20 Facts about Israel and the Middle East
These 20 facts will help serve as a primer for those trying to understand the historical context of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
The world's attention has been focused on the Middle East. We are confronted daily with scenes of carnage and destruction. Can we understand such violence? Yes, but only if we come to the situation with a solid grounding in the facts of the matter-facts that too often are forgotten, if ever they were learned. Below are twenty facts that we think are useful in understanding the current situation, how we arrived here, and how we might eventually arrive at a solution.
Roots of the Conflict
1. When the United Nations proposed the establishment of two states in the region--one Jewish, one Arab -- the Jews accepted the proposal and declared their independence in 1948. The Jewish state constituted only 1/6 of one percent of what was known as "the Arab world." The Arab states, however, rejected the UN plan and since then have waged war against Israel repeatedly, both all-out wars and wars of terrorism and attrition. In 1948, five Arab armies invaded Israel in an effort to eradicate it. Jamal Husseini of the Arab Higher Committee spoke for many in vowing to soak "the soil of our beloved country with the last drop of our blood."
2. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964 -- three years before Israel controlled the West Bank and Gaza. The PLO's declared purpose was to eliminate the State of Israel by means of armed struggle. To this day, the Web site of Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) claims that the entirety of Israel is "occupied" territory. It is impossible to square this with the PLO and PA assertions to Western audiences that the root of the conflict is Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
3. The West Bank and Gaza (controlled by Jordan and Egypt from 1948 to 1967) came under Israeli control during the Six Day War of 1967 that started when Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran and Arab armies amassed on Israel's borders to invade and liquidate the state. It is important to note that during their 19-year rule, neither Jordan nor Egypt had made any effort to establish a Palestinian state on those lands. Just before the Arab nations launched their war of aggression against the State of Israel in 1967, Syrian Defense Minister (later President) Hafez Assad stated, "Our forces are now entirely ready . . . to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland . . . the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation." On the brink of the 1967 war, Egyptian President Gamal Nassar declared, "Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel."
4. Because of their animus against Jews, many leaders of the Palestinian cause have long supported our enemies. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem allied himself with Adolf Hitler during WWII. Yasir Arafat, chairman of the PLO and president of the PA, has repeatedly targeted and killed Americans. In 1973, Arafat ordered the execution of Cleo Noel, the American ambassador to the Sudan. Arafat was very closely aligned with the Soviet Union and other enemies of the United States throughout the Cold War. In 1991, during the Gulf War, Arafat aligned himself with Saddam Hussein, whom he praised as "the defender of the Arab nation, of Muslims, and of free men everywhere."
5. Israel has, in fact, returned most of the land that it captured during the 1967 war and right after that war offered to return all of it in exchange for peace and normal relations; the offer was rejected. As a result of the 1978 Camp David accords -- in which Egypt recognized the right of Israel to exist and normal relations were established between the two countries -- Israel returned the Sinai desert, a territory three times the size of Israel and 91 percent of the territory Israel took control of in the 1967 war.
6. In 2000, as part of negotiations for a comprehensive and durable peace, Israel offered to turn over all but the smallest portion of the remaining territories to Yasir Arafat. But Israel was rebuffed when Arafat walked out of Camp David and launched the current round of violence .
7. Yasir Arafat has never been less than clear about his goals -- at least not in Arabic. On the very day that he signed the Oslo accords in 1993 -- in which he promised to renounce terrorism and recognize Israel -- he addressed the Palestinian people on Jordanian television and declared that he had taken the first step "in the 1974 plan." This was a thinly veiled reference to the "phased plan," according to which any territorial gain was acceptable as a means toward the ultimate goal of Israel's destruction.
8. The recently deceased Faisal al-Husseini, a leading Palestinian spokesman, made the same point in 2001 when he declared that the West Bank and Gaza represented only "22 percent of Palestine" and that the Oslo process was a "Trojan horse." He explained, "When we are asking all the Palestinian forces and factions to look at the Oslo Agreement and at other agreements as 'temporary' procedures, or phased goals, this means that we are ambushing the Israelis and cheating them." The goal, he continued, was "the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea," i.e., the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea -- all of Israel.
9. To this day, the Fatah wing of the PLO (the "moderate" wing that was founded and is controlled by Arafat himself) has as its official emblem the entire state of Israel covered by two rifles and a hand grenade -- another fact that belies the claim that Arafat desires nothing more than the West Bank and Gaza.
