A response to Israel’s haters

By Joseph A. Klein

My article appearing in Canada Free Press last Friday entitled “Hamas apologist Norman Finkelstein attacks Israel again” (along with its publication by FrontPage Magazine under the title “Finkelstein’s Slander Against Israel”) has apparently brought the haters of the Jewish state of Israel out from under their rocks. And I mean that literally, since the terrorist organization Hamas, which they so zealously defend, still has its founding Charter in force which quotes the prophet Mohammed:

“The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

Those who take what the Hamas Charter says seriously about the goal of obliterating the Jewish state are told not to worry. Hamas has changed and wants peace, its supporters argue. It is the villainous Jewish state that refuses to negotiate a peaceful resolution of the conflict, we are told.

Yet, would any sane person trust an organization whose leaders have made statements in the last few years such as the following?

Sheik Yunus al-Astal, a Hamas legislator and imam, in a column in the weekly newspaper Al Risalah in 2008 discussed a Koranic verse suggesting that “suffering by fire is the Jews’ destiny in this world and the next.” Astal concluded “Therefore we are sure that the Holocaust is still to come upon the Jews.”

“We will not rest until we destroy the Zionist entity” stated Hamas leader Fathi Hammad in Gaza on Friday January 2nd 2009.

In a sermon aired on Hamas’ Al-Aqsa television, cleric Yunis Al Astal stated, “Today, Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam.” He went on to say that Rome would become, “an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread though Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, even Eastern Europe.”

Hamas has repeatedly refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist, refused to disown its Charter and refused to abide by the previous commitments of the Palestinian Authority.

With that as background, let’s examine a few of the arguments that the Israel haters have thrown my way, when they weren’t engaging in their customary ad hominem attacks.

The Jewish Zionists stole the Palestinians’ land and are not entitled to have a state of their own on any portion of “Palestine.”

Hamas’ apologists love to cite international law when it suits their purposes in holding Israel to account, but then reject the international legal framework under which the Palestinians could have had their own state more than 60 years ago. They have nothing to say that would justify why the surrounding Arab states torpedoed the original UN-sponsored two-state solution in 1947-8.

All they do is whine that the land of “Palestine” was stolen from the “Palestinian” Muslim inhabitants. Aside from the long historical connection of the Jewish people to the land, including Jerusalem, that pre-dated Islam by well more than a thousand years, the region the British called the Palestine Mandate (the area that included Jordan, Israel and the “West Bank”) and out of which the British offered the two state solution adopted by the United Nations, emerged out of the pre-World War I Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire had been ruled for 400 years by the Turks who lost it when they, fighting on the German side, were defeated in World War I.

Many Jews who were living in this area had bought their homes from the absentee Turk landlords. Arab masses immigrated from outside this area along with the Jews. Most of those who were called “Palestinian Arabs” were members of families who migrated into the same region that Jews were migrating into beginning in the late 19th century. And there had been a continuous Jewish presence in the region for many centuries.

To say that European Jews had less of a right to emigrate to the ancient Jewish homeland starting in the late 19th century (and develop the land from a desolate swamp) than did Arabs who emigrated during the same period from other regions outside of the Palestine Mandate is racist, not Zionism. In any case, the majority of Jews living in Israel today are non-European – some from Africa and many expelled from their homes in surrounding Arab countries.

Jordan was created on about 75% percent of the Palestine Mandate. The majority of its population was, and still is, Palestinian. Thus, even before the two-state solution was offered with respect to the 25% remainder of the Palestine Mandate, a state made up of a majority Palestinian population was already in existence. The fact that the minority rulers of a different Arab tribe run things in Jordan is a problem for the Palestinian majority that pre-dated the creation of the state of Israel.

The 1947 UN Resolution 181 partition plan was to divide the remaining 25% of Palestine into a Jewish state and a second Arab Palestinian state (Trans-Jordan being the first) based upon population demographics. The partition was offered even though the Arab inhabitants’ leaders had sided with the Nazis in World War II.

