Arab Lies About the Middle East Conflict

Americans For A Safe Israel.org ^ | 01-5-01

[kiras]

     A picture is worth a thousand words and a video has thousands of pictures.  Perhaps the best video for understanding what is going on in the Middle East is called The Trojan Horse and can be ordered from ShopNetDaily.com.  It presents footage of the Arabs stating their true intentions and a lot more.  It is a shocking and very disturbing video.

   Arab propagandists tell us that Israel drove the Palestinians refugees out of Palestine and that she is illegally occupying Palestinian territory inspite of UN resolutions that the occupation is illegal.  They suggest that there would be peace if only the Israelis would return to the 1967 borders of Israel.  These propagandists tell us that brutal Israeli soldiers are killing innocent Palestinians for throwing rocks as part of their legitimate struggle against the Israeli occupation of their homeland.  They claim that not only are Israelis firing and killing these heroic and innocent freedom fighters with guns but that they indiscriminately shooting at them with helicopters and missiles and committing terrible atrocities and massacres against them.  The PLO Authority claims that it is against attacks on innocent civilians and that the Israelis are the real terrorists.  We are told that most of the victims of the violence are Palestinian therefore Israel must be responsible.  We are told by the arch PLO propagandist Hanan Ashrawi that the Israelis are oppressing and enslaving the Palestinian people and that Palestinians become suicide bombers because they are desperate and have no way out.  The Arabs claim that Jews are responsible for state sponsored terrorism and that Jews, not Arabs started terror in the Middle East since it was the Jews who blew up the King David Hotel in 1946. 

I Israel Drove the Palestinians Out of Palestine

   Joseph Farah, an Arab Christian wrote an article in which he quoted Arabs from the time period during which the brutal Israeli explusions supposedly happened (The World's Collective Amnesia worldnetdaily.com 9/19/02):

– Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph Sept. 6, 1948.

"The Arab state which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees."

– The Jordanian daily newspaper Falastin, Feb. 19, 1949.

"Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it."

– The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, Aug. 19, 1951.

"The 15th May, 1948, arrived ... On that day the mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead."

– The Cairo daily Akhbar el Yom, Oct. 12, 1963.

"For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs ... By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy."

– The Jordanian daily newspaper Al Urdun, April 9, 1953.

I could go on and on and on with this forgotten – or deliberately obscured – history. But you get the point. There was no Jewish conspiracy to chase Arabs out of their homes in 1948. It never happened. There are, instead, plenty of historical records showing the Jews pleading with their Arab neighbors to stay and live in peace and harmony. Yet, despite the clear, unambiguous words of the Arab observers at the time, history has been successfully rewritten to turn the Jews into the bad guys.

The truth is that 68 percent of the Arab Palestinians who left in 1948 – perhaps 300,000 to 400,000 of them – never saw an Israeli soldier. Even more importantly, the revised history has given the guilty a free ride. The Arab states that initiated the hostilities have never accepted responsibility – despite their enormous wealth and their ability to assimilate tens of millions of refugees in their largely under-populated nations. And other states have failed to hold them accountable.

It's bad enough the Arab states created a small nation of refugees by their actions. It's worse that they have successfully blamed that international crime on the Jews. Today, of course, this cruel charade continues. The suffering of millions of Arabs is perpetuated only for political purposes by the Arab states.

They are merely pawns in the war to destroy Israel. There were some 100 million refugees around the world following World War II. The Palestinian Arab group is the only one in the world not absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands. Since then, millions of Jewish refugees from around the world have been absorbed in the tiny nation of Israel.

It makes no sense to expect that same tiny Jewish state to solve a refugee crisis it did not create.

I The Illegal Occupation of Palestinian Territory

  In the First Century CE, the Romans crushed the independent kingdom of Judea.  After the failed rebellion of Bar Kokhba in the Second Century CE, the Roman Emperor Hadrian determined to wipe out the identity of Israel-Judah-Judea. Therefore, he took the name Palastina and imposed it on all the Land of Israel.

   The Balfour Declaration of 1917, confirmed by the League of Nations Mandate, committed the British Government to the principle that "His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish National Home, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object. . . . "  It was specified both that this area be open to "close Jewish settlement" and that the rights of all inhabitants already in the country be preserved and protected. 

   However, the British cut of 75% of Palestine and gave it to Emir Abdullah.  There was no traditional or historic Arab name for this land, so it was called after the river: first Trans-Jordan and later Jordan.  No Jew has ever been permitted to reside in Trans-Jordan/Jordan.

   When Arabs claim the home of the Palestinians has been taken away from them, that is nonsense, 75% of the Jewish National Home has been taken away by the Arabs.  In addition a large part of the rest has been given to Arafat as part of the Oslo accords.  For more about this see the History of Palestine and Palestinians and What is Palestine and Palestinians?

   The Arabs claim that the Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria (which they call the West Bank as part of their denial of historical Jewish rights to the area) is an illegal occupation.  Hillel Halkin in the June 02 issue of Commentary magazine wrote in regard to the territories:

The case for [their] illegality rests largely on a single source: article 49(6) in the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. This article states that an occupying military power "shall not deport or transfer part of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." Yet, as several international jurists have pointed out, not only has Israel "deported" or "transferred" no one to the settlements, whose inhabitants are there of their own free will, it is by no means clear that Israel was ever, legally, in the position of being an occupying power. "This is because, in 1967, Israel had as good a claim as anyone to the West Bank, which in effect belonged to no government. The Jordanian annexation of the area, while acquiesced in by the same Palestinian leadership that had rejected the 1947 U.N. partition resolution, was unrecognized by most of the world..

   The territory Israel is occupying which the media calls the West Bank is Judea and Samaria.  These lands belonged to Israel long before the Moslem invasion in 636 CE.  These lands were originally designated as part of the Jewish National Home by the League of Nations in 1922.  Moreover, these rights were preserved under the United Nations as well, according to Article 80 of the UN Charter, despite the termination of the League of Nations in 1946.  In 1967 Israel seized these territories in self defense against Arab attempts to destroy her.  International jurists generally draw a distinction between situations of "aggressive conquest" and territorial disputes that arise after a war of self-defense. Former State Department Legal Advisor Stephen Schwebel, who later headed the International Court of Justice in the Hague, wrote in 1970 regarding Israel's case: "Where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory unlawfully, the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense has, against that prior holder, better title." Israel only entered the West Bank after repeated Jordanian artillery fire and ground movements across the previous armistice lines; additionally, Iraqi forces crossed Jordanian territory and were poised to enter the West Bank.

   According to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention (Article 6) and the earlier 1907 Hague Regulations, a territory can only be considered occupied when it is under the effective and actual control of the occupier.  Under the Oslo Agreements, Israel transferred specific powers from its military government in the West Bank and Gaza to the newly created Palestinian Authority.  Since that time, 98 percent of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have come under Palestinian jurisdiction.  Maps showing this are online .    Much of the land that the Palestinians demand in addition to what they already have doesn't have any Arabs living in it.    An excellent web page from which much of the above information was obtained was posted by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and is called Occupied Territories or Disputed Territories.

