Friday, September 30, 2011

Palestine

‎In all actuality the word Palestine or “Phlistine” comes from Hebrew ‎פְלִשְׁתִּים‎, p'lishtim,which literally means "invaders",was meant to indicate that the Philistines, those who settled the coastal area of Gaza and Ashkleon  were a sea ‎people from the isles of Greece who had invaded the Eastern Mediterranean. The only time this "Palestine" or  "Falestine" as in (False / Lie) existed was during the reign of the Roman Empire in 70 AD after the destruction of the ‎Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and in order to show their total victory and conquest of ‎Judea and Israel. Throughout history there never was a country called "Palestine". There was for a period of time a Roman Provence called Palaestina -Latin term for the Roman province Syria Palaestina,the Byzantine Palaestina Prima and the Umayyad and Abbasid province of Jund Filastin.


During the negotiations of the Versailles peace agreement, the the Ottoman Turkish Empire was divided by the preconceived lines drawn up in the Sykes–Picot Agreement that was concluded on 16 May 1916. When called upon to administer the area for the League of Nations the British recalling the long lost glory of the Roman Empire out of their obsession for "greatness and grandeur", called the area conquered from the Ottoman Turkish Empire in World War I the "Mandated Area for Palestine" -which included today's Kingdom of Jordan in memory of the term used by the Romans (Arabic: Filastin, Greek: Palaistine; Latin: Palaestina) It is a recorded historical fact that the "Arabs of the Mandated Area" refused to be identified as "Palestinians" while the Jewish population had embraced it. It was not until the aftermath of Israeli liberation of the Jordanian Occupied area of Judea and Shomron in 1967.
“Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Falestinian?”‎ ‎“We did not particularly mind Jordanian rule. The teaching of the destruction of Israel was a ‎definite part of the curriculum, but we considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to ‎Jerusalem. Then all of the sudden we were Falestinians - they removed the star from the ‎Jordanian flag and all at once we had a Falestinian flag”.‎ Walid Shoebat
The Arabs only began to "Identify" themselves as "Falestinians" after 1967 in their KGB orchestrated mis-information campaign to delegitimatize Israel. Võ Nguyên Giáp, a General in the Vietnam People's Army and a politician; “Stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your terror war into a struggle for human rights. Then you will have the American people eating out of your hand.”

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means ‎for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today ‎there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for ‎political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian ‎people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‎Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.‎ For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise ‎claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, ‎Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, ‎we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."‎ -Zahir Mohsen- Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member

A direct outcome of the speeches by “Presidente” Mahmoud Abbas of the “Palestinian ‎Authority” and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN has been the talk of ‎will negotiations begin, yes or no.The major issue that will be discussed at the UN over the next few days is the “Not If” ‎but “When” the UN will grant recognition to the “State Of Palestine”. ‎

The acceptance of this one-sided recognition, of what was granted previously to the ‎‎“Arabs of the Mandated Territory”, in 1947 but was never accepted and initialized by ‎them. Is sure to be accepted since the 22 already existing Moslem Arabic countries and ‎there third world “lackeys” already outnumber the one lone “Jewish State”. ‎

Abba Eban, the father of Israeli statesmanship, former foreign minister and ambassador ‎to the United States and United Nations once stated: "Lest Arab governments be tempted ‎out of sheer routine to rush into impulsive rejection, let me suggest that tragedy is not ‎what men suffer but what they miss.” This quote of his was misquoted and it has been ‎used to distinguish the Palestinian ineptitude to settle for peace with Israel time and time ‎again as the; "Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."‎

When I “Googled” the simple question: ‎‎“Why did the “Palestinians” fail to create a state in 1947”‎‎ ‎
My question was immediately changed from one of blame on the Arabs themselves to a ‎query that lays the blame on others! ‎
I got;‎‎ ‎
‎“Why did the UN fail in its plan to create a Palestinian State in the late 1940s?”‎
Very interesting indeed, isn't it? ‎Why does my simple question which asks;‎
‎“Why did the “Arabs of the Mandated Area fail to immediately establish a “Palestinian ‎State” with the passage of UNR181?‎

Suddenly and miraculously becomes changed by Google into blame for failure on the ‎UN?‎
If you look at the partition map, on the left, and the full "Mandated Area" map on the right, you can see that the Arabs by far received the larger part of the Mandated Territory than the Jews in UNR181? It begs to differ? So why didn’t “The Arabs ‎of the Mandated Areas” proclaim the “State Of Palestine” there and then?‎



The Jews who received the smaller and widely dispersed part did not hesitate they ‎established the “State Of Israel” on May 15, 1948.‎

Let us first look at the source of the term “Palestine”?‎
The word "Palestine" was first used by the Romans to signify the destruction of the ‎Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and in order to show their total victory and conquest of ‎Judea and Israel. The war against the Jews had been so costly in Roman lives and money ‎that Vespasian the Roman Emperor had stolen the wealth of the Temple to build the Coliseum ‎in Rome and the “Grand Arch of Victory” that is in his name. As you may see, in the following picture of the inner part of the ‎arch, that image of this looting of the Temple still exists! The Romans who had changed the name from Judea to Syria-Palestina used the word to ‎describe a conquered ‎region never a nation nor a country!‎


The Roman coins of the era labeled “Judaea Capta” were a series of commemorative ‎coins originally issued by the Roman Emperor Vespasian to celebrate the capture of ‎Judaea and the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem by his son Titus in 70 AD ‎during the First Jewish Revolt.

