Going to Jerusalem in 1615

From a new book, Ottoman-era Documents from the Cairo Genizah.

A Rabbi Shmuel set off for Jerusalem from Egypt in 1615 for a 20-day trek and required a document that he coulkd present to various government officials along the way which would provide him security from the dangers of raiding Bedouin as well as food and lodging. It also afforded him escorts for his protection although once he reached Jerusalem's gates, he would be required to make a payment to enter the city.

A Jew in Egypt, not European, a country ruled by the Ottoman Empire and going to Jerusalem, in the occupied territory of the former Judea in the early 17th century to spend the Pilgrimage Festival of Passover.

Think about it.

^

An Egyptian Jew in Eretz-Yisrael in the 14th century.

I attended the opening of a new exhibition at the Israel Museumm this past week:

Painting a Pilgrimage: A 14th Century Hebrew Scroll Unveiled is curated by Dr. Rachel Sarfati at the Spertus Gallery.

On display is a scroll from the 14th century. It is almost eleven meters long and

documents the pilgrimage of an Egyptian Jew to the Land of Israel. Its 130 illustrations (often accompanied by inscriptions) of sanctified places from Egypt to Lebanon offer a glimpse of what the region looked like over 700 years ago...The central illustration, which is some two meters long, depicts the Temple on the Temple Mount and reflects the belief shared by Muslims and Jews in the Middle Ages that the Dome of the Rock was built in commemoration of Solomon's Temple.

My photographs:

Let me repeat that: an Egyptian Jew travels to Eretz-Yisrael in the 14th century.

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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.

^

Again, Is "Palestine" Really Part of Syria?

As Zachary J. Foster details in his 2011 Georgetown University MA thesis, "Arab Historiography in Mandatory Palestine, 1920--1948", many Arab historians

considered Palestine a constitutive part of Syria. Bahri, for instance, writes that Haifa is among the “mother cities of Syria broadly and Palestine specifically.” In his brief biography of Abid Baha’ Abbas, the founder of the Bahai faith, Bahri also lists all of the countries or regions with Bahai populations: Iran, Japan, China, India, Egypt, Syria (Suriyya), Europe and America. Insofar as there were many Bahai in “Palestine,” it only makes sense that Palestine was assumed as part of Syria in Bahri’s laundry list, or else it would have been an embarrassing oversight to neglect Palestine. Barghouthi and Totah add that Palestine “remained part of Syria, and a natural border did not separate it (Palestine) from it(Syria), and was not distant from it racially or historically, and therefore historians have not singled it [Palestine] out with a distinct name but rather they have related to it [i.e. naming, in terms of] the peoples and tribes living in it.”

If you are worried that his sources are not solid, a footnote there reads:

On the proposals for a Syria (including Palestine) -- Egypt union before the war, see Ayyad, Arab Nationalism,59; Lunts, “Shorishayha ve-Mekorotayha,” 34; Gooch and Temperley, British Documents, 824-5; During the war:Tamari, Am al-Jarad, 75-6; Blyth, “The Future of Palestine,” 85; And after the war: Mir’at al-Sharq, 23 December 1926. The proposals for a Palestine-Syria unification all come after the war and extend well into the late 1920s: see the resolution of the First Palestinian National Congress; responses in Palestine to the King-Crane Commission; petitions of the Muslim-Christian Associations; Resolution of the First Syrian National Congress in 1919, petitions produced by Nablusite notables, all of which opted for unity with Syria in the 1918-1920 period. On these proposals, See Porath, The Emergence, 81-2; Muslih,The Origins 131-154; Qasmiyya, “Suriyya wa al-Qadiyya al-Filastiniyya”; For more pro-Syrian unity rhetoric in the post 1920 period, see resolutions of the fifth Palestinian National Congress in 1922, cited in Kimmerling, “Process of Formation,” 80, n.62; Mir’at al-Sharq, 24 May 1925, 4 November 1926; Mansur, Tarikh Nasira, 120; Zionist report on the Third Palestinian National Conference, CZA,L4/768; Zionist report on Palestinian Activities in America. New York, 28 March 1922, CZA A185/56; ZionistReport on the Arab Movement, 1928, CZA, L9/349; For unity with the Hijaz, see Filastin, 10 September 1921; 14 March 1924; 19 June 1925

Quite simply, Foster considers the writing of a unique "Palestine history" to be

the projection of contemporary prerogatives on to the past.