   The fact that these lands were Judea and Samaria before the Arab conquest means that they are Jewish lands under occupation by Arabs.  The majority of the Arabs living in these in Israel moved there from surrounding Arab lands after the Jews bought prosperity to the country by draining swamps and converting them to farmland and by making the desert bloom.  Those who came in this way were the first to cry "Out with the Jews".

   Joseph Farah in his article The Settlements Issue writes how the economy and the freedom Arabs had in Israel led to a large influx of Arabs. He writes that since the Oslo accords hundreds of thousands of Arabs have entered Judea, Samaria and Gaza and never left and that since 1967 the Arabs have built 261 settlements in Judea and Samaria.   In addition the refugee camps which gave out free food was a major attraction. 

If Only the Jews Would Get out Of the Territories There Would Be Peace

   The suggestion that peace would come if Israel withdrew to the 1967 lines leaves us with the question as to why the Arabs tried to destroy Israel in 1967 while Arab states controlled those territories.  It also leaves us with the question as to why the Palestinian Liberation Organization was founded in 1964 before the "occupation".  It is instructive to read the Palestine National Charter of 1964.  Here are some excerpts:

Article 16: ...the people of Palestine, desiring to befriend all nations
which love freedom, justice, and peace, look forward to their support in
restoring the legitimate situation to Palestine, ... and [in] enabling its
people to exercise national sovereignty and freedom.

Article 24: This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty
over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, [or] on the Gaza Strip

   The founding document of the PLO says that they are not entitled to the West Bank or Gaza!  Yet now much of the West believes that the cause of the conflict is the Israeli presence in parts of the West Bank!  When the PLO wrote their charter Jordan was in control of the West Bank and they wanted Jordanian support.  Their goal was to annihilate Israel not a state in the West Bank.    Zuheir Mohsein, a member of the supreme council of the PLO said, in an interview with the Dutch Daily Trouw (3/31/1977):

There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our Palestinian identity, because it is in the interest of the Arabs to encourage a separate Palestinian identity in contrast to Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity is there only for tactical reasons. The establishment of a Palestinian state is a new expedient to continue the fight against Zionism and for Arab unity.

    The wars in the Middle East are about fighting Zionism, the right of the Jews to Israel, not about creating a terrorist Palestinian State.   That is just a brilliant and very successful tactic.

  The Bush administration apparently believes that Israeli withdrawals will lead to peace.  This misconception was addressed eloquently by Reuel Marc Gerecht in the Wall Street Journal 4/8/02.  He wrote:

Does the administration really believe that if all the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza were removed--they occupy less than 1.5% of these territories--and East Jerusalem became Palestinian, the kamikazes would stop? Former prime minister Ehud Barak essentially offered this deal at Camp David in July 2000, but Yasser Arafat rejected it, preferring to unleash the second intifada.

   The Palestinian Authority insists that in order for their to be peace the refugees who fled Israel in 1948 must be allowed to return to their homes.  So they themselves admit that an end to the "occupation" won't bring peace.  Allowing 5,000,000 hostile Arab refugees from the camps from which suicide bombers have been sneaking into Israel, to move into Israel, would be suicide for Israel.  This fact has been admitted by Arab leaders. For example, the post-war Egyptian Foreign Minister, Muhammad Salah al-Din, declared:

... in demanding the return of the Palestinian refugees, the Arabs mean their return as masters, not slaves; or to put it quite clearly – the intention is the extermination of Israel. (Al-Misri, 11 October 1949, as quoted by N. Feinberg, p109)

Similarly, Egypt’s President Nasser stated:

If the refugees return to Israel, Israel will cease to exist. (Neue Zuercher Zeitung, September 1, 1960, as quoted by Prittie)

   Israel has already given land to the Palestinian Authority which could be made available for the refugees in the camps.  The problem is the refugees are being kept in the camps by Arafat for whom they are a useful tool for gaining world sympathy.  Former director in Jordan of UN aid to the Palestinians, Ralph Galloway, stated:

The Arab states do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don’t give a damn whether the refugees live or die. (Ralph Galloway, UNRWA, as quoted by Terence Prittie in The Palestinians: People History, Politics, p 71)

  A dossier of documents captured when the Israelis attempted to rout out terrorists, was prepared by Sharon aide Dani Naveh for Sharon's meeting with President Bush.  That dossier reveals that huge amounts of cash sent by Europeans for Palestinian economic projects were funneled to the Tanzim, Arafat's Force 17 presidential guard, and other Palestinian Authority organizations that took part in terror (New York Post 5/4/02).  It was delusional of the Europeans to believe that Arafat would use donated money to improve the conditions in the camps since that might reduce the hatred of the inhabitants of those camps toward Israel and his goal is to increase hatred and terror against Israel.  After Operation Defensive Shield Arafat toured the West Bank but he skipped Jenin because of the anger of Jenin's inhabitants towards him.  One reason for their anger was allegations that (New York Post 5/14/02)

10 tons of food donated from all over the world to the camp never got there.  Half of the food was allegedly sold by
Arafat's Palestinian Authority to raise cash, and the other half went to Palestinian Authority stockpiles.

   It's in Arafat's interest to keep the people of Jenin in as miserable a situation as possible for PR purposes as well as for creating anger at Israel.  In this case though it backfired by resulting in anger toward him.

   In 1948 when the modern state of Israel was born there were hundreds of thousands of Arab refugees not millions.  These refugees were Arabs who fled Israel because they were warned to do so by the surrounding invading Arab armies who planned a wholescale massacre and did not want to inadvertantly massacre their fellow Arabs.  The refugee population ballooned not only because of the high birthrate of the Arabs but also because of the free food and shelter offered by the United Nations to those who claimed to be refugees.  It is also important to note that there were hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab lands but Israel does not have Jewish refugee camps and does not demand repatriation of the Jewish refugees for peace.  Israel absorbed the hundreds of thousands of Jews displaced from Arab lands.  Finally Israel by giving land to the Palestinian Authority has given Israeli land to the refugees but for Arafat that isn't enough because then he can't use the refugees to destroy Israel.  More information about this topic is in a backgrounder by CAMERA, in an article by Ruth Lapidoth.

   The Palestinian Arabs are being oppressed by Arafat and the PLO. Arab civilians have to pay protection money to Arafat's cronies. Millions of dollars donated by Europe and the United States to improve the living conditions of Palestinian Arabs have been diverted toward buying weapons with which to attack Israeli civilians, and to the pockets of Arafat and his henchmen. Incitement of anti-Jewish hatred by Arafat's Palestinian Authority has led to unprecedented levels of violence against Jewish civilians. To defend her civilians against Kassam rockets, mortars, gun fire and suicide belts packed with poisoned nails, Israel has been forced to search and destroy bomb and rocket factories in Arab civilian towns and to launch premptive strike at terrorists to prevent more terror. In addition Israel has been forced to impose closures to seal in terrorists. Every time Israel lifts these closures for humanitarian reasons, Arab terrorists sneak out and commit more atrocities against Israeli civilians. Before territorial concessions were made to Arafat the Israelis administered Judea and Samaria. During the Israeli administration Arab mortality rates fell and life expectancy increased dramatically. During the "Israeli oppression" of the 1970's, the West Bank and Gaza had autonomy, the highest standard of living in the entire Islamic world and the fourth fastest growing economy in the World! Under Arafat the last two years of terrorism (2001-02) has brought poverty to more than 50 percent of the Arab residents of Judea and Samaria and 80% of residents of Gaza (Daniel Pipes "Israel is Winning" New York Post, 8/7/02).  They now have the lowest standard of living in the Arab world.  Pipes quotes the the Chicago Tribune:

University graduates, architects and engineers, men who once wore suits, now hawk flavored water, fruit, paper napkins and chewing gum alongside street children with their hands for alms

   The United States has been trying to broker a deal in which the Palestinian  Authority would agree to give up the right of return in return for Israel withdrawing from all the settlements.  Although this would uproot Israelis from their homeland it might be worth it if it bought peace to the Middle East.  The problem is that it won't.  Why? 

