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December
1, 2008
The Saudi
"Peace" Plan...
An Offer Israel Can -- And Should --
Refuse
by Gerald A. Honigman
According
to a Times Of London story on November 16th,
President-elect Obama allegedly stated that Israel
would be crazy not to accept the resurrected,
alleged Saudi "Peace Plan." Dubya and Condi
are trying real hard to force this post-Thankgiving
turkey down Israel's throat as well.
A bit earlier, a stop along President Bush's
Middle East trip--after further pressuring Jews to
further accept his vision of Abbas's latter day
terrorist Arafatians as being the good cops
-- took President Bush to the sands of the Saudis
and other Arabian Peninsula nations.
A photo was published worldwide of the President
wielding a sword along with Bahraini hosts, and
Dubya brought along a New Year's present -- tens of
billions of dollars in military aid...Hey, if we
don't sell it to them, the Brits, Germans, French,
and so forth certainly will. So goes the
argument
During that visit, Bush asked if perhaps the
Arabs might reach out to Israel a bit more.
Saudi King Abdullah responded that he didn't know
what else he could do. After all, he came up with
his own "peace" (of the grave) plan some time
ago...the one Obama now claims Israel would be nuts
to reject. Here it is in a nutshell...
If Israel (and not a Jewish Israel) merely
agreed to return to its pre-'67, 9-mile wide '49
armistice line -- not border -- existence and
agreed to be swamped by millions of "returning"
jihadist refugees (many, if not most, of whom were
new-comers to the Palestinian Mandate themselves)
created because the Arab attempt to nip a reborn
Israel in the bud backfired, along with everything
else that the Arabs demand for the Jewish State's
suicide, then the Saudis and other Arabs might
normalize relations with Israel.
Again, the above is the plan that Obama, Condi,
and Dubya consider to be an offer that Israel
simply can't refuse. Of course, they'd
accept such a plan for America given similar
circumstances (yeah, right)...What's even
more sickening is that they get
stuck-in-the-ghetto-minded Uncle Abe (instead of
Uncle Tom) Jews like Ehud Olmert and Shimon Peres
to sing praises to it as well. Where are those
Israeli elections!!!???
The Desert Kingdom has long gotten away with a
virtual free pass from America and most of the rest
of the world. The same folks -- including academics
and others who should know better -- who routinely
scrutinize Israel and the actions it's forced to
take merely to survive, act deaf, dumb, and blind
when it comes to the Saudis and too many other
Arabs controlling much of the world's oil and
influencing many other petrodollar-connected,
multi-national corporations in the process.
Together, this power and influence--via their many
tentacles and manifestations-- make the much spoken
about "Zionist lobby" look pitiful.
Years back, when I was a card-carrying member of
the London-based Anti-Slavery Society, persistent
reports spoke of slavery throughout Saudi Arabia
and other Arab lands
in the oil fields, and
other places as well. It was still "above ground"
up until the middle of the last century. But it was
all treated as though it didn't exist. Have you
ever noticed the many black Saudis and other Arabs?
Guess who and what their mothers mostly were?
Hush...
Okay. Let's get back on track.
What else can the Saudis do to reach out to the
Jews? Here's some suggestions
On Dubya's trip, he pledged some twenty billion
dollars in state-of-the-art aircraft, missiles,
bombs, and so forth to the Saudis, supposedly to
bolster them against the Iranian bogeyman.
The problem is, despite all of those Arabs
prancing around with their swords, each time they
were threatened -- by fellow Arabs like Saddam or
the Iranians--America had to pull their chestnuts
out of the fire with our own blood and money
anyway
despite billions of dollars in military
aid given previously. Not to mention the Saudis'
gift of most of the suicide/homicide bombers of
9/11.
Previous sophisticated weaponry and aircraft
that the Saudis pledged to place to face the
Iranian threat were stationed a stone's throw from
Israel instead. Indeed, they've been expanding the
King Faisal Air Base at Tabuk. Prior to Bush's new
holiday gift, the base contained about 50 advanced
F-15S fighter-jets, which were sent to the
northwestern facility on the eve of the U.S.-led
war against Iraq in March 2003. Other promises
related to those sales later proved to be worthless
as well.
So much for past and future similar Arab
guarantees...
What else could the Saudis do for Israel?
How about honoring the pledges above, for
starters.
The Protocols Of The Learned Elders Of
Zion is perhaps one of the most flagrantly
anti-Semitic doctrines ever written. Guess who was
one of the latter day leaders in endorsing and
spreading it around?
While the Saudis aren't the only Arabs still
doing this sort of hate-spreading stuff ("peaceful"
Egypt still freely indulges), ending such practices
is another suggestion for the "what else"
as
is ending dehumanizing "kilab yahud" -- Jew
dogs -- even further by routinely also calling
them sons of apes and pigs. Extend this
further by revising the textbooks of Arab children,
hatred in the media, sermons, and so forth which
routinely demonize Jews and Israel, and an Arab
"peace" might become more believable.
Since America is poised to force a pax
Saudia on Israel, are you ready for more?
When Israel was squeezed by President Clinton at
Camp David and Taba to cave in to Arafat and
abandon its right to defensible "secure and
recognized" borders instead of pre-'67
Auschwitz/armistice lines a la resolution 242,
while Arafat rejected the plan, Clinton and the
State Department's Arabist "deal" Prime Minister
Barak was forced to accept became the new
starting point for President Bush's
subsequent Annapolis travesty. With numerous
anti-Israel friends and advisors, it will certainly
be a President Obama's as well.
During the era of Clinton's "Oslo Peace," the
more Israel tangibly conceded to Arabs, the more it
bled.
Guess who was paying Arab families tens of
thousands of dollars each for having a "shahid"
member blow up Jewish kids in teen night clubs,
buses, pizzerias, and so forth during the
Intifada (conducted under Arafat and Abbas's
Fatah good cops' watch -- not that of Hamas's bad
cops)? Maybe Saudi despots, who condemn women
victims of rape to hundreds of lashes and
humiliation, could revise their policy here
also
The Saudis, like other Arabs, are always quick
to claim the whole region as purely Arab
patrimony. Hence their additional concern about
Iranians and others who call the body of water in
the north the Persian Gulf instead of the Arabian
Gulf. More than just words are involved here.
Since Arabs claim all that they acquired after
Muhammad and successor Caliphal armies burst out of
the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century C.E.,
conquering and forcibly Arabized millions of
non-Arab peoples and their lands, and then rejected
the rights of Jews (one half in Israel who were
refugees from "Arab"/Muslim lands), Kurds, Berbers,
black Africans, and so forth in a later age of
nationalism to resurrected political rights of
their own, perhaps the Saudis need to be reminded
of another time period in what is now their
country
As I have written elsewhere, when Muhammad, the
Prophet of Islam, fled enemies in Mecca to Medina
in 622 C.E. (the Hijrah), the inhabitants
welcomed him. Medina had been developed centuries
earlier as a thriving date palm oasis by Jews
fleeing the Roman assault on Judaea (the
banu-Qurayzah and banu-al-Nadir tribes, etc.).
Medina's mixed population of Jews and pagan Arabs
opened their doors to the future Prophet of
Islam.
Muhammad learned much from the Jews. While the
actual timing of his decision on the qibla,
the direction of prayer, may never be known, during
his long sojourn with the Jews of Medina, his
followers were instructed to pray towards
Jerusalem. Early prominent Arab historians such as
Jalaluddin came right out and openly stated that
this was done as an attempt to win support among
influential Jewish tribes (the "People of the
Book") for Muhammad's religio-politcal claims.
It is from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (which
Arabs now claim Jews have no connection to --
including Bush's good buddy, Abbas) that Muslims
believe Muhammad ascended to Heaven on his winged
horse. A mosque, the Dome of the Rock, would later
be erected on this Jewish holy site after the Arab
imperialist caliphal conquest of the land in the
7th century C.E.
Arab imperialism?
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Only nasty
westerners do that stuff--don'tcha know?
There is no doubt among objective scholars that
Jews had an enormous impact on both Muhammad and
the religion that he founded. The holy sites for
Muslims in Jerusalem (i.e. the mosques erected on
the Temple Mount of the Jews) are now deemed "holy"
precisely because of the critical years Muhammad
spent after the Hijrah with the Jews.
Not mincing words, the Temple Mount of the Jews
had no prior meaning to pagan Arabs.
While there was some early Christian influence,
intense scholarship has shown that the Holy Law
(Halakha) and Holy Scriptures of the Jews
had a tremendous influence on the Qur'an, Islamic
Holy Law (Shari'a), and so forth.
Muhammad's "Jerusalem connection" was most
likely not established until after his
extended stay with his Jewish hosts. This was no
mere coincidence
Muslim religious beliefs
regarding Muhammad's conversations with the Angel
Gabriel notwithstanding.
When the Jews refused to recognize Muhammad as
the chief political honcho, "Seal of the Prophets,"
and so forth, he turned on them with a bloody
vengeance. Before long, with the exception of
Yemen, there were virtually no Jews left on the
Arabian Peninsula. And the direction of prayer was
changed away from Jerusalem and towards the Kaaba
in Mecca instead.
Now, imagine, since Arabs claim all of Israel
because of their previous conquests, that
descendants of Arabian Jews staked their own claims
as well? How about declaring Medina as a
Jewish city?
Certainly, when demands by Arabs for
compensation and the like regarding Arab refugees
comes to the front burner, Jewish refugees from
"Arab" lands -- who number more and who left behind
far more property and financial assets than their
Arab counterparts did due to a war that Arabs
themselves started -- need to put forth their own
demands and need to backed by an Israeli government
which will state unambiguously that there will be
no fulfillment of the one claim without the
other.
What else can the Saudis and other Arabs
do to convince Jews that the alleged Saudi "peace"
now being promoted by assorted lame ducks and new
ducks is indeed not simply a peace of the grave?
After all, Muhammad made his "Peace of the Quraysh"
too -- a temporary hudna designed to buy
time until he could conquer his enemies. Arafat
loved to talk about this regarding Israel. Dubya's
darling, Abbas, was Arafat's #1 lieutenant and
choice for Prime Minister. And Abbas & Co.
insist that Israel accept all Arab demands as
is. So much for negotiating...
There are two words which should comprise a
proper Israeli response to such Arab games...and
let's just say they ain't Merry
Christmas.
As I've pointed out often before, the solution
to the Arab-Israeli mess is not as complicated as
many others have claimed.
When enemies make peace, they truly negotiate so
that a compromise, meeting the needs of both
parties, is at least somewhat achieved. One party
doesn't simply just offer a take it or leave
it dictate.
The Arab game plan--the alleged
breakthrough offer some American leaders say
the Israelis would be nuts to refuse--is, in
reality, simply a ploy to force Israel to yield in
"diplomacy" what hundreds of millions of Arabs have
not been able to achieve on the battlefield.
Seen as a starting point for further
negotiations, not a take it or leave it
gimmick, the Saudi plan might have some value.
Getting rid of the plan's stipulation requiring
Jews to allow their sole state to be swamped by
allegedly returning Arab jihadis raised on
Jew-hatred is a must, as just one example. Keep in
mind that more Jews fled Arab/Muslim lands as
refugees in a war Arabs started than Arabs who fled
in the opposite direction. The difference?
Jews didn't have almost two dozen other states to
go to and weren't perpetually stuck in camps by
their own brethren. Jews absorbed their own
refugees in a state about the size of New Jersey,
virtually invisible on a world map.
Finally, if the Saudis and other assorted Arab
despots want to really reach out to Israel, all
they have to do is to grant to Jews in their sole,
tiny, resurrected state a miniscule sliver of the
same rights they claim for themselves in demanding
the creation of the 22nd member nation of
the Arab League and second, not first, Arab
one in "Palestine" --Jordan carved out of some 80%
of the Mandate's original 1920 borders.
The day Arabs can, at long last, get themselves
to do this, they will find an Israel bending over
backwards, sideways, and forwards to be a good
neighbor--and to the entire region's benefit.
Honigman
Archive
Gerald
A. Honigman is a Florida educator who has done
extensive doctoral studies in Middle Eastern
Affairs. He has created and conducted counter-Arab
propaganda programs for college youth, has lectured
on numerous campuses and other platforms, and has
publicly debated many Arab spokesmen. His articles
and op-eds have been published in dozens of
newspapers, magazines, academic journals and
websites all around the world. Visit his website at
http://geraldahonigman.com/.
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