The word "Palestine/filistin" is not even a word in Arabic. Ask any scholar of ‎lingquistics how do you say "Palestinians" in Arabic? Since the letter "P" doesn't even ‎exist in Arabic! There isn't a word called Palestine in Arabic they pronounce it ‎‎"(B)alestine" or "(F)alistine".
In all actuality the word Palestine or “Phlistine” comes from Hebrew ‎פְלִשְׁתִּים‎, p'lishtim,which literally means "invaders",was meant to indicate that the Philistines were a sea ‎people who had invaded the Eastern Mediterranean. Archaeological digs in the area of ‎Gaza and near Ashdod and Ashkelon in Israel indicate that the Philistines were part of the‎ Minoan civilization from the island of Crete in Greece and not- Moslem ‎Arabs!! The Mycenaean civilization flourished during the period roughly between 1600 BC, ‎when Helladic culture in mainland Greece was transformed under influences from ‎Minoan Crete, and 1100 BC, when it perished with the collapse of Bronze-Age ‎civilization in the eastern Mediterranean

The eruption of Thera, also referred to as Santorini eruption, was a major ‎catastrophic volcanic eruption which is estimated to have occurred in the mid second ‎millennium around 1700BCE. The eruption was one of the largest volcanic events on ‎Earth in recorded history. The eruption devastated the Minoan civilization on the island ‎of Thera (also called Santorini), including the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri, as well as ‎communities and agricultural areas on nearby islands and on the coast of Crete.‎

‎“Originally of Greek Mycenaean origin, the Philistines, along with other "Sea Peoples," ‎swept across the lands of the eastern Mediterranean shortly after 1200 B.C., displacing ‎the previous inhabitants and carving out their own territory in southern Palestine. We ‎know that they came from the Aegean area because their pottery is closely related to ‎Mycenaean pottery produced during the Late Bronze Age in mainland Greece and the ‎Greek islands. During the earliest period of their occupation of Palestine, the Philistines ‎used local clays to produce a monochrome pottery, decorated with either red or black ‎paint, that is very similar to the Mycenaean pottery of the Aegean.”‎ (*)

After the victory of the British army over the Turks the British began to use the term ‎Palestine as the name for the captured region so as not to show preference either to Jew ‎or Arab. In the context of the "White Paper issued by Mr. Churchill, the Colonial ‎Secretary," stated that "the nationality to be acquired of all citizens of Palestine, whether ‎Jews or non-Jews, whether for purposes of internal law or international status, would be ‎Palestinian and nothing else...."‎

During the Gulf War, the Observer published a photograph of the assembled delegates at the 1921 Cairo Conference, which redrew the map of the Middle East after the First World War. This conference, amongst other things, created Iraq and installed Faisal as its head of state. The author of the accompanying article, Lawrence Marks, wrote of the delegates: "They had been summoned by Winston Churchill to put the finishing touches on the carve-up of the collapsed Ottoman Empire. Their faces shine with imperial confidence…Behind [Churchill and Percy Cox] stand T.E. Lawrence (who had complained of acute boredom) and Gertrude Bell (in rampant flowered hat and fur stole), two of the free-booting scholars the British Government had mobilized to advise on Middle Eastern policy.


The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.; XI:93; 1989) indicates that the earliest known ‎literary citation for the term "Palestinian" is in the “Old Testament Apocrypha” which ‎refers "books...not contained in the Jewish or Palestinian Canon, i.e., in the Hebrew ‎Bible" (II:181). There is mention of "Palestinian biblical kings" in the article Palestine in ‎the 11th edition of Encyclopedia Britannica (1910-11), older references usually apply to ‎cultural objects and in the article entitled “Palestine” in the 13th edition (1926). This ‎article had the first specific reference in Encyclopedia Britannica to Palestinians (Jews ‎and non-Jews) as a distinct group (III:22). It cites a A section on the new territory's ‎Constitution also referred to an advisory council "consisting of 10 British officials and 10 ‎Palestinians.‎

Now let us look at this idea of the “Palestinian State” and from whence it began.‎

On November 29th, 1947 at Lake Success the “United Nations” which was the post World ‎War II answer to the defunct “League Of Nations” took action to redress the issue of the ‎plight of Jewish refugees especially after the magnitude of the Holocaust became known. ‎These homeless refugees survivors of the horrors of the NAZI regime’s intricate and ‎detailed plan to exterminate world Jewry, as laid out in the Wannssee Conference of ‎January 1942, had no “Homeland” to return to. These refugees who were sailing towards ‎the one place in the world where they believed they could go and live without persecution ‎were blocked by the ships of the Royal Navy who intercepted these stateless Jewish ‎refugees en route to Palestine after the war and either returned them to Europe or interned ‎them in Cyprus. The British authorities in Whitehall, who had done nothing to alleviate ‎the plight of the Jews seeking refuge in Palestine at their greatest moment of peril briefly ‎glanced and opened it’s eyes. The British realizing that their actions were causing ‎difficulties turned to the new world council of the UN.‎

The Arabs as a whole as then and until today still see the Holocaust, solely as a barbaric ‎event on European soil for which the innocent Palestinians were made to pay. Their ‎vision of the time was that the flotsam and jetsam of surviving European Jewry was being ‎imposed on the Arabs of Palestine unfairly. The Arabs belief is if the Europeans felt guilt ‎about their Jews, than they should have assumed the burden of accepting Jewish refugees, ‎rather than imposing them on the indigenous Arabs and calling for the establishment of a Jewish state, if even in only part of Mandated Palestine.‎


‎[Grand Mufti Of "Palestine" Haj Amin Al-Husseini] - "The Mufti" was one of the ‎initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator ‎and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan... He was one of ‎Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination ‎measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas ‎chambers of Auschwitz." --- Testimony Of Deiter Wisliceny At The Nuremberg Trials in ‎July 1946.‎

The Grand Mufti Haj Amin el Husseini arrived in Europe in 1941 following the ‎unsuccessful pro-Nazi coup which he organized in Iraq. He met German foreign minister ‎Joachim von Ribbentrop and was officially received by Adolf Hitler on November ‎‎28,1941 in Berlin. Nazi Germany established for der Grossmufti von Jerusalem a Bureau ‎from which he organized the following: 1) radio propaganda on behalf of Nazi Germany; ‎‎2) espionage and fifth column activities in Muslim regions of Europe and the Middle ‎East; 3) the formation of Muslim Waffen SS and Wehrmacht units in Bosnia-‎Hercegovina, Kosovo-Metohija, Western Macedonia, North Africa, and Nazi-occupied ‎areas of the Soviet Union; and, 4) the formation of schools and training centers for ‎Muslim imams and mullahs who would accompany the Muslim SS and Wehrmacht units. ‎As soon as he arrived in Europe, the Mufti established close contacts with Bosnian ‎Muslim and Albanian Muslim leaders. He would spend the remainder of the war ‎organizing and rallying Muslims in support of Nazi Germany.

