American Exceptionalism

What is American exceptionalism? Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh first defines it by what it's not. It's not that we are better people or more superior. It is not that we are smarter people. It is not that God loves us more or prefers us more than anyone else. American exceptionalism has nothing to do with anything but freedom and liberty. The history of the world has been dominated by tyranny and slavery. The vast majority of human beings that have ever lived, have lived under the tyranny of despots. America was the first to break that cycle. For the first time in human history a government and nation was founded on the belief that leaders serve the population. Ronald Reagen said it best, "In this country of ours, took place the greatest revolution that has ever taken place in world’s history. The only true revolution. Every other revolution simply exchanged one set of rulers for another. But here for the first time in all the thousands of years of man’s relation to man, a little group of the men, the founding fathers for the first time – established the idea that you and I had within ourselves the God given right and ability to determine our own destiny."America became the exception to the rule, and that is what makes us exceptional.

Political commentator Bill Whittle demonstrates four ways in which America has been exceptional, militarily, economically, scientifically, and culturally. The superiority of any nation can be gauged by the strength of it's military and the America military remains the most powerful military in the world, bar none. Economically America produces 24% of the world's Gross Domestic Product. Individually America produces 14$ billion in GDP, compared with China that produces $4.9 billion with triple the population. The American dollar remains the world's premier reserve currency. America gives more aide than any other country. In 2011 America gave 4.6$ Billion in humanitarian aid, more than EU institutions, The UK, Japan and Sweden combined. China gave a dismal $38 Million in 2010. Scientifically America has produced 75 million research papers from 1996-2008, four times as many as the runner up. The United States has more Nobel Prize winners than any other country. Some of the most important inventions of the modern age were invented in America including the light bulb, the telephone, personal computers, the atomic bomb, the internet, the airplane, the assembly line, and the Polio vaccine among many others. Last but not least American pop culture has been exported to every corner of the globe. The top 50 movies of all time are American. And the top seven best selling music albums are American.

America is unique in that the first time in history people fought for independence in the name of certain universal principles such as human rights and civil liberties. Believing that inalienable rights did not come from men, who could take away such rights, but from the creator. They believed the government exists to serve the people and not the other way around. Unlike many modern revolutions it wasn't fought because of economic deprivation or because of an oppressed class against the elite.  our Founders gave birth to the greatest constitutional Republic the world has ever known. It's in Democracies like those in Europe where citizens receive their rights from government.
Britain, Germany, Spain, etc. don't have a Declaration of Independence or a Bill of Rights that defines the God given rights received at birth as in the United States. This is the fundamental difference between America and democratic governments worldwide. In these nations, birth doesn't entitle the citizen any right outside of what the government has granted. And what's given can always be taken away.


It's American exceptionalism that helped the Allies win World War 2, that put a man on the moon, that brought down the Berlin Wall, and that created the most powerful nation in less than 200 years from it's inception. If we cease to think of ourselves as exceptional then what is left but mediocrity.

President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts

Law and Justice
• First President to Violate the War Powers Act (Unilaterally Executing American Military Operations in Libya Without Informing Congress In the Required Time Period - Source: Huffington Post)
• First President to Triple the Number of Warrantless Wiretaps of U.S. Citizens (Source: ACLU)
• First President to Sign into Law a Bill That Permits the Government to "Hold Anyone Suspected of Being Associated With Terrorism Indefinitely, Without Any Form of Due Process. No Indictment. No Judge or Jury. No Evidence. No Trial. Just an Indefinite Jail Sentence" (NDAA Bill - Source: Business Insider)
• First President to Refuse to Tell the Public What He Did For Eight (8) Hours After Being Informed That a U.S. Ambassador Was Facing Imminent Death During a Terror Attack (Source: Mediate)
• First President to Lie About the Reason For an Ambassador's Death, Blaming it on an Internet Video Rather Than What He Knew to be the Case: the Al Qaeda-linked Terror Group Ansar al-Sharia (Source: House Oversight Committee, et. al.)
• First President to Have an Innocent Filmmaker Thrown in Jail After Lying About the Cause for a Deadly Attack on U.S. Diplomats and Blaming the Filmmaker (Source: CNN)
• First President to Use the IRS to "Unfairly Target Political Enemies" as Well as Jewish Groups (Source: Sen. Ted Cruz)
• First President to Unlawfully Seize Telephone Records of More than 100 Reporters to Intimidate and/or Bully Them (Source: Associated Press)
• First President to Witness a Single Cabinet Secretary Commit Multiple Hatch Act Violations Without Acting, Speaking Out, Disciplining or Firing That Person (Source: New York Times)
• First President to Have His Attorney General Held in Criminal Contempt of Congress For His Efforts to Cover Up Operation Fast and Furious, That Killed Over 300 Individuals (Source: Politico)
• First President to
claim Executive Privilege to shield a sitting Attorney General from a Contempt of Congress finding for perjury and withholding evidence from lawful subpoenas (Source: Business Insider)
• First President to Issue Unlawful "Recess-Appointments" Over a Long Weekend -- While the U.S. Senate Remained in Session (against the advice of his own Justice Department - Source: United States Court of Appeals)
• First President to Fire an Inspector General of Americorps for Catching One of His Friends in a Corruption Case (Source: Gawker)
• First President to "Order a Secret Amnesty Program that Stopped the Deportations of Illegal Immigrants Across the U.S., Including Those With Criminal Convictions" (Source: DHS documents uncovered by Judicial Watch)
• First President to Sue States for Enforcing Voter ID Requirements, Which Were Previously Ruled Legal by the U.S. Supreme Court (Source: CNN)
• First President to Encourage Racial Discrimination and Intimidation at Polling Places (the New Black Panthers voter intimidation case, Source: Investors Business Daily)
• First President to Refuse to Comply With a House Oversight Committee Subpoena (Source: Heritage Foundation)
• First President to Arbitrarily Declare an Existing Law Unconstitutional and Refuse to Enforce It (Defense of Marriage Act - Source: ABC News)
• First President to Demand a Company Hand Over $20 Billion to One of His Political Appointees (BP Oil Spill Relief Fund - Source: Fox News)
• First President to Have a Law Signed By an 'Auto-pen' Without Being "Present" (Source: The New York Times)
• First President to Have His Administration Fund an Organization Tied to the Cop-Killing Terrorist Group, the Weather Underground (Source: National Review)

