Gerald A. Honigman

Hamas, Gaza & The UN
January 26, 2009
 

No sooner was Israel reborn in the wake of the Holocaust in May 1948 as a result (on the human part of the deal, at least) of a United Nations’ vote, it was attacked by a half dozen Arab nations--most of which had gained their own independence only recently as well. From that moment on, with a few (but important) rare exceptions, the U.N. would work to basically try to undo its "mistake" of permitting the resurrection of the Jew of the Nations.

Can’t help it...visions of the Hebrew Prophets pour though my mind. Some excerpts from Ezekiel 37:

The hand of the Lord was upon me... set me down in the midst of the valley full of bones.... very many... and, lo, they were very dry.

And He said unto me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" And I answered, "O Lord God, thou knowest."

Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, bring flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you.’ "

So I prophesied... there was a noise...shaking, and the bones came together, bone to bone... sinews and flesh came up upon them, and skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them.

Then said He unto me, "Prophesy unto the wind, Son of man, and say to the wind, 'Thus saith the Lord God: ‘Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ "

So I prophesied... and the breath came into them, they lived, and stood up upon their feet....

Then He said unto me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, 'Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost....Therefore prophesy and say, 'Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O My people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel....’ "

Whoa...! Heavy stuff...I still get goose bumps..

Written some twenty-six centuries or so ago, if this wasn’t the resurrected phoenix of the Jews--Israel--then I’m Michelangelo.

And when Jews from the remote corners of the "Arab" world--where they also didn’t know what the morrow would bring and were commonly known as yahud kelb/Jew Dog killers of prophets--were gathered to be flown to Israel, with tears they recited the Hebrew prophecy predicting that they would return to Israel on the wings of eagles as they boarded the planes used in Operation Magic Carpet.

One of those above 1948 Arab attackers, Transjordan, became independent two years earlier. Its army was led by British officers and, like Egypt’s, was well equipped with Allied armaments left in the region after World War II.

Since the Emirate’s own story is crucial for understanding attempts made to try to balance conflicting Arab and Jewish claims over that part of the Turks’ previous empire which emerged as the Mandate of Palestine after World War I, I frequently reference this in my work. Arabs bring up their tale of how Jews allegedly stole all of the land over and over again; hence my own need to repeatedly remind readers of the truth as well.

Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill convened the Cairo Conference in 1921. As a result of this and other machinations of the latest empire (the Brits’) to acquire the land of the Jews--Judaea--since the fall of the latter to Hadrian’s Roman armies in 135 C.E., Britain’s Hashemite Arab allies were awarded all of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine east of the Jordan River--almost 80% of the total area–in 1922.

Transjordan's King Abdullah attributed this gift to an act of Allah in his memoirs. Along with other observers, Sir Alec Kirkbride, the Brits’ East Bank (of the Jordan River) rep, had much to say about this as well in A Crackle Of Thorns.

Not long afterwards, Abdullah’s brother, Emir Faisal, was gifted with all of the Mandate of Mesopotamia--renamed Iraq. Millions of Kurds thus saw their own best chance at independence shattered on behalf of Arab nationalism and British Petroleum politics as well.

The Ottoman Turkish Empire had ruled most of the region for the previous four centuries. Most of those above invading and other "Arab" states had, in turn, become Arab by the conquest, subjugation, and forced Arabization of millions of native peoples who survived earlier jihads in the wars of the Dar ul-Islam against the Dar al-Harb...another point I feel a need to stress repeatedly.

Similar stories could be told all over the region...millions of native, non-Arab peoples, within the power vacuum created by the collapse of empire, seeing their own hopes for freedom and independence in the new nationalist age swept away on behalf of the Arab Nation. Some later fought alongside Arabs against the Mandatory Powers...did them little good after the French and the British left the scene (one way or the other), however.

From Egypt, through North Africa into the Sudan, to Lebanon, Iraqi and Syrian Kurdistan, and elsewhere, scores of millions have all been forced to consent to this forced Arabization process.

