44 Years Ago This Week...

June 5th, 2011: Forty-Four Years Ago This Week...
by Gerald A. Honigman

Jews demanded empathy from the world around them, not sympathy. For a brief period, they actually succeeded--at least in some circles. The message was...

forget about crocodile tears shed, after-the-fact, for dead Jews a la the Holocaust if you can not grant live ones the bare minimum to survive.

As many, if not most, folks prefer Jews as perpetual scapegoats and victims, that message was soon cast aside.

The prevailing expectation today is that, if it is to continue to exist at all, the Jew of the Nations must forever beg to linger as a mere ghetto of a state. That's what the brouhaha over the armistice line and building freeze issues is all about.

June 5th marked the 44th anniversary of the Six Day War. Nowadays, the latter--fought over the very survival of the Jewish State-- is mentioned only in speaking of territories Israel came to hold afterwards. Rarely is any context provided...As a result, people are often left believing that Israel simply started the war to gain territory. Given this, please consider such things as:

...Up to and including the '67 war, Arabs refused to accept Israel when it was 9-15 miles wide via the '49 armistice lines.

That Israel is has always been the problem--not its size.

...Armistice lines are not borders. They merely mark locations where fighting officially stops in wars. Those in question, due to President Obama's recent remarks, were drawn to mark where fighting ceased after the invasion of Israel by a half dozen Arab nations in 1948. The UN stood by and did nothing to halt that aggression, but jumped in only after Jews turned the tide to limit Arab losses. That's how Israel became virtually invisible on a world globe, practically begging to be bisected by Arab enemies who reject it, regardless of the square miles it sits on.

...For no reason--other than its miniscule existence on less than one quarter of one percent of the region's land--Israel had been blockaded at the Straits of Tiran and Gulf of Aqaba, a recognized casus belli.

...The UN peacekeeping force assigned to Sinai since the '56 fighting (itself prompted by hundreds of terror attacks and an earlier blockade) was booted out by Nasser, and over 100,000 Egyptian troops were then amassed right up to the armistice line--all while Arabs were calling daily for Israel's destruction and the massacre of Jews.

...From '49 to '67, Arabs had control of both Gaza and the "West Bank," and no one ever called for the creation of a second Arab state in the original 4/25/1920 Palestine Mandate's territory. What would become Jordan was formed in 1922 from about 80% of the total area.

...The final draft of UNSC Res. 242 (the main tool for future peacemaking) stated that Israel would finally get real, more secure borders rather than the suicidal armistice lines imposed upon it since 1949.

Regardless of President Obama, the State Department, Arab, and others' assertions, Israel was most definitely not expected to return to the deadly status quo ante, and this was made very clear by the architects and Resolution 242 itself. All the former realized that Israel could never return to the suicidal lines which only invited repeated attacks in the past.

...The area of Judea and Samaria (known also as the "West Bank" only since the last century's British imperial machinations) was non-apportioned territory of the original Mandate where all the Mandate's peoples--not just Arabs (many, if not most, of whom were also newcomers)--were allowed to live. That Arabs claim otherwise is no shock. Despite the presence of scores of millions of various non-Arab peoples--most subjugated by Arabs--the latter simply refer to the entire region as "purely Arab patrimony."

...The land Israel took in a defensive war in Judea and Samaria after being shelled by Jordan in 1967 was itself illegally occupied by the latter in its assault against Israel in 1948. The immediate paragraph above and this fact nullify claims that Jews are "illegal occupiers." Judea was never supposed to be made Judenrein.

...A mere look at a regional map tells any sane soul that there is really no room for a viable third state to be created within the original 1920 borders of Palestine. If Arabs insist on creating a second one there for themselves--with Jordan sitting on the lion's share of the land since 1922--that Arab 22nd state must not emerge via the gross endangerment of the Jews' sole nation. And without the territorial compromise built into 242, that's precisely what will happen. No doubt.

Think about what happened in the aftermath of Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza a while back if you need a hint about what to expect if Israel repeats this mistake in Judea and Samaria...only this time it won't be a relatively less populated Israeli south that will get the brunt of the rocket, mortar, missile, and terror attacks, but Israel's main airport, capital, industry, and densely populated narrow waist--with no room to escape. What other nation is asked to do this for enemies who want it dead and decapitate babies and slit the throats of other children and parents in their sleep?

As I also like to remind readers, many people travel farther to go to work than the width of Israel via the armistice lines it is now expected to return to.

Other nations fight wars and acquire territories thousands of miles away from home in the name of their own national security interests...many of those same nations now demanding that Israel once again become practically invisible on a world globe.

The enemies Israel faces--whether the latter day Arafatians of Mahmoud Abbas or Hamas--have the same end goal in mind when it comes to a Jewish State as a neighbor. There is no place for wishful thinking on this matter...especially in light of recent events in Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere.

Given all the above, please keep it in mind as the events of this momentous week of June 5th continue to unfold, and as the United Nations gets ready to try to cram Arab state # 22 down Israel's throat just a few months from now...hopefully without an American Administration supporting it.
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