Scandals
• First President to publicly announce an enemies list (consisting of his opponents campaign contributors; and to use the instrumentalities of government to punish those on the list - Source: Heritage Foundation)
• First President to Attempt to Block Legally-Required 60-Day Layoff Notices by Government Contractors Due to His Own Cuts to Defense Spending -- Because The Notices Would Occur Before the Election. (Source: National Journal)
• First President to Intentionally Disable Credit Card Security Measures (in order to allow over-the-limit donations, foreign contributions and other illegal fundraising measures - Source: Power Line)
• First President to send 80 percent of a $16 billion program (green energy) to his campaign bundlers and contributors, leaving only 20% to those who did not contribute. (Source: Washington Examiner)
• First President to Propose an Executive Order Demanding Companies Disclose Their Political Contributions to Bid on Government Contracts (Source: Wall Street Journal)
• First President to issue an Executive Order implementing a "Racial Justice System", a system that tries to achieve "racially equivalent outcomes" for crimes (Source: Daily Caller)
• First President to Leak Confidential IRS Tax Records to Groups Aligned Politically With Him for Partisan Advantage (Source: The Hill Newspaper)
• First President to Use the EPA to Punish Political Enemies and Reward Political Allies (Source: Competitive Enterprise Institute)
• First President to Send Millions in Taxpayer Dollars to His Wife's Former Employer (Source: White House Dossier)

Economy
• First President to Preside Over a Cut to the Credit Rating of the United States Government (Source: Reuters)
• First President to Bypass Congress and Implement the DREAM Act Through Executive Fiat (Source: Christian Science Monitor)
• First President to Move America Past the Dependency Tipping Point, In Which 51% of Households Now Pay No Income Taxes (Source: Center for Individual Freedom)
• First President to Increase Food Stamp Spending By More Than 100% in Less Than Four Years (Source: Sen. Jeff Sessions)
• First President to Spend a Trillion Dollars on 'Shovel-Ready' Jobs -- and Later Admit There Was No Such Thing as Shovel-Ready Jobs (Source: President Obama during an early meeting of his 'Jobs Council')
• First President to Threaten Insurance Companies After They Publicly Spoke out on How Obamacare Helped Cause their Rate Increases (Source: The Hill)
• First President to Abrogate Bankruptcy Law to Turn Over Control of Companies to His Union Supporters (Source: Wall Street Journal)
• First President to Propose Budgets So Unreasonable That Not a Single Representative From Either Party Would Cast a Vote in Favor (Sources: The Hill, Open Market)
• First President Whose Economic Policies Have the Number of Americans on Disability Exceed the Population of New York (Source: CNS News)
• First President to Sign a Law Requiring All Americans to Purchase a Product From a Third Party (Source: Wall Street Journal)
• First President to Sue States For Enforcing Immigration Laws Passed by Congress (Source: The Arizona Republic newspaper)
• First President to See America Lose Its Status as the World's Largest Economy (Source: Peterson Institute)
• First President to redistribute $26.5 billion of the taxpayers' funds to his union supporters in the UAW (Source: Heritage Foundation)
• First President to Threaten an Auto Company (Ford) After It Publicly Mocked Bailouts of GM and Chrysler (Source: Detroit News)
• First President to Attempt to Bully a Major Manufacturing Company Into Not Opening a Factory in a Right-to-Work State (Boeing's facility in South Carolina - Source: Wall Street Journal)

Energy Policy
• First President to Endanger the Stability of the Electric Grid by Shutting Down Hundreds of Coal-Fired Plants Without Adequate Replacement Technologies (Source: National Electric Reliability Corporation - PDF)
• First President to Have His EPA Repudiated by a Federal Judge for "Overstepping Its Powers" When They Attempted to Shut Down Coal Operations in Appalachia (Source: Huffington Post)
• First President to be Held in Contempt of Court for Illegally Obstructing Oil Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (Source: Politico)

National Security and World Affairs
• First President to Lie Repeatedly to the American People About the Murder of a U.S. Ambassador and Three Other Diplomatic Personnel for Purely Political Reasons, Rewriting a "Talking Points" Memo No Fewer Than a Dozen Times to Avoid Referencing a Pre-Planned Terror Attack (Source: ABC News)
• First President to Openly Defy a Congressional Order Not To Share Sensitive Nuclear Defense Secrets With the Russian Government (Sources: ABC News, Rep. Michael Turner)
• First President to Leak Highly Classified Military and Intelligence Secrets to Hollywood In Order to Promote a Movie That Could Help His Reelection Campaign (Source: Judicial Watch)
• First President to Terminate America's Ability to Put a Man into Space (Sources: USA Today, ABC News)
• First President to press for a "treaty giving a U.N. body veto power over the use of our territorial waters and rights to half of all offshore oil revenue" (The Law Of The Sea Treaty, Source: Investors Business Daily)
• First President to send $200 million to a terrorist organization (Hamas) after Congress had explicitly frozen the money for fear it would fund attacks against civilians (Sources: American Thinker, The Independent [UK])

