One point that US Secretary of State John Kerry and his international brethren often ignore is that Palestinian terrorists attacked Israel frequently and with great loss of life.
By ALAN JOSEPH BAUERA MEMBER of the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades waves a flag in Ramallah in 2007. (photo credit: REUTERS)
The recent United Nations Security Council resolution declaring all Israeli building activity over the 1949 armistice line to be illegal has given Israelis a bitter feeling of betrayal by the US administration. This resolution denying Israeli/Jewish claims to land taken in 1967 includes the Jewish Quarter of the Old City as well as the Western Wall which stands at the foot of the mount where the two Jewish temples once stood.From the language of Resolution 2334, one might conclude that the Palestinians think like those who voted and regard everything on the other side of the armistice line (“the 1967 borders”) as being “kosher” Israel. But do the Palestinian really believe that? In March 2002, my son and I were both wounded in a suicide bombing on King George Street in west Jerusalem. The location of the bombing is well within 1948 Israeli borders and well over a mile from the no-man’s land that once separated Israel and Jordan outside of the Old City. Yet, weeks after operations and hospitalizations, I had the opportunity to read headlines from the day after the bombing. The Al-Aksa Brigades, a division of Fatah, the main group running the Palestinian Authority, took responsibility for the bombing. Interestingly, it described the suicide bombing, by a PA policeman, as having taken place in “occupied Jerusalem.”Now this language raises a problem. Either the organizers of the attack, including a senior PA intelligence officer, were not the greatest students in their geography classes or they really see all of Israel – and not just the “territories” – as Palestinian land in need of redemption from Israeli hands. History would suggest the latter.One point that US Secretary of State John Kerry and his international brethren often ignore is that Palestinian terrorists attacked Israel frequently and with great loss of life between 1948 and 1967 when the “territories” were in Jordanian and Egyptian hands. The fact that Israel acquired more land after the Six Day War did not change the Palestinian or general Arab view that all of Israel, and not just the lands taken in 1967, are illegally held by the Jews. Thus, while international negotiators like Kerry focus on the territories and claim that building there weakens the likelihood of two viable states, most Palestinians still hold that the 1948 creation and acceptance of Israel was no less illegal than grabbing and holding the West Bank and Gaza.Since US President Barack Obama and Secretary Kerry appear unwilling to leave the world stage quietly, maybe they could ask PA President Mahmoud Abbas to unequivocally declare that all land west of the 1949 armistice line is Israel and that the Palestinians have no claim to that land. Maybe they could whip up a quick Security Council resolution to enshrine the same.The author is chief scientist at Lishtot. www.lishtot.com.