Posted on 11/01/2023 11:27:20 AM PDT by Retain Mike
Rockets rained down on cities and towns, bulldozers toppled border fences, and hundreds of armed militants from Gaza flooded the border and crossed into Israel. Some militants arrived by paragliders; others used boats to storm Israeli beaches.
The ensuing death and carnage by armed members of Hamas claimed more Israeli lives than any attack since the Holocaust and caught Israel by surprise. But threats from the terrorist group are nothing new. A ¬rundown of Hamas’ history reveals an organization with a persistent commitment to wiping Israel off the map.
Launched in 1987 as an offshoot of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas has never been shy about publicizing its core mission and has frequently resorted to suicide bombings and other attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians. Iran is a primary financial backer of Hamas, and the U.S. State Department designated the group a terrorist organization in 1997.
Israel has never quite figured out how to govern the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank, and various international powers have proposed Palestinian statehood on part of the land—a solution rejected by Arabs prior to Israel’s independence. In 2005, Israel took the first steps toward that plan by evacuating all Israelis from the Gaza Strip.
(Excerpt) Read more at wng.org ...
In 1937 the Peel Commission proposed a Jewish state occupying about 20% of present day Israel. The Grand Mufti, who became an ally of Hitler, opposed the proposal. However, the Jews seeing an increasingly brutal or disinterested Europe accepted this truncated safe haven for their people.
When Abba Eban served as a U.N. observer for Israel before the partition of Palestine, another diplomat noted that 6,000,000 dead Jews had purchased no more than two years of tolerance. The comment confirmed for Jewish leaders that the slaughter was a source of international embarrassment and not of grief. The world also ignored the fact the Nazis had managed to murder two thirds of all Jews in Europe.
The Arab League in 1948 encouraged the Arabs living in Palestine to temporarily seek refuge in places like Gaza and the West Bank, while the Arab armies destroyed Israel.
The U.N. response to the wars were the provisions and principles found in resolutions 242 and 338. Israel would return to its pre-1967 borders. The Arabs would terminate all claims and states of belligerency. The refugee problem created by the surrounding Arab states would find a just settlement. Arab response was the war of 1973.
Through three wars, elements in the Arab world had used Egyptian blood for vicarious satisfaction of their hatred of Israeli Jews. By conclusion of the 1973 war, Sadat was certain Egypt's price for an Arab victory would not only include the copious effusion of Egyptian blood, but also destruction of the Aswan Dam leading to an unparalleled economic and human disaster. For his extraordinary statesmanship, the Arab League suspended Egyptian membership, and Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by an amalgam of Islamic radicals including Ayman al-Zawahiri who came from the Muslim Brotherhood and became the leader of al-Qaeda.
In the midst of terrorist attacks the Oslo Accords attempted to resolve the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict with the first direct, face-to-face agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Secret negotiations resulted in a public ceremony in Washington, DC on 13 September 1993. The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was formed in 1994, pursuant to the Oslo Accords, to have control over much of the area that would become the Palestinian state.
In 2000 President Clinton brought the parties together at Camp David in a failed attempt to provide fresh energy to the stalled process. Most criticism for the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit has been leveled at Yasser Arafat. Clinton blamed Arafat for failure noting he missed the opportunity to give his people a state promising a better life and a lasting peace. Yasser Arafat walked away from the table without making a concrete counter-offer. He returned home to launch the second Intifada targeting gatherings of Jewish civilians for suicide bombings.
In defending against these attacks, Israel was repeatedly castigated by the U.N. for killing civilians, while Articles 28 and 29 of the Fourth Geneva Convention say terrorists operating through organizations such as the PLO and Hamas are exclusively responsible for those deaths. These civilians qualify as Protected Persons within terrorist control, and civilian presence cannot be used to render certain points and areas immune from military operations. Once again, the Arabs in Palestine served as biodegradable sandbags and political props.
