With Charity Toward None, A History of Israel
I don't stand with Israel or Hamas or the Palestinians or Arabs. They've all committed unspeakable acts of savagery.
Disclosure: Understand that in 1967 Arab nations delivered its 3 famous NO's to Israel in what is known as the Khartoum Declaration: NO to negotiating with Israel, NO to peace with Israel and NO to acknowledging Israel's right to exist. The patch of dirt known as Biblical Israel, a nation about the size of New Jersey, has been one of the most fought over pieces of real estate in human history because it's where Judaism, Christianity and Islam collide and will always collide. This paradigm is not about to change and Israel will forever be controlled by whoever maintains the military superiority to control it. Religious wars are ruthlessly brutal because folks are driven to kill humans based on their religious beliefs. Man and his gods will forever be etched into the inhumanity of man vs. man…shaking my head in deep sorrow.
Israel comprises a tiny fraction of the huge Arab landmass, like an estimated 1-2%. The Arab landmass has a population of 453 million, here. Israel has a population of 9 million that includes 7 million Jews and 2 million Arabs. It doesn't have any oil to fight over or even any significant resources. Yet, control of this tiny patch of dirt has been a relentless mission of Jews, Christians and Muslims throughout history.
In 1948 the United Nations proclaimed the partition of a piece of real estate upon which no sovereign nation ever existed, except in the ancient world where the sovereign nation of Israel did exist. The United Nations is an illegal body of totalitarian internationalists and the organization should never have been created or funded, let alone possess the authority to reorder any of the earths' real estate, redraw borders, create new nations, disenfranchise entire populations and declare itself totalitarian emperor of the planet. But it did it anyway and the highly contentious patch of dirt known as Biblical Israel was partitioned into two separate parcels of real estate, one for the creation of a new Arab state and one for the newly created nation of Israel. Immediately, all hell broke loose, although hostilities had been brewing for decades.
The day after Israel was proclaimed a nation, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq invaded the one day old Israel. As the first modern War of Independence for Israel, the issue was not solely about the Arabs kicking the Jews out of the area but also about the intentions of the 5 invading countries to increase their own real estate holdings. Rest assured, Palestinian statehood was not a component of their agenda. The Arab leaders rejected the Arab Palestinian state created by the U.N. partition. By the time the 1948 war was over, the negotiated settlement transferred the West Bank to Jordan and the Israelis also increased their real estate holdings. Jordan, a predominantly Palestinian nation anyway, was then deemed to be the nation who would house and administer the Palestinians. So the issue of the Palestinians was supposedly settled. Wrong.
Unquestionably, the Arabs living in the area were shafted but they were shafted by their Arab neighbors and not Israel, who never initiated a single war of aggression against the Arabs. This is a highly debatable point in a history massively lacking truth from all sides; when it comes to Israel and the Middle East, truth is always the first victim. In any event, the Israelis claim they NEVER told the Palestinians to leave their homes nor did the Israelis evict hundreds of thousands of Arab/Muslims from their homes. In fact, Israel claims it expected them to stay and become Israeli citizens. Because 5 Arab armies invaded Israel in a war of total annihilation, the Arabs told the 'Palestinians' to leave and that it would only be temporary, just until the Jews were killed or driven out of the the newly created Israel. The Arab nations ignored the UN mandate for a Palestinian state and derailed any potential peace or peaceful co-existence.
Moreover, it's important to analyze the situation in the context of the modern Middle East, how it came into existence and all the geo-political baggage that accompanied the demise of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.
Creating the Modern Middle East
The 1948 War of Independence was just the beginning of a series of wars against the Jews by their Arab Muslim neighbors that included the 1948 War of Independence, the 1956 Sinai War, the 1967 Six Day War, and the 1973 Yom Kippur (Ramadan) War. The aforementioned wars were the major wars involving military hostilities but numerous skirmishes and lower level conflicts continued with predictable regularity. These wars constituted unsuccessful wars of annihilation against Israel and the Jews. But by far, the most humiliating defeat for the Arabs was the 1967 Six Day War. Occasionally, the world is delivered the infamous “shot that is heard around the world”. The 1967 Six Day War was such an event. The Arab loss was far more painful than mere military defeat. The l967 war explosively extricated the entire Jewish/Christian Holy Land from a nearly uninterrupted 1400 year span of Islamic rule.
