This Liberation Movement’s Only Tactic is to Destroy.

 

 [As appeared in the Jerusalem Post (edited for space), unedited article below.]

“The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel…Palestinian identity would be emphasized for political reasons.” – Palestine Liberation Organization senior executive committee member.

Objective or Tactic?

A tactic, by definition, is a method used in the process of achieving an objective or goal. In this instance, creating the concept of a Palestinian peoplehood or state is a tactic that has been employed consistently, and I am afraid to say, brilliantly, for the sole purpose of destroying the modern Jewish State of Israel. The benefit or well-being of anyone identified as Palestinian is clearly not the objective or goal.

The unfortunate success of this abhorrent tactic is evidenced by the continued deplorable condition of Palestinian refugees in neighboring Arab countries. And the “Palestinian’s” inhumane employment of terrorism that indiscriminately kills and maims innocents on both sides, and the ensuing ongoing governmental negotiations for “State of Palestine” with made up historic rights to the land of Israel.

As we approach the 75^th anniversary of the modern State of Israel, it might be a good idea to put this diamond jubilee milestone in historical and factual contrast with the more than 100-year-old “Arab-Jewish” conflict, currently referred to as the “Palestinian-Israeli” conflict.

While this topic is very complex, let’s try to simplify it by breaking it down into just three key periods of time: 1920-1947, 1947-1964, and 1964 to today.

 

1.                  1920-1947.  The League of Nations divided up the spoils of World War One in San Remo after defeating and dissolving the 620-year-old Ottoman Empire. As a result of agreements, and later conferences and treaties, countries including Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq were established.

Arab leadership violently objected to the League of Nations Mandate of Palestine because the result would be the creation of a Jewish state. Such objection is based on the fact that a free and democratic Jewish state would replace the Islamic concept of ‘dhimmis’ (or second-class citizenship for all non-Muslims, which comes with many severe religious, social, and economic restrictions) that was enforced upon Jews during the Ottoman Empire, when Islam ruled over the Jews.

Although the original Mandate of Palestine set aside a reasonable amount of land for a Jewish homeland, at the 1921 Cairo Conference, “with the stroke of a pen,” Winston Churchill, gave away 70% of that area (Trans-Jordan) and created Jordan. (Perhaps the original two state solution.). The remaining 30% of Palestine was further carved, during negotiations toward what became the 1947 United Nations Resolution 181, also known as the Partition Plan.

 

2.                  1947-1948. Britain, who had been managing the Mandate of Palestine since late 1923, turned the Mandate over to the United Nations (legal successor to the League of Nations). Discussions of Jewish statehood for Palestine began. By the UN’s own records [United Nations Oral History Project, Interview with Walter Eytan, 20 June 1990], the discussions weren’t even on how to further divide this now much smaller area into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs, but that there should be no state for the Jews. There was never any proposal or even a concept to create a country comprised of Palestinian Arabs expressed by the Arab leadership at the UN.  

UN Resolution 181 was passed on November 29, 1947. A look at the maps presented in this partition plan clearly show it was a biased, illogical, non-contiguous further division of this remaining 30% of the Palestine territory designated for the Jewish homeland, into “Independent Arab and Jewish States.” This plan even omitted most of the holy Jewish historical/cultural/religious locations, including Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem, that the Jews prayed towards and yearned for during their more than 2000 years of exile. Despite this untenable offer, on May 15, 1948, the provisional Israeli government accepted UN Resolution 181 and issued their Declaration of Independence for the establishment of the State of Israel.

It is interesting to note that the modern Israeli pioneers and founders, who were mostly Eastern-European communists and socialists, used the United States’ Declaration of Independence as a foundational guide. Therefore, it was natural that it includes the following statement: “WE APPEAL – in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months – to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.”

