Can There Ever Be Peace? (Part 2)

Trying to Understand the Israel Question 

By Khen Lim

PART TWO



Image source: seraphicpress.com

From neighbours, relentless hatred

No doubt there were jubilance and celebrations but there were muted. With the threat of war looming, there was simply no room to relax. Sure enough, on the night that the Declaration of Independence was heard on radio throughout Israel, its neighbours invaded in the name of a “United States of Palestine.” This was the pretext to replacing the new Jewish State regardless of the U.N. vote. On declaration of war, immediate condemnation was issued by America and many other nations against Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Take note that additional troops were also supplied by Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Right at that moment, invading Arab leaders commanded Arab residents living in Israel to leave their homes, spouting arrogant claims that they would finish off the Israelis in a matter of days or weeks, after which they could then return. Truth be told, the reality was not far from such a claim. It was a bleak time for Israel – just as they were to start life anew and with hope, the Arabs turned up at their doorstep to promise them doom. Now grossly outnumbered on all fronts, the grimness was multiplied further as Israel could only turn out a few hundred soldiers whereas, across the borders, it appeared that there were thousands of Arab soldiers awaiting to annihilate them.

Despite the incredible odds stacked against them, the Jews fought valiantly and ferociously. Certainly no one had expected this; certainly not the Arabs especially. And as the world stood afar to watch this episode unfold, immigrants answered the clarion call of their motherland and thousands flooded into Israel to help out. 

By December 1948, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) had grown astonishingly to more than 100,000 strong. Right now, their prime concern was to prevent their territories from fragmenting. The only thing to do then was for the Israeli army to protect the Jewish settlements by holding their lines of defence against Arab invasions from all sides. Once the territories fray and fragment, the settlements would become indefensible.

Towards the middle of the campaign, both sides were fairly balanced. There were no clear gains and losses from either side that is, until Israel finally managed to acquire planes from Czechoslovakia. Once Israel achieved air superiority, the rest was a matter of formality. One has to wonder what a miracle it must have been for the Israeli pilots to so quickly adapt to the planes let alone engage in air warfare with such deadly effectiveness. Just as it looked like the Israelis could turn the table on the combined Arab forces, the United Nations stepped in and announced a 28-day truce, effective June 1948.

Camps like these were set up for displaced Arabs after they walked out of Israel because of the 1948 Independence War (Image source: news.bbc.co.uk)

Even so, Egypt made sure it was very short-lived. Hardly a month after, the attacks resumed and then a second truce was announced. Once again, it came only after Israel had begun to gain an upper hand with important territorial gains. Yet again the second truce was meaningless. By October, Israel had to throw the entire Egyptian army out of their borders, following a thorough routing in the Negev Desert. By the end of the month, the whole of Galilee fell to the Israelis. Next the Lebanese and the Syrians were completely kicked out of Israel.

By Christmastime, Israel’s territory had actually enlarged as God carved out a way for His People to savour one military success after another. In the spring of 1949, yet more ceasefire agreements were signed between Israel and all its invading Arab neighbours, ensuring that the Jewish State had survived its first regional war in arguably the world’s most hostile region.

No doubt Israel knew by now that many such agreements might as well be written in sand. While full-scale open military overtures might have ceased (at least temporarily), sporadic acts of terrorism continued unabated as their Arab neighbours sought every opportunity to terrorise the Israeli citizens into submission. And this was 1949, not 2011. It goes to show that almost sixty years ago, the Arabs had already started their terrorism.

Peace was short-lived, as usual. The threat of war once more reared its ugly head and again, Egypt led the Arab pact. By the mid-Sixties, Israel’s regional enemies began to mutual defensive pacts. Egypt did one with Syria and then with Jordan. Iraqis entered the fray on invitation by the Jordanians to help protect them against Israeli attacks. While all of these were taking place, a falsified report reached Egypt, suggesting that Israel was poised to attack them. As it turned out, it was a fraud possibly orchestrated by Russian intelligence, looking to upsetting the balance of power.

Nasser (centre) with his successor Sadat (left) and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchevin (right), 1964 (Image source: newworldencyclopedia.org)

Quickly Egypt despatched troops to the Sinai border in readiness but at the same time too, Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, saw this as a golden opportunity to raise his public appeal as the voice of the pan-Arab struggle. In rallying support to defend Egypt and oust Israel, Nasser took to the air waves with the gusto of a powerful burly Arab, championing their cause and exhorting other Arab leaders to join the party and relish the promise of great success.