Miscellaneous
• First President to Insert Himself into White House Biographies of Past Presidents (Source: The New York Times).
• First President to Golf 122 or More Times in His First Four-and-a-half Years in Office (Source: White House Dossier)

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/06/president-barack-obamas-complete-list.html

Top Ten Myths about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (REFUTED)

On June 17, 2010, political analyst and author Jeremy R. Hammond posted an article entitled "Top Ten Myths about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" in which he attempts to dispel the myths surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a decisively Anti-Israel perspective. Since his article encompasses so many of the arguments and criticisms that are levied against Israel, it's the perfect piece in which to refute those allegations which are routinely used to demonize and delegtimize Israel. Feel free to share without my permission, just give proper credit.


#1 – Jews and Arabs have always been in conflict in the region.

Claim: Jews and Arabs have not always been in conflict until Zionism.

Arab and Jew relations
Jews and Arabs have always had a contemptuous relationship.While Jews and Arabs lived in relative peace at various times with Jews, peaceful coexistence meant subordination and degradation. Under Islamic law Jews held dhimmi status, meaning that they were a protected group but were required to pay a yearly poll tax, and accept limitations and distinctive markings that emphasize the dhimmi's inferiority to Muslims. Basically they were forced to pay protection money. Jews were generally looked upon with contempt by their Muslim neighbors which the Koran refers to as “apes and pigs” (Surah 5:60).

Even when there was peace it was a tenuous peace that could change in an instant. For example, the Damascus affair in 1840, occurred when a French monk and his servant disappeared in Damascus. Immediately following, a charge of ritual murder was brought against a large number of Jews in the city including children who were tortured. The consuls of England, France and Germany as well as Ottoman authorities, Christians, Muslims and Jews all played a great role in this affair. Following the Damascus affair, Pogroms spread through the Middle East and North Africa. A pogrom is a violent riot aimed at massacre or persecution of an ethnic or religious group, particularly one aimed at Jews. Pogroms occurred in: Aleppo (1850, 1875), Damascus (1840, 1848, 1890), Beirut (1862, 1874), Dayr al-Qamar (1847), Jerusalem (1847), Cairo (1844, 1890, 1901–02), Mansura (1877), Alexandria (1870, 1882, 1901–07), Port Said (1903, 1908), Damanhur (1871, 1873, 1877, 1891), Istanbul (1870, 1874), Buyukdere (1864), Kuzguncuk (1866), Eyub (1868), Edirne (1872), Izmir (1872, 1874). There was a massacre of Jews in Baghdad in 1828. There was another massacre in Barfurush in 1867. In 1839, in the eastern Persian city of Meshed, a mob burst into the Jewish Quarter, burned the synagogue, and destroyed the Torah scrolls. This is known as the Allahdad incident. It was only by forcible conversion that a massacre was averted. -(Persecution of Jews)

In 1929 Mobs attacked Jews in Jerusalem, Safed, Jaffa and Kfar Darom, a kibbutz in the Gaza Strip. The centuries-old Jewish community of Hebron was destroyed, and 67 Jews were slaughtered. British authorities reported incidents of rape, torture, beheadings of babies and mutilation. British High Commissioner John Chancellor wrote, “I do not think that history records many worse horrors in the last few hundred years.” In total, 135 Jews were killed, and 350 were maimed or wounded. Arab fears of a Zionist takeover of the land would not account for the savagery of these attacks.

The sudden uptick in conflict between the Jews and Arabs had less to do with Zionism and more to do with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire following World War 1. Jews had been a fairly well protected, if subservient, minority in the Ottoman Empire. Dhimmis means "the protected people", and while they were second class citizens they had the right to protection of life and property. Also, keep in mind there were no nation states during this time and thus no national aspirations or rivalries. These conditions rapidly changed following the defeat of the Ottoman Turks. And once the British Mandate expired on 1948 the Jews essentially had to fend for themselves.

Palestinian self-determination
To say that Zionists have rejected Palestinian self-determination is disingenuous and ignores the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1937 Peel Commission plan, the 1947 UN Partition, the Lausanne Conference of 1949, 1978 Camp David Accords, 1991 Madrid Conference, 1993 Oslo Accords, 1997 Hebron Agreement, 1998 Wye River Memorandum, 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum, 2000 Camp David Summit, the December 23 Clinton Parameter plans, 2001 Taba Summit, 2003 Road map for peace, 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA), 2007 Annapolis Conference. All of which have been rejected or not fulfilled by the Palestinian leadership. Regardless, today Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are under self-rule.

Land allotted to the Jews
While Arabs were always the majority, the area the UN allotted for the Jewish state had a significant Jewish population. Over 70 percent of the land for the proposed Jewish portion was not privately owned, but was state land that belonged to the British Mandate. More importantly it was land that nobody wanted, such as arid wastelands or swamplands. By 1947 60% of the remaining land partitioned for the Jews was the Negev Desert. It was the Jews who were largely responsible for restoring the land and creating communities and villages where none existed before. In 1901 the Jewish National Fund was formed to help restore the land of Israel. Swamps were drained, deserts were irrigated, and trees were planted.

