RUTHFULLY YOURS

The fact that so many still entertain that Israel should give up her inheritance is bad enough, but many think that Israel should divide Jerusalem.

Ponder that for a moment! Would you ask the French to divide Paris? Would you ask the Italians to divide Rome? There are a lot of people who think it outrageous that the British divided Ireland in 1921. We Americans fought to preserve our own unity during the Civil War; and did so even though both the British and French favored the Confederates. We defied world opinion to win.

Yet, somehow, we ask Israel to make territorial concessions that none of our respective countries would tolerate. This is the height of hypocrisy, and doubly so, when it comes to Jerusalem.

Psalm 137:5-6 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

Has the obscenity of 40 years of a divided Berlin been so erased from Germany’s memory? One does not divide cities. Have the Germans who bemoaned their country divided for four decades so quickly forgotten? Now some Germans are taking the Palestinian side. The German government could only muster the courage to abstain from the vote on Palestinian statehood.

The Irish bemoan that the core of its ancient Gaelic civilization, Ulster, is still in British hands. Yet, they fail to understand that Israel might want the center of her ancient Hebrew civilization: Judea and Samaria. Do any of these countries have a sense of history? Even their own?!

Norway is now a hotbed of anti-Israel opinion. Have they forgotten who occupied Norway for 5 years in World War II? Was it Zionists or Nazis?!

The list goes on. Starting with the sadly comical, we can look at Québec, where Huntington mayor and TV commentator, Stéphane Gendron, made outrageous comments about Israel on TV, saying Israel does not deserve to exist. The man is Quebécois, from a people who demand the right to have a French culture and nation, yet somehow cannot understand why Jews might want to have a Jewish culture and nation. If Monsieur Gendron wants to fight apartheid, perhaps he should start dismantling Québec’s Francophonic Language codes. This is a man who bragged about running over kittens in his pickup. Yet, somehow the Québecois consider him a major intellectual force, qualified to comment on Israel.

Then we have the infuriating Roger Waters. With so many tyrannies to choose from, he chooses to attack Israel. Waters is an elderly rocker who somewhere along the line never learned that rockers do not know beans about politics.

Our own government here in the USA is the most damaging. We alone seem to have some influence with Israel; and we abuse it to unwise ends. The most recent absurdity is promising $4 billion dollars to bribe the Palestinian Authority to negotiate with Israel. The only thing that will accomplish is to subsidize Swiss banks.

With $4 Billion dollars we could have paid $100,000 each to 40,000 Palestinian women to leave. Almost half of Palestinian youth are willing to leave. Why are we paying them to stay? Preferentially encouraging women to leave stops Arab population growth. That would be an excellent use of American money. To prevent reprisals against the women, the offer could be tendered to individuals through a non-public campaign, so as to ensure their safety.

The USA gave UNRWA $244 Million dollars this year. I don’t want Arabs to starve just because Arab countries don’t care about Palestinians; but couldn’t we halve that amount, and use $122 million to convince another 1220 Palestinian women to leave, instead of paying them to remain? Do this for a dozen years, and we might actually accomplish something.

Why aren’t we paying the Arabs to leave instead of remaining?

No one is saying Israel is totally innocent. It is easy to find Israeli outrages on the internet. Sometimes the criticism is valid. But the chief issue is: Who has the better claim to the land? Which side is more civilized? Can these people live together in peace? The answer to the last question is demonstrably: No! It does even not matter who started this or that squabble.

The answer is not a two-state-solution. The answer is not a divided Jerusalem. Nor is the answer disenfranchised autonomous Palestinian areas as some right-wing Israelis suggest. The answer is to remove the warring parties from each other’s presence. In this case, the party to be removed should be the Palestinians. They have a weaker claim to the land.

I did not always favor separation, but the more one studies it, the more inevitable separation becomes. Not because the Palestinians have no claims; but rather because the Israelis have better claims, and peace between them is impossible.

This can be done humanely. Arab countries should be severely pressured to take them. South American might welcome those who came with cash.

Our American government should not be proffering a solution which will make things worse. Nor can we fob this off on the Democrats. George H.W. Bush coerced Israel into the Madrid Conference in 1991. The ball was picked up by Clinton to set up Oslo. George W. Bush screwed up the process even worse. The U.S. encouraged a free vote in Gaza which led to a Hamas victory. Finally, we have Obama, who seems intent on taking the folly to new heights. Four presidents have led us down the greenbriar path to nuclear war in the Mideast, telling us peace is at hand.

Yes, the Israelis are stalling. I don’t blame them. MK Danny Danon has said of the recent talks.

…Netanyahu calls for peace talks despite his government’s opposition because he knows Israel will not arrive at an agreement with the Palestinians in the near future — Times of Israel

When one studies history, it becomes clear Israel does not want to surrender control over any area. Even when Israel set up autonomous zones, the water and power remained under Israeli control, and new Jewish communities were built to break up the contiguity of Arab areas. Israel retains control over Gaza’s waters. The only power the PA really got was to do the policing that Israel used to do. When studied, the concessions do look more like facades than genuine concessions. Rather than deny the facade, the real issue is: Should Israel have to surrender any land at all? And the answer is: No!

Israel stalls and pretends because it is under pressure to make concessions that threaten her survival. She eviscerates any real concessions to protect herself. This is what the Left does not comprehend. They are correct in noticing this duplicity, but they never ask why Israel is forced to be so duplicitous? What other nation is required to suicidally concede their heartland in their possession?

In the end, Israel is being asked to do what no other nation in history has been asked to do.

The USA must stop pressuring Israel to divide the land. The answer is to now put pressure on the Arabs to do the right thing and take in their Palestinian brethren that they wail so much about.

In the immediate future, we might have some justice if we tell the Israelis to ease up on the Palestinians with unnecessary regulations and house demolitions; but other than pressing the Israelis to be more equitable with civil rights, we should stop. That should be the full extent of our pressure and no more. We should not ask the Israelis to divide the land.

If necessary, we should let another power take over the negotiations. Let Europe, Russia, or China waste their time, and money, with the Arabs. We have wasted enough.

Mike Konrad is the pen name of an American who is not Arab, Jewish, or Latin. He runs a website, http://latinarabia.com/, where he discusses the subculture of Arabs in Latin America. He wishes his Spanish were better.