The Grand Mufti el-Husseini was venerated as a respected educator and leader hero by ‎Yasser Arafat and the PLO. It should be noted, that Faisal Abdel Qader Al-Husseini (July ‎‎17, ‎‎1940–May 31, 2001) who was once ‎the PLO's top figure in east Jerusalem. Was the ‎son of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, commander ‎of local Arab forces who was killed during ‎hand-to-hand fighting for control of Kastel Hill on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, on 8 ‎April 1948 during the siege of Jerusalem. Faisal Abdel Qader Al-Hussein was born in ‎Baghdad Iraq and he was the grandnephew of the Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-‎Husseini, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

The members of the UN had been aware that their inheritance of the “Mandate for ‎Palestine” from the League Of Nations was a issue of grave proportions. Great Britain, ‎though nearly bankrupt from the cost of World War II, held steadfastly to their rapidly ‎shrinking post war Empire. The British government feared the loss of the “Mandate” if ‎they sided with the Jews for fear of upsetting the petroleum imports and their increasing ‎exportation of goods and services to Arab countries. During this period the British and ‎their government had turned a blind eye to the suffering of the Jews as they, at the same ‎time, distanced themselves from their promises made by Lord Balfour in 1917.

The British were in dire need of the immense revenues to be had through the oil pumped ‎from the British Petroleum oil fields in Iraq through the Trans Arabian Pipeline to the ‎refineries that they built in Haifa. They supposedly tried to work out an agreement ‎acceptable to both Arabs and Jews. However the British promises to the Arabs ‎guaranteed failure because the Arabs would not make any concessions. The British ‎realizing that their anti Jewish immigration policy stemming from the Peel Commission ‎report of 1937 and the White Paper of 1939 was causing immense criticism subsequently ‎turned the issue over to the UN in February 1947 in the belief that this would defuse the ‎issue and they would receive the continuation of the Mandate.‎

The UN established a Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) which was sent to the ‎area to devise a solution and found that the Jews of the “Yishuv”(the settlements”), both ‎old and new immigrants, were imbued with the sense of right and were prepared to plead ‎their case for a homeland in “Eretz Yisrael” before any unbiased tribunal. On the other ‎hand the Arabs remained divided between the followers of the Grand Mufti and the other ‎leading clans in the area. These “Arabs of the Mandated Area” were too divided along ‎tribal and clan relations, from neighboring Arab countries, to form a central leadership. ‎

‎"Palestine was part of the Province of Syria [...] politically, the Arabs of Palestine were ‎not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity."‎
‎(Representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations in a statement to ‎General Assembly in May 1947.
Arab demonstration, Jerusalem, 1919/1920. The banner on the left reads "We resist Jewish immigration", the banner on the right reads "Palestine is part of Syria".
One of the biggest issues as reflected in today’s “Palestinian” refugee status is that many ‎of these “Native” Arabs were not really “Native” at all but were migrants from other ‎areas in the Arabian peninsular as was common during the Turkish era. Here are just a few examples of common "Palestinian" family names that reveal their true country of ‎origin:‎
‎"Masri" or "al-Masri" = from Egypt , Hamas member of Parliament in Gaza, Mushir al-‎Masri (the word "Masri" literally means "the Egyptian" in Arabic !).‎
‎"Khamis"= from Bahrain "Salem Hanna Khamis"‎
‎"al-Ubayyidi" or "al-Obeidi"= from Sudan "al-ubayyid"‎
‎"al-Faruqi"= Mosul Iraq
‎"al-Araj" = Morocco, a member of the Saadi Dynasty "Hussein al-Araj"‎
‎"al-Lubnani" =the Lebanese
‎"al-Mughrabi" = the Moroccan ("Maghreb" – meaning "West" in Arabic, and usually ‎referring to North Africa or specifically to Morocco),"Dalal Mughrabi"‎
‎"al-Djazair"=the Algerian
‎"al-Qurashi"=Saudi Arabia "clan of Quraish"‎

Prior to the ‎Mandate in 1922, Palestine’s Arab population had been in a decline. However during the ‎Mandate period the Arabs were free to come to take advantage of the rapid development ‎stimulated by Zionist settlement. The Arab population grew exponentially as Jewish ‎settlers improved the quality of health conditions in Palestine as they worked the Malaria ‎infested swampy areas and instituted General Sick Funds for the workers.‎

‎"As I lived in Palestine, everyone I knew could trace their heritage back to the original ‎country their great grandparents came from. Everyone knew their origin was not from the ‎Canaanites, but ironically, this is the kind of stuff our education included. The fact is that ‎today's Palestinians are immigrants from the surrounding nations! I grew up well ‎knowing the history and origins of today's Palestinians as being from Yemen, Saudi ‎Arabia, Morocco, Christians from Greece, Muslim Sherkas from Russia, Muslims from ‎Bosnia, and the Jordanians next door.” -Walid Shoebat ‎

What the UN Special Commission had found in their trip to the region was what had been ‎apparent all along; that the conflicting national aspirations of Jews, who never had a ‎chance of reaching a majority in the country given the restrictive immigration policy of ‎the British and Arabs could not be reconciled. This same conclusion was found also in ‎‎1937 with the Peel Commission, that the only logical solution to resolving the ‎contradictory aspirations of the Jews and Arabs was to partition Palestine into separate ‎Jewish and Arab states. ‎

‎"The area was under populated and remained economically stagnant until the arrival of ‎the first Zionist pioneers in the 1880's, who came to rebuild the Jewish land. The country ‎had remained "The Holy Land" in the religious and historic consciousness of mankind, ‎which associated it with the Bible and the history of the Jewish people. Jewish ‎development of the country also attracted large numbers of other immigrants - both ‎Jewish and Arab." From the report of the British Royal Commission.

