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The establishment of Israel was an unprecedented catastrophe

 

 

“The Zionist gangs stole Palestine…

and established the State of Israel”

[Official Palestinian schoolbook, 12th Grade]

 

The establishment of the State of Israel   

in Palestinian Authority ideology and education

 http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=5034 

 

By Itamar Marcus and Harel Zioni


The report:

On the occasion of the 63rd anniversary of Israel’s independence, Palestinian Media Watch has prepared a comprehensive report describing how the establishment of the state is depicted in the Palestinian Authority’s educational system and official media, both of which operate under the supervision of PA President Mahmoud Abbas. The report documents how the establishment of Israel and its continued existence are demonized by spokesmen and representatives of the PA in the official controlled media. The report does not include quotes from the media controlled by Hamas, since the Hamas position concerning Israel’s existence is well-known and its charter calls for the destruction of Israel. The aim of the report is to document the PA positions expressed in internal Palestinian discourse in Arabic that are not expressed to the outside world. The report focuses on statements by senior PA officials, columnists in the official PA press, and program hosts and reporters on PA TV, from 2010-2011.


Abstract:
“The Zionist gangs stole Palestine … and established the state of Israel” – this quote, from an official PA 12th Grade schoolbook, is an accurate depiction of how the PA educates its population to view the establishment of the State of Israel. Presenting the creation of the state as an act of theft and its continued existence as a historical injustice serves as the basis for the PA’s non-recognition of Israel’s right to exist. In order to create an ideological basis for this, the PA denies there was an ancient Jewish history in the Land of Israel and also distorts modern history, presenting Zionism as a demonic Nazi-like phenomenon. In order to explain what made Jews come to Israel, since they claim there was no historical connection to draw them, Zionism is presented as a colonialist movement created by the West to further its interests. First, the countries of Europe wanted to rid themselves of the Jews and needed a place for them. They also wanted a foreign body in the heart of the Arab world to serve Europe’s colonialist aims. For these reasons, they sent the Jews to “steal Palestine.” Israel is further demonized through images and descriptions, such as “the foster child of the Nazis,” “an organized terror state,” “the cruelest enemy,” etc. Accordingly, the idea of the State of Israel ceasing to exist is presented as the achievement of justice.
Today, following the establishment of a Fatah and Hamas unity government, many countries are demanding that Hamas recognize Israel’s right to exist as a condition for the world’s recognition of their new government. Ironically, this very condition is violated daily by the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas.

The report:

1. “The Zionist gangs stole Palestine”

2. Not recognizing Israel’s right to exist

3. Establishment of the State of Israel presented as “colonialist” plan

4. Demonic images and descriptions of the State of Israel

5. Justice will be achieved when Israel ceases to exist

1.    “The Zionist gangs stole Palestine”

“The Zionist gangs stole Palestine” is a quote from a Palestinian Authority official 12th-Grade schoolbook. It encapsulates how the PA views – and educates its population to view – the establishment of the State of Israel. The position that the establishment of the state was an act of theft and a fundamental historical injustice is the basis for the PA’s non-recognition of Israel’s right to exist. The establishment of the state is presented as the result of crime, robbery and theft by foreigners with neither the right nor any historical connection to the place, with the deliberate aim of harming the Arab inhabitants of the land. The term “Zionist gangs” is prevalent in Palestinian discourse and refers to the generation that founded the state. The word “theft” refers to the acts of developing the land and establishing the state.

The following are some examples:

In a 12th-Grade schoolbook:

“Palestine’s war ended with a catastrophe that is unprecedented in history, when the Zionist gangs stole Palestine and expelled its people from their cities, their villages, their lands and their houses, and established the State of Israel.”

[Arabic Language, Analysis, Literature and Criticism, Grade 12, p. 104.

The book is in current use.]


Special Ramadan supplement to the official PA daily features a daily competition with prizes. The text of the Balfour Declaration is shown, followed by the question:

“The cursed James Arthur Balfour Declaration led to the theft of the homeland and the expulsion of an entire people, in a campaign of ethnic cleansing unparalleled in modern history. On what date and what month in 1917 was this declaration issued?”

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Sept. 7, 2010]


PA TV item on the UN vote on the Partition Plan of 1948:

“The Zionist leadership, in its declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel, refrained from defining its borders – with the goal of justifying the plan for settlement and theft of Palestinian and Arab lands.”

[PA TV (Fatah) Nov. 29, 2010]


PA TV item on UN Resolution 194, broadcast on International Refugee Day:

“The Resolution, which stipulated return and restitution for the Palestinian refugees who had been expelled by force from their homes and from their land by the Zionist gangs in 1948 in the greatest operation of ethnic cleansing, continues to be a black chapter in human history.”

[PA TV (Fatah), June 20, 2010]


Columnist in the PA daily under the headline, “Zionism reproduces the Holocaust”:

“They plundered the Palestinian land and national interests, and established their state upon the ruins of the Palestinian Arab people, under the faded and false slogan, ‘A nationless land for a landless nation.”

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 19, 2011]


PA TV news item about disagreements among Israeli ethnic groups:

“This [internal Israeli conflict] is not the first time, nor will it be the last, in the history of the conflicts between the [different Israeli] ethnic populations of the world among those who stole Palestine in search of an alleged homeland that would take them in.”

 [PA TV (Fatah), June 17, 2010]


Caricature in the official PA daily, depicting the establishment of the state (“1948”) as a shark devouring “Palestine.”