    “They (Jews) paid high prices for the land, and in addition, they paid to certain occupants of those lands a considerable amount of money which they were not legally bound to pay.” —Hope Simpson Report, 1930"

    “Of the total of 418,000 dunums (quarter-acres) acquired by Jews in Palestine [between 1878 and 1914], 58 percent was sold by non-Palestinian [Arab] absentee landlords and 36 percent by Palestinian absentee landlords, for a total of 94 percent.” —Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi

    “Arab claims that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamps and uncultivated when it was bought.” —Peel Commission Report, 1937

Israeli- Palestinian Conflict Part 2

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Part 2

#2 - The United Nations created Israel

Claim: The United Nations, under UNSCOP, did not create Israel because both parties did not accept Resolution 181.

The reason for the partition in the first place

The UNSCOP came to the conclusion that the conflicting national aspirations of the Arabs and Jews could not be reconciled. The only solution was to partition two states, one Jewish the other Arab. Despite that the Jews were not happy with the small allotment of territory and they would not have Jerusalem they accepted the compromise. This despite the land allotted to the Jews was only 13% of the original British Mandate for a purposed Jewish state. The Arabs rejected it, despite there being 22 Arab states and one Jewish state.

Why there were no Arab representatives

The reason UNSCOP contained no representatives from any Arab country was because the Arab Higher Committee boycotted the Commission. The Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha, speaking to Jewish Agency representatives David Horowitz, said, "The Arab world is not in a compromising mood. It's likely, Mr. Horowitz, that your plan is rational and logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic. Nations never concede; they fight. You won't get anything by peaceful means or compromise. You can, perhaps, get something, but only by the force of your arms. We shall try to defeat you. I am not sure we'll succeed, but we'll try. We were able to drive out the Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia. It may be that we shall lose Palestine. But it's too late to talk of peaceful solutions." –(September 16, 1947)

Israel's legitimacy

Once the Ottoman Empire was defeated in World War 1, the land ceased belonging to the Turks and went to the Allied powers. The British and French in turn carved up the middle-east into nation states and turned it back to the Arabs to self-rule. The legitimacy of these Arab countries are never questioned. In the case of Palestine, the land essential became up for grabs once the British Mandate expired on May 14th 1948, the day Israel declared independence. Israel’s international “birth certificate” is validated by uninterrupted Jewish settlement from the time of Joshua onward; the Balfour Declaration of 1917; the League of Nations Mandate, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration; the United Nations partition resolution of 1947; Israel’s admission to the UN in 1949; and the recognition of Israel by most other states.

Israeli- Palestinian Conflict Part 3

Israeli- Palestinian Conflict Part 3

#3 – The Arabs missed an opportunity to have their own state in 1947.

Claim: The Arabs are justified in rejecting the 1947 U.N. partition plan because the land was stolen from them in the first place and rightfully belonged to them.

Land Ownership
As previously noted, Jews were the majority in the land allotted to them under UN Resolution 181. While Jewish immigration increased from Europe, Jews never had a chance to reach majority in the region. Jewish immigration and land purchases under the British Mandate period were severely restricted, while Arabs were free to enter the country. And many Arabs did immigrate by the thousands, which had been in decline prior to the Mandate in 1922.

Jews would have been given 55 percent of the land for a state, and Arabs 45 percent. However this 45 percent was on top of the 77 percent of the original mandate which was intended for the Jewish state, but under Arab pressure was cut off and granted to the Hashemites. It was Jordan that was meant to absorb the recently displaced Palestinian Arabs, who today make up over 70% of Jordan. The Jewish state was left with a mere 13 percent of the land from the original British Mandate, most of which was land nobody wanted, such as the Negev desert.

David Ben-Gurion Quote
The accusation that the first Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, intended to take all of Palestine by force is completely untrue. His quote is taken out of context from a meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive which was the pre-state representative body of the Jews in the Palestine Mandate. In proper context, Ben-Gurion actually says the opposite:

"Mr. Ben-Gurion: The starting point for a solution of the question of the Arabs in the Jewish State is, in his view, the need to prepare the ground for an Arab-Jewish agreement; he supports [the establishment of] the Jewish State [on a small part of Palestine], not because he is satisfied with part of the country, but on the basis of the assumption that after we constitute a large force following the establishment of the state – we will cancel the partition [of the country between Jews and Arabs] and we will expand throughout the Land of Israel.

Mr. Shapira [a JAE member]: By force as well?

Mr. Ben-Gurion: [No]. Through mutual understanding and Jewish-Arab agreement. So long as we are weak and few the Arabs have neither the need nor the interest to conclude an alliance with us... And since the state is only a stage in the realization of Zionism and it must prepare the ground for our expansion throughout the whole country through Jewish-Arab agreement – we are obliged to run the state in such a way that will win us the friendship of the Arabs both within and outside the state."

