President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry did by their own omissions and obfuscation misreport of the Arab-Israel war to Americans which implied, "You can't handle the truth." With a 'pro-Palestinian' leaning, the Obama American foreign policies have failed to force or cajole the Israelis into contrition to abate their military attacks as Israelis further destroy Hamas arms, caves and military facilities-- the only military actions that will assure a peaceful end and no further deaths on both sides.
Factoid: I describe both adversaries here as 'Arabs', rather than 'Palestinian and Israeli' or 'Muslim and Jew'. So as they are all Arabs, some are Israeli citizens of Israel, a sovereign nation, and others are Arabs, like Yasser Arafat, who are PLO or Hamas terrorists that in the 1960's created their own new political persona called 'Palestinians'. This becomes an important distinction of the regional ethnicity if you are to understand this middle East conflict.
BIO: MARIÂNGELA BERQUÓ did her post-graduate studies at the University Sorbonne, Paris in political, economics and humanities studies and is an amnesty.org activist and is a syndicated professional journalist with analysis of international conflicts. Her glowing posthumous write-up below on Yasser Arafat and his fight for the PLO and Palestinian rights, as admirable as it is, offers real insight into how to intentionally exact the illusion of the whole truth, not half-truths, in reporting the Arab-Israeli territorial conflict. Her account is a polished, history rewrite to change post-generational outcomes of past events to now promote a biased, hate-filled political agenda against Israel.
Enfoca a Geopolítica - Dec, 2013 (Article Excerpts)
Credit: Ms. MARIÂNGELA BERQUÓ
Israel vs Palestina: XLVII bis Yasser Arafat ( 08/1929 - 11/2004 )
Arafat doesn't see any Israeli Flags in the future for the Palestine area contradicting peace talk promises with Jews. "Yasser Arafat is one of the generations of great leaders who arose after World War II. Wherever he may be buried when he passes away, the day will come when his remains will be reinterred by a free Palestinian government in the holy shrines in Jerusalem."
"The stature of a leader is not simply determined by the size of his achievements, but also by the size of the obstacles he had to overcome. In this respect, Arafat has no competitor in the world: no leader of our generation has been called upon to face such cruel tests and to cope with such adversities as he."
"When he appeared on the stage of history, at the end of the 1950s, his people was close to oblivion. The name Palestine had been eradicated from the map. Israel , Jordan and Egypt had divided the country between them. The world had decided that there was no Palestinian national entity, that the Palestinian people had ceased to exist, like the American Indian nations - if, indeed, it had ever existed at all." [American Indian nations did exist though, Arabs lived in the Palestine territory, never was ever a country of Palestine.]
"Within the Arab world the “Palestinian Cause” was still mentioned, but it served only as a ball to be kicked around between the Arab regimes. [Referring to Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt as Arab regimes] Each of them tried to appropriate it for its own selfish interests, while brutally putting down any independent Palestinian initiative. Almost all Palestinians lived under dictatorships, most of them in humiliating circumstances." [Factually correct, during the Arab-Israeli War in 1948 nearly 750,000 Palestinians were either forced or decided themselves to flee their homes to camps in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza, creating the refugee problem that continues to the present day. As nomadic Arab tribes that required social services, shelter and food, the neighboring Arab nations wisely saved costs by refusal to harbor all these masses of Arab refugees, squaller and potential insurrection and unrest of idle workers. They strategically offered future assistance in their Arab causes while leaving them to occupy the Gaza Strip and West Bank dependent upon foreign aid and, ironically, Israel state aid too.]
My rebuttal below to MARIÂNGELA BERQUÓ reviews past historical facts as well as recent events that will support it. Too many times history is not presented fairly as with omitted passages deliberately altered to suit storylines. Readers assume the written word as fact and reach wrong conclusions. One must consider this writer too with post graduate studies at the liberal, left-leaning Sorbonne University, Paris and active in the UK Amnesty.org assigning war crimes focused on anti-Muslim causes. You be the judge about the 'Palestinian' war with Israel. Please read on:
"The Arabs invented a special national entity in the 1960s (rather than a geographic delineation) called the Palestinians, specifically for political gain. They brand Israelis as invaders and claim the geographic area called Palestine belongs exclusively to the Arabs."
