The Israeli-barred visit by two first term U.S. congresswomen, Freshmen Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), the first Muslim women elected to Congress, has sparked increased debate over the Palestinian issue. Talib and Omar, who are virulently anti-Israel, sought to achieve a public relations coup by their intended provocative trip to the Jewish State.
They sought to raise opposition to both the Netanyahu government, and the Trump Administration’s efforts to produce a peace plan. The Trump administration recently held a “Peace to Prosperity Workshop” in Bahrain, attended by both Israelis and representatives of Arab states. Arab nations, now more concerned with Iranian expansionism than the ongoing Palestinian issue, have been more open to dealing with Israel. Clifford May quotes Bahraini Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa: “Israel is part of this heritage of this whole region historically. So the Jewish people have a place amongst us.”
The actual roadblock is the fault of the leadership of the Palestinians. Mahmoud Abbas leads the “State of Palestine” and has been chair of the Palestine Liberation Organization since 2004. He has refused to negotiate with Israel or the U.S., and is locked in a bitter feud with other Palestinians. In that refusal, he is following in the footsteps of Yasser Arafat, who was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1969 to 2004 and President of the Palestinian National Authority from 1994 to 2004.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) / reports that “…at least three times the Palestinians have refused statehood when it was offered to them… n 2008, after extensive talks, then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and presented a comprehensive peace plan… In the summer of 2000 US President Bill Clinton hosted intense peace talks at Camp David between Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and Israeli leader Ehud Barak, culminating in a comprehensive peace plan known as the Clinton Parameters… Despite the vast concessions the plan required of Israel, Prime Minister Barak accepted President Clinton’s proposal, while Arafat refused, returned home, and launched a new terror campaign against Israeli civilians (the Second Intifada)… UN Resolution 181, the Partition Resolution, passed in November 1947, called for the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in the land which at that point was controlled by the British-run Palestine Mandate. All the Arab countries opposed the resolution, voted against it, and promised to go to war to prevent its implementation. Representing the Palestinians, the Arab Higher Committee also opposed the plan and threatened war, while the Jewish Agency, representing the Jewish inhabitants of the Palestine Mandate, supported the plan.”
The Palestinian question has been fraught with historically incorrect arguments.
A History News Network notes:
“Historically, there was never an independent country named Palestine. There was for a time a Roman province named Palestine, when the Romans bestowed that name in the second century A.D. on an area that was previously called Judea, and which had been sovereign for a time. Having defeated the Jews in what the ancient historian Josephus labeled ‘the Jewish Wars,’ the Romans then expelled the Jews from Jerusalem and renamed the province after the Jews’ historic archenemy, the Philistines… the historical record says that Palestine was never a country, and was rarely ever an intact entity. At most it was a geographic entity like Scandinavia but, even as that, it changed over time…None As the penis gets erect the arteries and veins in the penis become robust and it canada in levitra http://www.slovak-republic.org/living/ cuts down the supply of the blood out bringing the member back to its original size. This medicine is not formulated cialis online no prescription for men with impotence. Even if you have insurance, a doctor’s visit is seldom free, and most insurance companies won’t cover the cost of the prescription, leaving the burden on the consumers. tadalafil without prescriptions Blueberry, strawberry, and prices cialis raspberry antioxidant drinks are worth checking out. of this is meant to deny that Palestinians have a just claim to the land—or that Jews have a just claim to the land. There has always been only one practical solution to the problem of two peoples claiming the same land—the two-state solution. But many people seem surprised to learn that this solution was invented by neither President Clinton nor President Bush nor President Obama. The two-state solution has a long history dating back at least to 1937, when the British proposed to partition the land between Arabs and Jews while leaving Jerusalem under international control. A similar plan was approved by the UN General Assembly in 1947, and then again proposed by President Clinton in 2000. The great irony is that the leadership of the Arabs of Palestine consistently rejected the two-state solution in the belief that they could have everything; the result was that they ended up with nothing… The real stumbling block to the creation of a Palestinian state are Palestinians—Hamas, in particular—who cannot bring themselves to accept a state that doesn’t comprise all of ‘historic Palestine.’ Tragically, the recent reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas means there will be no two-state solution—and no peace agreement.”
Clifford D. May, president of the Foundation for the Defense for Democracies writes “The Six-Day War of 1967 was a second attempt to use military force to vanquish Israel. When the fighting halted, Gaza and the West Bank, territories that had been occupied by Egypt and Jordan respectively, were in Israeli hands. That presented a new opportunity. The Israelis could attempt what Egypt and Jordan had not: establishing a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, a so-called ‘two-state solution.’ In exchange, Palestinians would only need agree to peacefully coexist with their neighbor. The Arab League promptly issued the Khartoum Resolution, the ‘Three No’s’: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it.’ “The Israelis persisted. Deals were proposed in 2000, 2001 and 2008.The Palestinians were offered more than 90% of the West Bank. Each time, the Palestinians – or at least those who led them – declined. No counteroffers were presented.
“Yet another opportunity: In 2005, Ariel Sharon, then Israel’s prime minister, withdrew every Israeli soldier and farmer, every synagogue and cemetery, from Gaza. If Gaza became a peaceable neighbor, expending its energies and foreign funds lifting its people from poverty, a deal on the West Bank would follow. You know what happened next: Hamas went to war – literally, not figuratively – with Fatah, its rival. Hamas prevailed, which is why Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas dares not set foot in the territory.
Hamas then turned its guns, missiles and, more recently, terrorist tunnels and incendiary kites on Israel. This was in line with the Hamas Charter which calls for Israel to be annihilated and replaced by an Islamic emirate. Hamas views its struggle against Israel as a jihad. To compromise would be a sin – literally, not figuratively.”