Part of newsletter 27th Dec. 2007
Last night I saw a very powerful South African movie – “Tsotsi”. I was born in SA and although I haven’t been back since coming to live in Israel I still have family and friends there and keep abreast with the news. The movie, which presented a microcosm of the poverty and despair of a large portion of the population, set me thinking. Measuring poverty and despair are so subjective that, to be trite, one man’s poverty is another’s wealth.
“350 million (6.7%) of the world population suffer from extreme poverty ($1 or less per day); 970 million (18.6%) are in the higher poverty level ($2 or less per day) and fully 68% of the world’s poorest people are to be found in sub-Saharan Africa”. (Prof. R.H. Jacoby, University of Columbia)
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has a staff of 6,300 that currently serves 32.9 million (32.900,000) refugees in 111 countries. By contrast, UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, has a staff of over 28,000 providing aid to 4.4 million refugees, grown from 652,000 in 1948 and including, uniquely in the definition of refugee, their second, third and now fourth generation descendants. (Rick Richman, New York Sun, December 6, 2007)
According to World Bank statistics for 2000 the Palestinians received $214 for each of its three million citizens throughout the world. In sub-Saharan Africa the average was $20; in Asia $3 and in Pakistan $7. Since 2000, as we all know, the situation in Africa has worsened, the number of refugees has increased but the contributions from the world are pretty much unchanged.
Well, with one exception. At the Donors’ Conference for the Palestinian Authority a few weeks ago over $6 billion was pledged. That’s $6,000,000,000. Over $1,400 per Palestinian per year. More than the average annual income in most Arab countries. Most of it by the European Union, UK, USA, Canada and Japan – the enlightened western world. The petrol rich Arab countries donate very little to their Palestinian brethren.
I am familiar with the situation of the Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza – from the humiliating check-posts and road blocks to the lack of many of the modern amenities they see in neighbouring Israel – but when I was asked to comment on an article describing how, as a result of the Israeli built security fence, the children of Fasyil village (In Focus, November 2007) have to go two kilometres to get to their nearest school, I didn’t really know where to begin.
Commenting on articles such as these is an exercise in futility as they are detached from context or historical background, devoid of of any relation to the world at large and riddled with half truths and inaccuracies. Their writers consider causing personal inconvenience to Palestinians to be a far more reprehensible than taking innocent Jewish and Israeli lives.
Whether in print, on the radio or television, they are fodder for those who are so intent in studying the leaves of trees that they do not even realise that those leaves are only a small part of a tree and that the trees are but a tiny part of very large, diversified forests dotted all over the world, forests of poverty, suppression and conflicts. For a moment let us consider some of the forests in my corner of the world.
The forest which is the violence of radical Islam throughout the world, in Arab countries, in Moslem countries, in Africa and in the free world.
The forest which is the silence of moderate Islam, if there is such a thing, to this violence.
The forest which is the complicity of the Western world which prefers “peace in our time”, and ignores the consequences of that policy in 1939.
The forest which is the lack of protest at the fact that there are countries in the Moslem world which do not confer citizenship and equality on non-Moslems.
The forest which is the silent acceptance of the persecution of those few Christians living in those few Moslem counties which do allow non-Moslems.
The forest which is the encroaching Moslem population which prefers to enjoy the freedom offered by the democracies of the West but wants to introduce, by force if necessary, the Islamic law, the Shari’a, and the tyranny of their countries of birth, which they voluntarily left, seeking a better life in the West.
Looming over all these forests, hiding them from public view and unbiased debate is the “Palestinian problem” forest, also known as the “Israel has no right to exist” forest.
The trees are many and diverse but can be defined as being of the “double standard” and “moral equivalency” varieties the “voluntary amnesia” type or the “blind eye” strain. Here briefly are some of the trees in that forest.
The most common tree is the “Post WWI” tree which ignores the fact that, at the end of WWI, a new ME was carved out of the defunct Ottoman Empire. Not only did the League of Nations confirm that Palestine was to be the “homeland of the Jewish people”, it also created Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, under French and British Mandates.
And then Britain unilaterally created the Kingdom of Transjordan in the eastern two thirds of Palestine, the Jewish homeland. Denying the right of the Jewish people to their homeland while legitimising the existence of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan is a blatant double standard. But this does tend to ease the British and European consciences.
