Seventy-Five Years of Seeking Peace

For 75 years Israel has offered peace to her neighbors the Arab response, 'Never!' -- be Israel's leaders Likud or Labor From 1948 to 1967, before 'territories,' before 'occupation' when Israel was an almost indefensible sliver of a nation The Arabs promised time and again to 'throw the Jews into the sea' There was no 'West Bank' or Gaza, they meant Haifa and Tel Aviv From ’48 on, Egypt and Jordan have kept Palestinians in refugee camps And, O, how the pressure from the world has climbed up the ramp Zionism became racism, Jews the ‘evil oppressors’ In 1956, ’67, ’73, ’82, ’87, 2000, the Arabs waged war and intifadas to become our successors Under Rabin and again under Barak, Israel offered Palestinians a state over 90% of Gaza and the ‘West Bank,’ Pres. Clinton said ‘That’s great!’ But Yasir Arafat said Never! His one and only goal was to kill all the Jews --It had gotten to be depressingly old news In 2005, Arik Sharon pulled out of Gaza, no more ‘Israeli occupation’ there What happened next? Hamas took over, but the world didn’t care … In 2023 Israel’s still termed ‘the occupier’ – by Arab sympathizers But after the Oct. 07 atrocities, the game’s up for them ~ 75 years of peace offers just expired