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Top Ten Myths about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict plus the top 10 Hasbara points of rebuttal - Magda Hassan - 01-10-2011
Top Ten Myths about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict[h=2]
by Jeremy R. Hammond
June 17, 2010
Myth #1 Jews and Arabs have always been in conflict in the region.[/h]Although Arabs were a majority in Palestine prior to the creation of the state of Israel, there had always been a Jewish population, as well. For [COLOR=#009900 !important]the most[/COLOR]part, Jewish Palestinians got along with their Arab neighbors. This began to change with the onset of the Zionist movement, because the Zionists rejected the right of the Palestinians to self-determination and wanted Palestine for their own, to create a "Jewish State" in a region where Arabs were the majority and owned most of the land.For instance, after a series of riots in Jaffa in 1921 resulting in the deaths of 47 Jews and 48 Arabs, the occupying British held a commission of inquiry, which reported their finding that "there is no inherent anti-Semitism in the country, racial or religious." Rather, Arab attacks on Jewish communities were the result of Arab fears about the stated goal of the Zionists to take over the land.After major violence again erupted in 1929, the British Shaw Commission report noted that "In less than 10 years three serious attacks have been made by Arabs on Jews. For 80 years before the first of these attacks there is no recorded instance of any similar incidents." Representatives from all sides of the emerging conflict testified to the commission that prior to the First World War, "the Jews and Arabs lived side by side if not in amity, at least with tolerance, a quality which today is almost unknown in Palestine." The problem was that "The Arab people of Palestine are today united in their demand for representative government", but were being denied that right by the Zionists and their British benefactors.The British Hope-Simpson report of 1930 similarly noted that Jewish residents of non-Zionist communities in Palestine enjoyed friendship with their Arab neighbors. "It is quite a common sight to see an Arab sitting in the verandah of a Jewish house", the report noted. "The position is entirely different in the Zionist colonies."
Myth #2 The United Nations created Israel.
The U.N. became involved when the British sought to wash its hands of the volatile situation its policies had helped to create, and to extricate itself from Palestine. To that end, they requested that the U.N. take up the matter.As a result, a U.N. Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) was created to examine the issue and offer its recommendation on how to resolve the conflict. UNSCOP contained no representatives from any Arab country and in the end issued a report that explicitly rejected the right of the Palestinians to self-determination. Rejecting the democratic solution to the conflict, UNSCOP instead proposed that Palestine be partitioned into two states: one Arab and one Jewish.The U.N. General Assembly endorsed UNSCOP's in its Resolution 181. It is often claimed that this resolution "partitioned" Palestine, or that it provided Zionist leaders with a legal mandate for their subsequent declaration of the existence of the state of Israel, or some other similar variation on the theme. All such claims are absolutely false.Resolution 181 merely endorsed UNSCOP's report and conclusions as arecommendation. Needless to say, for Palestine to have been officially partitioned, this recommendation would have had to have been accepted by both Jews and Arabs, which it was not.Moreover, General Assembly resolutions are not considered legally binding (only Security Council resolutions are). And, furthermore, the U.N. would have had no authority to take land from one people and hand it over to another, and any such resolution seeking to so partition Palestine would have been null and void, anyway.Myth #3 The Arabs missed an opportunity to have their own state in 1947.
The U.N. recommendation to partition Palestine was rejected by the Arabs. Many commentators today point to this rejection as constituting a missed "opportunity" for the Arabs to have had their own state. But characterizing this as an "opportunity" for the Arabs is patently ridiculous. The Partition plan was in no way, shape, or form an "opportunity" for the Arabs.First of all, as already noted, Arabs were a large majority in Palestine at the time, with Jews making up about a third of the population by then, due to massive immigration of Jews from [COLOR=#009900 !important]Europe[/COLOR] (in 1922, by contrast, a British census showed that Jews represented only about 11 percent of the population).Additionally, land ownership statistics from 1945 showed that Arabs owned more land than Jews in every single district of Palestine, including Jaffa, where Arabs owned 47 percent of the land while Jews owned 39 percent and Jaffa boasted the highest percentage of Jewish-owned land of any district. In other districts, Arabs owned an even larger portion of the land. At the extreme other end, for instance, in Ramallah, Arabs owned 99 percent of the land. In the whole of Palestine, Arabs owned 85 percent of the land, while Jews owned less than 7 percent, which remained the case up until the time of Israel's creation.Yet, despite these facts, the U.N. partition recommendation had called for more than half of the land of Palestine to be given to the Zionists for their "Jewish State". The truth is that no Arab could be reasonably expected to accept such an unjust proposal. For political commentators today to describe the Arabs' refusal to accept a recommendation that their land be taken away from them, premised upon the explicit rejection of their right to self-determination, as a "missed opportunity" represents either an astounding ignorance of the roots of the conflict or an unwillingness to look honestly at its history.It should also be noted that the partition plan was also rejected by many Zionist leaders. Among those who supported the idea, which included David Ben-Gurion, their reasoning was that this would be a pragmatic step towards their goal of acquiring the whole of Palestine for a "Jewish State" something which could be finally accomplished later through force of arms.When the idea of partition was first raised years earlier, for instance, Ben-Gurion had written that "after we become a strong force, as the result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine". Partition should be accepted, he argued, "to prepare the ground for our expansion into the whole of Palestine". The Jewish State would then "have to preserve order", if the Arabs would not acquiesce, "by machine guns, if necessary."Myth #4 Israel has a "right to exist".
