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HOROWITZ: A MIDDLE EAST HISTORY PRIMER
News and Opinion.com ^ | April 10, 2002 | David Horowitz

Posted on 04/10/2002 12:56:10 PM PDT by Tom Jefferson

David Horowitz

A Middle East history primer

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Holed up in his besieged and battered Ramallah headquarters, Yasser Arafat has called for "millions of martyrs to march to Jerusalem…this is our destiny….this is the path I have chosen."

With these words he announced his real agenda for anyone who did not understand it before. As the Arab Muslims of the Palestine Mandate and their successors had previously announced through suicide bombings that target Jewish babies; through maps that erase the state of Israel; through the 1999 rejection of a peace plan that included 95% of their negotiating demands; through the never-abandoned 1964 liberation manifesto that calls for the obliteration of Israel as the "Zionist entity;" through their spiritual leaders the Grand Muftis of Jerusalem - the one who today calls for the destruction of America and the Jews and the one who yesterday, in the midst of the Nazi Holocaust, was a disciple and ally of Adolf Hitler; -- the real agenda of Arafat and the Palestinian leadership is now, and has always been, the elimination of Jewry from the Middle East.

The seed of the Palestinians' genocidal mania is rooted in Islam and began its metastasis more than 100 years ago when the first Zionist settlements signaled that an oppressed people, huddled on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire, was about to assert itself. Jews, in fact, had been living continuously in the region for 3,000 years but only as a stateless minority, easily and therefore frequently abused. Once the Jews began to assert and defend their presence in a world that regarded them as infidels and therefore damned, they immediately became the targets of an Islamic jihad - a permanent holy war whose goal was their destruction.

The struggle in the Middle East is not now and has never been about land. Israel occupies a miniscule 1% of the Arab Middle East and less than 10% of the entire Palestine Mandate, which was not even a political entity - let alone a nation, when the Jews' rights were granted. It was just a "mandate" carved by the British out of the Turkish empire after the First World War, and then allotted 90% to the Palestinian Arabs and 10% to the Jews.

Today the land called Jordan - a nation wholly created by Britain - occupies 80% of the landmass that made up the original Palestine Mandate. Nearly 70% of its inhabitants are still Palestinian Arabs, yet Jordan is not the target of a Palestine liberation movement. How is this possible? It is possible because the Hashemites who rule Palestinian Jordan and are a minority within Jordan, are Muslims not Jews. The Middle East War is not about land and not about injustice. It is a religious war - a jihad -- against the Jews.

In 1949, Jordan annexed the West Bank - that is, the entire territory that is allegedly in dispute -- and held it for 18 long years up to, and until, the 1967 Arab war against Israel. Jordan and the other Arab states lost this war, and the Jews retained control of the West Bank because the Arab states refused to make peace and recognize Israel, and Israel refused to return land to declared enemies, lest they use it as a staging area for war against Israel a third time. Not once in all those 18 years was there complaint from the Palestinians or their "liberation" organization or the other Arab states about the injustice done to the inhabitants of the West Bank. Not once was there an outcry that Jordan had annexed the Palestine "nation." That is because the Palestinians consider themselves Arabs and Muslims first and foremost, and because being "Palestinian" is a remote afterthought inspired by their hatred of the Jews.

Zionist settlers first began arriving in the already existing Jewish communities of Palestine in the 1880s. They were hoping to end the persecution of the Jews, which was a result of their stateless condition and their expulsion 2000 years ago from Judea and Samaria, which is today known as the West Bank. At the time of the Zionists arrival, Palestine was a sparsely occupied, barren desert, controlled by Turkey as it had been for nearly 400 years. Not only was there no Palestinian nation in the region, there were hardly any Arabs at all. This is the way the American writer Mark Twain described what he saw when, in the 1880s, he visited the place that is the site of such bloodshed today:

"Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren …. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent….It is a hopeless dreary heartbroken land….Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes…Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies …. Nazareth is forlorn; … Jericho… accursed…Jerusalem …a pauper village…Palestine is desolate ... A silent, mournful expanse. We never saw a human being on the whole route…. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country."

