Terrorism and Palestine

The state of Israel was established by UN resolution 181 on 29 November, 1947 and the nation came into existence on 14 May, 1948 with the expiration of the British Mandate. Israel's right to exist is thus affirmed by the UN and has never been recended by that body. On the other hand, the Arab world and the Palestinians living in the geographic region that became Israel did not accept the resolution and immediately attacked the new state. Since that time, it is the Arabs and Palestinians, not Israel that have been in violation of the UN resolution. Subsequent UN resolutions have ignored this simple fact: the Palestinians have no legitimate demands upon Israel and can have none until they accept the original UN resolution establishing the State or Israel. Since this resolution also established a separate Arab Palestinian state, and since the Jews accepted the resolution when it was passed, just acceptence of Resolution 181 by the Palestinian Arabs would appear to be a solution to the problem. But it is no longer that simple.

Initially, Palestinians resisted Israel by conventional military means with the assistanced and support of the surrounding Arab states of Jordan, Syria and Egypt. When these efforts proved ineffective and were abandoned in 1973, the Palestinians turned to political terror. If they had confined the terror to targets withing Israel, the world may have paid little notice, but the targets were not confined to Israel. The terrorism became international in an attempt to coerce the international community to support the Palestinian cause.

There is an aspect of international terrorism that we must take into account. Some terrorism has political purpose, but many of the acts of radical Islamic terrorism such as 9/11 have no political motivation even though they do have secondary and tertiary links to political causes. For a study of this aspect, read Al Qaeda’s Fantasy Ideology, By Lee Harris

Palestinian terrorism is strange mixture of both politics and fantasy. The Palestinian grievance against Israel is that it exists, and the only way that Israel can address this grievance is to disappear. Israel is not going to do this and is not going to agree to any settlement that would allow this to happen. In this, the Palestinians are pursuing a fantasy. With the embracing of the Paslestinian cause by radical Islamic fundamentalists, the fantasy is deepened. Rather than the Islamic fantasy becoming rational, the Palestinian rational has become more fantastic.

The war on terror is inextricably linked to the Palestine problem. And much as we may feel a need to get Israel and the Palestinians to resolve their differences, we can't afford to do so unless we can separate the negotiations from the actions of the terrorists. If the message is that terrorism forced, impelled or pressured us to bring Israel to the table, we lose and the world loses. The message will be loud and clear that international terrorism works and works well and what worked in Palestine will be copied by others around the globe. Terrorism will increase and not decrease and if we are seen as the ones that pressured Israel to give in, we will be the primary target.

Our stand has to be that regardless of the grievances, the use of international terror illegitimizes those grievances. As long as the terror continues, any negotiations that result in any consideration of those grievances will be a victory for terrorism and not a blow against it. So before any negotiations can start, the terror must stop with no amnesty offerred. But can the terrorism stop? Can the terrorist leadership afford to stop? As Steven Den Beste says, probably not.

Israel is fighting for nothing short of national survival. The Palestinian demand for right of return is suicide for Israel. The only solution is a separate Palestinian state with no right of return to Israel, but while Israel may accept that, many Palestinians (not to mention many Arabs) will not. Another key issue no one wants to talk about is Jerusalem. Israel wants it. The Palestiniians want it. More importantly, the Jews want it and the Muslams want it. As long as the Dome of the Rock and al Aqsa mosque sit on the Temple Mount, I fear there will be no resolution possible and the moment the Dome and the Mosque are gone, there will truly be holy war. The best we can probably achieve is a very uneasy peace for a while until the troubles flare up again over the Jerusalem issue.

I have seen suggestions that Jerusalem should become an open city, administered by the UN as called for in UN resolution 181. UN administration of Palestine is part of what started the problem in the first place so that really sounds like a good idea. sheesh.