- POINT 1: Israel started the 1967 War.
- COUNTERPOINT: The leaders of every invading Arab army boasted that they started the War with Israel and that their goal was the "annihilation" of the Jewish state. The claim that Israel started the War is a patent lie.
- Supporting Evidence: This is the timeline of events and proclamations by Arab leaders leading to the 1967 War.
On May 16, 1967, Egyptian President Gamel Abdul Nasser ordered the UN Emergency Force stationed between Israel and Egypt to evacuate the Sinai. Two days later the Voice of the Arabs proclaimed, "As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel… The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence."(*)
On May 20, 1967, Syrian Defense Minister, Hafez Al-Assad proclaimed, "Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse the aggression, but to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united....I, as a military man, believe that the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation."(**) He exhorted Syrian soldiers to, "strike the enemy's [civilian] settlements, turn them into dust, pave Arab roads with the skulls of Jews."(***)
On May 22, 1967, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran, blocking Israeli supply lines. This was a clear act of war according to international law, for it violated the 1958 Geneva Convention guaranteeing the international status of straits that gave access to the high seas.(****) Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser candidly proclaimed, "We knew that the closing of the Gulf of Aqaba meant war with Israel… the only objective will be Israel's destruction." (*****)
On May 27, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser proclaimed, "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight."(******)
On June 4, 1967, Iraq joined the military alliance with Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. To mark the occasion, Iraqi President Abdur Rahman Aref announced, "Our goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map."(*******) The Prime Minister of Iraq predicted, "There would be practically no Jewish survivors." (********)
On June 5, 1967, at the time of the outbreak of the 1967 War approximately 250,000 Arab troops, more than 2,000 tanks and 700 aircraft ringed Israel. (*********)
[1]
- Supporting Evidence: "The Syrians claimed that they, and not Israel, had started the war, that sixty-one Israeli planes had been downed, and Haifa's oil refinery razed. 'We have decided that this battle will be one for the final liberation from imperialism and Zionism…We shall meet in Tel Aviv,' proclaimed [Syrian] President Atassi" on Day 1 of the Six-Day War. [2]
- Supporting Evidence: Egyptian military leaders admitted it. "I can state that Egypt's political leadership called Israel to war. It clearly provoked Israel and forced it into a confrontation." Salah al-Hadidi, Chief Justice in the trials of officers held accountable for the 1967 defeat. [3]
- Supporting Evidence: This is the timeline of events and proclamations by Arab leaders leading to the 1967 War.
- COUNTERPOINT: The international community rejected the notion that Israel had been the aggressor in the 1967 War.
- Supporting Evidence: When the Soviet Union tried to get a resolution passed in the UN Security Council on June 14 1967 that condemned Israel for starting the war, it was soundly defeated. Only four delegations supported the Soviet proposal. [4]
- Supporting Evidence: A positive "evaluation of Israel's moral case was widely shared throughout the world. The blood-curdling threats loosed by the Arab nations in the weeks before the war, the quiet discipline of Israel's soldiers and civilians, touched the hearts of common men everywhere. In western Europe there were mass parades in support of Israel…and Jewish and non-Jewish volunteers formed long lines outside Israeli embassies to offer their services. Political figures, artists and intellectuals were among those who signed petitions affirming Israel's right to exist…the Western response to Israel's underdog victory was one of almost uncontrollable joy….Although most of western Europe's Communist parties officially supported the Arabs, their rank-and-file were undisguisedly pro-Israel." [5]
- Question: At the time of the outbreak of the 1967 War 250,000 Arab troops, more than 2,000 tanks and 700 aircraft ringed Israel. The Egyptian President proclaimed: "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight." (*) The Syrian defense minister ordered his troops to, "strike the enemy's [civilian] settlements, turn them into dust, pave Arab roads with the skulls of Jews." (**) And the Prime Minister of Iraq predicted, "There would be practically no Jewish survivors." (***) In light of these exhortations and facts, how can you claim that the war was premeditated and executed by Israel? [6]
- Question: Imagine if the countries of Europe amassed troops along the French border outnumbering the French army, that they then cut off all French supply lines, and bragged of their imminent destruction of France and genocide of the French people. How would you expect France to react? I would imagine they would react in much the same way Israel did when the Arab states, cut off Israel's supply lines, surrounded the country with 250,000 troops, and threatened the "destruction of Israel" and "annihilation" of its population. What do you think?
- Supporting Evidence: When the Soviet Union tried to get a resolution passed in the UN Security Council on June 14 1967 that condemned Israel for starting the war, it was soundly defeated. Only four delegations supported the Soviet proposal. [4]
- COUNTERPOINT: The leaders of every invading Arab army boasted that they started the War with Israel and that their goal was the "annihilation" of the Jewish state. The claim that Israel started the War is a patent lie.
- POINT 2: Israel invaded Jordan in order to capture Jerusalem.
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel did not anticipate war with Jordan and desperately tried to prevent it from happening.
- Supporting Evidence: Even after the war had begun, but before Jordan entered it, troops on the Israeli side of Jerusalem were given strict orders to prevent the eruption of hostilities. "Though small-arms fire occasionally burst from Jordanian positions, the Israelis were under strict orders to ignore them. The IDF also cancelled the weekly convoy to Mount Scopus, together with a number of training exercises. 'Standing guard, we even took the magazines out of our Uzis,' Yoram Galon, a reservist serving in Jerusalem remembered. 'Just in case a bullet went off accidentally and ignited the front'….Within the capital, many reservists had been sent home; a mere seventy-one men held the line facing the Jordanian Legion." Historian Michael Oren [7]
- Supporting Evidence: On June 5 1967, the first day of the war, Israel asked the US State Department, the British Foreign Office and General Odd Bull to "urgently convey to King Hussein that Israel will not, repeat not, attack Jordan if Jordan maintains the quiet." [8]
- Supporting Evidence: After the war, Israel's General Uzi Narkiss reported: "We wanted to believe that the enemy [Jordan] would never attack." [9]
- Supporting Evidence: "Beyond the goals of eliminating the Egyptian threat and destroying Nasser's army, no other stage of the conflict was planned or even contemplated, not the seizure of the entire Sinai Peninsula, not the conquest of the West Bank, nor the scaling of the Golan Heights. Even the 'liberation' of Jerusalem, as Israelis call it….came about largely through chance. The vagaries and momentum of war, far more than rational decision making, had shaped the fighting's results. Had Egypt accepted the cease-fire after the first day's fighting, had the Jordanians refrained from seizing Government Hill….the region would have looked much different." Historian Michael Oren [10]
- Supporting Evidence: Even after the war had begun, but before Jordan entered it, troops on the Israeli side of Jerusalem were given strict orders to prevent the eruption of hostilities. "Though small-arms fire occasionally burst from Jordanian positions, the Israelis were under strict orders to ignore them. The IDF also cancelled the weekly convoy to Mount Scopus, together with a number of training exercises. 'Standing guard, we even took the magazines out of our Uzis,' Yoram Galon, a reservist serving in Jerusalem remembered. 'Just in case a bullet went off accidentally and ignited the front'….Within the capital, many reservists had been sent home; a mere seventy-one men held the line facing the Jordanian Legion." Historian Michael Oren [7]
- COUNTERPOINT: Despite Israel's efforts, Jordan initiated shelling and aerial bombardment of Jewish civilian centers, instigating an Israeli response.
- Supporting Evidence: "Hussein was clearly excited by this news [Iraq and Egypt's reports of their mobilization] and distrustful of Israel's motives in asking for restraint….Ultimately, though, there was no choice but to comply with [the Egyptian general's decision to attack]; to survive politically, physically, Hussein had to fight." [11]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel sent repeated messages to Jordan's King Hussein promising not to initiate fighting between the two countries and assuring the King that Israel had no territorial ambitions in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Notwithstanding, Jordan fired 6,000 shells into Jewish residential areas, wounding or killing over 1,000 civilians. The Jordanian air force participated in the illegal bombing of Israeli cities, towns, and farming communities. Only after Jordan dispatched planes to bomb these residential areas did Israel attack Jordan's military airfields. [12]
- Supporting Evidence: "Hussein was clearly excited by this news [Iraq and Egypt's reports of their mobilization] and distrustful of Israel's motives in asking for restraint….Ultimately, though, there was no choice but to comply with [the Egyptian general's decision to attack]; to survive politically, physically, Hussein had to fight." [11]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel did not anticipate war with Jordan and desperately tried to prevent it from happening.
- POINT 3: Israel conducted a ruthless military campaign against civilians in 1967, resulting in large numbers of dead and refugees.
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel was careful to avoid harming civilians, despite the fact that it was fighting for its very existence. Conversely, the Arab armies targeted Jewish civilian centers, attempting a war of extermination.
- Supporting Evidence: The civilian casualties "were inflicted on Jewish residents of cities and towns that were targeted by Arab mortar shells. The tiny number of Arab civilian casualties was lower than in any comparable war…" precisely because Israel did not target civilian centers. Historian Michael Oren and Law Professor Alan Dershowitz [13]
- Supporting Evidence: In both word and deed, the Arab governments indicated that their goal was genocide of the Jews living in Israel. The Syrian Defense Minister, Hafez Al-Assad commanded his troops to, "strike the enemy's [civilian] settlements, turn them into dust, pave Arab roads with the skulls of Jews."(*) Jordan fired 6,000 shells into Jewish residential areas, wounding or killing over 1,000 civilians. Joint Syrian, Iraqi, and Jordanian air strikes targeted residential areas in Israeli cities, towns, and farming communities.(**) And the Prime Minister of Iraq predicted, "There would be practically no Jewish survivors." (***) [14]
- Supporting Evidence: The civilian casualties "were inflicted on Jewish residents of cities and towns that were targeted by Arab mortar shells. The tiny number of Arab civilian casualties was lower than in any comparable war…" precisely because Israel did not target civilian centers. Historian Michael Oren and Law Professor Alan Dershowitz [13]
- COUNTERPOINT: Many Jewish civilians in Arab countries became the unwitting casualties of the 1967 war.
- Supporting Evidence: As news of Israel's victory spread throughout the Arab world, Arabs began to attack and kill Jews in their countries. Egypt arrested 20% of its Jewish population, including its Chief Rabbis. Synagogues were burned and Jews were killed in various Arab countries. In all, 7,000 Jews were expelled from the countries their families inhabited for hundreds or thousands of years. [15]
- Supporting Evidence: "With news of Israel's victory, mobs attacked Jewish neighborhoods in Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco, burning synagogues and assaulting residents." [16]
- Supporting Evidence: "A pogrom in Tripoli, Libya, left 18 Jews dead and 25 injured; the survivors were herded into detention centers." [17]
- Supporting Evidence: "The ancient communities of Damascus and Baghdad were placed under house arrest, their leaders imprisoned and fined." [18]
- Supporting Evidence: As news of Israel's victory spread throughout the Arab world, Arabs began to attack and kill Jews in their countries. Egypt arrested 20% of its Jewish population, including its Chief Rabbis. Synagogues were burned and Jews were killed in various Arab countries. In all, 7,000 Jews were expelled from the countries their families inhabited for hundreds or thousands of years. [15]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel was careful to avoid harming civilians, despite the fact that it was fighting for its very existence. Conversely, the Arab armies targeted Jewish civilian centers, attempting a war of extermination.
- POINT 4: Israel's conquest of the West Bank and Gaza is evidence of Israel's imperialist nature and expansionist goals.
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel never intended or sought to capture the West Bank and Gaza. The conquest was an unexpected result of Israel's defensive war in 1967.
