Refuting Myths Against Israel and the Jews Made Simple

There are an unbelievable number of lies, distortions and misconceptions about Israel, the Jews, the Palestinians and the histories of each. First thing that is needed to do is to dispel some of the most common myths. The Jews were given Israel as retribution made because of the Holocaust the biggest lie. The idea of Israel as the Jewish State in modern times began with the first Jews returning to Israel in the 1850s. The Zionist movement was founded by Theodore Herzl as a response to the Trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus for treason by France which has become known as the Dreyfus Affair. Captain Alfred Dreyfus was wrongly accused and convicted of treason on the flimsiest of evidence, a single scrap from a note, mostly because he was a Jew. The scandal was eventually revealed after Émile Zola wrote his famous article, J’accuse. All of these events took place before 1900 and eventually led to the Balfour Declaration which was written in November 1917. The League of Nations set aside lands for the Jewish State to be founded upon under the Mandate System which established the French and British Mandates; the British Mandate was tasked with the establishment of the Jewish State in July 1922 and became effective following the ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne in September 1923. All of these events were as a response to the end of World War I and were made between the winning nations and signed by representatives of the losing nations with the addition of representatives for the Jewish Zionists and the Arabs independent from the Ottoman Empire, which was dissolved as part of the settlements. Finally, the Faisal–Weizmann Agreement, which recognized and formalized the Balfour Declarations and related treaties and accords, was signed by King Faisal bin Hussein representing the interests of the Arab World and Dr. Chaim Weizmann representing the World Zionist Organization in January 1919. With all of these steps in place the formation of Israel as the Jewish State was set in motion and ratified by every conceivable interest more than a decade before the first stirrings which led to World War II and the Holocaust.

 

Another myth is that the Jews, Zionists and Israel have never made any territorial concessions. On this topic one can almost ask as to where should one begin? Let’s begin by taking things in reverse chronological order. The latest territorial concession Israel made was the complete and total removal of every single Jewish resident and IDF troop and any other Jewish or Israeli citizen or interest from the Gaza Strip turning it all over to the Palestinian Authority. When this was completed in August 2005 there was no Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip as none was deemed necessary while the area was under Palestinian Authority control. After Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip after a revolt in June of 2007, Israel then initiated the blockade in order to prevent Hamas from having the ability to import heavy weapon systems and larger rockets and missiles with which to launch attacks on Israeli civilians living in neighborhoods and towns near the Gaza Strip. When incorporating the Oslo Accords Israel relinquished both security and civilian control over all towns, cities, and lands within Area A and relinquished civilian control with coordinated security responsibilities within Area B in Judea and Samaria which is also called the West Bank in 1993.

 

When Israel and Jordan reached their peace agreement in 1994, Israel offered to return most of the West Bank but Jordan relinquished any claims to these lands leaving them under Israeli possession. Previously, when Israel and Egypt signed their peace accords in 1979, Israel returned all of the Sinai Peninsula after removing more than twenty Israeli settlements which had been constructed south of the Negev Desert in the Sinai while Egypt relinquished any claims to the Gaza Strip. This was a major compromise made by the Israelis as had they retained the Sinai Peninsula, which was an option available as they had won the territory in a defensive war, as it gave them access to one side of the Suez Canal, complete control over the Straits of Tiran, and they surrendered lands which would have quadrupled the size of the State of Israel. United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 Israel was required to retreat from the disputed areas retaining those lands as deemed necessary for the security and defense requirements of the State of Israel in order to secure the peace in the future. Israel had technically met all requirements of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 once they had relinquished their control over the Sinai Peninsula. Just for the record, perhaps it would serve to denote the first lands which the Zionists relinquished and the guarantee they received in return for their sacrifice. After all of the papers, treaties, accords and Mandates had been established, the British were left with one nagging problem, their promise to the Arabs during World War I for their assistance with Lt. Colonel T.E. Lawrence, the Hashemite Family in particular who had lost their positions ruling over Mecca and Medina to the Family Saud. The British approached the Zionists demanding that they relinquish the lands east of the Jordan River for the establishment of a Palestinian Arab State ruled by the Hashemites. In return the Zionists were offered a guarantee that they would retain all lands west of the Jordan River and that these lands would be indivisible in perpetuity. This agreement is known as the Churchill White Papers of 1929, an agreement also ratified in principle by all the victors of World War I. The lands east of the Jordan River are today the nation of Jordan while the indivisible lands which were promised the Zionists west of the Jordan River are currently being divided up with the acquiescence of those same nations. So much for guarantees initiated by the British and backed up by the promises of the signatories to the Versailles Treaty among numerous other agreements, treaties, accords, and Mandate.