(From Efraim Karsh, “Falsifying the Record: Benny Morris, David Ben-Gurion, and the ‘Transfer’ Idea,” Israel Affairs, vol. 4, no. 2, winter 1997, at p. 52 ((found in Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America))

This misquote comes from Noam Chomsky’s book “Fateful Triangle”. Chomsky says, “This was, in fact, one of Ben-Gurion’s constant themes. In internal discussion in 1938, he stated that “after we become a strong force, as the result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine... The state will only be a stage in the realization of Zionism and its task is to prepare the ground for our expansion into the whole of Palestine by a Jewish-Arab agreement... The state will have to preserve order not only by preaching morality but by machine guns, if necessary.” -(pg. 289-290). Not only does Chomsky put words in Ben-Gurion’s mouth, but he cleverly substitutes “Palestine” for “Israel”. So now instead of Ben-Gurion talking about expanding throughout the “Land of Israel”, he is now talking about expanding through “the whole of Palestine”, which encompasses a much larger territory.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Part 4

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Part 5

#5 – The Arab nations threatened Israel with annihilation in 1967 and 1973

Claim: Israel was the aggressor in 1967, there was no imminent threat.  The 1973 surprise attack by the Arabs was justified.

The 1956 Suez Canal Crisis
Egypt was never a victim. Under the Constantinople Convention of 1888, which Egypt signed, it ensured that, “The Suez Maritime Canal shall always be free and open, in time of war as in time of peace, to every vessel of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag.” However in 1949, continuing it's hostilities toward Israel, Egypt closed the Suez Canal to Israeli shipping and cargoes, illegally blocking the canal. The consequences not only affected Israel but the financial and strategic interests of the United Kingdom and France as well. UN negotiator Ralph Bunche said, “There should be free movement for legitimate shipping and no vestiges of the wartime blockade should be allowed to remain, as they are inconsistent with both the letter and the spirit of the armistice agreements.”

 On September 1, 1951, the Security Council ordered Egypt to open the Canal to Israeli shipping. Egypt refused to comply. The Egyptian Foreign Minister, Muhammad Salah al-Din, said early in 1954 that, “The Arab people will not be embarrassed to declare: We shall not be satisfied except by the final obliteration of Israel from the map of the Middle East.” (Al-Misri, April 12, 1954). It was during the period that a new type of warfare began to emerge. Egypt had begun to train and equip the Fedayeen in terrorist attacks against Israel. In 1955 Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser said, “Egypt has decided to dispatch her heroes (the Fedayeen), the disciples of Pharaoh and the sons of Islam and they will cleanse the land of Palestine....There will be no peace on Israel's border because we demand vengeance, and vengeance is Israel's death.” –August 31st, 1955.

In 1956 Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal, repudiating the treaties concluded with Britain and France, and blockaded Israel's shipping land in the Straights of Tiran. Meanwhile the Fedayeen intensified their attacks.

By all accounts the blockade of the Suez Canal and Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping, combined with the increased Fedayeen attacks and the bellicosity of Arab statements was tantamount to an act of war. Israel, with the backing of Britain and France, attacked Egypt on October 29, 1956.
"During the six years during which this belligerency (Egypt) has operated in violation of the Armistice Agreement there have occurred 1,843 cases of armed robbery and theft, 1,339 cases of armed clashes with Egyptian armed forces, 435 cases of incursion from Egyptian controlled territory, 172 cases of sabotage perpetrated by Egyptian military units and Fedayeen in Israel. As a result of these actions of Egyptian hostility within Israel, 364 Israelis were wounded and 101 killed. In 1956 alone, as a result of this aspect of Egyptian aggression, 28 Israelis were killed and 127 wounded." -Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Abba Eban

The 1967 Six-Day War
Israel’s preemptive attacks was justifiable by the hostilities that began prior to the Six Day War. Syria used the Golan Heights to shell Israeli farms and villages, Egypt was threatening Israel, and Arab terrorists were increasingly attacking Israel. On May 15, 1967 Egyptian troops massed near the Israeli border. On May 18 Syrian troops massed along the Golan Heights. And on May 22 Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran.

Approximately 250,000 troops (nearly half in Sinai), more than 2,000 tanks and 700 aircraft ringed Israel. Blockading the Straights of Tiran cut off Israel's route with Asia and stopped the flow of oil from it's main supplier Iran. Such provocations would not be tolerated by any other country and ensured that war was inevitable.

Following the six-day war Israel captured the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza, and the West Bank. Israel was justified in keeping these territories not only as a buffer zone against future attacks, but to demonstrate to the Arabs that provocation would not come without consequences.

"The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel...to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not declarations." -Nassar May 1967

"As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel. We shall exercise patience no more. We shall not complain any more to the UN about Israel. The sole method we shall apply against Israel is total war, which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence." –the Voice of the Arabs radio station proclaimed on May 18, 1967. Source:Isi Leibler, The Case For Israel, (Australia: The Globe Press, 1972), pp. 60–61.  

"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." -Syrian Defense Minister Hafez Assad, May 20th 1967

Jewish quotes
The author purports several quotes that seem to portray Israel as the aggressor. These cherry picked quotes are often taken out of context and parroted on Anti-Israel sites as “proof” Israel was the aggressor. For instance, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin admits that, “In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.” While this quote is true it is also lacks proper context. What follows is what Menachem Begin said in full:

“In June, 1967 we again had a choice [as in 1956]. The Egyptian army concentration in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him. [But] This was a war of self-defense in the noblest sense of the term. The government of national unity then established decided unanimously: We will take the initiative and attack the enemy, drive him back, and thus assure the security of Israel and the future of the nation.”