The Arabs as usual had rejected this plan because it forced them to accept the creation of ‎a Jewish state, and required some Palestinians to live under "Jewish domination." The ‎Zionists opposed the Peel Plan's boundaries since they would have been confined to little ‎more than a ghetto of 1,900 out of the 10,310 square miles remaining in Palestine. ‎Nevertheless like with the UNSCOP decision the Zionists decided to negotiate with the ‎British, while the Arabs refused to consider any compromises.‎

Once again in 1939 with the British White Paper, which called for the draconian measure ‎limiting Jewish immigration to no more than 75,000 over the following five years and ‎afterward, no Jews would be allowed in without the consent of the Arab population! ‎Once again a plan that called for the establishment of an Arab state in Palestine within 10 ‎years, and granted the Arabs a concession on Jewish immigration, and been offered the ‎goal of Arab independence they repudiated the White Paper.‎

The leaders of the varied Arab clans were active in their rivalries but the one driving ‎issue that united them all over and over again was the desire to eliminate the Jews. It is ‎this innate rivalry and their own greed for leadership has prevented them over and over ‎again from the establishment of a State of their own. ‎

Although most of the Commission's members acknowledged the need to find a ‎compromise solution, it was difficult for them to envision one given the parties' ‎intractability. In any case, under British rule, there were various Arab bodies to ‎coordinate the interests of the Palestinian community. Why didn’t these bodies evolve ‎into entities that might have paved the way for a Palestinian state, or at least provided the ‎necessary leadership to guide the Palestinians in moments of crisis? Surely the Arabs of ‎Palestine did not need a stamp of approval from the Mandatory authorities to wield these ‎institutions for their own purposes. Moreover, the Palestine civil service, judiciary, and ‎even elements of the police force were staffed by Arabs who could have formed the basis ‎of a civil administration within an Arab state. These Arabs were, after all, the employees ‎of the Mandatory Authorities, as were Jews who served in similar positions. ‎

When the Special Commission on Palestine returned, the delegates of seven nations — ‎Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, The Netherlands, Peru, Sweden and Uruguay — ‎recommended the establishment of two separate states, Jewish and Arab, to be joined by ‎economic union, with Jerusalem an internationalized enclave. Three nations — India, ‎Iran and Yugoslavia — recommended a unitary state with Arab and Jewish provinces. ‎Australia abstained.‎

The Palestine Arab Higher Committee rejected the Special Commission ‎recommendations out right because it did not meet their “All or nothing” attitude. This ‎decision of theirs was supported in their rejection by the states of the Arab League. In a ‎communication to the United Nations Palestine Commission dated 19 January 1948, the ‎Arab Higher Committee for Palestine stated that it was "determined [to] persist in ‎rejection [to the] partition and in refusal [to] recognize UNO resolution [with] this respect ‎and anything deriving there from".‎

The Arabs blame the inability of the Palestinians to establish an independent state before ‎the momentous and tragic events of 1947–49 on a variety of factors, including the public ‎commitment of the British government to establishing a Jewish polity in a land that had, ‎according to the Arabs, had been inhabited by an overwhelming Arab majority for ‎centuries. To the Arabs it was them that the British should have given the exclusive right ‎to self determination when Great Britain contemplated carving up the Ottoman Empire ‎during World War I. According to the Arabs of the Mandated Areas it was the British ‎who denied the Palestinians a formal representative body, a parliament of sorts that might ‎have given them practice at democratic rule and set them on the path to future ‎independence. However the British officials made the creation of that elective body ‎conditional upon Arab recognition of Jewish claims of the Yishuv [the Jewish ‎community] as their “national home.” The Palestinians boycotted joint governing bodies ‎which they were invited to participate in due to this “British” commitment.‎

Although the Jewish community of Palestine was not happy with the fact that Jerusalem ‎was severed from the Jewish State and that the territory allotted to them by the ‎Commission was very small they nevertheless welcomed the compromise. The partition ‎plan took on a checkerboard appearance largely because Jewish towns and villages were ‎spread throughout Palestine. This did not complicate the plan as much as the fact that the ‎high living standards in Jewish cities and towns had attracted large Arab populations, ‎which insured that any partition would result in a Jewish state that included a substantial ‎Arab population. Recognizing the need to allow for additional Jewish settlement, the ‎majority proposal allotted the Jews land in the northern part of the country, Galilee, and ‎the large, arid Negev desert in the south. The remainder was to form the Arab state.‎

The Partition boundaries were based solely on demographics. The borders of the Jewish ‎State were arranged with no consideration of security; hence, the new state's frontiers ‎were virtually indefensible. Overall, the Jewish State was to be comprised of roughly ‎‎5,500 square miles 60 percent of which was to be the arid desert in the Negev and the ‎population was to be 538,000 Jews and 397,000 Arabs. ‎

The Arab State was to be 4,500 square miles with a population of 804,000 Arabs and ‎‎10,000 Jews. Though the Jews were allotted more total land, the majority of that land was ‎in the desert.‎

Further complicating the situation was the UN majority's insistence that Jerusalem remain ‎apart from both states and be administered as an international zone. This arrangement left ‎more than 100,000 Jews in Jerusalem isolated from their country and circumscribed by ‎the Arab state.‎

As the partition vote approached, it became clear little hope existed for a political ‎solution to a problem that transcended politics: the Arabs' unwillingness to accept a ‎Jewish state in Palestine and the refusal of the Zionists to settle for anything less. In a ‎meeting with Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha on September 16, 1947, Jewish ‎Agency representatives David Horowitz and Abba Eban attempted to reach a ‎compromise with the Arab League Secretary who told them bluntly:‎

‎“The Arab world is not in a compromising mood. It's likely, Mr. Horowitz that your plan ‎is rational and logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic. Nations ‎never concede; they fight. You won't get anything by peaceful means or compromise. ‎You can, perhaps, get something, but only by the force of your arms. We shall try to ‎defeat you. I am not sure we'll succeed, but we'll try. We were able to drive out the ‎Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia. It may be that we shall lose ‎Palestine. But it's too late to talk of peaceful solutions.”‎

Post Script

In all of the recent Arab “Palestinian” narratives the blame for the creation of the modern ‎State of Israel is laid upon the “Messianic Christians” in England who carried forward the ‎project culminating in the declaration by Lord Balfour in 1917.‎

However in historical fact it was actually Napoleon Bonaparte who first broached the idea nearly 100 years before the birth of Zionism!! While encamped with ‎his Army, outside of Acre on April 20th, 1799, Napoleon issued a letter offering "Palestine" as a ‎homeland to the Jews under French protection. The project was stillborn because ‎Napoleon was defeated and was forced to withdraw from the Near East.

