Succinct Arab Propaganda

Here's how Jordanian Ambassador, formerly to the United States and to the United Nations, Abd al-Hamid Sharaf, tried to pull a fast one:

"...in the United States, as well as in Europe and in the West generally, there is a basic misconception with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict which stems from some emotional associations -- a sense of guilt with regard to what happened to the Jews in the West and a wrong identification of that question with the Israeli question in the Middle East, where the situation is actually reversed. There, Israel has actually occupied territory not belonging to it and has set up the origin of the problem -- a state that has been expanding, basically at the expense of the owners of that land, the Palestinian people."

That was broadcast on Jun 4, 1972.

He claims:

A. Zionism is linked to the Holocaust
B. Israel has occupied land not of its own
C. Israel is an 'expanding' state
D. The 'owners' of Palestine are a 'Palestinian people'.

I claim:

A. Zionism preceded the Holocaust and as the national liberastion movement of the Jewish people also preceded European antisemitism. While antisemtism caused Herzl to organize a modern political Zionism, the longing for Zion is Biblical.

B. The territory of Judea, Samaria and Gaza is Jewish land. Even the League of Nations, the supreme legal body of the entire civilized world in 1922, agreed to that for that was a portion of the territory intended to become the reconsituted Jewish national home.

C. If Israel was/is expanding, it is only because of Arab refusals to agree to the UN recommendations of 1947 and to make war against it afterwards. And then again, since 1981, Israel has been a 'decreasing' state.

D. Forget my opposition to the idea of a "Palestinian people" and whether they "own" my Jewish land. It was the Jordanians who repressed and denied the people calling themselves "Palestinians" their rights.

Talk about chutzpah.