Why one should oppose a second Palestinian-Arab state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza - Part 11 of 23
This piece continues a series of which the first ten parts were posted on September 8, 9, 11, 17, 20, 22, 23, and October 7, 24, and 28, 2002. The object of the series is to provide a database that is not only reliable and well-documented but also one for which documents are easily accessible, preferably from web resources. The term "second Palestinian-Arab state" is used in order to underscore that one Palestinian-Arab state already exists: it's called Jordan, and it is located in that part of Eastern Paletsine that was originally to have been part of the Jewish National Home.
11. Creation of a second Palestinian Arab state and will not pacify the region. Destabilizing internecine wars among the region's countries, such as the Iran/Iraq or the Iraq/Kuwait wars, are unrelated to the Israeli/Arab conflict or to the absence of a second Palestinian-Arab state.
On February 14, 1984, President Ronald Reagan welcomed King Hussein of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt to Washington. Following Reagan’s comments, Mubarak said:
The British-Irish quagmire has festered for 700 years, but never attained the status of “centrality”; the Balkans have been simmering for even longer, but never attained the status of “centrality”. The Palestinian Arabs alone have succeeded in pushing their way to the head of the historical queue and convince the world of their “centrality”. Their success is a badge of dishonour for the West that has allowed itself to be had.
One of the corollaries of the “centrality” hoax implies that the way to solve the Middle East conflict is by granting the Palestinian Arabs a sovereign state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (“Yesha”). The object of this article is to argue that the Israeli-Arab conflict is a minor, compared with other Middle-East problems, and that consequently, creating a sovereign Palestinian-Arab state in “Yesha” will solve nothing, even had such a state been a solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict. The argument is based on two elements: (i) the historical record proves that the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a minor conflict in relation to the conflicts among the Middle East and Arab nations overall; (ii) the Israeli-Arab conflict has nothing to do with the real problems of the Middle-East and Arab nations, such as oppressing minorities, oppressing their own masses and squelching development.
To demonstrate that the Israeli-Arab conflict is minor compared with the conflicts among the Middle East and Arab nations overall, we recall firstly the two major regional wars that took place during the last 25 years, namely, the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-89 that cost one million lives, and the Iraq-Kuwait war of 1990-1991.
The question arises: since these are the major regional conflicts in terms of casualties and/or international involvement, and since Israel had nothing at all to do with igniting these flames, how would have a second Palestinian state prevented these truly “central” events?
The foregoing discussion dealt with the two major conflicts in the area, but the region and the Arab countries generally have seen many more conflicts and wars. An article posted by the International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem, provided the following relevant details about war casualties:
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) ran an article listing recent international conflicts, both those that are ongoing and those that have ended. The list includes, among others, the following conflicts that involve Arab or Moslem countries:
Syria:
From the same encyclopaedia, here is Iraq’s history, 1975-2000, in a nutshell:
The documentation cited has dealt with wars launched by Arab or Moslem countries and with internal repression of minorities and dissidents. As to the issue of squelching development, suffice it to refer to the UN study on development in Arab countries (an article I posted on the topic on July 18, 2002, resides at the CitCUN site.)
The UN study reports that:
* Arab societies are being crippled by a lack of political freedom, the repression of women and an isolation from the world of ideas that stifles creativity.
* Governments in the Arab countries are not accountable to the people and unrepresentative of them.
* Out of the seven regions of the world, Arab countries had the lowest freedom score in the late 1990s: On international measurements of government accountability, civil liberties, political rights and media freedom, Arab countries score lower than any other region in the world..
* Per capita income growth has shrunk in the last 20 years to a level just above that of sub-Saharan Africa. Productivity is declining.
* The real income of the average Arab citizen was just 13.9% that of the average citizen of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] countries.
* Research and development are weak or nonexistent. Science and technology are dormant.
* Intellectuals flee a political and social environment that is stultifying — if not repressive.
* Arab women are almost universally denied advancement. Half of them still cannot read or write. Only 3.5 percent of all parliamentary seats in Arab states were filled by women. Arab women also suffered from unequal citizenship and legal entitlements.
* Maternal mortality is double that of Latin America and four times that of East Asia.
* The Internet usage is low.