The Jewish inhabitants accepted the partition. The Arab inhabitants rejected the partition and the rest, as they say, is history. The Palestinians could have had their own independent state more than 60 years ago but for the rejectionism of their Arab neighbors who violated international law in trying to drive “the Jews into the sea” and the refusal of the Palestinian inhabitants themselves to negotiate a two-state solution in good faith.

Israel has illegally occupied the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem since 1967 and “oppressed” the Palestinian people in violation of international law.

Isn’t it strange how the friends of Hamas blithely skip over 20 years of history? Why weren’t the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza, while those territories were in Arab hands, provided the land to create their own independent state? Where was the outcry for justice under international law back then?

After Israel took over the territories following the June 1967 war, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 242 which (i) called on Israel to withdraw its armed forces “from territories occupied in the recent conflict”; and (ii) called for “termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”

The resolution deliberately omitted the word “all” before “territories” in (i) above to allow the parties to negotiate a peaceful solution that would best achieve the goals set forth in (ii) above.

Israel has since returned the Sinai to Egypt as part of a peace treaty, normalized relations with Jordan, withdrawn unilaterally from Gaza and offered to give back 90% of the West Bank and negotiate the fate of Jerusalem – all of which was rebuffed by Arafat and his successors.

There were no security fences or elaborate checkpoints in the years immediately following 1967. What has Israel received in return?

Every year Israeli civilians have been murdered by Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, Hezbollah or some other terrorist group. Islamic terrorists use suicide bombers and increasingly sophisticated rockets, launched from lands relinquished by Israel to the Palestinians, to kill innocent Israeli civilians. Their killing machines of choice tomorrow will be whatever weapons of mass destruction they can get their hands on, including from their buddies in Iran whose president has vowed to wipe Israel off the map.

Israel is falsely accused of ‘collective punishment’ when it strikes back to defend its citizens. Yet it is the Palestinian and other Islamic terrorists who continually violate the Israelis’ human rights under the Geneva Conventions, which state that “Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.” The innocent Israeli women and children, who have been slaughtered while going about their daily lives in their homes, their schools, on buses, at shopping malls, and places of worship, have committed no wrong against the Palestinian people. They are the victims of the Islamic terrorists’ measures of intimidation and terrorism, which violate their most basic of human rights - life itself. The Islamic terrorists are pursuing nothing less than the collective annihilation of the Israeli people. Just look at the Hamas Charter and the statements of their own leaders.

When the Israeli government responded with stern but non-violent, defensive measures to protect its most vulnerable citizens from murder – for example, with border closures, security checks, economic sanctions and a separation wall which came years after the 1967 war – the terrorists’ apologists complain that it is Israel which is violating the Palestinians’ human rights under international law. Although Hamas has controlled Gaza since 2005, it is Israel’s citizens who continued to suffer intimidation and terrorism launched from Gaza in violation of their international human rights. Israel ceded the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians in a good faith effort to advance peace. Gaza turned instead into hostile territory under Hamas’s control. More than 4200 rockets were launched from Gaza into Israeli residential areas after Gaza was no longer “occupied territory.”

Israel broke the cease-fire with Hamas and launched Operation Cast Lead that turned into a “massacre” of innocent Palestinian civilians. Israel’s “war crimes” are incontrovertibly documented in the Goldstone Report.

Hamas Does Not Honor Truces 


Hamas, not Israel, unilaterally decided against extending the six month ceasefire that had expired in mid-December 2008.

One fundamental problem overlooked by the Goldstone Report and other so-called “human rights” reports is that Hamas does not abide by truces or cease-fires for very long, even when it decides to enter into one. To Hamas, truces are just stalling tactics to use as lulls during which the terrorists build up their military capability. Don’t take my word for it. When asked if he could envision a 50-year hudna (cease-fire) with Israel, Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan (who was since killed in an Israeli bombing attack) responded, “The only reason to have a hudna is to prepare yourself for the final battle. We don’t need 50 years to prepare ourselves for the final battle with Israel. Israel is an impossibility. It is an offense against God.”

Gaza’s fellow Arab neighbors in Egypt have witnessed first hand Hamas’s destructive ways. In the wake of the militants’ blasting of the barrier between Gaza and Egypt, more Egyptians finally realized themselves where the source of the Palestinians’ problems and of the real threat to peace lies.

