WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: American Jewish groups that gratuitously instantly heap their own condemnations of President Trump upon the House’s snap impeachment are acting both unappreciatively and unwisely. And Europeans are already back pushing UNSC 2334, the sole act of which is to declare Judea-Samaria and historic Jerusalem “occupied Palestinian territory.” America is one four-letter word away from joining them.
This Week: Only a Four-Letter Word Separates the “Green New Deal” from a “Green Line New Deal”
Back in our #970 in the hot summer of 2019, I prefaced one of my periodic rages against the Israel stance of our organized American Jewish community with this disclaimer:
“I give you my word, You-Who-Put-Up-With-Me-Weekly, that Donald Trump has as much to do with my plea to you this week as Donald Duck,”
followed by this declaration of where I was about to rush in:
“We American Jews have got to take a hard look at ourselves.”
The second part of that intro to 2019’s #970 applies to this week’s.
On Wednesday this week, January 13, a Day which by me will Live In Infamy, a couple milliseconds after the US House of Reprehensibles snap impeached President Trump, one of our leading American Jewish organizations fired off this broadside, including me among its recipients:
“January 13, 2021 – New York – American Jewish Committee (AJC) welcomes today’s House passage of the impeachment resolution and reiterates our unqualified condemnation of the actions of President Donald J. Trump, which, by any measure, run counter to the democratic values we hold dear, and disqualify him from continuing to occupy the highest office in the land. . . .”
Among the words that got to me there is “reiterates.” I don’t know when that AJC “unqualified condemnation” of President Donald J. Trump started, but if it needed “reiterating” a few milliseconds after the House’s snap impeachment, I guess it must have begun more than a few milliseconds before that. So what if any actions of said President Donald J. Trump beyond “inciting insurrection” and contesting the election “without evidence” [impeachable, or only untwittable?], mentioned by AJC, were embraced among those which, “by any measure, run counter to the democratic values we hold dear”?
I emailed back to this leading American Jewish organization a query, so far unresponded to, to find out:
“Does your “unqualified condemnation of President Donald J. Trump” include
“recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital?
“moving the United States Embassy to Jerusalem?
“the Golan Heights?
“the peace plan recognizing Jewish homeland rights beyond the ceasefire lines of 1949?
“the Abraham Accords, including Sunni Arab recognition of the Jewish people’s indigenousness to the Middle East?
“All this against the outspoken opposition of America’s European ‘allies.’
“Kindly unsubscribe me from all of your emails.”
If you too received this AJC email and heard laughter coming from afar through your computer’s speakers while you were reading it, that was James Baker. I didn’t hear laughter. I just heard a disheartened voice questioning, “Et tu, Brute?”
Well, time to move on. What worries me most about the Biden-Harris administration is not Biden or even Harris. Not even “the Squad,” Bernie, or Pelosi and Schumer. What worries me most is Kerry. Yes, I know that his new title is “Special Presidential Envoy for Climate,” and that undoing America’s newfound energy independence should occupy him full time. But he’s back in the in-power clique, and all that separates the Green New Deal from a Green Line New Deal is a four-letter word, and Kerry is obsessed with “the Palestinians” as key to “Middle East peace,” and as Secretary of State in the Obama administration’s on-the-way-out-the-door days he was the Enabler if not Instigator of the UNSC’s (14-0-1) 2334.
Here’s what I wrote about UNSC 2334 in our #1001 of 3/29/20:
“I oscillate among which of three things that perturb me about UN Security Council resolution 2334 perturbs me the most – that the U.S. abstained (to say no more) on it, that the rest of the world voted for it, or what it says. This week, it’s what it says:
“’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 ….
“’that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem . . . .
“’that it [UNSC] 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. . . .’”
“This wording is not the world calling Judea-Samaria (the name that the UN itself used back in 1947) and historic Jerusalem (Temple Mount, Western Wall, Jewish Quarter, City of David and all) “disputed” between Arabs and Jews. It’s the world calling it “occupied Palestinian territory,” in which Jews are “settlers.” This isn’t a UN swing just at Israel. It’s a UN swing at Jews who regard the Jewish homeland as including Judea-Samaria and historic Jerusalem.”
Here’s a headline this week that ought to concern us American Jews: “FMs of Egypt, Jordan, France, Germany Stress Two-State Solution to Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” (Xinhua, 1/11/21). The new regime has begun. Say bye-bye now to The Deal of The Century. Rather like Roman Emperor Julian’s short-lived effort to rebuild the Temple. I do not know whether to call it chutzpah or hatred for Germany, of all countries, during the lifetime of Holocaust survivors, to try to screw the Jews out of historic Jerusalem.
American Jews ought to think about this: The ceasefire lines of 1949 are not natural boundaries. The only natural, ergo secure, boundary for Israel is the Jordan River, putting the Jordan Valley and Judea-Samaria hills between them and the Palestinian Arab-majority state in eastern Palestine, Jordan. And an Israel without historic Jerusalem is as Zionless a Zion as Uganda. That the United Nations and Europeans are still howling for the 1949 ceasefire lines in 2021 ought to give American Jews pause in themselves wanting a western Palestine “two-state solution.” And John Kerry (nee Kohn) ought to think about this: His paternal grandparents were born Austro-Hungarian Jews. The next Hitler will also call him a Jew.