By Ted Belman (5/2/03)
What box is that? You might ask.
The one imposed on Israel by the world including the US. Restrain yourself until we can work out a settlement where you get out of the occupied territories and agree to borders roughly along the green line. Never mind that your people are being killed and demonized and that your economy is being greatly weakened. Never mind that the Arabs will never accept you and will plot to destroy you. That box.
If you ask any Jew or supporter of Israel, if Israel could have any solution it wants, what should it be? We would all answer Israel’s eastern border will coincide with the Jordanian border and that All Arabs within the state of Israel be relocated. Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan.
After all we won it fair and square in a defensive war. It is ours. We need it for growth. We need to be in control of our water resources. We need the high ground for defensive purposes. Our biblical roots are there.
Our fight is with the Arabs, not the “Palestiniansâ€. We are not trying to work out a border between Israel and the Palestinians but Israel and the other Arab countries. They already have 22 countries and more land and wealth then they know what to do with. The Arabs within these borders can easily be absorbed on these lands with their wealth. These countries should be responsible to absorb them. After all they started the wars that created them. Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan represents maybe 4% of the total land area.
Israel must make its demands known and show the courage and passion to fight for them.
We will not be alone. The American people will be with us. The debate should shift from where the borders will be to how to get rid of the Arabs within them. Many Road Maps can be drawn up that explore that issue from the extreme of forcible transfer to the balm of inducement to resettle. Or a combination of both. Don’t worry; forcible transfer was approved by the world when Israel forcibly transferred Jews out of the Sinai. Forcible transfer is now intended for the Jews in the territories as soon as the ’67 borders are forced upon us. So if the borders are to be the Jordan River, then it will be the Arabs who will be transferred.
Now let us assume that the Arabs will be mad at us or calling for our death and destruction. We’ve seen it all before and are exposed to it daily. So what’s the difference? At least we will have great borders, no demographic problem no water problem, no terrorism etc. What can be bad?
Israel is the pawn of the US and the Palestinians are the pawns of the Islamic states. Each side is being exploited for other purposes. Neither can win for as long as they are not allowed to win. This is death by a thousand cuts for Israelis and Palestinians. The Muslim ME needs to be crushed for Israel to have peace. The only country that can do it is the US but the world won’t tolerate it. Wars aren’t what they used to be or should be, hence the disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Palestinians are not the real issue, Israel is, and the Palestinians are used only as an occasion to place blame on Israel to justify aggression against the Jewish state. I think all of the regular posters here know the Palestinian cause is a “red herring and a fair part of the American public knows it also.”
All that is lacking is leadership with the guts to come out and say it. It seems that virtually everyone in the upper echelons of power is afraid of the repercussions of the truth.
The truth is:
1. The real issue is, the existence of a Jewish state in the M.E. – it is and will always be unacceptable to Islamic cultures unless there is a paradigm shift which can only occur after a collapse of the religion in its current form. (At this stage this means a violent confrontation is inevitable at least to some degree but not excluding an all out war)
2. There is going to be violence until one side or the other is dealt a lethal blow.
3. The only purpose of land for “peace” is positioning – to create an inroad for violence and establish a presence for the eventual overthrow of the Jewish state. Arabs do not want a Palestinian state because it would have defined borders; they would prefer the status quo so they can call the Israelis occupiers and take portions of area in increments (Gaza, Judea-Sumeria, Golan heights, Jerusalem, etc. etc…, borders undermine this – This is why Arafat never would agree even when Clinton and Barak were willing to give him 98% of what he was asking.)
Both Israel the US are getting weaker because the truth is harsh and people are afraid of what it may bring if it is told – But truth ushers in reality even when it is denied; eventually all the things that people fear will come upon them anyway, ironically, often as the very fruit of their denial. For had they embraced the truth it would have spared them rather than brought them harm.
You bring Western logic, reason, and perspectives to make the following statement:
For the Arabs and Palestinians, all you say is irrelevant. Arab/Muslim logic, reason and perspective is their whole point.
It does not matter that on a map of the world, Israel is but a speck in the solid land mass under Islamic dominion that spans from the west coast of Africa to Pakistan.
The Arab Muslim belief is that Israel has no right to be there in the first place for it occupies formerly Islamic territory and that land must therefore be returned to Islam. Israel’s very existence and the presence of non-Muslims there, especially Jews amounts to an outrageous blasphemy and a defiling of Islamic sacred land.
For a great many of the Arabs and Middle East Muslim world, they plot and plan for the day that the Muslim Arabs will again build sufficient strength to take back the land of Israel, expel all non-Muslims and thereby fulfill their dream of Islamic dominion and control over the entire land mass with not even a speck of land and non-Muslim people there to defile the land.
If it were just a matter of a struggle between Western values and perspectives vs. Arab/Muslim values and perspectives, Israel would have nothing to worry about and probably would have borders that encompassed Gaza and Jordan.
Arab oil, anti-Semitism, greed, or pursuit of self interest or any one or more of those factors have led the most powerful Western nations to compromise their own values and principles and shape their perspectives to see things the Arab/Muslim way. That has not led to the West adopting holus bolus the Muslim Arab goal for Israel’s elimination, but it has led to the West only allowing Israel to exist to the extent it does not infuriate the Muslim world and jeopardize Western interests.
The West is always seeking to strike some kind of balance that is too often tilted against the best interests of Israel.