- Supporting Evidence: "Beyond the goals of eliminating the Egyptian threat and destroying Nasser's army, no other stage of the conflict was planned or even contemplated, not the seizure of the entire Sinai Peninsula, not the conquest of the West Bank, nor the scaling of the Golan Heights. Even the 'liberation' of Jerusalem, as Israelis call it….came about largely through chance. The vagaries and momentum of war, far more than rational decision making, had shaped the fighting's results. Had Egypt accepted the cease-fire after the first day's fighting, had the Jordanians refrained from seizing Government Hill….the region would have looked much different." [19]
- Supporting Evidence: "Beyond the goals of eliminating the Egyptian threat and destroying Nasser's army, no other stage of the conflict was planned or even contemplated, not the seizure of the entire Sinai Peninsula, not the conquest of the West Bank, nor the scaling of the Golan Heights. Even the 'liberation' of Jerusalem, as Israelis call it….came about largely through chance. The vagaries and momentum of war, far more than rational decision making, had shaped the fighting's results. Had Egypt accepted the cease-fire after the first day's fighting, had the Jordanians refrained from seizing Government Hill….the region would have looked much different." [19]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel has shown repeatedly that it is not expansionistic and is willing to exchange land for peace.
- Supporting Evidence: When Egypt was willing to recognize Israel, end terrorism and establish peace, Israel reciprocated and returned the Sinai Peninsula (91% of the land it had captured in the 1967 War), evacuated the towns it had built and left behind the oil fields and rigs it had developed. [20]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel alone has been willing to grant the Palestinians autonomy and a future state. For decades, Arab states were opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state. Jordan and Egypt controlled the Territories for 19 years and squelched any Palestinian attempts at autonomy. In contrast, during Oslo, Israel withdrew from Palestinian cities, leaving 98% of the Palestinians under the governance of the PA, and it offered 100% of Gaza, 95% of the West Bank and a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. All it demanded from the Palestinians, as it had with Egypt, was an end to terrorism and incitement. Instead, terrorism escalated and the Palestinians launched the violent Intifada. [21]
- Question: Israel has already ceded 91% of the land it acquired in this defensive war when it made peace with Egypt and Jordan. According to former US Envoy to the Middle East, Dennis Ross, Israel also accepted a plan to give 97% of the West Bank and Gaza to a new Palestinian state. According to Ross, this state would have been fully contiguous in both Gaza and the West Bank. How can Israel's willingness to return lands acquired in 1967 be reconciled with your claims of Israeli imperialism and expansionism?
- Supporting Evidence: When Egypt was willing to recognize Israel, end terrorism and establish peace, Israel reciprocated and returned the Sinai Peninsula (91% of the land it had captured in the 1967 War), evacuated the towns it had built and left behind the oil fields and rigs it had developed. [20]
- COUNTERPOINT: It is the Palestinians who seem bent on a campaign to establish a Palestinian state from the river to the sea-on the irreversible conquest of Israeli land and society.
- Supporting Evidence: The PLO adopted a "phased plan" to first establish an independent state in part of Palestine, and from there continue the battle for the rest of Palestine (ie Israel) in its 1974 "Palestinian National Council Resolution." When Arafat announced the Oslo Accord agreements in 1993, he declared that they would be the basis for a state "in accordance with this 1974 PNC Resolution." PLO Phased Plan [22]
- Supporting Evidence: "The Oslo Accords were a Trojan horse; the strategic goal is the liberation of Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea." --Faisal Husseini, PA Administrator for Jerusalem Affairs, July 2001. (Interview in Egyptian magazine, July 13, 2001.) [23]
- Supporting Evidence: "You understand that we plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian State. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion; the Jews will not want to live among us Arabs! I have no use for Jews. They are and remain Jews." - Yassir Arafat, speech to Arab diplomats in the Spiegel Salon at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden, Jan 30, 1996. [24]
- Supporting Evidence: "At this stage we talk about a state within the 1967 borders, but this is not the end of the story....because I aspire, historically, culturally and geographically, to a unified Palestine. ...It can be established through peace, if the Israelis accept the logic of a [unified] democratic Palestinian state. If they don't accept this logic, then the logic of history will lead to a confrontation [ie war]." - Bilal Al-Hassan, representing the position of the Palestinian left, in an interview on Al-Jazeera, November 17, 2000. [25]
- Supporting Evidence: In a 2002 Poll taken at Najah University in Nablus, "87% of Palestinians surveyed were in favor of continuing terror attacks," and, "87.5% were in favor of 'liberating all of Palestine'." [26]
- Supporting Evidence: The PLO adopted a "phased plan" to first establish an independent state in part of Palestine, and from there continue the battle for the rest of Palestine (ie Israel) in its 1974 "Palestinian National Council Resolution." When Arafat announced the Oslo Accord agreements in 1993, he declared that they would be the basis for a state "in accordance with this 1974 PNC Resolution." PLO Phased Plan [22]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel never intended or sought to capture the West Bank and Gaza. The conquest was an unexpected result of Israel's defensive war in 1967.
- POINT 5: Israel occupied Palestine in 1967.
- COUNTERPOINT: It is absurd to contend that Israel occupied Palestine in 1967, since no "State of Palestine" had ever existed and certainly did not exist in 1967.
- Supporting Evidence: Prior to the establishment of the Palestine Mandate in 1921, Palestine was not a state but simply "a geographical name of rather loose application…." It did not have " a boundary by which Palestine can be separated exactly from the rest of Syria in the north, or from the Sinaitic and Arabian deserts in the south…" Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., 1911 p. 600).
- Supporting Evidence: During the 1948 War, Jordan captured Judea and Samaria (and changed their name to the West Bank) and Egypt captured the Gaza Strip. They ruled these areas until the 1967 War and never recognized or attempted to establish a Palestinian state in these territories. [27]
- Supporting Evidence: Jordan's control of Judea and Samaria is more aptly labeled illegal occupation since Jordan acquired these areas in a war of aggression in 1948. Only two countries ever recognized Jordan's annexation of the West Bank, the United Kingdom and Pakistan. [28]
- Supporting Evidence: Prior to the establishment of the Palestine Mandate in 1921, Palestine was not a state but simply "a geographical name of rather loose application…." It did not have " a boundary by which Palestine can be separated exactly from the rest of Syria in the north, or from the Sinaitic and Arabian deserts in the south…" Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., 1911 p. 600).
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel lawfully captured the Territories in a defensive war and Israel was obliged to govern and administer them until the belligerent nations made peace and resolved boundary issues in an overall settlement, according to international law.
- Supporting Evidence: The Law of Belligerent Occupation, spelled out in the Hague Conventions of 1907, made Israel, in effect, the new legitimate power of the conquered territories. "The authority of the legitimate power having actually passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all steps in his power to re-establish and insure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country." Hague Convention, Section III, Article 43, 1907 [29]
- Supporting Evidence: "It is not illegal for victorious powers to occupy hostile territory seized in the course of war until they are able to negotiate a successful peace treaty with their former enemies. The Palestinians have failed to recognize this fact." George P Fletcher, Professor of International Law at Columbia University. (New York Times Op Ed, March 21, 2002)
- Supporting Evidence: The Law of Belligerent Occupation, spelled out in the Hague Conventions of 1907, made Israel, in effect, the new legitimate power of the conquered territories. "The authority of the legitimate power having actually passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all steps in his power to re-establish and insure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country." Hague Convention, Section III, Article 43, 1907 [29]
- COUNTERPOINT: It is absurd to contend that Israel occupied Palestine in 1967, since no "State of Palestine" had ever existed and certainly did not exist in 1967.
- POINT 6: Israel occupied and ethnically cleansed Palestinians.
- COUNTERPOINT: During its administration of the Territories, Israel did just the opposite of ethnic cleansing. The Palestinian population and its standard of living flourished.
- Supporting Evidence: Under Israeli governance, the Palestinian population grew even faster than the Israeli population. If ethnic cleansing were occurring, the population should have dropped, not grown 2.5 times. In 1967, there were 954,898 Arabs in the Territories; by 1995 there were 2,534,604. [30]
- Supporting Evidence: Under Israeli governance, the Palestinian population grew even faster than the Israeli population. If ethnic cleansing were occurring, the population should have dropped, not grown 2.5 times. In 1967, there were 954,898 Arabs in the Territories; by 1995 there were 2,534,604. [30]
- COUNTERPOINT: During its administration of the Territories, Israel did just the opposite of ethnic cleansing. The Palestinian population and its standard of living flourished.
- POINT 7: Palestinians suffer because they are an "occupied people".
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel's "Occupation" of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza benefited the Palestinian Arabs. Israel built up and developed the Territories and gave freedoms, rights, and opportunities to Palestinians that Jordan, during its 19-year rule, had denied them. Palestinians may not have wanted to be under Israeli rule, but they flourished.
- Supporting Evidence: Life expectancy soared from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000 while infant mortality plummeted from 60 per thousand live births to 15 per 1000 and childhood diseases disappeared due to systematic Israeli programs to eradicate them. [31]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel brought economic prosperity to Palestinians. Israeli investment in business, industry and infrastructure and the opening of its borders to labor made the Territories the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world in the 1970's and unemployment dropped from an average of 40% or more to below 5%. [32]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel fostered educational development, building 7 universities and 20 community colleges for the Palestinians. Illiteracy dropped from 50% to 30% just between 1967 and 1980. By 1990, only 14% of adults over age 15 were illiterate. [33]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel offered political and civil freedoms, including freedom of association, trade unions, civic organization and opposition parties, none of which had been allowed under Jordan. It also established freedom of the press, even for newspaper hostile to Israel, giving Palestinians the freest press in the Arab world. Historian Howard Sachar [34]
- Supporting Evidence: "They [Palestinian Arabs from the West Bank] don't know what freedom is. If anyone over there dared to say one word against Hussein, they would throw him into prison. They don't believe that I can go to Dizengoff Square and shout at the top of my voice against Golda Meir without anything happening to me." Member of the village council of J'at, an Israeli-Arab village. 1970 [35]
- Supporting Evidence: "Israel launched something entirely new, the first authentically Palestinian administration the local Arabs had ever known. Under Israeli auspices, departments were established for West Bank agriculture, education, posts and telegraphs, commerce and industry. As they operated these departments, the Israelis dealt exclusively with local civil servants…." Historian Howard Sachar [36]
- Question: Given the message of your talk, can you explain why Fadal Tahabub, a member of the Palestinian Council and a resident of East Jerusalem, estimated that "close to 70% of the Arab residents [of Jerusalem] want to remain under Israeli rule…." instead of under Palestinian Authority rule when the possibility was discussed in the peace negotiations in 2000.? ( "Some Arabs Prefer an Israeli-Run Jerusalem," Washington Post, 7/25/00) Or why Zuhair Hamdan, a prominent leader of the Su Baher neighborhood, got 10,000 signatures from Arabs of Jerusalem who preferred not to be transferred to Arafat's governance? Could it be that life under Israeli governance is not as bad as you depict it?
- Supporting Evidence: Life expectancy soared from 48 years in 1967 to 72 in 2000 while infant mortality plummeted from 60 per thousand live births to 15 per 1000 and childhood diseases disappeared due to systematic Israeli programs to eradicate them. [31]
- COUNTERPOINT: Though Palestinians suffer, this is not Israel's fault. 98% of Palestinian's lived under Palestinian Authority rule by the beginning of the current Intifada. Under Palestinian self-rule Palestinians saw a deteriorating standard of life, increased corruption, and a break down in the rule of law.
- Supporting Evidence: From 1992 to 1996, per capita income dropped 35% in Gaza and unemployment rose over 20% in Gaza and the West Bank. [37]
- Supporting Evidence: In 1997, 40% of the PA budget was reported "missing". Monopolistic practices and diversion of funds from development projects to alleged "security Forces have discouraged private foreign investment. [38]
- Supporting Evidence: During the period of PA rule restrictions were imposed on the right of association. The PA intimidated and assassinated political opposition leaders. It conducted arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and unfair trials, especially in new State Security Courts, which "flagrantly" violate "Fair trial standards." [39]
- Supporting Evidence: From 1992 to 1996, per capita income dropped 35% in Gaza and unemployment rose over 20% in Gaza and the West Bank. [37]
- COUNTERPOINT: Palestinians suffer because when Yasser Arafat took power in 1994, he instituted a corrupt regime and destructive policies that caused a precipitous downward spiral in the lives of the Palestinians and that brought violent anarchy instead of the rule of law. By 2004, more and more Arab and Palestinian voices denounced him and what he had produced.