What he didn’t realise was that he had, by now, painted himself to a corner. Having done so, he could no longer afford to retreat. It was forward or die of shame and for an Arab that is a reprehensible option. In early June of the same year, Israel finally discovered Egypt’s plans of a coordinated attack with others in tow. Having learned well from their first major war effort, the Israelis were not going to wait around and find out. They needed to stage a pre-emptive strike in order to weaken the opposition and take the stuffing out of their initiative.

While the Egyptians were itching for a fight, the Israeli quarter was divided. Tired of the endless wars, there were many who simply wanted peace. On the other hand there were also those who understood that for them at least, peace would constantly have to come at a price for the Jewish State. The leadership under Levi Eshkol was deeply disturbed by this impending Egyptian-led threat and yet, he knew he had to reach a decision that would be to the best interest of the nation. And so he “invited” the newly-appointed Defence Minister, Moshe Dayan – someone he personally detested – to step forward and work out a plan to avoid disaster for Israel.

History tells us that Dayan not only did the necessary but he so overwhelmed the opposition that humiliation was the only word that could describe the after-effects for their enemies. In the mid of 1967, Israel launched a surprise but massive air assault, utilising as many as 200 planes to rip the guts out of the entire Egyptian Air Force, leaving it in total ruin. Then they went out for Jordan and Syria and did the same with equal deadliness. Without formidable air cover, the Israelis could now get to work to repulse any Arab ground invasion.

Dayan’s ground tactical manoeuvres were equally as devastating so much so that it appeared to the world media to be one-sided with Israel actually “bullying” the Arabs. Under the command of Ariel Sharon (future Prime Minister), the Egyptians were pummelled into submission in the Sinai Desert and then driven back across the Suez Canal, leaving the entire peninsular in the hands of Israel. Next they flushed out the Jordanian forces who were shelling the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem before sending them packing. The West Bank was now back in Israel’s hands.

Before the U.N. could step in and ruin things, Dayan quickly despatched his troops to commandeer the Old City of Jerusalem. Not long thereafter, the entire ancient Jerusalem had returned home to Israel. This was a hugely significant – and emotional – achievement. After 2,000 long years following Roman occupation, the Holy City of Israel, its old capital, was now back with God’s Chosen People. But amazingly, that wasn’t all.

Israeli Air Force's Dassault Mirage 5C fighters in formation, 1967 (Image source: ibzine.idu.edu.pl)

Before the six days were up, Israel savoured more success, this time, up north where they captured the vital Golan Heights from the Syrians. Before that, Syrian forces had used the high ground offered by the Golan Heights to constantly batter nearby Jewish communities. By taking it away from them, Israel now had an all-important security buffer with forward warning advantage.

On June 11 1967, the expected ceasefire came and was duly signed by all parties. Now famously called, the “Six Day War,” Israel’s stature as a tiny but powerful military force was without question. Yet the more important achievement was that the country had dramatically grown in size. Instead of destroying the Jewish State, the Arab forces had, in fact, ended up surrendering more land. With the captive areas, Israel had reclaimed almost all of what God had originally given them.

The Golan Heights, in particular, was part and parcel of the original piece that God had bequeathed to Abraham and his descendants in line with His promise. On the other hand, the secular world had no time for honouring God’s promises. To them and the beleaguered United Nations, this was not Israel’s right to hold on to. In terse terms, the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights – all of which were the spoils of war for the victor – did not belong to the Jewish State no matter what God said. It is in fact the Golan Heights that continues today to be the main dispute between Israel and the Syrians and Palestinians.

"Total Israel Victory" in the Six Day War makes headlines (Image source: tiger.towson.edu)

Emboldened by the swift and victorious Six-Day War, Israel enjoyed its superiority but not for terribly long. Six short years later, they were tested ferociously and almost to the brink of an unthinkable defeat. In 1973, in the midst of Yom Kippur (tr Day of Atonement), Egypt and Syria launched a lethal surprise on Israel. Being the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Israel was at a standstill, meaning, this time, they were ripe for slaughter by the Arabs. Aiding the Egyptians and Syrians were Jordan and at least nine other Arab nations, all bitterly looking for sweet revenge against the Jews. This time, they could taste it in the air.

