What The Arabs Are Saying About Israel - Hudson... - Noah David Simon

"What The Arabs Are Saying About Israel Why Can’t the Arabs Accept a Jewish state? Throughout the years, the Arabs have not stopped trying to eliminate Israel. Alhough they live in a number of different sovereign states, the Arabs view themselves as part of a single Arab Nation extending ‘from the [Atlantic] to the [Arab/Persian] Gulf.’ This is not a future objective in pan-Arab canon, but “a present reality,” notes historian Walid Khalidi.1 For historical, cultural and religious reasons, pan-Arabism resonates among all segments of Arab society, endowing them with “sanctity as dogmas.” The “de-Arabization of Arab territory” in Palestine is viewed as a breach of the unity of the Arab people because it divides its “Asiatic from its African halves.” This is a violation of Arab lands and “an affront to the “dignity of the [Arab] Nation.”2 In other words, the Arabs regard themselves as the only “legitimate repository of national self-determination” in the Middle East. No one questions their right for independence, but the rejection of the same right of other national groups in the region for self-rule “borders on political racism,” states Shlomo Avineri of The Hebrew University. Arab repudiation of Israel’s legitimate right to exist is part of this deep-seated belief that only Arabs are entitled to have a nation-state in the Middle East.3 A People’s War Arab failure to destroy Israel by force has led the Arabs to adopt the Marxist-Leninist “people’s war” strategy employing political and military methods used so effectively in China and Vietnam, according to historian Joel Fishman. Since the late 1960s, the political campaign has sought to divide Israeli society and delegitimize the country through incitement in Arab textbooks and media, and demonize her at the U.N. by branding Israel a racist and pariah state. 4 Part of this political strategy was to sign the Oslo Accords in order to secure land from which to launch a guerilla war to demolish the Jewish state and... more... - Noah David Simon from Bookmarklet