The Arab League has now opted out of the Palestinian’s century-old battle against the idea of a Jewish state - by Jonathan S. Tobin

The Arab League’s rejection of their rejectionism should have forced them to rethink their strategy, rather than double down on it. Joe Biden should take note.

Jonathan S. Tobin.. 

JNS.org.. 

09 September '20.. 

 If you had any doubt that the era in which the Arab world would continue to grant a veto over Middle East peace to the Palestinians was over, this week’s drama in Cairo put an end to it. In a meeting in the Egyptian capital, the Arab League, an entity that was founded in 1945 in order to help coordinate the war on Zionism, has made it clear that it is opting out of the Palestinian’s century-old battle against the idea of a Jewish state. 

 The Arab League’s rejection of Palestinian efforts to condemn the United Arab Emirates’ decision to normalize relations with Israel is almost as much of a milestone as the agreement that was pushed by the Trump administration. The Palestinian Authority and their Hamas rivals raged against the UAE’s decision as a “betrayal.” But the Arab states will no longer be dragged into supporting such a pointless conflict. 

 Predictably, the Palestinians are reacting to their defeat not by drawing conclusions from events and rethinking their approach. Instead, they are doubling down on rejectionism and damning their one-time allies. 

 But they aren’t the only ones who should be assessing whether their ideas have been rendered obsolete. Americans who have spent decades trying to pressure Israel to enable a two-state solution that would end the conflict should also recognize that the reaction to the normalization agreement demonstrates that their assumptions about the Palestinians’ willingness to make peace have also been finally demolished. 

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Saeb Erekat calls Arab normalization with Israel a "stab in the back" for Palestinians. (Get used to it.) - by Elder of Ziyon

...The Arab League will talk a good game of support for Palestinian aspirations but in reality they are sick of the issue, sick of the Fatah/Hamas split and sick of the Palestinians refusing all Israeli initiatives for peace. They still cannot say this quite so publicly but op-eds in official Arab media are starting to change their tune from being gung-ho pro-Palestinian. Erekat better get used to being stabbed in the back.

Elder of Ziyon..
10 February '19..

Once again the Arab League met and offered platitudes of support for Palestinians.

The Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the PLO, Saeb Erekat, spoke there and railed against the normalization of relations between Arab nations and Israel.

Erekat said that the prerequisites for any relations with Israel are "when Israel withdraws from the occupied Arab territories and ends its occupation, including East Jerusalem, the occupied Arab Golan, the rest of Lebanese territory and solves the refugee issue."

Which is pretty much full Israeli surrender.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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A Perfect Match - The EU and the Arab League with its Abominable Human Rights Record

...By the best assessment Europe is failing in its primary obligation to protect a part of its citizenry. But in light of these failings to protect the basic human rights of their own Jews, it is extraordinary that Europeans think they’re in a position to join with the Arab League, with its abominable human rights record, in lecturing the Jewish state.

Tom Wilson..
Commentary Magazine..
17 June '14..

After five days of silence, the European Union has finally released a stock-statement condemning the kidnapping of three Israeli students. But even this only comes after Prime Minister Netanyahu poured scorn on European countries for their harsh criticism of Israel as compared to their total failure to condemn such terrorist acts. The full extent of the EU’s Israel problem was demonstrated last week at a conference in Athens where European foreign ministers and their Arab League counterparts signed a ten page declaration that outrageously praised the Palestinians for their supposed commitment to peace and democracy while castigating Israel for its “unilateral’” actions. EU diplomats have feebly attempted to explain this indefensible document, claiming that they were able to “draw the Arabs toward [their] position, as opposed to the other way around.”

If there is any truth in that statement then it hardly says very much in the EU’s defense. The idea that this disgraceful document in some way represents the European position doesn’t exactly set the EU in any better light. Obviously the lasting European taste for concession and appeasement wouldn’t have made it difficult for the Arab League members to win over their counterparts. But given the current mood toward Israel among EU diplomats one doubts whether they needed much persuading. Indeed, looking over the moral inversions in this document each could have just as plausibly been authored by the Arab states as the European ones. And when there’s no perceivable distinction between the foreign policy of Europe and that of the Arab world then—discounting the possibility that everyone in the Middle East has become a Swedish style pacifist—you know there’s cause for concern.

In places the assertions of the ten-page declaration are laughable. There is praise for the Palestinian commitment to democracy; this despite the fact that the Palestinian Authority has been postponing an election that became overdue in 2009, while in Gaza Hamas, who seized power in a military coup, murdered the political opposition, and censored the press, has never countenanced an election since. Similarly, the declaration welcomes the new Fatah-Hamas unity government, calling on Israel to work with it and claiming that this represents a promising step toward a two-state solution. How anyone that claims to favor two states can welcome a Hamas backed government—Hamas being the terrorist movement committed to extinguishing the Jewish state—is simply unfathomable. And no less contradictory is the declaration’s condemnation of Israel’s “unilateral” acts in Jerusalem alongside its support for Palestinian unilateral acts to pursue membership of committees at the United Nations. For one thing it is absurd that when Arabs build homes in Jerusalem it’s just Arabs building homes in Jerusalem, but when Jews have the audacity to build homes in their own religious, historical and political capital, well then it’s a strategic unilateral act warranting a mini-diplomatic crisis. But more importantly the Palestinian moves at the United Nations are in direct breach of the Oslo peace accords, and many of the signatories of this declaration were supposed to serve as guarantors to Oslo.