1. There are other groups beside the  Palestinian  Authority that will not agree even to sign any agreements with Israel, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
2. There are other countries in the Middle East that want to destroy Israel.

Even if all the terrorists groups and Arab countries in the Middle East were willing to sign a peace agreement with Israel, that would not mean peace.  Why?

1. The Palestinian  Authority makes agreements to get Israeli concessions and then breaks those agreements.
2. The Palestinian  Authority makes new demands after it signs agreements.  For example in the Oslo agreement the Palestinian  Authority agreed to become nonviolent in return for land.  The Israelis gave them land and the Palestinian s became even more violent and added the demand of the right of return as a prerequisite for non-violence. 

   Dr. Steve Plaut wrote a fantastic essay about this called Peace At Last, Peace At Last. 

II The Brutal Murder of Innocent Palestinians by Israeli Soldiers

  Jack Kelley, a reporter, decided to check out Arab claims of Israeli atrocities.  He then wrote an article for U.S.A. Today (10/13/2000) about what he found.  Here are the opening paragraphs of his article:

For the third time in a day, a news bulletin interrupted the Arabic music on the Voice of Palestine radio: Israeli jets had just bombed the West Bank town of Bethlehem, the report said.

"The Israeli criminals have fired missiles into the homes of innocent Palestinians," a breathless correspondent said. "Palestinian blood is flowing in the streets! Oh God, God, how can the criminals kill our innocent children?"

A trip to the town immediately after the report, however, found no evidence of an attack.

An hour earlier, another breathless Voice of Palestine correspondent had reported that the West Bank town of Hebron was "under siege" by armed Jewish settlers who were "shooting Palestinian women and children."

A visit to Hebron found calm and quiet there, too.

Same thing in the West Bank town of Nablus, where the correspondent reported that Israeli troops were "burning homes." No such thing, residents there said.

    In addition to lying to their own people the Palestinians lie to the Western Press as well.  If the Israelis strike at terrorists hiding among civilians and civilians die the Palestinians call it a massacre.  One example of this was when after a wave of suicide bombings, Israel hunted down terrorists in the village of Jenin.  The Palestinian Authority presented Israel's tenacious struggle against terrorists in Jenin as a "massacre."  Shneior Alfasi, a reserve soldier who fought in Jenin, was asked on May 1 02,
"What do you think when you hear the phrase 'massacre in Jenin?' 

His response was:

We did nothing of the sort.  The only thing it can mean for me is that when we first arrived in Jenin with our emergency orders, we were all united in knowing that because of the massacres that the terrorists were perpetrating against us every day, we had to fight and put an end to it once and for all.  It happened during the fighting that we called on the civilians to come out, which they did... and then from behind the women and children burst forth armed terrorists who started shooting at us, leaving us with the dilemma of having to decide whether to shoot back and risk hurting the women and children. 

Brig.-Gen. Eyal Shlein, the commander of the fighting in the Jenin region, said on April 11, 2002.

Among the detainees [that we arrested], there was a large number of suicide bombers who were prepared with videos already en-route to carry out suicide attacks... Explosive belts [that we found] are too numerous to be counted... The terrorist hardcore exploits local residents who do not want to fight. Some of them are hostages, whose houses are being used as booby traps..."

Asked about allegations of a massacre and the prevention of media coverage, Shlein said, "There was no massacre whatsoever. If we wanted to perform a massacre, we could have taken over the camp in one day. The IDF did not use artillery or aircraft. The IDF is one of the most humanitarian armies in the world. It is important to emphasize that whoever uses women, children and the elderly as defensive shields - would pay a price for doing so. We have also paid our price."

Asked if the army intends to destroy the area, Shlein said, "No. Many buildings are booby-trapped. The more we enter the center of the camp, the more booby traps we encounter. We do not want to suffer casualties. We intend to demolish the buildings which are booby-trapped because after we get everyone out, they will accuse us of leaving houses with bombs in them.

When asked about the allegations regarding the prevention of humanitarian support he responded:

During the battle, the curfew was lifted. We made possible the supply of food, fuel and electricity in the hospital.

  Shimon Peres said regarding Jenin:

there wasn't a house that wasn't booby trapped.

Despite the risk the Israelis did not bomb the camp and chose house to house fighting instead.

A New York Post Editorial (4/17/02) quoted an Israeli Corps commander as saying:

I could have finished it all with a whistle.  Full-corps fire on the center of the camp and the whole thing would have been over. But we behave differently.

The editor went on to say:

Far too many people already believe the legend of the Jenin massacre, and the international media reports -- especially in Europe -- refuse to acknowledge the truth.

   Jonathan Foreman in an article called "Media Miss Israeli Restraint" (New York Post 4/17/02) wrote:

the tactics chosen by the Israeli army -- sending infantrymen from house to house -- simply make no sense unless the avoidance of civilian casualties was a priority.

If the Israelis were truly as callous or reckless about civilian casualties as CNN and the BBC imply, they could have destroyed the "terrorist infrastructure" at much less risk to their own men:

• The last time American troops fought guerillas in an urban area was the battle of Hue in 1968. We didn't hesitate to use artillery and jet aircraft in support of the Marines.

• The early French response to the uprising in Algeria included the naval bombardment of a rebel-controlled town, randomly killing up to 8,000 people.

• The Russians literally pulverized the Chechen capital of Grozny in 1999.

And if the Israelis were as monstrously cavalier about human life as their enemies claim, they would simply have shelled or bombed Ramallah and Jenin into submission.  That's what Syria's then-President Assad did at Hama in 1982--where he crushed the Muslim Brotherhood at the cost of at least 10,000 lives....

The Israelis could be forgiven for learning the wrong lesson from the past two weeks: That next time they go after the people who've been suicide bombing their kids, they might as well just level Ramallah and Nablus and Jenin.  Why take the risk of fighting from house to house if you're going to be treated as if you've done a Grozny anyway?

   While the United States attacked Afghanistan they tried not to hit civilians but they were not willing to do so at the risk of house to house combat.  One result was U.S. aircraft hit a hospital by mistake.  Another was the loss of many civilian lives.

   Twenty three Israeli soldiers lost their lives routing out the terrorist infrastructure of Jenin.  The father of one of the soldiers who died accused Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of having killed his son.  The father said that Sharon knew where the terrorists were and could have bombed the buildings. 

Israel TV military commentator Ron Ben-Yeshai angrily said in his broadcast of April 9, 02 

I would like to emphasize:  The fighting in Jenin was so hard and so costly not only because of the high motivation on the Palestinian side [to continue fighting], but also because the army was prevented from using its full force.  It was prevented from blowing up buildings - something that the Palestinians did do; the army was prevented from collapsing buildings on their inhabitants - something that the Palestinians did do without hesitation; this fighting, therefore, which was waged by trying to preserve [Arab] civilian lives, cost us many victims.

