Kuwaiti Writer Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: Israel Is a Legitimate State, Not an Occupier

[Thunderian]

I would be very interested in WHY people disagree vehemently with what Al-Hadlaq has to say about Israel. I know that most of you will just say he's wrong, but what exactly is he wrong about? He says that Israel is rightfully in possession of Palestine, that there is not and never was a nation called Palestine, and that history and the Quran agree with him.

Please, have at it. Tell us why this guy is totally out to lunch.
https://www.memri.org/tv/kuwaiti-writer-hadlaq-israel-legitimate-not-occupier-no-palestine/transcript

Kuwaiti Writer Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: Israel Is a Legitimate State, Not an Occupier; There Was No Palestine; I Support Israel-Gulf-U.S. Alliance to Annihilate Hizbullah

Kuwaiti writer Abdullah Al-Hadlaq said that Israel was an independent and legitimate sovereign state and that there was no occupation, but instead, "a people returning to its promised land." "When the State of Israel was established in 1948, there was no state called 'Palestine,'" said Al-Hadlaq. He recalled that he had once written: "I wished that we could be like the people of the State of Israel, who rallied, down to the very last one, to defend a single Israeli soldier." In the interview, which was broadcast by the Kuwaiti Alrai TV channel on November 19, Al-Hadlaq further said that he believed in peaceful coexistence with Israel and envisioned a three-way alliance of Israel, the Arab Gulf states, and America "in order to annihilate Hizbullah beyond resurrection." The interview caused an uproar in the Arab media and social networks.

Host: "What is Israel? What does it represent? Is it a state? A group? A terrorist organization? An entity? How can we define it before we go into our topic of discussion?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "Like it or not, Israel is an independent sovereign state. It exists, and it has a seat at the United Nations, and most peace-loving and democratic countries recognize it. The group of states that do not recognize Israel are the countries of tyranny and oppression. For example, North Korea does not recognize Israel, but this does nothing to detract from Israel or from the fact of its existence, whether we like it or not. The State of Israel has scientific centers and universities the likes of which even the oldest and most powerful Arab countries lack. So Israel is a state and not a terror organization. As I was saying, it is an independent country..."

Host: "Is it a legitimate country?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "Yes, it is legitimate. It received its legitimacy from the United Nations.

[...]

"My colleague called Israel 'a plundering entity,' but this may be refuted both in terms of religion and politics."

Host: "In what way?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "From the religious perspective, Quranic verse 5:21 proves that the Israelites have the right to the Holy Land. Allah says: 'When Moses said to his people... Oh my people, enter the Holy Land which Allah has assigned to you.' So Allah assigned that land to them, and they did not plunder it. The plundering entity is whoever was there before the arrival of the Israelites. Therefore, I do not go for obsolete slogans and terms like 'Zionist plundering entity,' and so on. The fact that I am an Arab should by no means prevent me from recognizing Israel. I recognize Israel as a state and as a fact of reality, without denying my Arab identity and affiliation."

Guest: "I don't know... Let's determine the frame of discussion. Is Palestine and its occupation an Arab cause or a religious one?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "There is no occupation. There is a people returning to its promised land.

[...]

"Are you aware that the history of the Israelites is ancient, predating Islam? Therefore, we Muslims must acknowledge that the Israelites have a right to that land, and that they have not plundered it. The people who say that it was plundered are still thinking in the mentality of the 1950s and before.

[...]

"When the State of Israel was established in 1948, there was no state called 'Palestine.'"

Host: "So where did we get that name, which we have been defending for 60 years?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "It didn't exist. There were various communities living in Arab countries. They were called 'Canaanites,' 'Amalekites,' or a whole host of other names. The Quranic verse even says: '...in it are a people of great strength [Jabbareen].' Some people called them 'Jabbareen.' Therefore, there was no state called 'Palestine.' I insist on this."

Host: "You once wrote in a column: 'I wish I were an Israeli soldier.'"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "Right."

Host: "So it's no longer just about recognizing Israel. You say that you wish you were an Israeli soldier."

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "Right."

Host: "You didn't write it in the first person, but you wrote that the Arab youth wish they could be Israeli soldiers. Is this logical? Is this realistic?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "I wrote that article in 2006 when Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. When I wrote this, I did not mean that I'd like to bear arms and fight for Israel, but that I wished that we could be like the people of the State of Israel, who rallied, down to the very last one, to defend a single Israeli soldier. So I wrote: 'I wish I could be such a soldier whose country defends him.' By Allah, if he were a soldier in any Arab country, would his nation, country, or head of state rally the same way Israel did? The Arab countries have had thousands of casulaties, and nobody cares about them.

[...]

"To tell you the truth, I have reservations about the word 'normalization,' and I would prefer to call it 'peaceful coexistence with the State of Israel.'"

Host: "Like Egypt and Jordan..."

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "Exactly. Peaceful coexistence."

Host: "And what was the outcome?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "Both sides benefited from it."

[...]

Host: "Should the Arabs and Muslims stand with Israel against Hizbullah?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "The head of a major Gulf state said that he was ready to collaborate with Satan against the Persian entity. By 'Satan,' he meant Israel. They call it 'Satan.' But I say: Why shouldn't we live in peaceful coexistence with Israel, and cooperate with it against my great enemy, which is the Persian regime?"

Guest: "You say that the Zionist entity opposes Iran?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "The Persian regime boasts that it has occupied four Arab capitals, and that it will soon occupy the fifth. Has Israel ever said such a thing? Hd​

 

[UnderAlienControl]

this guy is totally out to lunch.

About the only part I could agree with...

 

[Serveto]

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "Yes, it [Israel] is legitimate. It received its legitimacy from the United Nations.

Exactly.

 

[UnderAlienControl]

___________________________________________________________________________________________
Thunderian said↑
Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "Yes, it [Israel] is legitimate. It received its legitimacy from the United Nations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Exactly.

