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Why Judeans Must Say No To A Judenrein Judea
by Gerald A. Honigman
Hitler wanted to rid the world of Jews, making it Judenrein.
He came close--exterminating one third of the Jewish population of the world, and most of Europe's.
The current American President now wants Judeans--Jews--to consent to making Judea Judenrein, extinguishing it too of both Jews and its Jewish heritage.
So, get ready for some necessary follow-up...
Firstly, those Judean Hills have to be renamed--as Arabs have already done (and worse) with many other Jewish sites.
Secondly, Christians--Get ready to change Jesus' birth place in the New Testament from Bethlehem of Judea to Bethlehem of the West Bank.
There are other changes which will need to occur as well, but enough on this issue for the time being.
So, now let's really begin.
Let's get something straight right from the start...
Mahmoud Abbas's threat to not return to the latest round of Jew arm-twisting ("negotiations") is only indirectly related to the freeze in Israel's new construction in Jerusalem and points east.
That Israel's leaders habitually fail their resurrected nation and allow enemies to frame the very language of the debate is an old "hasbara" problem.
The issue--and the key to the problem--has everything to do with whether or not the sole, miniscule state of the Jews ( find it on a globe without a magnifying glass--I dare you) finally gets the real, relatively secure, defensible borders it was promised by UNSC Resolution 242 after the 1967 Arab attempt on its life, or is forced to remain the 9-15 mile wide sub-rump state that it was left as due to the '49 armistice lines which were drawn up when the fighting came to a halt after a half dozen Arab states attacked it upon its rebirth in May 1948.
As I repeatedly stress, President Obama has stated repeatedly that he expects Israel to accept the alleged Saudi Peace Plan--which the current negotiations are largely based upon. He has been quoted as calling Israel "crazy" to reject it.
Two key provisions of that plan call on Israel to reject the call for it to get the promise of 242--a bit of justice backed by such Presidents as Johnson, Reagan, and imbedded, not long ago, in two crucial letters that President George W. Bush gave to Prime Minister Sharon as well upon Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Recall the "peace" the Jews got from that move...
Among other things, Israel had been assured by the final, accepted draft of 242 that it would not have to return to that 9-15 mile wide sliver of an existence again--a constant invitation to be dissected by its enemies. It was to get more defensible, real borders--not armistice lines--and any withdrawal at all was to made in the context of real treaties of peace--not hudna-type ceasefires, which even alleged Arab "moderates" claimed were only a Trojan Horse (their very own words)to be used in furthering the Arabs' actual, again openly-stated, destruction-in-stages goals for the Jewish State.
Subsequently, it was also later made clear that any resolution to the Arab refugee problem--started by the Arabs themselves by attacking Israel in '48--would have to involve Arabs moving to the new, 22nd Arab state--not inundating Israel to overwhelm the Jews. Note: More Jews fled Arab/Muslim lands as a result of the Arab assault on Israel in 1948 than vice-versa.
The Saudi plan, which President Obama and the perpetually hostile, Arabist State Department ( which fought President Truman over Israel very rebirth)endorse, insists that Israel return to the indefensible '49 armistice lines and allow itself to be flooded this way. President Obama, just days ago, held a news conference in which he once again, for starters, all but demanded that Israel cave in on at least that first issue.
The territories in question, Judea and Samaria in particular, are not, as Arabs like to tell it, purely Arab land. Keep in mind that Arabs also call virtually the entire region "purely Arab patrimony"--despite the presence of scores of millions of non-Arab peoples (Amazighen/"Berbers", Kurds, Copts, black African Sudanese, Assyrians, Jews, pre-Arab Lebanese, and others)whom Arabs have subjugated, intimidated, forcibly Arabized, and so forth.
The territories were known as Judea and Samaria for thousands of years before the additional name, "West Bank," was created, as a result of British imperialist shenanigans, to distinguish them from the future state the Brits created for Arab nationalism in 1922 on the east bank of the Jordan River out of almost 80% of the original 1920 borders of the Mandate of Palestine--the Emirate of Transjordan, now Jordan.
No matter how many times Arabs indulge in their well-known taqiyya (deliberate lying for the cause), the lands in question are not purely Arab land. They were open to habitation by all of the Mandates' residents--Arab, Jews, and others as well. As has been pointed out repeatedly before, Jews have thousands of years of history tying them to those territories and lived there until their slaughter by Arabs in the early 20th century.
A Judean living in Judea should not be a bone of contention--unless the aim is simply to rid the entire area of Jews, making it Judenrein...the Arabs' real goal now which is now supported by the Obama Administration. Recall, as well, that there is oodles of solid documentation showing that most Arabs were indeed newcomers themselves coming into the Mandate from elsewhere in the region...Arab settlers setting up Arab settlements.
Despite all of the pressure coming even from its "friends," Israel must hold its ground on this crucial issue.
And there will be shame on any 3,000-mile wide America, with two vast oceans separating it from most enemies, which forces its tiny friend and ally to once again become a mere zipper of a state, ripe for slaughter by vast numbers of its assorted enemies.