* Filmmaking appears to be declining. There is a severe shortage of new writing and a dearth of translations of works from outside. The whole Arab world translates about 330 books annually, one-fifth the number that Greece translates. In the 1,000 years since the reign of the Caliph the Arabs have translated as many books as Spain translates in just one year. [But, as the report forgot to underscore, they did translate the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, didn’t they?]
* Most Arab countries are providing both too little education and the wrong kind. Only South Asia has a lower adult literacy rate.
In the same vein, Prof. Ajami of John Hopkins University, a Lebanese-born Shia Moslem, wrote:
Ajami Fouad. The Dream Palace of the Arabs. NY: Phantom Books, 1998.]
How will a second Palestinian-Arab state correct these deficiencies which are truly “central”?
A final note about the “centrality” thesis and its corollaries. The notion was absurd even during the 1970s and 1980s, when this propaganda trick was in its infancy, but today it cannot even pass the Straight Face Test. Over the last weeks the world has been treated to Islamist attacks in Moscow, in the Phillippines, in Indonesia’s Bali, in Pakistan and in Yemen (the French ship Limburg). And with this international record the Arabs try to convince us of the “centrality of the Palestinian problem!” What Chutzpah!
It gets worse. The Arabs have an old tradition of blaming others for their failings (see my quotation from Bernard Lewis’ works). Even in the UN report quoted above, where Arab scholars openly admitted the sorry state of their countries, one still encounters the blame routine:
Contributed by Joseph Alexander Norland
This piece continues a series of which the first ten parts were posted on September 8, 9, 11, 17, 20, 22, 23, and October 7, 24, and 28, 2002. The object of the series is to provide a database that is not only reliable and well-documented but also one for which documents are easily accessible, preferably from web resources. The term "second Palestinian-Arab state" is used in order to underscore that one Palestinian-Arab state already exists: it's called Jordan, and it is located in that part of Eastern Paletsine that was originally to have been part of the Jewish National Home.
11. Creation of a second Palestinian Arab state and will not pacify the region. Destabilizing internecine wars among the region's countries, such as the Iran/Iraq or the Iraq/Kuwait wars, are unrelated to the Israeli/Arab conflict or to the absence of a second Palestinian-Arab state.
On February 14, 1984, President Ronald Reagan welcomed King Hussein of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt to Washington. Following Reagan’s comments, Mubarak said:
The Lebanese crisis is a stark reminder of the centrality of the Palestinian problem. That question must be addressed frontally and without delay.Shoretly after 9-11, The Guardian wrote:
[T]he Bush administration is reportedly preparing to pressure Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to accept a viable Palestinian state including a shared Jerusalem...Thess are but two examples to illustrate a spectacular achievement of the Arab propaganda machine: pulling the wool over our eyes, the Arabs have succeeded in convincing the West of the “centrality of the Palestinian problem”, with the concomitant conclusions that the West should extract from Israel concession after concession.
All this comes close to recognition, by the two leaders of the war against terror, of the centrality of the Palestinian question.
The British-Irish quagmire has festered for 700 years, but never attained the status of “centrality”; the Balkans have been simmering for even longer, but never attained the status of “centrality”. The Palestinian Arabs alone have succeeded in pushing their way to the head of the historical queue and convince the world of their “centrality”. Their success is a badge of dishonour for the West that has allowed itself to be had.
One of the corollaries of the “centrality” hoax implies that the way to solve the Middle East conflict is by granting the Palestinian Arabs a sovereign state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza (“Yesha”). The object of this article is to argue that the Israeli-Arab conflict is a minor, compared with other Middle-East problems, and that consequently, creating a sovereign Palestinian-Arab state in “Yesha” will solve nothing, even had such a state been a solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict. The argument is based on two elements: (i) the historical record proves that the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a minor conflict in relation to the conflicts among the Middle East and Arab nations overall; (ii) the Israeli-Arab conflict has nothing to do with the real problems of the Middle-East and Arab nations, such as oppressing minorities, oppressing their own masses and squelching development.
To demonstrate that the Israeli-Arab conflict is minor compared with the conflicts among the Middle East and Arab nations overall, we recall firstly the two major regional wars that took place during the last 25 years, namely, the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-89 that cost one million lives, and the Iraq-Kuwait war of 1990-1991.
The question arises: since these are the major regional conflicts in terms of casualties and/or international involvement, and since Israel had nothing at all to do with igniting these flames, how would have a second Palestinian state prevented these truly “central” events?
