'Jewish presence in Hebron is an indisputable historical fact'

'Jewish presence in Hebron is an indisputable historical fact' Hebron strongman Sheik Farid Khader el-Ja’abari is one of the Palestinian Authority's most outspoken opponents • He rejects the idea of a Palestinian state and keeps close contact with the IDF and Jewish settlers.  Nadav Shragai Sheik Farid Khader el-Ja’abari is not willing to participate in games of war and peace. In the winter of 1974, the newspaper Al-Fajr published a cartoon showing the mayor of Hebron, Sheik Mohammed Ali el-Ja’abari, with a slipper stuffed in his mouth. Ja’abari, the all-powerful mayor of Hebron at the time, a friend of Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and of King Hussein of Jordan, was the one who, four years earlier, had allowed the establishment of the Jewish neighborhood in Kiryat Arba. His close relationship with the Israeli administration became a thorn in the sides of Palestinian nationalists. The editor of Al-Fajr at the time was Yusuf (Joe) Nasser. For the sheik’s loyalists, the cartoon was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Veteran journalist Danny Rubinstein, who covered the Palestinian territories for the newspaper Davar at the time, recalled this week how, at a conference that Ja’abari attended, an elderly man stood up and called out, “Don’t worry, your Excellency – we will bring you the decapitated head of Yusuf Nasser on a tray of food.” Several days later, Yusuf Nasser disappeared from his home on Salah a-Din Street in east Jerusalem and was never seen again. Although the people suspected in the kidnapping, Ja’abari’s men, were arrested and interrogated, they were released due to lack of evidence. Thirty-seven years later, as the Palestinians advocate in the U.N. for a state of their own, the mythical sheik's successor, his nephew Sheik Farid Khader el-Ja’abari, faces a similar test. This time, it is not an insulting cartoon at issue, but a more serious matter. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah’s military wing, has made open threats on his life. The reason is the sheik’s firm statements against the Oslo Accords and the idea of establishing a Palestinian state, and his close ties with the settlers of Hebron and Kiryat Arba. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has demanded that Ja’abari retract his statements. Those loyal to the sheikh, who has hundreds of armed men at his service, are seething with anger, but the 63-year-old has ordered everyone to show restraint. Sometimes restraint is power, and sometimes it is not. Five years ago, the Palestinian police killed Mohammed Ja’abari, 17, a member of the Ja’abari clan, by mistake. The sheik asked that the shooter be turned over to him. The Palestinian Authority demurred. That night, his people raided a building belonging to Force 17 in Hebron, torching 14 jeeps and capturing 34 Palestinian police officers. Only after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas contacted Ja’abari and pleaded for a sulha [a formal ceremony of reconciliation] were the police officers released. The PA, which declared the young man a shahid [martyr], continues to pay a salary to his family to this day. “A state contradicts Islam” Ja’abari, one of the strong men in the Hebron region today, heads a clan of approximately 35,000 people. The proud descendant of an old tribal-religious line, he is known as al-Hut al-Abiad – “the white whale” – a nickname that stuck because of the white robe that he often wears. Ja’abari’s connections and influence extend far and wide: from the settlers, the Civil Administration and the IDF to officials of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the jihadist organizations. His opinions and worldview are hard to label. On the one hand, in recent years he has become the ally of the settlers and of the state of Israel. On the other, he is one of the most vigorous opponents of the establishment of a Palestinian state, but not for the reason that the settlers oppose it. Rather, he opposes it for the same reason that Hamas and Islamic Jihad do: Ja’abari believes that it is tantamount to treason and territorial concessions, which Islam strictly forbids. The latest conflict between Ja’abari and the Palestinian Authority took place over statements that he made several weeks ago at the end of a meal marking the conclusion of Ramadan. The statements barely made waves at the time, perhaps because they were published in the Israeli press only on the Arutz Sheva website [a media outlet associated with the settlement movement], but in Hebron and in the Arab media, they spread like wildfire. “A Palestinian state,” said the sheik, “has no basis to exist here. Perhaps in Jordan, but not in Israel. It has no land in reality; the Jews will not erase a single chapter from the Torah, and the Muslims will not erase a single verse from the Koran. This is holy soil, and we must not sell it or give it up in negotiations or in return for compensation. The governments of Israel made a mistake in that instead of talking with the sheikhs, they talked with the leaders from Tunis. Before Oslo, all the heads of Palestinian families