During these High Holy Days for Jews, let's look at some excerpts from the Hebrew Bible, I Samuel, 1:1-2:10 for starters, which Jews read on Rosh HaShanah...
There was a man from Ramathaim of the Zuphites, in the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham...He had two wives, one named Hannah and the other Peninnah; Peninnah had children, but Hannah was childless. This man used to go up from his town every year to worship and to offer sacrifice to the Lord of Hosts at Shiloh. — Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the Lord there.
One such day, Elkanah offered a sacrifice. He used to give portions to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters; but to Hannah he would give one portion only — though Hannah was his favorite — for the Lord had closed her womb. Moreover, her rival, to make her miserable, would taunt her that the Lord had closed her womb. This happened year after year: Every time she went up to the House of the Lord, the other would taunt her, so that she wept and would not eat.
After they had eaten and drunk at Shiloh, Hannah rose. The priest Eli was sitting on the seat near the doorpost of the temple of the Lord. In her wretchedness, she prayed to the Lord, weeping all the while. And she made this vow: 'O Lord of Hosts, if You will look upon the suffering of Your maidservant and will remember me and not forget Your maidservant, and if You will grant Your maidservant a male child, I will dedicate him to the Lord for all the days of his life; and no razor shall ever touch his head.'
As she kept on praying before the Lord, Eli watched her mouth. Now Hannah was praying in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice could not be heard. So Eli thought she was drunk. Eli said to her, 'How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Sober up! And Hannah replied, 'Oh no, my lord! I am a very unhappy woman. I have drunk no wine or other strong drink, but I have been pouring out my heart to the Lord. Do not take your maidservant for a worthless woman; I have only been speaking all this time out of my great anguish and distress.' 'Then go in peace,' said Eli, 'and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of Him.'
Elkanah knew his wife Hannah and the Lord remembered her. Hannah conceived, and at the turn of the year bore a son. She named him Samuel, meaning, 'I asked the Lord for him.' And when the man Elkanah and all his household were going up to offer to the Lord the annual sacrifice and his votive sacrifice, Hannah did not go up. She said to her husband, 'When the child is weaned, I will bring him. For when he has appeared before the Lord, he must remain there for good.' Her husband Elkanah said to her, 'Do as you think best. Stay home until you have weaned him. May the Lord fulfill His word.' So the woman stayed home and nursed her son until she weaned him.
When she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with three bulls, one ephah of flour, and a jar of wine. And though the boy was still very young, she brought him to the House of the Lord at Shiloh. After slaughtering the bull, they brought the boy to Eli She said, 'Please, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you and prayed to the Lord. It was this boy I prayed for; and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him. I, in turn, hereby lend him to the Lord. For as long as he lives he is lent to the Lord.' And they bowed low there before the Lord.
Shiloh, dear friends, is on the "West Bank"... in Judea.
Next, consider where four Jews were recently murdered in cold blood...Hebron.
Genesis 23...
Sarah died at Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron ) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah...Abraham said to the Hittites, 'I am a sojourner and foreigner among you; give me property among you for a burying place, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.' The Hittites answered Abraham. 'Hear us, my lord; you are a prince of God among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will withhold from you his tomb to hinder you from burying your dead.' Abraham rose and bowed to the Hittites, the people of the land. And he said to them, 'If you are willing that I should bury my dead out of my sight, hear me and entreat for me Ephron the son of Zohar, that he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns; it is at the end of his field. For the full price let him give it to me in your presence as property for a burying place.'
Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham...'No, my lord, hear me: I give you the field, and I give you the cave that is in it. In the sight of the sons of my people I give it to you. Bury your dead.' Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land. And he said to Ephron in the hearing of the people of the land, 'But if you will, hear me: I give the price of the field. Accept it from me, that I may bury my dead there.' Ephron answered Abraham 'My lord, listen to me: a piece of land worth four hundred shekels of silver, what is that between you and me? Bury your dead.' Abraham listened to Ephron, and Abraham weighed out for Ephron the silver that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites, four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants.
So the field of Ephron in Machpelah, which was to the east of Mamre, the field with the cave that was in it and all the trees that were in the field, throughout its whole area, was made over to Abraham as a possession in the presence of the Hittites, before all who went in at the gate of his city. After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah east of Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan.
And generations later, 2 Samuel, 5:3...
So there at Hebron, King David made a covenant before the LORD with all the elders of Israel. And they anointed him king of Israel.
1 Chronicles, 3:1...
These are the sons of David who were born in Hebron: The oldest was Amnon, whose mother was Ahinoam from Jezreel. The second was Daniel, whose mother was Abigail from Carmel.
There are many other references regarding the importance of Hebron in the history of the Jews as well.
Now, please keep in mind that Arabs knew nothing of Hebron until their prophet, Muhammad, took flight (the hijrah) from his enemies in Mecca and fled to the date palm oasis of Medina, farther north on the Arabian Peninsula. Medina was established by Jews fleeing the Roman conquest of Judea centuries earlier.
