Scientific Approach to Arab-Israel Conflict.

by Steve Shamrak.

For centuries, with the exception of the Dark Ages, scientists and the intellectual elite have been considered as a vanguard of humanity. They are a leading force not just of technical or medical advance, but have greatly influenced and contributed to the political and social fabric of the society. All of this is achieved by dedication of their lives to their chosen fields, usually with no or little personal involvement in politics.

The recent phenomenon whereby celebrities such as Hollywood stars, between drug rehabilitation clinics and plastic surgery, express their unqualified views about anything, particularly politics, and influencing public opinion using their celebrity status has become contagious. Unfortunately this trend is spreading and seriously affecting Israeli scientists and intellectuals who are craving for acceptance and recognition by the wider fatuous politically correct and generally anti-Semitic international audience. As a result many of them, although some are quite brilliant in their chosen fields of expertise, have joined the Israel-bashing choir, blaming Israel for not doing enough for the peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Strangely, as scientists, many of them do not consider that factual knowledge and understanding of the history and dynamic of the conflict is essential in order to take an educated and qualified position.

It is astonishing what is happening on the political front in Israel’s universities. The level of self-hate, disloyalty to their own country and self-destructiveness is unprecedented:

At the Tel Aviv University: Gadi Algazi, a history professor, stated: "Commercial and political exploitation of lands stolen by Israel." I wonder where he got his qualification from? Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy, Anat Biletzki claims that she is working for the human rights of the Palestinians but completely ignores the Jewish right for land and Israel’s right to exist and requirements for self-defence.

At the University of Haifa: Professor of Psychology Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, in addition to his pro-Arab views, proclaimed that “the rights to free speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion do not exist in Israel.” In this case, why is he is not in jail? Could he tell us how many Arab or Muslim organisations he knows that are able to take similar anti-government statements in their own countries?

It is alarming to see how many Jewish academics and organisations in Israel and around the world have taken an anti-Israel position. Some 530 people signed a statement that reads: "We Israeli Jews and Jews from Other Countries Support the Rights of Palestinian Refugees." Support is unconditional! They complete disregard the historical facts and the existential demographic threat to Israel.

Israeli academics: Endorsing calls and signing petitions encouraging Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel; Israeli Committee for Right of Residency demands that Israel stop checking Palestinian Visas, completely disregarding security issues; 358 faculty members called upon their students to break the law, to refuse serving in Judea and Samaria; forty Israeli academics endorsed an Arab lecturer, Nizar Hassan, in the Sapir College, after he expelled a reserve soldier from class because he attended in military uniform.

They are active in organisations like "Anarchists 
Against the Wall" and “Zochrot”, promoting the Arab propaganda concept “Nakba” to the Israeli-Jewish public, completely ignoring the fact that Arab leaders, in 1948, called for Arabs to leave, so that it would be easier for advancing Muslim armies to kill Jews! Many did leave in fear of being killed as Jewish collaborators.

One would expect that distinguished psychologists, such as psychology Professor Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, would be interested in studying what the long term developmental and psychological effects the Quassam rocket attacks from Gaza are having on the children of Sderot. But he is not!

At the same time, Jewish scientists could explain the adverse effects of long term exposure to stress - caused by the endless chain of Arab terrorism such as random suicide bombings, attacks on cars, knifing, sniper shootings - have on the combined and individual psychology of all Israeli Jews. It would be viable to take into consideration the level of hopelessness and helplessness people feel due to the inaction and unwillingness of Israel’s government to resolve this mass torture by destroying and/or removing enemies from the Jewish land. The diagnosis is well-known to professionals: all Israel is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, which is effecting not only entire Jewish population of Israel but Jews of the Diaspora as well! For many years, Israel has been used by professional organizations as country-laboratory for the unique study of the effects of PTSD on the Jewish population of Israel. Jewish scientists could use this information defending and promoting the rights of Israel among their international colleagues. But they choose not to!

Another scientific study is long overdue: Why are so many Jews in Israel and overseas actively defending the enemies of the Jewish state and their bogus claims instead of supporting the Jewish right to the land of their ancestors and the right of Israel as an independent country to exist in security and peace? They antagonistically view, question and criticize anything Israel does. At the same time, self-hating or psychologically disturbed Jews are able to find explanations and justifications for almost anything those ‘poor Palestinians’ do, including murderous terror acts. The professionals call this kind of behaviour Stockholm Syndrome – when a victim, after being exposed to life threatening violence for a long time, starts to support and feel affiliation with the perpetrator of this violence! An effect of “Media war”: well-orchestrated propaganda effort of enemies of Israel, with aim to change the attitude and gain support of Israeli population, could be another explanation.

