The "It" Land

Four hundred years after it was invaded and occupied by the Ottoman Turks;

And six hundred years after it was invaded and subjugated by a force led by the Kurdish Iraqi Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub;

And eight hundred years after it was invaded by the First Crusaders from Europe;

And thirteen hundred years after the hordes of Muslims came out of the Arabian Peninsula to invade and occupy it; 

And sixteen hundred years after its Christian Byzantine and Persian Sansarian rule came to an end;

And eighteen hundred years after the Roman Empire quashed a second armed rebellion by its residents seeking liberation and named it Palestine;

It, the Land of Israel (Eretz-Yisrael), the Holy Land, the Province of Judaea, the homeland of the Jews for over three-thousand years, where the Jewish People's prophets, priests and princes practiced the first monotheisitic religions, developed the Hebrew Language and culture, after being liberated during World War One by the Principal Allied Powers, was declared by the Supreme Council of the Paris Peace Conference's High Contracting Parties to have its administration entrusted to a Mandatory which would be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on the 2nd November, 1917, by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. 

The Land was first partitioned in 1922 when the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined were excluded from the Mandate and applying the rights of Jewish immigration and close settlement were postponed and  withheld.

In 1937 another partitioned was made but two years later, was discarded and the whole idea of a Jewish National Home was scrapped.

In 1947, the UN recommended partition and the Jews agreed. Arabs declared war and fr the next 19 years after losing, carried on a terror campaign to eliminate the Jewish state.

Despite many other offers of partition, withdrawal and such including an autonomy plan, a disengagement, the Oslo Accords, a construction moratorium and much more, the Arab side is still declining to negotiate and refusing to pursue peace.

The "it" land is the Jewish people's legacy and it will remain under Jewish control.

^

A Matter of Origin

The EU guidelines on wine seem to inist on a "region" as the geographical identification unit as to where a product is made where as where the grapes are grown is another matter: 

"For most products, at least one of the stages of distillation or preparation takes place in the region. However, raw products do not need to come from the region". 

You might then ask why then does the EU insist on "Palestine" when "Judea & Samaria", regions, would do?

Well, it doesn't actually.

But in the first instance, those guidelines above refer solely to EU countries.  

In other words, what is good for the EU is not good for other countries.

The official EU position as regards Israel, however, as clarified for me from an official spokesperson, is this

The indication of origin of products from territories occupied by Israel is a technical consumer protection issue, based on the EU recognising Israel within its 1967 border. Goods of origin from these territories, as  other goods for import into the EU, need to be correctly labelled so that consumers in the EU have full clarity where the products come from.  

The EU does not support any elements of the so-called ‘BDS’ approach (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel, and hence also not the boycott of products from Israeli settlements.  

An Interpretative Notice of the European Commission was issued in November 2015 and it provides some clarity on the existing EU rules. The main purpose is to be helpful to a consumer in that an improper labeling would "mislead the consumer as to the true origin of the product".  It demands that the mandatory indication of origin be "correct and not misleading".  As they note

"Made in Israel" used for the products coming from Israeli settlements would mislead the consumer and therefore is inconsistent with existing EU legislation.

And further,

'product from Israel' should not be used for products from the Golan Heights or the West Bank (including East Jerusalem). For products from West Bank or the Golan Heights that originate from settlements, an indication limited to 'product from Golan Heights' or 'product from West Bank' would not be acceptable. In such cases the expression 'Israeli settlement' or equivalent needs to be added

Before we deal with why that instruction is in place, one more element need be emphasized. The EU asserts that the geographical area of origin must be "internationally recognised" and for the EU, Israel was and continues to be internationally recognized as defined by its "pre-1967 borders' so

In line with UNSC resolution 2334 of 2016, the EU considers Israeli settlements in occupied territories as illegal under international law.

Let's deconstruct this.

In the first instance, we need be clear there were no "borders" prior to 1967. They were, as defined in an internationally recognized Armistice Agreement and those lines were specifically categorized in Article II that being demarcated,

no military or political advantage should be gained

Furthermore there,

no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question

In other words, Israel and Jordan could both put forward territorial claims beyond those lines. Indeed,

The basic purpose of the Armistice Demarcation Lines is to delineate the lines beyond which the armed forces of the respective Parties shall not move

Nothing political but rather a simple marking at which point the military forces had stopped operations.

Moreover, those lines were temporary in the extreme, with no permanancy as per

Article XII 3 which reads

The Parties to this Agreement may, by mutual consent, revise this Agreement or any of its provisions, or may suspend its application, other than articles I and III, at any time.

Jordan, invading Israel in June 1967, effectively put an end to the legitimacy of those lines.

To sanctify, as it were, the "pre-1967 borders" is an act of nonsense.

