A young Israeli Arab expresses outrage

Muhammad Zoabi (18 years old), is the nephew of the Arabic deputy to the Knesset Haneen Zoabi, who is hysterically anti-Israeli. On the contrary, Muhammad, as an Arab and Muslim, is attached to his country and proud to be an Israeli citizen. Threatened with death because he denounced the Palestinian exactions, he had to take refuge abroad during several months. He is back in Israel and expresses himself with courage, especially on his Facebook page. This is a post he published today:

“Yesterday, a 13 year old teenager was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in the safest place a child should have; sleeping bed in her house.

Today, a father was murdered, yet again, in front of his family at the hands of despicable Palestinian terrorists.

Not hearing any condemnation, nor public rage in the Palestinian society at the horrifying attacks, I ask myself; what state the Palestinians allegedly want to create? What society the Palestinians want their children to live in? What kind of education they want to give to their future generation...?

The answer that we get as a result of their actions is something no democratic, liberal western country should tolerate!

Their radical, extremist and inhumane ideology is something Israel has been fighting for decades! And it is one the western world needs to understand they can't support!”

How can we hope for peace, when such a culture of hatred is maintained, from the nursery school, in the Palestinian population, and when the Palestinian politicians award to the killers the glorious title of "martyr"…?

Fiodor

Christians in Israel

Jerusalem - The Holy Sepulchre

Two or three weeks before Easter, I received an e-mail from Aid to the Church in Need (CAN), an organization which was especially known by its support of Christians living under the communist regimes of Eastern Europe, the actions of which I generally appreciate.

The message included a call to sign a petition entitled “40 days of solidarity with the Holy Land” (40 jours de solidarité avec la Terre Sainte). The purpose of the petition was to facilitate the coming of Palestinian Christians to Jerusalem for the Easter celebrations. But it laid the full responsibility of their difficulties to make the pilgrimage from the Territories at Israel’s door. I sent the following answer to CAN: “I do not intend to sign the petition for the Christians of Palestine. Why? Because it gives the impression that all the difficulties of the Christians in the Holy Land must be ascribed to Israel. But you and I know that they suffer as much as or more rejection and marginalization from their Palestinians Muslim “brothers”. We can discuss Israel's security policy, but it must be put in context. And restrictions for access to the Holy Sepulchre, even if they are regrettable, are not to be put on the same level as the persecution that Christians suffer in the Muslim world, including Palestine.”

Nazareth - In front of the Church of the Annunciation, a mosque with a large poster
threatening non Muslims withf damnation...

A few days later, a friend of mine sent me an article published on the Italian website Informazione Corretta, which tries to counterbalance the misinformation that Israel suffers in the media. This article (here is the English version) describes the situation of Christian minorities in the Jewish state and in other countries in the Middle East, and presents the interview of two Christians living in Israel. We could summarize it in a few words: "Everywhere in the Middle-East, the Christians are discriminated against, persecuted and even killed, except... in Israel, where they live in peace and security and where their number continues to increase". The article is worth reading entirely.

Fiodor

Three stones…

This text was sent to me by "someone whom I know well"... A man already in his "third age". He evokes some striking moments of the trip he has done in Israel, together with a younger colleague.

This journey was for me a pilgrimage, for a double motive, given my roots: Jewish and Christian. As for the first, four or five years ago I discovered some cousins on my father's side living in Israel, of whom I had never heard, until then. Here is not the place to talk about the moving meeting with them and their offspring.

There is no way, either, to describe all the moments of an incredibly rich and diverse journey. The Old City of Jerusalem, Mount of Olives, Yad Vashem, Masada and Qumran, Bethlehem, Galilee, etc., leave intense memories in the mind and heart of the one who, like me, visits this country "flowing with milk and honey" for the first time. But if I had to remember the moments that marked me the most, the most symbolic moments, I would retain three stones.

The first stone is one of these massive blocks that constitute the Kotel, the Western Wall of the Temple. When we went there, on a Thursday morning, the atmosphere was very joyful; it was the day when many young people celebrate their "Bar Mitzvah". I approached the wall and, like many others, I put my forehead on the stone. A powerful emotion invaded me. It was like a pent up piece of my family history coming back to the surface: my paternal grandparents and their children, all of them annihilated one day in1942. And then, all the generations that preceded them, who had turned – one way or another – towards that place, dreaming: "Next year in Jerusalem"...

wo days later, I put my forehead on another stone, that of the Holy Sepulchre. Despite the onrush of the crowd, the long wait before entering the narrow sanctuary, the pressure of the guards asking the pilgrims to proceed, I was able to fill the tomb left empty by the Risen One with all the situations and all the people that had been referred to me or that I carried in my heart. The human pettiness of this place, where the various Christian denominations barely tolerate each other and jealously guard their territory, could not darken the burning memory of the One who "emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave ..." (Phil 2, 7).

