“Four Facts That Everyone Should Know About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,”

“Four Facts That Everyone Should Know About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”

#1: The challenger acknowledges that our first fact, “The Jews never left,” is “factually correct,” but calls “highly tendentious” our “conclusion” that “according to scholars, this gave the Zionists ‘real title deeds.'” The challenger asks, “And what kind of ‘scholars’ [in quotes] are referred to?”

The main scholar [no quotes] referred to is respected British historian and theologian James Parkes, who wrote on page 266 of “Whose Land? A History of the Peoples of Palestine” that although the Zionists are fond of citing the Maccabees and Bar Kochba, “their REAL TITLE DEEDS” [emphasis added] were written by the less dramatic but equally heroic endurance of those who had maintained a Jewish presence in The Land all through the centuries, and in spite of every discouragement.”

Samuel Katz, quoting this very passage of Parkes’ “Whose Land?” in his important work “Battleground” (2d ed., xv-xvi), lamented as an “astonishing area of Jewish neglect … the gap between what is generally known and the facts of the continuity of Jewish life in Palestine since the destruction of the Second Temple.”

#2: Our challenger dismisses our second fact, “Who are the Palestinians? Us,” which we cast as a rebuttal to Palestinian Arabs’ claim of Canaanite descent, by labeling our “arguing about whether Jewish or Arab inhabitants of Israel are descended from the prehistoric Canaanites” as “surely a fruitless quest.”

Eminent archeologists, for scientific, not political, purposes, don’t regard the quest “fruitless.” They seriously debate whether the Israelites, first identified in the land c. 1200 BCE, had “Conquest” or “Indigenous Origin” roots. Finkelstein & Silberman, respected members of the latter camp, wrote in “The Bible Unearthed” (p. 118): “The early Israelites were – irony of ironies – themselves originally Canaanites!”

Regarding our citations of Palestinian Jews’ use of “Palestine” and “Palestinian” in reference to themselves and their institutions in the 20th century, versus Arabs’ avoidance of the term during much of that span, our challenger does not contest our citations but simply calls “the question of ethnic continuity” and “the political question of which groups have described themselves as Palestinian” as “confusingly mixed.” On the contrary, such 20th century respective use and avoidance of the term “Palestinian” is part and parcel of the Jews’ real title deeds.

#3: Our challenger contests our objections to both of the terms “West Bank” and “East Jerusalem.” He says “talking about Judea and Samaria” other than in an historical context “assumes a certain outcome of any peace settlement.” But what of the term “West Bank,” which Israeli Amb. Yoram Ettinger wrote in Israel Hayom (12/16/11) was conjured in 1950 by the Jordanian occupation “to assert Jordanian rule and to expunge Jewish connection to the cradle of Jewish history”? He pointed out that until 1950, Ottoman, British and prior records referenced “Judea and Samaria” [as did the U.N.’s own 1947 partition resolution] and not “the West Bank.”

We plead guilty to our challenger’s indictment that our article “seems to be suggesting” that Jerusalem’s Jewish rule in ancient times, current [since the mid-1800’s] Jewish majority population, and that “Arabs have not controlled Jerusalem since 1099 and even then were not local Arabs,” combine to “justify” Israeli rule of the city.

#4: Our challenger acknowledges our fourth fact, “The Arab-Jewish Conflict created more Jewish than Arab Refugees,” to be a statement that “may well be true,” but asserts that the import of this fact is somehow dissipated by “the massacre of Arab villagers at Deir Yassin by a Jewish extremist group.” What happened to Arabs at Deir Yassin is contested and rightly so, as per testimony of many Arabs who witnessed the battle and testified to the truth, while what happened to Jews at Hebron, Jerusalem and countless other places in the land of Israel and Arab lands throughout the centuries, including the mid-twentieth century, is not. The Arabs who left tiny Israel are remembered, while the greater number (about a million Jewish families) of Israel-absorbed Jewish refugees from vast Arab and other Muslim lands, forcibly expelled leaving property and businesses behind, are forgotten. Nor is it remembered that in instances, as at Haifa, Jews made significant pleas to Arabs who were fleeing at the urging of the invading armies of the Arab states’ while Jews urging them to stay.

We began our “Four Facts” article: “Most Westerners, including many Jews, are unaware of four fundamental facts about the Jewish homeland of Israel that would greatly increase their support for the Jewish State.” The letter forwarded by reader Cohen shows how deeply misunderstanding of these facts prejudices perceptions of Israel.

Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and other lands in Greater Israel is Jewish territory - No annexation is required

If anything it may need to be re-incorporated or re-patriated.

Let me pose an interesting scenario. If you had a country and it was conquered by foreign powers over a period of time. After many years you have taken back you country and land in various defensive wars. Do you have to officially annex those territories. It was always your territory and by retaking control and possession of your territory it is again your original property and there is no need to annex it. The title to your property is valid today as it was many years before.
Annexation only applies when you are taking over territory that was never yours to begin with, just like some European countries annexed territories of other countries.

YJ Draiman

Jews hold title to the Land of Greater Israel even if outnumbered a million to one.

The fact that more foreigners than Jews occupied the Land of Israel during certain periods of time does not diminish true ownership. If my house is invaded by a family ten times larger that mine does that obviate my true ownership?