In 19th century Algeria, no worse insult than to call someone a Jew

Here's another in a never-ending series showing how Arabs and Muslims are lying when they say how wonderfully they got along with Jews in their countries.

This is from the 1890  book Winters In Algeria, by F.A. Bridgman:

The hatred which exists between Arab and Jew is very marked, and "Youdi" (damned Jew) is a term that he reserves for one of that race, and uses also when he wishes to exhaust, in one ejaculation, his vocabulary of curses against a member of his own persuasion.

There was one other interesting section:

 The origin of the Arab's hatred to the Jews was a legend which he told with religious conviction. Mohammed the prophet owned a large park filled with gazelles; the favorite of these animals had horns and hoofs of pure gold, which attracted one day the eyes of a Jew. He gave chase, and running the gazelle down secured the precious metal. 

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Rashida Tlaib isn't the first to claim Israel exists because of the Holocaust (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

In his post Top Democrats’ defense of Rashida Tlaib’s Holocaust inversion and revisionism is unforgivable, Prof. William Jacobson succinctly sums up on Legal Insurrection the inversion and revisionism of Rashida Tlaib's latest claims:

Tlaib statement contains two themes: First, the Palestinians are the true victims of the Holocaust because it forced the Jewish survivors on them causing loss of land, property and lives; and Two, Palestinians helped create a safe haven for the Jews at much personal and national sacrifice.

Prof. Jacobson points out that Tlaib's first claim is an inversion because it neglects the fact that 6 million Jews were murdered, with Jewish communities throughout Europe being wiped out, yet Tlaib claims it is the Palestinians, who supported the Nazis, who are supposed to be the victims.

Tlaib's second claim is straight out false, trying to erase the history of the Arabs of the British Mandate who boycotted, slaughtered and discriminated against the Jews, doing everything in their power to prevent Jews from finding a safe haven.

But Tlaib is not the first US politician to distort the history of the Holocaust and its connection with the re-establishment of Israel.

And how one sees Israel is affected by how one understands her history.

Barack Obama

On May 12, 2008 in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, presidential candidate Obama explained why he thought the Jewish claim to Israel was just:

Jeff Goldberg: Do you think that justice is still on Israel’s side?

Obama: I think that the idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea, given not only world history but the active existence of anti-Semitism, the potential vulnerability that the Jewish people could still experience. I know that that there are those who would argue that in some ways America has become a safe refuge for the Jewish people, but if you’ve gone through the Holocaust, then that does not offer the same sense of confidence and security as the idea that the Jewish people can take care of themselves no matter what happens. That makes it a fundamentally just idea. [emphasis added]

Obama. Official White House Photo
by Pete Souza. Public Domain

With these words, Obama reduced over three thousand years of Jewish history, and indigenous Jewish ties to the land, to an issue of refuge from antisemitism after the Holocaust.

But what happens if you ignore those ties and that history and instead see Israel as nothing more than a piece of land intended to serve as a safe refuge?

Land can then be cavalierly, arbitrarily and ultimately surgically removed and taken away -- with assurances and guarantees for the safety and security of Israel.

A year later, on June 4, 2009, President Obama made his famous trip to Cairo, and during his speech, he said:

America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied. [emphasis added]

Obama reiterates to the Arab world that the Holocaust is the justification for Israel's existence.
Not Jewish history
Not Jewish indigenous ties
Not Jewish culture, literature and language

However, it seems somebody finally clued Obama in, to the fact that Jews living in Israel is not a modern phenomenon that started after the Holocaust.

In his remarks to the UN General Assembly on September 23, 2010, Obama said:

Israel is a sovereign state, and the historic homeland of the Jewish people. It should be clear to all that efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States. And efforts to threaten or kill Israelis will do nothing to help the Palestinian people. The slaughter of innocent Israelis is not resistance -- it’s injustice. And make no mistake: The courage of a man like President Abbas, who stands up for his people in front of the world under very difficult circumstances, is far greater than those who fire rockets at innocent women and children.[emphasis added]

Aside from his warning about delegitimizing Israel, Obama's remarks are a vast improvement on his previous remarks about the history of Jews and Israel.

Not that this new formulation signaled any change in actual US policy. The key to peace continued to be framed as a question of land. Throughout his 2 terms in office, Obama continued to pressure Israel to make unilateral concessions. He and Kerry pushed the idea of a 2 state solution based on the green line with minimal land exchanges. At the end of his term, he left Israel with a goodbye present in the form of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, on which the US abstained, that Israeli settlements were a "flagrant violation" of international law that had "no legal validity".

Jeremy Corbyn

Corbyn is similar to Obama in his narrow, short-sighted view of Jewish history in Israel, but manages to be even more removed from reality:

I was brought up at school being told, um, that Israel was founded on a piece of empty space, and that they managed to make the desert bloom, and they built things when there was nothing there before. Anybody that studies the history of the region would know, at the end of the Second World War – 1945 to 1948 period – Palestine had media, had industry, had education, had universities, had a relatively high standard of living for the whole region, and was a coherent society and a coherent state. It was a denigration of that which enabled Western opinion to be, um, put together in support of Israel. [emphasis added]

Jeremy Corbyn. YouTube screengrab

Elder of Ziyon points out the enormity of Corbyn's distorted claim:

Palestine on the eve of Israel's independence was effectively a state, all right - a Jewish state. It was Jewish money, Jewish creativity, Jewish brains and Jewish sweat that built nearly all the institutions of Palestine that Corbyn is praising here.

Putting aside the ancient history of Israel, which Corbyn does not even refer to,  he believes that the modern history of Israel begins after World War II, making the infrastructure and everything that went into developing the land into the product and work of the Arabs.

It is not clear that Corbyn is even aware of an issue of refuge from the Holocaust. Corbyn ignores everything Jewish about the land and describes the Jews as not only foreigners, but as interlopers who did nothing to develop the land.

This twisted view informs everything he says about Israel and intends to do if and when he has the chance.

Joe Biden

It may not be clear if Biden, who now leads in polls in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, sees Israel the same way as Obama and Corbyn, but as a Senator, Biden did make the mistake of forgetting that Israel has the self-reliance and pride that comes with a 3,000-year old connection to the land. We will likely be reminded over the next year and a half about this story of the confrontation between Biden and Menachem Begin:

When hearing the name Biden, we always think of the famous exchange between Biden and Prime Minister Begin. As Moshe Zak recounted in a March 13, 1992, piece in the Jerusalem Post:

In a conversation with Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, after a sharp confrontation in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the subject of the settlements, Begin defined himself as "a proud Jew who does not tremble with fear" when speaking with foreign statesmen.

