A guide to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

[resistingrexmundi]

One thing that must be understood when looking at the current situation in Gaza and the west bank is how exactly things got to the point they currently are. Below are excerpts from 'Big Lies: Demolishing the Myths of the Propaganda War Against Israel' along with a few of my own words.

Let's begin by understanding that: 1 There never has been a country called Palestine. There was an area of the Ottoman empire, previously controlled by Byzantium, that had been delegated "Palestine" by its' previous controllers the Romans. This area consisted of parts of Syria, modern day Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and what is now called Gaza and the west bank. The  name Palestine was given by the Romans to this area as an insult to the Jewish people whose ancient enemies, now long since extinct, were the Philistines. In fact nobody but Jews identified themselves with the moniker "Palestinians" preceding 1967. Inquiries made by the UN in 1947 showed that Arabs did not identify themselves as Palestinians but considered the area in question to be part of southern Syria and had known it for centuries as "balad esh-sham" (the country of Damascus)

In a March 31, 1977 interview with the Amsterdam-based newspaper Dagblad de Verdieping Trouw, PLO executive committee member Zahir Mushe'in said: "The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence ofa distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

2. Jews obtained the land they now control legally and often at great cost in lives as well as money. Zionist pioneers from the middle of the 19th century onward joined the local Jewish communities in rebuilding a Jewish homeland in what was then the Turkish Crown and from Arab landowners (effendi). There was no invasion, no conquest, and no theft of Arab land_and certainly not of a land of Palestine, since the Arabs living in the region had been Turkish subjects for 400 years. Unarmed and possessing no military, the Jews bought so much land from Arabs that in 1892, a group of effendi sent a letter to the Turkish Sultan, requesting that he make it illegal for his subjects to sell land to the Jews. Their successors did the same thing, via a telegram, in 1915. Evidently, the very presence of Jews owning land in the Middle East_however legally acquired_was offensive to some.

It is indisputable that there was no theft, because no one complained of any. No Arabs were driven from their homes. In fact, as a demographic study published by Columbia University demonstrates, the Arab population of the area grew tremendously during this period in part because of the economic development that the Jews helped to generate. Between 1514 AD and circa 1850, the Arab population of this region of the Turkish Empire was more or less static at about 340,000. It suddenly began to increase around 1855, and by 1947 the Arab population stood at about 1,300,000_almost quadrupling in less than 100 years.

Much of the land that the Zionists purchased was desert and swamp, uninhabited and deemed uninhabitable by the Arabs. Modern agrarian techniques instituted by the Jews and the blood and sweat of thousands of idealistic Zionists reclaimed that land and turned it into prime real estate with flourishing farms and rapidly growing communities sporting modern technology and a healthy market economy. As a result, Arab migrants poured into the region from surrounding states, with hundreds of thousands seeking a better life and greater economic opportunity.

Validation of this history, which is quite at variance with the standard Arab propaganda, comes from a surprising source. Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradhawi, international Arab terrorist and lieutenant to Osama bin Laden, in a televised speech in May, 2005 chided his followers with the following words; "Unfortunately, we [Arabs] do not excel in either military or civil industries. We import everything from needles to missiles...How come the Zionist gang has managed to be superior to us, despite being so few? It has become superior through knowledge, through technology, and through strength. It has become superior to us through work. We had the desert before our eyes but we didn't do anything with it. When they took over, they turned it into a green oasis. How can a nation that does not work progress? How can it grow?" (emphasis mine)

I will tackle the "Palestinian" refugee problem in my next post.

[Phill]

Great post

Look forward to the next one. It's a pity the world stage doesn't see through the deceit the Arabs are trying to show. Yasser Arafat wasnt even a so called Palestinian...he is Egytian, born in Egypt to Egyptian parents.

Carry on Rex, and don't forget to mention Housseini

[resistingrexmundi]

Great post

Look forward to the next one. It's a pity the world stage doesn't see through the deceit the Arabs are trying to show. Yasser Arafat wasnt even a so called Palestinian...he is Egytian, born in Egypt to Egyptian parents.

Carry on Rex, and don't forget to mention Housseini

Thank you Phill. Truth be told no one is actually "Palestinian". As my previous post showed Palestine as a country has never existed. Walid Shoebat a former PLO terrorist even commented how surprised he was to be Jordanian oneday and Palestinian the next.

As promised I will now cover the refugee problem.

The reality of the situation is that the countries we now know as Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq were created artificially out of the Ottoman empire. Israel too was created out of the defeated Ottoman empire. Jordan was created on about 80% of the Palestine Mandate, which wa originally designated by the League of Nations as part of the Jewish homeland. Since then, Jews have been prohibited from owning property there. Two-thirds of its citizens are self identified Palestinian Arabs, but it is ruled by a Hashemite monarchy.

