Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, April 23, 2010

Jenny Tonge quits Palestine Telegraph over KKK video

Baroness Jenny Tonge has withdrawn her patronage of the Palestine Telegraph after the paper posted a video of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke claiming that Israel is a terrorist threat to America.

The LibDem peer has often been attacked for her patronage of the Palestine Telegraph, which has previously linked IDF doctors to organ theft in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.

Baroness Tonge’s name has been removed from the website. Press TV journalist and sister of Cherie Blair, Lauren Booth, Respect MP George Galloway and Luisa Morgantini, Vice President of European Parliament all remain patrons. The former LibDem MP is believed to have emailed the newspaper to say that she no longer wishes to be a patron.

The video, featuring Mr Duke, an American white nationalist, with the headline “Israel’s terror against America”, was on the front page of the Palestine Telegraph’s website.

Mr Duke has published two antisemitic books, one of which is titled Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening on the Jewish Question.

Matthew Harris, the Lib Dem candidate for Hendon said: “I have received definitive confirmation that Jenny Tonge has emailed the Palestine Telegraph stressing that she no longer wishes to be a patron.

I briefly followed a blog war between Peter Eyre of the Palestine Telegraph who is convinced that Israeli soldiers steal organs from Palestinian Arab children and the Harry's Place blog, which appears to have been the first to notice the David Duke video. I posted a link to the TongeLashing website in the comments to explain to Mr. Eyre why the blood-libel accusations are absurd, but for some reason they never posted my comment.

Instead, they posted a comment that says that the Talmud allows Jews to kill Gentiles with impunity and that Jews were behind the Armenian genocide.

Nice!

Friday Quickies

I am not as enamored of the "Palestinian Zionist Organization" as others seem to be. From what I can tell, it is one guy with a website, and hardly the harbinger of major change.

Similarly, the new book "Cracking the Quran Code" that finds Quranic support for Jewish claims to Israel might be embraced by many Zionists but to me it is like Arabs using the Neturei Karta as proof that the Torah is against Zionism. The Quran has many contradictory passages and if the vast majority of Muslim scholars disagree violently with the book's thesis, it is not going to change any minds. (Although I would love to see Islamic scholarly criticisms of that book.)

Plenty of people are discussing the newly-censored South Park Mohammed episode. It's in my queue to watch the entire thing; so far I've only seen bits and pieces.

The “Zionist Hindu Crusader” Alliance Marches On

Israellycool reveals the secret Zionist war against the animal kingdom. Apparently, we arrest cats and donkeys.

NY senator Chuck Schumer piles on to the criticism of the White House policy towards Israel, the most prominent Democrat to do so.

A Quinnipiac University poll shows that Americans don't think that Obama is handling Israel very well, and two-thirds of Jews don't approve of the administration policies on Israel. Jonathan Tobin comments here and Jennifer Rubin is upset at the number of Jews who still support Obama.

Guess where Mahmoud Abbas will spend this weekend? At the Fatah Revolutionary Council meeting! Just the thing you would expect from a moderate, pro-Western peace partner.

Some Brandeis University students are criticizing the choice of Israeli ambassador Michael Oren as the commencement speaker this year.

Prominent sheikh says other sheikhs suffer from mental disorders

Sheikh Ahmed Kubaisi, whose Friday sermons out of Dubai are watched by tens of millions of people, has stated that some of the more recent rulings of other sheikhs show that they have mental disorders.

He specified the Saudi cleric Yousef al-Ahmed, who called for the destruction of the Grand Mosque in Mecca because men and women are together.

He also mentioned Sheikh Mohammed al Areefi who said he would go to Jerusalem to broadcast his show before caving to pressure to cancel his plans.

Interestingly, he also said that the minaret ban in Switzerland was no big deal, as minarets are not obligatory under Islamic law.

In the same interview he also said that the "torment of the grave," an expression of Islamic hell or purgatory, is not literally taking place in the ground but rather in the afterlife.

Finally, he stated (if I am reading it correctly) that misyar marriages are not only permissible but admirable as they reduce spinsterhood.

Misyar marriages are marriages where the bride voluntarily gives up on some of her marriage rights. While it appears to be permissible under Islamic law, it has been abused in some places as de facto prostitution.

Who paid for Mabhouh's 5-star hotel room?

Forbes' Claudia Rosett asks a good question:

When I dropped by the Al Bustan Rotana during a recent trip to Dubai, it struck me that the luxuriousness of the hotel has not been fully conveyed. That matters. The opulence with which al-Mabhouh surrounded himself on his fatal trip underscores some big unanswered questions, not about the alleged killers (whose trail has received plenty of official attention) but about al-Mabhouh (whose doings in Dubai have yet to be explained).

