Mahmoud Abbas Quotes

Because of the classic historical anti-Semitism and discrimination, Jews were barred from land ownership and as a result few were farmers or had agricultural experience in their families. They were tradesmen, artisans, professionals in Europe. So amongst Jews and non Jews alike the notion of Jews settling the land of Palestine and farming it or trapping, the way the Boers had in South Africa or the French in Canada, was not a very credible image. The Zionists, realizing this potential weakness, placed strong emphasis on agriculture, developed the agricultural kibbutz concept and encouraged Jews to become farmers. The effort was so successful that almost all the leading early Zionist immigrants to Palestine became farmers. When independence came to Israel, the Jewish agriculture was more productive than most of that in Europe and almost on a par with small farms in the United States. The Israelis were known for “making the desert bloom.

This quotation is important because it demonstrates that all Arabs were not in favor of the Nazi murder of Jews in WWII. This claim is often made but is untrue. While major Arab leaders called for the murder of all Jews—see {584354} for Arab murder broadcasts from Berlin—there were other Arabs, more secular, leaders who repudiated the Holocaust. This was the meeting at which the leading Arab states met and formed the League of Arab States.

The recommendation for partition was the basis of the decision of the United Nations in 1949 to partition Palestine.

This is the first statement of a Jewish nation since Biblical Times.

Question of FDR who was explaining the Jewish Claims to Part of Palestine. That was a considered option but the Jews had no historical relationship to Germany in the sense that the did in the Middle East, Fir several hundred years all of Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and much of the rest of the Middle East belonged to a Jewish Kingdom under a dynasty of Jewish Kings. Jews had lived in the Middle East for over 5000 years. However, the Jewish Kingdom fell to the Romans, and then hundreds of years later the area was under Muslim Rule, then it was controlled by the Christian crusaders, retaken by the Muslims, and then conquered by the Jews when 14 Arab Armies attacked the fledgling state of Israel. So all the contesting ethnic groups claiming the Middle East as their land, base that claim on their domination and rule of the area by conquest at different points of history. All have conquered the land from someone else and ruled it till they were conquered with the Jews being the latest conquerors. So Arabs and Jews both have claims and can object to the other’s behavior of taking the land by force.

Some Palestinians and other Arabs either ignore or are delusional about history as the Jews had been in the Area for 5 thousand years, and when Christ was born and died and Christianity born, the Jews were the majority population in the area of Israel and Palestine. Even in the Muslim Controlled Ottoman Empire, Jews were living in the area and are described on thousands of Ottoman legal and historical documents. The reason that this quotation is so important is that Abbas was supposed to be the most reasonable of the Arab leaders regarding a two state solution, and here in 2014 he argued that the Jews to not belong in the area and have no roots there. The other Hamas Arab leaders required in their charter the destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews anywhere in the world. Who then, many conservative Israelis ask, can Israel reasonably negotiate with as no state will negotiate for its own existence—especially the most democratic, most developed, and has the highest average standard of living for its citizens and the most freedom for Arabs of any nation in the Middle East.

The large Jewish immigration to America was like most immigrations before and since. Some elements of American society thought the immigrants undesirable and worse. Others felt America needed immigrant labor to grow and do the undesirable chores of society. Still others saw immigration to America as a part of American destiny. Herzl’s understanding of America was superficial and the anti-Semitism that many Jews faced dominated his thinking on the subject.

Kissinger and Nixon had just had a meeting with Golda Meir, the Israeli Prime Minister who had asked them to support the right of Russian Jews to emigrate to Israel. Kissinger himself was Jewish and Nixon’s closest confidant about world affairs. It is not clear whether or not this was another example of Kissinger pandering to Nixon’s prejudices which he did often. See {621138} for Nixon’s reply. This quotation was uncovered in 2010 when more of the Nixon White House tapes were released.

This quotation has great historical significance for its logic and perception as much as for its content, The Jewish population that the British admitted plus those already in Israel was a small fraction of the Arab population then and a tiny proportion of the Jews and Arabs now inhabiting Israel with a very high standard of living. This included over 1 million Russian Jewish immigrants, The perception of the capacity of land to support a population has always been underestimated, The Arabs simply extrapolated assuming no modernization, no technology, and every family having a small farm. Given Arab traditional perceptions of societal development, modern Israel could not possibly function, much less thrive as it does. This is one of the reasons that the Arab nations have been so reluctant to absorb more Palestinian Arab refugees. A backward view of society and assumption that the Arab status quo was then the optimum society prohibited the Arabs from modern developmental possibilities.

The Iranian President has said publicly that Iran would wipe Israel off the face of the map. Iranian politicians and the public constantly clamor for death to Israelis and for that matter all Jews. Although not all Iranian politicians agree with the desirability or morality of such a policy, the nation was openly trying to enrich uranium and plutonium which are the key ingredients to atomic weapons. Israel is within missile range of Iran and sees Iran as an existential threat which justifies preemption as they did to stop Syrian and Iraqi nuclear development.