Lino Debono’s screed about Jews becoming oppressors (May 25) demands a response. He admits subscribing to the classic slander that Jews control America and dictate US policy to block “justice”. He wrote that the security fence “… was built on the premise that it was… to protect Jews from Palestinian attacks”.
Until mid-2005, hundreds of Palestinian suicide bombings and terrorist attacks killed nearly 1,000 innocent people and wounded thousands. In response, Israel constructed a security fence near the “Green Line” to prevent infiltration. Since construction of the fence, the number of attacks declined by more than 90 per cent. So much for a “premise”.
Debono admits Palestinian Arabs were allocated 70 per cent of the land in 1947 but blithely disregards the continued Arab refusal to accept a two-State solution. He ignores thousands who died in 1948 to prevent a second (promised) Holocaust and concludes “… the Jews kept the land and made it their own”.
There is little hope Palestinians would ‘live side by side with the Jewish nation’ in peace
The 1949 border was a ceasefire line since the Arabs refused to sign a peace treaty. There was much land, bought and paid for by Jews, which ended up in Jordanian hands, including the Jewish quarter of the Old City and land surrounding Jerusalem now called “settlements”. The Jordanians took that land and “made it their own”.
He posits a total calumny: “…religious holy places in Jerusalem were taken over by the Jews”. The opposite is true: holy places in Israel are administered by the religions they belong to.
The Jordanians blew up the ancient Hurva Synagogue and many other Jewish places of worship when they captured the Jewish quarter in 1948. They looted the Mount of Olives using Jewish tombstones for latrines and building stones.
Last week, I was prevented from entering the Temple Mount by Israeli and Arab police since that is a Moslem place of worship. When I was a Jerusalem assistant city attorney I was involved in a territorial dispute between Christian sects over the Holy Sepulchre - they sought Israeli assistance. It is not Jews but Muslims who oppress. Christians made up 70 per cent of Bethlehem’s population 50 years ago, today they represent 15 per cent. The Israelis did not cause this, Muslims did.
The PN needs people who will stay the course in this hour of need
Another outrageous claim was the “Jewish State… enslaved the Palestinian people... ” Perhaps he is referring to those who were “terrified and… left their homes and property in search of safety”, certainly not those who stayed and lived in peace.
Israeli Arabs are the most prosperous in the Middle East, free from civil war, living with or without a burqa in lovely homes, teaching in universities and one Arab judge sat on the Supreme Court that sentenced an Israeli President to prison. Debono cannot name another country in the Middle East where Arab citizens live better than in Israel.
Those who fled were made pawns in the war against Israel. They are the only refugees in history displaced by war and forcibly excluded from surrounding countries speaking the same language and practising the same religion. When Palestinians voluntarily left, over 650,000 Jews were expelled from countries they lived in before the creation of Islam. These people were murdered and burned out of their homes.
As to Palestinians not having “… hope of ever getting their property back”, Israel offered compensation many times – always refused for political reasons.
The Jews forced out of lands they lived for thousands of years have no hope of “getting their property back” or compensation. The Palestinians are the only people on the planet who received welfare for 67 years and succeeded to develop nothing except suicide vests.
Many Palestinians who moved to other countries became successful businessman; in the West Bank the most successful are those who steal money provided for now third and even fourth generation ‘refugees’. Palestinians receive one of the highest aid levels in the world (Palestine Human Development Report (2004), p. 113) and are the world’s largest per capita recipients of international development assistance.
Debono also claims that the “… land (taken) was extended by the 1967 war”. I recall 1967 quite well.
TV graphically displayed the tanks, planes and soldiers massed against Israel in a promised “massacre”. Israel pleaded with the UN to break the Egyptian blockage of an international waterway. Israel’s Prime Minister, dressed as an Arab woman, met King Hussein and pleaded not to attack Israel. He shelled West Jerusalem leaving Israel no option but to fight back.
The land was “extended” due to a war others started – this is like saying the US bombed Japan leaving out Pearl Harbor.
This problem could have been solved many times over if the Arabs had a tiny bit of good faith. They teach children to hate and summer camps exhort children to become suicide bombers. There is little hope Palestinians would ‘‘live side by side with the Jewish nation’’ in peace. Their actions prove that is not what they want.
Howard Golden was an attorney in the US and Israel for over 40 years.