The Subtext of the Obama-Israel Dispute

Amy D. Goldstein
American Thinker
17 March '10

President Obama has consistently stated that the Jewish state should not expand the so-called settlements beyond the Green Line even for natural growth. Today is the second day of the Jewish month of Nissan -- in two weeks, the Jewish people will celebrate the holiday of Passover, commemorating the Exodus from Egypt, when God liberated the Israelites from slavery. Pharaoh had tried to end "natural growth" of the Children of Israel by killing all of the Jewish newborn boys, but Moses escaped to become God's vehicle for salvation. Two weeks ago, Jews celebrated Purim, the holiday that commemorates the Jewish people's salvation from Haman's attempts to annihilate them throughout the Persian Empire (today's Iran), by retelling the story of Queen Esther.

Throughout history, non-Jewish leaders have locked Jewish communities into ghettos in an attempt to limit natural growth through hardship and disease. Just seventy-five years ago, Hitler rounded up Jews, ghettoized them, and finally murdered six million of them in Europe in an attempt to destroy the entire people. Just a few days after the eight-day Passover holiday, the Jewish people will remember the Holocaust on Yom Ha-Shoah, a day when all Israeli citizens stand silent in memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Throughout the world, Jewish communities gather to remember, recite the names of those murdered, and light candles in memory of those whose names we still do not know.

Jews are particularly sensitive to attempts to limit their "natural growth" and the area in which they can live. President Obama continues to hit that nerve -- whether it is intentional or not.

Moreover, there is the issue of Jerusalem. For over 3,000 years, Jerusalem has been both the political and spiritual capital of the Jewish people. There has never been another.

(Read full article)
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A Farewell to "natural growth"

Herb Keinon
JPost
19 July 09

(A LESSON TO ISRAEL'S LEADERSHIP: Shimon the Maccabee - who succeeded Judah and Yonatan the Maccabees - responded to an ultimatum by the Syrian/Greek Emperor Antiochus (Book of Maccabees A, Chapter 15, verse 33): "We have not occupied a foreign land; We have not ruled a foreign land; We have liberated the land of our forefathers from foreign occupation." Thus responded Simon the Maccabee to Emperor Antiochus' ultimatum to end "occupation" of Jaffa, Jerusalem, Gezer, Ekron and Gaza.)

Say good-bye to "natural growth" in the settlements.

No, not because Israel has agreed to the very public US demand to freeze all construction in the settlements, including for natural growth. Rather, because Israeli spokespeople are now making a conscious decision to no longer use that term.

Instead, they are preferring a more neutral-sounding phrase about construction that will allow for "normal life" in the settlements.

The term "natural growth" has been overused in the last few months, and - according to Israeli officials - brings with it a negative connotation of Israel trying to pull the wool over the world's eyes when it comes to the settlements.

Just as the term "Eretz Yisrael" does not just mean the "land of Israel," but is associated with a greater concept and has a deeper meaning than just those two words would suggest, so too - according to the officials - does the term "natural growth" bring to the listener a largely negative concept of Israel playing semantic tricks to increase the settlement population.

It's a loaded term, the officials said, and one loaded with negative connotations.

But, the officials said, construction in the settlements to enable a continuation of "normal life" is void of the negative associations, and simply sounds better.

Also, if Israel eventually agrees to a freeze except for "natural growth," then if anyone moved to a home in a settlement who was not a returning son or daughter, or was not born there, then Israel could be accused of lying, since this type of movement is migration, not natural growth.

However, "normal life" would seem to allow for the occasional family moving across the Green Line, because what is normal life if not some people moving in, and others moving out?

Although no official directive has been given to Israel's spokesman to refrain from using the term "natural growth," it is understood by key spokespeople that "normal life" is now the preferred term. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, sources in his office have pointed out, has refrained from using the term "natural growth" since taking office in late March.

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