Now, between you and me, everyone knows Israel has extended its administrative rule to those regions of the Land of Israel that were under British Mandate rule until 1948, a rule quite legal and internationally recognized. That is the meaning of "belligerent occupation", that it si the rrsult of military engagement. Israel, in an act of self-defense, thwarted the intentions of the invaders and assumed administrationn over Judea and Samaria, as well as Gaza.

Those regions were geographically part of the area of 'historic Palestine' the League of nations awarded to the Jewish people to, among other purposes:

encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency. referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews, on the land, including State lands and waste lands

From 1922 until 1967, no recognized country or state legally ruled those areas except the Mandate. In Hebrew, the Mandate was translated as "Land of Israel". Jordan was an illegal occupier. 

All this leaves us with a simple solution for the requirement of the EU to note the origin of the product: the Land of Israel.

^

Samaria?

Yes, "Samaria":

^

Trying to Understand a Quranic Passage

In Sura 26, the Quran retells its version of the Exodus from Egypt by the Israelites*. Verse 59 is quite forthright, the Children of Israel are "caused to inherit" the Land of Israel ("goodly dwellings", M. H. Shakir; "a fair estate", Muhammad M. Pickthall.)
by Allah.

Here is one discussion of the verse 59 which mixes up a country, "Palestine", which didn't exist at the time, with the historic Jewish Homeland to where the Israelites were going:

The relevant verses of Surahs Al-Baqarah, Al-Maidah, Al-Aaraf and TaHa confirm that after the destruction of Pharaoh in the sea, the Israelites did not return to Egypt but proceeded towards their destination (Palestine) and then, till the time of Prophet David (973-1013 B.C.) all the major events of their history took place in the lands which are now known as the Sinai Peninsula, northern Arabia, Transjordan and Palestine. As such, in our opinion the verses mean this: On the one hand, Allah deprived the people of Pharaoh of their wealth, possessions and grandeur, and on the other hand, He bestowed the same on the Children of Israel in Palestine, and not in Egypt. This same meaning is borne out by (verses 136-137 of Surah A1-Aaraf): Then We took Our vengeance on them and drowned them in the sea because they had treated Our signs as false and grown heedless of them. And after them We gave as heritage to those who had been abased and kept low, the eastern and the western parts of that land, which had been blessed bountifully by Us. The epithet of the blessed land has generally been used for Palestine in the Quran as in (Surah Bani Israil, Ayat 1); (Surah Al-Anbiya, Ayats 71-81); and (Surah Saba, Ayat 18).

*

[26:16] "Go to Pharaoh and say, 'We are messengers from the Lord of the universe.

[26:17] "'Let the Children of Israel go.'"

[26:18] He said, "Did we not raise you from infancy, and you spent many years with us?

[26:19] "Then you committed the crime that you committed, and you were ungrateful."

[26:20] He said, "Indeed, I did it when I was astray.

[26:21] "Then I fled, when I feared you, and my Lord endowed me with wisdom and made me one of the messengers.

[26:22] "You are boasting that you did me a favor, while enslaving the Children of Israel!"

[26:23] Pharaoh said, "What is the Lord of the universe?"

[26:24] He said, "The Lord of the heavens and the earth, and everything between them. You should be certain about this."

[26:25] He said to those around him, "Did you hear this?"

[26:26] He said, "Your Lord and the Lord of your ancestors."

[26:27] He said, "Your messenger who is sent to you is crazy."

[26:28] He said, "The Lord of the east and the west, and everything between them, if you understand."

[26:29] He said, "If you accept any god, other than me, I will throw you in the prison."

[26:30] He said, "What if I show you something profound?"

[26:31] He said, "Then produce it, if you are truthful."

[26:32] He then threw his staff, whereupon it became a profound snake.

[26:33] And he took out his hand, and it was white to the beholders.

[26:34] He said to the elders around him, "This is an experienced magician.

[26:35] "He wants to take you out of your land, with his magic. What do you suggest?"

[26:36] They said, "Respite him and his brother, and send summoners to every town.

[26:37] "Let them summon every experienced magician."

[26:38] The magicians were gathered at the appointed time, on the appointed day.

[26:39] The people were told: "Come one and all; let us gather together here.

[26:40] "Maybe we will follow the magicians, if they are the winners."

[26:41] When the magicians came, they said to Pharaoh, "Do we get paid, if we are the winners?"

[26:42] He said, "Yes indeed; you will even be close to me."

[26:43] Moses said to them, "Throw what you are going to throw."

[26:44] They threw their ropes and sticks, and said, "By Pharaoh's majesty, we will be the victors."

[26:45] Moses threw his staff, whereupon it swallowed what they fabricated.

The Experts See the Truth
[26:46] The magicians fell prostrate.

[26:47] They said, "We believe in the Lord of the universe.

[26:48] "The Lord of Moses and Aaron."

[26:49] He said, "Did you believe with him before I give you permission? He must be your teacher, who taught you magic. You will surely find out. I will cut your hands and feet on alternate sides. I will crucify you all."

