Why are the Jews so Reviled?

 

Anti-Semitism, in all of its variations which include anti-Zionism plus anti-Israelism, have been around from prehistory, just as the Jewish People, originally the Hebrews, originated over four-thousand years ago in what many call prehistory. Their story begins with the sojourn of Abraham and his possessions from Mesopotamia to the Levant, specifically the region south of the Litani River, both sides of the Jordan River, Sea of Galilee and Dead Sea, to the Mediterranean Sea and south to the Wadi of Egypt. Abraham’s travels included a stay for some years in Egypt then returning to what would become Israel. The Jewish People’s lineage then continued through Isaak, Jacob and then the twelve sons of Jacob and his daughters with each son becoming the head of one of the tribes of Israel. The initial problem which the forerunners of the Jewish People, the Hebrews, faced was their growing too powerful in numbers that the Pharaoh of Egypt feared that they might ally with an invading force when it came upon the Land of Goshen, located in the eastern Nile delta near modern day Faqus, and help overthrow the Pharaoh. This was told in the Biblical story of Joseph managing food and supplies during the seven years of plenty which was then used to survive the seven years of famine both of which Joseph had also foretold when interpreting the dreams which were plaguing the Pharaoh of Egypt. This Pharaoh of Egypt treated the Jews with respect and as allies and friends of Egypt. It was his son, who rose to power after he died, who was cruel to the Jews and who was destroyed at the crossing of the Red Sea, as the Biblical story related. From there the Israelites (Hebrews) journeyed to the lands promised to Abraham and had the tragic story of the twelve spies, ten of which told stories which were frightening claiming they would never be able to conquer the walled cities inhabited by men of great proportions as if they were giants, while Caleb and Joshua who gave reports that the people in Canaan were deeply frightened and would flee from before them if they simply entered the lands. We will never know which story was the truth as Hashem had Moses lead the Children of Israel into the desert for forty years raising a new generation which did not suffer the meekness which had hold of the people who were slaves.

 

Land of Goshen Overlaid with Map of Egyptian Region and Nile Delta *

 

The Jews had their share of enemies which included but was not limited to the Hittites, Phoenicians, Philistines and Amorites. But all the ancient history cannot explain the anti-Semitism present in the world today. The reality is that there are two strains of anti-Semitism which each has its origins in religion. The Islamic world which stretches across the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) finds its anti-Semitism anchored in the Quran where it is claimed that Islam was the final revelation from Allah thus replacing both Christianity and Judaism. The Quran further instructs the followers of Islam that their Messiah cannot and will not come until the Muslims attack and destroy the Jews. Across Europe, the difficulty begins with their developing replacement philosophy where the Christians now hold the covenant with Hashem and the Jews have been forsaken and cast to the fiery pits of hell. This original casting of the Jews performing the work of the Devil led to such as the Inquisition where non-Christians were forced to convert or die. Across the MENA expanse of nations, there were also periods where non-Muslims were forced to convert or die. The Jews faced both and often, if forewarned, fled taking what little they could carry and went seeking a new home. These were the starting points of Modern anti-Semitism. These are the religious forces behind the defamations, infamies and degradations which became what are referred to as Blood Libels. These tropes are relatively well known and consist of such ideas that the Jews poisoned the wells causing the plague, used the blood of kidnapped children to bake Passover Matzoh, steal body parts from people in disaster regions where Israel fields a hospital so they can transplant them to waiting Jews in Israel, manipulate money on an international scale, control governments through too much influence, control the media such that Israel is never attacked, cause every war throughout history so they can sell weapons to both sides and get wealthy and so many others we do not have the time or room to list them all. For more definitions and examples see here and here.

 

Another reason the Jews are so hated is simple jealousy. This form of anti-Semitism claims that there must be something nefarious going on when the Jews who are so inferior in numbers to almost every other peoples, yet win such a high percentage of Nobel Prizes in the hard sciences, win so many awards of other kinds, are overly represented in award winning movies, plays, books, discoveries, theoretical sciences such as physics and mathematics, tending to be over-represented in elected offices and filling the top spots in business and other ventures compared to their numbers. The fact that Jews are notable at all as they make up 0.2%, that is one in every five-hundred people while for Christians it is 31% which comes to one out of every three and a quarter and Islam it is 24.3% which is one out of every four and between one fourth or one third. If one were to have a spaceship arriving from another star system and they picked randomly two-hundred human beings from planet Earth they would most likely end up with sixty-five Christians, forty-eight Muslims, thirty-one secular humanists (includes Agnostics, Atheists and non-religious), thirty Hindus, fourteen Buddhists, eleven Traditional Chinese (a mix of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism amongst other tribal faiths), one Sikh and very likely they would not nab themselves even a single Jew. Mark Twain may have put the wonder of the Jews into words when he wrote in his essay titled “Concerning the Jews.”