A report by Arutz 7 of the fighting in Jenin was as follows:

In the words of one senior officer, only "surgical procedures" were employed:  Ground forces covered by helicopters attacked the hold-out terrorists, who laid many powerful bombs against the advancing Israelis and shot sniper fire at them.  The main fighting was carried out by Golani, naval commando, and reserve soldiers.  The terrorists also fired this morning at Red Crescent ambulances that came to evacuate their own wounded and dead.  Israeli defense sources say that Arafat wants the bodies to remain there in order to leave the impression of an Israeli massacre in Jenin.  The number of Arab dead is estimated at 200 or more.

Reuven, an Israeli observer in Jenin, spoke with Arutz-7 (April 9 2002) from the site while the battles were going on:

My impression is that the army is playing with kid gloves.  It should take megaphones and announce that whoever doesn't come out now, the building will soon be collapsed on him.  They [the army] are endangering themselves and the soldiers...  A short time ago we had a terrible incident when they went into a building and [ed note: the interviewer interrupted him with a different question at this point, as the incident was still under military-censor wraps]...  The problem is that the army is trying to be too humane, but - it is incomprehensible!  I truly can't understand!  [If it's because the army is afraid that pictures of dead terrorists will rouse the world against us], then what about the pictures of our dead!  Why don't they show those pictures!?"  He said that the soldiers are fighting like true heroes, but "they are not being given the correct orders.  If there are suspects in a building, the whole building should be destroyed!  Who else in the world would act the way we're acting with such murderers?!  What kind of wantonness is this?!

   An audio interview with IDF spokesman David Baruch about what happened in Jenin can be heard by clicking here.  The IDF web site also has information. 

   Inconvenient facts did not deter Muhammad Bakri from creating a propaganda film on Jenin.  Dr. David Sangan, Ma'ariv, 8.11.2002, Weekend Supplement who was with the IDF when they went into Jenin wrote about the film.

The film mentions a mass gravesite that IDF soldiers dug for Palestinian dead.  Every international organization that investigated the matter concur that there were 52 Palestinian dead in Jenin, and that all the bodies were returned to the Palestinians for burial.  Bakri does not bother to show the supposed location of this mass gravesite.

Dr. Sangan also wrote:

   Dr. Abu Riali, director of the hospital in Jenin, claims in the film that the western wing of the hospital was shelled and destroyed and that the IDF knowingly hit the hospital's water and power supplies.  There never was any such wing ...It is important to point out that this Abu Riali is one of the "authorized sources" for the claim of a "massacre."  At the beginning of the operation, he was interviewed on Al-Jazeera television and spoke of, "thousands of victims."

    Another impressive part of the film is the interview with a male 75-year-old Jenin resident who mumbles and cries and tells how he was taken out of his bed in the middle of the night, shot in the hand, and after he failed to obey the soldiers' command to get up, was shot again in the foot. I met this very same old man as he was brought to me after an operation to clear one of the Hamas cells' houses in the refugee camp.  He had indeed been lightly injured in the hand and was suffering from a minor scratch on the foot, but certainly not as the result of a bullet.  IDF soldiers transferred him to a secure station that had been set up to treat wounded and there I treated him, among others.  One of the military doctors identified diagnosed a heart problem.  We suggested that he be transferred immediately to Haemek Hospital in Afula for treatment.  He asked to be treated at the hospital in Jenin since he did not speak Hebrew.  After the hospital refused to admit him, we transferred him to Afula and he stayed there for three days in the internal medicine department for treatment of his heart problems and the anemia that he suffered from as a result of another chronic illness.

    Another person who was interviewed spoke about a baby who suffered a chest wound from a bullet that entered through his chest and exited his body, creating a hole in his back.  According to the film the baby died after IDF soldiers prevented his evacuation to hospital.  A baby's body with this type of injury has never been found.  Moreover, such an injury would have been fatal, and evacuation would not have saved his life.  What is this baby's name? Where did his body disappear?  The same person interviewed also told how, using his finger, he opened the baby's airway in his neck after he was injured.  Again, a complete lie.  Such an action cannot be carried out with a finger. This "witness" adds that tanks ran over living people many times until they were completely crushed - this never happened and is imaginary.

    Israeli planes that supposedly bombed the city are mentioned in the film. There were no such planes.  In order to prevent civilian casualties, only focused helicopter fire was used.

   A film called "Jenin, the Distorted Truth" can be viewed online by clicking the projector icon below.

   The Arabs have a long history of false massacre claims against the Jews.  One of these claims that has been repeated over and over is that the Jews massacred Arabs in the village of Deir Yassin in 1948 as part of their efforts to drive the Palestinians from their homeland.  Most of the following information about what happened at Deir Yassin is from the Myths and Facts web site.   The story begins in 1948 when the Arabs cut off supplies to the Jews living in Jerusalem.  In order to get supplies to them Jews ran the gauntlet of Arab fire from the hills surrounding the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to try and get food to the Jews of Jerusalem.  To this day the road to Jerusalem is littered with the remains of the trucks of the heroic souls who tried to get food through.  Finally the Jews realized that they had to take the hills surrounding that road if they were to get supplies through.  As part of that operation the Irgun took control of the village of Deir Yassin.

   In order to avoid civilian casualties the Irgun gave up the advantage of surprise and a small open truck fitted with a loudspeaker to the entrance of the village before the attack and broadcast a warning to civilians to evacuate the area, which many did.  After a ferocious battle the Arabs feigned surrender and then fired on the Jewish troops. 

  The Palestinian leader Hussein Khalidi was one of the originators of the "massacre" allegation in 1948. It was Khalidi's claims about Jewish atrocities in Deir Yassin that were the basis for an article in the New York Times by its correspondent, Dana Schmidt (on April 12, 1948), claiming a massacre took place. The Times article has been widely reprinted and cited as "proof" of the massacre throughout the past 50 years.

   According to the Jerusalem Report, Nusseibeh a member of one of Jerusalem's most prominent Arab families who presently lives in Amman described "an encounter at the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem's Old City with Deir Yassin survivors and Palestinian leaders, including Hussein Khalidi... 'I asked Dr. Khalidi how we should cover the story,' recalled Nusseibeh. 'He said, "We must make the most of this." So we wrote a press release stating that at Deir Yassin children were murdered, pregnant women were raped. All sorts of atrocities.'"

   The BBC program then shows a recent interview with Abu Mahmud, who was a Deir Yassin resident in 1948, who says that the villagers protested against the atrocity claims: "'We said, "There was no rape." [Khalidi] said, "We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews.'"

All Radwan an Arab who lived in Deir Yassin said:

I know when I speak that God is up there and God knows the truth and God will not forgive the liars.  There were no rapes. It's all lies. There were no pregnant women who were slit open. It was propaganda that... Arabs put out so Arab armies would invade.  They ended up expelling people from all of Palestine on the rumor of Deir Yassin.

For example, according to the Daily Telegraph, April 8, 1998, Ayish Zeidan, a resident of the village and a survivor of the fighting there, stated:

The Arab radio talked of women being killed and raped, but this is not true... I believe that most of those who were killed were among the fighters and the women and children who helped the fighters. The Arab leaders committed a big mistake. By exaggerating the atrocities they thought they would encourage people to fight back harder. Instead they created panic and people ran away.

