Who could argue with the following excerpts from a recent speech by a U.S. Senator:
The following speech was given on the Senate floor by Sen. Jim Inhofe
who is serving his 2nd term in the Senate from the State of Okla.
March 4, 2002
I was interested the other day when I heard that the de facto ruler,
Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah, made a statement which was
received by many in this country as if it were a statement of fact, as if
it were something new, a concept for peace in the Middle East that no
one had ever heard of before. I was kind of shocked that it was so
well received by many people who had been down this road before.
I suggest to you that what Crown Prince Abdullah talked about a few
days ago was not new at all. He talked about the fact that under the
Abdullah plan, Arabs would normalize relations with Israel in
exchange for the Jewish State surrendering the territory it received
after the 1976 Six-Day War as if that were something new. He went
on to talk about other land that had been acquired and had been
taken by Israel.
I remember so well on December 4 when we covered all of this and
the fact that there isn't anything new about the prospect of giving up
land that is rightfully Israel's land in order to have peace.
When it gets right down to it, the land doesn't make that much
difference because Yasser Arafat and others don't recognize Israel's
right to any of the land. They do not recognize Israel's right to exist.
I will discuss six reasons, which I mentioned once before, why
Israel is entitled to the land they have and that it should not be a part
of the peace process.
If this is something that Israel wants to do, it is their business to do it.
But anyone who has tried to put the pressure on Israel to do this is
wrong.
We are going to be hit by skeptics who are going to say we will be
attacked because of our support for Israel, and if we get out of the
Middle East--that is us--all the problems will go away. That is just not
true. If we withdraw, all of these problems will again come to our
door.
I have some observations to make about that. But I would like to
reemphasize once again the six reasons that Israel has the right to
their land. The first reason is that Israel has the right to the land
because of all of the archeological evidence. That is reason, No. 1. All
the archeological evidence supports it.
Every time there is a dig in Israel, it does nothing but support the fact
that Israelis have had a presence there for 3,000 years. They have
been there for a long time. The coins, the cities, the pottery, the
culture--there are other people, groups that are there, but there is no
mistaking the fact that Israelis have been present in that land for
3,000 years.
It predates any claims that other peoples in the regions may have.
The ancient Philistines are extinct. Many other ancient peoples are
extinct. They do not have the unbroken line to this date that the
Israelis have.
Even the Egyptians of today are not racial Egyptians of 2,000, 3,000
years ago. They are primarily an Arab people. The land is called
Egypt, but they are not the same racial and ethnic stock as the old
Egyptians of the ancient world. The first Israelis are in fact descended
from the original Israelites. The first proof, then, is the archeology.
The second proof of Israel's right to the land is the historic right.
History supports it totally and completely. We know there has been an
Israel up until the time of the Roman Empire. The Romans conquered
the land. Israel had no homeland, although Jews were allowed to live
there. They were driven from the land in two dispersions: One was in
70 A,.D. and the other was in 135 A.D. But there was always a Jewish
presence in the land.
The Turks, who took over about 700 years ago and ruled the land up
until about World War I, had control. Then the land was conquered by
the British. The Turks entered World War I on the side of Germany.
The British knew they had to do something to punish Turkey, and also
to break up that empire that was going to be a part of the whole effort
of Germany in World War I. So the British sent troops against the
Turks in the Holy Land.
One of the generals who was leading the British armies was a man
named Allenby. Allenby was a Bible-believing Christian. He carried a
Bible with him everywhere he went and he knew the significance of
Jerusalem.
The night before the attack against Jerusalem to drive out the Turks,
Allenby prayed that God would allow him to capture the city without
doing damage to the holy places.
That day, Allenby sent World War I biplanes over the city of
Jerusalem to do a reconnaissance mission. You have to understand
that the Turks had at that time never seen an airplane. So there they
were, flying around. They looked in the sky and saw these fascinating
inventions and did not know what they were, and they were terrified
by them. Then they were told they were going to be opposed by a
man named Allenby the next day, which means, in their language,
``man sent from God'' or ``prophet from God.'' They dared not fight
against a prophet from God, so the next morning, when Allenby went
to take Jerusalem, he went in and captured it without firing a single
shot.
The British Government was grateful to Jewish people around the
world, particularly to one Jewish chemist who helped them
manufacture niter. Niter is an ingredient that was used in nitroglycerin
which was sent over from the New World. But they did not have a way
of getting it to England. The German U-boats were shooting on the
boats, so most of the niter they were trying to import to make
nitroglycerin was at the bottom of the ocean. But a man named
Weitzman, a Jewish chemist, discovered a way to make it from
materials that existed in England. As a result, they were able to
continue that supply.
