Writers In Arab Press Discuss Why Israel Is Superior To Arab Countries

[Theseus]

April 27, 2018

Special Dispatch

 No.

7446

Writers In Arab Press Discuss Why Israel Is Superior To Arab Countries

 

In recent months, several Arab writers have published articles in the Arab press discussing why Israel is superior to the weaker Arab states. The reasons, they said, lie in Israel's strong and effective judicial system that tackles corruption in the country, even investigating and prosecuting leaders and senior officials who have transgressed, while corruption is rampant in the Arab countries and the regimes silence all those who call for integrity. Other reasons they gave are that Israel is a democracy and respects the will of its citizens and voters, and that over the years it has invested a great deal in education, science, health, and technology.

The writers went on to call on their countries to learn from Israel – to develop their judicial systems and a democratic form of government, to stop repressing citizens, and to invest in education. If they do not do so, they added, the Arab countries will be left even farther behind.

The following are translated excerpts from some of these articles:

Former Egyptian Official: Israel Has Advanced Because Of Its Investment In Education, Science, And Industry – And The Arabs Are Left Behind   

Reda Abd Al-Salam, former governor of Egypt's Al-Sharqiya province who is today a lecturer at Mansoura University in Egypt, wrote that Israel surpasses the Arab countries in many ways because over the years it has invested in education, health, science, and technology, and in building a democracy, while the Arabs have remained behind, mired in primitiveness and tyranny. He called on Egypt not to blame the gap between them on the U.S. support for Israel, and not to expect supplications to Allah during Friday prayers to defeat Israel, but to invest in education and universities in order to bring the country out of ignorance and darkness into the light of science and industry. He wrote:

"'Allah, punish the sons of apes and pigs, so they will not escape you; Allah, expel them, Allah, show me the wonders of Your might by [punishing them]... 'Our forefathers were born, and we were born and grew up and become old and grey, and we still reiterate this supplication to Allah in Friday sermons, with flowing tears... But what have we accomplished [with this]? Has Allah answered our millions of supplications? Have we seen the wonders of Allah's capabilities in carrying out judgment against the sons of Zion and the sons of apes and pigs, as we plead again and again in our prayers? No, not at all – the result has been great disappointment and shame for the Arab leaders, since the opposite happened! Allah has done the complete opposite: It is the Arabs and Muslims who have been torn to shreds and expelled, and through whom Allah has revealed his signs.

"Yes, Israel is growing stronger, and it is becoming more and more advanced and cohesive, and wins more and more land every day – while it is surrounded by decrepit Bedouin who fight each other and feverishly race to the bottom and atrophy in every area; and [while it is surrounded by] peoples and regimes mired deeply in primitiveness, disease, and dictatorship...

"Why has Israel advanced and the Arabs and Muslims fallen behind? How long will we keep our heads in the sand or stop up our ears and listen only to sorcerers, to idiots in power, and to the mouthpieces [of the regimes] of hypocrisy [as we have been doing] for decades? How long?! To put it bluntly, let the numbers speak for themselves: since they are the best expression of progress and backwardness, and with them we will understand why Allah has not answered our supplications of millions of Arabs and Muslims for 60 years, but has instead done the complete opposite [of what we ask] – the Zionists have advanced and the Arabs and Muslims have been left behind... 

"The Arab and Muslim peoples live under regimes that for decades have engaged not in developing their peoples and establishing themselves in economy, society, science, and democracy but in establishing their [own] rule... During this time, those we called 'the sons of apes and pigs' engaged in real building. They focused on education, health, economy, and technology, and of course on democratic process; so often we have heard of the imprisonment of a president or prime minister in Israel... What [heights] have the sons of apes and pigs reached, and where is Egypt, the greatest Arab country, mired? ... This is also true regarding the other Arab countries...

"Israel, which we curse day and night, is among the 20 top countries in all measures of global development – while Egypt... for example, ranks below 100th place in most of these measures – for example in quality of education, competitiveness, corruption, investment, online government services, intellectual property, creativity, human development, and so on...