The fact that this term is used exclusively with regard to Israel is instructive as to its legitimacy, as is the fact that the demand is placed upon Palestinians to recognize Israel's "right to exist", while no similar demand is placed upon Israelis to recognize the "right to exist" of a Palestinian state.Nations don't have rights, people do. The proper framework for discussion is within that of the right of all peoples to self-determination. Seen in this, the proper framework, it is an elementary observation that it is not the Arabs which have denied Jews that right, but the Jews which have denied that right to the Arabs. The terminology of Israel's "right to exist" is constantly employed to obfuscate that fact.As already noted, Israel was not created by the U.N., but came into being on May 14, 1948, when the Zionist leadership unilaterally, and with no legal authority, declared Israel's existence, with no specification as to the extent of the new state's borders. In a moment, the Zionists had declared that Arabs no longer the owners of their land it now belonged to the Jews. In an instant, the Zionists had declared that the majority Arabs of Palestine were now second-class citizens in the new "Jewish State".The Arabs, needless to say, did not passively accept this development, and neighboring Arab countries declared war on the Zionist regime in order to prevent such a grave injustice against the majority inhabitants of Palestine.It must be emphasized that the Zionists had no right to most of the land they declared as part of Israel, while the Arabs did. This war, therefore, was not, as is commonly asserted in mainstream commentary, an act of aggression by the Arab states against Israel. Rather, the Arabs were acting in defense of their rights, to prevent the Zionists from illegally and unjustly taking over Arab lands and otherwise disenfranchising the Arab population. The act of aggression was the Zionist leadership's unilateral declaration of the existence of Israel, and the Zionists' use of violence to enforce their aims both prior to and subsequent to that declaration.In the course of the war that ensued, Israel implemented a policy of ethnic[COLOR=#009900 !important]cleansing[/COLOR]. 700,000 Arab Palestinians were either forced from their homes or fled out of fear of further massacres, such as had occurred in the village of Deir Yassin shortly before the Zionist declaration. These Palestinians have never been allowed [COLOR=#009900 !important]to return[/COLOR] to their homes and land, despite it being internationally recognized and encoded in international law that such refugees have an inherent "right of return".Palestinians will never agree to the demand made of them by Israel and its main benefactor, the U.S., to recognize Israel's "right to exist". To do so is effectively to claim that Israel had a "right" to take Arab land, while Arabs had no right to their own land. It is effectively to claim that Israel had a "right" to ethnically cleanse Palestine, while Arabs had no [COLOR=#009900 !important]right to life[/COLOR], liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in their own homes, on their own land.The constant use of the term "right to exist" in discourse today serves one specific purpose: It is designed to obfuscate the reality that it is the Jews that have denied the Arab right to self-determination, and not vice versa, and to otherwise attempt to legitimize Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, both historical and contemporary.Myth #5 The Arab nations threatened Israel with annihilation in 1967 and 1973
The fact of the matter is that it was Israel that fired the first shot of the "Six Day War". Early on the morning of June 5, Israel launched fighters in asurprise attack on Egypt (then the United Arab Republic), and successfully decimated the Egyptian air force while most of its planes were still on the ground.It is virtually obligatory for this attack to be described by commentators today as "preemptive". But to have been "preemptive", by definition, there must have been an imminent threat of Egyptian aggression against Israel. Yet there was none.It is commonly claimed that President Nasser's bellicose rhetoric, blockade of the Straits of Tiran, movement of troops into the Sinai Peninsula, and expulsion of U.N. peacekeeping forces from its side of the border collectively constituted such an imminent threat.Yet, both U.S. and Israeli intelligence assessed at the time that the likelihood Nasser would actually attack was low. The CIA assessed that Israel had overwhelming superiority in force of arms, and would, in the event of a war, defeat the Arab forces within two weeks; within a week if Israel attacked first, which is what actually occurred.It must be kept in mind that Egypt had been the victim of aggression by the British, French, and Israelis in the 1956 "Suez Crisis", following Egypt's nationalization of the Suez Canal. In that war, the three aggressor nations conspired to wage war upon Egypt, which resulted in an Israeli occupation of the Sinai Peninsula. Under U.S. pressure, Israel withdrew from the Sinai in 1957, but Egypt had not forgotten the Israeli aggression.Moreover, Egypt had formed a loose alliance with Syria and Jordan, with each pledging to come to the aid of the others in the event of a war with Israel. Jordan had criticized Nasser for not living up to that pledge after the Israeli attack on West [COLOR=#009900 !important]Bank[/COLOR] village of Samu the year before, and his rhetoric was a transparent attempt to regain face in the Arab world.That Nasser's positioning was defensive, rather than projecting an intention to wage an offensive against Israel, was well recognized among prominent Israelis. As Avraham Sela of the Shalem Center has observed, "The Egyptian buildup in Sinai lacked a clear offensive plan, and Nasser's defensive[COLOR=#009900 !important]instructions[/COLOR] explicitly assumed an Israeli first strike."Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin acknowledged that "In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him."Yitzhak Rabin, who would also later become Prime Minister of Israel, admitted in 1968 that "I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it."Israelis have also acknowledged that their own rhetoric at the time about the "threat" of "annihilation" from the Arab states was pure propaganda.General Chaim Herzog, commanding general and first military governor of the occupied West Bank following the war, admitted that "There was no danger of annihilation. Israeli headquarters never believed in this danger."General Ezer Weizman similarly said, "There was never a danger of extermination. This hypothesis had never been considered in any serious meeting."[COLOR=#009900 !important]Chief of Staff[/COLOR] Haim Bar-Lev acknowledged, "We were not threatened with genocide on the eve of the Six-Day War, and we had never thought of such possibility."Israeli Minister of Housing Mordechai Bentov has also acknowledged that "The entire story of the danger of extermination was invented in every detail, and exaggerated a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territory."In 1973, in what Israelis call the "Yom Kippur War", Egypt and Syria launched a surprise offensive to retake the Sinai and the Golan Heights, respectively. This joint action is popularly described in contemporaneous accounts as an "invasion" of or act of "aggression" against Israel.Yet, as already noted, following the June '67 war, the U.N. Security Council passed resolution 242 calling upon Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. Israel, needless to say, refused to do so and has remained in perpetual violation of international law ever since.
During the 1973 war, Egypt and Syria thus "invaded" their own territory, then under illegal occupation by Israel. The corollary of the description of this war as an act of Arab aggression implicitly assumes that the Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights, West Bank, and Gaza Strip were Israeli territory. This is, needless to say, a grossly false assumption that demonstrates the absolutely prejudicial and biased nature of mainstream commentary when it comes to the Israeli-Arab conflict.
This false narrative fits in with the larger overall narrative, equally fallacious, of Israeli as the "victim" of Arab intransigence and aggression. This narrative, largely unquestioned in the West, flips reality on its head.
Myth #6 U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 called only for a partial Israeli withdrawal.
Resolution 242 was passed [COLOR=#009900 !important]in the wake[/COLOR] of the June '67 war and called for the "Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict." While the above argument enjoys widespread popularity, it has no merit whatsoever.The central thesis of this argument is that the absence of the word "the" before "occupied territories" in that clause means not "all of the occupied territories" were intended. Essentially, this argument rests upon the ridiculous logic that because the word "the" was omitted from the clause, we may therefore understand this to mean that "some of the occupied territories" was the intended meaning.Grammatically, the absence of the word "the" has no effect on [COLOR=#009900 !important]the meaning of[/COLOR]this clause, which refers to "territories", plural. A simple litmus test question is: Is it territory that was occupied by Israel in the '67 war? If yes, then, under international [COLOR=#009900 !important]law and[/COLOR] Resolution 242, Israel is required to withdraw from that territory. Such territories include the Syrian Golan Heights, the West [COLOR=#009900 !important]Bank[/COLOR], and the Gaza Strip.The French version of the resolution, equally authentic as the English, contains the definite article, and a majority of the members of the Security Council made clear during deliberations that their understanding of the resolution was that it would require Israel to fully withdraw from all occupied territories.Additionally, it is impossible to reconcile with the principle of international law cited in the preamble to the resolution, of "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war". To say that the U.N. intended that Israel could retain some of the territory it occupied during the war would fly in the face of this cited principle.One could go on to address various other logical fallacies associated with this frivolous argument, but as it is absurd on its face, it would be superfluous to do so.Myth #7 Israeli military action against its neighbors is only taken to defend itself against terrorism.
