GERALD HONIGMAN: BEYOND INNOCENCE, BEYOND IGNORANCE
The title of the large AP article discussing the recent election in Israel in my local paper on January 24th read, “Rise Of Israeli Centrist Raises Hopes For Peace.” It was referring to the surprising good showing of Israel’s Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party. No doubt, this Aron Heller and Josef Federman analysis made the rounds in numerous other publications as well.
The title said all you needed to know on this subject–at least according to most mainstream media sources these days.
It was followed by such gems as there now being a renewal of “hopes of a revival of peace talks with Palestinians that have languished for four years under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.” Additional and separate end notes went on to describe Netanyahu’s Likud party as being “known for opposition to compromise with the Palestinians.”
Look, none of this was accidental, nor was it written because the actual facts have been difficult to ascertain.
The article borders on libel and slander and turns truth entirely on its head.
It has become commonplace for many if not most mainstream media writers to promote their own “Progressive” pipedreams. This new reality includes juxtaposing the alleged Palestinian Arab David against an Israeli Jewish Goliath, and this turn of events especially set in after the June 1967 Six Day War.
Prior to that time, folks could cry crocodile tears of sympathy for dead Jews a la the Holocaust and such.
But, the message Israel gave to the world after it pulled a major rabbit out of its hat, broke the Arab blockade, and–despite all odds–turned the combined Arab plans for its destruction upside down in 1967 was:
Listen world, we don’t want your sympathy for dead Jews anymore. We are tired of being your victims of choice. We demand–yes, demand–empathy for live Jews instead.
And Israel has had a hard time achieving this ever since.
The allegedly “uncompromising Likud,” which the authors speak of, forced all Jews living in the Sinai Peninsula after the June ’67 war to abandon their homes for the sake of a peace treaty that is now in very real danger of being abandoned or rendered virtually meaningless by the new Muslim Brotherhood rulers of Egypt. Oil wells that Israel developed, sophisticated air bases, and so forth were likewise abandoned by the Likud hawks under Menachem Begin, with Ariel Sharon carrying out the orders. In the process, Israel also gave up the best tank trap and geographical buffer it could ever hope for–the Sinai Peninsula. To put things into the proper perspective, think about what other nations have acquired–and where–in the name of their own national security interests.
Decades later, it was the Likud, with Arik Sharon at the helm, which unilaterally withdrew from Gaza–despite that strip of land being a prime invasion route into the land of the Jews since the days of the Pharaohs. And despite the likelihood that it would only turn into the nightmare that it indeed did for Israel proper.
There is no doubt that the Associated Press and the mainstream media are aware of all of the above–and much more evidence exposing their allegations as blatant lies as well.
So, what writers like the AP’s Heller and Federman Jew stooges are indulging in goes beyond ignorance or innocence.
More recently, since the Likud’s Netanyahu has been running the show, he has offered to accept the creation of a 22nd state for Arabs, and second one for Arabs (not their first) within the original April 25, 1920 borders of the Mandate of Palestine. Since 1922, Jordan has sat on almost 80% of that total area.
In contrast, even Mahmoud Abbas and his so-called Arab “moderates” repeatedly state that they will never recognize Israel as the sole State of the Jews–regardless of its size–and that all negotiations with Jews is merely a Trojan Horse. Once again, this is all well-documented–yet the AP and its ilk play deaf, dumb, and blind and continuously point the finger at Israel instead.
The utter truth of the matter is that, contrary to the nefarious claims of the writers, it has been the Likud’s Netanyahu who has sought compromise with the Arabs but has found no viable partners to deal with.
The reality is that the Arab definition of compromise involves them doing all the taking while the Jews do all the giving. While that may be understandable given their own subjugating mindset towards all non-Arab peoples in the region, that the mainstream media and others promote this distortion and then pin the blame on the Jews instead is a cowardly disgrace.
What the mainstream media and others preferring Jews as perpetual victims demand is that Israel cave in to the Arabs’ entire wish list.
Whatever…but that’s not Webster’s definition of compromise.
After June ’67, Israel was promised that it would not have to return to the status quo ante–the suicidal armistice lines of 1949 which made it practically invisible on a world globe.
Surely the AP knows about the final draft of UNSC Resolution 242 and its call for the creation of real, more secure borders to replace Israel’s former nine to fifteen-mile wide existence, where most of its population and infrastructure are located.
By its very deliberate and careful wording, as explained by architects such as Lord Caradon and Under Secretary of State Eugene Rostow, 242 promoted a territorial compromise over those disputed–not “purely Arab”–territories in the non-apportioned remaining lands of the original 1920 Mandate where all the Mandate’s residents were allowed to live.
Yet, when Netanyahu refuses to abandon 242’s compromise, he’s accused of being the one who won’t participate in seeking a fair deal instead.
As I and some others have written about many times, the settlement issue, building in Jerusalem, and so forth are largely all about is whether Israel gets the territorial compromise the final draft of UNSC Resolution 242 promised or not.
Arabs refuse to recognize a 9-mile wide State of the Jews, let alone anything bigger. So it’s no shock that they indeed object to meeting Israel part of the way–what a true “compromise” entails.
But to turn this blatant Arab refusal into a problem laid at the Likud or other allegedly “far-right” Israeli parties’ doorsteps instead is nothing less than a disgusting distortion of the truth.
Comments are closed.