During that committee hearing, at the height of the Lebanon War, Sen. John Biden (Delaware) had attacked Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria and threatened that if Israel did not immediately cease this activity, the US would have to cut economic aid to Israel.

When the senator raised his voice and banged twice on the table with his fist, Begin commented to him: "This desk is designed for writing, not for fists. Don't threaten us with slashing aid. Do you think that because the US lends us money it is entitled to impose on us what we must do? We are grateful for the assistance we have received, but we are not to be threatened. I am a proud Jew. Three thousand years of culture are behind me, and you will not frighten me with threats. Take note: we do not want a single soldier of yours to die for us."

After the meeting, Sen. Moynihan approached Begin and praised him for his cutting reply. To which Begin answered with thanks, defining his stand against threats.

Joe Biden. Public Domain

It should be noted that My Right Word has the source for this, with a link to the official record of Israel's Foreign Ministry and quotes from two articles in The New York Times that confirm what happened.

Albert Einstein

Describing Israel as a refuge does not, in and of itself, denigrate the country or its ties between the Jewish State and the Jewish People.

In 1955, Albert Einstein was scheduled to make a televised address on behalf of Israel on Yom Ha'atzmaut. Unfortunately, he died 8 days before he was able to make that address. However, a rough draft of the speech exists.

In it, he starts off:

This is the seventh anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel.

The establishment of this State was internationally approved and recognised largely for the purpose of rescuing the remnant of the Jewish people from unspeakable horrors of persecution and oppression.” [emphasis added]

Einstein too, as a survivor of WWII, saw the re-establishment of the state of Israel as a bulwark against antisemitism and the Jew-hatred he had seen -- though he also recognized that "another purpose was to provide conditions in which the spiritual and cultural life of a Hebrew society could find free expression."

His overriding concern for the safety of Jews led him to consider it "a bitter paradox to find that a State which was destined to be a shelter for a martyred people is itself threatened by grave dangers to its own security."

But there is more to Einstein's connection to Israel and Zionism than the issue of security.

Ten years ago, Adam Kirsch wrote an article explaining how Einstein was Relatively Speaking, A Zionist

Albert Einstein with Zionist leaders Ben-Zion Mossinson, Chaim Weizmann, and Menachem Ussishkin, arriving in New York in 1921. (Library of Congress, Bain Collection)

Einstein was opposed to the creation of a Jewish state.

First of all, he feared that a breakout of war between the Jews in then-Palestine and the Arabs would lead to a second holocaust.

More than that, Einstein was opposed to the idea of a Jewish state in and of itself because of what a state embodied.

Kirsch writes that on the one hand, Einstein wrote in 1927 that

the importance of all this Zionist work lies in precisely the effect that it will have on those Jews who will not themselves live in Palestine...the Jews will acquire that happiness in feeling themselves at ease, that sense of being self-sufficient, which a common ideal cannot fail to evoke...I believe that the existence of a Jewish cultural center will strengthen the moral and political position of the Jews all over the world, by virtue of the very fact that there will be in existence a kind of embodiment of the interests of the whole Jewish people.

Einstein focused on the purely secular ideal of self-sufficiency and peace of mind. He saw the benefit of "a Jewish cultural center," but as a boost for the position of Jews in the world.

He saw the benefit to Jews but not to the Jewish People as a Nation -- he supported the goal of boosting individual Jewish identity as opposed to creating a Jewish state.

Kirsch suggests that Einstein's view came from a German-Jewish intellectual commitment to the idea of universalism as a response to antisemitism. Einstein knew little of Judaism, but saw in it an expression of "liberal Jewish values."

He quotes from a piece Einstein published in Collier's in 1938 where he wrote:

The bond that has united the Jews for thousands of years and that unites them today is, above all, the democratic ideal of social justice, coupled with the ideal of mutual aid and tolerance among all men. 

Einstein's view of Jews and cultural Zionism led him to make in 1938, just 10 days before Kristallnacht the unknowingly ironic statement that:

We are a minority everywhere and have no violent means of defense at our disposal to protect our community against our numerous enemies and opponents—fortunately. [emphasis added]

He saw politics and nationalism as the problem and not as a solution, and on that basis was opposed to the idea of a Jewish State.

Thus in 1946, in testimony before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, Einstein suggested that the cause of tension was not any actual antagonism between Jews and Arabs, but rather should be blamed instead on British policy -- and if the British would abandon the Mandate, the problem would resolve itself.

Similarly, regarding Jews in European DP camps who were denied access to then-Palestine because of British policy, Einstein was asked: “What would you do if the Arabs refused to consent to bringing these refugees to Palestine?” He actually responded: "That would never be the case if there were no politics."

Einstein saw politics, nationalism -- and the power that comes with it -- as the problem. And the Holocaust did nothing to change his opinion. It reinforced it.

Kirsch concludes about Einstein that "his reservations about Israel were voiced from the standpoint of his unquestionable commitment to Zionism."

Einstein's opposition to a Jewish State does not change that.

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But that key component, the recognition of the indigenous connection of Jews with Israel -- a connection whose recognition just 100 years ago made the Balfour Declaration and subsequent events possible -- that recognition is fading and can no longer be taken for granted.

The fact that members of Congress like Tlaib and Omar can get away with anti-Jewish and anti-Israel statements with impunity is a sign of the dangerous times we now live in when bipartisan support for Israel is becoming a thing of the past right before our eyes.

It is a dangerous time for both Jews and for Israel, regardless of the pro-Israel policies of the current president.

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The Women's March Is Not The First To Be Hurt By Its Association With Farrakhan (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

It's common to think that Farrakhan's poisonous antisemitic rhetoric carries no consequences with it.

o  There are no condemnations from African American leaders.
o  Politicians show no reluctance to appear with him
o  Community leaders in general do not condemn his Anti-Jewish attacks
o  Farrakhan is a popular leader among African Americans

That is why the backlash against Women's March is so surprising.

Apart from the antisemitism of the Women's March leadership itself, as documented by Tablet Magazine and The New York Times, their ties to Louis Farrakhan and their refusal to condemn his ongoing antisemitic attacks have been a stain on that movement.

But historically, the Women's March is not alone in bearing the consequences of the albatross that is Louis Farrakhan.

Edwin Black, the author of "IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation," wrote a background article in 1986 about Louis Farrakhan.

