By Peter Bailey
The current rhetoric emanating from that fountain of wisdom known as Mahmoud Abbas, alias President of the Palestinian Authority is remarkable from two perspectives, its distance from the truth and the conviction with which Abbas spurts forth his verbal fabrications.
We must bear in mind that Abbas was elected for a 4-year term as President on 9 January 2005, which means that he is now in the 13th year of his 4- year- term. This is the legitimacy which he claims gives him the right to be the leader of the Palestinian people. Afraid of the results of an election, he chooses not to have them – this is the nature of ‘Palestinian’ democracy!
The Palestinian Authority over which Abbas presides came into being as a result of the Oslo accords, which included letters of mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation. It follows therefore, that if, as he says, he will withdraw recognition of Israel, then the Palestinian Authority over which he claims to preside, ceases to exist. A closer examination of the wild accusations and rantings by Abbas, reveals a man with a distorted world view who is governed by Judeophobia, revealing him to be an anti-Semite. So much for the credentials of Mahmoud Abbas and any weight that his words might carry!
What is the “Occupation”?
The “occupation” which Abbas and his international supporters are so fond of citing as the cause of all the problems in the Middle East, is a red herring. Accepting the false premise that the “occupation” started after the 6 Day War of 1967 as a point of departure for any discussion, leads to acceptance of the kind wild accusations made by Abbas during his recent marathon address to the Central Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
To place the “occupation” in its proper perspective, we need to start, not in 1967, but 20 years earlier, in 1947 with the United Nations vote to partition the part of Palestine that was left after it had already been divided in 1922 into a portion east of the Jordan River, Transjordan, and a western portion, earmarked for the Jewish homeland. The Arab states rejected the result of the United Nations vote on behalf of the Arab population of western Palestine, with the promise that the nascent Jewish State, Israel, would be destroyed before it had a chance to come into being. That attempt to destroy Israel took the form of a military attack on the fledgling Jewish state by all the surrounding Arab states plus volunteers from Muslim countries further afield.
Photo credit: JNS
“West Bank Occupation Began in 1948”
History has recorded that the Arab states were defeated, but this is not entirely true, because the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan occupied in the true sense of the word, a large portion of western Palestine that had been earmarked as the Jewish homeland. Additional to this, in complete defiance of the United Nations vote, Jordan occupied a portion of Jerusalem that became known as East Jerusalem. One of the features of this occupation was that Jews were totally forbidden from visiting their Holy Places, while certain restrictions on Christian freedoms were also imposed. Abbas and his cheerleaders should understand that the Arab rejection of the United Nations vote of 1947 was an attack on the new State of Israel and rendered all of their subsequent actions illegal. The last legally acknowledged decision on the partition of Palestine that had effect, was the 1922 League of Nations Mandate regulations making Britain the Mandatory Power with instructions to establish an Arab homeland east of the Jordan River, which they did with alacrity, and a Jewish homeland west of the Jordan River. Literally a Jewish homeland in an area the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians are so fond of using, the land from the River to the Sea.
The Reality
From a purely objective historical perspective, it becomes clear that the occupation of the area also known as the West Bank ENDED in 1967, rather than BEGAN in 1967, as Israel’s detractors believe. Abbas should save his venom for the Arab states that made regular false promises to the Arabs of western Palestine (Israel), that the Jews would be beaten militarily and thrown into the sea. That pipe dream of a bygone era when men such as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini, and the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, duped the Arab world into believing Israel would disappear, no longer has any credence. The reality that Abbas and his supporters – locally and internationally – must face up to and accept, is the reality of a Jewish State that is here to stay, with Jerusalem as its capital.
This reality has been confirmed by no less a person than the incumbent President of the United States of America, who, while even with his shortcomings, understands and appreciates the historical realities of Israel, Palestine and the Middle East.