[26:50] They said, "This will not change our decision; to our Lord we will return.

[26:51] "We hope that our Lord will forgive us our sins, especially that we are the first believers."

[26:52] We inspired Moses: "Travel with My servants; you will be pursued."

[26:53] Pharaoh sent to the cities callers.

[26:54] (Proclaiming,) "This is a small gang.

[26:55] "They are now opposing us.

[26:56] "Let us all beware of them."

The Inevitable Retribution
[26:57] Consequently, we deprived them of gardens and springs.

[26:58] And treasures and an honorable position.

[26:59] Then we made it an inheritance for the Children of Israel.

[26:60] They pursued them towards the east.

[26:61] When both parties saw each other, Moses' people said, "We will be caught."

[26:62] He said, "No way. My Lord is with me; He will guide me."

[26:63] We then inspired Moses: "Strike the sea with your staff," whereupon it parted. Each part was like a great hill.

[26:64] We then delivered them all.

[26:65] We thus saved Moses and all those who were with him.

[26:66] And we drowned the others.

[26:67] This should be a sufficient proof, but most people are not believers.


[26:68] Most assuredly, your Lord is the Almighty, Most Merciful.

^

A Call From Shiloh To Rabbis, Leaders and Educators

I address these thoughts to Rabbis, educators and leaders of Jewish organizations who have been caught up with a renewed wave of critical attacks on Israel from within the Jewish community.

You are familiar with them if only because on these times of social media platforms but also because of the aggressive invasive nature of these attacks and the wide support certain Jewish media and members of the Rabbinate and academia lend to them.

We have completed the Ten Days of Penitence between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

Most of you, at one time or another in the past few years, probably had occasion to comment on the Haftarah of the first day of Rosh Hashana.  The story of Hannah awakens thoughts of mercy, of pain, of being socially outcast, of feminism, of misogyny and other issues to which American Jewry especially is attuned.

The childless Hannah accompanies her husband with his second wife to the Tabernacle and in an act of courage, she prays at the Tabernacle for a son:

Hannah rose up...and she was in bitterness of soul--and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore...remember me, and not forget Thy handmaid...Now Hannah, she spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice could not be heard; therefore, Eli thought she had been drunken. And Eli said unto her: 'How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee.' And Hannah answered and said: 'No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I poured out my soul before the LORD. Count not thy handmaid for a wicked woman: for out of the abundance of my complaint and my vexation have I spoken hitherto.' Then Eli answered and said: 'Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant thy petition that thou hast asked of Him.' And she said: 'Let thy servant find favor in thy sight.' So the woman went her way, and did eat, and her countenance was no more sad.

The Talmud states that "on Rosh HaShana Sarah, Rachel, and Hannah were remembered by God and conceived sons" and in a braita explanation, Rabbi Elazar said:

"This is derived by means of a verbal analogy...it is written about Hannah: 'And the Lord remembered her' (I Samuel 1:19). And...the term remembering is derived from another instance of the term remembering, with regard to Rosh HaShana, as it is written: 'A solemn rest, memorial proclaimed with the blast of a shofar' (Leviticus 23:24). From here it is derived that Rachel and Hannah were remembered by God on Rosh HaShana."

Furthermore, "the meaning of one instance of the term revisiting is derived from another instance of the term revisiting. It is written about Hannah: 'And the Lord revisited Hannah' (I Samuel 2:21), and it is written about Sarah: 'And the Lord revisited Sarah” (Genesis 21:1). From here it is derived that just as Hannah was revisited on Rosh HaShana, so too, Sarah was revisited on Rosh HaShana.

You may wondering where I am going with this.  

My intention is simple: do you know about Shiloh?

The Tabernacle to where Elkanah, Penina and Hannah walked was located at Shiloh.

The Tabernacle was erected there by Joshua:

And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled themselves together at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there

The tribal portions were divided amongst the tribes:

And Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the LORD; and there Joshua divided the land unto the children of Israel according to their divisions.

Shiloh was where the tribe of Benjamin was permitted to unite with the rest of the tribes at the:

feast of the LORD from year to year in Shiloh...And they commanded the children of Benjamin, saying: 'Go and lie in wait in the vineyards; and see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin...And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives

Shiloh was where the Prophet Achiah berated a King of Israel when he was visited by Jeroboan's wife:

when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet, as she came in at the door, that he said: 'Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam; why feignest thou thyself to be another? for I am sent to thee with heavy tidings. Go, tell Jeroboam: Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: Forasmuch as...thou hast not been as My servant David, who kept My commandments, and who followed Me with all his heart, to do that only which was right in Mine eyes; but hast done evil above all that were before thee, and hast gone and made thee other gods, and molten images, to provoke Me, and hast cast Me behind thy back; therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam,

And it where the children of Israel were told that

the land was subdued before them. 

and from where three men appointed from the tribes were told that they would be sent, to

arise, and walk through the land, and describe it according to their inheritance

We've recited these past two weeks the "Mi Sh'Anan, Hu Yaneinu" prayer numerous times, and among the geographic places mentioned in the 20 verses are Mount Moriah in Jerusalem (or perhaps East Jerusalem as some of your call it), Bet El, Mitzpah, Gilgal and Jericho, all located in what several Jewish leaders call the "West Bank".

