On Cockroaches, Two-Legged Animals and...Dogs

You cannot compare the Arabs, to, for example, cockroaches or Arab terrorists to "two-legged creatures" a la Raful and Menachem Begin but Likud voters can be compared to dogs, right?

Short blog posts are important, too.

^

Yes, Re-Settlement is a Term

Between February 13-15 this year, this Conference will take place:

"Abandoned Settlements: Discontinuity and Identity"

It will be held at the Center for Advanced Studies, LMU Munich, Seestraße 13, Munich, Germany.

I note the explanation:

Human settlements are changeable and are being changed. The processes that come into play here are manifold: abandonment, interruption, relocation, shrinking, growth, change of status, re-naming and re-settlement. 

I guess I am also a resettler.

^ 

Aliyah is... Exceptional

No, not "exceptional" in a positive sense of uniqueness. But more like distinct and not belonging to all in a negative sense.

Aliyah, as a term, is too unique and actually, through language, assuming a right - in this case, an exclusive sense of sovereignty and rule over a national homeland - that denies others similar rights to the same territory.  Jews simply migrated.

Here, from Twitter:

In an interview, Dr. Sara Hirschhorn was quote saying

"I don’t like using the terminology of “Aliyah” which in and of itself connotes a kind of exceptionalism"

I tweeted:

Have I misunderstood "exceptionalism"?

And added:

"Thus say Cyrus king of Persia..Whosoever there is among you of all His people...let him go up" וְיָעַלExceptional because no other people use that term?

And she responded:

I don't use the word aliyah in my academic work either -- generally scholars use 'immigration' although I actually wrote an article about reconceptualizing aliya as "ethnic return migration" -- I've been really interested new ways to theorize aliya

I countered:

Repatriation works if you want more than 10 letters.

And then, after a day, I added:

I got it:The Right of Return.

The dangers of academia talk are multiple. ^

The Dangers of Academia Education

This I selected from the curriculum of a course currently being taught. Take not of the semantics:

Current Issues II: Israel, Palestine;4.12. (Jakub Zahora) Historical development of the Israeli occupation; conflicting narratives; current issues • Gordon, Neve (2008) “From Colonization to Separation: Exploring the Structure of Israel’s Occupation.” Third World Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 25–44. • Newman, David (2017) “Settlement as Suburbanization: The Banality of Colonization.” In Marco Allegra, Ariel Handel, and Erez Maggor (eds.) Normalizing Occupation: The Politics of Everyday Life in the West Bank Settlements, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 34–47. • O’Malley, JP (2018) “Journalist examines a century of dueling Israeli-Palestinian narratives”, Times of Israel, available at: https://www.timesofisrael.com/journalist-examines-a-century-of-duelingisraeli-palestinian-narratives/ • https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/dream-gaza-doubt-truce-break-blockade-280605213 • Klein, Menachem (2017) “Religion out, nationalism in: Will Hamas’ charter divide the movement?” +972magazine, available at: https://972mag.com/religion-out-nationalism-in-willhamas-charter-divide-the-movement/127298/ 

It's being taught this semester:

Middle East Security (JPM698)

Winter semester 2018/19

Charles University in Prague, Institute of Political Studies

and the description details that

This course offers introduction to the politics of security in the Middle East. In so doing, it aims to go to beyond the usual listing of various conflicts between states, insurgencies or civil wars. To the contrary, it conceives of "security" in broad terms and pays attention to a variety of social and political processes that (in)form and underpin political contestations in the region. 

I am sure if I spent another hour googling, I'd find more examples. Like here, or here, or here.