The third stone, with sharp angles, had the size of an apple. I did not put my forehead on it, but my forehead indeed was its target ... With my companion, we walked quietly along the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem between the Damascus Gate and New Gate. It was 4:30 pm. A hundred yards away, I saw four or five boys throwing stones to the ground with great force. Jokingly, I said to my companion: "They are preparing stones to snipe at people." I did not suspect that, a few seconds later, they would, indeed, begin to throw them at us, shouting "Allahu akbar! "... Still, we wore neither kippa nor black hat nor curls, nor pectoral cross ... The  rocks of these fellows were thrown powerfully and accurately. We found our salvation in flight.

He who has sent me this testimony did not draw a conclusion. He simply leaves us with a question, something that is never comfortable ...

Anyway, I wish you a Happy Easter. Hag Pessah Sameah.

Fiodor

Did you mean Palestine?

While the prospects for peace in the Middle East are bleak, it is not forbidden to hope nor especially trying to "take the place of the others" - the protagonists of the conflict - and strive to understand their point of view. Today, this approach is widely adopted in most western countries, but the only "other" who is entitled to this compassionate understanding is the "Palestinian people", presented as the victim of the Israeli intransigence and oppression, or even the indiscriminate and murderous brutality of the "Zionists."

The "Palestinian" national identity is of recent origin. It was only after the Six-Day War of 1967 that the Arabs of Palestine began to claim a national specificity, whose emergence was cleverly brought about by the Arab countries. It was for them a good excuse, a fixation abscess, to divert the frustrations of their enslaved peoples on "the Zionist enemy". But let us admit - why not? - that there are grounds for a Palestinian national aspiration and it deserves to be supported by all, including Israeli citizens. Still this aspiration has to become a reality on a sound and healthy basis. However, a lasting myth exists on the matter - accommodatingly echoed by many of our media - asserting that Jews have no historical ties with Palestine, sot that, ultimately, they have no right to be there… After all, Arafat did not hesitate to claim that no Jewish Temple ever existed in Jerusalem. And today, it is fashionable to say that Jesus was a Palestinian...

No lasting peace can be built without a serious consideration of History and, if necessary, an acknowledgement of the harm inflicted by each other. On this plan, several Israeli historians have gone very far – sometimes too far. The so-called "new historians" have denounced, sometimes in a totally inequitable way, the excesses committed by the Jews during the historical process that led to the founding of the State of Israel. We always wait for a similar effort on the Arab side.

Yet, there are irrefutable historical documents. This is the case of an amazing book published in the early 18th century by a Dutch philologist and geographer: Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata, a work written in 1695, the result of a thorough exploration of Palestine by Hadrian Reland. This scholar - he masters the Latin, Greek and Hebrew - is the son of a Protestant minister. His purpose is to identify and record all the places of the Middle East whose name appears in the Bible and the Mishnah (a collection of ancient rabbinic comments upon which the Talmud is based). [It is not sure that Reland went himself on the spot; he presumably used information collected by travellers or published in various books. Anyway, it seems that his work is quite reliable].

With remarkable scientific reliability, Reland mentions the Hebrew name of more than 2000 locations (towns, villages, localities), referring to the verses of the Bible or the Mishnah where the name appears. He completes the information with the old Latin or Greek name, where they exist. But Reland does not stick to this toponymical survey, he also works as a geographer, is interested in the populations of the region and tries to make their census. The data so collected are impressive and go widely against the current assertions of Palestinian nationalists.

I repeat, in this respect, some of the data presented in an article published in 2009 by Raphael Aouate about Reland’s book.

* First observation of Reland: at the end of the 17th century, the region is sparsely populated, even almost deserted. The majority of the population is concentrated in the cities of Jerusalem, Acre (Akko), Tsfat (Safed), Yafo, Tveria (Tiberias) and Aza (Gaza).

* Second general observation: the population of the region consists mainly of Jews, some Christians and few Muslims, mostly Bedouins.