…There is no decisive mandate to go to war only if there is no alternative. There is no moral imperative that a nation must, or is entitled to, fight only when its back is to the sea, or the abyss. Such a war may avert tragedy, if not a Holocaust, for any nation; but it causes it terrible loss of life .... A free, sovereign nation, which hates war and loves peace, and which is concerned about its security, must create the conditions under which war, if there is a need for it, will not be for lack of alternatives. The conditions must be such — and their creation depends upon man’s reason and his actions — that the price of victory will be few casualties, not many.” –Menachem Begin, Aug. 8, 1982 speech to Israel’s National Defense College, speaking of the Six-Day War. (Source:Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America)

In full context Menachem Begin actually defends Israel’s actions as self-defense and not as an act of aggression. Next Yitzhak Rabin is quoted as saying, “I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it.” Again, context is everything. The quote is taken from an article entitled "General Rabin did not think Nasser wanted war":

“Question: Do you think Nasser pretended to believe your threats because he was trying to provoke a war?

Yitzhak Rabin: I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent into Sinai on 14 May would not have been enough to trigger an offensive against Israel. He knew, and we knew it. This demonstrates, in my view, that Nasser did not believe that we would attack Syria. He was bluffing; he wanted to present a good price, as the savior of Syria and thus gain broad sympathy in the Arab world. We knew the scheme since he had already used in 1960 at the time of the Egyptian-Syrian union. Following a raid that we conducted in the DMZ, it had concentrated troops, believing that we were planning an attack. A month later, he withdrew ensuring that the Syrians had managed to scare us. But there eight years, he had not requested the withdrawal of UN forces. This time, he felt the need to give more credibility to his bluff. Indeed, propaganda Arab anti-Nasser prompted him to end the constantly accusing him of "hiding behind the international forces."

Question: Why did he do it because he does not want war and he knew, moreover, that your army was superior to his?

Yitzhak Rabin: This is where our logic does not match that of the Arabs. These rarely distinguish between reality and dreams. Nasser was intoxicated by the surge of popular enthusiasm in the Arab world, as well as its own propaganda. He came to believe that the Egyptian army was not defeated by Israel in 1956, but only by the Franco-British intervention. He then built a whole system of thought, that Israel would not take the initiative of hostilities in 1967 because he could not rely, as in 1956, on the support of foreign powers. Judging by the seven divisions he sent into Sinai after the closure of Aqaba, yet he knew that we would consider his actions as a casus belli.

Question: The partial blockade of Aqaba was not however a matter of life or death for the State of Israel, which could ensure its supplies through Haifa, as was the case before 1956. Moreover, President Nasser, you probably know, was willing to make concessions for the passage of oil, among others. Why have you started the war forty-eight hours before the arrival in Washington of Mr. Zakaria Mohyeddine who went there specifically to negotiate a settlement?

Yitzhak Rabin: The closure of the Gulf of Aqaba, in itself, I repeat, was for us a casus belli. However, fundamentally, the war was caused by a combination of local and international factors. The negative role of the Soviet Union has exacerbated the passions and hatred prevailing in the region.” -Source: Le Monde, 29 February 1968 (translated from French)

Yitzhak Rabin is saying here that Nassar may not have wanted a war, but he became overconfident and backed himself in a corner. Israel had been on alert for weeks and could not remain mobilized indefinitely, nor could it allow the Gulf of Aqaba to be closed. Hammond's quote omits the May 14 date as do many, but not all, sources of this quote. However the date is important. Many things happened between May 14th and June 5th. Egypt ordered the UN peacekeepers to leave, Egypt blockaded Israel's Red Sea Port. Egypt moved another 5 divisions to the Israeli Border, 100,000 troops in all. And Israel was being threatened with genocide.

The author also quotes General Ezer Weizman (Ha' aretz, March 29), Chief of Staff Haim Bar-Lev (Ma’ariv, April 4, 1972), Mordecai Bentov (Al-Hamishmar, April 14, 1971), and General Chaim Herzog (Ma' ariv, April 4, 1972). I have not been able to confirm any of these quotes, but again without context it's meaningless.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Part 6

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Part 4

#4 – Israel has a “right to exist”

Claim: Israel is illegitimate because it stole land belonging to the Arab's


Israel's right to exist

In the words of Israeli diplomat and politician Abba Eban, “Nobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its ‘right to exist.' Israel’s right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved. Israel’s legitimacy is not suspended in midair awaiting acknowledgement. . . . There is certainly no other state, big or small, young or old, that would consider mere recognition of its ‘right to exist’ a favor, or a negotiable concession.” Put simply, no nation has to try to prove it’s legitimacy or it’s right to exist. It exists for the same reason that any other nation exists, because it can and because it can occupy the land and defend it. This is true for any nation in history. 

The framework for a Jewish state began with the British Mandate which expired on May 14, 1948, the day Israel declared independence. To date 149 countries acknowledge Israel's legitimacy. The boundaries of this new Jewish state closely resembles the boundaries of the UN Resolution 181 proposed boundaries for a Jewish state. As previously noted the land allocated for the Jews held a Jewish majority. If this seems unreasonable consider this, there are 22 Arab countries and 400 million Arabs, and only one Jewish state the size of New Jersey, which is one fifth of one percent of the middle-east. The Jews had gone without a place to call their own for 1,800 years and have endured persecutions and genocides. The grave injustice here was not accepting the Jewish state. Today Israeli Palestinians, which make up 20% of the country, are not treated as second class citizens but have the same rights as Jews and can serve in the Israeli military and government. In many cases Israeli Palestinians have a higher standard of living than Arabs elsewhere in the middle-east. This is a contrast to the way Jews were treated under the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand Palestinian Authorities have said no Jews would be allowed within a Palestinian state. So whose really apartheid? 

