The Seven Reasons

Excerpts from a speech on the US Senate floor by 
U.S. Senator James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) 
on March 4, 2002:  
 
"[Regarding the Saudi initiative featuring] the prospect of 
giving up land that is rightfully Israel's land in order to
have peace. When it gets right down to it, the land doesn't 
make that much difference because Yasser Arafat and others 
don't recognize Israel's right to any of the land. They do not
recognize Israel's right to exist.  "I will discuss seven 
reasons, which I mentioned once before, why Israel is entitled 
to the land they have and that it should not be a part of the
peace process.  

"...The first reason is that Israel has the right to the land 
because of all of the archeological evidence. That is reason, 
No. 1. All the archeological evidence supports it. Every time 
there is a dig in Israel, it does nothing but support the 
fact that Israelis have had a presence there for 3,000 years...  

"The second proof of Israel's right to the land is the historic 
right. History supports it totally and completely. We know 
there has been an Israel up until the time of the Roman Empire... 
They were driven from the land... but there was always a Jewish 
presence in the land...  "The British [in 1917] said they 
were going to give the Jewish people a homeland [that] consisted 
of all of what is now Israel and all of what was then the 
nation of Jordan--the whole thing. That was what Britain 
promised to give the Jews in 1917. In the beginning, there was 
some Arab support for this action. There was not a huge 
Arab population in the land at that time, and there is a 
reason for that. The land was not able to sustain a large
population of people. It just did not have the development 
it needed to handle those people, and the land was not really 
wanted by anybody. Nobody really wanted this land. It was 
considered to be worthless land... "Mark Twain--Samuel 
Clemens--took a tour of Palestine in 1867. This is how he 
described that land. We are talking about Israel now. 
He said: 'A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but 
is given over wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. 
We never saw a human being on the whole route. There was 
hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the 
cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost
deserted the country.'  "Where was this great Palestinian 
nation? It did not exist. It was not there. Palestinians 
were not there. Palestine was a region named by the Romans,
but [in the 19th century] it was under the control of 
Turkey, and there was no large mass of people there because 
the land would not support them.  "[The British] Palestinian 
Royal Commission quotes an account of the conditions on the 
coastal plain along the Mediterranean Sea in 1913 
[as follows]: 'The road leading from Gaza to the north was 
only a summer track, suitable for transport by camels or 
carts. No orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be 
seen until one reached the Yavneh village. Houses were mud. 
Schools did not exist. The western part toward the sea was 
almost a desert. The villages in this area were few and 
thinly populated.Many villages were deserted by their 
inhabitants.'  "In short, under the Turks the land suffered 
from neglect and low population.  That is a historic fact. 
The nation became populated by both Jews and Arabs because 
the land came to prosper when Jews came back and began 
to reclaim it... "  

"The third reason that land belongs to Israel is the practical 
value of the Israelis being there. Israel today is a modern 
marvel of agriculture. Israel is able to bring more food out 
of a desert environment than any other country in the world. 
The Arab nations ought to make Israel their friend and import 
technology from Israel that would allow all the Middle East, 
not just Israel, to become an exporter of food...  

"The fourth reason I believe Israel has the right to the land 
is on the grounds of humanitarian concern. You see, there 
were 6 million Jews slaughtered in Europe in World War II... 
These people have a right to their homeland. If we are not 
going to allow them a homeland in the Middle East, then 
where?...  

"The fifth reason Israel ought to have their land is that 
she is a strategic ally of the United States. Whether we 
realize it or not, Israel is a detriment, an impediment, 
to certain groups hostile to democracies and hostile to 
what we believe in... They have kept them from taking 
complete control of the Middle East... They vote with us 
in the United Nations more than England, more than Canada, 
more than France, more than Germany--more than any other 
country in the world.  

"The sixth reason is that Israel is a roadblock to terrorism. 
The war we are now facing is not against a sovereign nation; 
it is against a group of terrorists who are very fluid, 
moving from one country to another... If we do not stop 
terrorism in the Middle East, it will be on our shores. 
We have said this again and again and again, and it is true.  
"...There were 39 Scud missiles that landed on Israeli soil 
during the gulf war. Our President asked Israel not to respond. 
In order to have the Arab nations on board, we asked Israel not 
to participate in the war. They showed tremendous restraint 
and did not. Now we have asked them to stand back and not 
do anything over these last several attacks.  "We have 
criticized them. We have criticized them in our media. 
Local people in television and radio often criticize Israel, 
not knowing the true facts. We need to be informed. I was 
so thrilled when I heard a reporter pose a question to our 
Secretary of State, Colin Powell. He said: 'Mr. Powell, 
the United States has advocated a policy of restraint in 
the Middle East. We have discouraged Israel from retaliation 
again and again and again because we've said it leads to 
continued escalation--that it escalates the violence. 
Are we going to follow that preaching ourselves?' 
Mr. Powell indicated we would strike back. In other words, 
we can tell Israel not to do it, but when it hits us, 
we are going to do something.  "But all that changed in 
December when the Israelis went into the Gaza with gunships 
and into the West Bank with F-16s... And I am so proud of 
them because we have to stop terrorism. It is not going to 
go away. If Israel were driven into the sea tomorrow, if 
every Jew in the Middle East were killed, terrorism would 
not end. You know that in your heart. Terrorism would 
continue.  

"No. 7, I believe very strongly that we ought to support 
Israel; that it has a right to the land. This is the most 
important reason: Because G-d said so. As I said a minute 
ago, look it up in the book of Genesis. It is right up
there on the desk...  

"...Eight years ago on the lawn of the White House, Yitzhak 
Rabin shook hands with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. It was 
a historic occasion. It was a tragic occasion.  "At that 
time, the official policy of the Government of Israel began 
to be, 'Let us appease the terrorists. Let us begin to 
trade the land for peace.' This process continued unabated 
up until last year. Here in our own nation, at Camp David, 
in the summer of 2000, then-Prime Minister of Israel Ehud 
Barak offered the most generous concessions to Yasser Arafat 
that had ever been laid on the table. He offered him more 
than 90% of all the West Bank territory, sovereign control 
of it. There were some parts he did not want to offer, but 
in exchange for that he said he would give up land in Israel
proper that the PLO had not even asked for. And he also did 
the unthinkable. He even spoke of dividing Jerusalem and 
allowing the Palestinians to have their capital there in 
the East. Yasser Arafat stormed out of the meeting. Why did 
he storm out of the meeting? Everything he had said he 
wanted was offered there. It was put into his hands. Why did 
he storm out of the meeting?  "...Over the last 8 years, 
during this time of the peace process, where the Israeli 
public has pressured its leaders to give up land for peace 
because they are tired of fighting, there has been increased 
terror. In fact, it has been greater in the last 8 years 
than any other time in Israel's history. Showing restraint 
and giving in has not produced any kind of peace.  
"...They did offer a hand of peace, and it was not taken... 
The Israelis have come to see that, ``No matter what we do, 
these people do not want to deal with us... They want to 
destroy us.'' That is why even yet today the stationery 
of the PLO still has upon it the map of the entire state 
of Israel, not just the tiny little part they call the 
West Bank that they want. They want it all. We have to get 
out of this mind set that somehow you can buy peace in the 
Middle East by giving little plots of land. 
It has not worked before when it has been offered.  
"These seven reasons show why Israel is entitled to that land."