"Have we education, health services, or social justice? If only we would stop lying to ourselves... because Israel rejoices on high in science and industry, while we are drenched in sweat among the tuk-tuk [motorized rickshaw] drivers, who number over two million in Egypt. Don't say that [this is because] the U.S. supports Israel, because over the past decades Egypt has received tremendous support, in billions of dollars, from its Arab brothers and also from the international institutions in the form of grants and aid for developing education, roads, and the like. Where has [this money] gone and whose pockets [does it line]? ...

"The Zionists have never been smarter than us; it is only how they run the state, and the dream of and loyalty to the homeland. Accordingly, I stress that after two revolutions, and following years of destruction, burnout, and vandalism... the gap between us and those we call the sons of apes and pigs is now very great... and it is they who are now making a mockery of us. But with a genuine, clear, and determined will, we will change the face of Egypt – yes, we can...

"Education, education, and again education is our first problem... [What we need is] the development of official institutions and the final elimination of the organizations that direct the country, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and others like them, since the nation does not need [these] organizations to acquire knowledge of religious matters but does need universities to spread enlightenment and bring us out of our ignorance and darkness into the light of science and industry... Supplications to Allah from the preachers' pulpits [to punish Israel] are not enough, because if they were, Israel would have disappeared from the map after one Friday sermon...

"[The fact is that] Israel has advanced and we [Arabs] will remain behind – unless we fear Allah in our homeland and in our nation, and present a model by means of which we will lift our heads among the nations"[1]

Jordanian Politician: The Arabs Are Incapable Of Prosecuting Corrupt Officials – Which Israel Does

Jordanian politician and intellectual Rahil Ghorayba, who writes for the Jordanian Al-Dustour daily, stated in a March 7, 2018 article that he yearned for the day when the Arab countries investigate officials who embezzle state funds, as Israel is investigating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife for corruption. He stated that Arab countries must have a way to conduct such investigations, in order to restore sovereignty and strength to their peoples. He wrote:

"Investigating a prime minister is one of the manifestations of justice in any country – even an enemy country – that shows strength, not weakness. This is because the official state institutions are powerful enough to enable them to summon the prime minister and his wife for questioning and to prevent them from leaving the country so that the investigation can be completed, following suspicions about them in several reports submitted by authorities. Moreover, we have seen the Israeli justice system prosecute, and sentence to prison, top influential figures, some of whom are still serving their sentences in the depths of prison...

"Israeli society has an ability that Arab societies do not. It is to easily prosecute officials and influential figures, without causing an uproar and without this being out of the ordinary or some kind of miracle – even though the scope of the corruption [in the Arab countries] cannot be compared with what is called 'suspicion of corruption' in the occupying state. In modern Arab history, there is no [case] of a trial or investigation of this kind of a leader or influential figure. Therefore, it can be said frankly that this is a highly significant weak point in the Arab homeland, and that there is no chance of revival and advancement of Arab society until we reach a stage where it will have the capability to prosecute officials who embezzled state and public funds without any oversight, who caused economic collapse, and who obstructed the Arab peoples [' ability] to regain their power and sovereignty over their resources and to protect them.

"This issue, that is worthy of attention, means bringing officials to trial when they are in office – not after they leave office and have no power – which is the greatest possible expression of the rule of law and the clearest possible sign of justice, that promise real stability and prosperity."[2]

Palestinian Writer: Instead Of Rejoicing Over The Netanyahu Investigation, We Should Cry Over Our Infallible Rulers  

Similarly, Palestinian writer Suhail Kiwan wrote that one of the foundations of Israel's strength is its judicial system that can call corrupt individuals to account, while the Arab regimes that are plagued with corruption never acknowledge their mistakes and persecute those who warn about them. He wrote:

"The [Israeli] judicial system is the final arbiter, because it remains an independent institution, despite all that is said and that we say against the racist apartheid anti-Arab Zionist regime. Indeed, this regime is criminal, murderous, and barbaric against the Arabs, but with respect to the Jewish citizens, it is still very good, and it cannot be compared to the regimes that murder Arabs because they are Arabs, wiping out civilians for the sake of the interests of the homeland and indiscriminately oppressing people and the homeland. regret this deeply, for it leads us to the situation in which my nation is mired, to our wretchedness. I do not enjoy self-flagellation, but that is the painful truth – they [in Israel] surpass us in managing their affairs and identifying their interests...

