Published by The Freeman Center
The Maccabean Online
Political Analysis and Commentary
on Israeli and Jewish Affairs
"For Zion's sake I shall not hold my peace, And for Jerusalem's sake I shall not rest."
A TROJAN HORSE
David Basch
David Basch
Freeman Center For Strategic Studies
August 26, 2009
"These Arab residents [of the lands of the Mandate of Palestine]
are hardly a minority since they are part of the Arab ummah,
the Arab people, more than 250 million strong, that are determined
to rid the Middle East of a non Muslim nation like Israel,
a kind of Trojan Horse behind Israeli lines to achieve that
which the legendary one achieved."
"The logic and reality of the situation is that the only force
for peace in the Israeli region is the strength of Israel that
discourages Arab adventurism...."
The letters today in the Wall Street Journal (8.26.09) commenting on
Sam Bahour's earlier article (8.26.09) scarcely do justice to the
issues these letters raise.
Bahour had bitterly complained of the maltreatment of the
"Palestinians" under Israel's oppression as the reason why the economy
of the Arabs in the territories of Israel has not prospered. Of
course, as Andrea Levin rightly remarked in her letter today, the
reason for the poor Arab economic performance is hardly Israeli
maltreatment but owes to the consequences of massive Arab aggression
directed against Israel as well as Arab internecine strife -- all
factors ignored by Bahour.
But a supporting view for Bahour was given in the letter by Larry
Pilz. Bahour. Like Bahour, Pilz portrays the situation in Israel as
though it involved an overbearing powerful, selfish, and ruthless
economic power, namely, Israel, crushing the less powerful and
struggling economy of the victims, the "Palestinians."
The WSJ editorial caption for this round of letters, "Both Sides of
the Jordan River Have Room for Humility," would, in even-handed
fashion, place "a pox on both their houses." However, I would suggest
that the WSJ editor too has similar "room for humility" since he
grossly misreads what is happening. He is apparently under the
illusion that economically helping the Arabs of the territories is a
sure road to peace. In fact, it will achieve no such end, any more
than nourishing baby jackals to health and strength will lead to their
refraining from devastating the cows and sheep in the pasture.
Bahour's original article, conjures up images of the German ethnics in
Czechoslovakia in 1939, who bitterly complained of Czech oppression.
This was the pretext, the Trojan Horse, Hitler used to have
Czechoslovakia surrender its strategic territory to Germany as a
"just" settlement of the issue of a "maltreated" German minority.
I once saw an old German propaganda film that depicted pitiful German
ethnic peasants against a dramatic background of a cloud-filled sunset
pleading for the world's help. The film was very effective, but it was
all phony. It stirred the emotions that enabled Hitler with the help
of the bleeding hearts, England and France, to get possession of Czech
territory. Hitler then marched his army over the formidable, blocking
mountain in that piece of geography, rendering Czechoslovakia
defenseless against the Nazi war machine and enabling Hitler to embark
on his conquest of Europe without having to fire a shot. The
parallel's to Israel's situation vis a vis the ethnic Arabs of the
territories starkly resembles that of the unfortunate Czechoslovakia.
The parallels are striking. First, the Arabs of Israel's territories
are not a "people" but residents of the Mandate of Palestine,
residents in the very lands set aside by the nations of the world
through the League of Nations for a Jewish homeland. A large
contingent of these Arab residents had been recent arrivals from
outside lands seeking to take advantage of the new economic
opportunities that Jewish people were making possible. Also, while
smaller in number than the Jews, these Arab residents are hardly a
minority since they are part of the Arab ummah, the Arab people, more
than 250 million strong, that are determined to rid the Middle East of
a non Muslim nation like Israel -- a kind of Trojan Horse behind
Israeli lines to achieve that which the legendary one achieved.