A Palestinian state? A possible tactical instrument but never a priority

...However, ignoring reality, Western policy makers consider the Palestinian issue the crown jewel of Arab policy-making, the core cause of Middle Eastern developments and the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict. An erroneous underlying, Palestinian-driven assumption has produced an erroneous policy, radicalizing Arab and Palestinian expectations, fueling terrorism and inherent Middle Eastern instability, distancing the parties from peace and bringing them closer to war, and undermining Western national security and vital economic interests.

Yoram Ettinger..
Israel Hayom..
23 May '14..

The Palestinian issue has benefited from the Arab/Muslim talk, but -- due to the Palestinian record of intra-Arab subversion -- has never been supported by the Arab/Muslim walk. Arab/Muslim policy makers have never considered the Palestinian issue a strategic interest, but rather a tactical instrument to advance intra-Arab or Muslim interests and to annihilate the Jewish state.

Irrespective of this, Palestine has been a geographic, not a national, concept, as evidenced by the lack of distinct, cohesive national character of its Arab inhabitants. This lack of cohesion has been intensified by the violent internal fragmentation along various lines: cultural (such as Bedouin vs. rural vs. urban sectors), geographic (e.g. mountain vs. coastal Arabs, southern vs. northern, Hebron vs. Bethlehem, Nablus vs. Ramallah, Nablus vs. Hebron), ethnic, ideological, political (pro- or anti-Jordan), historical and tribal identity. Such turbulent fragmentation was fueled by the multitude of Arab or Muslim migration waves from Bosnia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula, Syria and Lebanon.

The establishment of a Palestinian state was not on the agenda of the non-Arab Muslim Ottoman Empire, which ruled the area from 1517 through 1917. The Ottomans linked the area, defined by most Arabs as a region within Southern Syria or the Levant, to the Damascus and Beirut provinces.

The British Empire, which dominated the Middle East from 1917 until the end of World War II, did not contemplate a Palestinian Arab state, while establishing a series of Arab countries throughout the Middle East. Moreover, the 1917 Balfour Declaration dedicated Palestine, including Jordan, to the Jewish homeland. The 1920 San Remo Resolution, formulated by the principal Allied Powers, formalized the Balfour Declaration-based British Mandate for Palestine, which was ratified on Aug. 12, 1922, by the League of Nations, eventually transferring 77 percent of Palestine (Jordan) to the Arabs. The U.S. House and Senate approved it unanimously on June 30, 1922. In 1945, the Mandate for Palestine was integrated into the U.N. Charter via Article 80, which precludes alterations, and is still legally binding.

Jordan and Egypt occupied Judea and Samaria and Gaza from 1949 through 1967, but did not ponder the establishment of a Palestinian state; nor did the Arab League.

Can you imagine? Arabs No Longer Take Obama Administration Seriously

...The extension of the peace talks means only one thing: that Abbas will be able to use the new time given to him to try to extract further concessions from the U.S. and Israel, while all the time bearing in mind that Obama and Kerry are willing to do almost anything to avoid a situation where they are forced to admit that their efforts and initiatives in the Middle East have failed.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
28 March '14..

The communiqué issued by Arab heads of state at the end of their summit in Kuwait this week shows that the Arab countries do not hold the Obama Administration in high regard or even take it seriously. The Arab leaders also proved once again that they do not care much about their own people, including the Palestinians.

The Arab leaders, at the end of their two-day meeting, announced their "total rejection of the call to consider Israel a Jewish state." This announcement came despite pressure from the Obama Administration on the Arab leaders to refrain from rejecting the demand.

A top Arab diplomat was quoted as saying that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry contacted Arab leaders on the eve of their 25th summit in Kuwait to "warn" them against rejecting Israel as a Jewish state.

Kerry, according to the diplomat, asked the Arab leaders completely to ignore the issue of Israel's Jewishness and not to make any positive or negative reference to it in their final statement.

Kerry did not want the Arab heads of state to repeat the same "mistake" that the Arab League foreign ministers made on March 9, when they too issued a statement declaring their refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The Arab leaders, however, decided to ignore Kerry's warning and went on to endorse Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas's refusal.

An organization that can contribute to peace in the Middle East?

Arab League rejects Israel as Jewish state. So, who is the Arab League?

Eli E. Hertz..
mythsandfacts.org..
25 March '14..

It is illuminating to examine the record of the League of Arab States since the founding of the League in 1945, which is hardly a model for peaceful settlement of disputes in the spirit of the United Nations.

Prior to the establishment of the Jewish state, the League took the following steps:

- In December 1945, the Arab League launched a boycott of 'Zionist goods' that continues to this day.
- In June 1946, it established the Higher Arab Committee to "coordinate efforts with regard to Palestine," a radical body that led and coordinated attempts to wipe Israel off the map.
- In December 1946, it rejected the first proposed Palestine partition plans, reaffirming "that Palestine is a part of the Arab motherland."
- In October 1947, prior to the vote on Resolution 181 - the "Partition Plan" - it reasserted the necessity for military preparations along Arab borders to "defending Palestine."
- In February 1948, it approved "a plan for political, military, and economic measures to be taken in response to the Palestine crisis."
- In October 1948, it rejected the UN "Partition Plan" for Palestine adopted by the General Assembly in Resolution 181.

