1 00:00:00,840 --> 00:00:06,110 When I did my graduate studies at the Middle East Institute at Columbia University's School 2 00:00:06,110 --> 00:00:12,330 of International Affairs, I took many courses on the question of the Middle East conflict. 3 00:00:12,330 --> 00:00:17,440 Semester after semester, we studied the Middle East conflict as if it was the most complex 4 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:23,500 conflict in the world -- when in fact, it is probably the easiest conflict in the world to explain. 5 00:00:23,620 --> 00:00:28,380 It may be the hardest to solve, but it is the easiest to explain. 6 00:00:28,420 --> 00:00:34,100 In a nutshell, it is this: One side wants the other side dead. 7 00:00:34,180 --> 00:00:39,820 Israel wants to exist as a Jewish state and to live in peace. Israel also recognizes the 8 00:00:39,820 --> 00:00:45,610 right of Palestinians to have their own state and to live in peace. The problem, however, 9 00:00:45,610 --> 00:00:50,860 is that most Palestinians and many other Muslims and Arabs, do not recognize the right of the 10 00:00:50,860 --> 00:00:53,700 Jewish state of Israel to exist. 11 00:00:53,700 --> 00:01:00,539 This has been true since 1947, when the United Nations voted to divide the land called Palestine 12 00:01:00,539 --> 00:01:04,019 into a Jewish state and an Arab state. 13 00:01:04,019 --> 00:01:10,639 The Jews accepted the United Nations partition but no Arab or any other Muslim country accepted it. 14 00:01:10,700 --> 00:01:17,139 When British rule ended on May 15, 1948, the armies of all the neighboring Arab states 15 00:01:17,139 --> 00:01:24,099 -- Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan, and Egypt -- attacked the one-day old state of 16 00:01:24,140 --> 00:01:27,000 Israel in order to destroy it. 17 00:01:27,080 --> 00:01:30,880 But, to the world's surprise, the little Jewish state survived. 18 00:01:30,889 --> 00:01:38,469 Then it happened again. In 1967, the dictator of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, announced his plan, 19 00:01:38,520 --> 00:01:45,360 in his words, "to destroy Israel." He placed Egyptian troops on Israel's border, 20 00:01:45,409 --> 00:01:50,369 and armies of surrounding Arab countries were also mobilized to attack. 21 00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:54,200 However, Israel preemptively attacked Egypt and Syria. 22 00:01:54,300 --> 00:02:01,340 Israel did not attack Jordan, and begged Jordan's king not to join the war. But he did. 23 00:02:01,380 --> 00:02:07,760 And only because of that did Israel take control of Jordanian land, specifically the "West Bank" 24 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:09,500 of the Jordan River. 25 00:02:09,500 --> 00:02:15,060 Shortly after the war, the Arab states went to Khartoum, Sudan and announced their famous 26 00:02:15,060 --> 00:02:21,810 three "No's: "No recognition, no peace, and no negotiations," 27 00:02:21,810 --> 00:02:24,969 What was Israel supposed to do? 28 00:02:24,969 --> 00:02:30,069 Well, one thing Israel did, a little more than a decade later, in 1978, was to give 29 00:02:30,069 --> 00:02:38,149 the entire Sinai Peninsula -- an area of land bigger than Israel itself, and with oil -- 30 00:02:38,340 --> 00:02:44,560 back to Egypt because Egypt, under new leadership, signed a peace agreement with Israel. 31 00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:49,950 So, Israel gave land for the promise of peace with Egypt, and it has always been willing 32 00:02:49,950 --> 00:02:56,299 to do the same thing with the Palestinians. All the Palestinians have ever had to do is 33 00:02:56,299 --> 00:03:01,909 recognize Israel as a Jewish state and promise to live in peace with it. 34 00:03:01,909 --> 00:03:06,269 But when Israel has proposed trading land for peace -- as it did in 2000 35 00:03:06,320 --> 00:03:11,820 when it agreed to give the Palestinians a sovereign state in more than 95% of the West Bank 36 00:03:11,820 --> 00:03:18,060 and all of Gaza -- the Palestinian leadership rejected the offer, 37 00:03:18,080 --> 00:03:24,719 and instead responded by sending waves of suicide terrorists into Israel. 38 00:03:24,719 --> 00:03:31,150 Meanwhile, Palestinian radio, television, and school curricula remain filled with glorification 39 00:03:31,150 --> 00:03:39,410 of terrorists, demonization of Jews, and the daily repeated message that Israel should cease to exist. 40 00:03:39,500 --> 00:03:46,100 So it's not hard to explain the Middle-East dispute. One side wants the other dead. 41 00:03:46,160 --> 00:03:51,560 The motto of Hamas, the Palestinian rulers of Gaza, is: "We love death 42 00:03:51,640 --> 00:03:54,359 as much as the Jews love life." 43 00:03:54,359 --> 00:04:00,579 There are 22 Arab states in the world -- stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indian Ocean. 44 00:04:00,579 --> 00:04:05,619 There is one "Jewish State" in the world. And it is about the size of New Jersey. 45 00:04:05,620 --> 00:04:10,340 In fact, tiny El Salvador is larger than Israel. 46 00:04:10,349 --> 00:04:17,329 Finally, think about these two questions: If, tomorrow, Israel laid down its arms and announced, 47 00:04:17,440 --> 00:04:23,220 "We will fight no more," what would happen? And if the Arab countries around Israel 48 00:04:23,220 --> 00:04:29,680 laid down their arms and announced "We will fight no more," what would happen? 49 00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:34,479 In the first case there would be an immediate destruction of the state of Israel and the 50 00:04:34,479 --> 00:04:42,759 mass murder of its Jewish population. In the second case, there would be peace the next day. 51 00:04:43,060 --> 00:04:49,740 As I said at the outset, it is a simple problem to describe: one side wants the other dead 52 00:04:49,920 --> 00:04:54,060 -- and if it didn't, there would be peace. 53 00:04:54,060 --> 00:05:00,180 Please remember this: There has never been a state in the geographic area known as Palestine 54 00:05:00,180 --> 00:05:06,880 that was not Jewish. Israel is the third Jewish state to exist in that area. 55 00:05:06,980 --> 00:05:15,180 There was never an Arab state, never a Palestinian state, never a Muslim or any other state. 56 00:05:15,220 --> 00:05:20,920 That's the issue: why can't the one Jewish state the size of El Salvador 57 00:05:21,020 --> 00:05:29,280 be allowed to exist? That is the Middle-East problem. I'm Dennis Prager.