Black reveals Farrakhan's plan in the 1980's for a project known as POWER, People Organized and Working for Economic Rebirth, which included a plan for selling toiletries and personal products to African Americans:

Black toiletry manufacturers would be subcontracted for production. POWER consumers would commit to a minimum monthly purchase of $20, ordering via an 800 telephone number. Merchandise would be delivered from POWER directly to the consumer's door. Distributors and retailers would be eliminated, doubling POWER's sales income. By this brilliant strategy—combining the best capitalistic experience of Avon, Proctor & Gamble, Fuller Brush, and the Book-of-the-Month Club—the Nation of Islam would make money every time a black customer gargled or went to the bathroom.

POWER had the potential to be the biggest African American enterprise in the country, capable of sales of over $150 million within its first 5 years and $1 billion within its first 10 years.

The Nation of Islam sought support in Chicago of Johnson Products, which manufactured cosmetics and household products. Farrakhan suggested raising the necessary capital to start production by selling tapes of his speeches at $10 each at various rallies he would hold around the country, with the expectations of drawing 6,000-10,000 people at each rally, in order to raise the necessary millions.

So in 1985, Farrakhan launched a well-publicized speaking tour, starting in Detroit on January 19. But between cold weather and technical difficulties, sales were less than expected.

That is when Farrakhan turned elsewhere for the help raising the money: Muammar Khaddafi.

This is the same Khaddafi who, in 1975, gave NOI leader Elijah Muhammad a $3 million interest-free loan to build a national mosque. Now, on February 24, 1985, Khaddafi had a special address beamed by satellite to a Chicago meeting hall as the climax to the Nation of Islam's annual "Savior's Day" convention. The Libyan leader, who financed terrorist groups around the world, did what came naturally. On a large TV screen, Khaddafi

called upon American black servicemen to desert from the military and engage in wide-spread sabotage and rebellion with weapons he would provide.

A few days later, Farrakhan held a Washington press conference, where he formally renounced the offer of weapons. As Farrakhan put it, the offer "was appreciated but unacceptable unless [Khaddafi] wanted to offer monetary weapons to get the proposed program off the ground."

In the end, Farrakhan got a $5 million interest-free loan from Khaddafi. Khaddafi, of course, was not Farrakhan's only favorite Arab despot. During a 1985 tour of the Middle East:

o He visited Syria, where he had visited earlier with Jesse Jackson to win the release of downed pilot Robert Goodman
o In the UAE, Farrakhan met with Dr. Ibrahim Ezzadine, an adviser to the leading Emirate sheikhs
o He visited Saudi Arabia, where he located and spoke with Idi Amin, who he claimed was a great man
o In Sudan, he met with Omar al-Bashir who had recently come to power as a result of a coup and would later be accused of war crimes

So his attacks on Jews helped Farrakhan cement his friendship with Arab despots, as well as energize his base.

In fact, when he returned home, Farrakhan's attacks increased, targeting the US, Christians and Jews which had the effect of increasing the size of his audiences among Black Americans even further.

And that is when the problems started:

It was one thing to enter a pro-black business venture. It was quite another to participate in an enterprise conceived and advertised as anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-white, and anti-Semitic.

Eventually, word got out about Khaddafi's involvement in the POWER project and that Johnson Products was involved, tying the company with an Arab despot who was an enemy of the US.

And Farrakhan just kept digging:

Farrakhan began publicly mentioning Johnson as a courageous black manufacturer willing to stand up to white society and the Jews. The Minister even asked blacks to increase their purchases of Ultra Sheen as a gesture of thanks. Johnson's Jewish business associates were shocked at his involvement, and soon the heat was on.

Farrakhan's antisemitic statements combined with pressure from Jews who helped Johnson start his business and invested in it forced him to call Farrakhan and tell him that his company could not be associated with Farrakhan in any way. Farrakhan took the news badly and insisted Johnson was backing out because Jews wanted POWER to fail because it would do something to help black people.

At a rally at Madison Square Garden a little later, Farrakhan publicly lashed out at Jews, whom he accused of being "bloodsuckers of the poor." Soon after, George Johnson issued a formal written statement disassociating himself from Farrakhan and POWER. He gave Farrakhan's antisemitism as the main reason.

The problem didn't stop there.

Farrakhan's connection with Khaddafi became a headache for the small black-owned Independence Bank in Chicago, where Farrakhan deposited the $5 million he received from him. Black notes in his article that Khaddafi's $5 million, provided $50,000 in annual profit, about 5% of the bank's total. At the time of the article, the bank had canceled the lock-box service for contributions to POWER and from tape purchases. A bank source indicated that in any case, very few checks had come in since the bank had terminated the service -- and it was considering further measures.

Black points out that Farrakhan mixed his personal politics with the product line that formed the basis of POWER, undermining the project.

Farrakhan's friends in the Women's March leadership seem to be doing the same. Phyllis Chesler, a feminist leader starting in the 1960's, writes "The Women’s March is a Con Job":

Most concerning, though, is that the Women’s March leadership appears to have no particular interest in the independent women’s liberation movements. I have read their literature extensively and all I can find are issues, which, however worthy they may be, are not, strictly speaking, feminist issues. The Women’s March addresses things like “immigration reform” and “police violence against black men.” They say they are “anti-racists,” more than they are “anti-sexists.” And they prioritize “queer and transgender” politics, but never plain old garden variety women’s issues.

Women’s issues — even those that are impacted by race, class, religion, and ethnicity — are still woman-specific: sexual harassment on the job; rape; incest; domestic violence; economic, social, and legal discrimination; and of course reproductive rights, including access to birth control, abortion, and prenatal care.

...Sex trafficking? Child marriage? FGM? Forced face veiling? Honor Killing? None of these issues are being addressed by the American Women’s March leadership.

What is going on?

Back in 1985, Farrakhan made his product line for POWER secondary to his politics and the rhetoric of hate that he is dependent on to energize his base. The leadership of Women's March, with its admitted admiration for Farrakhan, has sublimated women's issues to their own politics.

Both are strident in their anti-Jewish and anti-Israel rhetoric.

In the end, a project that had the potential to benefit the black community fell apart.
Whether the same fate will befall The Women's March remains to be seen.

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There Was A Time When Leaders Did Denounce Farrakhan's Nation of Islam -- 25 Years Ago (Daled Amos)

"Those who call me a bigot, a hater, an anti-Semite, I want you to listen to me real carefully. If anything like that comes out of my mouth I want you raise your hand and stop me."
Louis Farrakhan, October 8, 1985

Louis Farrakhan seems to have been in the news fairly often as of late -- not only for what he is saying but for what others associated with him have not been saying.

Louis Farrakhan. Screenshot of Youtube video

Seems like the antisemitism that comes out of his mouth doesn't get a reaction.
Social media platforms don't condemn it.
Politicians don't condemn it.
Black leaders don't condemn it
And of course, the leaders of Women's March don't condemn it either.

