Ironically the Cyrus Debate Confirms the Truth of Jewish History in Jerusalem - by Rivkah Fishman-Duker

For those who wish to vilify Israel, anything that can be invoked against Israel is useful for the cause. The Washington Post has really outdone itself this past week. Oddly enough, this Washington Post criticism of the comparisons to Cyrus reminds the world that the Temple was in Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, and acknowledges the Jewish presence here long before Islam and the Palestinians. This runs counter to the mendacious Palestinian narrative, which claims that the Jews are not the indigenous people and are usurpers who lack a historical claim to the land.

Rivkah Fishman-Duker..
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs..
03 November '19..

Ishaan Tharoor of The Washington Post sets out to disparage U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (Nov. 1, 2019) – and by association, President Donald Trump – in his comments on Pompeo’s October 29, 2019, tweet in praise of Cyrus the Great, who ruled the Persian Empire in the 6th century BCE.1 Tharoor correctly notes, “[a]ccording to sources including biblical scripture, Cyrus allowed the Judeans deported and exiled following the ravages of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II to return to their homeland.” Perhaps unintentionally, this affirms important historical truths, thereby dashing what has become part of standard Palestinian narrative. Yet Tharoor’s distortions call for correction:

The Edict of Cyrus Is Not the Balfour Declaration.

The Edict of Cyrus does not declare a “Jewish national home,” as did the Balfour Declaration, commemorated on November 2. It stipulated a Temple, a place of worship (sacrifice). That is clear. However, it was President Harry S Truman who compared himself to Cyrus and metaphorically said, “I am Cyrus!” at a meeting at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York shortly after his presidency ended. In this sense, Cyrus was no more a political Zionist in the modern Herzlian sense than were the British, who called for a “Jewish national home” – not a state. They were both imperial powers.

As a matter of context, when Cyrus conquered the Near East (with the exception of Egypt, captured by his successor, Cambyses) in 539 BCE, he allowed peoples to rebuild their temples and worship their gods. This policy was the opposite of that of the Babylonians, whose conquests were marked by destruction of temples and local gods. This was a smart policy on the Persians’ part because it tended to prevent revolts.

The Jews were a different case because the majority of them were exiled from their homeland to Babylonia. The Babylonians had destroyed the (First) Temple and Jerusalem, the capital city of the Kingdom of Judah (Yehuda in Hebrew; Yehud, according. to the Persians) in 586 BCE. As the Edict of Cyrus (2 Chronicles 36:23 and Ezra 1:2-3) states: “Whosoever there is among you of all His people – his God be with him – let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah and build the house of the Lord, the God of Israel, He is the God who is in Jerusalem” (Ezra 1:3). In other words, it seems that Cyrus regarded the rebuilding of the Temple and the restoration of Jerusalem as building a Temple to a local god in a Temple-city, whereas the Jews always view God as the universal God who is the God of Israel as well. That being said, Cyrus was not a theologian, but a king, and this was his political policy. It is clear that the Jews were neither independent nor sovereign and that they remained under Persian rule.

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The importance and necessity of teaching Mizrahi history

...The popular view is that Arab rejectionism is just bluster obscuring the "fact" that they only want to provide to the Palestinians what is their due and that this bluster would disappear once the Palestinians do receive their "due." However, an alternate view would be that the Arabs are irredentist for the social order that existed prior to the emergence of Zionism. Mizrahi history provides the details of the social order for which they are irredentist.

Sar Shalom..
Israel Thrives..
07 June '15..

At Israel Hayom, Edy Cohen has an article about the need to include the Farhud and other aspects of Mizrahi history in Israel's curriculum. Cohen is right that it is long overdue to teach about the history of the Mizrahim and appalling that European Jewish history is treated as though it is synonymous with Jewish history and that the half of Israel's Jewish population from the Middle East deserves to have its history taught. However, Cohen misses another reason why it is critical to teach Mizrahi history.

