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Fact and fiction in the Israel-Palestinian conflict

WHY have talks between Israel and the Palestinians broken down? Why is the Palestinian Authority now pushing a plan to have the General Assembly of the UN acknowledge a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence?

A short comment in a Denver Post news story last Saturday noted that talks between Israel and the Palestinians were blocked by Israel last September when Israel failed to implement a building freeze in the West Bank. This left the Palestinians with no choice but the strategy of a unilateral declaration of independence.

The deeper justification for such a Palestinian move would be Israel’s occupation. Hamas has persuaded many countries around the world — certainly including a former Israeli ally, Turkey — that Israel occupies Gaza. That is why attempts to breach the Israeli blockade of Gaza have elicited widespread support among activists and many countries around the world.


Then, of course, there is the “Arab spring.” If it is focused on oppressive rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere, it is only logical to focus on the oppressive rulers in Israel, too.

Just one problem: None of the claims I have just outlined is based on fact. They constitute, rather, a melange of untruths that camouflage a deep hostility to the existence of Israel — not just to its policies, but to its very existence.

Building freeze in West Bank not enough

FACT: Israel did agree to a 10-month building freeze on the West Bank, and implemented it. It concluded in September, 2010. The freeze was undertaken at the behest of the Obama administration in order to create an atmosphere for talks with the Palestinians.

However, during the 10 months of the freeze, the Palestinians never came to the table. The building freeze on the West Bank was not enough. The Palestinian Authority demanded an additional building freeze in East Jerusalem. It made no difference that all previous Israel-Palestinian negotiations took place without any Israeli building freeze whatever. Now, Israel was asked, in effect, to concede the issues up for negotiations in advance of the negotiations, if the Palestinian Authority would participate.

No choice? The Palestinian Authority had a choice, before, during and after the Israeli building freeze on the West Bank. Its choice was to say no to negotiations. It wants a state on its own political, geographical and demographic terms. Compromise, or even negotiation, is not part of its present vocabulary.

Israel’s right to self-defense

FACT: After Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in August, 2005, it did not impose a blockade on any item from entering Gaza with the exception of arms. Israel actually hoped that its withdrawal would stimulate a Palestinian interest in building its own economy in Gaza. The import of raw materials into Gaza was not a grudging Israeli policy, but a primary Israeli national interest. Israel saw a flourishing Gaza as a harbinger of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

However, the Palestinians elected Hamas in Gaza in the sole, free, Palestinian election in 2006, and Hamas reaffirmed its policy to be the destruction of Israel. Even before the election of Hamas, local Palestinians in Gaza destroyed the greenhouses that Israel had left behind — as a gesture of good will — immediately after its 2005 withdrawal.

Then, in 2007, in a civil war, Hamas ejected (or killed) representatives of the PA minority in Gaza, and imposed a one-party rule. Against Hamas, an entity bent on destroying Israel, Israel imposed a blockade. Even so, Israel did not reoccupy Gaza, but only denied it arms and goods, without, however, causing a humanitarian crisis, since Israel still allowed food and medicine into Gaza.

Israel’s only choice would have been to say to Hamas: Import more missiles, more money and more goods to increase your attacks on our civilians in southern Israel.

By terming Israel’s efforts to block that desired success of Hamas an “occupation,” opponents of Israel are really saying to Israel: You are a country without the right of self-defense. You have no right to fight back when we fire thousands of missiles at your population centers. That is the same thing as saying: You are allowed no sovereignty. Which is exactly tantamount to Hamas’ charter’s declared goal: the destruction of Israel.

And now, as Fatah unifies with Hamas, Fatah also promotes the Hamas goal of ending Israel.

Misappropriation of language and fact

FACT: The Arab spring has targeted Arab dictators. Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians — on the worst possible reading — has been to deny Palestinians national sovereignty.

However, Israel has not denied Palestinians within Israel of voting rights, of freedom of religion and of other benefits of Israeli citizenship, such as the virtually free medical care and additional government subsidies.

In the West Bank, intentional Israeli policy has been to encourage and, in no small measure, to subsidize the growth of the Palestinian economy there. Israel has also cooperated with the US in training a Palestinian police force and court system there. Israel, in other words, has been helping to lay the groundwork for a Palestinian state.

Further, despite the vaunted damage to Palestinian interests done by Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, any objective observer will confirm that most of the West Bank is settled by neither Israelis nor Palestinians. It is empty. The Israeli footprint on the West Bank amounts to about 9% of the territory.

Do these policies sound equivalent to the brutal, dictatorial policies of, for example, Syria’s Bashir Assad, or of Egypt’s former dictator Hosni Mubarak?

It is not only facts that are eclipsed in the current propaganda war against Israel. It is language. Accuracy. Unbiased exegesis. Not to mention the obvious: While Israel has become a technological marvel — the “start up nation” — despite its lack of natural resources, Palestinians continue to deny themselves the same opportunity. When Palestinians become obsessed with their own success, rather than with Israel’s downfall, there will be peace.

Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News



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IJN Executive Editor | [email protected]


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