met and sent a delegation led by Khaider Abu Shafi, but Israel laughed at them and met with the PLO without their knowledge. Israel did not contact the real leadership, which knows the street and the Palestinian population. All the political organizations – Hamas, Fatah and the Popular Front – are no more than 5 percent of the Palestinian people." "Recognition of a Palestinian state violates Islam. Even if the government should evacuate all the settlements, there will not be peace ... Oslo was a catastrophe for the Palestinian side as well. If only we might have stayed in the time before Oslo. Then the situation was better economically. Today, there is more than 40 percent unemployment ... In principle, we are a conservative society. Now there is no conservatism. There is nothing at all.” The response to these statements was not long in coming. In a flier that they issued, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades accused Ja’abari of making light of the basic rights of the Palestinians, who had made many sacrifices. His statements against the Palestinian Authority and in favor of the settlers were made out to be more extreme. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades demanded that Ja’abari’s relatives distance themselves from the sheik and condemn his statements. They warned that anyone who published an opposing opinion “would find the barrels of our rifles stronger than he or his response ... We declare that the man Farid Khader el-Ja’abari is under our surveillance step by step, and if he does not retract, our response will be made with guns ... We will not hesitate to take revenge upon all those who betray the Palestinian issue.” A man of “not one inch” Ja’abari is not to be underestimated. He is no pet Arab or pet sheik. The constant dialogue that he holds with the army and with the Jews in Hebron are motivated by a well-thought-out religious doctrine. Approximately two weeks ago, we spoke with a contact person and asked to interview him. He agreed, but after a threat from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the interview was “temporarily postponed.” Nevertheless, we decided to write to him both because he is a major figure in Palestinian life in Judea and Samaria and because his conflict with the PA is taking place as the PA is working at the U.N. to declare a Palestinian state, which Ja’abari sees as a disaster. He is a man of “not one inch.” He calls Mahmoud Abbas, who “chatters about dividing the country,” a crook, and says that he has no authority. Ja’abari is not willing to give up “even a millimeter of sacred soil,” not only in Judea and Samaria, but also “in Jerusalem, in Ramle, in Lod and in Haifa.” On the other hand, Ja’abari is a man of honor and of coexistence and practicality, a firm opponent of terrorism and violence who supports dialogue and discourse as values in themselves. Regarding the Jewish presence in Hebron, he says, “It is an indisputable historical fact, and so we must find a way to live with each other.” How can the contradiction be resolved? How can an ideology held in common with Hamas about the “wholeness of the land” and an alliance with the settlers, who wish to wrest the land from Islam’s power and make it Jewish, live side by side? One of the sheik’s close associates, a constant visitor to his home, tries to explain. “The sheik is a man of truth and is not willing to participate in games of war and peace. The sheik’s truth is based upon the Koran, which forbids giving up Islamic land, period. One who gives up even a centimeter of it – his blood be upon his own head. Therefore, the formula of evacuating settlements is nonsense. It will solve nothing. In the same breath, the sheik also remembers the statements of the Prophet Muhammad, who said that if the enemy wished for silam (half-peace), half-peace could be made with him, a kind of hudna (temporary cease-fire), until you become stronger and can defeat him." “The sheik says: I walk in the way of Islam and combine religion with pragmatism and humanity. He understands that Israel is a fact that cannot be changed, and says: I want to live with the people here in mutual respect. I will help them and I will protect them, and they will help me and protect me. In the end, the Messiah will come. If our Mahdi comes first, all the Jews will become Muslim. If the Messiah of the Jews comes first, we will all become Jews.” Compromise and dialogue The sheik has been putting his unique worldview into practice for several years. Statesmen and generals from both peoples come to see him. He spends most of his time in arbitration and mediation between Arabs and Arabs and between Jews and Arabs. In 1978, he left the country to become a successful contractor in Saudi Arabia. Two years later, his uncle, Sheik Mohammed Ja’abari, the mayor of Hebron, died, but only in 1994 did he accede to his family’s command, returning to take up the reins of the tribe. Dialogue groups that include Rabbi Yaakov Meidan of Gush Etzion, Noam Arnon of Hebron and Malachi Levinger of Kiryat Arba have been started in his home near the Cave of the Patriarchs. When Eliakim Haetzni was wounded in a road accident, Ja’abari