The facts tell another story. Take, for instance, the devastating 1982 Israeli war on Lebanon. As political analyst Noam Chomsky extensively documents in his epic analysis "The Fateful Triangle", this military offensive was carried out with barely even the thinnest veil of a pretext.While one may read contemporary accounts insisting this war was fought in response to a constant shelling of northern Israeli by the PLO, then based in Lebanon, the truth is that, despite continuous Israeli provocations, the PLO had with only a few exceptions abided by a cease-fire that had been in place. Moreover, in each of those instances, it was Israel that had first violated the cease-fire.Among the Israeli provocations, throughout early 1982, it attacked and sank Lebanese fishing boats and otherwise committed hundreds of violations of Lebanese territorial waters. It committed thousands of violations of Lebanese airspace, yet never did manage to provoke the PLO response it sought to serve as the casus belli for the planned invasion of Lebanon.On May 9, Israel bombed Lebanon, an act that was finally met with a PLO response when it launched rocket and artillery fire into Israel.Then a terrorist group headed by Abu Nidal attempted to assassinate Israeli Ambassador Shlomo Argov in [COLOR=#009900 !important]London[/COLOR]. Although the PLO itself had been at war with Abu Nidal, who had been condemned to death by a Fatah military tribunal in 1973, and despite the fact that Abu Nidal was not based in Lebanon, Israel cited this event as a pretext to bomb the Sabra and Shatila refugee [COLOR=#009900 !important]camps[/COLOR], killing 200 Palestinians. The PLO responded by shelling settlements in northern Israel. Yet Israel did not manage to provoke the kind of larger-scale response it was looking to use as a casus belli for its planned invasion.As Israeli scholar Yehoshua Porath has suggested, Israel's decision to invade Lebanon, far from being a response to PLO attacks, rather "flowed from the very fact that the cease-fire had been observed". Writing in the Israeli dailyHaaretz, Porath assessed that "The government's hope is that the stricken PLO, lacking a [COLOR=#009900 !important]logistic[/COLOR] and territorial base, will return to its earlier terrorism…. In this way, the PLO will lose part of the political legitimacy that it has gained … undercutting the danger that elements will develop among the Palestinians that might become a legitimate negotiating partner for future political [COLOR=#009900 !important]accommodations[/COLOR]."As another example, take Israel's Operation Cast Lead from December 27, 2008 to January 18, 2009. Prior to Israel's assault on the besieged and defenseless population of the Gaza Strip, Israel had entered into a cease-fire agreement with the governing authority there, Hamas. Contrary to popular myth, it was Israel, not Hamas, who ended the cease-fire.The pretext for Operation Cast Lead is obligatorily described in Western media accounts as being the "thousands" of rockets that Hamas had been firing into Israel prior to the offensive, in violation of the cease-fire.The truth is that from the start of the cease-fire in June until November 4, Hamas fired no rockets, despite numerous provocations from Israel, including stepped-up operations in the West [COLOR=#009900 !important]Bank[/COLOR] and Israeli soldiers taking pop-shots at Gazans across the border, resulting in several injuries and at least one death.On November 4, it was again Israel who violated the cease-fire, with airstrikes and a ground invasion of Gaza that resulted in further deaths. Hamas finally responded with rocket fire, and from that point on the cease-fire was effectively over, with daily tit-for-tat attacks from both sides.Despite Israel's lack of good faith, Hamas offered to renew the cease-fire from the time it was set to officially expire in December. Israel rejected the offer, preferring instead to inflict violent collective punishment on the people of Gaza.As the Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center noted, the truce "brought relative quiet to the western Negev population", with 329 rocket and mortar attacks, "most of them during the month and a half after November 4″, when Israel had violated and effectively ended the truce. This stands in remarkable contrast to the 2,278 rocket and mortar attacks in the six months prior to the truce. Until November 4, the center also observed, "Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire."If Israel had desired to continue to mitigate the threat of Palestinian militant rocket attacks, it would have simply not ended the cease-fire, which was very highly effective in reducing the number of such attacks, including eliminating all such attacks by Hamas. It would not have instead resorted to violence, predictably resulting in a greatly escalated threat of retaliatory rocket and mortar attacks from Palestinian militant groups.Moreover, even if Israel could claim that peaceful means had been exhausted and that a [COLOR=#009900 !important]resort[/COLOR] military force to act in self-defense to defend its civilian population was necessary, that is demonstrably not what occurred. Instead, Israel deliberately targeted the civilian population of Gaza with systematic and deliberate disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks on residential areas, hospitals, schools, and other locations with protected civilian status under international law.As the respected international jurist who headed up the United Nations investigation into the assault, Richard Goldstone, has observed, the means by which Israel carried out Operation Cast Lead were not consistent with its stated aims, but was rather more indicative of a deliberate act of collective punishment of the civilian population.Myth #8 God gave the land to the Jews, so the Arabs are the occupiers.