As Egypt’s most famous native "Uncle Tom" Copt, the late President Sadat’s Foreign Minister Dr. Boutros Boutros Ghali basically summed it up for Israel (as well as all others) in an interview with an Israeli author: if you want to be accepted in the neighborhood, you have to consent to Arabization.

The post-1922 up to the current fight, therefore, has been to create a second state for Arabs in what’s left of "Palestine"--not a first...the Arabs’ 22nd in total spread out across over six million square miles of territory. And that state is expected, by "moderates" willing to tell the West what it wants to hear, as well as the more honest Hamas types, to replace the sole state of the Jews–not live peacefully alongside it.

Back to the United Nations...

In 1947, another partition plan was presented which would have divided the roughly 20% of the Mandate of Palestine left after the creation of Transjordan in half between Jews and Arabs.

Had Arabs accepted this, they would have wound up with some 90% of the total original area.

They rejected this offer on the grounds that all was part of the Dar ul-Islam and/or their "purely Arab patrimony." The rest is history.

Some things change, others never do. Israel’s fight with Hamas, Fatah, and others today is the same as it was back then.

Back to May, 1948...

The U.N. watched its newest child brutally attacked upon birth. It did nothing to stop the onslaught and only finally stepped in after the Jews turned the tide of the battle.

Afraid that they would push the Arabs back even further and take more of the non-apportioned territory of the Mandate, the U.N. finally acted. Keep in mind that, unlike Arab claims, these were not "purely Arab" territories.

The armistice lines drawn up by the UN in 1949 simply marked the point where hostilities were stopped.

Amongst other things, they left Israel, a mere 9-miles wide in some places, and not much more in its strategic waist--where most of its population and industry are located. Many people travel farther than that just to go to work. It should not be a surprise, therefore, that these became known as the Auschwitz Lines--a constant invitation to Arabs to attack. The lines were never expected to be Israel’s real borders, as America’s own U.N. rep, Dr. Ralph Bunche, wrote about himself.

Recall that as a result of the 1948 Arab assault, Transjordan grabbed the non-apportioned west bank of the Jordan River (where both Jews and Arabs had roots, owned land, and were allowed to live). Now holding both banks, it changed its name to Jordan (since it now held territory from other parts of the Mandate besides those across the river)--and made all the land it now held Judenrein (Jew free)--including east Jerusalem. Numerous age-old synagogues were destroyed, ancient Jewish tombstones were used to pave roads, build latrines, and so forth. Only two nations recognized that illegal seizure.

While Jordan thus emerged above, Pharaoh--who had used Gaza to invade the land of the Jews for thousands of years--once again grabbed that coastal strip.

Note that during the time Jordan and Egypt held Gaza and the West Bank (aka, Judea and Samaria, its real name)--almost two decades--no one demanded the birth of the Arabs’ second state in Palestine in those areas. Not a peep from the United Nations either...

As another result of the Arab attempt to nip a microscopic, resurrected Israel in the bud, two refugee situations were created...another point that needs to constantly be reemphasized.

The Arabs have continued to this day to thrust the plight of their own refugees--created primarily as a result of their own actions--into everyone else’s faces--people who were pawns (willingly or unwillingly) of the Arabs’ own murderous schemes that backfired. Scores of millions of non-Arab peoples also became refugees as a result of wars over the last century. Yet the folks who have received the most aid have been the biggest whiners.

Arab refugees, right from the start, were made virtual wards of the world--unlike all the others above. The United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA)--whose spokesmen, right now, are vilifying Israel over Gaza--was created just to cater to these folks--most of whom were newcomers themselves coming into the land because of its economic development by the Jews.

The U.N.’s predecessor, the League Of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, recorded numerous Arabs crossing into the Mandate from the surrounding Arab states. Many more slipped in through very porous borders under cover of darkness and were never recorded. And still many others arrived with Muhammad Ali and son Ibrahim Pasha’s armies from Egypt about fifty years or so earlier and never left...all alleged "native Palestinians." Hamas's virtual patron saint (for whom those rockets Gaza has been blasting Israel with are named as well as Hamas's "militant wing), Sheikh Izzedin al-Qassam, was from Latakia, Syria. Arafat was born in Cairo.