visited him in the hospital. And when an Arab contractor who built in Elazar tried to “sting” his customer by demanding an astronomical price, the Jewish party contacted Ja’abari, who brokered a compromise between them. Israeli Arabs also contact him, and Civil Administration and IDF officials see him as the go-to person when they have a local problem that needs solving. He is considered one of three clerics in Israel and in the territories who have the power to stop blood feuds, which are still customary in some segments of Muslim and Bedouin society. The anarchists who operated in Hebron almost drove him out of his mind with anger. He saw them as instigators and troublemakers, and also as a danger to Islam because of their permissive ways and immodest manner of dress. The Jews of Hebron did not like the anarchists in Hebron for exactly the same reasons, and so an unusual cooperation took place that led to the placing of an Arabic-speaking Jewish modesty observer in the streets of the city. On the Jewish New Year five years ago, Ja’abari put out a large conflagration. The Palestinian landlord on which the Hazon David tent synagogue was erected in Kiryat Arba was about to give the anarchists power of attorney to evacuate the settlers from it by force. This was supposed to take place at the height of the New Year holiday. Ja’abari scuttled the plan. His actions astonished the army, which had tried to evacuate the outpost from the privately-owned Palestinian lot dozens of times. Then came the well-publicized meeting with the settlers in the sheikh’s home, which was attended by additional Arab dignitaries and the brigade commander of Hebron. The Jewish community in Kiryat Arba gave the sheikh its own certificate of appreciation. The sheikh’s intervention led to a solution to the water problem in the Givat Ha'Avot neighborhood in Kiryat Arba. A pipe to the neighborhood was supposed to pass through privately-owned Palestinian land. The Palestinian Authority threatened the land owner, warning him not to allow the pipe to go through his land. Once again Ja’abari intervened, and an agreement between the land owner and the Jewish community stipulated that the residents of the nearby Arab neighborhood would also benefit from the water that flowed through the pipe. Instead of everybody losing, everybody won. One of the best-known stories in Hebron, which made a strong impression on the Arab residents and showed that the relationship between the Jews of Hebron and Ja’abari’s people had become a kind of covenant, took place several months ago. Amir el-Ja’abari, a 16-year-old youth of the Ja’abari clan, quarreled with a youth from the Zreir family and was stabbed in the throat. The injured youth, who lost a great deal of blood, was taken to Al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron, but his condition deteriorated rapidly. His family decided to transfer him to an Israeli hospital. The Civil Administration opposed it, but the medical staff of Kiryat Arba joined in the mission. At a certain stage, a military ambulance sped after the ambulance of Kiryat Arba after it received an order from the Civil Administration to return him to the Palestinian hospital. The Kiryat Arba ambulance ignored the order, bypassed the IDF checkpoint and sped toward Soroka Hospital. When hospital officials discovered the patient’s identity, the youth was at death’s door and about to undergo cranial surgery. The hospital demanded a financial guarantee of payment. Within an hour, the sheikh transferred NIS 58,000 to Soroka Hospital. The youth underwent a difficult operation on his brain from which he never recovered. He died three days later. Tribal loyalty What sets the Ja’abari clan apart from the rest of the Palestinians in Hebron is their tribal loyalty. The Ja’abaris have thousands of armed “representatives” in Hamas and in the PA’s security services, but their tribal loyalty takes precedence over all other loyalties, and the sheikh’s word is considered sacred. When Ja’abari returned to Israel in 1994 and took up the reins, the Palestinian Authority entered the area as well. They were two parallel lines that had difficulty meeting. The clerk with the insignia represented the Palestinian Authority. The sheikh represented the tribal authority. After Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades threatened his life, the sheikh kept silence. Several days later, representatives of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades came to his door, swearing that the flier was a forgery. The sheikh investigated. He did not believe them. Now, there is a tense quiet between the two sides. What will he do if a Palestinian state ends up being established after all? His close associates say that if Israel supports it, he will resign himself to its existence, “as he resigned himself to the existence of the Palestinian Authority, all of whose power and existence," he says, "depend on Israel. If Israel does not support the PA,” the sheik tells his close associates, “the PA will not last more than two hours. It will be swept quickly from the streets.” http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=1713