In 1947, the UN partition plan mandated the creation of two states on the remaining 20% of the Palestine Mandate: the State of Israel for the Jews, and another state for the Arabs. It should be noted that despite the indefensible borders of the new Jewish homeland the Jews accepted the partition while the Arabs rejected it. So as it stands the "Palestinians" had an opportunity to have a homeland in 1947. Not only did the Arabs reject the proposition of a homeland they then launched a war against Israel and it is this that is the primary reason for the refugee problem today.

The Arab refugees were roughly 725,000 people who fled because of the war that the Arab states_not the Palestinian Arabs_started.  The Arab states_dicatorships all_did not wan a non-Arab state in the Middle East. The rulers of eight Arab countries whose populations vastly outnumbered the Jewish settlers in the Turkish Empire, initiated teh war with simultaneous invasions of the newly of the newly created state of Israel on 3 fronts. Nascent Israel begged for peace and offered friendship and cooperation to its neighbors. The Arab dictators rejected this offer and answered it with a war of annihilation against the Jews. The war failed. But the state of war has continued uninterepted because of the failure of the Arab states_Saudi Arabia and Iraq in particular_to sign a peac treaty with Israel. To this day, the Arab states and the Palestinians refer to the failure of their aggression and the survival of Israel as an-Nakba_the catastrophe.

Had there been no Arab aggression, no war, and no invasion by Arab armies whose intent was overtly genocidal, not only would there have been no Arab refugees, but there would have been a state of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza since 1948.

In the war, Israel acquired additional land. In the absence of a peace treaty between belligerents, the law of nations allows the annexation of an aggressor's land after a conflict_although the land in question belonged to the Turks and then the World War I victors. Israel actually offered to return land it had acquired while defending itself against the Arab aggression in exchange for a formal peace. It made this offer during the Rhodes Armistice talks and Lausanne conference in 1949. The Arab rulers refused the land because they wanted to maintain a state of war in order to destroy the Jewish state. Had Israel's offer been accepted, there could have been prompt and just resolution to all the problems that have afflicted the region since. The only problem that wouldn't have been resolved to the satisfaction of the Arabs was their desire to obliterate the state of Israel.

After their victory, Israel passed a law that allowed Arab refugees to re-settle in Israel provided they would sign a form in which they renounced violence, swore allegiance to the state of Israel, and became peaceful productive citizens. During the decades of this law's tenure, more than 150,000 Arab refugees have taken advantage of it to resume lives in Israel. Jews do not have similar option to become citizens of Arab states from which they are banned.

It should be completely obvious to any reasonable and fair-minded observer of this history, therefore, that it was not Israel that caused the Arab refugee problem, nor Israel that obstructed its solution.

On the contrary, the Arab refugee problem was the direct result of the aggression by the Arab states, and their refusal after failing to obliterate Israel to sign a formal peace, or to take care of the Arab refugees who remained outside Israel's borders.

I will cover the Jewish refugee issue in the next post and go into more detail about the Arab refugee problem.

[Phill]

Another good post Rex, and yes I stand corrected that there is no such peoples called the "Palestinians" but a conglomerate of Arab neighbors instead. Your right that the Israelis didn't create the refugee problem but the Arabs. The Arab aggressors ordered these refugees to leave their homes and towns so they could decimate Israel and wipe it off the map and they were quite confident that this would happen and the refugees could come back home in no time at all. Well history shows it ended very badly for the Arabs and they lost a war they never should have based on sheer numbers, (Divine intervention I say ).

It was the Arab army ego that caused the current mess. Israel offered to have the refugees come back and settle in their homes and become citizens as Rex mentioned but again the Arabs stopped as many as possible from returning to become the political pawns that they are today.

I find it strange and laughable that Fatah have to get approval from the "Arab League" to negotiate peace with Israel. The Arab League is a joke in my view. And whilst i'm talking about the Arab League...where are they with the uprisings in the Middle East Arab countries at the moment ? NOWHERE and I haven't heard boo from them.

[Peter]

Another good post Rex, and yes I stand corrected that there is no such peoples called the "Palestinians"..."

Here's another article on that term.
http://islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=2403.0

[resistingrexmundi]

In the immortal words of Paul Harvey..."And now the rest of the story"

There were another group of refugees that were caused by the Arab-Israeli conflict. You don't hear about them much for multiple reasons. Among them being media bias, overexposure of the "Palestinian" refugees etc. But the most prominent reason you don't hear about them too much is that Israel settled them and they are now full contributing members of society and citizens of Israel. These refugees were Jews. Between 1949 and 1954, about 800,000 Jews were forced to flee from the Arab and Muslim lands where they had lived for hundreds and even thousands of years-from Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and Iran, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, and other Muslim countries.

