This week is the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War, where Israel miraculously survived the onslaught of an attack by all the armies of its Arab neighbors. The survival of Israel is the source many organized protests in Israel, Europe and the US. These protests all call for the “end of the occupation”, which the Palestinians and Arab nations have publicly defined as meaning the destruction of Israel.
As this is in reality a call for genocide, the hostile attitude of most of the nations of the world and of left wing organizations within these countries towards the victim of these genocidal ambitions is more than shameful. It is also illegal according to the international conventions, resolutions and agreements they claim to uphold, and could reasonably be prosecuted under the provisions of the Geneva convention on Genocide. However, the “international court” is only interested in prosecuting Israel, not in justice.
This week, Israel isn’t saying much, as if to survive were an embarrassment better not to be brought up. However, the PA Arabs and their supporters are doing plenty of lying and trouble making.
In Jerusalem, Marwan Barghouti, the Arab mass murderer who is so popular with the Palestinian Arabs that he became a leader in the PLO (now called the Palestinian Authority-PA) and the terror group Fatah, had this to say:
…he believes the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is the “longest and most hideous in contemporary history,” stressing that the end was “inevitable and unavoidable.”
He said that “this alone will eventually open the door to peace in the Middle East”, adding that “no merit in any projects or initiatives or agreements that do not guarantee the end of the occupation and settlement and give people a real opportunity to establish an independent and fully sovereign state, with Jerusalem as its capital, and allow the Palestinian refugees to exercise their right to return to their homes according to UN Resolution 194. “
Note the definition of a “refugee” per the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees:
Article 1. Definition of the term “refugee”
A. For the purposes of the present Convention, the term “refugee” shall apply to any person who:
(1) Has been considered a refugee under the Arrangements of 12 May 1926 and 30 June 1928 or under the Conventions of 28 October 1933 and 10 February 1938, the Protocol of 14 September 1939 or the Constitution of the International Refugee Organization;
Decisions of non-eligibility taken by the International Refugee Organization during the period of its activities shall not prevent the status of refugee being accorded to persons who fulfil the conditions of paragraph 2 of this section;
(2) As a result of events occurring before I January 1951 and owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.
In the case of a person who has more than one nationality, the term “the country of his nationality” shall mean each of the countries of which he is a national, and a person shall not be deemed to be lacking the protection of the country of his nationality if, without any valid reason based on well-founded fear, he has not availed himself of the protection of one of the countries of which he is a national.
According to this convention, the Palestinian Arabs aren’t even refugees. Even if a person were biased enough to accept their unfounded claim of refugeehood, the Arab states rejected this resolution. A UN resolution doesn’t guarantee any rights, especially if those claiming “rights” have rejected the resolution that they would be based upon.
In the fall of 1947 the UN voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, and paved the way for the declaration of independence of the State of Israel in May, 1948. Immediately the surrounding Arab states, with the help of their allies, launched a concerted attack on the new State of Israel, vowing to destroy it and push all the Jews into the sea.
The Arab states had unanimously rejected the Partition resolution because it would bind them to accept the existence of a Jewish state and the other provisions of the resolution. The other resolutions included free trade, non-aggression, dismantling of militias, international control of Jerusalem, freedom of religion, women’s suffrage, protection of holy places and many other items that were objectionable to them.
By rejecting the partition plan, they rejected any claims to the proposed Arab state that had been designated in the partition plan. Consequently their attack was not to defend their legitimate holdings, but a violent and outspokenly racist attempt to eradicate the new Jewish state of Israel and the Jews who lived there.
The Arab media, some Arab religious leaders and the invading Arab armies all urged Muslim Arab residents to flee, to leave them room to destroy the Jews. They claimed that the Jews would kill them if they stayed, while if they left, they could return to their property and take the Jews’ property as well. Meanwhile the government of Israel urged all Arabs, whether Muslim, Druze or Christian to stay, and promised them protection and citizenship if the state survived. Many Arabs stayed, and they were granted citizenship and kept their homes, businesses, religious places and schools.
However, hundreds of thousands of Arabs decided to ignore the Israeli pleas and promises and follow the Arab urging. They left. They were certainly not forced to leave, having been urged to stay. They voluntarily left and gave up their properties, and were not driven out by the Jews. Far from it…consequently, they cannot legitimately be considered refugees.
Back to UN Resolution 194, the article the PA is referring to is article 11:
11. Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;
Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations;
If PA Arabs believe reparations are due to those and all their descendents who voluntarily left their homes, they should sue the parties involved in their exodus: their imams, their media and the surrounding Arab nations. Israel had no blame in their situation, being unjustly attacked and threatened by the same people who deceived and cajoled the Arabs into leaving.
UN Resolution 194 called for the return of the “refugees” of that time, if they were willing to live at peace with their neighbors. The Palestinian Arabs don’t fit that qualification either, since as a group they are dedicated to the destruction of Israel, as is frequently stated by their leaders from the beginning of their entry on the scene in the early 1960′s under Yassar Arafat, until today. They may certainly be banned from the country they seek to destroy, by international standards.
At the same point in time, from the same causes, a nearly equal number of Jews were truly forced to flee and leave their homes and livelihoods in the Arab countries in which they had resided. These Jews fit the definition of refugees, but were never accorded the protections and relief due to refugees based on the 1951 Geneva Convention on refugees. The UN created a special organization to cater to the Arab non-refugees, which exists until this day, long after even legitimate refugees would have lost the status of refugees.
UN Resolution 194, so often quoted by the Palestinian terror organizations, has no bearing at all on the Arabs and their descendents, other than perhaps as a means to seek reparations from Arab countries. In fact this false “refugee” status has been used (mostly with the consent of the affected Arabs) to turn them into pawns in the violent racist aims of the surrounding Arab states. As pawns, they have allowed their society and youth to be warped tremendously by a nationalist jihadi ideology that is designed to make them into a living weapon to be used against Israel. They have no other purpose at this point in time. That is the true source of their current “plight”.
The other provisions of this treaty were rejected by the Arab nations: They were not willing to see Jerusalem come under international control, while Israel was willing to do that. The reason is obvious: Jordan controlled all of Jerusalem at that time, and was busily trying to exterminate the Jewish population within Jerusalem.
The provision to protect holy places and allow free access and freedom of worship was also rejected by the Muslim states, whose religion requires them to do the opposite.
We see this same motivation in action today, with the destruction of Jewish and Christian holy places and restricted or no access for non-Muslims to these areas, wherever the PA is in control.
Jordan controls the Temple Mount, and allows only very restricted access to Jewish or Christian visitors. No visitor is allowed to pray, bring religious items with them, or worship in any other way. Any visitor is closely watched by Waqf guards while they are on the Temple Mount, and they may only approach for two hours on Sunday morning, if approved. This is in direct contradiction to nearly every UN resolution regarding Jerusalem and holy places in Israel.
The Arab states and their Palestinian gangsters aren’t justified in rejecting most of the provisions of a UN Resolution, while insisting on the one provision that they think can be warped to work in their favor. In any other situation, if one party wanted to hold another party to one article of a contract, they would be required to accept the rest of the contract upon themselves as well. This was not done at the time of the UN resolutions that they base their claims on, and has never been proposed by the Arab states since then.