- Supporting Evidence: "Arafat should quit his position because he is the head of a corrupt authority. There is no point for him to remain in politics, especially as the Al-Fatah group has accused him of being responsible for all the tragedies in Palestine. Arafat has destroyed Palestine. He has led it to terrorism, death and a hopeless situation. Arafat has also divided the country, as Saddam Hussein divided Iraq, heaping humiliation on the nation. Although he has become senile, Arafat still wants to retain the reins of Palestine in his hands. He has to be relieved of his responsibilities and should be forced to retire." Ahmed Al-Jarallah, Editor of the Arab Times, July 18, 2004 [40]
- Supporting Evidence: "It may be time for Yasser Arafat to fall on his sword or leave. The situation in Palestine is bad and getting worse. It is too easy to blame it one more time on Israel and the usual suspects -- the West, the Arabs, the others. But if you listened to Palestinians, they are saying their president for life -- Yasser Arafat -- is the problem along with his cronies who rule them, rob them and impoverish them." Youssef M. Ibrahim, Gulf News, July 20 2004 [41]
- Supporting Evidence: The liberal-leaning Hazem Abd Al-Rahman wrote in his Al-Ahram column:"… Are these scum of the earth [Palestinians who attacked the Egyptian Foreign Minister] capable of accomplishing something for the Palestinian people? It is reasonable to assume that they, like the supporters of suicide bombings, are the first to damage the Palestinian cause, and are bringing death upon the Palestinian people…" December 24 2003 [42]
- Supporting Evidence: "Arafat should quit his position because he is the head of a corrupt authority. There is no point for him to remain in politics, especially as the Al-Fatah group has accused him of being responsible for all the tragedies in Palestine. Arafat has destroyed Palestine. He has led it to terrorism, death and a hopeless situation. Arafat has also divided the country, as Saddam Hussein divided Iraq, heaping humiliation on the nation. Although he has become senile, Arafat still wants to retain the reins of Palestine in his hands. He has to be relieved of his responsibilities and should be forced to retire." Ahmed Al-Jarallah, Editor of the Arab Times, July 18, 2004 [40]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel's "Occupation" of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza benefited the Palestinian Arabs. Israel built up and developed the Territories and gave freedoms, rights, and opportunities to Palestinians that Jordan, during its 19-year rule, had denied them. Palestinians may not have wanted to be under Israeli rule, but they flourished.
- POINT 8: Occupation is illegal.
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel's military administration of the Territories is not only legal, it is an obligation under international and customary law. Israel captured the Territories in a war of self-defense, a war Israel did not want. Israel was obligated to administer them until peace was achieved and a new sovereign power was established.
- Supporting Evidence: The Law of Belligerent Occupation, spelled out in the Hague Conventions of 1907, made Israel, in effect, the new legitimate power of the conquered territories. "The authority of the legitimate power having actually passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all steps in his power to re-establish and insure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country." Hague Convention, Section III, Article 43, 1907 [43]
- Supporting Evidence: "Article 43 of the Hague Conventions of 1907 imposes an affirmative obligation to administer a country following conquest and directly addresses the transfer of power…."David B. Rivkin and Darin R. Bartram, Experts on International Law. [44]
- Supporting Evidence: According to both the Geneva Convention and customary international law: "The belligerent occupying powers have the ultimate responsibility and obligation to administer the country whose government they have just displaced, at least until a new national government vested with all attributes of sovereignty has been created. Although they can enlist the support of other countries, international organizations, and NGOs, the ultimate responsibility must remain with the belligerent occupying powers." David B. Rivkin and Darin R. Bartram, Experts on International Law. [45]
- Supporting Evidence: "It is not illegal for victorious powers to occupy hostile territory seized in the course of war until they are able to negotiate a successful peace treaty with their former enemies. The Palestinians have failed to recognize this fact. " George P Fletcher, Professor of International Law at Columbia University. [46]
- Supporting Evidence: The Law of Belligerent Occupation, spelled out in the Hague Conventions of 1907, made Israel, in effect, the new legitimate power of the conquered territories. "The authority of the legitimate power having actually passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all steps in his power to re-establish and insure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country." Hague Convention, Section III, Article 43, 1907 [43]
- COUNTERPOINT: UN Resolution 242 does not call Israel's military administration of the Territories illegal. To the contrary, it presumes that administration will continue until the belligerents make peace.
- Supporting Evidence: "According to U.N. Resolution 242, Israel should return territory, but not all territory, and only when the belligerents of the 1967 war, the Arabs, cease hostilities. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on "Occupation" [47]
- Supporting Evidence: "Resolution 242, which as undersecretary of state for political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until "a just and lasting peace in the Middle East" is achieved." Eugene V. Rostow [48]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel has demonstrated it is willing to make huge land concessions for peace when it had a willing and honest partner. Jordan and Egypt both received land in exchange for an honest treaty that exists to this day.
- Supporting Evidence: "According to U.N. Resolution 242, Israel should return territory, but not all territory, and only when the belligerents of the 1967 war, the Arabs, cease hostilities. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on "Occupation" [47]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel's military administration of the Territories is not only legal, it is an obligation under international and customary law. Israel captured the Territories in a war of self-defense, a war Israel did not want. Israel was obligated to administer them until peace was achieved and a new sovereign power was established.
- POINT 9: Israel's settlements in the West Bank and Gaza are illegal.
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel's neighborhoods and towns in Judea, Samaria, (the West Bank) and Gaza may be politically contentious, but they are absolutely legal. Jews have historical claims to the land that extend from ancient to recent times..
- Supporting Evidence: Jews have continuously inhabited the region. These areas are the cradle of Jewish civilization and include the holiest sites in the Jewish religion,including the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Judaism's second holiest city. Jews had lived continuously in Hebron from Biblical times until the Arab riots of 1929 when the whole Jewish community was massacred.(*) Similarly, Jews have had a continuous if occasionally interrupted presence in Gaza from Biblical times, attested to by remnants of ancient 6th century synagogues, traveler reports of the Gaza Jews' "excellent wine" (Georgio Gucci (1384), reports of its prosperity in the 18th century until the 1929 Arab riots when the Jews were expelled.(**) But the Jews returned and "purchased substantial blocks of land in the Gaza Plain," according to the 1937 Peel Commission Report. (***) [49]
- Supporting Evidence: Many Jews who chose to return and settle in these areas have roots there that span undreds or thousands of years. They were displaced during the 1948 War of Independence. All theJewish inhabitants of the region King Abdullah later called the West Bank, were massacred and expelled, their synagogues razed and their homes usurped. "Jews fled in fear from mixed neighborhoods such as the border areas between Jaffa and Tel Aviv, and even from Jaffa itself. There were some 10,000 Jewish refugees in the early stages of the war. Gush Etzion, on the road between Bethlehem and Hebron, was captured by the Arab Legion and local Palestinian forces: the inhabitants were killed or taken prisoner and carried across the Jordan. Their settlements were completely demolished. The settlements Neveh Ya'akov and Atarot north of Jerusalem, also captured, were totally obliterated. All the residents of the Jewish quarter in the Old City in Jerusalem, conquered by local forces with the aid of the Arab Legion, were taken captive. No Jew was allowed to return to settle in the Old City--not even the ultra-Orthodox who detested Zionism and were prepared to live under Arab rule." Historian Anita Shapira [50]
- Supporting Evidence: Jews have continuously inhabited the region. These areas are the cradle of Jewish civilization and include the holiest sites in the Jewish religion,including the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Judaism's second holiest city. Jews had lived continuously in Hebron from Biblical times until the Arab riots of 1929 when the whole Jewish community was massacred.(*) Similarly, Jews have had a continuous if occasionally interrupted presence in Gaza from Biblical times, attested to by remnants of ancient 6th century synagogues, traveler reports of the Gaza Jews' "excellent wine" (Georgio Gucci (1384), reports of its prosperity in the 18th century until the 1929 Arab riots when the Jews were expelled.(**) But the Jews returned and "purchased substantial blocks of land in the Gaza Plain," according to the 1937 Peel Commission Report. (***) [49]
- COUNTERPOINT: Legally, the Territories are still governed by the League of Nations Mandate because no legal sovereign entity has yet been designated to govern the Territories. The League of Nations Mandate specifically stipulated that the administrative power over the whole Palestine Mandate was to facilitate Jewish settlement of the land.
- Supporting Evidence: The Mandatory powers "shall facilitate Jewish immigration…and shall encourage…close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes." Article 6 League of Nations Palestine Mandate. [51]
- Supporting Evidence: "The two parcels of land (the West Bank and Gaza) are parts of the Mandate that have not yet been allocated to Jordan, to Israel, or to any other state..." Eugene W. Rostow, New Republic, 10/21/91. "The West Bank is…an unallocated part of the British Mandate." Rostow, The New Republic, 4/23/90
- Supporting Evidence: Because the Territories have never been allocated to another sovereign entity, the Mandate rules calling for Jewish settlement in the area are still in force, making "The Jewish right of settlement in the area [is] equivalent in every way to the right of the local population to live there," according to Professor Eugene Rostow, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the American Journal of International Law. [52]
- Supporting Evidence: The Mandatory powers "shall facilitate Jewish immigration…and shall encourage…close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes." Article 6 League of Nations Palestine Mandate. [51]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel's detractors invoke the Fourth Geneva Convention to substantiate their claim that the Jewish neighborhoods in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza are illegal. The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the forcible transfer of one population into territories occupied in war in order to displace another population. It should be noted that Israel has never "forcibly transferred" Jews into the West Bank and that the Jewish communities do not displace anyone.
- COUNTERPOINT: Even the PLO and Fatah do not identify Jewish communities in the Territories as "illegal settlements."
- COUNTERPOINT: The settlements are not illegal and they do not undermine any possibilities for a future Palestinian state.
- Supporting Evidence: Jewish towns and neighborhoods in Judea and Samaria sit on only 1.7% of the territory, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.(*) The advent of bypass roads and security perimeters around the settlements only came after hundreds of terrorist incidents in which Palestinian Arabs ambushed families either in their homes or on their way home. [54]
- Supporting Evidence: 80% of Jewish neighborhoods that are considered settlements are in effect suburbs of major population centers and border the "green line" demarcating the boundaries of the West Bank. [55]
- Supporting Evidence: Virtually all Israelis understand that these communities, housing hundreds of thousands, cannot be moved. Most plans for a final settlement envisage minor modifications to the "green line" allowing for these neighborhoods to remain part of Israel, while other comparable areas are ceded to an emergent Palestinian state.
- Supporting Evidence: Jewish towns and neighborhoods in Judea and Samaria sit on only 1.7% of the territory, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.(*) The advent of bypass roads and security perimeters around the settlements only came after hundreds of terrorist incidents in which Palestinian Arabs ambushed families either in their homes or on their way home. [54]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israeli public opinion polls show that most Israelis would be willing to abandon the communities in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza in exchange for a true and lasting peace.
- Supporting Evidence: "[A] new opinion poll shows that a rising majority of Israelis favors removing large numbers of settlements in the context of a future peace accord with the Palestinians, and that Israelis feel more secure and open to compromise than they did in 2002, Israel Radio reported Monday. The poll, conducted by Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Institute for Strategic Studies, showed that 59 percent of the Israeli public is willing to remove all settlements located outside major settlement blocs, the radio said. The figure represents a rise from 50 percent who expressed such willingness in a parallel survey taken last year. Asked if they would support a unilateral withdrawal from the territories in the context of a peace accord, even if that meant ceding all settlements, 56 percent said that they would, versus 48 percent last year." Palestine Media Center, October 6 2003 [56]
- Supporting Evidence: Barak offered to dismantle most of the settlements and was greeted with war. Musa Keilani, The Jordan Times, 2001 [57]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel is aware that ceding its heartland is a tremendous sacrifice, but as it has proven in making peace with Egypt that it is willing to cede land and evacuate towns if it can be guaranteed peace. It is up to the Palestinians to prove that they are willing to live side by side with Israel in peace.
