Gordon Robinson | Cleaning up the border mess

Cawn’t sey mi neva dida warn yu!

In a column ( Our Fascination with US politics; September 3), I wrote:

“The difference between Trump’s and Biden’s immigration policy isn’t easily discernible….”

Guess what?

On October 5, the Associated Press reported on President Joe Buddy’s sweeping use of Executive Powers:

“The Biden administration announced they waived 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow border wall construction on Wednesday….”

On October 10, specialized online newspaper Construction Dive reported:

• Twenty new miles of border wall have been fast-tracked in the Rio Grande Valley after the Biden administration waived 26 federal laws...

• The Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Endangered Species Act were some of the federal laws waived…

• In the announcement, Department of Homeland Security said the new border wall….will be erected in a busy Border Patrol area seeing “high illegal entry.”

Well, whaddaya know?

This identical tactic was used by Trump to build a wall, according to him, at Mexico’s expense. Instead he used American taxpayers’ money from a 2019 congressional appropriations Bill which (wouldja believe it?) are the same funds now being used by President Buddy.

This bi-partisan myopia on immigration got me thinking about global fixation with borders. Americans aren’t alone in their ironic obsession with keeping immigrants out despite historical facts of how America was built.

USA’s current Holier-than-thou attitude would be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous. Suddenly, when immigrants don’t look like original Pilgrims, they’re “illegal”?

Europeans are no different. Especially Britain, France, Holland, Portugal, Spain, Germany and Belgium had no concern with border security while colonising Africa and Asia. Even South Africa, granted self-government in 1910, was officially a British colony until 1961.

Now that Africans and Asians are returning the favour (unarmed) in droves, Europe is internally conflicted regarding “border security” hence Brexit and continental anti-immigration protests.

But, The Old Testament says earth was created without borders save for an exclusive gated community where Adam and Eve were promised residence unless they ate the forbidden fruit.

So. Why. Did. God. Put. The. (metaphorical?) Apple. There?

All God had to do was leave nothing enticing (like nakedness) in the enclave. Surely God’s children wouldn’t want to breach its borders? So Garden of Eden’s borders must’ve been intended to keep others out not Adam and Eve in.

We know there were people to be kept out because, eventually, God “cast them out” of the enclave into a borderless world. We are proof the borderless world was populated. So Adam and Eve weren’t “cast out” but released when they were deemed ready to leave the childhood nest.

Since the dawn of time, humankind worked assiduously to change the world’s borderless reality. By conquest or treaty, the world has been carved up into countries with geographical/cultural realities shaped by their controllers. Problems have arisen when inhabitants from one “country” decide to inhabit another. Reasons for migration vary but the reaction from that second “country” has become more and more restrictive.

Proposed solutions to global border security crises come from “no borders” and “open borders” advocates. Harsha Walia, often a No Borders activist, calls national borders “global apartheid” and citizenship “a tool to maintain colonial power centres and associated privileges.” She argues this power is preserved by denying certain people the right to live in certain countries.

Open borders proponents call for borders to remain but entry restrictions to go.

Harsha points out, with merit, that one’s place of birth and passport “determines life expectancy; access to food; to water; to shelter; to health.” Harsha believes borders essentially determine your life. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7KX_Q_bjiM ).

But her call for a return to the original borderless world is hopelessly idealistic. Even if we could somehow abolish all borders, human nature, infused with God-given Free Will, would simply rinse and repeat the cycle until we return to where we are today.

So, we must live with national borders.

What we can do is understand the history of borders and apply historical context to any current border conflict whether in Texas or Palestine.

Gaza’s history spans 4,000 years but we’ll start in 63BC when Pompey Magnus incorporated it into the Roman Empire. My Bible (the New Testament) recounts ( Acts 8:26):

“And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Ga’-za which is desert.”

Philip’s attempts to spread Christianity in Gaza didn’t go well. Gaza became victim of conquerors’ tug-of-war from 634 (Islamic forces) until Otterman Empire rule began in 1516. Egypt’s turn came 400 years later.