It is interesting to note that despite the recent creation of some of these nations and the extended period of a Jewish presence in those lands that no movement arose to fight for the Jewish "right" to those lands. Many of these families were tossed out unceremoniously with nothing but what they could carry while the rest of their belongings were taken. The only reason for this expulsion was vengeance against the Jewish citizenry or Arab countries for the shame of the Arab defeat in their war of aggression.

Most of the Jewish refugees came to Israel, where they were integrated into normalcy by the tiny fledgling Jewish state. The Arab states (and later PLO) refused to do this for the Arab refugees because they preferred to keep them an aggrieved constituency for their war against Israel.

Some observers have suggested that the dual refugee situation should be understood as a "population exchange"-Arabs fled to Arab countries as Jews fled to the Jewish country, both as a result of the 1948 war, both under conditions which their side regards as forced evacuations. On the other hand, no one on the Arab side has suggested the obvious: if Jewish refugees were resettled on land vacated by fleeing Arabs, why not resettle Arab refugees on the land vacated by the Jews who were forced to flee the Arab countries. One reason no one has suggested this is that no Arab stated with the exception of Jordan will even allow Arab refugees to become citizens.

Taking into account the Jewish refugees' assets that were confiscated when they fled from Arab and Muslim lands, one can conclude that the Jews have already paid a massive "reparations" to the Arabs whether warranted or not. The property and belongings of the Jewish refugees, confiscated by the Arab governments, has been conservatively estimated at about 2.5 billion dollars in 1948 dollars. Invest that money at a modest 6.5% over 57 years and you have today a sum of 80 billion dollars, which the Arab and Muslim governments of the lands from which the Jews were expelled could apply to the benefit of the Arab refugees. That sum is quite sufficient for reparations to Arab refugees. There is no way of accurately assessing the value of Arab property left in Israel's control; but there are no estimates as high as a 1948 value of 2.5 billion. So, hypothetically, the Arab side has already gotten the better end of the deal.

I will deal with the Arab refugee issue in more detail next time.

[Phill]

In the immortal words of Paul Harvey..."And now the rest of the story"

There were another group of refugees that were caused by the Arab-Israeli conflict. You don't hear about them much for multiple reasons. Among them being media bias, overexposure of the "Palestinian" refugees etc. But the most prominent reason you don't hear about them too much is that Israel settled them and they are now full contributing members of society and citizens of Israel. These refugees were Jews. Between 1949 and 1954, about 800,000 Jews were forced to flee from the Arab and Muslim lands where they had lived for hundreds and even thousands of years-from Iraq, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and Iran, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, and other Muslim countries.

It is interesting to note that despite the recent creation of some of these nations and the extended period of a Jewish presence in those lands that no movement arose to fight for the Jewish "right" to those lands. Many of these families were tossed out unceremoniously with nothing but what they could carry while the rest of their belongings were taken. The only reason for this expulsion was vengeance against the Jewish citizenry or Arab countries for the shame of the Arab defeat in their war of aggression.

Most of the Jewish refugees came to Israel, where they were integrated into normalcy by the tiny fledgling Jewish state. The Arab states (and later PLO) refused to do this for the Arab refugees because they preferred to keep them an aggrieved constituency for their war against Israel.

Some observers have suggested that the dual refugee situation should be understood as a "population exchange"-Arabs fled to Arab countries as Jews fled to the Jewish country, both as a result of the 1948 war, both under conditions which their side regards as forced evacuations. On the other hand, no one on the Arab side has suggested the obvious: if Jewish refugees were resettled on land vacated by fleeing Arabs, why not resettle Arab refugees on the land vacated by the Jews who were forced to flee the Arab countries. One reason no one has suggested this is that no Arab stated with the exception of Jordan will even allow Arab refugees to become citizens.

Taking into account the Jewish refugees' assets that were confiscated when they fled from Arab and Muslim lands, one can conclude that the Jews have already paid a massive "reparations" to the Arabs whether warranted or not. The property and belongings of the Jewish refugees, confiscated by the Arab governments, has been conservatively estimated at about 2.5 billion dollars in 1948 dollars. Invest that money at a modest 6.5% over 57 years and you have today a sum of 80 billion dollars, which the Arab and Muslim governments of the lands from which the Jews were expelled could apply to the benefit of the Arab refugees. That sum is quite sufficient for reparations to Arab refugees. There is no way of accurately assessing the value of Arab property left in Israel's control; but there are no estimates as high as a 1948 value of 2.5 billion. So, hypothetically, the Arab side has already gotten the better end of the deal.

I will deal with the Arab refugee issue in more detail next time.

Hi Rex

I found a link to a document outlining the debacle   http://www.justiceforjews.com/resource_and_reference.pdf