List of United Nations resolutions concerning Israel
As of 2013, Israel had been condemned in 45 resolutions by United Nations Human Rights Council. Since its creation in 2006—the Council had resolved almost more resolutions condemning Israel than on the rest of the world combined. The 45 resolutions comprised almost half (45.9%) of all country-specific resolutions passed by the Council, not counting those under Agenda Item 10 (countries requiring technical assistance).[1] From 1967 to 1989 the UN Security Council adopted 131 resolutions directly addressing the Arab–Israeli conflict. In early Security Council practice, resolutions did not directly invoke Chapter VII. They made an explicit determination of a threat, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, and ordered an action in accordance with Article 39 or 40. Resolution 54 determined that a threat to peace existed within the meaning of Article 39 of the Charter, reiterated the need for a truce, and ordered a cease-fire pursuant to Article 40 of the Charter. Although the phrase "Acting under Chapter VII" was never mentioned as the basis for the action taken, the chapter's authority was being used.[2]

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a number of resolutions saying that the strategic relationship with the United States encourages Israel to pursue aggressive and expansionist policies and practices.[3] The 9th Emergency Session of the General Assembly was convened at the request of the Security Council when the United States blocked efforts to adopt sanctions against Israel.[4] The United States responded to the frequent criticism from UN organs by adopting the Negroponte doctrine of opposing any Security Council resolutions criticizing Israel that did not also denounce Palestinian militant activity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Nations_resolutions_concerning_Israel

Rogue State: Israeli Violations of U.N. Security Council Resolutions
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/01/27/rogue-state-israeli-violations-of-u-n-security-council-resolutions/

So let me get this straight, just so there's no confusion. Everybody is supposed to listen to the UN when it comes to the establishment of Israel, but Israel ignores everything the UN says after that point. And this is termed legitimate? More like the hypocrisy. Sorry, I don't buy it. The whole argument is rendered unsound due to false premises. (<>..<>)

 

[UnderAlienControl]

Probably has more to do with this than anything else:
Kuwait–Saudi Arabia relations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwait–Saudi_Arabia_relations

Latest: Kuwait also orders its citizens out of Lebanon
www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/the-latest-saudi-arabia-tells-its-citizens-to-leave-lebanon/2017/11/09/a8a77806-c55a-11e7-9922-4151f5ca6168_story.html?utm_term=.c18ce07366cehe

So, let's not be naive. It's all about Iran. It's just prewar propaganda...

 

[Serveto]

So let me get this straight, just so there's no confusion. Everybody is supposed to listen to the UN when it comes to the establishment of Israel, but Israel ignores everything the UN says after that point. And you term this legitimate? More like the ultimate hypocrisy ...

To be clear, I also consider it hypocritical.

 

[UnderAlienControl]

To be clear, I also consider it hypocritical.

I hear ya. I don't even think the question is about having a state. The question is and has always been: how large is it gonna be?

 

[rainerann]

I hear ya. I don't even think the question is about having a state. The question is and has always been: how large is it gonna be?

Exactly.

 

[Serveto]

I hear ya. I don't even think the question is about having a state. The question is and has always been: how large is it gonna be?

I think there's a would-be answer for that, but, given that this isn't the Religion sub-forum, I will leave Biblical quotations out of the discussion. Still, I think old Irgun maps and posters provide a good clue of the territorial aspirations of some.

 

[rainerann]

Israel can call themselves legitimate when they stop taking free money from the US. Until that time, Israel is basically the 51st state of the United State that is the most spoiled of them all. Doesn't have to pay taxes; yet they get free money and is the only state in the union that is trying to increase in size.

I mean really. They have land. They have free money. For some reason, they still want more instead of being patient. They are creating conflict when there could be peace.

This is for sure. No one really cares whether Israel is a state or not. I don't care whether they exist. I just want them to volunteer to stop taking money from my country and instigating conflict where there could be none.

I mean, I hear people talking all the time about how the land should go to the Jews because they are the apple of God's eye; literally, someone has said this before. Although, it is the US that appears to be the apple of God's eye because it is technically our money that is being used to create Israel. They do nothing in and of themselves and if it weren't the aid of the US, we would not be talking about this at all. The Israeli lobby knows they can't do anything without the support of the US. We are the ones that make Israel possible.

Eventually, I really think that this "Israel" won't exist sometime in the future and the US will inherit it when all is said and done because we basically own it already. I heard someone saying that the Israeli lobby owns the US and it is really the other way around. The US owns Israel. They are using money from our government that belongs to taxpayers to aid in Israel. The Israeli lobby is manipulating our government and whatever else they may do doing to our representatives: blackmailing, what have you.

Although, that doesn't change the fact that the US still is a primary owner of Israel with how much money we have put into that place. They are taking advantage of this fact because they clearly don't need it. Somehow we are being manipulated to continue giving it to them, but at the end of the day, this will actually mean that Israel belongs to the US nevertheless. We are the one responsible for its continued presence. This will eventually result in receiving Israel belonging to the US because it is just a reality. They don't exist without us and if they keep going like they are, they won't exist at all.

 

[Thunderian]

I don't think anyone believes that Israel, one of the oldest nations in the world, depends on the UN for legitimacy, do they? Israel is a fact. As the article quotes, "North Korea does not recognize Israel, but this does nothing to detract from Israel or from the fact of its existence."

I am more interested in what people have to say about Al-Hadlaq's comments here:

"From the religious perspective, Quranic verse 5:21 proves that the Israelites have the right to the Holy Land. Allah says: 'When Moses said to his people... Oh my people, enter the Holy Land which Allah has assigned to you.' So Allah assigned that land to them, and they did not plunder it. The plundering entity is whoever was there before the arrival of the Israelites. Therefore, I do not go for obsolete slogans and terms like 'Zionist plundering entity,' and so on. The fact that I am an Arab should by no means prevent me from recognizing Israel. I recognize Israel as a state and as a fact of reality, without denying my Arab identity and affiliation."​

 

[Red Sky at Morning]

Prophecy against Gog

1And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, 3And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: 4And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: 5Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: 6Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.

7Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them. 8After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.9Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.

10Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought: 11And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, 12To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are nowinhabited, and upon the people that aregathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land. 13Sheba, and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?

14Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?15And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army: 16And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.

17Thus saith the Lord GOD; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them?18And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord GOD, thatmy fury shall come up in my face. 19For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; 20So that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground. 21And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, saith the Lord GOD: every man's sword shall be against his brother.22And I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood; and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone. 23Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I am the LORD.

Ezekiel 38

 

[manama]

I don't think anyone believes that Israel, one of the oldest nations in the world, depends on the UN for legitimacy, do they? Israel is a fact. As the article quotes, "North Korea does not recognize Israel, but this does nothing to detract from Israel or from the fact of its existence."

I am more interested in what people have to say about Al-Hadlaq's comments here:

"From the religious perspective, Quranic verse 5:21 proves that the Israelites have the right to the Holy Land. Allah says: 'When Moses said to his people... Oh my people, enter the Holy Land which Allah has assigned to you.' So Allah assigned that land to them, and they did not plunder it. The plundering entity is whoever was there before the arrival of the Israelites. Therefore, I do not go for obsolete slogans and terms like 'Zionist plundering entity,' and so on. The fact that I am an Arab should by no means prevent me from recognizing Israel. I recognize Israel as a state and as a fact of reality, without denying my Arab identity and affiliation."​

Not religion forum or I would continue and tell you that when God gave that command to Moses, we all know how the israeli people responded, So lol nothing can justify what Israel is doing, not religion and not common sense.
Just because there was no place called Palestine in the papers doesn't mean that it didn't exist for the people that lived there
Call it Israel, call it Palestine or call it oompa loompa or something. We don't care about the name like how some of you are overly obsessed with it. Its about the people, it has always been about the people for us.

