#919 9/2/18 – This Week: Everybody Understands What Words Mean But Us

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG:  Algemeiner ran an article this week on Palestinian Authority [“PA”] response to President Trump’s looming “Deal of the Century” peace plan, quoting a key PA negotiator’s statements.  Focus on the language the PA uses in characterizing Palestine ownership equities, and how closely the UN Security Council’s language reflects it. Time for us to do better at making clear the Jewish land of Israel homeland equity claim?

This Week:  Everybody Understands What Words Mean But Us

     “There will be no peace without East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders . . . and before recognizing that all Israeli colonial settlements are illegal.”

– Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of PLO executive committee, quoted by Algemeiner staff article, “Palestinian Leader Abbas to Challenge Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century at UN General Assembly,” 8/30/18

“The Security Council …

     “1.  Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity ….

     “2.  Reiterates its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem ….

     “3.  Underlines that it 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 ….”

– UNSC Resolution 2334, 12/23/16, adopted 14-0 with the United States abstaining

What ought to strike you about PA negotiator Erekat’s 2017 words (which also included reference to “the right of return”), quoted this week by Algemeiner – “East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders . . . Israeli colonial settlements are illegal” – is not just that they utterly reject and summarily dismiss Jewish Palestine equity, including in historic Jerusalem, beyond those “1967 borders” [and the “right of return” within them], but that the western Palestine equities expressed in those words are in synch with those “reaffirmed, reiterated and underlined,” without U.S. objection, by  the Security Council of the United Nations.

Look at these words:  “East Jerusalem …State of Palestine … the 1967 borders … Israeli colonial settlements … settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem … settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem ….”

We did not have to acquiesce, including sometimes through our own use, in any of them.

East Jerusalem” – No one referred to “East Jerusalem” throughout Jerusalem’s multi-millennia history before 1949, because “East” Jerusalem did not exist.  The line dividing Jerusalem’s possession between two different states was drawn in 1949, and that fleeting 19-year divided possession ceased to exist more than a half-century ago in 1967.  Only those seeking to dispossess the Jews of their historic connection to Jerusalem, in which Jews have again been the majority since 1800’s Turkish empire rule, regard that old 19-year divided Jerusalem rule line  as a sacred historical boundary.  And they would award this “East” Jerusalem, including the historic city that had been the capital of two native states, both Jewish, to “Palestinians,” who never ruled it for one day in history.  For Jews ourselves to refer to a separate “East” Jerusalem is senselessly counter-productive.

State of Palestine” – The Palestine Mandate initially included not just area west of the Jordan River, but also what was excised from it as Transjordan, today’s nation of Jordan.  Even “green line” Israel is as much part of Palestine as would be an Arab state created in Judea-Samaria.  Indeed, during the Mandate, Jews more than Arabs referenced themselves as “Palestinian” (e.g., Palestine Post).  With Jewish as well as Arab and world joinder, Arabs have long since appropriated to themselves exclusive equity in “Palestine” and “Palestinian,” and hence “State of Palestine” for their intended west-of-the-Jordan Arab state, but we should try to get through to the world the deeper Jewish (including through continuous post-biblical presence) than Arab Palestine roots.

the 1967 borders” – Ever hear the other side reference “the 1949 Israel-Jordan military ceasefire lines”?  But do you hear Jews sometimes say “the 1967 borders”?

Israeli colonial settlements” – “Settlements” is a dirty word, period.  Israeli colonial settlements” carries the connotation that not only is Israel a foreign colonizer beyond “the 1967 borders,” but that it is a “colonial” European implant in “the Arab Middle East” to begin with.  Israel should stop calling Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria “Jewish settlements,” which will lend more credibility to we ourselves, at least, not calling Jewish neighborhoods anywhere in Jerusalem “settlements.”

settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem” – Judea, Samaria and “East” Jerusalem are contested, disputed, between Arabs and Jews.  Well, at least as contested and disputed from our point of view.  But let’s not kid ourselves.  To the most of the rest of the world, Judea, Samaria and “East” Jerusalem aren’t “contested,” but “occupied Palestinian territory.”

So when we don’t strenuously object to UNSC usage of “settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem” [UNSC 2334, “reiterated” point number “2”],

what can we can expect but the UNSC “underlining” that “it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines [242, anybody?], including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations” [UNSC 2334, “underlined” point number “3”]