Let’s put aside the ignorance

To the editor:

(re: “Please take a moment, listen,” May 2)

Why does ignorance about the history of Palestine and Israel still persist? I think because people like Anita Dutt and her cohorts either just don’t know it, or then pretend ignorance, and distort the truth in order to advance their own agenda.

Palestine was an ancient land, named by the Romans, and was home to the Jews for thousands of years. The indigenous Palestinians were the Jews.

In 1923, the British decreed that 70 percent of the Palestine Mandate — which they won by defeating the Ottoman Empire in World War I — should become an Arab state and named it Transjordan — later shortened to Jordan.

After World War II, the Nazis — who were supported by the Arabs of Palestine (the Mufti of Jerusalem spent the war years in Germany as Hitler’s guest) — were defeated. Then, after much deliberation, the United Nations decided to divide what was left of the land of the Palestine Mandate.

The Jews of Palestine were offered roughly half of what was left of the mandate territory, (perhaps 10 percent of the original land) in order to establish their own state. And the Arabs were offered the other part. The population settlements were considered.

In 1948, the Jews created Israel. The Palestinian Arabs did not create a state, and instead started a war against Israel, the first of many — and they lost all of them.

According to international law, all territory lost by the aggressors in a war that they started belongs to the defenders. The Israelis should own Gaza and the West Bank. They don’t want it. They just want to be left alone, and in peace, having absorbed more Jews that were forced to leave Muslim lands than the total number of Arabs who left Palestine/Israel during the wars that the Arabs started.

The Jordanians controlled the Palestinian part of the land for 19 years, but in all that time, the Palestinian Arabs never created a state. They had several chances to do so, but each time they refused.

Now they are chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Most of the protesters now do not know the name of the river or the sea, but their stated goal is to destroy Israel, and create yet another Arab state, without any Jews as they declared in their newly proposed charter.

To say this is justice is ludicrous!

The Palestinian Arabs have exported their “intifada” to the world. They rely on their ignorance of their own history to justify their absurd grievances. They have created no viable companies, or societies on their own.

The United Nations and Israel have paid for their housing, food and living expenses. The Arabs maintain “refugee camps” 75 years after they lost the war they began, instead of creating peaceful societies. They are the only people, in the history of civilization, to demand they still be designated ”refugees” generations after the war they initiated had ended.

Ignorance is not bliss. Hamas and the Palestinian Arab protesters have used “useful idiots” to advance their cause, as described by a former member of Hamas.

The time to stop that is now.

Rhoda Alben-Aronson