#819 9/11/16 – “International Attempt to Disengage Jerusalem From Jewish History”

 

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: Those who would “disengage Jerusalem from Jewish history,” as Dore Gold put it this week, disparage both ancient and modern Jewish connection.  The mainstream Western media insistently calls Jerusalem Jewish communities across the old 1949 Israel-Jordan military ceasefire lines “East” Jerusalem “Jewish settlements,” in pointed contrast to adjacent “Palestinian neighborhoods.”  Readers of this media watch know that I call for challenging the media’s whole loaded lexicon of poisoned pejoratives in Israel reporting, but few cut more deeply than calling Jews in Jerusalem, of all places on earth, “Jewish settlers.”

This Week:  Dore Gold on “International Attempt To Disengage Jerusalem From Jewish History”

The Jerusalem Post reported Friday that Dr. Dore Gold, Director General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, speaking to an archeology conference in Israel’s capital, addressed “the international attempt to disengage Jerusalem from Jewish history.”

Calling the Jewish connection a matter of historical truth, not just a “narrative,” which suggests just a viewpoint, Gold cited as supporting the Jewish connection both archeological evidence and modern events.  He referenced the Mandate recognizing the Jewish people’s historical connection with Palestine;  “British documentation of a Jewish majority in Jerusalem in 1863”; and, as summarized by the Jerusalem Post, “US jurist Stephen Schwebel’s finding after the Six Day War that Israel had ‘better title’ in Jerusalem than other claimants.”

The media watch connection to all this is the mainstream Western media’s insistence that Jews are “settlers” in an “East” Jerusalem (i.e., historic Jerusalem with its British-documented 1863 Jewish majority) that’s home to Arab “neighborhoods.”

A few examples of the mainstream Western media denigrating Jews in Jerusalem as “Jewish settlers” [emphasis added]:

***  AP, 7/16/16 (Philly Inquirer [Inq], A3):  “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has authorized construction of hundreds of new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem ….”  Further down:  “The plan also called for over 600 new homes in an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem.”

***  Washington Post, 3/9/16 (Inq, A3):  “…the Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem ….”

***  Philly Inquirer photo caption, 12/7/15 (A13):  “An Israeli flag hangs on a building, in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem, that was taken over by settlers after Palestinian families were evicted.”  [The eviction followed 7-years ownership litigation in which the Palestinian Arabs participated, all of whom had been offered litigation settlement compensation, some of whom had accepted it, leaving “willingly” (Haaretz term)]

***  AP, 11/18/15 (Inq, A6):  “… a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem”

*** Los Angeles Times, 4/21/15 (Inq, A2):  “… the settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem ….”

Is it working, this Arab-and-media campaign to declare Jews “East” Jerusalem “settlers”?  E.g.:

“We are deeply concerned by reports that the Government of Israel has published tenders for 323 units in East Jerusalem settlements.”

– U.S. State Department, Friday, 7/29/16 [emphasis added]

How should we answer?  Here’s part of an excerpt in a Conf. of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations’ Daily Alert:

“East Jerusalem” – The Jewish connection with “East Jerusalem” extends back to King David. Over the ensuing 3,000 years, the city has been the capital of three native states – Judah, Judea, and Israel. The two Jewish temples stood as Jerusalem centerpieces for a millennium. Throughout two millennia of foreign rule, Jews relentlessly returned to Jerusalem whenever the foreign invaders exiled them, again becoming Jerusalem’s majority during 19th century Ottoman rule. Throughout those millennia, nobody called Jews in Jerusalem “settlers.” 

 Daily Alert of 12/27/13  “Media’s Lexicon Poisons Public Perceptions of Israel,” by Lee S. Bender and Jerome R. Verlin (published on Algemeiner) [emphasis added]

Archeologists announced this week their astonishing reconstruction from debris from illegal Palestinian Arab construction on the Temple Mount magnificent floor tiles from the Second Temple.

“’This represents the first time that archeologists have been able to successfully restore an element from the Herodian Second Temple complex,’ said Zachi Dvira, co-founder and director of the Temple Mount Sifting Project.”

-www.breakingisraelnews.com

Go on the internet and look at these tiles, back from the days when Jews weren’t “East” Jerusalem “settlers.”