The Unending Wars to Destroy Israel
by Bassam Michael Madany (September 2024)
It was back in 1936, while living in Syria, that I became aware of the Arab’s refusal to allow a Jewish presence in Palestine. I was eight years old and loved to look at the newspapers that my father read. One day, the front page of the Beirut, Lebanon newspaper Al-Nahar, showed a man with a keffiyeh on his head. It was a prominent symbol of Palestinian nationalism during the 1936-1939 Arab revolt against the British Mandatory power.
The caption revealed he was Fawzi al-Qawuqji, the leader of the Palestinian Resistance to the Jewish migration in the land. I asked my father about the story and received my first lesson about the history of the Middle East, after the end of the First World War.
During WWI, the British Government published the Balfour Declaration, favoring the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine. Following the war, the British assumed the governance of Palestine with a mandate from the League of Nations. For the next thirty years, Britain faced a growing opposition from the Palestinian Arabs against the plan.
From the first days of the Mandate, the British designated the west bank of the Jordan River, as Palestine; the east bank was called “Transjordan.” They placed Prince Abdullah, as ruler of the territory. He and his brother Faisal had participated during WWI, in the campaign against the Ottoman Turks who had ruled the Middle East since the beginning of the sixteenth century.
The British administration of Palestine between 1920 and 1948, witnessed a continual opposition to the influx of Jewish immigrants, especially after Hitler’s extermination campaign against the Jews in Germany and the countries occupied by the Germans during WWII. Following the end of the war, several Jewish survivors of the Holocaust sought entrance into Palestine. At first, they were intercepted by the British Navy and interned at special camps in Cyprus, that was under British rule.
In 1946, the British government brought the matter to the United Nations Organization. A U.N. Commission of Inquiry proposed the Partition Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State. The Jews accepted the plan, while the Arabs rejected it. Britain ended its presence in Palestine on 14 May 1948. David Ben-Gurion with other Jewish leaders, announced the birth of the State of Israel on 15 May 1948.
The response of the Arab states was immediate. Armies of Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Iraq, and Egypt entered Palestine to destroy the Zionist state. By mid-June 1948, the United Nations Security Council managed to get a cease-fire between the warring sides. Eventually, throughout 1949, the UN arranged Cesse-Fire Agreements between Israel and the Arab armies.
The Arab states following their attacks on Israel went through a series of military coups that took place in Syria (August 1949), Egypt (July 1952) and Iraq (July 1958). That was followed by major wars between them and Israel in 1956, 1967, and 1973. The 1967 Arab Israeli war ended with a defeat (Hazima) of the armies of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.
On Monday morning, the sixth of June 1967, Yitzak Rabin, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, launched a preemptive attack on Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The Israeli air force destroyed most of Egypt’s and Syria’s air force. Within three days the Israelis had achieved a tremendous victory, capturing the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula, up to the east bank of the Suez Canal. On June 7 Israeli forces drove Jordanian forces out of East Jerusalem and most of the West Bank.
The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 242, calling for the withdrawal of Israel, in exchange for peace between Israel and its neighbours, including the the push for a two-state solution with the Palestinians.
Two decades later, hope arose for an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel and the PLO reached a solution in September 1993, to extend self-government to the Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The plan began its implementation in May 1994, with the Israelis’ withdrawal from the West Bank, to be governed by the Palestinian Authority.
It is important to know that HAMAS is the abbreviation for Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah which, translated to English (from Arabic), is the Islamic Resistance Movement, changing the equation of the whole matter. The problem became an Israeli-Muslim one!
The Abraham Accords, signed in 2020, state:
On the other hand, the attempt to end the confrontation between the Arab states and Israel was successful. The Abraham Accords normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco. The agreements consist of a general declaration alongside bilateral agreements between Israel and the partner countries. The agreements promised to establish normal relations between the countries.
The Abraham Accords were torpedoed on Saturday, October 7, 2023, when Hamas conducted a surprise land, sea, and air attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, leading to the deadliest day in Israel’s history, since its independence in 1948. It resulted in the death of 1,139 Israelis and 250 taken as hostages.
Reflecting on this horrific tragedy, I would like to point to the role of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Attack and the failure of the Israeli Security Agencies, the Mossad and the Shin Beth.
The entire assault on Israel couldn’t have been accomplished without Iran’s help. In a sense, Hamas is an Iranian proxy, serving the purposes of the Iranian regime. Its theological orthodoxy as a Twelver Shi’ite sect, teaches that in preparation for the End Times, there will be a hunting of every Jewish person in the world. What a macabre belief! Even the rocks will cooperate by divulging the presence of Jews hiding behind the rocks!
As to the failure of the Israeli Security Agencies, it’s astonishing that the digging of miles-long tunnels underground Gaza, which required tons of dirt to get piled up on the Mediterranean shore, escaped their notice.
In their past activities, they had managed to find the hiding place of Rudolf Eichmann, the German master during the Holocaust! He was hiding in Argentina. They arrested him, drugged him, and flew him to Israel where he was tried and hanged. For a full account of the capture of Eichmann, read The House on Garibaldi Street.
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Bassam Michael Madany is an Eastern Christian living freely in the West where he enjoys the freedom to express his views and convictions. He believes in the right of every human being to live without fear of persecution on account of his or her beliefs. Having lived in his formative years in the Levant during the French Mandate, he benefited from studying at French Institutions, thus giving him the opportunity to have a window to the Western Civilization which is founded on the heritage of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome. He is very concerned about the conditions that Eastern Christians face, due the rise of Islamism that seeks to erase the history and the presence of the original inhabitants of the Middle East.
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