The history of the area known as Israel is itself intriguing. The very word “Palestine” is a derivative of a Roman term for the lands west of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. There are no such people called “Palestinians”. Except for the periods when the ancient Jews of Biblical history created the nation of Israel with the twelve tribes and ruled the area during several lengthy periods prior to the birth of Christ, the creation of modern Israel was predicated more on acute Christian guilt for the Holocaust than the real and profound desire of Christian nations to establish a homeland for the world’s Jews. However, it’s also important to note that once modern Israel was created, it infused the Christian world with all kinds of dangerous views including a realization of End Times prophesies that include Jesus returning to Israel for a final battle. Some Christians became addicted to Revelations and some even believe that with the creation of Israel that they would bear witness to the End Times and Jesus smiting His enemies.
Moreover, it could even be suggested that Christian interest in creating the nation state of Israel was also closely aligned to extracting the Jewish/Christian Holy Land from Islamic rule. For obvious reasons, Christianity has always held a fascination for the area based on its own Biblical history and sacred scriptures. As the birthplace of Jesus and the lands where He lived His short but incredible life, the Christian holy sites are just as important to Christians as the Jewish holy sites are to the Jews and the land is deeply reflective and representative of the souls of both religions.
But the Jews were expelled from their ancestral homeland by the Romans in the first century AD and the lands known as modern day Israel and the West Bank have been throughout its long and mostly boring history under the dominance of the Jewish people, the Romans (a short period of time) and various Islamic dynasties (a long period of time), with the last being the Ottoman Empire. In fact, the Muslims conquered the area in 638 (about 600 years after the Israelis were expelled by the Romans), Islamized it and destroyed many churches/synagogues. But even today, most historians agree that substantial Jewish populations always remained in the area throughout history and the Roman expulsion was more of a temporary dispersion from Jerusalem to other parts of the Holy Land as well as a permanent dispersion of some Jews to other nations. Throughout most of Jerusalem’s history, Jews have constituted a significant percentage of its population.
Interestingly, the fate of the original 12 tribes of Israel has consumed Biblical scholars and has fired up the imaginations of both Jews and Christians. After all, Jesus was a devout and observant Jew, a member of some tribe and Jesus lived His entire life as a Jew. But within the lands historically dubbed Palestine by the Romans, though never a nation other than Israel, the issue of foreign rule in the area has never sparked any real hostilities until the creation of the State of Israel.
While public sentiment has somehow seized the romantic notion that the Palestinians have somehow been stripped of their national identity and homeland, an identity and homeland that never existed, such notions have fueled the historically false premise that “Palestine” is a nation, has always been a nation and should be restored to its nationhood. And while it can be validly argued that the “Palestinians” as an Arab people have suffered for a variety of valid reasons, namely being caught up in all the Arab induced wars, the Jews have also been shafted but for far longer than the “Palestinians” and not by the Palestinians or Muslims.
Judaism and Jewish history were born in the area somewhere around 1800 BC. when Abraham, considered the father of Judaism, established a Semitic population in the area, most probably in Iraq. Early Jewish history is so steeped in the birthplace of the world’s first monotheistic religion that it is impossible to separate Judaism from the geographic area known historically as Israel and Judah. But separated they were, at least for some, through a series of revolts accompanied by expulsions from their sacred and ancestral lands. During the period the Jews roamed their Biblical homeland of Israel, there weren’t even any Christians, a religion that existed during its infancy as more of an oppressed cult for hundreds of years until it ultimately became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the early 4th century when the Emperor Constantine pretty much forcibly converted the Empire to Christianity.
Neither were there any Muslims in the Jewish/Christian Holy Land until over 600 years after the birth of Jesus. Islam did not appear on the religious scene until the middle of the 7th century.
By far, the most serious crisis facing the early Jews under Roman rule evolved around the belief in one God during an epoch in history where gods were as prevalent as grains of sand in the desert. Consequently, the religious, political and social identity of the monotheistic Jews was threatening to existing rulers. Because the Romans worshipped many gods, Roman emperors and governors didn’t particularly care which gods were worshipped; indeed, they had their own collection of favorite gods. However, besides the belief in one God, it was the Messianic fervor accompanied by the expectation that the one God would reappear as King of the Jews that caused an uproar because such an event held the potential of causing considerable civil and political unrest.
