Over the past few weeks I have been in a Twitter conversation with @Tweet_Palestine and it has not been a pleasant experience. @Tweet_Palestine made a lot of the usual accusations about evil Israel and the poor Palestinians. @Tweet_Palestine has not really responded to any of my examples of where he/she/they is/are mistaken, so I thought I would put all of the links I posted and some others in one giant post giving the truth about the history of Israel and what Hamas and the Palestinian Authority really think about Israel and Jews.
So let's start with Israel's size and creation on Palestinian land.
Israel's very size at creation was a result of losing land. The first map below shows the land promised to Israel as the Jewish National Home in Palestine as demarcated in the December 1920 Franco-British Boundary Convention. The second map shows the borders of the Jewish National Home in Palestine after the British cut off the eastern
77% of the demarcated borders to form Trans-Jordan. Trans-Jordan, later Jordan, is the Palestinian homeland, just as Israel is the Jewish homeland.
The truth about Jordan is that it is the Palestinian State. It was set-up in 1929 on part of the land promised by the 1917 Balfour declaration for the 'establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people'. Here's another map of the Palestinian Mandate, see how it divides between what is now Israel and what is now Jordan?
So in 1946, Transjordan became an independent state under Hashemite rule. In November 1947, the United Nations proposed to partition the remaining 22 per cent of Palestine. The territory between the Jordan River and the sea was divided into a Jewish and an Arab part. The Jewish representatives accepted the UN partition plan, but the Arab representatives refused. In an attempt to “drive all the Jews into the sea,” they began the 1948 war and lost.
The losing side did not sit back and lick their wounds, they took their revenge on the Jews in East Jerusalem and the rest of Cisjordan — the ancient provinces of Judea and Samaria — now held by Muslim forces. This entire region was ethnically cleansed of all Jews. Even the name of Judea and Samaria were wiped off the map and replaced by the term “West Bank.”
Israel, including Judea and Samaria, has been the land of the Jews since time immemorial. Judea means Land of the Jews. Never has there been an autonomous state in the area that was not Jewish. The Diaspora of the Jews, which began after their defeat by the Romans in AD 70, did not lead to the departure of all the Jews from their ancient homeland. Jews had been living in the Jordan Valley for centuries until the Arab invaders drove them out in 1948, when the provinces of Judea and Samaria were occupied by the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, which abbreviated its name to Jordan in 1950.
Note that until 1967, when Israel regained the ancient Jewish heartland of Judea and Samaria, no-one, not a single Islamic scholar or Western politician, ever demanded that there be an independent Palestinian state in the so-called West Bank.
But what of the Palestinian people; who are they? I could quote any number of historians and politicians but lest they be tarnished by being called Zionist scum, as I have been for making this point before, let's listen to a senior Palestinian:
On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organisation executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.
For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."
Read that again: "
The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.
For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva ."
Take a look back in time, until the late 1980s, Jordan’s Hashemite rulers did not deny that their country was Palestine. They said so on numerous occasions. In 1965, King Hussein said: “Those organisations which seek to differentiate between Palestinians and Jordanians are traitors.” As late as 1981, Hussein repeated “Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan.”
In March 1971, The Palestine National Council, too, stated that “what links Jordan to Palestine is a national bond […] formed, since time immemorial, by history and culture. The establishment of one political entity in Transjordan and another in Palestine is illegal.”
In 1988, as the first Intifada raged, Jordan officially renounced any claim of sovereignty to the so-called West Bank. In recent years, the Jordanian authorities have stripped thousands of Palestinians of their Jordanian citizenship. They do so for two reasons.
First, because the alien Hashemite rulers fear that the Palestinians might one day take over their own country. And second, because stripping Palestinians of their Jordanian citizenship supports the falsehood that Jordan is not a part of Palestine. And that, consequently, the Palestinians must attack Israel if they want a place of their own.
The other claim that I have made to me is that the Palestinians only want to live in peace alongside Israel and that a return to the pre-1967 borders is all that they want. Leaving aside the fact that the armies of six surrounding Arab nations tried to wipe Israel off of the map in 1948 before Israel won another defensive war in 1967, the enemies of Israel make no secret of what they want and how they intend to achieve it.
Do remember that on the same day Yasser Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn in 1993, he explained his actions on Jordan TV thus "Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel."