Israel's Roots

Chapter 1: Israel's Roots - “The Jews have no claim to the land they call Israel.” - “Palestine was always an Arab country.” - “The Palestinians are descendants of the Canaanites and were in Palestine long before the Jews.” - “The Balfour Declaration did not give Jews a right to a homeland in Palestine.” - “Arabs in Palestine suffered because of Jewish settlement.” - “Zionism is racism.” - “The Zionists could have chosen another country besides Palestine.” - “Herzl himself proposed Uganda as the Jewish state as an alternative to Palestine.” - “The Arabs saw the Balfour Declaration as a betrayal of their rights.” - “The Zionists were colonialist tools of Western imperialism.” - “The British promised the Arabs independence in Palestine.” MYTH “The Jews have no claim to the land they call Israel." FACT A common misperception is that all the Jews were forced into the Diaspora by the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E. and then, 1,800 years later, the Jews suddenly returned to Palestine demanding their country back. In reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years. The Jewish people base their claim to the Land of Israel on at least four premises: 1) the Jewish people settled and developed the land; 2) the international community granted political sovereignty in Palestine to the Jewish people; 3) the territory was captured in defensive wars and 4) God promised the land to the patriarch Abraham. Even after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and the beginning of the exile, Jewish life in the Land of Israel continued and often flourished. Large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem and Tiberiasby the ninth century. In the 11th century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa andCaesarea. The Crusaders massacred many Jews during the 12th century, but the community rebounded in the next two centuries as large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee. Prominent rabbis established communities in Safed, Jerusalem and elsewhere during the next 300 years. By the early 19th century—years before the birth of the modern Zionist movement—more than 10,000 Jews lived throughout what is today Israel.1 The 78 years of nation-building, beginning in 1870, culminated in thereestablishment of the Jewish State. Israel’s international “birth certificate” was validated by the promise of the Bible; uninterrupted Jewish settlement from the time of Joshua onward; the Balfour Declaration of 1917; the League of Nations Mandate, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration; the United Nations partition resolution of 1947; Israel’s admission to the UN in 1949; the recognition of Israel by most other states; and, most of all, the society created by Israel’s people in decades of thriving, dynamic national existence. “Nobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its ‘right to exist.' Israel’s right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved. Israel’s legitimacy is not suspended in midair awaiting acknowledgement. . . .There is certainly no other state, big or small, young or old, that would consider mere recognition of its ‘right to exist’ a favor, or a negotiable concession.” Abba Eban 2 MYTH “Palestine was always an Arab country.” FACT The term “Palestine” is believed to be derived from the Philistines, an Aegean people who, in the 12th CenturyB.C.E., settled along the Mediterranean coastal plain of what are now Israel and the Gaza Strip. In the second century C.E., after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans first applied the name Palaestina to Judea (the southern portion of what is now called the West Bank) in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. The Arabic word Filastin is derived from this Latin name. 3 Map of British Mandate The Hebrews entered the Land of Israel about 1300 B.C.E., living under a tribal confederation until being united under the first monarch, King Saul. The second king, David, established Jerusalem as the capital around 1000 B.C.E. David’s son, Solomon, built the Temple soon thereafter and consolidated the military, administrative and religious functions of the kingdom. The nation was divided under Solomon’s son, with the northern kingdom (Israel) lasting until 722 B.C.E., when the Assyrians destroyed it, and the southern kingdom (Judah) surviving until the Babylonianconquest in 586 B.C.E. The Jewish people enjoyed brief periods of sovereignty afterward until most Jews were finally driven from their homeland in 135 C.E. Jewish independence in the Land of Israel lasted for more than 400 years. This is much longer than Americans have enjoyed independence in what has become known as the United States. 4 In fact, if not for foreign conquerors, Israel would be more than 3,000 years old today. Palestine was never an exclusively Arab country, although Arabic gradually became the language of most of the population after the Muslim invasions of the seventh century. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine. When the distinguished Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history, absolutely not.”5 Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted: We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.6 In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: “There is no such country as Palestine! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.” 7 The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations echoed this view in a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947, which said Palestine was part of the Province of Syria and the Arabs of Palestine did not comprise a separate political entity. A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: “It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria.” 8 Palestinian Arab nationalism is largely a post-World War I phenomenon that did not become a significant political movement until after the 1967 Six-Day War. MYTH “The Palestinians are descendants of the Canaanites and were in Palestine long before the Jews.” FACT Palestinian claims to be related to the Canaanites are a recent phenomenon and contrary to historical evidence. The Canaanites disappeared from the face of the earth three millennia ago, and no one knows if any of their descendants survived or, if they did, who they would be. Sherif Hussein, the guardian of the Islamic Holy Places in Arabia, said the Palestinians’ ancestors had only been in the area for 1,000 years. 