On May 15 1948, as the regular forces of Egypt, Trans-Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and contingents from Saudi Arabia and Yemen invaded Israel to 'restore law and order,' the Arab League issued a lengthy document entitled "Declaration on the Invasion of Palestine." In it, the Arab states drew attention to:

"The injustice implied in this solution [affecting] the right of the people of Palestine to immediate independence ... declared the Arabs' rejection of [Resolution 181]" which the League said "would not be possible to carry it out by peaceful means, and that its forcible imposition would constitute a threat to peace and security in this area" and claimed that the "security and order in Palestine have become disrupted" due to the "aggressive intentions, and the imperialistic designs of the Zionists" and "the Governments of the Arab States, as members of the Arab League, a regional organization ... view the events taking place in Palestine as a threat to peace and security in the area as a whole. ... Therefore, as security in Palestine is a sacred trust in the hands of the Arab States, and in order to put an end to this state of affairs ... the Governments of the Arab States have found themselves compelled to intervene in Palestine."

The Secretary-General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, was less diplomatic and far more candid. With no patience for polite or veiled language, on the same day Israel declared its independence on May 14 1948, at a Cairo press conference reported the next day in The New York Times, Pasha repeated the Arabs' "intervention to restore law and order" revealing:

"This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades." The League of Arab States continued to oppose peace after Israel's 1948 War of Independence:

A reality check might be in order concerning "The Palestinian Refugees" (part 2)

...Misinformation and disinformation have dominated the diplomatic discourse on the Palestinian issue, misleading Western policymakers and public opinion molders, thus radicalizing Arab expectations and demands, fueling terrorism and minimizing the prospects of peace.

Yoram Ettinger..
Israel Hayom..
29 December '13..

The Palestinian refugee issue has been dramatically misrepresented, distorting circumstances and numbers, in order to delegitimize the Jewish state.

The root cause then and now

According to the German Middle East expert, Fritz Grobba ("Men and Powers in the Orient"), the 1948 Palestinian leadership, headed by Grand Mufti Haj Amin Al-Husseini, wanted to apply Nazi methods to massacre Jews throughout the Middle East. In 1941, the mufti drafted a proposal requesting that Germany and Italy acknowledge the Arab right to settle "the Jewish problem" in Palestine and the Arab countries in accordance with national and racial Arab interests, similar to the practice employed to solve "the Jewish problem" in Germany and Italy. On Nov. 24, 1947, Acting Chairman of the (Palestinian) Arab Higher Committee Jamal Al-Husseini threatened: "Palestine shall be consumed with fire and blood," if the Jews get any part of it. On April 16, 1948, Jamal Husseini told the U.N. Security Council: "The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight."

On January 9, 2013, Mahmoud Abbas pledged allegiance to the Grand Mufti, who collaborated intimately with the Nazi leadership, particularly with Himmler, Hitler's most ruthless right hand man: "On the anniversary of Fatah, we renew the pledge to our fortunate martyrs. ... We pledge to continue on the path of the martyrs. ... Here we must remember the pioneers -- the grand mufti of Palestine, Haj Amin Al-Husseini."

Who is responsible?

PLO Chairman and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas admitted that "Arab armies forced Palestinians to leave their homes" (Filastin A-Thawra, March 1976). On May 13, 2008, Al Ayyam, the second largest pro-Abbas Palestinian daily, claimed: "[In 1948] the Arab Liberation Army (ALA) told Palestinians to leave their houses and villages, and return a few days later, so the ALA can fulfill its mission."

The head of Britain's Middle East Office in Cairo, John Troutbeck, reported in June 1949: "Arab refugees speak with utmost bitterness of Egypt and other Arab states. They know who their enemies are. Their Arab brothers persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes." Sir Alan Cunningham, the last British high commissioner in Palestine, wrote on April 28, 1948 that the total evacuation was urged on the Haifa Arabs from higher Arab quarters. The U.S. consul-general in Haifa telegraphed on April 25, 1948 that "reportedly, Arab Higher Committee is ordering all Arabs to leave."

The secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, told the Lebanese daily Al Hoda on June 8, 1951: "In 1948, we were assured that Palestine's occupation would be a military promenade. ... Brotherly advice to Arabs in Palestine was to leave their homes temporarily." The London Economist wrote on Oct. 2, 1948: "The most potent of the factors [triggering the Arab flight] were the announcements by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit. ... It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades." Syrian Prime Minister Khaled al-Azam admitted in his 1973 memoirs that "we brought destruction upon the refugees, by calling on them to leave their homes."

According to the first U.S. ambassador to Israel, James G. McDonald ("My Mission in Israel"): "These Arabs ... fled from Palestine as the result of mass panic when the wealthy Arabs, almost to a man, began running away in Nov. 1947. ... The flight was provoked by lurid tales of Jewish sadism issued by the Mufti and his followers. ... Superstitious and uneducated, the Arab masses succumbed to the panic and fled. ... The refugees were on [Arab leaders'] hands as the result of a war, which they had begun and lost."

Maintaining the Palestinian Grievance Industry

"History will record that the Palestinian Cause was the single most destructive political issue in Arab history. Instead of focusing on building Arab societies by pressuring 21 Arab rulers, tens of millions of Arabs funneled their attention to a lost Cause the Palestinian themselves have turned into an ATM machine.”

Farid Ghadry..
Times of Israel..
16 October '13..