The removal of East Jerusalem from Israel and a general return to the 1967 borders is not the aim of Hamas, Fatah/PLO/PA or the rest of the Muslim Middle East, it is but a staging post on the way to the eventual destruction of Israel.
The following are comments made by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya on his visit to Tunisia in early January 2012. The comments were all recorded and broadcast on Al-Aqsa TV:
"I say to you now, in the capital of south Tunisia: We will never ever recognize Israel."
"The land of Palestine, oh brothers and sisters, is an Islamic, as decreed by the second caliph, Omar ibn Al-Khattab. We shall not relinquish the Islamic waqf on the land of Palestine, and Jerusalem shall not be divided into Western and Eastern Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a single united [city], and Palestine stretches from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, and from Naqoura [Rosh Ha-Niqra] to Umm Al-Rashrash [Eilat] in the south."
This is Hamas's leader in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, saying on 14 December that whilst Hamas may work for the "interim objective of liberation of Gaza, the West Bank, or Jerusalem," this in an "interim objective" and "reconciliation" with Fatah will not change Hamas' long-term "strategic" goal of eliminating all of Israel. Ismail Haniyeh also said this:
"The armed resistance and the armed struggle are the path and the strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, and for the expulsion of the invaders and usurpers [Israel]... We won't relinquish one inch of the land of Palestine."
From the sea to the river, now where have I heard that before?
Oh yes, remember that every time someone chants "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" they are calling for the destruction of Israel, the ending of the Jewish state. The river is the Jordan, the sea is the Mediterranean; from the river to the sea is not calling for a two state solution, it is calling for the destruction of Israel.
Two days after Ismail Haniyeh's speech, the Palestinian Authority's Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said that Hamas leader abroad Khaled Mashaal had agreed that:
"There will be no military resistance."
"The permanent solution is on the '67 borders."
According to Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas had agreed to a permanent solution based on the 1967 borders. However, Haniyeh said that Hamas agrees to a temporary solution on the 1967 borders as a first stage only.
Who to believe?
Before you say Mahmoud Abbas, remember that for many years, the PLO itself promoted a "stages plan" that would first create a Palestinian state on the 1949 - 1967 armistice lines, and then work from that position to destroy Israel. Indeed senior Fatah official Abbas Zaki recently stated that this remains the goal for Fatah as well, but that "you can't say it to the world. You can say it to yourself."...
The west listens to and believes what Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas say about wanting a two state solution and a return to 1967 borders because that fits in with their world view of an evil Jewish state stealing land from poor Palestinians. The truth is some way from this narrative but the western media, especially the BBC, just don't care; facts will not be allowed to intrude into this narrative.
So the next time you hear a Palestinian spokesman saying they want to live in peace with Israel or a BBC Middle East 'expert' explaining how Hamas and the PLO have changed and really do want peace with Israel, remember that it's all lies. Hamas and Fatah/PLO want to destroy Israel, they claim all of the land that Israel stands on and the return to 1967 borders is but the first step on the path to destroying Israel and killing all Jews.
Another question that springs to mind when people say that the Palestinians want their land back is what was the case between 1948 and 1967. In 1948 Jordan 'occupied' the 'West Bank' whilst Egypt 'occupied' the Gaza Strip. Were there any protests by 'Palestinians' against these foreign occupations? I suppose an alternative question would be why was no Palestinian state formed in the West Bank and Gaza in 1949? Could it be that Zahir Muhsein was telling the truth?
A line that @Tweet_Palestine and others push is that the Jews are immigrants to a previously Muslim Palestine. Let's examine that claim and start with Jerusalem
Jerusalem was the capital of a Jewish state from around 1000BC until the Jews were expelled one, two or more times. When the State of Israel was created in 1948, it was alongside Jerusalem as a 'corpus separatum under the administration of the UN.' aka an international city. This regime was to remain in force for a period of ten years, whereupon a referendum was to be held in which the residents were to decide the future ownership of their city. This plan was superseded by the 1948 war when the armies of four or more Muslim states tried to wipe Israel off the map and drive all the Jews, who could not be killed, into the sea. The Arab Legion attacked Western Jerusalem and at the end of the 1948 war Israel controlled the newer western part of Jerusalem and Jordan the older east, including the main religious sites.
From 1948 until 1967 the Jordanians expelled Jews from Jerusalem, destroyed many synagogues and some churches and refused access to religious sites to most Jews and many Christians.