One of the memes that our enemies spread is that even if we have an ancient history in the Levant and even if we built a state there recently producing so much of value to the world, in between we have abandoned and forgotten that region. Further, they acknowledge the horrible things that Europe has done to its Jews, with the Holocaust merely being the worst of a long chain of atrocities, but turn around and complain that the "innocent" Palestinians are paying the price to expiate Europe's guilt. This meme is critical for their claim that we "stole" the land from the Palestinians because if the Jews both have an ancient history on the land and maintained a continuous connection to the land between that ancient history and modern times, then there would be no pretense under which to say that the Arabs were anything other than an imperial power over the centuries.

(+Video) Yes, History Counts

...The indigenous people of the land of Israel are the Jews, who had an empire there for hundreds of years. They suffered invasions and genocides, and were (partially) dispersed throughout the world by a succession of pagan, Christian and Muslim conquerors. But they never wholly abandoned their land and the Diaspora never gave up its yearning to return. This reality was recognized by the international community when it granted Britain the Palestine Mandate to govern the land in trust for the Jewish people (as we know, Britain betrayed this trust, but that’s another story).

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
01 September '14..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2014/09/history-counts/


Melanie Phillips spoke in Jerusalem last week. In 55 minutes, she dealt with the relationship between anti-Zionism and Jew hatred, media bias, Israel’s poor performance in the global information war, and the future of Europe, and more. Watch and you will agree that it was 55 minutes well spent. And then I want to discuss just one of the things she said.



Phillips pointed out that history is important, particularly in this case, where a massive distortion of Jewish history provides the underpinning to the delegitimization of Israel so rampant in Europe (and to a lesser extent in the US).

The story is told, Phillips explained, that Israel was created to expiate the guilt of Europeans for the Holocaust and to solve the refugee problem it caused. Millions of European Jews were sent to Palestine where they displaced an indigenous ancient ‘Palestinian’ civilization. So no wonder, the story goes, the ‘Palestinians’ are angry. Why should they pay the price for Hitler’s actions (which, by the way, they will praise in a different context)?

I add to this the idea that the Jews are ‘colonists’ who ‘oppress’ the ‘non-white’ Palestinian Arabs, which opens a whole other reservoir of European guilt. Is it surprising that on the basis of this story even the most liberal (in the non-political sense) fair-minded person will think that while perhaps Hamas is a little indiscriminate in its rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, on the whole its behavior is understandable?

The problem is that the story is wholly false.

The indigenous people of the land of Israel are the Jews, who had an empire there for hundreds of years. They suffered invasions and genocides, and were (partially) dispersed throughout the world by a succession of pagan, Christian and Muslim conquerors. But they never wholly abandoned their land and the Diaspora never gave up its yearning to return.

This reality was recognized by the international community when it granted Britain the Palestine Mandate to govern the land in trust for the Jewish people (as we know, Britain betrayed this trust, but that’s another story).

UNESCO Fiasco the Classic Example of Why the Talks Will Always Fail

...But the American decision to distance itself from the project sent an unmistakable message that the Obama administration views any talk about Jewish ties to the land as too controversial to warrant its involvement. So long as the Palestinians are enabled by both the UN and the U.S. to continue denying Jewish history, the peace process that both Bokova and the State Department claim to take so seriously has no chance of success.

UNESCO's Director General Irina Bokova poses
with the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Rabbi Marvin Hier
and a poster for the exhibit on the Jewish people's
3,500-year connection to the land of Israel, which
she subsequently cancelled. 

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
21 January '14..

Did anyone really think a United Nations agency would sponsor a scholarly exhibition about the 3,500-year-old connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel? The world body’s constituent agencies have been cesspools of anti-Semitism for decades with many of them devoting a disproportionate amount of time, money and effort to attempts to delegitimize the Jewish state and to condemn its every action. Chief among the culprits has been UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), which endorsed the infamous 1975 “Zionism is racism” resolution by the UN General Assembly on the anniversary of Kristallnacht and has since been a veritable playground for international Israel-bashers. The United States and Israel stopped paying dues to the agency in 2011 when it admitted “Palestine” as a full voting member although it is not a UN member state.

