EclectEcon

A Brief, Truncated History that Helps Explain My General Support for Israel

It was 50 years ago that the Six-Day War of 1967 was so effectively won by Israel. If that war had never happened, if Syria, Jordan, and Egypt (and the rest of the Arab League had recognized Israel's right to exist), things would be very different.

From an op-ed by Bret Stephens in the NYTimes,

Israel is not a nation of saints and has made its mistakes. The most serious of those is proliferation of West Bank settlements beyond those in historically recognized blocs.

But before we fall prey to the lazy trope of “50 years of occupation,” inevitably used to indict Israel, let’s note the following:

There would have been no occupation, and no settlements, if Egypt and its allies hadn’t recklessly provoked a war. Or if the “international community” hadn’t fecklessly abandoned Israel in its desperate hours. Or if Jordan hadn’t foolishly ignored Israel’s warnings to stay out of it. Or if the Arab League hadn’t arrogantly rejected the possibility of peace. [emphasis added]

A Palestinian state would most likely exist if Arafat hadn’t adopted terrorism as the calling card of Palestinian aspirations. Or if he hadn’t rejected the offer of a state 17 years ago. Or if he hadn’t renounced his renunciation of terror.

A Palestinian state would also most likely exist if Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas — now in the 13th year of his elected four-year term — hadn’t rejected it again nine years ago, and if Gazans hadn’t turned their territory into a terrifying model of Palestinian statehood, and if the United Nations didn’t treat Hamas’s attacks on Israel as a nuisance but Israel’s self-defense as a crime against humanity.

 

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50 Years of Occupation? What about the previous 450 years or so?

Some provocative questions from The Elder Ziyon. He notes there is a UN Forum to mark 50 years of occupation and then continues,

Of course, they mean 50 years of "occupation" by Jews.

Because no one was overly concerned about the previous 19 years of "Palestinian territory" being annexed or administered by Jordan or Egypt.

Or the 30 years of British administration before that.

Or the 400 years of Ottoman rule before that.

No, the only interest in what the world now calls "Palestinian lands" only started when Jews have some level of control over them. Not when generations of others - Muslims and Christians, Arabs and non-Arabs - controlled the land.

Somehow, only the years when the life expectancy of Palestinians skyrocketed, when the infant mortality rate plummeted, when practically all of the universities and major hospitals were built in the territories - only those years are considered tragic.

The entire exercise of "50 years of occupation" is underlined by blatant hypocrisy. If there was no Six Day war, the West Bank Palestinian Arabs under Jordanian rule would be just as interesting as the East Bank Palestinians are today - meaning, not at all.  Gazans would remain in an effective Egyptian prison, with no ability to move to Egypt itself - but no one would be talking about it.

The self-rule that most Palestinians in the territories enjoy today would never have happened.

And no one would be writing op-eds about it.