May - Israel, Palestine and the Wizards of Turtle Bay
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Clifford May-
Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, the U.N. has no power to award statehood, except perhaps in the sense the Wizard of Oz awarded courage to the Lion, a heart to the Tin Man and a brain to the Scarecrow.
By definition, custom and international law, a state has specific attributes. Among them: It controls territory. Abbas and the Palestinian Authority do not control Gaza, one of the two principal territories comprising what could become a Palestinian state.
Since the brutal (if underreported) Palestinian civil war of 2007, in which Hamas gunmen slaughtered PA gunmen and, in the end, took control of Gaza, Abbas has not set foot on that stretch of Mediterranean coast and, apparently, dares not do so now – despite his performance at the U.N. and despite the fact that the PA recently concluded a pact with Hamas, a terrorist/jihadi organization funded by Iran and openly committed to exterminating Israel.
As for the West Bank, Israel can exercise superior power there if it chooses. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed Abbas on the U.N. podium, he made clear, not for the first time, that Israel is willing to give up its claims to most of the West Bank – also known as Judea and Samaria – but only as a component of a durable peace achieved through negotiations.
Abbas, however, says he will resume negotiations only if concessions are made in advance and for nothing in return – not even recognition of the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancient homeland.
In his speech to the Wizards of Turtle Bay, Abbas complained that the Palestinians have been denied statehood for more than six decades. That is simply not true. The area we call Palestine was for centuries a possession of the Ottoman Empire. Following World War I, the British Empire assumed authority. The British gave 75 percent of Palestine to an Arabian monarch who had been deprived of his throne when Ibn Saud conquered Mecca in 1925. That’s how the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan – named for the clan and the river – was born.
In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted to partition what was left of Palestine into two additional states: one for Jews, one for Arabs – not “Palestinians” because, in those days, the term actually referred to the Jews who had long been working to re-establish a national home in Palestine.
The Jews accepted the U.N.’s two-state solution. The Arabs rejected it. Both local Arab militias and armies from five neighboring Arab states immediately launched a war to drive the Jews into the sea.
Within the lines – not borders – where Arab forces were halted, Israelis proceeded to build new cities, farms and factories as well as a vibrant democracy in which more than a million Arabs – those who decided to neither fight nor flee, and their descendants – today enjoy freedoms and rights unavailable in other countries of the Middle East.
In 1967, Israel’s Arab neighbors planned another war, again with the intention of killing off the Jewish state. Over six bloody days, the Israelis defended themselves and, this time, pushed back the lines – taking Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan.
On many occasions, nations have annexed territories taken in defensive wars. The Israelis, however, thought it might be possible to trade land for peace. Over the past 34 years, that formula has failed – despite Israeli peace proposals in 2000 and 2008 that would have led to the creation of a Palestinian state in all of Gaza, more than 95 percent of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well.
Someone might say to Abbas: “If you want a state, don’t ask the U.N. to give it to you: Build it. Establish an honest and functioning government. Get your population off the international dole. Stop expecting Israelis to protect you from Hamas in private while you castigate them in public. And understand that if a Palestinian state won’t make peace with Israel, and if your citizens fire missiles into their communities, Israelis will have a right and, indeed, a responsibility to respond with force sufficient to deter future attacks – a course of action they have not taken in the past.”
Yes, I know: People may talk like that in Kansas but not in the Land of Oz on the Hudson.[[In-content Ad]]
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Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, the U.N. has no power to award statehood, except perhaps in the sense the Wizard of Oz awarded courage to the Lion, a heart to the Tin Man and a brain to the Scarecrow.
By definition, custom and international law, a state has specific attributes. Among them: It controls territory. Abbas and the Palestinian Authority do not control Gaza, one of the two principal territories comprising what could become a Palestinian state.
Since the brutal (if underreported) Palestinian civil war of 2007, in which Hamas gunmen slaughtered PA gunmen and, in the end, took control of Gaza, Abbas has not set foot on that stretch of Mediterranean coast and, apparently, dares not do so now – despite his performance at the U.N. and despite the fact that the PA recently concluded a pact with Hamas, a terrorist/jihadi organization funded by Iran and openly committed to exterminating Israel.
As for the West Bank, Israel can exercise superior power there if it chooses. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu followed Abbas on the U.N. podium, he made clear, not for the first time, that Israel is willing to give up its claims to most of the West Bank – also known as Judea and Samaria – but only as a component of a durable peace achieved through negotiations.
Abbas, however, says he will resume negotiations only if concessions are made in advance and for nothing in return – not even recognition of the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancient homeland.
In his speech to the Wizards of Turtle Bay, Abbas complained that the Palestinians have been denied statehood for more than six decades. That is simply not true. The area we call Palestine was for centuries a possession of the Ottoman Empire. Following World War I, the British Empire assumed authority. The British gave 75 percent of Palestine to an Arabian monarch who had been deprived of his throne when Ibn Saud conquered Mecca in 1925. That’s how the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan – named for the clan and the river – was born.
In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted to partition what was left of Palestine into two additional states: one for Jews, one for Arabs – not “Palestinians” because, in those days, the term actually referred to the Jews who had long been working to re-establish a national home in Palestine.
The Jews accepted the U.N.’s two-state solution. The Arabs rejected it. Both local Arab militias and armies from five neighboring Arab states immediately launched a war to drive the Jews into the sea.
Within the lines – not borders – where Arab forces were halted, Israelis proceeded to build new cities, farms and factories as well as a vibrant democracy in which more than a million Arabs – those who decided to neither fight nor flee, and their descendants – today enjoy freedoms and rights unavailable in other countries of the Middle East.
In 1967, Israel’s Arab neighbors planned another war, again with the intention of killing off the Jewish state. Over six bloody days, the Israelis defended themselves and, this time, pushed back the lines – taking Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan.
On many occasions, nations have annexed territories taken in defensive wars. The Israelis, however, thought it might be possible to trade land for peace. Over the past 34 years, that formula has failed – despite Israeli peace proposals in 2000 and 2008 that would have led to the creation of a Palestinian state in all of Gaza, more than 95 percent of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well.
Someone might say to Abbas: “If you want a state, don’t ask the U.N. to give it to you: Build it. Establish an honest and functioning government. Get your population off the international dole. Stop expecting Israelis to protect you from Hamas in private while you castigate them in public. And understand that if a Palestinian state won’t make peace with Israel, and if your citizens fire missiles into their communities, Israelis will have a right and, indeed, a responsibility to respond with force sufficient to deter future attacks – a course of action they have not taken in the past.”
Yes, I know: People may talk like that in Kansas but not in the Land of Oz on the Hudson.[[In-content Ad]]
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