The State of Palestine Quiz

Click on the cartoon below to open a larger, more readable version of this full page Dry Bones Special:

This "Palestine Quiz" has been bouncing around the Internet for some time ...it is, of course, a reality-test challenge to anyone who has swallowed the Palestine Myth. I thought it would be fun (and timely) to reprint it and share it around.

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If you know someone who actually believes that there was ever a country or state called Palestine, don't argue with them. Just quiz them.

Trump's Map

Trump presents his map for peace. Will the Palestinian Arabs miss another opportunity? Will we? * * * Please support Dry Bones.
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Enter John Bolton

Trump’s Bolton-appointment signals curtains for Abbas and PLO

 By 

 David Singer 

President Trump’s appointment of John Bolton as National Security Adviser flags the possibility that the centerpiece of Trump’s eagerly-awaited “ultimate deal” could involve the subdivision of Judea and Samaria (“the West Bank”) and Gaza between Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

Such tripartite negotiations would replace the stale-mated Israeli-Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) negotiations – begun in 1993 until suspended in 2014 following a PLO walk-out – at the stage where:
1. The PLO was demanding a new Palestinian Arab State with Jerusalem as its capital in 100% of the West Bank and Gaza (“disputed territories”) for the first time in recorded history – which was unacceptable to Israel.
 2. Offers by Israel in 2000/2001 and 2007 to cede its claims to sovereignty in about 95% of the disputed territories had been rejected by the PLO.
 3. The 1993 Oslo Accords had seen the West Bank divided into three Areas - “A”, “B’ and “C”: • “A” (18%) - under total PLO administrative and security control. • “B” (22%) - under total PLO administrative control and joint Israel-PLO security control • “C” (60%) - under total Israeli administrative and security control
 4. Israel and the PLO had been negotiating the final status of the disputed territories under President Bush’s 2003 Roadmap - endorsed by the United Nations, the European Union and Russia. President Bush had given Israel written commitments on 14 April 2004 – overwhelmingly endorsed by the US Congress - to support Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza – which Israel honored in 2005. America committed it would not expect Israel to withdraw from 100% of the disputed territories. 5. Hamas had governed Gaza since 2007 –as Egypt had between 1948 and 1967.

Abbas and the PLO have recently:
1. Rejected considering any future Trump proposals following Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
2. Declared the Oslo Accords “dead”.

Enter Trump-appointee John Bolton into this Israel-PLO standoff – as President Trump ponders how to fill this negotiating void. Bolton has an answer - provided with amazing prescience on 5 January 2009 in his Washington Post article headlined “The Three-State Solution”: “Let's start by recognizing that trying to create a Palestinian Authority from the old PLO has failed and that any two-state solution based on the PA is stillborn. Hamas has killed the idea, and even the Holy Land is good for only one resurrection. Instead, we should look to a "three-state" approach, where Gaza is returned to Egyptian control and the West Bank in some configuration reverts to Jordanian sovereignty. Among many anomalies, today's conflict lies within the boundaries of three states nominally at peace. Having the two Arab states re-extend their prior political authority is an authentic way to extend the zone of peace and, more important, build on governments that are providing peace and stability in their own countries. "International observers" or the like cannot come close to what is necessary; we need real states with real security forces.” Bolton still retains these views – telling Eric Shawn on 21 January 2018: “I hope at some point the Administration recognizes and perhaps it is already quietly – that the two-state solution isn’t going anywhere. If anything I would say to King Abdullah of Jordan – “Be prepared to reassert Jordanian sovereignty over part of the West Bank – negotiate with Israel”. I think that’s a far better outcome than the continued pursuit of a mythical – I believe – unattainable viable Palestinian state” Saudi Arabia’s backing can be anticipated. Bolton’s appointment is shaping up as yet another Trump-inspired circuit breaker. Trump’s decision to accept Bolton’s advice would spell curtains for Abbas and the PLO and give Trump the momentum he needs to get meaningful Israel-Arab negotiations started.
 [Author’s note: The cartoon - commissioned exclusively for this article – is by Yaakov Kirschen aka "Dry Bones"- one of Israel's foremost political and social commentators - whose cartoons have graced the columns of Israeli and international media publications for decades]

Jordan is Palestine

77% of Palestine is territory occupied by the kingdom of Jordan.
Israel, the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza all together make up only 23%.

History

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Accepted Terminology

You've got to use the accepted language in order to see things the "accepted" way. * * * And BTW, there's only 10 weeks 'til Passover. I mention this because if you want to be sure to have a Dry Bones experience at the seder this year you'll have to act early. Our complete inventory of our gorgeous Dry Bones Haggadahs is in our living room here in Israel. Most have now been sold and shipped. The LSW (Long Suffering Wife) is boxing them up as fast as orders come in and then shlepping them to our local post office.

Peek inside this very special Haggadah at our online "Mom and Pop" store: store.drybones.com

Step Two

The U.S. administration has done little to woo or even reassure the government of Israel. Apparently they don't feel the need to do so.

Kerry's Plan?

a nagging question.

The East Bank

I've always been fascinated with people who play blindfold chess. They actually play chess without seeing the chess board or the pieces. Of course the "trick" is that, with intense concentration, the player pictures the playing field in his/her head.

Most people who accept the politically correct pronouncements of the main stream media are even more amazing than players of "blindfold chess"! They offer assessments of the situation without ever seeing (or understanding the need to see) the "playing field". * * * If you pooh pooh the threat to the Kingdom of Jordan posed by the Palestinian terrorist organizations, you're probably too young to remember the events of Black September.