10. While criticism of Israel is not necessarily the same as "anti-Semitism," it must be remembered that the Middle East press is, in fact, rife with anti-Semitism. More than fifteen years ago the eminent scholar Bernard Lewis could point out that "The demonization of Jews [in Arabic literature] goes further than it had ever done in Western literature, with the exception of Germany during the period of Nazi rule." Since then, and through all the years of the "peace process," things have become much worse. Depictions of Jews in Arab and Muslim media are akin to those of Nazi Germany, and medieval blood libels -- including claims that Jews use Christian and Muslim blood in preparing their holiday foods--have become prominent and routine. One example is a sermon broadcast on PA television where Sheik Ahmad Halabaya stated, "They [the Jews] must be butchered and killed, as Allah the Almighty said: 'Fight them: Allah will torture them at your hands.' Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them."
11. Over three-quarters of Palestinians approve of suicide bombings -- an appalling statistic but in light of the above facts, an unsurprising one.
The State of Israel
12. There are 21 Arab countries in the Middle East and only one Jewish state: Israel, which is also the only democracy in the region.
13. Israel is the only country in the region that permits citizens of all faiths to worship freely and openly. Twenty percent of Israeli citizens are not Jewish.
14. While Jews are not permitted to live in many Arab countries, Arabs are granted full citizenship and have the right to vote in Israel. Arabs are also free to become members of the Israeli parliament (the Knesset). In fact, several Arabs have been democratically elected to the Knesset and have been serving there for years. Arabs living in Israel have more rights and are freer than most Arabs living in Arab countries.
15. Israel is smaller than the state of New Hampshire and is surrounded by nations hostile to her existence. Some peace proposals -- including the recent Saudi proposal--demand withdrawal from the entire West Bank, which would leave Israel 9 miles wide at its most vulnerable point.
16. The oft-cited UN Resolution 242 (passed in the wake of the 1967 war) does not, in fact, require a complete withdrawal from the West Bank. As legal scholar Eugene Rostow put it, "Resolution 242, which as undersecretary of state for political affairs between 1966 and 1969 I helped produce, calls on the parties to make peace and allows Israel to administer the territories it occupied in 1967 until 'a just and lasting peace in the Middle East' is achieved. When such a peace is made, Israel is required to withdraw its armed forces 'from territories' it occupied during the Six-Day War -- not from 'the' territories nor from 'all' the territories, but from some of the territories."
17. Israel has, of course, conceded that the Palestinians have legitimate claims to the disputed territories and is willing to engage in negotiations on the matter. As noted above, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered almost all of the territories to Arafat at Camp David in 2000.
18. Despite claims that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank are the obstacle to peace, Jews lived there for centuries before being massacred or driven out by invading Arab armies in 1948-49. And contrary to common misperceptions, Israeli settlements -- which constitute less than two percent of the territories -- almost never displace Palestinians.
19. The area of the West Bank includes some of the most important sites in Jewish history, among them Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jericho. East Jerusalem, often cited as an "Arab city" or "occupied territory," is the site of Judaism's holiest monument. While under Arab rule (1948-67), this area was entirely closed to Jews. Since Israel took control, it has been open to people of all faiths.
20. Finally, let us consider the demand that certain territories in the Muslim world must be off-limits to Jews. This demand is of a piece with Hitler's proclamation that German land had to be "Judenrein" (empty of Jews). Arabs can live freely throughout Israel, and as full citizens. Why should Jews be forbidden to live or to own land in an area like the West Bank simply because the majority of people is Arab?
In sum, a fair and balanced portrayal of the Middle East will reveal that one nation stands far above the others in its commitment to human rights and democracy as well as in its commitment to peace and mutual security. That nation is Israel.
13 Facts about
Israel & the
Middle East
Keeping these facts in mind will help prevent people from falling for Arab propaganda.
Anti-Semitism is alive and well, it’s just cloaked in its new garb: anti-Zionism or anti-Israeli occupation. Keeping these facts in mind will help prevent people from falling for Arab propaganda.
1. The Jews have a connection to the land of Israel for more than 3000 years, with continuous Jewish presence in the land of Israel in the majority of this time.
2. Jerusalem was the capital of the Jewish people for thousands of years. And recently, since 1850 the Jews were the ethnic majority of the city, except from 1948 till 1967 when the Jordanians destroyed the Jewish quarter, killed many Jews and expelled the rest. So how can the Jews be accused for occupying your own kitchens and back yards?
3. There was never an independent Arab State in the land of Israel.
4. 80% of the promised Jewish Homeland, as it was delineated in the Balfour declaration and ratified by the League of Nations, was given illegally, by the British Mandate, to the Hashemite Family from Saudi Arabia, to establish a totally New Kingdom of Trans Jordan. Practically, this was the first imposed “two state solution” in the Middle East.
5. In 1929, Arabs massacred 67 Jews in Hebron and expelled the rest, many years before the establishment of the modern state of Israel and before any disputed or occupied land became an issue.