The foregoing discussion dealt with the two major conflicts in the area, but the region and the Arab countries generally have seen many more conflicts and wars. An article posted by the International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem, provided the following relevant details about war casualties:
Once again: how would have a second Palestinian-Arab state in Yesha prevented any of this inter-Moslem carnage?
Arab-Israeli dispute (over 5 decades)... ..70,000
Algerian civil war (1954-62)... ... ... 1,000,000
Egypt's invasion of Yemen (early 60s).... 250,000
Lebanese civil war (1975-76)... ... ..... 150,000
Libya's invasion of Chad (1977-87)... ... 100,000
Iran-Iraq War (1980-88)... ... ... .... 1,000,000+
Sudanese civil war (1988-present) .. .. 1,000,000+
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) ran an article listing recent international conflicts, both those that are ongoing and those that have ended. The list includes, among others, the following conflicts that involve Arab or Moslem countries:
Another way to look at the “centrality” thesis is by reviewing the history of the Mid-East countries over the last generation or two. Because of space constraints, the following text refers to Syria and Iraq only, using the brief review given in the Web version of Encarta; reporting the entries for Algeria, Libya, Sudan, etc. had to be omitted.
Afghanistan Civil War .....1989 -->
Algeria FIS / GIA Struggle 1992 -->
Ethiopia Eritrea War ......1998 -->
India Kashmiri Uprising ..1970s -->
Indonesia ...........Aceh 1986 --->
Indonesia .....Kalimantan 1983 --->
Philippines Moro Uprising 1970s--->
Russia Chechen Uprising ..1992 --->
Somalia Civil War ..........1991-->
Sudan Second Civil War ....1983 -->
Turkey Conflict with Kurds 1984 -->
Albania Civil War .................1997
Bosnia Civil War ..................1992-1995
Chad Civil Wars ...................1960s-1990s
Cyprus Civil and Turkish Invasion .1970s
Eritrea War for Independence ......1958-1991
Ethiopia First War with Somalia ...1977-1978
Ethiopia Second War with Somalia ..1998-1999
India War with Pakistan ...........1965
India Bangladeshi Independence War 1971
Indonesia East Timor ..............1974-1999
Iran Iran-Iraq War ................1980-1989
Iraq Kurdish Rebellions ...........1960s-1990s
Iraq Gulf War .....................1990-1991
Jordan Civil War ..................1970
Lebanon Civil Conflict ............1958
Lebanon Civil War .................1975-1990
Libya War with Chad ...............1986-1987
Russia Chechen Uprising ...........1994-1996
Serbia-Kosovo Secessionist Movement 1990-1999
Somalia .........................1980-1984
Somalia .........................1984-1989
Sudan First Civil War .............1955-1972
Tajikistan Civil War ..............1992-1997
West.Sahara Polisario-Moroccan War 1975-1991
Yemen Civil War ...................1960s-1980s
Yemen ...........................1990-1994
Yemen AR ..........................1960-1964
Yemen PR ..........................1984-1989
Syria:
As it became clear in 1975 that Egypt would pursue a bilateral agreement with Israel, Syria forged closer ties with Jordan. The following year, Syria intervened in the Lebanese civil war and subsequently became mired in the continuing conflict. In 1980 Syria signed a 20-year treaty of friendship and cooperation with the USSR...How would a second Palestinian-Arab state in Yesha put an end to Syria’s occupation of Lebanon, the support for international terrorism, the internal repression, and what Encarta calls Syria’s “long and troubled history”?
Domestically, Assad’s regime was shaken by growing civil disturbances. An extremist group called the Muslim Brotherhood was accused of several assassinations. In 1982 government troops suppressed a full-scale rebellion by the brotherhood in and around Hamah, reducing much of the city to rubble. In 1986 the United Kingdom broke diplomatic relations with Syria and the United States imposed sanctions, both accusing Syria of sponsoring international terrorism.
Syria has been considered an occupying force within Lebanon since the mid-1970s, when it sent thousands of troops there. In February 1987 Syria ordered a force of 7,000 into the Muslim sector of Beirut in an attempt to restore order between warring factions. In October 1990 a Syrian-led assault crushed resistance in East Beirut, reuniting the Lebanese capital. Although most of the fighting in Lebanon ended in 1990, and Syrian and Lebanese forces signed a friendship treaty in May 1991 calling for mutual cooperation, Syrian forces remained in the country. As of mid-1996 Syria still had an estimated 35,000 or more troops stationed in Lebanon and continued to exercise significant control over Lebanese politics...