- Supporting Evidence: "[A] new opinion poll shows that a rising majority of Israelis favors removing large numbers of settlements in the context of a future peace accord with the Palestinians, and that Israelis feel more secure and open to compromise than they did in 2002, Israel Radio reported Monday. The poll, conducted by Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Institute for Strategic Studies, showed that 59 percent of the Israeli public is willing to remove all settlements located outside major settlement blocs, the radio said. The figure represents a rise from 50 percent who expressed such willingness in a parallel survey taken last year. Asked if they would support a unilateral withdrawal from the territories in the context of a peace accord, even if that meant ceding all settlements, 56 percent said that they would, versus 48 percent last year." Palestine Media Center, October 6 2003 [56]
- COUNTERPOINT: Many of Israel's detractors claim that Israel's settlements are Illegal because The Red Cross declared them to be a war crime. The Red Cross does not consider Israeli settlements to be a war crime.
- Supporting Evidence: "The expression 'war crime' has not been used by the ICRC in relation to Israeli settlements in the occupied territories in the past and will not be used any-more in the present context." - Jakob Kellenberger, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, May 17 2001 [58]
- Supporting Evidence: "The expression 'war crime' has not been used by the ICRC in relation to Israeli settlements in the occupied territories in the past and will not be used any-more in the present context." - Jakob Kellenberger, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, May 17 2001 [58]
- COUNTERPOINT: What is illegal by all international legal norms of justice, human rights and tolerance, is a government prohibiting a group from residing in its country because of their race or religion, or expelling them for those reasons. Yet this is precisely what the Palestinians are demanding--that NO Jews reside in its future state and those who currently live within its future borders be expelled. In essence, they are calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews.
- Supporting Evidence: "[L]let us consider the demand that certain territories in the Muslim world must be off-limits to Jews. This demand is of a piece with Hitler's proclamation that German land had to be 'Judenrein' (empty of Jews). Arabs can live freely throughout Israel and as full citizens. Why should Jews be forbidden to live or own land in an area like the West Bank simply because the majority of people is Arab?" Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp, and Jeane Kirkpatrick, "Twenty Facts about Israel and the Middle East" [59]
- Supporting Evidence: "[L]let us consider the demand that certain territories in the Muslim world must be off-limits to Jews. This demand is of a piece with Hitler's proclamation that German land had to be 'Judenrein' (empty of Jews). Arabs can live freely throughout Israel and as full citizens. Why should Jews be forbidden to live or own land in an area like the West Bank simply because the majority of people is Arab?" Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp, and Jeane Kirkpatrick, "Twenty Facts about Israel and the Middle East" [59]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel has certainly not demanded or practiced anything remotely similar to the Palestinian demand of ethnically cleansing Jews.
- Supporting Evidence: Israel is a multicultural state where all religions and ethnicities have equal rights. 23% of Israel's population is not Jewish, and includes:
1 million Muslim Arabs (16% of the population)
170,000 Bedouin Arabs (Muslims)
113,000 Christian Arabs
106,000 Druze (a divergent Islamic sect)
3,000 Circassians (non-Arab Sunni Moslems) [60]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel is a multicultural state where all religions and ethnicities have equal rights. 23% of Israel's population is not Jewish, and includes:
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel's neighborhoods and towns in Judea, Samaria, (the West Bank) and Gaza may be politically contentious, but they are absolutely legal. Jews have historical claims to the land that extend from ancient to recent times..
- POINT 10: The Settlements must be dismantled.
- POINT 11: Occupation is the cause of the conflict. The occupation is the "root of the evil of violence against civilians and innocents." If Israel returns to its pre-1967 borders terrorism would cease.
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel had been the victim of terror attacks decades before the "occupation" began. In fact, the PLO was founded three years before the 1967 War, when Israel acquired the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
- Supporting Evidence: During the five-year period between 1951 and 1955, (twelve years before Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip), 922 Israeli Jews were murdered by Arabs in terrorist attacks. Here are three examples of attacks from that time:
Mar 17, 1954 - Terrorists ambushed a bus and shot each passenger, one by one. Eleven passengers were murdered. Survivors recounted how the murderers spat on the bodies and abused them.
Mar 24, 1955 - Terrorists threw hand grenades and opened fire on a crowd at a wedding in the farming community of Patish, in the Negev. A young woman was killed, and eighteen people were wounded in the attack.
Apr 11, 1956 - Terrorists opened fire on a synagogue full of children and teenagers, in the farming community of Shafrir. Three children and a youth worker were killed on the spot, and five were wounded, including three seriously. [61]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel reported its casualties from terrorism in the 1950's to the UN Security Council. "Through shellings, military assaults and hit-and-run tactics of fedayeen-trained 'suicide' forces-the Arabs inflicted 1,300 Israeli casualties between 1949 and 1956. Four-fifths of those losses were civilian…and they included many women and children. Each death, too, was measured against the context of unremitting Arab hostility toward Israel-quarantine, blockade and propaganda-designed to capsize Israel's economy, sap its powers of resistance, and ultimately efface the Jewish republic from the community of nations." [62]
- Question: How can "occupation" cause terrorism if terrorism began years before the occupation? In the early 50's, more than a decade before Israel took control of the territories, 922 Israeli Jews were murdered by Arabs in terrorist attacks. The murdered included women, children, and elderly people in synagogues, busses, and a wedding ceremony. Why would Israel expect terrorism to end if it withdraws from the territories?
- Supporting Evidence: During the five-year period between 1951 and 1955, (twelve years before Israel took control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip), 922 Israeli Jews were murdered by Arabs in terrorist attacks. Here are three examples of attacks from that time:
- COUNTERPOINT: If Israel leaves the territories there are no guarantees that terrorism will end from terrorist groups like Hamas or Yasser Arafat's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Palestinian's own public opinion polls indicate that Palestinians support suicide bombings against civilians and see the goals of such attacks is not to end the "occupation," but rather, to destroy the state of Israel.
- Supporting Evidence: " 59% of Palestinians believe Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad should continue their armed struggle against Israel even if Israel leaves all of the West Bank and Gaza, including East Jerusalem, and a Palestinian state is created," according to a survey released in October 2003 by Public Opinion Research of Israel and the Palestine Center for Public Opinion. [63]
- Supporting Evidence: In a random sample of 1199 Palestinians conducted by JMCC Public Opinion Polls in September of 2002, 64.3% of Palestinians supported suicide bombings against civilians and 43% of Palestinians believed the goal of the current Intifada should be the elimination of Israel. [64]
- Supporting Evidence: In a 2002 Poll taken at Najah University in Nablus, "87% of Palestinians surveyed were in favor of continuing terror attacks," and, "87.5% were in favor of 'liberating all of Palestine'." [65]
- Question: In September 2002 the Palestinian JMCC public opinion poll concluded that 64.3% of Palestinians supported suicide bombings against civilians and 43% of Palestinians believed the goal of the current Intifada should be the elimination of Israel.(*) In light of these statistics, how can you convince Israelis that suicide bombings will stop if Israel withdraws from the territories? Don't these statistics indicate that Palestinian terrorism is designed to end Israeli existence, not Israeli "Occupation"? [66]
- Supporting Evidence: " 59% of Palestinians believe Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad should continue their armed struggle against Israel even if Israel leaves all of the West Bank and Gaza, including East Jerusalem, and a Palestinian state is created," according to a survey released in October 2003 by Public Opinion Research of Israel and the Palestine Center for Public Opinion. [63]
- COUNTERPOINT: Both the Palestinian Authority and the Islamic terrorist organizations have made it clear that the goal of violence is not the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but rather the elimination of the state of Israel and the expulsion of the Jews. Palestinians have made it clear that the acquisition of the West Bank and Gaza strip is just a first stage - the creation of a launching ground for the conquest of all of Israel.
- Supporting Evidence: "You understand that we plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian State. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion; the Jews will not want to live among us Arabs! I have no use for Jews. They are and remain Jews." - Yassir Arafat, speech to Arab diplomats in the Spiegel Salon at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden, Jan 30, 1996. [67]
- Supporting Evidence: Hamas' founding covenant calls for jihad to "obliterate Israel" and to "raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine" (Hamas Covenant Preamble, and Article 11) (*) After the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, Islamic Jihad announced, "The war will continue until Israel ceases to exist and the last Jew is eliminated from the world. Israel is entirely evil and must be wiped off the face of the earth". (Islamic Jihad announcement, March 1992)(**) [68]
- Supporting Evidence: Palestinians did not call for "liberating" the Territories when they were under Jordanian and Egyptian-that is, Arab--control between 1948 and 1967. The 1964 PLO Charter explicitly stated that the PLO "does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, [or] on the Gaza Strip." Article 24.(*) They only sought to liberate pre-1967 Israel. Only when Israel captured the Territories in their defensive 1967 War did the PLO and other groups expand the boundaries of what they considered to be Palestine. They revised the Charter in 1968, now defining the boundaries as all of "Mandate Palestine". (Article 2 of PLO 1968 Charter)(**) Their objection was to Jewish sovereignty over Arabs. [69]
- Supporting Evidence: "At this stage we talk about a state within the 1967 borders, but this is not the end of the story....because I aspire, historically, culturally and geographically, to a unified Palestine. ...It can be established through peace, if the Israelis accept the logic of a [unified] democratic Palestinian state. If they don't accept this logic, then the logic of history will lead to a confrontation [ie war]." - Bilal Al-Hassan, representing the position of the Palestinian left, in an interview on Al-Jazeera, November 17, 2000. [70]
- Supporting Evidence: "You understand that we plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian State. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion; the Jews will not want to live among us Arabs! I have no use for Jews. They are and remain Jews." - Yassir Arafat, speech to Arab diplomats in the Spiegel Salon at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden, Jan 30, 1996. [71]
- Supporting Evidence: "The Oslo Accords were a Trojan horse; the strategic goal is the liberation of Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea." - Faisal Husseini, PA Administrator for Jerusalem Affairs, July 2001. [72]
- Supporting Evidence: "The genocidal strain in this kind of fundamentalist rejectionism is older than the settlements, older than the state of Israel. It reflects the spirit of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who...fled to Berlin....begging Himmler to let him handle his version of the final solution in Palestine against the Jewish settlers." - Britain's Lord Weidenfeld to the House of Lords, July 13, 2001. [73]
- Question: Hamas' founding covenant calls for jihad to "obliterate Israel" , Islamic Jihad has said "The war will continue until Israel ceases to exist and the last Jew is eliminated from the world", and during the Peace process Yasser Arafat said, "We plan to eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state." In light of these sentiments, how can Israel believe that handing over the Territories will result in an end to terror? [74]
- Question: The Peace Process is predicated on the equation of land for peace. Israel will give Palestinians land on which to create a state and all the Palestinians must pledge is to live peacefully with their Israeli neighbors. Experience shows that suicide-bombing attacks increase during each round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Why should Israel have faith that new negotiations will contribute to their personal safety? As New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman pointed out: "Palestinians who use suicide bombers to blow up Israelis at a Passover meal and then declare, 'Just end the occupation and everything will be fine,' are not believable. No Israeli in his right mind would trust Yasser Arafat, who has used suicide bombers when it suited his purposes, not to do the same thing if he got the West Bank back and some of his people started demanding Tel Aviv. The Palestinians cannot yhet be trusted to control these areas on their own if Israel withdraws…..Would you trust Yasser Arafat to police your neighborhood?" [75]
- Supporting Evidence: "You understand that we plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian State. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion; the Jews will not want to live among us Arabs! I have no use for Jews. They are and remain Jews." - Yassir Arafat, speech to Arab diplomats in the Spiegel Salon at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, Sweden, Jan 30, 1996. [67]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel had been the victim of terror attacks decades before the "occupation" began. In fact, the PLO was founded three years before the 1967 War, when Israel acquired the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
- POINT 12: Israel's occupation of Palestine is the root of all problems in the Middle East.
