Go Ahead…Make My Millennium !
by Gerald A. Honigman
Where’s Dirty Harry when you need him?
One of my favorite Hollywood folks of all time, Clint Eastwood, spoke words similar to those above as he dared the bad guys to make a move.
We’re increasingly hearing reports that Arabs–seeing that Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu isn’t collapsing fast enough under American pressure to yield to all that they demand–will opt to take their act to the United Nations in their bid to create their 22nd state and second, not first in “Palestine.”
Recall that Jordan was created in 1922 from some 80% of the original April 25, 1920 Mandate of Palestine’s territory. So much for the Arab claim that Jews got the lions’ share of the land.
And while we’re on the subject of creating new nations, as a side note, I’m curious…when do some 35 million truly stateless, largely subjugated, used and abused Kurds and a like number of similarly victimized Amazigh and Kabyle people (“Berbers”) get to demand the creation of single states for themselves? Why two dozen states for Arabs and everyone else gets the shaft?
In one of the latest reports on this matter, PA /PLO officials stated on September 15th that they will either be going to the Security Council next week to apply for full membership or will pursue a lesser status–but one which may still cause Israel lots of legal problems in terms of defensive military actions–in the General Assembly.
Hey, you know what? I say go for it… And so should Israel’s leaders.
Make my day !
What’s the alternative? Caving in to Arab and their current good buddy in the White House’s demand that Israel remain a super vulnerable, sitting duck, sub-rump state in perpetuity–a mere 9 to 15 miles wide at its waist, where most of its population, industry, parliament, main airport, and such are located?
Regardless of how many hissy fits Israel’s enemies throw–including ones which Washington now actually instigates–the same Security Council which Arabs want to endorse their unilateral calls for statehood is the very same body which promised, in its final draft of UNSC Resolution 242 after Israel’s very existence was again threatened by Arabs in 1967, that Israel would never again have to return to the imposed, suicidal Auschwitz/armistice lines (not borders ) of 1949.
242 and its architects held that any future peace deals would have to involve a territorial compromise over disputed (not “purely Arab”) territories which Arabs had used repeatedly to attack Israel from and in which Jews themselves have millennial connections to.
So, Arabs now want another Security Council resolution on the matter?
Not until the first one–which was to be the main guide for peace making between Arab and Jew in the post-’67 age–gets addressed the way it should.
With the Middle East in a state of instability and even more turmoil today than usual, and with Islamist governments likely to replace current and former despots, this is no time for Israel to become weak-kneed or to be coerced by assorted Chamberlain-like “friends” to take Munich ’38-like chances for “peace.” Israel’s leaders must gather their strength…reasonable strength, but strength, nonetheless. And this is the time for those who claim to care about Israel to truly stand up and be counted.
It is unreasonable to force the sole, resurrected state of the Jews to expose its children to Arabs who will, undoubtedly, deliberately target them and other innocents yet again.
Have no doubt that if Israel is forced to make the same unilateral retreat to the armistice line in Judea and Samaria (aka “West Bank”)–the one which made it 9-15 miles wide at its waist–then all of Israel’s main population centers will likely be subjected to the horror Sderot and other southern Israeli towns were subjected to after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza a while back…tens of thousands of rockets, mortars, and so forth targeting Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, and so forth, with Israel ripe for bisection in that area as well. Shame on nations fighting wars and acquiring territories hundreds and thousands of miles away from home in the name of their own national defense and security interests which expect Israel to yield to this state of affairs in its own backyard.
A meaningful territorial compromise is thus a must–as, again, the final draft (not the French, Russian, and Arab version) of 242 called for, along with most American leaders (with the exception of Clinton) before President Obama. If anyone is to receive the short end of the stick here, it must be that proposed second state for Arabs in Palestine–again, their twenty-second in total–not the sole, resurrected, minuscule nation of the Jews.
And if Arabs, as appears will happen, actually go through with a unilateral move in this direction, then…
Well, they should be making Israel’s millennium.
At that point, Israel’s leaders need to throw the horrendous Oslo and all other agreements out the window–since the Arabs will have now done this themselves–and must do what probably should have been done long ago but wasn’t for the sake of hoping, beyond hope, that new Arab leaders would arise who really wanted true peace instead of playing the usual Arab destruction-in-stages games with Jews.
Israel must then draw the absolute minimal lines–similar to what American military leaders and others recommended in the past–in Judea and Samaria (and on the Golan Heights later as well) which must be retained in order to give it a hint of strategic depth and some semblance of real, defensible borders (which 242 calls for) on the high ground and then, in its own move, annex them to Israel. Arabs are not the only ones who can move unilaterally on their interests
Those Arabs who pledge loyalty will become Israeli citizens. Those who don’t will be ejected to Fatahland or Hamastan.
Israel will be rebuked from the international community of hypocrites regardless of what it does…short of committing suicide.
So, it must stop playing soft ball with those playing hard ball.
Most Americans will understand this, as will some other good folks as well.
And there’s less than two years to go before the new American elections…