What all this indicates, in all simplicity, is that a Jew cannot ignore that Judaism's religious, moral, ethical and philosophical values cannot be separated from our people's geographic history.  Not only time but place are essential to the reality of Jewishness.

As you are in the positions you are in, you should point out to the students, the youth and others who have been caught up with recycled non-to-anti-Zionist positions as if predicated on something called "occupation".

The land "occupied" is part of the historic Jewish homeland, first and foremost.  Not some far-flung colonial enterprise.  Indeed, it was the area intended to enjoy the right of "close settlement on the land as per the decision of the League of Nations and continuously confirmed.

Those who employ a veneer of "Judaism" in order to negate that reality, historical and contemporary, should and need be corrected.  Do not allow them to proclaim falsehood.

And that is your job.

____________

P.S.

"There is no Jewish existence without the Bible; it doesn't exist," the prime minister said. "In my opinion, there is also no Jewish future without the Bible."

And without the Bible and subsequent Jewish continuum of residency in the Land of Israel, the Jewish People loses its ability to grasp its geo-political Jewish identity.

^

If No Jews, Why So Many Synagogues?

Many think there were no Jews in the Land of Israel after 135 CE and the failure of the Bar Kochba Revolt.

But see here:

^

Rebbe Nahman's Eretz-Yisrael Hasbara

Here is a quotation from a follower of Rebbe Nahman of Bratzlav (who died in 1810) which posits a core principle of modern Hasbara, that one needs to assert rights, even if only verbally, as a prerequisite to claim them later found in Likutei Halachot, Hoshen Mishpat:

Despite our land and inheritance being stolen by non-Jews

and we have not the power to remove it from their hands,

due to a fault of ours,

we pray and we shout out that

the Land of Israel is ours and is our patrimony

and that is our response to the Other Side,

the possession of non-Jews is not a valid possession

the Land of Israel is ours and in the end,

we will extract it from their hands.

With God's help.

I'll add now the full section from Likutei Halachot, Choshen Mispat, M'talt'lin

"And even though we have been shouting and begging for so many years to return to Israel and we are still far from there, yet no prayer and cry is lost, even that of the least of the least, because with every cry and prayer we conquer some part or point of Israel until the seventh day, when all the points we conquered in our prayers will be gathered together and we will return to Israel, as is the saying of the Rebbe, on the article of Rabbah: "He will gather you up, etc." (S. 2:31). And even if someone is very damaged and does not have the strength in his cry and prayer to conquer any point or part of Israel, yet his cry is very effective, because his cry that shouts and prays to return to our land is in essence a protest explained in the law of land possession, as long as he protestsץ"

^

Sand's Foolish Extreme Negativism

Shlomo Sand, Communist, who is involved in his own deinventivity model and who published a book claiming the concept of a 'Jewish people' is somehow invented, The Invention of the Jewish People, is back.

His new book in Hebrew is concerned with the when and how of the "creation" of the Land of Israel.

In a review (in Hebrew) I learn that his main claim, other than asserting, correctly, that British Christians assisted to formulate the concept of the need to reconstitute the Jewish national home, is that the concept of "Eretz-Yisrael", the Land of Israel, does not exist in the Bible, even if its borders are indeed delineated, and first appears only after the destruction of the First Temple, in the Mishnah and Talmud. The Bible, Sand believes, was composed by immigrants from Babylon, members of the Babylonian elite, who fled to Canaan during the First Temple period.

He is forced to admit that with such a belief, it would be impossible to deny the right of Jews to reside in the heartland of the Land of Israel, Judea and Samaria.

The reviewer, Motti Fogel, calls Zand a purveyor of naive fundamentalism no different than any other. He denigrates Sand's attempt to prove who was here first.

From the Google-translated blurb, (and here) with a bit of help from me:

After dealing with the myth of the eternal existence of the Jewish question, Shlomo Sand turns to examine the myth of a sacred territory which became the longest conflict of the 20th century. In his new book, he tries to break the long years of legends that strangle with prejudice. He wonders about the nature of the term "historic right", and describes how evangelical Protestants and Jews, Zionists, invented in the 19th century the 'Land of Israel "as a geo-political modern concept. This is a nationalist invention which allowed and encouraged the settlement in the Middle East [of a non-native people] and brought about the establishment of Israel and represents an existential threat today.

Finally, he has gone to the extreme in his foolish negativism.

Thank God.