Al-Mabhouh was, after all, a senior member of Hamas--a Palestinian organization that expects of its underlings an austere dedication to Islamic law and tutors them to sacrifice everything for such Hamas charter causes as the destruction of Israel. Al-Mabhouh, like a number of other Hamas leaders, was based in Damascus. But he was a big cog in a Hamas system that in 2007 seized complete control of Gaza and with the backing of Iran has made it a priority to saturate Gaza with weapons, while the population lives in poverty...

When al-Mabhouh arrived in Dubai from Damascus on Jan. 19, it seems that austerity was not on his agenda. He checked into a plush hotel, geared to cosmopolitan pleasures. Though rates fluctuate with the season, rooms at the Al Bustan go for hundreds of dollars per night, sums that for the average resident of Gaza would represent quite a windfall.
Guests of the Al Bustan enter a huge marble-floored lobby, with a lofty atrium, tiled fountains and indoor palm trees. The arcade sells designer clothes. Restaurants on the premises offer everything from pan-fried Hokkaido scallops to "the most tender cut of corn-fed beef."
How was al-Mabhouh paying for his five-star lodgings in Dubai? That may be the least of the questions pertaining to his activities. But let's start somewhere. Could the UAE authorities please enlighten us on such basic matters as how al-Mabhouh arranged to pay for his luxury stay on their turf, what he did there and whether he had visited before? And with all the resources of the Arab League now on the case, would it be too much to ask for full details--whether from Damascus, Dubai or anyplace else that played host to al-Mabhouh--of who was picking up the tab for his travel, and why?

UPDATE: Commenter Sshender asked whether this hotel was not that expensive in comparison with other Dubai hotels. I just did a quick check and the al-Bustan Rotana is relatively inexpensive for a five-star hotel - mid week rates are about $180 a night. On the other hand, other 5-star hotels range from $100 a night to well over $1000. And Dubai does have budget hotels at around $50 a night.

More data points on illegal Arab immigration

Daled Amos just wrote up an article going through some of the data on illegal Arab immigration to Palestine in the years before 1948. I had looked at this in the past, but today I discovered an intriguing new data point, from the Palestine Post, August 19, 1935, quoting the (then Manchester) Guardian of August 10.

The article is a synopsis of the British Treasury report dealing with Palestine. According to the article, Jewish immigration had vastly increased in the early 1930s, but then it adds this:

"The immigration, however, is not restricted to Jews. There has been a steady infiltration into Palestine of Arabs from Syria (the Hauran) and from Trans-Jordan. And it is notable that the illicit immigration of the non-Jews recorded in the report of the Government is more than double that recorded for the Jews."

Can anyone get a hold of this British report?

The idea that there was massive illegal Arab immigration is not a Zionist invention from the 1970s or 1980s. As I mentioned in earlier articles, contemporary Palestinian Jews and Arabs complained about the influx of these aliens who were taking jobs and resources. Here is some testimony from a Jewish Agency representative to the Palestine Royal Commission in 1936: (December 9 1936 Palestine Post):

Palestinian Arabs and Piaget

AP reports:

Israel reopened a 16th-century gate to Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday, completing a two-month renovation and cleaning project that drew criticism from Palestinian officials.
Jaffa Gate, one of four main entrances to the Old City, was built by Jerusalem’s Ottoman rulers and inaugurated in 1538. It is the most common entrance for tourists entering the walled Old City - home to key holy sites in Christianity, Islam and Judaism, as well as a popular outdoor marketplace.

The restoration was part of a $4 million project launched by the Israel antiquities authority in 2007 to spruce up all four kilometres of the Old City’s walls.

The authority replaced broken stones, reattached an elaborate inscription above the gate and cleaned the facade with lye. Because Jaffa Gate provides one of the few entrances for vehicles, the stones had a decades-old coating of car exhaust residue, said Yoram Saad, who headed the renovation.

The portal stands at a right angle to the western exterior wall of the Old City, made of the same large, 16th-century sand-coloured hewn stone blocks. The entrance is about six metres high, and the wall rises another six metres above it.

The renovation project has proven challenging because of the difficulty in restoring ancient stones and the project’s political and religious overtones.
“It’s very sensitive of course and very complex from a logistical point of view,” Saad said.

Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, said city authorities have a duty to repair and restore the walls of the Old City, calling them a “national asset” and a place for pilgrims.

