Nothing springs forth from a vacuum

...The enlightened vanguard of the global good-guy brigade – where Sky snugly fits in – still seethes with bias against this land’s Jews. Self-appointed foreign adjudicators – like Sky news editors – don’t hold Abbas accountable for impeding peace, for glorifying the murderers of Jewish children and for inciting to jihad Husseini-style. All that transpires now was kick-started by Husseini, while Abbas convinces willingly gullible saps of what they’re anyway predisposed to imbibe. Contrary to postmodern predilections – like Sky’s – the past mustn’t be consigned to irrelevance. Unbroken historical continuities contextualize current events. Nothing springs forth from a vacuum.

Hebron 1929: exhorting the
mobs to save al-Aksa from the Jews

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
13 November '14..

For hours after last week’s vehicular terror in Jerusalem (capped by an attack on passersby with a metal rod), Sky News persisted in not telling it like it is.

Its running news ticker at the bottom of the screen single-mindedly informed viewers that “Israeli police say a driver has rammed his car into pedestrians in East Jerusalem in an ‘intentional’ attack causing several injuries.”

The very inclusion of the verb say sufficed to cast doubt on Israeli communiqués. Then, to chip further away at residual Israeli credibility the word intentionally was tendentiously placed in quotation marks. This surely was overkill, considering that the reliability of the Israeli report was already challenged by the caveat of the opening phrase.

If during the first few minutes of the incident Sky could somehow make excuses for what looked like thinly-veiled antagonism, it certainly couldn’t long after the event. Nevertheless, that hardly objective news bar was still featured when any duty editor of even grudging goodwill or nominal neutrality should have known better.

In contrast, another report was cited with unadulterated acceptance. Sky’s above mentioned “breaking news” flash was accompanied throughout – for as many hours – by a bulletin that stated matter-of-factly (without any caveats this time) that “Israeli police have clashed with Palestinians inside Jerusalem’s al-Aksa Mosque compound after Jewish nationalists announced plans to visit the site.”

The subliminal nuances were unmissable and there was no qualifying vocabulary. The al-Aksa Mosque compound designation suggested exclusive Muslim connections and no Jewish ones.

Then came the unequivocal attribution of causality. The clashes occurred “after Jewish nationalists announced plans to visit,” i.e. Jews instigated the clashes. Not a word appeared about rocks and Molotov cocktails stored in the sacred spot and tossed at Jews praying below in front of the Western Wall.

Such facts may interfere with Sky’s insinuation that Jews are interlopers, trespassing in what has only ever been a Muslim shrine. The implication is that it’s Jews who disturb the peace along with their police “inside” the compound.

The injection of the term nationalists sealed the negative connotation. Nationalists are villains in the lexicon of political correctness.

The sentinels on Sky’s moral high ground know whom to distrust a priori and whom to trust inherently. Uninitiated audiences perceive the world through the broadcasters’ distorting glass. Their opinions are thereby at least partly shaped and their preexisting prejudices are subtly reinforced.

To be sure, Sky isn’t the only overseas news outlet with an attitude. Almost all its purportedly pluralist and tolerant counterparts are equally disingenuous and almost all classify Temple Mount terminology as politically incorrect.

More often than not, anchors and reporters allude to Haram al-Sharif and lest the masses out there not be fully clued in, they add by way of elucidation that “the Haram” is where al-Aksa Mosque is located.

At most, Temple Mount comes in as an aside meant to clarify what the commotion is about. “This is also where Jews claim that their ancient temples once stood,” some correspondents throw in with a pinch of skepticism. Alternative edification is that “this is also what Jews refer to as Temple Mount.”

The undertones here are paramount. Jews invariably “claim.” Their version is hardly one that can be reasonably accorded credence. The Arab insistence that no Jewish temples or Jewish historical/religious ties to Jerusalem ever existed is thus amplified by media quibbling. Out of nowhere Jews seemingly invaded Jerusalem and out-of-the-blue they brazenly seek to overrun Muslim sanctuaries.

