‘A failing grade in Middle East History 101’

ARTHUR L. LEVY, MD, ALLAN HILLMAN ESQ., ELAINE BRAFFMAN ESQ.

The author of the op-ed “Time to stand up for equality” (Yann van Huerck, Feb. 5) deserves a failing grade in Middle East History 101. The op-ed is replete with multiple errors and falsifications. The facts are:

Following the defeat of Turkey in World War I, Great Britain was awarded by the League of Nations the Mandate over the Turkish province of Palestine, which then included territory on both sides of the Jordan River. Great Britain then gave King Abdullah, the present king’s great-grandfather, the land to the east of the Jordan River as a consolation prize after his clan’s ouster from the Arabian Peninsular by the House of Saud.

The remaining Palestine soon became embroiled in a three-way struggle among Great Britain and the Jewish and Arab populations, both of whom wanted the withdrawal of Britain from the land and who had competing desires for a Jewish and Palestinian Homeland.

After World War II, Great Britain, exhausted by the war and the Palestinian-Jewish conflict, gave the problem to the United Nations.

A United Nations subcommittee proposed, and in November 1947 the General Assembly approved, a plan to partition the territory into separate Jewish and Arab Homelands. This proposal gave 45 percent of the land to a proposed Arab State and 55 percent to a proposed Jewish State but almost half of that allocation included the arid and undeveloped Negev Desert.

The Jewish Agency accepted the proposal but it was rejected by the Arab League.

Immediately armed attacks by Palestinian militants on the Jewish community worsened. On May 14, 1948 an Independent Jewish State was announced only to be immediately invaded by the armies of five surrounding Arab States along with Palestinian irregulars. In the ensuing fighting Israel succeeded in slightly expanding its borders making its borders more defensible. More than 6,000 Israelis were killed.

During the fighting the Kingdom of Jordan invaded, occupied and subsequently annexed the West Bank while Egypt invaded, occupied but did not annex Gaza. It was then that the chance for an independent Palestinian State died. A real border was never established because the Arabs refused to make peace with Israel (until Egyptian President Anwar Sadat did so in 1979, for which he was subsequently assassinated by his own officers).

From 1949 to 1967 that’s where matters stood, punctuated by frequent cross-border terrorist attacks directed against Israeli civilians.

In the Spring of 1967, after Syria and Egypt united into one country, the newly formed United Arab Republic expelled the UN force from the Sinai, where it had been a buffer between Egypt and Israel since the 1956 conflict. The UAR then blockaded Israel’s only port providing an outlet to Asia and Africa, massed armies on Israel’s northern and Southern borders and issued bloodthirsty threats vowing to annihilate the Jewish State. This resulted in the Six-Day War during which Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights (Syria).

Since then numerous attempts to negotiate peace failed because of Palestinian intransigence. The closest the two sides came to an agreement was in Camp David in 2000 under the auspices of President Bill Clinton, where Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Chairman Yasser Arafat 92 percent of the former West Bank, the Gaza Strip and a rail line uniting the two. Arafat walked away from the deal and commenced the second violent Intifada (uprising). President Clinton subsequently laid the blame for the failure of the talks at Arafat’s feet.

Despite all this we believe that the best solution to this ongoing nightmare is separation into two states, one Jewish and one Palestinian. That is our opinion. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. No one is entitled to his or her facts!

Arthur L. Levy, MD Chair, Israel Committee Co-Chair Jewish Community Relations Council Allan Hillman Esq.

Past JCRC chair Elaine Braffman Esq.

Past Chair Women’s Philanthropy New Haven Jewish Federation