Neither God nor politics were permitted to disrupt Roman political and civil stability without serious consequences, particularly when one’s God is proclaimed to be a divinely delivered “King” capable of usurping the power of Roman rule. Accordingly, the Jews, already considered oddly troublesome for belief in one deity, were adjudicated a direct threat and were viciously persecuted. However, the Christians were later persecuted by the Romans for the very same reasons and also for long periods of time.
When the Roman Emperor Constantine supposedly converted to Christianity and made it the religion of the Empire during the early fourth century, Christianity commenced an incredible and rapid spread. Everybody within the boarders of the Roman Empire was Christianized. It could very well be argued that conversion was compulsory and many pagan areas were ruthlessly destroyed, burned and its citizens murdered until they finally relented and agreed to conversion. Although the historical Jesus is definitely perceived as a love and peace sort of guy because He carried no sword nor led any armies, modern day Christians harbor the highly romanticized idea that Christianity spread precisely because the messages of love and peace were overwhelmingly appealing to a savage and barbarous world.
It most assuredly wasn’t the messages of love and peace that propelled the Christian Crusaders to sack the Eastern Christian capital of Constantinople or to butcher and slaughter 30,000 Muslims and Jews residing in Jerusalem during one of the Crusades; it certainly wasn’t love and peace that bloodied Europe with wars between Catholics and Protestants and it certainly wasn’t Christian love that instituted the African slave trade or created anti-Semitism. Sadly, Christian history is mired in blood, atrocities and the most inhumane of barbarous deeds. But ditto for Islam.
I’m not singling out Christianity as more vicious than other religions; however, because of the dominance of Christians and Muslims I do view Christianity and Islam as the two most violent religions. Both have ruthless and barbaric histories that are well documented.
Throughout European Christian history the Jews had been viciously persecuted, usually because they were accused by the Christian leadership of being the killers of Christ and it mattered little to the murderous Christians that those whom they slaughtered were in no way responsible for the killing of Jesus. Also, when folks were dying of the Black Death, Jews died in far lesser numbers because their cleanliness standards were much higher. Christians took this as a sign that Jews were Santanic and deliberately infecting Christians ot kill them. Superstitions run high in ancient and modern religions.
The supposed justification for Jewish persecution has always been puzzling to me personally because my own Christian upbringing constantly reiterated, over and over, that God sent his only begotten Son, Jesus, to earth to die for our sins and pave the way for our redemption. Well, Jesus died in accordance with the divine plan thereby accomplishing His earthly mission. So why murder the Jews?
But the Christian leadership, be it Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Protestant, commenced its long and savage persecution of the Jews spanning well over a millennium, a persecution completely unrelated to Islam, a religion that categorically never specifically discriminated against the Jews but consistently and viciously discriminated against all non-Muslims, including Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists. In 1290 the British King Edward I expelled the Jews from Britain and the French King Phillip IV expelled the Jews from his kingdom in 1306, here. The Spanish Inquisition and the Inquisition initiated by the Roman Catholic Church horrifyingly documents Christian violence against Jews, here. It also documents Christian violence against Muslims.
Some periods of Jewish persecution under Christian rule were worse than other periods but persecution of the Jews was a desirable Christian deed, almost a religious duty. By the time Hitler came to power and really just continued doing, albeit on a far larger scale, what Christians had been doing since time immemorial, even the Christian world was shocked, appalled and horrified. As America and Europe viewed the horrors of the concentration camps and the Holocaust, it was easy for us to find solace and comfort in having someone to blame, Hitler, when, in fact, it was deviant Christian theology that laid the foundation of anti-Semitism. Hitler merely availed himself of the morbid condition, politicized it to his own personal advantage and capitalized on it. It was Christianity that delivered Hitler to us because without the pervasive anti-Semitism so prevalent throughout the ages, Hitler would have merely been dismissed as a decidedly un-Christian lunatic.
It’s also important to note that many Muslim nations welcomed the persecuted Jews and that Jews and Muslims lived side by side for much of history. Jews did in fact flee to Muslim nations seeking protection from Christians.
Thus, it was the collective Christian guilt during post WW II that resulted in Western interest in assisting the Jews in finding a homeland, and, quite naturally, the only one they wanted was their ancestral homeland, having been rejected and persecuted nearly everywhere else in the then anti-Semitic Christian world.
