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The Historical Fact of Israel

[Ottawa Citizen] David Warren - The Palestinian side has declared that, while Arafat "recognized" the "State of Israel" as part of the "Oslo accords" in September 1993, neither he then, nor they today, recognize it as a "Jewish state." Israel is there, by the fact of history. And it is also there as the only reliably free, democratic, pro-Western state in a dark region where the most open societies (Jordan, Egypt) are arbitrarily ruled by moderate tyrants, and the worst are unspeakable. There are today more than five million Jews living in Israel, who have no citizenship anywhere else. The overwhelming majority were born there. This is what I mean by an historical fact. There may well be as many Palestinians scattered through the region under subsidy from the UN, who claim the "right of return" to what is now Israeli territory, but who were not born there. It should be remembered, constantly, that they descend from Palestinian ancestors who were one half of a population exchange that happened in the 1940s. And that an approximately equal number of Jews were uprooted from their homes throughout the Arab world - under pressure of both the state and the mob - many of whom found refuge in Israel. The Palestinians are ill served by the failure of Ms. Rice and all other diplomatic authorities in the West to remind them of the facts, plainly.
2007-11-23 01:00:00
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