By Daniel Greenfield
When Jordan’s Arab Legion seized half of Jerusalem, ethnically cleansed its Jewish population and annexed the city– the only entity to recognize the annexation was the United Kingdom which had provided the officers and the training that made the conquest possible. Officers like Colonel Bill Newman, Major Geoffrey Lockett and Major Bob Slade, under Glubb Pasha, better known as General John Bagot Glubb, whose son later converted to Islam, invaded Jerusalem and used the Muslim forces under their command to make the partition and ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem possible.
Since then the annexation and ethnic cleansing has become an international mandate. It would be absolutely inconceivable for the international community to denounce an ethnically cleansed group which survived attempted genocide for moving back into a city where they had lived. It is however standard policy at the State Department and the Foreign Office to denounce Jews living in those parts of Jerusalem that had been ethnically cleansed by Muslims, as “settlers” living in “settlements”, and describe them as an “obstruction to peace.” Peace being the state of affairs that sets in when an ethnic cleansing goes unchallenged.
Describing Jewish homes in Jerusalem, one of the world’s oldest cities, a city that all three religions in the region associate with Jews and Jewish history, as “settlements” is a triumph of distorted language that Orwell would have to dip his hat to. How does one have “settlements” in a city older than London or Washington D.C.? To understand that you would have to ask London and Washington D.C. where the diplomats insist that one more round of Israeli compromises will bring peace to the region.
They say that there are three religions in Jerusalem, but there are actually four. The fourth religion is the true Religion of Peace, the one that demands constant blood sacrifices to make peace possible, that insists that there will be peace when the Jews have been expelled from Judea and Samaria, driven out of their homes in Jerusalem, and made into wanderers and beggars once again. Oddly enough this religion’s name isn’t even Islam– it’s diplomacy.
Diplomacy says that the 1948 borders set by Arab countries invading Israel should be the final borders and that when Israel reunified a sundered city in 1967, it was an act of aggression, while when seven Arab armies invaded Israel in 1948, it was a legitimate way to set boundaries. When Jordan ethnically cleansed East Jerusalem, it set a standard that Israelis are obligated to follow to this day by staying out of East Jerusalem.
Vice-President Biden was so upset that the Jerusalem municipality had partially approved some buildings in the city during his visit that he threw a legendary hissy fit. Hillary Clinton stopped by MSNBC to tell Andrea Mitchell that, “It was insulting. And it was insulting not just to the Vice-President who didn’t deserve that.” David Axelrod browsed through his thesaurus and emerged on the morning shows calling it an “affront” and an “insult”. Two for the price of one.
Editorials in newspapers denounced the Israeli government for this grave insult to the Obama Administration.”Israel’s Provocation”, the Chicago Tribune shrieked in bold type, describing it as a “diplomatic bomb” that went off in Biden’s face. The Atlantic, eager to get in on the action metaphors, described Israel slapping Biden in the face. A horde of other columnists jumped in to depict the Israelis kicking and bashing the poor Vice-President, while holding his head in the toilet.
Whether Joe Biden was the victim of the Jews or the Jews were the victims of Joe Biden is all a matter of perspective. The Hitler Administration was quite upset to find that Jewish athletes would be competing in the 1936 Munich Olympics. When you ethnically cleanse people, they are supposed to stay ethnically cleansed. It’s in poor taste for them to show up and win gold medals at the Olympics or rebuild their demolished synagogues. It’s insulting to the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices.
That sounds like a harsh accusation, but it’s completely and undeniably true.
When Muslims move into a Jewish town, poor Joe doesn’t come crying that he’s been bombed with a diplomatic affront and slapped with a Menorah. When Muslim countries fund Muslim housing in Israel, there are no angry statements from Clinton and no thesaurus bashing from David Axelrod. Muslim housing in Jerusalem or anywhere in Israel is not a problem. Only Jewish housing is. The issue is not Israel. If it were then Arabs with Israeli citizenship would get Biden to howl as loudly. It’s only the Jews who are the problem.
The entire Peace Process is really a prolonged solution to the latest phase of the Jewish Problem. The problem, as stated by so many diplomats, is that there are Jews living in places that Muslims want. There were Jews living in Gaza before 1948, but they were driven out, they came back, and then they were driven out again by their own government in compliance with international demands. Now only Hamas lives in Gaza and it’s as peaceful and pleasant without the Jews as Nazi Germany.
