A History Lesson

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday May 30, 2002 23:10 by James D. Marion

A denouncement of the PLO and the historical legitimacy of the state of Israel

History is an interesting field of study; one can find trends and patterns and make inferences based upon past events, but what history lacks is a conscience. Humans are the ones that judge the fairness of an event – history merely happens, and thus it can be neither good or bad, it just is. Recently, the Middle East, and possibly the world, has been pushed to the brink of war by a conflict over land, religion, and national pride. My findings indicate that this is not a singular chain of events. Each facet of the conflict can find historical precedent in events past, and this ultimately places blame on the Palestinians and the Arab world. When one begins to analyze the events, their claim that this is a unique situation, that by some fluke in the historical process, event by destiny, they deserve to be given land on the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, or anywhere controlled by the Republic of Israel is ludicrous. Their situation is nothing that the world has not seen before; in fact, their enemies, the Jews, have faced this same plight for the past 2000 years. Through a major flaw in the Palestinian disposition – an almost elitist nationalistic myopia – they have not been given what the Jews had sought since the Diaspora, a national homeland. The Jews, who set the historical precedent for this kind of situation, waited patiently for their time, became a working part of Western civilization in the interim, often facing much scorn and hatred, and gained their land by the most basic of all historical processes: alliance and war. These tactics are no more fair or unfair than any other event in human history, they merely set the tone for the present. The suffering of the Jews, similar to the “suffering” of the Palestinians, was rewarded by humans. This human mandate, a decision rather than a normal historical occurrence, has become part of history, and the Palestinians can look to this relatively new precedent as their vehicle for change, as the way in which they will reclaim their ancestral land and fulfill whatever cultural or religious needs they see fit.
The Ottoman Empire, one of the three largest empires in the world in the seventeenth century, was the Muslim world’s answer to the English, French, and Spanish Empires. This Muslim empire’s main strength was their large standing army; this army main striking force, however, was not composed of Muslim fighters but former Christian children seized from their families and molded by the Muslim political leaders to become the ultimate soldiers at this time. They were known as the janissaries. To the modern world, this action seems astoundingly wrong, and would be condemned by both the West and the East had it occurred today. This does not change the fact that it happened, and it begins to set up the main crux of my argument – that the Palestinian argument is hypocritical, and that they do not presently deserve their own homeland. I am establishing the fact that for years the Muslim armies invaded and protected the Holy Land at all costs, with no regard to the Christian minority, something that the Palestinians accuse the Israelis of doing to the Muslims. However, like all empires, the Ottomans faced a problem: their lands had become too widespread and unmanageable. Once again, this is no different than the English or Spanish imperialism that is a target of extreme leftists who prefer to mold their argument on one perspective – that the West, the Christians and the Jews, are the only people who know greed, and that the Arab world has always been a victim of the imperial powers. Its true that this was a monarchy, governed by the Sultan, and is not representative of the spirit of the Muslim people, at that time or now, but imperialism is a weapon that the Palestinians like to use against the West as a reason they deserve a homeland. It comes down to the fact that all of the major countries at that time were parliamentary monarchies, and that as time went on government became more representative of their people. Imperialism and monarchies are natural stepping-stones in path of human progress, and, since we only get one shot in time, they seem to be necessary to creating strong representative democracies, not right or wrong but historical trends throughout all humanity. The fact that the Arabs ultimately lost the Holy Land is no more unfair than the English losing the New World in the American Revolution, or, further back, the French being defeated by the English in New France, or Canada. It is merely a fact of history that imperialism has existed, and that it has produced some great evils. This cannot be changed, and the present world reflects this.