9 Even the Palestinians themselves have acknowledged their association with the region came long after the Jews. In testimony before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, for example, they claimed a connection to Palestine of more than 1,000 years, dating back no further than the conquest ofMuhammad’s followers in the 7th century.10Over the last 2,000 years, there have been massive invasions (e.g., the Crusades) that killed off most of the local people, migrations, the plague, and other manmade or natural disasters. The entire local population was replaced many times over. During the British mandate alone, more than 100,000 Arabs emigrated from neighboring countries and are today considered Palestinians. By contrast, no serious historian questions the more than 3,000-year-old Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, or the modern Jewish people’s relation to the ancient Hebrews. MYTH “The Balfour Declaration did not give Jews the right to a homeland in Palestine.” FACT In 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration: His Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. The Mandate for Palestine included the Balfour Declaration. It specifically referred to “the historical connections of the Jewish people with Palestine” and to the moral validity of “reconstituting their National Home in that country.” The term “reconstituting” shows recognition of the fact that Palestine had been the Jews’ home. Furthermore, the British were instructed to “use their best endeavors to facilitate” Jewish immigration, to encourage settlement on the land and to “secure” the Jewish National Home. The word “Arab” does not appear in the Mandatory award. 11 The Mandate was formalized by the 52 governments at the League of Nations on July 24, 1922. MYTH “Arabs in Palestine suffered because of Jewish settlement.” FACT For many centuries, Palestine was a sparsely populated, poorly cultivated and widely-neglected expanse of eroded hills, sandy deserts and malarial marshes. As late as 1880, the American consul in Jerusalem reported the area was continuing its historic decline. “The population and wealth of Palestine has not increased during the last forty years,” he said. 12 The Report of the Palestine Royal Commission quotes an account of the Maritime Plain in 1913: The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts . . . ​no orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached [the Jewish village of] Yabna [Yavne]. . . . Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen. . . . The ploughs used were of wood. . . . The yields were very poor. . . . The sanitary conditions in the village were horrible. Schools did not exist. . . . The western part, towards the sea, was almost a desert. . . . The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants. 13 Surprisingly, many people who were not sympathetic to the Zionist cause believed the Jews would improve the condition of Palestinian Arabs. For example, Dawood Barakat, editor of the Egyptian paper Al-Ahram,wrote: “It is absolutely necessary that an entente be made between the Zionists and Arabs, because the war of words can only do evil. The Zionists are necessary for the country: The money which they will bring, their knowledge and intelligence, and the industriousness which characterizes them will contribute without doubt to the regeneration of the country.” 14 Even a leading Arab nationalist believed the return of the Jews to their homeland would help resuscitate the country. According to Sherif Hussein, the guardian of the Islamic Holy Places in Arabia: The resources of the country are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants. One of the most amazing things until recent times was that the Palestinian used to leave his country, wandering over the high seas in every direction. His native soil could not retain a hold on him, though his ancestors had lived on it for 1000 years. At the same time we have seen the Jews from foreign countries streaming to Palestine from Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, America. The cause of causes could not escape those who had a gift of deeper insight. They knew that the country was for its original sons (abna’ihi-l-asliyin), for all their differences, a sacred and beloved homeland. The return of these exiles (jaliya) to their homeland will prove materially and spiritually [to be] an experimental school for their brethren who are with them in the fields, factories, trades and in all things connected with toil and labor. 15 As Hussein foresaw, the regeneration of Palestine, and the growth of its population, came only after Jews returned in massive numbers. “Mark Twain, who visited Palestine in 1867, described it as: “. . . a desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds—a silent mournful expanse. . . . A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. . . . 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 the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.” 16 MYTH “Zionism is racism.” FACT In 1975, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution slandering Zionism by equating it with racism.Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, which holds that Jews, like any other nation, are entitled to a homeland. History has demonstrated the need to ensure Jewish security through a national homeland. Zionism recognizes that Jewishness is defined by shared origin, religion, culture and history. The realization of the Zionist dream is exemplified by nearly six million Jews, from more than 100 countries, who are Israeli citizens. Israel’s Law of Return grants automatic citizenship to Jews, but non-Jews are also eligible to become citizens under naturalization procedures similar to those in other countries. Israel’s policy is not unique; many other countries, including Germany, Greece, Ireland and Finland have special categories of people who are entitled to citizenship. More than one million Muslim and Christian Arabs, Druze, Baha’is, Circassians and other ethnic groups also are represented in Israel’s population. The presence in Israel of thousands of Jews from Ethiopia, Yemen and India is the best refutation of the calumny against Zionism. In a series of historic airlifts, labeled Operations Moses (1984), Joshua (1985) and Solomon (1991), Israel rescued more than 20,000 members of the ancient Ethiopian Jewish community. Zionism does not discriminate against anyone. Israel’s open and democratic character, and its scrupulous protection of the religious and political rights of Christians and Muslims, rebut the charge of exclusivity. Moreover, anyone—Jew or non-Jew, Israeli, American, or Chinese, black, white, or purple—can be a Zionist. By contrast, the Arab states define citizenship strictly by native parentage. It is almost impossible to become a naturalized citizen in Arab states such as Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Several Arab nations have laws that facilitate the naturalization of foreign Arabs, with the specific exception of Palestinians. Jordan, on the other hand, instituted its own “law of return” in 1954, according citizenship to all former residents of Palestine, except for Jews.18 The 1975 UN resolution was part of the Soviet-Arab Cold War anti-Israel campaign. Almost all the former non-Arab supporters of the resolution have apologized and changed their positions. When the General Assembly voted to repeal the resolution in 1991, only some Arab and Muslim states, as well as Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam were opposed. Writing after “Operation Moses” was revealed, William Safire noted: “. . . For the first time in history, thousands of black people are being brought to a country not in chains but in dignity, not as slaves but as citizens.” 17 MYTH “The Zionists could have chosen another country besides Palestine.” FACT In the late 19th century, the rise of anti-Semitism led to a resurgence of pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, shattering promises of equality and tolerance. This stimulated Jewish immigration to Palestine from Europe. Simultaneously, a wave of Jews immigrated to Palestine from Yemen, Morocco, Iraq and Turkey. These Jews were unaware of Theodor -Herzl’s political Zionism or of European pogroms. They were motivated by the centuries-old dream of the “Return to Zion” and a fear of intolerance. Upon hearing that the gates of Palestine were open, they braved the hardships of travel and went to the Land of Israel. The Zionist ideal of a return to Israel has profound religious roots. Many Jewish prayers speak of Jerusalem, Zion and the Land of Israel. The injunction not to forget Jerusalem, the site of the Temple, is a major tenet of Judaism. The Hebrew language, the Torah, laws in the Talmud, the Jewish calendar and Jewish holidays and festivals all originated in Israel and revolve around its seasons and conditions. Jews pray toward Jerusalem and recite the words “next year in Jerusalem” every Passover. Jewish religion, culture and history make clear that it is only in the land of Israel that the Jewish commonwealth can be built. In 1897, Jewish leaders formally organized the Zionist political movement, calling for the restoration of the Jewish national home in Palestine, where Jews could find sanctuary and self-determination, and work for the renascence of their civilization and culture. MYTH “Herzl himself proposed Uganda as the Jewish state as an alternative to Palestine.” FACT Theodor Herzl sought support from the great powers for the creation of a Jewish homeland. He turned to Great Britain, and met with Joseph Chamberlain, the British colonial secretary and others. The British agreed, in principle, to permit Jewish settlement in East Africa. At the Sixth Zionist Congress at Basle on August 26, 1903, Herzl proposed the British Uganda Program as atemporary emergency refuge for Jews in Russia in immediate danger. While Herzl made it clear that this program would not affect the ultimate aim of Zionism, a Jewish entity in the Land of Israel, the proposal aroused a storm of protest at the Congress and nearly led to a split in the Zionist movement. The Uganda Program, which never had much support, was formally rejected by the Zionist movement at the Seventh Zionist Congress in 1905. MYTH “The Arabs saw the Balfour Declaration as a betrayal of their rights.” FACT Emir Faisal, son of Sherif Hussein, the leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks, signed an agreement withChaim Weizmann and other Zionist leaders during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. It acknowledged the “racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people” and concluded that “the surest means of working out the consummation of their national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab states and Palestine.” Furthermore, the agreement looked to the fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration and called for all necessary measures “ . . . ​to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil.” 19 Faisal had conditioned his acceptance of the Balfour Declaration on the fulfillment of British wartime promises of independence to the Arabs. These were not kept. Critics dismiss the Weizmann-Faisal agreement because it was never enacted; however, the fact that the leader of the Arab nationalist movement and the Zionist movement could reach an understanding is significant because it demonstrated that Jewish and Arab aspirations were not necessarily mutually exclusive. "Our settlers do not come here as do the