Nusseibeh, who is a member of one of Jerusalem's most prominent Arab families and presently lives in Amman, told the BBC that the fabricated atrocity stories about Deir Yassin were "our biggest mistake," because "Palestinians fled in terror" and left the country in huge numbers after hearing the atrocity claims.

   Just four days after the reports from Deir Yassin were published, an Arab force ambushed a Jewish convoy on the way to Hadassah Hospital, killing 77 Jews, including doctors, nurses, patients, and the director of the hospital. Another 23 people were injured. This massacre attracted little attention and is never mentioned by those who are quick to bring up Deir Yassin. Although the Arabs like to accuse the Jews of massacres the Arabs have openly stated their plans to massacre the Jews.  The Secretary-General of the Arab League Azzam Pasha in an interview with the BBC on the eve of the war or 1948 (May 15, 1948) said : “The Arabs intend to conduct a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”

   Much of the Western media writes heart rending articles and shows infuriating films of brutal Israeli soldiers killing Palestinian children.   For example a French film crew filmed the killing of 12 year old Muhammad al-Durya dying in his father's arms in Gaza.  The killing was blamed on Israel and the film was broadcast by media all over the world and is currently used in Arab incitement films against Israel.   ARD Germany's main public TV network reported that the widely aired footage was less than a minute's worth of a six minute tape -- one that the French have refused to air.  The German documentary -- based on the full tape -- clears the Israelis, and suggests that al-Durya was killed by Palestinian bullets.  Yet, as the New Republic reported, not a single U.S. media outlet that aired the French video excerpt has reported on the German documentary. 

     The PA incites children to attack Jews .  The PA uses children as a human shield for snipers who shoot at Israelis.  The Palestinian Police round up children for violent demonstrations.   The Israelis in contrast have strict rules of restraint for their soldiers.   However Israeli soldiers are allowed to fire when fired upon.  If they are fired upon from within a civilian crowd and they shoot back that results in civilian casualties.   The official toll on February 1, 2001 since the beginning of the Oslo peace process is 546 Israelis murdered by Palestinians.  A very good film that shows what it's like to be attacked by civilians who shield snipers and who even shoot themselves is "Rules of Engagement".   This film is available in most video stores.  Sometimes seeing images is worth a thousand words.

   Rocks can kill and Palestinian youth do not only throw rocks.   Most media articles do not mention that these children are being incited by the Palestinian Authority into attacking Israeli soldiers (See Jihad for Kids) while Palestinian snipers use them as a human shield.

   The use of children as human shields by the PLO Authority is discussed in detail in an article by Justus Reid called, The Use of Palestinian Children in the Al-Aqsa Intifada and in an article entitled Exploiting Children as a Human Shield - An Endemic PLO Norm?!.  The following is a photo of one incidence of this.

   Those parents who object to the rounding up of their children by the Palestinian police face threats and intimidation (See (See Let Our Kids Alone, Arafat! which appeared in USA today Dec. 8, 2000). 

   Although the media pays a great deal of attention to alleged atrocities by Israelis it pays very little attention to Arab atrocities.  According to Israel National News 5/6/02:

Some of the 120 Arab prisoners freed by IDF forces from a PLO jail in Shechem during Operation Defensive Shield say their captors tortured them.  Many of the prisoners, held on charges of cooperating with Israel, describe being hung upside down for days, having cigarettes extinguished on their bodies, and other such treatment. 

Some of the prisoners said that they were beaten unconscious and slashed with knives and shards of glass, while other said they were forced to sit in raw sewage for days... In other incidents, Arabs suspected of working with Israel have been brutally murdered by PLO gangs.  In some cases the victims' bodies were dragged in the street and hung upside down in public squares.

   During Operation Defensive Shield Palestinian terrorists took over the Church of the Nativity and held the Christians inside hostages while shooting from the windows at Israelis.  Israelis surrounded the Church because there were a lot of wanted terrorists inside.  Much of the world media condemned Israel for laying siege to the church of the Nativity.  It makes one wonder how the world would react if a similar scenario were to happen elsewhere say, Latin America.  It did.  In Columbia the FARC is waging a civil war against the government.  According to an article by Margarita Martinez of the Associated Press (May 5, 02) dozens of civilians took refuge from FARC in a Catholic Church.  The FARC opened fire with mortars and killed them.  Where was the international condemnation?  Against Israel of course.  Columbia's 38 year civil war kills roughly 3,500 people mostly civilians each year.  How many people even know that civilians are being killed in Columbia?

      Some Palestinian parents rejoice in when their children become suicide bombers (see The Joy of the Mothers of Palestinian 'Martyrs').   In June 2001, Saeed Hotary, committed suicide with a bomb amidst a crowd of Israeli youth going to a discotheque killing 20 of them died.  After this gruesome "accomplishment" his father said:

I am very happy and proud of what my son did and I hope all the men of Palestine and Jordan would do the same.

III The Israelis are Shooting Them With Helicopters

   Helicopters and F16s have the advantage that they can carry out precise bombings and that they don't put Israeli soldiers at risk the way sending them into a place such as Gaza would.  They have been used in this way.  Israel could easily level Arab towns from which attacks come with this equipment but instead only uses it for precision bombing.  Precision bombing can still kill civilians as was the case when Israel dropped a bomb the building in which Hamas terror commander Salah Shehada was staying.  However, he was planning massive attacks that would have killed hundreds of Israelis.  Killing Shehada may have saved many Israeli civilians by both destroying the planner and sending a message that there is a price for planning such attacks.  Although Israel took a risk that they would kill civilians when they eliminated Shehada they saved the lives of many civilians by doing so and this is a lot better than deliberately targetting civilians and indiscriminately shooting Kassam rockets and mortars into civilian areas which the Palestinians do.

IIIb The PLO Authority claims that it is against attacks on innocent civilians

   On July 16th terrorists three Arab terrorists dressed as Israeli soldiers detonated a roadside bomb alongside a public bus near the Shomron community of Emmanuel, 20 miles east of Tel Aviv.  After the initial blast, fleeing passengers were greeted by a barrage of short range gunfire from the terrorists who emerged from hiding.  When the father of nine-month-old Tif'eret Sarah Shilon was informed of the attack and ran to rescue her the terrorists shot and killed him.  Eight people died the day of the attack.  A 22-year-old pregnant woman Yehudit Weinberg, was serious wounded in the attack, and doctors at Schneider Children's Hospital in Petach Tikvah performed an emergency Caesarian section that night.  The following morning, however, the baby boy succumbed to wounds he suffered while still in the womb. 

  Israel's channel 7 (7/17/02) reported that:

Conflicting voices were heard in the Palestinian Authority about the slaughter. Although Arafat's Fatah organization was quick to take credit for it, the PA itself issued an official condemnation of attacks on "innocent civilians."  The condemnation was given an interesting spin by PA cabinet secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman:  "[These civilians] were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  If they call themselves Israeli citizens, let them stay there and not come into our land."  He further said that the official condemnation was issued only because of heavy international pressure, and that the PA "supports and even aids" terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria.

