Lessons from the past

“If Palestine is the Jews’ national home, it is my spiritual home.” ——-But I agree with Lord Cecil, Smuts, and Lloyd George that Palestine’s liberation from the Turkish yoke was one of the few really worthwhile things born out of the Great War.”[Pierre Van Paassen, The Forgotten Ally]

The error in proclaiming Israel’s birthright as a consequence of the Six Day War is ever-present. In fact, its consequence, detracts from securing the rightful claims. However, utilizing it offers added value. The real argument stems from one of the Jews being the only people indigenous to the Land of Israel.

The Jerusalem Post on May 17, 2018, included Earl Cox’s, “Jews, the Indigenous People of Israel.” The author explains how the Roman Emperor Hadrian named the land “Palestina” to erase “Judea” from the map. In contemporary times, “Palestinian” leaders use this Roman tradition in claiming descent from the “original Canaanites” in a clumsy political effort to pretend that Israel is “occupying” their ancestral land.

However, there’s no trace of “Palestinian” genealogy in Canaan. “Palestinians” descend primarily from—-Muslim invaders, Arab immigrants, and local [forced] converts to Islam according to historian Alex Joffe. No Arab or “Palestinian” entity ever formed a national state in Israel, Judea or Samaria. Hence, the “Palestinian” territories have no legal or political basis said Ambassador Alan Baker.

Further, no international agreement, contract, treaty, or binding international solution exists which defines these territories as “Palestinian”. Conversely, all evidence clearly supports the Jews as the Indigenous heirs to the Land of Israel. The Muslim conquest of ‘Palestine” in the 7th century CE and Muslim immigration—under the Ottoman and British Empires is a textbook example of settler colonialism. What do we know of the period dating from the 1st Temple, known also as Solomon’s Temple built in 957 BCE and destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 or 586 BCE ; and the 2nd Temple completed in 515 BCE and destroyed by the Romans during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

When the Emperor Hadrian began planning to replace the destroyed 2nd Temple with a shrine to Jupiter, a Jewish revolt known as the Bar Kochba Rebellion broke out in a subsequent revolt in 135 CE. Some 580,000 soldiers were killed and following the revolt the Emperor Hadrian decreed that “Syria Palestina” – Philistine Syria or “Palestine”, should replace the name “Judea”. During the years following the destruction of the 2nd Temple, the greater part of the Jewish population went into exile as captives, slaves and refugees, although Galilee remained a centre of Jewish institutions and learning until the 6th century CE.

In a forward to Pierre Van Paassen’s , The Forgotten Ally by Carol Gould, she finds it to be a shocking narrative of the series .”. of events in western conflict that shaped a region so far from Europe and Great Britain and “yet carved up like a cake by these nations ‘ Pierre Van Paassen was a liberal who, in carefully unraveling the complicated sequence of world events which created 20th century Palestine and Arabia, sought to dispel misconceptions and malevolent myths perpetrated against Jewish history and aspirations in the post-Dreyfus Case world.

Van Paassen’s book was described by The New York Times as “beautifully written—-and the expression of one of the most passionately generous hearts in the writing profession.” Space limitations limit one to two extracts:

“Mounted police – Arab troopers in the service of the [British government—had appeared outside by this time, and some of the Jews ran down the stairs of Slonim’s house and out into the roadway. They implored the policemen to dismount and protect their friends and relatives inside the house and——From the upper windows came the terrifying screams of the old people, but the police galloped off, leaving the boys in the road to be cut down by Arabs arriving from all sides for the orgy of blood.——Around the picture’s frame [of Dr. Theodore Herzl]the murderers had draped the blood drenched underwear of a woman.

We stood silently contemplating the scene of slaughter when the door was flung open by a British soldier with fixed bayonet. .In strolled Mr. Edward Keith Roach, Governor of the Jaffa District, followed by a colonel of the Green Howards battalion of the King’s Rifles.—-and Mr. Keith Roach remarked to his companion,” Shall we have lunch now or drive to Jerusalem first?”——

High Commissioner H.C. Luke: “You will realize now how difficult it is for us—to maintain a balance between Jews and Arabs.”—-Van Paassen: “But are we really supposed to maintain a neutral position?—-Whatever your personal opinion of the Jews may be, you cannot deny that the Mandate imposes a duty on the British Authority to facilitate the building of a Jewish National Home in Palestine.”

From Pierre Van Paassen’s s meeting with Grand Mufti. The latter: “—what is the general impression in the world on the present deplorable situation in Palestine? What is your personal view? You have been in Palestine before—-”

Van Paassen:” It is my personal opinion—that the riots were an attempt to strike terror in the hearts of the Zionists at a moment when they had secured the co-operation of an influential section of Jewry to speed up Palestine’s industrial and agricultural development. This bloodshed was intended to paralyze the process of building a Jewish National Home. Am I right?”

Yet another notable journalist [not politician] who also dedicated a significant amount of his lifespan to promoting Jewish INDIGENOUS claims to the Land of Israel was Tsafrir Ronen. His “Hadrian’s Curse -The Invention of Palestine” appears in Think-Israel of May-June of 2008. It is as valid today as it was when 1st available.

This paper is segmented into 3 parts, “The Secret All the Arabs Know, The Arabs Ultimate Goal and Will Israel Finish Hadrian’s Work?” His introductory statement can be found in any credible history book. It reads, “Almost 2,000 years ago, the Roman Emperor Hadrian cursed the Jewish people and decreed that Judea should be henceforth called “Palestine “after the Philistines , an ancient enemy of Israel that had disappeared from the world’s stage more than 600 years earlier. It was his final twist of the knife and legacy after wars, massacres , persecutions and exiles that had largely extinguished the Jewish presence from Judea.”

Reincarnating “Palestine” has gone a long way to steal Israel’s heritage and the Land of the Jewish People. It has manifested itself into the infamous “two-state solution”. What has fallen through the cracks has been its denial of time by a number of Arab leaders.

Arafat in 1970 informed reporter Oriana Fallaci, “The question of borders doesn’t interest us —From the Arab standpoint, we mustn’t talk about borders. Palestine is nothing but a drop in an enormous ocean. Our nation is the Arabic nation that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea and beyond it—the PLO is fighting Israel in the name of Pan-Arabism. What you call “Jordan” is nothing more than Palestine.”

Even the founder of the PLO, Ahmed Shukari , the UN’s Arab League’s Ambassador, proclaimed from the podium of the UN in 1956, ” —such a creature as Palestine does not exist at all. This land is nothing but the southern portion of Greater Syria–”

The prominent Arab historian, Dr. Philip Hitti, speaking at the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry in the State Department building in 1947 said, “Sir, Palestine never existed throughout history. Absolutely not!”

However, these proclamations did not obviate developments following the Six Day War. The Arabs then recognized they could not defeat Israel militarily and sought a Trojan Horse in the form of a propaganda tool.

Tsafrir would say over and over that if we adopt the “Palestinian lies and give them life, we will soon see the end of the Jewish state. The Israeli “David” verses the Arab “Goliath” was transformed into the Israeli “Goliath” oppressing the Palestinian “David”. We can defeat this falsehood through emphasis on our INDIGENOUS claims to the Land of Israel.

In Richard Mather’s, “So-called Palestinians have no history in Israel- except as terrorists”, his closure on their claims reads “The world believes this [their claims] because they are told the lie often enough and because the Israeli state has done a poor job of communicating the truth.” And the way to do this is by demonstrating the continuous Jewish presence throughout the Land of Israel.