The following is a basic statement explaining why the Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel. It is a statement of belief - unsophisticated, undiplomatic, simple, stark and direct; perhaps politically incorrect and difficult for many to hear (the truth often is). That is why even those in the Government of Israel who accept these principles have trouble articulating them for the public. As a private citizen, I have the luxury of speaking freely (after all, I do live in the only democracy in the Middle East) and of saying what people - especially Jews - all over the world know and believe is true. It is truly the only Jewish claim to Israel which is undeniable, un-negotiable and eternal.
I hereby proclaim:
1. The Land of Israel - the "Holy Land" - is the Divinely bestowed, Eternal Heritage of the Jewish People, promised by God to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It has been the indisputable, historical Jewish homeland since the time of Abraham, 3744 years ago. Look it up in the book of Genesis.
2. The Temple Mount is holy because God chose it as the site for the Beit Hamikdash - the Holy Temple. The First Temple was built here in the year 833 B.C.E. , fifteen hundred years prior to Mohammed and the rise of Islam (despite wishful Arab claims to the contrary). The two Temples stood on this spot for a total of almost one thousand years. Six hundred years later, in the eighth century, the gilded Dome of the Rock (the Mosque of Omar) and the el-Aksa mosque were built on the site.
3. Jerusalem is the Eternal capital of the Jewish people. Jewish Biblical tradition claims the city and the Temple Mount from the time of Abraham down to King David and down to today. The Twelve Tribes formed the first constitutional monarchy in the Land of Israel by about 1000 B.C.E. The second king, David, proclaimed Jerusalem the Jewish capital. It has so remained since then.
Jerusalem is the geographic and spiritual heart of Jewish existence in this world. It is mentioned more than 600 times in the Bible and scores of thousands of times in Jewish sources (and not even once in the Koran). All Jews everywhere turn to face Jerusalem in prayer (Moslems turn to face Mecca). As is God Himself, so too are Jerusalem and the Jewish People - one, eternal and indivisible.
4. Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus, Gaza are all ancient Biblical cities - Jewish cities - part of the legacy of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and home to continuous Jewish settlement from Biblical times until 1948, when some of these sites were captured in the Israeli War for Independence. All are replete with Jewish holy sites, burial places, archeological remains and historical memories - witness to an unbroken Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.
5. Palestine and the Land of Israel are one and the same. The name Palaestina was first given to Judea - the Jewish Kingdom - by the Romans in the year 135 C.E., sixty-five years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple, after the crushing of the last Great Jewish Revolt. The new name was based on the ancient, by then non-existent Philistines. It was an attempt to wipe out the memory of the Jewish people who had fought so valiantly against the Romans and had engaged them at such great cost.
6. A Palestinian "Nation" never existed - not in Palestine, not in Israel, not on the West Bank, not on the East Bank, not anywhere else. After the Roman Conquest, Palestine was conquered and colonized by Christian Byzantines, Moslem Caliphates, Christian Crusaders, Egyptian Mamlukes, Ottoman Turks and then placed under British rule after World War I. All came, conquered and passed from sight. The Arabs themselves originally migrated to the area from the east during the great Islamic conquest in the 7th century. By the end of the nineteenth century, fewer than 250,000 Arabs lived in Palestine, most of them recently arrived from surrounding countries. From the 7th century until the twentieth, the Arabs never established a sovereign, Arab, Palestinian "nation" or state in the area.
7. Nonetheless, today an Arab-Palestinian state does exist. It is called Jordan. In a total reversal of its declared policy, and as the result of the perceived need to placate and appease the Arabs, Britain withdrew from the 1917 Balfour Declaration and reversed the commitments she had made to the League of Nations when accepting the Mandate over Palestine. In 1921, 80% of the original Mandate designated as the Jewish Homeland was given over to Abdullah and eventually became the Kingdom of Jordan. The remaining 20% became the State of Israel in 1948 (Please digest those numbers). As an added travesty, the infamous White Paper of 1939 severely restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine, costing the lives of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of refugees from Hitler's hell in Europe.
NOTE: Until 1948, the term "Palestinians" legally referred to all the inhabitants of the area - Moslems, Christians and Jews. Yet it was primarily the Jews in Palestine who were known as "the Palestinians" (today's Jerusalem Post was the Palestinian Post; the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was the Palestine Philharmonic, etc. ). The Arabs disdained the name. They did not view themselves as having a separate national identity - they were ?Arabs,? part of the great Moslem-Arab brotherhood stretching from the Saudia Arabian desert in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. Today, with 80% of the territory of the Palestine Mandate and a population composed of 70% Palestinian Arabs, Jordan is the Palestinian state.
8. We therefore vehemently oppose the creation of a second, additional Arab state inside the already emasculated borders of the Jewish homeland. There are a multitude of Arab states in the Middle East. Israel, including Judea, Samaria (the "West Bank", which is the Biblical heart of the country) and Gaza, is a microscopic island in a great sea of Arab nations (Look at a map of the region. I guarantee that you will be so astounded at our miniscule size that you will not believe what you are seeing). These Arab nations all speak the same language, practice the same religion, share the same culture and are virtually one people. Any Arab who desires a national homeland has a rich array to choose from. We Jews have exactly one.
9. In addition, the Middle East is now almost completely Judenrein. Except for remnants in Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Iran, there are almost no Jews left in the vast, Arab Middle East. For fifty years the Arabs have been perpetuating their refugee problem (Yes, sadly, wars do breed refugees), but who ever heard of the Jewish refugee problem? Who knows that six hundred thousand Jews (some from communities two thousand years old) were forced to flee their Arab host countries in 1948, leaving behind vast sums of money and property? Today, they, their children and their grandchildren are all settled, productive citizens of the Jewish State while the Arab refugees remain in miserable camps, pawns in an unending Arab war (the great Arab oil-rich companies unable to resettle them). Strangest of all, Arabs live, work and move freely throughout Israel. The country - the only one in the Middle East - is open to any Jew or gentile who desires to live here as a loyal, law-abiding and peaceful citizen.
10. We in Israel are not simply ?fighting a war against terror.? We are fighting for the Land of Israel and for the right of the Jewish people - the People of Israel - to live in their Homeland. We will fight against anyone - terrorist, army, so-called "police force" - who tries to oust us from our one and only homeland.
Remembrance is a Jewish trait and obligation. We remember the Exodus. We remember ancient and contemporary Amaleks. We remember the Sabbath; we remember our beloved Jerusalem. We remember our Land.
We remember where we came from, who we are and where we are going (even though we may sometimes temporarily go astray). The Land of Israel has always belonged to, now belongs to, and will continue to belong solely to the Jewish People. The Jewish State was created - and is destined to remain - a Jewish State in our God-given Land, divinely promised and lovingly, faithfully, passionately remembered for close to four millennia. We have finally returned home.
The world would therefore also be wise to remember that even as our beleaguered Government stumbles and stutters, trying valiantly to steer clear of disaster and keep us afloat in the tidal wave of world pressures and conflicting international interests, the Jewish People did not return home to be sacrificed, slaughtered or sent back into exile. Because we are so fiercely independent (and democratic), everyone here must have their say. We are slow to move into battle formation. Yet make no mistake. We stubborn, stiff-necked, difficult Jews do not intend to commit national suicide in order to make life easier for international coalitions or to insure their goodwill. We will wage a bitter war against those who rise up to harm, kill, destroy or remove the Jewish People from the Jewish Land.
The children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have brought the world untold gifts - holy concepts, human dignity, wisdom, eternal values, unending knowledge and immeasurable progress (Find a good history book which doesn't downplay the peerless Jewish contribution to civilization and start reading). Our reward has often been a tidal wave of hatred and suffering, forcing us to live by our wits or, when that failed, to face slaughter. Now that God has arranged our return to our Land after two thousand years of exile and has brought so many of us home, we have a strong suspicion He wants us to stay here. With His help, despite all of the confusion and difficulties, we will do so.