As the fall of the Ottoman Empire approached, its lands were spread out, with large Christian areas enjoying large amounts of autonomy. Allied with Germany and the Central Powers in World War I, the Ottomans hoped to protect their lands that perilously perched on the edge of revolution, and possibly increase the size of their empire in a futile attempt to preserve it. Greed often backfires, as it did for many of the Western empires, and the Ottomans lost their empire to the English and the French. During the war, the English proposed to help Arab nationalists win independence – which led to the famous campaigns of T. E. Lawrence – and this was accomplished under the emir Hussein of Hejaz. A main sticking point was the Balfour note of 1917, which also promised English support for a Jewish homeland. In this highly volatile region, the English must have felt that a Jewish state would be more conducive to peace than a Muslim one. After all, the Ottomans – the Arabs – had been enemies in the Great War; one might say we were dealing with a different government, one that was against the policies of the Ottomans and allied with the West, but history has shown that the Arab leaders are notoriously fickle when it comes to alliances. Motivated more by greed than a sense of honor, leaders such as Saddam Hussein, King Fahd, and Osama bin Laden have spurned alliances with the West, notably the United States, in an effort to selfishly increase their wealth and power. If these people did not represent the Arab world, then the people under them should rise up – just as extremists claim that compliance with the American government is acceptance of all of its policies, the support of corrupt Arab governments should place the blame upon the Arab citizens. This is a two-sided sword. If it is a question of the military being stronger or more well equipped than the civilians, then the United States has always offered to intervene, to help topple oppressive and warmongering states such as Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, and many others. This has always been deemed as imperialism by critics, when it is now obvious that this has its roots in the death of imperialism. There was civilization before the Cold War, and this is not apparent to many critics of the United States and Israel. The fact is, the Arab world has proven it cannot maintain a state that protects its honor by practicing peace and respecting its ties the West, save perhaps Turkey and Jordan. This is one of the many reasons why Palestinians do not deserve a homeland as of now: whereas the Jews established themselves as a resilient, peaceful people who were valuable members of society, which thus enabled them to finally realize their goals, the Palestinians refuse to be patient over the course of 50 years, still bitter over land they legitimately lost through poor alliances and ill-fated wars.
Palestine, following World War I, was placed under a League of Nations mandate for the British. Ironically, the United States never entered the League of Nations, and so the earliest beginnings of the Israeli state have no connection whatsoever to the United States. This fact aside, Jews from all over the world began to settle in this land, along with the Arabs who already lived there. Why did it need to be placed under a mandate? To protect the world from a warmongering empire, on the off chance that the Ottomans or the Arabs would reassemble and prepare another hostile regime. This is a remote chance, but even the most remote chances can still be realized. For instance, who would have expected Napoleon to escape from Elba, or the Weimar Republic to morph in Nazi Germany? History proves we cannot let defeated nations go about unmonitored, and, in a region as volatile as the Middle East, it was advisable to keep a military presence in the region. The Arabs, who, by virtue of war, did not even control the land, demanded that there be no Jewish immigration at all, and the British, showing that the West can be compassionate and will listen to peaceful demands made by the Palestinians, placed a limit on Jewish immigration. The world was not ready, though, for the horror that was to come: the Holocaust, which witnessed the slaughter of six million Jews at the hands of the Nazis – this is real state terrorism, not the Palestinian definition, which is mere rhetorical propaganda meant to conjure a negative connotation of the Israeli tactics in response merciless terrorism. The Jews could not stay in Europe during the war, and many feared to return after the defeat of the Nazis. More Jews than ever returned to their ancestral homeland, and many were tuned away due to Arab protests and a refusal to surrender land that was not even theirs. This is the basis for the “compassionate” mindset of Yasser Arafat and his cronies, who think that their plight is so special that the world should cater to their whims. They want land from the Israeli government, but they would allow Jewish refugees to settle on British soil the Palestinians lost in a war. Arafat is sadly mistaken if he thinks that this is the way the real world works.