The "Run Over Intifada" - The Same Futile Aim

...But, as they have demonstrated consistently since the time of the mufti, what they want to shake off is not the supposedly oppressive rule of Israel (which, as even Rudoren notes, allows a Palestinian prosperity that makes many of them reluctant to contemplate another destructive and pointless war), but the presence of the Jews altogether and intolerance for their presence. Once again a new generation of Palestinians are taking up gasoline bombs and even using cars as weapons in order to kill or injure Jews to further that same futile aim and in the name of this ancient hatred.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
06 October '14..

In the wake of the latest acts of terror against pedestrians in Jerusalem, Palestinian public opinion is again reacting with the same sensitivity that it displayed back in June when a popular campaign mocked the plight of three Jewish teenagers who were kidnapped and murdered by Hamas terrorists. Support for the “run over intifada” is endemic on Palestinian social media in much the same way as it cheered the prospect that the lives of the three boys might be bartered for the freedom of captured terrorists. But instead of pondering whether support for the spate of attacks is, as the New York Times speculates today, a new intifada “for the 21st Century, foreign observers would do well to understand that this violence is merely a symptom of the same refusal to accept Israel’s legitimacy that has fueled the conflict for many decades.

Though she recycles Palestinian myths about the reasons for the outbreak of the first two intifadas (including the infamous lie that it was Ariel Sharon’s walk on the Temple Mount rather than a calculated response by Yasir Arafat to Israeli peace moves), Times Jerusalem Bureau chief Jodi Rudoren didn’t find many who thought this outbreak was likely to result in a repeat of the carnage of the second intifada that took thousands of lives on both sides. Indeed, she did her readers a service by reminding them that the security fence built to stop suicide bombers makes a return to the horror of that episode problematic for the architects of terror.

But if she really wanted to explain the origins of the current round of violence revolving around Palestinian anger about the efforts of a minority of Israeli to reverse the ban on Jewish prayer on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount — the holiest site in Judaism as well as the home of the Al-Aksa Mosque — she would do well to go back further in history than 1987 or 2000. Conspiracy theories about Jews planning to blow up the mosques on the Temple Mount go back to the efforts of Haj Amin el-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem and Nazi ally who led the Palestinians throughout the 1920s, 30s and 40s, to foment anti-Jewish pogroms long before there was a State of Israel, let alone an “occupation.”

Though Rudoren quotes Palestinian Authority Leader Mahmoud Abbas as saying that he doesn’t want another intifada, she fails to mention his efforts to follow in the mufti’s footsteps by urging his people to resist Jews by any means and calling a terrorist who attempted to murder a Jewish activist rabbi, a martyr who went straight to heaven. Yet it’s true that Abbas doesn’t want an intifada since a collapse of security cooperation between Israel and the PA might result in a Hamas coup that could cost him life or at least his control of the West Bank. Despite his incitement of violence, it is still he Israelis who guarantee his personal security. What Rudoren also fails to note is that it is Hamas that wants an intifada for the same reason it rained down thousands of missiles on Israeli cities this past summer even though it created more destruction for Palestinians in Gaza. Their goal is keep Palestinians focused on “resistance” — a synonym for endless war that won’t be solved by Israeli territorial concessions or even greater sensitivity for Muslim desire to deny Jews rights in Jerusalem.

Mr. Obama, Hebron is an eternal home for Jews

Eighty years after a massacre of Jews here and despite ongoing Arab threats, we yearn for peace. But will Obama's pressure on settlements force us to leave?

By David Wilder

Christain Science Monitor

August 24, 2009

HEBRON, WEST BANK - The Obama administration is pressuring Israel to agree to a total building freeze of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). It may not be long before Israelis are forced to withdraw from places such as Hebron, in order to "prevent terror" and "achieve peace."

