GERALD HONIGMAN; SHAM JUSTICE
Airplanes are not the only things Arafat’s virtual progeny have liked to hijack over the years. They’ve also tried very hard to turn themselves into the old and new Jews.
The recent United Nations’ vote to recognize Arab state # 22 was just the latest case in point.
Arabs timed it so that the date deliberately fell on the anniversary of the November 29,1947 United Nations’ vote to partition what was left of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine, after Arab nationalism–in another of its many varieties–was already awarded almost 80% of the total area in 1922 (renamed “Transjordan”), into one Jewish and a second Arab state.
The Jews accepted the ’47 partition plan (at almost the same moment in history that the Indian subcontinent was being divided between Muslim Pakistan and predominantly Hindu India)–even though their state would be born on a mere 12% of the original Mandate’s territory. On a world map, Israel appears as a mere fleck adjacent to the seven million square miles of territory Arabs got to claim for themselves in the region.
Images from the day showed perpetually victimized, truly stateless Jews dancing in the street with tears in their eyes as they were about to go home to the resurrected nation which they had 4,000 years of history connecting them to. For Jews–unlike Arabs–this was not simply state # 22 being created because twenty-one others were not enough…for whatever reason.
The sad fact is that there was no justice served in the United Nations on November 29, 2012. There was only a lie…and a grotesque one at that.
Justice demands a sense of fair play. That’s not what most Arabs have ever had in mind on this or any other related issues.
The dancing in the street by Arabs in the wake of the recent UN vote was a victory dance–not one of fair play. If the latter was the determining factor, Arabs could have had their additional state decades ago. But fair play for Arabs means only one thing…they are the rulers, all else the ruled.
As for the real desperation some Arabs have suffered in this ordeal, it can mostly be put square on their own leaders’ doorsteps. The same folks who routinely use them as human shields have also used them as human pawns.
Not having to yield anything whatsoever in their rejection of anyone else’s rights, on November 29, 2012, Arabs simply had their own one-sided vision of justice–which is no justice at all–endorsed by most of the world.
The plain truth is that any objective study of the conflict would reveal that there were indeed serious attempts made to provide justice for both parties over the last century. Arabs were not simply ignored, as they would have the world believe. But this also begs the question…
When have Arabs ever willingly allowed such attempts to address the plight of scores of millions of non-Arab peoples on lands that they conquered, forcibly Arabized, and claimed as “purely Arab patrimony”–especially in the nationalist age?
Not long ago, my Kurdish friends told me a revealing episode related to this…
Various Syrian opposition groups had come together to discuss a post-Assad future.
The Kurds–probably at least 5 million people, when the Arabized part of their population are added to the Kurdish speakers–asked that the new nation be called something like The Republic of Syria, recognizing the multi-ethnic make-up of the land. The Arabs–mostly Islamist soul brothers to folks like Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Turkish crew now at the helm in Ankara–laughed at the Kurds and would have none of it. The country would be called The Syrian Arab Republic. Keep in mind that there are at least thirty-five million truly stateless Kurds in the region. When do they get to have their day at the United Nations?
I’ve drifted–back to partition and November 29th…
While Jews, like Arabs, have many countries of origins (including more Jews who fled so-called “Arab” lands as a result of the attack by a half dozen Arab states on Israel in 1948 than vice-versa), that did not translate into Jews being able to demand multiple states in the age of nationalism. More Jews, for example, are of Moroccan and other North African origin than Arabs who got to have states in Kuwait, Oman, Abu Dhabi, and so forth.
The parties to the conflict over “Palestine” were/are Arabs and Jews, and the 1922 virtual and 1947 actual partitions addressed both of these peoples. The Brits’ East Bank representative, Sir Alec Kirkbride, had much to say about this in his book, A Crackle of Thorns, as did Emir Abdullah himself in his memoirs, and others as well. My own book also documents this story in great depth and detail http://q4j-middle-east.com.
Colonial Secretary Churchill’s separation of the lion’s share of the original Mandate of Palestine, created after the collapse of the Ottoman Turkish Empire after World War I and referred to above, was most definitely related to this attempt at balance, as were other events. While Churchill had other pressing issues he was also dealing with in this decision, the struggle between Jew and Arab in the land was ever present as well.
For those interested, “Palestine” is the name Rome gave to Judea (see the Judea Capta coin Rome issued here http://q4j-middle-east.com) after the Judeans’–Jews’– second revolt for freedom.
To rub salt into the wound, the Emperor Hadrian renamed the land after the Jews’ already legendary, historic enemies, the Philistines. And just as Arabs have claimed that they are the land’s more ancient inhabitants, not the Jews, they also claim they are the modern day Philistines as well. Too bad that the latter were a non-Semitic (let alone “Arab”) sea people from the islands around Crete and that Arabs got to the land of the Jews the same way they got to the land of the Kurds, and the Iranians, and the Indians, and the Copts, and the Imazighen/”Berbers,” and the black Africans of the Sudan (and elsewhere), and the Assyrians, and so forth…In the 7th century C.E., Arab armies burst out of the Arabian Peninsula and spread their imperial, colonial conquests in all directions. Scores of millions of such forcibly-Arabized folks still have to deal with the consequences of such subjugation daily. Have a chat with an émigré, refugee Copt, Kurd, or Assyrian if you have any doubts.
