Israel - Geert Wilders, Dutch member of parliament, inTel Aviv, December 5, 2010

Geert Wilders, Dutch member of parliament, inTel Aviv, December 5, 2010

 Shalom chaveriem,

Let me start by saying that it is with great sadness that I share your grief
over the deaths of more than 40 brave Israelis who lost their lives - many
while trying to save others in the great fire near Haifa. My country, the
Netherlands, is amongst other countries helping to put down this fire, which
is threatening the lives and property of thousands of your compatriots. I
offer my heartfelt condolences to the families of those who perished. My
thoughts are with them. Israel is an immense source of inspiration for me.
When I came to your country for the first time as a teenager, I lived here
for a year.

I am not ashamed to stand with Israel, but proud. I am grateful to Israel. I
will always defend Israel. Your country is the cradle of Western
civilization. We call it the Judeo-Christian civilization with good reason.

Israel is often being treated unfairly. The world looks at the plight of the
Palestinians in refugee camps in Lebanon, Gaza, and other places, and many
blame Israel. The UN claims that there are over 4.7 million Palestinian
refugees, and many blame Israel. These voices say the Palestinians should be
allowed to return to "Palestine." But where is Palestine? Many say Israel
must solve the problems of Palestine. But is Israel guilty of the plight of
the Palestinian refugees?

My answer is "No." The Arab leaders are to be blamed - and Islam is to be
blamed. Let me first tell you why, and then I will tell you where Palestine
can be found.

At the end of World War II, there were 50 million refugees. Today, all the
refugee problems dating from before the 1950s have been solved. All, except
one - the problem of the Palestinians.

Why did this problem not get solved? The reason is simple: Because the Arab
countries did not allow it to get solved. And because Islam does not allow
it to get solved.
In May 1948, the number of Jews in the Arab countries was estimated to be
close to 1 million. Today, fewer than 8,000 Jews are left in the entire Arab
world. In 1948, the Arab countries forced the Jews out and confiscated their
properties. More Jews fled the Arab countries than Arabs fled Israel. Where
are the Jewish refugee camps? There are none.

So, why are there refugee camps for Palestinians in areas surrounding
Israel? Because the Palestinians were not welcomed in the neighboring Arab
countries. There was no Arab solidarity; the refugees were forced into camps
and slums, where many of their descendants still linger today.

Under international definitions the status of refugee or displaced person
only applies to first generation refugees. However, the UN makes an
exception for Palestinians. Descendants of Palestinian refugees are granted
the same refugee status as their ancestors. Consequently, the number of
so-called Palestinian refugees registered with the UN increased from 711,000
in 1950 to over 4.7 million in 2010. These refugees are being used as a
demographic weapon against Israel.

Instead of blaming the inhospitable Arab regimes, many blame Israel.

My friends, the blame should be laid where it belongs: with the Arab world.
The Jewish refugees built new lives for themselves. They did what millions
of refugees have done in the course of history, including, in the 20th
century, the Germans who had to leave Sudetenland and the lands east of the
Oder and Neisse rivers, the Hungarians who fled Transsylvania, the Greeks
who were ejected from the Aegean coast of Anatolia, the Hindus who fled the
Punjab.

With each generation, the resentment of these refugees and their descendants
slowly fades away. Time heals all wounds. Acceptance of the new situation is
the norm.

Islam, however, conditions Muslims to hate Jews. It is a religious duty to
do so. Israel must be destroyed because it is the homeland of the Jews.

Influential Islamic scholars, such as Muhammad Tantawi, the Grand Imam of
Al-Azhar in Cairo, the most prestigious center of Muslim learning, call Jews
"enemies of Allah." Tantawi, who died last March, was generally considered a
moderate by the Western media and policy makers. But how did this "moderate"
address a delegation of Palestinian Muslims who visited him in 2002?

He urged them to intensify suicide attacks against Israelis, stating that
every so-called "martyrdom operation" against - I quote - "any Israeli,
including children, women, and teenagers, is a legitimate act according to
[Islamic] religious law, and an Islamic commandment, until the people of
Palestine regain their land." - end of quote.

Nizar Qabbani, one of the most revered poets in the Arab world, praised the
madness of those who are blinded by an ideology of hatred. In his poem Ode
to the Intifada, he wrote: "O mad people of Gaza, A thousand greetings to
the mad. The age of political reason has long departed. So teach us
madness."  Thát is the nature of the Islamic enemies confronting the Jews - sheer
madness.

Israel, on the other hand, is a beacon of light; it is like a Hanukkah
menorah whose lights have been kindled in a region that until 1948 was
engulfed by darkness.

Friends, Israel is not to blame for the situation in the Middle East. The
problem is Islam's rejection of Israel's right to exist. Only last month,
Fatah concluded its convention in Ramallah by declaring its blatant refusal
to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

The problem is also our Western leaders' refusal to understand that Israel
is the West's canary in the coalmine: If the Jews are denied the right to
live in freedom and peace, soon we will all be denied this right. If the
light of Israel is extinguished, we will all face darkness. If Israel falls,
the West falls. That is why we are all Israel.