Indeed, so many Arabs were recent arrivals themselves into the Palestinian Mandate that UNRWA had to adjust the very definition of "refugee" from its prior meaning of persons normally and traditionally resident to those who lived in the Mandate for a minimum of only two years prior to 1948.

Now, keep in mind that for every Arab who was forced to flee the fighting that Arabs started (after all, how dare Jews want in one tiny, resurrected state what Arabs demand for themselves in some two dozen others), a Jewish refugee was forced to flee "Arab"/Muslim lands into Israel and elsewhere...but with no UNRWA set up to assist them. Why not?

UNRWA has been openly hostile to Israel from the get-go. It has long allowed the promotion of anti-Western and anti-Semitic attitudes among the Arabs it serves, and has done little to help solve the problem of their refugee status--unless giving shelter and employment to those who would terrorize and destroy their Jewish neighbor counts in his regard.

Before Israel’s current round of fighting in Gaza, back in 2004, UNRWA Commissioner-General Peter Hansen told the Canadian Broadcasting Company "I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don't see that as a crime."

Solid evidence and documentation obtained from Arabs on the spot have revealed that UNRWA has turned a blind eye to Arabs setting up mortar and rocket firing positions adjacent to U.N. schools, hospitals, private homes, and so forth. Additionally, in this latest round, Israel had solid intelligence that Hamas leaders were hiding in the basement of such a hospital.

Similarly, when Israel was forced to go after Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, it turned out that the U.N force there, UNIFIL, not only did not prevent attacks on Israel but allowed Hezbollah to set up its positions right next to UNIFIL units. After a U.N. position got hit as a result, pictures made the rounds showing just such a Hezbollah position right next to a U.N. building. Furthermore, solid evidence surfaced that UNIFIL members collaborated with Hezbollah to enable the kidnapping of Israeli troops from inside Israel proper-the move which started the war in the first place.

Ahhh, the United Nations...Nice to know where many millions of American tax dollars are going to, isn’t it?!?!

Turning the clock back again, from 1948 to1956, Israel was attacked repeatedly by Arabs using Egyptian and Jordanian territories as their bases. In 1956, when Egypt blockaded it at the Strait of Tiran, Israel struck back hard. France and Great Britain were peeved at Egypt’s Nasser as well for nationalizing the Suez Canal, so the time was ripe.

In a lightening assault, Israel soon found itself on the banks of the Suez Canal.

Before Western pressure forced it to withdraw--note the inaction of the U.N. to stop Arab attacks on Israel and so forth which provoked the Sinai Campaign (sound familiar?)--Israel’s David Ben-Gurion received assurances that if Egypt ever played the same blockade game again, it would be recognized as a casus belli. This would become very important, once again, in the not-too-distant future. A United Nations Emergency Force was also set up in Gaza and at the Strait of Tiran to supposedly prevent such happenings again.

So, tell me please...what good is a fireman who, at the first smell of smoke, disappears from sight?

In Spring 1967, Egypt’s Nasser must have been all sugared up once again.

Pharaoh amassed 100,000 troops, but instead of chariots, he positioned planes, tanks, artillery, and so forth on Israel’s border, reinstated the blockade, and ordered the U.N. force out of Gaza so his tank divisions would have an open door.

Without a wink, the U.N. turned tail and ran--leaving Israel, once again, all on its own. Nasser, meanwhile, got other Arab nations to jump aboard his own latter-day Final Solution bandwagon as well. While Syria was up to its eyeballs in this right from the start, others--like Jordan’s young King Hussein--had to be lured into this a bit later.

Big mistake...

Well, as you probably know, things didn’t quite turn out as Arabs planned...

In six days in June 1967, Israel destroyed several Arab air forces, left hundreds of their tanks smoldering, took thousands of prisoners, etc. and so forth...Remember Ben-Gurion’s casus belli deal in 1956 regarding a renewal of blockade?