“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

 

This which Mark Twain stated in heaping praise upon the Jewish People has its validations in reality but there are also many Jews who are vulnerable and not made of these stalwart’s superiority but instead are weak and requiring twenty-four hour, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year care just to survive. These are the unseen Jews as the vast majorities are treated by their own family members who work shifts caring for them or hiring people skilled in such care to remain with them. Even most Jews seldom meet these severely handicapped Jews which is an area which needs some intense work to call attention to the needs of these Jews as there are very many Jews who could help in some means even if only funds to defer the costs of care. These are the Jews who are not going to wear wreaths of flowers at a dinner in their honor. These Jews are ignored largely by those who wish to castigate the Jews for taking too much of the world and molding it to their liking completely ignoring the society at large. That could not be any further from the truth, but it is central in the hatred of the Jewish People. It would not matter if the Jews did not win all the awards or figure so prominently in the arts, sciences, politics, medicine, acting and so many other fields. Despite the numbers of reporters who are from Jewish families and are Jewish by birth, many of these same Jews by birth write anti-Israel and anti-Zionist articles and editorials which are infuriating. There are articles such as this one from the Washington Post which blames Israel for the left leaning, leftist and extreme leftist Jews moving away from support for Israel. It also blames Prime Minister Netanyahu for ignoring this split and for supporting President Trump which the article claims is the root cause of the rising anti-Semitism witnessed in American society. The article does depict that Israeli Jews, Orthodox Jews and the most religious Jews generally are supportive of President Trump as well as Israel. This correlation is of little importance to the author as his bone to pick is that the Jews in Israel are becoming more religious and nationalist while the majority of American Jews are secular-humanist, irreligious and internationalist. To this writer, Dana Milbank, his fellow leftist Jews, ones born to a Jewish family with all the background, were being Bar Mitzvah, then dropping from the religion never to return. I know of this as I almost road this road to ruin leaving the faith for several decades. It was my deeply rooted Zionism which allowed me to return and find the wonders of the faith I had left for far too long. Unfortunately, most of the leftist Jews have no love for Israel and condition support for Israel on its acting exactly as they would being as vulnerable and surrendering never resorting to violence of any kind.

 

These Jews, with their hatred of firearms, thus condemning Israel and the IDF because they are willing and have used their weapons in defense of the country, is simply one of many areas where they claim it is Israel’s fault for not allowing them to run its government and make all the decisions. That is totally unacceptable to these leftist Jews and is exactly why they hate President Trump and loved Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders even more as he represents the epitome of the leftist Jew. The far left Jews are perfect in every way and are so proud of their perfection that they can tell you about how wonderful the world would be if only they could run everything. This makes Israel their most despised of entities because it is full of Jews who are everything the leftist Jews are not. Things start to get interesting when we look at traditional anti-Semitism which is very separate from these Jews and their anti-Semitism, but there is a link. Traditional anti-Semitism originates and lives at the right end of the political spectrum, at least according to modern definitions. These are members of groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Skinheads, Nazis and fascists. These groups by and large despise Israel but really despise leftist Jews along with their fellow travelers. These far right hate groups hold a begrudging respect for Israel simply because they stand and defend their nation and they even respect that the majority are proudly, if not defiantly, religious Jews who practice their religion and do so with pride.