By way of contrast since 1967 Israel has not restricted access for Muslims to the Dome of the Rock or the Al-Aqsa Mosque despite them being partly built on top of the site of 'the Temple'; what would be the holiest site in Judaism had it not been destroyed. Indeed the Western ('Wailing') Wall is all that remains of the Second Temple.
Let's look back to the time when Israel was finally formed in the aftermath of the Second World War. This was a time of great population transfers in Eastern Europe, between India & Pakistan and elsewhere; yet only in Israel/Palestine are the displaced still considered refugees. In 1948 over a million Hindus fled Pakistan and a similar number of Muslims left India for Pakistan. Both populations were absorbed by their new countries. In the same region, large population transfers happened when Bangladesh was created. Likewise ethnic Germans were expelled from Central & Eastern Europe and so had to assimilate into Germany. Meanwhile Hungarian refugees from Czechoslovakia and other places found sanctuary in Hungary, Ukrainians who were expelled from Poland found sanctuary in Ukraine, and so on.
Meanwhile In the Middle East 750,000 Jews were expelled form their homes in Arab countries and were absorbed into Israel. Why were the 'Palestinians' not absorbed into Jordan, Syria, Egypt & The Lebanon? The Palestinians talk about the 'right of return' and their right to live in their ancestral homes again. Does the same right exist for the Jews forced to flee Iraq, Egypt, Syria and other Arab countries? The value of the assets these Jews left behind has been valued at today's prices at around $300 billion. A US based organization has decades-old property deeds of Jews from Arab countries on a total area of 100,000 sq.km. - which is five times the size of the State of Israel.
So why did the Arab countries not absorb the Palestinian refugees? In 1959, the Arab League passed Resolution 1457, which stated thus:
'The Arab countries will not grant citizenship to applicants of Palestinian origin in order to prevent their assimilation into the host countries.'
So the Palestinian refugees are not permanent refugees because of Israel's actions but because of a decision taken by the Arab League. Thus the accepted narrative that heaps blame on Israel because it expelled the refugees is actually not true.
Remember that I started this post by explaining that Israel lost around 77% of what was promised to the Jewish people for a homeland and now exists on a sliver of land surrounded by far larger Muslim countries why should Israel be further reduced in size? Do you realise how small Israel is? Why should the Jews not be allowed to keep one small portion of the land they were promised in the Balfour Declaration? If you listen to the BBC and The Guardian you would think Israel occupied (pun intended) an enormous part of the Middle East; here's a map to illustrate the truth; can you spot Israel amongst it's Muslim neighbours?
Let's take another quick look at the claim that the Palestinians only want a return to the pre-1967 borders, a claim that Barack Obama and others seem happy to swallow.
I'll begin with a reminder of the words of the then Fatah leader, Yasser Arafat on the same day that he signed the Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn in 1993, he explained his actions on Jordan TV thus "Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel."
A return to 1967 borders for Israel is not the aim of Hamas, Fatah and the rest, it is a staging post on the way to the destruction of Israel.
The surrounding Arab countries attacked the new born state of Israel in 1948 declaring that they would drive all Jews into the sea. They failed and for that any sane person would give thanks but why did they attack were they demanding a return to the pre-1967 borders? In 1967 the same neighbours of Israel mustered forces ready to attack and destroy Israel again, once again they failed and in defeating the aggressors, Israel captured various territory. Why did the Arab countries attack Israel, were they demanding a return to the borders of 1967?
Land captured in a defensive war is normally kept not surrendered back to the aggressors but in Israel's case this seems not be the case.
In 1973, on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, the Muslim countries attacked Israel again and were defeated again, Israel captured more land from Egypt and Syria in another defensive war. Were the Arab countries in 1973 calling for a return to 1967 borders?
So despite the evidence of three wars started by Muslim countries to destroy Israel we are expected to believe that now the Palestinians just want peace so long as Israel returns to its pre-1967 borders. We are meant to ignore the words of Yasser Arafat in the past as quoted above but also of current Hamas leaders like Nizar Rayan, Hamas religious and military leader, who said on 1 Jan 2009
"Regarding the Jews, our business with them is only through bombs and guns... the prophet [Muhammad] promised that we will fight you, with Allah's help, until the tree and stone say: "Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him."