The letter, cited ‎below, is remarkable because it marks the coming of age of enlightenment philosophy, ‎making it respectable at last to integrate Jews as equal citizens in Europe and because it ‎marked the beginning of nineteenth century projects for Jewish autonomy in Palestine ‎under a colonial protectorate. ‎

General Headquarters, Jerusalem 1st Floreal, April 20th, 1799,‎
in the year of 7 of the French Republic‎

BONAPARTE, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMIES OF THE FRENCH ‎REPUBLIC IN AFRICA AND ASIA, TO THE RIGHTFUL HEIRS OF PALESTINE.‎

Israelites, unique nation, whom, in thousands of years, lust of conquest and tyranny have ‎been able to be deprived of their ancestral lands, but not of name and national existence!‎

Attentive and impartial observers of the destinies of nations, even though not endowed ‎with the gifts of seers like Isaiah and Joel, have long since also felt what these, with ‎beautiful and uplifting faith, have foretold when they saw the approaching destruction of ‎their kingdom and fatherland: And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to ‎Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness ‎and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isaiah 35,10)‎

Arise then, with gladness, ye exiled! A war unexampled In the annals of history, waged ‎in self-defense by a nation whose hereditary lands were regarded by its enemies as ‎plunder to be divided, arbitrarily and at their convenience, by a stroke of the pen of ‎Cabinets, avenges its own shame and the shame of the remotest nations, long forgotten ‎under the yoke of slavery, and also, the almost two-thousand-year-old ignominy put upon ‎you; and, while time and circumstances would seem to be least favourable to a ‎restatement of your claims or even to their expression, and indeed to be compelling their ‎complete abandonment, it offers to you at this very time, and contrary to all expectations, ‎Israel¹s patrimony!‎

The young army with which Providence has sent me hither, let by justice and ‎accompanied by victory, has made Jerusalem my headquarters and will, within a few ‎days, transfer them to Damascus, a proximity which is no longer terrifying to David's ‎city.‎

Rightful heirs of Palestine!‎

The great nation which does not trade in men and countries as did those which sold your ‎ancestors unto all people (Joel,4,6) herewith calls on you not indeed to conquer your ‎patrimony; nay, only to take over that which has been conquered and, with that nation¹s ‎warranty and support, to remain master of it to maintain it against all comers.‎

Arise! Show that the former overwhelming might of your oppressors has but repressed ‎the courage of the descendants of those heroes who alliance of brothers would have done ‎honour even to Sparta and Rome (Maccabees 12, 15) but that the two thousand years of ‎treatment as slaves have not succeeded in stifling it.‎

Hasten! Now is the moment, which may not return for thousands of years, to claim the ‎restoration of civic rights among the population of the universe which had been ‎shamefully withheld from you for thousands of years, your political existence as a nation ‎among the nations, and the unlimited natural right to worship Jehovah in accordance with ‎your faith, publicly and most probably forever (Joel 4,20).‎

Exactly when did Napoleon's involvement with the Jews come about?

It started on the ‎‎9th of February 1797. When Napoleon occupied Ancona and he saw some people ‎wearing yellow bonnets and arm bands on which was the "Star of David." He asked some ‎of his officers why these people were wearing the bonnet and arm bands and what was its ‎purpose. When he was told they were Jews and they had to be identified so they could ‎return to the ghetto in the evening, he immediately gave an order that they should remove ‎the yellow bonnet and armbands. He then authorized the closing of the ghetto and ‎allowed the Jews, to live wherever they wanted, and to practice their religion openly.‎

In 1816 when Napoleon was asked why he posted the letter he stated: “My primary desire was ‎to liberate the Jews and make them full citizens. I wanted to confer upon them all the ‎legal rights of equality, liberty and fraternity as was enjoyed by the Catholics and ‎Protestants. It is my wish that the Jews be treated like brothers as if we were all part of ‎Judaism.” ‎

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Palestinian LIES versus the TRUTH

Since the last generous Israeli Peace offer made in 2008, under the Israeli government led by ‎Ehud Olmert. The PLO leadership, led by Mahmoud Abbas, has done it’s uttermost to undermine any negotiated peace by insisting solely on their terms and definitions of borders alone.‎

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu outlined in his speech, the change of the view of Israel as the aggressor in the Middle East began with the infamous Zionism equals Racism resolution in the UN in 1975. 

Since the early 1980’s the PLO has been mobilizing left-wing sympathizers in Europe ‎and the United States, especially "leftist" activists on American campuses, who have ‎enthusiastically succeeded in reframing the Arab-Israeli conflict into a struggle for ‎national liberation against an "Imperialist Occupier". 
Since the first Lebanese War in 1982 the PLO has needed to work in a ‎way that concealed its real goals, permitted strategic deception, and gave the appearance ‎of moderation.
"Stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your terror war into ‎a struggle for human rights. Then you will have the American people eating out of your ‎hand." Muhammad Yazid

Ever since the UN Durban Conference on Racism in 2001, Israel has been presented as ‎not only denying Palestinians their rights but as doing so out of an essential racism. This ‎totally false analogy of Israelis’ security precautions, with apartheid in South African, ‎has been wildly embraced and pushed by the brainwashed Pro-Palestinian sympathizers ‎throughout the US and Europe. They have succeeded in raising the flag of Apartheid while pushing the BDS scheme: de-legitimization, boycotts, divestment against Israel.

