PRESIDENT BUSH'S VISIT TO THE MIDDLE EAST:

SOME AFTERTHOUGHTS (Part 2)

President Bush's foreign policy, with particular reference to the Middle East, rests on two pillars: (1) his bold declaration of war - in the wake of the attack on the USA on September 11, 2001 - against global terror, as preached and practiced by radical Islam; and (2) his vision, enunciated on June 24, 2002, of "two states living side by side in peace and security" and, to that end, "the erection of a Palestinian state."

The President's visit to the Middle East last month was devoted largely to a concerted effort to launch an Israeli-Arab negotiating process designed to achieve the realization of that vision by the end of this year.

How does this "vision" square (1) with the vision proclaimed in the Bible? (2) with President Bush's own declaration of war on global terror? and (3) with the facts on the ground? Let us take up these three challenges, one at a time.

1. The Bible

"The Lord said to Abram.,, 'Lift up your eyes and look out from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west: All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever.'" (Genesis 13:14,15)

"As for Ishmael - I have heeded you. I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous. He shall be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make of him a great nation. But my covenant I will maintain with Isaac."

(Genesis 17:20,21)

The Bible, in other words, gives cognizance to the basic human and national rights of Ishmael's descendants, the Arabs, who are to become "exceedingly numerous" (as indeed they have) and are to be governed by "twelve rulers" (there now are nearly twice that number in the Arab League). But it also insists on the faithful maintenance of the covenant that gave the land of Canaan to Isaac and his offspring. And the nations that "divided the land" would be severely punished (Joel 3:2).

2. The War on Terror

The further reduction of Israel's already limited area, as envisioned by Mr. Bush, in order to allow for the creation of yet another Arab state, at its expense, would cut down Israel's total width, in its sensitive "midriff" section, to a mere 9 or 10 miles, making most of its major cities easy targets for rocket attacks by Arab terrorist gangs that still have not been neutralized, and boosting the motivation of hostile Arab forces to take advantage of a truncated Israel to launch a military strike that could easily cut the country in two.

Israel's Palestinian Arab neighbors have yet to acknowledge Israel's right to exist as a sovereign nation. That is why they refuse adamantly, to this day, to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Their avowed ultimate aim is to eradicate Israel from the map of the region (indeed, in their school textbooks they have already done this!) and to establish their own state in ALL of what was once known as Palestine.

President Bush's two-state vision is surely not intended to make that task easier for Israel's enemies. But, just as surely, that is precisely the effect the realization of such a "vision" would have.

3. The Facts on the Ground

The geopolitical entity to which the Romans in the second century CE gave the name Palestina, in an attempt to eradicate the Jewish people's intimate connection with this land, entered history as the sovereign homeland of the Jewish nation more than 3,000 years ago. Thus, through the centuries, it became known in Jewish literature and tradition as Eretz Yisrael - the Land of Israel.

Since that time, Jews have always lived in the Land. People of other origins and faiths have also lived there, as the Land was conquered and re-conquered down through the ages. Among these conquerors were the Arabs. But they never made Palestine/Eretz Yisrael their nation-state - just as they never made Jerusalem their capital.

In all of these invasions and migrations, two salient facts stand out clearly:

1. For over 3,000 years, the one common demographic denominator in Palestine/Israel has been the Jews.
2. For over 3,000 years, neither Arabs nor any other ethnic or national community - except the Jews - related to or claimed Palestine/Israel as their distinctive homeland.

By the beginning of the 20^th century, two main ethnic groups, Arabs and Jews, were living in Palestine/Israel - a land area defined in the 1910/11 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica as follows:

PALESTINE... conventionally used as a name for the territory which, in the Old Testament, is claimed as the inheritance of the pre-exilic Hebrews... we may describe Palestine as the strip of land extending along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea... Eastward there is no such definite border. The River Jordan, it is true, marks a line of delimitation between western and eastern Palestine; but it is practically impossible to say where the latter ends and the Arabian desert begins.

At that time, in other words, Palestine was considered a geographic entity, covering an area both east and west of the Jordan River, whose historical significance it owes to the Jewish people. Thus, even if at that time the population was predominantly Arab, Palestine can by no means be regarded as an exclusively Arab concept. Indeed, in its original context, and both as a political entity and a national homeland, it is a Jewish concept.

After World War I

Political developments in the area after World War I did nothing to alter this perception of Palestine; in fact, they confirmed it. In 1922, the League of Nations, recognizing "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and "the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country," granted Britain a mandate over Palestine, pending the establishment there of such a national home.

Dr. Eugene V. Rostow, at the time Professor of Law and Public Affairs at Yale University, and former US Under-Secretary of State (1966-69), offered this definition of Palestine:

The only possible geographic, demographic and political definition of Palestine is that of the [League of Nations] Mandate, which included what are now Israel and Jordan as well as the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The term "Palestine" applies to all the peoples who live or have a right to live in the territory: Jews, Christians and Moslems alike. Thus the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are not "Arab" in the legal sense, but territories of the Mandate which have been recognized as belonging to Israel or to Jordan.

(Yale Studies in World Public Order, Vol. 5, 1979)

Palestinian Statehood: Jordan and Israel

One of Britain's first acts as mandatory power was to turn over the great majority of Palestine - more than 77 percent - to the Arabs, leaving less than 23 percent, west of the River Jordan, for the Jews. Hence, the establishment in 1946 of the independent Palestinian state of Transjordan (later renamed "The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan") meant the realization of the Palestinian Arabs' right of self-determination in more than three-fourths of Palestine.

The Jews' right to self-determination in the small part of Palestine left to them was not to be granted so readily. Throughout the period between the two world wars, Arab militants in Palestine, under the rigid and ruthless leadership of Haj Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem, waged an uncompromising campaign of terror and intimidation designed to block the fulfillment of Jewish national aspirations in any part of Palestine whatsoever. In terms both of purpose and of method, this was the doctrine later to be taken up and pursued, with equal ruthlessness, by Yasser Arafat's PLO.

In 1947 the UN sought to settle the conflict by partitioning western Palestine into Jewish and Arab states (General Assembly Resolution 181 of Nov. 29, 1947). In the wake of that UN Resolution, Israel in May 1948 proclaimed its independence. The neighboring Arab states, however, unwilling to accept the very concept of Jewish statehood, joined in a massive invasion of Israel. Though greatly outnumbered and poorly equipped, Israel's defending forces repulsed the Arab attack, and the old-new state became a political fact, recognized by nearly all the countries in the world.

By mid-1948, two independent sovereign states existed in the area once known as Palestine: the Arab-Palestinian state of Jordan and the Jewish-Palestinian state of Israel. Ultimately, it is these two states that will have to serve as the backbone to the solution of the conflict.

Coming back now to the Bush Vision: What is the point, and where the logic, in trying to set up "a Palestinian state" in a region where two such states - one Arab and one Jewish - have already been in existence for over half a century?

Moshe Aumann (Mr. Aumann is a retired Israeli diplomat.)

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