For example, Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies director Dr. ‘Abd Al-Mun’im Sa’id criticized Hamas’s failed policies in a column he wrote for Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party weekly Al-Watani Al-Yawm:

“Hamas’s election by the majority of the Palestinian people has invested it with the formidable responsibility of leading the Palestinian people, protecting its interests, developing its abilities, and managing its relations with the world and with Israel. Its military coup against the Palestinian Authority and its [currently] exclusive control of the Gaza Strip have forced it to assume complete responsibility over the Gazans, in financial, social, and security matters.

However, Hamas has failed to fulfill this responsibility, both after it was elected and following its [Gaza] coup. In fact, it has done nothing but publicly condemn Israel and the PA, on television and in daily communiqués to the world, and to the Islamic Arab countries…

The rockets, [which are being used] as a means of opposing the peace process and applying pressure [on it], are not for pressuring Israel, but for gaining popularity among the Palestinians…”

The editor of the Egyptian government daily Al-Gumhouriyya and Egyptian MP Muhammad ‘Ali Ibrahim was even blunter in his column:

“The Hamas fighters are not satisfied with Abu Mazen’s [i.e. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s] way of reaching a permanent and definitive solution with the Hebrew state that will ensure the establishment and continuity of the Palestinian state. This is because the only aim of [Hamas Political Bureau head] Khaled Mash’al and his men is to keep this issue hot, so that regional [forces] such as Iran and Syria can continue playing the card of the Palestinian problem to promote their private interests – that is, Iran’s nuclear dossier, the liberation of the Golan Heights, etc…

The Egyptians know their Gazan neighbors very well. They blame Hamas for sabotaging any prospects for peace with Israel and for the Gazan residents’ current suffering. Egypt wants to be left alone from Hamas’s aggression and interference with its sovereignty. So does Israel. And don’t tell me that Egypt is in cahoots with Israel. They have what is called a cold peace. They are barely on speaking terms.

Hamas uses its own civilians as human shields

This is not some wild charge of Israeli propagandists. It is based on the boasts of Hamas officials themselves. 

Following are excerpts from a speech delivered by Hamas MP Fathi Hammad, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on February 29, 2008: 


Fathi Hammad: [The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideen and the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: “We desire death like you desire life.” (Emphasis added)

The Goldstone Report

The Goldstone fact-finding panel, commissioned by the anti-Israel United Nations Human Rights Council, concluded that Israel “may” be guilty of war crimes based on the assumption that the country’s military forces and leaders deliberately targeted civilians. Israel’s enemies have seized on this conclusion to brand Israel’s military operation a “massacre,” to use Norman Finkelstein’s term. It is worth noting that not once in its 575 page report did the Goldstone panel actually use the term “massacre” to describe Israel’s actions during the Gaza conflict.

One of the most serious charges leveled against Israel’s operation during Project Cast Lead was its use of white phosphorous. Yet while the Goldstone Report concluded that Israel was reckless in its use in built-up areas it also noted that “white phosphorous is not at this stage proscribed under international law.” The report cited one specific example of a family in which children were alleged to have died as a result of injuries from white phosphorous. This is tragic to be sure, but it hardly demonstrates a widespread pattern of deliberate and indiscriminate burning to death of Palestinian children by Israel’s military that Norman Finkelstein and his followers try to portray.

It is curious why Israel’s enemies felt they had to exaggerate the Goldstone Report’s findings since the Goldstone panel was biased against Israel in the first place. It consisted of four members, three of whom considered Israel guilty before their investigation began. Judge Goldstone was outnumbered 3-1, even giving him all the credit in the world for his own objective judicial temperament.

Here are just a few examples of the Goldstone Report’s distortions of the facts as compiled and written up by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America: 



REPORT:
There is no evidence of Palestinian fighters using civilian clothes. 


FACT:
Journalists and eyewitnesses repeatedly noted the use of civilian clothes by Hamas fighters. 



REPORT:
There is no evidence of armed groups directing civilians to areas where attacks were being launched or forcing them to remain in the vicinity of attacks. 


