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IV
Oslo – A Lesson that
was Never Learnt
M. Sharon
We are Arab people; when we report, we predate, and
postdate,
we add and we omit, but we do not mean to lie.
(Ibn Qutaybah, Arab writer, 9th century)
Continued
from the home page
.... against
Israel but would change the tone of their propaganda, and endeavor to
disseminate messages of peace and good neighborliness. The Israeli public
was led to believe that, as in Israel, the Palestinian Authority would
develop special educational programs for the schools to educate the young
generation in the spirit of peace, and prepare it to live in a new era of no
war, just as Israel had been doing for years on all levels of education, and
in the media. It was also hoped that the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic line
of propaganda, common in the Palestinian media would at least be tempered if
not completely shunned.
The least that even
those who were most skeptical about the agreements had hoped was that on the
official level the notorious symbols of the hatred for Israel, in the
official documentation of the PLO would be modified, notwithstanding the
Palestinian Covenant and the FATAH Charter. For once, it was hoped,
the name of Israel would appear on the Arab maps.
In reality none of these
anticipations was realized.
After the establishment
of the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, terrorist
actions against Israeli citizens were intensified. Israel became more
accessible, and the terrorists had the necessary havens under the
jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, in which they prepared their acts
of murder, and to the safety of which they withdrew after perpetrating them.
Israeli property also became easily accessible, and the theft of Israeli
vehicles and cattle, field products and machinery became a Palestinian
national sport, causing Israel tremendous economic damage.
Over and above all this,
the Palestinian Authority, from the minute of its establishment, did nothing
to change the atmosphere of hatred among the Palestinians. On the contrary,
the language of hatred, the incitement for war against the Jews, the
belligerent speeches - the books in schools, the ideology negating Israel’s
existence, and the Jewish right to a homeland remained the same as they had
been before. Nothing changed in the ideology but much has changed in the
intensification of its dissemination, and the availability of the facilities
to bring it to almost every individual: through the press, the electronic
media, and the internet.
Palestinian
achievements in Oslo
1. Territories
The acquisition of real
estate property, namely land ceded to the Palestinians by Israel, in return
for a general, non-binding “condemnation of terror.”
According to the Arab
lexicon, terror does not exist at all on the Palestinian side. When the
Arabs condemn “terror” they mean, Israeli terror, represented by the sheer
existence of the State of Israel. The Arab definition of the killing of
Israeli citizens by Palestinian terrorists is: “Palestinian freedom
fighting.” For this reason, all Arab declarations “against terror,” are
absolutely meaningless, but the Arabs quickly learnt that even for these
empty words the Israelis pay handsomely, with land, with money, and
services, and with support in the international arena.
2. Army
The formation of an
army, under the disguise of “a strong police force.”
The Palestinian
Authority, brought the entire PLO fighting force which had been stationed in
Tunisia and other Arab countries, into the territories which it received
from Israel. This is a well-trained army, indoctrinated for war against
Israel. Its slogan is: “With our souls and blood we shall redeem thee O
Palestine,” which the soldiers, inflamed by ‘Arafat’s speeches, chant. Most
of the members of this army are not even disguised as policemen. They wear
combat uniforms, are organized in military units, get military training, and
none of them have any idea about police duties or police work. The
agreements limit the number of “policemen” to 30,000, yet the actual size of
the standing Palestinian army is double this number, and its arsenals
constantly swell with arms strictly forbidden by the agreements, including
artillery and rockets, smuggled by the agents of Palestinian Authority
itself.
3. Legitimacy
The legitimization of
the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which was, and still should
be, defined as a terrorist organization.
This legitimization is a
particularly important achievement, because it was conceded by the very
victims of this organization’s acts of terror. In this way Israel, the major
victim of the PLO, accepted it as a legitimate freedom-fighter body, exactly
as this organization had been claiming, and abandoned its demand that the
PLO should be accountable for the atrocities it had perpetrated for more
than a quarter of a century. Moreover, Yasser ‘Arafat who had not disgarded
his original goal to destroy Israel “in stages” for one moment, and declared
the Oslo agreements void a few days after they were signed, received the
Nobel Prize for Peace.
4. Legal precedent
The establishment of a
precedent, according to which a sovereign state negotiates, officially, with
a terrorist body of no legal or political standing whose declared aim is to
obliterate it.
