An anomaly of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that a 3000 year old nation must justify its right to self- determination, while a nation less than 100 years old epitomizes national legitimacy.

Less than 100 years ago a group of Arab migrants decided they were a nation and declared themselves Palestinians. Under the Oslo agreements

Israel recognized the Palestinian right to self-determination as part of a compromise solution predicated on 2 states for 2 peoples. Partition into 2 national states offers a solution when 2 nations have rights on the same piece of land. More than 60% of Israeli Jews endorsed this solution but the details remain elusive.

The Clinton – Barak proposal in 2000 addressed the thorniest issues: the Palestinian refugees, the Jewish settlements in the Western Bank, Jerusalem and the holy places. This appeared equitable but was rejected by the Palestinian who are encouraged by post-Zionists.

While post-Zionists espouse Palestinian self determination, they deny the 3000 year old Jewish nation the same. They favor boycotting and imposing sanctions against Israel until it respects, protects and promotes the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Compliance with this demand is delusional and suicidal.

These refugees were never Israeli citizens. The 1947 UN partititon resolution called for the establishment of 2 national states to succeed the British mandate, as a solution to the Jewish – Arab conflict. The Jews accepted the resolution the Palestinian Arabs with the help of 7 Arab states, resorted to war to liquidate the Jewish state, but unfortunately for them, they lost the war. Wars the world over cause displacement and most Arab refugees responded to their leaders' suggestion to evacuate the area in order to return after the Jews have been "thrown into the sea."

The Palestinian refugees were not ethnically cleansed innocents but active participants in a program "to throw the Jews into the sea". Had their program succeeded no Jewish refugees would have remained.

Resolution 194 if implemented would inundate Israel with a hostile population that would turn the Jews into a minority and "peacefully" terminate the Jewish state.

The libel that Israel is a South African style apartheid regime is another ploy of post-Zionism.The Palestinians were never Israeli citizens and the territories were never part of Israel. The term apartheid applies to citizens who are deprived of their rights as citizens. The issue here is not apartheid but a war between 2 nations who have claims on the same territory. For post Zionists the comparison helps them ignore the partition resolution establishing a Jewish state. They demand that "all Arab lands" be returned to the Palestinians. Zionism the handmaiden of European colonialism has no right to any land.

This also explains the virulent campaing against the security fence. They want one Palestinian state from the sea to the Jordan river. The fence while subject to modification establishes a border between 2 states.

The post Zionists harp on the inequality suffered by Israel's Arab citizens a situation complicated by the state of war with their brothers. They are not content with the progress achieved but have an ulterior agenda consonant with 4 recent manifestos published by Arab- Palestinian leaders and intellectuals in Israel. Alongside the Palestinian state on the Western Bank and Gaza Strip the Jewish state will become "a state of all its citizens," following the return of all the refugees. The Arabs will become the majority in Israel and will merge with the Palestinian state with a Jewish minority. This is "the just solution" .

Such a solution rewards Arab conquest and denies self-determination to

a nation 3000 years old.

The Arabs invaded this country from the Arab peninsula in 630 C.E. and conquered it from the Byzantine Eastern half of the fragmented Roman Empire. The Roman Empire had conquered the country from the Jews, and changed the country's name from Judea to Palestine to humiliate the Jews who remained in the country following the crushing of the Bar Kochva revolt in 135 C.E. Palestine was named after the southern sea shore, Pleshet, where the Philistines (a maritime people from Crete) settled in the 12th century B.C.

The Jews under the Byzantine and Arab occupations suffered religious and economic restrictions and sometimes experienced persecution and other problems and were forced to leave.

Following the Arab conquest, Arab settlement waves in "Palestine" commenced. Ironically the largest wave coincided with the Jewish return from the mid 19th century to the mid 20th century. They were attracted by the Zionist movement's economic success and expanded job opportunities. (These historical facts are substantiated by Ottoman and British records).

Arab conquest and colonization does not make the land Arab because the

Jews never renounced their homeland, and once proper conditions matured, they returned. Following the First World War the "League of Nations" ratified their right. The denial of Jewish historical rights is the ultimate historical revisionism and falsification. While the Jewish claim is stronger and more ancient Israeli Jews want to accommodate the Palestinian- Arabs who have lived here for generations. The two state solution offers the best prospects for such an accommodation. Let's hope that the Arabs and post Zionists embrace it.