"The word Palestine is not even Arabic. It is a word coined by the Romans around 135 B.C from the name of a seagoing Aegean people who settled on the coast of Canaan in antiquity â€, the Philistines. The name was chosen to replace Judea, as a sign that Jewish sovereignty had been eradicated following the Jewish Revolts against Rome." [It was the Roman conqueror’s way to demean the Jewish identity and not a complimentary name.]
"In the course of time, the Latin name Philistia was further bastardized into Palistina or Palestine. During the next 2,000 years, Palestine was never an independent state belonging to any people, nor did a Palestinian people, distinct from other Arabs, appear during 1,300 years of Muslim hegemony in Palestine under Arab and Ottoman rule."
"Palestine was and is solely a geographic name. Therefore, it is not surprising that in modern times the name 'Palestine' or 'Palestinian' was applied as an adjective to all inhabitants of the geographical area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River — Palestine Jews and Palestine Arabs alike. In fact, until the 1960s, most Arabs in Palestine preferred to identify themselves merely as part of the great Arab nation or citizens of "southern Syria."
Yasser Arafat founded in 1959 the PLO, “Palestinian Liberation Movement” (whose initials in reverse spell Fatah). At the beginning its purpose was to enable the nomadic Palestinian people to speak and act for itself to gain liberation from oppressive regional Arab leaders like in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Jordan that maintained control of their countries by suppressing militant factions. Since Fatah had no independent base, it had to function in the Arab countries, often under merciless persecutions and even Yasser Arafat was thrown into a Syrian prison under a death sentence by Hafiz al-Asad. It was later overturned, but the hatred between them never healed. Strategically, Arafat instinctively redirected his zeal away from Muslim nations and towards Israel with the Jews to further grow his anti-semitic sectarian group into a geopolitical heavyweight in the region while financially enriching himself too. He died with an apprised personal net worth of $1.3 Billion--what a selfless guy!
"The term 'Palestinian' as a noun was usurped and co-opted by the Arabs in the 1960s as a PLO [now Hamas] tactic initiated by Yasser Arafat to brand Jews as intruders on someone else's turf. He presents Arab residents of Israel and the Territories as indigenous inhabitants since time immemorial. This fabrication of peoplehood allowed Palestinian Arabs to gain parity with the Jewish people as a nation deserving of an independent state."
"In a March 1977 interview in the Dutch newspaper Trouw, Zahir Muhsein, a member of the PLO executive committee, admitted:
"Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."
Historically, before the Arabs, PLO, fabricated the 'Palestinian People' as an exclusively Arab phenomenon, No such group existed!
Very IMPORTANT Point: This is all about the Jewish people and their homeland, not about nomadic Arabs in the region. Let's be specific here too, it's not about Muslims or Islam Religion because neither existed until 635 A.D.; that's over 500 years later after the Romans conquered the Jews in 135 B.C. and renamed Palestine for the Judea province.
What is in the future for Arab-Israeli-American middle East unrest?
In a 'Polyanna' outlook, 'Neverland world of make-believe', the answer is that only by admitting their culpability and making amends can Israelis live with their neighbors in a permanent peace. Only then centuries-old traditions of co-existence can be restored. And only in this way can real security, peace and justice come to this ancient land.
The 'real truth' is that the Islamic equation is involved in the escalation of religious animosities worldwide. The Muslims have called for a jihad, a holy war, against the Jews, Christians and infidels with only complete annihilation or subjugation as its final solution. It has never changed and jihad will never end until the Muslim Caliphate has established dominion over the entire middle-East region and the world.
The 'hard truth' is most Americans want an immediate solution to the middle East unrest that will never happen--"the American people may have the watches, but the Arab Muslims have the time" and they will just fight on for decades like in past centuries--it literally becomes a way of life like the Israelis now face every day--it's 'Groundhog Day' all over again!