WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: I’m not sure which is worse, we US Jews not going nuts over Palestinian Arabs’ incessant assertions that our core Jewish history never happened, or not over a US official telling us Israel should go back to the 1949 lines, giving up its Six Day War liberations, stop “settlements,” stop demolishing Jew-murdering terrorists’ houses, stop evicting Arab squatters, and meekly accept free Muslim Temple Mount access with some Jews permitted some times to “visit” but – God no! – never to pray there, but that’s what he told us this week.
So What’s Worse – Averting Our Eyes From Denials of Our Past Or From Asserting Our Rights in the Present?
Pick your own pair of insults that should goad us American Jews into self-respectfully standing up for ourselves and our people, but I pick [1] Palestinian Arab blanket denial that Jewish homeland history ever happened, and [2] advice from on high in America, delivered to us American Jews, that Israel should meekly refrain from asserting our people’s right to our homeland. Both insults are being hurled at us right now, To Wit:
[1] Palestinian Arab Incessant Denial that Jewish Homeland History Happened
A recent (April 10, 2023) analysis by respected Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) director Itamar Marcus, Top PA Officials Deny Jewish History, is aptly titled. It’s Jewish history that’s being denied, our people’s history, not just the state of Israel’s, which many American Jews, by me alas, doubt directly affects us.
*** PMW quotes Abbas’ Spokesman Abu Rudeina’s recent statement:
“The Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are among the foundational pillars of history, and they are Palestinian holy places, and not Jewish holy places. There is no historical proof – despite all the excavations – that [the Jews] had any kind of presence in this land.”
*** PMW quotes PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh in March:
“Israel has falsified the history of Palestine. Since 1967 Israel has been conducting excavations and has not been able to prove that [it] has a direct or indirect connection [to the land].”
*** PMW quotes him on another occasion, speaking “on behalf of President Mahmoud Abbas”:
“The struggle, which was created with the start of colonialism, is not just over the history of Palestine, but also over the history of the Palestinians in Palestine, the people, and the land, because Israel, which has claimed that Palestine is the promised land, comes and says that this is disputed land. The occupation has utilized all the forms of oppression, and implemented a racist policy against our people, particularly our people in Jerusalem. They have treated them as if they are [only] staying there and not native residents….
“We do not need to give proof of us being the original owners of the land, but we are taking action to clarify the truth, so that others will not be deceived by the Zionist lie….”
A couple brief comments: It’s true some of us say “this is disputed land.” We should not call it “disputed.” Our people’s homeland’s adversaries don’t call it “disputed.” Like them, we should call it “Ours,” and not just as “Zionists,” but as Jews, with a heritage, including continuous physical presence, going back 3,000 years. Where were your “Palestinians,” PA leaders, when homeland Jews were fighting, e.g., Assyrians, Babylonians, Seleucids and Rome? And yes it’s true we don’t claim the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as “a Jewish holy place,” but it’s not “a Palestinian holy place” either. Whether Christians should lose any sleep over your claiming it as such is up to them, but when they join you in calling the Temple Mount “the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex” (e.g., Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/24/21), they are, by us, short-selling themselves.
We cannot afford to short-sell ourselves by averting our eyes from our homeland’s adversaries’ denial that homeland Jewish history happened. Ben-Gurion encapsulated it succinctly: “The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people…. Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed.” You don’t have to be a “Zionist,” just a Jew, to stand up and defend this. And in doing so, we’re not defending some long-gone something that disappeared two thousand years ago. As Elder of Ziyon recently put it, the Temple Mount, physically present today, had been built by a succession of Jews – Judahite kings, Hasmoneans, then Herod. I commend to you Ritmeyer’s short version, Secrets of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
[2] Blinken to AIPAC This Week: Nine Miles Wide and Worse
Steven M. Flatow had a JNS article this week, Blinken Says Israel Must Be Nine Miles Wide To Be Secure, analyzing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s address to AIPAC on Monday:
“Blinken’s demand, at the AIPAC conference, that Israel go back to the 1967 [i.e., 1949] lines was bad enough. But he added insult to injury ….
“Blinken denounced Israeli ‘settlement expansion’….
“And he chastised Israel for its alleged ‘disruption of the historic status quo at the holy sites’….
“Blinken criticized Israel’s ‘continuing demolition of homes’ ….
“He warned against ‘the eviction of families that have lived in those homes for generations’ ….
“In short, the secretary of state has offered Israel and its supporters some really bad advice. Withdrawing to nine-mile-wide borders will make Israel less secure. Prohibiting Jewish construction while tolerating Arab construction is an outrageous double-standard. Ignoring Palestinian Arab violence against Jewish holy sites encourages more violence. Opposing the seizure of terrorists’ property undermines the war against terrorism. Tolerating illegal squatters undermines the rule of law.
“And none of Blinken’s advice would increase the possibility of achieving a genuine and durable peace with the Palestinian Arabs. That will come only when the P.A. ceases its antisemitic hate education and raises its children to embrace coexistence and non-violence – something which, incredibly. The U.S. leader did not even mention.”
I think Secretary Blinken went way beyond having “offered Israel and its supporters some really bad advice.” I think he looked down on AIPAC’s attendees as meekly accepting that Israel slink back to the 1949 ceasefire lines, cease “settlements,” terrorist home demolitions and squatter evictions; and acquiesce in Muslims having free Temple Mount access with Jews at limited times in limited number permitted to “visit” but never to pray there. Most troubling is that Blinken reasonably believed American Jews would meekly accept this.