Syria also has had a long and troubled history with neighboring Iraq. Syria was one of the few Arab nations to support Iran during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).
...
Although the United States removed Syria from its list of major drug-producing and drug-trafficking countries in 1997, it did not lift restrictions on economic aid and exports to Syria, because it still considered it a nation that encouraged terrorism.
From the same encyclopaedia, here is Iraq’s history, 1975-2000, in a nutshell:
In early 1974 heavy fighting erupted in northern Iraq between government forces and Kurdish nationalists, who rejected as inadequate a new Kurdish autonomy law based on the 1970 agreement. The Kurds, led by Mustafa al-Barzani, received arms and other supplies from Iran. After Iraq agreed in early 1975 to make major concessions to Iran in settling their border disputes, Iran halted aid to the Kurds, and the revolt was dealt a severe blow. In July 1979 President Bakr was succeeded by General Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim and fellow member of the Arab Baath Socialist Party.How will the creation of a second Palestinian-Arab state solve the problem of a predatory regime that has fought savage wars with its Arab neighbours? How will the creation of a second Palestinian-Arab state stop the regime from oppressing its Kurdish and Shite minorities, including the use of gas?
In 1979 Islamic revolutionaries in Iran succeeded in overthrowing the country’s secular government and established an Islamic republic there. Tension between the Iraqi government and Iran’s new Islamic regime increased during that year, when unrest among Iranian Kurds spilled over into Iraq. Sunni-Shia religious animosities exacerbated the conflict. In September 1980 Iraq declared its 1975 agreement with Iran, which drew the border between the countries down the middle of the Shatt al Arab, null and void and claimed authority over the entire river. The quarrel flared into a full-scale war, the Iran-Iraq War. Iraq quickly overran a large part of the Arab-populated province of Khuzistan in Iran and destroyed the Abadan refinery... In early 1982 Iran launched a counteroffensive, and by May it had reclaimed much of the territory conquered by Iraq in 1980. In the ensuing stalemate, each side inflicted heavy damage on the other and on Persian Gulf shipping. After a ceasefire with Iran came into effect in August 1988, the Iraqi government again moved to suppress the Kurdish insurgency. During the late 1980s the nation rebuilt its military machine, in part through bank credits and technology obtained from Western Europe and the United States.
...
In 1990 Iraq revived a long-standing territorial dispute with Kuwait, its ally during the war with Iran, claiming that overproduction of petroleum by Kuwait was injuring Iraq’s economy by depressing the price of crude oil. Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait on August 2 and rapidly took over the country. The UN Security Council issued a series of resolutions that condemned the occupation, imposed a broad trade embargo on Iraq, and demanded that Iraq withdraw unconditionally by January 15, 1991.
When Iraq failed to comply, a coalition led by the United States began intensive aerial bombardment of military and infrastructural targets in Iraq and Kuwait in January 1991. The ensuing Persian Gulf War proved disastrous for Iraq, which was forced out of Kuwait in about six weeks. Coalition forces invaded southern Iraq, and tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed. Many of the country’s armored vehicles and artillery pieces were destroyed, and its nuclear and chemical weapons facilities were severely damaged. In April, Iraq agreed to UN terms for a permanent ceasefire; coalition troops withdrew from southern Iraq as a UN peacekeeping force moved in to police the Iraq-Kuwait border. Meanwhile, Hussein used his remaining military forces to suppress rebellions by Shias in the south and Kurds in the north. Hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees fled to Turkey and Iran, and U.S., British, and French troops landed inside Iraq’s northern border to establish a Kurdish enclave with refugee camps to protect another 600,000 Kurds from Iraqi government reprisals. In addition, international forces set up “no-fly zones” in both northern and southern Iraq to ensure the safety of the Kurdish and Shia populations...
In June 1993 the United States launched a widely criticized cruise missile attack against Iraq in retaliation for a reported assassination plot against former U.S. president George Bush...
In 1994 Iraq continued its efforts to crush internal resistance with an economic embargo of the Kurdish-populated north and a military campaign against Shia rebels in the southern marshlands. The Shias were quickly crushed, but the crisis in the Kurdish region, which had long suffered from internal rivalries, was prolonged...