 

[AspiringSoul]

Well this guy quotes from the Quran but that particular story is not indefinite, it has a historical context. Sure, God assigned the land to israelites but there were conditions.

However i've gone one better..I've quoted from Surah al-Isra

4 And We had made known to the children of Israel in the Book: Most certainly you will make mischief in the land twice, and most certainly you will behave insolently with great insolence.
5 So when the promise for the first of the two came, We sent over you Our servants, of mighty prowess, so they went to and fro among the houses, and it was a promise to be accomplished.
6 Then We gave you back the turn to prevail against them, and aided you with wealth and children and made you a numerous band.
7 If you do good, you will do good for your own souls, and if you do evil, it shall be for them. So when the second promise came (We raised another people) that they may bring you to grief and that they may enter the mosque as they entered it the first time, and that they might destroy whatever they gained ascendancy over with utter destruction.
8 It may be that your Lord will have mercy on you, and if you again return (to disobedience) We too will return (to punishment), and We have made hell a prison for the unbelievers.

What this effectively means is Allah could have Mercy on them again...(future context, which is why it's far more relevant).
However again this has it's conditions. Also in the context of Allah having mercy on them again...this directly goes to verse 6 ie Allah made them a nation again and made them strong.
So from this perspective, how could any muslim have been against the idea of a jewish homeland/return?

Clearly, it means that IF Allah chose to have mercy on Jews...and make them a nation again...then standing against that idea is to stand against God.

BUT
read verse 8
obviously guys like @thundarian 100% know the truth about the mystery babylon connection and the stones/trees theme throughout the bible, but these type of people don't like to admit the truth and are obviously biased against islam.
Even if you ignored that context
fact is Revelation 11 directly refers to jerusalerm as 'sodom and egypt' for a reason.
I don't think God is happy with a majority athiestic racist israel.
especially not when it's real owners are the Rothschild family and they are obvious on the wrong side.

ps
unlike this arab, i don't have a personal bias...i call it how i see it and i'll condemn muslims just as much if not more.

 

[Serveto]

I don't think anyone believes that Israel, one of the oldest nations in the world, depends on the UN for legitimacy, do they?

As I read the Israeli Declaration of Independence, it is both: they relied, and rely, upon their reputed "natural and historic right" and on the strength of the UN.

"ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE'S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE [of the League of Nations] OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL." [bold emphasis added, but caps in original]
Source

 

[Kung Fu]

Israel is about as legitimate as Pamela Anderson's tits. As soon as the US and all the other under the table money they get is cut off from them they're going to fall fast and hard. Their "legitimacy" depends on US funding and UN legitimacy depends on US funding lol.

 

[Kung Fu]

As I read the Israeli Declaration of Independence, it is both: they relied, and rely, upon their reputed "natural and historic right" and on the strength of the UN.

"ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE'S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE [of the League of Nations] OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL." [bold emphasis added, but caps in original]
Source

You're a walking encyclopedia!

 

[Orwell's mentor]

I would be very interested in WHY people disagree vehemently with what Al-Hadlaq has to say about Israel. I know that most of you will just say he's wrong, but what exactly is he wrong about? He says that Israel is rightfully in possession of Palestine, that there is not and never was a nation called Palestine, and that history and the Quran agree with him.

Please, have at it. Tell us why this guy is totally out to lunch.

Kuwaiti Writer Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: Israel Is a Legitimate State, Not an Occupier; There Was No Palestine; I Support Israel-Gulf-U.S. Alliance to Annihilate Hizbullah

Kuwaiti writer Abdullah Al-Hadlaq said that Israel was an independent and legitimate sovereign state and that there was no occupation, but instead, "a people returning to its promised land." "When the State of Israel was established in 1948, there was no state called 'Palestine,'" said Al-Hadlaq. He recalled that he had once written: "I wished that we could be like the people of the State of Israel, who rallied, down to the very last one, to defend a single Israeli soldier." In the interview, which was broadcast by the Kuwaiti Alrai TV channel on November 19, Al-Hadlaq further said that he believed in peaceful coexistence with Israel and envisioned a three-way alliance of Israel, the Arab Gulf states, and America "in order to annihilate Hizbullah beyond resurrection." The interview caused an uproar in the Arab media and social networks.

Host: "What is Israel? What does it represent? Is it a state? A group? A terrorist organization? An entity? How can we define it before we go into our topic of discussion?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "Like it or not, Israel is an independent sovereign state. It exists, and it has a seat at the United Nations, and most peace-loving and democratic countries recognize it. The group of states that do not recognize Israel are the countries of tyranny and oppression. For example, North Korea does not recognize Israel, but this does nothing to detract from Israel or from the fact of its existence, whether we like it or not. The State of Israel has scientific centers and universities the likes of which even the oldest and most powerful Arab countries lack. So Israel is a state and not a terror organization. As I was saying, it is an independent country..."

Host: "Is it a legitimate country?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "Yes, it is legitimate. It received its legitimacy from the United Nations.

[...]

"My colleague called Israel 'a plundering entity,' but this may be refuted both in terms of religion and politics."

Host: "In what way?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "From the religious perspective, Quranic verse 5:21 proves that the Israelites have the right to the Holy Land. Allah says: 'When Moses said to his people... Oh my people, enter the Holy Land which Allah has assigned to you.' So Allah assigned that land to them, and they did not plunder it. The plundering entity is whoever was there before the arrival of the Israelites. Therefore, I do not go for obsolete slogans and terms like 'Zionist plundering entity,' and so on. The fact that I am an Arab should by no means prevent me from recognizing Israel. I recognize Israel as a state and as a fact of reality, without denying my Arab identity and affiliation."

Guest: "I don't know... Let's determine the frame of discussion. Is Palestine and its occupation an Arab cause or a religious one?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "There is no occupation. There is a people returning to its promised land.

[...]

"Are you aware that the history of the Israelites is ancient, predating Islam? Therefore, we Muslims must acknowledge that the Israelites have a right to that land, and that they have not plundered it. The people who say that it was plundered are still thinking in the mentality of the 1950s and before.

[...]

"When the State of Israel was established in 1948, there was no state called 'Palestine.'"

