Israel at War: Separating Facts From Fiction
As Israel advances its incursion to remove Hamas from the Gaza Strip, it is important for people to separate facts from fiction. This allows for a better understanding of the war itself.
For starters, the conflict is being portrayed as one between Israelis and “Palestinians.” This is false. There is no such thing as a Palestinian. The term “Palestinian” is a fictional term that a certain group of Arabs invented out of thin air in the late 1960s.
Displaced Egyptian Arabs illegally occupy an area that they refer to as the Gaza Strip. Displaced Jordanian Arabs illegally occupy an area that they refer to as the West Bank. Both of these areas are part of Judea and Samaria with roots tracing back several thousand years to the Jews.
Palestinians declared themselves a people under Yasir Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization. Yet the PLO’s entire rational for existence was based on factual falsehoods. Mr. Arafat was Egyptian. He was only the third PLO Chairman. The PLO founder was Lebanese.
While the Palestinians are people, they are not a people. This distinction is necessary to knock down straw man arguments. They are human beings created by God. What they are not are a people with any connection to Judea, Samaria, or modern-day Israel. Their ancestral homelands are Egypt and Jordan.
Another false claim is that it is necessary to separate the Palestinian people from terrorist organizations such as Hamas. This is akin to claiming that people who donate to the Ku Klux Klan are somehow any better than the KKK members who burn crosses on black-owned lawns. A person who supports terrorists in any way is a terrorist. The Palestinians overwhelmingly voted for Hamas. While Hamas does build schools and roads, again, so does the KKK. Hamas’s charter calls for the destruction and elimination of Israel. The Palestinian people voluntarily voted for terrorists knowing fully what Hamas’s platform has always been.
After Hamas launched the deadliest attack against Israel in several decades, the Israelis went to war to stop Hamas. Rather than just annihilate every Palestinian, the Israeli military dropped leaflets in Northern Gaza warning the civilians to evacuate. This is an act of mercy and compassion deliberately designed to reduce collateral damage. This action is in direct contrast with Hamas, which has committed horrific war crimes including massacring babies. Palestinian supporters deny that this atrocity is taking place, but the evidence of murdering babies exists. The images are too much for the ordinary human being to stomach and impossible to defend.
After the IDF turns Hamas into Hummus, the next issue will be what to do with the displaced Arabs who are truly against terrorism. The logical solution is to return them to their ancestral homelands of Egypt and Jordan. While those governments have no desire to absorb their fellow Arabs, that is the easiest hurdle to overcome. Give Egypt and Jordan a choice between tripling their foreign aid budgets or having them reduced. American dollars would help build Palestinian cities and neighborhoods from scratch. These neighborhoods would be located in the parts of Egypt and Jordan furthest away from Israel. The safety and security of the new arrivals would be mandatory for the increased aid to continue. If Palestinians truly just want a better life, they will jump at the chance at a significantly higher standard of living. Americans frequently relocate to new states and cities for better job opportunities and quality of life. The flight from the Arab-occupied areas of Israel to their new homes in New Egypt and New Jordan would be shorter than a Jewish relocation flight from New York to South Florida.
This conflict is fixable. The solution can be the first step toward true peace on earth. To get started, we must tell the truth about who is at war, why they do what they do, and where they come from. There are no Palestinians, but there can be plenty of happiness for the people of the future cities of New Egypt and New Jordan. They just have to have the courage to take yes for an answer and experience a better life outside of Judea and Samaria.
Until then, Israel will have to administer tough love through the IDF’s compassionate destruction.