It Was Never About the Land

By Khen Lim

Image source: pinterest.com

The photo above was captured in 1981. It shows President Anwar Sadat shot to death during an annual victory parade in Cairo. He was killed by an assassination squad mistaken for part of the parade. This was revenge for a person who “dishonoured Islam.” He wanted peace with Israel and he paid with his life.

You see, the turmoil of the Mid-East is not easy to solve so long as every peace seeker buries his head in the sand and thinks it’s about land when it has never been. Yet the conflict itself is not difficult to understand. The history is there. The facts are there. All you need is an objective and truthful mind.

The crux of the matter is simple – the Arab and other Muslim enemies of Israel all want the Jewish State annihilated. If you’re easily confused, saying that doesn’t imply every Arab or Muslim. There are certainly different Arabs as well. Basically the Mid-East Issue is about wanting Israel destroyed in the worst way. Everything else is deceptive window dressing. 

Many reject this simplicity, citing reasons like “massacres,” “Jewish settlements” or “Zionism,” “illegal land occupation,” “apartheid” and so on. People have long been blinded by straying ideologies to even understand that Israel’s deadly enemies have always announced the purpose of their endless war against them. It’s in the news. It’s in the images across the Internet. But people don’t want to see.

Everyone wants Israel annihilated – the Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah, PLO, al-Qaeda, Houthis, AQAP, Palestinians, Taliban, Boko Haram, the Iranian Ayatollah regime – all of them support a fully anti-Semitic agenda in their entire culture and media. All of them regularly whip the public into a frenzy of terror against Israeli civilians and now they do this across the whole world, calling to arms for the pure aim of destroying Israel.

Endless wages of war

On the day Israel declared its independence in 1948, the Arab states sought to destroy them. They were at it even before there were any Jewish settlers in the West Bank or any inch of the Palestinian land. Egypt, Syria, Jordan and others waged war again in 1967 in what we know as the Six Day War. In suffering humiliating defeat for attacking Israel, Arab leaders met in Khartoum, Sudan in September the same year to a chorus of the infamous “Three No’s” to Israel – No peace. No recognition. No negotiations.

There was, again, war in 1973. Egypt surprised Israel with an initially very successful attack but they and the Jordanians were eventually repulsed on both ends of the Chosen Land. Israel had successfully hung on to much of the Sinai Peninsula but the Egyptians chose to be euphoric, preferring to remember their swift attack at the start. 

However in a surprise twist in November 1977, Egypt’s visionary Anwar Sadat did the unimaginable – he visited Israel and addressed the Knesset in Jerusalem. The next year, Egypt signed a peace treaty with the Israelis and in return, the Sinai was given back complete with oil-rich potential and established farming infrastructure put up by the Jews.

Three years later, Sadat was killed and his murder was very jubilantly received by most Arabs, not least the military group that assassinated him and also the emerging terrorists called Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) who said there would never be any peace with Israel. 

The killing of Sadat was therefore retribution for him doing the unthinkable. He recognised Israel and made peace. But one nugget of truth was evident as well – the Palestinians should learn that with Israel, you get plenty of land back in return for neighbouring peace that the Israelis so badly sought since 1948.

In 2006, the liberal New York Times foreign affairs columnist and critic of Israel, Thomas Friedman, wrote: “The Palestinians could have a state on the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem tomorrow, if they and the Arab League clearly recognised Israel, normalised relations and renounce violence. Anyone who says otherwise does not know Israel today.”

Israel believed the original Palestinian cries for land. So they offered it in exchange for peace. It was that simple but apparently, this was never the real truth. That was precisely what Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres attempted to achieve with the Clinton administration in 2005. In wanting peace, they offered PLO’s Yasser Arafat as much as 97 percent of the West Bank and 3 percent of its own land. 

Arafat not only rejected the peace offer at Camp David but he condoned the further killings and maiming of more Israeli men, women and children by Palestinian terrorists. Clinton, who so much wanted to be part of the history of brokering peace in the Mid-East, was stumped by Arafat’s behaviour, even blaming the stoking and outbreak of violence on the Palestinians.

The unusual and generous offer that would have led to the successful creation of a Palestinian state would have been the end of a purportedly long struggle for territorial recognition by the Palestinians but the Arabs rejected Israel’s generosity (and sacrifice). In a genuine desire for statehood this offer would have been very well received but we should now be aware that most Palestinians and their Arab and Muslim adherents have no desire for such a state. Their preoccupation has always been for the annihilation of Israel. They’ve often said it but Western intellectuals and media long chose to be deaf to their admission.