In late 2004 when its longtime leader Yasser Arafat died, tensions between the two main parties of Fatah (secular) and Hamas (Islamic) rose until culminating is civil war following the 2006 parliamentary election won by Hamas. Frictions became intolerable when Hamas renounced all agreements made by the PLO with Israel. The Hamas charter calls for an Islamic Palestinian state to replace Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. Hamas offers a long-term truce but not peace, and demands over one million Arabs be granted the right to uproot Jews from any land they contend was abandoned in 1948.
The only Palestinian initiative in 63 years was the blundered attempt in September 2011 to bypass the Oslo Accords, Camp David Summit, 2002 Arab Summit, and U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338 by having the U.N. Security Council declare Palestinian statehood.
Another point diligently ignored reminds why Israel demands true peace in exchange for accepting the 1967 borders. At minimum distance Israel is the width of San Francisco Bay. At its widest the country is the length of the bay. At its present size or at 1967 borders, Israel fits easily inside Lake Michigan and can be flown across in 1.5 to 10 minutes. In terms of population, the five countries that attacked Israel in 1948 have a combined total of 145.5 million and Israel has 7.5 million or 1/20th the human resources.
Israel desperately hopes for and needs peace, because any military defeat brings to fruition the vision of a new Holocaust. Even as Mahmoud Abbas tried his end run at the U.N. around 63 years of diplomacy, Benjamin Netanyahu offered to meet with him again in New York. “I cannot make peace without you. President Abbas, I extend my hand – the hand of Israel – in peace. I hope that you will grasp that hand. We are both the sons of Abraham. My people call him Avraham. Your people call him Ibraham. We share the same patriarch. We dwell in the same land. Our destinies are intertwined. Let us realize the vision of Isaiah. ‘The people who walk in darkness will see a great light.’ Let that be the light of peace.” That meeting never happened.
When I read the CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER article “Palestinians don’t want peace with Israel— ever” that seemed a bit harsh, but I confirmed it with my own essay. Next are some points from it that she does not mention.
In 1937 the Peel Commission proposed a Jewish state occupying about 20% of present day Israel. The Grand Mufti, who became an ally of Hitler, opposed the proposal. However, the Jews seeing an increasingly brutal or disinterested Europe accepted this truncated safe haven for their people.
When Abba Eban served as a U.N. observer for Israel before the partition of Palestine, another diplomat noted that 6,000,000 dead Jews had purchased no more than two years of tolerance. The comment confirmed for Jewish leaders that the slaughter was a source of international embarrassment and not of grief. The world also ignored the fact the Nazis had managed to murder two thirds of all Jews in Europe.
The Arab League in 1948 encouraged the Arabs living in Palestine to temporarily seek refuge in places like Gaza and the West Bank, while the Arab armies destroyed Israel.
The U.N. response to the wars were the provisions and principles found in resolutions 242 and 338. Israel would return to its pre-1967 borders. The Arabs would terminate all claims and states of belligerency. The refugee problem created by the surrounding Arab states would find a just settlement. Arab response was the war of 1973.
Through three wars, elements in the Arab world had used Egyptian blood for vicarious satisfaction of their hatred of Israeli Jews. By conclusion of the 1973 war, Sadat was certain Egypt's price for an Arab victory would not only include the copious effusion of Egyptian blood, but also destruction of the Aswan Dam leading to an unparalleled economic and human disaster. For his extraordinary statesmanship, the Arab League suspended Egyptian membership, and Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by an amalgam of Islamic radicals including Ayman al-Zawahiri who came from the Muslim Brotherhood and became the leader of al-Qaeda.
In the midst of terrorist attacks the Oslo Accords attempted to resolve the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict with the first direct, face-to-face agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Secret negotiations resulted in a public ceremony in Washington, DC on 13 September 1993. The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) was formed in 1994, pursuant to the Oslo Accords, to have control over much of the area that would become the Palestinian state.
