Let me tell you that ENCHANTÉ  is for Israel, but has good ties with Arabs too. Let me also tell you that ENCHANTÉ  has many Palestinian and Islamic friends and that we sometimes agree to disagree but remain good friends. At a personal level, it works. At the political level, the Israeli-Arab conflict seems insoluble.

Everyone who knows a little bit of the Palestine history knows that it was an area where Jews and Arabs lived together for thousands of years. Zionism had been seeking a Jewish state for itself for a long time and several efforts had been made to achieve that without  success (see the Exodus Ship effort of 1947 below.)

(Notes added upon requests from readers: “Zion” commonly refers to a specific mountain near Jerusalem (Mount Zion), on which stood a Jebusite fortress of the same name that was conquered by David and was named the City of David. After almost two millennia of existence of the Jewish diaspora without a national state, the Zionist movement was founded in the late 19th century by secular Jews, largely as a response by Ashkenazi Jews to rising antisemitism in Europe, exemplified by the Dreyfus affair in France and the anti-Jewish pogroms in the Russian Empire.^[16] The political movement was formally established by the Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl in 1897 following the publication of his book Der Judenstaat.^[17] At that time, the movement sought to encourage Jewish migration to the Ottoman Palestine. –Source: Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.)

World War II and the Holocaust (in which Palestine Arabs did not participate but surely did not object) became the catalyst and led to the idea to use the British “Palestina Mandate”, an off-shoot of the Ottoman Empire that was dismantled at the end of World War I, as an area where a Jewish State could be carved out together with an Arab Palestine.

UNSCOP (3 September 1947) and UN Ad Hoc Committee (25 November 1947) partition plans. The UN Ad Hoc committee proposal was voted on in the resolution.
Date	November 29, 1947
Meeting no.	128
Code	A/RES/181(II) (Document)
Voting summary	33 voted for 13 voted against 10 abstained
Result	Recommendation to the United Kingdom, as the mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all other Members of the United Nations the adoption and implementation, with regard to the future government of Palestine, of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union set out in the resolution[1]

The Arabs objected, amongst others about “arable” land (you notice the pun?), but why? After all, the Jews had lived there too. Why not have two States, Jewish and Transjordan?  While the UN agreed to the partition in 1948 (33 for, 13 against, 10 abstentions of a UN Assembly of 56 states), war between Jews and Arabs almost started immediately and has never really ended. Reconciliation has proved almost impossible despite the vision of Anwar Sadat who went to Israel and concluded peace with Menachem Begin in 1977 and recognized Israel.

One could say, that was Sadat’s “Mandela” moment. From that moment on, the Arab World could have settled their differences but it did not happen. Other Arabs did not share Sadat’s vision. Egypt was even kicked out of the Arab League for some ten years! On June 6, 1981, fanatic Islamists killed Sadat – and a host of others – at a victory parade commemorating the time that Egypt won back the Sinai from Israel during the Yum Kippur war.  And where are we now? Another Palestinian-Israeli war, though this war is chiefly originated by a terrorist organization called Hamas that enforced its reign on the Palestinians in the Gaza strip when Israel relinquished it in 2005.

What ENCHANTÉ finds so unbelievably short-sighted is all this anti-Israel bashing in the Western media solely because of Palestinian casualties, however tragic they are. Unless you keep your eyes in your pocket, your ears plugged with clay, and your brain drugged with Kool-Aid (assuming you have brains), it is clear from all the photographs that it is Hamas that is killing its own people. The picture below was Tweeted by Hamas and intercepted by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

Maybe Hamas considers their own people as canon-fodder like Napoleon did in his war with Russia or at Waterloo, and maybe they believe that when they die, even after multiple Israeli warnings to move out of their missile infested homesteads, schools, hospitals and even mosques (yes, Allah’s houses!), their dead will all be martyrs and go straight to paradise and live happily ever after. But their own people may not want to die. They live in fear under Hamas’s terror regime. So why are these Western nincompoops still choosing Hamas’s side? How can they when it is clear for all to observe that Hamas is using its own people as human shields and victim propaganda? Because they are all like the Nevil Chamberlains of World War II.

And don’t forget it was the Brits that rammed the ship “Exodus”in the Mediterranean in 1947  to prevent Jews from re-entering Palestine and shipped them back to Germany of all places!

In 1947 international discussions were under way to settle the British mandate “Palestina”. Maps floated on negotiation tables.

