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The Myth that Fuels the Mideast Conflict

[RealClearWorld] Bob Feferman - Israel's enemies claim that the Jewish state was created at the expense of the Arabs of Palestine in order to ease the conscience of the world over the tragedy of the Nazi Holocaust. The main spokesman for this myth is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who believes that if you deny the Holocaust, you can deny Israel its legitimate right to exist. It is this myth - that Israel was born in sin - which continues to fuel the fires of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In order to bring about peace, we must retell the story of Zionism to reaffirm Israel's legitimate right to exist. In 1947, the UN Special Committee on Palestine, with representatives from 11 countries, found during their visit a well-organized Jewish community that had already created the institutions necessary for an independent state. As Professor Kenneth Stein of Emory University wrote, "The United Nations decided to partition Palestine into an Arab and Jewish state because of the realities on the ground, not because of collective emotions of guilt." During the 50 years of intense Zionist nation-building activity prior to 1947, the Jewish community of Palestine had created Hebrew-speaking schools, Hebrew newspapers, Hebrew theatre, agriculture, industry, a health care system and a Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The Zionist organization was created in 1897 with the goal of creating a Jewish state in Palestine, the ancient homeland of the Jewish people. Land was legally purchased from Arab landowners by the Jewish National Fund. Prior to the outbreak of World War II, and the Nazi Holocaust, the Jewish population of Palestine had already numbered 450,000. When the members of UNSCOP made their decision in 1947 to recommend the partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, they were simply validating a reality that already existed. In November 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to accept the partition of Palestine. On Dec. 1, the London Times published an editorial that supported the decision: "It is hard to see how the Arab world, still less the Arabs of Palestine, will suffer from what is mere recognition of an accomplished fact - the presence in Palestine of a compact, well-organized, and virtually autonomous Jewish community." The Jewish people earned the right to statehood through the hard labor and sweat of Jewish pioneers. Recognition of this fundamental truth will open the door to peace through the two-state solution.
2009-10-30 06:00:00
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