In 2000 President Clinton brought the parties together at Camp David in a failed attempt to provide fresh energy to the stalled process. Most criticism for the failure of the 2000 Camp David Summit has been leveled at Yasser Arafat. Clinton blamed Arafat for failure noting he missed the opportunity to give his people a state promising a better life and a lasting peace. Yasser Arafat walked away from the table without making a concrete counter-offer. He returned home to launch the second Intifada targeting gatherings of Jewish civilians for suicide bombings.
In defending against these attacks, Israel was repeatedly castigated by the U.N. for killing civilians, while Articles 28 and 29 of the Fourth Geneva Convention say terrorists operating through organizations such as the PLO and Hamas are exclusively responsible for those deaths. These civilians qualify as Protected Persons within terrorist control, and civilian presence cannot be used to render certain points and areas immune from military operations. Once again, the Arabs in Palestine served as biodegradable sandbags and political props.
In late 2004 when its longtime leader Yasser Arafat died, tensions between the two main parties of Fatah (secular) and Hamas (Islamic) rose until culminating is civil war following the 2006 parliamentary election won by Hamas. Frictions became intolerable when Hamas renounced all agreements made by the PLO with Israel. The Hamas charter calls for an Islamic Palestinian state to replace Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. Hamas offers a long-term truce but not peace, and demands over one million Arabs be granted the right to uproot Jews from any land they contend was abandoned in 1948.
The only Palestinian initiative in 63 years was the blundered attempt in September 2011 to bypass the Oslo Accords, Camp David Summit, 2002 Arab Summit, and U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338 by having the U.N. Security Council declare Palestinian statehood.
Another point diligently ignored reminds why Israel demands true peace in exchange for accepting the 1967 borders. At minimum distance Israel is the width of San Francisco Bay. At its widest the country is the length of the bay. At its present size or at 1967 borders, Israel fits easily inside Lake Michigan and can be flown across in 1.5 to 10 minutes. In terms of population, the five countries that attacked Israel in 1948 have a combined total of 145.5 million and Israel has 7.5 million or 1/20th the human resources.
Israel desperately hopes for and needs peace, because any military defeat brings to fruition the vision of a new Holocaust. Even as Mahmoud Abbas tried his end run at the U.N. around 63 years of diplomacy, Benjamin Netanyahu offered to meet with him again in New York. “I cannot make peace without you. President Abbas, I extend my hand – the hand of Israel – in peace. I hope that you will grasp that hand. We are both the sons of Abraham. My people call him Avraham. Your people call him Ibraham. We share the same patriarch. We dwell in the same land. Our destinies are intertwined. Let us realize the vision of Isaiah. ‘The people who walk in darkness will see a great light.’ Let that be the light of peace.” That meeting never happened.
You can say that again.
There has never been a “Palestine”, but most people think there was. Indeed, the first public statement about a Palestinian state was when Yassir Arafat addressed the UN, with a pistol in his belt, in 1987. The end of the Gaza staging area for terrorist attacks will only stop once Israel takes control of Gaza and throws the terrorists out. They cannot be trusted to live there.
Palestine was a geopolitical entity mandated to Great Britain after the Treaty of Versailles and governed by them from 1920 to 1948. Part of the British Empire, but a definite territory within the region generally known as Palestine. Capital was Jerusalem. I have an old stamp collection with stamps from “Palestine” issued in the1920s. Before that it was part of the Ottoman Empire, so no never an actual sovereign state.
To be historically accurate, there was an indigenous population of people living in the mandate who prior to and after 1948 were known as “palestinians.” Western diplomats and Arab leaders alike routinely talked about the Palestinians as if they were an identifiable population— which they more or less were. The Palestinians even had a military presence in the 1948 War, known as the Arab Liberation Army. It was all a post-WWII colossal mess, and we still live with the sequelae, like it or not.
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They aren't militants. They're TERRORISTS.
I like to remind people that Israelis are as much Palestinians as any Arabs. That really messes with their minds at the start of a discussion.
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