Op-ed: Our roots here traced back to 13th Century BC, 3,350 years before PLO’s creation
Yoram Ettinger, YNET
Since Oslo, 1993, the case of the Jewish State has highlighted Israel’s pursuit of peace and security, while downplaying the right/deed of the Jewish People to its historical homeland. A resounding rebuke of David Ben Gurion, the Laborite Founding Father of the Jewish State and its first prime minister, who stated: “He who abandons his past forfeits his future.”
The claim of national sovereignty and the level of steadfastness in face of adversity are derivatives of the attachment to the territorial cradle of history and national security requirements.
Nations which highlight their non-conditional attachment to their territorial cradle of history (irrespective of diplomatic, security and economic considerations) enhance steadfastness and gain strategic respect. On the other hand, nations which consider their cradle of history a negotiable-real-estate may gain short-lived popularity, but undermine their attachment to the land, lose long-term strategic respect and erode their own posture of deterrence.
A nation which negotiates away its cradle of history is giving away its future.
Prof. (emeritus) Menasheh Har-El, a leading expert on the history and geography of the Land of Israel, a recipient of the Israel Prize and author of 13 books, documents national Jewish roots in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem as early as the 13th century BC: 2,000 years before the appearance of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, 3,200 years before Arabs from Egypt, Syria and Lebanon migrated to the Land of Israel and 3,350 years before the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
According to Professor Har-El’s 55 years of research, the Jews were the first to coalesce the various regions of Canaan into a unified country. They settled in the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria rather than along the coastal plain, introducing agricultural innovations into barren, rugged mountains, developing irrigation systems, establishing stone and metal shops, ushering advanced architecture and construction, building roads from the Mediterranean to Jerusalem, which became the crown jewel of the Jewish people.
Jerusalem neglected by Arabs
On the other hand, Har-El notes, Jerusalem was severely neglected during the Islamic rule of the area, overshadowed by the town of Ramlah (half way between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem), which was the provincial Muslim capital. The Muslim attitude toward Jerusalem – the capital of the Jewish people since 1,000BC – reflected the negligible priority accorded by Islam toward the Land of Israel, which was devastated by Muslim rule.
In 1867, Mark Twain attested to the state of the area in Innocents Abroad: “…Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, Palestine must be the prince…It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land…Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes…Palestine is desolate and unlovely….”
The 1949-1967 Jordanian occupation of east Jerusalem sustained the Muslim attitude toward Jerusalem. Jordan oppressed Jerusalem’s Christian community, which was reduced from 25,000 in 1949 to 10,000 in 1967. The Hashemites coerced Jerusalem’s church schools to teach the Koran and prevented Christian expansion. Jordan defiled and vandalized over 50 Jewish synagogues, using some as cowsheds, stables or public latrines. Over 75% of the tombstones at the holiest Jewish cemetery, on Mount Olive, were ripped out and used for pavements and public urinals.
Jerusalem was never a capital of any Arab entity. It was not mentioned in the 1964 PLO’s Covenant. However, Jerusalem is highlighted in each synagogue, each Jewish prayer and holiday and during every Jewish wedding and other Jewish rituals. Jerusalem is a pillar of Judaism, but it is not included among the five pillars of Islam. Jerusalem – and its synonym, Zion – are mentioned 821 times in the Bible (“Old Testament”), but not even once in the Koran.
Muhammad never set foot in Jerusalem or in the Land of Israel. In contrast to Jews, Muslims pray toward Mecca and Medina and not toward Jerusalem and there is no Muslim pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but to Mecca.
The territorial cradle of history constitutes the foundation of national moral high-ground. As essential as is the topographic high-ground (e.g., the over-towering mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria) to national security, the moral high-ground is significantly more critical to national survival. The devotion to the Land of Israel in general – and Jerusalem in particular – has played a critical role in preserving the Jewish people!
Yep, great info. (I “sneaked” it into a mystery novel to “entrap” the unsuspecting reader.) And don’t forget the origin of the ancient Philistines, who some people (even Arafat a time or two) claimed were the “ancestors” of the Palestinians. (One little problem: they weren’t even semitic. Check the Biblical lineage of the Philistines, plus the history of these “sea people” coming from Crete.)
