DOS: REGIME CHANGE CONDI!

What's next on Condi's road map? A conversion? This is an outrage. Did she take the veil?

(at a dinner marking the third anniversary of the American Task Force on Palestine which I wrote about  here.)

 

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice:
Palestinians deserve to live better than they do and be "free of the humiliation of occupation" in a state of their own. And "I promise you my personal commitment to that goal,"

And Humiliating it Certainly is

Eli E. Hertz | October 12, 2006

It is indeed humiliating to see the Secretary of State implying that the presence of Jews in the territories of Judea and Samaria is humiliating. The Secretary also believes that Palestinian Arabs deserve a state of their own.

Historically:

Before the Arabs fabricated the 'Palestinian People' as an exclusively Arab phenomenon, no such group existed.

Countless official British Mandate-vintage documents speak of 'the Jews' and 'the Arabs' of Palestine - not 'Jews and Palestinians.'

Ironically, before local Jews began calling themselves Israelis in 1948 (the name 'Israel' was chosen for the newly- established Jewish state), the term 'Palestine' applied almost exclusively to Jews and the institutions founded by new Jewish immigrants in the first half of the 20th century, before independence. Some examples include:

• The Jerusalem Post, founded in 1932, was called the Palestine Post until 1948.
• Bank Leumi L'Israel was called the "Anglo-Palestine Bank, a Jewish Company."
• The Jewish Agency - an arm of the Zionist movement engaged in Jewish settlement since 1929 - was called the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
• The house organ of American Zionism in the 1930s was called New Palestine.
• Today's Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1936 by German Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany, was called the "Palestine Symphony Orchestra", and was composed of some 70 Palestinian Jews.
• The United Jewish Appeal (UJA) was established in 1939 as a merger of the United Palestine Appeal and the fundraising arm of the Joint Distribution Committee.

... In a state of their own?

What unites Palestinians has been their opposition to Jewish nationalism and the desire to stamp it out, not aspirations for a "state of their own".

A Palestinian identity did not exist until an opposing force created it - primarily anti-Zionism. Opposition to non-Muslim nationalism in an area which local Arabs, and the entire Arab world, view as their own turf, was the only expression of 'Palestinian peoplehood.' The artificiality of a Palestinian identity is reflected in the attitudes and actions of neighboring Arabs nations who themselves never called to established a Palestinian state.

Rice ignores the remarkably consistent Arab behavior in Palestine that is documented in the Mandator's reports to the League of Nations - a role that parallels a UN Special Rapporteur today. Such information could have provided a valuable perspective for the Secretary and placed the current state dilemma in its appropriate historical context.

The British report to the League of Nations (1936-7)

"There were similar assaults [by the Arabs] on the persons and property of the Jews, conducted with the same reckless ferocity. Women and children were not spared... In 1936 this was still clearer. Jewish lives were taken and Jewish property destroyed... The word 'disturbances' gives a misleading impression of what happened. It was an open rebellion of the Palestinian Arabs, assisted by fellow Arabs from other countries, against British Mandatory rule. Throughout the strike the Arab press indulged in unrestrained invective against the [British] Government. The Government imprisons and demolishes [houses] and imposes extortionate fines in the interests of imperialism."

The British report to the League of Nations had no problem using the 'T' word or acknowledging the sustaining character of political violence in Palestinian Arab culture - internal and external, noting:

"The ugliest element in the picture remains to be noted. Arab nationalism in Palestine has not escaped infection with the foul disease which has so often defiled the cause of nationalism in other lands. Acts of 'terrorism' in various parts of the country have long been only too familiar reading in the news-papers. As in Ireland in the worst days after the War or in Bengal, intimidation at the point of a revolver has become a not infrequent feature of Arab politics. Attacks by Arabs on Jews, unhappily, are no new thing. The novelty in the present situation is attacks by Arabs on Arabs. For an Arab to be suspected of a lukewarm adherence to the nationalist cause is to invite a visit from a body of 'gunmen.'"

The British report to the League of Nations noted the destructive role of Palestinian Arab leadership at the time:

"If anything is said in public or done in daylight against the known desires of the Arab Higher Committee, it is the work not of a more moderate, but a more full-blooded nationalism than theirs [AHC]."

The British report to the League of Nations noted the hate that fueled Palestinian Arab political culture:

"...in Palestine Arab nationalism is inextricably interwoven with antagonism to the Jews... That is why it is difficult to be an Arab patriot and not to hate the Jews."

"....we [The British] find ourselves reluctantly convinced that no prospect of a lasting settlement can be founded on moderate Arab nationalism. At every successive crisis in the past that hope has been entertained. In each case it has proved illusory."

What did the League of Nations see 70 years ago that the Secretary of  State did not?

Those who do not learn from the past are destined to repeat it.

UPDATE: Moscow posts two CheChen rebel platoons  in Lebanon............good on ya, Queenie

Comments

[DoctorDentons]

I read somewhere this morning that Dr. Rice had fallen under the spell of the Senior Mangement of the Department of State...those who were senior career people and those who feel "they" really run the State Department. She had fell prey to their massaging her ego with one hand while cutting her throat with the other.
I had great hopes for her turning the State Department around when she took over but looking at her actions over the last three months, I am greatly disappointed.

[Josef K]

Worst Condimmi quote, "I know the commitment of the Palestinian people to a better future. I know firsthand the commitment of President Abbas and moderate Palestinians to that future."

Very stupid, ignorant quote.

I would encourage further fisking, research and detraction of the ignorance of our Secretary of State.

[Underzog]

Have Condi leave the State Department and have her make money as an accompaniest to Yo Yo Ma.

"There's no need to fear; Underzog is here!"

[biorabbi]

Condi is a Soviet expert. She does not understand Islam(nor does she want to). Her tutor in government was Brent Scowcroft--not exactly a lover of Israel! The State Department has recently upgraded the "exchange" program where thousands of Saudi students study at US universities, a one-way "exchange." Her comments fail to surprise.

What was that great quote of hers: "There is no greater friend of the US in the War on Terror than Saudi Arabia."

Orwell would be proud.

[Charles Martel]

Rice is only parroting -- down to the final "g" in H-U-M-I-L-I-A-T-I-N-G what her Commander in Chief has repeated ad nauseam over the last four years in speeches in the Rose Garden, at press conferences, and - as recently as 2 weeks ago -- at the UN.

Is Rice a cog in the machinery of the anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic State Department? Of course. But at the end of the day, she serves at the pleasure of one man: the only US President to formally call for a Palestinian state -- uh, a "viable and contiguous Palestinian state".

Those supporters of Israel who rail against bureaucrats like Rice while exculpating her boss are seriously deluded.