Have you ever lived in a house so decrepit and so dirty, yet you were instructed to ignore it in favor of cleaning your neighbor’s house? That sums up the Palestinian Cause as far as I am concerned.

Arab rulers, shortly after the formation of the Arab League in 1946, have used this collective body of 22 Arab States (Now 21 since Syria has been suspended in 2011) to draw Arab mass attention to the plight of the Palestinians as a diversion from focusing on their own domestic ills of Arab societies living under tyranny. This Arab League led effort has caused great harm to Arab societies as neglect of our own problems gave way to a Cause many Arabs now realize its vicious circle. If the Arab Spring offered anything of value, it was to push “reset” on serving a Cause many non-Palestinians resent. In fact, the Arab league is attempting to re-focus our attention again on this lost Cause in the hope it diverts people away from another Arab Spring.

Over the years, the Cause has become a potent grievance industry enabling extortion, shakedowns, and enough mass appeal and centrality to control massive Arab public opinion. To feed this industry, it had to produce constantly its own world stage events of spin and deceptions, which gave us Mohammad al-Dura, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, and the staging of battlefields to show the preemptive and deliberate killings of civilians. Without those images to impress the Arab street, Arabs may neglect to focus on cleaning their neighbor’s house.

History will record that the Palestinian Cause was the single most destructive political issue in Arab history. Instead of focusing on building Arab societies by pressuring 21 Arab rulers, tens of millions of Arabs funneled their attention to a lost Cause the Palestinian themselves have turned into an ATM machine. The Arab Spring, sparked by economic deprivation, killed the Palestinian Cause and it is about time. Who would believe Israel is the enemy after watching the Assad resistance gassing Syrian children and women? The message is if you do not resist, we will kill you. Assad did a great favor for Israel here.

John Kerry’s Illusion of Momentum

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
17 July '13..

Lest anyone think Secretary of State John Kerry was working hard to deal with urgent foreign policy problems today, fear not. Although he was doing nothing to end the standoff with Russia over Edward Snowden, stop Iran’s nuclear program, deal with the chaos in Egypt or the ongoing civil war in Syria that is strengthening Tehran’s hand, he didn’t come away empty-handed from his latest trip to the Middle East to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Nobody other than Kerry seriously believes Kerry’s efforts to re-start the peace process will succeed. Both sides are at pains to try to avoid getting the blame for the inevitable failure. Yet Kerry hasn’t persuaded the Palestinians to negotiate, let alone actually end the conflict with Israel and indeed, may be making things worse by encouraging them to ask for more preconditions that serve as a pretext for staying away from the talks. But his fool’s errand did get the endorsement of the Arab League today.

The statement from the League won’t alter the division among Palestinians between Hamas and Fatah that makes peace impossible. Nor will it prevent Abbas from raising the ante, as he keeps demanding more concessions from Israel in order to sit with them while having no intention of actually negotiating. But it does give Kerry the illusion of momentum that he needs so desperately in order to justify wasting his time on a dead end that offers no chance of a resolution while urgent situations that require his attention are given short shrift.

Though the New York Times trumpeted the Arab League statement as proof that Kerry’s efforts are being rewarded with success, the real news came out of Ramallah where, as Ynet reported, Abbas was doubling down on his insistence on a laundry list of preconditions before he will consider returning to the negotiations that he has been boycotting since the start of the Obama administration. According to Western sources, Kerry’s latest meeting with Abbas to get him to rejoin the talks didn’t get him to budge but it did yield more demands from the Fatah leader.

Washington Post Peddles Fictionali​zed Version of Arab League Peace Plan

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
27 May '13..

The devil is in the details, and none more so when it comes to peace plans to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With Secretary of State John Kerry lauding an Arab League initiative as a potential basis for a peace deal, it's important for media coverage to explain content and ramifications fully and accurately.

Unfortunately, this seems not to be the case. Witness, for example, a Washington Post dispatch by correspondents Anne Gearan and William Booth in the May 27 edition, which describes the Arab plan as follows:

"Introduced in 2002 by Saudi Arabia and endorsed again recently by Arab diplomats, the Arab League initiative offers Israel full recognition and normalization with all Arab nations in exchange for Israel withdrawing to its 1967 borders, including pulling out of East Jerusalem, and "just settlement" for Palestinian refugees who wish to return home to live in peace or receive compensation."

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Except that the Post's version is flawed by errors and a hidden "poison pill" that would doom Israel as a Jewish state. ("$4 billion plan outlined for West Bank projects - Kerry sees proposal as step to get Palestinians, Israelis talking again" page A9)

For starters, there were no "borders" between Israel and Jordanian-occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967 -- only a 1949 armistice line dating back to the end of hostilities in the 1948-49 Arab Israeli war. Actual "borders" -- whether permanent or even temporary -- still await a political solution.

Second, while Arab leaders offer to sign a peace agreement with Israel and establish normal relations with Israel in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal from East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the plan does not offer Israel "full recognition." "Normal relations" is a vaguer formula than formal recognition and subject to varied interpretations.

The real killer in the Arab plan, however, occurs in how it deals with the question of Palestinian refugees. It calls for a "just solution" to the problem of Palestinian refugees "in accordance with United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194." Gearan and Booth completely ignore UN Resolution 194, which just so happens to be the cornerstone of Arab/Palestinian insistence on a "right of return" to Israel of millions of Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

Territorial compensation for a failed attempt to destroy Israel is absurd and immoral

Dani Dayan..
Opinion/Haaretz..
20 May '13..