In this barren place the Jews were granted a sliver amounting to 10% of the land. More than half of this land was the Negev desert. Within a generation the Jews made their sliver bloom. Even today - 120 years later -- the boundary between Israel and Syria is still referred to as the "green line," symbolizing the difference between the Israeli side, which under the care of the Jews has become fertile ground, and the Arabs' side, which is still a desert. On their sliver of land the Jews also built the only industrial and democratic nation in the entire Middle East.

The productivity and tolerance of the Jews in the state they created have given birth to an Arab citizenry inside Israel of more than one million people. Unlike their Arab brethren, these Arab citizens of Israel vote in free elections and are themselves elected to the Israeli parliament. Their status provides an eloquent contrast to the intolerant and hate-filled world that surrounds and threatens the Jewish state.

As Israelis citizens, Arabs have more rights, privileges and opportunities than the inhabitants of any Arab state in the Middle East. At the same time, the so-called Palestinian refugees of the West Bank are barred even from becoming citizens in 21 of the 22 Arab nations. That's why they are "refugees." Because the Arabs want them to be miserable and destitute, and available as cannon fodder for their suicide wars against Israel. In contrast, the 600,000 Jewish refugees who fled or were expelled from Arab countries after the 1948 war have been fully resettled in Israel where they are productive citizens who desperately want peace.

What is the crime of the Jews that they should not have been welcomed into this unpromising desert -- a tiny sliver of the Turkish Empire -- from the very beginning? What is the crime of the Jews that their infant state should have been attacked by five Arab armies on the day of its creation? What is the crime of the Jews that these Arab states should have continued their war for fifty years without a peace in sight? What is the crime of the Jews that these Arabs should make Jewish women and children the targets of their suicide bombers, and that their leader should call for millions of "martyrs" to plow into the heart of the Jewish sliver to blow up its inhabitants once and for all?

Their crime is that they are Jews. Their crime is that they are heathens in the empire of Islam. Islam divides the world into Dar al Islam, the "house of Islam," and Dar al Harb, the "house of war," which is the house of infidels who -- if they do not convert - could or should be put to the sword. Perhaps there is a moderate Islam that rejects this alternative and has found a way to live peacefully with unbelievers who are its neighbors. But such an Islam does not exist as a political force in the Arab Middle East today.

That is why even a barren sliver was too much to allow the Jews. That is why the creation of a miniscule state in the middle of a desert provoked a genocidal war. Israel is Dar al Harb. That is why the annexation of the entire West Bank by the Kingdom of Jordan meant nothing to the Palestinian Muslims who inhabited it. Jordan is Dar al Islam. That is why peace cannot be made with the Jews. They are infidels who live in the house of war.

The Palestinian terrorists -- Arafat, the Palestine Authority, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and the al-Aksa Martyrs -- along with the governments in Saudia Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Iran who support their terror and their genocidal agendas are the Nazis of the Middle East.

There will be no peace until they are defeated or destroyed.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Israel; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: arafat; davidhorowitz; israel; jihad; napalminthemorning; palestine; terror; wot
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To: Wphile
If land is what they want, why don't they go after Jordan?

They tried this back in "Black September" of 1970, and King Hussein kicked their ass right out of the country. The irony is that for years Jordan and Palestine were essentially considered one and the same by everyone involved, but not after the failed coup attempt. Of course the Jordan monarchs today would never even consider allowing the P.L.O. terrorists back in, even though Jordan is still a majority Palestinian country.

41 posted on 04/10/2002 2:24:00 PM PDT by jpl
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To: The Great Satan
Yes it's a jihad - but it's not directed just at the Jews -- it's directed at Christians too -- and prosperous, democratic cultures. Why do you believe bin Laden and his minions have attacked America. What do you suppose is his long term, strategic objective ?? Simply to stop us from supporting Israel ?? To spread Islam throughout the world ?? To seek economic domination over western cultures ?? To expand the borders of the Arab world ?? Do you believe it's as simple as he hates the Jews ??

I don't think so.

42 posted on 04/10/2002 2:26:31 PM PDT by skip2myloo
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To: rdb3
"Though I'm an American black, I'm not afraid to tell it like it is; Inner-city blacks are the American Palestinian refugees, and they are being used just like the so-called Palestinians are in the Middle East."