But as long as the West refuses to understand how the Palestinians are used
as a weapon against Israel, it will not be able to see who is truly to
blame; it will not be able to see that it is not Israel's duty to provide a
Palestinian state - for the simple reason that there already is a
Palestinian state and that state is Jordan.
Indeed, my friends, Jordan is Palestine. Take a look at the map of this part
of the world after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War I.
Both contemporary Israel and contemporary Jordan were part of the British
Mandate of Palestine.

In 1922, the British partitioned Palestine into Cisjordan and Transjordan -
the latter comprising 78 per cent of the territory of Palestine. The British
handed that territory over to their ally, the Hashemite strongman Abdallah
ibn Hussein. Abdallah was the son of the emir Hussein bin Ali, guardian of
the Islamic holy city of Mecca. The Hashemites belong to the Quraish tribe -
the tribe of Islam founder Muhammad. They are a foreign body in Palestine.

In 1946, Transjordan became an independent state under Hashemite rule. In
November 1947, the United Nations proposed to partition the remaining 22 per
cent of Palestine. The territory between the Jordan River and the sea was
divided into a Jewish and an Arab part. The Jewish representatives accepted
the UN partition plan, but the Arab representatives refused. In an attempt
to "drive all the Jews into the sea," they began the 1948 war - which they
lost.

They took revenge, however, on the Jews in East Jerusalem and the rest of
Cisjordan - the ancient provinces of Judea and Samaria - held by the Arab
forces. This entire region was ethnically cleansed of all Jews. Even the
names of Judea and Samaria were wiped off the map and replaced by the
ridiculous term "West Bank." A river bank of over 40 kilometers wide. I come
from a country full of rivers, and there the river banks are only a few
dozen meters wide.

Israel, including Judea and Samaria, has been the land of the Jews since
time immemorial. Judea means Land of the Jews. Never in the history of the
world has there been an autonomous state in the area that was not Jewish.
The Diaspora of the Jews, which began after their defeat by the Romans in AD
70, did not lead to the departure of all the Jews from their ancient
homeland. Jews had been living in the Jordan Valley for centuries until the
Arab invaders drove them out in 1948, when the provinces of Judea and
Samaria were occupied by the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, which
abbreviated its name to Jordan in 1950.

And until 1967, when Israel regained the ancient Jewish heartland of Judea
and Samaria, no-one, not a single Islamic scholar or Western politician,
ever demanded that there be an independent Palestinian state in the
so-called West Bank.
Must Israel trade land for peace? Should it assign Judea and Samaria to
another Palestinian state - a second one, next to Jordan? My friends, let me
be very clear: The conflict in the Middle East is not a conflict over
territory, but rather an ideological battle.

People are mistaken when they assume that giving up Judea and Samaria and
East Jerusalem, and letting the Palestinians have it, will end the conflict
between Israel and the Arabs. In 2005, Israel sacrificed the settlements in
Gaza for the sake of peace. Did it get peace?  On the contrary, because the conflict is essentially ideological, the situation worsened. Because the conflict is ideological, territorial concessions are counterproductive. Ideologies cannot be defeated by
concessions. They are encouraged and emboldened by it.

Ideologies must be confronted with the iron will never to give in, "never,
never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty." That is
the lesson which the world learned from Winston Churchill when he confronted
the evil ideology of nazism.

This conflict here in the Middle East is not about land and borders, but
about Islamic jihadism opposing Western liberty. From the moment that Israel
was founded, the Arab leaders have rejected every partition plan and every
initiative for a territorial settlement. The Islamic ideology simply does
not accept the concept of a Jewish state. Neither Hamas nor Fatah are
willing to recognize the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own
in their historic homeland. No territorial concession on Israel's part can
ever change that.

Israel's ideological enemies want to wipe Israel out as a nation. They
simply deny the Jewish state the right to exist and to live in peace,
dignity and liberty.

For the sake of its own survival and security, Israel needs defendable
borders. A country that is only 15 kilometers wide is impossible to defend.
That is the strategic reason why Jews need to settle Judea and Samaria.

Therefore, the Jewish towns and villages in Judea and Samaria are not an
impediment to peace; they are an expression of the Jewish right to exist in
this land. They are tiny outposts of freedom, defying ideological forces
which deny not only Israel but the entire West the right to live in peace,
dignity and liberty.  Let us never forget that Islam threatens not just Israel; Islam threatens the entire world. Without Judea and Samaria, Israel cannot protect
Jerusalem. The future of the world depends on Jerusalem. If Jerusalem falls,
Athens and Rome - and Paris, London and Washington - will be next.