 

The last libel we will discuss is the claim that the Jews have no claim to any lands in the Middle East, never resided in or around Jerusalem, the Jewish Temples never existed, the Jews have had no presence in the Middle East for at least 2000 years, and the Jews in Israel are exclusively from Europe. As noted earlier, Jews started returning to Jerusalem and the lands around Jerusalem, especially in Judea and Samaria, since the middle of the Nineteenth Century. Even after the dispersion of the Jewish people by the Romans there has been a remnant of the Jewish people living in and around Jerusalem for the last three-thousand years. Even if one does not care to believe either the New Testament or the Jewish Bible (Old Testament) which both denote the Jewish existence in Jerusalem and surrounding areas including Judea and Samaria, there is corroborative evidence from Egyptian pictographs, Persian hieroglyphs, Greek historical records and manuscripts, Roman manuscripts and historical records, Byzantine records, Crusader histories, Ottoman tax and historical records, British histories, censuses and agreements, and Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and other writers bibliographies of their travels in the Holy Lands over the past two millennia. For the decades after the founding of the State of Israel there were over three-quarters of a million Jews expelled from across the Arab and Muslim Worlds, many of which ended up residing in Israel as well as some remnants in the United States and Europe. The population of modern Israel is almost of equal parts Ashkenazi and Sephardic. Modern DNA testing has revealed a common maternal root for both the Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews that predates their separation.

 

With the volumes of records from separate sources detailing the presence of Jewish communities in and around Jerusalem and their related histories, those pressing a denial of these facts are simply relying that most people will not do any research on their own and will simply accept their propaganda. With the historical contempt for the Jewish people throughout history, they are very likely correct that people will simply take their lies as facts as they simply reinforce their preconceived prejudices. Everything above can be validated simply by entering the names of the people or agreements into any search engine and follow the links. Some of these links will also tend to mention other histories but the original documents are available online and can be read in their unadulterated form. The body of evidence backs the right of the Jews to reestablish their historic homelands. There are other ancient peoples who also are entitled to their homelands but have been denied such by history and the powers which shaped it. Some examples, but not a complete list by far, are the Kurds who were victims of the European redrawing of the Middle East after World War I and their overriding preoccupation with their Arab allies, and the Tibetan Buddhists who had their country erased by Mainland China (it is non PC to call them Communists anymore) and have been victims of forced relocations and the involuntary immigration of Chinese citizens from all sides of the Chinese peoples. Perhaps the day will come when the indigenous peoples who have, despite the ravages of history and circumstance, kept a higher than normal cohesiveness will be permitted to reestablish their ancient homelands. Just because other such dispossessed peoples have yet to regain such privileges is no reason to prevent the Jewish People from reestablishing their ancient homelands, especially since they possess a guarantee in a treaty, the Churchill White Papers.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

How Jews Living in West Bank Affect the Palestinians

We hear so much noise about the areas known historically as Judea, Samaria and Benyamin which were recently retagged as the West Bank in order to make them sound less Jewish. We hear about the need for the Palestinian Authority to be granted full autonomy of an independent nation with complete control over this West Bank as well as Gaza. Part of the problem with this presentation is that the Palestinians have two completely separate, mutually exclusive, actively competitive, viciously antagonistic governing agents with Hamas controlling and ruling over Gaza while the Palestinian Authority Fatah organization controlling and ruling over Area A the West Bank. Hamas is led by Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh while the Palestinian Authority leader is President Mahmoud Abbas. Since the two factions split after the Hamas violent coup which placed them in control of Gaza in June 2007, all efforts to reunite the two groups have utterly failed. Part of the problem is that Hamas is based in Islamic religious governance while the Palestinian Authority is aligned with Fatah which is secular socialist governance and such philosophies are very much similar to oil and water, they do not mix well. The power struggle between these two groups drips with the avarice and hatreds such that the resultant atmosphere is not conducive to healthy economic policies therefore depressing economic growth potentials due to crippling corruption. The situation has resulted in totally failed governance in almost every category which has become completely reliant on foreign generosity lurching from one financial catastrophe to the next. Such poor governance constantly leads to the need to plead to the world for emergency funding. This has resulted in high unemployment for the Palestinian Arab people living under the direct controlling rule of either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority in either Gaza or Area A in the West Bank. Yet there is one group who has 100% employment as the Palestinian Authority places every Palestinian terrorist or criminal who has been sentenced to prison in Israel, whether they are members in the PLO, Fatah, Hamas, or any other terror related group, where they receive some of the highest salaries which are directly proportional to the number of Israelis they were able to maim and murder. This would almost be the guaranteed condition over the entire areas of Gaza and the West Bank should the entirety of these areas be placed under solely Palestinian governance.