Regardless of the situation, Britain could not maintain stability in the region on its own, and it turned to the newly formed United Nations to compose a compromise. The UN proposed a Jewish and Arab zone, placing the city of Jerusalem under international control. The West Bank, where most of the Muslims lived, would remain in the hands of the Jordanians. Able to see that nothing more could be done in a peaceful manner, the Jews proclaimed the Republic of Israel, and made alliances with the United States and Britain, strong members of the UN who wanted to resolved the conflict as smoothly as possible. Had the Palestinians been reasonable and accepted this land given to them – a gift; after all, has the United States returned land to Britain following the American Revolution? – it is quite possible that much bloodshed could have been prevented. The Palestinians could have made alliances with the West as well, and it is feasible to assume that the Middle East would be much more developed and successful today, much like Israel is following a half-century of American support. The events of 11 September would never have occurred, and the United States would not have been drawn into foreign quagmires with no escape. The Arab world, through its selfish leaders, would not accept any settlement, and unfortunately went to war with Israel in order to conquer all of the land legally held by the Jewish people. This, of course, was disastrous; the Israelis won, and, at the expense the Palestinians and Jordan, gained all of the land that was given to them under the UN partition. War was the decision that the Arabs made, and the result of losing a war is usually the loss of territory. Israel, after defending itself against the Arab warmongers, was entitled to land as determined by a cease-fire. Still not able to accept defeat and concentrate on a lasting truce, Jordan annexed central Palestine, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In a true show of good will and peace, Jordan barred Jewish worshippers from these territories, and, along with the other Arab states, refused to take in the Palestinian refugees that fled Israel. Instead of becoming members of society and patiently pursuing a peaceful settlement in the future, as the Jews had done in Europe, they chose to resist a legal and established nation. Israel, for its part, improved the standard of living in an area that had been underdeveloped and created a strong democracy in a region that was more prone to oppressive intolerant monarchs. It also accepted immigrants from diverse backgrounds such as Asia, the Middle East, and the Soviet Union, an action that Jordan and other Arab states would not pursue.
The Jews are a patient people, and have not been the main agitators in the Middle Eastern conflict. It is reasonable to assume that Israel would have been content with this land and reached some peaceful agreement with the Arab world. The trend of action and reaction has been lampooned in the media as the perverse theme of the Middle Eastern conflict, but many, if not all, of the initial actions in this conflict have been initiated by the Palestinians: alliance with the Central Powers, the Israeli War of Independence, and the infamous War of 1967. The 1967 war has its roots in 1956, when Egypt’s Colonel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, which was built and maintained by the English and brought back images of the height of Muslim power, the Ottoman Empire that was the world’s center of trade during the European Renaissance. Once again, imperialism and invasion were masked by the rhetoric of anti-imperialism and nationalism, which gained much support in the third-world and the USSR. England, France, and Israel retaliated; however, the United States refused to support this action, contrary to claims that America is blindly pro-Israel, and the allies withdrew. Egypt’s new impartiality included barring Israeli shipping from the Canal, which Israeli had a right to through legal alliances. This led to the conflict in 1967 with Egypt, following years of threats and advances by Syria and Egypt. Egypt then attempted to cripple the Israeli economy once and for all, by attempting to close the Gulf of Aqaba. In the Six-Day War, the Israelis defeated a coalition of Arab states determined to crush the Israeli state; backed by the USSR and fueled by Soviet propaganda, the Arab states were dealt with, and, once again, lost more land. This time, more countries were involved, and Israel took over the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. This is similar to the Japanese aggression in World War II: through a desire to gain more land and increase the country’s resources, Japan (Egypt) invaded possessions of other countries, Dutch, French, and English island territories (the Suez Canal). Telling Israel not to take preemptive strikes is like telling the lookout at Pearl Harbor not to fire at the Zeros until the Japanese bombs have been dropped – the intentions are obvious and defense is perfectly justifiable. Occupation of captured territory is similar to the American occupation of Japan and Germany – once these countries let their nationalistic tensions die down and commit themselves to improvement. No matter what one feels about war and occupation, one must acknowledge that the Palestinians chose the game – the old cliché about playing with fire is certainly applicable.
