Posted on 02/23/2004 10:30:29 PM PST by abu afak
Anti-Semitism, Misinformation, And The Whitewashing Of The Palestinian Leadership
By Francisco J. Gil-White
Introduction
Until last spring I held what people call a pro-Palestinian position.
Like many intellectuals I had adopted Arafat’s 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.
[b]Here is what I used to believe about the Middle East (all of these beliefs are quite popular):[/b]
[i]1) That the media (at least the American media) has a uniformly pro-Israel bias.
2) That Arafat’s 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. [/i]
[b]Now, having spent time studying the historical record, I believe I was wrong about all six points.
In this essay 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..."""[/b]
".....[b]"..What are the facts? [/b]
When it was first formed, “The PLO’s… 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.”[7]
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 (my emphases below):[8]
[Start Associated Press Quote]
[i]“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.’”[/i]
[End Associated Press Quote]
The talk of ‘purging’ and ‘liquidating’ a ‘presence,’ and the insistence on violence as the "*only* way to liberate Palestine” (!) certainly sounds like the PLO’s founding goal was genocide.
Is this what Michael Elliot means by “a conventional agenda for national liberation”?
[b]And consider this: The PLO was created at an Arab summit meeting in 1964.[9] The date is quite significant. In 1964, Israel did not control the disputed Judea-Samaria (West Bank) and Gaza territories.[/b] 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?
[i]“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.”[9a][/i]
[b]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 Arafat’s forces were taking control of the PLO (Arafat was elected PLO chairman in 1969).[9b][/b]
What happened? In 1967, Israel’s Arab neighbors provoked a war that had the goal of genocide against the Jews,[9c] 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.[9d] Israel was left with no choice but to keep those territories. [b]And it was then that the PLO decided these had now become Palestinian lands, which needed to be liberated. Thus began the so-called "occupation."[/b]
enjoy the rest; above is just the Intro and an excerpt from one part.
http://www.tenc.net/gilwhite/Israel.htm
(Excerpt) Read more at tenc.net ...
But on Sept 12, Israel was grieving with us, and Palestinians were dancing in the streets.
I picked sides on the 12th.
WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
He is, in fact, a variation of Castro: keep the people hungry for more, deliver them nothing and blame everyone else for their lot in life.
‡ "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. ...the 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. 1992. Land and power. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, (p.174)
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