine--Jordan
was carved out of almost 80% of the total area in
1922) than in the security of the sole, minuscule,
reborn nation of the Jews. Such a helicopter ride
will thus have little or no meaning for the current
occupant of the White House.
While Romney is not Obama, to truly be taken
seriously himself, given the rhetoric which normally
accompanies the subject of the Arab-Israeli conflict
during election time, the Governor must flesh out
his nice sayings with concrete positions--ones that
he will stand by after November. If he does this, he
might just awaken enough folks from their
self-imposed slumber to put himself over the top in
what promises to be a close election.
By Gerald A. Honigman for EKurd.net, July 27, 2012. 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/
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."
Copyright © 2012 Ekurd.net.
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