Obama, Settlements, & the Missing Two-State-Solutions

Obama, Settlements, and the Missing Two-State-Solutions

by Gerald A. Honigman

President Barack Obama's long-awaited speech to the Muslim World in Cairo had some important, positive elements in it. He is to be commended for that.

Among other things, he spelled out the need for Arabs and other Muslims to get a handle on their own extremists; defined, then stressed, the importance of true democracy while speaking in a nation run by modern-day Pharaohs; emphasized the importance of equal rights for women; and so forth.

When speaking of the need for all peoples to get along, the President even dared to speak the word "Copt"--once...then dropped it like a hot potato. But this, too, was sort of courageous--if short-lasting--given the extreme touchiness of the subject. After all, this wasn't Israel he was speaking in--nor poor Arabs--er Palestinians--he was crying about.

The Copts, after all, were/are the millions of native people who were conquered and forcibly Arabized--like much of the rest of the Middle East--after the Arabs burst out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century C.E. and spread in all directions.

Unlike Hindus, Buddhists, and other non-"Peoples of the Book(primarily Christians and Jews)," Copts were not given an ultimatum to convert to Islam en masse or die (yet many, indeed, have been murdered).

The latter Ahl al-Kitab above were allowed to live as long as they accepted their subjugated status as dhimmis--"protected" people...that is, as long as they paid their special taxes and such to their Arab Muslim masters. Know your place, and it was possible to prosper.

The Uncle Tom Copt supreme, the late President Sadat's Foreign Minister and later Secretary General of the United Nations, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, offered that Israel must consent to the same Arabization if it wanted to be accepted in the "Arab World." I don't think you want to know my feelings about such "acceptance."

Now, of course, this all begs the question--or at least should...

Why was there only one brief word by our President about Copts--without defining their plight or saying anything else about them--but, unabashedly later, he felt free to lead the Arab choir in taking Israel to task about the plight of the "Palestinians (mostly Arabs whose families came from somewhere else--despite their taqiyyah , legitimate lying to the Infidel--tales of woe)?

There are more native Copts in Egypt than Palestinian (however you define that) Arabs.

I understand the Arabs' demand that virtually the whole region be seen as just their own--purely Arab patrimony as they tell it. But why does an American President have to play along with this subjugating mindset ? He mentioned the word "Darfur" also. Does he also not know who the perpetrators of the Sudan's genocidal actions are? But, again, one word...and dropped--like Copt--like a hot potato.

While it was nice to hear the President lecture the Muslim world about the Holocaust, he played right into their hands once again--at least those, unlike Ahmadinejad of Iran and the President's good buddy, Mahmoud Abbas, who do not deny that it ever happened.

The Arab believers' typical answer is, why should we have to pay for the sins of Europe?

Now, there was a way that Mr. Obama could have handled the subject correctly that would have been light years better--if he had really wanted to. But that's another point where his attempt at courage failed him.

One half of Israel's Jews are from refugee families from the Arab/Muslim World. Over another million more of these folks live in France, America, and elsewhere--the refugees hardly anyone ever talks about. They were known as kilab yahud--Jew dogs--and, like Copts (only worse), also never knew what the morrow would bring living as dhimmis amid Arab Muslim masters. Massacres, forced conversions, expulsions, constant humiliations, and so forth were certainly not unknown to the killers of Prophets and the sons of apes and pigs.

While the President once again lectured about those allegedly horrid Israeli settlements (how dare a Jew demand to once again be allowed to live in Judea?), which we'll get to shortly, why was he silent about millions of native Kurds in Syria and Imazighen/Berbers in North Africa who have had their own languages and cultures outlawed and have been slaughtered if they dare to protest? The latter have been told that they can't even name their children with their own native names and must use Arab Islamic ones instead. But, let's all complain about settlements instead...

Why demand a roadmap for the Arabs' state # 22 (second, not first, in the original April 25, 1920 borders of the Mandate of Palestine--Arab Jordan being created after 1922 on some 80% of the total area)--but not demand likewise for some thirty-five million truly stateless, non-Arab Kurds or justice for tens of millions of non-Arab Imazighen?

The President's focus on Muslim extremism was indeed important, but why did he yield to the assertion that the Arabs' demand for their additional state--nearly two dozen in total-- was somehow equivalent to the Jews' demand that their own sole, resurrected nation not be destroyed in granting that Arab wish?

