With all that is going on in the news today, it is really difficult to understand exactly what is going on in the Middle East without a good knowledge of the history of the region over the past 50 years or so. Depending on where you decide to start, the “good guys” and “bad guys” can be hard to keep track of. For those of us who haven’t been around since the beginning of the 20th Century, or those of us who are a bit fuzzy on our history, here is some information to help to keep things straight and in perspective.

Most of us know very little concerning the facts of this most volatile area of the world. Many of us get our facts from the news media. This can be very confusing, especially when media bias is factored in. Believe it or not, much of what is reported in the press is outright falsehood; some deliberate, and some simply the result of poor journalistic practice. Many of us color what we know with our own biases, such as support for Israel based on scriptural references, or support for Arafat based on militant anti-Semitism. The result is that most Americans are ignorant of many of the following, irrefutable historical facts concerning the Palestinians and the Israelis. These facts come from Jamie Glazov, who holds a Ph.D. in history and who is a native of the former Soviet Union, now residing in Canada. As is true of facts in general, rather than opinions, these are verifiable. You can research them yourself and find the same answers.

• The Palestine Mandate was never a nation, let alone a political entity. It was a “mandate” created by the British from the Turkish Empire after World War I. Ten percent of the entire mandate was given to the Jews, 90% to the Palestinian Arabs.
• Israel is one percent of the land in the Middle East.
• Jordan is 80% of the land that made up the original Palestine Mandate.
• In 1948, the Palestinian Arabs rejected an international resolution that would have established a Palestinian state.
They focused their energies on destroying the new Jewish state instead.
• Before Israel was attacked in 1973, it occupied less of the land than what is now in dispute. Before 1967, Israel occupied none of it. The Arab terror unleashed against Israel in 1967 had nothing to do with Israeli “occupation” of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The “occupation” simply did not exist.
• From 1949-1967, Jordan had occupied the West Bank, while Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip. But Arabs did not terrorize Egypt and Jordan, to get them off the Palestinians’ “land”. Instead, Arabs launched a war against Israel in 1967. Israel won that war and grabbed both the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a security measure.
• The Palestinian Authority has published and Arabic translation of “Mein Kampf,” and that tract has reached No. 6 on its best-seller list.
• When Israelis captured Adolph Eichmann, the official Saudi Arabian newspaper ran a story headlined: “Arrest of Eichmann, Who Had The Honor Of Killing Six Million Jews.”
• If a Palestinian blows himself up, along with innocent Jewish mothers and babies, his picture is plastered on posters, and his family acquires a revered place in society and receives $25,000 in American currency from Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, the Palestinian terrorist believes that he gets to fulfill all his wildest and repressed sexual fantasies with 72 virgins in heaven.
• The whole matter is related to why Hashemi Rafsanjani, the eminent representative of “Iranian moderation,” has boasted that once the Muslim world gets nuclear weapons, which he assures will be very soon, the Jewish “question” will be solved forever.
• Article 19 of the Palestinian Covenant of 1968 affirms that “The partition of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of Israel is fundamentally null and void”.
• Articles 20 and 22 of the same covenant rejects even the historical and religious ties of Jews to the Holy Land. That is why Palestinian children are yet to find the State of Israel on any maps in their geography classes.
• Arafat has never repudiated the Articles in the Palestinian Covenant of 1968. This explains why, when speaking English to Western audiences, he always acknowledges the right of Israel to exist. But when he speaks Arabic, he boasts of his successes in working toward the destruction of Israel.
• Palestinians of the West Bank are barred from becoming citizens in the Arab world. When the Gaza Strip was under Egyptian administration, Palestinians were denied Egyptian citizenship, and remained stateless.
• In occupied Lebanon, Palestinians are denied basic rights to employment, health care, and government services – unlike Palestinians in Israel and in the “occupied” territories.
• Kuwait ethnically cleansed 300,000 Palestinians ten years ago. Jordanians slaughtered thousands of them after the 1967 war.
• The world community and the media virtually ignored these Arab atrocities. It was acceptable when Muslim Arabs practiced genocide against Palestinians. But it was wrong when Israelis oppressed Palestinians to defend themselves from terror.
• This double standard implies racism against Arabs. Indeed, by holding Jews up to a higher moral accountability than Arabs, the view that lets Arabs off the hook for oppressing their own brethren, implies a civilizational inferiority to them – and a civilizational superiority to Jews.
• Israel has given birth to an Arab citizenry inside Israel of more than one million people. As Israeli citizens, Arabs have more rights than the citizens of any Arab state. Arab citizens in Israel vote in free elections and are themselves elected to the Israeli parliament. The only place where Arabs know democracy and a high standard of living is in Israel.
• Five hundred Palestinians were recently arrested around Arafat’s compound. Dozens were Israel’s most-wanted terrorists. Arafat was still trying to track these people down. He couldn’t find them because they were cleverly hiding in his own office.
• Connections between the Palestinian Authority and international Islamic terror organizations such as al-Qaeda have been established beyond reasonable doubt.
• A person who truly wanted the best for the Palestinians would have embraced an offer that accepted 95% of the Palestinians’ negotiating demands and would have given the Palestinians their own sovereign state in Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, more than 90 percent of the West Bank, and a capital in Jerusalem. That’s what Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Arafat in 2000. Arafat rejected the proposal, demanding instead, the flooding of Israel with millions of Palestinians. He knew that such a development would destroy Israel as a Jewish state.
• The “Palestinian problem” is more useful to Arafat than its solution. Arafat knows that peace with Jews is his own political suicide at best – and his own death warrant at worst.
• Arab culture has yet to produce one prosperous, functional and democratic society. Yet they see that the Jews have accomplished exactly that – in a tiny piece of land that was a desert 50 years ago. Indeed, the Jews have built the most powerful economy and the only industrial and democratic nation in the entire Middle East.
• More Israelis have died from terrorism since the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 than in the four decades before it. More than 80 suicide bombings were conducted against Israel since the “peace process” began. Before Oslo, suicide bombings were almost non-existant.

It seems unconscionable to me that we should expect Israel to put up with what we here in the United States would not tolerate; namely a war within our own borders against those we hold most dear. Indeed, we didn’t tolerate it when another Islamic terrorist group flew fully-loaded civilian aircraft into the world trade center in New York, destroying both towers and killing thousands. Witness the continuing action in Afghanistan. Is it simply a matter of scale? Is the slaughter of thousands in one fell swoop sufficient to provoke military action, while killing 5 or 10, or 20 per day merely an acceptable loss? Would we put up with that here? Or is it simply OK to kill Jews.

The President declared a War on Terrorism, and against those harboring terrorists. The Palestinian Authority would seem to qualify on both counts. Not to mention Hezbollah, Hamas, and others of their ilk, including those who train and sponsor them, such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and others. Support of Israel seems to me to be in keeping with our avowed war. And judging from the above, history seems to be on the side of Israel as well. Just my view, and my humble opinion.

Jamie Glazov holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in Soviet Studies. He is the author of 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist and of Canadian Policy Toward Kruschev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002). Born in the U.S.S.R., Jamie is the son of prominent Soviet dissidents, and now resides in Vancouver, Canada. He writes the Dr. Progressive advice column for angst-ridden leftists at EnterStageRight.com. E-mail him at jglazov@rogers.com.

My comments are, of course, my own, and in no way are to be construed as representing my employer or anyone else.