6. In 1947, a new “two state solution,” which was proposed by the UN on the remaining 20% of the promised land, was accepted by the Jews, but was rejected by the neighboring Arab countries. Once Israel was established in 1948 the Arabs started a war to destroy Israel.
7. In 1967 the Arabs initiated another war to destroy the state of Israel, only to be defeated again.
8. On Yom Kippur of 1973 there was another failed attempt to destroy Israel, by force, by Egypt and Syria.
9. Despite the hostilities, generous offers to create a new Arab Palestinian State next to Israel were presented by several Israeli prime ministers, only to be rejected by the Arab leadership who continued their vicious anti-Israeli aggression.
10. They tried to destroy Israel by using indiscriminate terror attacks against innocent civilians.
11. They tried to destroy Israel using a rain of rockets on innocent civilians.
12. The Palestinian Authority is still allowing their children to be taught in school vicious hate and encouraging martyrdom.
13. As their attempts to destroy Israel by force fail, they are pushing a major international effort to delegitimize Israel, using the Boycott-Divestment-
What can we do? Stay informed and share your knowledge with as many people as you can. Together, we will make the world a better place for all of us and for future generations.
Four Points: Arguments for Israel
In this age of sound-bites, here are some key facts at your fingertips
When it comes to Israel, tempers sometimes flare, and sometimes we don't even know how to respond. We might hear a new argument or a new perspective, and the limited knowledge we have proves to be insufficient. Especially in the age of sound-bites and knee-jerk politics, we need to have more facts at our fingertips, organize what we know, and be prepared to respond effectively.
Recognizing this, here is a "Four-Point" educational campaign produced by Hasbara Fellowships. Each of the following 10 topics has four bullet-points -- to help deepen our understanding of the major issues of the Mideast conflict.
Settlements
1) Jews can live in Mexico City, Bangkok, St. Louis, and any city in the world (except in Saudi Arabia) -- but the PA wants to forbid Jews from living in the very cradle of Judaism.
2) The only period in the last 3,000 years without a continued Jewish presence in the West Bank was the 19 years between 1948-1967 when the Jordanian government banned Jews from living there.
3) In 1979, Ariel Sharon dismantled Yamit and other settlements in the Sinai when it was absolutely clear that compromise would bring a true peace.
4) Since the disputed territories were never part of a sovereign nation, and were acquired in a defensive war, international law permits the voluntary settlement of the land. Recognizing this, the Oslo agreements never addressed the issue of Jewish or Arab settlements.
Refugees
1) There would be no refugee problem if seven Arab nations had not attacked Israel upon its inception in 1948.
2) Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries have consciously chosen to isolate refugees as political pawns,rather than integrate them into a normalized life. UN General Assembly Resolution 194 reads that all governments involved must share responsibility.
3) 990,000 Jewish refugees were expelled from Arab countries in 1948, but their descendants are normalized today because they were absorbed by Israel and other countries.
4) As opposed to refugees in Arab countries, Israel integrated Arabs within its borders as citizens, and 1.2 million Israeli Arabs now enjoy citizenship, benefits, and governmental representation in Israel.
Compromises for Peace
1) Israel signed independent peace treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994), each time giving away either land, oil, settlements, or strategic military advantage to achieve a peaceful agreement.
2) Israel gave the Palestinian Authority land, money, weapons, training, and intelligence, all in the hope that the PA would reciprocate with an end to terror and incitement.
3) The very formula "Land for Peace" indicates that Arabs compromise for what they want most -- land, while Israel compromises for what it wants most -- peace.
4) In 1917, 1937, 1947, 1956, 1979, and 1993 Israeli leaders established a pattern of accepting the handover of land in exchange for peace agreements with its Arab neighbors.
Waiting for a true Partner
1) The real PLO took the Israeli Olympic delegation hostage in the 1972 Munich Olympic games, and after failing to extort the release of Palestinian prisoners, killed 11 Israeli athletes.
2) The real PLO invented the idea of skyjackings in 1970, and instilled fear in travelers across the world.
3) The real PLO shot and killed the elderly, unarmed, wheelchair-bound, U.S. citizen Leon Klinghoffer on the Achille Lauro cruise liner in 1985.
4) The real PLO continues to incite violence against Jews, promote the armed struggle to "liberate all of Palestine," and indoctrinate Palestinian children into a culture of hatred where death is the ultimate prize.
The 3,000-year Jewish connection
1) The only independent sovereign nations to ever exist in the Land of Israel were the two ancient Jewish commonwealths, the second of which was destroyed in 70 of the common era.