 

Israel strives to uphold this ideal of equality to this day. One can readily see Arab, Muslim, and minority political representation, Arab Muslim soldiers and officers in the army and police, Arab Muslim medical professionals, and even Arab Muslim chief justices. Not to forget Druze and Christians in all of the aforementioned productive societal roles, as well. In fact according to a recent survey, only 7% of Israeli Arabs define themselves as 'Palestinian,' while about a quarter of Israeli minorities (23%) define themselves primarily as "Israeli" and another half (51%) define their identity as "Israeli-Arab."

Even though the Partition Plan greatly lessened the rightful amount of land to them and put them at a geographic disadvantage, the Jews said, ‘yes’; the Arabs said ‘no.’ Here was another lost two-state solution opportunity.

As soon as Israel declared itself a state, the Arab world declared war and five well-trained and armed Arab armies attacked the fledgling state of Israel. Again, the Arab objective was not to free Palestine, and form a state for the Palestinians, but to destroy and divide Israel – north for Syria, central for Jordan, south for Egypt.

Miraculously, the Arab armies failed to destroy the much weaker new modern State of Israel. Once the armistice line (often referred to as the “green line”) was drawn, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were in Jordanian hands. Yet, from 1948 until about 1964, there was no mention of Palestinian statehood for the so called “Palestinians” by anyone.

 

3.                  1964 to Present. Up until 1948, the Bank of Palestine, the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Palestine Post, to name a few, were all (and still are) Jewish organizations. Not Arab. Then in 1964, at a conference in Cairo, Egypt, outsiders (Russia, Egypt, the Arab League), not the “Palestinians,” created the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). History was falsely re-written. There never was any Arab Palestinian peoplehood, state, or country.

 

Talk about cultural appropriation! Wait, who are the Palestinians and where does the name Palestine come from? In 70 CE, Rome renamed the Israelite kingdom Palæstina (after the Philistines who had disappeared 680 years earlier) when they destroyed Jerusalem’s Second Jewish Temple. Over the centuries, Palæstina became Palestine. Therefore, Palestine by any other name is still Israel. Consistently throughout history Palestine = Holy Land = Israel (including its capital, Jerusalem) = the land of the Jewish people.

In June 1967, during the Six-Day War, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were captured by Israel in a defensive war from Jordan – not from any country called “Palestine.” As noted above, from 1948 to 1967, while Jordan illegally occupied the West Bank (including half of Jerusalem), there was no outcry for Palestinian statehood from anyone, including the Arab leadership or “Palestinians.” Add to this fact, Jordan-Israel signed a peace treaty in 1994 mutually outlined the borders so that Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank) and a unified Jerusalem, are not “occupied” but are fully, legally part of the State of Israel.

[Additionally: according to international law, land won during a defensive war belongs to the victor, while land conquered in an aggressive war does not belong to the aggressor. For quick current reference, just look at the discussions taking place today regarding Russia’s 2014 invasion and taking the Crimea region of Ukraine, as well as the where the borders will be drawn in a potential final status concerning ongoing horrific 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.]

So, you want a Revolution? It is interesting to note that there are basically two types of revolutions. One is where the people are revolting against the ruling autocratic government or monarchy. The other type of revolution is where the people are revolting against a foreign ruling occupier or colonial power.

This “Palestine liberation” movement for a homeland for Palestinians was never the intention of Arab leadership. Just read their own words below. Their “liberation of Palestine” was, and still is, not their objective but their tactic. The Arab leadership’s objective simply is, and always has been, the elimination of Israel as a sovereign legitimate state and the extermination of Jews as a people and religion.

To put this all in its proper historic and political perspective, here are just five examples of the Arab and “Palestinian” leaderships’ own words…

 

A.                During the Peel Commission testimony (1937), Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, a local Arab leader said “There is no such country [as Palestine]! Palestine is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country is part of Syria.”

B.                 In May 1947, Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the representative of the Arab Higher Commission to the United Nations said to the UN General Assembly “Palestine was part of the Province of Syria…Politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity.”