The Israelis were under siege and experiencing heavy initial losses. Surrounded from the south via the Sinai and through to the Golan Heights up north, the Arabs were inflicting severe damage that shook Israel to its core. Teetering on destruction, the Jewish State finally found its feet and gradually turned things around but not for a day too soon.

Israel territorial changes resulting from the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War (Image source: en.wikipedia.org)

Despite the crippling losses at the beginning, Israeli forces began to regroup and rethink their counterattack strategies. And once they began to push the enemy forces back, they started to reclaim what territories they had lost earlier. In a retaliatory manoeuvre down south, Israeli tank forces had managed to cut the Egyptian Third Army off and having them surrounded, they would have destroyed them completely if not for U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s intervention. Thereafter Israeli forces ploughed on, crossed the Suez Canal and headed deeper into Egyptian territory until they were within 60 miles of the enemy’s capital.

The campaign up north was equally as telling. Israel repelled the Syrians by virtue of the latter’s poor training, leadership and discipline, all of which had rendered them incapable and ineffective. Despite earlier fierce fighting in the Golan Heights area, Israeli forces were able to expel them. Fleeing for their lives thereafter, the Israelis were in hot pursuit until which point, they were only 25 miles short of reaching their capital, Damascus.

Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (far right) with Moshe Dayan (to her right) during the 1973 Yom Kippur War (Image source: haaretz.com)

Looking blankly but with disbelief from thousands of miles away, the Soviets were in a state of shock. The Arab forces whom they had supported with arms and equipment had capitulated once again. In complete tatters despite early signs of success, they had become demoralised and while in retreat, the Israelis were now following them. The threat of Israel completing capturing both Egypt and Syria appeared very real to the Soviets. Completely embarrassed by the turn of events, Soviet Premier, Leonid Brezhnev, issued a threat to their Cold War enemy, the Americans, warning them that if they did not intervene and compel the Jews to certain ceasefire terms, Soviet forces would enter the fray alongside the Egyptians.

None of the previous ceasefire terms were ever been in Israel’s favour and these ones were no exception. But in seeking peace, the Jewish State was always in a concessionary mood. Part of the terms was that Israel had to return the vital shipping route, the Suez Canal, back to Egypt. Despite having done so, fighting actually resumed although not at the scale of war. Still, it was obvious that the Arabs were never good at honouring promises as Israel and the Americans were en route to discovering in the ensuing decades.

For now, everyone on the west of the political divide could breathe a deep sigh of relief and be thankful to God for bailing them out of what could have been their end.

Peace in writing at least

The Holocaust was still not too distant in the memories of many Jews in Israel. Through oral tradition alone, even the younger generation had learned about this bitter lesson from their elders. They continue to resonate even today, and never again – as any Jew would attest – would they ever allow themselves to be found in such a vulnerable position in the future. That future seemed secured that they have a home to return to but has it become any safer now?

By then, three major wars had come and gone since 1948. Independence came with respite and the first war had then begun. If not for the outside help they received, they could have lost. Then the Six Day War came and miraculously, Israeli intelligence paved the way for a very successful strategy. After that was the Yom Kippur War, which they nearly lost. These big wars might now be on the ebb but still, two things persisted – irritating skirmishes continued and until then, there were no real or lasting peace agreements in the offing. It was now a given that when it comes to making promises, it would be nigh impossible to pin the Arabs down. As it turned out, such pledges were as porous as the sands that shift in the desert.

The first genuine glimmer of hope did arrive in 1977 when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat decided to pay Israel a visit much to the dismay of his fellow Arab partners in war. This was unheard of. Possibly even sacrilegious. By all Arab standards, this was betrayal of the highest order. But Sadat actually went further than just a simple visit. In the following year, he sprang a bigger surprise by agreeing to sue for peace with Israel. Thus in 1979, he joined hands with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and mediator U.S. President Jimmy Carter in becoming signatories to the first meaningful peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. And in so doing, Sadat represented the first non-Jewish state in the Middle East to officially recognise Israel and seek lasting peace with her.