No amount of discussion of the facts on the ground will ever convince many Jews and [COLOR=#009900 !important]Christians[/COLOR] that Israel could ever do wrong, because they view its actions as having the hand of God behind it, and that its policies are in fact the[COLOR=#009900 !important]will of God[/COLOR]. They believe that God gave the land of Palestine, including the West [COLOR=#009900 !important]Bank[/COLOR] and Gaza Strip, to the Jewish people, and therefore Israel has a "right" to take it by force from the Palestinians, who, in this view, are the wrongful occupiers of the land.But one may simply turn to the pages of their own holy books to demonstrate the fallaciousness of this or similar beliefs. Christian Zionists are fond of quoting passages [COLOR=#009900 !important]from the Bible[/COLOR] such as the following to support their Zionist beliefs:"And Yahweh said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of [COLOR=#009900 !important]the earth[/COLOR]; so that if a man could number the dust of the[COLOR=#009900 !important]earth[/COLOR], then your descendants could also be numbered. Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you." (Genesis 13:14-17)"Then Yahweh appeared to him and said: Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I shall tell you. Dwell in the land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father." (Genesis 26: 1-3)"And behold, Yahweh stood above it and said: I am Yahweh, God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants." (Genesis 28:13)Yet Christian Zionists conveniently disregard other passages providing further context for understanding this covenant, such as the following:"You shall therefore keep all My statutes and all My judgments, and perform them, that the land where I am bringing you to dwell may not vomit you out." (Leviticus 20:22)"But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments … but break My covenant … I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste … You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up." (Leviticus 26: 14, 15, 32-33, 28)"Therefore Yahweh was very angry with Israel, and removed them from His sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah alone…. So Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria, as it is to this day." (2 Kings 17:18, 23)"And I said, after [Israel] had done all these things, Return to Me.' But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also." (Jeremiah 3: 7-8)Yes, in [COLOR=#009900 !important]the Bible[/COLOR], Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, told the Hebrews that the land could be theirs if they would obey his commandments. Yet, as the Bible tells the story, the Hebrews were rebellious against Yahweh in all their generations.What Jewish and Christian Zionists omit from their Biblical arguments in favor of continued Israel occupation is that Yahweh also told the Hebrews, including the tribe of Judah (from whom the "Jews" are descended), that he would remove them from the land if they broke the covenant by rebelling against his commandments, which is precisely what occurs in the Bible.Thus, the theological argument for Zionism is not only bunk from a secular point of view, but is also a wholesale fabrication from a scriptural perspective, representing a continued rebelliousness against Yahweh and his Torah, and the teachings of Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus the Christ) in the New Testament.Myth #9 Palestinians reject the two-state solution because they want to destroy Israel.
In an enormous concession to Israel, Palestinians have long accepted the two-state solution. The elected representatives of the Palestinian people in Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had since the 70s recognized the state of Israel and accepted the two-state solution to the conflict. Despite this, Western media continued through the 90s to report that the PLO rejected this solution and instead wanted to wipe Israel off the map.The pattern has been repeated since Hamas was voted into power in the 2006 Palestinian [COLOR=#009900 !important]elections[/COLOR]. Although Hamas has for years accepted the reality of the state of Israel and demonstrated a willingness to accept a Palestinian state in the West [COLOR=#009900 !important]Bank[/COLOR] and Gaza Strip alongside Israel, it is virtually obligatory for Western mainstream media, even today, to report that Hamas rejects the two-state solution, that it instead seeks "to destroy Israel".In fact, in early 2004, shortly before he was assassinated by Israel, Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin said that Hamas could accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Hamas has since repeatedly reiterated its willingness to accept a two-state solution.In early 2005, Hamas issued a document stating its goal of seeking a Palestinian state alongside Israel and recognizing the 1967 borders.The exiled head of the political bureau of Hamas, Khalid Mish'al, wrote in the[COLOR=#009900 !important]London[/COLOR] Guardian in January 2006 that Hamas was "ready to make a just peace". He wrote that "We shall never recognize the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights…. But if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms."During the campaigning for the 2006 elections, the top Hamas official in Gaza, Mahmoud al-Zahar said that Hamas was ready to "accept to establish our independent state on the area occupied [in] '67″, a tacit recognition of the state of Israel.The elected prime minister from Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, said in February 2006 that Hamas accepted "the establishment of a Palestinian state" within the "1967 borders".In April 2008, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter met with Hamas officials and afterward stated that Hamas "would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders" and would "accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbor next door in peace". It was Hamas' "ultimate goal to see Israel living in their allocated borders, the 1967 borders, and a contiguous, vital Palestinian state alongside."That same month Hamas leader Meshal said, "We have offered a truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, a truce of 10 years as a proof of recognition."In 2009, Meshal said that Hamas "has accepted a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders".Hamas' shift in policy away from total rejection of the existence of the state of Israel towards acceptance of the international consensus on a two-state solution to the conflict is in no small part a reflection of the will of the Palestinian public. A public [COLOR=#009900 !important]opinion survey[/COLOR] from April of last year, for instance, found that three out of four Palestinians were willing to accept a two-state solution.Myth #10 The U.S. is an honest broker and has sought to bring about peace in the Middle East.