But there was a time when racist comments coming out of The Nation of Islam did draw condemnation.

In spades.

It's just that you have to go back 25 years in order to find it.

On November 29, 1993, Farrakhan's top aide, Khalid Abdul Muhammad, gave a speech at New Jersey's Kean College to about 150 students. At the time Muhammad held the positions of both minister and "national assistant" in The Nation of Islam.

And he had a mouth like Farrakhan himself.

Here is a small sample of what Khalid Abdul Muhammad said that day:

Brothers and sisters--the so-called Jew, and I must say so-called Jew, because you're not the true Jew. You are Johnny-come-lately-Jew, who just crawled out of the caves and hills of Europe just a little over 4,000 years ago. You're not from the original people. You are a European strain of people who crawled around on all fours in the caves and hills of Europe eating Juniper roots and eating each other. Who are the slumlords in the black community? The so-called Jew who is sucking our blood in the black community. A white imposter Arab and a white imposter Jew, right in the black community, sucking our blood on a daily and consistent basis. They sell us pork and they don't even eat it themselves. A meat case full of rotten pork meat, and the imposter Arab and the imposter white Jew, neither of them eat it themselves. A wall full of liquor keeping our people drunk and out of their head, and filled with the swill of the swine, affecting their minds. They're the bloodsuckers of the black nation and the black community. Professor Griff was right when he spoke here--and when he spoke in the general vicinity of Jersey and New York, and when he spoke at Columbia Jew-niversity over in Jew York City. He was right.

Khalid Abdul Muhammad. Screengrab from Youtube video

The black leadership reacted strongly.

o  Benjamin Chavis Jr., executive director of the NAACP: "I am appalled that any human being would stoop so low to make such violence-prone anti-Semitic statements." 

o  William Gray III, president of the United Negro College Fund, deplored the "tragic and anti-Semitic comments at Kean College” and said anti-Semitism cannot be "justified as a response to repression." 

o  Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) condemned the speech 

o  Al Sharpton condemned it too 

o  Jesse Jackson made a point of calling The New York Times to condemn the speech as "racist, anti-Semitic, divisive, untrue and chilling...The madness of the speech is not in the tradition of our civil rights movement." 

o  Representative Kweisi Mfume, the Maryland Democrat who led the Congressional Black Caucus, stated that no alliance could exist between the caucus and Farrakhan's group as long as blacks in Congress had doubts about Mr. Farrakhan's tolerance toward Jews, Catholics and other groups

Even Farrakhan himself issued his own condemnation -- of sorts. But while he condemned the way the speech was given, he defended what he claimed were the "truths" it contained:

"I found the speech, after listening to it in context, vile in manner, repugnant, malicious, mean-spirited and spoken in mockery of individuals and people, which is against the spirit of Islam. While I stand by the truths that he spoke, I must condemn in the strongest terms the manner in which those truths were represented."

Farrakhan went on the attack, framing the criticism as an attack and practically called the Black leaders who participated in the criticism traitors:

And in a clear rebuff of the calls to distance himself from the Kean College speech, Farrakhan reportedly said people were using Muhammad’s words against him to “divide the house,” and that Farrakhan’s enemies “want to use some of our brothers, and some of our brothers are willing to be used” to curry favor.

He also made a point of singling out the ADL as an enemy of blacks, a tactic that has been picked up by Sarsour. Farrakhan announced

"I therefore, am calling on the Black Caucus, the N.A.A.C.P., Reverend Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition, black churches, and black leaders to review their relationship with the A.D.L. in view of its wickedness against our people."

Nevertheless, Farrakhan did demote Muhammad, who later left the group.

Reaction to Khalid Muhammad was so strong that even Congress took action.

On February 23, 1994, Congress voted on Resolution 343, "Expressing the sense of Congress on the senior representative of the Nation of Islam":

Whereas the United States House of Representatives strongly oppose racism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and all forms of ethnic or religious intolerance; 

Whereas the racist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Semitic speech given by Kahlid Abdul Muhammad of the Nation of Islam at Kean College on November 29, 1993, incites divisiveness and violence on the basis of race, religion, and ethnicity; and 

Whereas Mr. Muhummad specifically justifies the slaughter of Jews during the Holocaust as fully deserved; disparages the Pope in the most revolting personal terms; and calls for the assassination of every white infant, child, man, and woman in
South Africa: 

Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives
(1) condemns the speech given by Kahlid Abdul Muhammad as outrageous hatemongering of the most vicious and vile kind; 

and 

(2) condemns all manifestations and expressions of racism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and ethnic or religious intolerance.

While it may be reassuring to see that there was a time when leaders were more interested in calling out the Antisemitism of The Nation of Islam than in forming alliances with the group, the fact remains that as the leader of The Nation of Islam, Farrakhan faced minimal backlash back then -- even as he resorted to antisemitic remarks to attack his critics.

And that is unlikely to change.

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There Have Been Historical Links Between The Nation of Islam And White Supremacists (Daled Amos)

"All of this isn’t to say that hate speech doesn’t matter. It does. But white supremacists are not joining the Nation of Islam, not now nor ever."
"Deciding Who We Throw Away," Cassady Fendlay, Communications Strategist, Writer, and Editor

Actress Alyssa Milano made a welcome point when she criticized the Women’s March leaders for not condemning the Antisemitism of Louis Farrakhan. Findlay's evasion of the issue took the form of a personal attack on Milano and anyone associating with her:

Alyssa Milano and all the white women lined up behind her are actually enforcing the power of white supremacy through their misguided attempt to challenge hate speech.

But what is interesting is Fendlay's apparent ignorance of the history of the Nation of Islam and how it has affiliated with white supremacists over the years.

According to an article in the Pittsburgh Courier:

Malcolm X admitted publicly that he met with the heads of the Ku Klux Klan [in 1960] to negotiate a land deal for Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm said, “They had some very responsible persons in the government who were involved in it and who were willing to go along with it. They wanted to make this land available to him so that his program of separation would sound more feasible to Negroes and therefore lessen the pressure that the integrationists were putting upon the White man. I sat there. I negotiated it. I listened to their offer. And I was the one who went back to Chicago and told Elijah Muhammad what they had offered.”

The following year, on June 25, 1961, ten members of the American Nazi Party, including their leader, George Lincoln Rockwell, arrived at a Nation of Islam rally in Washington, DC. The Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad was supposed to be the keynote speaker but ended up canceling because of illness.

Instead, Malcolm X spoke, and afterwards led an appeal for donations. Rockwell contributed $20, for which Malcolm X thanked him:



Rockwell spoke too:

You know that we call you niggers. But wouldn't you rather be confronted by honest white men who tell you to your face what the others all say behind your back? Can you really gain anything dealing with a bunch of cowardly white sneaks? The yellow-liberals who tell you they love you, privately excluded you every way they know how. I am not afraid to stand here and tell you I hate race-mixing and I will fight it to the death. But at the same time, I will do everything in my power to help the Honorable Elijah Muhammed carry out his inspired plan for land of your own in Africa. Elijah Muhammed is right -- separation or death! [p.30, footnote 86]

In addition to Elijah Muhammed and Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan has also found White Separatists useful.

The New York Times reported in October 1985 of Farrakhan and a former head of the KKK working together:

The former head of the Ku Klux Klan in California said today that he headed a ''white nationalist'' delegation that attended a speech here last month by Louis Farrakhan, leader of a Black Muslim group, and that talks between the black and white groups have been going on for a year.

The former Klan leader, Thomas Metzger of San Diego, said that he and nine members of his organization attended the Farrakhan rally here Sept. 14 as guests of Mr. Farrakhan and that they contributed $100 to support the Muslim's cause.

At the time, Metzger described himself as the head of the White People's Political Association, which he described as a ''white nationalist'' organization.

Last year, in 2017, the ADL noted a meeting of the minds between the alt-right and the Nation of Islam. A tweet by Farrakhan in favor of creating their own nation met with approval from the alt-right, not only from white supremacist Richard Spencer and Neo-Nazi Mike Enoch, but also from white supremacist Jared Taylor’s American Renaissance:

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Farrakhan responded in turn. Though stopping short of accepting dialogue, he did not repudiate these white supremacists either. Instead, he referred to them as "white people of intelligence":

“Do you know white people of intelligence feel the same way? Somebody told me that the alt-right, Mr. Trump’s people, had a tweet or something – we kinda like what Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam is saying, we with them to separate in a land of their own. I said: very good, alt-right, ya’ll want to talk about it? Talking has been done, nothing to talk about because now it’s either separation or death.”

And why should Farrakhan repudiate them?

After all, they are unified in their hatred of Jews.

But why work together?

In his article in Vice magazine, Sam McPheeters suggests what the Nation of Islam and Rockwell's American Nazi Party saw in each other:

Rockwell and Muhammad saw each other as authentic, as people willing to speak the truth—their versions of it—no matter the cost. Their marketing to their constituencies depended on this image, and each man drew legitimacy from the appearance of being a straight shooter. Rockwell's existence was useful to the NOI as a recruiting tool, his physical presence a testament to Muhammad's own authenticity.

Following the success of Martin Luther King using non-violence, Rockwell doubled down on his hate while Malcolm X softened his tone.

And as for Farrakhan and his connection with Metzger on the one hand and his refusal to condemn the white supremacists who offer dialogue on the other, maybe Elijah Muhammed understood Farrakhan best:

"We cannot ignore him," Mr. Muhammad said, adding that he feared that undue attention could fuel Mr. Farrakhan's movement because "it is not only the media that have to live off sensationalism."

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Do you know how to defend Israel from the lies? (Daled Amos)

If your child came home from college and said she was challenged by a classmate who claimed that Palestine is Arab land stolen by the Jews, could you provide her with a response?

That is the question Douglas Feith asks in the article he recently wrote for Tablet Magazine. Based on a speech he gave to the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, Feith offers a helping hand to his fellow Jews - who really should not be having such a tough time arguing for the Jewish right to Israel:

The campaign to delegitimate Israel has been scoring successes. The efforts to counter that campaign have often proven inept. That too I find astonishing.

In the arena of argumentation, the Jews are practiced, having continuously honed their debating skills since Abraham questioned God about Sodom. They should be formidable in explaining why Israel is not colonialist and refuting other calumnies. Yet they’re often beaten into retreat by anti-Zionist polemicists. There’s no excuse for it.

He then goes on to outline a response.

What he writes is not new, but still bears repeating --

o  During the 400 years leading to World War I, Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire -- was owned by the Turks, not by the Arabs living in Palestine.
o  There was never a country called Palestine.
o  Palestine was never ruled by its own Arab inhabitants.
o  Therefore, it is not accurate to say that Palestine was a country, or that it was Arab land.
o  And neither the Jews nor the British stole it from the Arabs.
o  The original Zionists who came to live in then-Palestine did not come as colonists, nor with the backing of an imperialist or colonialist power. Jews bought the land on which they settled.

Rabbi Moses Porush (c.) and Arab Landowner holding deed for a large tract of land
that Rabbi Moses Porush and Rabbi Joseph Levi Hagiz purchased from the Arab.
Credit: Wikipedia. Public Domain

Feith does give context to the situation during WWI that is generally overlooked.

The British invasion of Palestine in World War I was precipitated by the Ottoman Turks, who joined Germany and attacked the Allied forces. When the British war cabinet approved the Balfour Declaration on October 31, 1917, -- it was already more than 3 years into World War I.

And the war was not going well for the Allies.

It was one of those rare occasions when the exaggerated belief in Jewish power and influence actually worked to the benefit of the Jews. The British saw an opportunity to gain support in Russia and the US.

As for Palestine itself,

colonialism didn’t bring Britain to Palestine. Britain didn’t seize Palestine from an unoffending native population. It conquered the land not from the Arabs, but from Turkey, which (as noted) had joined Britain’s enemies in the war. The Arabs in Palestine fought for Turkey against Britain. The land was enemy territory. [emphasis added]

The British view of Palestine, and of the Arabs living there, was taken in the context of the area as a whole. Palestine was just a small part of a huge region the British forces conquered from the Turks -- and even though most Arabs had fought for the Turks, the Allies were ready to set the Arabs on the path to independence and national self-determination. However, the small piece of land that was the "Holy Land" had a unique status, of special interest to Christians and Jews around the world.

And the Arabs already living in Palestine?

The idea that a small segment of the Arab people – the Palestinian Arabs – would someday live in a Jewish-majority country was not thought of as a unique problem. There were similar issues in Europe. After World War I, new nations were created or revived: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Hungary, for example. Inevitably, some people would have to live as a minority in neighboring states. Seven hundred thousand Hungarians would become a minority in Czechoslovakia, almost 400,000 in Yugoslavia and 1.4 million in Romania. Where they were a minority, they would have individual rights, but not collective rights. That is, ethnic Hungarians would not have national rights of self-determination in Romania, but only in Hungary.

The principle applicable to European minorities applied also to the Arabs of Palestine. In any given country, only one people can be the majority, so only one can enjoy national self-determination there. The Arab people would eventually rule themselves in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Arabia. They were going to end up in control of virtually all the land they claimed for themselves. They naturally wanted to be the majority everywhere. But then, the Jews could be the majority nowhere. The victorious Allies did not consider that just.