"There is much corruption in Israel... [and] a judicial system that can take the corrupt to task is one of the most important secrets of Israel's power – not the advanced technology, the advanced aircraft, the sizeable army, or the compulsory [military] service for young Jewish men and women, but the capability of the regime itself to identify and rectify flaws.

"To those who want the destruction of Israel and wish for its annihilation in their prayers, I suggest that you not wish earthquakes, floods, or military defeats upon it – [instead,] wish upon it the collapse of its judicial system Then it will be nibbled away at and weakened.

"There is a tremendous difference between a regime with its own internal purging mechanism that protects itself daily from rot and rust, and a regime that does not acknowledge its mistakes, but instead accumulates and conceals them, represses the honest voices calling for integrity, throws them into prison and levels accusations against them, and may even attempt to assassinate them. Imagine an Arab police chief investigating an Arab minister or president for corruption – what would he [i.e. the police chief] be accused of? I leave to you the pleasure of thinking [about it]...

"Corruption exists in every regime everywhere in the world, including in democratic countries in Europe, at various levels. But these countries have the power of the constitution and independent judicial apparatuses, and no sacred cows. [In those countries,] a president who rapes a clerk in his office or takes bribes goes to prison; a head of the ruling party who has ties to an underworld gang resigns or is fired. Exposing graft and corruption is a strength, not a weakness. This does not mean that the regimes that conceal corruption are any better, because many of these do so after the damage has already been done – and this is what happened and is still happening in our Arab homeland.

"It is regrettable that some Arab media are victorious and gloating over the exposure of Netanyahu's corruption – [instead], we should be crying about our own situation and about the pitiful state that our infallible leaders have come to."[3]

Lebanese Writer: Israel Is Stable Because It Is A Democracy That Respects The Will Of The Citizen, Unlike Arab Countries

Against the backdrop of U.S. President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Lebanese writer Abd Al-Rahman Abd Al-Mulla Al-Salah analyzed, in an article in the Egyptian Al-Hayat daily, why President Trump had done so without fearing the reactions of the Arab countries. He argued that Israel is a country of law and institutions, and the only stable democracy in the region, while the political and constitutional conduct of the Arab countries is deeply flawed: "We stand before helpless regimes, and, most unfortunately, Israel is, relative to them, the only stable one in the region...

"Israel is stable, and despite all its racism, it is a democracy for the Jews within it. Whether we like it or not, Israel is a country of institutions, law, and a constitution, in which the transfer of power is carried out [in an organized fashion]... Since its establishment in 1948, it has held 19 elections, which played a very important role in its political development... while in the Arab world, the presidential and parliamentary elections are a mere formality...

"[For example,] in Egypt, after much effort, the regime managed to find a rival [to run against] the current president of the republic [Al-Sisi], when suddenly Egyptian Al-Ghad ['Tomorrow'] Party chairman Moussa Moustafa Moussa popped up [and entered] the presidential race – which sparked a controversy with regard to how serious the race really was...[4]

"Iraqi parliamentary elections are set for May, at a time when cities such as Mosul and Al-Anbar remain empty... These elections are clearly connected to a specific religious stream [i.e. the Shi'ites] and, surprisingly, the [Shi'ite] Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi has candidates.

"With respect to Lebanon, the claims regarding the formulation of an election law whose flaws and disadvantages outweigh its advantages, if there really are any, are not exaggerated – because the outcome [i.e. who will win 110 of the 128 seats] is already known. Unfortunately, the Lebanese law under which the parliamentary elections are to be held this May was drawn up with a regional ethnic [Shi'ite] perspective.

"I mention [this] to present one of the defective aspects of the Arab regime – the instability in the Arab world... in comparison to the stable situation in Israel, the enemy... Israel's stability draws its strength from its democracy and its regime, which is derived from respect for the Israeli citizen and his choices. The situation in our Arab world will not stabilize unless the Arab citizen regains his respect, and until his repression ends."[5]

 

---

[1] Nile-press.com, January 12, 2018.

[2] Al-Dustour (Jordan), March 7, 2018.

[3] Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London), February 22, 2018.

[4] See MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 1380, Presidential Elections In Egypt – Part I: The Al-Sisi Regime's Brutal Crackdown On Potential Presidential Candidates, March 19, 2018.

[5] Al-Hayat (Dubai), February 10, 2018.

