In a special Washington Post article, Palestinian prime minister Haniyeh explains ‘we do not want to live on international welfare and American handouts. We want what Americans enjoy – democratic rights, economic sovereignty and justice’. In his article, Haniyeh clarified that a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis can be reached, but only if a number of conditions are filled. First, he said, Israel must recognize the basic disagreement over Palestine. In addition, the problem of the refugee expelled from their lands in 1948 must also be solved. Israel, Haniyeh said, must give back the lands robbed in 1967 and allow the establishment of a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Haniyeh must think that people are idiots. When the West Bank and Gaza were “occupied” by Egypt and Jordan, from 1947 thru 1967, the palestinian leadership had no complaint about any “alien occupation ” and expressed no desire for self-determination. There was no movement toward a palestinian state when Gaza was under the control of Egypt and the West Bank under Jordan. Jordan didn’t give up its territorial claims until 1988 by which time, of course, it had no control over the area.
Fatah was founded in 1964 with Arafat; unless causality has no meaning, the resistance to Israel was born with no reference to 1967 but, rather, with Israel’s birth in 1948 and with the increase of Jews returning to their homeland in the 19th century.
The fact remains that Israel has every reason not to trust either Hamas or the late Arafat or the live Abbas; all have vowed the destruction of Israel in their charter documents and when speaking in Arabic although sometimes denying it in English.
So, what happened in 1967 that caused the borders to change in the first place? Did Israel just decide they wanted more land? Or did Haniyeh’s uncles and brothers and grandfathers decide to kill some more Jews in some bloodfest that their allah instituted 1,400 years ago?
There is no law on earth that requires the Jewish people to accept the revision of their history nor their own demise merely because Muslims say we should. It is outrageous in the extreme that the world would accept a scheme that would permit Arabs to have an ethnically cleansed geographical region where no Jews can live.