Israel did this without
demanding the abolishment of all the official PLO documents calling for the
destruction of Israel, as a precondition for even meeting for negotiations.
5. Avoidance of
cardinal issues
The creation of a
situation by which the Palestinian side acquired meaningful, and real
achievements without having to enter into any commitment regarding the major
issues which are the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict: Delineation of
accepted Borders, solution to the problem of the refugees, and the
determination of the final status of Jerusalem.
The Israelis, so eager
to have the Palestinians as partners, regarded the sheer act of the
negotiations as a great achievement, and interpreted them as amounting to
Palestinian recognition of the State of Israel.
For propaganda purposes,
especially in the West, official Palestinian bodies, adopted this Israeli
interpretation, but they left out the geographical definition of
“Israel”, namely, they refrained from speaking about Israel within any
borders, not even the armistice lines of 1949. Similarly, Israel
remained completely absent from the Palestinian maps: there is no such a
state in the Palestinian atlas (as well as in any other Arab atlas).
The voice of
Palestinian rejection
The Palestinians who
rejected Oslo, whether these were independent Islamic bodies such as the
HAMAS, or elements inside the PLO, claimed that by recognizing Israel, even
in an indirect manner, and within any borders, no matter how diminished they
may be, the Palestinian negotiators had negated fundamental principals of
the Palestinian Covenant. These principals forbid the division of Palestine,
do not recognize the Jews as a people, reject Jewish history altogether,
reject any form of recognition of the Jews’ right to have a state of their
own, and regard Zionism as a terrorist, racial and colonialist movement,
which should be rooted out together with Israel and its Jewish population.
The Muslim elements,
endorsing each one of these ideas, also emphasized the fact that Jihad,
the Holy War against the Jews, the historical enemies of Islam, could not,
and should not, be stopped. The Qur’an decreed that the Jews must be forever
demeaned and degraded, and it follows that they may never rule, especially
over an Islamic land. It goes without saying that the Muslims should not
accept a situation, even post factum, in which Jews rule over
Muslims, or abolish the principle which prescribes that only Muslims should
govern not only over their own holy places but also over the holy places of
others. In other words, it is impossible that the Muslims would willingly
relinquish the cardinal principle that Jews, and Christians, can only be
dhimmis: they may live under Islamic rule only as an inferior class of
“protected people.” As far as the Muslim organizations led by the HAMAS are
concerned: “Islam is the solution, and jihad is the way.”
The Palestinians who
signed the Oslo agreements ( including Mahmud Abbas alias Abu Mazen, his
nom-de-guerre) though not defined as “Muslim fundamentalists,” do not
oppose this Islamic ideology. Moreover, in essence they even support it,
spreading it in every possible manner. Their argument, however, is that this
Islamic ideology may be implemented at anytime. Meanwhile, all efforts
should concentrate on the achievement of real gains (acquiring territory,
building a fighting force, receiving international support), which at the
right time, will enable the successful implementation of the Islamic
ideology.
The Palestinian
policy of free gains
The father of this line
of thought is Yasser ‘Arafat, who bequeathed it to his right-hand man Mahmud
Abbas, the current blue eyed Palestinian“peace-lover” of the Israeli
government and the American “Arabists” of the State Department. Here are the
major components of the Palestinian “free gains” policy:
1. The Palestinian
covenant, calling for the annihilation of Israel, is not, and will not be,
abolished. However, it is important to present the world, from time to time
with a formula which sounds like its abolishment, taking advantage of the
ignorance and of the sympathy of the Israeli and international media. For
example, ‘Arafat once declared in Paris that the Covenant is “caduc”
(null and void), or the Palestinian National Council takes a decision to
nominate a committee to decide which of the articles of the Covenant should
be amended, or ‘Arafat announces that Israel herself should adopt a
constitution prior to the amendment of the Covenant and so on. The basic
idea behind these arguments is that the world, and the media in general
would accept, adopt, and give currency even to the most outrageous
absurdity, if it is repeated long enough.
2. The presentation of
the agreements with Israel as temporary ones, avoiding the term “peace.” It
follows that it is permissible, even desirable to sign them, especially
since they come cheap, even free, and are useful. Their usefulness is clear:
territory, military force, bases to resume the war at will, and, not least,
respectability. In this context the PLO leaders used the language of the
Islamic HAMAS, relying on a historical precedent established by no less a
person than the Prophet Muhammad himself.