Host: "So where did we get that name, which we have been defending for 60 years?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "It didn't exist. There were various communities living in Arab countries. They were called 'Canaanites,' 'Amalekites,' or a whole host of other names. The Quranic verse even says: '...in it are a people of great strength [Jabbareen].' Some people called them 'Jabbareen.' Therefore, there was no state called 'Palestine.' I insist on this."

Host: "You once wrote in a column: 'I wish I were an Israeli soldier.'"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "Right."

Host: "So it's no longer just about recognizing Israel. You say that you wish you were an Israeli soldier."

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "Right."

Host: "You didn't write it in the first person, but you wrote that the Arab youth wish they could be Israeli soldiers. Is this logical? Is this realistic?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "I wrote that article in 2006 when Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped. When I wrote this, I did not mean that I'd like to bear arms and fight for Israel, but that I wished that we could be like the people of the State of Israel, who rallied, down to the very last one, to defend a single Israeli soldier. So I wrote: 'I wish I could be such a soldier whose country defends him.' By Allah, if he were a soldier in any Arab country, would his nation, country, or head of state rally the same way Israel did? The Arab countries have had thousands of casulaties, and nobody cares about them.

[...]

"To tell you the truth, I have reservations about the word 'normalization,' and I would prefer to call it 'peaceful coexistence with the State of Israel.'"

Host: "Like Egypt and Jordan..."

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "Exactly. Peaceful coexistence."

Host: "And what was the outcome?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "Both sides benefited from it."

[...]

Host: "Should the Arabs and Muslims stand with Israel against Hizbullah?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "The head of a major Gulf state said that he was ready to collaborate with Satan against the Persian entity. By 'Satan,' he meant Israel. They call it 'Satan.' But I say: Why shouldn't we live in peaceful coexistence with Israel, and cooperate with it against my great enemy, which is the Persian regime?"

Guest: "You say that the Zionist entity opposes Iran?"

Abdullah Al-Hadlaq: "The Persian regime boasts that it has occupied four Arab capitals, and that it will soon occupy the fifth. Has Israel ever said such a thing? Hd​

Considering MEMRI’s website used to have this as their slogan “the continuing relevance of Zionism to the Jewish people and to the state of Israel" (source) and Richard Perle has joined its Board of Trustees at the Indianapolis Institute, it’s not surprising it would have the perspective it has. Added to the fact its legitimacy has been called into question (source), I’ll read it all with a very healthy dose of skepticism.

And this particular Israel, thanks to Harry Truman being manipulated by Chaim Weismann, is approximately 70 years old. It took a decade of coaxing, but on May 14, 1948, the Israel we know today, came into being (source).

It should also be noted that the UN has addressed the crisis in Palestine as “Occupied Palestinian Territory” so Abdullah Al-Hadlaq should get his facts straight.

 

[SpektaCoolAir]

kuwaiti pawn of the zionists quotes qur'an to display his incredible ignorance (should have been the original headline).
always fun how these devils disqualify themselves.


anyways:

Tafseer Surah al-Ma’idah Ayah 21 and 22

The Command to Enter the Holy Land

Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala states next that Musa aalyhi salaam encouraged the Children of Israel to perform Jihad and enter Jerusalem, which was under their control during the time of their father Yaqoob. Yaqoob and his children later moved with his children and household to Egypt during the time of Prophet Yusuf. His offspring remained in Egypt until their exodus with Musa. They found a mighty, strong people in Jerusalem who had previously taken it over. Musa, Allah’s Messenger, ordered the Children of Israel to enter Jerusalem and fight their enemy, and he promised them victory and triumph over the mighty people if they did so. They declined, rebelled and defied his order and were punished for forty years by being lost, wandering in the land uncertain of where they should go. This was their punishment for defying Allah’s command.

Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala said that Musa ordered them to enter the Holy Land,

يَاقَوْمِ ادْخُلُوا الاٌّرْضَ المُقَدَّسَةَ الَّتِى كَتَبَ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ وَلاَ تَرْتَدُّوا عَلَى أَدْبَـرِكُمْ فَتَنْقَلِبُوا خَـسِرِينَ
“O my people! Enter the Holy Land which Allah has assigned to you and turn not back; for then you will be returned as losers.”

It means enter the land that Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has promised to you by the words of your father Israel, that it is the inheritance of those among you who believe. When you enter the city do not turn back out of the fear of the enemy. If you don’t obey the command of Allah then consequently you are going to end up as losers.

Which land is the Holy Land?

Apparently, commentators differ about it. Some say that it means Bayt-ul-Muqadas – Jerusalem. Some identify the city of Quds and Eliah as fitting the description of the Holy Land. Still others point out to city of Ariha which was located between Jordan river and Bayt-ul-Muqadas and was reported to be one of the oldest cities of the world.

Then, there are other narrations which indicate that the Holy Land means Damascus and Palestine or Jordan according to some others. And Qatadah has said that the entire land of Syria is the Holy Land. Ka’ab al-Ahbar has said that he has seen in the Book of Allah [perhaps, the Torah] that the country of Syria is a special treasure of Allah on this entire earth and there are in it Allah’s special and dear servants. This land has been called holy because it has been home to the blessed prophets of Allah. [Maroof-ul-Qur’an]

Please note that the present day Syria is a limited land only. Many centuries ago Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and some part of Iraq all formed Syria. Due to the wars and colonization, Syria was divided into several countries.


LESSONS:

– This shows us the virtue of the Holy Land. This was the original home of Bani Israel.

– Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala ordained the Holy Land for Bani Israel. They were most deserving of this land “when they were believers”, when they were known as the best nation. Now this is no more applicable. They have left belief and entered disbelief therefore it’s not their right anymore. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala says in Surah al-Anbiya ayah 105, “And We have already written in the book [of Psalms] after the [previous] mention that the land is inherited by My righteous servants.”


Tafseer Ayah 22

قَالُوا يَامُوسَى إِنَّ فِيهَا قَوْماً جَبَّارِينَ وَإِنَّا لَن نَّدْخُلَهَا حَتَّى يَخْرُجُواْ مِنْهَا فَإِن يَخْرُجُواْ مِنْهَا فَإِنَّا دَخِلُونَ
“They said, “O Musa! In it are a people of great strength, and we shall never enter it, till they leave it; when they leave, then we will enter.”

Their excuse was that this town you have commanded us to enter and fight, its people are mighty, strong and vicious; people who have tremendous physique and physical ability. We are unable to stand against these people or fight them. Therefore, they said, we are incapable of entering this city as long as they are still in it, but if they leave it, we will enter it. Otherwise, we cannot stand against them.