Why not sit down and REASON to solve your problems without that hot-head demeanor and give each other the space to live? There is enough room if security can be assured!

Look at the daily barrage of missiles that Hamas started this time again. Which country in its right mind would allow that to happen to its people? USA? Germany? France? England? Saudi Arabia? Egypt? Wouldn’t they shoot back, too, with all their might?  No, Jews just have to accept annihilation, problem solved. Then all these tunnels the Israeli detected, smuggling Hamas weapons and fighters into Israel to kidnap and kill. Who can pretend that this is morally right? All that because the Jews have no right to be in the Palestine region that is their homeland as much as it is for the Arabs? Yes, Arabs were there also in the past, but “Palestina” was not an Arab State and surely not an Islamic state!

Sinai and Palestine Area at the time of the Jewish Exodus from Egypt thousands of years ago

Arabia map as it is now

Things have happened that should not have happened with respect to Arabs being forced to move out of the State of Israel, but the beginning was politically very murky, also because of British ambiguity. Lots of fights with the Brits erupted. But many Jews were forcefully removed from Arab countries, too! And they are not standing in line to return for “resettlement” like Palestinians say they want to in Israel. Remember the separation of India and Pakistan in 1947? That was a hundred times greater and also very murky. Still, there are Islamic people living peacefully in India (like Arabs in Israel) and while India and Pakistan are touchy neighbors, Islamic Pakistan is not trying to drive Hindu India into the Indian Ocean or firing rockets over the border!

Israel accepted the recent Egyptian brokered ceasefire. Hamas refused, even though other Arab countries and the Arab League agreed. Why? Because they did not get full Israeli submission? Why should Israel give in to terrorists? So Hamas continued firing rockets and continued to expose its poor Palestinian people. It’s only after that that Israel reluctantly began the ground incursion. Deference to the Bully never wins you any favor. Remember the bully in your schoolyard? Unless you beat him/her to pulp or get him/her checked by the management, he/she will only grab more power. It is unfortunate, but that’s how we human beings are made up. Many human beings are simply bullies.

Take that up another notch to world politics, and you have the perverted UN. Despite the fact that many UN specialized agencies do great work, the Assembly (57 Islamic States out of 198 members = 28.7%) has become a totally different politicized debating club from what it was meant to be at its inception in 1944. Western states generally support Israel, but they are now in the minority on a one- member-one-vote basis. So Israel will always be in the boondoggle at the UN: Because of the UN stereotype anti-Israel posture, Israel will always lose. Only in the Security Council can the USA and some Western Nations block nefarious General Assembly votes. How come that missiles were hidden in two UN Schools in Gaza as UN officials admitted? Would you miss somebody coming into your house or backyard carrying a bunch of missiles under his arm to hide?  How come the UN people “did not see”?

Then there are those Arabs fuming at Zionism. Why don’t we hear them fuming at their Islamism that tortures, rapes, kills and suppresses people, even their own, and renders women unworthy creatures and even stones them half-buried in dirt?

Jews don’t do that. Israel does not do that. Arabs living in Israel can vote and keep their belief. What makes Islamic people believe that Islam is the only right faith? It started 600 years later than Christianity!  What is so nice about a religion that suppresses other religions, steals their believers’ goods and  homes where they have lived for years, makes them pay a tax and labels them secondary citizens, or worse, orders them to convert or die? Is that really what the “religion of peace” is about?  Do we still have to deal with such eight century nonsense in the 21st century? After all, the reactionary Ottoman Empire was defeated in 1918 and good riddance.

Arafat never let an opportunity go by to fail to make peace. Moneywise it was much more lucrative to keep warring. His wife Suha (born and raised a Catholic in Jerusalem!) lived comfortably in an expensive apartment in the Bristol Hotel in the Rue du Faubourg-Saint Honoré in Paris after she left Gaza where she shared an apartment with Arafat.  The CBS “60 Minutes” program, not exactly a “right wing” unit, reported in 2003 that Arafat had US$800 million in the bank and sent his wife US$50,000-100,000 monthly (depending on the sources) from the Palestinian Authority (PA) budget to live in Paris. This was confirmed by other legitimate sources, among others the IMF. Nobody knows what happens with all the aid money to the PA or Hamas.

Bristol Hotel in the Rue du Faubourg-Saint Honoré in Paris

Where did all this money come from? Hamas is not any better. Do you believe they are really suffering from hunger, disease and poverty? Yes, their suppressed Gaza Palestinians do, but not the Hamas “government”.