Long before World War II and commencing in the mid to late 19th century, the persecutions committed against the world’s Jews by Christians prompted the Jewish leadership to seriously dedicate itself to a re-establishment of their ancient homeland. Jews started buying large tracts of land in “Biblical Israel” from the Arabs as they desperately attempted to escape the pogroms of Christian Europe and Russia. As the Jews were buying land, the price of real estate skyrocketed and while the Arabs continued to protest the arrival of the Jews, they also continued to sell them their land. As the Arabs were raking in Jewish money for the legal purchase of land, the Arabs were also killing the Jews who were settling on land legally purchased by the Jews.
The meddlesome and interventionist British were fixated on the lands that became known as Palestine but they weren’t necessarily committed to reconstituting Biblical Israel. By implementing the infamous Balfour Declaration in 1917, essentially a promise to deliver a Jewish state to the Jews, the British deviated from their traditional Arab appeasement mode that was facilitated by a British romantic attachment to all things Arab. But it’s probably also true that widespread support existed to extricate the Jewish Christian Holy Land from Islamic rule AFTER it became clearly evident that the dying and mortally wounded Ottoman Empire was too weak to defend it. Failing to comprehend the disaster they helped to create in the Middle East, the British tried every trick in its bag of international diplomacy, from proposing legislative councils, advisory councils, an Arab Agency, representative government institutions and other measures to obtain Arab cooperation. The British never understood that Muslim Arabs would have much preferred rule under Islamic Ottoman Empire than infidel rule in any form.
When the oil card came into significant play around World War I but accelerated during World War II, the British became more antagonistic toward Jewish aspirations and embarked on a series of appeasement policies toward the Arabs. As Middle East, British and Jewish frustration and violence intensified, the British dumped the issue of Israel on the newly established United Nations, which created the partition of Israel in 1948. The Arabs rejected the 1948 partition and still do.
Although the 1948 War of Independence for Israel was an earth shattering event for both the Israelis and the Arabs, no one in the Arab world was the least bit interested in a Palestinian nation. The Arab tribes and nations, competing for both land and power themselves after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, were not receptive to Western concepts of modern nationhood. The Arab tribal mentality viewed the demise of the Ottoman Empire as an opportunity for majestic land grabs by the strongest tribal thugs. Undoubtedly, the creation of the modern Middle East is one of the most dismal failures of the West, except for Israel, who succeeded where the Arabs failed by creating a prosperous and modern nation state.
At the time of the 1948 war, no one really expected the State of Israel to survive. Most probably, if the Arab/Muslims succeeded in butchering the already existing and newly arriving Jews, it is highly doubtful if anyone in the West would have noticed, let alone helped the nascent struggling nation of Israel. President Eisenhower even refused to sell arms to Israel. After the first war (1948), Israel held lands that more or less were to define its borders until the 1967 war. Arab nations were not even remotely committed to the concept of peaceful co-existence with Israel.
But the 1948 Arab induced war caused far more than more land for Israel, Jordan and Egypt, it also resulted in the physical displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who just packed up and left at the urging of neighboring Arab leaders. Most residents of a modern nation state would never just pack up and leave their country, even if under threat of war. One is always prompted to ask the puzzling question “why did they leave?”. They left because the Arab leaders told them they could return after the war was won and the Jews were slaughtered or gone.
Perhaps there was no strong attachment to the land by the Palestinians as Bedouin culture is highly mobile. Conversely the Jews, having just barely survived the Holocaust, were firmly anchored in their ancient homeland, even prior to setting foot on the soil of the newly created Israel. After all they had been through, the Jews were dedicated to the proposition that they would either survive or perish. There were no other choices for the Jews who were indeed in a fight for their very survival.
There can be no question whatsoever that the creation of Israel has created problems and consequences of seemingly insurmountable proportions. But in defense of Israel and in deference to Arab nations, Israel did grant full citizenship to all Arabs who stayed while the Arab nations refused to grant citizenship to the displaced Arabs who even to this day reside in a variety of refugee camps throughout the Arab world. Today, modern Israel has a population of 9 million that includes 2 million Arabs who are Israeli citizens. The refugee problem was more than displaced Arabs who fled the area. Hundreds of thousands of Jews who had lived in the areas of the Middle East not defined as Israel, some as far back as Biblical times, vacated their homes, either by force, encouragement or choice, and relocated to the new State of Israel where they were granted immediate citizenship. The displacement of the Arabs who fled voluntarily and the Jews fleeing into Israel for safety constitutes one of history’s numerous population exchanges.