Through the wonders of propaganda -- slander, misrepresentation, and
outright lies -- the real struggle of Israel against the determined
Muslim Arab giant has been disguised to appear as a struggle between
Israel and an Arab minority. However, the full panoply of the Arab war
machine was evident in 1967 when five Arab armies made war against
Israel. At that time, Israel had scored a dramatic victory over these
forces and gained control of lands of the Mandate of Palestine, stolen
by Arab nations in 1948. These lands were also militarily strategic
that, prior to the 1967 war, had served as launching platforms for
Arab armies.
What we are witnessing today are Arab machinations to wrest control of
these strategic territories, which otherwise make any of their
military campaigns problematic. What we have been witnessing as "peace
processes" are the means the Arabs are using to gain control over
these territories and have nothing to do with peace, unless Israel's
destruction is considered tantamount to achieving peace in the region.
The Arabs have succeeded in winning world support for a gambit in
which they regain strategic territories under the name of peace
making. But we have recently witnessed the fruits of this deceptive
process when Israel turned over the Gaza strip to Arab control,
ethnically cleansing her own Jewish people from their homes and
properties. The area promptly became a military base, free of Israeli
restrictions on receiving weaponry from the Muslim world. The
continuing rain of deadly rockets on Israeli cities is Israel's reward
for failing to recognize that goal of the Arabs is Israel's
destruction, not peace, and that this goal is not limited to Hamas but
one that unites all Arab factions however they may differ in detail.
The so-called "two-state solution" is not at all a solution. Note that
the Arabs refuse to recognize a Jewish Israel. They have retrojected a
false history of the Arab residents as the original indigenous
population of the lands of Israel with exclusive claims to historic
Jerusalem and all historic Jewish sites to deny Israel of her historic
claims, hardly a conciliatory outlook. Note, also, the Arabs insist on
bringing in millions of Arabs, descendants of Arabs that had left
Israel years before, considering them as "refugees" and the true
owners of Israel's lands. These would overwhelm Israel's population
and destroy Jewish Israel.
If that is not all, Arab children are taught hatred of Jews and Israel
in Arab schools and are today one of the most militarized populations
on earth -- hardly peaceful. As had occurred with the lands of Gaza
that Israel stupidly surrendered, given this combustible Arab
community, placing them within a new state will not be a step forward
for living in peace with Israel but, rather, like the Gaza example, a
crucial strategic step in menacing Israel and eventually removing
Israel from the Middle East.
As occurred with Czechoslovakia, where the motivation of other nations
was to appease a feared and dangerous Nazi dictator, the safety,
security, and the rights of the Czechs were sold out under the
pretext of high-sounding, questionable diplomatic principles, the same
motivation of appeasing a feared, powerful Arab world is at work in
applying today's series of questionable and falsified diplomatic
principles in getting Israel to embrace conditions in which she loses
control of her own territory and defense. The reality is that the
Arabs do not have a willing peace to offer Israel and will use their
strength gained from the eastern strategic territory and from sucking
up the wealth of Israel to achieve the Arab goal that has not been
abandoned since 1948, Israel's destruction.
What, then, for the Arabs of Israel's territories? Will failure to
achieve a new Arab state condemn the region to war? From the
foregoing, clearly, fashioning such a state which is sure to be
irredentist, is not a road to peace. Other avenues to attain that
peace ought to be pursued, avenues that break out of myths of historic
Arab claims and from rigid theories of self-determination that bitter
experience has shown are of limited and questionable value and do not
require the only democracy in the Middle East to immolate herself.
I am disappointed that WSJ -- even in this limited way suggested by
the editor's caption -- joins in support of the Muslim propaganda war
that is ultimately directed against the existence of Israel. The logic
and reality of the situation is that the only force for peace in the
Israeli region is the strength of Israel that discourages Arab
adventurism. The West should think twice before supporting policies
that remove Israel's more reliable deterrence to war -- as occurred in
Gaza -- and end up losing a valuable Western ally in the region, an
ally that is sure to come in handy one day, if not already.
******
David Basch is an architect and city planner in New York as well as the Freeman Center's political philosopher. Basch is also an expert on Shakespeare and the author of the book, The Hidden Shakespeare, which proves through talmudic and other Jewish sources that Shakespeare was in fact Jewish.