[umbertino]

 

What's the difference  between such a thing and Nazi Germany saying the Aryan race was superior to any other race?????

 

The sad part is that some ( not all) Israelis have learned way too well the Nazi experience and they applied it ( probably even perfecting it some) to the Palestinian People

 

 

 

Edited May 14, 2018 by umbertino

[Synopsis]

8 hours ago, umbertino said:

 

What's the difference  between such a thing and Nazi Germany saying the Aryan race was superior to any other race?????

 

The sad part is that some ( not all) Israelis have learned way too well the Nazi experience and they applied it ( probably even perfecting it some) to the Palestinian People

 

 

 

 

So You, Umbertino, are really an anti Nationalist and New World Order Proponent. No wonder Your comments are so screwed up and Fascist oriented. And You attempt to garner sympathy for the way You are responded to and You support those who are responded to in like turn who have a similar disposition as You. You also mislabel the responses as hate whereas people are standing for the things that really do matter You and others are so intent on compromising and eliminating.

 

                                 

 

              

[Theseus]

 

One picture explains everything Umbertino said is complete and utter BS to promulgate a fictitious narrative that he tows the party line., as illustrated in the below article.

 

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem with Hitler. And the Germans, and Hitler, Learned it from the muslims. I agree with Netenyahu and not the following article. Because the author of the article believes Palestinkians are owed the land of Palestine which was never a country only a territory created by the Romans.

 

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked a wave of backlashwhen he argued that the Holocaust was the brainchild of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who, Netanyahu claimed, suggested killing the Jews (rather than merely expelling them) to Hitler during a 1941 visit to Berlin. As it happens, the full German record of the meeting between al-Husseini and Hitler, on Nov. 28, 1941, was published half a century ago, and is readily available online. It is a fascinating and important document. Not only does it make clear that Netanyahu’s accusation is false, but it also sheds light on the true origins of the Holocaust, and why Hitler undertook it when he did.

 

The timing of the meeting is critical to understanding it and placing it in context. In late November 1941, as World War II continued, German troops had besieged Leningrad and had reached the outskirts of Moscow. A great many observers all over the world had expected the USSR to have collapsed under the weight of the attack Hitler had unleashed that June, and it was not yet clear that Germany was not about to defeat the Soviet Union. Equally importantly, although the negotiations between the United States and Japan that were designed to preserve peace in the Pacific seemed about to fail, the United States was not yet in the war. When Hitler and al-Husseini met, both leaders clearly believed that Germany was going to win, and the bulk of their conversation dealt with what the Arabs should or should not do help bring that outcome about.

 

Al-Husseini began the conversation by declaring that the Germans and the Arabs had the same enemies: “the English, the Jews, and the Communists.” He proposed an Arab revolt all across the Middle East to fight the Jews; the English, who still ruled Palestine and controlled Iraq and Egypt; and even the French, who controlled Syria and Lebanon. (The British had secured a mandate for Palestine at the Paris peace conference in 1919, and made halting attempts to create a “Jewish national home” there without prejudicing the rights of the Arab population.) He also wanted to form an Arab legion, using Arab prisoners from the French Empire who were then POWs inside Germany. He also asked Hitler to declare publicly, as the German government had privately, that it favored “the elimination of the Jewish national home” in Palestine.

 

Netanyahu uttered a half-truth when he referred to Hitler’s supposed desire to expel, rather than murder, the Jews. That had indeed been the policy of the German government at least until 1938. Hitler’s reply to Al-Husseini on November 28, however, confirmed that this policy was already a thing of the past before that meeting.

 

A great deal of evidence indicates that the decision to murder all the Jews of Europe had been taken sometime during the prior six months. The implementation of the policy, indeed, had begun immediately after the invasion of the USSR on June 22, when Einsatzgruppen squads began rounding up and shooting Jews by the thousands as troops advanced into the USSR. On July 31, Reinhard Heydrich of the SS had received a directive to prepare “the total solution of the Jewish question,” The construction of death camps in Poland had already begun, and Heydrich had already sent out invitations for the Wansee Conference, the meeting of high German officials from all involved ministries, that discussed the implementation of the “Final Solution” when it convened in January.Hitler’s reply to Husseini reflects all these decisions and measures.