History in the making - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (left) and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin (right) with U.S. President Jijmmy Carter (middle), 1979 (Image source: history.com)

The peace agreement was momentous in every way. Both countries now had obligations to one another and in keeping with the terms of the agreement, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and handed it back to the Egyptians, including millions of dollars’ worth of investments that had been poured to develop the region. In exchange, Egypt gave Israel free right of passage for ships to pass through the Suez Canal. Together both countries agreed that the Sinai would be a demilitarised zone for the benefit of one another, in order to prevent future attacks.

The significance of such a monumental peace treaty had not been lost on the secular world. In 1978 the Nobel Peace Prize was given to both Sadat and Begin in recognition of what was once thought impossible. With peace having returned to both countries, trade was normalised and embassies were set up by both countries in one another. Cultural exchanges were now possible as well as both countries learn, for the first time in thousands of years, to cohabit in peace.

Egypt’s accomplishment was not keenly accepted by their fellow Arab brothers. Seething in anger and in bitter retaliation for the betrayal, the Arab League expelled Egypt and strip her of her membership. PLO’s Yasser Arafat ranted out loud that, “false peace will not last,” meaning that there would be retribution. Unfortunately, this did come true when Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by soldiers who were loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood party. His successor, Hosni Mubarak, who was also injured then, carried on the peace accord and ruled Egypt with an iron fist. After thirty years of rule, Mubarak himself was ousted, interestingly, by the same party that murdered his predecessor.

The assassination of President Anwar Sadat by Muslim Brotherhood, 1981 (Image source: imgbuddy.com)

After Egypt, Jordan followed suit. After a succession of humiliating military defeats at the hands of the Jews, the Jordanians courted Israel, seeking peace. Years earlier, Israel had forewarned Jordan’s King Hussein not to mess with the war efforts but to stay out. Having buckled under intense Arab pressure, he joined the Yom Kippur war where his country sustained embarrassing losses.

With all of that in mind, both countries went into peace talks for the first time in the late Eighties but it was not until 1994 that peace became a reality. In the terms of the treaty, the Jordan River would act as the official border between the two countries. They also agreed to work together to stem terrorism in both countries and to share in the supply of water.

Like the Egyptians, the Jordanians took the brunt of Arab retribution. Assassination attempts were also tried on King Hussein but fortunately for him, advanced Israeli intelligence saved him from at least one such instance. Earlier, Hezbollah terrorists, likely aided by Syria, had tried to disrupt Jordan’s peace process with Israel by aiming relentless mortar and rocket attacks at Israeli civilian targets. Upon his death in 1999 of cancer, his son, King Abdullah II, assumed the throne and continued in peace with Israel unbounded by neighbouring threats.

Sadly, only Egypt and Jordan had the vision and boldness to seek peace and develop their economies for the betterment of their people. All other Arab neighbours chose to remain hostile, focusing on annihilating Israel and not on investing in the education, economy and development of their own population. Of these, the most visible were Syria and Iraq. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, was just as outspoken in denouncing Zionism but they concealed a sense of admission that the Jewish State was useful as a check and balance against those who threaten their own rule within the same region. In later years, the Saudis would discover the value of Israel as a strategic ally although all of these were never done outwardly.

This is particularly true with Iran. Until February 1979, the Persian kingdom was ruled by the Shah, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi who had keen interests in economic development although there had also been increasing corruption in the state management. It was his official recognition of Israel that stood him out as much as his ideas on modernising Iran. Both these issues including the support he enjoyed from the Americas and British became a major problem with the Shi’a clergy who then eventually planned his ouster. And so after almost 2,500 years of Persian monarchy (since Cyrus the Great), the Shah called time on his rule, took up political asylum offered by Sadat and went to Egypt where he died in exile a year later, in 1980.

Today, Iran is arguably Israel’s single biggest threat even if the other Arab neighbours aren’t exactly friendly either. A once good and peaceful neighbour, Egypt, had recently fallen prey to Islamists and Mubarak’s rule came to an end. Blinded and deceived by false promises (now a staple feature with the Arabs), the naïve world hailed the democratic election of Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi as Egypt’s fifth President in 2013. For those familiar with Arab treachery, this election was a showdown with Israel. It also signalled to the Jews that the peace treaty with Egypt might become history sooner than they had hoped for.

