Posted on 12/06/2005 1:14:54 PM PST by SJackson
This is written as news comes in of yet another bomb attack in Netanya.
At the end of November 2000, I lectured at a retirement home in the Israeli coastal city of Netanya, to discuss the PLO demand that all Arabs who have wallowed in UN refugee camps for the past 50 years have the "right to return" to villages that they left in 1948.
I showed the audience the map of a "future Palestinian State," which the PLO Orient House headquarters provided in Jerusalem. The map marks the 531 Arab villages that are slated for return, all of which had been overrun in 1948.
One of those villages was Umm Khalid, which, according to the PLO, had been illegally absorbed by Netanya. The PLO, therefore, defines Netanya as one of Israel's "illegal settlements" under the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention, enacted in 1949, which forbids a conquering nation from moving its citizens into a conquered area.
The implications: the PLO will justify any attack on any such settlement that it views as "illegal" under international law. The head of the PLO Refugee Department, Daoud Barakat, confirms this.
In January 1995, following Hamas terror bombs that killed 21 people at a bus stop at the Beit Lid/Netanya junction, the PLO secretary-general Marwan Barghouti, now in prison for the first-degree murders of 13 people, calmly told MBC Saudi television why the PLO would justify an attack on Netanya: "This is an area that we have yet to liberate." (We have that video readily available.)
Meanwhile, the December 1995 PLO-Hamas accord, signed in Cairo by both Palestinian factions, allows Hamas to carry out operations in areas within Israel proper that have "not yet been liberated."
The Palestinian spin on the "right of return" plays out in many ways that have escaped public attention. Over the past seven years, the PLO has developed a computer data base at palestineremembered.com that helps Arab refugees locate their homes from before 1948. This is to enable their imminent right of return to places like Umm Khalid - by force, if necessary.
Hitting Home
The above presentation five years ago made retirees at the Netanya nursing home very nervous. They could not believe what they were hearing, that their city was considered to be a target. They became quite emotional, and some of the retirees actually screamed that "all the Palestinians want is the West Bank and Gaza!"
It was clear that the message that the PLO demanded the "right of return" to Netanya was a hard one for these senior citizens to swallow. Yet, there was one man who made it easy to listen: an Arab male nurse who was present asked to say something at the end of the lecture.
He approached the podium. He stared at the map and turned to speak to the retirees.
"This is what want. The right of return. That would bring peace," said the nurse. I asked him if that meant that Israel would have to withdraw from Umm Khalid. The nurse, in a soft voice, said, "Yes."
I then said to the nurse that this would mean that half of the Jews would have to leave their homes in Netanya. The nurse said, "Well, that would be the price of peace."
The retirees were stunned. The Arab nurse at the Netanya nursing home had conveyed my message -- with greater credibility.
Since that talk in Netanya, more than a dozen Arab terror bombs have exploded in the center of Netanya. From the PLO point of view, these bombings occur because Netanya -- or Umm Khalid -- has not yet been "liberated from occupation."
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Bad news out of Tampa. Al-Arian and 2 co-defendants were acquitted on 8 of 17 charges. There will be candies and singing in the ME tonight, and the PIJ will be on the airwaves. Sheesh.
5.56mm
Good Article. Thanks for the posting?
My rhetorical response to the title:
Why Netanya? Why Slaughter Jews? Same Difference.
Very good article and informative. But the reason Netanya was hit was that it was a convenient target at this time. It was an operation the Paleostinians thought they could pull off. Even so, it was not very successful because the suicide bomber was detected and prevented from entering the shopping mall.
Hey, the Jihadist filth will bomb anywhere they can find Jews. No place in Israel or the West Bank is special.
Like death camps in Poland, it's where the Jews are.
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