Hussein’s interference with UN weapons inspectors nearly brought Iraq into another military crisis in early 1998. However, UN secretary general Kofi Annan negotiated an agreement that secured Iraq’s compliance and averted military strikes by the United States and its allies. In December of that year, in response to reports that Iraq was continuing to block inspections, the United States and Britain launched a four-day series of air strikes on Iraqi military and industrial targets. In response, Iraq declared that it would no longer comply with UN inspection teams, called for an end to the sanctions, and threatened to fire on aircraft patrolling the “no-fly zones.” Through 2001, Iraq continued to challenge the patrols, and British and U.S. planes struck Iraqi missile launch sites and other targets.
The documentation cited has dealt with wars launched by Arab or Moslem countries and with internal repression of minorities and dissidents. As to the issue of squelching development, suffice it to refer to the UN study on development in Arab countries (an article I posted on the topic on July 18, 2002, resides at the CitCUN site.)
The UN study reports that:
* Arab societies are being crippled by a lack of political freedom, the repression of women and an isolation from the world of ideas that stifles creativity.
* Governments in the Arab countries are not accountable to the people and unrepresentative of them.
* Out of the seven regions of the world, Arab countries had the lowest freedom score in the late 1990s: On international measurements of government accountability, civil liberties, political rights and media freedom, Arab countries score lower than any other region in the world..
* Per capita income growth has shrunk in the last 20 years to a level just above that of sub-Saharan Africa. Productivity is declining.
* The real income of the average Arab citizen was just 13.9% that of the average citizen of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] countries.
* Research and development are weak or nonexistent. Science and technology are dormant.
* Intellectuals flee a political and social environment that is stultifying — if not repressive.
* Arab women are almost universally denied advancement. Half of them still cannot read or write. Only 3.5 percent of all parliamentary seats in Arab states were filled by women. Arab women also suffered from unequal citizenship and legal entitlements.
* Maternal mortality is double that of Latin America and four times that of East Asia.
* The Internet usage is low.
* Filmmaking appears to be declining. There is a severe shortage of new writing and a dearth of translations of works from outside. The whole Arab world translates about 330 books annually, one-fifth the number that Greece translates. In the 1,000 years since the reign of the Caliph the Arabs have translated as many books as Spain translates in just one year. [But, as the report forgot to underscore, they did translate the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, didn’t they?]
* Most Arab countries are providing both too little education and the wrong kind. Only South Asia has a lower adult literacy rate.
In the same vein, Prof. Ajami of John Hopkins University, a Lebanese-born Shia Moslem, wrote:
The gap between Egypt's sense of itself and its performance is impossible to ignore... A country of 69 million people, the weekly magazine al Mussawar recently revealed, now produces a mere 375 books a year. Contrast this with Israel's 4,000 titles, as the magazine did, and it is easy to understand the laments heard all around.[Quoted from p. 221 of:
Ajami Fouad. The Dream Palace of the Arabs. NY: Phantom Books, 1998.]
How will a second Palestinian-Arab state correct these deficiencies which are truly “central”?
A final note about the “centrality” thesis and its corollaries. The notion was absurd even during the 1970s and 1980s, when this propaganda trick was in its infancy, but today it cannot even pass the Straight Face Test. Over the last weeks the world has been treated to Islamist attacks in Moscow, in the Phillippines, in Indonesia’s Bali, in Pakistan and in Yemen (the French ship Limburg). And with this international record the Arabs try to convince us of the “centrality of the Palestinian problem!” What Chutzpah!
It gets worse. The Arabs have an old tradition of blaming others for their failings (see my quotation from Bernard Lewis’ works). Even in the UN report quoted above, where Arab scholars openly admitted the sorry state of their countries, one still encounters the blame routine:
Israel’s illegal occupation of Arab lands is one of the most pervasive obstacles to security and progress in the region geographically (since it affects the entire region), temporally (extending over decades) and developmentally (impacting nearly all aspects of human development and human security, directly for millions and indirectly for others). The human cost extends beyond the considerable loss of lives and livelihoods of direct victims. If human development is the process of enlarging choices, if it implies that people must influence the processes that shape their lives, and if it means the full enjoyment of human rights, then nothing stifles that noble vision of development more than subjecting a people to foreign occupation.It is this very tendency that should be recognized as “centrality”.
Contributed by Joseph Alexander Norland
posted by Joseph @ 2:31 AM
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