Israel is spending years and a lot of money to restore a historically important part of Jerusalem - that was built by Muslims. They are doing it with the utmost sensitivity to everyone.

So why are the Palestinian Arabs upset that a part of what they consider their own heritage has been recovered?

“It is an attempt to hit hard at commercial life in the Old City, especially the Muslim Quarter,” said Hatem Abdel Qader, an adviser on Jerusalem affairs to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

A prominent Palestinian Arab leader and adviser to Mahmoud Abbas sees what Israel is doing - and reflexlively assumes that it was done to hurt Arabs!

Pioneering child psychologist Jean Piaget described four cognitive stages of childhood development. Te second stage, from ages 2-7, is called the "preoperational" stage and is described this way:

The child aged between roughly the ages of 2-7 years interprets the world around them as they see it. They are not able to recognize or understand fully the notion of cause and effect, although they are beginning to see that it exists.
..The child is yet to fully understand how our world operates. In this particular one of the child development stages, the child is still only able to interpret the world around him from what he sees and experiences. He views the world only from his own egocentric perspective.
For example, a child in this 2-7 year old age group might believe that the sun goes down at night time to tell them its bedtime. It rises in the morning to tell them its times to get up. Thus the sun rises and sets each day purely for his benefit.
This does not mean our children are selfish in their assessment of the world. Instead it means they can only interpret it from their own bodily actions and sensations.

This is a perfect description of how Palestinian Arabs as a group have behaved since they acquired an identity sometime in the past century. Everything that occurs in the world is viewed through a pinhole lens where it can only be interpreted in terms of themselves, with the utter inability to view anything from any other perspective.

Therefore, Israel was not founded in order to fulfill the self-determination of the Jewish people: it was created entirely to expel "Palestinians." Tunnels adjacent to the Second Temple are not dug for archaeological research; they are dug in order to "Judaize" a city. Subways and light rail lines are built with the express purpose of weakening the foundations of a mosque. And, of course, an expensive multi-year project involving Jews renovating a Muslim-built site is done in order to take business away from Arabs. Every action done by Jews is done for no other purpose besides hurting, inconveniencing and upsetting the Arabs. How can it be otherwise? They are not yet at the cognitive stage where they become aware of the existence of other perspectives, let alone having the ability to understand them.

The Damascus Gate will be renovated as well in the next couple of years. Yet, like small children, the Palestinian Arabs do not have the ability to understand anything abstract like the "future."

They are cognitively disabled.

UAE Foreign Minister H.H Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan has stressed that the issue of the three UAE's islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa, still under Iranian occupation, will always be a "negative factor" in bilateral relations between the two countries and "painful thing for all the UAE nationals."

"Occupation of any Arab land is occupation and is not a misunderstanding. Israeli occupation of Golan Heights, Southern Lebanon, West Bank or Gaza is called occupation and no Arab land is dearer than another," Sheikh Abdullah said.

"It would be self-lie, for any Emarati, including me, to pretend that they are less sensitive about the fact that a part of the UAE is occupied than about another occupied Arab land."Occupation is occupation and is unlawful, according to Arab traditions, Islam and the international community."

Iran wasn't pleased to be compared with Israel:

Iran on Wednesday reiterated its rule over three disputed Gulf islands and rebuked the United Arab Emirates for comparing Tehran's control to an Israeli occupation.

"Comments made about the Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf are neither right nor well-considered," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told Mehr news agency.

"With cooperation within the Islamic world in mind, we have always sought to warn against the main threat in the region which is the regime occupying Al-Quds (Jerusalem)," he said alluding to Israel.

"Misunderstandings between friends can be resolved through bilateral talks," he said, while calling on United Arab Emirates (UAE) leaders to "avoid comments which benefit the Zionists."

But this entire blog post is because of that Mehmanparast said, so this Zionist and my Zionist readers benefited from his comment!

He must be very ashamed.

Those arsonist Jinn

Rumors have been swirling in the central Gaza town of Deir al Balah that demons (Jinn) have been randomly setting fire to houses.

Two separate unexplained blazes, one from March 29th and another from April 1st, seem to be what caused the rumors that there are Jinn who like to set the fires.

Gaza police said that the fires were natural occurrences, that people spreading the rumors are being irresponsible, and that they would arrest the rumor-mongers.

Katyusha in Jordan. Where was it shot from?

A short-range rocket may have completely overshot its intended target in Israel and landed in a different country.

