SUMMARY: Arab terrorism has been extremely successful for the last eighty years because it gained increasing rewards. Arab terrorism drove Israel out of Lebanon and out of Gaza.
It would stop only when terrorism would not achieve results.

This is an overview of eighty years of Arab - Israeli war. To fully grasp the magnitude of the problem I am offering here information not normally discussed and often forgotten. But there are no short cuts to clear understanding. So take the time to understand the issues.

Most Arabs view realities in drastically different ways than western people, because the two cultures in many ways are politically and socially opposite. Also Arab culture is more persistent, a generation or two is a short time for it, whereas westerns expect quick fix. Therefore, when some western people look at the "Settlements" they notice that the Palestinians are against them and kill and injured many Jews there. Western thinking arrives at a quick-fix conclusion: give them the settlements and most of the grievances would disappear. Others believe that eliminating the settlements by transferring the quarter of a million Jews to the "Israeli side" would enhance Israel's security. Without the settlements a shorter security fence could be built around the Palestinian territories that might reduce terrorism to a trickle.
Simple and hopeful answers, but not realistic.

If the settlements were eliminated I believe the majority of the Palestinians and Arabs would think:
Our terrorism has worked again. We won part of our goals. We need to continue our terror to win all of our aims. And their ultimate aim is the destruction of the State of Israel. They have never accepted a two-state solution.

TO STOP TERRORISM we need to understand the terrorists' mind. It is less important what we think, but how terrorists view the situation.
When we give in to terrorists, they feel successful, and terrorism escalates. The terrorists have been fortified by your giving in to terror. They are now eager for more gains.

Let's look at the enormous successes Palestinian terrorism has had to date and why it has been escalating.

The Jewish people rebuilt Israel in one hundred years from a desert with a hundred thousand impoverished Jews, to a flourishing industrial country of one million Arabs and five millions Jews. The Israelis accomplished that with a lot of outside sympathetic and monetary help, but especially with their own sweat and blood. From 1947 to date, twenty three thousand Israelis have been murdered by Arab terrorists and organized military attacks. BUT THIS IS ONLY A SMALL PART OF THE CASUALTIES THE ARABS INFLICTED ON ISRAELIS AND JEWS ELSEWHERE.

The 1920's:
The 1917 British promise of the Balfour Declaration to build a Jewish Homeland in Israel became an international legal Mandate in the San Remo Allies Conference in April 1920. The British were officially committed to establish a Jewish National Home in Israel, and the French gave their official blessing to it so they could control Lebanon and Syria in return.

Under Turkish rule, prior to the British occupation, Arabs murdered Jews only sporadically because the Turks did not tolerate disturbances. The British were more lenient. The Arabs started their terror against the Jews with their 1920 Jerusalem Pesach pogrom that killed seven Jews and injured two hundreds. No response to this attack came either from the British or the Jews. The Jews acted like they did for millennia, accepted and cried. This lack of response, I believe, was a mistake.
The Jewish defense organization Hagana was created then to protect Jewish settlements from Arabs attacks since the British were not eager to do it. The purpose was defense only, no retribution. There were very few reasons for the Arabs not to resort to further terror.

In May 21, 1921 Jaffa' Arabs attacked Tel Aviv and murdered 47 Jews. The Jewish British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel declared a temporary halt to Jewish immigration. Britain continued from then on to catered to the Arabs. Winston Churchill, the Colonial Secretary of England, verbally supported a Home for the Jewish people; however, he first gave semi independence to Arab Trans Jordan, 80% of Israel's Promised Land, and then in 1922 published a White Paper. In it he said that a Jewish Home would be in Palestine, but not all of the remaining west side of Palestine. Again Arab terrorism was not fought, but appeased. Arab terrorism continued with the notable massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929. It drove the Jews out of Hebron; a place they had lived in on and off from the time King David used it for his first capital three thousands years ago. Hebron was the home of several of the Jewish Patriarchs and Matriarchs a thousand years before that. The Machpella, their burial site, is adjacent to Hebron.
Palestinian terrorism was reinforced. Terror achieved results - it cleared the Jews out of an area the Arabs wanted. No negative response came from any quarter. The Jews felt it was unjust and prayed. The British did nothing.

The 1930's:
The Arab Revolt of 1936-39. Jews who returned to Hebron were terrorized again, some killed, and many injured, and again left Hebron. Terror achieved results- Jews can be forced out by terror. To quench Arab terrorism the British brought additional troops to Israel and tried, but they were not too successful. The British did not want a Jewish State and were concerned about Arab reaction.

More significantly, to placate the 1936-39 Arab terrorism, in 1938 the British instituted a White Paper that limited Jewish immigration to a total of 75,000 Jews. Not per year, but for all times. Free Jewish immigration was one of the cornerstones of creating a Jewish Homeland. Restricting Jewish immigration was a critically important success for Arab terrorism.

Please grasp it: ARAB TERRORISM CAUSED NOT ONLY THE 23,000 DIRECT DEATHS IN ISRAEL, IT ACTUALLY CAUSED SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSANDS ADDITIONAL JEWISH DEATHS IN EUROPE DUE TO THE BRITISH WHITE PAPER.