The instruction is biased.  In another course in Vilna, I found some of the same reading material including this article from which I selected this:

You saw the reference to Article 17?  Here's what the author did not quote:

The Moslem woman has a role no less important than that of the Moslem man in the battle of liberation. She is the maker of men. Her role in guiding and educating the new generations is great. The enemies have realised the importance of her role. They consider that if they are able to direct and bring her up they way they wish, far from Islam, they would have won the battle. That is why you find them giving these attempts constant attention through information campaigns, films, and the school curriculum, using for that purpose their lackeys who are infiltrated through Zionist organizations under various names and shapes, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, espionage groups and others, which are all nothing more than cells of subversion and saboteurs. These organizations have ample resources that enable them to play their role in societies for the purpose of achieving the Zionist targets and to deepen the concepts that would serve the enemy. These organizations operate in the absence of Islam and its estrangement among its people. The Islamic peoples should perform their role in confronting the conspiracies of these saboteurs. The day Islam is in control of guiding the affairs of life, these organizations, hostile to humanity and Islam, will be obliterated.

Islah Jad by leaving out the part that the "Zionists", the "enemies", are the source for all the other groups the author names is, how shall I say, slightly unprofessional.

Parents, take care what your children are being taught.

^

Former Ambassadors, Etc., Go Wild

For the record:

Sir, – We, concerned citizens of Israel, are writing to you regarding the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill, which is due to be debated today in Dáil Éireann.

The Israeli occupation of the territories beyond the 1967 borders, now in its 51st year, is not only unjust but also stands in violation of numerous UN resolutions. UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of December 23rd, 2016, adopted 14:1 by the Security Council (the US abstained), calls for the international community to differentiate between its relations with Israel within the 1967 borders and its dealings with the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

The passage of the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill has become all the more urgent following the Israeli government’s recent announcement of plans to build thousands of new homes in illegal settlements, further undermining the possibility of achieving a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on two states.

As this Bill does not call for a boycott of the State of Israel but rather differentiates it from the occupied territories, it is a modest step that can help ensure that obligations under international law are respected. Its passage through Seanad Éireann shows that there is widespread political and public support for this legislation in Ireland.

We are convinced that Israel’s ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories is morally and strategically unsustainable, is detrimental to peace, and poses a threat to the security of Israel itself.

It has been enabled by the leniency of the international community, whose rhetoric regarding the dire situation in Palestine has not been matched by appropriate diplomatic action.

The occupation and the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements have been correctly identified by successive Irish governments as major obstacles to peace, yet Ireland, along with the rest of the EU, continues to sustain the occupation by trading with illegal Israeli settlements established in clear and direct violation of international law. As people who care deeply about Israel’s future and long for our country to live in peace with its neighbours, we urge you to support the aforementioned Bill. – Yours, etc,

Prof ELIE BARNAVI,
Former ambassador
of Israel to France;

ILAN BARUCH,
Former ambassador of Israel
to South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe;

MICHAEL BEN-YAIR,
Former attorney-general of Israel, former acting supreme court justice;

AVRAHAM AVRUM BURG,
Former speaker of the Knesset, Labor Party;

Prof NAOMI CHAZAN,
Former member of Knesset, Meretz Party,
former president, New Israel Fund;

Prof ITZHAK GALNOOR,
Former Head of the Israeli Civil Service Commission,
professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem;

ERELA HADAR,
Former ambassador of Israel to the Czech Republic;

Prof DAVID HAREL, Vice-president,
Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, computer scientist, Israel Prize
recipient (2004) and EMET Prize Laureate (2010);

DANI KARAVAN,
Sculptor, Israel Prize recipient (1977);

MIKI KRATSMAN, artist, EMET Prize Laureate (2011);

ALEX LEVAC,
Photojournalist, Israel Prize recipient (2005);

Dr ALON LIEL,
Former director-general of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, former ambassador to
South Africa and Turkey;

Prof YEHUDA JUDD NE’EMAN,
Filmmaker, Israel Prize recipient (2009);

Prof David Shulman,
EMET Prize recipient (2010) and Israel Prize recipient (2016);

Prof ZEEV STERNHELL,
Political scientist, Israel Prize recipient (2008).

At least several are "formers".

