Presiendt Obama's Cairo Speech

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S SPEECH IN CAIRO

I was asked to write an article for the internet about President Obama’s speech. It was printed in the Journal news as an opinion piece. Many Jews have difficulty answering questions about why Israel does not make peace with the Palestinians, so here is a brief summary of some of the points.

Arabs say that for the last two hundred years, Western countries have interfered with their region, causing all their current problems. This is their excuse for everything that is wrong in the Middle East. They blame Israel for the problem of the Palestinian refugees, without mentioning that they are responsible as well. Here are four reasons the Arabs responsible for the problem of the Palestinians refugees.

1) Arabs reject UN plan for a Jewish and an Arab State.
The UN plan in 1947 was for two countries, an Arab country and a Jewish country.

2) Five Arab armies invade Israel in 1948.
The armies of Egypt, Jordan Iraq, Syria and Lebanon invaded Israel as soon as the British left. Israel was a tiny country with 600,000 Jews. It had no real army and very few weapons. It was a terribly dangerous situation and President Truman was worried there would be a slaughter. The Arabs certainly believed there would be. There were radio warnings from Arab countries to the Palestinians living in Israel to leave so they would not be in the way After a truce ended, Israel forces slowly managed to push back the Arab armies. It was a costly war for Israel, 6,000 Jewish soldiers died in that war.

If the Arabs had not started the war in 1948, no Jews or Arabs would have had to flee their homes and the Palestinians would now have had their own country for 61 years.

3) After the war, Egypt and Jordan do not let the Palestinians form a country.
Even after losing the war, Jordan and Egypt could have let the Palestinians have a country. Instead, they took those areas their armies captured and made them part of their own countries.

4) Arabs force Palestinian refugees to remain refugees.
Since the end of World War Two, tens of millions of refugees have been successfully resettled. 850,000 Jewish refugees fled from Arab countries and came to Israel. These Jewish refugees were welcomed and settled in Israel.

The Palestinian refugees were forced to remain from the rest of the population, they are not allowed to become citizens nor they cannot get jobs outside their areas. There is a special UN organization that deal only with the Palestinians, UNRWA, which does not try to help he Palestinians become citizens of the countries in which they live or find new homes.

The Arabs themselves are responsible for creating the Palestinian refugee problem. Yet Arabs blame Israel for the Palestinian refugee problem. Arabs believe that it is a huge concession on their part that they consider recognizing Israel’s right to exist. They think that Israel should go back to the pre-1967 borders, which would mean giving the Arabs the old city of Jerusalem. There are other concessions they must make if there is to be peace. Israel has been trying to reach a peace agreement, but insists that all terrorism against Israel must stop. Until that happens, the refugee problem will not end.