How about Fatah's 1968 Charter:
'– In the Palestinian state only Jews who lived in Palestine before 1917 will be recognized as citizens [Article 6]:
– Only the Palestinian Arabs possess the right of self-determination, and the entire country belongs to them [Articles 3 and 21].
– Any solution that does not involve total liberation of the country is rejected. This aim cannot be achieved politically; it can only be accomplished militarily [Articles 9 & 21].
– Warfare against Israel is legal, whereas Israel's self-defence is illegal [Article 18].'
That 1968 Charter does not call for Israel to return to 1967 borders it calls for 'the entire country' to return to Palestinian control.
Barack Obama should know this history but maybe his upbringing as a child in Indonesia and then as a knowing adult in the church of Jeremiah Wright may have affected him. In case he or you need reminding here are some facts about the state of Israel and Palestine.
If after all this you still believe that Hamas and Fatah just want Israel to return to 1967 borders then here is a question for you: if this is the case then why do Fatah and Hamas incessantly show maps (in schools, on TV, on logos, in government literature) that contain no mention of Israel just Palestine occupying the whole area of Israel and the Palestinian territories? If Fatah and Hamas want a return to 1967 orders then why do they not recognise those borders in their own literature and propaganda?
Here are a few examples
Maybe you'd like instead to read the lyrics of a song played regularly on PA TV that runs:
"Jaffa, Acre, Haifa, and Nazareth are ours.
[I] Muhammad sing about the Galilee and the Golan (Heights).
Jaffa, Acre, Haifa and Nazareth are ours.
[I] Kabha sing about the Galilee and the Golan (Heights).
From Bethlehem to Jenin is Palestinian,
Ramle, Lod and Sakhnin are Palestinian.
Nowhere is more beautiful than Jerusalem;
no matter how much we travel
From Safed to Al-Badhan (near Nablus) is Palestinian;
Tiberias and Ashkelon are Palestinian."
You can see the song being sung
here. Not much interest in a return to 1967 borders there is there?
Over and over again Hamas, Fatah and others have stated that they want Israel destroyed, Jews killed and one Palestinian state in its place. Yet still we are expected to believe that a return to 1967 borders is all that is wanted.
@Tweet_Palestine claimed, as do many others, that Hamas and their ilk have no problem with (or hatred of Jews) just with Israel and Zionists. Let's examine the evidence:
Influential Islamic scholars Muhammad Tantawi, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Cairo, the most prestigious centre of Muslim learning, call Jews “enemies of Allah.” Tantawi was generally considered a moderate by the Western media and policy makers. But how did this “moderate” address a delegation of Palestinian Muslims who visited him in 2002?
He urged them to intensify suicide attacks against Israelis, stating that every so-called “martyrdom operation” against “any Israeli, including children, women, and teenagers, is a legitimate act according to [Islamic] religious law, and an Islamic commandment, until the people of Palestine regain their land.”
Here are some excerpts from a Friday sermon in Al-Bireh, the Palestinian West Bank, which aired on Palestinian Authority TV on January 6, 2012.
'Preacher: "Oh servants of Allah, every evil and catastrophe on the land of Palestine – moreover, in the whole world – is caused by the Jews.
"They generate civil strife with their clandestine handiwork, their despicable texts, their bitter hearts, and their abominable intentions.
"Allah said: 'Whenever they kindle the fire of war, Allah extinguishes it, but they strive to do mischief on earth. Allah loves not those who do mischief.' This is the history of the Jews.'
Excerpts from footage of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya's visit to Tunisia, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV was posted on the Internet on January 5-10, 2012. This is a transcript:
'Crowd: "The people want the liberation of Palestine.
"The people want the liberation of Palestine."
Crowd member: "Killing the Jews…"
Crowd: "…is a duty."
Crowd member: "Killing the Jews…"
Crowd: "…is a duty."
Crowd member: "Driving out the Jews…"
Crowd: "…is a duty."
Crowd member: "Driving out the Jews…"
Crowd: "…is a duty."
Crowd member: "Crushing the Jews…"
Crowd: "…is a duty."
Crowd member: "Crushing the Jews…"
Crowd: "…is a duty." […] '
So do the preacher and the crowd hate Israel or Jews?
This post has taken quite some time to put together; I hope that @Tweet_Palestine managed to make it through the whole post and has learnt something as a result.