This explains why Professor Anat Biletzki and several hundred Jews around the world felt the need to sign a declaration of unconditional support for the rights of the Palestinian refugees to return to Israel. While doing so, they did not care about the demographic danger it would bring to the existence of Israel and true intentions of so-called Palestinians and their masters. They did not ask why, after 60 years since the war of Independence, Arab and Muslim countries still have not accommodated some 460,000 refugees from Palestine and their offspring, the number having doubled as soon as the UN announced its intention to provide financial help to them. At the same time, 850,000 Jews were forced to leave the Muslim world. No international help was offered to these Jewish refugees!

The deep-seated fear and need for at least an illusion of progress toward peace is the main culprit why so many Jews are driven toward completely illogical and self-destructive conclusions and actions. Some of them are demanding: "Israel should withdraw immediately from the territories occupied in 1967", with complete disregard to the fact that Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the Golan Heights and Jerusalem are Jewish land. Others emotionally proclaimed: "My biggest hope and plea is - save the Palestinians!" There is interest in saving Jewish lives!

Now, I would like briefly re-examine some facts of history, by reviewing what Zionists before 1948 and Israel since then have done so far to accommodate our internal and external enemies in order to achieve peace and their response:

1. In order to realize that the Jewish claim to Palestine is not based only on ancient, some might even say irrelevant, history, I would like to remind you that in 1922, the League of Nations created the Palestinian mandate, one of many mandates created in the region after the defeat of Ottoman empire in World War 1. It was designated as the land for the future Jewish state, Eretz-Israel. A few months later, disregarding the condition of the mandate, the United Kingdom and France annexed 82% from the Palestinian mandate and facilitated the creation of Trans-Jordan. Surprisingly, Arab leaders were not satisfied with this partition, as they did not want a Jewish state at their back yard. They initiated riots and pogroms in Hebron, Gaza and all over the land that was left for the Jewish state. All Jews were forced to leave Trans-Jordan, Hebron and Gaza - no transfer of the non-Jewish population and Arabs from the remaining part of the mandate to Trans-Jordan was organized. At the same time, the League of Nations was transferring 1.8 million people between Greece and Turkey to facilitate peace between two countries.

2. In 1947, the United Nations came up with a ridiculous looking map of partition of the remaining 18% of the Palestinian mandate. The map looked like a mosaic made of six triangles with Jerusalem designated as an internationally controlled city. Jews agreed to this hideous plan, Arabs rejected it and unleashed the war against the newly created Jewish state. By doing so, they lost any legal claim to the land, which was assigned to them at the time, in accordance with international law. (Similarly, the Maharaja of Kashmir missed the deadline to claim the independence of his kingdom a year earlier. Therefore his kingdom, Kashmir, was arbitrarily divided between Pakistan and India.) Almost at the same time, over 12 million people were being transferred between Pakistan and India to accommodate the partition of the Indian peninsula.

3. In 1967 Israel, after a defensive war, took control over Judea, Samaria and one third of the Gaza strip. (Two thirds of Gaza are still controlled by Egypt but no one is demanding its independence.) For a long period of time, being uncertain what to do with the newly acquired land, Israel tried to rule the territories with little interference. Israel did not build any settlements or towns on the land. But our neighbours were not interested in peaceful coexistence.

4. Later, the idea that a lack of education is the primary reason for terrorism gained dominance in Israel and overseas. As a result, the so-called Palestinians are the most educated terrorists in the world and their well-tested terror experience is successfully exported and implemented by other Islamic terrorist organizations.

5. Next came an idea of economic prosperity. The premise was that poverty is the root of the terrorism.  Raising the standard of living of an enemy population was considered as a panacea against Arab terror from which Jews in Israel were suffering; the term “Islamic terrorism” had not yet been invented. New industrial zones were built in the West Bank and Gaza strip to accommodate this fantasy. In return, Israel got the first Intifada.

6. In an act of desperation, some started screaming: “Give them autonomy” and the Oslo Agreement was forged. Did it stop terror? Suicide bombings became a common daily occurrence. Israelis were afraid to take a bus to work, go out or sit outside in coffee shops with friends.

7. Israel started to build an anti-terror wall around Judea and Samaria, which some hypocrites are now trying to call a border. This greatly reduced, almost eliminated, terror attacks from the West Bank. The Arab response came almost immediately in the form of Quassam rockets from Gaza.