West Bank Dictionary

The terminology that the media uses conveys so much! And we, the consumers of their news reports, are often so uninformed and/or unthinking that we swallow the hook embedded in the tidbits that they feed us. So it is that, on the West Bank, Jews live in "settlements" while Arabs live in towns, villages, and cities. And while we're at it there's the term "West Bank" itself.

Like most folks, I'm comfortable with "West Bank" as a neutral, innocent, geographical phrase ..while the use of "Judea and Samaria" is politically motivated and is what the "settlers" and right wing Israelis call it ...right?

Actually that's wrong! It's another rewrite of history that we've swallowed. Consider the following:

"They (Judea and Samaria) are the definitive and proper political and geographic names for the region and have been in general use since Clearchus, a disciple of Aristotle. These two areas have no other names. These names were used during the League of Nations Mandate period. They appear in British government documents, United Nations documents including the UN Partition Plan of 1947. They appear in U.S. State Department documents, including a July 18, 1948 map. Even as late as 1961, the Encyclopedia Britannica refers to “Judaea” and “Samaria” in an article on “Palestine” (Vol. 17, p. 118).

Trans-Jordan illegally invaded Judea-Samaria in 1948 and as a result of its aggression occupied that region. It then unilaterally annexed the area on April 4, 1950, which was recognized by only two nations, the United Kingdom and Pakistan.

The Arab League, their Muslim supporters, anti-Israel elements and anti-Semites, deliberately sought to rob the region of its correct political and geographic name. They had to fabricate a brand new name for they could find no other name for the territory. Mislabeling was their technique of disinformation and de-legitimization. The “West Bank” was the name concocted by King Abdullah I of Trans-Jordan and his British advisors, allowing the king to annex land outside of his artificially “created” kingdom. He then changed the name of his kingdom twice, first to “The Hashemite Kingdom of the Jordan” but that was quickly rejected since it gave the appearance of a kingdom only along the banks of the Jordan River. The name then was changed again to the “Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.” The term “West Bank” eradicates all Jewish historical connection to the area. It is a sad commentary that many in the West, including the political left, many Israel’s supporters, some Israelis themselves, as well as the naive and self-delusional who think the name does not matter, have acquiesced to this unilateral change of names and use it in common parlance. But the name does matter." -more

Below: I've circled the Judea and Samaria regions on this detail of a French map of the area from 1791.

Your thoughts?

Simple Question

The text of today's cartoon was stolen from Friday's blog commentary.

I decided to deliver the "one-liner" against a map background. I seem to be doing that a lot lately. There was the Pakistan Map cartoon, and there was the U.S. Occupied Territories Map cartoon before that.

The "simple question" asked in the cartoon is, I think, the key to understanding that the "two-state" solution is simply a cover for ethnically cleansing Judea and Samaria of its Jewish population.

So why is the "population transfer" in the top panel acceptable and the "expulsion" in the bottom panel unthinkable? Hmmm?
Your thoughts?

Geography Lesson

A couple of days ago I did a cartoon map/lesson about America's Occupied Territories. It was history and geography. Today's cartoon is a map/lesson about the "Pakistan's Problem". Why did geography seem so boring in high school? And so important today?

So does the cartoon work? Or is it too "preachy"?

When Bibi Meets Obama

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Bibi is about to meet with Obama.
For the occasion, at the request of a reader, I've redone a Dry Bones cartoon classic that, more than 30 years ago, back in 1977, gave Jimmy Carter an accurate history lesson in Occupied Territories.

If the reports leaking out of Washington are accurate, the new President seems stuck with the old misconceptions that withdrawing from territory will placate those who lust for our destruction and that America can help by negotiating on behalf of the Arab states that refuse to negotiate directly with the Jewish State of Israel.

The teacher in the 1977 'toon was Menahem Begin, then Israel's feisty Prime Minister. The teacher in today's cartoon is Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, Israel's current Prime Minister.

Sunday Mail: December 16, 2007

Posting a cartoon every weekday leaves no room for me to simply share news, ideas, and other stuff with you. So welcome to 'Sunday Mail: Letters from Dry Bones', the new, once-a-week Dry Bones feature.

I'm Living In The Future!

The other day I took a cab in Tel Aviv and gave the driver an obscure address in nearby Ramat Gan. "Do you know how to get there?" I asked. "I do not need to know" the driver responded in a lovely Russian-accented baritone voice, "I have GPS map!" There, mounted on his dashboard was a beautiful computer screen which was tracing our position against a local street map.

I've gotten used to the doors that slide open when you approach them (first seen in the original Captain Kirk Star Trek TV show). I'm comfortable carrying a mobile phone which is exactly like a Star Trek Communicator (likewise from Star Trek season one). But this guy's GPS map really got me. It "runs" on his Pocket PC. He flicked on the audio "voice" and the two of us enjoyed the "back seat" driving of a computer entity. "Was it expensive?" I asked. "At first they were, but the price has come way down", he answered.

I had forgotten about it until this morning when a friend in Jerusalem told me that he was ordering a GPS "map set" of Israel and Europe from an online site that he knew and trusted.

I checked it out. It looks really interesting. Part of an Israel-oriented online catalog site. If you feel like checking it out too, just click on Israeli GPS maps

Occupied Territories (1977)

Click on the cartoon below to open a larger, more readable version of this full page Dry Bones Special:

As promised on Thursday, here is the famous cartoon that, close to 30 years ago, back in 1977, gave Jimmy Carter an accurate history lesson in Occupied Territories.

The teacher in the 'toon was Menahem Begin, then Israel's feisty Prime Minister.