 

Then there are the anti-Semites on the left which includes, so very unfortunately, a fair number of American and some Israeli Jews. These groups include Communists, Secular Humanists and a plethora of radical groups almost all of which have discarded any religious roots they may have had in their youth. These groups play political games and use intersectionality such that all of them will hold identical beliefs. This intersectionality means if you support Planned Parenthood, then you also must support the entirety of the eco-friendly save the planet from carbon and global climate change as well as BDS and a host of other groups just as long as you oppose the right concepts and ideas such as you must despise President Donald Trump and everybody attached to him, and oppose Israel instead supporting Palestine which we were informed this month must replace Israel entirely and what happens to the Israeli Jews is something people such as Marc Lamont Hill can readily inform us. Support for Israel is excluded from the intersectionality and thus on the outs with the leftists. The leftists hate religiousness and want to uproot all religious observance, well, except for their religion of secular humanism. They worship Gaia as their god and their shrine is the planet which they are going to repair as part of Tikkun Olam. They have adapted their former religion if they have not simply abandoned it making their concepts the definition of religion for all peoples. They deplore violence, unless it targets people who believe in the Judeo-Christian ethic, the set of concepts which they believe are responsible for all the damage done to Gaia and which they are the chosen ones to repair that damage. Their main hate is for organized religion which is outside of politics and especially the Judeo-Christian ethos which built Western Civilization, another item they claim must be torn asunder.

 

They hate Israel, as it is everything with which they wish to do away. It is very much the originating engine of the dreaded Judeo-Christianity. This is why they are cozying up to Islam which provides even another reason to despise Israel and religious Jews. What the Leftist Jews do not realize or are simply in denial is that when the time comes, they will be expendable, as the Jews, including these leftist Jews, will be targeted for eradication. They will be the first as they will be closest and known to be unarmed and so passive they will do whatever they are told, just as long as it is not a Jew or an Israeli telling them what to do. They believe that once they have routed all of those other Jews and the various Christians, they will be able to transform Islam making it fit their belief system. That would be enjoyable to watch as they fail miserably and instead they are targeted for being apostates who practice falsely.

 

One can only wonder what and how it gains anyone to have such deep-seated hatred for the Jews. We are such a minority that there are probably tens or even hundreds of thousands of people who have never met any Jews. I know that my presence lifted a number of such people off those roles as I more often than not resided well off the beaten path and far from my fellow Jews. I am not sure which group was more shocked, the members of the congregation or those who had never knowingly met a Jew. Despite this, the two phrases most often posed were, ‘you do not look Jewish’ and ‘you do not act Jewish.’ When I would respond with ‘how do you know as what is a Jew supposed to look like and act like? If I am the first Jew you have ever met, how do you know? These questions always were met with a sheepish grin and the lowering of one’s head in a form of shame at being outed as having expectations that Jews would be obviously recognizable from normal people. I was often amused when asked where my tail was, how uncomfortable was it to keep it hidden, and similarly what did I do about my horns. Those who asked these questions really got nervous about the entirety and I did what was possible to fend these accusations off with humor. I would tell them that we had hoops on the inside of our jeans where we run our tail on the inside and we file back our horns every morning and before going out at night. I would always end my reply with the start of a laugh such that if they chose to also laugh we could disregard their insensitivity. Much of anti-Semitism originates largely from ignorance which can run rampant when there are so few which have ever studied or read about the Jews and often only know through hearsay and tall tales where the Jews are portrayed as those behind the scene manipulators and perpetrators through which they control politics. Then there are the claims that the Jews have all the money, and I relied on asking them how they could explain my residing amongst them if I were so wealthy. They would slip and talk about the manipulative abilities which the Jews possessed. I would have to confess that most of those I met who had never knowingly met a Jew and who were so often just filled with questions, and this was sometimes entire groups would gather, almost as if they were expecting a class, an in-service on what makes up a Jew. Many people have limited forms of telepathy which they often are able to control but not in any larger measure than the numbers in the regular population. There is little difference between the Jews and the rest of the population in the world. Yes, Jews likely have higher than average reading capabilities as reading has been something every Jewish child has had to learn after their regular lessons, as Hebrew was the language of Torah. Figuring with numbers was another skill prioritized in Jewish homes and telling of our history was important, especially about the two seminal times, the Exodus out of Egypt and the far more recent Shoah or Holocaust. The other item taught by many Jews who are Zionist is the founding and defending of Israel from the Balfour Declaration to our declaration of Israeli statehood and the struggles, wars, renewing of the land and the cultivation of same.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

* Antique print ‘In the Land of Goshen – Evening’ (1912) Unsigned; from a painting by R. Talbot Kelly from “Egypt” Painted and Described by R. Talbot Kelly; Published by Adam & Charles Black, London.

 

America and Judaism Share One Great Concept

 

Most nations and religions trace themselves to some great person who was responsible for their greatness and in some form or another deify that individual. For nations the examples are legion. Rome traced to the two children raised by a she wolf, Romulus and Remus, China was unified by a leader who was born of a dragon which brought him to China where he unified the separate kingdoms forging a great power, England has King Arthur and the Camelot myth and so on it goes. Christianity gave us Jesus, Islam gave us Mohammed, Buddhism gave us Buddha, Taoism came from Tao and so forth with each religion traced to a person who is raised above other men and in some way deified or immortalized. What follows will likely not sit us well with many readers but is presented for thought and not as any claim that the two seminal foundings were directly related beyond their emphasis on the sanctity of the human spirit and its enabling by the Creator, by Hashem.

 

But with the United States there was no one individual though George Washington is regarded as the father of the nation nobody would claim that he founded or singularly established the country. His greatest feat was giving up power when he could have continued as President until his death thus establishing the temporary power of the office instead of making it into a form of elected monarchy. The American idea was the world of the Founding Fathers, a group where though many people may choose one they prefer, none is more vital to the forging of the United States than the others. Sure we credit Thomas Jefferson with writing the Declaration of Independence but this only came about because John Adams deferred and chose him because he was a talented writer and an amiable person where, as John Adams is credited with stating in persuading Thomas Jefferson claiming when Jefferson claimed Adams was the stronger writer and better at expressing himself claimed that was why he could not be its author because he was far too disliked and anything he wrote would be torn apart by many of the others. James Madison is credited with crafting the initial wording of the constitution but again it became the work of all the signatories in some means or another. The United States is not traceable to a single person but instead to singular ideals expressed in that Declaration of Independence and a form of governance delineated in that Constitution and those are the two pillars upon which America rests.

 

Judaism is similar in that there were great people but no individual can be credited with establishing the religion. Granted when Hashem altered Avram’s name making it Avraham and Sari became Sarah, this would be the seminal point where the Covenant would be made and circumcision the sign of the contract which was to be undertaken by every male; yet the religion itself is transferred through one’s mother and not the father. To be a Jew one is required to have come from a Jewish mother. But Avraham received the Covenant with Hashem; he did not codify Judaism and did not write the Torah. Torah was transcribed by Moses which was why he is referred to as the lawgiver. But Moses transcribed Torah and led the Israelites from Egypt which is told in Torah in Exodus and retold in Deuteronomy. Moses went to great lengths to refute any deification including assuring that he would have no burial location which would be known so as to refute any worship giving all due credit to Hashem. Joshua was the leader of the Israelites when they conquered the Promised Land. Hashem kind of left out that after leaving Egypt the Israelites were going to have to conquer the Promised Lands but that was the way of forming a nation and claiming your place among nations in those early days of humankind. There also were numerous Judges and Prophets who ruled the Israelites but none were greater than the others in reflection and thus none were ever made to be more than wise and knowledgeable men. King Saul was the first Israelite king and was deficient in many ways but did preserve the nation passing it to King David more by default than any other means as the battle which claimed Saul’s son and heir to the throne also threw Saul into such grief that he took his own life, not the most glorious of endings. From King David the throne passed to King Solomon. King Solomon was regarded as one of the wisest of men but also had great failings chief amongst them were the inadequacy of his children who brought great harm upon the Israelites or Hebrews.

 

Torah the Founding Document of Judaism
with Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights
Founding Documents of the United States of America

 

What is less known by many is that the Jews were the remnants of the Israelites. The kingdom ruled by Kings Saul, David, Solomon and so forth broke into two kingdoms with the northern Kingdom called Israel and the southern Kingdom named for its larger tribe, Judah, named Judea. Israel consisted of ten tribes and their priests and was conquered by the Assyrians and never actually heard from until modern times. These became known as the ten lost tribe of the Jews but were really the ten lost tribes of Israel. Jews are the remainder of the tribes of Benjamin and Judea and the Priestly classes, tribes, of the Levites and Kohanim. These two tribes basically merged into the entity of Judea and the people were the Judeans, obviously. With time people grew lazy and did not care to actually say Judeans so it eventually shortened to simply Jews. Judea traced back to Judah and Benjamin to Benjamin, two of the sons of Jacob. One need remember that when Judaism relates to Avraham it is almost always referenced as Avraham, Isaak and Jacob as these were the Patriarchs buried in Hevron in the cave bought by Avraham in which to bury Sarah. Still the story of the Jews hinges greatly on Jacob’s twelve sons but one was responsible for the survival of the entire family, Joseph. This was one of the more unusual stories amongst many unusual stories. Joseph was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers but because of this act he was in the right place at the right time to become a favored one of Pharaoh and was placed as Chancellor over Egypt second only in power to Pharaoh himself. He managed resources of food saving Egypt from a great famine and saved his family as well. This led to the eventual enslaving of his family which was then brought forth by Hashem through the vessels which were Moses with Aaron. As is said, the rest is history except in this case it is more accurate to say the rest is the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament and then history as that story has had a rebirth which was foretold in the Bible with the formation in a single day of the nation of modern Israel in its ancient homelands, though that is still being contested the eventual forming of Israel will include its ancient lands even if that takes a thousand years.

