A Peace Summit Sullied

By Tabitha Korol

Arab leaders met in Egypt for the Arab League Summit ostensibly to start a peace process with Israel, the same peace process that the Arabs have, without exception, always declined in the past.  This time, they hope that our new President Trump will support a two-state solution, one that would deliver a border common to Israel and her avowed, homicidal enemy. They also expect to negate Trump’s campaign promise to move America’s embassy to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem, in keeping with the construct of violence that the Mohammedans have scorched into the history of every vanquished territory.

Arab recognition of Israel’s right to exist was part of the 1948 peace plan, yet this is what the Arabs sidestep.  They want a Palestinian state not alongside, but in place of, Israel. Since the Arabs lost their aggressive war of June 1967 against Israel, they have sought to obtain the territory by other means – if not through warfare then through demographic jihad – the overwhelming of the small Jewish State by those who fled in 1948 together with their progeny, a total of 4.3 million.  What do they promise in return?  Nothing.  Not to stop the riots, violence, intifadas.  Not to stop teaching hate in their schools.  Not to strive for real peace with their neighbor state, Israel. Ever.

Meanwhile, an Islamic State (IS) jihadist, Abu Baker Almaqdesi, revealed their “big operation” to encircle Israel’s borders, and attack and expel the Jews from “occupied Palestine.” Concurrently, the Jerusalem Post reported that UNESCO is considering a resolution that will contest Israel’s sovereignty over western Jerusalem, home to all of Israel’s governing bodies.

Washington Post reporter and Cairo bureau chief Sudarsan Raghavan wrote about the Arab League Summit on March 29, in his article, “In a message to Trump, Arab leaders renew calls for a Palestinian state,” but strategically omitted crucial information!  He stated that the Arab League called for fresh peace talks with reconciliation if Israel returns the “Arab lands it has occupied,” but the premise is completely fallacious.  The territories to which he refers, the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and eastern Jerusalem are not “Arab lands” or Palestinian lands at all, but the Jewish state of Israel, created out of the Ottoman Empire in a peaceful, legal process by the United Nations.  Israel was defined by the binding San Remo Resolution, and approved unanimously and signed by the League of Nations on April 25, 1920, and never abrogated.  The Resolution recognized the exclusive national Jewish rights to the land under international law, and the San Remo Conference gave Title to the land of the Jewish people.

In opposition, rulers of eight Arab countries initiated their war against the nascent state of Israel in 1948, lost and refused to sign a peace treaty; they would maintain a state of war and a refugee problem for world sympathy and future onslaught. The Arab states launched another aggressive war in 1967, resulting in Israel’s acquisition of Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank, resulting in the highest standard of living for any Arab country (with the exception of oil states), but diminished once again under PLO rule.

The United Nations defines an act of aggression as being in contravention of the UN Charter, ruling that a war of aggression is always wrong, and resultant acquisition of land by the aggressor is always unlawful, yet the Palestinians continue the dispute by other means, another form of Islamic jihad.  Raghavan has not the authority to exchange the designations of ‘disputed territories’ for ‘occupied Arab lands.”  Repeating the assertion does not bestow validity.

The Jews have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years; if not for foreign conquerors, an independent Jewish state would, today, be 3,000 years old.  Even after Jewish exile, small Jewish communities remained for 2,000 years, and in the early 20^th century, returning Jews developed the land from a largely uninhabited wasteland with malarial swamps into a thriving, dynamic, productive society, recognized by legal documents.  Only then did the Arabs begin to show an interest in the land.  There has never been an independent Palestinian state; the allegations are yet another warfare strategy.

By design, Raghayan does not clarify that Israel’s control of these disputed areas came from fighting and winning a defensive war; the Arabs were the aggressors. For example, after Germany’s defeat in World War I, the Treaty of Versailles placed punitive conditions on Germany, with significant financial reparations, loss of territory, humiliation and war guilt, yet the Arabs, despite their aggression and loss, are permitted to demand territory!  Further, had Jordan not joined the war, it would not have lost the West Bank or eastern Jerusalem – over which it reigned for a mere 19 years. As the victorious defenders, Israel has no obligation to withdraw to the 1967 borders, to negotiate and offer compromises, particularly as the Palestinians continue their terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli citizens.

Jordan’s King Abdullah has repeatedly blamed the region’s instability on the Palestinian cause, yet history confirms that the Middle East has, to this day, suffered from 7^th century backwardness, ignorance, countless civil wars, sharia law’s brutality, and the rise of ISIS, none of which are related to Israel.  The King’s focus on the Palestinian issue in the midst of so much internal strife in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, is undoubtedly calculated to give the White House a false impression of Arab unity and agreement.

Raghavan’s article suggests that Israel is inflexible, but Israel offered the Palestinians a contiguous state, withdrawal from 95% of the West Bank and 100% of Gaza, and to dismantle more than 100 of her own communities.  Israel had also offered religious sovereignty over the Temple Mount and a right of refugee return with reparations, yet the Arabs rejected negotiations in 2000, 2001, and 2008.  Neither does the bureau chief address Israel’s very legitimate security concerns.

If Israel were to cede the Golan Heights, it would give ISIS the elevation advantage to shell Israeli citizens below and attack Tel Aviv and Israel’s major airport with impunity.  In the past, Israeli children had been forced to sleep in bomb shelters.  The Palestinian Authority was supposed to renounce terror and prohibit lethal weapons and violence on Israel, yet they give access to shiploads of explosives to arm the P.L.O. and Hamas, and continue their classes and summer camps, where they indoctrinate the Palestinian public and children to seek martyrdom by killing Israelis.  Their teachings violate the letter and spirit of the peace agreements.  They continue to be deadly partners for peace.

Meanwhile, President Trump’s campaign promise of relocating the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is on hold.  As with all ideas repugnant to Islam, the proposal is countered with threats of anger and violence.  The Koran contains at least 109 versus that call Muslims to war for the sake of Islamic rule.  Mohammed’s own martial legacy against all of “Infideldom” and the Koran’s stress of violence continue their trail of misery and death across 14 centuries of world history.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said a two-state solution was the “only path to ensure [that] Palestinians and Israelis can realize their national aspirations and live in peace, security and dignity.”

Regrettably, he has no concept of their true national aspiration.  If we learned anything from Islamic history, it is that a partial conquest today means another claim for tomorrow, until Israel is dedicated to Allah.  Because despite the Arab infighting, all factions of Islam agree on one thing – that Israel – and the West – have no right to exist.