But, perhaps in an effort to win back American support, UNESCO agreed to host an exhibit on the Jews and their ancient homeland at its Paris headquarters. But all it took was a single letter of protest from the Arab members of the agency to get UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova to cancel the exhibit created by the Simon Wiesenthal Center on the grounds that it might harm the Middle East peace process. This is an outrageous insult to Jews everywhere since it treats the ties between the Jewish people and the land of Israel as a matter of debate rather than historical fact. As the author of the exhibit, historian Robert Wistrich has said, coming from an organization devoted to Holocaust commemoration, the decision once again illustrates that the UN “loves dead Jews” but regards the existence of live ones, especially in the state of Israel, as something it cannot stomach.

This is no surprise to anyone who follows the UN, but it is interesting to note that in explaining her decision to shelve the exhibit, Bokova used the same excuse cited by the U.S. State Department when it, too, chose not to co-sponsor the exhibit. Only Israel, Canada, and Montenegro were willing to put their names on the display. Though the U.S. has subsequently and rightly condemned Bokova’s decision, the Obama administration’s decision to keep its distance from the exhibit makes its rebuke to UNESCO an example of rank hypocrisy.

The UNESCO decision to avoid anything having to do with the history of the region might make sense if the world body refrained from endorsements of the Palestinian view of events. But this is the same United Nations that holds an annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (expanded now to a “Year of Solidarity” in 2014), an event that is nothing less than an Israel-bashing festival, replete with pseudo-historical displays aimed at walking back the UN’s 1947 decision to create a Jewish state in the then-British Mandate for Palestine alongside an Arab one.

Halting the denial and theft of Jewish history

...What we need to do going forward is to stand up for our rights of self-determination and self-defense and to remind our detractors that the Jews of the Middle East withstood thirteen centuries of abuse under Arab rule, but those days are over.

Michael Lumish..
Jews Down Under..
06 September '13..



The Jewish people in the Middle East are a people under siege.

Aside from the perpetual violence leveled at the Jewish minority in the region, the Jewish people are also subject to the theft of our history. This is a theft that cannot be measured in financial terms. This is a theft that goes to the core of our humanity and our dignity as a people. It seeks, in fact, to eliminate us as a people.

For reasons which I find unfathomable, we are failing to place the Arab-Jewish conflict within the history of the Jews in the Middle East under thirteen centuries of Arab-Muslim persecution. The conflict between the vast Arab-Muslim majority and the tiny Jewish minority needs to be understood in just those terms. The Jews of the Middle East were a subjugated people since Muhammed’s armies marched out of the Saudi peninsula in the 7th century. From that day to this the Jews were considered dhimmis, second and third class citizens under the boot of Arab-Muslim imperialism.

But the Day of the Dhimmi is Done.

When people read about the conflict between the Arabs and the Jews in the Middle East they are, today, generally given the distinct impression that Jewish militarists are oppressing an innocent, “indigenous” Arab minority. Ever since the 6 Day War Israel has been depicted as the “Goliath” to the Palestinian-Arab “David.” Sometimes, in fact, the Jews of the Middle East are even depicted as the “New Nazis” while the local Arabs are depicted as the “New Jews.” For those of us with relatives dead from the Holocaust, such depictions are sadistic and the extent to which they come from the progressive-left, or even progressive-left Jews like David Harris-Gershon, is the extent to which the progressive-left has betrayed its own alleged values.

Sadism toward Jews, of course, is nothing new and it was the theocratic hallmark of Arab rule for thirteen centuries. There is, however, an extreme reluctance within the international Jewish community to discuss this fact, but fact it is. The Long Arab War Against the Jews of the Middle East has gone through many phases.

These include:

Where history is too much of a bother

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
12 April '13..

An obscure 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, should be particularly compelling to Israelis. Its author, the late Neil Postman, made a sound case for his contention that Aldus Huxley’s Brave New World accurately predicted our current lifestyle.

