Posted on 05/25/2003 11:18:52 AM PDT by Nachum
The [1929] riots [in Palestine] were accompanied by militant Arab slogans such as... Palestine is our land and the Jews our dogs... [and] brutal acts by Arabs... such as the killings in Hebron, where small children were tortured by their murderers before being murdered. ...[T]he Jewish community in Palestine found itself caught up in a wave of violent disturbances that swept with a fury through Jewish settlements and neighborhoods throughout the length and breadth of the country. The danger now appeared to threaten the very survival of the entire Jewish community. Shapira, A., Land and Power ( 1992, New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press (p.174))
Even anti-Zionists, such as Nathan Weinstock, recognize that this has been the tenor of the Palestinian movement: ...the Palestinian anti-colonialist movement was deformed by racism. The distorted national struggle expressed itself in anti-Jewish slogans (Palestine is our country and the Jews are our dogs), followed up by attacks upon Jewish passers-by and store-owners, and eventually in mob violence akin to the all-too familiar pogrom. Nathan Weinstock, Zionism: False Messiah (1979,London:http://www.marxists.de/middleast/weinstock/09-arabnat.htm)
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Until last spring, I held what people call a pro-Palestinian position.
Like many intellectuals, I had adopted Arafats cause, taking what I believed was a principled stand that blamed Israel for the conflict in the Middle East, and especially for the suffering of Palestinians. Because I come from a Catholic background, and because there is a long and violent history of Catholic anti-Semitism (though not in my family), I always made clear that I supported the right of the State of Israel to exist, and that my position had nothing to do with animosity against Jews.
In April 2002, I noticed that media coverage of the fighting in Jenin was manifestly one-sided (against Israel). I began to look into this and also into the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This work made me realize that my sympathy for Mr. Arafat was based on false information.
Here is what I used to believe about the Middle East (all of these beliefs are quite popular):
1) That the media (at least the American media) has a uniformly pro-Israel bias;
2) That Arafats Fatah is a secular nationalist organization trying to combat the fundamentalist influences of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Islamist terrorists;
3) That Palestinian terrorism is not anti-Semitic, but aims at national liberation;
4) That the Palestinian leadership has attempted to implement the Oslo accords in good faith, but the Israelis have sabotaged the process;
5) That Israel is a state overwhelmingly made up of European and American Jews who moved into Palestine and displaced Middle Eastern natives;
6) That historically, Jews were well-treated in the Arab world, and that current Arab hostility therefore stems from the current conflict.
Now, having spent time studying the historical record, I believe I was wrong about all six points.
In this and coming essays, I will explain why I changed my mind and provide some of the source material I have studied. I will also look at examples of media misinformation that earlier led me to mistaken conclusions.
What is the Nature of Fatah and the PLO?
Is Arafats Fatah a secular nationalist organization? Or is it Islamist? Is Palestinian terrorism primarily aimed at national liberation? Or is it fascistic and anti-Semitic?
Most peoples understanding of the Middle East comes from mainstream media sources. Time magazine is the epitome of mainstream print media, with unparalleled impact worldwide, so lets take a look at how it portrays Arafat and Co. This is from the June 10th, 2002 issue:
In the current environment Arafats desires, whatever they may be, are not enough. His security forces were so battered by recent Israeli military incursions that they are almost completely ineffectual, according to Arafats senior aides. Our capability is zero, Jibril Rajoub, head of preventive security in the West Bank, told TIME. Our motivation is also zero. In todays climate, Palestinian commanders are loath to be seen doing the Israelis bidding by arresting militants. Does this picture make sense? Well, consider what Time asserts in the next sentence:
Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, part of Arafats Fatah organization, has claimed responsibility for three of the nine fatal terrorist attacks on Israelis since Arafat was freed [from the Israeli siege on his headquarters]. Palestinian cabinet ministers say that Arafat has no incentive to stop paying the Brigades activists because they will only turn to new paymasters in the radical Islamic group Hamas, Fatahs rival.
So, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which launches terrorist attacks, is part of what? Arafats Fatah organization. And not only that - Arafat pays them wages!
What is Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades? According to Newsday it is the deadliest Palestinian militia and a (London) Guardian article gives a list of the Brigades operations under the heading, Trail of Blood. The full list is quite gruesome, but consider these two landmarks:
Jan 27 - A female volunteer for Palestinian Red Crescent in Ramallah becomes first woman suicide bomber.
And
March 2 - Al-Aqsa suicide bomber blows himself up in a crowd of mothers and babies in Jerusalem, killing nine.
The Washington Post writes that the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks on soldiers and civilians. The attacks have been notable in their variety although secular, the Brigades are named for the al-Aqsa mosque The Brigades are an offspring of Fatah, the main group in Arafats Palestine Liberation Organization Many members, like Abu Wadya, once worked in the myriad security forces of Arafats Palestinian Authority.
In other words, a terrorist organization that sends suicide bombers to kill babies and other civilians, and which pioneered the use of women suicide bombers (launching this innovation with a Red Crescent volunteer, no less), is a salaried component of Mr. Arafats Fatah. Indeed, this deadliest Palestinian militia includes security officers from the Palestinian Authority - a creation of the Oslo Peace Process - who are supposed to be preventing deadly terrorists from attacking civilians.
Time portrays Hamas and Arafats Fatah as being rivals. Hamas supposedly represents violence and Arafat and Co. supposedly represent moderation. But if al-Aqsa Martyrs is part of Arafats Fatah, and if it is the deadliest Palestinian militia, then in fact both Fatah and Hamas are promoting terrorism.