Medina's influential Jewish tribes and their pagan neighbors (who were also much influenced by the former) gave the future Prophet of Islam refuge from those who would kill him. Regardless of any conversations he supposedly had with the Angel Gabriel (again--like Abraham, Ishmael, Jerusalem, Moses, and so forth-- another figure or place right out of the exclusive writings of the Jews with no prior knowledge to pagan Arabians), the Jews had an enormous impact upon the formerly pagan refugee, Muhammad. When they refused to accept his religio-political leadership, he turned on them with a vengeance. Before long, with the exception of Yemen to the south, the Arabs made the Arabian Peninsula Judenrein. This occurred over 1,300 years before the r birth of modern Israel.
Next... Genesis 28...
Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran..When [Jacob] reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: 'I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring...When Jacob awoke...he was afraid and said, 'How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven. Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel, {which means 'the house of God}.
Genesis 35:1...
Then G_d said to Jacob, "Go up to Bethel (House of G_d)and settle there, and build an altar to G_d, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau."
Like the other sites above and yet to come, Bethel is near the border area between Judea and Samaria.
Jacob would later be renamed Israel by G_d nearby as well--a moving story befitting the High Holy Days, when man is expected to make true atonement not only for sins committed against G_d, but also against his fellow man. Jacob had to conquer his own inner shortcomings, and not until he made a true peace of the heart with his brother, Esau, and became a better human being could he become Israel. That happened at Penial.
The Jews' most important political leader, King David, was born in Bethlehem.
Ruth (David's ancestor) the Moabite went to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law, Naomi, after the death of her Judean husband, proclaiming, "whither than goest, I shall go, your people shall be my people, their G_d, my G_d."
While there are many other examples which could be used here, let's end this for now with the hottest potato of all in the land of Judea...
Jerusalem is mentioned over 600 times in the Hebrew Bible. It is not mentioned even once in the Qur'an. It is alluded to in the latter in passages about the Hebrew Kings, David and Solomon, and the destruction of the Temples of the Jews. Even "moderate" Arabs deny that Jewish Temple ever existed there. They call the Temple Mount "Buraq's Mount," after Muhammad's allegedly winged horse. But a mention of Jerusalem itself is nowhere to be found in the Muslim holy book.
Since David made Jerusalem his capital and it became the site of his son Solomon's Temple, Zion became the heart and soul of Jewish national and religious existence. Jews from all over the early diaspora made their pilgrimages and sent offerings to its Temple.
"By the Rivers of Babylon we wept..." and "If I forget thee O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning..." were just a few of the many Biblical expressions of the Jews for Zion. Such yearning persisted throughout subsequent millennia in the Diaspora as well. Indeed, "Next Year in Jerusalem" sustained the Jew throughout countless degradations and humiliations, culminating in the Holocaust.
There is no doubt among objective scholars that Jews had an enormous impact on both Muhammad and the religion that he founded.
As discussed earlier, the holy sites for Muslims in Jerusalem (i.e., the shrine and mosque erected on the Temple Mount of the Jews) are now deemed "holy" precisely because of the critical years Muhammad spent after the Hijrah with the Jews.
The Temple Mount had absolutely no prior meaning to pagan Arabs.
While the actual timing of Muhammad's decision on the direction of prayer (qibla) may never be known, during his long sojourn with the Jews of Medina, his followers were instructed to pray towards Jerusalem. Early prominent Arab historians such as Jalaluddin came right out and stated that this was done primarily to win support among the influential Jewish tribes, the "People of the Book."
When the Jews refused to recognize Muhammad's claims, after slaughtering the men and enslaving the women and children, he thus eradicated most of the Jewish presence from the Arabian Peninsula. The direction of prayer was then changed away from Jerusalem towards the Kaaba in Mecca instead...
To say that Jerusalem has the same meaning for Muslims as it has for Jews is to simply tell a lie. And to order Jews not to live there is a major travesty.
While I do not expect everyone to accept the religious/historical writings and political aspirations of the Jews as their own, it is unreasonable to expect the Jews themselves to reject and totally abandon them as is now being demanded at current "peace talks." This is precisely what's being asked when Jews are told that Judea must become Judenrein and that they can't live where they want to in the sole capital of the sole Jewish State.
That's what's at stake now--not merely apartments or settlements.
A fair compromise must be reached regarding the territories in question--regardless of what Arabs and their supporters demand.
For millennia, Jews have been forcibly converted, expelled, massacred, humiliated, demonized, inquisitioned, ghettoized, declared the "deicide people," "killers of prophets," and so forth, to one extent or another, in both the Muslim East (where they are also known as kilab yahud--Jew dogs--and sons of apes and pigs) as well as the Christian West.
They are determined that their rights in the land which is named for their own people--Judea--and in the sole capital of the sole, microscopic, reborn state that they possess--Jerusalem--will not be sacrificed on behalf of any 22nd state created for Arabs...especially since the latter show, in poll after poll, that regardless of how much more Jews will be pressured to bare the necks of their children for the sake of peace, even the so-called moderate Arabs will not accept the legitimacy of a viable Jewish Israel anyway. Indeed, Israel's alleged "peace partner," Mahmoud Abbas, just repeated those very words almost at the same time as President Obama was holding his latest news conference tightening the screws on Israel yet again.
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