___________

For those who are a bit lost:

Twenty-five hundred years ago, the prophet Ezekiel spoke of the restoration of Israel to its land in the last days...We read in Ezekiel 37:11-12:

"Then He said to me, 'Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.' Therefore prophesy, and say to them, 'thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of ISRAEL.'"

And that's just a hint of how wrong Sand is.


______________

UPDATE


^

On the Quality of the Land of Israel's Sacredness

-

A real territorial exception, the land of Israel is far more than a territory. It is the image and the sign of the Jewish exception. Its intimate link to God sends back to God’s intimate link to Israel. Any change of the relations between Israel and its land is nothing but the clear sign of a change of its relations with God. However, no alteration of this kind is irrevocable and definitive. And none is as deep as appearances seem to tell. The land is a person endowed with will, which may be negative or favourable, now accepting now rejecting its inhabitants. Those who live on it, breathe a pure air and its dust for those buried in it has an expiatory power, comparable to that of the altar of sacrifices. Its successive conquerors did not manage to put down roots, which reveals its positive resistance to any illegal takeover. The land of Israel is hit by nothing but what it accepts to be hit by. Essentially pure, nothing could possibly stain it. The destruction and the oppression of a foreign ruler only has a limited impact on it: perhaps the divine impulse from above is no more as intense as it used to be, but evil has no grip on it, and it has itself the power to reject impurity. To consider that the effects of impious acts committed in the Holy Land through centuries are non-existent or fundamentally inessential is a way of implying that the relation of history to it, is like water off a duck’s back. The land of Israel is no more in history, but out of it. The rags of spoliation and destruction mask an essential, divine and unchanging land whose present troubles by no means affect it and which, some day, once again, is to reveal itself in all its untarnished glory. Indefinitely idealised, the land medieval Jews are dreaming of is this land toward which they turn to pray thrice a day. But it is also far more than that, and really something else. The more it is perceived as holy, the more it is lived as different – and as terrible.

The modern Jewish Zionist-inspired ideology, of course, tended to claim that after destruction and dispersion nothing in fact had jeopardised the Jews’ relationship toward the Holy Land and that this land had never even been weakened by some symbolisation of the sacred space or by the transfer of this sacrality to whatever space or institution.

From a lecture by Jean-Christophe Attias and Esther Benbassa: ISRAEL, THE LAND AND THE SACRED

^

Solomon's Pools

I mentioned a walk to Solomon's Pools in a previous post and a friend, RL, sent me some recent pictures taken by Tamar Hayardeni of them and they illustrate Israel's water problem quite starkly:

a) lower pool:

b) lower pool:

c) middle pool:

d) upper pool:

In comparison, see these views from the Mandate period when they were a real swimming pool attraction (from the Matson Collection):

More, from Zev Rothkoff's site. And at Betar.

^

Trailing Along, Throughout the Land

I read this

Minister of Tourism Stas Misezhnikov inaugurated on Tuesday the new Gospel Trail pilgrimage route which has been created by the Ministry of Tourism along with the Jewish National Fund.

The trail, which cost NIS 3 million to develop over three years, is designed to further increase the already large numbers of Christian tourists and pilgrims who visit Israel each year...

Miszensikov said that he expects the Gospel Trail to attract an additional 200,000 tourists every year above the current figures.

The route of the Gospel Trail follows the path which Jesus walked at age 30 after he was evicted from Nazareth, as related by the New Testament.

The trail, which runs for 63 kilometers, starts at Mount Precipice just outside Nazareth and continues eastwards down to Capernaum, taking in a number of important Christian holy sites.

These include the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount; Magdala (Migdal today) the home of Mary Magadelene; Tabgha, the site of the Feeding of the Five Thousand; and Capernaum, where Jesus established his ministry and met his first disciple Peter.

And searched around and found this -

Here's the Tourism Ministry site and here's their map.

If you'll recall, I hosted a BBC reporter three years ago on his journey from Nazereth to Bethlehem and he traversed Samaria and Judea on his journey.  See here I, here II, here III, and here IV.

The New Testament notes, in Acts 8:1, that the Apostles were dispersed througout Judea and Samaria.

Christian pilgrims and all others, you are welcomed to trek throughout the Land of Israel and soon the Ministry of Tourism will assist in that too.

^

Faking It

The Independent reports on the Sumarin Family case in Silwan.

Two reactions:

a) Note:

"Technically, Israel is acting within the bounds of its own law...".

My, my. Legal!
But Jews are expected to be more than just technically legal. Higher standards.

and

b) note:

"Why do settlers who came here 20 years ago have the right to take over? Just because King David was here 3,000 years ago?" he says.

No, because Jews were there until the late 1930s when Arabs chased them away like they did later in 1947-1948 to the Jews of Shimon HaTzadik, Sham'a and other neighborhoods of Jerusalem in addition to the Old City Quarter and Neveh Yaakov and Atarot.

Never trust an Arab here to present you with the full, unadulterated and complete history of the conflict.

They'll fake it more often than not.

P.S.

The Sumarin family has been rejecting eviction orders since 1991.  There have been several legal hearings on the subject. The family won one but lost  others.   In 2005 the family did not bother to present a defence at a court case in Jerusalem.
See:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/palestinian-family-given-two-weeks-to-vacate-east-jerusalem-home-1.395590
http://www.justjlm.org/1671


^

Rights of Jews to the Land of Israel

New book out:

The Jewish People’s Rights to The Land of Israel
by Salomon Benzimra

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
THE ORIGIN OF ISRAEL’S LEGAL RIGHTS
THE MANDATE: FROM 1920 TO 1939
ISRAEL: FROM NATION TO STATE

PART ONE
ANCIENT ISRAEL (1200 – 722 BCE)
ANCIENT ISRAEL (722 – 323 BCE)
ANCIENT ISRAEL (323 – 70 CE)
ANCIENT ISRAEL: THE HISTORICAL CONNECTION
THE BIRTH OF MODERN ZIONISM
THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
WILSON’S “FOURTEEN POINTS”
PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE - 1919
COVENANT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
SAN REMO CONFERENCE: A LANDMARK
SAN REMO AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
FRANCO-BRITISH BOUNDARY CONVENTION
THE CREATION OF TRANSJORDAN
TRANSJORDAN: LEGAL AND POLITICAL ISSUES
MANDATE FOR PALESTINE: FUNDAMENTALS
THE MANDATE: TERRITORY & SETTLEMENTS
THE MANDATE: FIRST “PARTITION”
THE MANDATE: LEGAL VALIDITY
THE MANDATE: MAIN PROVISIONS
ANGLO-AMERICAN CONVENTION - 1924

PART TWO
BRITISH MANDATE: HAYCRAFT COMMISSION
BRITISH MANDATE: CHURCHILL WHITE PAPER
BRITISH MANDATE: SHAW COMMISSION
BRITISH MANDATE: PASSFIELD WHITE PAPER
BRITISH MANDATE: PEEL COMMISSION
BRITISH MANDATE: MACDONALD WHITE PAPER
BRITISH MANDATE: JEWISH IMMIGRATION
UN PARTITION RESOLUTION 181

CONCLUSION
LANGUAGE AND MYTHS
SOME THOUGHTS ON PEACE

NOTES AND REFERENCES

CANADIANS FOR ISRAEL’S LEGAL RIGHTS
http://www.cilr.org/ Toronto info@cilr.org

^

"Palestine" or Judea? (And "Identity Theft")

The debate * (and the "identity theft" attempts, see below) continues (see here and also here) whether this country, this land is "Palestine", even from ancient days, or the Land of Israel, homeland of the Jews from time immemorial, Judea.

I found this article "A New Typology of the Yehud Stamp Impressions" by Oded Lipschits, Tel-Aviv 34: 12-37, which reviews what are know as YSI, or Yehud Stamp Impressions.

They look like this:

Details of one type:

As Oded writes of the period in which they were made:

In other words, several hundred years before the common era, - the Persian Period was from 539 to 334 BCE - Jews were living throughout this country. Like what the Bible narrative claims. And it was called Yehuda, יהודה, or Judea. And of the many YSIs, Jewish names, names recorded in the Bible, are impressioned onto the seal.

That's history. Jewish history.

It's provable science, archaeology.

The history of the Land of Israel, the Land of the Jews, the יהודים.


P.S.

There more in this book:

The Yehud Stamp Impressions: A Corpus of Inscribed Impressions from the Persian and Hellenistic Periods in Judah
by Oded Lipschits and David S. Vanderhooft, Eisenbrauns, 2011

The study of the yehud stamp impressions, which appear on the handles or bodies of store jars, has persisted for over a century, beginning with the discovery of the first of these impressions at Gezer in 1904. Nevertheless, until the pioneering work of Stern in 1973, who cataloged, classified, and discussed the stamp impressions known up to 1970, discovery and publication of new stamp impressions were scattered, and analysis was cursory at best. Furthermore, a gap in research has persisted since then.

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*

and sometimes the debate goes crazy, like here:

Destruction of cultural heritage

Since October 2000 great damage has been inflicted on cultural heritage sites in the Palestinian areas (Taha, 2005). These sites have suffered military bombing, with shelling causing partial or even total destruction. Attacks on cultural heritage sites have intensified since the last major incursions in April 2002 and January 2004, causing irreparable damage, especially in the historic towns and cities, including Bethlehem, Hebron, Gaza, Beit Jala, Tulkarem, Salfit, Jenin, Gaza, Rafah, Abud, and Nablus. Sieges, curfews, roadblocks and military closures imposed on the Palestinian cities and villages have prevented the DACH from attending to its tasks in the protection of cultural heritage. Many archaeological sites and historical buildings have been the target of Israeli military attacks, including during the last war on Gaza, when the ancient Gaza port Anthedon, the Ottoman building of Dar es-Sariai and the governor’s house were damaged.

and read this article. And this one to grasp the "identity theft" being promoted.