Muhammad Yazid, who had been minister of information in two Algerian wartime ‎governments (1958-1962) once advised Arafat and the PLO to wipe out the argument that ‎Israel is a small state whose existence is threatened by the Arab states, or that the ‎Palestinian problem is a question of refugees. Instead, present the Palestinian struggle as ‎a struggle for liberation like the others. Wipe out the impression …that in the struggle ‎between the Palestinians and the Zionists, the Zionist is the underdog. Now it is the Arab ‎who is oppressed and victimized in his existence because he is not only facing the ‎Zionists but also world imperialism.‎

So here we have Abbas not wanting to negotiate and give in on some terms to have a real ‎peace instead he has turned to the UN to try to get a Peace imposed on Israel without ‎negotiations.‎

Abbas the “Al-Nakba” (Catastrophe):‎
“The Question Palestine is intricately linked with the United Nations via the resolutions ‎adopted by its various organs and agencies and via the essential and lauded role of the ‎United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East - ‎UNRWA - which embodies the international responsibility towards the plight of ‎Palestine refugees, who are the victims of Al-Nakba (Catastrophe) that occurred in ‎‎1948.”‎

Historical Fact:
Resolution 194 does not JUST deal with the situation in the region after the Palestinian ‎population fled. What is conveniently forgotten to be mentioned is that the minority ‎Jewish population had been similarly expelled by the Arab Legion of Jordan from their ‎homes in Jerusalem's Old City and in the West Bank. The resolution called for the ‎return of refugees to their homes and defined the role of the U.N. United Nations ‎Conciliation Commission as an organization to facilitate peace in the region.‎

This photo is from a 1948 Life Magazine article by John Phillips:The expulsion of Jews from the Old City under the guns of Jordanian soldiers.
 
What is never mentioned nor dealt with by the UN in UNR194 is the expulsion of over ‎‎900,000 Jews from Arab lands in response to the embarrassment of the loss in combat to ‎the Jewish State. The vast cost of this all Jewish refugee crisis and the absorption of these ‎immigrants into the fledgling state was never covered by UNWRA or by UN but by the efforts of the world ‎Jewry.‎

What Abbas also conveniently fails to mention is that that all six Arab countries then ‎represented at the UN voted against it and that the resolution was adopted by a majority ‎of 35 countries from among the 58 members of the United Nations at that time.‎

Most importantly of all is the fact that the Palestinian Leadership consistently and intentionally fail to mention the actual cause ‎for the Arab disaster they refer to as the “Nakba”. That THEY the people of "Palestine" allowed for THEIR leadership to reject outright the "Partition" that was meant to allow for the creation of a Palestinian Entity because it would allow for a Jewish State 
That these same six Arab countries then represented at the UN who ‎voted AGAINST UNR194 -  ; Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen, were ‎those who invaded the Mandated Area in 1948 to eliminate at birth the State of Israel ‎and it was they who called for the Palestinians to flee! ‎


UNR181 states that it:‎

‎“Recommends to the United Kingdom, as the mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all ‎other Members of the United Nations the adoption and implementation, with regard to the ‎future Government of Palestine, of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union”‎
Note that the surrounding Arab countries violated UNR181 by invading the ‎Mandated Areas:‎
‎“The Security Council determine as a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of ‎aggression, in accordance with Article 39 of the Charter, any attempt to alter by force the ‎settlement envisaged by this resolution;” 
Furthermore it called for;"Independent Arab and Jewish States.” 

Since there was an overly intense rivalry between the Mufti of Jerusalem Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini and exiled Iraqi former Prime Minister Rashid Ali there was no ‎Palestinian shadow government to claim their state. 

Instead the hungry Arab neighbors ‎attempted to divide the area between themselves and in total disregard for the Arabs of ‎Palestine. This fact can be seen in the Non movement to establish a Palestinian State ‎between 1948 to 1967 when The Gaza Strip and the entire West Bank area was held by ‎the Arab nations of Egypt and Jordan in violation of UNR181.‎

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also known by the kunya Abu Mazen:
“those, including myself, who were forced to leave their homes and their towns ‎and villages, carrying only some of our belongings and our grief and our memories and ‎the keys of our homes to the camps of exile and the Diaspora in the 1948 Al-Nakba, one ‎of the worst operations of uprooting, destruction and removal of a vibrant and cohesive ‎society that had been contributing in a pioneering and leading way in the cultural, ‎educational and economic renaissance of the Arab Middle East.”‎
Historical Fact:

When a Jewish area was overrun - and some were - the homes were looted or destroyed ‎and any survivors were killed, as at Kfar Etzion (only three of the defenders survived the ‎massacre). The potential for the ethnic cleansing of Jewish Palestine was never realized ‎because of the bravery, discipline, determination and sheer luck of the Yishuv.

If the Arabs had not carried out across the board attacks throughout the Yishuv between ‎‎1947 and 1948, perhaps the nature of the subsequent Jewish victory would have been ‎different. As it was, the ceaseless attacks against all isolated Jewish settlements only gave ‎Zionist commanders every reason to see neighboring Arab villages as threatening and to ‎act accordingly.‎

Mohammed Abu Ghosh from the Arab village, which remained neutral in 1948 has been ‎quoted as saying, 
"What we did, we did for Abu Ghosh, for nobody else. Others who lost ‎their land, hated us then, but now all over the Arab world, many people see we were ‎right. If everyone did what we did, there'd be no refugee problem . . . And if we were ‎traitors? Look where we are, look where they are."

Historical Fact:

The continuation of the “Big Lie” Hazem Nusseibeh, an editor of the Palestine ‎Broadcasting Service's , told the BBC in an interview in 1998 that the fabricated atrocity ‎stories about Deir Yassin were "our biggest mistake," because "Palestinians fled in terror" ‎and left the country in huge numbers after hearing the atrocity claims.‎

What the Palestinians are attempting to state here is that their suffering in the ‎‎“Nakba” was worse than that imposed upon the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. ‎

Abbas: “The core issue here is that the Israeli government refuses to commit to terms of ‎reference for the negotiations that are based on international law and United Nations ‎resolutions, and that it frantically continues to intensify building of settlements on the ‎territory of the State of Palestine. “… the policy of the Israeli colonial settlement ‎occupation,”‎
‎“Settlement activities embody the core of the policy of colonial military occupation of the ‎land of the Palestinian people and all of the brutality of aggression and racial ‎discrimination against our people that this policy entails.”‎

‎“This policy, which constitutes a breach of international humanitarian law and United ‎Nations resolutions, is the primary cause for the failure of the peace process, the collapse ‎of dozens of opportunities, and the burial of the great hopes that arose from the signing of ‎the Declaration of Principles in 1993 between the Palestine Liberation Organization and ‎Israel to achieve a just peace that would begin a new era for our region.” ‎

Historical Fact:‎‎
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed Resolution 242, which affirmed Israel's ‎right to retain at least some of the territories it had acquired in any anticipated "land for ‎peace" agreement, as well as Israel’s right to "secure and recognized boundaries." ‎
US Ambassador at the time, Arthur Goldberg: "historically, there have never been secure ‎or recognized boundaries in the area"; adding that the armistice lines did not answer that ‎description.”
In fact, Article II of the 1949 Armistice with Jordan explicitly specified that ‎the agreement did not compromise any future territorial claims of the parties, since it had ‎been "dictated exclusively by military considerations."