Mr. Obama can whisper or shout sweet pleasantries all that he wants to about a two-state solution (at least referring to Jews and Arabs--forget about any rights for those others and more mentioned above), but he knows full well that that Saudi Peace (of the grave) Plan he said Israel would be crazy not to accept calls for Israel to be inundated by millions of so-called "returning" Arab refugees, raised on murderous Jew-hatred for decades, and for Israel to return to its pre-'67, nine-mile wide Auschwitz/armistice line--not border--existence.

In other words-- a plan to convert Israel into another Arab state..."peacefully," the Saudi Peace Plan in a nutshell. That's why, to this date, Abbas--the alleged good cop--swears he'll never recognize a Jewish State of Israel.

Blown buses bring bad press...so, there's more than one way to skin the Jewish cat (especially with America supplying the pliers)!

Now think about this a minute...

President Obama demands that Jews stop building for normal growth in Jewish population centers resurrected in Judea and Samaria--aka only in the past century as "the West Bank." He includes Jerusalem in this too. The area, by the way, is non-apportioned territory of the Mandate--open to settlement by Arabs and Jews alike...not "Palestinian territory" as is frequently claimed. Jews lived and owned property there until the Arab massacres of the 1920s and 1930s.

After the Arab attempt on Israel's life failed in 1967, the architects of the final draft of UNSC Resolution 242 did not expect Israel to return to the vulnerable '49 armistices line of the status quo ante.

242 called for the creation of secure and recognized borders to replace those lines, and any Israeli withdrawal at all was to be in the context of true peace treaties--not hudna schmudna cease fires. The aim was to give Israel some semblance of defensible borders, which it never had before--a constant temptation to those who would cut it in half in an armored attack, and so forth. Arabs had indeed already tried this before.

Here's Britain's Lord Caradon, chief architect of the final draft of 242, on the matter:

We didn't say there should be a withdrawal to the '67 line; we did not put the 'the' in, we did not say 'all ' the territories deliberately. We all knew - that the boundaries of '67 were not drawn as permanent frontiers, they were a cease-fire line of a couple of decades earlier... We did not say that the '67 boundaries must be forever; it would be insanity.

President Lyndon Johnson summarized the situation this way on June 19, 1967:

A return to the situation on June 4 (the day before outbreak of war) was not a prescription for peace but for renewed hostilities." He then called for "new recognized boundaries that would provide security against terror, destruction, and war.

President Ronald Reagan, September 1, 1982:

In the pre-1967 borders, Israel was barely 10-miles wide...the bulk of Israel's population within artillery range of hostile armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again.

And in 1988, Secretary of State George Shultz declared...

Israel will never negotiate from or return to the 1967 borders.

So, are ya ready?

Here's my question to President Obama and the rest of the non-Arab world, lecturing Israel in Cairo and elsewhere non-stop. I leave out Arabs because they don't accept a 9-mile wide Jewish State of Israel (but claim some two dozen "Arab" states--most created out of non-Arab peoples' territory--for themselves), so nix any idea of them accepting anything bigger:

Where is Israel to get that territorial compromise over the disputed territories 242 promises if not in those "settlements" Mr. Obama complains about in a very small portion of Judea and Samaria?

I repeat...Israel was not expected to pull back to the suicidal armistice lines imposed upon it by the United Nations after it turned back the deadly assault of a half dozen Arab armies on it upon its rebirth in 1948. As would come to happen far too often later, the U.N. only stepped in after the Jews had turned the tide. It did nothing but watch when Israel was immediately attacked. Likewise, it withdrew its peacekeeping force in Sinai as soon as Egypt's Nasser said to do so--after the latter set up his blockade of Israel at the Straits of Tiran--a casus belli.

America and other nations have fought wars and acquired territories thousands of miles away from home in the name of their national defense and security interests.

Is it really that hard for an intelligent American President to understand that Israel lives in a very nasty neighborhood and so requires a bit more depth to buffer itself from its committed, would-be executioners--no matter how much whitewash he pours over them?

The settlements issue Mr. Obama implies is the equivalent to Arabs not blowing Jews apart really comes down to this...

Given the situation Israel constantly faces (look at a map of the world...I dare you to find Israel without using a magnifying glass), does it not have a right to have a border which makes it wider in mileage than the distance Michelle Obama has to travel to buy shoes at the local shopping mall?

Finally, please watch for my book coming out shortly on these very issues and more, The Quest For Justice In The Middle East--The Arab-Israeli Conflict in Greater Perspective.[/i]