Our judgment is crippled by an overpowering addiction to entertainment and news presentation constitutes merely another showbiz feature. Complexities are conveniently diluted and events of the day are offered as a packaged commodity, almost like the drugs with which the denizens of Huxley’s future medicated themselves into bliss. Shallow stimulation and immediate gratification have replaced thought and remembrance.

Cyber-wizardry only exacerbated these already preexisting inclinations. But unlike Postman, who lamented the decline of logic and knowledge, there are those who actually celebrate the loss. Foremost among them is our own president Shimon Peres, always ever-eager to lead the vanguard of what he promotes as progress.

A few years ago, for example, Peres pontificated thus: “Why is it important to know how many people Napoleon killed? …If you want details, go to the Internet.”

It was no slip of the tongue. His previous pearls of wisdom informed all and sundry that Google had “liberated us from the great effort to remember things… Why remember? The past isn’t so great. It’s full of tragedy and war… Look to the future, forget about the past… Personally, I have very little patience for history. I believe that to imagine is more important than to remember.”

It’s this upbeat hip mindset that indisputably makes Peres so popular, principally in Europe which has very vested interests in not remembering. That’s something we should keep uppermost in mind, especially during these interim days between Holocaust Remembrance Day and Remembrance Day for the fallen in Israel’s still ongoing existential struggle.

The two dates are intrinsically interconnected. The fact that they are only one week apart on our Hebrew calendar epitomizes our tragic Jewish distinctiveness.

We are called upon not to forget but this by no means guarantees a meaningful remembrance. Like all else, memory in our day and age can be devalued and distorted – reduced to crass catchphrases or warped online into fiendish misrepresentation.

The vogue in our brave new world is to cease perceiving the Holocaust and our subsequent Jewish sovereignty through Jewish eyes. The Jewish viewpoint has somehow been tainted. At best it’s scorned as narrow-minded and parochial. More severely, it’s disparaged as inexcusably nationalist if not altogether racist.

Do you think that "Foundation Stone" is a great name for a pub?

Emily Amrousi..
Israel Hayom..
06 July '12..

If the God particle had not been found in Switzerland, it would have been discovered here. Even if it would have taken another generation, the same particle responsible for matter in the universe would not have passed up an opportunity to show up in the original Holy Land, the same land that possesses patents for slogans uttered by biblical prophets. The land of Israel is filled with holiness and God particles. But try to deal with particles that have no public relations representatives.

Take for example the Foundation Stone, a flat stone that lies at the center of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. According to Jewish tradition, it is the holiest place on earth. Even archeologists have no doubt about its precious value. At the time of the Great Temple, the Ark of the Covenant rested upon it and only the High Priest could enter the area on the holiest day of the year. According to both Judaism and Islam, the world was created from that spot. Muslims have maintained the site, which is holy to them as well, for years. They never touch the stone itself except to dust it off once a year and return it to its place.

Last week, images were published showing huge iron scaffolds and construction material covering the stone. The Waqf, the Islamic body with authority over the Temple Mount, is renovating the ceiling of the dome to enhance the structure and emphasize its Arabic design, and has placed metal tools and pales on top of the exposed stone. Workers with shoddy footwear move about the site, and yes, we need to be worried. The Foundation Stone is a powder keg, and ignoring calls for Israel's sovereignty in the area may lead to a dangerous struggle. But in the midst of all the caution, we forgot to cry. For most Israelis, the image of scaffolds at this sensitive and ancient site does not bring on an immediate heart attack. The indifference hurts. Cry, Jews, cry over the holy of holies where even a single God particle did not survive this week.

Who's the 'Occupier'?

Rabbi Aron Hier
American Thinker
21 November '10

How do you bring two opponents to the peace table when their world views are separated by millennia?

In the Palestinian timetable, the Israelites' 3,200 years of history in the land of Israel have mysteriously vanished. According to the Palestinians' worldview, Israel Standard Time commences with the 16th or 19th century. They tell us of an incipient Palestinian nation but make no mention of a much older Jewish-Israeli civilization. And thus, they unilaterally decide when the historical narrative should rightfully begin.