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Walking the Land

In a review of David Grossman's book, To the End of the Land, now published in English (a new one in Hebrew has by now appeared), you can find this:

The reader might not guess that the hiking holiday Ora takes represents a national pastime. Yael Zerubavel’s book Recovered Roots describes how Zionist settlers of the pre-state period were given special classes in local nature and geography, part of a practice called

Yediat ha-aretz (knowing the Land) [that] did not simply mean the recital of facts in the classroom, but rather an intimate knowledge of the land that can only be achieved through a direct contact…trekking on foot throughout the land was particularly considered as a major educational experience, essential for the development of the New Hebrews. For the non-Israeli reader, the association of hiking with laying claim to the land may be lost.

That element of hiking, of attempting to know not only the physical lay of the land, what happens every season, how to take advantage of what is there in the land amnd on it, what happened at that spot over the past three thousand years and how to quote a reference from the Bible or the Talmud or modern Hebrew literature is what contributes to our character as Zionists.

It is not an educational tool but an essence.

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Something Old in the New Testament

What could be 'old' in the New Testament?

This

Romans 9:4 -

the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises.

Or in the King James Version:

Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises;

One of those "promises" surely includes the one, repeated often to Abraham, Yitzhak, Yaakov, Moshe and all of the congregation of Israel, that the Land of Israel, which is known as Judea and Samaria (Acts 8:1), is the Jewish national home.

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Jews In Gaza

If you can read Hebrew, you'd know from this article that Jews were reported residing in Gaza in the period following the retreat of the Crusaders in 1291.

In 1481, a visitor indicates a large synagogue was serving the community.  Rabbinical responsa on issues of observance of laws of agriculture in the 15th century are recorded.  A Reb Meshulam of Volterra visited Gaza in 1395-96 and reported houses and fields of Jews and as they were well developed, it is surmised that upwards of a century earlier did the Jews recreate their lives there.

And see my Chronology of Jewish Presence in the Land of Israel or here at this blog.
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Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, The Admor of the Land of Israel

Today is the yahrtzeit (death anniversary) of Menachem-Mendel of Vitebsk and in brief, this is why he was a pivotal and crucial link in the ongoing efforts to restore the Land of Israel to the Jews by restoring Jews to the country through immigration, Torah study and practical projects of commerce and agriculture:

Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk (1730–1788), also known as Menachem Mendel of Horodok, was an early leader of Hasidic Judaism. Part of the third generation of Hasidic leaders, he was the primary disciple of the Maggid of Mezeritch. From his base in Minsk Menachem Mendel was instrumental in spreading Hasidism throughout Belarus...After the Maggid's death, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, along with fellow disciple Rabbi Abraham Kalisker ("Kalisker") settled in Horodok.

In 1777 the two, along with 300 followers, emigrated to the Land of Israel settling in Safed. In 1783 they were forced out of Safed, and moved to Tiberias. The synagogue they built there is 1786 still stands among the Ancient synagogues of Tiberias.

More details:

The Decision to Emigrate to the Land of Israel

It is difficult to understand what exactly caused Reb Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk to make the move to the Holy Land...suddenly, he decided to take a group of followers and travel to the land of Israel with the intention of staying there for the rest of his life.

...In the year 5537 (circa 1777), Reb Menachem Mendel took three hundred of his followers and set out for the land of Israel. [This: - The first Chassidic aliyah ("ascent" - immigration to the Holy Land), led by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, Rabbi Abraham of Kalisk and Rabbi Yisroel of Polotzk, reached the Holy Land on Elul 5 of the year 5537 from creation (1777 CE).] The hardships involved were enormous, and one peril after another came upon the group. Even before reaching Israel one of travelers’ boats sank, taking with it the lives of thirty Jews. When they arrived in Israel they settled in Safed, but the Turks and the Arabs persecuted them, so much so that eventually they were forced to leave the city and move to Tiberius. Yet, they were not permitted to settle comfortably in this new setting.

The difficulties of income were great; most of the company possessed no skill from which they could earn a living. As a result, Reb Menachem was forced to ask the Jews of Russia time and time again to send donations in order to support the Chassidic community in Eretz Yisrael. On top of all of these difficulties, it happened that from time to time epidemics would break out taking the lives of some of Reb Menachem’s followers.

...The Sefardic Jews living in Israel at that time held Reb Menachem Mendel in great esteem, and he attached himself to them affectionately. Rabbi Menachem even matched his dearly loved son, who was also an outstanding scholar, with the daughter of a Sefardic family (a practice that was not at all accepted in those times - and even today is frowned upon by some...). In his last will he advises against scrutinizing or quarreling with the Sefardic Jews whether on issues of religious practice or any other matter.