colonists from the Occident to have natives do their work for them; they themselves set their shoulders to the plow and they spend their strength and their blood to make the land fruitful. But it is not only for ourselves that we desire its fertility. The Jewish farmers have begun to teach their brothers, the Arab farmers, to cultivate the land more intensively; we desire to teach them further: together with them we want to cultivate the land—to ‘serve’ it, as the Hebrew has it. The more fertile this soil becomes, the more space there will be for us and for them. We have no desire to dispossess them: we want to live with them.” Martin Buber20 MYTH “The Zionists were colonialist tools of Western imperialism.” FACT “Colonialism means living by exploiting others,” Yehoshofat Harkabi has written. “But what could be further from colonialism than the idealism of city-dwelling Jews who strive to become farmers and laborers and to live by their own work?” 21 Moreover, as British historian Paul Johnson noted, Zionists were hardly tools of imperialists given the powers’ general opposition to their cause. “Everywhere in the West, the foreign offices, defense ministries and big business were against the Zionists.” 22 Emir Faisal also saw the Zionist movement as a companion to the Arab nationalist movement, fighting against imperialism, as he explained in a letter to Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter on March 3, 1919, one day after Chaim Weizmann presented the Zionist case to the Paris conference. Faisal wrote: The Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. . . . We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home. . . . We are working together for a reformed and revised Near East and our two movements complete one another. The Jewish movement is nationalist and not imperialist. And there is room in Syria for us both. Indeed, I think that neither can be a real success without the other (emphasis added). 23 In the 1940s, the Jewish underground movements waged an anti--colonial war against the British. The Arabs, meanwhile, were concerned primarily with fighting the Jews rather than expelling the British imperialists. MYTH “The British promised the Arabs independence in Palestine.” FACT The central figure in the Arab nationalist movement at the time of World War I was Hussein ibn ‘Ali, the Sherif of Mecca in 1908. As Sherif, Hussein was responsible for the custody of Islam’s shrines in the Hejaz and was one of the Muslims’ spiritual leaders. In July 1915, Hussein sent a letter to Sir Henry MacMahon, the High Commissioner for Egypt, informing him of the terms for Arab participation in the war against the Turks. The letters between Hussein and MacMahon that followed outlined the areas that Britain was prepared to cede to the Arabs in exchange for their help. The Hussein-MacMahon correspondence conspicuously fails to mention Palestine. The British argued the omission had been intentional, thereby justifying their refusal to grant the Arabs independence in Palestine after the war.24MacMahon explained: I feel it my duty to state, and I do so definitely and emphatically, that it was not intended by me in giving this pledge to King Hussein to include Palestine in the area in which Arab independence was promised. I also had every reason to believe at the time that the fact that Palestine was not included in my pledge was well understood by King Hussein. 25 Sources: 1 Dan Bahat, ed. Twenty Centuries of Jewish Life in the Holy Land, (Jerusalem: The Israel Economist, 1976), pp. 61–63. 2 New York Times, (November 18, 1981). 3 Yehoshua Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, 1918–1929, (London: Frank Cass, 1974), p. 4. 4 Max Dimont, Jews, God and History, (NY: Signet, 1962), pp. 49–53. 5 Moshe Kohn, “The Arabs’ ‘Lie’ of the Land,” Jerusalem Post, (October 18, 1991). 6 Randall Price, Fast Facts on the Middle East Conflict, (Harvest House Publishers: 2003), p. 25. 7 Moshe Kohn, “The Arabs’ ‘Lie’ of the Land,” Jerusalem Post, (October 18, 1991). 8 Avner Yaniv, PLO, (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Study Group of Middle Eastern Affairs, August 1974), p. 5. 9 Al-Qibla, (March 23, 1918), quoted in Samuel Katz, Battleground-Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, (NY: Bantam Books, 1977), p. 126. 10 British Government, Report of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry, 1946, Part VI, (April 20, 1946). 11 Howard Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), p. 129. 12 Ben Halpern, The Idea of a Jewish State, (MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 108. 13 Palestine Royal Commission Report, p. 233. 14 Neville Mandel, The Arabs and Zionism Before World War I, (University of California Press: 1976), p. 8. 15 Al-Qibla, (March 23, 1918), quoted in Samuel Katz, Battleground-Fact and Fantasy in Palestine, (NY: Bantam Books, 1977), p. 126. 16 Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, (London, 1881). 17 New York Times, (January 7, 1985). 18 Jordanian Nationality Law, Article 3(2) of Law No. 6 of 1954, Official Gazette, No. 1171, January 1, 1954. 19 Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error, (NY: Schocken Books, 1966), pp. 246–247; Howard Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), p. 121. 20 From an open letter from Martin Buber to Mahatma Gandhi in 1939, accessed at GandhiServe.com. 21 Yehoshofat Harkabi, Palestinians And Israel, (Jerusalem: Keter, 1974), p. 6. 22 Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties, (NY: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 485. 23 Naomi Comay, Arabs Speak Frankly on the Arab-Israeli Conflict, (Printing Miracle Ltd., 2005), p. 8. 24 George Kirk, A Short History of the Middle East, (NY: Frederick Praeger Publishers, 1964), p. 314. 25 “Report of a Committee Setup to Consider Certain Correspondence Between Sir Henry McMahon and the Sharif of Mecca in 1915/1916,” U.K. Parliament, March 16, 1939. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths3/MFroots.html#1