But there are still Jews in the West Bank and they have to be gotten rid of. Once enough Jews have been expelled, there will be peace. That’s not a paragraph from Mein Kampf, it’s not some lunatic sermon from Palestinian Authority television– it is the consensus of the international community. This consensus states that the only reason there still isn’t peace is because enough Jews haven’t been expelled from their homes. The ethnic cleansing for peace hasn’t gone far enough.
There will be peace when all the Jews are gone. That much is certainly undeniable. Just look at Gaza or Egypt or Iraq or Afghanistan, which has a grand total of two Jews, both of them in their seventies. Or Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria where peace reigns now that the Jews are gone. Some might say that violence seems to increase proportionally with the number of Muslims, but we all know that would be a racist thing to say. On the other hand suggesting that violence increases with the number of Jews living on land that Muslims want, that’s just diplomacy. A common sense fact that everyone who is anyone in foreign policy knows to be true.
How will we know when the Muslims have gotten all the land that they want? When the violence stops. Everyone knows that agreements mean nothing. No matter how many pieces of paper are signed, the bombs and rockets still keep bursting, real ones that kill people, not fake ones that upset vice-presidents. The only way to reach an agreement is by groping blindly in the dark, handing over parcel after parcel of land, until the explosions stops or the Muslims fulfill their original goal of pushing the Jews into the sea.
That’s the wonderful thing about diplomacy if you’re a diplomat and the terrible thing about it if you are anyone else without a secure way out of the country when diplomacy fails. And diplomacy in the region always fails. Camp David and every single agreement Israel has signed with Muslim countries isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. The only peace treaty that counts is the one made by tanks and rifles. It’s the one made by Israeli planes in Egyptian skies and Israeli soldiers walking the border. It’s the one made by Jewish farmers and ranchers, tending their sheep and their fields, with rifles strung over their backs. The only peace that’s worth anything is the peace of the soldiers and settlers.
In 1966 Jerusalem was a city sundered in two, divided by barbed wire and the bullets of Muslim snipers. Diplomacy did not reunite it. Israel pursued diplomacy nearly to its bitter end until it understood that it had no choice at all but to fight. Israel did not swoop into the fight, its leaders did their best to avoid the conflict, asking the international community to intervene and stop Egypt from going to war. Read back the headlines for the last five years on Israel and Iran, and you will get a sense of the courage and determination of the Israeli leaders of the day.
When Israel went to war, its leaders did not want to liberate Jerusalem, they wanted Jordan to stay out of the war. Even when Jordan entered the war, they did not want to liberate the city. Divine providence and Muslim hostility forced them to liberate Jerusalem and forced them to keep it. Now some of them would like to give it back, another sacrifice to the bloody deity of diplomacy whose altar flows with blood and burnt sacrifices.
As we remember Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, it is important to remember that the city is united and free because diplomacy failed. The greatest triumph of the modern state happened only because diplomacy proved hopeless and useless in deterring Muslim genocidal ambitions. Had Israel succumbed to international pressure and had Nasser been as subtle as Sadat, then the Six Day War would have looked like the Yom Kippur War with 1948 borders– and Israel very likely would not exist today.
Even as Jews remember the great triumph of Jerusalem Day, the ethnic cleansers and their accomplices are busy searching for ways to drive Jews out of Jerusalem, out of towns, villages and cities. This isn’t about the Arab residents of Jerusalem, who have repeatedly asserted that they want to remain part of Israel. It’s not about peace, which did not come from any previous round of concessions, and will not come from this one either. It’s about solving the Jewish problem.
As long as Jews allow themselves to be defined as the problem, there will be plenty of those offering solutions. And the solutions invariably involve doing something about the Jews. It only stands to reason that if Jews are the problem, then moving them or getting rid of them is the solution. The bloody god of diplomacy always assumes that are the problem. There is less friction in defining Jews as the problem, than in defining Muslims as the problem. The numbers alone mean that is so.
Jerusalem Day is a reminder of what the real problem is and what the real solution is. Muslim occupation of Israel is the problem. The Islamization of Jerusalem is the problem. Muslim violence in support of the Muslim occupation of Israel and of everywhere else is the problem. Israel is the solution. Only when we liberate ourselves from the lies, when we stop believing that we are the problem and recognize that we are the solution. Only then will we be free of the Joe Bidens and the Peter Beinarts, the Jimmy Carters and Barack Obamas, the Gilad Atzmons and Jeremy Ben Amis. Only then will the liberation that began in 1967 be complete.
Only then will we have liberated our Jerusalem. The Jerusalem of the soul. It is incumbent on all of us to liberate that little Jerusalem within. The holy city that lives in all of us. To clean the dross off its golden gates, wash the filth from its stones and expel the invaders gnawing away at our hearts until we look proudly upon a shining city. Then to help others liberate their own Jerusalems. Only then will we truly be free.