The British were actually taken by surprise by the accusation that they were being unjust to the Arabs, especially considering the actual history of Palestine, what the British had sacrificed for the liberation of the Middle East from Ottoman control and the fact that the Arabs fought on the side of the enemy.

Feith quotes from a speech Balfour gave in 1922 on the issue:

“Of all the charges made against this country,” he said, that “seems to me the strangest.” It was, he recalled, “through the expenditure largely of British blood, by the exercise of British skill and valour, by the conduct of British generals, by troops brought from all parts of the British Empire . . . that the freeing of the Arab race from Turkish rule has been effected.” He went on, “That we . . . who have just established a King in Mesopotamia, who had before that established an Arab King in the Hejaz, and who have done more than has been done for centuries past to put the Arab race in the position to which they have attained—that we should be charged with being their enemies, with having taken a mean advantage of the course of international negotiations, seems to me not only most unjust to the policy of this country, but almost fantastic in its extravagance.”

Arthur Balfour. Source: Wikipedia. Public Domain

This is all part of the Zionist history that Feith believes Jews need to know in order to respond to the claim that the British stole Palestine and just gave it away to the Jews.

The problem, of course, is that the "other side" is not arguing from facts, nor are they appealing to logic. Just look around. On social media, people do not make logical arguments and they have no interest in history -- facts just make their eyes glaze over. Meanwhile, on college campuses, Jews are not being engaged in debate, they are being harassed by groups who want to eliminate debate and the free speech of their victims while isolating them.

Yes, we do need to know about our history and our birthright.
But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that Israel is the subject of a debate.

Israel is the target of an attack.
And we are still on the defensive.

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Hebron - The Land of the Hebrews (Daled Amos)

ArtScroll is not generally considered to be a Zionist publisher.

They are known for their English translations of Jewish classic texts into English.
Their editions of siddurim are used all over.
The ArtScroll edition of the Talmud is indispensable.

But while their love of the people of Israel and the Land of Israel is clear, no one would consider ArtScroll to be in the forefront of Israel hasbara.

So it is striking how their Stone edition of the Chumash handles the verse in Genesis 40:15. After Joseph explains to Pharaoh's butler the meaning of his dream and asks the butler to mention him to Pharaoh, Joseph says:

For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews: and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon. [King James Version]

The ArtScroll Chumash explains what "land of the Hebrews" Joseph is referring to and why:

Not only is Joseph a "Hebrew" -- more than that, quoting the Ramban, Joseph comes from a territory, Hebron, where his family and his forefathers have lived for generations and to which Jews were closely associated. Hebron was not recognized by the Canaanites as a separate country, but it was their land where the Hebrews settled and lived.

Maarat HaMachpelah, Cave of the Patriarchs. Public Domain. Source: Wikipedia




And generations later, the Jews will leave Egypt and return to reconquer that land to which they have that connection.

Going a step further, the explanation of the ArtScroll Chumash is echoed by S. D. Goitein in his book Jews and Arabs. Goitein, an ethnographer, historian and Arabist, notes the Jewish presence in Bethel, Hebron and Beersheba and writes:

Israel's sojourn in the desert is described everywhere in the Bible as a short interval between prolonged residence in Egypt and the conquest (or reconquest) of Canaan... (p. 26. Parentheses are Goitein's; emphasis added)

The Jews were not just leaving Egypt to come to a promised land, but returning to a land where they already had roots.

Goitein examines the roots of the Jewish tie to the land and traces the basic migration based on the Book of Genesis. Abraham is described not only as the father of Isaac and Ishmael but also of Midian and others who were sent eastward while Abraham migrated with his family from Mesopotamia to Canaan -- and Hebron. Lot and Esau moved on to farmland to the east and south of Canaan, while Ishmael-tribes traveled into the Arabian Peninsula.

Goitein concludes:

We have, of course, no means whatsoever of determining the historical facts of this population movement. However, no other migrations would be compatible with the tradition preserved in the Bible; and they may well account for the astounding affinities between Israel and the Arabs, which are an indubitable fact.

But Goitein was writing this in 1955.
Today there is support for the unique migration of Jews from Mesopotamia to Canaan.

In their article, The Gene Wars, discussing the genetic basis for comparing Israeli Jews with Palestinian Arabs, Diana Muir Appelbaum and Paul S. Appelbaum note a 2001 study, The Y Chromosome Pool of Jews as Part of the Genetic Landscape of the Middle East, a study that compared together:

o Jews: Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Kurdish
o Arabs: Palestinian, Syrian, Jordanian, Lebanese, and Bedouin
o Transcaucasians: Muslim Kurds, Armenians, and Turks
o Eastern Europeans: Russians, Byelorussians, and Poles

The Muirs write that the results of the genetic testing not only echoes the movements of the Jews described in the Torah, it also points to Palestinian Arabs as relative newcomers to the land, coming from Arabia:

Although all of the Middle Eastern populations bore some similarities to each other (a fairly robust finding confirmed in other works), “Jews were found to be more closely related to groups in the north of the Fertile Crescent (Kurds, Turks, and Armenians) than to their Arab neighbors.” For some, this will evoke the biblical account of Abraham’s origins in Ur of the Chaldees, and raise the possibility that the story contains echoes of an ancient population movement. Alternatively, Jews, Kurds, Armenians, and Anatolian Turks may all carry the genetic markers of ancient indigenous populations of the Fertile Crescent, while Palestinian Arabs and Bedouin may largely descend from the Arab conquerors, with their distinctive genetic signifiers. All these hypotheses are highly tentative until confirmed or disproved by further genetic data. [emphasis added]

The actual report itself also points out the commonality between Ashkenazic and Sephardic -- and Kurdish -- Jews:

It is believed that the majority of contemporary Jews descended from the ancient Israelites that had lived in the historic land of Israel until ?2000 years ago. Many of the Jewish diaspora communities were separated from each other for hundreds of years. Therefore, some divergence due to genetic drift and/or admixture could be expected. However, although Ashkenazi Jews were found to differ slightly from Sephardic and Kurdish Jews, it is noteworthy that there is, overall, a high degree of genetic affinity among the three Jewish communities. [emphasis added]

Similarly, despite genetic similarities between Jews and Palestinian Arabs, the differences support Goiteins outline of the migration:

In a report published elsewhere, we recently showed that Jews and Palestinian Arabs share a large portion of their Y chromosomes, suggesting a common ancestry (Nebel et al. 2000). Surprisingly, in the present study, Jews were found to be even closer to populations in the northern part of the Middle East than to several Arab populations...These findings are consistent with known cultural links that existed among populations in the Fertile Crescent in early history. [emphasis added]

As for the Palestinian Arabs themselves -- what does the genetic testing indicate?

