Between Palestinian Arabs and Israel-The Most Asymmetrical Conflict

Nadene Goldfoot        

Prime Minister-Golda Meir, 1969-1974

                             

Golda Meir;  born Golda Mabovitz (גולדה מאיר‎; 3 May 1898 – 8 December 1978), was an Israeli politician and one of the founders of the State of Israel. She served as Minister of Labor, Foreign Minister, and as the fourth Prime Minister of Israel after the 1967 War and during the 1973 War.

                                                                     

                                                            

             The Shrine of the Book, a wing of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, is built to symbolize the scroll. The shrine is built as a white dome symbolizing the Sons of Light, and a black basalt wall symbolizing the Sons of Darkness.

This isn't an even fight.  It's top-heavy with a quest that is dark on one side and light on the other side; a War  between sons of light against sons of darkness;   talked about in the Qumran scrolls;  " a battle between the Sons of Light, consisting of the sons of Levi, the sons of Judah, and the sons of Benjamin, and the exiled of the desert, against Edom,  Moab, the sons of Ammon, the Amalekites, and Philistia and their allies the Kittim of Asshur (referred to collectively as the army of Belial), and [those who assist them from among the wicked] who "violate the covenant."  Oh yes, this sounds so familiar.  We know history often repeats.  It's the exact position we are in today, for the sons of Levi, Judah, Benjamin are the Jews.  The others, well, they do sound like the rest of the Middle East, don't they.   

Most fights or wars are on an equal footing.  This one has never been symmetrical.  It's been a gang affair against the one.  Let me explain:  

  In the beginning, all the Middle East reacted violently when Israel was established by the UN; a teeny little Jewish state among vast Muslim states.  600,000 Jews against millions of Arabs

Arab Position

1. Attacks:  

      A.  On the Borders:  Terrorist acts were designed to disrupt normal life in Israel, following a policy of attrition.

       B.  On the Seas:  Blockade by Egypt;  Closed the Suez Canal to all movement of Israeli shipping, and the Tiran Straits at the entrance to the Gulf of Eilat to all movement of vessels to or from Israel. 

2. Military Level:   Pursued a policy of unceasing build-up designed to carry that aim into effect.  

3. Political Level:  Constantly sought to bring about Israel's isolation in the family of nations (United Nations). 

4. Economic Level:  Pursuing a policy of boycott against Israel.  BDS continuing to this day.  

5. Propaganda Level:  Pursuing a systematic policy of instigating hatred of Israel distorting Israel's image by anti-Semitic stereotypes and by educating the young generation to a struggle whose objective is the destruction of Israel.  

Israel Position

1. A Quest for peace, the permanent part of the policy of  EVERY GOVERNMENT OF ISRAEL.

2. This ancient people's  great need for their own state after 2,000 years of wanderings, stateless and not being accepted wholesale by the family of nations.  

3. Facing extinction by the Nazis because of their religion and economic successes.

4. Fulfilling The Balfour Doctrine only to be attacked nevertheless by the people they wished to be at peace with.  

5.  No alternative but to remain in Israel:  

     A. We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon — no alternative. The Egyptians could run to Egypt, the Syrians into Syria. The only place we could run was into the sea, and before we did that we might as well fight.

•      As quoted in LIFE magazine (3 October 1969), p. 32, Golda Meier.  
•    B. We don’t thrive on military acts. We do them because we have to, and thank God we are efficient.
  • Vogue (July 1969) Golda Meier

Golda Meier asked the question:  

"There were no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist..  

• As quoted in Sunday Times (15 June 1969), also in The Washington Post (16 June 1969)

Outcome:

  Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.

   I have given instructions that I be informed every time one of our soldiers is killed, even if it is in the middle of the night. When President Nasser leaves instructions that he is to be awakened in the middle of the night if an Egyptian soldier is killed, there will be peace

We owe a responsibility not only to those who are in Israel but also to those generations that are no more, to those millions who have died within our lifetime, to Jews all over the world, and to generations of Jews to come. We hate war. We do not rejoice in victories. We rejoice when a new kind of cotton is grown, and when strawberries bloom in Israel.

• As quoted in As Good as Golda : The Warmth and Wisdom of Israel's Prime Minister (1970) edited by Israel Shenker and Mary Shenker, p. 28

When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons.

• Press conference in London (1969), as quoted in A Land of Our Own : An Oral Autobiography (1973) edited by Marie Syrkin, p. 242

This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.

• As quoted in Le Monde (15 October 1971)

I am also grateful that I live in a country whose people have learned how to go on living in a sea of hatred without hating those who want to destroy them and without abandoning their own vision of peace. To have learned this is a great art, the prescription for which is not written down anywhere. It is part of our way of life in Israel. Finally, I wish to say that from the time I came to Palestine as a young woman, we have been forced to choose between what is more dangerous and what is less dangerous for us. At times we have all been tempted to give in to various pressures and to accept proposals that might guarantee us a little quiet for a few months, or maybe even for a few years, but that could only lead us eventually into even greater peril.

• My Life (1975), p. 459

Arab sovereignty in Jerusalem just cannot be. This city will not be divided — not half and half, not 60-40, not 75-25, nothing.

• Time (19 February 1973)

      Resource:  Facts About Israel, 1973, published by Division of Information, Ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem 

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Golda_Meir

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Sons_of_Light_Against_the_Sons_of_Darkness