* The vast majority of towns and villages bear a Hebrew name, some a Greek or Latin name. Practically none of the cities that today have an Arabic name - Haifa, Yafo, Nablus (Shehem), Gaza or Jenin - possessed it at the time. No trace of the name Al Quds for Jerusalem, or Al Halil for Hebron... Ramallah is called Beteïle (Bethel), etc.

* Most cities were inhabited by Jews, except Nablus (Shehem) which had 120 people from a Muslim family, the Natashe, and 70 Samaritans. Nazareth is fully Christian. Jerusalem has more than 5000 inhabitants, almost all Jews, some Christians. Gaza has barely more than 550 people, half Jews, Christians for the rest. Tiberias and Safed are entirely Jewish.

To these data of the late 17th century, I think it useful to add another, which goes in the same direction and that is just as compelling. In the Grand Dictionnaire Larousse du XIXe siècle published in 1875, we read, about "Jerusalem": "City of Asiatic Turkey, capital of Judea, chief town of a sanjak of the pashalik of Saïda. The population can hardly be estimated at more than 18,000 or 20,000 inhabitants: 8,000 Jews, 5,000 Muslims, 3,000 Greeks, 1500 Latins, 1000 Armenians, 100-200 Syrians and Copts." And we know that, in 1899, Jerusalem has 70 000 inhabitants, including 45,000 Jews.

In fact, as several historians noted it, it is especially in the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century, by the immigration from nearby Arab territories, that the Arabic population of Palestine considerably increased. And these historians consider that the immigration in question was widely aroused by the economic development that followed the settlement of Jewish immigrants in Palestine.

To say all this, it is not to deny the suffering of the Palestinian populations, but it is to remind that if this region – which the Roman Empire called Palestine – can, justly, offer them a territory, it is, to say the least, also the case for the Jewish people. Résolution181 of the United Nations of November, 1947 said nothing else. When will the Arab world accept to share this land? (Knowing that they already obtained - it is Jordan - 80 % of the territory of the Mandatory Palestine)

Fiodor

Little quiz about the Middle East

Jerusalem 1948. Jews expelled from the Old City by the Arab Legion

More than ever, Israel has a bad reputation in the media. The massive vote at the UN General Assembly (it must be remembered that it includes a wide majority of dictatorial and/or corrupted and/or totalitarian states) has boosted the excitement of the media against the Hebrew State.

Let me say clearly that I am in favour of the “two states” solution, which means an independant Palestinian state, event through important concessions on behalf of Israel. This seems to be the position of Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party. We can however wonder if it is not merely tactical, while the strategic aim remains the destruction of Israel, an objective that Hamas has no scruple to assert. Recent statements of Khaled Mechaal on this subject are very clear. Moreover, I recommend you strongly the reading of the charter of the Hamas.

To give you, on the political reality of the Middle East, an outlook which is slightly different from that of our "politically correct" media, here is a little quiz.

Questions

1.  At the end of the 19^th century, the most numerous inhabitants in Jerusalem were:

A. Muslims

B. Jews

C. Armenians

2.  Compared to the British Mandatory Palestine, and excluding the “occupied” or “disputed” territories, the the State of Israel spans an area of:

A. 85 %

B. 12 %

C. 20 %

3.  About 3 500 to 10 000 Palestinians (according to various sources) were killed over a period of 10 days, by:

A. The Israelis, during the first “Intifada”

B. The Israelis, during the “Cast lead” operation

C. The Jordanians, in September 1970

4.  800 000 is the number of:

A. Jews expelled from Arab countries after Israel’s founding

B. Palestinian Arab refugees during the war of 1948

C. Syrians who left the Golan in 1967

5.  The Palestinian national claim is the result of:

A. The occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt

B. The occupation of the West Bank by Jordan

C. Israel's occupation of the disputed territories since the 1948 war

6.  The PLO (of Yasser Arafat and Mahmud Abbas) has abolished its Charter goal of destroying the State of Israel

A. In 1993 (Oslo)

B. In 1987 (first Intifada)

C. Never

7.  Among the 270 000 Arab inhabitants of East Jerusalem, want to live in a Palestinian State:

A. 30 %

B. 98 %

C. 70 %

8.  Which statement is true ?

A. A Jew is member of the Constitutional Court of the Islamic Republic of Iran

B. A Jew is member of the Egyptian governement

C. An Arab is a judge of the Supreme Court of Israel

Answers

1. B: About “Jerusalem”, the Grand Dictionnaire Larousse du XIXe siècle, published in 1875, quotes: “City of Asiatic Turkey, capital of Judea, chief town of a sanjak of Sidon pachalik. Population can hardly be estimated at more than 18 000 or 20 000 inhabitants: 8 000 Jews, 5 000 Muslims, 3 000 Greeks, 1 500 Latins, 1 000 Armenians, 100 to 200 Syrians and Copts”. Let us add that, in 1899, Jerusalem has 70 000 inhabitants, among which 45 000 Jews.

