With gratitude to Think-Israel:
By now, almost all of us know there is no such thing as a Palestinian people. We know only 1-2% of the Arabs living in Gaza and the West Bank come from Arabs who lived there before 1870. We know there is no such thing as a state/kingdom/country called Palestine, nor was there ever – for centuries, the area that is now divided into Jordan, Israel and the territories was an administrative segment of the Ottoman Empire. England renamed it Palestine, around the time she undertook to expedite the creation of a Jewish state. (Yeah, I know the Mandate says “homeland”, a term used first by Max Nordau, a timid Jew, who thought “State” was too in-your-face.) Most of us know that Israel has the right to Biblical Israel – Samaria and Judea (the “West Bank”) and Gaza – not just morally but biblically, historically, by the Mandate and because she conquered it in wars the Arabs started and lost.Many of us are disturbed by Sharon’s unseemly haste to expel Jews from Gaza – in what promises to be the start of a larger expulsion of Jews from the territories and eastern Jerusalem. We know he is doing this against the advise ofmany of his military and intelligence people. And we believe that it will be much harder for Israel to defend herselffrom her enemies once she starts retreating.Some of us know that in the Middle East, the Arabs have 99.9% (not a typo!) of the land area and Israel has all the rest.Yet it is always Israel that is asked to give up land. Never are the Arabs asked to help their “palestinian” brethren.Some of our authors have suggested that it makes more sense to transfer Arabs to Arab land than to cut out still another part of tiny Israel, cf,http://www.think-israel.org/elonplan.html and http://www.think-israel.org/landau.yochanan.htmlFewer of us seem to know about other consequences of the retreat from Gaza. Think-Israel has run a series of articles about Israel’s absolute right in international law to Israel and the territories, cf, http://www.think-israel.org/shifftan.uprooting.html and http://www.think-israel.org/grief.transfer.htmlWhat is amazing is that few know that when Israel gives up control of the territories, she puts control of her water supply in the hands of the Arabs, cf. http://www.think-israel.org/wulfsohn.water.html and http://www.think-israel.org/sherman.water.html