Israel Matzav

Roger Cohen's Mideast falsehoods

He's back again.

Roger Cohen is back with half truths and lies about Israel and our relationships with the United States and with the 'Palestinians.'

Centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust created a moral imperative for a Jewish homeland, Israel, and demand of America that it safeguard that nation in the breach.

But contrary to the Obama-Cohen lies, Israel did not come into existence because of the Holocaust.

[T]he truth is almost the exact opposite. The extermination by the Germans of six million Jews during World War II came close to putting an end to the dream of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. The reservoir of Jewish immigrants to Palestine was decimated. Vladimir Jabotinsky, in his testimony before the Peel Commission in London on February 11, 1937, spoke of the aim of Zionism as the establishment of a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan River in which there would be room for "the Arab population and their progeny and many millions of Jews." At that time, the Jewish population of Palestine was no more than 400,000.

By the time the war had ended, millions of Jews had been exterminated in Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Sobibor and the killing fields of Russia. To Zionist leaders, it became clear that not only were there not enough Jews to constitute a solid Jewish majority, which was the condition for establishing a Jewish state, on both sides of the Jordan River, but that Jewish immigration would not even suffice to establish such a majority in the entire area west of the Jordan.

It was the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who grasped the full potential of the destruction of European Jewry for ending Zionist aspirations, and therefore allied himself with Hitler. Arab leaders in Egypt and Iraq similarly found good reason to hope for Hitler's victory. Yet after the war, the Yishuv (the Jewish community in pre-Palestine) and the remnants of European Jewry, who overcame British efforts to block their way to Palestine, had enough vitality and strength to bring about the establishment of the State of Israel in part of the territory that the League of Nations had originally mandated to Britain for the establishment of a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan River.

Cohen:

The U.S. objective is a two-state peace. But day by day, square meter by square meter, the physical space for the second state, Palestine, is disappearing.

Not a single 'settlement' has been expanded since Netanyahu took office or for many years before. All population growth takes place within the boundaries of the existing 'settlements.'

Cohen:

Through violence, anti-Semitic incitation, and annihilationist threats, Palestinian factions have contributed mightily to the absence of peace and made it harder for America to adopt the balance required. But the impressive recent work of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad in the West Bank shows that Palestinian responsibility is no oxymoron and demands of Israel a response less abject than creeping annexation.

First of all, that's an understatement. Cohen pretends that the 'Palestinians' were not offered a state in 1939, 1947, 2000 and 2008 (among other times). If what the 'Palestinians' wanted was a state, they would have had it a long time ago. But they don't want a state. They want to destroy the State of Israel, and useful idiots like Roger Cohen are helping them to keep that dream alive.

As to Fayyad and his 'Palestinian responsibility,' go here, here, here, here, here, here and here. And that's just the last month and a half.

Cohen:

And this: the “existential threat” to Israel is overplayed. It is no feeble David facing an Arab (or Arab-Persian) Goliath. Armed with a formidable nuclear deterrent, Israel is by far the strongest state in the region. Room exists for America to step back and apply pressure without compromising Israeli security.

Does this mean Cohen is willing to let us use that power and bomb the stuffing out of Iran? Of course not.....

Cohen:

And this: Obama needs to work harder on overcoming Palestinian division, a prerequisite for peace, rather than playing the no-credible-interlocutor Israeli game. The Hamas charter is vile. But the breakthrough Oslo accords were negotiated in 1993, three years before the Palestine Liberation Organization revoked the annihilationist clauses in its charter. When Arafat and Rabin shook hands on the White House lawn, that destroy-Israel charter was intact. Things change through negotiation, not otherwise. If there are Taliban elements worth engaging, are there really no such elements in the broad movements that are Hamas and Hezbollah?

I agree that Fatah is no better than Hamas. The Fatah charter has never been revoked. The Oslo Accords were a bad mistake. Why should we compound it by entering into 'negotiations' with another terror organization? Especially when nothing about Fatah has changed since 1993. They differ with Hamas on methodology - not on goals.

Cohen:

If there are not two states there will be one state between the river and the sea and very soon there will be more Palestinian Arabs in it than Jews. What then will become of the Zionist dream?

Sorry, Roger, but there won't be more 'Palestinian' Arabs in it than Jews. Go here and here.

Roger Cohen has already been shown to be a fool in his assessments of Iran last year. He's not any better when it comes to Israel and the 'Palestinians.'

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:35 PM