^

Betty Knut: Lechi Fighter

My letter in the Jerusalem Post:

Tough Knut

It is unfortunate that the Ra’anana Symphonette, which is presenting the history of Betty Knut, who died at age 38, a performance that reporter Sarah Hershenson describes as one that “made her story come alive” (“In the footsteps of Betty Knut”, January 21), seems to have failed to include her activity as a courageous member of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel group, the Lehi pre-state underground. All that is noted is that she was “a war correspondent during WWII as a member of the French underground” and her that she was a “doyenne of the arts in Paris and in the early days of the State of Israel.” The closest the biographical details come to her connection to the Lehi is that she “worked for the establishment of the State of Israel.”

Much of importance is left out. For example, she planted a bomb in the British Colonial Office on April 15, 1947 and assisted in the preparation of envelopes of explosives that were mailed from France and Belgium to British officials. One additional contribution of Knut was mobilizing Kariel Gardosh to become a caricaturist for Lehi publications. After immigrating to Israel, he became known as Dosh, Israel’s most famous political cartoonist.

YISRAEL MEDAD

Shiloh

^

Have I Empathy for the Intellectually Autistic Simon Baron-Cohen?

Simon Baron-Cohen has published an op-ed.

Only empathy can break the cycle of violence in Israel-Palestine

Empathy, he asserts, or suggests, is "a vital first step in conflicts where both sides have dehumanised each other".

And reading that halted my empathy for Baron-Cohen's orientation. After all, the Arabs' dehumanization of Jews and their anti-Semitism is institutional, based on religious texts and propagated through official media outlets of the Palestinian Authority, not to mention everywhere else in the Arab world and for decades.

But I continued to read. And I almost gave up coming across this:

I am not an expert in that dispute nor so naive to believe that there is a single, simple solution to it. But I do believe empathy can help.

But I plodded on. And I discovered he doesn't know history that well. Starting off the Jewish historical record so:

So what are the two different perspectives? If you ask Jewish Israelis why their families came to Palestine before 1948, they’ll likely refer to two major waves of antisemitism. The first included the horrific pogroms of eastern Europe in the 1880s and 90s. In the second wave in the 1930s and 40s, two out of every three European Jews were killed by the Nazis. Jonathan Freedland’s reflection on the life of Amos Oz, Israel’s greatest novelist, who died last month, mentions Oz’s metaphor: the Jews were drowning, looking for a piece of wood they could cling on to. Palestine, which for two millennia they had thought of as their ancient homeland, was that piece of wood.

Jews have been returning to the Land of Israel ever since they were forced to leave by conquests and foreign oppressors. One could start around 586 BCE with the Babylons. Then on to the Greek rule. The Roman rule. And then on through the Persians, Byzantines, invading Muslim Arabs, Crusaders, Mameluks and Ottomans.

It's called the "Return to Zion". No persecution required. Longing for one's homeland. Reading the Prophets. The poets. The religious law decidors. It's all in our literature: theological, cultural and historical.

To help out Baron-Cohen, the modern political movement of Zionism was founded on the backdrop of persecution but its foundational elements belonged not to the "push" phenomenon but the "pull" of Zion, to live in the national homeland, "land of the Patriarchs", the "holy land" and other terms deeply embedded in the Jewish soul.

By the way, that quote from Oz? Nope. A.B. Yehoshua, in this book, although Oz quotes/steals the imagery in a New Yorker interview.

As for the other side of his interpretive history, he writes

But what if you ask Palestinians for their perspective? They would probably refer to the fact that in 1897, there were more than half a million Arabs, Bedouins and Druze living in Palestine. They would say that the 30,000 Jews who arrived were really guests in their land. They might remind you that by 1935, the Jewish population comprised a quarter of the population of Palestine, and each year the number of Jews in Palestine rose by more than 10%. Arabs in Palestine felt, and were, displaced.

