Israel’s Right to Exist- Part III
1-10-09
The harsh reality is that oil, at the moment, and for the discernible future dictates policy. The Israeli bashers, who say they are not anti-Semites, fool no one. Israel has a right, as any other state to exist and have defensible borders. World history and law has always sided with the right of self-defense. But for the Jew-haters, self-defense is always disproportionate.
The Arab world has had many opportunities to come into the modern political world described by the Atlantic Charter, authored by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the Atlantic Conference, held in Argentia Bay in the summer of 1941. This document articulated the Four Freedoms enunciated in President Roosevelt's State of the Union address in January of 1941. These rights were later articulated in the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. When and where have the governments of the Arab lands adhered to these universally accepted principles?
As I stated earlier, whether Israel existed or not, the problems between Sunni and Shiite, Kuwait and Iraq, Iraq and Iran, and secularists and the Muslim Brotherhood would still exist. Does anyone wonder why Hamas won control in Gaza, or Hezbollah dictates policy in Lebanon? Does anyone not think that in a free election the Muslim Brotherhood would oust the Mubarak rule in Egypt?
The truth is that the average Arab is poor, under-educated and mostly either an orthodox Muslim or in fear of their lives for questioning religious authority. This view is a realistic evaluation between what we hold dear in the West regarding the establishment of the secular state and the religious autocracy or the one-party domination that the Arab World endures.
Personally, I could care less what they believe, or how they wish to be governed. It is not an issue to me, or I assume, with most others. We have been tolerating dictators, around the world, for generations. But when totalitarians disturb world stability, invade others, create terrorism and international blackmail and threaten the peace, the free peoples of the world take notice. That of course doesn't always mean or justify armed intervention.
I do believe in the sanctity of borders and change quite often must be internal. Eventually enough people will starve in Iran and become fed up with the religious zealots that dictate their lives, and change will come. Should we encourage that change through propaganda, boycotts, embargoes and other means? Maybe! We must always have contingency plans and an end game in mind. One of George Bush's abject failures was that he was not prepared for war, did not understand the consequences of it, did not prepare for an occupation, did not build a coalition, and had no end-game or departure plan. In other words he failed!
I firmly believe in a two state solution for the former Mandate area, but as part of that solution, the new state of Palestine must accept peace. Their creation should not be another excuse to horde arms, build an aggressive army and threaten its neighbor. I believe that Israel wants to live in peace with all of its neighbors and will not be an aggressor. Israel has excellent relations with Turkey a Moslem, but secular state, and has always protected the sanctity of all religions and their places of worship within Israel. Unfortunately the Jordanians did not exercise that type of policy regarding Jewish holy sites in Old Jerusalem and in sections of the West Bank that were Jewish for three millennia. By the way, Jews were locked in Kasbah areas or chained ghettoes in almost all the Moslem countries for hundreds of years up and to the end of the 19th Century.
In fact, to the whole wide world, Israel does exist. It has a booming economy, it is a democracy, it has an inventive free society, its tourism was at a record level in 2008 and it is ambitiously working on alternate and renewable energy. In fact, they lead the world in that area, and I am sure the oil sheiks are quite unhappy about that prospect. But just look at where Brian M's petro dollars go! They go to building Dubai into a super playground for the rich! What else is new? Are they using those dollars to build peace and prosperity with their co-religionists? The answer is obvious!