The shortsighted Coyotes to the Israeli Road Runner, Egypt and Syria tried one more time to take over Israel and win back “their” land. The Yom Kippur War saw the defeat of Egypt and Syria at the hands of the Israelis. Like a fighter finally pushed to the brink, Israel was poised to do the unthinkable, which was to take over the Suez Canal and conquer even more Arab land – actually, this had been Egypt’s strategy from Day One, to invade and conquer Israel. Faced with extinction, Egypt persuaded the Arab states to pass an oil embargo that would cripple the West and force Israeli capitulation. This was designed to bring the United States into the fray, something that, in 2002, is seen by some as American imperial intervention. The United States successfully restrained Israel and the Israelis withdrew from the Suez Canal area, but continued to occupy the Sinai Peninsula.
Anwar al-Sadat, the leader of Egypt, finally realized that war would not be the final answer in this conflict, and brokered a settlement in 1979 with Israel. This United States-backed agreement allowed Israel to use the Suez Canal as long as they withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, not including the Gaza Strip. This proves that Israel’s holding of land was done only to guarantee its security, and that it would be surrendered upon this assurance. However, in a further condemnation of the Arab world, Sadat was killed by members of his own army over this peace plan, and the Arab states expelled Egypt from the Arab League. They were not content with peace – the bloodthirsty Arab leaders would need violence to assure them of their success, and this brings us to the present state of affairs.
The Palestinian Liberation Organization, which the United States helped create as a vehicle for change, has turned a blind eye as Palestinians have conducted guerrilla warfare and terrorism against the Israeli state, when it has been shown that Israel only responds to peace, not war. The support of the United States, so critical to the peace process and a restoration of pre-1967 borders, will not be accomplished by terrorism but by a cease-fire. The US State Department is not run by people ignorant to the affairs of the Middle East; they do not need selfish terrorists to alert them of troubles. This is not only a damaging tactic, it is also insulting – it implies that the United States, the clichéd child, can only tell that the stove is hot when the flame touches his hand. The United States can only push for a successful peace when a real interest is shown, such as Sadat did, in 1979. Israel is surrounded on all sides by hostile enemies, and, when attacked, it will defend itself. The best preemptive strike, so to speak, is the occupation of territory that is used by its enemies for war and terror, such as Lebanon in the 1980s, which was a staging point for many PLO-organized terrorist activities against the West. The new intifada, marked by violent, although weak, civil disobedience has been met by a strong Israeli response. Critics claim that Israeli crackdown on areas known to be hubs for terrorists – Bethlehem, the West Bank – damages the peace process, but stones and suicide bombers are not pleas for peace, they are cries for blood. Each terrorist is a microcosm of Egypt, Syria, or another Arab state attempting to threaten Israel with violence in an effort to recapture more “deserved” land, and Israel, with deft consistency, responds to each threat in the same way. The organized state wars of the Arab League have been replaced by the organized stateless terrorism of the PLO. Israel is willing to cede land in exchange for security and recognition – not for mercy. The intrusion of tanks in Ramallah is due to terrorism and civil disobedience. This action/reaction cycle works to a point, until one arrives at the point that the Palestinians, given land from the UN that they lost in World War I, started a series of needless wars to satisfy their self-centered nationalism. No Israeli reaction pushed further than the bounds set by the people who started the war. Thus, Israel never invaded Cairo, or threatened Damascus or Beirut – they occupied borderlands in order to maintain security. Whereas the Soviets maintained a warped perspective on buffer states, the states surrounding Israel presented a plausible and proven threat to the security of the legal Jewish homeland.