FACT:
Palestinian witnesses and video evidence reveal that fighters did direct civilians to areas where attacks were being launched.

REPORT:
There is no evidence that hospitals or ambulances were used for military activities.

FACT:
Eyewitnesses describe Palestinian firing from hospitals and using ambulances. Why, for example, did the Goldstone fact-finding mission choose not to visit the al-Shifa Hospital or investigate allegations that Hamas leaders and fighters used this hospital as a base, especially given the testimony by a captured Islamic Jihad fighter to this effect?

REPORT:
The mission could not determine whether mosques were used for military purposes.

FACT:
There is video evidence of weaponry stored in a mosque, and of secondary explosions of mosques consistent with the storage of explosives. While the Report refers to allegations of mosques being used for military purposes and notes that it cannot rule out the inappropriate use of other mosques by Palestinians, the Mission nevertheless chose not to fuhrther investigate these possible war crimes by Palestinians and dismissed or ignored the readily available pictorial and testimonial evidence indicating that this was indeed the case.

CONCLUSION

I could go on and on, but one thing is clear. There can be no real peace so long as the Palestinian terrorists and their state sponsors such as Iran want more innocent Jews to die for death’s sake and will settle for nothing short of Israel’s extermination. As long as they allow Hamas and other extremists to rule them, the Palestinians will remain their own worst enemies.



Canada Press

FAQs' About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

DIDN'T ISRAEL DRIVE OUT 600,000 PALESTINIANS AT GUNPOINT IN 1948 AND TAKE THEIR LAND?

Most Arabs who left Israel did so under the orders of the Arab leader, the Grand Mufti (a former ally of Hitler) to withdraw and let the Arab armies "drive the Jews into the sea," which they attempted to do in 1948. However, Israel won that first Arab-Israeli war. Not all of the Arabs left. Many stayed, becoming Israeli-Arab citizens. Israel is now 18% Israeli-Arab. These Arabs have full citizenship rights, can own property, vote, and even have 14 representatives in the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament). Unfortunately, their unbridled birth rate will make them a majority within a generation or so and they may "democratically" vote the Jewishness out of the Jewish State!

I'VE HEARD THAT SOME ISRAELIS SAY THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "PALESTINIANS." HOW CAN THEY SAY THAT?

Up until the 1967 war, the Arabs living in Israel did not even call themselves Palestinians. The name Palestine came from the Romans who destroyed the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. To humiliate the Jews, the Romans renamed the land Palestine after their mortal enemies, the Philistines. The modern land of Palestine was given that name by the British when they took control over from the crumbling Ottoman Empire. In British Palestine, both Jews and Arabs were Palestinians. See "What is a Palestinian?" Click HERE

WHY DOESN'T ISRAEL JUST GIVE BACK THE WEST BANK TO THE PALESTINIANS? THEN THERE WILL BE PEACE.

The Palestinian Arabs west of the Jordan River rejected a 1947 United Nations plan for statehood on approximately half on what was then referred to as "Palestine." The Palestinian Jews accepted their half and formed the Jewish State of Israel in May of 1948. A war was then launched against this tiny Jewish State by the Arab-Palestinians and their Arab supporters from seven neighboring Arab countries. The end result was that the first Arab-Palestinian state [Jordan] took control of what is now the so-called "West Bank." Jordan held on to this territory from 1948 to 1967. NEVER did they offer to give the West Bank "Palestinian" Arabs a state of their own. And never did these Arabs on the West Bank ask for that state. Only after Jordan joined Syria and Egypt in the 1967 war to destroy Israel and after they lost this "West Bank" to Israel, did the Arabs on this land suddenly develop a "Palestinian" nationality!!! However, historically, the West Bank, which Jews call Judea and Samaria, is part of the ancient kingdom of Israel. It was NEVER part of any ancient Arab-"Palestinian" homeland!

For maps showing the changing geography of Israel and "Palestine," click HERE

Currently Jordan has a peace treaty with Israel. It's as disappointing a peace as the treaty Israel has with Egypt! But at least Arafat is honest about his intentions. He himself has said numerous times (always in private of over Arab-speaking media) that he will take back all of "Palestine" [meaning ALL of Israel too], either quickly by military means or in stages politically... piece by piece and, if necessary, peace treaty after peace treaty.

ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER ARIEL SHARON IS LOOKING FOR ANY EXCUSE TO INVADE AND SHOOT PALESTINIANS. WHY DID THE ISRAELI PEOPLE EVEN ELECT HIM?

The directives given the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] are strictly against the taking of innocent civilian life. Sharon withdrew ELEVEN times from the West Bank to affect a cease-fire. Each time Israel was attacked by Palestinian suicide bombers. The Palestinian Authority failed to arrest these homocidal bombers and instead paid their families awards. They even named streets after these "martyrs." How can anyone take seriously a "peace partner" who encourages these terror attacks?

In 2000 President Clinton and Prime Minister Barak offered the Palestinians a state, which included 95% of the West Bank. Arafat rejected the offer and launched the latest Intifada, or uprising. The Israeli people, who were angered when Arafat rejected Barak's offer and unleashed terror, responded by electing by a landslide the hard-liner, Ariel Sharon. Sharon has prevented many terrorist attacks. He has NOT instigated them.

WHY ARE THERE ARE SO MANY MORE DEAD PALESTINIANS THAN DEAD ISRAELIS? DOESN'T THIS PROVE THAT ISRAEL IS THE AGGRESSOR HERE?

Several reasons combine to explain the different death toll. First, the numbers are skewed. The Palestinians count the suicide bombers among their "civilian casualties." They also count terrorists killed in shootouts with the Israeli police or IDF. The fact is, if only true civilians were counted, Israeli casualties would be higher. A big factor appears to be Palestinian gunmen who hide themselves in populated areas, which causes a high civilian death toll when the IDF returns fire. The IDF, nonetheless, has a policy of measured responses to terrorist attacks. These reprisals rarely involve death or injury to the truly innocent. Also, given the P.A.'s problems with math, such as claiming 1,500 killed in Jenin when it was 52, their calculations are highly suspect.

WAIT A MINUTE! ISRAEL HAS A HEAVILY ARMED STATE-OF-THE-ART MILITARY AND THE PALESTINIANS ONLY HAVE ROCKS AND A FEW OLD GUNS. SHOULDN'T OUR SYMPATHIES BE WITH THE PALESTINIANS WHO ONLY WANT THEIR FREEDOM FROM OPPRESSION AND THE OPPORTUNITY FOR SELF-RULE?

The Palestinians are using more than rocks, although stonings can be very violent too, causing death and serious injury. They have Qasem rockets. They have grenades. They have M-16's and Kalashnikovs [Russian made assault rifles]. Arafat demanded weapons claiming he needed an armed police force to keep order. Those guns, provided by none other than Israel, have been linked with numerous terrorist attacks. Many weapons have been smuggled in from Egypt, Iraq, Iran and elsewhere.

DON'T THE ISRAELIS BUILD ROADS AND FREEWAYS THAT BYPASS PALESTINIAN VILLAGES AND THE PALESTINIANS AREN'T ALLOWED TO USE THEM?

These roads do bypass them. They were built because when Israelis drive THROUGH Arab-Palestinian towns they are shot at or have rocks thrown at them. Boulders dropped from heights above the roads have also killed some. The ambushing of Israeli cars and buses has become a national past-time for Arabs. These bypass roads increase the odds that a Jew will make it to his home alive.

A Necessary Evil ...Israel Checkpoint ... Looking forTerrorists!EVERY TIME A PALESTINIAN WANTS TO GO SOMEWHERE THEY HAVE TO GO THRU AN ISRAELI CHECKPOINT. ISN'T THIS HUMILIATING FOR THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE?

Humiliating? US citizens have to wait two hours at checkpoints at the airport. It's called security against terrorism! One thing must be kept in mind. If there were no Arab terrorism against Israeli citizens, there would be no need for checkpoints. So if the Arab "Palestinians" have a problem with checkpoints, let them complain to Arafat! Or if he can't be bothered, have them contact Attorney Stanley Cohen who fights for the right of all Arab/Muslim terrorists to murder Jews!

