Israel cites Biblical and historical claims to the West Bank, but the United Nations considers its settlements there illegal and most world powers say they are an obstacle to peace.
Let's make that clear - the "historical claims" are not only from the Biblical period, the centuries after the loss of political sovereignty and military capability, when the Jewish homeland was conquered and occupied and a foreign population transferred itself in.
No, they are from the national consciousness of the Jewish people every single day since, whether in prayer, in holiday customs, ritual, texts, literature and rememberance.
Those claims are from a constant continuous Jewish presence throught those 1800 years since the Bar Kochba Revolt and the ploughing under of the Temple Mount in the Land of Israel.
They are from persistent attempts to return in every single century and not becuase of anti-Semitism but due to love of Zion, from every single land of Diaspora and Exile.
And those claims were recognized - and awarded the status of international law - by the League of Nations:
recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country;
We need feel no inferiority, no embarassment, no shame - this land if our homeland.
Ours by right.
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Why are Jews hated?
Because they're apologetic and act like they're guilty - and the guiltier they feel, the more they are hated.
Which sums up how the world sees the Jews in Israel today.
When are Jews respected?
When they're assertive and act like equals and show pride in what they feel, then they will gain the respect they deserve.
All of this is true with regards to the Jewish homeland. There is every reason to defend it forthrightly, without apology and in the belief in the justice of Israel's cause to possess it and that will earn the respect from others that in the long run will relieve the siege Israel is under.
In a word, doing the right thing because its the right thing to do is its own reward.
And not just attempts to return, success in returning. The Ramban wrote his Chumash commentary in Israel. Tzfas became the intellectual center of the Jewish world around Shakespeare's time.
Correct. The zemirot of Israel Najara. The messianism of Shabtei Tzvi. The silk industry of Don Yehudah. etc.
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