 

Should anybody desire to find a more optimistic and promising atmosphere where the overwhelming majority of the people are employed and making significantly higher salaries resulting in a higher standard of living, one need not leave the West Bank, one simply needs to visit the areas where modern governance encourages economic ventures and the size and scope of government is limited. These areas are not under either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians living in these areas are largely employed with comparatively no unemployment when compared to the Palestinians living in Area A. The major difference in the condition for these Palestinians is they live among Israeli settlers. Much of the world decries the supposed conditions under which Palestinians are forced to live in areas where they share the lands with the Israeli settler who are mostly Jewish. There are so numerous different origins of the Israelis living in Samaria and Judea that any attempt to stereotype them as just religious Jews is not only pointless but in complete denial of reality. The Jews who have chosen to live in what the world refers to as the West Bank consist of religious and secular Jews, Israeli Arabs both Christian and Muslim, Secular Jews, Zionist Jews, Jews seeking a more relaxed atmosphere in which to live, farmers, people working locally as well as many whose work is in Tel Aviv who commute, IDF soldiers, physicians, nurses, computer programmers, entrepreneurs, and people from every walk of life one can find. There is a major Israeli University in Ariel called, oddly enough, Ariel University.

 

But what is most interesting is the completely impossible situation under which the Jews and Palestinian Arabs face living close to each other with all the serious relationship problems which are the constant fare in the mainstream media coverage of the Jewish settlers living beyond the Green Line. For the best example of how all of this has an effect, all one need do is visit Ariel University, Barkan Industrial Park, Shahak Industrial Park, and the other industrial parks, farms, vineyards, wineries, business parks, and other businesses and witness a bit of the truth about the Israeli controlled areas of Judea and Samaria. What becomes evident very quickly is that there is no distinction between Jews, Muslims, Christians and those of other religions, Jews and Arabs, Asian ancestry and European ancestry, or religious and secular. Approximately half of the employees along with their supervisors and management in both large and small industrial enterprises are West Bank Arabs employed there right next to West Bank Jews. The same goes for students and professors to a great extent at Ariel University. Throughout the main settlement areas of the West Bank the Jews and Palestinian Arabs live and work together in harmony without any trouble, violence, oppressions or any of the myriad of misconceptions that spring from a media more interested in forcing the issue of the oppressor Jews dispossessing the unfortunate Arab victims of Jewish hegemony. The fact that the Palestinian Arabs who live and work among the Jewish settlers in Judea and Samaria have a much higher standard of living is a little secret of which the mainstream media refuses to inform the world. The fact that the rule is cooperation and an improved life for those Palestinians fortunate to reside in the developed mixed Jewish and Arab areas and that the terrorism and violence are the exception must be suppressed as there exists an entire industry based upon the Jewish oppressions of the Arabs. The problem is people living and working in harmony just does not sell newspapers or newscasts anywhere near as well as explosions and violence. The real truth is that the standard of living for the Palestinian Arabs throughout Gaza and the West Bank was among the fastest growing GDP of anywhere in the world from 1973 through 1992. Then, starting in 1993 when Yasser Arafat returned and the very same Palestinians were placed in a semi-autonomous self-ruled areas under the Palestinian Authority the GDP and standard of living reversed and has continued to drop ever since. The wonderful and hopeful truth which the media insists does not exist is that where Palestinian Arabs live together in relative harmony and mutual tolerance with Jews in Area C of the West Bank, sharing the advantages of the rule of law and entrepreneurial opportunity live better lives than their Palestinian brothers living in Area A and Gaza where the leadership is under the Palestinian Authority or Hamas which consist of dictatorial regimes. If people throughout the world truly wish the best of possibilities for the Palestinian people, perhaps they would be better able to decide where to place their efforts after taking an actual investigation of the separate Areas in the West Bank and Gaza and ask the Palestinians who reside within and amongst the Jews in Area C and those living in Palestinian autonomous areas of Area A and Gaza and then decide which group lives a more productive and preferred life. Finding the truth would definitely be an eye-opening experience which would likely deliver a viewpoint not covered by the mainstream media and actually actively hidden by the mainstream media.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Shas Reacts Facing the Unthinkable

In the entire history of the state of Israel, Shas has been included as part of the ruling coalition ever since its inception going into elections for the eleventh Knesset without concern for the political alignment, be it right, left, Zionist or any other conceivable alignment except for the sixteenth Knesset under Prime Minister Sharon. This has made the leadership of the Shas Party begin to expect that they would be included in every government going forward as they have proven to be loyal members of coalitions led by Labor or Likud and anyone inbetween. As such, the Shas leadership now has to deal with not being included in the next ruling coalition for only the second time since their inception and they are definitely not pleased with this situation. This begs the question of whether or not any party can rightfully view themselves as indispensable to any ruling coalition and what leads the membership of Shas to have such beliefs.