TWO rockets were reportedly fired at the Israeli city of Eilat early today, as both Jordanian and Egyptian officials disputed the source of the attempted attack.
A blast hit the outskirts of the neighbouring Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba today, a government minister confirmed, while a second rocket was said to have ditched in the waters off the coast.
The blast, allegedly caused by a stray rocket, was the first attempted attack on Eilat in almost five years, Israel's English-language newspaper Haaretz reported.
Initial reports said the rockets originated in Jordan, but it was later suggested they were fired from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
Egypt was quick to deny the attempted attack was launched from its territory. Egyptian security officials said there were no rockets fired from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula into Israel today, disputing claims from Haaretz and Israeli private Channel 10 TV station.

Although Jordan at first denied that it was a rocket, they later confirmed it was.

But both Jordan and Egypt deny that any rockets were fired from their territories.

Which can only mean one thing: Vacationing Israelis in Eilat shot the rockets to Jordan in between snorkeling lessons.

Fisking a one line comment (Jacob)

Yesterday, in response to my post on Arabs upset that Google placed an Israeli flag on their logo on Monday, "jerry1800" quoted Dr. Jamal Zahalka, Chairman of the National Democratic Bloc, from the original article:

NO PEACE !!!
.
.
.
Anniversary of the Catastrophe affirm that we will not forget and will not forgive, as long as the crime of the Catastrophe and the consequences of displacement and Judaizing and occupation and repression and colonization, racism, colonialism continues.

It was a typical anti-Israel rant of the type we've seen thousands of times before, but commenter Jacob decided to do a word-by-word fisking, which is amusing and worth a much larger audience:

"NO PEACE !!!"

I wouldn't have believed you if you had used lowercase letters or only two exclamation marks. But yeah, since you said it so emphatically, I guess that makes your point.

"Anniversary of the Catastrophe" Actually, Waterworld with Kevin Costner was released on the 28th June, 1995.

"affirm that we will not forget" Probably not. I've seen Arab TV and a slight piece of Jewish real estate takes far more of a presence than poor Arab development statistics like a literacy rate hovering around 50% for women across the board. If it is more of an impediment to Arab development than the widespread inability to sign your name, then I guess you probably won't forget. Write it down somewhere.

"and will not forgive" Guidetopsychology.com points out that forgiveness is an important part of the human experience that helps us move past our grudges and bitterness to lead a constructive, meaningful life. G-d knows we wouldn't want any of that floating around out there, would we.

"as long as the crime of the Catastrophe" Are we still talking about Waterworld here? The movie sucked, get over it.

"and the consequences of displacement" due to a refusal to accept partition and the subsequent attempt to commit genocide? And what about the Sephardim and Mizrahim? Do they count as displaced, or just on and extended voluntary vacation? If this is the case, can they return to their homes?

"and Judaizing" Meaning, making something that wasn't previously Jewish somehow more Jewish in character. Because, uh, Israel had to be Jew-ed up a bit, because of the lack of Jewishness there? Maybe you are saying that we were hanging out with the Palestinians, sloshed down a bit too much Manischewitz, and then in a drunken stupour accidently left the remains of our temple underneath the dome of the rock. Trust me. Israel is one country that didn't need to get Jew-ed up.

"and occupation and repression and colonization" Wow, slow down here, Chester. One point at a time. First,

"occupation." There are two things you have to reconcile with reality concerning occupation. 1. Chronology: violence against Jews started well before Israel's founding. Since Jews in Yemen were forbidden from riding a donkey or walking on the sidewalk prior to Balfour, it makes me wonder what kind of "peace" you have in mind for us. More of this? No thanks. 2. Gaza is under no form of occupation (unless you listen to Abu Mazen) yet it remains a lifeless hole where most people would emigrate if they could. Occupation is not your problem.

"repression" It is just awful at how repressed all of these poor Palestinians receiving free medical care in Israeli hospitals are. How we just go in with our tanks, capture poor ailing children, women, and even men with serious diseases, and kidnap them back to Israel to repress them with our evil Zionist chemotherapy, and surgery, and general concern for the well-being of others.
"colonization" Colonization is awful! Take for example a group of people are living in a swamp. They put their lives into that swamp and treat it like a gift from G-d. They drain it, cultivate it, and pretty soon, the rewards are bountiful. A once dead land is able to sustain this group of people, and this miracle provides so much abundance, that their neighbours come over to help them work the land. Then, those evil colonizing neighbours get jealous and want the land for themselves. They attempt to massacre the ones whose jobs brought them there. Colonizers piss me off.
"racism" I heard about this one. Apparently, small groups of Africans travel all the way through Egypt to protest how racist Israel is, and of course to ask for asylum. This happened a few weeks ago, and unfortunately, before these Africans could express their displeasure with Israeli racism, they were shot dead. For being black Africans. By Egypt.
"colonialism" Colonization is awful! Take for example...uh, wait a minute. We did this one already, didn't we? Please read above.
"continues". Oh, so I guess we have a choice to continue or not. We'll pick up the Jewish homeland and move it somewhere else then. I guess since all of these Sephardim and Mizrahim don't count amongst people facing the "consequences of displacement" as you put it, that means they must all still own their houses and business in Iraq, Morocco, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Egypt etc. I guess we can all go live with them there then. No? Well, I guess continue it must then.

