Shalom, This past Thursday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was given a heros welcome as he returned home from Washington. Hundreds of Palestinian Authority employees and schoolchildren gathered at his presidential office in Ramallah, thanking him for resisting United States President Barack Obama’s pressure to extend the US-brokered peace talks with Israel, which are set to end April 29, 2014. On Monday, before he left for Washington, similar rallies chanted slogans in his support, urging him not to yield to US pressure to make concessions with Israel for the sake of creating a two-state solution. Of course, the notion of a two-state solution is nothing new, and the Arabs have rejected it in the past, as well as a Jewish state. A Pattern of Rejected Two-State Solutions “I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will put them on trial for what they did to My inheritance, My people Israel, because they scattered My people among the nations and divided up My land.” (Joel 3:2) The idea of a modern-day Jewish state goes back to 19th century Zionism and the writings and efforts of Theodore Herzl, who envisioned the founding of a modern Jewish state in the 20th century. These efforts are enshrined in the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The 1947 UN resolution called for the formation of a “Jewish State” and an “Arab State” in the former British Mandate territory, a mandate granted to Britain by the League of Nations following World War I. That Partition Plan was accepted by the Jews but rejected by the Arabs who reasoned that it violated the principles of national self-determination. Had the Arabs accepted the plan, all of the territory that is now being suggested for an Arab state, including Judea and Samaria, would have been included in the Arab state, and much more. Instead of accepting an Arab State, the Arab leaders chose to wage war against the fledgling Jewish State, with the goal of taking all of the land for themselves. They lost. During that war, as many as 100,000 Palestinian Arabs fled to neighboring Arab countries as directed by the Arab leadership of the time. They fled with the understanding that they would return to occupy a defeated Jewish nation. This did not happen as the Arab leaders had promised, resulting in an Arab refugee problem. Today, the US is attempting to barter an agreement between the Palestinians and Israelis to form an Arab state in this area once known as the British Mandate. The British Mandate encompassed only one area of the dissolved Turkish or Ottoman Empire. That empire had been large, successful and long-lasting. Before its decline and collapse, it included what are today called Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Hungary, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and parts of the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa. Almost 80 percent of the British Mandate territory has already been turned over to form Arab states. The territory lying east of the Jordan River was handed over to Abdullah I to form the state of Trans-Jordan (Jordan). With this, the Palestinian Arabs had an Arab homeland, which left the remaining 20 percent of the original Mandate west of the Jordan River for the creation of a Jewish homeland. The 1917 Balfour Declaration committed the British government to the formation of such a Jewish homeland in Palestine. This declaration was incorporated into the British Mandate. The Arab leaders, however, wanted all of the land including the remaining 20 percent that lay to the west of the Jordan River, just as they do now. To achieve this, they launched incessant murderous attacks, the most terrifying of which was the Hebron slaughter of 1929 that killed 67 and forced the relocation of the entire Jewish community and later the 1936–39 “Arab Revolt.” At first, the British lent support to the Jews, but as greater oil deposits were located throughout the Middle East, they ignored the attacks by the Arabs. The Jews were left with the job of both fighting the Arabs for their very survival. Following the surrender of the Ottomans, various mandates were instituted, eventually resulting in the creation of many modern states that redefined borders, renamed countries and altered the map. The British Mandate of Palestine was divided into Palestine, which was to become the modern Jewish State, and Transjordan (Jordan). Once again, the world powers are working to create yet another Arab state in what had once been British Mandate territory. In order to bring about an agreement, the Israeli side has given in to many Arab demands, the most devastating of which has been the freeing of 87 Palestinian prisoners who have shed the blood of innocent Israeli civilians. A total of 104 prisoners were scheduled to be released by March 29, but Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said the remaining 17 will remain in prison unless talks are extended beyond the April 29th deadline. (AFP) In response, Abbas threatened that the PA will bypass negotiations and resume its efforts to achieve statehood unilaterally at the United Nations, in direct contravention of the Oslo peace agreements. The release of the prisoners is not the only concessions Israel has made to bring about a workable peace: Israel has often stopped construction in the disputed territories, including in Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem. As a core necessity of a peace agreement, Israel has insisted that Palestinians must recognize Israel as a Jewish state. This they have adamantly refused to do. And as peace talks approach the deadline, this month the Arab League endorsed Abbass rejection of Israel as a Jewish state. The council of the Arab League confirms its support for the Palestinian leadership in its effort to end the Israeli occupation over Palestinian lands, and emphasizes its rejection of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, Arab foreign ministers said in a statement in Cairo. They claimed that this demand is designed to annul the right of return and compensation for Palestinian refugees. (Times of Israel)
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 11:32:36 +0000