History, Claims and Dissention

“It is manifestly right that the scattered Jews should have a national centre and a national home  to be re-united, and where else but in Palestine, with which for three thousand years they have been intimately  and profoundly  associated? We think it will be good for the world, good for the Jews, good for  the British Empire, but also good for the Arabs who dwell in Palestine —they shall share in the benefits and progress of Zionism.” [Churchill].

On February 4, 2023, The Washington Post headline read “Israelis protest government’s judicial overhaul plans “and follows on with, “Tens of thousands of Israelis gathered Saturday for a weekly demonstration against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu government’s proposed judicial overhauls, which opponents say, threaten Israel’s democratic values.” The protest was the 5th against the new government.

The BBC featured protestors against the new Israeli government on 3 different days in January, 2023, one in Tel-Aviv and the other two in Jerusalem. All were accompanied  by” a video. The last occurred in Jerusalem and titled, ” Israel protests: Tens of thousands in anti-government rally.”The commentary which follows informs readers that it’s the 5th week of protests over government plans to “curb the judiciary’s powers.”The protestors maintain these plans “could jeopardize ” Israel’s democratic values.

The concluding remark by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “leading a hard-right government” dismissed the protests as a refusal to accept the last election results.

Interestingly, the Times of Israel on 7th February, 2023 posted an Op-Ed by HAVIV RETTIG  GUR with an opening comment, “Opponents of the judicial overhaul offer no alternative, no vision and no strategy. These are given to a political movement [MIA] by its leaders, which the center left doesn’t have.”

JNS published Alex Trainman’s rebuttal, “Israel’s historic right-wing government is the democratic will of the voters” on December 29, 2022. His introductory statement is rather definitive. While the left-wing opposition laments what it falsely calls “the end of  democracy “, the overwhelming majority of Israelis disagree.”The incoming government is not anti-democratic, it is anti-progressive.”

He speaks of actions that will create checks and balances that are standard in democracies but have “long been absent between Israel’s executive, legislative and judicial branches.”

Trainman provides positive assurances from the mouths of the accused trio, Netanyahu, Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir. Finally, from Netanyahu, “A democracy is tested—by the willingness of the losing side to accept the majority’s decision.”

Back on October 23, 2022, JNS released Martin Sherman’s, “The Perils of Palestine.” He reminds us, lamentably, of the specter of Palestinian statehood once again being at the forefront of the public discourse.” To Sherman, it is not only because of the election of President Joe Biden, but also the recent injudicious address to the UN by Israel’s interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid.

Further, Sherman notes the irony in the perils entailed in a Palestinian state owing its articulation with chilling accuracy by none other than an arch architect of the Oslo Accords, Shimon Peres, who around a half century previously warned, “The establishment of such a statement means the inflow of combat ready Palestinian forces [more than 25,000 men under arms] into Judea and Samaria.

Martin Sherman also quotes Prof. Amnon Rubinstein in “Palestinian Lies” Haaretz, July 30, 1976.”It is difficult to imagine any other issue for which the international media have been so successfully exploited — from the point of view of the Arabs -as has the Palestinian issue. Not since the time of Dr. Goebbels has there ever been a case in which continual repetition of a lie borne such great fruits.”

In a 2009 article, Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon, Zaki Abbas, candidly asserted: “With the two-state solution—-Israel will collapse—What will become of all the sacrifices they made—-just to be told to leave? The Jews consider Judea and Samaria to be their  historic dream. If the Jews leave those places, the Zionist idea will begin to collapse. It will regress of its own accord, Then, we will move forward.”

What of the Jewish claim? The commencement was the Bible and the Koran. Temple times and Josephs’ Jewish Wars was readily acknowledged as was the Arab invasion of Palestine in 636 when “the Arabs burst into the land—after having destroyed the large and prosperous Jewish populations of the Arabian Peninsula root and branch.—–Thus it was not the Jews who usurped the land from the Arabs, but the Arabs who usurped  the land from the Jews.” [Benjamin Netanyahu – A Place Among the Nations.]

Jews, not Arabs, are Israel’s indigenous people building the First Temple in Jerusalem, the capital of  their country Judea [Israel], in the 10th century BCE. Palestinian Arabs are from Arabia. Because throughout the years, the Jews faced false claims about their ownership ,the JCPA commissioned a vast study in August 2017 to prove Jews and not Arabs, have Indigenous claims.

Almost daily there is coercion, particularly from the US, for Israel to engage in discussion with the so-called Palestinians on the infamous “two-state solution”. A 3rd January, 2023 headline, “Blinken warns Israel’s new Foreign Minister on Policies that endanger 2-state Solution” is typical. In fact, he emphasized that the US remains committed to a two-state solution and would oppose any new government “policies that endanger its viability. State Department Ned Price added likewise.

In yet another Jerusalem Post report on January 31, 2023, Blinken says Israeli West Bank settlements are an obstacle to peace.

” Bibi [Netanyahu] doesn’t want a democracy, we don’t need fascists in the Knesset” read ones sign at the Tel-Aviv protest, referring to the Israel parliament.

In the words of Rabbi Wein, ” Hatred breeds zealotry and zealotry  invites and justifies violence and discord.”

From the JCPA Report of August 2017 #612, we are reminded of the following facts:

[1] References to Jewish presence from nearly 20 different sources, dating from the 3rd century BCE to the3rd  century CE, are included in Professor Menachem Stern’s comprehensive anthology of Geek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism.

[2] From the initial Muslim conquest of the Holy Land in the 1st half of the 7th century CE,  Jews there suffered persistent discrimination and periodic persecution. However, neither the Arab People nor subsequent invaders succeeded in eradicating  the local Jewish population or bringing an end to the links between the Jewish People and its aboriginal homeland.

[3] Dr. Dore Gold, President of the JCPA and an acknowledged  expert in Middle Eastern studies and international relations, cites a leading commentator on the Koran and one of Islam’s greatest historians, Abu Ja’far Muhammad bin Jarir al-Tabari [839-923 CE], who in his account of the conquest of Jerusalem by the 2nd caliph, Umar bin al-Khattah describes him heading toward “the area where the Romans buried the Temple [bayt al-maqdis] at the time of  the sons of Israel.

[4] The indigenous  nature of the Jewish People and its inherent linkage to the territory  has been acknowledged by leading commentators  and has served as the basis for a number of recent important historic international documents, recognizing the Jewish People’s long affirmed  and continuing links to its aboriginal homeland.

In her article, “The National Rights of Jews”, Prof. Ruth Gavison, professor [emeritus] of human rights at the Faculty of Law of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem states:

“It is— justified for Jews to have sought revival of political  independence in their ancient homeland – Zion.——The presence of Arab population in Israel was not a conclusive reason against this move because that community never had enjoyed political independence, and Jews were at liberty to seek political revival in the only place in the world that had been their homeland.”

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The above is a significantly reduced segment of the original paper.