(UPDATE: I originally said that jerry1800 had originate the rant, not Zahalka.)

The Wookies invade Gaza

A number of bloggers noticed the bizarre photographs (and video) of Iranian soldiers in camouflage during Iran's Army Day a couple of days ago:

Well, the Wookies are no longer content to display their fuzzy, furry fury in the streets of Tehran.

The Al Quds Brigades of Islamic Jihad in Gaza seem to have been getting lessons from their idols.

Here's a peaceful Wookie getting ready to spread cheer:

Marching in unison seems to make the camouflage a little counterproductive, but maybe that's just me:

And once again we are shocked to see how crowded Gaza is:

Hezbollah slams UN

From The Daily Star:

The continued presence of Palestinian armed factions in Lebanon constitutes a serious threat to national and regional security, according to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
In his latest interim report on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, seen by The Daily Star on Tuesday, Ban encouraged Lebanese leaders to exert pressure on groups possessing arms outside of state power.
“The existence of armed groups outside government control is a fundamental anomaly that stands against the democratic aspirations of Lebanon and threatens domestic peace,” the UN chief said. “It is also an obstacle to the prosperity and welfare that the Lebanese people deserve.”
Earlier this month fighting broke out between members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) in the eastern Bekaa Valley. This followed clashes between Fatah al-Islam partisans in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian Refugee camp in March.
Ban issued a strong rebuke to such incidents.
“I remain deeply concerned at the maintenance of paramilitary infrastructures by Palestinian militias outside the camps which pose a threat to the stability of Lebanon,” he said.
Ban also indirectly addressed recent allegations from Washington and Tel Aviv that Hizbullah was receiving long-range scud missiles – capable of striking any target in Israel – across Lebanon’s mountainous border with Syria.
“I continue to receive reports asserting that Hizbullah has substantially upgraded and expanded its arsenal and military capabilities, including sophisticated long-range weaponry,” he said in reference to comments made last week by Israeli President Shimon Peres and White House Spokesperson Robert Gibbs.
The UN head added that although he had received several reports from member states about weapons-transfer activity “across the land borders,” the UN “does not have the means to independently verify” such information.
“I am concerned that such activities have the potential to destabilize the country and could lead to another conflict,” Ban said.
He asked that both Lebanese and Syrian governments redouble efforts to demarcate their shared border in order to better patrol the flow of goods leaving and entering over the Anti-Lebanon Mountains.
“The government of Lebanon can extend its authority throughout the country only if it, and all other relevant parties, know what the entirety of the territory of Lebanon is,” Ban said.

Hezbollah wasn't pleased:

Hizbullah strongly condemned Tuesday the latest report of Terje Roed-Larsen, the U.N. secretary-general's special envoy for the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559, saying it "represents blatant tutelage over Lebanon and revives the headlines of igniting internal strife."

A communiqué issued by Hizbullah said the party was not surprised by "the rhetoric of (Roed-Larsen's) report which sides with the Zionist enemy."

"The resistance is not a militia, as his new-old report describes it, but a Lebanese resistance movement that defends its territory and deters aggression, whether he likes it or not," the communiqué added.

The sad part is that this seems to be the position of Lebanon as well - and it has been for a long time. When Resolution 1559 was passed in 2004, here is what the Lebanese response was: "There were no militias in Lebanon. There was only the national Lebanese resistance, which appeared after the Israeli occupation and which would remain so long as Israel remained."

One of the commenters at the Iranian PressTV site wrote this in reaction:

the U.N. should be called the Jew.N.!

Arabs upset at Google Yom Ha'aztmaut "doodle"

Israeli users of Google yesterday saw the logo replaced with this nice one:

It appears that the Palestinian Arab ISP's that use Israeli internet routes saw the same logo:

They weren't happy.