Rhetoric aside, the U.S. supports Israel's policies, including its illegal occupation and other violations of international humanitarian law. It supports Israel's criminal policies financially, militarily, and diplomatically.The Obama administration, for example, stated publically that it was opposed to Israel's settlement policy and ostensibly "pressured" Israel to freeze colonization activities. Yet very early on, the administration announced that it would not cut back [COLOR=#009900 !important]financial[/COLOR] or military aid to Israel, even if it defied international [COLOR=#009900 !important]law and[/COLOR] continued settlement construction. That message was perfectly well understood by the Netanyahu government in Israel, which continued its colonization policies.To cite another straightforward example, both the U.S. [COLOR=#009900 !important]House[/COLOR] of Representatives and the Senate passed resolutions openly declaring support for Israel's Operation Cast Lead, despite a constant [COLOR=#009900 !important]stream[/COLOR] of reports evidencing Israeli war crimes.On the day the U.S. Senate passed its resolution "reaffirming the United States' strong support for Israel in its battle with Hamas" (January 8, 2009), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a statement demanding that Israel allow it to assist victims of the conflict because the Israeli military had blocked access to wounded Palestinians a war crime under international law.That same day, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement condemning Israel for firing on a U.N. aid convoy delivering humanitarian supplies to Gaza and for the killing of two U.N. staff members both further war crimes.On the day that the House passed its own version of the resolution, the U.N. announced that it had had to stop humanitarian work in Gaza because of numerous incidents in which its staff, convoys, and installations, including clinics and schools, had come under Israeli attack.U.S. financial support for Israel surpasses $3 billion annually. When Israel waged a war to punish the defenseless civilian population of Gaza, its pilots flew U.S.-made F-16 fighter-bombers and Apache helicopter gunships, dropping U.S.-made bombs, including the use of white phosphorus munitions in violation of international law.U.S. diplomatic support for Israeli crimes includes its use of the veto power in the U.N. Security Council. When Israel was waging a devastating war against the civilian population and infrastructure of Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the U.S. vetoed a cease-fire resolution.As Israel was waging Operation Cast Lead, the U.S. delayed the passage of a resolution calling for an end to the violence, and then abstained rather than criticize Israel once it finally allowed the resolution to be put to a vote.When the U.N. Human Rights Council officially adopted the findings and recommendations of its investigation into war crimes during Operation Cast Lead, headed up by Richard Goldstone, the U.S. responded by announcing its intention to block any effort to have the Security Council similarly adopt its conclusions and recommendations. The U.S. Congress passed a resolution rejecting the Goldstone report because it found that Israel had committed war crimes.Through its virtually unconditional support for Israel, the U.S. has effectively blocked any steps to implement the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The so-called "peace process" has for many decades consisted of U.S. and Israeli rejection Palestinian self-determination and blocking of any viable Palestinian state.Source
Top Ten Myths about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict plus the top 10 Hasbara points of rebuttal - Magda Hassan - 01-10-2011
Top ten myths about Israel and the Middle East conflict
Myth #1: Jews have no historic connection to Israel/Palestine.
A key element of Arab and anti-Zionist attacks on Israel is the notion that the Jewish presence in the country is a remnant of 19th century imperialism in which Europeans colonized and exploited parts of the third world. But far from being outsiders there, the Jewish ties date back 4,000 years to the very beginning of Jewish history recounted in [COLOR=#009900 !important]the Bible[/COLOR] and verified by much of the evidence of archeology that has been discovered.
Though the Romans expelled most of the Jewish population from the country, Jewish settlement continued without interruption throughout the last 2,000 years. In all this time, the Land of Israel remained a constant in thoughts and the hearts of Jews throughout the world, as it was remembered in their daily prayers and in their dreams.
Myth #2: Jews have no unique claim to the ancient and holy city of[COLOR=#009900 !important]Jerusalem[/COLOR].