A few words uttered in English by an Arab prime minister excited – perhaps even electrified – the few who still believe the conflict in the Middle East can be resolved with the establishment of a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River.

Speaking on behalf of the Arab League, the prime minister of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, said in Washington last month that Israel should return to the June 4, 1967 borders with the option of "comparable and mutual agreed minor swaps of the land." Two of the three leaders who believe in the two-state solution, United States Secretary of State John Kerry and Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, were thrilled. Not just a step forward, Kerry said, but a big step forward. Not just positive news, said Livni, following his lead, but very positive. Only their third friend, the leader of the cult of failure that never learns from its mistakes, President Shimon Peres, remained uncharacteristically silent.

Nobody bothered asking the two esteemed ministers where such good news was hiding here. The Arab Peace Initiative, the Arab League's proposed solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, would have some value only if it were more moderate than the Palestinian position. Otherwise, we would find ourselves in the same bad situation we got into when U.S. President Barack Obama, in his inexperience, set too high a bar for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas regarding the construction freeze. Abbas could not be less holy than the pope, and the talks broke down.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization’s position on the issue known as “territorial exchanges” has been that the Palestinian state must encompass 6,205 square kilometers. The Qatari statement on this principle, which includes six conditional words and a thirteen-word sentence, may come close to the Palestinian position, but stops some distance from it. So what’s the great accomplishment here that had those ministers’ bureaus all aflutter?

At any rate, there is an important lesson for us to learn from the Qatari proposal: Any Israeli concession quickly becomes a fait accompli for the Arabs, which Israel is expected to honor indefinitely.

Concerning the suggested revival of the Arab Peace Initiative

On April 30, 2013, Qatar’s foreign minister suggested the revival of the Arab Peace Initiative, introduced in 2002, and for the first time eased its demand that Israel return to its pre-1967 borders. Instead, the minister accepted the possibility of tweaking those borders with a comparable and mutually agreed “minor swap of the land.” However, it is illuminating to examine the record of the League of Arab States’ resolutions, since the founding of the Arab League in 1945, which is hardly a model for peaceful settlement of disputes in the spirit of the United Nations.

Eli E. Hertz..
Mythsandfacts.org..
13 May '13..

In March 2002, the Arab League met in Beirut and adopted a two-state solution proposal, based on normalization of relations with Israel in exchange for a complete Israeli withdrawal to the pre–Six-Day War and the return of the 1948 refugees. This proposal was a non-starter, designed more as a positive image builder for Arabs and especially for the Saudis, who made up 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers, than a genuine contribution to peace in the Middle East.

On April 30, 2013, Qatar’s foreign minister suggested the revival of the Arab Peace Initiative, introduced in 2002, and for the first time eased its demand that Israel return to its pre-1967 borders. Instead, the minister accepted the possibility of tweaking those borders with a comparable and mutually agreed “minor swap of the land.”

However, it is illuminating to examine the record of the League of Arab States’ resolutions, since the founding of the Arab League in 1945, which is hardly a model for peaceful settlement of disputes in the spirit of the United Nations. For instance, prior to the establishment of the Jewish state, the League took the following steps:

An Open Letter to the Arab League by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Dr. Mordechai Kedar..
http://mordechaikedarinenglish.blogspot.co.il/..
10 May '13..




To the Honorable Leaders of the Arab States,

We in Israel received with great pleasure your agreement to normalize relations with Israel on condition that we agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state and exchanges of territories between that state and Israel. The Palestinian state that you propose to establish in Judea and Samaria would be the second Palestinian state, since the first Palestinian state was established six years ago in the Gaza Strip, and you clearly recognize it as such in practice. How else can the state visits of the Emir of Qatar and the secretary of the Arab League in Gaza be understood? Now you propose the establishment of a second Palestinian state? Perhaps a third!! Because Jordan is also a state with a Palestinian majority. And all of these states were established - as you know - on land that the League of Nations had designated for a Jewish state at the San Remo Conference, in April of 1920. So why should we agree to exchange territories with any state or states that have been established or will be established on our land?

And if indeed a second Palestinian state will arise in Judea and Samaria (that which you call "the West Bank") can you promise us that this state will not at some time in the future become another Hamas state? Do you not recall that Hamas won a clear majority of the seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006? Did you not see how Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip with bombs, fire and kalashnikovs in June of 2007? Will you send a military force to get rid of Hamas after this terror organization also takes over - by means of elections or revolution - the new Palestinian state as well? Or perhaps you will leave us bleeding as a result of the problem that you have created?

We in Israel are very touched by the fact that you, as an Arab collective, not as individual states that have made a peace agreement with us, finally agree to accept us as an existing state in the Middle East. Indeed, it has taken you 65 years to understand that we are here, on the land of our fathers, that we have come back to stay in our land forever and ever until eternity. But why do you call to displant Jerusalem, the historical capital of the Jewish people, from the Jewish state? Was Jerusalem ever a capital of something connected to the Arab world or Islam? Throughout all of history, did an Emir, Sultan Caliph or Arab or Islamic King rule in it even for one day? Do you not remember that since the Islamic conquest in 637, the capital of "Jund Filastin" (the region of Palestine) was called Ramla? Then why has Jerusalem suddenly emerged as a candidate for capital of the second Palestinian state? Just because it is our capital?