The Sunnah of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala is that you struggle for what you want to attain. The Bani Israel didn’t want to do anything. They want Allah to do it for them just like He saved them from Pharaoh.


LESSONS:

We learn about the cowardice of Bani Israel. They did not even want to make an effort and wanted Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala to do it for them. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala says take the first step and then I will help you. Therefore, the Prophet sallAllahu taught us the du’a for seeking refuge from cowardice and laziness.

https://versebyversequranstudycircle.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/tafseer-surah-al-maidah-ayah-21-and-22/


now this fool is saying that the plastic jews a.k.a. the united illegal european setllers (ashkeNAZIS) are the banee isra'eel.
then trying to justify a "right to exist" for secularists/devil worshippers by using religious scripture.
way beyond sanity though!

 

[SpektaCoolAir]

Top Ten Myths about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

A proper understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires exposing numerous myths about its origins and the reasons it persists.


Myth #1 – Jews and Arabs have always been in conflict in the region.

Although Arabs were a majority in Palestine prior to the creation of the state of Israel, there had always been a Jewish population, as well. For the most part, Jewish Palestinians got along with their Arab neighbors. This began to change with the onset of the Zionist movement, because the Zionists rejected the right of the Palestinians to self-determination and wanted Palestine for their own, to create a “Jewish State” in a region where Arabs were the majority and owned most of the land.

For instance, after a series of riots in Jaffa in 1921 resulting in the deaths of 47 Jews and 48 Arabs, the occupying British held a commission of inquiry, which reported their finding that “there is no inherent anti-Semitism in the country, racial or religious.” Rather, Arab attacks on Jewish communities were the result of Arab fears about the stated goal of the Zionists to take over the land.

After major violence again erupted in 1929, the British Shaw Commission report noted that “In less than 10 years three serious attacks have been made by Arabs on Jews. For 80 years before the first of these attacks there is no recorded instance of any similar incidents.” Representatives from all sides of the emerging conflict testified to the commission that prior to the First World War, “the Jews and Arabs lived side by side if not in amity, at least with tolerance, a quality which today is almost unknown in Palestine.” The problem was that “The Arab people of Palestine are today united in their demand for representative government”, but were being denied that right by the Zionists and their British benefactors.

The British Hope-Simpson report of 1930 similarly noted that Jewish residents of non-Zionist communities in Palestine enjoyed friendship with their Arab neighbors. “It is quite a common sight to see an Arab sitting in the verandah of a Jewish house”, the report noted. “The position is entirely different in the Zionist colonies.”


Myth #2 – The United Nations created Israel.

The U.N. became involved when the British sought to wash its hands of the volatile situation its policies had helped to create, and to extricate itself from Palestine. To that end, they requested that the U.N. take up the matter.

As a result, a U.N. Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) was created to examine the issue and offer its recommendation on how to resolve the conflict. UNSCOP contained no representatives from any Arab country and in the end issued a report that explicitly rejected the right of the Palestinians to self-determination. Rejecting the democratic solution to the conflict, UNSCOP instead proposed that Palestine be partitioned into two states: one Arab and one Jewish.

The U.N. General Assembly endorsed UNSCOP’s in its Resolution 181. It is often claimed that this resolution “partitioned” Palestine, or that it provided Zionist leaders with a legal mandate for their subsequent declaration of the existence of the state of Israel, or some other similar variation on the theme. All such claims are absolutely false.

Resolution 181 merely endorsed UNSCOP’s report and conclusions as a recommendation. Needless to say, for Palestine to have been officially partitioned, this recommendation would have had to have been accepted by both Jews and Arabs, which it was not.

Moreover, General Assembly resolutions are not considered legally binding (only Security Council resolutions are). And, furthermore, the U.N. would have had no authority to take land from one people and hand it over to another, and any such resolution seeking to so partition Palestine would have been null and void, anyway.


Myth #3 – The Arabs missed an opportunity to have their own state in 1947.

The U.N. recommendation to partition Palestine was rejected by the Arabs. Many commentators today point to this rejection as constituting a missed “opportunity” for the Arabs to have had their own state. But characterizing this as an “opportunity” for the Arabs is patently ridiculous. The Partition plan was in no way, shape, or form an “opportunity” for the Arabs.

First of all, as already noted, Arabs were a large majority in Palestine at the time, with Jews making up about a third of the population by then, due to massive immigration of Jews from Europe (in 1922, by contrast, a British census showed that Jews represented only about 11 percent of the population).

Additionally, land ownership statistics from 1945 showed that Arabs owned more land than Jews in every single district of Palestine, including Jaffa, where Arabs owned 47 percent of the land while Jews owned 39 percent – and Jaffa boasted the highest percentage of Jewish-owned land of any district. In other districts, Arabs owned an even larger portion of the land. At the extreme other end, for instance, in Ramallah, Arabs owned 99 percent of the land. In the whole of Palestine, Arabs owned 85 percent of the land, while Jews owned less than 7 percent, which remained the case up until the time of Israel’s creation.

Yet, despite these facts, the U.N. partition recommendation had called for more than half of the land of Palestine to be given to the Zionists for their “Jewish State”. The truth is that no Arab could be reasonably expected to accept such an unjust proposal. For political commentators today to describe the Arabs’ refusal to accept a recommendation that their land be taken away from them, premised upon the explicit rejection of their right to self-determination, as a “missed opportunity” represents either an astounding ignorance of the roots of the conflict or an unwillingness to look honestly at its history.

It should also be noted that the partition plan was also rejected by many Zionist leaders. Among those who supported the idea, which included David Ben-Gurion, their reasoning was that this would be a pragmatic step towards their goal of acquiring the whole of Palestine for a “Jewish State” – something which could be finally accomplished later through force of arms.

When the idea of partition was first raised years earlier, for instance, Ben-Gurion had written that “after we become a strong force, as the result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine”. Partition should be accepted, he argued, “to prepare the ground for our expansion into the whole of Palestine”. The Jewish State would then “have to preserve order”, if the Arabs would not acquiesce, “by machine guns, if necessary.”


Myth #4 – Israel has a “right to exist”.

The fact that this term is used exclusively with regard to Israel is instructive as to its legitimacy, as is the fact that the demand is placed upon Palestinians to recognize Israel’s “right to exist”, while no similar demand is placed upon Israelis to recognize the “right to exist” of a Palestinian state.

Nations don’t have rights, people do. The proper framework for discussion is within that of the right of all peoples to self-determination. Seen in this, the proper framework, it is an elementary observation that it is not the Arabs which have denied Jews that right, but the Jews which have denied that right to the Arabs. The terminology of Israel’s “right to exist” is constantly employed to obfuscate that fact.