 

Though al-Husseini asked for it, Hitler did not want an Arab revolt, at least not yet, as he did not expect one to succeed. He promised that it could be undertaken after further advances into the USSR, and through the Caucasus. But Germany’s “fundamental attitude,” he said, “was clear: Germany stood for uncompromising war against the Jews,” including, obviously, the “national home” in Palestine. “Germany,” he continued, “was at the present time engaged in a life and death struggle with two citadels of Jewish power: Great Britain and Soviet Russia.” Ideologically the war was “a battle between National Socialism and the Jews,” and Germany would of course help others involved in this “war of survival or destruction.” And Germany, Hitler said—in an unusually frank statement of what was about to happen—“was resolved, step by step, to ask one European nation after the other to solve its Jewish problem, and at the proper time to direct a similar appeal to non-European nations as well.”

 

 

Al-Husseini had obviously come to Berlin in the middle of the play, and could not possibly have had any influence on decisions that had already been taken. Nor did he say anything about the fate of the millions of Jews—most of them Polish and Soviet nationals—who had already come under Hitler’s control. What he wanted, and did not get, was the authorization to proceed immediately to a revolt against the colonial powers in the Middle East and a war against the British and the Jews in Palestine.

 

The full text of Netanyahu’s speech to the World Zionist Congress shows that he made this claim to argue that Palestinian Arabs are never really angry about specific acts taken by the Israeli government, but rather at the existence of Israel itself. For him to suggest that a Palestinian leader, rather than Hitler, conceived of the Final Solution, prompted a negative reaction. The German government responded with an almost instantaneous acknowledgement of Germany’s responsibility for the Holocaust. In our highly politicized age, facts are frequently a casualty of controversy, but for those who are Interested, the internet makes the truth nearer at hand than ever before.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 15, 2018 by Theseus

[Theseus]

The author fails to mention several things in his article that transpired before the first world war. These are described in Dori Gold's book. The Wahabi muslims (there are those who deny the existence of such) marched through the Arabian pennisula in the mid to late 1800's. One of the marches was to drive the Jews into the sea. This mantra has gone back for centuries and is not something that was thought up by Arafat. Palestine was a Roman territory when the Romans conquered Isreal and the Jews. The political and socioeconomic discourse after the death of Jesus is a bit of history most are ignorant about. It is not until around 631 AD does this land even become important again because a man who had never stepped foot into Isreal claimed he was taken to prostrate before his god just so he could learn how many times a day he should pray. Then the area dissolves back into the annals of history until the Crusades. Jews have always maintained and owned the land. The right of return the Palestinians is a bunch of hogwash meant to thwart the peace process. Palestinkians are the outcasts from Arab countries. If this is not true than why so many in Lebanon and Jordan kept in camps? Jordan was supposed to  be their land and the Palestinkians tried to overthrow the government there. They lost 80,000 palestinkians and were banished to the camps. Isreal gives these people a seat in their government. Think Germany and Hitler would have done that to the Jews? Never! The Palestinkians are in this situation they find themselves today because of Arafat, the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah and others don't want a two-state solution, they want a one state solution where there is no Isreal. The people of Isreal have turned a dessert and swamp into a lush garden in which they have thrived for centuries. Where else in the Arab world do you see this? No where! All of this goes to show Umbertino is a fascist who is quick to throw the "racist" word and the "nazi" word around like it was candy to a baby rather than learning the truth behind the fiction he subscribes in.

 

The other point is not that Isrealis as a race is superior to Arabs, but what they, the Isrealis, have accomplished is far superior to anything the Arabs, on the Arabian pennisula, have done to date. You have a nation-state no bigger than the US state of New Jersey, putting the beatdown on nation-states far larger and with larger numbers. That makes anyone superior. To say it isn't is to believe that the Candy Man will be by your house tonight to make the world go round. The real world isn't about participation trophies, its about survival of the fittest and in that survival there will be those who are above, superior, to all others. Makes people jealous and envious, doesn't it Umbertino? 

[pokerplayer]

“Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against

Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to

bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!”

. . . Golda Meir

[Theseus]

1 hour ago, pokerplayer said:

“Let me tell you something that we Israelis have against

Moses. He took us 40 years through the desert in order to

bring us to the one spot in the Middle East that has no oil!”