2) For 3,000 years, Jews have expressed the desire to return to their ancestral homeland: at the Passover Seder, the Yom Kippur service, in daily prayer, in the blessing after meals, under the wedding canopy, on the yearly day of national mourning Tisha B'Av, and by placing Israeli soil in the coffin of their deceased.
3) Even after exile, Jews managed to keep a continual presence of Jewish communities in such cities as Jerusalem, Tzfat, Tiberias, Shechem, and Hebron.
4) Centuries before the inception of Islam, Jews were yearning to return to Israel, and the Koran itself records this in many suras (chapters), such as 17:7, 17:104, and 5:21 that tells the Jews to "enter into the Holy Land which Allah has assigned to you."
Holy Sites
1) When Israel gained control and reunified Jerusalem in 1967, rather than forbid Muslim worship or close the mosques, it allowed the Muslim Waqf (religious authority) to administer and control the Temple Mount and maintain the Al-Aqsa mosque.
2) Under Jordanian rule, Jews were forbidden from praying at the Western Wall; the Mount of Olives cemetery and 58 Jewish synagogues were destroyed. However, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim sites are open to all worshippers under Israeli rule -- except for the site of the ancient Jewish Temple, the Temple Mount, where Jews are normally forbidden to pray.
3) When Israel transferred military control to the PA, angry mobs burned and destroyed Jewish holy sites and religious artifacts at Jericho, Hebron, and Joseph's tomb in Nablus.
4) In 2002, Palestinian terrorists took 30 monks hostage inBethlehem's Church of the Nativity because they knew Jewish soldiers would not shoot inside. After the hostages were freed, investigators found the Church profaned and desecrated.
Jerusalem
1) Mecca and Medina are the holiest cities to Muslims; Vatican City is the seat of Catholicism. While Jerusalem has significance to many religions, Jerusalem is supreme and holiest only to the Jews. When it was conquered by Jordan in 1949, no Muslim dignitary or leader visited Jerusalem in any official, public, or religious capacity.
2) Jerusalem has been central to Judaism since biblical times, when it was made the eternal spiritual capital of the Jewish people.
3) Jews have been the majority in Jerusalem since 1840, and there has been a continual Jewish presence in Jerusalem since the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 of the common era. (Paul Johnson, History of the Jews)
4) Jerusalem is for everyone only when it is in Israeli control.
The UN and International Law
1) The 1917 Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations Mandate, the 1947 UN Partition Plan, and Israel's 1949 admission into the UN reaffirmed Israel the international right to exist as the Jewish homeland.
2) UN Security Council Resolution 242 reads that Israel should relinquish land only if it is in the context of a "peaceful and accepted settlement."
3) UN Resolution 242 requires that all states in the area recognize Israel's "right to live in peace with secure and recognized borders free from threats or acts of force."
4) Until 2002, Israel was the only UN member state ineligible to sit on the Security Council, and today that right is still only limited and temporary. Since the 1970s, an Arab-Soviet-Third World Bloc reinforced Israel's outcast status by barring Israel from other key UN bodies and making Israel the object of more investigative committees and special representatives than any other state in the UN.
Israel's Excessive Restraint
1) Israel is facing a serious threat -- Palestinian gunmen have repeatedly fired at civilians and soldiers from hospitals, mosques and schools, using humans as shields and ambulances to transport weaponry.
2) Though the intifada has heaped violence upon Israel, there have been, on average, less than one person injured per Palestinian riot. Israel is currently training 26 other countries in technology it has created to minimize injury in crowd and riot control situations.
3) During "Black September" in Jordan in 1970, 2,500 Palestinian rioters were killed in 10 days by the Jordanian army. In 1993, UN Peacekeeping troops justified the killing of almost 100 Somalis by noting that, "Everyone on the ground in the vicinity was a combatant, because they meant to do us harm."
4) In April 2002, IDF ground forces went door-to-door to target knownterrorists in Jenin, rather than use artillery or carpet bomb the city from above. Israel put its own troops at risk and lost 23 of its own soldiers because of this concern to not injure the innocent among its enemies.
Palestinian Lexicon
1) Hudna: strategic ceasefire engineered to rearm for the next battle, in English it is referred to as a "peace agreement." In the West, we tend to think of a "ceasefire" leading to peace - a Hudna is designed to lead to war.
2) Fatwa: Religiously inspired death warrant on the head of an enemy, all Jews living in Israel have a fatwa issued by Hamas leadership.
3) Occupation: Term describing a Jewish presence in any of the Land of Israel, including Israeli cities such as Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Hadera; in Western media it is tailored to refer only to the West Bank and Gaza.
4) Jihad: The religious struggle to eradicate the Jews from Israel and establish an Islamic society in their stead.
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