Anyone who rationally examines the “heritage rights” of Jews vs. Palestinians (that is, that subgroup of Arabs who by exclusion by other Arabs have come to be known as the “Palestinian people” of today) to the “disputed lands” (which according to PA educational institutions, includes Israel proper) can only come to the conclusion that all Israel must remain the homeland of the Jews.
Obama and Hillary and EU reps etc are smart people. They pose as rational intellectuals. Why can they not see this? Hmm, what could be the reason?
I hate it when facts get in the way of well planned anti-zionism
While I can certainly appreciate you feelings, it seemed like you were one that was willing to fight for what is right. If all Diaspora Jews are going to just stand around looking up in the air waiting for something better to magically happen…BTW the national mood is changing here towards a more nationalistic outlook. I would expect government to do the same, albeit at a different pace.
Shy Guy, my overseas travel days for extended living are long over. My wife and I had a glorious 18 months in Israel in 1973-1974, studying at one of the world’s premium universities, learning Zionism, witnessing the beginning of what has become the massive Jewish resettlement of Shomron and Yehuda.
I’m glad we didn’t hang around long enough to witness the degradation of the pullout from Sinai and the destruction of Yamit, and I can only live on in sincere hope that Israel one day will destroy another Egyptian army, retake the Sinai, and that a bunch of you can build a whole new Yamit. Being a nationalist, I just would not want to make a permanent home in any country ruled by a government that would uproot its own people and destroy their houses. Get governments worthy of the name and heritage of Israel and the Jewish nation, and maybe more Jews will come there to stay.
I suppose there are some folks in Israel who resent overseas Jews just for being here while you are over there. But I am what I want, write what I want, say what I want, go where I want, and if anybody takes issue with that, I generally tell them they can stick it up their rear plumbing. Because if talk is cheap for folks like me, the same applies to folks like you.
And, all things considered, I don’t think you folks are ready to force the issue and get permanently authentic and tough Jewish governments in Israel. And if I were wrong about that, you people wouldn’t be whining about Netanyahu and Barak on this blogsite.
So the rest of my life will be played out here in the USA. Except that I might want to make one trip around the world that would include seeing Israel again, then traveling across all of Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway, then over to Japan, then back to the USA via Alaska.
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About your apparent delusions of how I live. Our property is about 80 ft or so up on the side of a heavily wooded bluff, with about 500 ft of winding and heavily sloped driveway to get up here. Too steep for outbuildings and digging a nuclear bunker would involve major civil engineering. Besides; I don’t think anyone ever would waste a nuclear weapon on the more or less empty farmlands in the valley onto which our house faces to the south.
Have a nice day, SG.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
One thing I learned growing up on the streets of my city was that eventually there will come at you one who is bigger and stronger than you and beat the crap out of you or worse. That truism can be mitigated if you widen the circle of deterrence. You kill the tough guys family and kids or at least make him believe you will. Jews will always be the few against the many and I’m always for humongous disproportional responses to any threat minor or major. EYE FOR AND EYE IS BULL S..T in such a context. Jews must create an image of MAD (CRAZY) Jews not to be messed with as the consequences and unpredictability of their actions.
It is only now that Jews can put the sun to shame. In Mahabharata’s words, we can light thousands of suns. With a push of a red button.
My impressions from my recent trip.
So when are you closing up your nuke bunker under your back shed and moving here?
Daniel prayed three times daily with his face toward Jerusalem, the House of Peace. So did all Jews during the Diasapora. Jerusalem is the City of David. It is the birthright of the Jewish people and is called the City of G-d. It never has nor will belong to the children of Ishmael.
Ettinger, for sure do not abandon the past. But the world has a real short collective memory, and to most of it yesterday’s football scores are more significant than title deeds from 34 centuries ago.
What counts today is to pack as much as possible of the world’s Jewish population into Shomron, Yehuda, eastern Jerusalem and it environs, and the Golan, and one day, I think, the Sinai after Mubarak dies and the Islemic Brotherhood takes over Mirzraim and foments another war.
You’re a demographer. You probably know all this a lot better than I do. But one thing I learned on the often-times unfriendly streets of Chicago was this. If you have control over your particular piece of turf, it’s yours until someone musters enough force to take it away from you. Which means the odds are always on the side of the defense.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI