News reports indicate that the Obama administration would like Israel to cede most of the West Bank and East Jerusalem to the Palestinians to achieve a peace agreement. Palestinian leaders have made no secret they will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state and continue to campaign to delegitimize it. That would certainly threaten Israel’s long-term survival.
Arab leaders know that if Israel is willing to give up any of its land that means they don’t believe it belongs to the Jewish people, for if we believe the land is ours, we would not be abandoning it.
Policies of appeasement encouraged our enemies in the years leading up to World War II. Modern policies of appeasement are encouraging radical Islamic extremists today.
After more than 60 years of statehood, Israel is a lone outpost of Western civilization and its values. It is the staunchest ally of the U.S. in that part of the world — a bulwark of democracy. The Arab nations surrounding it are a swamp of terrorism, corruption, dictatorship and human enslavement. However, the hatred of the Arabs against Israel and against all Jews is so abiding and so virulent that peace, at least for the foreseeable future, seems unattainable and most unlikely.
On Nov. 15, 1988, Yasser Arafat proudly read a declaration by his Palestinian Liberation Organization unilaterally proclaiming “the establishment of the State of Palestine on Israel’s Palestine territory with its capital in Jerusalem.” Shortly afterwards, the United Nations overwhelmingly supported the declaration. The state never came into existence. That proved meaningless. Yet Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas appears to be giving consideration to repeat this maneuver rather than continue negotiations with the Israeli government.
The “Mandate for Palestine,” a historical League of Nations document, laid down the Jewish legal right under international law to settle anywhere in Western Palestine, the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an entitlement unaltered in international law. Also the San Ramo Resolution of 1920 addresses Israel’s right to the land. The U.S. and Britain signed off on it in 1924, confirming the resolution as international law.
Under Article 5 of the Mandate for Palestine,” eretz Israel, “no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in anyway placed under control of the goverment of any foreign power.” Palestine is the geographical area assigned in favor of the Jews by the League of Nations and reserved for the Jewish people for their self-determination and political development in acknowledgment of the historic connection of the Jewish people on the land.
Israel has always embraced the sacredness of human life, while the Palestinians do not. Until there is a positive change in the culture of hatred, violence and death by Palestinians, Israel must remain militarily strong to defend its citizens.