8. Many Israelis became blinded by the success of the anti-terror wall and, with the hope of ending rocket attacks from Gaza, the idea of ‘Disengagement’ from Gaza became quite tempting. As a result, 8,500 Jews were sacrificed and forcibly removed from their homes in Gaza strip. What has ‘Disengagement’ brought to Israel? More rockets, including Katyusha ones, are flying; a sophisticated tunnel system is being built in Gaza; Cpl Gilad Schalit was kidnapped; Hamas has gained uncontrolled access to Sinai and terror attacks from Sinai are the reality now!

It would be prudent of me to point out that the act of Jewish population transfer from Gaza by the Israeli government constituted a violation of the Fourth Geneva convention, which forbids any transfer of population. The Fourth Geneva convention was adopted by the United Nations almost immediately after Israel, against all odds, won the War of Independence, arguably to prevent the transfer of a hostile non-Jewish population from Israel. Interestingly, neither the United Nations nor any human rights group or organization condemned Israel for conducting the transfer of the Jewish population from Gaza! This total inaction of the international community effectively restored the status of “Population transfer” as a legitimate and effective tool for conflict resolution, as was done after the war between Greece and Turkey and during the separation of India and Pakistan. Population transfer is still effectively used, although under different names. For example, during and after the war in former Yugoslavia; in many conflicts in Africa; recently, several million refugees from Iraq moved across the border to Turkey, Jordan, Iran and other countries.

It is understandable that after years of living with terror, not only Jews in Israeli but also those in the Diaspora are tired and exhausted. But it does not justify the sacrifice of the future of all Jewish people for the sake of an illusion of the possibility of life without terror in Israel.

The attitude and behaviour of Israel’s scientists reminded me of a Soviet joke: After a political meeting in a small remote village, an old peasant asked a lecturer, who had been sent to the village by the Communist party: “Excuse me please, could you tell me, who carried out the October revolution, Scientists or Communists?” “Of course Communists, you old fool!” the lecturer replied. “I knew it, I knew it!” old man exclaimed, “Scientists would conduct experiments on rabbits or rats first!” Unfortunately, many Jews and members of Israel’s scientists and so-called liberal intellectuals are not interested in scientific data or logical analysis of the facts.

I hope that after this short review, any logical or scientifically minded person will realize that each time Israel takes steps toward peace, including negotiation, our enemies view it as weakness. All attempts made by Israel to accommodate the enemy only escalate the level of terror. Each time, another high in terror activity is reached and new demands are made.

Step by step limited autonomy is replaced by demand for an Independent state; necessity for the Independent state is replaced by demands for a contiguous Independent state, with complete disregard for the needs of contiguity of Israel. At the same time, the original intent of our enemies to kill or toss Jews “to the sea” and destroy the State of Israel still remains unchanged! All Palestinian organizations, including Fatah and Hamas, have been steadily pursuing it.

For 60 years, Jews in Israel have been living under continuous terror threat from enemies within and neighbouring Muslim countries, which is being facilitated by generally apathetic and anti-Semitic international community. As Albert Einstein said: “Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting the different results”, but bearing in mind that “No problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created it. We need to see the world anew.” It is time for the people of Israel to realize this and start to look for a different approach to the resolution of the conflict. There is one alternative plan, which still remains unexplored. It is a Sinai Option - the transfer of all of the enemy population from the land that used to be called the “Palestinian mandate” to the Sinai Peninsula. It is a contiguous land, which is comparable by size with the entire Palestinian mandate: Israel, Gaza, Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights and Jordan!

This plan presents a real opportunity for a permanent peace. It would allow Palestinians to live with dignity in their own country and be held accountable for their actions, as is any independent country. This idea was initially proposed over 100 years ago, but has been deliberately sabotaged, ignored and disallowed by the international hypocrites and the self-hating, corrupt and apathetic political elite in Israel.

Israel has exhausted all other options, except self-destruction, which is not an option! The fact that during the recent break through of the Egyptian border over half of Gaza’s residents easily crossed the border with Egypt is ultimate proof that the Sinai option is a practical and viable way to start the process of ending the occupation of Jewish land!

Footnote: Up to 1950, Jews were commonly called Palestinians! Therefore, I would like to clarify the terms: “Palestinians”. “Arabs”, “Enemies”, “Neighbours” and “non-Jewish population”, used in this article. Please read: Ethnic Make Up of ‘Palestinians’