2. C: The Kingdom of Jordan was created on eighty percent of the territory of the Palestine Mandate allotted to the United Kingdom in 1921. It is thus the Palestinian Arab state, and was recognized as such by Israel untill the Oslo Agreements. This was natural, since more than three quarters of the population of Jordan are of Palestinian origin. And the Arab population in Judea and Samaria were Jordanian until 1967.

3. C: Jordanian Armed Forces during "Black September". Estimates range between 3 500 (Jordanian sources) and 10 000 deaths and more than 110 000 injured (Palestinian sources). The “Cast lead” operation (2008-12-27 to 2009-01-19) led to 1 300 Palestinian victims, half of which were armed men. The first Intifada led to 1 162 Palestinian victims.

4. A: Between 1948 and 1960, it is estimated that more than 800 000 Jews were forced into exile from countries like Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, etc.., where they were sometimes located over two millennia. Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war are estimated at about 700 000, a significant number of which have left their villages at the instigation of the Arab Higher Committee, who promised them to return after the defeat of Israel. The Six Day War has led to the departure of about 100 000 Syrians from the Golan Heights.

5. C: Of course. No protest was expressed against the occupation of the Gaza Strip by Egypt or against the occupation of the West Bank by the Hashemite Kingdom (1948 to 1967).

6. C: Despite verbal assurances given in the framework of the Oslo Agreements in 1993, the goal of the destruction of Israel has never been removed from the Charter of the PLO. As an evidence, this statement of Adli Sadeq, Ambassador of the Palestinian Authority in India, in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, daily newspaper of the PA, on November 26^th 2011: “Hamas, Fatah and the other factions are not waging war against Israel right now for reasons related to balance of power. There are no two Palestinians who disagree over the fact that Israel exists, and recognition of it is restating the obvious, but recognition of its right to exist is something else, different from recognition of its [physical] existence.”

7. A: According to a survey conducted by the American researcher David Pollock (published in the Washington Post in 2011): 30% say they would prefer to be Palestinian citizens in the framework of a two-state solution, while 35% say they would choose Israeli citizenship. (Others gave no answer or refused to answer). 40% said they would consider moving to another neighborhood to become citizens of Israel rather than become Palestinians, and 54% said that if their neighborhood were assigned to Israel, they would not emigrate to Palestine.

8. C: Salim Joubran, an Israeli Arab, is a judge of the Supreme Court of Israel since 2003. We can also mention, among many others, the case of an Israeli Arab Muslim, Jamal Hakroush, Deputy Inspector General in the Israeli police since 2011.

As a conclusion, if we want there to be peace, one day, in this part of the world, we must first clean up the spirits and correct the vocabulary. There is work to be done! ...

Fiodor

Fortunately, there is Israel

 

It has been a long time since I wrote something about Israel. An opinion article published today by La Libre Belgique, provides me the opportunity⁽¹⁾. Entitled BDS, a campaign against peace, the text is signed by a group consisting mainly of professors from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). They protest against the recognition by the academic authorities of the ULB, of a BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) circle. This circle is radically anti-Israeli and is advocating the boycott of everything that comes from Israel, including exchanges between scientists and between universities. Rightly, the signatories of this opinion letter, emphasize that "legitimate criticism addressed to the government of a given country does not allow to discriminate in its citizens". They point out, moreover – and the media have often overlooked it – that the BDS campaign "is not only a criticism of the policy of the Israeli government" but aims, in fact, at denying the legitimacy of the State of Israel⁽²⁾.

Now, here we are at the heart of the question. By successive shifts, expertly maintained by a skillful propaganda – especially through the manipulation of images – many of our media have embraced the "Palestinian cause" without nuances and let themselves be dominated by an "anti-Zionism" which amounts to an outright denial of Israel's right to exist. And the authors of the article add: "It should not be necessary to be anti-Israeli to defend the Palestinians". This is exactly what I believe.

