Doc's Talk: UNDERSTANDING THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

Tuesday, June 05, 2012

UNDERSTANDING THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

Barry Rubin, a Senior Fellow of FPRI, is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His books include The Muslim Brotherhood: The Organization and Politics of a Global Islamist Movement (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010) and Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2002). Other books include The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley, 2005), The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2007); and Israel: An Introduction (Yale University Press, 2012). His articles are featured at the website of the GLORIA Center and in his own blog, Rubin Reports.________________________________________________

Today, the Muslim Brotherhood is the most important international political organization in the Arabic-speaking world. It is the dominant party in Egypt’s parliament, having obtained about 47 percent of the vote there, and in the Tunisian government, having received 40 percent of the ballots. In the form of Hamas, now an explicit branch of the movement, it rules the Gaza Strip.

It is the leadership of the opposition in the Palestinian Authority (West Bank) and in Jordan, while the local Brotherhood controls the internationally recognized leadership (the Syrian National Council) of the Syrian opposition in the civil war there. Much smaller Brotherhood groups exist in several other Arab countries.

Yet even that is not all. The Brotherhood has become the most important group among Muslims in Europe and North America, too, often directing communities and representing them in dealings with the government and non-Muslim society as well. It should be stressed, however, that it is a decentralized organization and there is no close coordination of the branches in different countries.

What is most important to understand about the Brotherhood is that, despite its religion-based ideology, it should be viewed in political, not theological terms. It is and has always been a revolutionary organization seeking to seize state power and then to transform thoroughly the societies where it operates.

This point does not imply any necessary opposition to democratic elections or playing within parliamentary rules. After all, the Brotherhood ran candidates for years in Egyptian elections under the Mubarak regime, though it was not allowed to run as its own party, and has played a parliamentary role for years in Jordan. In the Gaza Strip, however, after it ran in Palestinian elections and won, Hamas seized power by force. The Brotherhood’s most important ideological advisor, the Egyptian but Qatar-based Yusuf al-Qaradawi, has strongly endorsed electoral politics for almost a decade. In response to al-Qaida, which rejected elections, al-Qaradawi said there was no reason not to run candidates, especially since the Brotherhood would win.

EARLY HISTORY

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 in Egypt by the schoolteacher Hasan al-Banna. At that time Islam was at a relative low point in affecting politics. The direct inspiration for the new group was the abolition of the caliphate, which had existed at least nominally since Islam began twelve centuries earlier, by the new Turkish republic. For al-Banna and his friends, Islam had to be restored to center-stage not only socially but also politically.

At that time, nationalism was in the ascendancy. With British help, during World War One the Arab nationalists had revolted against the Ottoman Turkish sultan-caliph, to whom they supposedly owed fealty in Islamic terms. Arab countries had been formed that were tending toward relative secularism. Islamists were a small minority, many of them having been Arabs who had been on the losing side by continuing to back Ottoman rule.

There had been a number of leading thinkers in Egypt, notably Muhammad Abdu and Rashid Ridda, who had argued that Islam was an important element in the country’s national identity and development. They tended, however, to favor a somewhat modernized Islam. The Brotherhood represented a more conservative reaction against the changes taking place in Egypt and the Arab world.

During the 1920s and 1930s, the movement grew quickly, establishing branches in other countries, notably Syria. It reached out to allies, most importantly the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husaini, and developed contacts as far away as the Indian subcontinent. But overall it remained a relatively minor force in an Egyptian national life dominated by the king and relatively liberal parties that sought a more European-style system and worldview for the country.

A key element in the development of the Brotherhood was its admiration for and eventual alliance with Nazi Germany. The Germans subsidized the Brotherhood before and during World War Two. The height of their cooperation came in 1942. As German forces approached Egypt from the west, the Brotherhood prepared an uprising and called for the massacre of the Jews and Christians in the country. Large amounts of German-supplied arms were hidden to be ready for the revolt. But the British defeat of General Erwin Rommel’s forces and decisive British action in Cairo kept the country under control.

After 1945, Egypt was in an unstable situation. The Brotherhood organized a secret group for terrorist activities and also, in 1947, volunteers to fight to turnall of Palestine into an Islamist state, armed with the guns the Germans had provided five years earlier. One of the soldiers was Yasir Arafat.

As a revolutionary situation developed in Egypt, the monarchy closed down the Brotherhood in December 1948, the Brotherhood assassinated Prime Minister Mahmoud al-Nukrashi, and al-Banna was then killed, probably by the government in retaliation.

Instead of the Brotherhood, however, a radical nationalist group in the army seized power, in 1952. The Brotherhood had worked with many of these people in the anti-British, pro-German movement. But the officers, led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, had no interest in sharing power or leaving such a powerful rival intact.