. . . Golda Meir

Funny how the Israelis make a killing off of Olive Oil. 

[Theseus]

On 5/14/2018 at 9:48 AM, umbertino said:

 

What's the difference  between such a thing and Nazi Germany saying the Aryan race was superior to any other race?????

 

The sad part is that some ( not all) Israelis have learned way too well the Nazi experience and they applied it ( probably even perfecting it some) to the Palestinian People

 

 

 

Umbertino you need read the headline and article again. It's the Arabs who are saying the Israelis are superior to them. Not the other way around. LOL. But you wouldn't see that through the rage in your eyes seeing only what you want to see. You lost this one because it's the Arabs who Trumped you. 

[Theseus]

Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, when the Welsh magus Glendower boasts, “I can call spirits from the vasty deep,” the sceptic Hotspur retorts, “Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?” For seven decades the West’s foreign policy establishment has been trying to call Middle East peace from depths of endless summits and conferences and agreements with ritualistic chants of “land for peace” and “two-state solution.” But all they’ve managed to produce is war, terrorism, and groveling appeasement. Peace hasn’t answered their call.

The EU has been particularly feckless, spending billions of Euros paying off the Palestinian Arabs so that they and their fellow jihadists don’t unleash terrorist hordes to disturb la dolce vita of European elites. Fearful of the disgruntled unassimilated Muslim immigrants they have let invade their countries, they have demonized Israel’s “illegal occupation” and “disproportionate use of force,” and winked at growing anti-Semitism and Muslim violence, all in the hopes that they will escape the wrath of Allah’s “martyrs.” Of course, they haven’t, as attested by the blood and gore spattering the streets of Paris, London, Brussels, Berlin, and Madrid. Nor have they bought a reprieve from the “Little Terror,” as Norwegian blogger Fjordman calls it, of daily vandalism, rape, assault, and creeping sharia, along with the commandeering and colonization of public spaces and civic institutions.

Yet despite their failure to raise from the deeps the spirits of regional peace and reconciliation, the EU political elite continue furiously to repeat their diplomatic mantras. The latest came in the form of a response to President Trump’s fulfillment this week of his promise to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, the spiritual, cultural, and political capital of the Jewish people for 3000 years, a city whose Arab influences came by dint of invasion, occupation, and colonization. 

Decades of failure, however, have not schooled the EU clerks into reassessing their received wisdom. On the eve of the U.S. embassy’s move to Jerusalem, EU diplomats prepared a joint EU statement laying out their reasons for rejecting it: 

Jerusalem should be the capital of both states — Israel and the future state of Palestine.

The final status of Jerusalem should be negotiated and only determined through negotiations between the parties.

The member states of the EU will not follow the U.S. and will not move their embassies to Jerusalem.

Beneath this boilerplate lies the central fallacy of Western diplomacy on the conflict: that the Arabs we have magically transformed into a “Palestinian” people desire their own nation-state living “side-by-side in peace” with Israel. Further fantastical assumptions are that the region is an ancient homeland of this people, that Jerusalem is particularly sacred to their history, and that the recovery of Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem during the Six Day War in 1967 is an “illegal occupation” characterized by apartheid-like discrimination.

All these assertions that lie behind Western diplomacy and demonization of Israel are distortions or outright lies.  Take the phrase “illegal occupation.” It is historically meaningless. There is no occupation under international law, because there has never existed a modern nation to be occupied. The territory to this day remains disputed, not “occupied.” That’s why it’s described geographically as the “West Bank” of the Jordan River. “Palestine” was the name used to describe a province of the Ottoman Empire, and “Palestinian” designated any subject, whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, who lived there. 

After the collapse of the Ottomans following World War I, the territory came under the legal control of the mandatory system established by the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations. After World War II the controlling authority passed on to the U.N., which in 1947 passed U.N. resolution 181 to create a Jewish state and an Arab state on the remnant of the territory originally set aside for Israel, but whittled down to create Jordan. Six Arab nations in 1948 rejected the partition plan and invaded the fledging nation not to create the Arab state, but to destroy the Jewish one––an aim they have continuously pursed with war and terror for 70 years.