The Islamic nation of Turkey initiated massive population exchanges upon the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, primarily because non-Muslims were not welcomed in Islamic strongholds and millions were forcibly re-located. 1.5 million Armenian Christians under Ottoman rule were slaughtered by Muslims. After World War I and World War II, tens of millions of people throughout Europe were dislocated and relocated, frequently against their will, as new borders were again redrawn, primarily to punish the losers. Unfortunately, such tragic situations are the unavoidable consequences of winding down a war and have occurred quite frequently throughout human history. Wars are evil and destructive, and ordinary people are always its victims.
The Arabs severely persecuted, murdered and/or evicted many Jews whose families were deeply rooted in every Arab nation for thousands of years, including Aden, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco and Egypt to Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Although nearly everyone only focuses on the displaced Arabs who fled Israel, no one has ever raised the issue of displaced Jews but in recent years the issue is finally being addressed. Irwin Cotler, a Canadian MP, chairs the “Justice for Jews from Arab Countries”. Among other issues, the JJAC addresses the dislocation of 856,000 Jews from Arab nations and the expropriation of over $1 billion in Jewish assets by Muslims. In Syria, an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 Jews were driven from their homes by Muslim abuse and persecution. Mr. Cotler also discussed the “systematic legislation which criminalized and disenfranchised Jews and sequestered their property”. Algeria “issued a variety of anti-Jewish decrees prompting nearly all of the 160,000 Jews to leave the country”.
Much to the shock of the West, and possibly the chagrin of some in the West, Israel not only survived the first invasion by 5 Arab nations but also lived to fight another day. During the 1956 War (the second war), which was initiated by Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal, Britain and France invaded the area, not to help the Jews but to protect their threatened trade. This time, Syria and Jordan were partners with Egypt as they contemplated, yet again, the obliteration of Israel. Israel even succeeded in taking the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza strip although it eventually returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in a negotiated settlement. Defeat number two for the Arabs.
As the 60’s rolled around, Syria was under the dictatorship of HafizAssad, father of Syria’s current president Bashar Assad. Hafiz Assad was an old world Saddam Hussein styled warrior and a man who is reported to have slaughtered over 20,000 Syrians he considered political opponents but that's politics as usual in tribal areas where tribal wars are waged until the strongest thug takes power. Assad was a member of the Baath Party, a Stalinist type regime, of which Saddam Hussein was also a member. After Assad’s death, his son assumed political power but as a western educated sovereign he lacked the ruthless baggage of his father. Syria poses no threat whatsoever to the West or any nation for that matter. During Ottoman rule, the area dubbed “Palestine” was considered no more than a southern province of Syria.
Syria was interested in expanding its sovereign territory. As the skirmishes between the Israelis and the Arabs continued, 1967 ushered in the third war, which erupted into the now famous Six Day War. This Arab induced war was caused by Egypt blocking the Gulf of Aqaba in an attempt to harm Israeli shipping. However, the Arabs were also once again planning final attack on Israel. That the 1967 War was an astonishing victory for the Israelis is an understatement. Again, Israel did not start the war but by accurately anticipating the war, Israel made the decision to act preemptively. The 1967 Israeli military campaign will be recorded as one of history’s most daring and brilliant military maneuvers ever. In a matter of hours, Israel totally destroyed the Egyptian air force.
Not wanting a war, Israel asked King Hussein of Jordan not to invade Israel or participate in hostilities against Israel. Although King Hussein may have preferred not to participate in the invasion of Israel, he feared other Arabs more than he feared Israel and participated in the invasion despite Israel’s request to refrain from hostilities. Israel’s victory cost Jordan the West Bank and the Holy City of Jerusalem. Frankly, because of Jordanian/Arab military blunders, the West Bank and Jerusalem just sort of fell into Israel’s hands like a gift, an event that they neither sought nor planned. At long last and through no direct warmongering initiatives of the Israelis, the key areas representing ancient Israel were back under Jewish control and this event can be attributable to nothing other than Arab aggression and blunders.