The Balfour Declaration, the Arab League, and a Peace Plan.

Michael Curtis..
American Thinker..
21 April '13..

Rarely has a short letter influenced the course of history so much as the one known as the Balfour Declaration. Written by Lord Balfour, the British foreign secretary, on November 2, 1917 to Lord Rothschild, the letter "viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." The newly established League of Nations substantiated this principle when it accepted the Declaration as the basis for the Mandate for Palestine, which the League announced on July 24, 1922. Britain was appointed as the Mandatory Power and ruled Palestine for twenty-six years. The State of Israel was established on May 14, 1948 after Britain relinquished that power.

The Rothschild family gave the letter to the British Museum, which transferred it to the British National Library. The BNL has now given approval to Israel to display the original document for a limited time in the Independence Hall in Tel Aviv. The choice of the Hall as the venue for the display is symbolically significant. The Hall is the place where David Ben Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. It is to be renovated, and in two years' time, it will be the site of a museum that will display not only the Balfour Declaration, but also the document of Israel's Declaration of Independence and the writing desk of Lord Balfour, which has actually been in Israel for some time.

A historic artifact will thus be on public display for the first time. However, the Arab League has condemned the British National Library for granting approval for the display of the 96-year-old Declaration. The Arab League has denounced the Balfour Declaration as a document that led to continuing bloodshed and strife and which denied the rights of Palestinians who, according to the League, owned 98 percent of the land in Palestine in 1917.

This condemnation is yet another example of Arab denial of the non-Arab past. It is in the same vein as the Islamic actions to obliterate the artifacts and the history of non-Islamic peoples. It is also a reminder of the continuing extreme Arab rhetoric against Israel and the fallacious Palestinian historical narrative with its emphasis on Nakba, the so-called catastrophe, caused in the Arab view by the establishment of Israel.

Karsh - Haaretz: The Paper for Thinking People?

Efraim Karsh
Hudson New York
16 December '11

http://www.hudson-ny.org/2669/haaretz-newspaper



Of the countless threats of Arab violence in the run-up to the November 29, 1947 Partition Resolution and in its wake, none has resonated more widely than the warning by Abdul Rahman Azzam, the Arab League's first secretary-general, that the establishment of a Jewish state would lead to "a war of extermination and momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades."

Unfortunately, the longstanding failure to trace the original document in which the threat was made has given rise to doubts regarding its veracity, and by implication - the murderous Arab intentions: not least since the historical truth has been erased from public memory by decades of relentless pro-Arab propaganda.

Small wonder, therefore, that when the missing document was recently found, with an annotated full translation published in the Middle East Quarterly, which I edit, Haaretz columnist and self-styled "new historian" Tom Segev, who had spent a good part of the past two decades turning the saga of Israel's birth upside down, went out of his way to whitewash Azzam's threat and downplay its significance. "There is something pathetic about this hunt for historical quotes drawn from newspapers," he wrote, without disputing the threat's contents or authenticity. "Azzam used to talk a lot. On May 21, 1948, the Palestine Post offered this statement by him: 'Whatever the outcome, the Arabs will stick to their offer of equal citizenship for Jews in Arab Palestine and let them be as Jewish as they like.'" He then quotes Ben-Gurion's alleged description of the League's Secretary-General as "the most honest and humane among Arab leaders."

Gordon - Raja Khalidi’s Revisionist History

Evelyn Gordon
Commentary/Contentions
02 August '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/08/02/raja-khalidi-revisionist-history/#more-762471

Last week, the Palestinian Authority sought an urgent Arab League meeting to discuss its financial crisis: PA employees received only half their salaries in July, because donor states had delivered only one-third of their promised $970 million in aid. The delinquents were mainly Arab states, not Western ones, and UN development economist Raja Khalidi offered an instructive explanation for this fact in an interview with Haaretz this week:

“Even two generations after 1948, no Western donor, especially European and American, can be oblivious to their historic responsibility [for the Palestinians’ plight], and to the immediate security and political interests that the continuation of this conflict implies. Hence anything needed to keep a lid on things is to be expected, and indeed comes without asking the cost. As for Arab donors, they do not feel at all the historic responsibility for this situation.”

For those with any historical knowledge, this statement is mind-boggling – because Arab states certainly should feel historic responsibility. Had they not rejected the 1947 UN Partition Plan, a Palestinian state would have arisen in 1948. Had five Arab armies not invaded the nascent Israel that year, there would have been no Palestinian refugees. Had Jordan and Egypt so chosen, they could have created a Palestinian state anytime from 1948 to 1967, when they controlled the West Bank and Gaza, respectively. Had three Arab states not declared war on Israel in 1967, Israel wouldn’t have captured these territories. And had the Arabs accepted any of Israel’s numerous peace offers since then, a Palestinian state could have arisen long ago.

Western states, in contrast, have no historical responsibility whatsoever: They supported a Palestinian state back in 1947 and have tried hard to midwife one ever since.

Unless, of course, you believe the problem isn’t the lack of a Palestinian state, but the very existence of a Jewish one. For that, the West does bear some responsibility. Britain’s 1917 Balfour Declaration made it the first major power to support establishing a Jewish “national home”; the Western-dominated League of Nations approved this goal in 1922; Britain’s control of Mandatory Palestine (1917-48) advanced Jewish preparations for statehood, despite London’s later efforts to thwart Israel’s birth (including closing the gates to Jewish refugees from Hitler’s Europe and arming the Arab states that invaded Israel in 1948); Western and Western-backed states provided the UN majority that approved Israel’s creation in 1947; and Western arms sales have since been vital to Israel’s defense.