The “1947-49” tree overlooks the fact that when, in November 1947, the UN voted to divide Palestine between the Jewish Palestinians and the Arab Palestinian it was the Arabs, both of Palestine and the Arab world, who rejected this move unanimously. An Arab Palestinian state was not one of their aspirations. And not only did they reject the resolution, they also attacked, with covert British connivance, the Jews of Palestine, who had joyfully accepted the UN Resolution.
A mutation of the “1947-49” tree has rewritten the war which followed. The army of the nascent State of Israel, in 1948, without tanks, cannons or airplanes, which survived invasion by the Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese and British trained Transjordanian armies, assisted by troops from Iraq, Yemen, Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Tunis and where-ever else not, has now become, in retrospect, the strongest army of all.
A miniature version of the “1947-9” tree refuses to acknowledge that, when the dust settled and the cease-fire agreements between Israel and her neighbours were signed, Abdullah, king of Transjordan quietly annexed those parts on the western bank of the Jordan river which were not part of Israel and changed the name of his kingdom to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. When UN voted on his annexation the only two counties to support it were Britain, patron of Abdullah and main supplier of his army, and Pakistan, which had hoped to annex Kashmir in the same way.
Then there is the “1967 amnesia” tree which has forgotten that, in 1967, the United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria) declared war on Israel, which ignored the advice given by France not to fire the first shot. It has forgotten that Israel, through the good offices of diplomatic emissaries, advised Jordan that she, Israel, did not want war with Jordan but Jordan ignored these messages and opened fire along the entire border with Israel. Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Herzliah and Nathania were among the better known cities which were shelled by the Jordanians.
It has also forgotten that Israel survived what most assumed was going to be its demise. As is the way of mutations, that war has been evolved into a planned war of conquest and expansion by Israel.
It cannot imagine, let alone acknowledge, that UN Resolution 242, in the wake of that war, does not call for a total withdrawal from those areas taken by Israel in the course of the war imposed on her. It cannot imagine, let alone acknowledge, that the same resolution makes absolutely no reference to a Palestinian state, because there was absolutely no such call by any group of Arabs or any Arab country for such a state.
One strain of this tree has become extinct – the meeting of the leaders of all the Arab countries at Khartoum, at which they agreed unanimously, “No recognition of Israel, no stopping the war with Israel and no negotiations with Israel” has conveniently been removed from the history books. Interestingly they too never called for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Another large tree is the “if the Israel-Palestine problem was solved (euphemism for “if Israel ceased to exist”) then there would be peace in the Middle East, if not in the entire world” tree. Duh. What has Israel got to do with Moslem violence in Pakistan (and the murder of Benazir Bhutto yesterday), in Kashmir, in Indonesia, in Algeria, in Egypt, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Sudan, in Nigeria? The list is endless.
Equally large is the “Palestinian refugee” tree. This tree is unique because all other refugee trees come under one roof in the UN and are absorbed within one generation. The Palestinian refugee tree has its own UN organisation, UNRWA, and well into the fourth generation it maintains its uniqueness. I am sure you will be surprised to know that the Palestinian refugee tree gets more greenbacks than all refugee trees throughout the world, including the dying refugee trees in Africa and Asia and undernourished trees in Asia, Southern and Central America and Egypt together.
The “moral equivalency” tree is is rather like an alluring poisonous mushroom. It cannot differentiate between deliberately killing armed terrorists about to kill innocent men, women and children and those very same innocent civilians. It cannot differentiate between the need to save lives and the inconvenience of security check posts and road closures.
The amnesia strain of this tree has forgotten that until 2000 (when Arafat initiated the intifada) hundreds of thousands of Palestinians travelled daily to work in Israel unhindered by roadblocks or check posts. Tens of thousands of Israelis, including the frightening West Bank and Gaza Strip settlers, frequented Palestinian businesses and restaurants
A newly discovered tree, the double-standard “no state in the world connects its national identity to a religious identity” tree, denying the right of the Jewish people to their own state, is rapidly reproducing thanks to the sterling groundwork done by Saeb Erekat , PLO negotiator, and Cardinal Sabbah, Catholic prelate for Israel, Jordan, Cyprus, the West Bank and Gaza. They should know. The PA’s Basic Law declares that “Islam is the official religion in Palestine” just as Catholicism is the religion of the Vatican, Italy and, I believe, Argentine.