Let’s Boogie!

Daniel Teeboom

Of course Ya’alon is right. The negotiations between Palestinians and Israeli’s are not about peace, they are about John Kerry’s presidential ambitions. The guy had plastic surgery done on his face as soon as he became secretary of state last year. What kinda guy has his face reconstructed at age 70? You think he wants to go dating?


This is about him becoming president, it’s always been. In the sixties he spent 3 months as an officer in Vietnam. Just enough time so he could get the hell out at first opportunity and make a political career out of denouncing the soldiers who served with him. Of course this is about him becoming president. And he’s perfectly willing to sacrifice others to get there.


Despite not making any progress Kerry is declaring at every opportunity that peace is at hand. That’s his desire talking, not his common sense. There is no chance Palestinians and Israeli’s will ever agree on the core issues of Jerusalem and the refugees. But here he is happily declaring a peace agreement will be signed soon. Why? Because he doesn’t care about Israel or the Palestinians. He cares about being president. He’s even willing to suggest a third intifada if things don’t work out. The personal ambition of this entire undertaking is just breathtaking.

So is his desire for revenge.

To prove what kind of guy he is -how he rolls- Kerry is not only hinting to Palestinians that they should resume killing Israeli’s. He is also pushing European countries to boycott Israel in case those damn Jews prove to be unwilling to destroy themselves to advance his presidential ambitions. Yeah, there’s a man you can trust. All he needs is a scar on his face and an Italian accent.

Oh I forgot, that’s going to ruin his face job.

What a team. While Obama blows up the Middle East, Kerry sacrifices small nations to himself. Hey if they ran a TV show they could call it “No survivors”!

So? Should Israel go along with it? Signing peace with Abbas does not mean peace with Hamas or any of the various Palestinian groups in Lebanon. It achieves nothing, it doesn’t halt Iran’s nuclear bomb, it doesn’t end hostility to the Jewish state. Israel will have to vacate Judea and Samaria, accept thousands of Palestinian refugees, decapitate itself by giving up Jerusalem, evacuate hundreds of thousands of settlers and for what? A promise of peace no Arab is willing to keep and an endless stream of Jihadi’s from all over the world who will attack Israeli civilians at any opportunity.

Oh but we’ll get a President John Kerry! And here I was thinking peace had an upside. But that’s of course not what the peace process is about.

If you think that’s a good deal I have a few other suggestions for you. How about letting a rabid dog gnaw off all your fingers for just € 25,95? Special deal, just for you. You’ll get a free decapitation thrown in as well. How ’bout that ey?

Well at least over at Haaretz they think it’s all worth it, because after all John Kerry has great hair. Seriously. Money quote: “Kerry’s height and great shock of hair are reminiscent of some of the early U.S. presidents: Upright, full of energy”. Geez, get a room.

By the way, dear reader, if you accidentally clicked on the link please don’t get a subscription at Haaretz. Just kill yourself ok? It’s less painful.


http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-wont-israelis-sacrifice-themselves-for-kerrys-presidential-ambitions/