It's commonly thought that "if only" Israel would give up all land outside the 1967 borders, then peace would be at hand. However, Arab terror against Jews did not begin after the Six-Day War in 1967.

Eighty years ago today, Arabs massacred 67 Jews in Hebron and wounded 70 more. Incited by the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini, and shouting "Kill the Jews!", the perpetrators raped, mutilated, tortured, beheaded, or dismembered men, women, children, and even babies in a two-day spree of violence. The victims were guilty of no crime. Jews had lived there for hundreds of years in peace with their neighbors. But Arab instigators preached hateful sermons and spread malicious rumors that boiled over into bloodshed.

Of the many accounts of betrayal and courage that day in 1929, here are two:

Ben-tzion Gershon, a doctor and pharmacist who treated Jews and Arabs in Hebron, defied his wife's warnings and opened the door to an Arab woman who feigned that she was about to give birth. The woman moved aside, and a murderous mob stormed in and gang-raped his wife. When Dr. Gershon begged them to stop, they answered: "If you don't want to see it, you don't have to" – and gouged his eyes out before killing him, according to the testimony of one of Gershon's daughter.

Some Arabs showed great courage in protecting Jews that day. One Arab landlord refused to allow his Jewish tenants to be murdered. He stood fast outside the door of their home, even when a fellow Arab put a sword to his throat and drew blood. The landlord refused to budge and finally the mob relented.

As British High Commissioner Sir John Chancellor put it: "I do not think that history records many worse horrors in the last few hundred years...."

Three days after the massacre the ruling British expelled the surviving victims from Hebron, leaving the city without a Jewish presence for the first time since 1260.

It wasn't until 1967, following the Six-Day War, that Jews returned to Hebron. They did not occupy a foreign city; rather they came back home, to the first Jewish city in the land of Israel. They returned to worship at the Caves of Machpela, the second-holiest site in the world to Jews, after Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This site had been declared off limits to Jews and Christians for 700 years. Today it is open to all who desire to visit this hallowed burial ground for the Hebrew patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Hebron is not just the source of Judaism. It is the source of monotheism for all peoples of the world.

The only reason that the Caves of Machpela are still accessible to Jews is because there is a permanent Jewish presence in the city. The disappearance of the Jewish community of Hebron would be tantamount to abandoning the founders of our people. Would any American dream of abandoning Philadelphia, Boston, or Mount Vernon to the Taliban or Al Qaeda, "in the name of peace"? Today, I proudly live in Hebron, along with hundreds of other Jews. Despite media reports, our goal is not to expel the Arabs living here. Anyone of any race or religion should be able to live in Hebron.

However, we demand that our Arab neighbors accept the fact that the Jews have an eternal, legitimate right to live in the first Jewish city in the land of Israel. This is our goal: to live normal lives, just as anyone else, anywhere in Israel. Our goal is to ensure that our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will be able to live in Hebron. Our goal is to make sure that all Jews will have access to the caves, that Jews will never again be told that this holy site is off limits. Eviction from Hebron, the first Jewish city in Israel, would be tantamount to acquiescence that can only be defined as a reward for terrorism, continuing in the footsteps of el-Husseini.

In 2000, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak wrote a letter to Hebron's Jewish community, declaring: "The right of Jews to live tranquilly in the city of the Forefathers securely, protected from all danger, is not disputed. The test of the renewed Hebron Jewish community, which is the same test of the Arab majority, is the ability to develop good neighborly relationships."

Hebron's Jewish community could not agree more with this statement. The time has come for our Arab neighbors to stop shooting at us, to stop trying to kill us for no other reason than we are Jews living in Hebron. Perhaps they believe that by killing us, or by attempting to, they will scare us away. They could not be further from the truth, because Hebron is the heart of the Jewish people, the lifeblood from which the Jewish people derives its sanctity. This is a simple truth that everyone should not only understand, but also accept. We truly hope and pray for the day when true peace will prevail, both in Hebron, throughout the land of Israel, and all over the world.