As already noted, Israel was not created by the U.N., but came into being on May 14, 1948, when the Zionist leadership unilaterally, and with no legal authority, declared Israel’s existence, with no specification as to the extent of the new state’s borders. In a moment, the Zionists had declared that Arabs no longer the owners of their land – it now belonged to the Jews. In an instant, the Zionists had declared that the majority Arabs of Palestine were now second-class citizens in the new “Jewish State”.

The Arabs, needless to say, did not passively accept this development, and neighboring Arab countries declared war on the Zionist regime in order to prevent such a grave injustice against the majority inhabitants of Palestine.

It must be emphasized that the Zionists had no right to most of the land they declared as part of Israel, while the Arabs did. This war, therefore, was not, as is commonly asserted in mainstream commentary, an act of aggression by the Arab states against Israel. Rather, the Arabs were acting in defense of their rights, to prevent the Zionists from illegally and unjustly taking over Arab lands and otherwise disenfranchising the Arab population. The act of aggression was the Zionist leadership’s unilateral declaration of the existence of Israel, and the Zionists’ use of violence to enforce their aims both prior to and subsequent to that declaration.

In the course of the war that ensued, Israel implemented a policy of ethnic cleansing. 700,000 Arab Palestinians were either forced from their homes or fled out of fear of further massacres, such as had occurred in the village of Deir Yassin shortly before the Zionist declaration. These Palestinians have never been allowed to return to their homes and land, despite it being internationally recognized and encoded in international law that such refugees have an inherent “right of return”.

Palestinians will never agree to the demand made of them by Israel and its main benefactor, the U.S., to recognize Israel’s “right to exist”. To do so is effectively to claim that Israel had a “right” to take Arab land, while Arabs had no right to their own land. It is effectively to claim that Israel had a “right” to ethnically cleanse Palestine, while Arabs had no right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in their own homes, on their own land.

The constant use of the term “right to exist” in discourse today serves one specific purpose: It is designed to obfuscate the reality that it is the Jews that have denied the Arab right to self-determination, and not vice versa, and to otherwise attempt to legitimize Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, both historical and contemporary.


Myth #5 – The Arab nations threatened Israel with annihilation in 1967 and 1973.

The fact of the matter is that it was Israel that fired the first shot of the “Six Day War”. Early on the morning of June 5, Israel launched fighters in a surprise attack on Egypt (then the United Arab Republic), and successfully decimated the Egyptian air force while most of its planes were still on the ground.

It is virtually obligatory for this attack to be described by commentators today as “preemptive”. But to have been “preemptive”, by definition, there must have been an imminent threat of Egyptian aggression against Israel. Yet there was none.

It is commonly claimed that President Nasser’s bellicose rhetoric, blockade of the Straits of Tiran, movement of troops into the Sinai Peninsula, and expulsion of U.N. peacekeeping forces from its side of the border collectively constituted such an imminent threat.

Yet, both U.S. and Israeli intelligence assessed at the time that the likelihood Nasser would actually attack was low. The CIA assessed that Israel had overwhelming superiority in force of arms, and would, in the event of a war, defeat the Arab forces within two weeks; within a week if Israel attacked first, which is what actually occurred.

It must be kept in mind that Egypt had been the victim of aggression by the British, French, and Israelis in the 1956 “Suez Crisis”, following Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal. In that war, the three aggressor nations conspired to wage war upon Egypt, which resulted in an Israeli occupation of the Sinai Peninsula. Under U.S. pressure, Israel withdrew from the Sinai in 1957, but Egypt had not forgotten the Israeli aggression.

Moreover, Egypt had formed a loose alliance with Syria and Jordan, with each pledging to come to the aid of the others in the event of a war with Israel. Jordan had criticized Nasser for not living up to that pledge after the Israeli attack on West Bank village of Samu the year before, and his rhetoric was a transparent attempt to regain face in the Arab world.

That Nasser’s positioning was defensive, rather than projecting an intention to wage an offensive against Israel, was well recognized among prominent Israelis. As Avraham Sela of the Shalem Center has observed, “The Egyptian buildup in Sinai lacked a clear offensive plan, and Nasser’s defensive instructions explicitly assumed an Israeli first strike.”

Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin acknowledged that “In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.”

Yitzhak Rabin, who would also later become Prime Minister of Israel, admitted in 1968 that “I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive war. He knew it and we knew it.”

Israelis have also acknowledged that their own rhetoric at the time about the “threat” of “annihilation” from the Arab states was pure propaganda.

General Chaim Herzog, commanding general and first military governor of the occupied West Bank following the war, admitted that “There was no danger of annihilation. Israeli headquarters never believed in this danger.”

General Ezer Weizman similarly said, “There was never a danger of extermination. This hypothesis had never been considered in any serious meeting.”

Chief of Staff Haim Bar-Lev acknowledged, “We were not threatened with genocide on the eve of the Six-Day War, and we had never thought of such possibility.”

Israeli Minister of Housing Mordechai Bentov has also acknowledged that “The entire story of the danger of extermination was invented in every detail, and exaggerated a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territory.”

In 1973, in what Israelis call the “Yom Kippur War”, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise offensive to retake the Sinai and the Golan Heights, respectively. This joint action is popularly described in contemporaneous accounts as an “invasion” of or act of “aggression” against Israel.

Yet, as already noted, following the June ’67 war, the U.N. Security Council passed resolution 242 calling upon Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. Israel, needless to say, refused to do so and has remained in perpetual violation of international law ever since.

During the 1973 war, Egypt and Syria thus “invaded” their own territory, then under illegal occupation by Israel. The corollary of the description of this war as an act of Arab aggression implicitly assumes that the Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights, West Bank, and Gaza Strip were Israeli territory. This is, needless to say, a grossly false assumption that demonstrates the absolutely prejudicial and biased nature of mainstream commentary when it comes to the Israeli-Arab conflict.

This false narrative fits in with the larger overall narrative, equally fallacious, of Israeli as the “victim” of Arab intransigence and aggression. This narrative, largely unquestioned in the West, flips reality on its head.


Myth #6 – U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 called only for a partial Israeli withdrawal.

Resolution 242 was passed in the wake of the June ’67 war and called for the “Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” While the above argument enjoys widespread popularity, it has no merit whatsoever.

The central thesis of this argument is that the absence of the word “the” before “occupied territories” in that clause means not “all of the occupied territories” were intended. Essentially, this argument rests upon the ridiculous logic that because the word “the” was omitted from the clause, we may therefore understand this to mean that “some of the occupied territories” was the intended meaning.

