A Single Lifetime Later, Part I

It is just over 70 years since the end of WWII and the Holocaust. A single lifetime. Yet, it appears that worldwide anti-Semitism is at its most virulent level since that time.

According to one study, anti-Semitic violence has seen a 40% increase worldwide in 2014. Danny Danon is Israel's ambassador to the UN. Said Danon: "At the UN, I live with anti-Semitism 24/7." UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon recently said this: "...Palestinians are losing hope. Young people are especially losing hope. They are angered by the stifling policies of the occupation. They are frustrated by the structures on their daily lives...the dream of a sovereign, contiguous and independent Palestinian state slip away...life has not meaningfully changed (over half a century)." Added Moon, it is "human nature to react to occupation."

Thank you Secretary General Moon for justifying Palestinian violence against Israelis. Of course, we have seen the same false allegations from our Secretary of State as well as the White House. Nothing has meaningfully changed? As pointed out in a prior post, Israel built schools and universities and hospitals in the West Bank areas controlled by Palestinians. The West Bank has seen significant economic growth. It is not a question of young people losing hope; rather, young children even are taught to hate Jews, to want to kill Jews.

But the Arabs are never held to any accountability by the rest of the world. It does not matter that they were killing Jews in the Middle East before there was a modern day Israel. It does not matter that they rejected a state of their own when the UN voted Partition of the British Mandate in 1947. The UN divided the Mandate territory into two states - one Arab and one Jewish. But the Arabs announced before the vote they would never agree to the existence of a Jewish state - even though the only state to ever occupy the same land was the State of Israel 2000 years ago. Various foreign invaders occupied the land up to WWI. With the Allied victory, the UK controlled the land under their mandate, until turning it over to the UN.

Months after the UN voted partition, the State of Israel declared its independence. Why didn't the Arabs of Palestine do the same? The UN gave them land from the Mandate area for their own state. Instead, five Arab countries attacked Israel the very next day, the first of many efforts to wipe Israel off the map. When Bill Clinton invited Yasser Arafat and Ehud Barak to the White House in 2000, it was with the expectation of having the two sides make a deal. When Barak offered a state to Arafat, on land that the Israelis controlled since 1967 only because of another Arab war trying to wipe Israel off the map and failing again, Arafat's reply was to get up and leave. He went back to the West Bank and started the 2nd intifada - with Arabs blowing up Jews on buses, in cafes and malls, and even at a Passover Seder.

When Ehud Olmert, under the auspices of George W. Bush, offered a state to Mahmoud Abbas, the reply by Abbas was the same as Arafat's - silence. No acceptance of a Palestinian state. We now have a third intifada going on in Israel. This time, Arabs are killing Jews with knives, cars and guns. Meanwhile, the rest of the world believes all the Palestinian propaganda that Israel will never offer them a state. If you were to offer someone ownership of a home time after time right next door to yours, and each and every time they refuse and instead keep killing members of your household, at what point would you say, "who wants them as a neighbor?"

Now, the French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, has called for an international conference to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. After seven years of trying, Obama has given up. Or has he? I would bet that he is working behind the scenes to push the establishment of a Palestinian state. If these proposed negotiations fail to result in a deal, Fabius said that the French will "live up to our responsibilities and recognize Palestine." So, exactly how does that give the Palestinians any incentive to negotiate if the outcome for them will be the same regardless of what they do? Even as they continue to murder Jews.

In reply to Ban Ki-Moon's ridiculous comments, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said this: "The Palestinian terrorists don't want to build a state, they want to destroy a state, and they say that proudly. They want to murder Jews everywhere and they state that proudly. They don't murder for peace and they don't murder for human rights."