WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: Nothing is clearer than that we American Jews must join with Israelis in contesting world leaders’ canards that Israel is perpetrating “suffocating and unbearable occupation of the Palestinian people.” Here are suggestions.
A Grassroots Jew’s Guide to Confronting Doctor Palestine’s Monster
Following October 7, if Hamas could have picked two international figures to accuse Israel of perpetrating a “suffocating, unbearable occupation” of “the Palestinian people,” it could have done worse than choose the Secretary General of the United Nations and the Power Behind the Throne of the US President, the US ex-President who never left Washington.
But there you have it, not just these august world leaders condemning us, but ordinary people the world over, here in the US not just Muslims but everybody from Ivy League Idiots to Homos For Hamas parading in droves through city streets. World Hate Headquarters has long been the Israel bashing-obsessed UN, with its two refugee agencies, one for Palestinian Arabs and one for all the rest of the world’s refugees, with only Palestinian Arabs perpetuating refugee status down through the generations, to perpetuate the “nakba” of Arabs’ failure to destroy Israel in 1948. The UN has long made itself Doctor Palestine, and by its longtime unjust and out-of-all-proportion condemnations of Israel made more than Hamas into Doctor Palestine’s Monster.
In the face of all this, what should we grassroots American Jews do?
First, accept at face value what Hamas expressly says it is trying to do – end Israel, not share a divided western Palestine with it. A Hot Air article Tuesday, 11/7/23, Hamas to NYT: War of Annihilation Is Exactly What We Wanted, quotes Hamas leaders that they “envision a state of total war with Israel that will force other Arab nations to join them to destroy Israel and slaughter its Jews.”
Second, accept that other Palestinian Arabs share Hamas’ ambitions. Not just Hamas but other Palestinian Arabs and their worldwide acolytes back this annihilation aim by howling “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” E.g., Algemeiner, 11/6/23, Fatah Calls for Terror in the West Bank – ‘Call Out Allahu Akbar From the Rooftops’; Israpundit, 10/30/23, The Palestinian Authority is Just as Bad; JNS, 11/5/23, Fatah in Gaza Joined in Oct. 7 Attacks; The Group’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Hamas are Competing Over Which Fights Israel More; Tazpit News Agency in Jewish Press, 11/5/23, PA Abbas’ Fatah Terrorists in Gaza Joined in Oct. 7 Massacre; Algemeiner, 11/5/23, Fatah Brags in Video That It Took Part in October 7 Slaughter: ‘We Killed [Them] … and Stepped on Their Heads’; Geller Report, 11/3/23, ‘Peace Partner’ Fatah Calls for Terror in Judea and Samaria, ‘Call Out Allahu Akbar From the Rooftops,’ Brags of its Own Participation in Hamas Atrocities.
Third, reject as utterly unrealistic splitting of land of Israel sovereignty with these people. Look at a map of the land of Israel, western Palestine, particularly at the ceasefire lines of 1949, which “the two-state solution” seeks to restore. As former PM Bennett pithily put it, there is no room in Palestine west of the River for two sovereign states – even under relatively amicable relations between their peoples. “Two states along the 1967 [1949] lines with mutually agreed territorial swaps” would be militarily and sans historic Jerusalem Jewishly suicidal for Israel.
Yet that may be precisely where we are headed. Israel is understandably adamant about ending Hamas rule in Gaza. But then what? The world, led by the United States, is crystal clear what it wants, and Israel may well not have the power to stop it. See, e.g., JNS Wednesday, 11/8/23, US Wants Gaza Under Palestinian Authority. But, as that JNS article states, that is far from all that the US wants:
“While Israel is reluctant to discuss its post-war plans, the U.S. continues to push for a two-state solution as the best prospect for a lasting solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“Blinken, meeting with P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Sunday, said the U.S. is committed ‘to working toward the realization of the Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations for the establishment of a Palestinian state.’
“The State Department tweeted on Nov. 4 that it views the two-state solution as ‘the only viable path.’”
