The Israeli treatment of Palestinian Arabs is cruel and must end. Here, I put that conflict into perspective.
1. Israel was founded on 14 May 1948 after the Arabs rejected the United Nations two-state formula giving the former Ottoman province of Palestine - 52% to Jews and 48% to the Palestinians.
2. Transjordan was already allotted to King Abdullah whose father Sharif Hussein had revolted against the Ottomans during World War I.
3. So, in actual point of fact the land given to the Jews was exceedingly small as compared to the total area of Palestine -Transjordan.
4. The Arab states of those times not only rejected the UN Partition Plan for Palestine but attacked Israel militarily. The Israelis fought back and defeated the Arabs.
5. LESS THAN ONE YEAR EARLIER PAKISTAN HAD BEEN CREATED ON AN IDENTICAL BASIS: THAT INDIAN MUSLIMS WERE A NATION BY VIRTUE OF THEIR RELIGION. India had been partitioned to create Pakistan.
6. Therefore the creation of Israel as a Jewish state had a precedent - that of Pakistan. If Indian Muslims could be a nation, then so could Jews. The logic is obvious.
7. The Soviet Union was the FIRST country to recognize Israel on 17 May 1948, followed by Nicaragua, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Poland. The United States extended recognition after the first Israeli election, on 31 January 1949.
8. DURING THE COLD WAR RADICAL ARAB STATES AND LEADERS ALIGNED WITH THE SOVIET UNION AND ISRAEL WITH THE UNITED STATES.
9. The Palestinians established several liberation organizations and the Palestine Liberation Organization was the umbrella organization. Under it were subsumed Marxist and right-wing Palestinian organizations.
10. Armed struggle was the way forward for the PLO, but it was unable to deter the Zionist state which attacked them everywhere in the world.
11. Egypt, Syria in the lead other states also joined the anti Israeli campaign pledging to driving the Jews into the sea.
12. In the 1967 and 1973 wars between Israel and the Arab states the former defeated the latter and acquired the West Bank which was previously with Jordan.
13. Several attempts were made to find a peaceful resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Some of the offers on the table were quite generous but a deal could not be closed which could satisfy the Palestinian leader.
14. The latter wanted the two-state formula to be the basis of the settlement with Eastern Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state. Israel was not willing to accept that.
15. In the occupied areas the Israelis apply considerable control and indeed there is no real freedom or autonomy for the Palestinians.
16. The Arabs stand no chance of ever defeating Israel which is a greatly developed state with high standards of education, leading edge science and technology and advanced military equipment.
17. THE UNITED STATES WILL NEVER LET DOWN ISRAEL.
18. This realization has now made sense to the Arabs who want to establish peace with Israel.
19. The deal on offer from Trump may be unfair but it requires Israel to stop further acquisition of Arab territory and establishing Jewish settlements.
20. ISRAEL IS SMALLER THAT RAWALPINDI DIVISION OF THE PAKISTANI PUNJAB AND SLIGHTLY BIGGER THAN LAHORE DIVISION. It means it is a tiny state as compared to the Arab states around it.
21. IRAN IS A TROUBLEMAKER AND HAS NEVER GONE TO WAR WITH ISRAEL WHEN ISRAEL HAS BEEN AT WAR WITH THE ARABS. It does not want any peace between Israel and the Arabs.
22. Erdogan of Turkey is another spoiler. ERDOGAN HAS DONE MORE HARM TO TURKEY THAN ANY OTHER PREVIOUS RULER SINCE THE TURKISH SECULAR REPUBLIC WAS FORMED. He is out to destroy Ataturk's secular and progressive Turkey and make it another corrupt and backward-looking Muslim state.
23. It is not for me to tell people what to do. I personally think that Israel has as much right to exist as has Pakistan even though both were formed as nations based on religion.
24. I am for peace
We need to remember
1. The Jews have been persecuted down the centuries.
2. Israel was an imposition on the Palestinian Arabs by Europeans who wanted to get rid of Jews: first Hitler killed 6 million and the rest were pushed to Israel.
3. HOWEVER, THOSE WHO MADE up THE BULK OF THE POPULATION sent to Israel WERE SURVIVORS FROM THE GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS WHERE THEIR PEOPLE HAD DIED IN THE MILLIONS IN THE GAS CHAMBERS.
4. They needed a place for themselves and were sent to Palestine.
5. That they have been unfair to the Palestinians cannot be denied but so have been the people who took the land from the native populations of North and South America, Australia, New Zealand.
6. NOW WE ALL GO AND SETTLE THERE AND SEEK THE GREEN CARD. In a way we are party to that great wrong.
7. Earlier Greeks, Persians, Romans, Muslims spread in the Middle East and Aryans drove Dravidians to the south and the aborigines into the forests.
8. Each case has been a case of the strong taking away from the weak.
9. The UN Charter forbids annexation of land and that is why both Pakistan and Israel are exceptions to that rule.
10. So we must accept this reality and move on.
