This Week: Two Big “Yes, But” Issues Raised in Email from Long-time Reader Lew
What has kept me writing these weekly emails all this time is the email exchanges I’ve had with you Gentle Readers. Some have been “keep-at-it” encouragement; some express utter agreement or disagreement; and some, like this week’s from long-longtime reader Lew, commence “Yes, but ….” Lew raises two real-life issues on which we all need to think and, I think, act.
“Hi Jerry,
“I hope all is well with you and your family. I have two comments that I have to make about the current media watch. While I don’t disagree with any of your column I do have to expound on two things.
“1. I agree with your position regarding the names Judah and Samaria, but sometimes I feel it is an uphill battle although, unfortunately, I can’t think of a solution. When discussing this with people I try to use the names Judah and Samaria and then I often have to explain what I am talking about and why that is the proper name for the west bank. At other times, when I know that the attention span of the person I am talking to will be very short I will just refer to it as the west bank and hope that I can give it the proper name later in the conversation.
“2. I know that you are a big Trump fan, but I want to remind you of something. I don’t remember if you were present at the Brith Sholom Charity kick-off dinner many years ago when we had then-Senator Biden as our speaker. After all these years I still remember his first words, “If we did not have the State of Israel, we would have to invent it.” I’m sure that Biden still remains a good friend of Israel. He has stated that he will continue to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
“Regards to all and stay well.
“Lew”
Is It Ok to Say “West Bank” to Folks Who Don’t Know From “Judea-Samaria”?
If there is a self-respecting reason for a Jew to use “West Bank” instead of “Judea and Samaria,” the context confronted by Lew – identifying Judea-Samaria to folks unfamiliar with that name – is it. But “West Bank” isn’t a synonym for “Judea-Samaria.” It’s an antonym. This part of western Palestine, the land of Israel, had been known by that Hebrew-origin name, not just in biblical times, to which the western media loves to falsely confine it, but throughout post-biblical centuries, including by the UN in 1947. The invader [Trans-] Jordan conjured West Bank in 1950 for the same reason the Romans renamed Judaea as “Palestine” in 135 – the existing name sounded Jewish.
We should take a lesson from the cynical way in which professional wordsmiths less than steeped in rachmones for us deal with multiple names for the same place conveying opposed connotations. Among the “Ten Misleading Media Expressions” Powerpoint talk my late friend Lee and I gave to pro-Israel groups was “#10 –The Name Game.” In it we showed the same photograph, of a big green door leading to the Temple Mount, run on July 15, 2017, by the Times of Israel and Philadelphia Inquirer, a site these two newspapers identified, respectively, as “the Temple Mount compound” and “the Al-Aqsa mosque compound.” Two days later, the Washington Post referred to the site as “one of Islam’s holiest sites … the sacred Al Aqsa mosque compound, a site that is also revered by Jews … Israelis, who refer to the site as the Temple Mount.” In July 2016, CAMERA compared how the BBC had gone from “known to Muslims as the Haram-al-Sharif, and to Jews as Temple Mount” in 2004 to “Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque compound, known to Jews as Temple Mount” in 2014.
So even in the context of “for identification only,” we should not submit to saying unqualified “West Bank.” We should say something like “Judea and Samaria, which those who deny Jewish homeland equity in that part of the land of Israel call ‘the West Bank.’”
Trump vs Dems on Israel
President Trump’s “Peace To Prosperity” plan, a/k/a “The Deal of The Century,” says on page 12 that of the 12% of the territory captured in 1967 from which Israel has not withdrawn that this is “territory to which Israel has asserted valid legal and historical claims, and which are part of the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people.” [emphasis added]
Compare this to UN Security Council Resolution 2334, adopted in the Obama administration’s final days, on which the US abstained:
The Security Council
“1. Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace ….”
“3. Underlines that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations ….” [emphasis added]
The difference between these two views of Jewish homeland equity in Judea-Samaria and historic Jerusalem could not be starker. The one says the Jewish people has “valid legal and historical claims.” The other doesn’t say that these claims are disputed, subject to negotiations, whatever. It flat out calls these areas “Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.”
There’s another paragraph in the Trump plan, on page 7, citing the view of Yitzhak Rabin, which American Jews inclined towards the “two-state solution” should consider. Trump plan:
“Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, who signed the Oslo Accords and who in 1995 gave his life to the cause of peace, outlined in his last speech to the Israeli Knesset his vision regarding the ultimate resolution of the conflict. He envisioned Jerusalem remaining united under Israeli rule, the portions of the West Bank with large Jewish populations and the Jordan Valley being incorporated into Israel, and the remainder of the West Bank, along with Gaza, becoming subject to Palestinian civil autonomy in what he said would be something ‘less than a state.’ Rabin’s vision was the basis upon which the Knesset approved the Oslo Accords, and it was not rejected by the Palestinian leadership at the time.”
Whether Biden or someone else is the Democratic candidate, it seems likely that the Sanders-led left wing of the party will have significant influence in framing the platform and in the party’s ongoing policy positions. Those of you Gentle Readers who are Democrats, I plead with you to work toward the party’s platform and position being not that of UNSC 2334.
All of us grassroots American Jews have, in my view, a further task – to disassociate ourselves from our establishment institutions and communal leaders who have joined the UN and EU and others demanding the halving of the land of Israel into a western Palestine “two-state solution,” leaving Israel with the less Jewishly meaningful (i.e,, historic Jerusalem-less) and less militarily defensible (i.e., with a narrow lowland coastal plain) half, and creating a second Palestinian Arab majority state, in addition to Jordan, carved from the Palestine Mandate. Our grassroots organizations could organize this effort. I hope that they do.