The current chapter in the struggle comes in a time of increasing radical criticism of the Israeli attitude, and the involvement of the United States. First and foremost, the Israeli military has been accused of profiling, of targeting Palestinian civilians and taking out suppressed anger upon them. A similar situation has come up in the United States: profiling of Arab-Americans, especially at airports. Random screening of passengers has come under attack by the whole political spectrum as wasteful and too politically correct. The attacks of 11 September were perpetrated by Arab males. Young Arab-American men are smart enough to understand this – it is insulting to assume otherwise, and is the chance of damaging a sensitive stranger’s feelings really one that we do not want to risk, even at the expense of an attack. There was a popular anti-Democrat saying following the Civil War: “Not every Democrat was a rebel, but every rebel was a Democrat.” Today, the saying is: “Not every Arab male is a 11 September terrorist, but every 11 September terrorist was an Arab male.” The former was used to justify hatred and prejudice; the latter is an exercise in civic responsibility. We cannot make reality appealing to everyone, and we cannot change the facts of history; if anything can come out of tragedy, it is knowledge, and lives are wasted when tragedy does not lead to enlightenment. If the Palestinian terrorists wanted to spare civilian casualties, they would wage an organized war. Either way, they will lose eventually, but hiding behind shields of women, children, mosques, and relics selfishly extends their own lives at the expense of others. It has been said that the majority of Palestinians wish for peace, and only a small minority pushes for violence. If this was true, and the representative majority of the Palestinians were against the terrorists, then why have they not risen up against them? Compliance is complicity: it has been an anti-American slogan of those who wish to further extend the Palestinian effort, but it can easily be applied to the Palestinians who apparently are too weak to turn in the cowardly terrorists who use them as shields. At the very least, they cry to the world to spare them from the punishment that is leveled upon them by the Israelis in response to the crimes of a few. What they do not understand is that the Palestinian leaders and terrorists target Israeli citizens for, according to the Palestinians, the crimes of the Israeli government. The killing of Israeli citizens in cafes and pizza parlors is justifiable, but the weeding out of Palestinians in areas known to be hotbeds of terrorism is not? This kind of logic drags the peace process on indefinitely, proving that the Palestinians want the world handed to them, and at the same time to be acquitted of their crimes against humanity.
As for the pro-Israeli label that has been placed upon the United States government, this is unjustified. The United States is pro-United States, and this, in the end, means peace in the Middle East. The only reason the United States seems to favor Israel is the fact that Israel seems to support peace more often than the Palestinians. In the Suez Canal crises, 1979, and the Oslo peace accords in 1993, the United States has been able to convince Israel to hold back and give up land in exchange for long-term peace. The Arab states have always been the ones to break the accords, as they grow impatient in their quest for a homeland. Remember, it took the Jews 2000 years of prejudice to return to their homeland, but the Palestinians could only wait seven years after Oslo to begin the second intifada. Anti-Muslim rhetoric has been thrown at the United States government, but one must only look back a few years to see American military action in Kosovo designed to protect Muslims from a government bent on ethnic cleansing.
It is not written into the United States Constitution that the United States has to be pro-anything, except pro-United States. Whatever means the United States goes about preserving the security of the country is the choice of the people and the members of government, and recently this has been through peaceful intervention, or military intervention that could pave the way for peace. Another popular radical saying is: “Knowledge is power. Arm yourself.” I believe that knowledge beyond the popular and radical media is the key to understanding the modern world. The purpose of conveying my findings is not to convince the Palestinians that their motives and methods are misguided – which they are – but to help bring about a more informed pro-American, pro-Israeli stance in the world. Everyone deserves freedom, but, remember: history has shown that, given power, the Palestinians would violently oppress their Jewish neighbors, while the Israelis have merely attempted to peacefully coexist with the Palestinians and share their well-deserved, lawful homeland with ungrateful tenants. Given the quickening pace of the modern world, we might have witnessed the emergence of a successful Palestinian state by this time – a half-century might have been enough to accomplish what once took 2000 years, but even seven years is too long of time to wait for the impatient, cowardly Palestinian terrorist.