- COUNTERPOINT: The charge that Israel is responsible for the strife in the Middle East is escapism. Most of the strife in the region does not involve Israel or Jews at all. After all, most Jews were driven from their homes elsewhere in the Middle East.
- Supporting Evidence: Israel had nothing to do with the decade long war between the fundamentalist Shi'ite Iran and the Secular Nationalist Sunni Iraq. [76]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel had nothing to do with Turkey's genocide of the Armenians or Saddam's gassing of the Kurds . Turks, Armenians, and Kurds represent a very small minority in Israel. [77]
- Supporting Evidence: Egypt's ongoing harassment of its miniscule and shrinking Christian Coptic minority has nothing to do with Israel.
- Supporting Evidence: The Sudan's market in black slaves and ongoing genocide against non-Muslims has nothing to do with Israel. [78]
- Supporting Evidence: The Libyan government cannot blame Israel for its policies on torture, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings of political dissidents. [79]
- Supporting Evidence: No less can Algeria blame Israel for its forced Arabization of its Amazigh minority, the resulting 100,000 deaths, or Algeria's reputation as the world leader in forced disappearances. [80]
- Supporting Evidence: The anti-democratic regimes of the Middle East are described by NGO's as among the least free (*) and most corrupt (**) countries in the world. In almost all states in the region a death penalty is attached (either legally or practically) to homosexuality (***) and conversion out of Islam. (****) In almost no country is there legislation protecting a woman from 'honor killing' by a jealous husband, brother, or father who suspects her of adultery. (*****) Finally, there is almost nowhere else in the world with a higher occurrence of Female Genital Mutilation. (******) How can it be that the only democratic country in the region, comprising 1/800th of its land mass and 1/50th of its population is the source of all this region's problems? [81]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel had nothing to do with the decade long war between the fundamentalist Shi'ite Iran and the Secular Nationalist Sunni Iraq. [76]
- COUNTERPOINT: The charge that Israel is responsible for the strife in the Middle East is escapism. Most of the strife in the region does not involve Israel or Jews at all. After all, most Jews were driven from their homes elsewhere in the Middle East.
- POINT 13: Israel must return to its pre-1967 borders.
- COUNTERPOINT: After each Arab-initiated war in which Israel made territorial gains, the Arab governments have demanded that Israel return to its pre-war borders before negotiating peace. This is an unprecedented demand - one that encourages Arab aggression by ensuring that war can never result in territorial loss.
- Supporting Evidence: "After 1949, the Arabs insisted that Israel accept the borders in the 1947 partition resolution and repatriate the Palestinian refugees before they would negotiate an end to the war they had initiated. This was a novel approach that they would use after subsequent defeats: the doctrine of the limited-liability war. Under this theory, aggressors may reject a compromise settlement and gamble on war to win everything in the comfortable knowledge that, even if they fail, they may insist on reinstating the status quo ante." - Middle East Historian, Mitchell Bard [82]
- Supporting Evidence: Noting the Arab refusal to compromise with Israel after the 1967 War, Israel's Minister to the UN, Abba Eban, observed, "This is the first war in history which has ended with the victors suing for peace and the vanquished calling for unconditional surrender." [83]
- Supporting Evidence: "After 1949, the Arabs insisted that Israel accept the borders in the 1947 partition resolution and repatriate the Palestinian refugees before they would negotiate an end to the war they had initiated. This was a novel approach that they would use after subsequent defeats: the doctrine of the limited-liability war. Under this theory, aggressors may reject a compromise settlement and gamble on war to win everything in the comfortable knowledge that, even if they fail, they may insist on reinstating the status quo ante." - Middle East Historian, Mitchell Bard [82]
- COUNTERPOINT: After each Arab-initiated war in which Israel made territorial gains, the Arab governments have demanded that Israel return to its pre-war borders before negotiating peace. This is an unprecedented demand - one that encourages Arab aggression by ensuring that war can never result in territorial loss.
- POINT 14: Resolution 242 requires Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders.
- COUNTERPOINT: Resolution 242 specifically did not require Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders.
- Supporting Evidence: The British UN Ambassador, Lord Caradon, who introduced the resolution to the Council, has stated that, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial [...] That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them." [84]
- Supporting Evidence: "I formulated the Security Council Resolution…The proposal said 'Israel will withdraw from territories that were occupied' and not from 'the' territories, which means that Israel will not withdraw from all the territories." Mr. George Brown, British Foreign Secretary in 1967, Jerusalem Post interview, January 19, 1970.
- Supporting Evidence: "Resolution 242, which as undersecretary of state for political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until "a just and lasting peace in the Middle East" is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces "from territories" it occupied during the Six-Day War--not from "the" territories nor from "all" the territories, but from some of the territories, which included the Sinai Desert, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip." Eugene W. Rostow 1991 [85]
- Supporting Evidence: "As the debates [in the Security Council] revealed, the majority of the members of the Security Council were unwilling to vote for the unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces because of their conviction that a return to the armistice regime would not serve the goal of securing a just and lasting peace between the parties." Arthur J. Goldberg, National Committee on Foreign Policy 1988 [86]
- Supporting Evidence: "An article yesterday about peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians referred incorrectly to United Nations resolutions on the conflict. While Security Council Resolution 242, passed after the 1967 Middle East War, calls for Israel to withdraw its armed forces 'from territories occupied in the recent conflict,' no resolution calls for Israel to withdraw 'to its pre-1967 borders.'" New York Times corrections. January 23, 2001.
- Question: You claim that Israel must return to it's pre-1967 borders, but the resolution you cite, Security Council Resolution 242 says nothing of the sort. The British UN Ambassador, Lord Caradon, who introduced the resolution to the Council, has stated that, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial [...] That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them." Why have you mislead the audience as to the demands of the UN? [87]
- Supporting Evidence: The British UN Ambassador, Lord Caradon, who introduced the resolution to the Council, has stated that, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial [...] That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them." [84]
- COUNTERPOINT: Resolution 242 specifically did not require Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders.
- POINT 15: Israel employs a program of land confiscation and settlement building to ethnically cleanse the Territories of Palestinians.
- COUNTERPOINT: During Israel's administration of the Territories, the Palestinian population grew enormously and its standard of living improved. This does not happen under a regime of ethnic cleansing.
- Supporting Evidence: Under Israeli governance, the Palestinian population grew even faster than the Israeli population. If ethnic cleansing were occurring, the population should have dropped, not grown 2.5 times. In 1967, there were 954,898 Arabs in the Territories; by 1995 there were 2,534,604. [88]
- Supporting Evidence: Under Israeli governance, the Palestinian population grew even faster than the Israeli population. If ethnic cleansing were occurring, the population should have dropped, not grown 2.5 times. In 1967, there were 954,898 Arabs in the Territories; by 1995 there were 2,534,604. [88]
- COUNTERPOINT: Palestinians have not been displaced or robbed of their land. They have built settlements in the Territories and homes in Jerusalem, often without proper permits, at twice the rate of Israelis. More than 260 new Palestinian settlements have been constructed vs. 144 new Israeli ones. (Jeffrey Helmreich, “Diplomatic and Legal Aspects of the Settlement Issue,” at http://www.jcpa.org/brief/brief2-16.htm )
- Supporting Evidence: In Jerusalem, the number of flats in the Arab sector grew by 122% while the number of flats for the Jewish population grew by 113.5% between 1967 and 1997. [89]
- Supporting Evidence: Jerusalem's Arab community received building permits for more square meters of residential construction than did the demographically similar (in terms of total numbers and family size) Jewish ultra-Orthodox community between 1974 and 1995. [90]
- Supporting Evidence: Jerusalem has recently authorized plans to issue more than 33,600 permits for new housing units in the Arab sector until 2020. This quantity significantly exceeds the 20,000 new units that Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, the PA Representative with the Portfolio for Jerusalem, has insisted were needed for future Arab growth. [91]
- Supporting Evidence: In Jerusalem, the number of flats in the Arab sector grew by 122% while the number of flats for the Jewish population grew by 113.5% between 1967 and 1997. [89]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel has not stolen land in the Territories or displaced owners. The overwhelming majority of Jewish communities were built on the Green Line and on government land that was barren, rock-strewn hillside and uninhabited. Other land was purchased legally from owners.
- Supporting Evidence: 80% of the Israelis in the Territories are in communities that were built along the Green Line and did not displace the Palestinian population. [92]
- Supporting Evidence: The Jewish communities (settlements) are on only 1.7% of the land area in the West Bank, according to B'Tselem, the human rights watchdog group. The much larger percentages sometimes suggested include the roads, adjacent areas and land between settlements that are all nearly unpopulated. [93]
- Supporting Evidence: "Settlements are only established on public land after an exhaustive investigation has confirmed that no private rights exist in the land in question. The process of investigation includes an appeals process through which any individual claiming rights in the land can object. Decisions of the Appeals Board and any declaration that land is state-owned can also be appealed to the High Court of Justice." [94]
- Supporting Evidence: Ariel, one of the largest Jewish communities in the interior of Judea in the West Bank, was built on barren, rock-strewn hillside.
- Supporting Evidence: 80% of the Israelis in the Territories are in communities that were built along the Green Line and did not displace the Palestinian population. [92]
- COUNTERPOINT: Palestinians may even be awarded the communities that Israelis bought and developed. Israel has offered to vacate many of the settlements in order to find a peaceful resolution of the ongoing conflict.
- Supporting Evidence: At Camp David in 2000 and Taba in 2001, Prime Minister Barak offered to uproot settlements from 95% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip. [95]
- Supporting Evidence: At the same negotiations, Prime Minister Barak offered a land exchange for the 5% of the land with Jewish communities that would become part of Israel. [96]
- Supporting Evidence: A majority of the settlers have indicated a willingness to relocate if a final agreement requires it, according to a poll taken by Peace Now in 2002. [97]
- Supporting Evidence: At Camp David in 2000 and Taba in 2001, Prime Minister Barak offered to uproot settlements from 95% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip. [95]
- COUNTERPOINT: During Israel's administration of the Territories, the Palestinian population grew enormously and its standard of living improved. This does not happen under a regime of ethnic cleansing.
- POINT 16: Occupation must end before negotiations can begin.
- COUNTERPOINT: This demand makes no sense. The peace process, since its inception, has followed a formula of Land for Peace. (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/isrplo.htm) This formula brought peace between Israel and Jordan and Israel and Egypt. You can't expect Israel to accept a formula of "Land for Nothing" when most Palestinians still support continued suicide bombing until Israel is destroyed.
- Supporting Evidence: " 59% of Palestinians believe Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad should continue their armed struggle against Israel even if Israel leaves all of the West Bank and Gaza, including East Jerusalem, and a Palestinian state is created," according to a survey released in October 2003 by Public Opinion Research of Israel and the Palestine Center for Public Opinion. [98]
- Question: Recent Public Polling by Palestinians show that 59% of Palestinians believe Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad should continue to kill Israelis after Israel withdraws from the Territories.(*) Given the fact that Palestinian groups have killed approximately 1000 Israelis in the last three years (most of them civilians) and the fact that almost 1000 Israelis were killed in Palestinian terrorist attacks before it took control of the territories,(**) why wouldn't Israel assume that Palestinians really mean it when they say the killings should continue after an Israeli withdrawal from the territories? [99]
- Supporting Evidence: "The struggle will continue until all of Palestine is liberated." - Arafat in a radio address (Voice of Palestine, Nov. 11, 1995.)
- Supporting Evidence: "The Oslo agreement, or any other agreement, is just a temporary procedure, or just a step towards something bigger […] [Palestine], according to the higher strategy, [is] 'from the river to the sea.' Palestine in its entirety is an Arab land, the land of the Arab nation." - Faisal Husseini, PA representative for Jerusalem affairs, member of Arafat's Cabinet, and noted 'moderate', in Egyptian Daily "Al-Arabi" June 21, 2001 [100]
- Supporting Evidence: "We will never be ready to lay down arms until the liberation of the last centimeter of the land of Palestine." - HAMAS statement, June 5, 2000.