Eighty years later, Hebron's Jewish community symbolizes the eternity of the Jewish people in the land of Israel and a clear victory over Arab terror. In Hebron, the Jews have returned home.

David Wilder is the spokesman for the Jewish Community of Hebron.

Related: Remembering the Hebron Massacre

The Shepherd Hotel in Jerusalem: An End to the Arabs’ Wars of Limited Liability?

There Are Consequences for Choosing Aggression

By Lenny Ben-David

Published by The Jerusalem Post, August 7, 2009

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s resolute response to a State Department official’s objection to a Jewish building development in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem may actually close a 90-year-old chapter of the Arab-Israeli conflict and bring about a measure of justice. "We cannot accept the idea that Jews will not have the right to live and buy (homes) anywhere in Jerusalem," Netanyahu said.

For way too long Arab states, terrorist groups and the Palestinian Arabs believed that they could wage “wars of limited liability” first against the Jews of Palestine and then against the State of Israel. They embraced a fantasy that they could unleash attacks with impunity in an attempt to wipe out Israel, convinced that if they were defeated they could return to a status quo ante, or even achieve diplomatically what they couldn’t win on the battlefield. Territories captured by Israel would be returned and not annexed, terrorist leaders would be honored and not condemned, and Jews/Israel would be blamed and never indemnified. Tragically, that fantasy became reality.

In 1920, the Balfour Declaration, written three years earlier, was a very pertinent and relevant document in Palestine. The Turks were gone from Palestine after 400 years, and the British were attempting to establish their authority. Jews who had fled the Turkish regime began to return, and they were joined by other Jews – “Zionists” from Russia and eastern Europe -- eager to build the promised “national home for the Jewish people.”

Arab clans and local groups began to coalesce and compete to fill the vacuum left by the Turks. They found sympathetic British authorities who opposed the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine and sought to rescind the Balfour Declaration. Together, they opposed the Jewish immigration into Palestine and the Jewish purchase of large tracts of land. The British authorities placed limitations on the formation of Jewish self-defense groups, some of whom included veterans of the British army’s Jewish Legion and Zion Mule Corps.

The Jewish settlement of Tel Chai in the Galilee was overrun by local Arab marauders in early 1920, and within months, riots and pogroms against Jews erupted across Palestine. According to witnesses, the ax and sword-wielding mobs, emboldened by their perception of supportive British authorities, yelled, “Addowlah ma’anah! The government is with us! Itback el yehud! Slaughter the Jews!” as they attacked Jewish communities. They were led by the nephew of Jerusalem’s mayor, a young rabble-rouser named Haj Amin el Husseini. Rather than throw Husseini in prison or hang him, the British chose an appeasement policy and appointed him as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. The Mufti would later incite more bloody pogroms against Jewish communities in 1929 and launch the Arab Revolt (1936-1939) against the British, Jews and fellow Arabs. The anti-Semitic terrorist leader used his position to garner a following and a status that he would wield for the next 25 years, culminating in his collaboration with Adolf Hitler in World War II.

[Santayana’s admonition, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” was tragically proved true. Britain’s policy of appeasement in Palestine was copied years later when Chamberlain met Hitler at Munich in 1939. And the honors and adulation bestowed upon Haj Amin al-Husseini were later granted to his cousin Abdul Kader al-Husseini, a leader of the attacks against Jews in the 1940s. Similar tributes were paid to another terrorist cousin, Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini, AKA Yasir Arafat.]

When the British attempted to arrest the Mufti in 1937 he fled Palestine, and the British made do with confiscating his property. The Husseini clan owned several well-known buildings in Jerusalem, among them the Palace Hotel on Mamilla Street (later Israel’s Ministry of Trade, and now being rebuilt as a hotel), the Orient House (the site of Palestinian Authority attempts to establish its rule in east Jerusalem), and the Shepherd Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah on a plot of land known as Karam al Mufti, named for Husseini.

(Full article)