Besides "Resolution 242 did not call for a full withdrawal from all the territories that ‎Israel captured in the Six Day War; the 1949 Armistice lines were no longer to be a ‎reference point for a future peace process."‎
In September 1968 President Lyndon Johnson stated: "It is clear, however, that a return ‎to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be secure and there must ‎be recognized borders." ‎

The Arab call for a return to the pre-Six Day War situation is as much an emotional ‎attempt to erase the humiliation inflicted on the combined Arab forces at the time, as a ‎requirement to be scrupulously observed. Although the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative refers ‎to the 1967 lines, and the 2003 Road Map speaks of ending "the occupation that began in ‎‎1967," all sides acknowledge that a final agreement will incorporate land swaps aimed at ‎ensuring secure borders for both Israel and the future Palestine.‎

In terms of international law International Court of Justice Stephen M. Schwebel has ‎stated; that since Jordan had unlawfully occupied the area from 1948 and 1967, the entire ‎area of what remained of the Palestinian Mandated Territory in the “West Bank” and ‎East Jerusalem was terra nullius or "land belonging to no one". The sovereignty of said ‎area may be acquired through occupation. The concept of terra nullius is well recognized ‎in international law. Therefore the “Palestinians” never had sovereignty over the “West ‎Bank” or East Jerusalem. According to Justice Schwebel Israel, which subsequently took ‎that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense in 1967, has better title to it.‎

Logically, since Jordan renounced its claim to Judea and Samaria in 1988, and signed a ‎peace treaty with Israel in 1994, recognizing its current border, the only other possible ‎valid legal claim, was defined under the Mandate for Palestine, is that of Israel. The ‎Palestinians have no legal claim because when they had the opportunity to proclaim a ‎state, between 1948 to 1967, over the West Bank they failed to do so. Therefore Israel's ‎presence in Judea and Samaria is legal and legitimate because it did not acquire territory ‎belonging to another state, or legal entity. ‎


Bibi:
President Abbas just stood here, and he said that the core of the Israeli-Palestinian ‎conflict is the settlements. Well, that's odd. Our conflict has been raging for -- was raging ‎for nearly half a century before there was a single Israeli settlement in the West Bank. So ‎if what President Abbas is saying was true, then the -- I guess that the settlements he's ‎talking about are Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jaffa, Be'er Sheva. Maybe that's what he meant the ‎other day when he said that Israel has been occupying Palestinian land for 63 years. He ‎didn't say from 1967; he said from 1948. I hope somebody will bother to ask him this ‎question because it illustrates a simple truth: The core of the conflict is not the ‎settlements. The settlements are a result of the conflict. ‎
The settlements have to be -- it's an issue that has to be addressed and resolved in the ‎course of negotiations. But the core of the conflict has always been and unfortunately ‎remains the refusal of the Palestinians to recognize a Jewish state in any border. ‎


Abbas:
“Construction of the “annexation Wall” that is eating up large tracts of our land, ‎dividing it into separate and isolated islands and cantons, destroying family life and ‎communities and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of families.”‎

Historical Fact: The “Security Wall”‎

‎“When completed, it will extend 450 miles (720 kilometers), sometimes dipping as far as ‎‎15 miles (24 kilometers) into West Bank territory, claiming ONLY 10 percent of ‎Palestinian land for Israeli settlers. The Israeli government says its goal is only to protect ‎Israeli lives, not to redraw the border, and as soon as there's a sweeping shift in ‎Palestinian policy toward Israel, the wall will be destroyed and the confiscated land ‎returned. The Israeli government doesn't even call it a wall. It prefers the term "security ‎fence," and in most places in the West Bank it is indeed a network of electrified chain-‎link fences and coils of barbed wire.
The Israeli government says the wall is working. The second intifada brought wave after ‎wave of suicide bombings, striking throughout Israel, killing over a 1,000 civilians and ‎soldiers. Starting in 2003, with construction of the wall proceeding at top speed, and with ‎intensified military checkpoints, patrols, and intelligence, the number of attacks ‎drastically declined.

Abbas:
“The occupying Power also continues to refuse permits for our people to build in ‎Occupied East Jerusalem, at the same time that it intensifies its decades-long campaign of ‎demolition and confiscation of homes, displacing Palestinian owners and residents under ‎a multi-pronged policy of ethnic cleansing aimed at pushing them away from their ‎ancestral homeland.”‎

Historical Fact:‎‎
Jordan invaded, conquered and ethnically cleansed the area known as the “West Bank” ‎and the Jewish Quarter of the “Old City” of Jerusalem of ALL Jews in 1947 and held it, ‎without any Palestinian objections, until LIBERATED in 1967.‎

Abbas:
“The occupying Power also continues to undertake excavations that threaten our ‎holy places,”‎

Bibi:
“President Abbas, stop walking around this issue. Recognize the Jewish state, and ‎make peace with us. In such a genuine peace, Israel is prepared to make painful ‎compromises. But they should be ready, like us, for compromise. And we will know that ‎they're ready for compromise and for peace when they start taking Israel's security ‎requirements seriously and when they stop denying our historical connection to our ‎ancient homeland. ‎
In my office in Jerusalem, there's a -- there's an ancient seal. It's a signet ring of a Jewish ‎official from the time of the Bible. The seal was found right next to the Western Wall, ‎and it dates back 2,700 years, to the time of King Hezekiah. Now, there's a name of the ‎Jewish official inscribed on the ring in Hebrew. His name was Netanyahu. That's my last ‎name. My first name, Benjamin, dates back a thousand years earlier to Benjamin -- ‎Binyamin -- the son of Jacob, who was also known as Israel. Jacob and his 12 sons ‎roamed these same hills of Judea and Sumeria 4,000 years ago, and there's been a ‎continuous Jewish presence in the land ever since.” ‎