"Toxic plastic?"

From Ma'an:

Palestinian Authority customs officers and police confiscated plastic materials smuggled from an Israeli settlement into Hebron on Tuesday.

Officer Husam Khalayleh, the head of customs in Hebron, said the goods were seized at 2:00 am in a waste disposal truck in Hebron. The truck owner, from Nablus, said he was transporting waste but after inspecting the vehicle, police found nine tons of toxic plastic materials, banned by the Health Ministry.

The head of customs said the smuggling of settlement goods into the occupied Palestinian territories was extremely dangerous.

If we are to believe Ma'an, somewhere in an evil Zionist settlement, the colonialist and imperialist Jews are churning out tons of toxic plastic.

Obviously, the only possible purpose of such plastic is to harm the Arabs. They couldn't be selling the plastic to Israelis.

It is sometimes hard to understand the business model of these Jews who run a factory dedicated to manufacturing tons of utterly useless products, but once you understand that the entire focus of Jews in the Middle East is to cause pain to the Arab population, then it all makes sense.

Abba Eban on the Arab refugees

The Jewish Press reproduced a speech given by Abba Eban at the UN in 1958. Here's part of it:

The Arab refugee problem was caused by a war of aggression, launched by the Arab states against Israel in 1947 and 1948. Let there be no mistake. If there had been no war against Israel, with its consequent harvest of bloodshed, misery, panic and flight, there would be no problem of Arab refugees today.

Once you determine the responsibility for that war, you have determined the responsibility for the refugee problem. Nothing in the history of our generation is clearer or less controversial than the initiative of Arab governments for the conflict out of which the refugee tragedy emerged.

The origins of that conflict are clearly defined by the confessions of Arab governments themselves: "This will be a war of extermination," declared the secretary-general of the Arab League speaking for the governments of six Arab states, "it will be a momentous massacre to be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades."

The assault began on the last day of November 1947. From then until the expiration of the British Mandate in May 1948 the Arab states, in concert with Palestine Arab leaders, plunged the land into turmoil and chaos. On the day of Israel's Declaration of Independence, the armed forces of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, supported by contingents from Saudi Arabia and the Yemen, crossed their frontiers and marched against Israel.
The refugee problem was not created by the General Assembly's recommendation for the establishment of Israel. It was created by the attempts of Arab governments to destroy that recommendation by force. The crisis arose not, as Arab spokesmen have said, because the United Nations adopted a resolution eleven years ago; it arose because Arab governments attacked that resolution by force. If the United Nations proposal had been peacefully accepted, there would be no refugee problem today hanging as a cloud upon the tense horizons of the Middle East.

Apart from the question of its origin, the perpetuation of this refugee problem is an unnatural event, running against the whole course of experience and precedent. Since the end of the Second World War, problems affecting forty million refugees have confronted governments in various parts of the world. In no case, except that of the Arab refugees - amounting to less than two percent of the whole - has the international community shown constant responsibility and provided lavish aid.

In every other case a solution has been found by the integration of refugees into their host countries. Nine million Koreans; 900,000 refugees from the conflict in Vietnam; 8.5 million Hindus and Sikhs leaving Pakistan for India; 6.5 million Muslims fleeing India to Pakistan; 700,000 Chinese refugees in Hong Kong; 13 million Germans from the Sudetenland, Poland and other East European States reaching West and East Germany; thousands of Turkish refugees from Bulgaria; 440,000 Finns separated from their homeland by a change of frontier; 450,000 refugees from Arab lands arrived destitute in Israel; and an equal number converging on Israel from the remnants of the Jewish holocaust in Europe - these form the tragic procession of the world's refugee population in the past two decades.

In every case but that of the Arab refugees now in Arab lands, the countries in which the refugees sought shelter have facilitated their integration. In this case alone has integration been obstructed.

The paradox is the more astonishing when we reflect that the kinship of language, religion, social background and national sentiment existing between the Arab refugees and their Arab host countries has been at least as intimate as those existing between any other host countries and any other refugee groups. It is impossible to escape the conclusion that the integration of Arab refugees into the life of the Arab world is an objectively feasible process which has been resisted for political reasons.

Recent years have witnessed a great expansion of economic potentialities in the Middle East. The revenues of the oil-bearing countries have opened up great opportunities of work and development, into which the refugees, by virtue of their linguistic and national background, could fit without any sense of dislocation. There cannot be any doubt that if free movement had been granted to the refugees there would have been a spontaneous absorption of thousands of them into these expanded Arab economies.