Israel at 59 - Facing Unpleasant Facts in the Middle East

By Steven Plaut

Haifa, Israel

The world is now well into the post-Oslo. post-911 era, in which the

delusions and denials of reality that were the foundations of the "Middle

East peace process" are at last being acknowledged for what they were.

For those returning to the planet Earth from Fantasyland in the "Oslo"

parallel universe, it behooves them and us all to bear in mind some of the

unpleasant facts of life about the Middle East.

1. The Arab world has never come to terms with Israel's existence within

ANY set of borders whatsoever and is still seeking the annihilation of

Israel and its population.

2. ANY Palestinian state, regardless of who rules it, will produce

escalated violence, terror and warfare in the Middle East, and neither

stability nor peaceful  relations. ANY Palestinian state will seek warfare

with Israel and not solutions to the economic and social problems of its

citizens.

3. The only reason Arafat and the PLO ever wanted control of the West Bank

and Gaza Strip was to use them as bases for attacks on Israel. This is the

only real use to which they will be put by any future Palestinian state.

4. There is no alternative that will stop the bloodshed and war in the

Middle East other than the adoption by Israel of an unambiguous policy of

R&D, that is, of Re-Occupation and Denazification of the West Bank and

Gaza Strip. Every other alternative proposal for stabilization and

pacification is delusional.

5. Denazification of the West Bank and Gaza Strip must be based partly on

the programs of Denazification imposed on Germany and Japan by the Allies

after World War II, but in part must be different.  Such Denazification

policies will have to stay in  place for decades.  There is no other way by

which Israel can prevent the daily massacre of its civilians by

Palestinian terrorists.

6. The bulk of Palestinians have lived outside Israeli "occupation" for

years, and their "liberation" from Israeli "occupation" only produced

Nazification, terrorism, mass murders, and violence. Their pacification

requires re-imposing of open-ended martial rule upon them by Israel.

7. The instability of the Middle East is not caused by Israeli occupation

of Palestinian lands but by PLO occupation of Israeli lands.

8. There was never in history an Arab Palestinian state.  There is no

justification whatsoever for one now (other than perhaps in Jordan).

9. The Palestinians have no legitimate claim to the right to set up their

own state. It is doubtful whether they ever did have such a right, but -

even if they once did - they forfeited it thanks to decades of terrorism,

savagery, mass murders and barbarism.

10. Palestinians are Arabs. The Arabs already rule 22 states. There is no

reason why they should be entitled to a 23rd state, and creation of a 23rd

Arab state, "Palestine",  in the West Bank and Gaza will escalate Middle

East violence and world terrorism.

11. The Palestinians are not and never were a "nation".  They are not even

a tribe. They are a branch of Arabs with only minor and secondary cultural

differences that distinguish them from Syrians, Lebanese or Jordanians.

12. The Middle East conflict cannot be resolved through endless

exhibitions of niceness and restraint by Israel.  Israeli niceness,

restraint, and goodwill gestures are interpreted by the Arab world as

weakness and as signs that the Jews, like Paul McCartney's Band, are on

the run.

13. The Palestinians are not "mistreated" by Israel, but ARE poorly

treated by the Palestinian  Authority.  The treatment of Arabs by Israel is

a thousand times better than the treatment of Arabs by Arab countries.

14. The only Arabs in the Middle East with any semblance of civil rights

are those who live under Israeli rule.

15.   If the intifada "uprising" were in fact a product of oppression and

mistreatment of Arabs by a government, then Israel should be the only

country in the Middle East that does NOT have an intifada.

16. Oslo has radicalized and Sudetenized most Israeli Arabs, who now

identify with and openly support Arab parties and politicians who call

openly for terror violence against Jews and the destruction of Israel.

17. There exists no set of concessions by Israel that would result in the

Arab states coming to terms with Israel's existence.

18. There are no Arab democracies and no support for democracy among

significant minorities within the Arab world.

19. Israeli assassination of  Palestinian terrorists is in fact a

substitute for retaliation in kind against the Palestinians for bombings

of Israeli children and other civilians. The alternative to such

assassinations is bombings of Palestinian civilians.

20. Israeli settlements are the "mine canaries" of the Arab world. There

is no reason why Jewish civilians should not be free to live in peace

within Arab countries truly seeking peace with Israel, just as Arabs live

at peace within Israel and within the United States. The attitude of the

Arab world in general and of the Palestinian Authority in particular

towards such "settlements" is indicative of their attitudes towards Israel

and Jews in general.  If the Palestinians are NOT seeking peace with the

Jews, and indeed they are not, then the real problem is that Israel has

built too few settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

21. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that does  NOT deal with

Islamist terror through wholesale massacres of the people in whose midst

the terrorists operate.

22. There is an inverse relationship between the material comfort of Arabs

living under Israeli rule and political moderation. The better off they

are in a material sense, the more violent and radical they are.  More

generally, Arab radicalism and terror are positively correlated with

comfort and education and wealth.  Bin Laden and his people are filthy

rich.  There have been no undernourished Palestinian suicide bombers.

Many have been college students.

23. Palestinians endorse terrorism and violence against Jews by

near-universal majorities.

24. Israeli Arabs endorse terror and violence against Jews by large

majorities. They also support bin Laden and the Hizbollah.

25. There are no visible Palestinian public figures who oppose violence,

terror and Islamist fascism. There are  no Palestinian "moderate" leaders,

only a few Palestinian fascists who speak English well and elegantly, like

Hanan Ashrawi.

26. There is not and never has been a Palestinian "peace movement" nor a

Syrian "peace movement".

27.  Syria has no legitimate claim to the Golan Heights.  Its claim to the

Golan is far less legitimate than German's claim to Alsace and Lorraine.

28. The PLO, and not just the Hamas, is itself very much a manifestation

of Islamist fascism and was founded by Islamist fundamentalists.  Its

head, Abu Mazen, is no more "moderate" than the heads of the Hamas and

Islamic Jihad.

29. Asking Arafat to arrest the terrorists is a bit like asking Osama bin

Laden to arrest those responsible for the September 11 attacks on the US

or asking Hitler to take steps against those who invaded Poland.  It is

all part of the Oslo era of mass delusion and make-pretend.

30. Peace  cannot be achieved through pretending that war does not exist.

31. The Israeli Left is responsible for the bloodshed in Israel. The

Israeli Left rescued the PLO from oblivion in the early 1990s, armed it,

and allowed it to become entrenched in the suburbs of Tel Aviv and

Jerusalem. The Israeli Left is as wacky as is the pro-Taliban, pro-Saddam

campus Left in the United States.   It is today as anti-Israel as the US

far Left is anti-American.

32. Ehud Olmert and his crew have yet to detach themselves from the pipe

dreams and denials of reality imposed on the country by the Israeli Left,

those that produced the Oslo debacle. They continue to insist they favor

creation of a Palestinian state.

33. The only peaceful terrorist is a dead terrorist.

34. Israel cannot restore the credibility of its military prowess through

"signaling," but rather only through using that prowess and putting its

military might to actual  use.

35.  Unilateral withdrawal by Israel produces massive terrorist

aggression.  Anyone nursing doubts should contemplate what Israel's 2000