Grammatically, the absence of the word “the” has no effect on the meaning of this clause, which refers to “territories”, plural. A simple litmus test question is: Is it territory that was occupied by Israel in the ’67 war? If yes, then, under international law and Resolution 242, Israel is required to withdraw from that territory. Such territories include the Syrian Golan Heights, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.

The French version of the resolution, equally authentic as the English, contains the definite article, and a majority of the members of the Security Council made clear during deliberations that their understanding of the resolution was that it would require Israel to fully withdraw from all occupied territories.

Additionally, it is impossible to reconcile with the principle of international law cited in the preamble to the resolution, of “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”. To say that the U.N. intended that Israel could retain some of the territory it occupied during the war would fly in the face of this cited principle.

One could go on to address various other logical fallacies associated with this frivolous argument, but as it is absurd on its face, it would be superfluous to do so.


Myth #7 – Israeli military action against its neighbors is only taken to defend itself against terrorism.

The facts tell another story. Take, for instance, the devastating 1982 Israeli war on Lebanon. As political analyst Noam Chomsky extensively documents in his epic analysis “The Fateful Triangle”, this military offensive was carried out with barely even the thinnest veil of a pretext.

While one may read contemporary accounts insisting this war was fought in response to a constant shelling of northern Israeli by the PLO, then based in Lebanon, the truth is that, despite continuous Israeli provocations, the PLO had with only a few exceptions abided by a cease-fire that had been in place. Moreover, in each of those instances, it was Israel that had first violated the cease-fire.

Among the Israeli provocations, throughout early 1982, it attacked and sank Lebanese fishing boats and otherwise committed hundreds of violations of Lebanese territorial waters. It committed thousands of violations of Lebanese airspace, yet never did manage to provoke the PLO response it sought to serve as the casus belli for the planned invasion of Lebanon.

On May 9, Israel bombed Lebanon, an act that was finally met with a PLO response when it launched rocket and artillery fire into Israel.

Then a terrorist group headed by Abu Nidal attempted to assassinate Israeli Ambassador Shlomo Argov in London. Although the PLO itself had been at war with Abu Nidal, who had been condemned to death by a Fatah military tribunal in 1973, and despite the fact that Abu Nidal was not based in Lebanon, Israel cited this event as a pretext to bomb the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, killing 200 Palestinians. The PLO responded by shelling settlements in northern Israel. Yet Israel did not manage to provoke the kind of larger-scale response it was looking to use as a casus belli for its planned invasion.

As Israeli scholar Yehoshua Porath has suggested, Israel’s decision to invade Lebanon, far from being a response to PLO attacks, rather “flowed from the very fact that the cease-fire had been observed”. Writing in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Porath assessed that “The government’s hope is that the stricken PLO, lacking a logistic and territorial base, will return to its earlier terrorism…. In this way, the PLO will lose part of the political legitimacy that it has gained … undercutting the danger that elements will develop among the Palestinians that might become a legitimate negotiating partner for future political accommodations.”

As another example, take Israel’s Operation Cast Lead from December 27, 2008 to January 18, 2009. Prior to Israel’s assault on the besieged and defenseless population of the Gaza Strip, Israel had entered into a cease-fire agreement with the governing authority there, Hamas. Contrary to popular myth, it was Israel, not Hamas, who ended the cease-fire.

The pretext for Operation Cast Lead is obligatorily described in Western media accounts as being the “thousands” of rockets that Hamas had been firing into Israel prior to the offensive, in violation of the cease-fire.

The truth is that from the start of the cease-fire in June until November 4, Hamas fired no rockets, despite numerous provocations from Israel, including stepped-up operations in the West Bank and Israeli soldiers taking pop-shots at Gazans across the border, resulting in several injuries and at least one death.

On November 4, it was again Israel who violated the cease-fire, with airstrikes and a ground invasion of Gaza that resulted in further deaths. Hamas finally responded with rocket fire, and from that point on the cease-fire was effectively over, with daily tit-for-tat attacks from both sides.

Despite Israel’s lack of good faith, Hamas offered to renew the cease-fire from the time it was set to officially expire in December. Israel rejected the offer, preferring instead to inflict violent collective punishment on the people of Gaza.

As the Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center noted, the truce “brought relative quiet to the western Negev population”, with 329 rocket and mortar attacks, “most of them during the month and a half after November 4”, when Israel had violated and effectively ended the truce. This stands in remarkable contrast to the 2,278 rocket and mortar attacks in the six months prior to the truce. Until November 4, the center also observed, “Hamas was careful to maintain the ceasefire.”

If Israel had desired to continue to mitigate the threat of Palestinian militant rocket attacks, it would have simply not ended the cease-fire, which was very highly effective in reducing the number of such attacks, including eliminating all such attacks by Hamas. It would not have instead resorted to violence, predictably resulting in a greatly escalated threat of retaliatory rocket and mortar attacks from Palestinian militant groups.

Moreover, even if Israel could claim that peaceful means had been exhausted and that a resort military force to act in self-defense to defend its civilian population was necessary, that is demonstrably not what occurred. Instead, Israel deliberately targeted the civilian population of Gaza with systematic and deliberate disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks on residential areas, hospitals, schools, and other locations with protected civilian status under international law.

As the respected international jurist who headed up the United Nations investigation into the assault, Richard Goldstone, has observed, the means by which Israel carried out Operation Cast Lead were not consistent with its stated aims, but was rather more indicative of a deliberate act of collective punishment of the civilian population.


Myth #8 – God gave the land to the Jews, so the Arabs are the occupiers.

No amount of discussion of the facts on the ground will ever convince many Jews and Christians that Israel could ever do wrong, because they view its actions as having the hand of God behind it, and that its policies are in fact the will of God. They believe that God gave the land of Palestine, including the West Bank and Gaza Strip, to the Jewish people, and therefore Israel has a “right” to take it by force from the Palestinians, who, in this view, are the wrongful occupiers of the land.