No sooner had Israel declared independence when they were attacked by five Arab armies. It was this attack that created a refugee problem to begin with. The author makes the argument that the attack was justified because the Zionists stole land, however if land were the reason it ignores the Rhodes armistice talks of 1949 where Israel offered to return the lands it had conquered, that were originally meant for a Palestinian Arab state, in exchange for a peace treaty. If accepted this would have allowed displaced Palestinians to return to their homes. The Arabs rejected this offer and instead continued there aggression towards Israel, which ultimately led to the 1956 Suez crisis. Again in 1949, at the Lausanne conference, Israel offered to repatriate a hundred thousand refugees without even a peace treaty. Again the Arab stated rejected this offer because it would mean recognition of the state of Israel. One has to wonder if the surrounding Arab nations cared so much for their fellow Palestinian Arabs why did Egypt and Jordan annex lands meant for the Palestinians for themselves after the 1948 war? It is apparently not an issue when other Arabs take land that is intended for the Palestinians. 

Ethnic cleansing and the cause of the refuge problem

Even though Israel has never had a policy of ethnic cleansing, this accusation continues to rear it’s ugly head. Many Palestinian Arabs, in fact, left prior to the 1948 war on their own accord by the urging of Arab leaders.

  

“Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return.” —Haled al Azm, Syrian Prime Minister, 1948-1949

“The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians… but instead they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave.” —PA President Mahmoud Abbas, 1976

“We will smash the country. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down.” —Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said, 1948

There is no mention of the Jews who were forced to flee from Arab countries after 1948. In total it is estimated that 800,000 to 1,000,000 Jews were forced out or fled from their homes in Arab countries from 1948 until the early 1970s. Between 1948 and 2000, the Jewish population in Middle Eastern and North African countries dropped from around 900,000 to less than 50,000. 

Dier Yassin
In Dier Yassin Israel is accused of perpetuating a massacre. The events are contested but apparently a contingent of Iraqi troops entered the village on March 13, 1948. In response a contingent of Israeli paramilitary splinter group called the Irgun entered Dier Yassin to drive out the Iraqis. They tried to get the message out for the civilians to flee and left several routes open, to which more than two-thirds did flee. However the Iraqi soldiers disguised themselves as women, hid their weapons under their robes, and blended in with the remaining women and children in the village. When the Irgun did arrive they started taking fire from what they thought were women. Fire was returned by the Irgun and in the course of the battle many innocent women did die, along with 40% of the Irgun.

According to Arab scholars at Beir Zeit University in Ramallah there was no massacre but a confusing military conflict in which civilians were killed in the crossfire. According to these scholars the total Arabs dead, including Iraqi solders, were 107. The Arab sources have also acknowledge that the Arab spokesmen at the time exaggerated and made up stories of rape and murder of women and children. They also say the reason these stories were exaggerated was to shame the nations into attacking Israel. In the PBS documentary "The 50 years wars" survivors of Dier Yassin were interviewed and they recall begging Dr. Hussein Khalidi, director of Voice of Palestine (the Palestinian radio station in East Jerusalem) to edit out the lies and fabrications of atrocities that never happened. But he refused, telling them: "We must capitalize on this great opportunity!" -(David Meir-Levi - History Upside Down)

To add to this Yassir Arafat notes in his own authorized biography the Egyptians used the Dier Yassin "massacre" to terrorize the Palestinians of the South, so they could be more easily herded into makeshift concentration camps in Gaza. The Egyptians forcibly disarmed the Arabs and killed those who tried to escape the camps. Arafat blamed the Egyptians for the refugee problem in Gaza. (Alan Hart, Arafat: Terrorist or Peace Maker?)

"The fabricated atrocity stories about Deir Yassin were our biggest mistake...Palestinians fled in terror.” —Hazem Nusseibeh, editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service’s Arabic news in 1948.  

So to say that the Arabs have acknowledged Israel’s right to self-determination is a gross understatement and ignores the three major military attacks against Israel, the terrorist’s attacks, the propaganda campaigns, and the various economic boycotts including the Council of the Arab League’s economic boycott against the Jews of Mandatory Palestine and the modern BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions).

A Palestinian State
On the other hand Israel has been willing to acknowledge a Palestinian state, most notably at the 2000 Camp David Summit. The only major caveat was that the Palestinian Authorities recognize the Jewish state, which they refused to do. In more recent times Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated this sentiment, “The real reason is the persistent refusal to recognize a sovereign Jewish state in any boundary. That was and remains the core of this conflict. To solve this, the Palestinians will have to recognize the Jewish state just as we recognize a Palestinian state. Both peoples, both nations, deserve a nation-state of their own. Palestinians, if they wish so, will go to the Palestinian state; Jews, if they so wish, can go to the Jewish state. And we’ll have to have security and demilitarization agreements between us.” -Source. The bigger question is do the Palestinians currently deserve a state? First they must be willing to live in peaceful coexistence with their neighbors. The next question is a Palestinian state politically and economically even viable? As it stands the Palestinians are economically dependent on others to survive, including Israel who is a major employer of Palestinian labor and a main trading partner. Even with financial aid from UNRWA and other countries, about one-fifth of the Palestinian population lives in poverty and has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world. -Source. Then there is the question of territory, even with Gaza and the West Bank combined it would not be able to absorb all the Palestinian Arabs from the surrounding countries. 

