#928 11/4/18 – Delegitimization of Israel: What We Grassroots Can Do

Delegitimization of Israel: What We Grassroots Can Do

Some years ago, I joined my fraternal lodge in the “Israel Day” walk on the Parkway in downtown Philadelphia.  When I got home, my wife asked “So how was the parade?”  “I don’t know. I was in it.”  We’re all fleeting participants in a 3,000 year-long parade, and it’s not easy to see its path and progress from deep inside it.  But I would have our time’s American Jewish grassroots contingent march as one in recognition, as Charles Krauthammer put it, of the monumental event – rebirth, after eighteen hundred years, of Jewish sovereignty in our homeland of Israel – that’s occurring in our time, and in resolve to take part in aiding it.  But how?  Two articles I saw this week lay out a path for us.

[1]  Somebody sent me this week the Pew study of American Jews that was done back in 2013.  In Pew’s own words, this is one of its findings:

“ . . . And just 17% of American Jews think the continued building of settlements in the West Bank is helpful to Israel’s security ….”

Phew, Pew, but the base blame for this lies with Israeli and Diaspora Jews.  The Land of Israel comprises Palestine west of the Jordan, including Judea-Samaria and historic Jerusalem, and although we Jews may differ among ourselves on “peace plans,” none of us should call Judea-Samaria “the West Bank,” or historic Jerusalem “East” Jerusalem, or “Judea-Samaria” the “biblical name for the West Bank,” or the old 1949 military ceasefire lines, which are not among the Holy Land’s holy places, “Israel’s 1967 borders,” or Jews living anywhere in the Land of Israel “settlers” living in “settlements,” which the mainstream Western media revels in contrasting with “Palestinians” living in “neighborhoods, towns and villages.”   All these poisoned pejoratives were deliberately designed to delegitimize the historic Jewish connection to the Land of Israel, and it is self-disrespecting for any of us to mouth any of them, period.

[2]  Last week I railed against an illustrative old Philly Inquirer headline (4/29/08), “Israeli Army Shoots Four Palestinians,” which headed a brief AP squib quoting Hamas calling them its members infiltrating Israel on a “jihad mission.”  I said that the Israeli army shot them because they were terrorists on an expressly-acknowledged “jihad mission” in Israel, not, sans context, just because they were “Palestinians.”

This week, Deep Quote, a one-time guest author of editions of this media watch, sent me a Philly Inquirer headline last week:

“Five Palestinians are Shot Dead by Israeli Forces”

With smaller sub-head:

“Militants Later Fired Several Rockets into Southern Israel”

But the Inq’s AP article said:

“Thousands of Palestinians gathered at five locations along the boundary, burning tires and throwing rocks, grenades and firebombs at Israeli troops who responded with tear gas and occasional live fire.

“The Israeli army said some suspects briefly crossed the fence ….”

ZERO sense of the context – thousands of Arabs gathering at five locations along the border, burning tires causing smoke to obscure their actions, throwing rocks, grenades and firebombs at Israeli troops on their own side of the border, and even briefly crossing the border – was conveyed by that newspaper to its readers by that headline “Five Palestinians are Shot Dead by Israeli Forces,” seemingly senselessly sans provocation, followed by the kicker sub-head:  “Militants LATER” [context there though] fired rockets at Israel.  And, as with the “jihad mission” participants in the headline cited last week, these “Palestinians” weren’t killed just because they were “Palestinians,” but because they were in a mob attacking Israelis.  An honest headline would have included that.  Ask yourself whether the newspaper that ran this headline has the least bit of respect for you.

The response to those contextless “Israel Kills Palestinians” newspaper headlines, and to the “West Bank settlements” framing of that Pew survey of American Jews question, and to all of the like, starts with self-respect for ourselves, starting with the words that come out of our own mouths.  And that response can start and swell from within the Jewish grassroots, and given that it’s not coming from our organized leadership, I believe must.