Bataween - Don't let Yachad take you for a ride

Yet Yachad has not raised a peep on behalf of the Yemenite Jews who lost their rights to their homes in 1936, when they were advised the British to leave Silwan - as their security could not be guaranteed following Arab attacks. While it is keen to defend the interests of (in the main) Arab squatters, it has utterly ignored the rights of Jews driven out in 1948.

Bataween..
Point of No Return..
28 February '13..





Reluctant as this blog is to wade into UK Jewish politics, the uproar following the refusal by majority vote of the Zionist Federation to admit Yachad - the so-called British J-Street - as an affiliated member, calls for some comment.

Yachad, a one-woman band led by the 30-something Hannah Weisfeld, claims to be a pro-Israel, pro-Zionist organisation. Its stance may be summed up as follows: for Israel's good - both to maintain Israel as a democratic state, and for the sake of peace, Israel should withdraw from the West Bank and stop 'judaising' East Jerusalem.

I happened to share a taxi with Hannah Weisfeld a few weeks ago. There I raised the question: Yachad is supporting Arab property rights: why can it not also support Jewish property rights? Weisfeld has conducted quite a campaign on behalf of 'Arab occupants 'unjustly' evicted from their homes in Silwan, although the Israeli courts have on many occasions ruled in their favour. Yet Yachad has not raised a peep on behalf of the Yemenite Jews who lost their rights to their homes in 1936, when they were advised the British to leave Silwan - as their security could not be guaranteed following Arab attacks. While it is keen to defend the interests of (in the main) Arab squatters, it has utterly ignored the rights of Jews driven out in 1948.

Hannah did not seem to know about the Yemenites of Silwan. Yachad is not prepared to defend the rights of Jews who wish to recover the properties they abandoned in 'Arab' East Jerusalem. Here her view concords with the Arab narrative: Jews trying to move into Arab East Jerusalem are part of a deplorable, politically-motivated plan to Judaise the area, while petrodollar-funded, uncontrolled Arab building is unworthy of attention. Broadly speaking, Yachad thinks an equitable exchange of property ownership has already taken place - with Jews moving into Arab homes in West Jerusalem and Arabs into East. Just as Yachad was not going open the West Jerusalem can-of-worms, so did it seek to maintain the status of the East Jerusalem can-of-worms, viewing the division of Jerusalem between Jewish and Arab zones as pretty much set in stone.

How the West’s Silence Undermines Its Mideast Policy

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
22 April '10

Kudos to Britain’s Zionist Federation for launching a campaign this week against the ludicrous decision by the country’s Advertising Standards Authority to ban an Israeli tourism ad featuring a picture of the Western Wall because it “implied that the part of East Jerusalem featured in the image was part of the state of Israel” rather than “occupied territory,” and was thus “likely to mislead.” But the ones who should be leading this campaign are the American government, the British government, and any other government that claims to view Israeli-Palestinian peace as a policy priority.

To understand why these governments should care, it’s worth perusing a seemingly unrelated article by Max Singer of the Begin-Sadat Center. Singer argued that for the Palestinians to be willing to make peace with Israel, two conditions must hold.

First, Palestinians must be convinced that they have no chance of destroying Israel — because if Israel can be eradicated, leaving them with 100 percent of the territory, they obviously have no incentive to sign a deal that would give them at most 22 percent. And while Palestinians know they can’t defeat Israel militarily as things stand now, Singer wrote, they remain hopeful “that their international campaign to delegitimize Israel will lead to international pressure that forces it into a series of retreats that ultimately makes it unable to defend itself.”

Second, Palestinians must be convinced that they can make peace with honor — and this “depends on whether the Jews are colonial thieves stealing land solely on the basis of force, or whether they are a people that also historically lived in the land.” But currently, he noted, “The Palestinian leadership is deliberately making an honorable peace impossible by falsely denying that Jews have a legitimate claim to any of the land.” They even deny that a Jewish Temple ever stood on the Temple Mount.

(Read full post)

Related Video: Is the Western Wall in Israel? - HR Interviews 'Confused' Tourists

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