Indeed, there is recognition in Israel that October 7 drove what must be the final nail into the coffin of “two-states.” E.g., INN, 11/5/23, The War in Gaza; a Wake-up Call to Reality. No one Who Cares About Israel Is Talking About the 2SS. Opinion. See also Victor Sharpe in Israpundit, 11/5/23, The Sordid 100-Year History of the ‘Two-State Solution.’ See also JNS, 11/5/23, Blinken Makes Surprise Trip to Ramallah to Meet Abbas, which quotes an Israeli MK:
“’While Blinken vows that he will do everything to prevent a recurrence of the events of Oct. 7, he pushes for giving control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, whose members, exactly like Hamas, advocate for the destruction of Israel and applaud Hamas’s murderous, Nazi-like massacre of Jews, seeking to emulate them,’ said MK Amit Halevy.
“The Biden administration was ‘slapping Israel in the face’ by pressing this position,’ he added.”
It’s not for a grassroots Diaspora Jew like me to suggest to Israel that in utterly ousting Hamas from rule in Gaza it may be doing the world’s dirty work in supplanting it with Fatah/PLO/Palestinian Authority, which is not only of the same ilk, but which would then constitute a single political entity in “the West Bank” and Gaza, greatly forwarding the gravest existential peril to the Jewish homeland, not directly Iran, but the militarily and Jewishly fatal inside-the-land-of-Israel “two-state solution.” But Bibi and the boys need to reflect on it.
And finally, Fourth, make the case to our fellow Americans that, far from being “sufficatingly, unbearably occupied by Israel,” Palestinian Arabs already have a far bigger portion of the Palestine pie than we Jews, and that the part that we have is Ours.
Palestinian Arabs are Jordan’s, 78% of Palestine’s, biggest population, have all of Gaza, and were offered autonomy in a bigger portion of Judea-Samaria than where they mainly live now.
Every time the Associated Press et ilk refer to “the occupied West Bank” or “East” Jerusalem they’re suppressing the San Remo Treaty and UN-endorsed Palestine Mandate, which recognized the land of Israel, Palestine west of the Jordan, as the Jewish national home. (The Mandate gave the trustee, Britain, power to “withhold” from it the portion of Palestine east of the River (which Britain with alacrity did), but only east of the River.
They’re also suppressing three thousand years homeland Jewish physical presence in Palestine, which they rub in with endless references to “the West Bank” and “East” Jerusalem having been “captured” (they sometimes say “seized”) by Israel in 1967, as though Jews had no prior claim. Palestinian Arabs have never ruled Palestine ever, and foreign Arabs only between 638 and 1099. Today’s Israel is the land’s next native state after Roman-destroyed Jewish Judaea. Historian Parkes rightly asserted that Jews’ continuous post-biblical presence wrote today’s Israelis’ “real title deeds.” We have to make this case clearly to Western publics.
So how do we do this?
[a] It’s not enough for us not to subscribe to AP-et-ilk-carrying newspapers, or to write endless letters “to the editor” seeking corrections. There have to be AP-et-ilk-free Western newspapers, daily hitting the streets and Westerners’ driveways. Wealthy entrepreneurs can start them, and, backed by consumers, can get advertisers to split their ad purchases. These newspapers, which must provide general, not just Jewish, interest news can present Arab-Israel conflict coverage free of the loaded lexicon mentioned below, which every day drips poison into the bloodstream of average Americans.
[b] We grassroots American Jews (and Israelis) have to purge from our own mouths the toxic terms and dirty words of media reporting and public discourse’s loaded lexicon of Jewish homeland-delegitimizing poisoned pejoratives. A list of some thirty appears on pages 121-24 of Lee Bender’s and my book Pressing Israel: Media Bias Exposed From A-to-Z, and see also the Dirty Words and Toxic Terms pages, and our video, Ten Misleading Media Expressions, on our website, www.factsonisrael.com.
[c] It seems to me incredible that Muslim Americans are threatening to withhold support for the Democratic Party in the 2024 election because of its “support for Israel.” Yes, Biden and Blinken back Israel’s right to fight back against the Hamas pogrom still going on (hostages, including the littlest of kids, still being held, rockets still aimed at towns and cities in Israel), but their pre-Oct. 7 actions have often been unhelpful to Israel, and every other word out of their mouths now is “two-state solution.” Contact Congressmen and make clear that the traditional heavy Jewish voter and contribution support to the Democratic Party cannot be taken for granted.
[d] Participate in public pro-Israel events.