Israel is at the brink of another very grave period. Notwithstanding the limited wars in Lebanon in 1982 and 2006, large-scale multi-fronted wars have now become things of the past. Hopefully they stay that way as well. Even so, there is little confidence that such optimism is everlasting. Israel has long become, since its independence, a country that never found peaceful sleep. It still hasn’t today. This complexion undergirds the Israeli mandatory requirement of every citizen to commit to service in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) once he or she reaches the age of 18. With religious or health exceptions, the service terms are three and two years for men and women respectively but even on the completion of regular services, all remain active as reserves in order for the nation to stay alert at all times.

Jews may have found a home to go to but times have not been peaceful enough for them to rest. To stay alive and survive any surprise attacks, Israel needs rapid access to as large a pool of human resources as possible and at all times. As the Latin motto of the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy says, “Si vis pacem, para bellum.” Meaning ‘If you wish for peace, prepare for war,” not many come as close in describing Israel’s situation as this.

Why the Palestinian issue?

The longstanding Palestinian issue began on the day Israel declared herself independent in 1948. On that day, her surrounding Arab adversaries decided to decimate the Jewish State but before they began their invasion, they boasted that they would finish the Jews off in a matter of days, if not mere weeks. Beaming with confidence, they told the Arab residents who had settled in Israel that they should stage a walkout and then stay out until it was time to return. By then, they said, Israel would be finished.

We know that didn’t happen. The Arab forces were routed and with their tails between their legs, they trundled back to stage yet another attack. In the meantime, those Arab residents who walked out of Israel now were left stranded, homeless and stateless. Effectively they now had nowhere to go. The promises that the Arab nations had made had simply evaporated and no one was there to back them up or even apologise. They were left to die on their own.

If they had hoped the Arabs would take them into their homes, they were wrong. With the Sinai, Gaza, West Bank and Golan Heights at their disposal (at that time), there were plenty of opportunities for them to seek new homes; if only they were offered but they weren’t and they still aren’t today, sixty years later. Had they not left their homes in Israel, they and their later generations would have flourished economically. They would have been accommodated in peace. Their children would have had education, grown up and have a future, building their own families. Now they are left hanging in a limbo, living forever in tents, shacks or dishevelled makeshift homes. This is the definition of the Palestinian issue.

Yasser Arafat (middle) in Beirut, 1982 (Image source: jfjfp.com)

It would be insult to intelligence to think that a new group in 1964 would dedicate themselves to the “liberation of Palestine” any more than all previous Arab non-efforts. When so many promises were left high and dry in the past, the so-called Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) wanted the world to know that they had sought peace and desired to create a lasting home for the Palestinians. They have since told the world that their existence was to realise the indivisible territorial unit of which its boundaries ascribed a self-determined state called Palestine “as of the time of the British Mandate.”

The PLO wanted everyone to believe this to be a political quest just as much as the Arabs in the past had desired for us to view the same problem in similar fashion. It never has been, it still isn’t and it will never be. The PLO were never any different from the Arab position. They made it their agenda to free the Palestinians but their Charter said otherwise. In many other words, it typically describes the Arabs’ refusal to grant Israel the right to exist.

Herewith is the Palestinian National Charter of 1964 in its clearest form:

“The claims of historic and spiritual ties between Jews and Palestine are not in agreement with the facts of history.”

The Charter went on to encourage all Arabs to honour their “sacred” responsibility to the Palestinians and the only way to do this was to take up arms to destroy Zionism and to free Palestine. Till today, that Charter has remained. Leadership might have changed hands but the murderous mode of operation persists. The determination to destroy Israel has only increased. To the Arabs, there is no such thing as granting Palestine a national identity to coexist side by side with Israel. That is inconceivable and therefore will never happen. For any Arabs, the uncompromising position is not to have Israel exist at all. In fact, whether or not Palestine is realisable has never been important to them because the all-important credo is to wipe Israel off the map.