History must start at the beginning. Here is one page from history (1948, Benny Morris) the Palestinians definitely don't want you to see:

The Jewish people was born in the Land of Israel, which it ruled, on and off, for thirteen centuries, between 1200 BCE and the second century CE. The Romans, who conquered and reconquered the land and suppressed successive Jewish revolts in the first and second centuries CE, renamed the land Palaestina ... in an effort to separate the Jews, many of whom they exiled, from their land. Among the Gentiles, the name Palestine stuck. [1]

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Chronology Illustrating The Continued Presence Of Jews In Israel From Roman Rule And Onward

Daled Amos
03 November '10

My Right Word has compiled Chronology of the Jewish Presence In Eretz-Yisrael in the Years of the Exile, spanning the years 63BCE to 1897CE

It is broken up into the following time periods:

Roman Rule, 63 B.C.E. - 313 C.E.
Byzantine Rule, 313 - 640 C.E.
Persian Rule, 614-629 C.E.
Arab Rule, 640 - 1099
Crusader Rule, 1099 - 1291
Mameluke Rule, 1291- 1516
Turkish/Ottoman Rule, 1517 - 1917

Below is an embedded copy of the 10 page chronology--you can also view the chronology in its own window.

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Ha'aretz's Marcus: Golan, "Simply a Lovely Area," Devoid of Jewish History

Tamar Sternthal
CAMERA/Snapshots
11 May '10

In honor of Yom Yerushalayim, a very special video - Jerusalem Day: Reflections by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel

While Op-Ed writers are certainly entitled -- and should -- voice their opinions for or against Israel's relinquishing of the Golan Heights to Syria, they are not entitled to misrepresent history. Ha'aretz's Yoel Marcus did just that in his column today, "Peace with Syria is more urgent," in which he erases thousands of years of Jewish history in the Golan Heights. He writes:

The price tag is clear. It's the Golan Heights. But unlike the places to be discussed in proximity talks and direct negotiations with the Palestinians, the Golan is not a holy site. Neither Abraham our patriarch nor Sarah our matriarch are buried there, and returning it for peace would not involve all those messianic emotions with which the Greater Land of Israel people are imbued. It's simply a lovely area.

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Jewish History Never Ends

Daniel Greenfield
Sultan Knish
27 February '10

We all know the famous Santayana quote, "Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it." But why is it that we are so forgetful that we cannot remember the past, and thus must keep repeating it, over and over again?

Human self-centeredness convinces us of our own specialness and uniqueness, and all too easily fosters the historically fallacious idea that we are living in a unique time and a special age. That we have left behind history with our progress and our achievements, and with our very existence. That we exist now apart from the great roll of human history. And as soon as we become convinced of this idea, the past comes sneaking up on us, dooming us to repeat it.

That is why it is so very dangerous to forget history, to sacrifice the past to our own egotism, to convince ourselves that it doesn't matter anymore. And that is why so many of the Jewish holidays are historical holidays. To observe the Jewish calendar, is to immerse oneself in Jewish history. Its holidays do not simply link the present to the past, they incorporate the past into the present, making them into one great whole.

In the winter, we rise up against an empire and fight for our freedom. In the early spring we are sentenced to death and fight for our lives in the streets of the Persian Empire. We build pyramids for a Pharaoh, feel the lash on our skin and are led out through the Red Sea by the hand of G-d. In the summer our temples fall and we are led into exile. In the fall, we wait out the desert heat of the Exodus in booths as we prepare for our new life. We cannot let go of history, because we are history. It is the history we have carried with us in our calendar, for our holidays and our history are one.

To observe Purim now and hear the Megillah read, is to bear witness to a planned Holocaust that is aborted at the last minute. Someone who comes to sit and hear the Wannsee Conference take place in Persia, 2500 years ago, understands that the Holocaust was not a new development, but a very old one. That is what too many Jews failed to understand in 1939. It is what too many Jews fail to understand in 2010. Because history has never ended. History never ends until it is done.