In 1897, the year the First Zionist Congress convened, 16 years after the so-called First Aliyah from Russia, 120 years after the first mass Aliyah of Chassidic Jews and 630 years after the immigration of Nahmanides to the Land of Israel, the country was not exactly Palestine, at least not for Arabs. They considered it part of Syria and referred to themselves as Souther Syrians. Moreover, the makeup of the Muslims there included those from North Africa and Egypt, many arriving in 1832 with Muhammed Ali, and from other Muslim lands. In fact, by 1897, thousands of the non-Jewish residents had emigrated to South America, especially, as well as other countries.

As for being guests, they knew full well that they had conquered the territory and regained it through force of arms and that, according to the Quran, it was the land of the Children of Israel. Of course, in their theology, since Jews had sinned, twice (by the way, that's an admission to the destructions of the two temples), Muslims could supersede them, sort of like Christian supercessionism. But that shouldn't count for any empathy, correct?

When Israel declared its independence on 14 May 1948 – following a UN vote to create two states, Jewish and Arab, six months earlier – there was a reason why, the very next day, five Arab armies invaded. Although this is the war that Israel celebrates as the war of independence, Palestinians have a different name for it: the Nakba, or the catastrophe. They never agreed to the creation of Israel.

Correct. They never agreed. They didn't agree to a compromise on November 29, 1947 when that war really began, nor in 1937 when the British proposed an earlier partition,, what we call today territorial compromise, nor was losing most of the original Jewish National Home area in 1922 when the League of Nations postponed application of the Mandate decision to Transjordan.  

Why is there no empathy for that?

Next, Baron-Cohen, speaking in the Arab voice, 

They would point to acts of ethnic cleansing by the Israeli Jews against the Arabs during that war, as documented in Ari Shavit’s book My Promised Land and elsewhere. 

And what about Jews being ethnically cleansed from, in many cases, centuries' old homes during 1920-1948, specifically in Judea and Samaria?

And as for

Their view will have been further shaped by Israel’s illegal occupation and settlement of Palestinian lands since 1967. 

does he not know that there is no illegality involved?

Writing about

the violation of their human rights, which is now well-documented in accounts of the suffering of ordinary Palestinians living under occupation.

does he not know or cannot he not mention the human rights violations of Israelis?

Baron-Cohen's championing and promotion of this "empathic approach to conflict resolution" fails because his retinue of recognitions is incomplete and biased.

It is he who loses empathy for Israel and dehumanises the history of the conflict.

Reading Baron-Cohen, one could be tempted to wonder if some autism, the intellectual variety, has not overtaken his psyche.

No, Aiia Was an Israeli Arab

Aiia Maasarwe, it is claimed, was not "Israeli or Arab-Israeli" but "Palestinian with Israeli citizenship".

She was raped and murdered in Australia.

Really?

The Guardian has adopted the trope:

The Victorian police have charged a 20-year-old man with the murder of Palestinian student Aiia Maasarwe.

But not even Israeli citizen.

No.
She was Israeli Arab.

Despite this:

The 21-year-old was Palestinian, yet because of the title of her passport, she was described in news reports as Israeli or Arab-Israeli — terms she and her family, like many Palestinians, reject. It’s a commonly forgotten distinction, but one her family was determined to have recognised. Ms Maasarwe’s family shared that the young woman killed in a terrifying unprovoked attack last week identified as Palestinian Arab, but the correction did not immediately flow through.

Are Jordanians, a country geographically in 'Historic Palestine', then "Palestinians"?

Are not Jews "Palestinians" or only Arabs are?

This is simply erasing Jewish national identity.

[Israellycool's take]

(h/t=EB)

^

Jodi Jacobson, Progressive Jew - For the Record

For the record, I quote: 

Sarsour is undaunted. She is, in her own word, an “unapologetically Muslim, and unapologetically Palestinian American” person who is willing to protest and be arrested to save other people’s lives. So it does not surprise me that in what can often be a petty world, she would intimidate and unsettle many who are used to other forms of leadership. And it does not surprise me that white American Jews would find her unsettling because, generally speaking, too many of us like Muslims who don’t talk too much about Palestinian rights.