Unfortunately, much of the Arab world still does view Israel’s existence as the fundamental problem. That’s precisely why two-thirds of Palestinians still say their ultimate goal is Israel’s eradication, and why Palestinian and other Arab leaders adamantly demand a Palestinian “right of return,” aka Israel’s eradication by demography. That’s also the main reason why the conflict remains unresolved.

But Khalidi’s insight has another important ramification: Because the Arabs, Palestinians included, still deny all responsibility for creating the Palestinian problem, they feel no obligation to compromise in order to solve it. After all, why should innocent victims have to accommodate their oppressor’s demands?

And that’s precisely why the “forget history, let’s just move forward” approach favored by the West and Israel’s left keeps failing. In this conflict, the historical facts are vital. Only if the Arabs acknowledge their responsibility for the problem will they be willing to compromise to resolve it.

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Hertz - The Arab League at War with Israel

Eli E. Hertz
mythsandfacts.org
18 July '11

http://www.mythsandfacts.org/article_view.asp?articleID=210


According to media reports, on July 11, 2011 President Obama invited the other members of the Quartet - Russia, the UN, and the EU - as well as representatives from China and the Arab League,[1]to the White House for a summit on Israel. Israel was not invited, but the Arab League was. It seems that the U.S. Administration is convinced that the Arab League can contribute to the deliberations.

So, who is the Arab League?

It is illuminating to examine the record of the League of Arab States since the founding of the League in 1945, which is hardly a model for peaceful settlement of disputes in the spirit of the United Nations.

Prior to the establishment of the Jewish state, the League took the following steps:[2]

- In December 1945, the Arab League launched a boycott of 'Zionist goods' that continues to this day.[3]

- In June 1946, it established the Higher Arab Committee to "coordinate efforts with regard to Palestine," a radical body that led and coordinated attempts to wipe Israel off the map.[4]

- In December 1946, it rejected the first proposed Palestine partition plans, reaffirming "that Palestine is a part of the Arab motherland."[5]

- In October 1947, prior to the vote on Resolution 181 - the "Partition Plan" - it reasserted the necessity for military preparations along Arab borders to "defending Palestine."[6]

- In February 1948, it approved "a plan for political, military, and economic measures to be taken in response to the Palestine crisis."[7]

- In October 1948, it rejected the UN "Partition Plan" for Palestine adopted by the General Assembly in Resolution 181.[8]

On May 15 1948, as the regular forces of Egypt, Trans-Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and contingents from Saudi Arabia and Yemen invaded Israel to 'restore law and order,' the Arab League issued a lengthy document entitled "Declaration on the Invasion of Palestine." In it, the Arab states drew attention to:

"The injustice implied in this solution [affecting] the right of the people of Palestine to immediate independence ... declared the Arabs' rejection of [Resolution 181]" which the League said "would not be possible to carry it out by peaceful means, and that its forcible imposition would constitute a threat to peace and security in this area" and claimed that the "security and order in Palestine have become disrupted" due to the "aggressive intentions, and the imperialistic designs of the Zionists" and "the Governments of the Arab States, as members of the Arab League, a regional organization ... view the events taking place in Palestine as a threat to peace and security in the area as a whole. ... Therefore, as security in Palestine is a sacred trust in the hands of the Arab States, and in order to put an end to this state of affairs ... the Governments of the Arab States have found themselves compelled to intervene in Palestine." [9]

The Secretary-General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, was less diplomatic and far more candid. With no patience for polite or veiled language, on the same day Israel declared its independence on May 14 1948, at a Cairo press conference reported the next day in The New York Times, Pasha repeated the Arabs' "intervention to restore law and order" revealing:

"This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades." The League of Arab States continued to oppose peace after Israel's 1948 War of Independence:

Palestine and the Arab League – Fake Freedom Fighters

David Singer
J-Wire
25 January '11

http://www.jwire.com.au/featured-articles/palestine-and-the-arab-league-fake-freedom-fighters/14632#more-14632

The Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the Arab League member States continue to deny their populations basic political rights and civil liberties – according to a Report recently published by Freedom House. At the same time the Arab League is mounting an intensive campaign to delegitimize Israel – the only State in the Middle East where such freedoms exist.The Freedom House report is an annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties carried out in 194 countries and 14 territories around the World.

Freedom House defines itself as:

“ an independent watchdog organization that supports democratic change, monitors the status of freedom around the world, and advocates for democracy and human rights.”

In determining what constitutes “political rights” and “civil liberties” – Freedom House has drawn from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the following components of freedom which include an individual’s ability to:

Participate freely in the political process;

Vote freely in legitimate elections;

Have representatives that are accountable to them;

Exercise freedoms of expression and belief;

Be able to freely assemble and associate;

Have access to an established and equitable system of rule of law;

Have social and economic freedoms, including equal access to economic opportunities and the right to hold private property.

Freedom House has determined that 18 of the 22 Arab League member States all rate very poorly and fall into the category of being “Not Free” which is defined as :

“…one where basic political rights are absent and basic civil liberties are widely and systematically denied.”

