Rashid Khalidi Blaming Only Israel…Again

In another op-ed piece in the New York Times Rashid Khalidi again places the blame of all the violence squarely at Israel’s feet. He ignores the fact that Hamas started the latest round (as well as the subsequent other conflicts prior to this one). But the real kicker is this claim:

“The flight or expulsion of at least a quarter-million Palestinians from Haifa, Jaffa, Tiberias, Beisan and other localities before the Israeli declaration of independence that May helped trigger the first war between the Arab states and Israel.”

This is a complete fabrication. “Helped trigger the first war”? Is he serious? Facts are facts. History is a series of events that aren’t subject to subjective interpretation in the whole. The “trigger” for the first ware between the Arab states and Israel was the actual declaration by the Jews of the modern State of Israel. That was it. It had nothing to do with the Arabs. Little note here: prior to 1948 if you said “Palestinian” you actually meant the Jewish population of the Palestine Mandate – not the Arabs. If anything the Arabs who were there were, for the most part, transplants from other places – Syria, Egypt, Jordan – but they weren’t Arabs who lived in the Mandate since time immemorial – despite what they would like to claim.

The migration of the Arabs from “Haifa, Jaffa, Tiberias, Beisan and other localities” as Mr. Khalidi notes was due more to the fact that they were encouraged by their Arab brethren in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere to evacuate so that the Arab armies could go in and slaughter the Jews. Hmmm…in a strange way this is similar to what the IDF is asking Palestinians to do now – get out of the way so they can fight Hamas while minimizing civilian casualties.

Israel does not want to reoccupy the Gaza Strip – but it does want the Gaza Strip to be free of Hamas. We cannot accept a situation where things go back to the previous status quo after a short conflict. Hamas has proven that they are nothing more than a band of murderous thugs whose sole raison d’être is to slaughter Jews – men, women, the elderly, children – every one of us. We’ve seen this story before and we’ve learned, the hard way, that when someone says that they’re coming to kill you – you should believe them.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Khalidi places all of the blame for this on Israel and, by extension, the US and absolves the Palestinians for any responsibility for the current situation. His apologetics for Palestinian actions is nauseating to say the least and framed solely in one of Israeli oppression with no condemnation of the horrors which Hamas visits not only on the Israeli population but also on the Palestinian one too. He closes his op-ed with the statement

“The only possible solution is one that ends the oppression of one people by another and guarantees absolutely equal rights and security for both peoples.”

He misses the mark a bit and I’ve corrected it for him: “The only possible solution is one that has Palestinians establishing their own government and society based on peaceful coexistence with Israel and guarantees equal rights and security for both peoples.”

Where’s the Beef? Or, in this case, the truth?

So Hamas and the Gaza flotilla folks would have you believe that Gaza is a squalid, ghetto like place where the people live in sheer and utter misery. That they are eeking out a living and barely scraping by to survive. That’s interesting…especially since it’s not true. Turns out Gaza has been improving considerably (even considering the two wars that Hamas fought with Israel in 2006 and in 2008 – 2009)…the problem is that the media doesn’t want to mention this – they only want to focus on the, yet again a new blood libel, that Israel is causing hardship and suffering on the people of Gaza (while casually ignoring the fact that Gaza shares a border with Egypt as well and the Egyptians, after Mubarak was ousted earlier this year, has “somewhat” opened their border with Gaza). The facts do not bear this out. A new website has appeared – The Flotilla Cruise Line – that shows evidence that Gaza is not the “one big squalid refugee camp” that the Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and the Western liberal media would like you to believe. It shows pictures of Gaza’s 5-star hotel – The Grand Palace, Gaza’s first shopping mall (although it does not include a mention of the newest, 3-story, shopping mall in Gaza) and Gazan upscale restaurants.   Even the New York Times cannot deny that the situation is not so desperate the way the flotilla organizers would like to portray it:

 In assessing the condition of the 1.6 million people who live in Gaza, there are issues of where to draw the baseline and — often — what motivates the discussion. It has never been among the world’s poorest places. There is near universal literacy and relatively low infant mortality, and health conditions remain better than across much of the developing world.

“We have 100 percent vaccination; no polio, measles, diphtheria or AIDS,” said Mahmoud Daher, a World Health Organization official here. “We’ve never had a cholera outbreak.”

So what is the truth?  The truth is that the flotilla organizers as well as Palestinian sympathizers would have the world believe that Gaza is a squalid refugee camp where life hangs precariously by thin threads and that Israel is responsible.  The truth is that Hamas is the true source of the Gazans situation.  Hamas refuses to accept Israel’s right to exist; Hamas refuses to stop the rockets and the shelling coming from Gaza; and Hamas refuses to provide any information regarding the status of Gilad Shalit and refuses to allow the International Red Cross to meet with him to assess his condition – a clear violation of International law!

Israel has no obligation in throwing open it’s borders to an organization that is dead set on destroying it.  If the Arabs are so concerned about allowing free movement for the Palestinians in Gaza let them pressure Egypt to fully open the Rafah crossing.  It is beyond ludicrous that the bleeding liberal left of the world expect Israel to expose itself to more risk of attack.  Israel has a right to exist!  The Jews have a right to their ancestral homeland!  The Arabs in Israel enjoy a higher standard of living and rights that are denied to many of their brethren in their own countries – the right of free speech and the right to vote among them.

Whither Common Sense?

Now that the Goldstone Commission has released their report on alleged war crimes by Israel (note: the U.N. Human Rights Council‘s original mandate on this was to investigate Israel’s conduct of the war and not Hamas’ or the Palestinians…wonder why?) during the recent Gaza offensive, Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak has finally responded with an excellentopinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.

Where has common sense gone to in this day and age? Israel suffers for 8 years the ceaseless rocket attacks (aimed specifically at civilian targets) by terrorist organizations (one of whom then takes control of the Gaza strip) and, when Israel responds to the attacks, it is chastised and demonized. This from a group (the UNHRC) which seems to be fixated and obsessed with condemning and demonizing Israel while ignoring and only expressing “deep concern” for human rights abuses in places like Somalia and Burma.