- Question: The Palestinian leadership including Arafat and members of his cabinet have characterized the creation of a Palestinian state through negotiations as a "Trojan Horse"(*) to "eliminate the State of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian State."(**) In 1996 the PA's chief negotiator Nabil Sha'ath threatened to call for a "[R]eturn to violence," after the establishment of a Palestinian State, "But this time… with 30,000 armed Palestinian soldiers and in a land with elements of freedom."(***) Given these persistent threats from Palestinians' peace negotiators and an environment of persistent killings orchestrated by the Palestinian Leadership, why would the Israelis allow for the creation of a Palestinian State in the absence of a peace treaty? [101]
- Supporting Evidence: " 59% of Palestinians believe Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad should continue their armed struggle against Israel even if Israel leaves all of the West Bank and Gaza, including East Jerusalem, and a Palestinian state is created," according to a survey released in October 2003 by Public Opinion Research of Israel and the Palestine Center for Public Opinion. [98]
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel already tried to aid the creation of a Palestinian State in the Territories, but it was greeted with rejectionism and violence. Why would Israel try to do so again without Palestinian promises to end suicide bombing, incitement, and vows to destroy Israel?
- Supporting Evidence: Israel offered to withdraw from 97% of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the context of negotiations with the PA.(*) Arafat refused and instead of offering a counter-proposal, resorted to armed violence against Israel. Israel cannot capitulate to Palestinian demands when Palestinian leadership chooses to use terror, rather than diplomacy as a tool. If Palestinians want a state, Israel has demonstrated that it is open to negotiations and willing to make painful sacrifices for peace. It cannot capitulate to terrorism and threats of obliteration. [102]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel tried this formula before and it failed. In 2000, Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon without a treaty. The withdrawal was verified by the UN and a monitoring force was put in place. Hizbullah, an internationally-recognized terrorist group, replaced the Israeli security presence and claimed victory over Israel. (*) Today Hizbullah controls Southern Lebanon and continues to wage an ongoing border war against Israel. The UN rarely reports on and does nothing to prevent volleys of Hizbullah rockets across the border into Israeli farms and Kibbutzim. [103]
- Question: Since its inception, the goal of the Peace Process has been to establish a Palestinian state that would live side by side with Israel through a formula of Land for Peace.(*) Israel would cede land and authority to the Palestinians along with money, arms, training etc… The Palestinians would concurrently offer the Israelis peace and recognition. At the height of the Oslo era, 97% of Palestinians were no longer under Israeli rule and negotiations were underway to create a Palestinian State in 98% of the territories - but the leaders of the Palestinian Authority were still calling for the destruction of Israel,(**) militias were still being armed and trained to kill Israelis, and the Palestinian charter still demanded the expulsion of Jews through force.(***) Israel ignored Palestinian violations of every provision of the peace process,(****) believing that the creation of a Palestinian State in the Territories would ensure peace. How could you expect Israelis to still believe that withdrawal would create conditions for peace after this belief was tried and failed? [104]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel offered to withdraw from 97% of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the context of negotiations with the PA.(*) Arafat refused and instead of offering a counter-proposal, resorted to armed violence against Israel. Israel cannot capitulate to Palestinian demands when Palestinian leadership chooses to use terror, rather than diplomacy as a tool. If Palestinians want a state, Israel has demonstrated that it is open to negotiations and willing to make painful sacrifices for peace. It cannot capitulate to terrorism and threats of obliteration. [102]
- COUNTERPOINT: If the Palestinians refuse to lay down their arms then according to every peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians, Israel has no obligation to withdraw from the Territories. As long as the Palestinian Leadership continues a campaign of terror against Israel, Israel, will be obliged to remain in the Territories to ensure the security of its citizens living there and along the Green line.
- Question: At the current time HAMAS, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades are poised for a bloody civil war that will claim many Palestinian and Israeli lives. These are all internationally recognized terrorist organizations(*) responsible for suicide bombings against Israeli civilians and political killings of Palestinians. They reject peace and aim to destroy Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live within the territories, and the majority of all Israelis live within walking distance of the Green Line.(**) Why would Israel withdraw from the territories under these conditions? [105]
- Question: At the current time HAMAS, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades are poised for a bloody civil war that will claim many Palestinian and Israeli lives. These are all internationally recognized terrorist organizations(*) responsible for suicide bombings against Israeli civilians and political killings of Palestinians. They reject peace and aim to destroy Israel. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live within the territories, and the majority of all Israelis live within walking distance of the Green Line.(**) Why would Israel withdraw from the territories under these conditions? [105]
- COUNTERPOINT: The so-called "Occupation" cannot end before negotiations begin. The borders of a future Palestinian state have not been determined. That can only be determined through peaceful negotiation.
- Supporting Evidence: The British UN Ambassador, Lord Caradon, who introduced resolution 242 stated that, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial [...] That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them." [106]
- Question: You advocate Israeli withdrawal from the territories without a peace agreement. Yet Israel tried this in southern Lenanon and still receives repeated attacks from Hezbollah despite verification from the UN that Israel has completely complied with UN resolutions and withdrawn (UN Press Release June 19 2000 ). (*) If Israel were to withdraw from all of the West Bank and Gaza in the absence of a negotiated treaty, wouldn't HAMAS and Islamic Jihad behave like Hizbollah? After all, they don't recognize the right of Israel to exist anywhere. What government would put every one of its major cities in range of terrorist rockets? [107]
- Supporting Evidence: The British UN Ambassador, Lord Caradon, who introduced resolution 242 stated that, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial [...] That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them." [106]
- COUNTERPOINT: This demand makes no sense. The peace process, since its inception, has followed a formula of Land for Peace. (http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/isrplo.htm) This formula brought peace between Israel and Jordan and Israel and Egypt. You can't expect Israel to accept a formula of "Land for Nothing" when most Palestinians still support continued suicide bombing until Israel is destroyed.
- POINT 17: The military law that governs the Territories is similar to apartheid law.
- COUNTERPOINT: This charge can be made only out of complete ignorance about apartheid. It was an official policy in South Africa, enacted in law and enforced through police violence, of brutal political, legal and economic discrimination against people of color. It was based upon minority control over a majority population. Israel never annexed the Territories and the Palestinians are not Israeli citizens, nor did Israel impose such a legal system in the Territories.
- Supporting Evidence: "Apartheid is the South African government's policy of rigid racial segregation. Its official goal is the separate development of the nation's several racial groups. Laws isolate these groups in most activities, but especially in education, employment, housing and politics." The World Book Encyclopedia, 1979 [108]
- Supporting Evidence: "The crime of apartheid" means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime;" Article 7 (2) (h), Roman Statute of the International Criminal Court, July 17 1998 [109]
- Supporting Evidence: "Apartheid is the South African government's policy of rigid racial segregation. Its official goal is the separate development of the nation's several racial groups. Laws isolate these groups in most activities, but especially in education, employment, housing and politics." The World Book Encyclopedia, 1979 [108]
- COUNTERPOINT: This charge can be made only out of complete ignorance about the legal system in the Territories. Israel never annexed the Territories and hence Israeli law never governed the Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens. When it began its administration of the Territories, Israeli left intact the mixture of Ottoman, British and Jordanian law that had governed the Territories prior to the 1967 War. These laws prevailed, along with new Israeli governing laws until 1994-1996 when the Palestinian Authority became the legal authority in the Territories. There are different systems of law precisely because Israel did not annex the Territories and impose its own system on the Palestinians.
- Supporting Evidence: After 1967, "At [Moshe] Dayan's suggestion…the cabinet agreed that Jordanian law would remain operative throughout the West Bank and that it would continue to be enforced largely by the prewar Arab administration, and that in the Gaza enclave civil government would also be directed mainly by resident Arab officials. Ultimately, fewer than 220 Israeli army and civilian personnel oversaw these local regimes. It became the hope of the military government that Arab citizens in the occupied areas should be able to carry on their activities without so much as setting eyes on an Israeli official…." Historian Howard Sachar [110]
- Supporting Evidence: "In creating legal bedlam, Arafat took full advantage of the complex situation the PA inherited in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Prior to being captured by Israel in 1967, these areas had been governed successively by the Ottomans, by the British, and by Jordan (in the case of the West Bank) and Egypt (in the case of Gaza), and each of these rulers had added to the laws of its predecessors without creating a coherent, unified system. In two and a half decades, the Israeli military government promulgated nearly 2,500 orders, partly with a view towards putting in place a modern legal system that would apply throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Nonetheless, Israel did not succeed in establishing a framework that could serve as the basis for an autonomous state…What transformed complexity into chaos, however, was a series of decisions made by Arafat himself. In his first executive order as head of the PA, issued from Tunis on May 20, 1994, Arafat decreed he was restoring all laws that had been in effect on June 5, 1967, the day the Six Day War broke out, and canceling by implication all legislation effected by Israel in the intervening years." Daniel Polisar, Leader of election observer team for Peace Watch, a non-partisan organization accredited by the Palestinian Authority as an official elections observer in 1996. Article written in 2002 [111]
- Supporting Evidence: After 1967, "At [Moshe] Dayan's suggestion…the cabinet agreed that Jordanian law would remain operative throughout the West Bank and that it would continue to be enforced largely by the prewar Arab administration, and that in the Gaza enclave civil government would also be directed mainly by resident Arab officials. Ultimately, fewer than 220 Israeli army and civilian personnel oversaw these local regimes. It became the hope of the military government that Arab citizens in the occupied areas should be able to carry on their activities without so much as setting eyes on an Israeli official…." Historian Howard Sachar [110]
- COUNTERPOINT: This charge can be made only out of complete ignorance about the facts. Under Israeli administration of the Territories, the Palestinians achieved more self-government and more self-rule than they had ever enjoyed in the 19 years of Jordanian rule. Israeli administration dramatically improved Palestinian self-rule. There was nothing that remotely resembled apartheid law.
- Supporting Evidence: "In the West Bank…the Israelis encountered an Arab population whose economic and political development had been systematically aborted for years by the distrustful Hashemite government. Citizens living west of the river had been refused even the mildest degree of administrative autonomy….When, therefore, Israel instituted a military regime in the West Bank, it launched something entirely new, the first authentically Palestinian administration the local Arabs had ever known. Under Israeli auspices, departments were established for West Bank agriculture, education, posts and telegraphs, commerce and industry…" all run by local civil servants. Historian Howard Sachar [112]
- Supporting Evidence: the Palestinians in the territories had, over more than a generation of Israeli rule, become intimately familiar with the workings of Israeli democracy and had benefited from an occupation that was more liberal in many respects than any Arab government. They enjoyed the freest press in the Arab world, based in eastern Jerusalem, and they sported a host of human rights organizations, scattered throughout Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, which had become internationally known for reporting on the practices of Israeli troops. Moreover, exposure to the chaotic workings of Israel's Knesset and to the trial and appeal processes in Israel's courts led Palestinian residents in the territories to develop views on power-sharing, pluralism, and the rule of law that were sharply at odds with those that Arafat and his colleagues were perfecting in Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunis." Daniel Polisar, Leader of the 1996 election observer team for Peace Watch, a non-partisan organization accredited by the Palestinian Authority as an official elections observer, 2002 [113]
- Supporting Evidence: "In the West Bank…the Israelis encountered an Arab population whose economic and political development had been systematically aborted for years by the distrustful Hashemite government. Citizens living west of the river had been refused even the mildest degree of administrative autonomy….When, therefore, Israel instituted a military regime in the West Bank, it launched something entirely new, the first authentically Palestinian administration the local Arabs had ever known. Under Israeli auspices, departments were established for West Bank agriculture, education, posts and telegraphs, commerce and industry…" all run by local civil servants. Historian Howard Sachar [112]
- COUNTERPOINT: This charge can be made only out of complete ignorance about how the Territories have functioned since the Oslo Accords. In accord with Oslo's interim agreements, 98% of Palestinians came to be under the governance of the Palestinian Authority by 1997. The PA has its own legislature, administrative, educational and legal system. If there is apartheid in the Territories, then it was instituted by the Palestinian leadership, not Israel.
