Ari Shavit Quotes

This statement hardened the Israeli population away from anything that would bring Hamas more power. The PLO leader had, for ALL the Palestinian people, recognized the right of Israel to exist {633062}. Now Hamas was not only reneging on the Arafat declaration, but also would not even use the term “Israel” and instead calls the nation which in less time than the Palestinians have had, has developed a modern, industrial, democratic state far in advance of the Palestinians or any of the Arab nations for that matter. Yet it is relegated to a “project” with the great hope of having it come to an end—the destruction of Israel. The Israelis observe that this is a de facto declaration of war, and hence treat Gaza and Hamas as an enemy force to be reckoned with. See {635338} for another alarming reneging of the recognition of Israel.

A minority of Jewish Israelis do not recognize the United Nations 1949 partition boundaries of the land creating modern Israel. They believe that God gave all the land to the Jewish people—as described in the Bible. Therefore, to them, the West Bank is a part of Israel. No Israeli government has ever maintained that position. However some governments which depend on settler and ultra-Orthodox support do not publicly disavow the position. Palestinians, look with alarm, on this view and the constant attempts at encroachment on West Bank land that the settlers attempt. Like the extremist Palestinians who want to sabotage any two-state solution, there is a minority of Israelis who do the same. These two groups made the peace process very difficult as their adherents are not only very passionate about their views, but have political influence out of proportion to their relatively small number of voters.

At that time Jews in Palestine were in the minority. The issue of how to obtain the land was hotly debated amongst Jewish groups. Jabotinsky was at one extreme—colonize and take the land just as the Arabs had done to the Jews when there was a Jewish majority. His view did not however prevail. The policy was to buy the land from individual Arabs and Jewish land up to 1948 was obtained that way. In that year the UN partitioned Palestine and 11 Arab armies attacked the new state of Israel and asked the Arab civilians to leave the area so that the Army could cleanse it of Jews. Many did not, and they or their descendants are still on their land or have sold it. The Arabs who left, were suspected of being possible collaborators or terrorists, and they have never been paid for their land or allowed to return. Compensation is still in dispute. At the same time Jews driven out of Arab countries by law and the military have never been compensated or given any right of return either.

Jerusalem has been disputed by the Israelis and the Arab nations surrounding the city. Both want it as their capital, and both have historic and religious claims on it. When Jerusalem was under Arab control. However no Jew was allowed in the City, even to pray at the holiest of Jewish places, the Western Wall. When Israil gained control, there has been not only free access for Muslims, but they gave the Muslims control over the Temple Mount--holy to both religions. So for Rabin, if Israell does not control the city, Jews will not have access as has been shown by recent history, and the United Nations has deminstrated so often, they will not use force to maintain their committments to protect people or assure access to areas.

Hezbollah, like the IRA, is both a terrorist organization and a political party.

A major issue amongst Israeli’s is to how they should relate to those hostile Islamic nations in their area who claim they are at war with Israel or the Jewish People. This position in effect says that the oratory of those Islamic groups that claim that they are in a war—a holy war even—should be taken at their word and treated as a wartime enemy and Israel should actively attempt to kill and destroy them.

Not all the Muslim nations of the Middle East want Israel destroyed. The Kurds and the Turks both maintain relations with Israel. The problem lies with the Arab Nations.

For years of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Palestinians would never negotiate with Israel over anything. Finally that barrier was broken and, the PLO became a negotiating party with Israel. However, the terrorist organization Hamas, had challenged the PLO for political control of the Palestinians and then took over the Gaza strip—part of the Palestinian territory. They then shot thousands of rockets into Israel, a clear act of war under international law. The Israelis then attacked the Hamas infrastructure and any building of facility where they had command or communications, meetings, trainings or stored weapons or ammunitions. The Gazans suffered many more casualties than the Israelis—about 20 to 1 ratio. Many other countries tried to broker a ceasefire which the Israelis agreed to but Hamas would not. The Israeli ambassador was asked on American television if Israel would be willing to negotiate on the larger issues of the conflict as they had negotiated with the PLO. This was his reply. The major problem was that the Hamas Charter had two clauses that made negotiations impossible. Hamas was committed to the destruction of Israel and would not agree that the Israel had a right to exist. Second, the Hamas charter called for the killing of Jews anywhere in the world—men, women and children. The Israelis asked what they would negotiate about given those two charter items and the Hamas terror history in killing as many Israelis as they could.