PRESIDENT BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA CAN STAND UP AND SET HISTORICAL PRECEDENT WITH THE NAME HIS FATHER GAVE HIM.

FIRST, CORRECT THE LEXICON IN THE CONTEXT OF WHICH THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT IS DISCUSSED; THEN, REALITY MAY HAVE SOME CORRESPONDENCE TO THE TERMS OF DISCUSSION. BOTH JEWS AND ARABS ARE PALESTINIAN. IT IS JUST PLAIN WRONG TO EXCLUDE JEWS FROM THE PALESTINIAN IDENTITY. SIMILARLY IT IS JUST PLAIN WRONG TO DEFINE THE CONFLICT AS AN “ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN” CONFLICT, WHEN IN FACT IT IS AN “ARAB-ISRAELI” CONFLICT.

Once the terms are properly defined, once the distortion of incorrect ‘prescription glasses’ is removed, the reality of the conflict may come into focus. That reality has far greater implications than the world conversation has embraced in the past several decades. Ever since the decisive wars of 1967 and 1973, the world has believed that the scale of the Arab-Israli Conflict no longer ranged outside Israeli controlled borders and that therefore a final peace with the local Arab population could only be a few moments away. The world chose to call the Arabs within Israeli controlled borders “Palestinian”.

“Palestinian” is a term given by the Ancient Roman occupation of the middle east to all the inhabitants of that geography — Israeli, Arab, and everyone else. The British and French and Germans (Modern Romans) applied this Roman lexicon to the middle east, when in modern times they themselves occupied these lands and subjugated these middle eastern Peoples. There never existed a People or a State called “Palestine” except as a subjugated territorial entity of the Romans and the Modern Romans. [Today's Arabs from that geographical area are not identifiable with the "Philistines", although it has been a convenient myth with which the Arabs and Jew-haters propagandize in order to falsely claim an historical claim to Gaza.]

Jews have lived in Israel/Palestine dating back to the times of ancient Egypt. There has been continuous Jewish life in Israel/Palestine throughout history, even during the most decimating occupations by Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, Turks, Modern Romans….

The vast majority of Arabs are Muslims, not Christians, and if at street level most people are not motivated by militancy, there are two powerful minorities that are married to militancy. These are the Jihadists, who wage their terrorist utopian Holy Wars; and then there are the Governments of the many Islamic nation-states, who rule by terror and by diversion of attention away from their own repressions by scapegoating Jews and the West; too often they find common cause with the Jihadists.

Israel has no peace with the Arab population within Israeli controlled borders because the Arab Governments don’t want peace with Israel and to this day refuse to make peace with Israel, the well-paid semi-exceptions being Egypt and Jordan. When the world at large understands that the Arab-Israeli Conflict is like a giant iceberg, and that the localized violence that is visible in Israel is visible in the same way that the tip of an iceberg is visible, perhaps then the world can become constructive in the seeking of real solutions. Denial just means ’shipwreck after shipwreck’ and a steady rise in ‘maintenance and insurance costs’.
If President Obama has the courage to stand up to reality, and not just be team leader in a never ending Washington game of “Capture The Flag”, he may make the most of the name his father gave him, declare himself to be the first American Muslim to be President of the USA, and establish a worldwide Muslim precedent demanding worldwide recognition of the State of Israel inclusive of Judea-Samaria (commonly referred to as the “West Bank”); he should suggest the creation of a world fund to support the voluntary emigration and resettlement from Israel of all willing Arab residents living within Israeli controlled borders, who cannot stomach the idea of living in a Jewish State, to the nations of their choice.

More than 1500 years of Muslim expansion in the world has created no shortage of possible destination homes for the Arabs today living within Israeli controlled borders; by nation of origin they may be identified in fact as mostly Egyptian, Saudi, Jordanian, Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi, Iranian, and Turkish.

All should remember not only the decimations of Hitler; Hitler had many allies including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and a Muslim world that raped, murdered, and exiled Jews all the way from Afghanistan to Africa and from Russia to Iran. Israel remembers, and yet despite this history 20% of Israel’s voting citizens today are Arabs…. At what point must Israel’s idealism gove way to Israel’s survival needs as a tiny ‘island’ Jewish State in a vast ’sea’ of Muslim States?

President Barak Hussein Obama can make a profound difference and set positive democratic precedents in the solution of the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Israel is already a democracy with two-million Arab citizens. This reality can be preserved and can be a precedent towards liberalization of Arab States to become inclusive and tolerant of non-Muslims. Anything less is a profoundly anti-Israeli, anti-democratic double standard that the world must reject on principle.