Dear President Obama, Secretary Clinton and Other Washington Officials

On the assumption that someone in Washington would think that my opinions and thoughts are important to them regarding President Obama’s speech before the UN yesterday, and if they would want to know my reactions and would be willing for me to convey them to Washington, I actually have just really one point:


I take umbrage at the characterization of President Obama of my residential community as "illegitimate". More than illegal, that term used conveys to me a sense of moral repugnancy which I find hard to accept.

Jews lived in Judea and Samaria right up until the end of the Mandate, in Hebron, Shchem (Nablus), Gaza, Jenin, Jerusalem's Jewish, as well as Muslim and Christian, Quarter and other places throughout the historical Land of Israel. The Arabs, since 1920 in an organized fashion, conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing to remove the Jews with horrific violence from locations that had lived in for centuries as well as from newly built communities in areas promised to the Jews as their reconstituted national home by the League of Nations, where they could exercise their right to "close settlement on the land" as guaranteed by the League of Nations Mandate.

The Jews through their official representatives accepted the principle of "territorial compromise" in 1923 when Transjordan was separated from the Mandate and in 1937 when the Peel Commission partition plan was proffered as well as the November 29, 1947 UN Resolution on Partition. The Arabs consistently refused any political arrangement and surely refused to compromise on land.

For Mr. Obama to term the situation of Jews living in their homeland, as distinct from any eventual political resolving of the conflict, as "illegitimate" is wrong, is mean-spirited and simply invites further Arab attempts to kill us, to dislodge us from our homes and to destroy a sacred legal trust that the United States Congress assumed in 1922-24 (please see below*).

I was quite disappointed.

I hope my thoughts are passed on to those who count.


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* I am referring to this:

The Lodge-Fish joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," confirming the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine - anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea:

"Favoring the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. That the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which should prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected." [italics in the original] (June 30, 1922).

President Warren G. Harding signed the Lodge-Fish joint resolution of approval to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine (September 21, 1922). Writing to the Zionist Organization of America, Harding stated:

"A long-time interest, both sentimental and practical, in the Zionist movement causes me to wish that I might meet the members of the organization and express the esteem which I feel in behalf of the great movement" (June 25, 1922).

President Herbert Hoover stated:

"On the occasion of your celebration of the 15th Anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, which received the unanimous approval of both Houses of Congress by the adoption of the Lodge-Fish Resolution in 1922, I wish to express the hope that the ideal of the establishment of the National Jewish Home in Palestine, as embodied in that Declaration, will continue to prosper for the good of all the people inhabiting the Holy Land" (October 29, 1932).

President Calvin Coolidge ratified the Convention between the United States and Great Britain - a relationship governed by international law.

The U.S. (not a member of the League of Nations) Government maintained that her participation in WWI and her contribution to the defeat of Germany and the defeat of her Allies, entitled the United States to be consulted as to the terms of the "Mandate for Palestine."

The outcome of this request was a Convention [Treaty] between the United States of America and Great Britain with respect to the rights of the two governments and their nationals in Palestine. The Convention which contains the entire text of the "Mandate for Palestine" including the preamble word-for-word was concluded and signed by their respective plenipotentiaries in London on December 3, 1924; Ratification advised by the Senate, February 20, 1925; Ratified by President Calvin Coolidge, March 2, 1925; Ratified by Great Britain, March 18, 1925; Ratifications exchanged at London, December 3, 1925; Proclaimed, December 5, 1925.

The United States of America upon ratifying the said Convention formally recognized the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.


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