Though both Christianity and Islam have holy sites in the city, the Jewish ties predate that of any other existing religion. King David madeJerusalem the capital of Israel 3,000 years ago 1,700 years before Islam was even founded. Jerusalem never served as even a provincial capital during the centuries of Muslim rule. The entire city is sacred to Jews; only the Dome of the Rock has religious significance to Muslims. Moreover, in the modern era, Jews have been the majority of the population of the city since the 1840s.
As for freedom of worship, the only period during which all faiths have been free to worship in peace has been since 1967 when the city became unified under Israeli sovereignty.
Myth #3: The Zionist movement was never prepared to share the land.
From the very start of the Jewish return to their historic homeland in the late 19th century, it has never been the goal of the Zionist movement to uproot the Arab population or to create a state where only Jews could live. In 1922, the League of Nations' Mandate for Palestine was partitioned by Britain, with the east [COLOR=#009900 !important]bank[/COLOR] of the Jordan River reserved for Arab rule (it eventually become the Kingdom of Jordan), and the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan being designated as the Jewish National Home. Dating back to the 1930s, every subsequent peace plan that has been proposed involved some sort of partition of the Western portion of Palestine. Though all of these schemes involved painful concessions for the Jews, the leadership of the Zionist movement and subsequently the Jewish state always accepted this principle of sharing the country.
Myth #4: The lack of an independent Palestinian Arab state is the fault of the Zionists.
In 1947, the United Nations approved the partition of Palestine between a Jewish state and an Arab state. The response of the Palestinian Arabs, as well as the rest of the Arab and Muslim world, was a categorical rejection of any scheme that allowed a Jewish state on any part of the land, no matter what its borders might be. No effort was made to set up an independent Arab state in the part of Palestine allotted for that purpose. In the aftermath of Israel's War of Independence, in which it repelled the invasion by five Arab armies, the West Bank, Gaza and half ofJerusalem, were left in Arab hands. But for the next 19 years when these territories remained under Arab control, there was never any consideration given to creating an Arab state there. On the contrary, the focus of the Arab world was on extinguishing the fledgling state of Israel that existed in the truncated borders left by the 1949 armistice lines.
In the years after the 1967 war, Israel has maintained a willingness to negotiate a peace deal based on the concept of "land for peace." Indeed, at [COLOR=#009900 !important]Camp[/COLOR] David in July 2000 and the following January at Taba, Egypt, Israel offered the Palestinians a state in these lands as well as part ofJerusalem. The answer from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was "no," and he followed up that refusal by launching a terrorist war of attrition that resulted in over a thousand Jewish deaths and even more suffering on the part of his own people.
Myth #5: The plight of Palestinian refugees is a special case of dispossession that must be redressed by international action.
In the aftermath of World War II, millions of refugees were created by the partition [COLOR=#009900 !important]of India[/COLOR], the re-drawing of the map of [COLOR=#009900 !important]Europe[/COLOR], as well as by the war brought on by the Arab refusal to accept the UN's partition of Palestine. Only in the case of Palestinians who fled their home during the course of Israel's War of Independence, was there a failure to re-settle the refugees. The Palestinian refugees, whose exit from the country was caused more by a general fear of the war sweeping over the land than by any action on the part of the Israelis, were the only refugees who were kept in [COLOR=#009900 !important]camps[/COLOR] and not allowed to integrate into the populations of the Arab countries that received them. They were kept homeless as a means of maintaining the illusion that the creation of Israel could be undone. Subsequent generations of this population have been raised in thesecamps and inculcated in an irredentist ideology whose premise is the rejection of any Jewish state. They remain the wards of a UN agency (the United Nations Relief Works Agency) that is devoted to perpetuating their status as refugees at a cost of billions of dolllars on international aid.
On the other hand, several hundred thousand Jews living in Arab countries were evicted from their homes during this same era and forced to flee to safety in Israel or the West where they were integrated into society.
Myth #6: The occupation of eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights in 1967 was the result of an Israeli war of aggression.
In May 1967, Egypt launched a blockade of Israel's southern port of Eilat. Egyptian and Syrian forces massed on Israel's borders. Egypt demanded, and got, the UN peacekeeping force that separated their army from Israel in the Sinai, to withdraw. Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdul Nasser and other Arab leaders told their peoples that they would soon launch a battle of annihilation that would result in Israel's destruction. When international diplomacy failed to get the Arabs to back down, Israel decided that it would not wait to be attacked and launched a defensive war to forestall the Arab assault.
After the war ended in a sweeping Israeli victory, Israel stated its willingness to make peace, but an Arab summit conference a month later answered with three no's. No peace. No recognition. No negotiations.
Myth #7: Jewish settlements are the main, if not the sole, obstacle to peace in the Middle East.
