Right To Exist Quotes
Spinoza was one of the most feared intellectuals in human history—feared, that is, by the established power structures. Spinoza’s ideas were considered so radical and dangerous that he was the only man in history who was excommunicated by the Catholics, the Jews and the Muslims.
David Ben-Gurion was the Zionist leader in Palestine and became the first Israeli Prime Minister. In 1948 the United Nations Partitioned Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. But over a dozen Arab Armies invaded the Jewish area to take it by force. They were repulsed by a much smaller, poorer armed, Zionist population of desperate Jews. In some areas Palestinian Arabs at the request of the outside Arab leaders attacked their Jewish neighbors and where they did or they had helped the Arab armies, the civilian population was ejected. Arab leaders and demagogues told Arab Civilians to go to the West Bank behind the front lines so that the Arab armor could advance unimpeded. They were told that they could return the following week after the victory. When the victory never came, the Israelis would not allow the Arabs to return and this was the origin of the Refugee problem. About the only thing that the Jewish and Arab leadership agreed upon was that the Arab civilian population should leave the front and go to the West Bank.
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.
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}. 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 {635341} for another alarming reneging of the recognition of Israel.