Israeli-Arab Knesset Member Azmi Bishara was almost as outspoken:  "If the Palestinians want a state, attacks like this help them," he told an Egyptian television station yesterday.  Bishara refused to condemn the attack, saying afterwards, "I have always been against attacks against civilians - but never in the territories [Judea and Samaria]...  [These attacks] show that the desire for Palestinian resistance has not broken."

   This is an admission by a member of the cabinet of the Palestinian Authority (PA), that PA claims to be against attacks against innocent civilians are just made because of international pressure and are made while the PA aids terror.

IV  More  Palestinians have Died

   Arab propaganda argues that the Jews are guilty because more Arabs than Jews have died during the Intifadah yet many of those Arabs died while attempting to carry out terrorist attacks.  The fact that the Jews had a good enough army to kill many of them does not mean the Jews are guilty of anything except self defense.  Victor Hanson in an article in the National Review (March 29, 2002) called The New Amorality in the Middle East wrote:

Palestinians appeal to the American public on grounds that three or four times as many of their own citizens have died as Israelis. The crazy logic is that in war the side that suffers the most casualties is either in the right or at least should be the winner. Some Americans nursed on the popular ideology of equivalence find this attractive. But if so, they should then sympathize with Hitler, Tojo, Kim Il Sung, and Ho Chi Minh who all lost more soldiers - and civilians - in their wars against us than we did.

Perhaps a million Chinese were casualties in Korea, ten times the number of Americans killed, wounded, and missing. Are we then to forget that the Communists crossed the Yalu River to implement totalitarianism in the south - and instead agree that their catastrophic wartime sacrifices were proof of American culpability? Palestinians suffer more casualties than Israelis not because they wish to, or because they are somehow more moral - but because they are not as adept in fighting real soldiers in the full-fledged war that is growing out of their own intifada.

Jonah Goldberg wrote the following in the National Review (4/8/02)

Few arguments marry self-righteousness and absurdity so magically as the one that says Israel must be in the wrong because more Palestinians are dying than Jews. "First, there is a number; the number is 1,200 and counting of Palestinians dead. There's a number of Israeli dead, 420…" exclaimed Rashid Khalidi of the University of Chicago on NPR's Talk of the Nation last week. "That is the number of people who have been killed. Now maybe the Arabs are not human. Maybe the fact that Arabs are being killed by Israelis is completely coincidence."

It's not a coincidence, it's the logical consequence of the fact that the Israelis have built a better army than the Arabs have. They did this because Arabs kept attacking Israel, trying to destroy it. Equating every dead Palestinian gunman with every murdered Israeli is absurd. Sure, Israelis kill innocents from time to time. But it isn't intentional. When the Israeli Defense Forces accidentally killed the family of a leading suicide-bomber recruiter, thinking he would be in the car instead, the IDF apologized. Can you imagine Hamas apologizing to a senior Israeli officer when it killed his family? Of course not. Because Hamas aims for the families. When they succeed, they celebrate.

Regardless, it is a tragedy that anyone is dying — but only those who have made guilt a religion, or the sand-poundingly ignorant, would believe we keep score this way. Might may not make right, but that doesn't mean lack of might makes right either.

Germany lost more people in World War II than America did. Does that mean America was wrong and Germany was right? Somali casualty rates were something like 50 to 1 in the "Black Hawk Down" incident. Does that mean the Somalis were 50 times more "right"? Such inverted moral logic is the triumph of guilt over reason. I don't know if cops kill more criminals or criminals kill more cops every year, but either way, I am not confused about who are the good guys and who are the bad.

   Sylvana Foa wrote an article for the Village Voice (week of June 5 - 11, 2002) titled The War on Non-Combatants Targetting Toddlers in which she points out that when the number of Arab and Israeli noncombatants who died are compared many more Israeli non-combatants have died.  She quotes Don Radlauer, of theInternational Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) as saying:

Looking at solid numbers, the Palestinians report a total of 66 women killed as of the end of April. In the same period, 135 Israeli women died, all but three non-combatants.

But if you only look at non-combatants, excluding female suicide bombers and women killed in bomb factory 'work accidents,' etc., the number drops to 40 Palestinian women killed.

Do the math—132 Israeli female civilians compared with 40 Palestinian women.  That's more than three Israeli women killed for every one Palestinian.

Palestinian data on fatalities do not bear out the claim that Israel is attacking a civilian population in their homes.  The Palestinian fatalities are an engineered tragedy.  If I am angry at anything it is that the Palestinian leadership is willing to put so many of their own kids in harm's way just to gain propaganda points.

Sylvana quotes Achy Sheffer, 42, a volunteer medic about Arab attacks on civilians.  He said:

If the attack was a bad one, it's eerily quiet. Like at the Passover seder massacre in Netanya [where 29 people were killed and 140 were injured]," he said. "It was very bad and it was very quiet. No one was screaming."

Often the silence is broken by the ringing of the victims' mobile phones scattered on the ground. Desperate parents trying to find their kids, or kids trying to find their parents.

The worst for me was the Dolphinarium. I arrived on the scene early. The first thing I saw was a pile of dead, pretty teenage girls—10 to 12 bodies, literally packed one on top of the other.

 Benjamin Netanyahu, former prime minister of Israel in his speech to the U.S. Senate on April 10, 2002 said:

The deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians is shamefully equated with the unintentional loss of Palestinian life that is the tragic but unavoidable consequence of legitimate warfare.  Worse, since Palestinian terrorists both deliberately target civilians and hide behind them, Israel is cast as the guilty party because more Palestinians have been killed in Arafat’s terrorist war than Israelis.  No one, of course, would dare suggest that the United States was the guilty party in World War II because German casualties, which included millions of civilians, were twenty times higher then American casualties. So too, only a twisted and corrupt logic would paint America and Britain as the aggressors in the current war because Afghan casualties are reported to have well exceeded the death toll of September 11.

   The media source of information about the number of Arabs killed is often the Palestinian Authority.  It is in the interest of the PA to inflate the number of civilian casualties in order to gain world sympathy, especially children.        The media creates a false moral equivalence between Israelis and Palestinians casualties by omitting the circumstances in which they died.  The father of Kobi Mandell , a boy tortured and stoned to death by Palestinians, wrote an article about this.  The media does not mention the restraint of the Israel Defense Forces under fire and does not compare it to the behaviors of others under similar situations.  The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America has written an article that does this comparison called Is Israel Using "Excessive Force" Against Palestinians?  An excellent speech about the distortions made by the press was made by Lenny Ben David at the annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee on May 1, 2001.  The biggest difference between the two casualties is that the Israelis target Arab terrorists planning to kill them and the Arabs target Israeli civilians.  This critical distinction gets lost in many media reports.  The West condemns Israel's targetted killing when America and Britain knowingly incinerated civilians by bombing Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo in their quests to shut down the warmaking potential of the Third Reich and imperial Japan.  The Palestinians leave out of their calculations the number of Palestinians who are against the tyranny of the PLO and who they have killed for collaborating with Israel. 

Va The Israelis are Oppressing the Palestinian People

   Efraim Karsh in his article What Occupation (Commentary July-August 2002) addressed this slander and excerpts of some of his points follows:

It should be recalled, first of all, that this occupation did not come about as a consequence of some grand expansionist design, but rather was incidental to Israel's success against a pan-Arab attempt to destroy it....

