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June 14, 2002/Tamuz 4 5762, Vol. 54, No. 39
Can Israel survive with a knife in its back?
DAVID R. FRAZER
Special to Jewish News
On May 12, Israel's Likud Party defied its leader Ariel Sharon by passing a resolution never to allow the creation of a Palestinian State in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of Israel.
It is helpful to examine the merits of Likud's position, on the basis of protecting Israel's short and long term security and protecting the Middle East from escalating into war.
What are the negatives of allowing a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank?
For starters, since the creation of Israel in 1948, the neighboring Arab countries created poverty enclaves (better known as refugee camps) for a substantial portion of the Arabs who now call themselves Palestinians. They have lived in undesirable conditions and have been used as political and terrorist pawns in a continuing war against the existence of a Jewish state.
Second, for at least the past 40 years, there has been propaganda and an educational campaign teaching and promoting hate among the Palestinians against the Jews, Israel and more recently the United States. This campaign has been financed primarily by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria and Iraq.
Third, this campaign of hate has reached the point where Palestinians and other fanatical Muslims manipulate and encourage their children to attach dynamite to their bodies and march into synagogues, hotels, cafés and shopping centers to blow themselves up along with hundreds of innocent men, women and children in Israel.
Fourth, since the creation of Israel in 1948, neighboring Arab countries have waged four major wars against Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 with thousands of lives lost on both sides.
Fifth, have the Palestinians and their leaders accomplished anything in the past 52 years to indicate to the Israeli people that once a Palestinian state is established that it will be a peaceful and productive neighbor to Israel?
Sixth, the proposal for creating a state for Palestinians, endorsed by the United States, would create a country divided into two parts (Gaza and the West Bank) with the existing state of Israel in between. This geographic dichotomy is a prescription for further fighting, which if history teaches us anything, would probably escalate into an all out war.
In light of the above negatives, is there an alternative solution to the crisis in the Middle East? Assuming the Palestinians deserve a land of their own, let the Palestinians buy land in the Sinai peninsula (much like the Jews did in Israel through the Jewish National Fund and other fundraising efforts beginning in the early 1900s) and set aside a strip of land near the Egyptian border. In this way, the Palestinians would have a slice of land as a contiguous whole and not split into two impractical parts.
While some may consider the solution unrealistic or impossible, this suggestion is not made tongue in cheek. Others may wonder why this piece of land should not be located in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq or Iran? The reason is simple: none of these countries want anything to do with Arafat and his followers. Moreover, Jordan has already made clear that it does not want Palestinians in its land, and Syria, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia are frightened to death of further turmoil in their shaky monarchies.
During World War II, law abiding Jewish refuges from Germany and other eastern European countries were turned away by the United States, England and other western countries because of anti-Semitism or anti-immigration policies. Would you expect that these countries - or India, China or Russia - would welcome trained suicide bombers from the West Bank or Gaza into their society?
Personally, I have no objection to the establishment of a Palestinian state somewhere in this world as long as it's not in the middle of the smallest and only democratic nation in the Middle East. To do so is unrealistic and, as history demonstrates, could escalate into consequences of an unspeakable nature.
David R. Frazer is a Phoenix attorney and a former president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix.
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