That's in an article by Jodi Jacobson, entitled "Attacks on the Women’s March Expose Race and Class Bias Among White Jews and Progressives" posted on Jan 18, 2019.

Jodi is self-described as

Analyst, writer, mom. Feminist. Thinker & doer. Realist & dreamer. Progressive but not predictable. Editor-in-Chief, @Rewire_news. UW Madison alum.

Her full details are here, including that

Her previous work experience includes serving as director of advocacy at American Jewish World Service

Her mother may be a former Playboy Bunny. 

Here is some of her analysis:

Farrakhan is an 87-year-old man with no power

To a great extent, when we talk about anti-Semitism among Black people in the United States, we are not really talking about anti-Semitism as we conceive it.

white Jews, of which I am one, too often see “anti-Semitism” in what is really the legitimate anger and despair of Black people at being dehumanized and marginalized by a social and economic system made for and perpetuated by white people, of which Jewish Americans have, indisputably, become much more a part than Black Americans, anti-Semitism notwithstanding.

the entire conversation has been turned from focusing on the most vulnerable, i.e. communities of color, to focusing on the angst of white Jews. In a way, it’s analogous to the debates between “Black Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter,” the latter being true in the abstract, but the former a statement of the profound war on Black people and people of color waged every day by our economic system, social system, the security state, and now the Jewish community. 

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, both principals at Facebook and arguably two of the most powerful people in the world, have actually endangered more Jews in this country than anyone outside the Trump administration. They did so purposefully, using resources to deflect attention from Facebook’s own role in promoting racism, anti-Semitism, and subverting democracy during the election and afterward. And yet no one is interviewing them incessantly on why they actually promoted anti-Semitism. Nor do I see the same actors in the women’s rights or Jewish communities calling for them to step down as I do Mallory, 

attacks by some liberals and progressives over the past year on the leaders of the Women’s March have helped undermine what is potentially one of the most important social justice movements of the past century. In my view, privileged white women generally and privileged white Jewish women (again, of which I am one) are in part responsible.

I was prodded.

^

Joint Temple Stay Can Be Positive

Well, at least on the Korean Peninsula, if not in Jerusalem.

SEOUL, Jan. 16 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's biggest Buddhist sect, the Jogye Order, said Wednesday it will push for a number of joint projects with the North Korean Buddhist community this year, including a stay-over meditation program at Mount Kumgang in the North."(The Jogye Order) will open a new chapter in inter-Korean Buddhist exchanges in the year 2019," Ven. Wonhaeng, the executive chief of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, said in a press conference."(We) will push for discussion with related (North Korean) bodies in order that we can arrange for a temple stay (program) in the Singye Temple on Mount Kumgang," he said.

Here in Israel, just wearing a kippa can be a problem.

^ 

Who is a "Refugee from Palestine"?

Please note the uniqueness of the time period that allows for one to be termed a refugee from Palestine:

Palestine refugees are defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.”  

Only two years of residency.

If we recall that during World War II there was a large influx of Arab workers from neighboring countries required for the British economy based on troops and related areas, from clothing, to camps construction, to food, etc. as well as the oil-refineries near Haifa and more,* then we can suspect that many Arabs who had no specific connection to "Palestine", as they were Syrians, Egyptians, Lebanese and TransJordanians and others, became, poof!, "refugees from Palestine".

And if one was a doctor, dentist or engineer, could it be said that the person "lost the means of his livelihood"?

One more point: "Palestine refugees", not "Palestinian refugees".

Jews were also "Palestine refugees".

