Israel, Right and Long

Quin Hillyer
American Spectator
03 June '10
Posted before Shabbat

To Will Barrett, the main character in Walker Percy's The Second Coming, it was a perfectly reasonable statement and question: "The historical phenomenon of the Jews cannot be accounted for by historical or sociological theory. Accordingly, they may be said to be in some fashion or other a sign. Wouldn't you agree?"

Their temple was destroyed by the Romans, and their remnants were routed by the Romans at Masada. They were spread to the four winds, persecuted by pagans and Christians and Muslims. Century after century saw pogroms carried out against them. They were preached against, marginalized, disdained, blamed, enslaved, murdered. Yet they endured. They were subjected to Holocaust, yet they endured. Finally given a small sliver of a land, they were attacked from all directions by a confederation of enemies. And attacked again. And attacked again. And, in wave after wave of smaller attacks, attacked yet again and again and again and again and again and again to this day.

And everything was portrayed as their fault. When terrorists killed their athletes, well, the surviving terrorists were mere political prisoners, willingly traded in return for the freeing of a hijacked airliner and given a heroes' welcome when they touched down in Libya as free men. When Hamas fired rockets into Israel and the Israelis retaliated, well, it was the retaliation that was blasted by the United Nations and by feckless spineless bigoted Europeans. When they traded land for an Arafat promise of peace, only to have more war waged on them from the very land they had traded… well, wasn't it obvious that they needed to give up more land still?

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Tell me what your heritage sites are...

Israel Harel
Haaretz
04 March '10

(You'll have to read the full piece to get to the punch line, but it's got punch. Y.)

Everyone expected Benjamin Netanyahu to surprise us once again by distancing himself from the Likud platform, just as he did when he adopted the two-state "vision" in his speech at Bar-Ilan University. But at last month's Herzliya Conference, the prime minister surprised us from a different direction. Israel's existence, he declared, "depends first and foremost ... on our ability to explain the justness of our path and demonstrate our affinity for our land. ... If our feeling of serving a higher purpose dissipates, if our sources of spiritual strength grow weak, then - as Yigal Allon said - our future will also be opaque."

Less than a month after that speech, the cabinet members went to Tel Hai, a foundational site in the pioneering Zionist ethos, and decided during a festive meeting to "rehabilitate and strengthen the infrastructure of our national heritage, which expresses the national heritage of the nation of Israel in its land." In accordance with this decision, two maps will be "branded and rooted" in the public consciousness: "the map of the historical Jewish story" and "the map of the Israeli-Zionist experience."

The map of the "historical story" will include foundational sites such as Al-Kanatir, Dir Aziz, Hamam Midya, El-Umdan, Qeiyafa, Anim and Madras. It will not include - doubtless because they truly are the "historical Jewish story" - the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Rachel's Tomb, Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, Tel Shilo (which was the capital of the ancient Israelite polity for 300 years before it moved to Hebron), Givon, Tel Jericho, the ancient Shema Yisrael mosaic in Jericho, or many other sites located in the heart of the land of the Bible.

Heletz, Beit Haya'aran and the Timna mines are three sites on the second map, that of the "Israeli-Zionist experience." And they, no less than the sites chosen for the map of the "historical Jewish story in the Land of Israel," faithfully reflect the best of the Zionist experience, as chosen by a task force comprising more than 100 people, led by Cabinet Secretary Zvi Hauser. According to the task force's concluding report, the choices were "based on criteria that reflect our vision."

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