Cropping out the truth

In this 40th anniversary week of the Six Day War, I have had a bellyful of media lecturing about the oppressive occupation and the Palestinian refugee camps.

Here is an extract of a piece I wrote for the Jewish Press in 2004 after a visit to Judea and Samaria:

Successive prime ministers of Israel have always been careful to locate settlements in high places. One of those strategic heights is home to the 1,500 religious settlers of Psagot, which boasts an outstanding view of the Arab town of Ramallah. This is a picture of Ramallah you will never see on the BBC or CNN. On all sides there are modern apartment buildings and villas capped with red tiles. But right in the center of this colorful townscape - like a cancer embedded in healthy pink flesh - lies the dark gray smudge of the refugee camp. Managed and preserved by the oil sheikhs of Arabia, this ugly trophy of the Palestinian struggle is always very carefully cut, cropped and pasted into the world’s media.

Any unbiased Middle East expert will tell you that the Palestinian refugee camps only exist because their despotic leaders in Teheran, Damascus and Riyadh and their terrorist proxies in Hezbullah and Hamas wish it so.

After 40 years, the billions in US, EU and UN aid to the ‘Palestinian refugees’ has way exceeded the cost of the Marshall Plan set up by the Allies to reconstruct Germany after WW2.

By this measure, every Palestinian family and at least two sons-in-law should have been able to afford their own 2-bedroom apartment on one of those red-topped buildings you see in the picture.

Sadly however the puppeteers of the Palestinian Arabs had other plans for the money. More guns, suicide belts and missiles to perpetuate their refugee status. And more Jihadist medrassas to make sure the next generation keeps the tradition going.