THE ISRAELI DEFENSE FORCE REGULARLY PREVENTS AMBULANCES FROM PICKING UP SICK AND WOUNDED PEOPLE. ISN'T THIS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY?

They don't prevent medical care. However, time and time again the Arabs have transported bombs and terrorists in ambulances so now they must be thoroughly checked. Israel gives free medical care to many Arab Palestinians. In Jenin last April, the IDF supplied blood to the hospital for wounded Palestinians. But the blood was rejected because the Palestinians would not use Jewish blood. So the IDF using military transports brought in blood from Jordan. This is hardly a Crime Against Humanity!

THE ISRAELIS HAVE STOPPED THE PALESTINIANS FROM NORMAL COMMERCE, FROM EMPLOYMENT, AND NOW THEY ARE SUFFERING FROM FOOD SHORTAGES. HOW CAN THEY JUSTIFY THIS?

Commerce and employment were higher when Israel controlled the area. In nine years with billions of dollars in aid the PA has failed even to feed its people. It has, however, made Arafat and his leadership wealthy thugs. PA warlords under Arafat control UN food allotments and even sell it on the black market. It has been the terrorist attacks that have made business as usual impossible and have hurt the Palestinian economy. Here again, if the average Arab "Palestinian" has a gripe, let them complain to those who supposedly "represent them"... or just contact Stanley Cohen.

WHEN THE ISRAELIS SAY THAT THE ARABS ONLY WISH TO DRIVE THEM INTO THE SEA, AREN'T THEY JUST BEING PARANOID AND USING THIS EXCUSE TO JUSTIFY THEIR AGGRESSIONS AGAINST THE PALESTINIANS?

5.5 million Jews. 250 million Arabs. Missiles with germ and radiological warheads on Israel's northern frontier controlled by Hizbollah Muslims. Twenty-one terrorist attacks a day against common Israelis. The Arabs said "into the sea" in 1948 and even after Oslo. They really mean it. This is paranoid???

DIDN'T THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA CONDEMN ISRAEL AS A RACIST STATE?

The conference was made up of Arab dictatorships pushing their own anti-Semitic agenda. The US and most of Europe boycotted the vote. Today, the United Nations is comprised of 70% dictatorships and even Syria, a well-known terrorist-sponsoring state, is on the Security Council! Libya, another Arab dictatorship and known sponsor of world terrorism, is head of the UN "human rights" commission which, by the way, includes other repressive regimes.

There are 23 Arab dictatorships and a total of 53 Muslim countries that make a full-time occupation of bashing Israel, managing to push through resolution after resolution bashing Israel. One such resolution declares suicide/homocide bombings against Israel citizens a legitimate political tool!

Israel has freedoms for peoples of all religions and all backgrounds. It is truly a pluralistic society. The Durban conference was just another propaganda fest for the real racists of the world. The votes cast have no meaning to people who genuinely oppose racism. Simply put, the conference was an obscenity.

THE PALESTINIANS AND THE JEWS HAVE BEEN FIGHTING FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. AREN'T THEY EQUALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE VIOLENCE?

First of all, the term "Palestinian" is historically meaningless. It certainly does not distinguish between Jewish "Palestinians," Christian "Palestinians," Arab "Palestinians, etc. Remember, the Arab "Palestinians" are really just "ARABS!" When there was violence between the Jews and Arabs, it was always initiated BY the Arabs. The basic reason for this violence then (as it remains today) is the Arabss total rejection of ANY Jewish presence in what they consider an Arab/Muslim Middle East-- period. The Jews offer to negotiate peace while the Arabs are really just negotiating the end of Israel. No sane nation should be expected to negotiate away its own existence!

THE SUICIDE BOMBINGS ARE TERRIBLE BUT AREN'T THEY DONE BY A SMALL HANDFUL OF EXTREMISTS? ISN'T IT WRONG TO CONDEMN ALL THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE FOR THE ACTS OF A FEW?