Foster continues his review of the geography and history books written and published at the time and adds

in 1938 George Antonius uses the word Syria to describe the entire Bilad al-Sham region throughout his book. “Of the countries surrounding Egypt, Syria was the most important from a military point of view.” That is to say, it was still perfectly natural for him to write Syria to refer to places like Bir Sab’ and Ghazza. al-Nimr adds in 1938 that Nablus is located in the heart of Southern Syria (qalb Suriyya al-Janubiyya).

He continues

the tendency to consider Palestine a part of Syria that was suggested in Bahri, al-Barghouthi and Totah, Antonious and Canaan is consistent with the geographical studies of the period written by Arabs residing in both Palestine and Syria. In the first place, let us recall that discussions of Palestine are included in the classic histories of Syria written by Yusuf Dibbs and Jurji Yanni in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first Jughrafiyat Filastin was published in 1921 and seems to have been destined for the Mandatory education system. The authors, Totah and Khuri, write that there is no natural border between Syria and Palestine...For Sabri Sharif Abd al-Hadi’s Jughrafiyat Suriyya wa Filastin al-Tabi‘iyya, publishedin 1923—six years after the British arrived in Jerusalem—there is no neat border between Syria and Palestine. In some cases, the plains and mountains of Palestine and Syria bleed into one another.

By the way, on this book, Foster observes

It is worth noting that Rashid Khalidi misinterprets this book, claiming that its importance lies in“the fact that all over Palestine, students were already learning that Palestine was a separate entity, a unit whose geography requires separate treatment [from Syria].” Khalidi, Palestinian Identity, 174. As we indicated above,however, this book suggests much the opposite: that there was great confusion over what was Palestine and what was Syria, and that Palestine was a region within Syria. We must be careful to go to the primary sources before accepting Khalidi’s interpretation of the evidence..

Foster pursues the subject further and as it is important, here is another longish excerpt from his academic study:

Palestine was inextricably tied to a larger territorial unit, Syria. In some cases it was a constitutive part of it and in other cases Palestine did not include Haifa, Acre, Tiberias, Tzfat, Nazareth, the Bisan valley and other areas. When we consider that,in the late Ottoman period, “Palestine” had no administrative status and “Palestinians” called themselves “Syrians,” this is not so surprising. The attempt by the British and French to transform much older conceptions of space and self, usually by resort to force of arms, did not happen overnight. I would suggest that the attempt to trace the “earliest manifestations” of the national or proto-national identity, as Khalidi, Gerber and Fishman have done, has inadvertently reified the naturalness and inevitableness of the development of nation-state borders, geographies and loyalties in the region, things that were simply not indigenous to the region and were brought to the region by the colonial use of force.Another implication of this section is that the various pro-Syrian unity positions taken by theArabs of Palestine from 1918-1920 were probably not as “fleeting” and “ephemeral” as everyone seems to believe. The decision of the First Palestinian National Congress to call Palestine“Southern Syria” in hopes of uniting with Faysal’s government in Syria, may itself have been an innovation, but in name rather than substance. The idea that Palestine was a part of Syria continues to be perfectly acceptable to Palestine’s Arabs in the 1920s and even as late as the 1930s and 1940s. We have examined city-loyalties, Arab and Islamic loyalties and the role of the regional epicenters.

As Foster concludes this chapter in his study

Today scholars want to know when a Palestinian identity first emerged, but they seem much less interested in determining what people themselves in the 1920s and 1930s actually cared about.

And then makes sure we are clear about the facts and how Arab historians today interpret them

while Khalidi is right to point to the existence of an incipient Palestine loyalty in the 1914-1923 period, he grossly over exaggerates both its importance for the people who felt it and its prevalence in the general population. The historical works would seem to support what Salim Tamari has described as a kind of “cultural nihilism” – the idea that Palestine was not particularly important or distinct apart from its Bilad al-Sham context, at least in the 1920s and also in the early 1930s...not a single book was written on the history of Palestine out of sheer passion and love for Palestine until the 1930s. As we stated previously, this is in complete contrast to the city histories – all of which seem to have been written out of the authors devotion and love for the home town. Continuing along to the 1930s, regional, Arab and Palestine histories remain roughly equal in number until 1936, at which point the conflict among the British, Zionists and Palestinians reached a breaking point with the outbreak of the General Strike in Palestine in the Spring of 1936, the first phase in a 3-year long revolt, today known as the “Great Arab Revolt.” Only then did interest in Palestine soar and come to dominate historical writing, alongside with Arab histories.