At the time of this White Paper, Hitler allowed Jews to emigrate, but no country accepted them in any large numbers and six millions were later murdered. If this White Paper did not exist, many European Jews could have had at least one place to go. SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSAND JEWS COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED FROM THE GAS CHAMBERS, like the few thousands who arrived illegally.

At that time, most of us in Israel believed that stopping Jewish immigration into Israel was England's fault. Partially it was, but the clear cause was Arab terrorism. Britain was thinking about the coming war with Germany and did not want to use its troops to guard the Middle East - a logical national decision.

While Arab terrorism achieved so much, we in Israel did not fully grasp its importance, and how to deal with it. Of the two Jewish undergrounds at that time, (the larger Hagana and the smaller Irgun,) only the Irgun sometimes responded to Arab terrorism by attacking Arabs militants, and a few times civilians. Both the Hagana and Irgun later helped the British in their war effort, but after WWII they agreed that the British were our only enemy. The core belief of my Lechi underground [which started in 1940], was that the British were our sole enemy and ignored the Arabs. I still have my notes from the seminars I attended at Lechi. We believed that after we had liberated Israel from England, the Arabs would live peacefully inside a Jewish state from the Jordan to the sea. We shared this thinking with the majority of the Jews. The Irgun was more militant and wished the two sides of the Jordan.

The hope for a Jewish State has been reduced drastically by the 1936-39 Arab's terrorism. Millions of Jews died in Europe, many due to the White Paper, and the likelihood of achieving a Jewish majority in Israel was, for a time, destroyed.
By the way, the religious leader of the Arabs in Israel fled to Germany and assisted Hitler significantly in the systematic murder of Jews. No wonder many Arabs are now saying let's finish what Hitler started!

Israel is sliced again due to Arab terrorism:
To stop the Arab revolt of 36-39 the British produced the Peel Partition plan, planning to divide Israel once again. Britain first promised Israel on both sides of the Jordan, and then they gave eastern Israel to the Hashemite Family to become Jordan. The British decided that the Mandate would allow Israel only the west side of the Jordan. The Peel Partition would have divided Israel yet again to a big Arab state and a smaller Jewish state. Despite that significant loss of territory the Jews agreed to it; the Arabs rejected it, and the Peel Partition was dropped.

One clear and unambiguous act continues to this day: the demand by the Arabs for a single state on the full West side of the Jordan, and no Jewish state at all. The Jews accepted every offer of a two - states peaceful coexistence with the Arabs, starting with giving up the eastern side of the Jordan, and then again, the Peel Partition. The Jews accepted the UN Partition, and later Barak offered a Palestinian state.
What amazes me is that despite the clear evidence, some believe that the Arabs are now willing to accept only the Territories and Gaza, and not all of Israel, as they have been continuously advocating in Arabic to their own people.

The 1947 UN Partition and the creation of the State of Israel did not slow down Arab terrorism. Again, Jews accepted the two-state solution, the Arabs rejected it. Local Arabs attacked Jews all over the country, especially isolated Jewish settlements, and many Jews were murdered. This organized terror, and the War of Independence afterward, were very successful for the Arabs. If you look at it from a Jewish or Western point of view you think the Arab lost since Israel did become a state. But from the Arab point of view they have succeeded: first the State of Israel was quite small, and second, Israel did not become a normal state among the nations. Arab attacks on the Jews of Israel not only caused a lot of deaths and suffering to the Jewish population, it also succeeded in stopping the Jews from having a secured life in a free state. And this terror has been accepted by many western countries as legitimate.

On Saturday morning, a day after Ben Gurion declared a Jewish State on May 14, 1948, the Egyptian Air Force attacked the Tel Aviv airport. I was there, saw and wanted to shoot the Egyptian planes on their way to the site: they were just a hundred feet from me, but they disappeared before I got my Brengun. Five Arab armies attacking Israel were defeated at the cost of six thousands Jews, one percent of the Jewish population then. I lost about a quarter of all my friends, one out of each five young men I had known.
Arab attacks did not destroy Israel, but they succeeded in creating immense suffering for the Jewish people there. Most Israelis lost relatives and friends. To this day the casualties of the last fifty years are an emotional strain on Israelis.
After the War of Independence, no Arab government agreed to a peaceful coexistence as the result of their defeat. They only signed Armistice agreements, meaning-- "we will get you next time."

Despite the Armistice, and no Occupied Territories, no Israeli settlements in Gaza or the Territories, nevertheless Israelis lived under continuous terror attacks. No one was safe any place in the country. Arabs terrorists murdered women and children at home. They took over schools and murdered the kids. They commandeered buses and killed passengers. They murdered any Jew they found unprotected. In 1950 they had murdered three members of my border kibbutz, a kibbutz within Israel. Arabs terrorism succeeded to interrupt normal life in the new country, and make Jewish life precarious. Arabs suffered just a few counterattacks when their own terrorism was especially notorious.