 

Judaism and the United States owe their formations to many individuals with none more vital than the rest and neither would exist if not for all of these great people all of whom were guided by principles and forces beyond their comprehension. Did these people know they were a part of something far greater than themselves, of course they did. But each group had the guidance of great people when required the most and both claim that Hashem is an integral part of their formation as a nation. Neither deifies any individual and instead when they use the term Creator their reference is to the Creator of all things as told in Genesis and both Judaism and the United States of America claim to owe their creation to that very same Creator and both claim the view that mankind was imbued and “endowed by that Creator with unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These principles are found throughout the laws and preaching in Judaism and were carried forth in Christianity and found their place in the Declaration of Independence where they were once again ensconced in the human mind and established repeatedly but most forcefully in Torah and thus made available for Thomas Jefferson to include in his declaration.

 

Beyond the Cusp 

 

The Israel I Learned in Bible Class in my Youth

Over the years we covered the stories in the Old Testament, also called the Jewish Bible, and were taught many stories about the ancient Hebrews and Israelites as they were known depending on which period of ancient Jewish history you are talking about. There were also the biblical figures whose nationality was left unstated or other than one of the ancient names used by the earliest Jews. One well known example being Noah who while being a believer and obedient follower of G0d was not Jewish as he predates Abraham who is the father of the Jewish religion. We were also taught that in many ways the real originator of Judaism as we know it today was Moses who is referred to as the law-giver as he gave the Jews the Ten Commandments and the Torah in which are contained the laws which Jews are to observe. What fascinated me were the stories of the Israelites once they had settled in the Promised Lands and their struggles and how they seemed to be constantly falling away from following their Commandments only to face hardships which often took the form of outside civilizations invading their lands and how when facing defeat or other hardships they would find their way back to following the path laid out for them by G0d through His Laws. As with any young boy, I was always most interested in their battles and the tactics and maneuvers they used to repel or defend against these invaders.

 

There was one feature of almost all of these battles which strikes me as being of paramount importance to modern times and the problems concerning Israel and the constant demands that they surrender lands to the Arabs, Bedouins, Palestinians or whomever. The one constant in these battles were the Judean Hills which the ancient Israelites used to great advantage as it seemed that everybody who invaded used chariots and heavily armored infantry while the Israelites utilized archers, slingers, and mostly light infantry. When your strength is mobility and speed and the other army uses brute force and heavy equipment, then you pick the worst terrain you can find in which to confront them. The other tactical weapon the ancient Israelites would use was to try fight holding the invaders off and not directly engaging them until the seasons of rain were upon the lands making chariots next to useless. Apparently their lands had a tendency to become swamp-like which made the use of even horses difficult and often defeated every advantage the invaders normally enjoyed.

 

Then there was the most famous stronghold, Jerusalem. Jerusalem was a great walled city that had the most wonderful secret that enabled it to hold out against sieges, a culvert that was dug, concealed underground, which brought fresh spring waters into the city supplying the one absolute necessity, water. This not only provided drinking water but water for all purposes and apparently Jerusalem had enormous stores of grains and foods kept by the Priests within the Temple complex. Jerusalem also had tunnels that allowed raids to be loosed on any siege force which would come seemingly out of nowhere, strike, and disappear almost as fast as they had appeared never leaving any traceable signs. It is little wonder that Jerusalem was not conquered as frequently as most other cities. Add to the mystique that is the history of Jerusalem the fascinating tale of how King David as a warrior led a small band into the city by the very channel which supplied water to conquer the prize that became the eternal Capital City for the Jewish People from that day forward. Jerusalem was far more than just the Capital City and fortress of last resort, Jerusalem was the cultural and religious center of the Israelites. It was the central hub that wed the twelve tribes into one peoples. This was where three times every year every Jew would make their pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the three Jewish pilgrimage holidays, Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot. Much of Jewish life, customs, and religious observance in the ancient times revolved around the Temple in Jerusalem. There are many of the six-hundred-thirteen commandments which are at the core of Jewish belief which pertain solely to the Temple and the rituals which must be carried out in the holy place. Some pertain to daily, weekly, or monthly observances and others to particular services attached to certain holidays. Until the Jews are permitted to erect the Third Temple these commandments go unfulfilled.