Though many legal sources claim that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal, the fact remains that the right of Jewish settlement in those lands was guaranteed by the Mandate for Palestine of the League of Nations. This territory was never part of any other sovereign state and its final legal status is subject to negotiations that must be concluded between the competing parties. Until such time as there is a peace accord which gives one side or the other sovereignty in this territory, it is inaccurate to refer to this land as belonging to one side or another.
Twice before, Israel has shown a willingness to uproot Jewish communities for the sake of peace: in the Sinai (given back to Egypt in the 1979 Peace Treaty) and in Gaza (from which Israel withdrew unilaterally in 2005). The existence of settlements in these areas is no bar to a peace deal under which they might be withdrawn.
Myth #8: The failure of the Oslo peace process was the result of actions by hard-line Israeli governments.
The Oslo process was embraced by Israel in the hope that an offer of land would be met with genuine peace. However, the result of years of negotiations and various Israeli withdrawals has not been peace. From the start of Palestinian Authority rule in the West Bank and Gaza in 1994, Palestinian leadership has encouraged terrorism against Israel and fomented hatred against the Jewish state while "peace education" is promulgated in Israeli schools. Throughout the 1990s as Israel signed several agreements that gave the Palestinians more autonomy, the corrupt PA leadership continued to tolerate and even fund terror groups. In 2000, Yasser Arafat refused Israel's offer of a Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza as well as part of Jerusalem and launched the terror offensive known as the Second Intifada.
Though all Israeli governments have, at times, been forced to reply with force to terrorist attacks from Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank, all have stated a willingness to negotiate a peace. Today the Palestinians are split between the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas which is too weak to make peace and Hamas, the rulers of Gaza, who reject it under any circumstances. Both factions reject the legitimacy of a Jewish state.
Myth #9: The Arab-Israeli conflict is the key to all of America's political, diplomatic and military problems in the Middle East.
The battle over Israel/Palestine is but one of many disputes in the Middle East. The rivalry between the two great Muslim religious strains, Shia and Sunni, has been the source of more wars and more bloodshed than any battle between Arabs and Jews. Similarly, the tensions between Persians (modern day Iran with its Islamist rulers and nuclear ambitions) and Arabs is another perennial conflict that predates the renewal of Jewish sovereignty in the region.
Even more to the point, the conflict between radical Islamists who seek to impose their religious and political views on the rest of the Muslim world, and those who oppose them in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, has nothing to do with Israel or the Palestinians. It is this schism which is at the core of the rise of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It is this battle for the soul of Islam that gave the impetus to the 9/11 attacks, not the dispute over the borders of the Jewish state.
Though Israel's foes claim that resentment over its creation fuels Arab and Islamic resentment of the West, such sentiments long predate the rise of Zionism. The clash of civilizations between Islam and the West was the cause of wars between European nations and Muslim countries for centuries with no Jewish involvement. Linking world peace to a resolution of the Palestinian conflict is just another tactic of rejectionist groups bent on perpetuating the conflict and diverting attention from the real issues.
Myth #10: American support for Israel is the result of the manipulations of the U.S. government by Jews.
Support for the return of the Jews to their ancient homeland dates back to the very beginning of American history. Sympathy for the idea of a renewed Jewish state is rooted in the faith of most Americans, as well as in their belief that the persecuted Jewish people were entitled to find a new life in their old home. From the very beginnings of the Zionist movement, it found both a welcome and support from large numbers of Americans. In the aftermath of the Holocaust that support became even greater.
Today, the overwhelming majority of Americans of all faiths and both major political parties see Israel as a friend and an ally. They need no prodding from a Jewish lobby to understand that the alliance with the Jewish state is based on common values and a shared belief in democracy. While Israel's supporters in Washington are vocal and proud of it, their financial clout is dwarfed by that of an oil industry and other factions with a vested interest in appeasing Arab dictators and monarchs. But the American people's identification with Israel and their sense of solidarity with it have prevailed because these ideas are rooted deeply in American history and tradition.
Top Ten Myths about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict plus the top 10 Hasbara points of rebuttal - Greg Burnham - 01-10-2011
Thanks for this, Magda. It's interesting to note that most people don't bother to research the history of the region before drawing conclusions about it. It is also interesting to note how many revisionist histories have been cited to justify atrocities committed by both sides of this conflict.
Top Ten Myths about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict plus the top 10 Hasbara points of rebuttal - Mark Stapleton - 03-10-2011
The Hasbara version is satire.
Israel has no intention of halting the Jewish settlements on Palestinian land. They don't know how to share.
Israel has no intention of halting the cruelty towards residents of Gaza, They don't know how to stop.
Israel is founded on greed and cruelty, hiding under the cloak of religion.
Its supporters should be ashamed of themselves.