The latest rush to create a Palestinian state, something that has never existed in any form before in human history, ignores the fact that the “Palestinians” have rejected numerous previous opportunities to establish a state. This only underscores the fact that a Palestinian state would not bring peace. Instead, it would only be a jihad base from which to launch new attacks against what remains of Israel. The goal — to destroy Israel utterly — would remain the same.
“31 Opportunities for Statehood Squandered in Favor of Genocide,” by David Meir-Levi at FrontPage, July 15:
There is an eerie déjà vu about an unmistakable and oft-repeated process in the Arab–Israel conflict. The process started in 1937 and has repeated itself with minor variations many times over the subsequent 74 years. The process is as follows: Arabs go to war with Israel, promising Israel’s destruction and the annihilation of its Jews. Israel wins the war and offers peace. Arab leaders reject Israel’s peace offer, renew their promises of destruction and annihilation; and after a while they go to war again, and lose again, and Israel again offers peace. Repeat this process 31 times and you have the history of the Arab-Israel conflict in a nutshell.
Unfortunately, this process never seems to make it to our mainstream media’s radar screen, nor into many of the classrooms of professors of Near Eastern Studies.
We see it in its most recent iteration in an April 3rd article in The New York Times describing the Palestinian Authority”s much ballyhooed intention of demanding that the UN officially welcome into the family of nations and into UN membership the State of Palestine. Interestingly, the article was titled “In Israel, Time for Peace Offer May Run Out,” as though Israel had not already made numerous peace offers to the Palestinian Authority, and ought to do so quickly. The text of the article did make reference to an offer that Netanyahu’s government was preparing, and to the preemptive rejection of this future offer by Palestinian Authority leaders, who had no hesitation pointing out that they feel they can do better at the UN. But nowhere in the article was there any clarification that Arab leaders have a history, more than seven decades in length, of rejecting Israel’s repeated peace offers and squandering a grand total of thirty-one opportunities for the peaceful creation of a state for the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, alongside of Israel.
The first such opportunity arose in 1937 when the Peel Commission recommended the partition of British Mandatory Palestine west of the Jordan River. The Jews would get about 15% of that territory, with the other 85% going to the Arabs, and to a small corridor from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem that would remain under British Mandatory control. The Jews accepted the recommendation. The Arab leadership rejected the plan and escalated Arab violence against the British and Jews to a bona fide war: the “great Arab revolt.” Had the Arab leadership accepted the Peel Partition plan, there would have been an Arab state in 85% of Mandatory Palestine in 1937. The British suppressed the revolt with great cruelty.
The next opportunity came with the UN Partition Plan of November 29, 1947, and the UN”s non-binding General Assembly Resolution #181. This resolution gave c. 55% of Mandatory Palestine to the State of Israel for the Palestinian Jews, and the other c. 45% would be the state for the Arabs west of the Jordan River. The Zionists accepted. Arab leaders rejected the plan, went to war in high-handed defiance of the UN, and lost. Had they accepted, there would have been an Arab state in a bit less than half of Palestine in 1947.
But even in defeat, with their armies in disarray and with the nascent state of Israel in control of far more territory than had been intended by the UN Partition Plan, the Arab belligerents refused to make peace. Instead they agreed to what they triumphantly announced would be a mere temporary armistice. With this agreement came the third opportunity for an Arab state alongside of Israel. At the Rhodes Armistice Talks of 1949 the Israeli negotiators indicated that the newly conquered territory was negotiable, in exchange for recognition, negotiations without preconditions, and peace. The Arab representatives refused, confident that they would soon wipe out the Jewish State. Had they agreed to negotiations, there could have been an Arab state in somewhat less than half of Mandatory Palestine in 1949.
Ironically, it was the 6-Day War (6/5-10/1967) that offered the fourth opportunity for the creation of an Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. A few days after the UN cease fire of 6/11/67, Abba Eban, Israel’s representative at the UN, made his famous speech.
He held out the olive branch to the Arab world, inviting Arab states to join Israel at the peace table, and informing them in unequivocal language that everything but Jerusalem was negotiable. Territories taken in the war could be returned in exchange for formal recognition, bi-lateral negotiations, and peace. The Arab representatives at the UN torched his olive branch.
Had the Arab states taken him up on his offer, there could have been peace and the possibility of the fulfillment of the UN General Assembly Resolution #181. Instead, the leaders of eight Arab states met in Khartoum, Sudan, in September, 1967 to discuss what they called the “new reality.” Their decision was no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it….
There is much more. Read it all.