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History is repeating itselfReader comment on item: No Pipe Dream Submitted by Johnny S. (Canada), Oct 23, 2007 at 17:52 The idea of further partitioning Israel is all about Islamic expansionism! In 1948 the U.N.'s ill-conceived partitioning scheme just involved splitting up of what was left of British Mandated Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, it said Arab NOT Islamic state! But in this case, the majority of Arabs lived in Trans Jordan, which Britain illegally broke off from its post World War 1 mandate to administer Palestine. And Palestine was a code word for Jewish land; the Arabs lived and still live in clans, there's no such Arabic clan known as the Palestinians. In 19th century Europe (Western and especially in Eastern) and in Russia, at the height of ultra nationalism Jews were looked at as the foreign element. Every country wanted the Jews to be driven out and be sent back to where---Palestine! Even over 100 years ago Europeans recognized Palestine as the Jewish homeland so what changed? European unlimited access to Arab oil, Europeans would sell-out their own grandmothers if it meant that they'd be guaranteed a free flow of cheap oil from whomever was provider. In this case it was the Arabs and rather than trying to get the Arab clans to make peace with each other, the Europeans just sat back and allowed the old tribal fascism of the 9th century to continue! The British had it within their power after breaking up the Ottoman Empire to try to eliminate Arab clan rivalry, that's what British officer T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia) aimed for as well! Lawrence's job was to go to Arabia, end the disgusting blood feuds the Arab clans had with each other and try to put a cohesive Arab revolt together (basically they were mercenaries not disciplined fighters) to harass the Turks. If this one man could do it, why couldn't the British Empire (at the height of their military and political power) do something similar as part of a post WW 1 modernization and reconstruction plan for the Middle East? Because it was all about oil, oil in Mesopotamia (which became Iraq) and oil in Arabia. In Arabia, the 2 major clans were the Hashemites who lived in Western Arabia and controlled the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, while the Saud tribe lived in eastern Arabia. The British cared more about securing oil, so they sat back and allowed the Saudis to kick the Hashemites out of Arabia, thus the world got stuck with a highly fascist Wahhabist Islamic state of Saudi Arabia! And in order to make it up to the Hashemites, the British cut of 75% of Palestine (it became Trans Jordan) and renames Mesopotamia to Iraq; there are 2 brothers running the Hashemite clan, each get their own country! One becomes the King of the newly minted Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (which is fake because the Hashemite kingdom was in western Arabia) and one becomes king of Iraq! Well the Hashemites were killed in a military coup in Iraq and during the 1948 war; the other brother annexed the West Bank from the Jews! While in the same war of 1948, Egypt annexed Gaza; so all this time there wasn't even one peep from Arabs wanting to make a miniature Arab state in neither Gaza nor the West Bank. But then all of a sudden in 1964 a terrorist organization was formed called the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO); they were formed in Egypt and were funded by the Arab states. The PLO wasn't a government in absentia; they were strictly funded to harass Israel by only violent means! Yasser Arafat, an Egyptian himself eventually was "elected" the chairmanship of the executive committee of the PLO but as we all know now, he turned this position into a dictatorship for life—literally! And what were the demands of the PLO? To liberate Palestine, in other words not create a Palestinian state in Gaza (which the Egyptians held) and not in the West Bank (which the Jordanians held) but to liquidate Israel! After the 1967 war when Israel won and gained the Sinai Desert, the Gaza Strip, The Golan Heights and the West Bank; Israel offered the return of land for peace with the Arabs. The Arabs' response then as it is now was no recognition, no negotiations and no peace with Israel! Since then the Arabs have been illegally trying to gain Israeli concessions to land via UN resolutions and lately through useless peace processes being sponsored by the Americans, the European Union and Russia. The bottom line is still the Arabs won't recognize nor will allow Israel to exist! Israel has unilaterally withdrawn from both southern Lebanon and Gaza; the results were more violence directed at Israel rather than an olive branch being extended from the Arab side! And finally the latest reincarnation of pan-Arabism has regressed to its infantile beginnings of ultra pure Islamic faith! Sure they've tried everything else and have failed miserably at it, so of course—bringing back the caliphate must be the answer! And there you have it in a nutshell, rather than trying to abolish clannish groupthink, the answer for the Arabs lay in a gigantic Islamic super state—why that's brilliant! So peace will never come unless and until the Arabs essential stop being Arabs, this is what T.E. Lawrence envisioned all along. Lawrence wanted the Arabs to put a stop to their endless clan squabbling and their constantly clan battling over resources (water wells, women, land claims, camels, etc.), he wanted them to form an Arab counsel. But after WW 1 the British and French blew it big time, they cut up an unclaimed Middle East and set-up further future divisions among the Arab people. And thus, until the Arabs get their act together, Israel should no longer be further dragged to phony peace conferences, which essential require them to give up land in return for the empty promise of peace from the Arabs! And to prove my point how well a caliphate system works, I wish to quote a rather large paragraph from Mark Twain's book entitled ‘The Innocents Abroad'. This book was published in 1869 but it's based on Mr. Twain's memoirs of his travels to Europe and The Holy Land in 1867; the following paragraph is from chapter 53: "The population of Jerusalem is composed of Moslems, Jews, Greeks, Latins, Armenians, Syrians, Copts, Abyssinians, Greek Catholics, and a handful of Protestants. One hundred of the latter sect are all that dwell now in this birthplace of Christianity. The nice shades of nationality comprised in the above list, and the languages spoken by them, are altogether too numerous to mention. It seems to me that all the races and colors and tongues of the earth must be represented among the fourteen thousand souls that dwell in Jerusalem. Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of Moslem rule more surely than the crescent-flag itself, abound. Lepers, cripples, the blind, and the idiotic, assail you on every hand, and they know but one word of but one language apparently—the eternal "bucksheesh." To see the numbers of maimed, malformed and diseased humanity that throng the holy places and obstruct the gates, one might suppose that the ancient days had come again, and that the angel of the Lord was expected to descend at any moment to stir the waters of Bethesda. Jerusalem is mournful, and dreary, and lifeless. I would not desire to live here." Ok, so that description of Jerusalem's liveable status seen through the eyes of Mark Twain 140 years ago seems to match perfectly the utter inhuman living conditions that the Gaza is now experiencing under Hamas rule! And the Moslems are so religiously joyful about this that they wish to destroy Israel and overturn all Arab lands and place an Islamic caliphate in charge of running the entire lot—oh yeh…that will be really successful!!! See what I mean by history repeating itself? The only true solution for Mid-East peace is for the Arabs to leave their 9th century Islamic mindset and get into the 21st century of Arab reconciliation! Until this happens, the world should just leave Israel alone, the Jewish people have enough on their plate to deal with, all their concessions in the world will never lead to a peaceful region until the Arabs first have peace with their own kind! Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". << Previous Comment Next Comment >> Reader comments (18) on this item
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