In the wake of the war, the only objective adopted by then-Minister of Defense Moshe Dayan was to preserve normalcy in the territories through a mixture of economic inducements and a minimum of Israeli intervention.  The idea was that the local populace would be given the freedom to administer itself as it wished...  In sharp contrast with, for example, the U.S. occupation of postwar Japah, which saw a general censorship of all Japanese media and a comprehensive revision of school curricula, Israel made no attempt to reshape Palestinain culture.  It limited its oversight of the Arabic press in the territories to military and security matters, and allowed the continued use in local schools of Jordanian textbooks filled with vile anti-
Semitic and anti-Israel propaganda. 

Israel's restraint in this sphere -- which turned out to be desperately misguided -- is only part of the story.  The larger part, still untold in all its detail, is of the astounding social and economic progress made by the Palestinian Arabs under Israeli "oppression."  At the inception of the occupation, conditions in the territories were quite dire.  Life expectancy was low; malnutrition, infectious diseases, and child mortality were rife; and the level of education was very poor.  Prior to the 1967 war, fewer than 60 percent of all male adults had been employed, with unemployment among refugees running as high as 83 percent.  Within a brief period after the war, Israeli occupation had led to dramatic improvements in general well-being, placing the population of the territories ahead of most of their Arab neighbors...

During the 1970's, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the fourth fastest growing economy in the world -- ahead of such "wonders" as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself...

Under Israeli rule, the Palestinains also made vast progress in social welfare.  Perhaps most significantly, mortality rates int he West Bank and Gaza fell by more than two thirds between 1970 and 1990, while life expectancy rose from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000...

The Palestinian economy is not doing as well at present.  Efraim Karsh explains that:

Between 1994 and 1996, the Rabin and Peres governments had imposed repeated closures on the territories in order to stem the tidal wave of terrorism in the wake of the Oslo accords.  This had led to a steep drop in the Palestinian economy.  With workers unable to get into Israel, unemployment rose sharply, reaching as high as 50 percent in Gaza.

Efraim Karsh points out that the Israelis have withdrawn from most areas populated by Palestinian Arabs so there is no longer even a benevolent occupation left. He wrote:

Since the beginning of 1996, and certainly following the completion of the redeployment from Hebron in January 1997, 99 percent of the Palestinian population of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have not lived under Israeli occupation.  By no conceivable stretching of words can the anti-Israel violence emanating from the territories during these years be made to qualify as resistance to foreign occupation.  In these years there has been no such occupation.

Vb The Israelis are Enslaving the Palestinian People

   98% of the Arab Population of the West Bank is under the dictatorial control of Yassir Arafat already. 

VI Palestinians become Suicide bombers because they are Depressed and Desperate and Have No Way Out

 

Charles Krauthammer in his column in the Washington Post (6/20/02) wrote:

 

Whenever a massacre occurs in Israel, Palestinian spokesmen rush out to say: "Yes, this is terrible, but this is what happens when you have a people with no hope for an end to the occupation."  Apologists in the West invariably echo this exculpation/explanation.

 

Of all the mendacity that pollutes Middle Eastern discourse, this is the worst.  It assumes that the listener is not only stupid but also amnestic.  Two years ago at the Camp David summit, in the presence of the president of the United States, the Palestinians were offered an end to the occupation -- a total end, a final end -- by the prime minister of Israel.  They said no.  They said no because in return, they were asked to make peace.

   The following paragraph from Israel National News (Wed June 19, 2002) addresses the desperate and depressed Palestinian theory.

 Are suicide terrorists "depressed?" British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said today, "We can all feel a degree of compassion for those youngsters" who kill themselves and others, but added, "they must be so misguided and depressed to do" what he called "despicable" attacks. His remarks came a day after Cherie Blair, wife of the British Prime Minister, implied that the terrorists' despair and "lack of hope" was what drove them to commit murder. Interestingly, Mohammed al-Ghoul, a 22-year-old in the first semester of a master's degree program in Islamic studies at A-Najah University, did not quite fit the above characterization when he flipped the switch yesterday that killed himself and 19 others in the bus from Gilo. "I am happy that my body will be the response for the attacks conducted by the Israelis and that my body will turn into an explosive shred mill against the Israelis," his father quoted al-Ghoul's suicide note as saying. "How beautiful it is to make my bomb shrapnel kill the enemy. How beautiful it is to kill and to be killed... for the lives of the coming generation." Similarly, the mother of Muhammad Farhat, who murdered five Israeli boys in the Atzmonah pre-military academy in March of this year, did not speak of sadness or despair in an interview with a London Arabic-language newspaper. She did say, "Because I love my son, I encouraged him to die a martyr's death for the sake of Allah... Muhammad was seven when the martyr 'Imad 'Aql lived with us at home, [and] despite his young age, he was [an] assistant to 'Imad 'Aql... 'Imad lived with us for 14 months, and he had a room in our house from which he would plan the operations. The mujahideen would come to him and plan and sketch everything out, and little Muhammad would be with them, thinking and planning. This was the source of Muhammad's love of martyrdom. This is the atmosphere in which the love of martyrdom developed in Muhammad's soul. I, as a mother, naturally encouraged the love of Jihad in the soul of Muhammad and in the souls of all my sons, all of whom belong to the Al-Qassam Brigades. My eldest son, Nidal (31), is wanted now by the Israelis. My second son set out on a martyrdom operation, but was discovered, arrested, and sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment. I have another son who is the escort of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. The atmosphere to which Muhammad was exposed was full of faith and love of martyrdom... He would brandish his weapon and tell me: 'Mom, this is my bride.' He loved his gun so much." Extensive excerpts from the above interview, translated by MEMRI, can be seen at www.memri.org.

Although the poor living conditions of the Palestinian Arabs may contribute to their motivation to commit bombings, those conditions are the result of Arafat siphoning off donated money to himself his cronies and to purchase weapons.  These conditions are also due to curfews that the Israelis are forced to impose in order to stop Arabs from committing attacks on Israeli civilians.  Many attacks occur after the Israelis out of concern for the situation of the Arabs, end the curfew.  The New York Post reported for example (7/19/02)

The two Palestinian homicide bombers who killed themselves and three innocent people on a crowded street Wednesday were from Nablus, a West Bank town where the Israel-imposed curfew had been lifted two days earlier, an intelligence source said.

"They would never have been out had we not lifted the curfew," he said.

   The suffering of the Palestinian Arabs stems from their violence which in term stems from incitement and indoctrination by by the Palestinian Authority to kill the Jew and the fundamentalist Islamic indoctrination that those who kill the Jews will go to heaven. 

VII The Jews Introduced Terror into the Middle East

   Jews were victims of Arab terror long before the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel.  Perhaps the first recorded instance of Arab terror against the Jews was when the Meccan army exterminated the Jewish tribe of Quraiza.  In Syria, the infamous blood libel of 1840 brought about the death, torture, and pillage of countless Jews falsely accused of murdering a priest and his servant to collect the blood for Passover matzoth!  Arab terrorism was rampant during wave of anti-Jewish riots in 1920-21 (which was characterized by the brutal murder in Jaffa of the prominent Jewish author Y. Brenner), during the 'Disturbances' of 1929 (which included the massacre of the Jewish community in Hebron)

In his book, Days of Our Years, Dutch-Canadian journalist Pierre Van Passen described the violence ruthlessly incited by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini - an ally of Hitler - and his agents as well as the media bias of the time:

The Arab Higher Committee, the Mufti's political creation, sent out its bands of terrorists to ravage the land. This campaign of organized violence and destruction, which started in 1936, and which went on almost uninterruptedly for two years, was declared to be a spontaneous emanation of an exasperated Arabic national sentiment. Murderers and bandits who threw bombs into Jewish hospitals and orphan asylums, who killed from ambush and tore up young orange plantations in the night, were elevated to the rank of national heroes.