- COUNTERPOINT: This charge can only be made by confusing Israel's security measures and the legal system that governs the Territories. Israel's security measures-closures, checkpoints, curfews-were temporary measures instituted in response to terrorism. The PA has done nothing to eliminate terrorism, and under the Oslo Accords, Israel has the right to act to maintain the security of its citizens. There is nothing racist or apartheid-like about these measures. Palestinian Arabs are not subject to security measures because of their race, color or religion, but rather because they are declared enemies of Israelis and wish to murder Jews.
- Supporting Evidence: There was no separation barrier between Israel and the Territories from the time Israeli administration began in 1967 until 2002. During these 35 years, the area was open and unobstructed. Israel began constructing the fence only in 2002 when Palestinian terrorism impelled the nation to build it to protect its citizens from mass murder.
- Supporting Evidence: "The restrictions on movement that Israel has imposed on the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories since the outbreak of the current intifada are unprecedented in the history of the Israeli occupation… In the past, …it never imposed sweeping and prolonged restrictions comparable to those currently in practice." B'Tselem, Israeli Human Rights Group [114]
- Supporting Evidence: In the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar, editor Jubran Tuweini wrote, "Once again, we realize that the Arabs are their own worst enemy - just as the worst enemy of the Palestinian cause is the Palestinians, who have endorsed a policy of refusal and fundamentalist extremism as a way of behavior. How many times have they already served Israel with their deeds? How many times has the behavior of these groups already saved Ariel Sharon and his government?" December 24 2003 [115]
- Supporting Evidence: The liberal-leaning Hazem Abd Al-Rahman wrote in his Al-Ahram column:"… Are these scum of the earth [Palestinians who attacked the Egyptian Foreign Minister] capable of accomplishing something for the Palestinian people? It is reasonable to assume that they, like the supporters of suicide bombings, are the first to damage the Palestinian cause, and are bringing death upon the Palestinian people…" December 24 2003 [116]
- Supporting Evidence: On the liberal Arab website Elaph, Egyptian columnist Sami Buheiri wrote: "[T]he rabble majority of the Arab and Palestinian street today….refuse to accept any kind of a peace agreement with Israel... It is they who applaud the bus and restaurant bombings in order to destroy any spark of hope for peace... They are Arab nationalists who have failed completely in all their wars with Israel and in all attempts to achieve peace with Israel, because they were not serious, and they were not men - neither in fighting nor in peacemaking...December 30 2003 [117]
- Supporting Evidence: There was no separation barrier between Israel and the Territories from the time Israeli administration began in 1967 until 2002. During these 35 years, the area was open and unobstructed. Israel began constructing the fence only in 2002 when Palestinian terrorism impelled the nation to build it to protect its citizens from mass murder.
- COUNTERPOINT: This charge can be made only out of complete ignorance about apartheid. It was an official policy in South Africa, enacted in law and enforced through police violence, of brutal political, legal and economic discrimination against people of color. It was based upon minority control over a majority population. Israel never annexed the Territories and the Palestinians are not Israeli citizens, nor did Israel impose such a legal system in the Territories.
- POINT 18: The settlements are the biggest obstacle to peace.
- COUNTERPOINT: It is disingenuous to claim that the settlements are the biggest obstacle to peace. Arabs and Palestinians refused to make peace with Israel long before there were any settlements in the Territories.
- COUNTERPOINT: The existence of settlements in the Sinai did not prevent Israel and Egypt from reaching a peace agreement in 1979. Per that agreement, Israel dismantled its settlements and uprooted the Israelis living in the Sinai.
- COUNTERPOINT: During the Camp David and Taba negotiations in 2000 and 2001, Israel offered to remove most settlements from a future Palestinian state. The Palestinian leadership still rejected the offer.
- Supporting Evidence: At Camp David in 2000 and Taba in 2001, Prime Minister Barak offered to uproot settlements from 95% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip. [118]
- Supporting Evidence: At the same negotiations, Prime Minister Barak offered a land exchange for the 5% of the land with Jewish communities that would become part of Israel. [119]
- Supporting Evidence: At Camp David in 2000 and Taba in 2001, Prime Minister Barak offered to uproot settlements from 95% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip. [118]
- COUNTERPOINT: The demand that there be no Jews in a future Palestinian state is racist. Currently, Jewish communities comprise only 1.6% of the land, according to B'Tselem. Why shouldn't some Jews, who may be attached to their homes or religious sites, be allowed to live in a Palestinian state, especially given that 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs?.
- COUNTERPOINT: Palestinian leaders has made it clear that the real obstacle to peace is that its long-range goal is a one state solution….
- Supporting Evidence: "The struggle will continue until all of Palestine is liberated." - Yasser Arafat in a radio address (Voice of Palestine, Nov. 11, 1995.)
- Supporting Evidence: "The Oslo agreement, or any other agreement, is just a temporary procedure, or just a step towards something bigger […] [Palestine], according to the higher strategy, [is] 'from the river to the sea.' Palestine in its entirety is an Arab land, the land of the Arab nation." - Faisal Husseini, PA representative for Jerusalem affairs, member of Arafat's Cabinet, and noted 'moderate', in Egyptian Daily "Al-Arabi" June 21, 2001 [120]
- Supporting Evidence: "We will never be ready to lay down arms until the liberation of the last centimeter of the land of Palestine." - HAMAS, June 5, 2000.
- Supporting Evidence: In the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar, editor Jubran Tuweini wrote, "Once again, we realize that the Arabs are their own worst enemy - just as the worst enemy of the Palestinian cause is the Palestinians, who have endorsed a policy of refusal and fundamentalist extremism as a way of behavior. How many times have they already served Israel with their deeds? How many times has the behavior of these groups already saved Ariel Sharon and his government?" December 24 2003 [121]
- Supporting Evidence: "The struggle will continue until all of Palestine is liberated." - Yasser Arafat in a radio address (Voice of Palestine, Nov. 11, 1995.)
- COUNTERPOINT: It is disingenuous to claim that the settlements are the biggest obstacle to peace. Arabs and Palestinians refused to make peace with Israel long before there were any settlements in the Territories.
- POINT 19: The root cause of terrorism is the illegal Israeli settlements.
- COUNTERPOINT: This is disingenuous. Israel had agreed to dismantle most of the settlements when the intensive phase of terrorism began in 2000.
- Supporting Evidence: At Camp David in 2000 and Taba in 2001, Prime Minister Barak offered to uproot settlements from 95% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip. [122]
- Supporting Evidence: At the same negotiations, Prime Minister Barak offered a land exchange for the 5% of the land with Jewish communities that would become part of Israel. [123]
- Supporting Evidence: A majority of the settlers have indicated a willingness to relocate if a final agreement requires it, according to a poll taken by Peace Now in 2002. [124]
- Supporting Evidence: At Camp David in 2000 and Taba in 2001, Prime Minister Barak offered to uproot settlements from 95% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip. [122]
- COUNTERPOINT: This is disingenuous. The root cause of terrorism is that Palestinian extremists and Yasser Arafat do not want to accept compromise and peaceful negotiation. Even Arab leaders have condemned them for this.
- Supporting Evidence: In the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar, editor Jubran Tuweini wrote, "Once again, we realize that the Arabs are their own worst enemy - just as the worst enemy of the Palestinian cause is the Palestinians, who have endorsed a policy of refusal and fundamentalist extremism as a way of behavior. How many times have they already served Israel with their deeds? How many times has the behavior of these groups already saved Ariel Sharon and his government?" December 24 2003 [125]
- Supporting Evidence: The liberal-leaning Hazem Abd Al-Rahman wrote in his Al-Ahram column:"… Are these scum of the earth [Palestinians who attacked the Egyptian Foreign Minister] capable of accomplishing something for the Palestinian people? It is reasonable to assume that they, like the supporters of suicide bombings, are the first to damage the Palestinian cause, and are bringing death upon the Palestinian people…" December 24 2003 [126]
- Supporting Evidence: Palestinians don't have a state because they have had "an all or nothing policy," unlike the Zionists. "The Zionists never demanded the impossible….Our leadership….enabled the Zionists to succeed at every opportunity…by rejecting every proposal for compromise, rejecting proposals to give it a state on most of the land of Palestine…" Tawfiz Abu Bakr, Palestinian columnist, 2003 [127]
- Supporting Evidence: Because of "this irrational nihilist behavior [of Palestinians about accepting compromise], "Haj Amin Al-Husseini…rejected the settlement offered him by the Peel Commission in 1937…Then, he repeated his mistake by rejecting the Partition Plan that this time would have given 55% to the Jews and the rest to Palestine…." Al-'Afif Al-Akdhar, Tunisian columnist, 2002 [128]
- Supporting Evidence: "The mania for armed struggle….is the cause for [us] missing …historical opportunities since 1937 to 2000, with…pristine excuses such as 'we have the right[s] on our side…" Al-'Aff Al-Akhdar, Tunisian columnist, 2002 [129]
- Supporting Evidence: In the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar, editor Jubran Tuweini wrote, "Once again, we realize that the Arabs are their own worst enemy - just as the worst enemy of the Palestinian cause is the Palestinians, who have endorsed a policy of refusal and fundamentalist extremism as a way of behavior. How many times have they already served Israel with their deeds? How many times has the behavior of these groups already saved Ariel Sharon and his government?" December 24 2003 [125]
- COUNTERPOINT: This is disingenuous. Israel had agreed to dismantle most of the settlements when the intensive phase of terrorism began in 2000.
- POINT 20: With the Occupation in 1967, Jerusalem became a city under siege, totally closed off to all Palestinians.
- COUNTERPOINT: This is a willful distortion of the facts. The city was not closed off to Palestinians. It was opened to them. When Israel gained control of the eastern portion in 1967, Jerusalem became an open city for the first time in 19 years. Eastern Jerusalem Arabs mingled freely with those in West Jerusalem, and Palestinians from the surrounding areas freely poured into the city.
- Supporting Evidence: "[T]he gates of East Jerusalem were opened to free traffic only days after the cease-fire….[T]he populations of the eastern and western cities began mingling freely for the first time in nineteen years. Old acquaintances were renewed, Arabs visited homes they had abandoned two decades previously…." Historian Howard Sachar [130]
- Supporting Evidence: "[T]he Arab population of Jerusalem, 65,000 in 1967, also nearly doubled, reaching 120,000 by 1980. Most of the growth represented an influx from the neighboring West Bank, essentially of Arabs who arrived to work in the city's booming construction industry." [131]
- Supporting Evidence: "Since 1967, hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Christians-many from Arab countries that remain in a state of war with Israel-have come to Jerusalem to see their holy places. Arab leaders are free to visit Jerusalem to pray if they wish to, just as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat did at the Al-Aksa Mosque." Historian Mitchell Bard [132]
- Supporting Evidence: "[T]he gates of East Jerusalem were opened to free traffic only days after the cease-fire….[T]he populations of the eastern and western cities began mingling freely for the first time in nineteen years. Old acquaintances were renewed, Arabs visited homes they had abandoned two decades previously…." Historian Howard Sachar [130]
- COUNTERPOINT: This is a willful distortion of the facts. Under Israel's administration, Jerusalem was not under siege. To the contrary, it became an open city for all faiths for the first time in 19 years.