·
Muhammad made a
treaty with the tribe of Quraysh, his enemies; because he thought that the
agreement was beneficial for the Muslims.
·
The agreement did
not abolish the state of war, only postponed it.
·
The agreement
brought great benefits to the Muslims, enabling them to build their military
power, weakened their enemy, and anaesthetized it to such a degree that it
lost its defensive instincts.
·
The agreement was
breached by Muhammad at the first opportunity, once he was ready with
his army.
·
Those who opposed
the agreement at the time of Muhammad, said that it was a shameful
agreement, but Muhammad proved that in the long run it was a great
strategic move, which led to the ultimate victory of Islam.
This treaty is defined
as hudnah – ceasefire – the only agreement permitted between Muslims
and non-Muslims. It is known as the “Treaty of Hudaybiyyah.” ‘Arafat at the
time likened Oslo agreements to this treaty.
The programme of
Israel’s gradual elimination
Therefore, following
Muhammad’s precedent, the Oslo agreements are temporary, a mere phase in the
overall strategy of destroying Israel in stages.
The theoretical
foundation of this strategy was already formulated in 1975. It is based on
the principle which says: use every opportunity to secure territorial
acquisitions paying with ambiguous declarations. ‘Arafat and his disciples
established this principle in Oslo of cheap acquisitions, without abandoning
the option of war.
Following this line of
thought, the Palestinian authorities are developing and spreading the ideas
which existed in the various Palestinian movements, the PLO notwithstanding,
long before Oslo. These ideas touch on three cardinal issues which were not
discussed in Oslo, nor since Oslo in spite of the fact that they should have
been the first to be put on the agenda. These are the problems on which,
theoretically, the final settlement of the Arab-Israeli
conflict depends. (In a side note, it
must be emphasized that the Palestinians have no interest in discussing the
final settlement, because such negotiations would, by their nature, prevent
them from making maximal use of the Oslo agreements that enable them, as has
already been emphasized, to acquire maximum property for no price).
The Palestinians have
very clear ideas regarding the three problems, which I have already
mentioned: Borders, Refugees and Jerusalem:
1. Borders.
Palestine, between the
Jordan and the Mediterranean is indivisible. It belongs only to the
Palestinians. It follows that Israel’s existence, is just a temporary
presence. The final aim is to replace it with an Arab-Palestinian state,
which would comprise the whole Palestinian territory between the Jordan and
the Mediterranean, as it was during the British Mandate.
For this purpose the
Arab citizens of Israel must be recruited too, and they should take part in
the national Palestinian struggle from within the State of Israel, making
use of Israel’s democracy, the Israeli media, and the Israeli legal
institutions. The aim of replacing Israel with an Arab-Palestinian State can
be achieved in two ways.
(a) War. This option
involves the recruitment of all, or most of the Arab countries, notably
Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq at a convenient time, preferably after
Israel is contained, at least, within the 1967 borders.
(b) Changing Israel’s
character. This is a plan, which aims at the cancellation of Israel as a
Jewish state by bringing it to forsake its national Jewish symbols, to
abolish the “Law of Return” thus preventing free Jewish immigration, and to
open its borders for the free influx of Arabs. In the long run, once
ethnically changed, Israel would be defeated by its own democracy. All agree
that this option demands a longer period of time, but its implementation is
possible, especially since it does not involve bloodshed, and is likely to
gain the support of many Israelis too.
It is possible to
shorten the last mentioned process, if the Palestinians begin the
negotiations about the borders not from the 1949 armistice lines (“The 1967
Green line”) but from the 1947 UN “Partition Plan,” according to which they
can demand most of the Galilee and sizeable part of the Negev.
It should be pointed out
that already following the Oslo agreements the Palestinians developed a plan
to take over parts of the Negev through the establishment of a corridor,
under Palestinian jurisdiction, which connects the Gaza Strip with the “West
Bank,” and which cuts Israel in half. Both sides of this planned corridor
are populated by huge Bedouin tribes, Arab-citizens of Israel, who have
undergone a sharp process of Palestinization in the last decade, and are
destined to take an active part in this plan.
