#874 10/1/17 – This Week: Some of the Good Guys Should Rethink Their Word Choices

This Week:  Some of the Good Guys Should Rethink Some of Their Word Choices

The widely disseminated Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) news agency did a news brief on Thursday (9/28/17)  covering U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman’s statement in an interview with an Israeli website that “I think the settlements are part of Israel.”  The U.S. State Department, the Jewish Press and others noted, was quick to “clarify,” as the Jewish Press put it.

State Dept. spokesperson:

 “His comments – and I want to be crystal clear about this – should not be read as a way to prejudge the outcome of any negotiations that the U.S. would have with the Israelis and the Palestinians.  It should also not indicate a shift in U.S. policy.”

The media watch issue here is not whether the U.S. Ambassador was prejudging peace negotiations’ outcome, but whether the JTA in its news brief fairly characterized Israel’s position.  A kicker is whether the Ambassador himself used imbalanced terminology which, ironically, prejudged the case against Israel.

The JTA quoted Amb. Friedman referring to Israeli retention of territories beyond the old 1949 green line as “the expectation when Resolution 242 was adopted in 1967.”  He was referring, of course, to the UNSC’s well-known intentional omission from 242 of “the” from territories from which Israel would withdraw back to “secure and recognized” borders, in recognition that the 1949 ceasefire lines, expressly defined as not being “borders,” had been perilously insecure.

But the JTA put it this way:

“Friedman was referring to the U.N. Security Council resolution passed following the Six-Day War that called for Israel to withdraw from THE territories [emphasis added] it occupied in 1967 in exchange for peace with its Arab neighbors.”

Shame on the JTA for that!  But there’s a bit more.  Both the JTA and the Ambassador himself, I would argue, manifested a perspective which, though widely held, short-changes Israel.

Among the Arab-Israeli conflict’s loaded lexicon of anti-Jewish-homeland pejoratives is “Greater Israel.”  Anyone who believes the Jewish homeland extends a millimeter beyond the green line is a believer in “Greater Israel.”  But closer to actual history is belief that Israel sticking a toe over the green line just recovers a bit of the Lesser Israel to which the Jewish homeland was serially reduced, first, by severance of 78% of the original Palestine Mandate with its Jewish National Home, and, second, by the 1948 multi-Arab nation invasion for Israel’s destruction, which deprived the Jewish homeland for 19 years (ended a half-century ago) of Judea-Samaria and heart of Jerusalem.

So when the JTA led by characterizing Amb. Friedman’s position as being that “it was always understood that Israel would expand [emphasis added] into the West Bank,” and Amb. Friedman himself saying in a direct quote: “So there was always supposed to be some notion of expansion [emphasis added] into the West Bank, but not necessarily expansion into the entire West Bank,” both the JTA and ambassador were taking the “Greater Israel,” and not partial recovery from “Lesser Israel,” perspective.  If you get back a bit of much that had been taken from you, have you “expanded”?

Amb. Friedman, by me, made matters worse by saying [direct quote]:

“The existing borders, the 1967 borders, were viewed by everybody as not secure, so Israel would retain a meaningful portion of the West Bank, and it would return that which it didn’t need for peace and security.”  [emphasis added]

There were no “1967 borders,” only old, superseded 1949 Israel-Jordan exclusively military ceasefire lines, expressly defined as not being borders,  And when you “return” something, you acknowledge the returnee’s right to it.

But the blame doesn’t lie with Amb. Friedman, who represents the United States, not Israel, but with us, supporters of the Jewish homeland of Israel.  He repeatedly used the Jordanian-coined expression “West Bank,” but so do most of us, instead of saying “Samaria and Judea,” used throughout history and by the UN itself in 1947.  And when he said [direct JTA quote] “I think the settlers view themselves as Israelis and Israel views the settlers as Israelis,” he said not just what we ourselves say, but more fundamentally what we ourselves see – these Israelis as “settlers.”

Amb. Friedman’s comments – and I want to be crystal clear about this – are a sad commentary on our own perspectives and terminology in advocating the land of Israel – not just inside the old green line, but Judea-Samaria and historic Jerusalem included – as the historic and present homeland of the Jews.