The Palestinians have consistently rejected UN-drawn borders since 1948. They don’t believe in a “Green Line” because they don’t believe Jews should be on either side of it, not just the eastern side.
How is it that the Palestinians can refuse to accept a rule (the borders) but complain when someone else bends or ignores that rule (the Israeli settlements)?
And how is it that anyone lets the Palestinian leadership get away with this?
CROSS POSTED AT davidkeithlaw.wordpress.com/...
DIARIES ON THE CONFLICT davidkeithlaw.wordpress.com/...
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Events in Jerusalem the last two weeks have spiked public interest in the Arab-Jewish conflict in the Holy Land. The usual sides are drawn and taken, the usual rhetoric is thrown around.
Anyone following the news with a cool head knows that a small gang of Arabs used the Al Aqsa mosque recently to hide weapons, before launching a murderous attack on Druze guards. Subsequently the Israelis installed metal detectors to protect against a repeat performance, and the Arab Muslim leadership has mounted a rather ridiculous (so fatuous as to be comical) protest. Sadly, that protest inspired another Arab youth to slaughter a Jewish family in their own home, so it is not comical. At all.
Arab Muslims in the Holy Land live in a state of penury and blight, inflicted on them by their weird mafia-corrupt / Islamist theocratic thug leadership. Most polls show that Palestinians just want peace with Israel, but their “leaders” won’t let them have it.
Many western progressives have adopted the habit of blaming the Israelis for all this, which is fine if you are (a) willing to remain uninformed or (b) an anti-Semite. Presuming people don’t aspire to either state, a brief traverse of history is all one need do, to see that the Israelis are not the authors of Palestinian despair. Far from it.
The status of Jerusalem is interesting. It was a Jewish city for about 3,000 years. It was slated to be a neutral site in the 1948 UN plan, but when the Arabs went to war against the UN plan, they occupied it. During Arab occupation from 1948 to 1967, Jews were not permitted to access holy sites in Jerusalem.
Then in 1967 when the Arabs attacked Israel again, and lost again, they lost Jerusalem to the Israelis (probably forever.) Since 1967 the Israelis have always permitted different faiths to worship at the holy sites. They still do, despite intense danger and provocation. Throughout, the Jewish presence in Jerusalem (and other West Bank territories) is called “the Occupation” by the Arabs, and by much of the world.
All of this inspired ThinkAnewActAnew decided to ask some different questions:
- If the UN drew borders for a Jewish state and an Arab state in 1948.
- And if the Jews accepted those borders, but the Arabs did not.
- And if the Arabs have been at war to erase those borders, ever since.
- Why does Israel have to keep on respecting those borders?
- And why does the world blame Israel for violating borders that the Arabs say don’t exist?
- And why does the world let the Arabs get away with calling it “an occupation”?
The unsettling truth is that the Israelis get blamed consistently for being rational and defending themselves. They are the only people on earth who are faulted for this behaviour. Which is why so many people, who look at the facts and the strange attitude towards Israel, conclude that there is something else going on here. Something else called “anti-Semitism.”