____________________

*

The Second World War begin in 1939. The Palestinian economy was safe from recession and stimulated to play a major role in the British Middle Eastern military effort. Palestine was developed as a large British base and its people were also moblised to reduce dependence on outside sources of supply and to enhance Palestine’ s industrial base so that it could facilitate British military needs and also provide a whole array of consumer and other goods for a regional market. This was a major encouragement for both the Arab and Jewish sectors of the economy. There was a considerable enhancement in income and a speedy acceleration in the process of social changes....In the industrial sector, the major expansion took place with an enormous increase in capacity and output required to meet demand in three large markets: The British military, Palestine itself and the rest of the Middle East, including Turkey. Unfortunately, the government was unable to retain precise figures to prove this process, but according to one estimate, output in Jewish-owned factories increased by 200 percent between 1939 and 1942 and that in Arab-owned enterprises by 77 percent... between 1939 and 1945, average industrial earnings were estimated to have grown by 200 percent for Arabs and 258 percent for Jews during the same period. Unskilled construction workers increased by 405 percent and 329 percent respectively. Conditions in the rural areas was somewhat better. Prices of locally grown agricultural products were said to have increased seven fold during the war and agricultural wages by the same amount by mid1943. In these circumstances it was not surprising to find that the official government figures indicated that total agricultural income quadrupled between 1939 and 1944/5 (in money terms). It provided the Arab peasant with ‘a large measures of prosperity’ and leading to a dramatic decline in the need to borrow essential items from money lenders in many districts...perhaps the most important developments in the period were the huge mobilization of labor. It took many hundreds of thousands away from their villages on either a daily or a more permanent basis and the stimulus was given to Arab industry. According to Taqqu’s estimate, about one-third of the male Arab work force was employed in wage labor by 1945, most of them by the government and military but with some 13,000 in some aspect of manufacturing.

Source

^

Wikipedia, We Have a Problem

See this Wikipedia editor expressing wrong information and probably anti-Semitic, too.

Wikipedia need know that "Palestinian" is not specifically Arab.

Moreover, it did not discriminate based on race, religion or birthplace. 

The nationality law granted citizenship simply on the basis of residency.

^

One for the Dumb Jews Category

Observed:

Should we inform her that the only reason a "Palestine" was created by the League of Nations was to reconstitute the historic Jewish national home?

__________________

A comment:

Ariel, and if you read the Hebrew word for Palestine on the top right of the passport, you would see, in parentheses, the abbreviation, also in Hebrew, for “the land of Israel” (א״י) as the description for what Palestine was.

^

On the East Side of the Jordan

Found here:

In "historic Palestine".

And you thought Jabotinsky was, well, extreme.

^

Which "Palestine" Is That, Angela Davis?

Angela Y. Davis published a letter on January 7, 2019 in response to her removal as an awardee of the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Board of Directors.

One small, well, relatively short, phrase caught my eye. It's in this paragraph:

Through my experiences at Elizabeth Irwin High School in New York City and at Brandeis University in the late fifties and early sixties, and my subsequent time in graduate school in Frankfurt, Germany, I learned to be as passionate about opposition to antisemitism as to racism. It was during this period that I was also introduced to the Palestinian cause. I am proud to have worked closely with Jewish organizations and individuals on issues of concern to all of our communities throughout my life. In many ways, this work has been integral to my growing consciousness regarding the importance of protesting the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

My reaction will be short as well:  is that, a la Marc Lamont Hill, all of "historic Palestine"?

Exactly which "Palestine" is being "occupied"?  As a communist, I am sure she might even be upset with any Jewish nationalism.

Notice she mentions Brandeis.  Well, to mark a half century of excellence in and dedication to the Department of African and African-American Studies of Brandeis University which will be held on Feb. 8–9, 2019, one of the speakers is...

...Angela Y. Davis ’65, Distinguished Professor Emerita, UC Santa Cruz. (h/t=JW)

By the way, notice how her rejection is termed divisive here but her remarks and positions are, I would presume, not:

In a statement expressing “dismay”, Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin said the protests came from the “local Jewish community and some of its allies”. He called it a reactive and divisive decision and offered to facilitate dialogue in response.