Abbas:
“…its military checkpoints prevent our citizens from getting access to their ‎mosques and churches, and it continues to besiege the Holy City with a ring of ‎settlements imposed to separate the Holy City from the rest of the Palestinian cities.”‎

Historical Fact:‎‎
Palestinian leaders argue the wall has little to do with the reduction in suicide ‎attacks. The bombings have stopped, they say, because the major militant groups, ‎including Hamas, proclaimed a ban on them, in the hope of restarting peace talks. “A ‎concrete wall can't stop someone who's willing to die”, many Palestinians say, and if ‎militant groups wanted, they could send a suicide bomber into Jerusalem every hour of ‎the day.”‎

Bibi:
“I removed hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints, to ease freedom of movement ‎in the Palestinian areas; this facilitated a fantastic growth in the Palestinian economy. But ‎again -- no response. I took the unprecedented step of freezing new buildings in the ‎settlements for 10 months. No prime minister did that before, ever. Once again -- you ‎applaud, but there was no response. No response.”‎

Abbas:
“In addition, we now face the imposition new conditions not previously raised, ‎conditions that will transform the raging conflict in our inflamed region into a religious ‎conflict and a threat to the future of a million and a half Christian and Muslim ‎Palestinians, citizens of Israel, a matter which we reject and which is impossible for us to ‎accept being dragged into.” ‎

Historical Fact:‎‎
Sheik Muhammad Ibrahim Al-Madhi in a sermon, called for turning Jews and ‎Christians into Ahl-Dhimma [protected second rate citizens] under Muslim rule.‎
Palestinian nationalists refuse to recognize that Israel is the state of the Jewish people ‎because they refuse to admit that there is any such thing as the Jewish people. The PLO ‎Charter of 1964 states:‎
Article 18…Judaism, because it is a divine religion, is not a nationality with independent ‎existence. Furthermore, the Jews are not one people with an independent personality ‎because they are citizens to their states.‎

Bibi:
“We believe that the Palestinians should be neither the citizens of Israel nor its ‎subjects. They should live in a free state of their own. The Jewish state of Israel will ‎always protect the rights of all its minorities, including the more than 1 million Arab ‎citizens of Israel. I wish I could say the same thing about a future Palestinian state, for as ‎Palestinian officials made clear the other day -- in fact, I think they made it right here in ‎New York -- they said the Palestinian state won't allow any Jews in it. They'll be Jew-free ‎‎-- Judenrein. That's ethnic cleansing. There are laws today in Ramallah that make the ‎selling of land to Jews punishable by death. That's racism. And you know which laws this ‎evokes.” ‎

‎“Israel has no intention whatsoever to change the democratic character of our state. We ‎just don't want the Palestinians to try to change the Jewish character of our state. ‎‎(Applause.) We want to give up -- we want them to give up the fantasy of flooding Israel ‎with millions of Palestinians.” ‎


Abbas:
“Thus, we agreed to establish the State of Palestine on only 22% of the territory ‎of historical Palestine - on all the Palestinian Territory occupied by Israel in 1967.‎

Historical Fact:‎‎

Once again Abbas brings the big lie of the Palestinians and fails to mention that 76% of ‎the Mandated Area of Palestine was given unilaterally by Britain to "buy off [Prince] ‎Abdullah and the chief tribal groups such as the Bani Sakhr, Abadi, Shobaki and ‎Manaseer for a "Hashemite solution” in 1921.‎
Abbas attempts to twist the fact with the creation of Jordan the Jewish National Home ‎was limited within the 23% of Palestine west of the Jordan River, an area that includes ‎what is today called the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.‎
Churchill brought a memorandum to the March, 1921 Cairo Conference, which ‎envisaged:‎
‎... establishing a Jewish National Home in Palestine west of the Jordan and a ‎separate Arab entity in Palestine east of the Jordan. Abdullah, if installed in authority ‎in Transjordan, could preside over the creation of such an Arab entity.‎
According to Sir Alec Kirkbride, the British representative in the area, Transjordan was:‎
‎... intended to serve as a reserve of land for use in the resettlement of Arabs once the ‎National Home for the Jews in Palestine, which [Britain was] pledged to support, ‎became an accomplished fact. There was no intention at that stage of forming the ‎territory east of the River Jordan into an independent Arab state.‎

Bibi:
In the last few weeks, American officials have put forward ideas to restart peace ‎talks. There were things in those ideas about borders that I didn't like. There were things ‎there about the Jewish state that I'm sure the Palestinians didn't like. ‎

But with all my reservations, I was willing to move forward on these American ideas. ‎

Abbas:-Speaking ONLY to the UN:
“I am here to say on behalf of the Palestinian people ‎and the Palestine Liberation Organization: We extend our hands to the Israeli government ‎and the Israeli people for peace-making.”‎

Bibi:
“President Abbas, why don't you join me? We have to stop negotiating about the ‎negotiations. Let's just get on with it. Let's negotiate peace. ‎
In two and a half years, we met in Jerusalem only once, even though my door has always ‎been open to you. If you wish, I'll come to Ramallah. Actually, I have a better suggestion. ‎We've both just flown thousands of miles to New York. Now we're in the same city. ‎We're in the same building. So let's meet here today in the United Nations. Who's there to ‎stop us? What is there to stop us? If we genuinely want peace, what is there to stop us ‎from meeting today and beginning peace negotiations? ‎

And I suggest we talk openly and honestly. Let's listen to one another. Let's do as we say ‎in the Middle East: Let's talk "doogri". That means straightforward. I'll tell you my needs ‎and concerns. You'll tell me yours. And with God's help, we'll find the common ground ‎of peace. ‎

There's an old Arab saying that you cannot applaud with one hand. Well, the same is true ‎of peace. I cannot make peace alone. I cannot make peace without you. President Abbas, ‎I extend my hand -- the hand of Israel -- in peace. I hope that you will grasp that hand. ‎We are both the sons of Abraham. My people call him Avraham. Your people call him ‎Ibrahim. We share the same patriarch. We dwell in the same land. Our destinies are ‎intertwined. Let us realize the vision of Isaiah -- (speaks in Hebrew) -- "The people who ‎walk in darkness will see a great light." Let that light be the light of peace. ‎