My take from this is that my outlook remains unchanged from when I first began blogging on this aspect: for Arabs, Palestine was a region, not a country. It was not a separate geopolitical entity except as part of Syria. Local patriotism was a result of the clash with Zionism which had a 3000-year history of a concrete conceptualization of what the Jewish homeland's borders were and which the Arabs did not possess.

This is part of what I term "Palestinianism" which is the fabrication, caused by competitiveness with the challenge Zionism confronts the local Arabs, of a history, an identity and a geography.

And from The Invention of Palestine, Zachary J. Foster, A DISSERTATION
PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE
BY THE DEPARTMENT OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES, November 2017, page 53-54:

_____________

P.S.  Some previous posts:

Here;

Here;

Here;

and an important one here.

_____________

P.P.S.

Foster thought I "politicized" his research.


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On A Name Change: Judea and Samaria

I, along with many others, refer to areas of the historic Land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael), that region which the international legal and diplomatic community in 1920 (San Remo) and 1922 (League of Nations) recognized should be reconstituted as the Jewish National Home, which lie outside the borders of sovereign Israel, as Judea and Samaria.

They were termed that even in the United Nations' partition plan.

Historical geography experts attest to the use of Judea and Samaria throughout the ages.

We all know that Palestine as the name for the country began in 135 CE by Roman occupiers.

Filastin is not even an Arabic word.

But for many, the area is either the West Bank or Palestinian Territories (see the itinerary of Prince William's upcoming visit).

The West Bank was coined only in April 1950 when Jordan, the illegal occupier, annexed the region and so called it.

Is there hope that the original genuine terms will return?

Perhaps.

Read on:

Ever since the Republic of Macedonia declared its independence in 1991, Greece has been fighting the country over its name. Today the 27-year impasse ended as two nations finally came to a resolution: The former Yugoslav republic is getting a new name, the Republic of North Macedonia.

"There is no way back," Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said in a press conference, Reuters reports, after he spoke with his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras. "Our bid in the compromise is a defined and precise name, the name that is honorable and geographically precise — Republic of Northern Macedonia."

And the US State Department reacts:

The United States congratulates Prime Ministers Alexis Tsipras and Zoran Zaev and welcomes the historic agreement to resolve the name dispute. This resolution will benefit both countries and bolster regional security and prosperity. Prime Ministers Zaev and Tsipras demonstrated vision, courage, and persistence in their pursuit of a mutually acceptable solution. We also commend the commitment of UN mediator Matthew Nimetz for his steadfast efforts over more than two decades to end this dispute.We stand ready to support this agreement, as requested by the two countries.

 ^

If One Yields on Territory, One Can Concede on People

Chaim Weizmann decided to accept partion in 1937.

And this is what he said on August 4, 1937 at the 20th Zionist Congress (p. 286):

If a leader decides to yield up and surrender territory of Eretz-Yisrael, he will eventually decide to concede on the people of Israel.

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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

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Hiking Through the Land of Israel

A group of 30 hikers traversed the Sartaba range a week ago.

The route taken (orange line) from east to west (r to l) in a new view: -

and the topographical map:-

From the Sartaba peak they went west and met up with a group from Itamar, on a two-day hike, coming from the other direction after visiting Aromah. From the Gichon, they went on the black-marked path north to Wadi Koorazliyah to the spring and finished, going east, at Masuah in the Lower Jordan Valley.

a real cool interprative view:

Some pics:

More here and here

Walking through Eretz-Yisrael is a mitzvah:

said R. Jeremiah b. Abba in the name of Rabbi Yochanan, "And spirit to those who walk in it" [Isaiah 42:5] - "Whoever walks four cubits in Eretz Yisrael is guaranteed entrance to the World to Come." (Babylonian Talmud, Ketubot 111a)

which has been considered so -

Because of the intrinsic Holiness of the Land of Israel, a person gains spiritual merit by merely walking here.

Where Will YOU Stand

The Joshua Waller clip:



Powerful.
Stirring.
Genuine.
Truth.

Join those who believe.