I have had an Israeli flag hanging out of my window since Yom Hatzmaut. Jerusalem Day is everyday. I will keep my flag waving out the window all year.
@ yamit82: Arq. Dan Tanay should be made advisor to Israeli Governments
yamit82 Said:
i was discussing how it would be practically impossible (as i perceive it to be)to lead a ‘halachic jewish life’, all of a sudden, when, for well over 50 years, that was not so.
in other words “hayahafoch kushi ‘oro v’namer havarburotav”
in fact i sort of view myself, not unlike your description of greenfield : “Whether Greenfield is religious or not, he is Torah grounded”and this is what i tried to relay @ my #15 comment.
i have learnt many historical facts both biblical AND world history from your comments and the links that you provide, and for that, i sincerely thank you.
@ Mike Lumish:
Yeah Really!! Most certainly. Absolutely.
How could it be otherwise?
@ yamit82:
You might find these clips entertaining.
Judaism says that every man (Jews) can change his own nature and supply’s the means for that change.
http://www.simpletoremember.com/media/a/rational-judaism/
The first verse of the Torah which is a mistranslation supplies the means if read as it is written and not translated.
http://www.simpletoremember.com/media/a/Rational_Approach_Divinity_Oral_Tradition-B/
@ BlandOatmeal:
I didn’t call Judaism faith lumish did and I understood him to mean religion in general and Judaism specifically. I was using his quote and terminology not mine nor did I think it warranted getting into such a discussion as based on his reply he probably wouldn’t understand or even care.
Faith is strong or unshakeable belief in something, (esp) without proof or evidence. Christianity is based on such belief without proof or evidence therefore is based on faith.
How do I know Judaism is true? My father told me and he wouldn’t lie. How did he know? His father (my grandfather told him and he was a good guy and wouldn’t lie to his son etc. Judaism is memory transmitted from father to son from teacher to student etc. We have many unbroken chains of transmission from Moses to the present.
Every Jew alive today except for a convert and the son of a convert can say with certainly of belief that his ancestors stood at Sinai 3300 years ago and heard G-d speak. No faith is required for us or is it necessary. Up until a few hundred years ago no Jew ever expressed his belief using the Greek Judaism in defining himself. There was only one belief and any differences in observance were cultural which never changed the core principles of Jewish beliefs which transcended cultural differences.
Take the Messiah. Jews will know as opposed to faith based belief in THE MESSIAH when he accomplishes all he is supposed to do according to the the descriptions of the Jewish prophets. Judaism is a way of life that governs every action and thought of the Jew, it is a practical blueprint for living in this world not the next.
Because we base our identity on the National Revelation at Sinai we are a people with a common language, history,land and National narrative.
A Chosen People and a Chosen Land with a common national purpose and destiny.
Dare to Dream/Dare to Build
Jerusalem Special Report – The Building of the Third Temple
@ yamit82:
Coming from you, Yamit, that’s double-talk: You’ve gone to great lengths in other posts, to assert that Judaism is NOT “faith-based”. If it’s not “faith-based”, aren’t you a little silly, calling it a “faith”?
“Faith” is accepting something as reality. Belief in Torah, for instance, is a “faith” held by some Christians, some Jews, some Mormons and even some self-described Agnostics. “Judaism”, on the other hand, is just a religion. Some practice it and some don’t, just as is the case in Christianity. Even those who practice this RELIGION, though, may or may not believe in Torah; the two have nothing in common: One is BELIEF, which is as real as believing that the ground you are about to step on is real, and the other is MAKE-BELIEVE, which, the last I checked, is phoney.
Moshe Dayan didn’t want Jerusalem to become Judaism’s Vatican. I agree with those sentiments. On the other hand, neither should Jerusalem be Islam’s Fatima. Until there’s concesus among Israel’s Jews (i.e. until AFTER the dead are raised, people walk on water and through walls AND all commodities are offered at half-price to any Jew who will accept the majority opinion), the Temple Mount should be an archaeological preserve, ADMINISTERED BY ISRAEL.
@ the phoenix:
jeremiah 13:23? Who do you mean?
Jeremiah is speaking about false prophets.
13:32 :Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the LORD, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the LORD.
@ the phoenix:
Did I put words in his mouth? Maybe, but the thought behind his words is what I addressed which I deduced from the words.
See: http://sultansparsha.blogspot.com/ This is another blog of Greenfield with a link from his main blog Sultan knish
Whether Greenfield is religious or not, he is Torah grounded, Anyone reading his articles and seeing his blog would not have been surprised as Lumish was. The very fact that Lumish felt it necessary to question even disagree with Greenfield’s use of (“Divine providence”) places Lumish not just in the secular category but atheist as well. There is a difference.
If you had read my comment I asked what he attributed our successes if not divine help? You have read his reply. Which speaks for itself. His your and my beliefs are our own and whatever they are are ours by choice. I do have however opinions on the matter which I have expressed from time to time.
yamit82 Said:
not meaning AT ALL to barge into your conversation with mike, i find myself nonetheless having to ask you point blank, WHY are you putting words into mike’s mouth…all he said was that he ‘was secular’. by sheer coincidence, i have posted a few minutes earlier, a comment addressed to you with a sincere query, (still awaiting reply..:) ) and i have also, mentioned that i am ‘secular’ (and hence, the liberty i took to comment, as, i felt painted by the very same broad brush, with which you have painted mike)by which i meant I DO BELIEVE IN GOD.
our god. our jewish nation’s god. however, i was never into the RITUALS of judaism. so, if i may, it is NOT a question of ‘being proud of being secular / ignorance’ as you put it…
it would feel extremely weird, at this stage in life, to become, what, for all intents and purposes, i would assume to be ‘a different persona’.
i sense a certain disdain on your part towards those that are not ‘halachic jews’. were that to be the case, the only thing i could say is:
jeremiah 13:23
What the whole issue of Jerusalem boils down to is who ethnically cleanses whom. Everybody who was anybody throughout history did exactly that to the Jews, and almost never looked back with any feelings of guilt.
Now I want to see the Jewish nation and the Jewish state do just that to these same Arabs who have kept up an endless state of war against Israel since the yishuv came into being more than 100 years ago. And if we do that, I want no Jews to look back at the action with any more guilt than the rest of the world has shown to our Jewish nation.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ yamit82:
Thank you for your comment.
Because of it I changed a sentence in my most recent blog post which read:
To:
Peace to you, please.
Israel Thrives
http://israel-thrives.blogspot.com/
Ascribing historical events to the doings of the Divine? Well, the prophets of old did. And the very fact that Israel is back in her homeland is a fulfillment of prophecy. And there are prophecies being fulfilled in Aliyah and more prophecies yet to be fulfilled before the Messianic kingdom is set up.
@ Mike Lumish:
The G-d of Israel is the G-d of History. Thought you might like to know. 😛
You are assuming by your comment that Greenfield is not a religious Jew and or that like you an atheist. Why?
You repeat twice that you have nothing against the Jewish faith, Why unless you do?
You seem to project some pride in being a “largely secular Jew.” It’s your choice and none of my business but since you brought it up why do you seem to be proud of your own ignorance?
Kotel before 6 days war Photo
A very good friend was the architect who designed the open Kikar (plaza or square) now before the Kotel. In the aftermath of the 6 days war Kollek asked my friend Dan Tanay to design and oversee the expansion of the area before the Kotel. He was warned not to harm Muslim sacred sites and buildings like several mosques and a few grave yards. Dan organized the demolitions of all the structures by having the demolitions done at night. Next morning Kollek appeared at my friends home livid, He asked why my friend Dan had destroyed all the mosques and grave yards? Dan told him with a wink that because they had to work at night they didn’t recognize the Muslim sites. Explanation had to do, the deed was done. A week later when there was no backlash or fallout from the Muslims, Kollek appeared once again but this time bearing gifts he thanked my fried for a fine job and handed him a box of Cuban cigars. My friend also designed the plaza adjoining city hall in Tel Aviv then called Kikar Malchei Yisrael (Kings of Israel Plaza) The fools changed it to Rabin Square a few years after Rabin got bumped off.
@ yamit82:
Yamit, I have nothing against religion and certainly nothing against the Jewish faith, but I am always a little surprised when respected writers, such as Dan Greenfield, ascribe historical events to the doings of the divine.
I’m not hostile to the notion, just a little surprised.
But, hey, I am, in fact, a largely secular Jew.
Israel Thrives
http://israel-thrives.blogspot.com/
@ yamit82:
dear yamit,
to say that i am in agreement with your posts would be an understatement. and even though i am a secular jew, i feel very strongly about our national fabric (the bible, the geography, and yes, the rituals too…that is to say, i view reform judaism as a goyishe congregation that just does not dare to call a spade a spade, i.e. YES, I AM JEWISH and this is my congregation, true to its past).
that being said, i now ask, ok. now what?
there are those jews, (in ISRAEL (!), let alone, the diaspora..) that would like nothing more than to be ‘ke’chol ha’amim’ as you have described, and the other end of the spectrum, has the ones who are 1.nationalistic AND 2. would like to implement ‘halachic judaism’ and of course the various shades in between these two…
what could be done FROM A PRACTICAL point of view to deal with this?
