John - please post
Marie Komar

The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest

Vol: 31 Issue: 21 - Wednesday, April 21, 2004

The Burdensome Stone

British Prime Minister Tony Blair began to distance himself a bit from his
war ally, George Bush, following the US announcement of support for Ariel
Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan.  While the White House responded
to Israel's killing of Hamas leader Abdel Rantisi by saying Israel has a
right to self-defense, Tony Blair denounced it as an 'assassination'.

That seems an odd posture for any country engaged in the war on terror to
take.

Abdel Azizz Rantisi was a terrorist killer who was directly responsible
for the deaths of hundreds of innocent Israelis.  Osama bin-Laden is a
terrorist leader who is directly responsible for the deaths of tens of
Britons.

It is worth asking the question; if a British sniper in Afghanistan got
Osama in his cross hairs and took the shot, would he be a hero, worthy of
praise?  Or an 'assassin', worthy of condemnation?

The British press is following its political leader in damning Israel
enthusiastically for deciding to pull out of Gaza and withdraw from most
of the West Bank.

The Palestinians want it all, and will accept nothing less than 'all' and
that's all there is to it, goes the British view of the situation.  "Since
Israel stole it from the Palestinians in the first place, the thinking
goes, any portion the Palestinians let the Jews keep is more than they
have coming."

(The irony is that it was Great Britain that created a much-larger Jewish
homeland via the 1917 Balfour Declaration in the first place -after
Britain 'stole' it from the Ottoman Empire in World War I)

In any case,  the fact Israel wants to retain control of six
long-established settlement blocs out of all of Gaza and the West Bank is
unacceptable to the Brits.  Just as it is unacceptable to the whole of the
Arab world.  And unacceptable by the United Nations entire; but for the
US, the Marshall Islands, and Micronesia.

Think about it for a second -- I mean, really THINK about what we are
talking about.  Virtually unanimous global support for the ethnic
cleansing of all Jews from the West Bank! There are about a quarter
million Jews concerned, many of whom have lived in their homes for thirty
years or more!  It staggers the imagination.

What really staggers the imagination is the global uproar that would ensue
if Israel attempted to ethnically cleanse the Jewish State of its Israeli
Arab population.

Think this through.  Israel is surrounded by hostile Arab states. Some of
its own Israeli-Arab citizens have been been directly involved in
terrorist acts against Israel on the behalf of those Arab enemy states.
Israel possesses about 1/6th of one percent of the entire Middle East --
the rest is in Arab hands.

If Israel tried to expell a relative handful of Arabs into an Arab world
more than one hundred times its size, Israel couldn't even count on
Micronesia, let alone America, to support it.  But let the Arab world try
to expell a quarter-million Jews from its territory into tiny Israel --
and it takes a US veto to stop the UN from sending troops in to help with
the cleansing operation.

Assessment:

The global reaction to the Israeli unilateral withdrawal is the exact
opposite of what one should expect.  Ever since Israel captured the West
Bank and Gaza, the world has demanded an Israeli withdrawal. The UN
General Assembly has passed resolution after resolution demanding an
Israeli withdrawal, going all the way back to 1947.  (Most of them were
unanimous, except for dissenting votes from Israel, the US, the Marshall
Islands and Micronesia.)

So now, Israel is pulling out, asking only that the quarter million Jews
already settled for a generation be allowed their homes.  Instead of
having Palestinian Arabs dancing for joy in the streets, while diplomats
clink together celebratory glasses of champagne, the disengagement plan is
meeting universal opposition.

What about the Arab 'Right of Return'?  Where will the Palestinians work?
Who will take care of Gaza when the Israelis pull out? How will the Arabs
govern their war-torn new state and shattered economy?

(Those answers should provide clues about the true nature of Israel's
'brutal occupation'? IF one were looking for the truth, that is.)

That nobody can see the deliberate, systematic effort on behalf of
virtually the whole world to drive the Jewish state out of existence (or
turn a blind eye to it) is no more acceptable to me than that Europe
'didn't know' where its Jews went when they boarded those trains headed
east during WWII.

In 1947, the Palestinians were offered a state larger than the one they
claim to demand now, but they rejected the UN Partition Plan in favor of a
plan to wipe out the Jews and take it all.  The Arabs who lived on the
UN's Jewish Mandate fled, expecting to return after the Jews were
annihilated. They gambled and lost. (Those Arabs and their descendants are
the ones affected by the 'Right of Return')

The 'Right of Return' is analogous to betting against the house in a
casino, losing, and demanding your bet back as a 'Right of Refund'.  But
it enjoys the backing of every nation on earth except Israel.  And now,
the United States, and (possibly) Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.

The Arabs didn't want a state in 1947, they wanted to deny the Jews one.
Subsequent history proves that goal remains unchanged. And secretly
shared.

Following the 1967 Six Day War, Golda Meir, then-Israel's prime minister,
offered to return virtually all the territories Israel had just captured
in exchange for peace. That included the entire West Bank and the Gaza
Strip. The Palestinians and Arab States answered with the famous "three
nos" -- no recognition, no negotiation, and no peace.

In 1979, the Palestinians turned a joint Egyptian and Israeli invitation
to join the peace negotiations at Camp David. Had they accepted, they
could have had an independent state decades ago.

In 2000, Yasser Arafat turned down the Camp David proposal that would have
given the Palestinians the beginnings of a thriving Palestinian state. It
included all of Gaza and 97 percent of the West Bank.

Not only did the Arafat turn down the offer, he unleashed the second
intifada.  There is now little left to rule, but the Arab goal was never
statehood from the beginning.

At each historic opportunity, what scuttled the Palestinian chance at
statehood was the Arab insistence on evolving terms they knew Israel could
never accept, like demanding all of Jerusalem, or holding out for an
eventual 'Right of Return'.

The UN endorsed it, for a number of reasons, not the least of which was
that, institutionally, the UN shares the Arab vision of a Jew-free Middle
East.  Israel has been the catalyst for most of the UN's headaches since
the day it first raised its flag and declared its existence.  The world
would be a much simpler place to govern if Israel were an Arab state.

And the Right of Return would give the Arabs an overnight electoral
majority, meaning Israel would be an Arab state at the next election.
George Bush, in his endorsement of unilateral disengagement, took the
'Right of Return', not to mention Jerusalem, right off the table.

That is one of the reasons behind a new Palestinian tactic being tested
now.  Ahmed Queria threatened recently to abandon claims to the West Bank
and Gaza and to demand equal citizenship in a 'bi-national' state. It
would have the same ultimate effect of creating an instant Palestinian
majority.  And the eventual end of a Jewish State in the Middle East.

President Bush was stating the obvious when he said: "It seems clear that
an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the
Palestinian refugee issue . . . will be found through the establishment of
a Palestinian state and the settling of the refugees there rather than in
Israel."

But as obvious as it is, it is evidently only clear to Israel, the US, the
Marshall Islands and Micronesia.

"And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people:
all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the
people of the earth be gathered together against it." (Zechariah 12:3)