Friday, May 30, 2008

Redundancy: Repetition of the Batttle Cry

If only ...
To the Editor

Why is it that the state of Israel is now commemorating its 60th independence day while a Palestinian state has yet to be realized? Why is it that 60 years ago, the first detailed plan for a two-state solution, one Arab and one Jewish, was overwhelmingly approved by the United Nations, yet only one country emerged?

The reason is rather simple and has remained unchanged for 60 years. It is the Palestinian rejection of Israel's right to exist. None can summarize this better than the Palestinian leaders themselves. On May 14, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar declared that a Palestinian state will be established on all of the land of Palestine and not only on parts of it, and that it will include the (Israeli) cities "Jaffa, Lod and Haifa." Zahar also reiterated Hamas' unwillingness to recognize the State of Israel and added "After we defeat the Zionists we will persecute them to eternity." (www.jpost.com/servlet/
Satellite?cid=1210668634777&pagename=JPost%
2FJPArticle%2FShowFull)

On the same day, the "moderate" Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas joined dozens of Palestinians in signing a document pledging to continue the "struggle" until all the descendents (about 4 million) of Palestinian refugees are permitted to settle in Israel. This declaration is tantamount to a rejection of a two-state solution since, if implemented, Israel would become yet another Arab country (in addition to the 21 Arab countries that already exist.)

In 1947, much like today, the Jewish community in the Holy Land was pragmatic, forthcoming, flexible, and peace-loving and thus accepted with open hands the U.N. Partition Resolution 181, despite the fact that the area allotted to the Jewish state was tiny (around 1/10 the area of Iowa).

By contrast, the Palestinians and the Arab countries rejected the two-state plan and demanded every inch of the land for themselves. In their extremism, they lost everything.

The Palestinians, determined to sabotage the November 1947 U.N. Partition Plan, intensified their violent attacks on the Jewish population, and following Israel's declaration of independence on May 14, 1948 were joined by the armies of five Arab countries in a vicious attack on the day-old Israel.

This military assault was literally a unified Arab attempt at ethnic cleansing of the 650,000 Jews of the Holy Land. Israel narrowly survived this onslaught but at a staggering cost in human life, 1 percent of its population, which is comparable to 3 million Americans today.

In the following decades (including 1967, 1973), the Arabs made further attempts to exterminate Israel. As a result of the 1967 war, Israel became a reluctant occupier of territories it had gained.

When for the first time in history, an Arab country, Egypt, positively responded to Israel's repeated calls for reconciliation, Israel made enormous sacrifices. She relinquished to Egypt the strategic Sinai Peninsula with its oil fields, leaving Israel entirely dependent on foreign oil.

It is doubtful whether another country would have agreed to such far-reaching concessions, which only speaks for Israel's desire to achieve peace. Several years later, Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan.

As we celebrate Israel's birthday, let us hope and pray for the day when the two-state solution will be finally accepted by the Palestinians, and two countries - Israel and a Palestinian state - will live in peace next to each other.

Ronata Dermansky

1 Comments:

Blogger Ojalanpoika said...

Jeru-salaam, -shalom & -salem from the Dudeson-country,

Could you kindly comment, whether my details are correct in a dissident essay concerning the recent scaling up of production in the Israeli high Tech companies in:
http://www.helsinki.fi/~pjojala/Expelled-Jews-statistics.htm ?

However, if you are only after Jihad against Eretz Israel by the means of media war after the conventional weapons were not succesful, please do not bother. I don't want to have anything to do with any holy war - wars are not holy. No matter if they are won or lost.

E.g. "...Before the Second Intifada, there were nearly 200 Israeli companies listed in the Nasdaq, at the Intifada the count dropped to 70. (The number is still greater than from all the European countries combined). It is said that the dollars are green since the Americans pull them down from the tree raw and fresh. The start-ups are imported straight from the garage, and scaling up of production in the "conflict hotspot" has been considered impossible. But the new Millennium has brought a change in tide.

As an example, the supranational Intel transferred the mass production of Centricon-processors to Israel, where ~20% of citizens possess university decrees (ranking 3rd in the world) but where the environment respects patents and are not plagiating every item they produce to others like the rocketting China. Intel was also offered an overall tax rate of 10%, which is about three times lower than that of US.

Also, the biggest generic drug factory in the world was recently established in Israel. Generating US$7 billion in annual revenues, Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA) is the world's largest generic pharmaceutical company. That is: to cure people with less money. TEVA makes generic versions of brand-name antibiotics, heart drugs, heartburn medications, and more - in all close to 200 global generic products, 700 compounds, and more than 2800 dosage forms and formulations. TEVA's pharmaceuticals are used in some 20% of U.S. generic drug prescriptions. Examples of TEVA's generics include lower-cost equivalents of such blockbusters as anti-depressant Prozac and cholesterol drug Mevacor. Nevertheless, in biotechnology and original drug development, about 400 experimental Israeli drugs have been approved or accepted in clinical phases.

The population of Arabs under the Israeli government increased ten-fold in only 57 years. Palestinian life expectancy increased from 48 to 72 years in 1967-95. The death rate decreased by over 2/3 in 1970-90 and the Israeli medical campaigns decreased the child death rate from a level of 60 per 1000 in 1968 to 15 per 1000 in 2000 at the Westbank. (An analogous figure was 64 in Iraq, 40 in Egypt, 23 in Jordan, and 22 in Syria in 2000). During 1967-88 the amount of comprehensive schoold and second level polytechnic institutes for the Arabs was increased by 35%. During 1970-86 the proportion of Palestinian women at the West Bank and Gaza not having gone to school decreased from 67 % to 32 %. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in West Bank and Gaza increased in 1968-1991 from 165 US dollars to 1715 dollars (compare with 1630$ in Turkey, 1440$ in Tunis, 1050$ in Jordan, 800$ in Syria, 600$ in Egypt. and 400$ in Yemen)..."

Recovering from hemorrhage in the left hemisphere of the brain,
Pauli.Ojala@gmail.com, evolutionary critic
Biochemist, drop-out (MSci-Master of Sciing)
Helsinki, Finland

June 12, 2008 at 4:10 PM  

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