Palestinian Arabs and Bedouin differed from the other Middle Eastern populations studied here, mainly in specific high-frequency Eu 10 haplotypes not found in the non-Arab groups. These chromosomes might have been introduced through migrations from the Arabian Peninsula during the last two millennia. [emphasis added]

Besides the genetic evidence against the claim that Palestinian Arabs are descended from Canaanites, there is the curious fact that as Erich and Jean Isaac note in "Whose Palestine?":

Ironically, the only surviving “Canaanite” culture is that of the Jews, who everywhere still pray, and in Israel also speak, in a Canaanite language.

(Not to mention the history, culture, literature and religious ties that bind Jews to Israel in the same way that Arab history, culture, literature and religion bind them to Arabia)

As for the Arabs, they are no more indigenous to "Palestine" than they are to the other countries they invaded - as listed by Bernard Lewis in "What Went Wrong" (p.4ff):

o Syria (then under Christendom)
o Egypt (then under Christendom)
o North Africa (then under Christendom)
o Spain
o Portugal
o France
o Sicily
o Sacking Rome
o Russia (under the Tartars)
o Anatolia
o Capturing Constantinople
o Invading the Balkan peninsula
o Reaching Vienna
o And of course Palestine (then under Christendom)

An honest approach to addressing the conflict could start by admitting the long history of Arab colonization.

But at a time that the media cannot even admit in its headlines that Palestinian Arabs are killing Jews -- what are the chances of that happening?

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Why Jews Are Indigenous To Palestine -- And Arabs Are Not (Daled Amos)

When people argue about Israel, various words get tossed around. People will talk about "occupation," "disproportionate force" and "apartheid" -- words that have real-world meanings that tend to get lost.

Another word that is increasingly misused is "indigenous."

Here is Ariel Gold of Code Pink, tweeting last month:

Not only does she not apply the word "indigenous" to Jews, but according to her - it is the Arabs who are indigenous to Palestine.

Is she right?

Well, if you ask Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, he will tell you he is "the proud son of the Canaanites," with a history in Jericho going back some 10,000 years. (hat tip Elder of Ziyon)

Saeb Erekat. Credit British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Source: Wikipedia

But let's be serious.

In 1946, the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry was assembled to examine the political, economic and social conditions in then-Palestine in order to make recommendations on the issue of Jewish immigration and settlement. The committee consulted representatives of both the Arabs and the Jews.

In Chapter VI of their report, the committee presented the Arab side:

Stripped to the bare essentials, the Arab case is based upon the fact that Palestine is a country which the Arabs have occupied for more than a thousand years, and a denial of the Jewish historical claims to Palestine. [emphasis added]

Those were the good old days -- when the Arabs were satisfied just to deny the Jewish ties to the land, without feeling the need to exaggerate their own.

Basically, there are 3 ways that the Arabs could have found their way from Arabia to Judea:

o Invasion, followed by occupation and settling the land
o Conversion of Jews to Islam (which we have already discussed)
o Immigration due to economic problems where they lived and/or economic opportunity in Palestine

But just how many Arabs living in Israel today are descended from the original Arab invaders from the 7th century?

In their article, Whose Palestine? -- a review of Joan Peters book 'From Time Immemorial' -- Erich Isaac and Rael Jean Isaac note:

But not only are the Palestinian Arabs not descendants of Canaanites, it is highly doubtful that more than a very few are even descended from those who settled the country as part of the Arab invasion of the 7th century. For over a thousand years following the Arab conquest, Palestine underwent a series of devastating invasions, followed by massacres of the existing population: Seljuk Turks and Fatimid reconquerors were followed by Crusaders who were followed by waves of Mongol tribes who were followed in turn by Tartars, Mamelukes, Turks, and incessant Bedouin raiders.

They explain further that while various invasions cut down on the number of Arabs descended from those who originally invaded the land, the foreign Arabs who immigrated from abroad during the 18th and 19th centuries, further diluted the original Arab invader population:

o  Egyptians arrived in a number of waves, especially from 1832 to 1840.
o  Sudanese successfully pioneered in the swampy marshlands.
o  Tribes of Bedouin came from as far away as Libya to settle on the coastal plain.
o  Lebanese Christians resettled abandoned villages in the Galilee
o  Armenians, Syrians, and Turks settled in the coastal towns
o  French expansion in North Africa resulted in waves of refugees immigrating to Palestine
o  Many of the followers of the Algerian resistance leader Abd el Kader founded villages in the Galilee
o  Russian expansion into the Caucasus led to the emigration of many of its Muslim peoples (Circassians and Georgians) to Palestine
o  Austrian advance into the Balkans led to the emigration of Bosnian Muslims to Palestine.
o  Turkomans from Russian Central Asia and Kurds also immigrated

By 1931, instead of an Arab population that could trace itself to the 7th century (let alone thousands of years) a census of Palestine listing the birthplaces of the inhabitants of Jerusalem included in addition to Palestine itself: Syria Transjordan, Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Persia, Turkey, Algeria, Moroco, Trioli, Tunis, Albania, France, Greece, Spain, Great Britain, the USSR, the US, Central and South America and Australia. [See "From Time Immemorial," p.227, quoting Census of Palestine-1931, vol I, Palestine; Part I]

Daniel Pipes quotes from 11the edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica, (1910-1911). The entry on 'Palestine' was written by the Irish archeologist Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister, who also notes that the population of Palestine at the time was anything but homogeneous:

The inhabitants of Palestine are composed of a large number of elements, differing widely in ethnological affinities, language and religion. It may be interesting to mention, as an illustration of their hetereogeneousness, that early in the 20th century a list of no less than 50 languages, spoken in Jerusalem as vernaculars, was there drawn up by a party of men whose various official positions enabled them to possess accurate information on the subject.

Macalister describes the towns:

In each there is primarily a large Arab element...There are very large contingents from the Mediterranean countries, especially Armenia, Greece and Italy, principally engaged in trade. The extraordinary development of Jewish colonization has since 1870 effected a revolution in the balance of population in some parts of the country, notably in Jerusalem.

Pipes summarizes the article:

This overview of Palestine mentions in no less than 20 foreign ethnicities other than the native fellahin (farmers) and the Jews: Assyrian, Persian, Roman, Arabian, Crusader, Nawar, Arabian, Turkic, Armenian, Greek, Italian, Turkoman, Motawila, Kurd, German, Bosnian, Circassian, Sudanese, Algerian, and Samaritan.