The tremendous difficulties of settling the land, while caring for the material and spiritual welfare of his followers in Israel and in the Diaspora, sapped the pious rebbe’s strength. Ten years after his arrival in the Holy Land in Menachem-Av, 5547 (circa 1787), at the age of fifty-seven, Reb Menachem Mendel passed away.

Disease had weakened him greatly, but his mind remained clear until his final hour. The rebbe, in his last will writes: ...Let no words of praise be engraved on my headstone - just "Our teacher, Rabbi Menachem Mendel."

...On the first of Iyar Reb Menachem Mendel’s holy soul ascended to heaven.

...thanks to Reb Menachem, the land of Israel became engraved in the consciousness of the Chassidic movement. Leading Chassidic sages, his students and his friends, were appointed with the task of collecting donations in order to support the Jewish settlers in Israel. As a result, they and their followers became attached in one way or another to the land of Israel...In fact, it may very well have been Reb Menachem Mendel’s move to the land of Israel that sowed the vision of settling and nurturing the land of Israel deep in the hearts of Russian Jewry - a vision that would lead to the appearance of a movement for practical Zionism led by Russian Jewry many years later.

Some of his words:

Rabbi Mendel used to say: “It is true that the air of the Land of Israel makes a man wise. Before I was in that land, all my thoughts and desires were intent on single prayer just once in exactly the right way. But since I am in this land, all I want is just to say 'Amen' in the right way."

Another thing he said, was: “This is what I attained in the Land of Israel. When I see a bundle of straw lying in the street, it seems to me a sign of the presence of God, that it lies there lengthwise, and not crosswise.”

A recorded lecture.

(If you wish to purchase a first edition of his book, check this out)

Suggested Reading

Moshe Halamish, “The Teachings of R. Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk,” in Hasidism Reappraised, ed. Ada Rapoport-Albert, pp. 268–287 (London and Portland, Ore., 1996); Raya Haran, “Shivḥe ha-Rav: Li-She’eylat aminutan shel igrot ha-ḥasidim me-Erets-Yisra’el,” Katedrah 55 (1990): 22–58; Raya Haran, “Mah heni‘a et talmide ha-Magid la‘alot le-Erets-Yisra’el,” Katedrah 76 (1995): 77–95; Naḥum Karlinski, Historiyah sheke-neged: “Igrot ha-ḥasidim me-Erets-Yisra’el” (Jerusalem, 1998); Yehoshu‘a Mondshine, “Aminutan shel igrot ha-Ḥasidim,” Katedrah 63 (1992): 65–97, 64 (1992): 79–97; Mordecai Wilensky, Ha-Yishuv ha-ḥasidi bi-Teveriya: ‘Ad petirato shel Rabi Avraham mi-Kalisk, 570 (Jerusalem, 1988).

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A Blast From the Past - Moshe Dayan

We want borders that permit an expression to the link of the Jewish people with its historic land.

Moshe Dayan, Rafi Conference, June 12, 1967, Jerusalem
(source: "A New Map, Different Relations", 1969, p. 18)

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Arabs and Christians - The Beginning

I caught a book and reading its description, a thought came to me.

It's called Arabic Christianity in the Monasteries of Ninth-Century Palestine, published by Ashgate Variorum in 1992. The author is Sidney H. Griffith of the Catholic University of America, USA.

This is the description:

The history of Christian literature took a new turn in the 8th century when monks in the monasteries of Palestine began to write theology and saints’ lives in Arabic; they also instituted a veritable programme for translating the Bible and other Christian texts from Greek (and Syriac) into the language of the Qur’an, the lingua franca of the Islamic caliphate. This is the subject of the present volume. Two key factors leading to this change, as Professor Griffith indicates, were that the confrontation with the developing theology of Islam created a direct need for apologetics to face this new religious challenge in its own language; and, second, simply that as the memory of Byzantine power waned, so too did the knowledge of Greek. Issues of particular interest in this apologetic literature are those of the freedom of the will, a key topic in the controversies between Melkites and Muslims, and of the legitimacy of icon veneration, a subject of great contemporary concern at the time of Iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire.

Admittedly, I am not a scholar of that period but, in a logical approach, one could ask this question:

if Arabs were "always resident in Palestine", as the propaganda claim is made, why did a need for all this appear only in the 8th century, some 150 years after the appearance of Islam?  Was Arabic a 'foreign language' in that geographical area even if Islam was relatively new?

True, the Byzantine empire disappeared and with it the main lingua franca but that was already as early as 614. Moreover, Christianity had been around for centuries and if Arabs lived in the country in any number, they would have known all the theology by now. They were pagans until Muhammed and so were even a better 'target' for Christianity.  Even the rise of Islam in the early 7th century would have provided enough previous time and a need for such translations.

Could it be that in the Land of Israel the presence of Arabs was minimal? And that there was no need for the local monks to engage them theologically?

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