After 9/11, I started to pay greater attention to the Israeli/Arab conflict. Being born in the early sixties I have a certain amount of first hand memories of this conflict that younger generations only see in retrospect and often only learn about the details through the lens of revisionistic history.
I remember the newscasts of June 1967 when a miracle happened. The tiny Jewish state prevailed against the odds. Mike Oren in his book, Six Days of War, tells us that a horrified Prime Minister Eshkol learned in 1966, that against an all-out Arab assault the Israeli state had only tank munitions for 3 days worth of fighting. He immediately ordered spending on munitions to double that number to bring the total to 6 days worth of munitions. Six days to do or die. Literally Six days. Let that sink in.
I remember the Munich Olympics, Yom Kippur war, and the aftermath just as vividly. I remember looking at the pictures of the aftermath of PLO targeting Israeli school children in schools and on school buses and the horror I felt. I was a school child and only by the grace of God, go I.
After 9/11 opened my eyes, I did not view the Israeli/Arab conflict in terms of being a catalyst to the current attacks on western society; rather I see this conflict as the first line of skirmish with the Islamofacsits. Peace in the Mid-East will only be possible when the Islamofacsits are defeated on all fronts, not when the Palestinians get their state. If statehood was conferred tomorrow on Arafat and his Islamic brown shirts, the conflict would not end, it would intensify.
All of which brings me to the Globe and Mail editorial “The path of Israel’s fence”. I take issue once again with the Globe’s editorial board. The Green Line is not “Israel’s internationally recognized border with the West Bank”. The Green Line is an ARMITICE LINE, not an internationally recognized border. The original architects of the armistice agreement did not mean for it to be a border as much as a spring board for negotiations to lead to a border that recognized the security considerations of the State of Israel. I challenge any of the Globe’s editorial board to choose whatever military strategist they may and tour the Green Line and develop a successful battle plan to protect that line from outside aggression. That line is less than 9 miles to the sea in some areas.
Even the truce negotiated in 1967 did not require the Israeli’s to return all the land captured and successfully defended from the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
The Globe and Mail tells us that there are currently 230,000 Jewish settlers that Israel must remove from the territories rather than enclave the majority of those settlements in the security barrier. Why is that? For peace with a Palestinian State, says the Globe and Mail and other like-minded pundits. Prior to 1967 there were not any settlements but that did not result in peace, it brought war, again and again. How can the Israeli barrier, no matter what path is actually takes amount to peace with any imaginary state of the Palestinians? Why should we take the view that the Palestinians in the Judea and Samara & Gaza deserve a separate state from their brethren in Jordan? Do we really need another tin pot dictator with messianic delusions in charge of his own wmd program and a safe harbour in which to develop them in? Wasn’t that the point of removing Saddam? Do we really need another? The Palestinian’s say they want to end the “occupation” of 36 odd years. Let’s help them by calling their bluff and pressure Jordan to negotiate with Israel for secure recognizable borders and the rest of the West Bank to be returned to Jordanian sovereignty.
One other point, when we talk about Jewish settlers, all too often we think of some kind of religious Jewish zealots running around. But how can anyone feel threatened by them? I have yet to see Ultra-Orthodox Jews on the sidewalks handing out literature and combing the streets for converts. I have seen everyone else and their mama, but not Ultra-Orthodox Jews. Certainly, there is an element of that in modern settlements in the territories, but modern day Israel is a very secular state. The vast majority of “settlers” could be more accurately described as “homeowners”. If you start talking about removing Jewish “homeowners” from their homes instead of “settlers” you get a much more accurate picture of what this actually entails and the conflict it creates among Israelis. Why should any western democracy participate in the founding of a state that requires ethnic minority homeowners to be removed from their homes by force? One of the hallmarks of modern western society is the recognition of minority rights. If the Palestinians were really serious about statehood they would enfranchise minority rights. What possible threat are 230,000 Jews in a state of millions of Arabs?
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