-----------------------
Originally published in the Jewish Press. The article is posted with permission of the author.
Yaffa Ganz is an award-winning author of more than forty books for Jewish
children and has published scores of articles in the past twenty years in
various Jewish publications.
I hereby proclaim:
1. The Land of Israel - the "Holy Land" - is the Divinely bestowed, Eternal Heritage of the Jewish People, promised by God to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It has been the indisputable, historical Jewish homeland since the time of Abraham, 3744 years ago. Look it up in the book of Genesis.
2. The Temple Mount is holy because God chose it as the site for the Beit Hamikdash - the Holy Temple. The First Temple was built here in the year 833 B.C.E. , fifteen hundred years prior to Mohammed and the rise of Islam (despite wishful Arab claims to the contrary). The two Temples stood on this spot for a total of almost one thousand years. Six hundred years later, in the eighth century, the gilded Dome of the Rock (the Mosque of Omar) and the el-Aksa mosque were built on the site.
3. Jerusalem is the Eternal capital of the Jewish people. Jewish Biblical tradition claims the city and the Temple Mount from the time of Abraham down to King David and down to today. The Twelve Tribes formed the first constitutional monarchy in the Land of Israel by about 1000 B.C.E. The second king, David, proclaimed Jerusalem the Jewish capital. It has so remained since then.
Jerusalem is the geographic and spiritual heart of Jewish existence in this world. It is mentioned more than 600 times in the Bible and scores of thousands of times in Jewish sources (and not even once in the Koran). All Jews everywhere turn to face Jerusalem in prayer (Moslems turn to face Mecca). As is God Himself, so too are Jerusalem and the Jewish People - one, eternal and indivisible.
4. Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus, Gaza are all ancient Biblical cities - Jewish cities - part of the legacy of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and home to continuous Jewish settlement from Biblical times until 1948, when some of these sites were captured in the Israeli War for Independence. All are replete with Jewish holy sites, burial places, archeological remains and historical memories - witness to an unbroken Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.
5. Palestine and the Land of Israel are one and the same. The name Palaestina was first given to Judea - the Jewish Kingdom - by the Romans in the year 135 C.E., sixty-five years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple, after the crushing of the last Great Jewish Revolt. The new name was based on the ancient, by then non-existent Philistines. It was an attempt to wipe out the memory of the Jewish people who had fought so valiantly against the Romans and had engaged them at such great cost.
6. A Palestinian "Nation" never existed - not in Palestine, not in Israel, not on the West Bank, not on the East Bank, not anywhere else. After the Roman Conquest, Palestine was conquered and colonized by Christian Byzantines, Moslem Caliphates, Christian Crusaders, Egyptian Mamlukes, Ottoman Turks and then placed under British rule after World War I. All came, conquered and passed from sight. The Arabs themselves originally migrated to the area from the east during the great Islamic conquest in the 7th century. By the end of the nineteenth century, fewer than 250,000 Arabs lived in Palestine, most of them recently arrived from surrounding countries. From the 7th century until the twentieth, the Arabs never established a sovereign, Arab, Palestinian "nation" or state in the area.
7. Nonetheless, today an Arab-Palestinian state does exist. It is called Jordan. In a total reversal of its declared policy, and as the result of the perceived need to placate and appease the Arabs, Britain withdrew from the 1917 Balfour Declaration and reversed the commitments she had made to the League of Nations when accepting the Mandate over Palestine. In 1921, 80% of the original Mandate designated as the Jewish Homeland was given over to Abdullah and eventually became the Kingdom of Jordan. The remaining 20% became the State of Israel in 1948 (Please digest those numbers). As an added travesty, the infamous White Paper of 1939 severely restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine, costing the lives of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of refugees from Hitler's hell in Europe.
