Posted on 10/04/2009 3:08:11 PM PDT by SJackson
US President Barack Obama's inspirational speech at the UN included more than a few passages about the Middle East conflict. He expressed the hope for "a just and lasting peace between Israel, Palestine, and the Arab world," a wish shared by all Israelis. Upon closer look at some of the president's statements, several question marks arise.
Obama addresses the 64th session of the General Assembly at United Nations headquarters. Photo: AP [file] The speech didn't, for instance, mention Islamic fundamentalism or Jihadism, the principal reasons for instability in the Middle East and beyond. Nor did it condemn the Arab world's refusal to acknowledge the Jewish people's right to a state of its own. No less problematic, the reference to ending "the occupation that began in 1967" puts history on its head, as it implies, perhaps unintentionally, that Israel's occupation of the West Bank is the cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This clearly inverts cause and effect.
As the writer and historian Simon Schama wrote, history should endeavor "to disentangle fact from fable," also reminding us that one of America's Founding Fathers, John Adams, had said "Facts are stubborn things." Well, the facts regarding the conflict in the Holy Land, though often deliberately or inadvertently distorted or ignored , are indeed "stubborn." Terrorist activities against Israel had started years before the "occupation," and the PLO committed to the destruction of the Jewish state was founded in 1964
NO LESS important in the factual and historical sense are the actual antecedents of the "Six-Day War" which resulted in the "occupation" to which the president's speech referred.
On May 13, 1967 the Egyptian dictator Gamel Abdel Nasser announced that two Egyptian divisions would move into the Sinai Peninsula bordering on southern Israel - contrary to international agreements, US commitments and UN guarantees. Caving in to Nasser's blustering, the then UN Secretary U Thant agreed to remove the UN emergency force from the area.
The next day, Egyptian armored and infantry columns crossed the Suez Canal and started moving towards the Israeli frontier. Shortly after, Cairo announced that it would block all shipping to the port of Eilat, Israel's only maritime outlet in the south, while Egyptian Mig21 war planes began flying over Israeli territory including the Dimona area. Concurrently, Syrian and Iraqi forces were ordered to prepare for an assault on northern Israel. The minimum strategic aim of the Egyptians, as was revealed later, was to cut off Israel's Negev from the rest of the country - but Nasser himself, in both public and secret statements, left no doubt that his ultimate aim was the complete annihilation of the State of Israel.
A decisive turning point leading up to the Six-Day War and grievously affecting the history of the entire Middle East to this day, occurred on May 30, 1967. On that date, King Hussein of Jordan, who had been regarded both by Israel and the US as a paragon of peace and moderation, without warning, infamously signed a military agreement with Egypt's Nasser, his former bitter enemy, including a Jordanian commitment to join Egypt in any war with Israel, stationing Egyptian and Iraqi forces inside Jordan. The "Arab Legion," considered by many as the Arab world's best fighting machine, was put under Egyptian command. Cairo radio crowed that now Israel's only escape was the sea.
Jordan (formerly Trans-Jordan) had in 1948 occupied and later annexed the western part of Palestine, hence called the "West Bank" - thus making the kingdom Israel's next door neighbor, abutting on most of the latter's population centers, including west Jerusalem and Israel's only international airport. King Hussein's precise motives are debatable; some believe that he wanted to placate the Palestinian majority inside his country, others ascribed it to the King's desire to get part of the spoils if the Arabs were be victorious against Israel.
The rest, as the expression goes, is history. The war broke out on June 5; the Egyptian air force was totally destroyed on the first day and the IDF advancing toward the Suez Canal, wiped out the Egyptian forces in its wake. The blockade of Eilat was lifted. In the north, the Golan Heights from which the Syrian army began its attack on Israel, were taken - and Jordanian troops, after an unsuccessful attempt to force their way into West Jerusalem, were, after several days of hard fighting, expelled from all of the land west of the Jordan River. Israel had achieved complete victory in a war of legitimate self-defense against blatant aggression whose declared aim had been its obliteration.
ALL OF the above was fully acknowledged by most of the nations of the world, though not, of course, by the Arab countries and their allies, or by the Soviet Union which according to some views, had actually egged on the Arab governments in their aggressive designs. Successive American leaders declared that Israel should never be asked to go back to its former vulnerable borders, while the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 242 which specifically linked any Israeli withdrawals from "territories" to achieving secure borders.