2. Refugees.
Appended to the
definition of Israel’s borders is the thesis which has long acquired
international approval, namely that, unlike all other refugees in the world
who have always been rehabilitated after wars, the Arab refugees are kept as
a permanent problem, fully supported by the international community.
Moreover, the Arabs have succeeded in imprinting on the international mind
the idea that a Palestinian refugee is not a temporary condition, but
a status inherited and bequeathed, from generation to generation. A
Palestinian refugee is always a refugee, and so also are his descendants.
The “Palestinian refugees” therefore are always on the increase, and a whole
UN machinery has been established to support, and encourage this anomaly,
and perpetuate the existence of this human bomb at Israel’s doorstep.
The Palestinians
understand the tremendous advantage of the refugees problem in their plan to
destroy Israel, emphasizing that all the refugees, and their millions of
offspring, belong to the original places in which they had lived before the
1948 war, (which the Arabs initiated and lost). Their right to return to
these places, most of which have long ceased to exist, has been the
cornerstone in the Arab-Palestinian policy towards Israel. There is no
attempt to disguise the reason behind this demand. Flooding Israel proper
even with a few hundreds of thousands of Palestinian-Arab, (let alone “five
million” as the President of Iran said lately) means the end of the Jewish
state within a few years. On the other hand, however, the refugee camps are
a great asset for the Arabs which they would endeavor to keep even if an
agreement on reparations is reached some time in the future.
3. Jerusalem.
According to the Arabs,
Jerusalem belongs only to the Muslims, the Jews do not have, and have never
had any right to it. In many of his speeches ‘Arafat used to repeat the
absurdity that since the destruction of the First Temple the Jews have not
been in Jerusalem, and that they have only recently been brought to it by
the British.
‘Arafat was only
repeating the false “facts” which are part of the intensive re-writing of
“Palestinian history,” which has been taking place for more than seventy
years, similar to the rewriting of the history of Iraq, Egypt, Syria, and
other Arab states which were born after World War I. In their re-writing of
history the Palestinians aim at obliterating any memory of the Jews from
Jerusalem in particular, and from the historical map of the Holy Land in
general. This they do by presenting the whole history of ancient Israel as
an insignificant episode between the Canaanites – who are identified as
“Palestinians” – and the Islamic conquests, which are presented as just
another wave of Arabs coming to historical Arab lands, and the “liberation
movement” of the those ancient Palestinians from Christian rule!
The Islamic conquests in
the 7th century also established the legal relations between the Arab-Muslim
rulers and the Christian dhimmis; the Jews being of no consequence,
in addition to the fact that they possessed no holy places. Only through
this falsification of history was it possible to present the Muslim
conquests as the legal source for the establishment of a system of
“protection” bestowed by the Muslims on the Christians, who were confined to
a few non-Muslim holy places.
Following this
reasoning, all the Palestinians leaders, theologians, and intellectuals,
repeatedly hammer the idea that the Jews possess no holy places in the Holy
Land. These are either Muslim or Christian. Moreover, Israel as a state has
no legal right even to offer protection to the Christian holy places; this
is a sole Islamic prerogative. Only Muslims may benevolently bestow
their dhimmah-protection on the Christians, if the latter adhere to
the Islamic law regulating their status.
The
Palestinian-Arab-Muslim ideology regarding the Jews, which followed the Oslo
agreements, is the same as the one prior to them. It negates any connection
between the Jews and their historic homeland including all the Jewish
historical holy places. All the holy places to which the Jews lay claim are
accordingly presented as Muslim holy places with Arab names: The Western
Wall is al-Buraq, The Temple Mount is al-Haram al-Qudsi,
Hebron is al-Khalil. Classical Islamic texts already Islamized the
major figures of Jewish history from Abraham to Solomon – they are all
Muslim personalities, Muslim prophets. All the holy places connected with
them are therefore, by definition, Muslim holy places. The re-writers of
Palestinian history are making maximum use of these old texts.
The Palestinian program
as defined in the current policy, in the educational system, in the media,
and in the literature is clear: the eye, the ear, and the heart of the
future generations of Palestinians should be recruited to the one and only
aim – the removal of Israel. For external consumption this ideological
bundle is presented in glitzy verbal wrapping, pleasant to the Western ear,
and as a meal of deceit spiced to suit the palate of the European, American
and the Israeli Left.
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