Oh yes--I almost forgot...

Israel also now found itself holding all of the Sinai Peninsula (in which it developed oil fields, established important air bases, and at last gained a little strategic depth) up to the Suez Canal; in control of the Strait from which it had been repeatedly blockaded; on top of the Golan Heights, from which its farm villages and fishermen on the Sea of Galilee had been repeatedly attacked; in Gaza; and back in Judea and Samaria--the "West Bank," from which all Jews were either previously slaughtered or later excluded from as a result of Transjordan’s land grab in 1948. Places like Hebron--where the Hebrew Patriarchs and some of the matriarchs are buried--and elsewhere once again saw Jews.

And in a rare moment something else next happened which proved to be not par for the U.N.’s usual course.

After much argument, and thanks to America and Great Britain--folks who also opposed Israel in the past--the final draft of the U.N. document, UNSC Resolution 242, which dealt with any future Israeli withdrawal, was worded in a precise way which called for the creation of secure and real borders to replace Israel’s ‘49 Auschwitz lines. It also allowed for a necessary revision of those borders in order to undo–somewhat at least–the travesty of the ‘49 U.N.-imposed lines.

Here’s Britain’s Lord Caradon on 242...

It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial. After all, they were just the places where the soldiers of each side happened to be on the day the fighting stopped in 1948. They were just armistice lines. That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them.

President Ronald Reagan commented on this same subject on 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.

Regardless of the renewed pressure that will undoubtedly be coming with the new American President’s administration, Israel must insist upon those territorial adjustments it was promised in order to right an historical wrong. A fair compromise must be demanded by Israel's own new leaders.

The State Department opposed Israel’s creation from the start and has been usually hostile ever since.

Expect more of the same, if not worse, coming from the Foggy Folks with an Obama Administration.

The Jews the new President appoints to work with him are as reassuring on this matter as James Baker’s stick it to the Jew of the Nations "Jew Boys" were before--a good shield to deflect criticism later on from Jews who really care. I truly hope I’m wrong here...but doubt it. In fact, President Obama apparently just loves Baker’s Jew Boy Dan Kurtzer--Foggy Bottom’s Jew point man used to force the Jews in Israel to ignore 242 and return to their previous suicidal Auschwitz lines.

The new President had already sent his well-known, anti-Israel friend and special envoy, Robert Malley (raised in a family of anti-Zionists and Communists who counted Yasir Arafat as a close friend), to Lebanon’s slave master and Iran’s best buddy, Syria, before he even took the oath of office.

Now, pray tell, what might that be all about?

Decades ago, Israel had already offered a retreat from well over 90% of the Golan Heights to Syria in return for a true peace...'Twasn’t good enough for Iraq's Saddam Hussein’s twin butchers in Damascus, the Assad boys–neither Papa nor Junior.

So, guess who and what’s gonna be offered up to try to wean Syria away from Iran? The same folks whose arms are going to be twisted even further than they were already by Condoleezza Rice & Co. to believe that Mahmud Abbas’s latter day Arafatian Fatahniks are really the good cops. After all, President Bush had already begun arming, training, funding, and otherwise supporting those alleged doves of peace.

Trust me Jew of the Nations, to such folks you should give away the store and bare the necks of your kids...

Expect much more of the same (if not worse) with President Obama, close friend and associate of Rashid Khalidi and numerous other blatantly anti-Israel folks. Louis Farrakhan has called him the messiah.

With a final return (for now) to the United Nations, let’s just say that with Arab genocidal actions being/having been waged against millions of Kurds and black Africans, and Arab murder and subjugation being waged against millions of Copts, Jews, Amazighen/Berbers, and others, the only thing that the United Nations seems capable of doing is vilifying Israel and placing it continuously under the high power lens of moral scrutiny for its determination to survive and defend itself despite the United Nations’ indifference. Indeed, most of all of the latter’s condemnations have been aimed solely at Israel.