From a Middle East perspective, the 1967 Israeli victory was worse than another round of defeat and humiliation for the Arabs, it was a highly symbolic loss because the Arabs lost Jerusalem. As the Old City of Jerusalem represents the theological “capitol” and heart and soul of both Christianity and Judaism, Islam has been obsessed with it from its earliest days. In fact, the obsession was so overwhelming that the capture of Jerusalem was one of Islam’s earliest conquests (638 AD and a mere 6 years after the death of the Prophet) and long before other major conquests like Africa and Spain. That Jerusalem and the nearby holy sites of Christianity and Judaism constitute the most explosive parcel of real estate on earth is no exaggeration.
The Arab objection to the creation of modern Israel in 1948, which only intensified after the 1967 war, is based the loss of historical Islamic dominion over the holiest sites in Christianity and Judaism. Indeed the capture of Jerusalem and its surrounding holy sites was a prize for Israel, Judaism and Christianity. But the cost was the unleashing of historic religious resentments.
Following the 1948, 1956 and 1967 defeats, the Arab states met in the Sudan in 1967 where they all agreed not to recognize Israel, not to make peace with Israel and not to negotiate with Israel, the famous 3 No’s. Such a move by the Arabs was tantamount to the Allies of WW II agreeing not to negotiate or make peace with Hitler individually but to stick together and demand nothing less than unconditional surrender to all the Allies, which occurred. Since no Arab nation, either individually or collectively, was going to recognize Israel nor her right to exist, the Arab agreement represented nothing more than a permanent state of war with Israel which continues to this very day in the form of perpetual state of war, Dar Al-Harb (House of War) until Islam achieves Dar Al-Islam (House of Islam or Peace). Eventually Egypt and Jordan did sign a peace treaty with Israel, a treaty that resulted in the assassination of Sadat.
As if three major military defeats weren’t enough for the Arabs, they started the 4th official war in 1973, known as the Yom Kippur or Ramadan War. Perhaps as Egypt and Syria launched a major strike during the Holy month of Ramadan, they felt empowered with religious fervor and surely, Allah could not fail them again, as the date chosen for the commencement of that war was the 10th day of Ramadan, a day in which the Prophet Mohammed initiated a battle himself in 624 AD, a battle that ultimately resulted in his victory over Mecca.
As the Israeli’s were forced to abandon their highest Holy Day of the year and march off to war, yet again, they certainly were not lacking in vigor as they crossed the Suez Canal and cleared a path straight to Cairo. They also succeeded in driving the Syrians back to Damascus. Although the Israelis claimed victory, it was a very costly victory to both the Israelis and the rest of the world as well. The Arabs soon realized that its strength lied, not in its armies and arms, but in its oil. Accordingly, they proceeded with an oil embargo that not only rocked the West but also loudly proclaimed that those who support Israel must be prepared to suffer the consequences. Again, such a move in no way represented the desire of the Arab nations for the self determination of the Palestinian Arab people but very much represented the desire of neighboring nations to annihilate Israel. The issue of Palestinian self-determination was an afterthought and only after a succession of Arab defeats.
After the major wars of 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 and a ton of skirmishes, no one can argue that Israel has been under attack since its inception. Because of the Arab induced inferno, the nationhood of both the Palestinians and the Israelis are still unresolved issues today. While the Israelis clearly have an Israeli nation, her borders are far from resolved.
Enter — Yasser Arafat, born 1919 in Cairo, Egypt (according to his birth certificate but who claims to have been born in Gaza). He fought against Israel in the 1948 war and early in his career made the decision to become a terrorist. He was affiliated with one of the oldest and most active Islamist terrorist organizations in the Middle East, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and a militant Islamist movement that still dominates in parts of the Middle East.
Arafat had been implicated in a multitude of atrocious terrorist attacks, from the 1972 slaughter of the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich, Germany to hijackings and blowing up planes to murdering diplomats and a host of other terrorist deeds. He had even been implicated in the murders of competing peace seeking Palestinian leaders.
Although not necessarily an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist as his background in the Muslim Brotherhood would suggest, Arafat was more of an astute and opportunistic villain devoid of morals who delighted in seizing power and attention, and whatever else came his way, like gobs of U.S. dollars.