The British at that time said they were going to give the Jewish people
a homeland. That is all a part of history. It is all written down in
history. They were gratified that the Jewish people, the bankers,
came through and helped finance the war.
The homeland that Britain said it would set aside consisted of all of
what is now Israel and all of what was then the nation of Jordan--the
whole thing. That was what Britain promised to give the Jews in 1917.
In the beginning, there was some Arab support for this action. There
was not a huge Arab population in the land at that time, and there is a
reason for that. The land was not able to sustain a large population of
people. It just did not have the development it needed to handle
those people, and the land was not really wanted by anybody. Nobody
really wanted this land. It was considered to be worthless land.
I want the Presiding Officer to hear what Mark Twain said. And, of
course, you may have read ``Huckleberry Finn'' and ``Tom Sawyer.''
Mark Twain--Samuel Clemens--took a tour of Palestine in 1867. This
is how he described that land. We are talking about Israel now. He
said:
A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly
to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. We never saw a human being
on the whole route. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere.
Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil,
had almost deserted the country.
Where was this great Palestinian nation? It did not exist. It was not
there. Palestinians were not there. Palestine was a region named by
the Romans, but at that time it was under the control of Turkey, and
there was no large mass of people there because the land would not
support them.
This is the report that the Palestinian Royal Commission, created by
the British, made. It quotes an account of the conditions on the
coastal plain along the Mediterranean Sea in 1913. This is the
Palestinian Royal Commission. They said:
The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track,
suitable for transport by camels or carts. No orange groves, orchards
or vineyards were to be seen until one reached the Yavnev village.
Houses were mud. Schools did not exist. The western part toward the
sea was almost a desert. The villages in this area were few and thinly
populated. Many villages were deserted by their inhabitants.
That was 1913.
The French author Voltaire described Palestine as ``a hopeless,
dreary place.''
In short, under the Turks the land suffered from neglect and low
population. That is a historic fact. The nation became populated by
both Jews and Arabs because the land came to prosper when Jews
came back and began to reclaim it. Historically, they began to reclaim
it. If there had never been any archaeological evidence to support the
rights of the Israelis to the territory, it is also important to recognize
that other nations in the area have no long-standing claim to the
country either.
Did you know that Saudi Arabia was not created until 1913, Lebanon
until 1920? Iraq did not exist as a nation until 1932, Syria until 1941;
the borders of Jordan were established in 1946 and Kuwait in 1961.
Any of these nations that would say Israel is only a recent arrival
would have to deny their own rights as recent arrivals as well. They
did not exist as countries. They were all under the control of the
Turks.
Historically, Israel gained its independence in 1948.
The third reason that land belongs to Israel is the practical value of
the Israelis being there. Israel today is a modern marvel of
agriculture. Israel is able to bring more food out of a desert
environment than any other country in the world. The Arab nations
ought to make Israel their friend and import technology from Israel
that would allow all the Middle East, not just Israel, to become an
exporter of food. Israel has unarguable success in its agriculture.
The fourth reason I believe Israel has the right to the land is on the
grounds of humanitarian concern. You see, there were 6 million Jews
slaughtered in Europe in World War II. The persecution against the
Jews had been very strong in Russia since the advent of communism.
It was against them even before then under the Czars.
These people have a right to their homeland. If we are not going to
allow them a homeland in the Middle East, then where? What other
nation on Earth is going to cede territory, is going to give up land?
They are not asking for a great deal. The whole nation of Israel would
fit into my home State of Oklahoma seven times. It would fit into the
Presiding Officer's State of Georgia seven times. They are not asking
for a great deal. The whole nation of Israel is very small. It is a nation
that, up until the time that claims started coming in, was not desired
by anybody.
The fifth reason Israel ought to have their land is that she is a
strategic ally of the United States. Whether we realize it or not, Israel
is a detriment, an impediment, to certain groups hostile to
democracies and hostile to what we believe in, hostile to that which
makes us the greatest nation in the history of the world. They have
kept them from taking complete control of the Middle East. If it were
not for Israel, they would overrun the region. They are our strategic
ally.
It is good to know we have a friend in the Middle East on whom we
can count. They vote with us in the United Nations more than England,
more than Canada, more than France, more than Germany--more
than any other country in the world.
The sixth reason is that Israel is a roadblock to terrorism. The war we
are now facing is not against a sovereign nation; it is against a group
of terrorists who are very fluid, moving from one country to another.
They are almost invisible. That is whom we are fighting against today.
We need every ally we can get. If we do not stop terrorism in the
Middle East, it will be on our shores. We have said this again and
again and again, and it is true.