After a controversial alleged assassination attempt on Nasser in 1954, the nationalists crushed the Brotherhood. Its leaders were arrested, sent to concentration camps, and treated very harshly. Three years later, the Syrian branch faced similar treatment by Nasser’s counterparts there. Among the prisoners in Egypt was Sayyid Qutb, an Islamist theorist who is responsible for much of the basis of modern Islamism. He was executed in 1966.

From the mid-1950s, the Brotherhood went underground and into exile. Drawing on links with Saudi Arabia, which offered financing and safe haven, the Brotherhood built an international structure. An infrastructure was built in Europe, based in Germany and Switzerland, to help the movement survive. Although this was not the intention, these operations would prove invaluable in providing the Brotherhood a foothold that would, decades later, help it take a leading role in the new Muslim communities in Europe.

THE BROTHERHOOD REVIVED

After Nasser died in 1970, his successor, Anwar al-Sadat, wanted to strengthen his base against the left-wing faction in the regime that opposed him. He released the Brotherhood leaders from jail and allowed the movement to revive, albeit not officially. In return, the Brotherhood promised not to engage in violence in Egypt, though this did not keep them from continuing to support violence abroad.

Chastened by their suffering, the Brotherhood’s leaders were very cautious. They proclaimed that the current stage of politics was one of base-building and recruiting (da’wa) but not of revolutionary actions. Still, the revival of revolutionary Islamism thrust up new thinkers and activists in Egypt who were impatient with the Brotherhood’s caution.

Such people regularly left the Brotherhood to form smaller, more militant and sometimes violent groups. These included the Jihad movement, which assassinated Sadat in 1981 and whose surviving leaders eventually joined al-Qaida. Other such groups engaged in community organizing. A smaller group of relative moderates urged the Brotherhood to form the Wahda party and give up its revolutionary goals. But the reformers were stymied, eventually quit the Brotherhood, and became openly critical of it.

Wrongly concluding that a revolutionary opportunity was present in the 1990s, the militant groups turned to terrorism and for several years Egypt was wracked by violence, with hundreds of people being killed. The Brotherhood stayed aloof and the government repressed the insurgency.

Thus the situation remained during the last two decades of the Mubarak regime. In its main expression of goals, Brotherhood leaders circulated a political platform in 2007 platform stating that under its rule, “Islam is the official state religion and that the Islamic shari'a is the main source for legislation.” This would be compatible with democracy since this program “will be implemented in a manner that conforms to the [will of the] nation, by means of a parliamentary majority elected in free, clean, and transparent [elections].”

However, a Supreme Council of Clerics would be established to determine what laws are acceptable. While promising to protect non-Muslim citizens in their practice of religion, the state would be “ensuring that no ritual, propaganda, or pilgrimage contradicting Islamic activities are carried out,” which could be interpreted, for example, to forbid the construction or repair of churches among other things.

The Brotherhood functioned effectively but without full legal sanction. It did well in various professional associations, generally ruling the doctors’, lawyers’, and other organizations. On several occasions it joined with other parties to run candidates under their partner’s auspices but was denied their full vote total. The Brotherhood even had members of parliament, though they were elected on the lists of other parties.

Abroad, the Brotherhood advocated anti-Americanism, violence against the United States as well as terrorism against Israel; that country’s extinction; and anti-Semitism, proclaiming that Jews were innately evil and the enemies of Islam.

The Syrian branch of the Brotherhood tried a revolt in 1982 which was suppressed by the regime there with heavy casualties. Its leaders fled to Europe. Brotherhood groups in Lebanon, Iraq, and other countries remained small. In Jordan, however, the branch grew, forming an Islamic Salvation Front to contest elections. While it did well in the balloting, this group was not allowed by the monarchy—which manipulated the rules and results—to win and form a government.

The big area of expansion, however, was in the West. As Muslim immigrants moved to Europe and North America, the Brotherhood was the only international Arab organization that was ready with a strong infrastructure, a clear ideology, and ample financing. In country after country it seized the leading positions even though it only enjoyed direct support from a tiny minority of the communities.

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas appeared from the small Brotherhood branch but was nominally independent. It generally, but not always, cooperated with the PLO, gradually increasing its attacks on Israeli civilians. Hamas rejected Arafat’s decision to enter into negotiations with Israel in 1993 but used the Palestinian Authority to build its own base. In 2000, it allied again with Arafat in another insurgency against Israel. After winning elections, it made a deal with the Fatah nationalists but quickly broke it and launched a coup which seized the Gaza Strip in 2007. In 2011, following Egypt’s revolution, Hamas formally joined the Muslim Brotherhood.

REVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY IN THE “ARAB SPRING”

In the fall of 2010 the Egyptian Brotherhood’s new leader, Muhammad al-Badi, made a dramatic speech changing the organization’s course and initiating a new revolutionary phase. The improvement and change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life."

According to his analysis, the moment to strike had come because the United States was weak and in retreat ("experiencing the beginning of its end and is heading towards its demise"); Islamist groups had been defeating Israel; and the Mubarak regime—its leader ailing and his choice of son as successor extremely unpopular—was near collapse. One reason for that decline, al-Badi claimed, was that it had not fulfilled “Allah's commandment to wage jihad…so that Allah's word will reign supreme” over all non-Muslims.

The following February, liberal-radical groups with which the Brotherhood had been cooperating launched massive demonstrations centered in Tahrir Square. Aware that a high profile would make it subject to government repression and wanting to see if the movement succeeded before committing itself, the Brotherhood held aloof for a few days. Then, with the movement gaining momentum, it shifted to full participation.

In Tunisia, which also had an army-assisted revolution, the Brotherhood branch gained 40 percent of the vote in the subsequent elections and took the leading role in forming the government. It was constrained, however, by the need to form a coalition with secular parties.

Once Mubarak had been forced out of power by the army in Egypt, the Brotherhood emerged into the light. In February 2011, a huge demonstration headlined by the Brotherhood’s most influential ideologist, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, called out an estimated one million plus people in Cairo, dwarfing the liberals’ events. From that point on, the Brotherhood took the lead in the revolution.

The Brotherhood had to make three difficult strategic decisions:

--How bold should it be in seeking power? The Brotherhood had already decided to participate fully in elections, as it had done before under Mubarak, but at first it insisted that it would only run candidates for one-third of the parliamentary seats. Over the ensuing months, this was raised to one-half and finally to all of the seats. In the 2012 elections for the lower house of parliament it would gain 47 percent.

Similarly, the Brotherhood repeatedly stated that it would not run a presidential candidate but preferred to back a liberal or nationalist one. Rejecting this policy, a leading Brotherhood official and reputedly a relative moderate, Abdul Moneim Aboul Fotouh, declared his candidacy and was expelled. In the May 2012 first round, the Brotherhood’s Muhammad Mursi came in first with more than 25 percent of the vote while Fotouh ran fourth with 19 percent.

--Who should it identify as its main allies and enemies in Egyptian politics? The Brotherhood at times worked on making a deal with the military junta while at other times cooperated with liberal and radical secular groups against the transitional military regime. In the end, it was able to maintain decent relations with both.

--How radical or moderate should it appear to be? The Brotherhood undertook a carefully coordinated charm offensive to persuade the West that it was now moderate. For example, its English-language blog highlighted such statements and omitted the positions taken by the Brotherhood in Arabic.

Many observers in the West—including government officials, academics, and journalists—argued that the Brotherhood had become moderate. They particularly cited personal contacts with Brotherhood leaders or activists; the organization’s alleged rejection of violence; and its participation in elections. It was also argued that participation in elections and in governance would inevitably moderate the Brotherhood.

A serious problem with this thesis, however, was when the Brotherhood adopted an extremely radical stance during the presidential elections, calling for a Sharia state and the restoration of the Caliphate. By then, many of those who had previously proclaimed the Brotherhood’s moderation transferred the label of “moderate Islamist” to Fotouh.

There were certainly those in Egypt for whom the Brotherhood was deemed insufficiently militant. Such groups, mostly descended from the 1990s’ dissidents, were collectively called Salafists. The most extreme engaged in violent attacks on churches and the Israeli embassy. Some, particularly in the Sinai, began assaults on police stations to obtain arms and repeatedly sabotaged the natural gas pipeline to Israel, forcing it to be closed down.

While the Salafists gained about 25 percent in the parliamentary elections, their candidate was barred from the presidential elections on a technicality. Some of the Salafist groups endorsed Fotouh. It was not clear whether the Salafists would be able to work with the Brotherhood in the future, due to differences in tactics and rivalry for power, although their basic goals were quite similar.

The great change in the Brotherhood’s fortunes made it clear that the group would play a leading role in the governance of Egypt and possible that it would be the governing power. More broadly, the Egyptian Brotherhood, using the state to whatever extent, had placed itself at the head of a Sunni Islamist bloc including Hamas, which governed in the Gaza Strip; the Tunisian government; the Syrian branch, which was playing a leading role in the civil war there; and the Jordanian branch, along with smaller groups in Libya, Lebanon, and elsewhere.

With its leading role in many Muslim communities in Europe and North America, the Brotherhood has emerged as a considerable international force. Clearly the leading Sunni Islamist group in the world, it is arguably the most important revolutionary organization in the world as well.

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

Doc's Talk