 

There is one story which I found particularly unusual and it has to do with the initial conquest of the lands from the Canaanites at the beginning of Israelite history after the Exodus from slavery in ancient Egypt, and it pertains to right before they received their last instructions from Moses, as he would not cross the Jordan with them, and before Joshua as Moses’s successor led them against the walled fortress of Jericho. Two of the Tribes of Israelites, Dan and Rueben, who were made up of herders found the lands east of the Jordan River to be favorable for grazing their herds and approached Moses with a request to settle these lands. Moses was less than receptive to their request and admonished them for attempting to forgo their obligation to conquer the lands as commanded and instead leave all of the warfare to the other tribes to go alone. They replied that not only would they assist with the conquering of the Promised Lands but that they would take the lead in every battle and not take up their flocks until every tribe had received their lands. They asked only that they be allowed to build pens to hold their flocks and a defendable city to hold their women and children in safety. This too enraged Moses who reprimanded them for their placing the safety and security of their flocks ahead of that of their women and children. After Moses had sufficiently cowed them he allowed for them to proceed and reminded them of their promise and had them restate their intent to make honest on their promise to the other tribes.

 

What does all of this have to do with modern times? Well, the Israelites of today have not requested to have those lands the tribes of Dan and Rueben settled east of the Jordan River despite these lands being well described in the historical record of the early Jewish tribes, the Bible. The debate the world has forced upon the Jews is for them to sacrifice some of the lands where much of their most important events throughout their history took place. The world is demanding that the Jews surrender half of the city which has been at the heart of their world for over three-thousand years. The Jewish tribes had a civilization centered around Jerusalem before either Confucius or Buddha was preaching their philosophies and religious beliefs. There are demands that Israel allow the descendants of the Arabs who were displaced largely due to their own fleeing the oncoming warfare under the promise given them by the Mufti of Jerusalem that once the Jews had been eradicated they would be allowed to take from the spoils and have possession of all the land. Something of a miracle came to pass and Israel survived and even could be said to have thrived. Despite the constant claims for these Arab refugees who have been imprisoned by their brethren, nobody has bothered to demand restitution or the return to their lands of the over three-quarters of a million Jews who were forced through persecutions to flee much of the Arab and Muslim world after the formation of Israel. The majority of these Jews made what could be called a second exodus to Israel where they were welcomed and absorbed into the society and not placed in squalid camps for the next sixty-five plus years. What was nothing more than an exchange of populations similar to numerous other such exchanges that have taken place through recent history, this one is treated as something different, something other than ordinary. Nobody is demanding that restitution be made or a return forced for the Hindus and Buddhists who migrated in one direction and the Muslims who migrated in the other direction when India and Pakistan became separate entities. Similar comparisons can be made with the lands that were taken from Germany after the World War and presented to France and Poland. Furthermore, when after the War of Israeli Independence when Jordan claimed the areas of Judea and Samaria and renamed them the West Bank and made the Jews depart from lands they owned and gave the Arabs citizenship and divided the Jewish lands presenting them to those who were owed favor, the entire world including the Arab and Muslim nations with the exception of Britain and Pakistan refused to recognize the Jordanian claims. Here is a question, who exactly did the world believe that land belonged to that they refused to recognize the Jordanian annexation? There were no such peoples invented as of yet called Palestinians as when people referred to Palestinians at that time and before 1948 they meant the Jews living under the British rule. The British even had a Palestine Brigade fighting in the Sinai and North Africa during World War II which was made up entirely of Jews from the British Mandate Lands. There were no Arabs as they mostly fought on the side of the German Nazis during World War II and hated the British. So, the lands that the Jordanians called the West Bank and the rest of history called Judea and Samaria should belong to whoever was believed to have been the rightful owners while the world condemned and refused to recognize Jordanian ownership. A small hint, they believed it rightfully belonged to Israel, surprise.

 

Beyond the Cusp