One of the reasons I believe the door was opened for an
attack against the United States of America is that the policy of our
Government has been to ask the Israelis, and demand it with
pressure, not to retaliate in a significant way against the terrorist
strikes that have been launched against them.
Since its independence in 1948, Israel has fought four wars: The war
in 1948 and 1949--that was the war for independence--the war in
1956, the Sinai campaign; the Six-Day War in 1967; and in 1973, the
Yom Kippur War, the holiest day of the year, and that was with Egypt
and Syria.
You have to understand that in all four cases, Israel was attacked.
They were not the aggressor. Some people may argue that this was
not true because they went in first in 1956, but they knew at that time
that Egypt was building a huge military to become the aggressor.
Israel, in fact, was not the aggressor and has not been the aggressor
in any of the four wars.
Also, they won all four wars against impossible odds. They are great
warriors. They consider a level playing field being outnumbered 2 to
1.
There were 39 Scud missiles that landed on Israeli soil during the gulf
war. Our President asked Israel not to respond. In order to have the
Arab nations on board, we asked Israel not to participate in the war.
They showed tremendous restraint and did not. Now we have asked
them to stand back and not do anything over these last several
attacks.
We have criticized them. We have criticized them in our media. Local
people in television and radio often criticize Israel, not knowing the
true facts. We need to be informed.
I was so thrilled when I heard a reporter pose a question to our
Secretary of State, Colin Powell. He said:
Mr. Powell, the United States has advocated a policy of restraint in the
Middle East. We have discouraged Israel from retaliation again and
again and again because we've said it leads to continued
escalation--that it escalates the violence. Are we going to follow that
preaching ourselves?
Mr. Powell indicated we would strike back. In other words, we can tell
Israel not to do it, but when it hits us, we are going to do something.
But all that changed in December when the Israelis went into the Gaza
with gunships and into the West Bank with F-16s. With the exception
of last May, the Israelis had not used F-16s since the 1967 6-Day War.
And I am so proud of them because we have to stop terrorism. It is
not going to go away. If Israel were driven into the sea tomorrow, if
every Jew in the Middle East were killed, terrorism would not end.
You know that in your heart. Terrorism would continue.
It is not just a matter of Israel in the Middle East. It is the heart of the
very people who are perpetrating this stuff. Should they be successful
in overrunning Israel--which they won't be--but should they be, it
would not be enough. They will never be satisfied.
Eight years ago on the lawn of the White House, Yitzhak Rabin shook
hands with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. It was a historic occasion. It
was a tragic occasion.
At that time, the official policy of the Government of Israel began to
be, ``Let us appease the terrorists. Let us begin to trade the land for
peace.'' This process continued unabated up until last year. Here in
our own Nation, at Camp David, in the summer of 2000, then Prime
Minister of Israel Ehud Barak offered the most generous concessions
to Yasser Arafat that had ever been laid on the table.
He offered him more than 90 percent of all the West Bank territory,
sovereign control of it. There were some parts he did not want to
offer, but in exchange for that he said he would give up land in Israel
proper that the PLO had not even asked for.
And he also did the unthinkable. He even spoke of dividing Jerusalem
and allowing the Palestinians to have their capital there in the East.
Yasser Arafat stormed out of the meeting. Why did he storm out of
the meeting? Everything he had said he wanted was offered there. It
was put into his hands. Why did he storm out of the meeting?
A couple of months later, there began to be riots, terrorism. The riots
began when now Prime Minister Ariel Sharon went to the Temple
Mount. And this was used as the thing that lit the fire and that caused
the explosion.
Did you know that Sharon did not go unannounced and that he
contacted the Islamic authorities before he went and secured their
permission and had permission to be there? It was no surprise.
The response was very carefully calculated. They knew the world
would not pay attention to the details.
They would portray this in the Arab world as an attack upon the holy
mosque. They would portray it as an attack upon that mosque and
use it as an excuse to riot. Over the last 8 years, during this time of
the peace process, where the Israeli public has pressured its leaders
to give up land for peace because they are tired of fighting, there has
been increased terror.
In fact, it has been greater in the last 8 years than any other time in
Israel's history. Showing restraint and giving in has not produced any
kind of peace. It is so much so that today the leftist peace movement
in Israel does not exist because the people feel they were deceived.
They did offer a hand of peace, and it was not taken. That is why the
politics of Israel have changed drastically over the past 12 months.
The Israelis have come to see that, ``No matter what we do, these
people do not want to deal with us. ..... They want to destroy us.''
That is why even yet today the stationery of the PLO still has upon it
the map of the entire state of Israel, not just the tiny little part they
call the West Bank that they want. They want it all.
These six reasons show why Israel is entitled to that land. |