Perhaps it is useful to learn a few things about the PLO. When they were founded in 1964, the Gaza Strip was under the Egyptians. Jordan then controlled the West Bank. By that same year, Arab residents from Israel had already been displaced for sixteen years and still had nowhere to go. Neither Egypt nor Jordan cared to offer them refuge in those pieces of land. Had they done so, these displaced Arabs could have built their homes and possibly even declare independence as a separate state and then call it Palestine. We know that didn’t take place. We also know that once Israel gained these territories after the Six Day War (1967), the Arab world railed to the world that the refugees were forced out by Israel and now badly needed somewhere to call home. In other words, they needed to create Palestine for themselves and Israel was in the way.

All that hypocritical tripe can best be attributed by a hypocritical Egyptian who went by the name Mohammed Yasser Abel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Huesseini. He was more infamously known by his shorter name, Yasser Arafat. In his 35-year rule, this man was no more than a cold and lawless terrorist who had no compunction in killing thousands of Jews as well as Palestinians while he rubbed shoulders and smoked cigars with the glitterati and the celebrities around the world.

As he cried out that the Palestinians were in abject poverty with no homes to go to, Arafat had no moral problems amassing billions in personal fortune. The irony of this despicable man was that the world didn’t think he did anything wrong no matter how blatantly obvious his corruption and acts of terrorism were. He didn’t just murder Jews; he also did it to his fellow Arabs. His own people called him callous. Jordan did not want to have a bar with him. He was in every sense of the word, a hypocrite with remarkable charm.

It is hard to understand the Arabs. While the average Arab on the street adored him, his fellow Arab leaders did their best to shun him. King Hussein had him kicked out of Jordan in 1970-71 once they had evidence that he was behind the botched assassination attempts on his life. In fact the monarch would later discover that Arafat was indeed responsible for the deaths of no less than 5,000 people in a series of terrorism acts.

Remnants of the hostel room where one of two Israelis were brutally massacred showing blood and bullet holes in walls, 1972 (Image source: dailymail.co.uk)

Maybe the PLO would have just been a fly in the ointment in the big picture if not for the one incident that raised its profile – the killing of Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. Although the doing of a different organisation, Black September, they were an armed wing parked under the PLO. In this attack, eleven Israeli coaches and athletes were brutally and mercilessly massacred.

From then on, the PLO became a serious thorn in the flesh of Israel until they were displaced by deadlier alternatives manifesting itself in the form of al-Qaeda and then, ISIS. Israel had been attempting to neutralise the PLO and they almost achieved that in 1982 when they invaded southern Lebanon looking to destroy Arafat’s key launching bases that were used against Jewish civilian areas. The counterstrike was effective and the PLO was driven out and then cordoned into an area in Beirut by the IDF. In and amongst the PLO members surrounded was Arafat himself. Syria then decided to send out their air force to free them but Israel’s Air Force destroyed 80 of them in the air without any losses of their own.

There is no reason not to believe that Israel was intent on finishing them all off, now that they had them cordoned but yet again, American intervention and the brokering of another meaningless ceasefire ensued. Arafat lived another day, with the opportunity to freely walk away, relocate to Tunisia and think of retaliation against Israel. More skirmishes dotted the relationship between this man and Israel thereafter but then he realised that a better masterstroke in hitting back at Israel could probably lie in diplomatic initiatives. He knew he could gain far more by painting the sympathetic portrayal for the Palestinian cause and a brutal, imperialistic, callous bully for the Israelis. By way of diplomacy, he could also look to accessing funding from around the world especially from those whom he could charm effortlessly. Inevitably he earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 ironically alongside his enemies, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and President Shimon Peres.

(L-R) PLO chairman and terrorist Yasser Arafat, Israeli President Shimon Peres, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Nobel Peace Prize winners, 1993 (Image source: en.wikipedia.org)

Perhaps Arafat had worked the media to an expectation that there would be a peace treaty that was finally agreeable with the Arabs. A year before becoming a Nobel laureate in 1993, the Oslo Accords jumpstarted peace talks between Israel and the PLO again. In the same year, he challenged Israeli authorities by brazenly moving from Tunisia to Ramallah on the West Bank where he also relocated his headquarters. The talks revolved around a few key terms. The obligation on the part of the Palestinians was to officially recognise Israel’s right to existence and to end all violence against the Jewish State. In exchange, they get to attain self-rule. Hence the opportunity to create a new Palestine nation had beckoned once more.