Thus, Jerusalem is the main front protecting our common civilization. When
the flag of Israel no longer flies over the walls of Jerusalem, the West
will no longer be free.

However, a peaceful solution must also be found for the many Palestinians in
the refugee camps in Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere. Each year, hundreds of
millions of euros and dollars are spent on the Palestinian refugees in
international aid.

The financial assistance, however, did not provide the refugees a new home,
a place to live and build a future for their children and grandchildren. It
is obvious where this place should be. It should be Palestine, just as,
after the Second World War, the obvious place for the German refugees from
the East to go to, was Germany. Since Jordan is Palestine, it is the duty of
the Jordanian government to welcome all Palestinian refugees who voluntarily
want to settle there.

Until the late 1980s, Jordan's Hashemite rulers did not deny that their
country was Palestine. They said so on numerous occasions. In 1965, King
Hussein said: "Those organizations which seek to differentiate between
Palestinians and Jordanians are traitors." As late as 1981, Hussein repeated
- I quote - "Jordan is Palestine and Palestine is Jordan."

In March 1971, The Palestine National Council, too, stated that - I quote -
"what links Jordan to Palestine is a national bond [...] formed, since time
immemorial, by history and culture. The establishment of one political
entity in Transjordan and another in Palestine is illegal." - end of quote.

By the late 1970s, however, the Arab authorities began to differentiate
between Jordanians and Palestinians. What was previously considered to be
treason and illegality suddenly became the propaganda line.

In March 1977, PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein admitted in a
candid interview in the Dutch newspaper Trouw: - I quote - "Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism.  For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined
borders, cannot lay claim to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can
undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the
moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a
minute to unite Palestine and Jordan." - end of quote.

In 1988, as the first Intifada raged, Jordan officially renounced any claim
of sovereignty to the so-called West Bank. In recent years, the Jordanian
authorities have stripped thousands of Palestinians of their Jordanian
citizenship. They do so for two reasons.

First, because the alien Hashemite rulers fear that the Palestinians might
one day take over their own country. And second, because stripping
Palestinians of their Jordanian citizenship supports the falsehood that
Jordan is not a part of Palestine. And that, consequently, the Palestinians
must attack Israel if they want a place of their own.

By arbitrarily reducing thousands of their citizens to statelessness, the
Jordanian authorities want to force the Palestinians to turn their
aspirations towards the establishment of another Palestinian state in Judea
and Samaria. This decision is a great injustice committed by the Hashemite
rulers of Jordan - this foreign clan which the British installed.

I am not naïve. I am not blind to the possibility that if Jordan were to be
ruled by the Palestinians, this might lead to political radicalization in
Jordan. However, a continuation of the present situation will most certainly
lead to radicalization. We need a paradigm shift. If we keep thinking along
the same lines as we have done so far, no peaceful solution of the
Palestinian problem is possible without endangering the existence of Israel
and disrupting the social and economic fabric in Judea and Samaria.
Resettling millions of Palestinians in these small provinces is simply
impossible and is not going to happen.

To the skeptics, I say: What is the alternative? Leaving the present
situation as it is? No, my friends, the world must recognize that there has
been an independent Palestinian state since 1946, and it is the Kingdom of
Jordan.

Allowing all Palestinians to voluntarily settle in Jordan is a better way
towards peace than the current so-called two-states-approach (in reality a
three-states-approach) propagated by the United Nations, the U.S.
administration, and governing elites all over the world. We only want a
democratic non-violent solution for the Palestinian problem. This requires
that the Palestinian people should be given the right to voluntarily settle
in Jordan and freely elect their own government in Amman. If the present
Hashemite King is still as popular as today, he can remain in power. That is
for the people of Palestine to decide in real democratic elections.

My friends, let us adopt a totally new approach. Let us acknowledge that
Jordan is Palestine.

And to the Western world I say: Let us stand with Israel because the Jews
have no other state, while the Palestinians already have Jordan. Let us
stand with Israel because the history of our civilization began here, in
this land, the homeland of the Jews. Let us stand with Israel because the
Jewish state needs defendable borders to secure its own survival. Let us
stand with Israel because it is the frontline in the battle for the survival
of the West.

We must speak the truth. The truth that Jordan is Palestine, the truth that
Samaria and Judea are part of Israel, the truth that Jerusalem may not fall,
the truth that Israel is the only democracy in a dark and tyrannical region,
the truth that Israel is the linchpin of the West.

Of course, I am just a foreign guest and should be modest. Israel is a
democracy and I respect every decision which its people and government will
make. But I am proud to be here and grateful for the opportunity to share my
thoughts and beliefs with you.

Because it is here that our civilization is under attack as we speak. It is
here that we, men and women of the West, must show our resolve to defend
ourselves. It is here that Israel has lit the light of freedom and that
Europeans and Americans must help the Israelis to keep that light shining in
the darkness. For Israel's sake and for the sake of all of us.

Toda raba... And shalom to all of you.