A New Generation Programmed to Murder Jews. Evidence shows that as many as twelve extremist groups conduct terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and Fatah are but a few of them. In many cases, the same individuals who make up the security forces for the Palestinian Authority conduct the terrorist attacks!

Opinion polls among the Palestinian population reveal 90% approve of the suicide bombings. Thousands dance in the streets when a lethal suicide bombing is executed successfully. Arab children even have suicide bomber trading cards! The few Arab "Palestinians" who would work for peace run the risk of being arrested or lynched for being collaborators with Israel.

WHY DOES ISRAEL PRACTICE COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT AGAINST THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE?

Israel does not practice collective punishment. The security checkpoints are there solely to prevent more suicide bombings and attacks. During a reprisal, such as the bombing of a house from which sniper shots have been fired, a warning is given and THAT HOUSE is destroyed. Likewise, wanted criminals are found and executed since it is impossible to hold them accountable in a court of law under Arafat's regime. Often it is easy to determine the culprit.... the Palestinians carry them down the streets on their shoulders. The dead ones have posters praising them and streets are named after them. Contrast this with the almost daily attacks on Israeli civilians making all citizens fearful of going shopping for groceries, riding a bus or stopping in for a slice of pizza. Is not THIS the real "collective punishment!"

I KNOW THAT THE ISRAELIS DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH YASSIR ARAFAT, BUT DIDN’T THE MAJORITY OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE ELECT HIM?

Arafat ran the same type of Arab election as Saddam Hussein or Bashir Assad. He ran against one candidate, an 85 year-old woman who told everyone to vote for Arafat! Even Hitler and Stalin could claim to be democratically elected leaders! When he first took control of the territories, he murdered in a stadium all the Arabs "collaborators" who administered the territories when they were totally under under Israeli administration.

However, should an honest election leave in power a man like Arafat, this in itself says something about the mindset of the Arab Palestinians and their true colors regarding a genuine peace with Israel!

AREN'T THE JEWISH SETTLERS ON THE WEST BANK JUST AN EXCUSE FOR SHARON TO INVADE THE PALESTINIAN AREAS? AND GIVEN HOW MUCH OPPOSITION THE PALESTINIANS HAVE TOWARD ISRAELIS BUILDING HOMES ON THE WEST BANK, ISN'T SHARON JUST ENCOURAGING MORE SUICIDE BOMBINGS?

Many Jews, especially the Orthodox Jews, believe the land of Judea and Samaria to be divinely given to the Jewish people. This is the same belief of many Righteous Christians. However, the Jewish settlements are on only 1.7% of the West Bank territory. While home-building by Jews is often given as a reason for conducting more suicide bombing attacks, does this sound even slightly reasonable? To commit suicide and mass murder to protest the building of homes by people of another religion when there is ample room for everybody? The "settlements" have residents who own homes and businesses. Why can't they stay as part of a state of Palestine and be Palestinian citizens as part of a peace settlement? The reason THIS will never happen is that the Arabs, who accuse democratic Israel of racism, repeatedly say NO JEWS may live anywhere in Palestine.

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE MUSLIMS AND THE JEWS IS RELIGIOUS AT ITS CORE. ISN'T IT REALLY AN INSOLUBLE ISSUE MARKED BY RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE ON BOTH SIDES?

While there are sects of Islam which use passages in the Koran to justify the killing of "infidels," there are also passages in the Koran which forbid suicide. Other passages teach that lands given by the Lord to other peoples are given for a reason known only to God. Likewise, religious Jews, who remain fixed on prophesies of the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple, the return of the Jewish people to the State of Israel and the coming of the Messiah are not likely to give in to Arab pressure to leave their holy sites. For the Arabs it is a tribal affair of honor and vengeance. Racism is at its core. Racism is a sickness and sicknesses can be cured. Israel seriously wants peace with the Arabs, but not at the expense of her existence being whittled away bit by bit through terrorism until she is destroyed. The healing will come when the world focuses its energies on helping the Arab world to come out of generations of tribal warfare, the subjugation of women, illiteracy and feudal kingdoms. These are the conditions which spawn hatred of the Jews and is only slightly more vehement than their hatred of Christians.

Masada 2000