So if Fatah and Hamas are not rivals in that sense, are they at least political rivals? Well, consider that Hamas was established in 1978, long after the PLO became indistinguishable from Arafats Fatah. This means that when Hamas, in article 27 of its founding Charter, describes the PLO as a father, a brother, a relative, a friend, it is talking about Arafats Fatah.
These are rivals? Or is their supposed rivalry a show staged for the benefit of Western audiences and hyped by the Western media?
This image of Arafats PLO as a moderate faction pushed into the corner by more radical rivals is one that Time magazine works hard to convey. In the same issue quoted above, columnist Michael Elliott distinguishes between what he calls political and millenarian terrorism. The first, he says, is primarily motivated by political objectives. The second is driven by hatred of a people and may have religious goals that render political objectives secondary.
He argues that wise nations try to keep the first [political terrorism] from transmuting into the second [millenarian terrorism]. Arguably, Israel has allowed that evolution to occur. In the 1970s, the [Arafat-led] Palestine Liberation Organization, murderous though it was, was rigorously secular and advanced a conventional agenda for national liberation.
So, according to Elliott, Israels lack of wisdom forced Arafats PLO to abandon its rigorously secular [and] conventional agenda for national liberation.
I used to think precisely this when I relied on media such as Time magazine for my understanding of the Middle East. Elliots accusation that Israels policies have radicalized the Palestinian Liberation Organization cannot be fair unless he is right that, prior to the current troubles, the PLO (1) was secular and (2) espoused a conventional agenda for national liberation.
What are the facts?
When it was first formed, The PLOs charter (the Palestine National Charter, or Covenant) set out the goals of the organization, which included the complete elimination of Israeli sovereignty in Palestine and the destruction of the State of Israel.
Think about that: the destruction of the State of Israel
It is worth looking at the actual language used in the PLO Charter or Covenant, as reported by the Associates Press (my emphases below):
Article 9 said that armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. Article 15 said it is a national duty to repulse the Zionist imperialist invasion from the great Arab homeland and to purge the Zionist presence from Palestine. Article 22 declared that the liberation of Palestine will liquidate the Zionist and imperialist presence and bring about the stabilization of peace in the Middle East.
The talk of purging and liquidating a presence, and the insistence on violence as the only way to liberate Palestine (!) certainly sounds like the PLOs founding goal was genocide. And the Associated Press is using a translation that is more faithful to the original Arabic than the slightly watered-down version the PLO has posted at the website of their Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations.
Is this what Michael Elliot means by a conventional agenda for national liberation?
And consider this: The PLO was created at an Arab summit meeting in 1964. The date is quite significant. In 1964, Israel did not control the disputed Judea-Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza territories. Not a single Jewish settlement existed in those areas. So, we can ask the question: in its original, 1964 founding Charter, what was the position of the PLO towards those territories?
Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area.
In other words, when Egypt and Jordan owned, respectively, Gaza and the West Bank, the PLO stated that these countries were the rightful owners of those two territories. This means either (1) that the PLO did not consider these lands to be Palestinian lands, or (2) that it did not mind foreigners ruling Palestinian lands.
It is only after 1967 that the PLO discovered that these territories were supposedly Palestinian. The Charter was amended in 1968, as Arafats forces were taking control of it (Arafat was elected PLO chairman in 1969).
What happened? In 1967, Israels Arab neighbors provoked a war that had the goal of genocide against the Jews, but they lost, which resulted in Israeli control of the Gaza strip and the West Bank. In a spectacular move, unprecedented in history, Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, though victorious against a genocidal provocation, offered to return those territories in exchange for a mere promise of peace. The Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, however, refused to talk. Israel was left with no choice but to keep those territories. And it was then that the PLO decided these had now become Palestinian lands, which needed to be liberated.
Conventional wisdom has it that a Palestinian state must be created out of the West Bank and Gaza. Such a state, formed from precisely these areas, is presented as a response to long-established Palestinian demands. But then, why didnt Palestinian leaders, before 1967, demand that Egypt and Jordan set up a Palestinian state in these lands? Why did they, even then, use the Judea-Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza areas, as well as Syrian territory, to launch terrorist attacks on Israel?
Could it be that the PLO, which was created at an Arab summit meeting in 1964, and which is entirely dependent on money from Saudi Arabia and other rich Arab states (most of them closely allied with the NATO countries!), is really a tool of a wider Arab policy? A policy that has, as its central focus, the destruction of the State of Israel?
Is that why, when you go to the Palestinian Authoritys official Website (the PA is an offspring of the PLO), you see a map of the Levant in which Israel simply does not exist? That is, a map in which the area of Israel, plus Gaza and the West Bank are simply and jointly labeled Palestine?
[This column is a slightly revised version of an essay originally published by The Emperors New Clothes.]
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Francisco J. Gil-White is Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and a Fellow at the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict (SACSEC), at the University of Pennsylvania. He is an anthropologist and psychologist specializing in ethnicity and the psychology of ethnic conflict. He is Deputy Editor of Emperor´s Clothes, and Editor of Emperor´s Clothes Spanish Section. His email address is: fjgil@psych.upenn.edu.
Ain't I pitiful?
And up until just a year ago he truly believed those six statements? I find that incredibly hard to believe.
I just got it ironed out with the Admin Moderator.
Exactly! How this is not completely obvious to the entire world is beyond me.
In this case, even Sharon has hesitated when he's had the dirty little bastard in his sights (eg. last years bulldozing of his compound and the discovery of all the hardcopy evidence of his complicitness in the funding, organization and direction of terrorist bombings).
Martyr? An 'explosion' in the A-rab 'street'?
Good riddance; nothing will be accomplished until this clown has either assumed room temperature or has no access to any of the levers of power.
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