The Palestinian terrorism campaign was stepped-up on the eve of the UN Partition Resolution of November 1947, and led to the joint Arab invasion of 1948-49 which delineated the boundaries of the newly established State of Israel.

After the War of Independence, Arab terrorism expanded in scope. In 1952, when 'fedayeen' terrorist border incursions reached their height, there were about 3,000 incidents of cross-border violence, extending from the malicious destruction of property to the brutal murder of civilians. In the years 1951-1955, 503 Israelis were killed by Arab terrorists infiltrating from Jordan, 358 were killed in attacks from Egypt, and 61 were killed in attacks originating from Syria and Lebanon. This anti-Israeli violence encompassed both frontier settlements and population centers, and was perpetrated, for the most part, against innocent civilians.  The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued in March, 2002 a list of the major terror attacks occurring prior to Israel's possession of the disputed territories. 

   Arabs claim that Jews are guilty of terrorism to since the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel.  Why did the Irgun blow up the King David Hotel?  The British restricted immigration by Jews to their ancient homeland during World War II cutting off the escape route of European Jewry.  This led to Jewish resistance organizations fighting the British.  The King David Hotel was the site of the British military command and the British Criminal Investigation Division.  British troops invaded the Jewish Agency on June 29, 1946, and confiscated large quantities of documents.  The information about Jewish Agency operations, including intelligence activities in Arab countries, was taken to the King David Hotel.  At about the same time, more than 2,500 Jews from all over Palestine were placed under arrest. 

   The documents seized by the British had to be destroyed.  In order to prevent casualties three telephone calls were placed, one to the hotel, another to the French Consulate, and a third to the Palestine Post, warning that explosives in the King David Hotel would soon be detonated.  The British apparently did not believe the warnings.

   Perhaps a more disturbing question than why the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel is the question "Why did the British locate their military headquarters and investigation division in a civilian building?"

VIII The Media as an Outlet for Arab Propaganda

   The media is threatened by the PA to only publish what is acceptable to them or lose their right to report from Palestinian controlled territory. For this reason many films showing the rejoicing of Palestinian Arabs after the World Trade Center bombing were not shown by the Western media.  After two Israeli soldiers were murdered in Ramallah an Italian reporter wrote a letter to the Palestinian Authority denying that his network had filmed the murder blaming the filming on a rival network.  He wrote

We emphasize to all of you that the events did not happen this way, because we always respect the journalistic rules of the Palestinian Authority for work in Palestine ...

We thank you for your trust and you can be sure that this is not our way of acting, and we would never do such a thing.

   Much of the Western Media does not bother to check the veracity of Palestinian atrocity accusations against Israel and recklessly spread their lies.  After Israel routed terrorists out of Jenin the PLO's WAFA press service made unfounded claims of "500 dead Palestinians piled up in the streets."  Organizations such as Physicians for Human Rights and Amnesty International uncritically believed these allegations, and were followed dutifully by international media outlets, many of which "devoted huge amounts of ink to such unverified tales of conspiracies, rapes, executions, and war crimes... The credibility of Palestinian 'eyewitness testimony' was barely questioned, despite the PLO track record of fabricating false claims.  Journalist David Bedein of Israel Resource News Agency wrote that tens of "European media outlets and Arab foreign ministries described the fighting in Jenin in terms of 'genocide,' 'unprecedented humanitarian disaster,' 'Sabra and Shatilla #2,' 'A campaign of revenge and murder, 'Nazi ethnical cleansing,' and worse.  European articles focused mainly on the physical damage to buildings due to Israeli tanks moving through the camp, and failed to mention the fact that many of the buildings and streets were rigged with explosives which were set off by the many terrorist cells operating in the refuge camp.

In general, Israel's comments on what was actually happening in Jenin were mostly ignored by world media. In a briefing last Friday, Col. Hirsh said, "When you think of the term refugee camp, you think of poor and helpless people. This is not the case! Jenin Refugee Camp was actually a strong combat zone - a real military and terrorist infrastructure. These people decided to fight, and we had to fight back... I've heard the rumors of 500-600 Palestinians dead. These are lies. We had no choice but to destroy the terrorist infrastructure - everyday there were terrorists' acts dispatched from Jenin Refugee Camp. The operation in Jenin cost us the lives of 23 soldiers and many were injured. I regret that some Palestinian civilians were injured and some were killed. We were fighting against armed terrorists. We asked the Palestinian civilians to evacuate their homes so they would not get hurt, some chose not to. Most of the Palestinians that were killed were armed terrorists; many had explosive devices strapped to their bodies. We found a lot of evidence of terrorist activity, for example, labs for explosive devices. We are talking about an organized terrorist infrastructure throughout Judea and Samaria."

"The media were forced to cope with the fact that a 'massacre' was turned into a few dozen casualties," Bedein concludes, "but some reporters just could not bring themselves to 'adjust' their story to the facts on the ground."

   The media does not mention the constant toll of Israeli civilians at the hands of the Palestinians.  Photos of Israeli victims of Arab terror are posted at Israeli Eyes.   Photos of the not so innocent Palestinians and the results of their terror have been posted on the net.  A good source of information about what is going on is Israel's channel 7 web site. 

   In the New York Times, The Houston Chronicle, CNN and most of the other media Kach and Kahane Chai are being referred to as Arab-hating groups. This has even carried over to include all right-wing opponents of the Oslo deal with the   PLO. The press never calls the PLO or Hamas Jew-hating groups, although their covenants and speeches are filled with hatred of Jews. Arafat, who has been quoted on many occasions as referring to Jews as, "filthy, sons of pigs," is never referred to in the media as a Jew-hater.

   An excellent article about media distortion Objectivity and the Media is on the Aish web site.

[kiras]

bttt

[dennisw]

great summary!

[tazman3]

ping and bttt

[Brian Allen]

Bump!

[knighthawk]

BUMP

[Ciexyz]

Cool link in the article to the IDF web site.

[Sparta]

Excellent post, kiras. Bookmarked.

One thing though about the historical land arguement, if we decided to give back land to its original owners, we would have to redraw the borders of every country on Earth. The Israelis have a right to control the West Bank and Gaza because they can hold it with force of arms and can finacially afford to do so. That simple. Nothing to do with ideology or race, just simple application of the force theory.

[Sparta]

If you want on or off the Western Civilization Military History ping list, let me know.

[sauropod]

Thanks for posting this. Will study. 'Pod

[facedown]

Very thorough analysis. Thanks for the post and ping!

[thatdewd]

BUMP TO THE TOP!!!

A Most Excellent Article. Bookmarked.

[TrueBeliever9]

Excellent resource!

[river rat]

Bookmarked and Bumped

Semper Fi