Written on Friday, July 15, 2011 by Nathaniel Davidson
“Israel is the only country in the world that is accused by its enemies of practicing apartheid without racism; of perpetrating a Holocaust without gas chambers; of engaging in genocide without mass murder; of committing war crimes without targeting civilians; and of being the worst human rights violator in the world, while having one of the most responsive legal systems in the world. This is accusation by metaphor, prosecution by propaganda, trial by bigotry, guilt by hyperbole, and sentence by sloganeering.”—Alan Dershowitz
This quote sums up “world opinion” about our staunchest ally in the middle-east, and the only democracy in the area. Yet this just shows the wilful ignorance of history and political realities in that region (see the Patriot columns: Slanders against Israel, Part 1 and Part 2).
Obama was long a devoted member of Jeremiah Wright’s church, which printed propaganda from the terrorist group Hamas (Hebrew for “violence”), whose charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state and to obliterate Jews anywhere in the world. So it should surprise only the naïve that he has now demanded that Israel return to the indefensible pre-1967 borders—which would also chop its capital in two.
These borders were the lines where Israel stopped seven Arab armies from destroying the new Jewish state in 1948–49. Since they were explicitly trying to finish Hitler’s job, Israel’s longtime ambassador to the United States and the UN, Abba Eban, called these boundaries line the “Auschwitz border.”
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t having any of Obama’s nonsense. He is the son of a still-active 101-year old professor, lived for years in America, has been a diplomat, soldier and terrorism fighter, as well as a free market reformer. And he smacked Obama down in a way Republican challengers should learn from: politely but firmly, crisply but in command of the facts. In particular, that those pre-1967 borders meant that:
“Israel was all of 9 miles wide— half the width of the Washington Beltway. … So we can’t go back to those indefensible lines, and we’re going to have to have a long-term military presence along the Jordan.”
So what happened to change those borders in 1967?
This brilliant Israeli victory still rankles with Arab Jew-haters, and is claimed as an example of Israeli aggression. Yet this was a war of self-defense against enemies sworn to annihilate her. Consider:
With all these actions and vicious threats, Israel—remember it was only nine miles wide at the time—could not afford to wait. Egypt alone had a huge force of 420 aircraft, mainly the latest Soviet MiG-21 supersonic jet fighters.
So Israel hatched a daring plan, Operation Focus (Mivtza Moked). On June 5, 184 of Israel’s 196 combat aircraft flew out to attack. But instead of heading directly to Egypt, they went over the Mediterranean, then looped around to attack Egypt from the opposite direction. The attack was also at 7:45 am, when most high-ranking officers were stuck in the usual Cairo traffic jam. The planes flew under Egypt’s radar, headed to the air force bases, and bombed the runways so no enemy plane could take off. Then the Israelis, attacking in waves, wiped out the planes themselves, destroying most of Egypt’s air force on the ground.
Meanwhile, Israel had appealed to Jordan to keep out of the war. Jordan foolishly ignored this, and attacked from the other side, so the Israeli planes then destroyed much of the Jordanian air force as well. The Iraqi and Syrian air forces met the same fate.
Then the Israeli land forces defeated the Egyptians, taking the Sinai peninsula. They followed up with taking the West Bank of the Jordan and Eastern part of Jerusalem from Jordan, so the historic Jewish capital was again in Jewish hands. Finally, Israel took the Golan Heights back from Syria, which had turned the historically Jewish area into a favorite terrorist rocket launch pad.
After the ceasefire, the Israeli Defense Force commander Yitzchak Rabin, a future Nobel Peace Prizewinner and Israeli Prime Minister, named the battle the “Six Day War”, “evoking the days of creation” from the Hebrew Bible.
The above should show that Israel was well justified in expanding its borders. But even so, Israel has given most of the land back, ostensibly for peace. Yet her enemies will never be satisfied. For example, in 2008, Ehud Olmert offered Fatah (Palestinian Authority) leader Mahmoud Abbas, a supposed moderate, 93%, percent of the West Bank, plus more territory from Israel proper. Yet even that was not enough—Abbas just walked out.
As for the “peace”, where is it? Obama’s betrayal is in effect rewarding Israel’s enemies for their deceit, dishonouring agreements, violence and intransigence. Even worse, as Netanyahu said in his speech to Congress, “They continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists.”
It also rewards Abbas for re-uniting with the even more militant Hamas. As Netanyahu pointed out to Obama, Hamas is “the Palestinian version of al Qaida,” and even it even attacked Obama for killing Osama bin Laden, Obama’s latest brag point. So he rightly said:
“So I say to President Abbas, ‘Tear up your pact with Hamas, sit down and negotiate, make peace with the Jewish state. And if you do, I promise you this: Israel will not be the last country to welcome a Palestinian state as the new member of the United Nations. It will be the first to do so.’”
Again, Netanyahu made it very clear who the real war-mongers are:
“It’s time to stop blaming Israel for all the region’s problems. Israel is not what’s wrong with the Middle East. Israel is what’s right with the Middle East.”
He laid it on the line:
“President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people — and I told you it wasn’t easy for me. I stood before my people, and I said, ‘I will accept a Palestinian state.’
“It’s time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say, ‘I will accept a Jewish state.’
“Those six words will change history. They’ll make it clear to the Palestinians that this conflict must come to an end, that they’re not building a Palestinian state to continue the conflict with Israel, but to end it.
“And those six words will convince the people of Israel that they have a true partner for peace.”
This is the only concession that an American president should demand: recognize Israel’s right to exist!
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