While Egypt and Jordan may be the only Arab nations that signed a 'US engineered' peace treaty with Israel, their intentions are far from clear. Jordan was wallowing in over 6 billion in foreign debt, the result of the costly wars, and Egypt was also suffering financially from its own role in the Arab/Israeli wars. Was this really a peace deal or more of a “Show me the money” and then “I’ll sign anywhere” episode? They signed. American taxpayers paid, continue to pay and apparently will pay for all of eternity ($1-2 billion a year each to Jordan and Egypt).
Thus far, only Western nations have made any real attempts to broker a peace in the region. When former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak opened peace negotiations under the Clinton regime with an offer of 97% of the West Bank and part of Jerusalem, Arafat not only rejected the deal but immediately waged another intifada. Arafat the Egyptian was acutely aware of the fate of Anwar Sadat and understood full well that peace would be the equivalent of signing his own death warrant.
With arch rival warriors Arafat and Ariel Sharon long gone, the area appears to have settled down but not for long. Israel built a wall to protect itself from terror attacks which was quite effective in blocking attacks from the West Bank but it didn't stop Hamas in Gaza.
In 2005, Israel removed it's military and Israeli citizens from Gaza and relinquished control. Ever since, Gaza has been controlled by Hamas, a Sunni terrorist group funded by Sunni nations. For years Hamas fired crappy rockets from Gaza that pretty much landed nowhere and did little to no damage to Israel. Israel responded with overwhelming lethal force, destroyed large swaths of Gaza and killed many. The punishment did not fit the crime and the suffering of the Palestinians stuffed into Gaza, one of the mostly densely populated places on earth, was horrific.
Because Arab-Israeli relations are so bad, Israel has made it a policy to impose the severest cruelty on their Arab neighbors who threaten Israel.
Well, all the hate, abuse by Israel, religious fanaticism, historical grips etc. came to a head on October 7, 2023 when Hamas launched a monstrous and highly effective attack on Israel that killed over 1,400 Israelis. It was an incredibly sophisticated and well planned operation utilizing attacks by land, air and sea. This definitely was not a typical Hamas attack, this attack was exceedingly professional and the attackers were well trained. There are more questions than answers on how it happened because Israel is a total police state and the Israeli Mossad is viewed as the most effective intel operation on the planet. Did somebody royally fuck up? I don't believe so because Israel never fucks up when it comes to its security. Everything and everybody is under chronic surveillance, especially the Palestinians. Israel's land and sea blockades of Gaza are real and have have made Gazans prisoners in a place with nowhere to go. In fact, Gaza is pretty much an open air Israeli prison.
More interesting and even alarming is that the Democrats and Biden Administration had been facing Republican resistance to funding Ukraine and Zelensky's US proxy war on Russia. House Republicans passed a funding bill that included ZERO funding for Ukraine. How convenient that the Middle East suddenly blows up, as if on cue. Instead of requesting $24 billion in war funding for Ukraine, the Democrats are now requesting $105 billion for war funding that funds Israel and Ukraine. The Republicans have made a Warvangelical, Rep. Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House and his top priorities are Ukraine and Israel, not peace or America or the American people.
There is no doubt that Israel has committed Crimes Against Humanity in its treatment of the Palestinians...it's horrific and inhumane. Although it’s also true that all the Israeli attacks were triggered by Arab attacks on Israel and/or Israelis, the punishment was overwhelmingly disproportionate. Thus far, Israeli retaliation in the latest Israel-Arab ongoing conflict has resulted in over 8,000 Arab deaths, and climbing. The destruction in Gaza is so appalling that it resembles scenes from the Allied bombing of Dresden in WW II. The Gaza folks are without power, communications, food, medicine and shelter. The wounded are dying from lack of medical care.
Many justify invoking their own personal religious belief that Israel must survive even if every Muslim is killed. Some Christian religious fanatics want a big war to bring on the End Times and the return of Jesus because it fulfills Biblical prophecy. Some Muslims view it as a perpetual jihad until every Jew is dead or otherwise evicted from Biblical Israel.
Yes, mankind, his religions and his gods are anything but humane, just and loving. What is going on in Israel is indeed a religious war. Biblical Israel is where Judaism, Christianity and Islam seem committed to fight to the death for control of what they perceive to be Holy Land deeded to them by God.
That there are enough bat shit crazies on the planet to explode planet earth into a war with the potential of nuclear annihilation is a real and disturbing possibility. If sanity doesn’t prevail and prevail soon, that’s a thought too horrifying to contemplate.