Making a difference

It’s always easy to distinguish a nation who yearns for peace and one that forever wants to destroy. In the same region of the Mid-East, Israel remains by and large, one of the world’s most advanced countries in so many ways. Culturally they publish the most books, translates from more languages than others and their population per capita reads more avidly than others. They have the most orchestras per capita. They are world leaders in medicine and medical technologies. They have contributed more to information technology than most other countries.

In social terms, Israel is extraordinarily generous and decent as well. They treat everyone well regardless – women, gays, disadvantaged, medically challenged. They have a large Arab minority who, in contrast with their fellow anti-Semitic Arabs and Muslims outside of Israel, are remarkable. They enjoy a great life without appearing bloodthirsty or greedy. 

As they form 20 percent of the population, they enjoy also the same rights. They vote. They serve in the Knesset. They own property and run successful businesses. They are professionals. They are even judges. In fact, it was an Arab judge, George Karra, who sentenced Israel’s eighth president, Moshe Katsav – a Jew, mind you – to seven years’ jail (on possibly trumped up charges) of rape in 2011. There are more such examples:

Image source: veja.abril.com.br

Israel’s diplomat to Ecuador was their youngest ambassador in history. He is Reda Mansour (above), an Arab who is now ambassador to Brazil and one of the most well-decorated Arabs who live as an Israeli.

Image source: sporting-heroes.net

Walid Badir (above), who represented Israel in international soccer and played for one of the country’s top teams with a sterling record is an Arab. In his brief stint playing for Wimbledon for the 1999-2000 season, he even scored against Manchester United at the opposition’s home ground.

   

Image sources: globalbeauties.com and alondon.net

Miss Israel in 1999, Rana Raslan (above left), who represented the Jewish State in the Miss Universe pageantry, is an Arab. 

A diplomat in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs who then became the deputy consul for his country in San Francisco, Ishmael Khaldi (above right), is a Bedouin Arab.

Image source: koptisch.wordpress.com

Khaled Abu Toameh (above), a journalist, lecturer and documentary filmmaker writes for The Jerusalem Post and is also a senior distinguished fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute and a Palestinian Arab. He has also consistently criticised Mahmoud Abbas for arresting and harassing Palestinian journalists in the West Bank for wanting to tell the truth. 

When his 2013 article called, ‘The Palestinian Authority’s Inconvenient Truth’ was first published, he discovered that his Facebook page was temporarily deactivated probably because of the book’s criticisms of the Palestinian Authority (PA). We don’t know if Facebook’s action was because of PA pressure or because FB users felt it was offensive to them. FB reopened his account but removed his article, and then apologised, blaming it on “employee error.”

Image source: amikaufman.com

Israel’s Minister of Science, Culture & Sport from 2007-2009 was Raleb Majadele (above), an Arab Muslim who was also a parliamentary member of the Labour Party. 

When Israel Insider quoted Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s comments in 2007 indicating that a future Palestinian state should offer a lasting solution for Israeli Arabs, Majadele replied, “The roots of the Israeli Arab citizens of Israel were planted before the state was established. They are residents of this country with rights; their residency and citizenship are not open for negotiations.”

Image source: en.wikipedia.org

In fact since its independence in 1948, the Israeli parliament has had as many as 77 past and present Arab members and among them are Bedouins, Sunni Muslims, Druze and Arab Christians. Haneen Zoabi, an Arab Sunni Muslim elected to the Knesset on an Arab party’s list, said, “My parents are Muslims. They pray, they fast, they have been to Mecca but they raised their children to think and to feel as liberal, open-minded people.”

The truth no one wants to know

These Israeli Arabs lay proof to the Jewish State’s generosity, humanitarianism and love for peace. If these weren’t its pursuits, they would have been no different to other Arabs in the Mid-East. 

If you are not convinced by this, just ask anyone living in that region outside Israel why the Mid-East conflicts exist. Don’t ask them using English because they would assume you are an academic, diplomat or peace activist and they’d sell you a completely different story with a convenient political complexion. They’d tell you “land occupation,” “Jewish settlements” or “Zionism” or whatever flavour of the day dictates. If you ask in Arabic, you will then know the truth.

The truth is not what the Western world wants to hear. But it’s there – it’s not about the land.

It never was.