 

It is actually understandable why Shas has been able to join governing coalitions without regard to most of the political considerations which affect other parties. Shas is only beholden to the Sephardic Haredi population and as such has a very narrow definition of concerns. With such a specific and narrowly defined membership, Shas can be accommodated in any governing coalition without sacrificing any of the more secular principles which often go into the formation of a coalition. Shas would appear to favor more religious Jewish values which are also considered to be at least in part the basics for Likud, Labor and most of the other Israeli Jewish political parties and as such pose no difficulties for the inclusion of Shas in a government. Simply all the major party forming a coalition need implement to have Shas as a member party is to grant them the demands for Torah worship funding including stipends for their adult students, especially those with families, so they may study full time and not need to hold employment and also give those students of Torah deferment from military or public service requirements. This had not been a problem as it had been established through the Tal Law. That came crashing down when Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch annulled the Tal Law as a parting gift when she stepped down from her position. The Tal Law was in need of replacement as the Haredi portion of the Israeli society has grown to the point where it is becoming unfeasible to continue to carry them on the backs of the rest of the country and excuse them from any responsibility solely so they are free to study Torah and only study Torah. The transition had already shown the early signs of stirrings and would have been accomplished, albeit slowly, but it was being addressed. By annulling the Tal Law the government was faced with a pressing situation which more resembled a crisis than having to address a gradual change altering perceptions over time. This made Shas the political hot potato of this election cycle and was further exacerbated by Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party making the immediate enlistment and end of deferrals for almost all Torah students which placed them totally at odds with Shas. This led to a predicament where only one of the two political parties would be able to join the ruling coalition if either were to be included. As Lapid reached an agreement with Naftali Bennett of the Jewish Home Party that they would join their Knesset seats together and join a coalition or the opposition as one party. This left Prime Minister Netanyahu with a choice, either include both Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid Party and Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home Party or allow Shas to join his coalition. Apparently Shas will end up on the losing end of such a choice.

 

The resulting anger and recriminations which have emanated from the Shas membership and leadership both during the campaign and the ensuing coalition negotiations has been, shall we say, less than cordial or polite. Their vindictive rhetoric towards Yair Lapid and his party’s secular core which demanded equal sharing of the burden was predictable but their venomous outpourings at Naftali Bennett did come as a surprise to some, especially members of the Jewish Home Party. It will remain to be seen if the uncomely actions and accusations from some Shas members, particularly their newly returned leader, Aryeh Deri, have shocked many and left a rather putrid aroma over the whole coalition building scene. Their demands and appearance of feeling owed a position in the next government would affect adversely any regular party in upcoming elections. Not so Shas as their support comes from a close knit community which is obliged by their Rabbis to vote for Shas and without considerations of anything other than supporting their community at the expense of all else. This is part of why they are immune to normal influences that might cripple other parties and why they appear to garner the same portion of Knesset seats election after election. It will remain to be seen if the discipline to keep the members of Shas dependent upon their party once their insular community is no longer supported separate from the rest of Israeli society. Once they are no longer permitted universal deferment from IDF or public service it is possible that their world and societal views may change and outside influences may forever alter their previously closed society.

 

There is one item that also must be addressed if one is to be fair to the Haredi community. They have not exactly been accepted with open arms by those outside their community. Where there may be some credibility to the excuse that the Haredi have not exactly made enormous efforts to be accepted by the outside society, those outside of the Haredi community share at least an equal amount of blame for not making the Haredi accepted or make efforts to make the outside world accessible for the strictly religious. The lack of understanding has been shared by both sides of this debate and any solution is going to require sacrifices and efforts by both communities. Where the Haredi community has been portrayed by the secular media and secular society as a bunch of freaks living in a backwards and exclusive community, there has not exactly been any real efforts made to make the secular society accessible to the Haredi or to be sensitive to their culture and societal rules and standards. Much of the public discussion has been of a nature to criticize the Haredi with little effort put forth towards understanding and acceptance. The Haredi have just as much right to live according to traditional rules as the secular society has to ignore those very same rules which their ancestors no more than a few short generations ago lived by. That is the one small fact that many in the secular community ignore that they are not that far removed from the exact same societal structures and strict rules of the Haredi in their own families. Where it is true that the Haredi are going to need to join Israeli society and start to pull their fair share of the burden, it is also going to be necessary that the secular make adjustment which allows the Haredi to share the burden while not forcing them to abandon their principles and traditions. It is a two way street and neither side is going to be able to demand of the other that they forfeit their way of life and the lifestyle to which they are accustomed. If both are to share the burden, then both will also be burdened with making Israel a place which respects and accommodates both in equal amounts. The extent to which such accommodations and adjustments are made will be the measure to the tolerance and respect both societies are able to grant the other. The one truth is that the future of Israel is dependent upon a shared effort and interest in working together instead of competing for prevalence.

 

Beyond the Cusp