In the summer of 1967 the Arab countries around Israel marshaled their large Soviet supplied armies to destroy Israel once and for all, and were defeated. Again, no peace agreements were accepted by the Arab states, just armistice. During this war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Israel conquered the Gaza strip from Egypt, the so called "West Bank" from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria... Initially, Arab residence there accepted the Jews peacefully since their lives were much better than under their previous "Brothers" control. The Israelis then faced the dilemma: How to achieve permanent peace and reduce the likelihood of another war. The Israelis wanted to trade land for a real peace, but the Arab Summit a few months after their defeat reaffirmed their continuous determination to "destroy the Jewish state and drive the Jews to the sea."

What options were opened then to Israel?
1. To give the three areas back to their avowed enemies to be used again as a jumping point for another war?

2. To negotiate a Peace for Land exchange? That was already rejected in the Arab Summit.

3. To give the land to the local Arabs and hope for peace? The armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria would have returned the next day.

4. To hold the lands until the Arabs would accept that peace is better for them than war.

The last one was the only sensible option: to hold the lands for peace negotiation.

Israel has spent millions of dollars to improve the miserable life of the local Arabs in the three areas. They hoped that they would change Arab attitudes towards the Israelis, reduce their hatred, and may be, just may be, this would lead to a peaceful coexistence with them. The form of coexistence was not clear. Several plans were discussed in Israel. None was accepted by a significant majority in a democracy that demands a majority decision.

The surprising and dangerous 1973 war increased the feelings in Israel that better defensive borders are a must for Israel's security. It took a few years for Israel to settle down after that war. The 1967 feelings of the superiority of the Israeli secrete services and military were much more realistic and sobering after 1973. For security reasons, and sometimes for political reasons, all Israeli governments supported the building of Jewish communities in the "Occupied Territories". (The settlements occupies less than three
Percent of the West Bank's area, and were built on empty government-owned land.)

President Sadat of Egypt understood that despite the Arabs successful surprise, despite the Arabs immense forces, and despite the powerful support of the Soviet Union, the Israelis were not likely to be defeated by war. He was willing to risk his life to achieve peace, if he could redeem Egyptian honor - regain the Sinai. Very difficult negotiations began between Sadat and the Irgun leader Prime Minister Begin, under pressure from President Carter. The result was the peace for land agreement in which the full Sinai was returned to Egypt for peace and normalization of relationship.
For the first time Egypt agreed to accept the existence of Israel.
That was a major and critical milestone in the relationship with the strongest Arab country in the region. Israel hoped that that this milestone would open the opportunity to peace with the other Arab countries. It did not happen till the peace with Jordan in 1995, fifteen years later.

Egypt made light demands that peace with the Arabs in the conquered territories should follow, but the 1981 assassination of Sadat nullified this effort. The Egyptians did not want control of the Gaza strip as part of the peace agreement, probably because of their negative experience with the local Arabs between 1948 and 1967. They preferred to leave the trouble to the Israelis.

For many years the Jordanians continue to claim the West Bank as theirs, and that Israel should return it to them. Arabs in this area continue to hold Jordanians papers and strong ties continued with Jordan, both economically and culturally.

The murder of the Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Olympics brought Arab terrorism to the world's attention. But instead of rejecting it and fighting against it, the majority of nations catered to it. Just one example of a European complicity with terrorists. The German government was warned of a likely attack on the Israeli Olympic athletes, but refused Israel's request to have its own guards there. The Germans were not trained in anti terrorism, and after the terrorists attacked, the Germans refused to allow Israeli special antiterrorist forces to attempt a rescue. The German botched the rescue attempt and captured three terrorists. There is now evidence that less than two months later Chancellor Willy Brandt arranged with the terrorists a contrived hijacking of a German airplane from Beirut and to hold its few, select German passengers as hostages. Upon a prearranged terrorist’s threat of killing these passengers, the German released the three captured terrorists.

If you read the excellent book on the causes and potential cures for terrorism: "Why Terrorism Works," by Alan Dershowitz you will see a twenty page listing of international Palestinian terrorism. It lists: Murders across the globe, airplane hijackings, terrorist’s attacks on civilians inside Israel, attacks on numerous passengers’ air terminals, and attacks on synagogues and restaurants in Europe. Reading the list you may start to grasp the extent of this unrelenting terror waves. And more significant, you will also see how this terrorism was rewarded by the UN, by Germany, by France, the Vatican [six meetings between the Pope and Arafat, more than any other leader], and several other European countries. Note: "Of the 204 terrorists arrested outside of the Middle East between 1968 and 1975, only three remained in prison at the end of 1975." These rewards of recognition and support embolden the Palestinian terrorists to intensify their atrocities.

If we want to stop terrorism, the use of terror must never be rewarded, it must be penalized!

CONCLUSION: Arab terrorism has won to date. It won because terrorism achieved results and is rewarded too.
If the Israelis give up the settlements and a Palestinian State is created without defeating terrorism first, an unrelenting wave of terrorism to gain all of Israel would certainly commence.

Matania
(originally written 2003)

"Palestinian terrorism is likely to stop only when both following conditions have been met:
[1] Reversing terrorism's rewards--The likelihood of achieving their aims would be diminished by further acts of terrorism.
[2] Penalty--It would be more costly to their aims and their leaders to continue terrorism."
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