Deira Hotel and Lobby in Gaza

Gaza Hotel Lobby and local market

Apartments for “martyrs” and Gaza beach

Happy life at Gaza Beach and Gaza Shopping

More Gaza shopping and local markets.

Hamas home in Gaza and Hamas Leader

Iran, Qatar and others are faithful financiers. Even the US gives indirectly taxpayer money to Hamas now that they are joined with Fatah.  Do  you really think that any of this aid money goes directly to the poor Palestinians?  From the “happy” pictures of Gaza, where Palestinians seem to like their life, one would wonder, why for heavens sake would Hamas want to expose that happy life to war with its intransigent attitude toward Israel? But no, war has a higher motive: Israel must be destroyed even if it destroys the Palestinians. So, instead of using the aid for further economic development, it will be applied to new missile launchers and tunnels, as was done in the past.

Why this moral equivalence from the USA? What’s left of its moral values? Where is the White House’s moral clarity? How was it possible that the FAA banned flights to Ben Gurion Airport, giving Hamas a win? Such a dramatic move could never have been made without State Department and White House involvement.  Did the US want to pressurize Israel into a cease fire while Kerry was “negotiating” in Egypt? (Remember Kerry’s off the record scolding of Israel’s ground offensive as “a hell of a pin-pointing operation” and “we have to go there tonight, we’re wasting our time here?” Implying he was going to give the Israelis a lesson? This mindset ties in nicely with that FAA ban!) Former mayor Bloomberg courageously took an El Al flight to Ben Gurion to show solidarity.

Bloomberg flies El Al to Ben Gurion Airport after FAA ban. Kerry follows him quickly. Airport suddenly safe again?The ban was quickly lifted after Kerry had to visit Israel. Oh! that White House and State Department miserable hypocrisy!

What has become of the US motto “Peace through Strength” that got the Soviet Union down? Bully Putin is laughing his head off and keeps shooting at Ukraine, even after his cronies downed a commercial jet liner with 300 people dead and Europe and the USA did not take even one meaningful action.

A one Palestinian State is, for the time being, utopia. A well-known Israeli “dissident”, Mike Peled, describes in his intriguing book “A General’s son” how his father promoted that idea. He writes this as having grown up from an “insider” to a “dissident”. In this regard, he is not much different from US “dissidents”. The problem with “dissidents” in democratic societies is that their free speech does not necessarily mean they are right. They surely offer food for thought and sometimes galvanize into a protest march, but I am afraid that Mike Peled’s solution is not achievable at this time, and I even wonder if it is shared by the Arab world:

Jews and Palestinians all living peacefully in one single democratic State. The book has many good critics and, of course, rejections. No one denies that Zionism had racist elements, but Arabs are racist too. The USA had its racist differences and is still not free from it. If there are “lies” based in Zionism, come to Arabia and read the 1000 Arabian nights. The whole argument of a non-racist society in the one Palestine is a noble thought, but history is not encouraging. It may take another century before we grow out of that and make it possible, if ever we get a chance.

So far, a two-state solution with renegotiated borders for security is the best what can be obtained. Democracy in the Middle-East is unchartered territory and we learned that the hard way once more in Iraq. As long as the Jews cannot be assured of absolute security, it would be suicidal for them and for any state to open its borders and resettle hostile terrorists in their midst. And why should Arabs say that Jews cannot have their own State? Saudi Arabia is an Islamic State, Iran is, and other Middle Eastern countries claim they are Islamic States. Beats me.

It’s a mystery why Palestinian leaders never could build their own state and develop it economically the way the Jews did, despite all the billions of aid-dollars and technical assistance that they have been given for at least four decades. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, leaving economic development it had started. What have the “Palestinians” done with it? For nine years,  Gaza Hamas has done nothing but complaining, whining, fighting, subverting, and all for the greater good of throwing the Jews into the sea. What an impressive developmental mission. What a memorable contribution to humanity.

Sorry, ENCHANTÉ  can’t have respect for that and is pretty fed up with this Islamic terrorist and anti-Israel stuff and refuses to be political correct about it as so many in the dumb permissive US and European media are. Friends of ENCHANTÉ consider its author outdated but it wishes we still had an Eisenhower or Reagan USA, Thatcher steel in Europe and an another “Mandela” like Anwar Sadat in Egypt. Today’s leaderless “normal” is pathetic.