 

 

 

 

Until 1967, this territory was indeed “occupied” –– by Jordan, whose annexation of it was never recognized internationally. It came under control of Israel as a result of the defensive Six Day War. Without that event, it is likely that despite international disapproval, the territory would have in time become part of Jordan according to the ancient wisdom that possession is nine-tenths of the law. After all, who boycotts or makes China an international pariah over its occupation of Tibet? Or how about Northern Cyprus, a Greek land for 3000 years, serially invaded and occupied by Muslims, the last of whom were the Turks in 1974?  They displaced 150,000 Greeks, vandalized or destroyed 300 churches, and colonized the land with Turkish “settlements.” But we hear no protests from the EU, the U.N., or the BDS movement. If the Arabs hadn’t attacked Israel in 1967, their “illegal occupation” of the ancient Jewish territories of Judea and Samaria would have, like Tibet or Cyprus, become a de facto legal province of an alien invader.

The call for a “Palestinian state” implicit in the EU proclamation is also historically invalid because as a point of historical fact, there is no such thing as a “Palestinian people” whose “historical homeland” is the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, the “river and the sea,” that must be made Judenfrei before becoming a Palestinian state. Most of the Arabs living in the ancient Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria are the descendants of conquerors and occupiers, or recent immigrants drawn by the economic development by Jewish settlers. The Arabs today called “Palestinians” are not significantly different ethnically, linguistically, or culturally from the Arabs living in Jordan, Lebanon, or Syria. They are distinguished rather by their status as victims and perpetual refugees, an identity nurtured by other Arab states to serve their international interests, abetted by the corrupt and feckless U.N. and the international left who see Israel as a neocolonial capitalist outpost.

If you have any doubt that “Palestinian” is a tool of propaganda, listen to Farouk Kaddoumi, head of the PLO Political Department in 1977. “Jordanians and Palestinians are considered by the PLO as one people,” he told Newsweek magazine. Earlier, after the Six Day War, Executive Council of the PLO member Zouhair Muhsin said, “There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our Palestinian identity . . . Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel.” 

The idea of a “Palestinian” nation-state, then, has been a propaganda device for waging war in “stages” against Israel. It appeals to ignorant Westerners and their own culturally specific ideals of “ethnic self-determination” or nationhood. Both concepts are alien to traditional Muslim ideas of the umma, the world-wide community of Muslims united not by blood or nationality but by religion.

Equally specious is the EU’s allusion to the claim that Jerusalem is a particularly significant city for Muslims. In fact, it is mentioned only twice in the Koran, compared to 660 times in the Old Testament. It has the central significance for Judaism that Mecca has for Islam. Indeed, its relationship to Muslim history is negligible compared to the central, galvanizing role Jerusalem has for Judaism and Jews as home of the Temple Mount, site of the Second Temple. Its two mosques on the Temple Mount reached their current outsized important only after Israel reconquered the city in 1967. 

Then Jerusalem became a symbol of the “catastrophe” of 1948, and a rallying cry for the destruction of Israel. That’s why the Arabs who control the Temple Mount have systematically been destroying the archaeological evidence for Jerusalem’s centrality in Jewish history, culture, and faith. Recalling the Roman damnatio memoriae, the eradication of all evidence for an enemy’s existence, the Arabs are inventing facts on the ground to buttress their “attempt to undercut and warp or obfuscate the unique connection that we, the people of Israel, have to the capital of Israel,” as Benjamin Netanyahu said in 2010, in order to strengthen their claim to be the original inhabitants of a region they invaded, conquered, and occupied 2000 years after the Jews had built Jerusalem.

Finally, the desperate cries for “negotiation” after 70 years of diplomatic failure bespeak how bankrupt the institutional narrative has become. And the EU foreign policy establishment is right to be desperate. The election of Donald Trump has exploded that paradigm, as the president has recognized what the foreign policy “experts” have not: things have changed. Barack Obama’s empowerment of Iran has concentrated the minds of the Sunni Muslim states, who for now realize that Israel is more valuable as an ally than as a scapegoat. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem is a powerful, concrete statement of this country’s friendship with Israel and rejection of the EU’s long-dead diplomatic received wisdom, which is as impotent as Glendower’s spells and chants. 

Most important, the EU proclamation failed when Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Romania, blocked a joint EU statement, which required unanimous approval. Magical thinking based on vain hope is being replaced by facts and deeds based on truth––a fitting present for Israel’s 70^th birthday.