- Supporting Evidence: "There is unimpeded access today [to holy sites]. There wasn't from 1948-1967" when Jordan controlled East Jerusalem and prevented access to Jews and Christians. President Jimmy Carter [133]
- Supporting Evidence: In one of its first act after the 1967 War, Israel announced that it would let the Waqf (the Muslim Trust) maintain control over the mosques on Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount, and promised that Jews would be allowed to pray only at the adjacent Wailing Wall, not on the Temple Mount itself, in order to not offend Muslims. [134]
- Supporting Evidence: Israel entrusted administration of the Christian and Muslim holy sites to their respective religious authorities. [135]
- Supporting Evidence: "There is unimpeded access today [to holy sites]. There wasn't from 1948-1967" when Jordan controlled East Jerusalem and prevented access to Jews and Christians. President Jimmy Carter [133]
- COUNTERPOINT: This is a willful distortion of the facts. Arab residents of eastern Jerusalem have not felt under siege. They have been pleased with Israeli governance. Indeed, during the Camp David negotiations, a majority of East Jerusalem Arabs indicated they wished to remain under Israeli jurisdiction instead of being joined to the Palestinian Authority.
- Supporting Evidence: When Barak's peace plan in 2000 recommended putting East Jerusalem under PA control, "Zuhair Hamda, a prominent leader of a large family in the Arab neighborhood of Su Baher, gathered a petition with more than 10,000 signatures of Arabs from Jerusalem who preferred not to be transferred to Arafat's governance…." According to media reports, Hamdan was shot and critically wounded in September 2001, apparently by members of Arafat's Fatah faction, for his efforts. [136]
- Supporting Evidence: "I estimate that close to 70% of the Arab residents (of Jerusalem) want to remain under Israeli rule because of the economic benefits…." Fadal Tahabub, a member of the Palestinian Council and a resident of East Jerusalem. July 2000 [137]
- Supporting Evidence: Alarmed by Arab Jerusalemites apparent preference to remain under Israeli control, Faisal Husseini, then holder of the Jerusalem file for the PA, urgently summoned journalists from three Palestinian dailies to put out message to East Jerusalem's Arab residents, telling them not to worry about losses they might experience in insurance rights, freedom of movement into Israel and Israel's higher salaries-if sovereignty were to change. 8/28/00 Jerusalem Report.
- Supporting Evidence: When Barak's peace plan in 2000 recommended putting East Jerusalem under PA control, "Zuhair Hamda, a prominent leader of a large family in the Arab neighborhood of Su Baher, gathered a petition with more than 10,000 signatures of Arabs from Jerusalem who preferred not to be transferred to Arafat's governance…." According to media reports, Hamdan was shot and critically wounded in September 2001, apparently by members of Arafat's Fatah faction, for his efforts. [136]
- COUNTERPOINT: This is a willful distortion of the facts. If any group is denied free movement within Jerusalem, it is the Jews. While Moslems are given virtually free rein to go to pray at Al Aqsa Mosque, Jews are restricted from praying at the Temple Mount to avoid disturbing Palestinian sensibilities.
- Supporting Evidence: "Week in and week out, thousands of Palestinians stream to Jerusalem's Old City for Friday prayers. Yet Jews who wish to do the same, tax-paying citizens of this country, who seek to exercise their basic right to freedom of worship, are subjected to all sorts of restrictions and limitations…. If Jews were forbidden access to a synagogue in London, Paris or New York because it upset their Muslim neighbors, the outcry would be deafening, and justifiably so. Why, then, should it be any less forceful when it comes to the Temple Mount, in the heart of our ancient capital? " Columnist Michael Freund [138]
- Supporting Evidence: "Week in and week out, thousands of Palestinians stream to Jerusalem's Old City for Friday prayers. Yet Jews who wish to do the same, tax-paying citizens of this country, who seek to exercise their basic right to freedom of worship, are subjected to all sorts of restrictions and limitations…. If Jews were forbidden access to a synagogue in London, Paris or New York because it upset their Muslim neighbors, the outcry would be deafening, and justifiably so. Why, then, should it be any less forceful when it comes to the Temple Mount, in the heart of our ancient capital? " Columnist Michael Freund [138]
- COUNTERPOINT: If Jerusalem has seemed a city under siege since 2000, it is because Israel has had to take strenuous measures against the terrorist war that Palestinians unleashed against it. Israel's security measures-closures, checkpoints, curfews-are temporary measures instituted in response to terrorism.
- Supporting Evidence: In the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar, editor Jubran Tuweini wrote, "Once again, we realize that the Arabs are their own worst enemy - just as the worst enemy of the Palestinian cause is the Palestinians, who have endorsed a policy of refusal and fundamentalist extremism as a way of behavior. How many times have they already served Israel with their deeds? How many times has the behavior of these groups already saved Ariel Sharon and his government?" December 24 2003 [139]
- Supporting Evidence: "The Palestinians have every right to be filled with rage over the existence of checkpoints and the hardships they produce. However, all of this rage must be directed at the true and only cause of Israeli checkpoints: Palestinian terrorist organizations. Israel's government would like nothing more than to dismantle the checkpoints, and stop putting its sons and daughters in harm's way. Historically, however, as soon as Israel removes checkpoints and withdraws from Palestinian population centers, terrorist organizations use their freedom of movement to enter Israeli cities and slaughter innocent civilians." Attorney-Commentator Craig Weiss [140]
- Supporting Evidence: In the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar, editor Jubran Tuweini wrote, "Once again, we realize that the Arabs are their own worst enemy - just as the worst enemy of the Palestinian cause is the Palestinians, who have endorsed a policy of refusal and fundamentalist extremism as a way of behavior. How many times have they already served Israel with their deeds? How many times has the behavior of these groups already saved Ariel Sharon and his government?" December 24 2003 [139]
- COUNTERPOINT: This is a willful distortion of the facts. The city was not closed off to Palestinians. It was opened to them. When Israel gained control of the eastern portion in 1967, Jerusalem became an open city for the first time in 19 years. Eastern Jerusalem Arabs mingled freely with those in West Jerusalem, and Palestinians from the surrounding areas freely poured into the city.
- POINT 21: "Israel is in violation of Resolution 242 which calls upon it to withdraw to the 1967 borders."
- COUNTERPOINT: Arab nations and the Palestinians are in violation of Resolution 242. Israel is not. The Resolution called for bilateral, not unilateral, actions. Arab states were to make peace and negotiate with Israel to resolve border disputes.
- Supporting Evidence: The two clauses in the body of the Resolution-one calling for Israeli withdrawal, the other calling for belligerents to make peace and negotiate-were to be "read concurrently," according to Mr. Michael Stewart, Britain's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, 1969
- Supporting Evidence: "The resolutions of the Security Council 242 and 338 call on all the parties to negotiate a peace settlement…." Sir Adam Roberts, Professor of International Relations, Oxford University, 2002. [141]
- Supporting Evidence: "Resolution 242, which as US undersecretary of state for political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace….When such peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces 'from territories' it occupied during the Six Day War." Eugene W. Rostow 1991 [142]
- Supporting Evidence: The two clauses in the body of the Resolution-one calling for Israeli withdrawal, the other calling for belligerents to make peace and negotiate-were to be "read concurrently," according to Mr. Michael Stewart, Britain's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, 1969
- COUNTERPOINT: Arab states and the PLO indicated they would not comply with Resolution 242 because they did not want to recognize Israel or negotiate or make peace with it, thereby undermining the very principles of the Resolution, a position that became known as "the three nos"
- Supporting Evidence: Eight Arab states gathered for a summit at Khartoum and issued their position statement which would undermine the principles of the UN Resolution that was passed two months later. : "[T]he main principles by which the Arab States abide, namely, no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it…." September 1 1967
- Supporting Evidence: Jordan "begrudgingly" accepted the resolution. "Iraq and Syria rejected the resolution entirely, denouncing it as 'a deception of the people, a recipe for failure.'" Historian Michael Oren [143]
- Supporting Evidence: Egypt's President Nasser's "response was more equivocal. While endorsing the UN's decision, he reiterated the three no's to his National Assembly, reminding it: 'That which was taken by force will be regained by force,' and told his generals, 'You don't need to pay any attention to anything I might say in public about a peaceful solution.'" Historian Michael Oren [144]
- Supporting Evidence: "[T]he PLO rejected Resolution 242 for 20 years….[because] [s]ince Israel is the only state in the region whose right to exist is in dispute, the resolution seems to call on the Arab states to recognize Israel. And since the Palestinians had no state, it doesn't call on anyone to recognize their right to national self-determination…. Palestinians acknowledge that nothing in the language of Resolution 242 suggests the creation of a Palestinian state…." In 1988, Arafat finally accepted Resolution 242. Eric Black, PBS "Frontline" [145]
- Supporting Evidence: Eight Arab states gathered for a summit at Khartoum and issued their position statement which would undermine the principles of the UN Resolution that was passed two months later. : "[T]he main principles by which the Arab States abide, namely, no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it…." September 1 1967
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel honored Resolution 242. When Egypt and Jordan were willing to recognize Israel and negotiate with it to make peace, Israel honored the principles of Resolution 242 and withdrew from territory occupied in the 1967 Six Day War. Only two Arab states have been willing to renounce the Khartoum Declaration.
- Supporting Evidence: In the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979, Israel gave Egypt 91% of the land it had captured in the 1967 War-the Sinai Desert-including the oil wells it had discovered and developed.
- Supporting Evidence: In 1994, when Jordan was willing to make peace, Israel and Jordan resolved their border disputes and made peace.
- Supporting Evidence: In the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty of 1979, Israel gave Egypt 91% of the land it had captured in the 1967 War-the Sinai Desert-including the oil wells it had discovered and developed.
- COUNTERPOINT: Israel is not in violation of Resolution 242 because it remains in the Territories. Resolution 242 specifically did not require Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders.
- Supporting Evidence: The British UN Ambassador, Lord Caradon, who introduced the resolution to the Council, has stated that, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial [...] That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them."
- Supporting Evidence: "I formulated the Security Council Resolution…The proposal said 'Israel will withdraw from territories that were occupied' and not from 'the' territories, which means that Israel will not withdraw from all the territories." Mr. George Brown, British Foreign Secretary in 1967, Jerusalem Post interview, January 19, 1970.
- Supporting Evidence: "Resolution 242, which as undersecretary of state for political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until "a just and lasting peace in the Middle East" is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces "from territories" it occupied during the Six-Day War--not from "the" territories nor from "all" the territories, but from some of the territories, which included the Sinai Desert, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip." Eugene W. Rostow 1991 [146]
- Supporting Evidence: "As the debates [in the Security Council] revealed, the majority of the members of the Security Council were unwilling to vote for the unconditional withdrawal of Israeli forces because of their conviction that a return to the armistice regime would not serve the goal of securing a just and lasting peace between the parties." Arthur J. Goldberg, National Committee on Foreign Policy 1988 [147]
- Supporting Evidence: "An article yesterday about peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians referred incorrectly to United Nations resolutions on the conflict. While Security Council Resolution 242, passed after the 1967 Middle East War, calls for Israel to withdraw its armed forces 'from territories occupied in the recent conflict,' no resolution calls for Israel to withdraw 'to its pre-1967 borders.'" New York Times corrections. January 23, 2001.
- Question: You claim that Israel must return to it's pre-1967 borders, but the resolution you cite, Security Council Resolution 242 says nothing of the sort. The British UN Ambassador, Lord Caradon, who introduced the resolution to the Council, has stated that, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial [...] That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them." Why have you mislead the audience as to the demands of the UN? [148]
- Question: One moral principle behind Resolution 242 is that nations who initiate wars of aggression must pay a price for their aggression and the devastation and havoc they wreak. Are you suggesting that this should not be the case? Are you advocating a moral principle for international conventions that whenever nations initiate wars to destroy an established state, and lose, they should be allowed to pay no price and that nothing should be done to change borders so that future aggressions can be thwarted? Wouldn't this fail to ensure deterrence against future wars? Isn't this an immoral principle? How can you advocate it?
- Supporting Evidence: The British UN Ambassador, Lord Caradon, who introduced the resolution to the Council, has stated that, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial [...] That's why we didn't demand that the Israelis return to them."
- COUNTERPOINT: Arab nations and the Palestinians are in violation of Resolution 242. Israel is not. The Resolution called for bilateral, not unilateral, actions. Arab states were to make peace and negotiate with Israel to resolve border disputes.
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