Who believe in a revenant Jewish presence in the lad of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Through God's Covenant and Promise.

For all mankind.

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Where Is/Are Israel's Border/s?

I have been informed that the next Memory and Identity Working Group, of the University of California at Berkeley meeting will be on the subject: The History of the Map of Israel presented by Rachel Havrelock, University of Illinois, Chicago to take place on Monday November 14, 2011, 4:00 pm, 254 Barrows Hall.

An explanation:

What are the legitimate borders of Israel? Who should determine where they fall? When should the borders become permanent? These are just a few of the controversial questions that surround Israel's border disputes.

In this talk, Professor Rachel Havrelock explains how the existing borders came into being and the reasons why they are disputed. Religious traditions, the European creation of the modern Middle East, and the wars of the 20th century all contribute to the current as well as the proposed maps of the region. Accompanied by a power point presentation of historical maps, Havrelock will tell the stories behind the borders and show how, from biblical times to the present, many interpretations of the map of Israel have coexisted.

This event is co-sponsored by the Near Eastern Studies Department, the Jewish Studies Program, and the Townsend Center for the Humanities and is part of the Memory and Identity Working Group lecture series. Memory and Identity Working Group meetings are designed to encourage dialogue across the department's diverse traditions.

Now, if you are thinking that Israel will be staunchly defended, think again:

Rachel Havrelock is a scholar of the Hebrew Bible and its interpretation...Rachel began her graduate work at Tel Aviv and Bir Zeit Universities, continuing and completing it in the Joint Doctoral Program in Jewish Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union.
...Rachel is...the author of "The Two Maps of Israel's Land," Journal of Biblical Literature 126:4 (2007): 649-667; "My Home is Over Jordan: River as Border in Israeli and Palestinian National Mythology," National Identities 9:2 (2007): 105-126;...

Rachel is completing River Jordan: The Mythic History of a Dividing Line, a manuscript that considers the Jordan River as a border in the Bible, in Rabbinic and Patristic exegesis and in Jewish and Palestinian nationalisms.

She has written and directed hip-hop plays, From Tel Aviv to Ramallah and Soundtrack City...

In that "play", she promotes the idea about Israel's border that

a dividing line. The dividing line in question is the Green Line, a militarized boundary that separates Israel from the occupied Palestinian West Bank.

Oh, oh.

She is also known as a 'mythbuster'.

Oh, oh, oh.

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Historic Palestine Belongs to the Jews or, The Myths of Thomas Friedman - Jew & NYTimes Columnist

Thomas Friedman in his New York Times's piece seems to believe in a myth.  He writes

Israel should have...reaffirmed the right of both the Palestinian and the Jewish people to a state in historic Palestine and reignited negotiations.

As EOZ points out, that echoes Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's claim:

Hamas on Sunday said it would not back a U.N. membership bid, and warned that no Palestinian leader had a mandate to sacrifice fundamental Palestinian rights.  Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya, speaking in Gaza, said the group also continued to support the establishment of a Palestinian state on any part of “historical Palestine” but would not seek to disrupt the U.N. bid.

Now, if we're talking about something termed "historic Palestine", let's be clear about the borders:

In 1920, Britain received a provisional mandate over Palestine, which would extend west and east of the River Jordan. The area of the mandate (see map at right) given to Britain at the San Remo conference was much larger than historic Palestine as envisaged by the Zionists, who had sought an eastern border to the West of Amman. 

EOZ has a most comprehensive post on that.

"Historic[al] Palestine" was not identical to the boundaries of British Mandate Palestine and during 1922, and finalized in September 1923, TranJordan was effectively separated from the Mandate when Jewish settlement was suspended.  That was the first partition.  Note:

Article 25.

In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be taken which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, 16 and 18.

"Palestine", of course, is first of all meant by Arabs to replace Israel.

Second, there are many maps delineating "Palestine" (one here; another here; and yet another here). But all point to land area on "both banks of the Jordan River", as the Betar song, penned by Jabotinsky, goes.  If anything, there is an historic Eretz-Yisrael (see there "Descriptive Geography and Brief Historical Sketch of Palestine").

It is to the Jews that an "historic Palestine" belongs.

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Do You Know What a Xenodochium Is?

I didn't.

But it is

a room (or separate guest-house) in a monastery religious building such as a synagogue or monastery for the temporary accommodation of guests or pilgrims

Now, from where did that come from?

