| Palestinian State To: email@netanyahu.org John Standifer 8 Nov 2002 Dear Minister Netanyahu: For a large portion of my career, I successfully designed and implemented behavior interventions for some of the most difficult to treat people in state institutions in Texas and New York. I strongly believe the same basic principles used there also apply to groups, societies and nations. Under the current conditions, I think it is impossible to have a Palestinian state peacefully existing next to Israel. In that regard, the following letter was sent to President Bush with a copy to Ariel Sharon. I hope you find it of interest, and possibly even useful. Thank you. John Standifer Odessa, TX 6/5/02 President George W. Bush. Washington, D.C. 20500 Dear President Bush: When a single person acts on myth and delusion, the results are seldom good. But when the greatest nation of earth does the same thing, the consequences are magnified tremendously and the number of people affected rises exponentially. The policy the United States has been following in the Middle East seems to be built on those foundations, and to continue on that basis is to court disaster. The Myth: The territory occupied by Israel, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, is a legitimate and integral part of the Palestinian homeland. The documented truth is that Arab political and territorial claims on that land are a myth. In the centuries prior to WW I, that territory was part of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, and, while there was a relatively small number of Arabs permanently living there, most were itinerants who wandered all over the Middle East in search of sustenance. At the end of that war, Turkey, as an ally of Germany, was forced to relinquish control of “Palestine” to the British. In 1917, they issued the Balfour Declaration, under which Palestine was to be a homeland for the Jewish people. In 1921, Winston Churchill separated the land east of the Jordan River from the rest, creating what is now Jordan. In 1947, England, which had had enough of dealing with the incessant Palestenian-Israeli conflict, resigned their Declaration and turned their problem over to the UN. The UN then partitioned the rest of the original Palestine into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for the Arabs, Jerusalem to be an “international” zone, and the remainder for the Jews. Israel reluctantly accepted the partition, the Arabs did not, making the UN partition invalid. In the 1967 6-Day War, Israel recovered the West Bank, the eastern part of Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, while also taking control of the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. During the 19 years that Jordan and Egypt were in possession of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, it didn’t occur to them or to anyone else that the Palestinians should have a state of their own or even that they were a distinct nationality. Only after the Arabs suffered a disastrous defeat in that war, and realized they could not achieve their objectives through direct armed conflict, did those issues arise, and then as a political and propaganda weapon. The last undisputed sovereign of the West Bank and Gaza were the Ottomans. They were unallocated from then until the Six-day War, and have been, under international law, the legitimate “spoils of war” for Israel since then as a result of successfully defending themselves from hostilities initiated by neighboring states. If there is any doubt as to the myth of this area as a Palestinian homeland, a comparison of the scriptural references, even more than the historical record, reveals the extent of the propaganda. There is scant mention, if any, of the whole region in Muslim texts. By contrast, Jewish texts reflect a more than thirty century connection through references to hundreds of specific locations. This is the homeland of the Jewish people. The Delusion: After a political process, Israel and the Palestinians can live peaceably in adjoining, independent states. With the advent of the Arab-Jewish War of 1946, a large number of Arabs were displaced from Israel, while a roughly equal number of Jews were displaced from the surrounding Arab countries. In a relatively short time, almost all of the Jews had been assimilated into their new homeland, while even now many Arabs remain in refugee camps under appalling conditions. Joan Peters, a former White House advisor on the Middle East set out to investigate why. A self-described liberal, she enter with a mindset that the United States bore a significant responsibility. She spend seven years researching the situation, and, unlike so many others who have written on the subject, she studied the original documents and sources rather than mainly relying on “spin” provided by biased parties on either side. Published in 1984, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict remains one of best researched - 189 pages devoted to footnotes and appendices - and authoritative texts on the subject. One of the unexpected conclusions she drew from her studies was, as stated above, that Arab political and territorial claims to Israel are based on a myth. The other was that the Palestinian refugees were (and are) being sacrificed for the agenda of Arab states. She maintains the “refugee problem” was created as a public relations weapon to help the Arab world justify its goal of annihilating the Jewish State of Israel. They have been aided and abetted in this goal by the UN, which has classified Palestinian refugees differently than any others in the world, and which has provided the material and political support necessary for the refugee camps to remain in existence. But why are the Arab states so opposed to a Jewish State in their midst. Bernard Lewis, in The Muslim Discovery of Europe, observes, “In the Muslim worldview the basic division of mankind is into House of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the House of War (Dar al-Harb). Ideally the House of Islam is conceived as a single community. The logic of Islamic law, however, does not recognize the permanent existence of any other polity outside Islam. In time, in the Muslim all mankind will either accept Islam or submit to Islamic rule. A treaty of peace between the Muslim state and a non-Muslim was thus in theory impossible. Such a truce, according to the jurist, could only be provisional. The name given by the Muslim jurist to this struggle is jihad.” Terrorist who profess the name of Allah and proclaim jihad are operating squarely within Islamic tradition. Kept in hopeless, abject poverty and feed a steady diet of religious approval for martyrdom and hatred for Jews and Israel, the camps provide a steady source of victims to use a weapons. Given the decades this has been happening, one would have to be delusional to suppose they could all at once begin living in peace right next to Israel. The institutional mechanism the Arab states use in this goal was the PLO, with its charter calling for the destruction of Israel, and now the PA. Guiding the PA, and before it the PLO, is Yassar Arafat, the Willie Nelson of terrorist. Terrorism is what he does, and terrorism is the core of his self-definition. He can no more give it up than Willie can give up music. A Solution: Israel deserves secure borders and to be able to live in relative peace. The Palestinians deserve a state of their own where they can also live in peace. These objectives need not be mutually exclusive Israel borders must be defensible. Since 1967, it has left the status of the territory it gained ambiguous in the hope that would be an incentive for peace. It has not. Likewise, the Oslo Accords, with a land-for-peace premise, have worked no better than a similar mindset worked with the Nazis just before WW II. Both must now be abandoned. Israel should extend its formal borders to include all of the West Bank, all of the Gaza Strip, and the strategic parts of the Golan Heights. It should have a policy of the immediate expulsion of anyone within those borders who seeks to harm its citizens or seeks the destruction of Israel, along with those who provide them with aid and comfort. While the Palestinians should be able to conduct their affairs in areas where they are a majority, law enforcement officers there should be limited to only sidearms as their armament. Finally, citizens of Israel should be able to live anywhere within the new borders they choose. If the Palestinians are to have their own state, where should it be. Adjoining Israel under the current conditions is totally unworkable. It not only should be separated from Israel, it also needs to be physically isolated from those states which have sponsored the terrorism, specifically Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Given these parameters, one location which might be viable is the part of the Sinai Peninsula south of a line running roughly from Taba to Sudr. Egypt would have to receive adequate compensation for that land, probably in the form of long-term payments and favorably trade terms. One major barrier to a state being created there would be adequate supplies of energy and water, but this can be overcome. The Sinai is a relatively pristine area of the world and could be a prime area for eco-tourism. Given free trade incentives and financial backing, it should also be able to be developed into a luxury resort destination. No Palestinian should be forced to relocate to the Sinai. Rather incentives such as decent housing, available medical care, adequate food supplies, ownership of land and other property for agricultural or business purposes, freedom from violence, and quality education should be offered. I hope these ideas might lead to peace and better lives for all in the Middle East. It also would be a very good thing to be able to remove this area as potential igniter of a much broader conflict. Sincerely, cc: Ariel Sharon Prime Minister of Israel |
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