For your perusal, my latest INTO THE FRAY column:
Palestine: What if the Six-Day War never took place?
(Kindly consider “liking”, sharing, tweeting – please use hash-tag #IntoFray)
If the “West Bank” was part of the “Hashemite Kingdom” up to 1967, how did it suddenly become the Palestinians’ long-yearned-for homeland which, up until then, they were submissively willing to cede to an alien potentate?
It appears this week on the following sites (in alphabetical order):
ISRAELI FRONTLINE :(To be posted)
ISRAEL NATIONAL NEWS: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.asp
ISRAPUNDIT: https://www.israpundit.org/into-the-fray-palestine-what-if-the-six-day-war-never-took-place/
JERUSALEM HERALD:
JEWISH PRESS: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/into-the-fray-martin-sherman/into-the-fray-palestine-what-if-the-six-day-war-never-occurred/2018/12/30/
JNS: https://www.jns.org/opinion/what-if-the-six-day-war-never-took-place/
JEWS DOWN UNDER : https://jewsdownunder.com/2018/12/28/into-the-fray-palestine-what-if-the-six-day-war-never-took-place/
MEDIUM: https://medium.com/@martinsherman/into-the-fray-palestine-what-if-the-six-day-war-never-took-place-a47fb187eb5
TORONTO ZIONIST COUNCIL: http://strategic-israel.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/TZC-Newsletter-2018-12-29-.pdf (Newsletter together with Caroline Glick, Daniel Pipes, Yoram Ettinger, Zvi Hauser)
WORLD ISRAEL NEWS:
Several short excerpts:
Not since the time of Dr. Goebels [Head of the Nazi Propaganda Machine] has there ever been a case in which continual repetition of a lie has born such great fruits…Of all the Palestinian lies, there is no lie greater or more crushing than that which calls for the establishment of a separate Palestinian state in the West Bank… – From “Palestinian Lies” in Ha’aretz, 30-7-76, by former far-Left Meretz Education Minister, Prof. Amnon Rubinstein.
As the new elections approach, the “Palestinian problem” is once again likely to dominate much of the inter-(and intra-) party debate. In many ways this debate is entirely superfluous. After all, a simple mental experiment will suffice to strip away the veil of mendacity shrouding the Palestinian grievances against Israel.
Imagine for a moment…
To demonstrate this, imagine for a moment that the 1967 Six Day War, in which several Arab armies marshalled their forces with the undisguised intention to annihilate Israel, never took place. Imagine that Israel had not been compelled to launch a preemptive strike in self-defense to thwart the Arabs’ openly proclaimed aim of total genocide that resulted in it taking over Judea-Samaria (a.k.a. the “West Bank”)—which the Palestinians now contend is their long-yearned for homeland.
Then ask yourself: If that war had not occurred, where would “Palestine” be?
“We shall enter Palestine with its soil …saturated in blood”
Indeed, as early as March 8, 1965, over two years before the Six-Day War, Gamal Abdel Nasser, president of Egypt, proclaimed his bloodcurdling intent: “We shall not enter Palestine with its soil covered in sand, we shall enter it with its soil saturated in blood”.
But what “Palestine” was he referring to? It certainly was not the “West Bank” and Gaza,
Similarly savage sentiments were expressed by Ahmad Shukeiri, Yasser Arafat’s predecessor as chairman of the PLO. Indeed, only days prior to the outbreak of the Six-Day War, in a somewhat premature flush of triumph, he crowed: “D Day is approaching. The Arabs have waited 19 years for this and will not flinch from the war of liberation…”
Ominously, he threatened: “This is a fight for the homeland–it is either us or the Israelis. There is no middle road … We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors—if there are any— the boats are ready to deport them.”
An ephemeral “homeland
Here again, Shukeiri’s use of the words “liberation” and “homeland” is revealing…and damning for current Palestinian claims.
After all, they clearly did not apply to the “West Bank” or the Gaza Strip, since both were under Arab rule and certainly not considered the “homeland” towards which Palestinian “liberation” efforts were directed.
An anomalous “nation”?
This, of course, creates the remarkably anomalous situation we have today.
On the one hand, the Palestinians profess that they are willing to forego all the territory they claimed as their pre-1967 “homeland”, but on the other, obdurately demand for their post-1967 “homeland” a completely different territory, which they explicitly excluded from their previous homeland demands.
It would be difficult to find any historical precedent of such a dramatic metamorphosis of an envisioned “homeland”, in which there is not an overlap of a single square inch between the territory originally claimed and that claimed only a few years later.
“Liberation of the homeland” means “annihilation of Israel”
Clearly then, the aspirations of the Palestinians have nothing to do with their attachment to the land, but everything to do with the detachment of Jews from the land—i.e. driving the Jews from any portion of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Clearly then, the only conceivable “plain-English” translation for the “liberation of the homeland” must be the “annihilation of Israel.”
Denying all ties between Jews & “Palestine”
The 1964 Palestinian National Covenant was replaced by a 1968 version, which, in the guise of “the liberation of Palestine,” continued to advocate the destruction of Israel as a necessary precursor for Mideast peace —in blatantly explicit terms.
“Palestine” is where the Jews are
So, going back to our mental experiment and the original question it posed: If the 1967 Six-Day War had never taken place and the “West Bank” had remained under the rule of the Hashemite Kingdom, where would “Palestine” be?
The inevitable answer would be: Wherever the Jews are …
Is it too much to hope that simple truths will determine attitudes in the next election?
