By Tal Ben-Shahar
November 2, 2005
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| Rally in support of "A World Without Zionism" (AP) |
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In a conference entitled "A World Without Zionism" Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that "Israel must be wiped off the map." The international indignation that followed these remarks was widespread.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed "dismay" at Ahmadinejad's words, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemned them as "inexcusable," and Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed his "revulsion." The Japanese Foreign Ministry invited the Iranian ambassador to denounce the statement, adding that such words are contrary to the spirit of the United Nations. In a joint statement, the European Union leaders said that "Calls for violence and for the destruction of any state are manifestly inconsistent with any claim to be a mature and responsible member of the international community." French President Jacques Chirac "was totally shocked by what the Iranian president said."
While Iran's position surely is inexcusable, dismaying, and shocking, equally disturbing is the apparent surprise expressed by the world leaders -- as if, following Ahmadinejad's statement, the world woke up to a new reality. As Silvan Shalom, Israel's Foreign Minister, pointed out, "This is not the first time that this regime has wished for the destruction of the state of Israel." Time and again Iran has declared its desire to rid the world of the Zionist entity. And Iran is not alone in her refusal to accept the Jewish state. Twenty out of the twenty-two members of the Arab League do not recognize Israel's right to exist. In the two countries that officially recognize Israel -- Egypt and Jordan -- polls indicate that the majority of the population rejects the official government position.
Muslim, and specifically Arab-Muslim rejectionism -- the refusal to accept Jewish sovereignty and freedom in the Middle East -- has a long history. In 1937, the British government-appointed Peel Commission, proposed a partition plan to stop the violence and to separate Palestinian Jews and Arabs. The Jews, who were promised a tiny piece of coastal land, less than ten percent of historic Palestine, accepted the partition; the Arab leadership who was guaranteed the rest of the land, outright rejected the partition and proceeded to attack the Palestinian Jews. In 1948, Jordanian Prime Minister Tawfiq Abu Al-Huda reiterated the purpose of the Arab countries in launching the war against the newly-formed Jewish state: "Our position is clear, and has been proclaimed on every occasion. It is never to allow the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine and to exclude partition. And our object is to cooperate with the other Arab states in her deliverance." On May 27, 1967, nine days before the outbreak of the Six-Day War, Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser made his intentions explicit: "Our basic objective is the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight." Abd al-Rahman, Iraqi President in 1967, expressed identical sentiments to those of the Iranian president in 2005: "Our goal is clear: to wipe Israel off the map." Little has changed.
Right after the war that ended in a swift Israeli victory, Israel's foreign minister Abba Eban conveyed the message that Israel was prepared to enter negotiations and give up territories for the sake of peace. On September 1, 1967, Arab leaders met in Khartoum, Sudan, and responded with the infamous "three no's" to Israel's offer: "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it." Commenting on the rejection in Khartoum, Eban later said: "This is the first war in history which has ended with the victors suing for peace and the vanquished calling for unconditional surrender."
Until 1973, as long as the Arabs believed that Israel could be destroyed with one fell swoop, their leaders openly demanded "Israel's death" and the "extermination of the Zionist existence." Subsequent to the Six-Day War and then the Yom Kippur War -- in which Israel was caught off guard and yet still emerged victorious -- Arab regimes recognized that a phased plan was necessary to destroy the Jewish state. This plan, officially adopted by the Palestine National Council in 1974, involves taking a piecemeal approach, through diplomatic and military means, to drive the Jews out of the region. Abu Iyad, senior member of the PLO, explains:
According to the phased plan, we will establish a state on any part of Palestine that the enemy will retreat from. The Palestinian state will be a stage in our prolonged struggle for the liberation of Palestine on all of its territory. We cannot achieve the strategic goal of a Palestinian state in all of Palestine without first establishing a Palestinian state [on part of it].
In an interview with Jordanian newspaper Al-Datsur (September 19, 1995), Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat made his intentions clear: "The Oslo Accords constitute one important step in the realization of the Plan of Stages, adopted in 1974." Even the more moderate voices within the Palestinian Authority reject Jewish sovereignty. In June of 2001, in his last interview before his death, Minister for Jerusalem Affairs Faisal Al-Husseini said that "The Oslo Accords were a Trojan horse; the strategic goal is the liberation of Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea." It is time that leaders of the free world recognize the conflict for what it is and has always been: Muslim regimes' rejection of Jewish sovereignty and freedom in the Middle East.
The first step in solving any conflict is the willingness to face reality. Unfortunately, throughout history, world leaders have preferred to bury their heads in the sand, and innocent civilians ended up paying an unfathomable price. It took the world too long to realize Hitler's true intentions in the 1930s, and it took the world too long to recognize the real designs of Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao. Millions of people died -- in gas chambers, Gulags, on the killing fields, or by being forced to take a great leap forward into the abyss -- because leaders of free countries chose to disregard reality.
The greatest danger to world security is not Iran and other rogue regimes -- these can be dealt with if the free world unites as it did in the 1940s -- but rather the refusal to face reality. To express shock and surprise at Iran's statements is either willful deceit or gross ignorance of history on the side of the leaders -- neither of which the free world can afford.
There is nothing new or unique about the Iranian President's statement concerning Israel. The Middle East conflict was not and is not about the size of Israel and, therefore, what will bring peace closer is not another disengagement, another concession by the Israeli government; such concessions only embolden terrorists and their regimes on their path of destruction and hate, not just in Israel but worldwide. Regimes such as Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia must be given an ultimatum: accept Israel or bear the rejection of the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations. The free world will emerge victorious; it has, historically, defeated far greater foes.
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