C.                 According to a February 1948 UN memorandum, Azzman Pasha, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, referring to the upcoming May 1948 war said, "This war will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongol massacres and the Crusades." (Author’s emphasis)

 

D.                This article’s opening quote is from March 1977, when the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive committee member Zahir Muhsein, where he said: “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. 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.” He went on to state that there were "no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese", though Palestinian identity would be emphasized for political reasons. (Author’s emphasis)

E.                 May 1994. According to a news report in The Washington Post, just after signing the Oslo Peace Accords, Yassar Arafat, the Chairman of the PLO, made a speech on May 10, 1994 in a Johannesburg Mosque where called for a "jihad" to liberate Jerusalem. In that speech, he suggested that his peace agreement with Israel was only a tactical step that could still be reversed. Using Islamic history to support his duplicity Arafat states “This agreement [Oslo Peace Accords], I am not considering it more than the agreement which had been signed between our prophet Mohammed and Koraish, and you remember the Caliph Omar had refused this agreement and [considered] it a despicable truce.” (Historic note: The agreement with Koraish allowed Mohammed to pray in Mecca, which was under Koraish control, for ten years. When Mohammed grew stronger two years later, he abrogated the agreement, slaughtered the tribe of Koraish and conquered Mecca.)

 

There are hundreds of other examples espoused by Arabic leadership and embedded in their foundational organizational charters, taking this tactic of a revolution for “Palestinian liberation” to consistently preach and demand nothing less than all out genocide against Israel. There is no two-state solution from their point of view and there never has been.

This created “Palestine revolution” movement, using PLO lies and radicalization (now employed by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and others), was just one more tactical weapon in this long-standing religious war, which aims to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. And keep in mind, once the Jews are defeated, Islam will move on to fight other infidels (meaning all non-Muslims).

Pandora’s Box. In this new promising era of the Abraham Accords, the realization is dawning on much of the Arab world that this ‘tactical weapon’ is now out of control, similar to a Corona-like pandemic gone wild. It has devastated generations of Arabs who have been kept in refugee camps in Arab countries, weaned on incitement of lies, brainwashed by messaging designed to influence and blind the Western world, committed terrorism that has killed and maimed innocents, biased their own children’s education in ways that are clearly child abuse, and more.

For many centuries, Christendom held Jews responsible for the killing of Jesus and blamed them for many ills of the world. Yet, Christianity grew up, declaring in 1962 that the Jews did not kill Christ, thus negating one of the major root causes for antisemitism throughout the ages. And each group moved forward by looking for commonalities and ways to work together.

What does that say about Islam that can but hasn’t moved forward into this interconnected diverse geopolitical modern world? Yes, be proud of who you are, what cultures you come from, what traditions you hold, and what religions you practice (or not). That’s “ethnocentrism.” Don’t be stuck in Nazi-like thinking, which is “if you are not like us, we kill or enslave you.”

Perhaps it is time for Islam to change and be the religion of peace it claims to be. That’s what Egyptian President al-Sisi said in a ground-breaking speech on January 1, 2015. Calling for a new thinking for Islam, al-Sisi, a religious man himself, implored “It’s inconceivable that the thinking that we hold most sacred should cause the entire Islamic world to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world… It’s antagonizing the entire world!”

Islam and its followers, both people and governments, should focus their efforts on the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina, rather than Jerusalem (which is not mentioned once in the Qur’an). They should focus on helping their fellow Arab and Palestinian-Arab refugees become citizens and self-reliant. Focus on solving the internal problems in Islamic countries. Focus on funneling donations from European countries and elsewhere to provide hospitals, as well as schools, free from teaching hate-filled false history. The focus should be on a joyful embracing of one’s fellow Arab brothers and Israeli cousins, which should be encouraged and become the new norm.

What a true revolution that would be.

 

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David S. Levine, MBA made aliyah in 2015, is a former NYC advertising agency and marketing executive. Recently retired professor from Rutgers University’s School of Communication but still does some consulting. David is a history buff who is currently working on a book about revolutions. Check out his blog: https://thetruthfulproject.blogspot.com, and follow him on Twitter: @DavidsLevine