The problem with striking peace deals with Arabs, as we now know, is that when it concerns Israel, they have no interests in delivering whatever they promise. The Arabs have been prone to expecting the other party to make the first concessionary move after which they will renege on the deal. It’s been done many times and there should not be any expectation that they would change their spots overnight. And as it turned out, Arafat had no interest whatsoever in changing their charter to recognise Israel. And he never did anything to reduce the level of violence against Israel. With that, there were no progress made.

As usual, it was left to Israel to be more proactive and…be a more concessionary party again. In the Camp David peace talks hosted by President Clinton, Ehud Barak, Israel’s Prime Minister, offered Arafat the whole of Gaza including 94 percent of the West Bank and the whole of Jerusalem. As a deal, it was as outlandish as it was unbelievably generous on the part of the Israelis. It shouldn’t even be called a deal; more to the fact, this was like a complete sell-out by the Israelis on their own people.

But this was also how one ought to measure the seriousness that Israel took in the quest to seek peace with their Arab neighbours. To say that they went out on a limb to want to make peace realisable is to understate the point. Here was a very good example of a nation that was willing to sacrifice so much in wanting to co-exist peaceably with everyone else in the Middle East and they would offer concessions beyond reasonableness.

It was an incredible deal and a chance of a lifetime. Considering the magnitude of Israel’s generosity, even U.S. President Clinton was confident that Arafat could not ignore it. He not only would gain from an extraordinary land exchange but he would also realise “his dream” of building a new Palestine for all Palestinians thus deliver them the home they had been craving for. But to the shock and amazement of everyone concerned – throughout the Western world – Arafat walked away from the deal.

If Clinton was stunned, one can imagine the expectant world. As everyone held their breath and ready themselves to celebrate the peace deal of all time, Arafat showed absolutely no interest whatsoever. Israel knew exactly what that meant but the world didn’t appear to grasp it. It is quite simple – Arafat showed no willingness to help his fellow Arabs because he was, instead, focused on getting Israel physically wiped out without a trace remaining. In other words, the only way to appease this terrorist-turned-corrupt-diplomat was for any peace treaty where all Israelis simply walk away and jump off the nearest cliff.

With charm and misplaced wit, Arafat continued to tell the world he was committed to peace when he wasn’t. At the same time, he was quietly orchestrating the raining of rockets and missiles into Israel. He called himself, laughably, a peacemaker but then he was clever enough to cash in that image, earning him billions in the process, which he personally pocketed instead of helping Palestinians to walk away from poverty. As it turned out, Arafat’s political strategy was to keep the Palestinians hungry and used that image to blame their plight on to Israel.

When the West queried his wealth in light of Palestinian poverty, he simply bemoaned that the PLO was bankrupt and therefore was not in the capacity to offer help. However a quick fact check by the General Accounting Office of the U.S. revealed that he had channelled at least $10 billion of funding (meant for the Palestinian cause) into his own personal Swiss accounts.

Mahmoud Abbas at a Fatah conference in Bethlehem, West Bank, 2009 (Image source: theguardian.com)

To his detractors, Arafat’s death in 2004 couldn’t have come sooner. Now that he was gone, there was new possibility that the Palestinians could move on to find a lasting and meaningful solution but it was not to be. His replacement, Mahmoud Abbas, was deadlier and more manipulative from Israel’s perspective. He was also just as neglectful of the Palestinian’s genuine need for a home. And he was typically abusive – despite his term ending in 2009, Abbas simply stayed on. Elections didn’t take place to challenge his leadership and he stubbornly remained in place for, as we know, one purpose and that was, to fulfil the Palestinian Charter. He might look it but Abbas is no harmless grandfather. This was the person who financed the massacre of the eleven Israeli athletes and coaches in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games and till today, he pretends not to know anything. Mossad intelligence had long identified him but somehow he, unlike others, escaped their dragnet.

And so amidst all the hue and cry about a Palestinian state and the peace posturing, they were all for nought. When all is said and done, no Arabs appeared interested in finding a lasting home for the Palestinians who were told to walk out from the comfort of their homes in Israel but only to be left stateless and unwanted for generations since.

Sixty years later, newer and younger generations of Arabs make up the lost and homeless. They might no longer know the real history behind their statelessness back in 1948. Instead the only thing they understand is hatred against Israel and those who support its existence.

(continued Part 3)