– to bridge the gap would cause a dilution of the principle and at the end noone is happy.
– to acknowledge the gap and just SPLIT as in israel a, and israel b… seems unthinkable as well!
so what say you?
@ Shy Guy:
For now! There will be other chances soon in our own time.
There is a well known (and widely corroborated) story concerning Rav Shlomo Goren and the Jewish return to Hebron in 1967.
@ Mike Lumish:
What’s your understanding, since you reject “Divine providence”?
@ yamit82:
The Door Was Slammed in the Moshiach’s Face
This is true, Liberated Jerusalem was forced upon us against our will. Jewish soldiers who took the Temple Mount in 1967 wept with happiness. Only to have Moshe Dayan say that he doesn’t want another Vatican – and give the Temple Mount to Arabs. This should answer Laura and others who asked why Dayan gave the keys to the Temple Mount and authority back to Muslim control. Our leaders didn’t want it and many still don’t today including most of the ultra orthodox Jewish rabbis.
Every Israeli government’s attitude to Jewish sacred places is driven by clinical hatred toward religious and nationalist Jews. Muslims from Egypt, Jordan, or Western countries don’t flock to the Aqsa. Any Muslim interest in the place is purely political and, therefore, Israel concedes to our enemies, not to the Islamic religion. Temple Mount was the central place in Jewish consciousness for two thousand years, the pinnacle of Jerusalem which we prayed to return to. Arabs prohibited us from praying at the Western Wall.
The Western Wall is a Jewish hall of shame. The shame is that for the last forty five years we have failed to tear down that wall. Jerusalem is ours. The Temple Mount is ours. Jews don’t have to wail at the remains anymore. Forty five years is time enough to build the real thing, the Temple. We have won. Get used to it. Israeli victories might not usher in the messianic era, but so long as Jews possess Jerusalem, we should rejoice rather than weep.
The Jews keep praying, “Next year, in Jerusalem!” instead of taking the next flight to Israel. We’re the happiest Jews to have lived for the last two thousand years because we securely possess our country, but blind Jewish leaders want to share it with our Arab enemies. We conquered the Temple Mount, a place of immeasurable sanctity and immeasurable national importance, and still we wail at the remnants below.
The Israeli government bans Jews from praying at the Temple Mount lest the Arabs be offended. The government misses the point that we have already offended the Arabs by establishing a Jewish state in their midst and by winning every one of the wars they started. The Arabs fought us over statehood and over our borders; okay, let them fight us over the Temple Mount. In fact, they won’t. Muslims worldwide did not riot when the Jews took over Jerusalem. The Muslims expected the victorious Jews to assert their religious and nationalist jurisdiction over the most important place in the world, and shook their heads in disbelief when Moshe Dayan returned to them the Temple Mount.
Assimilated Israeli leaders resent having to pose as barbaric religious Jews before their Gentile friends. The Third Temple would embarrass the likes of Sharon Barak Olmert and BB; it’s hard to talk peace and modernity in Washington while back in your capital a high priest in a golden breastplate burns sheep in a sin offering.
Rabbinical leaders don’t want the Temple either. For all the superficial rites they observe, they are atheists. They pushed G-d from real life into a transcendent realm. Their G-d is concerned with driving on Sabbath rather than the Temple or the Land of Israel. The rabbis fear government, not G-d, and concur with the political establishment about Arab control of the Temple Mount, disengagement from Judea, and the Arab presence in Israel. The rabbis ban Jews from the Temple Mount for fear of desecrating the remains of the Holy of Holies while the Arabs build lavatories there while destroying every physical vestige of past Jewish presence on the mount with the silent approval of all past and present Jewish governments.
Dan, you may be becoming the “Dean” of pro-Israel / pro-Jewish punditry.
I do not agree with you on all details. For example, “Divine providence and Muslim hostility forced them to liberate Jerusalem…”?
Divine providence? Really??
Nonetheless, I salute you, sir.
Yours is a voice that diaspora Jews desperate need to hear.
You have my thanks.
Mike Lumish
Israel Thrives
http://israel-thrives.blogspot.com/
@ Dr. Fay:
Dr. Fay, while your comment is absolutely correct, it’s far too polite; “diplomatic” if you wish…
Well stated. Jerusalem belongs to the Jews, and the international diplomats need to keep their noses out of Israel’s business.