THE PEACE JOKE

By Simon Fischler

With the Middle-East Quartet doing all it can to revive negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians it's time to take a step back, a deep breath and look with a magnifying glass at how the Palestinians will ruin any chance of Peace.

History is a key component to making a better future.

This is a bit of knowledge the Palestinians lack. These negotiations will probably fail because the Palestinians have never wanted to look back on their history with an ounce of truth. They have never wanted to look at their past mistakes in an attempt to correct them.

From the beginning of this conflict the Arabs of Eretz Israel ( I call them this because the name Palestinian is nothing more than a twentieth century invention) have done all they can to deny the Jews their rightful home.

Jews were a majority population in the major cities of Eretz Israel until the Arab riots of the early twentieth century. The Jews were the majority in Hebron, Safed and Jerusalem.

When the opportunity of returning European Jews to their native homeland in Israel was approved through international law in the Leaugue of Nations the Arabs of the mandate revolted and murdered hundreds of Jews.

In 1929 the Arabs committed the Hebron massacre, killing 67 Jews and pushing the rest out of Hebron. Hebron, a majority Jewish City since antiquity was, in one fell swoop, de-Judaized.

On November 29th, 1947, the United Nations voted 33 to 13 to partition the British Mandate in Israel into two states, one Jewish one Arab.

The Jewish population accepted this, the Arab Higher Committee rejected it with the backing of the Arab League. What this means is from the beginning of this conflict the Arabs and the Arab world in general have never accepted the concept of the right of Jewish Self-determination in the land of the Jewish Nation.

Because of the Arab refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist, the war of Israeli Independence was fought and won by the Jews. Israel fought and won this war against the combined armies of Egypt, Trans-Jordan (under British military leadership), Lebanon, Syria, plus contingents from Morocco, Libya, Algeria and Iraq.

From this point on the Jews created and maintained the state of Israel.

In addition to creating a homeland for the battered remnants of Europe’s Jewry, Israel brought in all the Jewish refugees, some 900,000, who were subsequently expelled from the Arab and Muslim states where they had been living since exile from ancient Israel thousands of years ago.

The Arabs, on the other hand, forced their supposed brethren into refugee camps WHERE THEY STILL EXIST TODAY! Refugees camps still exist both in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, both areas ostensibly run by the Palestinians since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.

While Israel has built itself up into a pluralistic, democratic country while simultaneously constantly fighting for its survival, the Palestinian Leadership and the Arab world have let the Palestinians squander in refugee camps ... as a bargaining chip.

On numerous occasions the state of Israel has gone the extra mile to give land back for peace. On almost every occasion the Arabs have rejected these offers, opting for war -- in the hopes of finally destroying Israel.

After the Six Day War (1967), the Eshkol government offered to return all of the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights and the West Bank for peace. The Arabs counter-offered with the once famous Three No’s of the Khartoum Conference: No Peace with Israel, No Recognition of Israel and No negotiations with Israel.

The facts of history point out again and again the refusal of the Arab world to recognize the Jewish nation’s right to exist, with their own self-determination, on land that had been theirs for thousands of years and long before Arabs had come out of Arabia.

The greatest folly committed by the Palestinians, which the world has seemingly forgotten was the rejection of peace by Yassar Arafat.

After seven years of painstaking negotiations Ehud Barak decided to put the Palestinian leadership to the ultimate test.

American President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinian leadership 97% of the West Bank, all of Gaza, East Jerusalem, the Muslim and Christian quarters of the old city, sovereignty of the Temple Mount and the return of Palestinian refugees, to the new state of Palestine.

Arafat rejected what was -- and always will be -- the best offer any losing nation will receive in any peace negotiations.

In fact one could even claim that what was offered to the Palestinians that day was what a winning nation should receive out of peace negotiations!

Once again, compromise -- the heart of making peace -- was a foreign concept to the Arabs.

Arafat rejected this offer because it would mean that Israel would have to be recognized and accepted as the Jewish Nation State.

It made no difference that everyone from Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright, the heads of Europe to the King of Saudi Arabia condemned Arafat.

Today Mahmoud Abbas is not interested in peace or compromise with Israel. No, Abbas is interested in creating ficticious Arab history, creating pre-conditions that make negotiations impossible and blamming Israel for Arab Racism.