Horowitz pretty much comes to the same conclusion in his media-supressed book "Hating Whitey." Have you read it?

43 posted on 04/10/2002 2:33:49 PM PDT by Harrison Bergeron
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To: Freedom'sWorthIt
The History Channel last week aired a two night mini-series on the impact of ancient Egyptian religions on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It was fascinating to see ancient sites like the first Christian monestary, St. Anthony's, and the early churches established by the Coptic Christians of Egypt. But one detail glibly glossed over in the documentary was the so-called "tradition" of Islam to build mosques square in the center of sanctified Jewish and Christian sites - directly over them in many cases. The documentary depicted this sacriligious practice as quaint and ideosyncratic of Arab culture. They didn't dare call it what it is - profane desecration.
44 posted on 04/10/2002 2:47:54 PM PDT by Harrison Bergeron
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To: babyface00
Wouldn't it be interesting to have someone who disagrees with Horowitz's analysis address his argument point by point, logically, and with concise, rational thought?

If you think his analyis is inaccurate, I, for one, would be very interested to hear where you disagree with what he has said, logically and with conscise rational thought.

45 posted on 04/10/2002 2:51:36 PM PDT by Tom Jefferson
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Comment #46 Removed by Moderator

To: skip2myloo
Yes it's a jihad - but it's not directed just at the Jews -- it's directed at Christians too -- and prosperous, democratic cultures

Absolutely right! The predominantly Christian west should realize that the Jews are in the front lines right now - but the enemy of these militant Islamists is the death of the infidel - anyone who is not a Muslim. If they aren't stopped now, we will be dealing with them in New York, London and Paris.

47 posted on 04/10/2002 2:55:53 PM PDT by Tom Jefferson
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To: rdb3
Men such as yourself are in short supply, as you are surely aware. Keep speaking the truth. <><
48 posted on 04/10/2002 2:57:14 PM PDT by canalabamian
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To: Harrison Bergeron
I certainly have read it.
49 posted on 04/10/2002 3:07:06 PM PDT by rdb3
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Comment #50 Removed by Moderator

To: Old Hickory
Might as well.This traitorous SOB Horowitz is walking around free.
51 posted on 04/10/2002 3:26:21 PM PDT by jo6pac
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To: jo6pac
This traitorous SOB Horowitz is walking around free.

Thank you for proving my favorite adage: "No one is useless: You can always serve as a bad example."

52 posted on 04/10/2002 3:40:14 PM PDT by AmishDude
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To: Is2C
pingorama
53 posted on 04/10/2002 3:40:18 PM PDT by the-ironically-named-proverbs2
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To: Tom Jefferson
. . Nazis of the Middle East.

Only place where I mildly disagree with Horowitz. Actually the nazis had a sense of shame and located their concentration camps in the most remote areas possible. To this day, their apologists (including Noam Chomsky) try to deny their existence.

The Islamist nazis, on the other hand, are proud of the devil's work which they do and put it on public display for all to see and to inspire and motivate future butchers of the innocent.

54 posted on 04/10/2002 3:56:36 PM PDT by Rubber Ducky
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To: Tom Jefferson
Bump for a later read...
55 posted on 04/10/2002 3:56:49 PM PDT by BornOnTheFourth
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To: jo6pac
And just how is Horowitz a "traitor?" Explain this in detail. I'm all ears.
56 posted on 04/10/2002 4:04:39 PM PDT by rdb3
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To: MeeknMing
Good article. Thanks for the ping!!
57 posted on 04/10/2002 4:12:51 PM PDT by Brownie74
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To: lysander13135
Thanks for the ping. Yes, that is a great read indeed.

Articles like this make me appreciate Free Republic - and Freepers like you who let me know about these articles.

58 posted on 04/10/2002 4:16:21 PM PDT by oldcodger
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To: Brownie74; Tom Jefferson
My pleasure..........
59 posted on 04/10/2002 4:18:43 PM PDT by MeekOneGOP
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To: rdb3
Joe six pac is not serious....just a hit and run poster.
60 posted on 04/10/2002 4:38:42 PM PDT by dennisw
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