Yet, Mahmoud Abbas and his band of latter-day Arafatians act as if none of this matters and are able to get most of the rest of the world to buy into their argument…about 180 countries, to be exact, according to the recent U.N. vote (“abstentions” equal yes votes in this ball game).
A quarter century after Arab nationalism was awarded most of the Mandate of Palestine in what now is known as “Jordan,” Arab nationalism–in yet another of its many species–was offered about half of the roughly 20% of the remaining territory. And it’s probably long past time for Jews, Kurds, and others to start playing this same Arab name game…
Rename yourselves Qamishlians, Mahabadians, Erbilians, Suleimanyans, Diyarbekirians, etc. and then demand umpteen Kurdish states instead of just one.
In case you think I’m kidding, follow this PLO leader on this very tactic. Here’s Zuheir Mohsen, on March 31, 1977, in the Dutch newspaper Trouw…
The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese… Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism…
So, instead of asking for Arab state # 22 (while still seeking the destruction of the Jews’ sole, minuscule one), Arabs transformed themselves into “stateless Palestinians” allegedly just asking for the same thing the Jews got. Recall that no documents from the era of the Mandate–or before–ever show Arabs calling themselves “Palestinians.” Indeed, there never, ever, ever was an Arab state, kingdom, emirate, or whatever of “Palestine.” And when Arabs ruled the land, they did so out of their two imperial Caliphal capitals, Damascus and Baghdad.
Comprenden mis amigos ?
Also keep in mind that during the above, earlier 1947 partition plan, Arabs rejected that offer…Roughly 90% of Palestine was not enough for them. Arabs demanded it all. Their kilab yahud–Jew dogs–were worthy of nothing. And certainly no part of what had been turned into the Dar ul-Islam by conquest could ever revert to the Dar al-Harb.
The same rejectionist, subjugating mindset which steered Arab attitudes and policies back on that November 29th sixty-five years ago persists to this very day.
In Arab eyes, Jews are still entitled to nothing.
Abbas’s gang, unlike Hamas, is simply willing to play the game more. It pays ($$$) big time to be the so-called “moderates.” By the billions…
Yet, ask Abbas and his Fatah crew what their statements calling all deals with Jews being merely a “Trojan Horse” are all about…or repeated comments that they will never recognize Israel as a Jewish State (while demanding Arab state # 22–most created on largely non-Arab peoples’ lands), never give up insisting upon their right to inundate Israel with millions of Jihadi alleged refugees, and so forth. And what about all of those maps which show “Palestine” replacing Israel–not living beside it?
The “moderates,” like Abbas, have openly called such tactics part of their destruction-in-phases strategy: force Israel, bit by bit, back to its suicidal, 1949 armistice lines which made it 9-15 miles wide at its waist, where most of its vulnerable population lives, and then…
No…November 29, 2012 was not about justice. It was about continuing to impose a purely Arab agenda onto everyone else in the region. And the UN voted to recognize a nation which has openly stated it will never recognize its neighbor and more than likely launch aggression against it in the name of yet more Arab “rights.”
Before concluding, there’s one last thing to consider.
Now that Arabs have moved unilaterally on this issue, it’s time for Israel to reciprocate…
The major United Nations doctrine for peacemaking between Arab and Jew, the final draft of UNSC Resolution 242, specifically stated, in the wake of the 1967 Six Day War, that Israel would be able to expect more secure, defensible, and real borders (not suicidal armistice lines) at the end of the peacemaking process. The settlement issue in the non-apportioned (not “purely Arab”) parts of the Mandate of Palestine in Judea and Samaria/”West Bank” is largely about this need for a meaningful territorial compromise in the area–lands where Jews have thousands of years of history and where valid sources, such as the Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations, recorded huge numbers of Arabs pouring into from outside the Mandate…Arab settlers setting up Arab settlements in Palestine.
The earlier Arab rejection of closure involving some 90% of Palestine via the various partitions and partition plans occurred because Arab nationalism staked claim to it all.
It is the same reason why, even in a post-Assad age, non-Arabs such as Kurds, will fare no better in Syria, and other non-Arabs such as Assyrians and Copts are worried now more than ever in Egypt, Iraq, and elsewhere in the region which Arabs claim solely for themselves.
This is what the Arab victory dance over the November 29, 2012 United Nations’ vote to recognize their 22nd state is all about. As I like to explain it…
Score: Arabs, 22…Everyone Else, 0.
And whatever else the above might be, justice it is not.
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