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 23, 2010]


2.    Not recognizing Israel’s right to exist

In order to substantiate the claim that the establishment of the State of Israel was an act of theft, the PA engages in historical revision. The ancient Jewish history in the Land of Israel is erased, while modern Jewish history is distorted in order to present Zionism as a demonic phenomenon. Thus,, the PA leadership creates the ideological basis for negating Israel’s right to exist. PA spokesmen have claimed that the Jewish nation is an “invented nation,” intended to justify Zionism; this ignores the reality of Zionism as the expression of the aspirations of the Jewish people returning to its homeland. This historical revision and erasure of the connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel results in the verdict that the State of Israel has no right to exist.

The following are some examples:

PA Minister of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash:

“History proves the Arab, Islamic and Palestinian right to this land and disproves all the Israeli claims that they have religious and historical rights in this land.”

[PA TV interview (Fatah), March 2, 2010]

 

“The political science department at Bir Zeit University held… a political symposium with the participation of scholar Antoine Shalhat, who spoke about static and changing elements of Zionist ideology…
Shalhat said that the idea of Zionism is the establishment of a national home for Jews in Palestine and the invention of a new nationality, known as the Jewish nation, and that the first to propose this was the Jewish Theodore Herzl, who spoke in his book Altneuland about his ideas of establishing a Jewish state.”

[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 27, 2010]




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Congress – the co-equal and systematic ally of Israel

Presidents propose and Congress disposes

On September 23, 2021, the US House of Representatives voted 420:9 to replenish the Israeli-developed defensive “Iron Dome” missiles, which are increasingly manufactured – and eventually exported – by the US defense company Raytheon, that benefits from the battle-tested “Israeli laboratory.”

The overwhelming vote reflects Congressional realization that the “Iron Dome”:

*Enhances Israel’s posture of deterrence, which is critical to the survival of all pro-US Arab regimes and minimization of regional instability;
*Reduces the need for full-scale Israeli wars on Palestinian and Islamic terrorism;
*Provides an alternative to Israeli military ground-operations against Palestinian terrorists, which would entail substantial Israeli and Palestinian fatalities;
*Represents joint US-Israel interests, militarily and technologically, in the face of mutual threats (e.g., Islamic terrorism) and mutual challenges (e.g., developing world-class, game-changing technologies).

*Constitutes another example of the systematic support by Congress of enhanced US-Israel cooperation.

The decisive role played by Congress in the replenishment of the “Iron Dome” underscores the cardinal rule of the US political system: The President proposes, but Congress disposes.

The involvement of Senators and House Representatives in foreign policy and national security-related issues has surged since the Vietnam War, Watergate and Iran Gate scandals, the dismantling of the USSR (which transformed the world from a bi-polar to a multi-polar) and rapidly-expanding globalization.

In fact, former Secretary of State, Jim Baker, complained about the growing congressional assertiveness in the area of foreign policy: “You can’t conduct foreign policy with 535 Secretaries of State….”  Former Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, criticized Congress for micromanaging the defense budget: dictating how much to spend on particular weapons, imposing detailed requirements and programmatic restrictions, venturing into policy-setting and requesting that the Department of Defense submits mountains of reports.

Congressional muscles 

The US Congress is the most powerful legislature in the world, and it has demonstrated its co-equal, co-determining muscle in the areas of foreign and defense policies on many occasions, such as:

*Imposing sanctions against foreign countries in defiance of Presidents Clinton, Obama and Trump (e.g., Egypt – 2012, Iran – 1996-97 and 2013, Russia – 2017);
*Non-ratification of the 2015 JCPOA, which enabled withdrawal by the US;
*The 2009 non-closure of the Guantanamo Detention Camp was led by Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (NV-D), in defiance of President Obama.
*The 2009 non-confirmation of Charles Freeman to the Director of National Intelligence was led by Senator Chuck Schumer (NY-D);
*The 1999 non-ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in defiance of President Clinton and the international community;
*The unprecedented expansion of US-Israel strategic cooperation took place despite stiff opposition by President Bush and Secretary of State Baker;
*The Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act overrode President Reagan’s veto;
*The 1984 Boland Amendment aborted President Reagan’s financial and military aid to anti-Communist elements in Nicaragua;
*The 1983 blocking of President Reagan’s attempted coup against the Surinam pro-Soviet regime;
*The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act mandated congressional authorization of surveillance of persons and organizations, which may threaten national security;
*The 1975/76 Tunney (CA-D) and Clark Amendments stopped financial and military covert support of the opposition to the pro-Soviet regime in Angola;
*The 1973 Church-Case Amendment ended funding of military involvement in Southeast Asia;
*The 1973 War Powers Act overrode President Nixon’s veto;
*The Jackson-Vanik Amendment preconditioned aid to Moscow upon free immigration.

Congress empowered by the Constitution

As documented in the aforementioned paragraphs, one is advised to note that while Congress is preoccupied with District and State issues, it has the power to both propose and dispose in the areas of foreign and defense policies.

The US Constitution aspires for a limited government and a non-monarchical president, and therefore does not limit Congress to overseeing the budget. It provides the Senate and the House of Representatives with the power to act on strategic issues and policy-setting.

The Constitution accords Congress ”the power of the purse,” oversight of government operations, ratification of treaties, confirmation of key appointments, declaration of war, funding of military operations and cooperation with foreign entities, creation and elimination of government agencies, imposing sanctions on foreign governments, etc.

In other words, the President is the “commander in-chief” within constraints, which are set by Congress.




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