The forests would have been so different if the Palestinian Arabs had accepted the Partition Plan in 1947 and established a Palestinian State when the Jewish Palestinians established the Jewish State of Israel. But they had no such nationalist aspirations then.
The forests would have been so different if the Palestinian Arabs had opposed the Transjordanian annexation of the West Bank and Egyptian military control of the Gaza Strip any time until 1967, and created their own Palestinian state. The forests would have been so different if they had refused to accept the “three noes” of the Khartoum conference in 1967 and opened negotiations with Israel. But they had no such nationalist aspirations then.
The forests would have been so different if the Palestinians had continued negotiations with Israel in 1986 and 2000 and, instead of initiating violence and terrorism against Israel, if they had used the millions of dollars they received from the world to rebuild their economy instead of siphoning it off to their corrupt leadership and squandering it on their terrorist infrastructure. Self examination and self criticism are typically Jewish traits, alien to the Arab world, but without them the Palestinians, rather than taking steps to recognising the existence of Israel, will continue to wallow in self pity, wandering aimlessly in their forests.
Finally there are the leaves, so very, very many of them. Together with the roots, the trunk and the branches, they are all part of the tree, which is part of the forest. Each one extensively examined and endlessly magnified.
And almost every leaf relates to the Palestinian suffering at the hands of the Israelis. The check points, the road closures, the Israeli economic embargo. The list is endless but sadly much of the suffering is self inflicted. If the Palestinian stopped shelling southern Israel the embargo on Gaza would be lifted. If the threat of Palestinian suicide bombers disappeared so too would the road blocks and check posts.
The leaves that relate to Israeli suffering are so rare that one hardly ever sees or hears of them. These leaves include the victims of random terror (Jews, Christians and Moslems alike), the bereaved left in its wake, the daily shelling of the town of Sderot and the neighbouring kibbutzim and moshavim, the children traumatised when Palestinian missiles fall in the school playgrounds. Israeli leaves are purposely ignored by the self professed “unbiased” leaf researchers who knowingly study Palestinian leaves only.
There is also an unusual collection of leaves which have tiny, barely visible swastikas on the underside. By comparing Israelis and the Israeli army to Nazis, by equating the Palestinian suffering to that of the Jews during WWII, these leaves ease the British and European conscience (or lack of one) and enable the British and the Europeans, not only the Germans, to forget their part in the Holocaust.
We should ask those who write and publicise this endless stream of leaf “research” whether they see the trees and forests at all, whether they are even aware of their existence, or, in their skewered vision, do the leaves and the trees and the forests tend to be the same size?
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Newsletter – Feb. 2007
The UN has two separate refugee organizations. UNHCR (the UN High Commission for Refugees) has the mandate to provide international protection to refugees who fall within the scope of its statute, whether it be in Africa or Asia or anywhere else in the world, and to seek permanent solution for the problem of refugees by assisting Governments. This means UNHCR never has second generation refugees.
By contrast, UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees) provides humanitarian assistance only to Palestinian refugees without any aim of seeking a permanent solution as with other refugees world wide, thereby perpetuating the problem now into the fourth generation.
Of the $462 million 2006 UNRWA budget, 30% came from the USA (the great Satan!!!!), 8% from Sweden, 6% from the UK. The total contributions from all the Arab states, including those swimming in oil, was less than 3%.
In an attempt to deflect this ostensible criticism of the Arab states, the director of External Relations of UNRWA in Gaza produced statistics showing that the Arab counties indirectly and directly do provide vast sums of money for Palestinian refugees in the various camps throughout the Arab world, including of course the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Inadvertently the director has confirmed what we already knew. The Arab world, including the Palestinian leadership itself, is not interested in seeing the dissolution of the camps and the absorption of the refugees in a normal society. Palestinian refugees are, and always have been, tools in the Arab fight against Israel. They must be preserved as such. Their welfare means nothing.