I would even dare to say that, if one day – for what I hope obviously – the Palestinians obtain to live in a democratic State freed from their hateful and violent factions whether theocratic or ultra-nationalists, they will owe it in good part to Israel and to its tenacity. Are there many other countries which do not bend in front of the vociferations of those that we must call islamo-fascists? Still ongoing events – the shock wave of which is not to stop –, give us a obvious example of this phenomenon. In our countries, politicians, journalists and religious leaders rise, not against horrifying violences – they have already caused more than thirty deaths – but against a crappy video, of uncertain origin, suddenly brandished as the supreme insult of the West to the sacred values of Islam!⁽³⁾.

I wrote it several times, I'm not a big fan of the Israeli government, far from it. But what State would do better in the situation, unparalleled in the world, that Israel knows? Despite errors and blunders, immediately denounced and amplified to infinity by our media, despite violence, which it is not clear how a country constantly threatened, attacked, demonized, could escape completely, despite acute social problems... Despite all this, the State of Israel lives, works, studies, invents, innovates, develops, welcomes, and hopes.

Jacques Tarnéro

If you want to understand a little better the causes and mechanisms of the delegitimization that Israel undergoes for several years, read a book of Jacques Tarnéro: Le nom de trop. Israël illégitime?⁽⁴⁾ (A name too much. Israel illegitimate?) Why does the name of Israel disturb? Why the obsessive hostility of which the country is the object? How is it that "gentle people" from among us become vectors of hatred? As writes it Pierre-André Taguieff in his foreword, Jacques Tarnéro engages in an in-depth analysis of this "total hatred of Israel which has become part of the global ideological landscape".

By the way, it is worth noting that Tarnéro does not hesitate to criticize severely some political and cultural drifts he observes in Israel. He does not hesitate to denounce an "intellectual Poujadism fed by bigotry and ignorance" which, he says, "is also part of the Jewish intellectual landscape today" (p. 242). But, he adds, "as much the Israeli political class seems devoid of imagination today, as much Israeli society sparkles with thousands of creative and generous inventions. Its infinite capacities of automockery shows the intellectual liveliness of a society yet subject to uncertainties (to put it mildly) of everyday life"(p. 245).

Fethi Benslama

All that being said, Jacques Tarnéro shows how much the delegitimization of Israel is a highly profitable business - at least in the short term - for an Arab-Muslim world locked into resentment and rage. Quoting extensively the Tunisian psychoanalyst Fethi Benslama, author of a Déclaration d’insoumission, à l’usage des musulmans et de ceux qui ne le sont pas (Statement of insubordination, for the Muslims and for those who are not), Tarnéro concludes: "Far from emancipating the Arabs, the endless denunciation of the ‘Zionist imperialist, colonialist Evil’ locks the Arabs in a collective paranoia that drowns rather than helps. Helping Palestine to enter in civilization means to state that, far from freeing, terrorism destroys Palestine at the same time it destroys its fantastical enemy" (p. 214).

At the end of his foreword, Pierre-André Taguieff greets Jacques Tarnéro saying it takes a lot of courage "to defend Israel against its countless unscrupulous accusers". I do not consider to be particularly brave, but I fully associate myself with Tarnéro’s brilliant plea.

Fiodor

(1) BDS: une campagne contre la paix. La Libre Belgique, September 21st, 2012, p. 55. Among the signatories - that this statement honors - we find, besides a “bunch” of professors, presidents or former presidents of the bar, the names of the film-maker Luc Dardenne, the Minister of State Roger Lallemand, Marie-Jo Simoen, honorary general Secretary of the FNRS, Pierre Van Ommeslaghe, Sollicitor to the Court of Cassation, etc.

(2) A similar call: Le boycott d’Israël est une arme indigne (The boycott of Israel is a despicable weapon), was published in November, 2010 in Le Monde (here) by a group of personalities from the French intellectual, political and artistic world.

(3) This video, Innocence of Muslims, circulated on the Net for more than a year, without "disturbing" anybody. In a few minutes, you will find easily, on YouTube or elswhere (MEMRI, for example), videos of a greater virulence, inviting the Muslims to murder Jews and Christians …

(4) Jacques Tarnéro, Le nom de trop. Israël illégitime?, Paris, Armand Colin, 2011. It is worth noting that this remarkable book suffered an impressive media "boycott". As far as I know, no important French media (newspaper, magazine or Website) wrote a single line about it: Is’nt this highly significant?