Britain conquered Gaza during World War I. Post-war, League of Nations “granted” Gaza quasi-colonial status. It became part of the “British Mandate of Palestine”. In 1929, during Palestine riots, Gaza’s Jewish Quarter was destroyed and most of Gaza’s Jews fled.

Israel’s history, born out of imperial politics, was tailor-made for eternal war with Gaza. The 1917 Balfour Declaration (which USA supported), favoured the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. But, in 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt assured Arabs that USA wouldn’t intervene without consulting both Jews and Arabs. The British opposed both a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region. Britain wanted to preserve good relations with the Arabs to protect vital Palestinian political and economic interests.

So how did this preckeh happen? Roosevelt died in office and was succeeded by a Haberdasher. In 1946, the Haberdasher, to date the only world leader stupid enough to use the nuclear option, undid FDR’s work and established a special committee to negotiate Palestine’s future with a British committee. In May 1946, the Haberdasher announced 100,000 displaced persons would be admitted into Palestine and, in October, declared support for a Jewish state.

So, surprise, surprise, Egypt took control of Gaza in 1948 after a war with Israel; then lost control to Israel in 1967 after the notorious six-day war. Thereafter, increasing Israeli military interference in Gaza’s governance led to organised armed struggles, starting in 1969, which were crushed by Israel’s army led by Ariel Sharon. During that struggle Israel first used the words “Arab terrorism”.

Wikipedia reports:

“After the killing of one Jewish family by a grenade thrown at their car, Sharon conducted a year-long operation….involving demolition of homes and employment of special assassination teams that killed suspects. Entire families identified as related to men suspected of terrorism….were rounded up; bussed to remote camps in the desert; and detained for a year. Another camp served to sequester unemployed Gazan youths not suspected of anything. Red Cross described their treatment there as ‘merciless’.”

I guess that’s SOE, Israeli-style. No doubt aware of its original sin in the matter USA brokered several peace treaties beginning with Jimmy Carter’s Camp David Accord between Egypt (Anwar Sadat) and Israel (Menachim Begin). But Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Arab League rejected the Accord. Sadat was assassinated; Begin booted; everywhere was war.

Another USA attempt for peace, to include Palestinian self-rule, resulted in 1993’s Oslo Accord. This time PLO (Yassar Arafat) sat with Israel (Yitzhak Rabin). The Accord called for a peace process beginning with Israeli forces’ withdrawal from Gaza/West Bank and limited Palestinian self-rule. But decades of complicated hostilities eventually derailed this Accord. Religious extremists on both sides weren’t supportive. Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist at a peace rally. Hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu became Israeli PM.

Netanyahu initially refused to even meet with Arafat. Bill Clinton intervened in 1998 and facilitated an agreement to resume the Oslo process IF Palestinian Authority cracked down on violence. This only created more Israeli internal distrust. Netanyahu was replaced by Ehud Barak but Palestinians, promised self-governance within five years, felt unjustly deprived by Israeli political whim, while Israelis were increasingly cynical about PLO’s ability to prevent attacks.

This complex process had already become virtually impossible from 1987 when HAMAS’ entered very much stage left. With roots in the Muslim Brotherhood and support from a robust sociopolitical structure of frustrated Palestinians, HAMAS’ charter called for establishing an Islamic Palestinian State in place of Israel. It rejected all PLO/Israel agreements.

See the problem?

On the one hand, Israel rules Palestine with an iron fist subverting every Palestinian effort at freedom and keeping Palestinians in a gated community whose fence is called a “border”. There’s no escape. But, when they turn to HAMAS, that organisation’s mission is beyond mere self-rule and its methods, aimed at Israel’s destruction, are vile, brutal and, like Israel’s in 1967, “merciless”.

How to resolve this? Not by picking sides! The entire mess was made by USA and Britain. The world must insist they clean it up.

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com