But one may simply turn to the pages of their own holy books to demonstrate the fallaciousness of this or similar beliefs. Christian Zionists are fond of quoting passages from the Bible such as the following to support their Zionist beliefs:

“And Yahweh said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: ‘Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are – northward, southward, eastward, and westward; for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants could also be numbered. Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.” (Genesis 13:14-17)

“Then Yahweh appeared to him and said: ‘Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I shall tell you. Dwell in the land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father.” (Genesis 26: 1-3)

“And behold, Yahweh stood above it and said: ‘I am Yahweh, God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants.” (Genesis 28:13)

Yet Christian Zionists conveniently disregard other passages providing further context for understanding this covenant, such as the following:

“You shall therefore keep all My statutes and all My judgments, and perform them, that the land where I am bringing you to dwell may not vomit you out.” (Leviticus 20:22)

“But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments … but break My covenant … I will bring the land to desolation, and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations and draw out a sword after you; your land shall be desolate and your cities waste … You shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.” (Leviticus 26: 14, 15, 32-33, 28)

“Therefore Yahweh was very angry with Israel, and removed them from His sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah alone…. So Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria, as it is to this day.” (2 Kings 17:18, 23)

“And I said, after [Israel] had done all these things, ‘Return to Me.’ But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away and given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went and played the harlot also.” (Jeremiah 3: 7-8)

Yes, in the Bible, Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, told the Hebrews that the land could be theirs – if they would obey his commandments. Yet, as the Bible tells the story, the Hebrews were rebellious against Yahweh in all their generations.

What Jewish and Christian Zionists omit from their Biblical arguments in favor of continued Israel occupation is that Yahweh also told the Hebrews, including the tribe of Judah (from whom the “Jews” are descended), that he would remove them from the land if they broke the covenant by rebelling against his commandments, which is precisely what occurs in the Bible.

Thus, the theological argument for Zionism is not only bunk from a secular point of view, but is also a wholesale fabrication from a scriptural perspective, representing a continued rebelliousness against Yahweh and his Torah, and the teachings of Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus the Christ) in the New Testament.


Myth #9 – Palestinians reject the two-state solution because they want to destroy Israel.

In an enormous concession to Israel, Palestinians have long accepted the two-state solution. The elected representatives of the Palestinian people in Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) had since the 70s recognized the state of Israel and accepted the two-state solution to the conflict. Despite this, Western media continued through the 90s to report that the PLO rejected this solution and instead wanted to wipe Israel off the map.

The pattern has been repeated since Hamas was voted into power in the 2006 Palestinian elections. Although Hamas has for years accepted the reality of the state of Israel and demonstrated a willingness to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip alongside Israel, it is virtually obligatory for Western mainstream media, even today, to report that Hamas rejects the two-state solution, that it instead seeks “to destroy Israel”.

In fact, in early 2004, shortly before he was assassinated by Israel, Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin said that Hamas could accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Hamas has since repeatedly reiterated its willingness to accept a two-state solution.

In early 2005, Hamas issued a document stating its goal of seeking a Palestinian state alongside Israel and recognizing the 1967 borders.

The exiled head of the political bureau of Hamas, Khalid Mish’al, wrote in the London Guardian in January 2006 that Hamas was “ready to make a just peace”. He wrote that “We shall never recognize the right of any power to rob us of our land and deny us our national rights…. But if you are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce, we are prepared to negotiate the terms.”

During the campaigning for the 2006 elections, the top Hamas official in Gaza, Mahmoud al-Zahar said that Hamas was ready to “accept to establish our independent state on the area occupied [in] ’67”, a tacit recognition of the state of Israel.

The elected prime minister from Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, said in February 2006 that Hamas accepted “the establishment of a Palestinian state” within the “1967 borders”.

In April 2008, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter met with Hamas officials and afterward stated that Hamas “would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders” and would “accept the right of Israel to live as a neighbor next door in peace”. It was Hamas’ “ultimate goal to see Israel living in their allocated borders, the 1967 borders, and a contiguous, vital Palestinian state alongside.”

That same month Hamas leader Meshal said, “We have offered a truce if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, a truce of 10 years as a proof of recognition.”

In 2009, Meshal said that Hamas “has accepted a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders”.

Hamas’ shift in policy away from total rejection of the existence of the state of Israel towards acceptance of the international consensus on a two-state solution to the conflict is in no small part a reflection of the will of the Palestinian public. A public opinion survey from April of last year, for instance, found that three out of four Palestinians were willing to accept a two-state solution.


Myth #10 – The U.S. is an honest broker and has sought to bring about peace in the Middle East.

Rhetoric aside, the U.S. supports Israel’s policies, including its illegal occupation and other violations of international humanitarian law. It supports Israel’s criminal policies financially, militarily, and diplomatically.

The Obama administration, for example, stated publically that it was opposed to Israel’s settlement policy and ostensibly “pressured” Israel to freeze colonization activities. Yet very early on, the administration announced that it would not cut back financial or military aid to Israel, even if it defied international law and continued settlement construction. That message was perfectly well understood by the Netanyahu government in Israel, which continued its colonization policies.

To cite another straightforward example, both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate passed resolutions openly declaring support for Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, despite a constant stream of reports evidencing Israeli war crimes.

On the day the U.S. Senate passed its resolution “reaffirming the United States’ strong support for Israel in its battle with Hamas” (January 8, 2009), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a statement demanding that Israel allow it to assist victims of the conflict because the Israeli military had blocked access to wounded Palestinians – a war crime under international law.

That same day, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement condemning Israel for firing on a U.N. aid convoy delivering humanitarian supplies to Gaza and for the killing of two U.N. staff members – both further war crimes.

On the day that the House passed its own version of the resolution, the U.N. announced that it had had to stop humanitarian work in Gaza because of numerous incidents in which its staff, convoys, and installations, including clinics and schools, had come under Israeli attack.

U.S. financial support for Israel surpasses $3 billion annually. When Israel waged a war to punish the defenseless civilian population of Gaza, its pilots flew U.S.-made F-16 fighter-bombers and Apache helicopter gunships, dropping U.S.-made bombs, including the use of white phosphorus munitions in violation of international law.

U.S. diplomatic support for Israeli crimes includes its use of the veto power in the U.N. Security Council. When Israel was waging a devastating war against the civilian population and infrastructure of Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the U.S. vetoed a cease-fire resolution.

As Israel was waging Operation Cast Lead, the U.S. delayed the passage of a resolution calling for an end to the violence, and then abstained rather than criticize Israel once it finally allowed the resolution to be put to a vote.

When the U.N. Human Rights Council officially adopted the findings and recommendations of its investigation into war crimes during Operation Cast Lead, headed up by Richard Goldstone, the U.S. responded by announcing its intention to block any effort to have the Security Council similarly adopt its conclusions and recommendations. The U.S. Congress passed a resolution rejecting the Goldstone report because it found that Israel had committed war crimes.

Through its virtually unconditional support for Israel, the U.S. has effectively blocked any steps to implement the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The so-called “peace process” has for many decades consisted of U.S. and Israeli rejection Palestinian self-determination and blocking of any viable Palestinian state.

https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/06/17/top-ten-myths-about-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict/