Push-Button Terminology

I will not argue with, counter, disprove or negate the content of this piece.

I will but simply highlight for you all the push-button terms in it that are intended to set off the alarm bells for liberals, sending them into harrowing concern, nervous tension and igniting under them hate and derision. Each one of them could have been written differently, less contentiously, but the author(s) had a specific goal in mind.

We are Israel's largest human rights group – and we are calling this apartheid

Hagai El-Ad

The systematic promotion of the supremacy of one group of people over another is deeply immoral and must end

Hagai El-Ad is executive director of B’Tselem

Israel’s controversial separation barrier at the Qalandia crossing between the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem, December 2020. 

Tue 12 Jan 2021 

One cannot live a single day in Israel-Palestine without the sense that this place is constantly being engineered to privilege one people, and one people only: the Jewish people. Yet half of those living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea are Palestinian. The chasm between these lived realities fills the air, bleeds, is everywhere on this land.

I am not simply referring to official statements spelling this out – and there are plenty, such as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assertion in 2019 that “Israel is not a state of all its citizens”, or the “nation state” basic law enshrining “the development of Jewish settlement as a national value”. What I am trying to get at is a deeper sense of people as desirable or undesirable, and an understanding about my country that I have been gradually exposed to since the day I was born in Haifa. Now, it is a realisation that can no longer be avoided.

Although there is demographic parity between the two peoples living here, life is managed so that only one half enjoy the vast majority of political power, land resources, rights, freedoms and protections. It is quite a feat to maintain such disfranchisement. Even more so, to successfully market it as a democracy (inside the “green line” – the 1949 armistice line), one to which a temporary occupation is attached. In fact, one government rules everyone and everything between the river and the sea, following the same organising principle everywhere under its control, working to advance and perpetuate the supremacy of one group of people – Jews – over another – Palestinians. This is apartheid.

There is not a single square inch in the territory Israel controls where a Palestinian and a Jew are equal. The only first-class people here are Jewish citizens such as myself, and we enjoy this status both inside the 1967 lines and beyond them, in the West Bank. Separated by the different personal statuses allotted to them, and by the many variations of inferiority Israel subjects them to, Palestinians living under Israel’s rule are united by all being unequal.

Unlike South African apartheid, the application of our version of it – apartheid 2.0, if you will – avoids certain kinds of ugliness. You won’t find “whites only” signs on benches. Here, “protecting the Jewish character” of a community – or of the state itself – is one of the thinly veiled euphemisms deployed to try to obscure the truth. Yet the essence is the same. That Israel’s definitions do not depend on skin colour make no material difference: it is the supremacist reality which is the heart of the matter – and which must be defeated.

Until the passage of the nation state law, the key lesson Israel seemed to have learned from how South Africa’s apartheid ended was to avoid too-explicit statements and laws. These can risk bringing about moral judgments – and eventually, heaven forbid, real consequences. Instead, the patient, quiet, and gradual accumulation of discriminatory practices tends to prevent repercussions from the international community, especially if one is willing to provide lip service to its norms and expectations.

This is how Jewish supremacy on both sides of the green line is accomplished and applied.

We demographically engineer the composition of the population by working to increase the number of Jews and limit the number of Palestinians. We allow for Jewish migration – with automatic citizenship – to anywhere Israel controls. For Palestinians, the opposite is true: they cannot acquire personal status anywhere Israel controls – even if their family is from here.

We engineer power through the allocation – or denial – of political rights. All Jewish citizens get to vote (and all Jews can become citizens), but less than a quarter of the Palestinians under Israel’s rule have citizenship and can thus vote. On 23 March, when Israelis go and vote for the fourth time in two years, it will not be a “celebration of democracy” – as elections are often referred to. Rather, it will be yet another day in which disfranchised Palestinians watch as their future is determined by others.

We engineer land control by expropriating huge swaths of Palestinian land, keeping it off-limits for their development – or using it to build Jewish towns, neighbourhoods, and settlements. Inside the green line, we have been doing this since the state was established in 1948. In East Jerusalem and the West Bank, we have been doing this since the occupation began in 1967. The result is that Palestinian communities – anywhere between the river and the sea – face a reality of demolitions, displacement, impoverishment and overcrowding, while the same land resources are allocated for new Jewish development.

And we engineer – or rather, restrict – Palestinians’ movement. The majority, who are neither citizens nor residents, depend on Israeli permits and checkpoints to travel in and between one area and another, as well as to travel internationally. For the two million in the Gaza Strip travel restrictions are the most severe – this is not just a Bantustan, as Israel has made it one of the largest open-air prisons on Earth.

Haifa, my birth city, was a binational reality of demographic parity until 1948. Of some 70,000 Palestinians living in Haifa before the Nakba, less than a 10th were left afterwards. Almost 73 years have passed since then, and now Israel-Palestine is a binational reality of demographic parity. I was born here. I want – I intend – to stay. But I want – I demand – to live in a very different future.

The past is one of traumas and injustices. In the present, yet more injustices are constantly reproduced. The future must be radically different – a rejection of supremacy, built on a commitment to justice and our shared humanity. Calling things by their proper name – apartheid – is not a moment of despair: rather, it is a moment of moral clarity, a step on a long walk inspired by hope. See the reality for what it is, name it without flinching – and help bring about the realisation of a just future.

Again, the article errs, misrepresents, misleads, neglects history, twists facts and more. But that is so very obvious.

I decided to focuse this time on the messaging, the mind-prop.

^

Update on Arab Construction in Shiloh Valley

I informed my readers of an Arab initiative of construction at the south-east edge of Shiloh Valley some 18 months ago.

An update.

Construction is continuing after a long legal battle.

The pinkish symbol and lower right marks the location:

Aerial photographs:

They are moving apace.

Their parcelization plan:

Their view

Our view

Their other projects:

^

"Ruin Upon the Temple Mount" Is A...?

"Ruin Upon the Temple Mount" Is A...?

a) reality, representing the lack of a Jewish Temple at Mount Moriah.

b) reference to the verse in Lamentations 5:18: that Mount Zion, that is, the Temple Mount, "which is desolate" will have "foxes walk upon it.”*

c) situation whereby the ruins of the site remain unexcavated by archaeologists to discover its important historical, cultural and religious significance.

or -

d) a song played by the Irish group, Dread Sovereign, who believe in "filthy cult old doom, black and heavy metal", who also don't mind displaying Hebrew in their graphics in the latest clip:

Yes, it is "d".

If anyone has the song, let me know. I know nothing about it but will try contacting the band.

____

* The understanding is, however, as is recorded in the Talmud's Tractate Makkot (24b), that if the prophecies of destruction have been fulfilled, so will be the ones by the prophet Zechariah about the Temple being rebuilt - as so:

The Gemara relates another incident involving those Sages. On another occasion they were ascending to Jerusalem after the destruction of the Temple. When they arrived at Mount Scopus and saw the site of the Temple, they rent their garments in mourning, in keeping with halakhic practice. When they arrived at the Temple Mount, they saw a fox that emerged from the site of the Holy of Holies. They began weeping, and Rabbi Akiva was laughing. They said to him: For what reason are you laughing? Rabbi Akiva said to them: For what reason are you weeping? They said to him: This is the place concerning which it is written: “And the non-priest who approaches shall die” (Numbers 1:51), and now foxes walk in it; and shall we not weep?

^

Three Fingers to the Left of the Tree and Down

Here is a picture that the late Miri Tzachi snapped while in a helicopter over Jerusalem's Old City:

You will notice at the bottom right-hand corner that I have added an arrow pointing to a tree just inside the Temple Mount wall and inbetween the wall and the Al Aqsa Mosque.

Why?

As I have posted before, during the 11 month period of September 1966 and August 1967, I studied at the Machon L'Madrichei Chutz La'Aretz program as a member of Betar. Guided by my own educational instructors, especially the late Nissan Teman (Chaim Fischgrund is to my right),

I quickly made contact with Emmanuel Hanegbi, Tzachi's father, and Dr. Israel Eldad. I began attending the once-weekly lecture series conducted by the Chugim Leumim at the basement of Ezra Yachin's Art Gallery at the corner of King David and Hess Streets. Topics were Uri Tzvi Greenberg Poetry, History of the Undergrounds, Zionist Thought and such. Shabbat services were at the Students' Minyan on Balfour Street. And then on to the Saturday night Melaveh Malka gatherings on Mount Zion.

Source

Do not forget that at this time, all the stretch leading from the east edge of the Sultan Pool (where the traffic light is) up to the Jaffa Gate was No-Man's Land, blocked off with barbed-wire and tank barriers. 

Source

While then Mt. Zion complex was in Israeli control, it was virtually an outpost. But it was a replacement for the lost holy sites inside the walled Old City and it was where David's Tomb was presumed to be.

Source

After some food and drinks, a discussion and singing, we would ascend the minneret over the courtyard

Source

and look out into the Old City.

The Temple Mount was clear and it was large, all lit up and couldn't be missed - but we were seeking out the Western Wall.

I was told my first time up at the top, "see that tree? raise up three fingers to the left and the Kotel is just down, out of sight".

And then the few who were up at the top starting shouting out at the top of their lungs:

"We are returning. We will be back!"

It was a bit electrifying. Nearly midnight and Jerusalem then in 1966 was an empty city at that time of night and our voices carried over and reverberated and echoed.

And we returned.

Here I am at the Kotel, day after Shavuot, 1967.

^

"Learn to Shoot"

As Colin Shindler notes in his review of Dan Heller's book on Betar in Poland,

To the youth of Betar, he encouraged them to stand up for themselves and “learn to shoot” – as an educational strategy to raise national esteem. 

 

A 1936 Copy of the Article

In an academic treatment, Arye Naor writes:

...in his article “The New Alphabet,” urged the young to “learn to shoot!” This is the new alphabet, he said: just as one learns to read, now one must learn to shoot. “Each and every generation may have its own alphabet... . The generation being raised as we watch,on whose shoulders responsibility for the greatest turning point in our history will definitely be placed,” must know how to fire a weapon. Now, one should also “know some trade ...and to really be a man one must acquire a general grasp of ‘culture,’ and to be a Jew one must know one’s national language and the national history.” Moreover, he recognized that “A state is not established by gunfire; it is built with spades and hammers, with commerce, sweat, and intelligence.” The current zeitgeist recoiled from militarism: “It is disheartening, very disheartening that at this of all times the Jews must learn how to shoot. But we must, and there’s nothing to gain by disputing a necessity of historical reality.” He continued:

Recognition of historical reality commands us: if you are erudite and also know how to plough the soil and build houses, if all of you speak Hebrew and are knowledgeable in all of our national literature ... but do not know how to shoot, there will be no hope for you. However, if you know how to shoot, there may be hope. This is the language in which the historical reality of our times and that of our children speaks to us... . Of all the conditions for our political renaissance, knowing how to shoot is, regrettably, the most important.

Source in Hebrew

I now came across two photos of the Brith HeChayil Army Veterans organization of th Revisionist Movement displaying a trining session in Warsaw in December 1938, including an ultra-Orthodox Jew illustrating the application of Jabotinsky's exhortation.

Here

and here:

Some other photographs I found:

Braslav

Suwalki

Vilna

 Other training evidence here, and here.

Latvia

UPDATE

From Betar North America

Izzy Herman, 1954

Neversink

And Barak Koffler, instructor, with Chuck Shachna Waxman at left:

^

Rabbi JB Soloveitchik on Settling the Land of Israel

Taken from here:-

^

The Ottoman Empire Revivalist Campaign

 On July 10, 2002, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. declared

The resurrection of Hagia Sophia is the harbinger of the Masjid al-Aqsa's freedom. The resurrection of Hagia Sophia is the footsteps of the will of Muslims all over the world to exit the interregnum...The resurrection of Hagia Sophia is the symbol of the re-rise of our civilization sun.

Moreover  The President of the Jerusalem Islamic Foundations Council, Sheikh Abdulazim Selheb, Masjid al-Aqsa Imam Sheikh Ikrime Sabri and Sheikh Kemal al-Hatib, the vice-president of the northern wing of the 1948 Palestine Islamic Movement, 

expressed their satisfaction with the opening of Hagia Sophia as a mosque.

Selheb was told by Erdogan

Masjid al-Aqsa is under occupation. The occupation state is trying to Judaize the first kiblah of Muslims and the holy city of Jerusalem. However, I tell the invaders from here that you will not be able to achieve this as long as the ummah has such men."

This is all part of the Ottoman Empire revivalist campaign, to restore that grand enterprise. First was the Mavi Marmara, then the sponsoring of Hamas, then support for Jerusalem property purchases and now directly aimed at the Temple Mount. 

We have been warned.

^

The Founding Governmental Decisions on Shiloh

 Thank you Wikileaks (via JL):-

^

The October 1938 'Ultimatum'

I was asked by a Menachem Begin Heritage Center employee to help research an item he came across via a poem by a Warsaw Ghetto poet, Władysław Szlengel, who was close to the Revisionist thinking. It referred to an "ultimatum".

I was not aware of the event but set about doing what I could.

It seems that during 1938, the Mufti Haj Amin Al-Husseini had ensconced himself in Syria and was promoting his violent reign of terror (that he had begun in April 1936) from Damascus. The Peel Partition Plan had been made a year earlier and now the British had set up the Woodhead Commission.

The Arabs were convening in Cairo and this 

'World Parliamentary Congress of Arab and Muslim Countries for the Defense of Palestine' convened in Cairo in October 1938, it marked Egypt's assuming a central place in unofficial Arab-Muslim efforts to assist the Palestinian Arab cause

On it briefly:

What set off my colleague's interest was this:

an editorial of the Davar newspaper on October 14 which blasted an "ultimatum" directed to Chaim Weitzmann. 

But what was the ultimatum?

It was that the Arabs, even if they would be completely destroyed, they would not allow Jews to settle in and build a majority in Arab Palestine.

Haaretz had a Reuters report from October 10

which I found in Chicago The Sentinel as "dire calamities":

Some further background:

and the author of that book further pointed out:

It seems that Haaretz was very concerned about the ramifications of the 'ultimatum' publishing, on October 12, that "the threat issued this past week by one of the nationalist Arab groups in Damascus to the Zionist movement that revenge will be taken against Jews residing in Arab countries":-

In other words, what occured as a result of the 1947-1948 war, when hundreds of thousands of Jews were set up and forced to flee from the Arab states they had lived in for centuries, even before they became states, was in th Arab mind a decade earlier. The man behind all this was staunch Syrian Arabist Nabih al-Azma (in the middle)

who, already in 1925, "convinced...al-Hajj Amin al-Husaini, to establish a special finance committee for the Syrian Revolt in Jerusalem". In 1931, he was living in the Palestine Mandate  and then, when the Mufti fled to Damascus, reciprocated.  As a  leaders of the Istiqlal party, Nabih al-Azma, with others, took over the Palestine Defense Committee in Damascus. Money was collected in Syria and it was transferred through al-Azma, who lived in Palestine, to the AHC leadership. Weapons were also procured by Istiqlal members in Transjordan and smuggled into Palestine. In July 1936, the Palestine Defense Committee dispatched about 700 Arab volunteers to fight in Palestine under the command of Fawzi al-Qawuqij. An Arab congress took place in Bludan, Syria in September 1937 and its the main organizer of the event was Nabih al-Azma, then a member of the Syrian National Bloc party, who received payments from the Italians. It was well-attended by leading Arab nationalist and pan-Islamic politicians and would prove instrumental in internationalizing the Arab-Zionist dispute in Palestine and in mobilizing Arab and Muslim public opinion. Seems he's mentiond in here.

The French eventually arrested al-Azma and others of the Palestine in March 1939 and two of their newspapers banned. The Committee was moreover discredited by the publication of evidence showing that Nabih al-Azma had been embezzling funds from the Palestine Defense Committee.

^