NOTE: Until 1948, the term "Palestinians" legally referred to all the inhabitants of the area - Moslems, Christians and Jews. Yet it was primarily the Jews in Palestine who were known as "the Palestinians" (today's Jerusalem Post was the Palestinian Post; the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was the Palestine Philharmonic, etc. ). The Arabs disdained the name. They did not view themselves as having a separate national identity - they were ?Arabs,? part of the great Moslem-Arab brotherhood stretching from the Saudia Arabian desert in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. Today, with 80% of the territory of the Palestine Mandate and a population composed of 70% Palestinian Arabs, Jordan is the Palestinian state.
8. We therefore vehemently oppose the creation of a second, additional Arab state inside the already emasculated borders of the Jewish homeland. There are a multitude of Arab states in the Middle East. Israel, including Judea, Samaria (the "West Bank", which is the Biblical heart of the country) and Gaza, is a microscopic island in a great sea of Arab nations (Look at a map of the region. I guarantee that you will be so astounded at our miniscule size that you will not believe what you are seeing). These Arab nations all speak the same language, practice the same religion, share the same culture and are virtually one people. Any Arab who desires a national homeland has a rich array to choose from. We Jews have exactly one.
9. In addition, the Middle East is now almost completely Judenrein. Except for remnants in Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Iran, there are almost no Jews left in the vast, Arab Middle East. For fifty years the Arabs have been perpetuating their refugee problem (Yes, sadly, wars do breed refugees), but who ever heard of the Jewish refugee problem? Who knows that six hundred thousand Jews (some from communities two thousand years old) were forced to flee their Arab host countries in 1948, leaving behind vast sums of money and property? Today, they, their children and their grandchildren are all settled, productive citizens of the Jewish State while the Arab refugees remain in miserable camps, pawns in an unending Arab war (the great Arab oil-rich companies unable to resettle them). Strangest of all, Arabs live, work and move freely throughout Israel. The country - the only one in the Middle East - is open to any Jew or gentile who desires to live here as a loyal, law-abiding and peaceful citizen.
10. We in Israel are not simply ?fighting a war against terror.? We are fighting for the Land of Israel and for the right of the Jewish people - the People of Israel - to live in their Homeland. We will fight against anyone - terrorist, army, so-called "police force" - who tries to oust us from our one and only homeland.
Remembrance is a Jewish trait and obligation. We remember the Exodus. We remember ancient and contemporary Amaleks. We remember the Sabbath; we remember our beloved Jerusalem. We remember our Land.
We remember where we came from, who we are and where we are going (even though we may sometimes temporarily go astray). The Land of Israel has always belonged to, now belongs to, and will continue to belong solely to the Jewish People. The Jewish State was created - and is destined to remain - a Jewish State in our God-given Land, divinely promised and lovingly, faithfully, passionately remembered for close to four millennia. We have finally returned home.
The world would therefore also be wise to remember that even as our beleaguered Government stumbles and stutters, trying valiantly to steer clear of disaster and keep us afloat in the tidal wave of world pressures and conflicting international interests, the Jewish People did not return home to be sacrificed, slaughtered or sent back into exile. Because we are so fiercely independent (and democratic), everyone here must have their say. We are slow to move into battle formation. Yet make no mistake. We stubborn, stiff-necked, difficult Jews do not intend to commit national suicide in order to make life easier for international coalitions or to insure their goodwill. We will wage a bitter war against those who rise up to harm, kill, destroy or remove the Jewish People from the Jewish Land.
The children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have brought the world untold gifts - holy concepts, human dignity, wisdom, eternal values, unending knowledge and immeasurable progress (Find a good history book which doesn't downplay the peerless Jewish contribution to civilization and start reading). Our reward has often been a tidal wave of hatred and suffering, forcing us to live by our wits or, when that failed, to face slaughter. Now that God has arranged our return to our Land after two thousand years of exile and has brought so many of us home, we have a strong suspicion He wants us to stay here. With His help, despite all of the confusion and difficulties, we will do so.
-----------------------
Originally published in the Jewish Press. The article is posted with permission of the author.
Yaffa Ganz is an award-winning author of more than forty books for Jewish
children and has published scores of articles in the past twenty years in
various Jewish publications.