Self-Determination (again)
On the issue of self-determination, for 19 years from 1948 until the Six Day War, no Arab leader argued for the right of national self-determination. It wasn’t until Yasser Arafat turned the issue into a human rights struggle that it became about self-determination. David Meir, in his book History Upside Down, describes this shift in tactics:

"Arafat was particularly struck by Ho Chi Minh's success in mobilizing left-wing sympathizers in Europe and the United States, where activists on American campuses, enthusiastically following the [propaganda] line of North Vietnamese operatives, had succeeded in reframing the Vietnam war from a Communist assault on the south to a struggle for national liberation. Ho's chief strategist, General Giap, made it clear to Arafat and his lieutenants that in order to succeed, they too needed to redefine the terms of their struggle. Giap's counsel was simple but profound: the PLO needed to work in a way that concealed its real goals, permitted strategic deception, and gave the appearance of moderation:"Stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your terror war into a struggle for human rights. Then you will have the American people eating out of your hand.

At the same time that he was getting advice from General Giap, Arafat was also being tutored by Muhammad Yazid, who had been minister of information in two Algerian wartime governments (1958-1962): wipe out the argument that Israel is a small state whose existence is threatened by the Arab states, or the reduction of the Palestinian problem to a question of refugees; instead, present the Palestinian struggle as a struggle for liberation like the others. Wipe out the impression that in the struggle between the Palestinians and the Zionists, the Zionist is the underdog. Now it is the Arab who is oppressed and victimized in his existence because he is not only facing the Zionists but also world imperialism.

To make sure that they followed this advice, the KGB put Arafat and his adjutants into the hands of a master of propaganda: Nicolai Ceausescu, president-for-life of Romania.

For the next few years, Ceausescu hosted Arafat frequently and gave him lessons on how to apply the advice of Giap, Yazid, and others in the Soviet orbit. Arafat's personal "handler," Ion Mihai Pacepa, the head of the Romanian military intelligence, had to work hard on his sometimes unruly protege. Pacepa later recorded a number of sessions during which Arafat railed against Ceausescu's injunctions that the PLO should present itself as a people's revolutionary army striving to right wrongs and free the oppressed: he wanted only to obliterate Israel. Gradually, though, Ceausescu's lessons in Machiavellian statecraft sank in. During his early Lebanon years, Arafat developed propaganda tactics that would allow him to create the image of a homeless people oppressed by a colonial power. This makeover would serve him well in the west for decades to come."

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Part 5

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Part 6

#6 – U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 called only for a partial Israeli withdrawal.

Claim:Under U.N. Resolution 242 Israel is required to fully withdraw from "all" territory captured in the Six-Day War.

Resolution 242
The first point addressed by the resolution is the "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." Some people read Resolution 242 as though it ends here and the case for requiring a total Israeli withdrawal from the territories is proven. On the contrary, this clause does no such thing, because the reference clearly applies only to an offensive war. If not, the resolution would provide an incentive for aggression. If one country attacks another, and the defender repels the attack and acquires territory in the process, the former interpretation would require the defender to return the land it took. Thus, aggressors would have little to lose because they would be insured against the main consequence of defeat.

The ultimate goal of Resolution 242, as expressed in paragraph 3, is the achievement of a "peaceful and accepted settlement." This means a negotiated agreement based on the resolution's principles rather than one imposed upon the parties. Egypt had refused to enter direct talks with Israel and ultimately rejected Resolution 242.

Withdrawing from occupied territories
The most controversial clause in Resolution 242 is the call for the "Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict." This is linked to the second unambiguous clause calling for "termination of all claims or states of belligerency" and the recognition that "every State in the area" has the "right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force."

The resolution does not make Israeli withdrawal a prerequisite for Arab action. Moreover, it does not specify how much territory Israel is required to give up. The Security Council did not say Israel must withdraw from "all" the territories occupied after the Six-Day war. The principal condition is that Israel withdraw from "territories occupied" in 1967, which means that Israel must withdraw from some, all, or none of the territories still occupied.

If there are any doubts, the literal interpretation was repeatedly declared to be the correct one by those involved in drafting the resolution. On October 29, 1969, for example, the British Foreign Secretary told the House of Commons the withdrawal envisaged by the resolution would not be from "all the territories." When asked to further explain later Lord Caradon, the British Ambassador who drafted the approved resolution said, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial."  Similarly, Ambassador Goldberg explained, "The notable omissions-which were not accidental-in regard to withdrawal are the words 'the' or 'all' and 'the June 5, 1967 lines'....the resolution speaks of withdrawal from occupied territories without defining the extent of withdrawal."

Regardless Israel has already partially, if not wholly, fulfilled its obligation under 242. Since the Six-Day War Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in 1979. Jordan and Egypt renounced their claims to Gaza and the West Bank Territories in 1979 and 1988. And Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.

Why these territories were captured
These territories were captured as a penalty to dissuade further aggression and to act as a buffer zone against future attacks.The Golan Heights in particular is important because it is the high ground. When Syria controlled the Golan Heights they used it shell Israel and snipe it's citizen's. Every time Israel has given up land, terrorists have used it to launch attacks against Israel as can been seen with Gaza and the Sinai peninsula today, which has become a terrorist hotbed.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Part 7