The Loud Talker

There exists a horribly disproportionate amount of anti-Israel angst in the world, as seen in human protests, news coverage and in blogs. The UN (U as in “useless”) has done nothing to prevent Hamas from slowing its rain of missiles into Israel. The only news we seem to hear includes videos of Palestinian suffering and death. Where are the videos of Israeli suffering? Why isn’t there an Israeli marketing arm to counter the lies so often publicized by the media?

• In June 2008 Egypt brokered an Israel/Hamas truce, effective June 19. Not even a week later Hamas broke the truce. Israel honored the cease-fire.
• In December as the end of the six-month truce approched, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal stated that the group would not renew the truce with Israel. Two days later, Hamas Islamists declared the end of the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire (one day before it expired on December 19) and initiated a surge of cross-border fighting.
• On December 24 Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip increased rocket fire towards Israel.
• Eight days after the truce ended, on December 27, Israel retaliates by launching air strikes on Gaza in response to almost daily rocket and mortar fire that intensified after Hamas ended the ceasefire. The Israeli army says Palestinian militants fired 300 rockets and mortars at Israeli targets during that past week.

Yet all we seem to hear on the news is that Israel is an army of baby killers? Israel is the country that needs to exercise restraint? Let’s look at some more history:

• The region was already familiar with territory disputes. After all, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq were established when the British and the French arbitrarily divided up the Middle East at the close of World War I. Israel was created by the United Nations. Somehow this same group has turned 180-degrees since then.
• So how did Israel become a state? In September 1947 the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) recommended partitioning Palestine, a suggestion ratified by the UN General Assembly on November 29, 1947. This resulted in the creation of two states: one Arab and one Jewish. Jerusalem would be under the direct administration of the UN.
• The intention was an economic union between the two states with open borders. At the time of partition, slightly less than half the land in all of Palestine was owned by Arabs, slightly less than half was “crown lands” belonging to the state, and about 8% was owned by Jews. The allocation of land was intended to produce two areas with Jewish and Arab majorities respectively.
• The Jews accepted the UN decision, but the Arabs rejected it. In fact, The Arab League declared a war to rid Palestine of the Jews.

Notice that Israel accepted the decision, Arabs rejected it. They had (and still have) absoltely zero tolerance for any living Jew.

In late 1947 Arab riots broke out in Jerusalem. Palestinian forces cut off the supply of food, water and fuel to Jerusalem. Fighting and violence broke out immediately throughout the country, including ambushes, riots and massacres. Arab Palestinians began leaving their towns and villages to escape the fighting. (Fighting instigated by whom? Palestinians. Palestinians started the violence that drove other Palestinians to leave their homes.) Most of the Arab population of Haifa left in early 1948, despite pleas by both Jewish and British officials to stay. You don’t hear this on the news today, do you? Nor do you hear that Egypt, Syria and Jordan also waged war on Israel.

• In 1948 a cease fire began. During this time Israel prepared for the inevitable fighting that would resume and the Israel Defense Force was created.
• After the cease fire expired Israel continued fighting with Egypt. When the fighting ended in 1949 Israel held territories beyond the boundaries set by the UN plan – a total of 78% of the area west of the Jordan river. The rest of the area was occupied by Egypt and Jordan. Egypt held Gaza, Jordan held the West Bank.
• About 750,000 Arabs were driven out of Israel and fled to neighboring Arab states. A similar number of Jews were driven out of those same states, many returning to Israel.
• In 1949 the UN created a new border in an attempt to create a peaceful solution. However, these borders were not recognized by Arab states, which continued to refuse to recognize Israel.

The Arab countries refused to sign a permanent peace treaty with Israel. The Arabs and Palestinians lost any initial military gains when they failed to organize and unite. A war was fought and won by Israel. But, Arab refusal to acknowledge this fact meant that the borders of Israel established by the armistice commission never received international recognition. The losers failed to recognize the loss. This would happen again.

Israel began to implement its National Water Carrier plan, which would pump water from the Sea of Galilee to irrigate south and central Israel. The project was in accordance with a plan proposed a US envoy in 1955, and agreed to by Arab engineers. However, Arab governments refused to participate, because of the implied recognition of Israel. Years after losing a war with Israel these nations would not recognize the existence of the country that defeated them. Talk about denial…

In the 1960s Arab leaders ratified the establishment of the PLO, and declared their resolve to destroy Israel. Problems escalated when Arabs began attacking the water infrastructure described above. Violence began with attacks on construction equipment and eventually escalated to territorial strikes of increasing magnitude. Again, note that the violence was initiated by Arab actions.

In 1967 the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait and Sudan were prepared to attack Israel. Egyptian President Nassir said “This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived.” Iraqi President Rahman Aref announced, “This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear–to wipe Israel off the map.” (sound familiar?)

When it became apparent that Egypt would not stand down, Israel attacked the Egyptians beginning on June 5, 1967. In the first hours of the war, Israel destroyed over 400 enemy aircraft to achieve total air superiority. Israeli troops quickly conquered the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza. Israel conquered the West Bank and Jerusalem. Israel agreed to a cease fire on June 10, 1967 after conquering the Golan Heights. A new reality in the Middle East now existed, yet much of the population still refuses to accept this fact.

There were other military interactions in the years that followed, but my point has been made. Israel has been the one under attack since it’s creation by the UN in 1947. Call it ego, denial, ingornace, hatred, or racism, but it is what it is: Arab nations simply refuse to acknowledge reality. Hamas wants war, it knows nothing else. It embeds within the civilian population and then distributes video of the dead women and children that Hamas used as human shields as anti-Israel propoganda. For this I think they deserve every ounce of lead thrown in their direction, times ten. If they want it to stop, the need to instigate peace for once. Sadly, I doubt this will ever happen.