Hamas War

Monday, February 16, 2015

On Being Treated Like Some "Foreign Alien"

Call this a rant or call this a plea, but please listen, comment and share, thanks.

Recess at Ohel Shiloh
boys school
I moved far across the ocean with my husband almost forty-five, 45, years ago to live as a Jew in the Jewish Homeland, the State of Israel. We never saw the 1949 Ceasefire Lines as holy, certainly no holier than the locations depicted in the Bible where our Jewish Religion/People/Culture/Nation etc was formed and developed.

Shiloh
Anyone with even a minimal knowledge of the Bible, the first Jewish History Book, or any collection of atlases can attest to the fact that borders change, usually due to wars. The winner becomes the ruler of whatever land its army holds. Why should the 1967 Six Days War be considered any different?

Biblical Wikipedia

© 2005 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

History of Israel – Israeli Wars – The Six Day War 1967

But for some horrible malignant to the unity of the Jewish People reason, there are many who consider us, those Jews, Israelis who live in the Land of Israel liberated by the IDF, and G-d's miracles, in 1967 to be some foreign alien "other."

The other day I caught an Israeli Television news talk show and was horrified to hear how the "panel" referred to me and my neighbors as if we're some unwanted foreign enemy. They're perfectly happy to take our blood donations from the Magen David Adom Blood Bank, and they don't mind that our sons and daughters volunteer and even excel in the most dangerous and difficult IDF Israeli Army units in disproportionate numbers. They accept, as if their entitlement that our non-military serving kids contribute their time and energies in development towns and hospitals. They don't mind being on the receiving end of what we contribute to Israel society.

I'll never forget one of the first times I came up against this "other-ment." My husband was speaking to a group, and I had been asked to be part of the audience. During "comment" and question time one of the audience spoke of "those people," meaning me, my family and neighbors, in such a negative and nasty way I wanted to stand up and take the floor saying:
"I'm one of those people. Do I look or seem different from you? How can you refer to me, as if I'm a strange enemy alien?"
But I didn't get up. I said nothing but was very upset and left the room with friends.

We are all part of the Jewish Nation/People/Religion, and unity is the secret of our survival.

If you look at Jewish Prayers, there's something very important to notice. Our prayers are in plural. And that is to remind us that we're not alone; our fates are totally entwined. May G-d give us the wisdom and strength to tear down the barriers that separate us and allow us to function as one united and strong People.

11 comments:

Janet Clare said...

Well said. The Land of Israel belongs to the Nation of Israel, as deeded to us by our Creator, and. secondarily, by defensive wars and the 1920 post WWI international treaty. One note, the map of "Biblical Israel" included "Philistia" as part of Judah's tribal land. It just took us until the time of King Solomon to move out the last of those usurpers (whose homeland was the Aegean Islands, Crete in particular, by the way).

goyisherebbe said...

Next time this happens you should get up. I don't go to events like that, so it doesn't happen to me very much. But how do we get through to those people who live in a bubble in Tel Aviv or whatever that we really belong here, maybe more than they do there, in lands "sanctified" by Greek mythology. You know, the legend of Andromeda is said to have taken place in Jaffa. The coastal area, then as now, was considered the "international" area of Eretz Yisrael, where the foreigners congregated near the seaports and caravan routes, while the more faithful Jews lived in Jerusalem and the cities of the Judean Hills. We are definitely more authentic.

Sammy Finkelman said...

>> Why should the 1967 Six Days War be considered any different?

The U.N. Charter, or at least an understanding that goes with it, which is that borders shouldn't change as a result of war, but only through negotiations.

(and the same principle was enshrined in the Helsinki agreement in 1975 where they agreed not to change borders in Europe at all)

And the fact that United Nations Security Council resolution 242 said - wait a second, it didn't say the borders shouldn't change at all. And the 1949 cease-fire lines were never borders.

Still, all the world's maps showed those borders. And they've become "holy"

Batya said...

Janet, thanks
goyish, I try to never play the "Pat Nixon." I'm not suited for it. And I no longer keep my mouth shut.
Sammy, strange, isn't it?

Ted Crawford said...

I'm Ted, and I have a question about something I read in a modern history of Israel. It said that Jordan "annexed" the West Bank, Judea and Samaria, in 1951. How did this happen?

Sammy Finkelman said...


The King did it, shortly after January 1, 1950.

From the New York Times of Sunday, January 1, 1950 News of the week in Review section, page 77:

ABDULLAH'S NEW MOVE TO AFFECT JERUSALEM;

Formal Annexation by Jordan of Non-Israel Palestine Runs Into U.N. Internationalization Plan

TEL AVIV, AS WELL, IS DEFIANT

By EDWIN L.JAMES

Reports from Cairo say that King Abdullah of Jordan is about to announce formally the incorporation into his kingdom of the non-Israel parts of Palestine. This would include the walled city of Jerusalem, now held by Jordan troops...

It says this interferes with a UN plan. And he had already done that. And taken Palestiniaan Arabs into his cabinet in May, and discussed an election in which they would take part. And that Israel and Jordan have been conducting quiet negotiations for some months and some pobservers thought they were closer to an agreement than had been publicly announced. It goes on.



Sammy Finkelman said...

From the New York Times of January 31, 1950:

A JERUSALEM PLAN OFFERED AT GENEVA

.....Jordan and Israel both now occupy the city and both have gone on record against internationalization. King Abdullah of Jordan has declared that the city would be internationalized "over my dead body." he has carried out administrative measures that in effect annex his part of the city, along with Jordanian-occupied Palestine.

Israel's Knesset (Parliament) last week adopted a compromise resolution declaring the "historic fact" that Jerusalem automatically had become the Israeli capital on the day of Israel's independence but not going to so far as to claim all of Jerusalem."

(In 1968, they did annex the rest, and expanded the boundaries of Jerusalem at the same time.)

Arabs residing there have a special status even if they don't claim Israeli citizenship, which residents of Jerusalem can.

To top it off, at the present time, a little bit of Jerusalem is on the other side of the protective wall, and it is a no-go zone, not just for ordinary Jews, more or less, but also for the police and building inspectors! Paris or Birmingham, England, may not really have such a place, but Jerusalem does.

So there are some tall buildings that will topple in an earthquake. They tend to happen several hundred years apart, but then some earthquakes come within a few decades of each other.

With Jordan things are a little different now. King Hussein was forced by other Arab countries to give up his claim to the west bank in 1974, although Jordan still claims to stand in for the Arabs with regard to the Temple Mount. Now some Arabs have been stripped of Jordanian citizeship, too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/world/middleeast/14jordan.html?_r=0

Batya said...

Sammy thanks
Ted, Britain & UN planned for the land that remained in Mandated Palestine, after it had already given more than half to the Hashemites which created Jordan, to be divided between a Jewish and an additional Arab state. When Israel was declared Jordan and other arabs attacked the Jewish State, and when the dust settled, 1949 Armistice Lines, Jordan illegally occupied the West Bank and a lot of Jerusalem. Only two countries recognized it. Do you want to guess which ones?

Anonymous said...

Great Article, thank you very much. One day I'd like to see an "official" video on Youtube that tells the history as far back as it can go and then as far forward as it is and beyond (for predictions). To me, the so-called west bank and gaza have always been part of Israel. People should either accept that, or leave. There is plenty of land in Syria to accommodate all who want to leave Israel. Ike.

Sammy Finkelman said...

I think it is not even true that both Pakistan and the United Kingdom recognized the Jordanian incorporation of he parts of mandated Palestine that did not become part of Israel.

Pakistan didn't. The United Kingdom did, except for Jerusalem. But maybe the United States also did, except for Jerusalem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordanian_occupation_of_the_West_Bank

This says two contradictory things:

"Jordan formally annexed the West Bank on April 24, 1950. The annexation was regarded as illegal and void by the Arab League and others. It was recognized only by Britain, Iraq and Pakistan.[4][5][6] The annexation of the West Bank more than doubled the population of Jordan.[3]

AND

"Only the United Kingdom formally recognized the annexation of the West Bank, de facto in the case of East Jerusalem.[23] The United States Department of State also recognized this extension of Jordanian sovereignty.[24][25] Pakistan is often claimed to have recognized Jordan's annexation too, but this is dubious.[26][27]

Footnote 24:

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=turn&entity=FRUS.FRUS1950v05.p0943&id=FRUS.FRUS1950v05&isize=M

"In response to Mr. Rifai's question as to when the US was going to recognize the union of Arab Palestine and Jordan, I explained the Department's position, stating that it was not the custom of this country to issue formal statements of recognition every time a foreign country changed its territorial area. The union of Arab Palestine and Jordan has been brought about as a result of the will of the people and the US has accepted that Jordanian sovereignty had been extended to the new area. Mr. Rifai said he had not realized this and was pleased to learn that the US did in fat recognize the union."

- from a Memorandum of Conversations by Mr. Stuart W. Rockwell of the Office of African and Near Eastern Affairs, June 5, 1950, the topic of conversation being Jerusalem, published In Foreign relations of the United States 1950, Volume V, page 921.

The US was only arguing about Jerusalem.

Sammy Finkelman said...

The formulation will of the people probably means that while maybe there was no strict legal basis for it, they don't usually need it.