From a book review that highlights the Jewish history of the city of Jerusalem during the

chronological spectrum [which] embraces nearly a millennium (c. 300 BCE to c. 640 CE), and the editors ought to be commended for attempting to break away from the traditional chronologies that have dominated the field of Jewish studies. Thus, instead of "Second Temple" and the "Mishnah" and "Talmud" eras (c. 450 BCE to 70 CE; c. 70 to c. 200 CE; and c. 200 to 400/600 CE, respectively), the editors have adopted the conventional classical boundaries of the "Hellenistic" period (which they do, however, terminate with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE); the "Roman Period" (from 70 to Constantine), and "Late Antiquity" (from Constantine to the Arab Conquest).

And as for that inscription where that word, xenodochium appears:

Another inscription (no. 9), also in Greek, is a perennially problematic one, erected by Theodotos, and found south of the Temple Mount. It seems rather handsome by comparison with the scribbling nature of most of the Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic documented in this volume. The inscription records both the genealogy of Theodotos, son and grandson of archisynagogues, as well as the contribution of the family to the building of a synagogue complex which included even a xenodochium. If the synagogue operated "in the shadow of the Temple" (p. 55), then one wonders what, precisely, its functions were, in addition to offering hospitality to "those who are in need of it from abroad". That the synagogue itself is designated as a place "for the reading of the law (nomos) and the teaching of the commandments" seems to indicate that it served as a space of learning to read the Torah rather than of praying. Nor is it clear whether such synagogues thrived in competition or in collaboration with the Temple. Perhaps, as the editors propose in the wake of many others, the family of Theodotos had been transplants from Italy and were accordingly attuned to the needs of fellow immigrants and fellow pilgrims.

All of gthis, of course, is to counter Arab propaganda claims of (a) no Temple in Jerusalem; (b) no thriving Jewish national life in Eretz-Yisrael; and (c) the lack of Arabs in the area until they copnquered and occupied a country that wasn't there's.

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PA Credence to the Jewish People's Claim to All of Historic Palestine

EOZ has done it again and found this admission by the Pal. negotiating team in a paper called “Talking Points on Recogntion [sic] of Jewish State,” where the PLO details its reasons for not accepting Israel as a Jewish state:-

Recognizing the Jewish state implies recognition of a Jewish people and recognition of its right to self-determination. Those who assert this right also assert that the territory historically associated with this right of self-determination (i.e., the self-determination unit) is all of Historic Palestine. Therefore, recognition of the Jewish people and their right of self-determination may lend credence to the Jewish people’s claim to all of Historic Palestine.

That's from November 16, 2007.   And they can't have any of that, now, can they?


The document is subtitled: "Strategy and Talking POINTS for Responding to the precondition of Recognizing Israel as a “jewish state”" and the "Recommended Approach" suggested is

We recommend that the Palestinian negotiators maintain their position not to recognize or otherwise characterize the state of Israel as “Jewish”. Any recognition of Israel within a treaty or agreement should be limited to recognizing it as a sovereign state. It should not recognize Israel as a “Jewish state”, “state for the Jewish people”, “homeland for the Jewish people” or any similar characterization.[1]

In response to Israeli demands for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and/or as a state of the Jewish people, the Palestinian negotiations team should refuse to engage on the issue and assert that the traditional terms of reference of the peace process and existing agreements serve as the basis of peace. These terms of reference and agreements do not contemplate Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state as a basis for peace or at all.

That's "peace"?



And they repeat in the summary that:

Recognizing Israel as a “Jewish state”, particularly in advance of agreeing to the final border between Israel and Palestine, could also strengthen Israel’s claims of sovereignty over allof Historic Palestine, including the OPT. Recognizing the Jewish state implies recognition of a Jewish people and recognition of its right to self-determination. Those who assert this right also assert that the territory historically associated with this right of self-determination (i.e., the self-determination unit) is all of Historic Palestine. Therefore, recognition of the Jewish people and their right of self-determination may lend credence to the Jewish people’s claim to all of Historic Palestine.

That's not a good approach.

^

More Eretz-Yisrael Scene Photos

Three scenes from a walk taken by a friend through the Wadi Reichan area in North-West Samaria, south of Um El-Fahm:

The Tefillin Map of Eretz-Yisrael

This is some ingenious portrayal of the territory of the Land of Israel:-