Jerusalem Post's Geography Lesson by David Harris: New Jersey and Israel-Same Size

Nadene Goldfoot

Almost every responsible political leader today expresses a desire to contribute to peace in the Middle East. Easier said than done. A real effort to promote peace requires an understanding of what motivates the parties to the conflict.I can't say I quite get what makes the Palestinians tick. Like the late statesman Abba Eban, I haven't grasped why Palestinian leaders never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.But I do believe that anyone who genuinely seeks peace, or who aspires to be a friend of the Israeli people, should consider four key factors that inform the Israeli worldview.

Geography

The throwaway line these days is that geography no longer matters in an era of long-range missiles. Not so fast.As the late Sir Isaiah Berlin famously quipped, "The Jews have enjoyed rather too much history and too little geography."Israel is a small country, about the size of New Jersey or Wales, and barely two-thirds the size of Belgium. To put it into context, Egypt is approximately fifty times larger than Israel, Saudi Arabia a hundred times.And there's more. Until its 1967 war for survival, Israel's borders, which were nothing more than the armistice lines from the 1948 War of Independence, were nine miles at their narrowest point, near the country's midsection and most populous area.When President George W. Bush first saw that narrow width from the vantage point of a helicopter, he was reported to have said, "There are some driveways in Texas longer than Israel is wide."Topography matters too. When the towering Golan Heights were in the hands of Syria before the Six-Day War, for example, Jewish villages and farms below were regularly targeted by Syrian shelling. Ask my wife. She was a volunteer in a kibbutz there. With the Golan Heights in Israel's hands, those villages and farms no longer have to rush their children into underground shelters.

My comment is that I found this to be so true as I lived in Haifa and Safed from 1980-1985 and saw how very small Israel truly is. That's why I'm constantly amazed at the willingness of our country to divide it up more and give parts of it away continually. This will never lead to peace, only the destruction of Israel. We started with a piece of land bigger, and it has constantly been chopped apart. We gained land in 1967 but have lost other parts since then for peace which has not come. Has anyone learned a lesson here?

Research: http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/harris/

Swimming Against the Current in the Peace Process

Nadene Goldfoot

Dr. Dore Gold, Israel's ambassador to the UN in 1997-99, is President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and author of "The Fight for Jerusalem " asked the question about the Oslo peace process of the 1990's and the present day Road Map of 2003.

He brings out that in phase I of the Oslo peace process, the Palestinians were to end incitement against Israel in all their institutions. It was after this happened that there was to be talks about an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders. Education for Peace was an Oslo requirement.

Again, there are no negotiations about Palestinian statehood, according to the Roadmap, until the Palestinians' phase I obligations are fully met.

The Palestinian textbooks for the 12th grade show a regression to the use of hostile language referring to jihad and martyrdom, emphasising the need for steadfastness against the enemies of Islam. Israel was removed from all the maps in the text. The West Bank Palestinians are being governed by a Fatah-dominated government led by Abbas which still uses older textbooks, so they are maintaining hostile propaganda against Israel in Palestinian schools.

It looks to me like Condoleesa Rice is trying to negotiate a future Palestinian state by circumventing the Bush administration's own 2003 Roadmap sequence. She's forgetting about the Palestinian obligations by talking about the issues like borders, Jerusalem and refugees. In the meantime, Hamas and Fatah have been engaged in secret backchannel talks to restore their relationship.

How can Israel have a Palestinian neighbor who continues to teach hatred for Israel? How can Israel expect a peaceful coexistance? Do we think peace will come about after the establishment of a Palestine at this rate? No, I don't. It will mean they will be that much closer and will be armed with more weapons to destroy Israel.

Oslo had the right idea in the beginning; that of asking the Palestinians to teach acceptance of Israel first before talking about creating a state. It's too bad that the current is so strong that it is carrying Rice along with it and she has given up these expectations. Swimming against this current could save the world.

Reference: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs 25 September 2007 Where is the Issue of Education for Peace in the Olmet-Rice-Abbas Initiative? by Dore Gold

Crossroads for Israel

by Nadene Goldfoot

Israel is facing a most dangerous position right now. It is at the crossroads of making a decision that will bring it peace in the Middle East
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Israel has to make some decisions. Right now the left is in command with Olmert and USA's President Bush. They are backing the Palestinian's Fatah's leader who is now in the West Bank area, having left the Gaza to Hamas. They are hoping to advance their peace process. The question is if this highway to peace isn't giving the terrorists and other aggressive Arab states power. American presidents haven't really been of much help in advancing peace for Israel, though we are led to believe they have.

Arafat had visited with President Clinton many times and Clinton did nothing to stop jihad events even when the US embassy and US warships were bombed. Bush is not attempting to do anything to halt the threats of Iran and Syria when both these countries are threatening Israel's security. No matter what happens to Israel, Bush will be exhalted for trying to bring peace in the area, just like Clinton. In other words, what will happen to Israel is strictly up to Israel's decision right now, regardless of what the United States proposes
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To the right sits Likud's Binyamin Netanyahu and the former IDF chief of General Staff Moshe Ya'alon who state that Israel can't live with a Hamas state on the border. Hamas is supported by Iran who want to crush Israel as much as the Hamas terrorists want to. Even hundreds of Palestinians are fleeing from Gaza and are pounding the door at the border of Israel trying to get in. They fear for their lives because they were Fatah supporters. They're trying to get to the West Bank where Fatah still has control.

So far Olmert and the left are in command. The question remains. How will Israel ever exist with such enemies on its border and the hope of a friendly state of Palestine squelched by the Hamas takeover. Bush just stated that he hopes Abbas will be successful in the West Bank. He was ineffectual in Gaza, however. What will happen if Hamas takes over all the Palestinians?

Update: 3/27/19

No Jews Allowed Here

by Nadene Goldfoot

The state of Palestine is to be built upon land that was decreed in 1922 to be a Jewish homeland. 

 Unlike the United States and Israel, the future Palestine is to be free of Jews, Judenrhein, though many Palestinian Arabs live in Israel and even have their own political party. President Bush had told Israel that Israeli settlement in "occupied territories", which meant the West Bank, had to stop. In the hope of peace, Israel froze the expansion of Jewish communities beyond the 1949 armistice lines. Jews who already live in cities like Ariel and Maaleh Adumin cannot receive building permits for any remodeling. There is no building going on in Judea and Samaria (West Bank). Israel also moved Israeli residents of Gaza and northern Samaria completely out of the area just to appease the Arabs.

What have the Palestinians done to cooperate? They have received more foreign aid than nations of Europe under the Marshall Plan. With this money they have supported terrorist groups with arms. They are also supported by Iran and its client state Syria. The Hizbullah in Lebanon are also fed by Iran. Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues to issue daily decrees of wiping Israel off the map and Syria threatens Israel with war one minute, yet states they hope the two countries would resume talks the next minute.  
While Israel has been compliant with the United State's dream of an independent peaceful Palestinian state next to Israel, the Palestinians dream is completely different; that of taking over the whole area.

Ideas from Caroline B. Glick's article: 5 years after Bush's utopian speech about resolving Arab-Israeli conflict, and news bulletins.

Update 3/27/19 +