_____________

UPDATE

I see now that Ms. Davis has said

“The rescinding of this invitation was thus not primarily an attack against me but rather against the spirit of the indivisibility of justice."

So, hey, what about the indivisibility of Eretz-Yisrael?

^

Library of Congress Errs (UPDATED)

If you read the second half of my previous blog post, you will know that I drew attention to the probability that Rashida Tlaib is definitely not the first "Palestinian" to be elected to Congress.

The first was a Jew, John H. Krebs.

Krebs moved to the Mandate of Palestine in 1933, was educated there and even served in the Hagana before emigrating to the United States to go to university.

In order to enter the United States, he would have had need of a passport.  Since he was born in Germany, and being a Jew, his nationality would have been terminated (and had he remained there, he would have been exterminated).

Logic seems to indicate that he was issued a Palestinian passport.

or, perhaps, a Laissez-passer document.

To be sure, I wrote to the Library of Congress.

The reply, however, was strange:

John Hans Krebs was born in Berlin, Germany, although he did live in Israel from 1933 to 1946 before moving to the United States. Krebs served in the House of Representatives from 1975 to 1979. 

It appears that John Sununu was the first Palestinian-American to serve in Congress. John Sununu is of Lebanese-Palestinian ancestry and was first elected to the House in 1997 and the Senate in 2003. h

Also, Rep. Justin Amash has a Palestinian father. Amash was elected to the House in 2011. 

I responded:

Thank you.

To pursue the issue further, Krebs did NOT live in "Israel" between 1933-1946.The territory at that time was a League of Nations Mandate, assigned to Great Britain for the purpose of reconstituting the historic Jewish national home. Israel came into existence in 1948. Palestine, incidentally, never became an independent geo-political entity.

Like Krebs, Sununu was born outside of Palestine proper, in Havana, Cuba. His father's family had already come to the United States from the Middle East at the turn of the twentieth century. His father, John, was born in Boston. Sununu's mother, Victoria Dada, was born in El Salvador. So there is no direct first or second generation connection with Palestine. In fact, he never, unlike Krebs, ever lived in the area.

As for Amash, he is indeed the son of a Palestinian Christian father whose family immigrated to the United States in 1956 from Bethlehem, I think. Congressman Amash, too, was not born in the territory of Palestine but in Grand Rapids and never lived in the Palestine Mandate which ended in 1948. Between 1948-1967, the former Mandate territory of Palestine outside of the boundaries of Israel, was under the occupation/annexation of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. As I do not know when Attalah Amash was born, if it was post 1948, it was not in Palestine but Jordan.

And I added

I think you are mixing up "ancestry" with actual diplomatic nationality. If that is your standard, though, dozens of Jews who have served in the House of Representatives and the Senate are, in a sense, "Palestinians" as that is where all Jews originated before being dispersed due to the conquest and occupation of Judea.

BONUS

Thanks to a Twitter ally, I can now display proof of Krebs' Palestinian nationality:

and

________________________

I have received their second reply:

Hello Yisrael Medad
We apologize if we misunderstood your original question. We thought you were attempting to find the first member of Congress with Palestinian ancestry. Since John Krebs wasn't born in the Palestine Mandate and/or present day Israel, we did not understand what you meant by the first "Palestinian" to serve in Congress.

You are correct that Krebs did not live in Israel since Israel did not come into existence until 1948. We inadvertently took the reference to Kreb living Israel from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, which mistakenly states that he "moved to Israel in 1933..." ...

That being said, John Krebs does appear to be the first member of Congress to have been raised in the Palestine Mandate and/or the land that is present-day Israel. We looked through the book "The Jews of Capitol Hill: A Compendium of Jewish Congressional Members" by Kurt F. Stone and did not find any other examples.

________________

Please read this from Abu Yehuda, who I credited in my previous post on this, with inside photos of the passport of Krebs.

And someone edited at Wikipedia (for how long I do not know)

^