The 'phased plan' is alive and well

After the Yom Kippur War, the Arab states realized that there was no way they were going to be able to destroy Israel militarily in one fell swoop. Therefore, in 1974, the PLO adopted a new plan which is known as the 'Phased Plan.'

The plan in brief:

1. Through the "armed struggle" (i.e., terrorism), to establish an "independent combatant national authority" over any territory that is "liberated" from Israeli rule. (Article 2)
2. To continue the struggle against Israel, using the territory of the national authority as a base of operations. (Article 4)
3. To provoke an all-out war in which Israel's Arab neighbors destroy it entirely ("liberate all Palestinian territory"). (Article 8)

When I read this piece by Dr. Reuven Berko, all I could think was that after 40 years, the 'phased plan' is alive and well. Oslo, as many of us believed since the beginning, is just phase 1 of the plan.

The situation is Kafkaesque: While Israeli leaders are busy preparing a deal that will provide two states for tow peoples, Ali is protesting with the people of his village just a few meters away from the land he claims for himself and his friends. He is waging his battle in and against the Israeli homefront. With Palestinian flags at his back, he defiantly flashes the Arafat-like "V" sign (all of this is Palestine) toward the abashed gazes of Beit Hanania's residents, who shamefully swallow their outrage. Ali stands proud, in all his democratic glory, while voicing nationalistic Palestinian slogans, including a few "for the Arab lands of the Negev."

Something strange is happening in the Jewish state: Abbas is declaring a "territory free of Jews" but is demanding the release of Arab-Israeli murderers, those who have killed Jews in the name of the Palestinian problem but who were never under any form of Palestinian jurisdiction. Arab citizens of Israel, protesting with Palestinian flags in their hands, are demanding state lands that never belonged to them within the 1967 borders, and Arab MKs are telling their youth to refrain from performing any type of national service. On top of all this, Palestinian leaders continue to demand a "return" of refugees, to Israel of all places, which they call a state of Apartheid, oppression and occupation, and not to the Palestinian state they are seeking to establish.

The strangest phenomenon is that in Umm al-Fahm of all places, the hotbed of hatred toward the Jews and the state, residents are rejecting any proposal that includes "freeing themselves from the occupation" and transferring, with their lands and property, to the jurisdiction of an independent Palestinian state, the same one that will be "clean of Jews."

How pathetic it is to recall that every time peace efforts have failed and it was apparent that the Palestinians, despite the generous offers they received, were neither ready "nor able" to reach an agreement and recognize the state of Israel (fill in the blank here with the unmentionable). The shocked and dumbstruck Left would gather itself and again blame the Israeli negotiators for the failure.

A Palestinian friend used an Arab allegory to tell me bluntly, "Just as you came empty handed, so you will leave." In the jails for security prisoners, the murderers know they will go free. Those who planned and carried out terrorist attacks know in advance that if they are caught, they will be released and will return to their activities. The refugees are certain they will return to Palestine, in other words to Jaffa, Acre and Haifa. Hamas, the "rejectionist organizations" and the refugees continue to demand their "return" to Palestine.

If the phased plan did not remain in effect, why would the 'Palestinians' regard the 'Israeli Arabs' as their own? And why would so many 'Israeli Arabs' seek to remain in the Jewish state (so that they can undermine it from within) rather than joining their brethren in a 'Palestinian state' should one be created?

Read the whole thing.