The remaining 4 Arab League members are categorized as being “Partly Free” being countries which are defined as :

“characterised by some restrictions on political rights and civil liberties – often in the context of corruption, weak rule of law, ethnic strife or civil law.”

Israel is the only State in the Middle East that is identified as being “Free “ meaning:

“a country where there is broad scope for open political political competition, a climate of respect for civil liberties, significant independent civic life and independent media”.

As Latin American States apparently fall over themselves to accord recognition to a non-existent Palestinian State in total contravention of international law as prescribed by the Montevideo Convention – it is time for them – and others who might be similarly minded – to ponder what kind of State they are promoting and the extent to which such State does not accord with the principles laid down in the Road Map – the basis on which all negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have been conducted for the last seven years under the auspices of America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

The Road Map articulated that any such Palestinian State must be “democratic” as was made clear by the following provisions:

“A two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty, and through Israel’s readiness to do what is necessary for a democratic Palestinian state to be established…
A settlement, negotiated between the parties, will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors.”

The Freedom House Report notes that the Palestinian Authority controls up to 40% of the West Bank territory and 98% of the Palestinian population outside of East Jerusalem. Hamas controls 100% of Gaza as well as its entire population.

Any signs of a a leadership acting decisively to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty in either the West Bank or Gaza is totally absent according to the Freedom House Report.

The current push for recognition of “Palestine” as an independent State is becoming an exercise in creating yet another State whose citizens will continue to be denied the basic freedoms and civil liberties that are currently enjoyed by some of its current democratic proponents – Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

That was clearly not the objective of the Road Map – to which those Latin American States gave their support in 2003.

Since it still supposedly remains the only game in town prescribing the “two-state solution” – the Road Map is rapidly ending up as a document that is not worth the paper it is written on espouses a democratic state that will not be achieved and has been rejected as the basis of a two-state solution by some democratic countries who have now decided to assign the civilian populations of the West Bank and Gaza to the same fate as all the surrounding Arab populations in the Middle East Arab States.

The Arab League meantime fails to recognize Israel and pursues campaigns encouraging boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel – whilst at the same time its member states deny their populations the political rights and civil liberties that are enjoyed by Israel’s population – including the 20% of Israel’s population that is Arab.

The Freedom House report stands as a monument to the eternal shame of the Arab League and to those democratic countries who have been seduced into accepting the Arab League’s spurious hate campaign to eradicate the State of Israel.

Fareed Zakaria – the host of CNN’s flagship foreign affairs show, Editor-at-Large of TIME Magazine, a Washington Post columnist, and a New York Times bestselling author described by Esquire Magazine as “the most influential foreign policy adviser of his generation.” – says of the Freedom House Report:

“While there are many sources of economic data, good political data is hard to find. Freedom House’s survey is an exception. For anyone concerned with the state of freedom, or simply with the state of the world, Freedom in the World is an indispensible guide.”

Those democratic States ignoring the clear message contained in the Report and abandoning the signposting in the Road Map are not doing themselves – or the cause of liberating long suffering Arab populations denied their basic political rights and civil liberties – any favours.

David Singer is a Sydney Lawyer and Foundation Member of the International Analysts Network


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Why Israel Shouldn’t Do Foolish Things

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
16 November '10

The Palestinians’ response to the Obami-inspired 90-day settlement moratorium offer simply reinforces the foolishness of the endeavor:

An Arab League official said Monday that a possible three-month-long temporary freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank would be unlikely to be enough to prompt Palestinian and Arab support for Mideast peace talks.

“If the news is true about there being a settlement freeze that excludes Jerusalem and that takes the criticism off Israel, I cannot imagine that would be acceptable to the Palestinian side or the Arab side,” said Hesham Youssef, an official with the office of the secretary general of the Arab League.

Of course it’s not “enough.” It’s never enough. Meanwhile, the Palestinians’ own refusal to recognize the Jewish state (oh yes, that) goes unremarked upon. And no, Israel will get little or zero credit for knuckling under to another incarnation of the same fundamentally flawed approach, which has not only set back the cause of peace but also has diminished whatever semblance of credibility Obama has been able to cling to.

(Read full post)

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Is Obama’s Pressure for Direct Israeli-Palestinian Talks Pushing Region Towards War?

While Obama pushes progressivism on the Middle East, the Arab League and Mahmoud Abbas position themselves to blame Israel when the talks inevitably fail.


Richard Landes
pajamasmedia.com
03 August '10

Byzantine politics have nothing on negotiation strategies in the Middle East between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Headlines July 29 initially announced that the Arab League — meeting in Cairo and under heavy pressure from the Obama administration — had approved Abbas’ return to direct negotiations with Israel. Comments from Jerusalem, including from Netanyahu, hailed this welcome gesture as a chance to get back on track towards a two-state solution.

All sounds good: the Obama administration applying pressure on the Arab side, the Arabs respond and move forward; Israelis welcome the move.

But to those familiar with the nature of these negotiations, none of this made any sense.

For one thing, Abbas, like his predecessor Yasser Arafat, has no interest in direct negotiations — and neither does the Arab League. For another, Netanyahu knows only too well that the Palestinians are not ready to undertake real state-building, and that the negotiations are essentially an American (and European) fantasy about a “solution” in two years that must be appeased without either fulfilling it, or getting blamed for its failure.

(Read full article)

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