This is what 1967 is all about: not "ending" occupation, but making sure that Israel will never again be put in a situation like the one it faced in that fateful year.
The writer is the former Israel Ambassador to the US, and currently heads the Prime Minister's forum of US-Israel Relations.
And yet, American Jews overwhelmingly voted for this anti-semite. I cannot fathom their thinking.
Obama is a Muslim and an idiot. That’s a double whammy for Israel.
He like most of America and the world, doesn’t care at all about facts or history.
unintentional, my A$$, there is nothing unintentional with this guy. Only when
the teleprompter is broke or AWOL. He's too scripted for this to be an oversite.
Or, who wrote the erroneous title to this piece?
Israel could set a trap for Obama by seemingly cave in to every single demand of the Arabs.
Then watch Obama go racing to the Arabs with bells on and with a big happy grin.
Then the Jewish people can say - you would, wouldn't you?
BUSTED!
Even those who aren't particularly sympathetic to Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, could get a good measure of satisfaction from this interview with British Television during the retaliation against Hamas’ shelling of Israel.
The interviewer asked him: “How come so many more Palestinians have been killed in this conflict than Israelis?” (A nasty question if there ever was one!)
Netanyahu: “Are you sure that you want to start asking in that direction?”
Interviewer: (Falling into the trap) Why not?
Netanyahu: “Because in World War II more Germans were killed than British and Americans combined, but there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the war was caused by Germany's aggression. And in response to the German blitz on London, the British wiped out the entire city of Dresden, burning to death more German civilians than the number of people killed in Hiroshima.
Moreover, I could remind you that in 1944, when the R.A.F. tried to bomb the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen, some of the bombs missed their target and fell on a Danish children's hospital, killing 83 little children. Perhaps you have another question?”
Apparently, Benjamin Netanyahu gave another interview and was asked about Israel's occupation of Arab lands. His response was, “It's our land”.
The reporter (CNN or the like) was stunned - “It's our
land...”
It's important information since we don't get fair and accurate reporting from the media and facts tend to get lost in the jumble of daily events.
“Crash Course on the Arab-Israeli Conflict.”
Here are overlooked facts in the current & past Middle East situation. These were compiled by a Christian university professor:
*BRIEF FACTS ON THE ISRAELI CONFLICT TODAY...
It makes sense and it's not slanted. Jew and non-Jew — it doesn't matter.
1. Nationhood and Jerusalem: Israel became a nation in 1312 BC, two thousand (2000) years before the rise of Islam.
2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.
3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BC, the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand (1000) years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.
4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 lasted no more than 22 years.
5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.
6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.
7. King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came ** to Jerusalem.
8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.
9. Arab and Jewish Refugees: in 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left (many in fear of retaliation by their own brethren, the Arabs), without ever seeing an Israeli soldier. The ones who stayed were afforded the same peace, civility, and citizenship rights as everyone else.
10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.
11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000. The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be about 800,000.
12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.
13. The Arab-Israeli Conflict: the Arabs are represented by twenty two separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation. The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.
14. The PLO’s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them.
15. Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.
16. The UN Record on Israel and the Arabs: of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.
17. Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.
18. The UN was silent while 58 Jerusalem synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.
19. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.
20. The UN was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like a policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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That little 6 year old Indonesian schoolboy from 1967 grew up to be the President of the United States.
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Good post potlatch
Thanks devolve. It’s an interesting read to me and refreshes things we’ve forgotten.
Fortunately, the Jewish people DO remember history. They will “go it alone” (humanly speaking, of course) if other nations like the US abandon them.
Obama is rapidly being recognized as the doormat of history. Jimmy Carter is nearly orgasmic that he will not go to the grave as the biggest idiot ever to occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Even SNL is making fun of Obama now for being unable to accomplish anything.
Obama is a muslim, of course he blames Israel for the six day war.
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You are correct
Unfortunately there is a huge divide between NYC and Israel
Obama’s greatest concern if he backs radical Islam should be that some years from now he may have attempt to run and hide in South America - as several did after WWII
Which Alinsky Rule is that?
Thanks for the great post.
[Unfortunately there is a huge divide between NYC and Israel]
What does NYC have to do with it other than the UN being located there?
[Thanks for the great post.]
Thank you! It was a great refresher for me!
So you’d let Israel die for the foolishness of American Jewry?
Catholics voted for Obama, too... so maybe we ought to carpetbomb the Vatican, while you’re at it.
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