In her article Were the Arabs Indigenous to Mandatory Palestine?, Sheree Roth points out the book 'The Rape of Palestine', written by William B. Ziff -- the co-founder of the Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Published in 1938, Ziff's book notes that the hodgepodge of immigrants in Palestine consisted not only of those fleeing from somewhere or running to Palestine. Sometimes they were imported:

It was always the foreign soldier who was the police power in Palestine. The Tulunides brought in Turks and Negroes. The Fatamids introduced Berbers, Slavs, Greeks, Kurds, and mercenaries of all kinds. The Mamelukes imported legions of Georgians and Circassians. Each monarch for his personal safety relied on great levies of slave warriors. Saladin, hard-pressed by the Crusaders, received one hundred and fifty thousand Persians who were given lands in Galilee and the Sidon district for their services.

Out of this human patch-work of Jews, Arabs, Armenians, Kalmucks, Persians, Crusaders, Tartars, Indians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Sudanese, Turks, Mongols, Romans, Kharmazians, Greeks, pilgrims, wanderers, ne'er-do-wells and adventurers, invaders, slaves...was formed that hodge-podge of blood and mentality we call today "Levantine."...

Ziff fleshes out the list of immigrants mentioned by Isaac and gives some numbers:

In the fourteenth century, drought caused the immigration into Palestine of eighteen thousand "tents" of Yurate Tartars from the Euphrates. Soon followed twenty thousand Ashiri under Gaza, and four thousand Mongols under Moulai, who occupied the Jordan Valley and settled from Jerusalem south. Kaisaite and Yemenite tribes followed in their trail... 

In 1830 the Albanian conqueror Mehemet [Muhammad] Ali colonized Jaffa, Nablus, and Beisan with Egyptian soldiers and their Sudanese allies. Fourteen years later, Lynch estimated the thirteen thousand inhabitants of Jaffa to be composed of eight thousand Turco-Egyptians, four thousand Greeks and Armenians, and one thousand Jews and Maronites. He did not consider that there were any Arabs at all in that city.

One hundred years ago, [Jaffa] had a population of four thousand. Today it holds seventy thousand, overwhelmingly Arab, who are largely descendants of the Egyptians and Ethiopians brought in by the conqueror Ibrahim Pasha [Muhammad Ali's son]. The few thousand Jews who lived here fled during the 1936 riots, abandoning their shops and property.

There are many ways to describe this Arab population -- but indigenous clearly is not one of them.

More importantly, considering the ongoing influx of all those different nationalities and ethnicities, Arab and otherwise, Jewish immigration whether in the 20th century, the 19th century and even earlier is certainly no less valid.

That is even truer considering the indigenous ties Jews have to the land.

According to the UNHCR Resettlement Handbook (2011):

Indigenous groups are descendants of the peoples who inhabited land or territory prior to colonization or the establishment of state borders. They often have strong attachment to their ancestral lands and natural resources, an attribute that can distinguish them from other minority groups. They may also have distinct social. economic and political systems, languages cultures and beliefs. Their right to self-determination has frequently been impeded by subsequent migration of other ethnic groups into the territory where they reside. (p. 201)

There has been a continuous Jewish presence in Palestine. The Jews of Israel today are ultimately descendants of the Jews who lived on the land long before the Arab occupation of Palestine in the 7th century. The strong attachment of Jews to their ancestral lands is well established in terms of their distinct history, culture, sacred places, language and literature. And yes, this right to self-determination was frequently impeded: most recently by the invasion and migration of the Arabs -- and by the Palestinian Arabs today.

In contrast, Palestinian Arab history, culture, sacred places, language and literature are ultimately tied, as is true of all Arabs, to Arabia.

Along those lines, note that in 2007, the United Nations General Assembly passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples:

Article 11
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to practise and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the
past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artefacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and
performing arts and literature.

Article 31
1. Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts. They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions.

By all rights, this declaration should apply in full to Israel's indigenous rights.

Instead, we have seen the UN violate its own declaration, for example through UNESCO attempting to usurp the indigenous Jewish ties to Hebron and Jerusalem and the indigenous Jewish connection and right to the Temple Mount.

When the UN decides to get serious about indigenous rights, they should let Israel know.

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Jewish Rights to Israel (part 1): Declaration of Independence (Forest Rain)

Jewish Rights to Israel (part 1):

Declaration of Independence

Once Jewish rights to Israel were obvious. Even those who had no connection or sympathy to Zionism knew where Jews came from, about Jewish connection to the Holy Land. To top it off, Jew haters often demanded Jews “go home to Palestine.” Then everyone knew that Palestine was just another name for Zion.

Now, somehow, Jewish rights to Israel are not so obvious. Interestingly, both anti-Semites and modern liberal Jews find themselves asking the same questions (albeit for different reasons): Is it legitimate to found and maintain a State specifically for the Jewish People?

The antisemite denies the legitimacy of the Jewish State out of hatred for the existence of the Jewish People. Jewish sovereignty is abhorrent because Jewish existence is abhorrent.

The liberal Jew on the other hand is taking into consideration the questions of pluralism, equality and an innate aversion to anything that could remotely be considered racism. In a time when political movements are calling for the abolition of borders and nationalism is equated with extremism it can seem difficult to defend the idea of a State for a single people.

Added to this is the additional complexity of the Arab population both within and without Israel, many of whom object to the existence of the Jewish State in its entirety while others say that their objections are to specific laws and policies of the Jewish State.

Many of us find ourselves at a loss to explain Jewish rights to the Jewish land to the modern progressive, post religion, low information (but loudly opinionated) person. My friend Ryan Bellerose has gone to great lengths to teach us effective terminology, explaining the concept of indigeneity and how this differs from people of longstanding presence in a land. Reference to the Bible, while a very powerful motivator to the religious person, are counterproductive in dialogue with the non or anti-religious. Indigenous status is a whole different ballgame.

Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly), Israel’s Declaration of Independence spells out Jewish rights to the land of Israel in exactly the format Ryan suggests. There is no “Because God said so” while indigeneity is placed above all other explanations. It also addresses the difference between the indigenous people and the inhabitants who are not indigenous, while declaring that in the Jewish State all individuals will have the same, equal rights. This is the precursor to the recently passed Nation State Law which I will address in a separate article (Jewish Rights to Israel: Part 2). 

As part of my work at the Israel Forever Foundation I did something few of us bother to do – I read the most basic document regarding the foundation of the Jewish State – the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel. It fascinated me to discover that, although the document was written before the questions of this time arose, it addresses them clearly and concisely, spelling out the reasons for the legitimacy of the Jewish Nation State. 

Israel’s Declaration of Independence

“The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.”

In Hebrew there is no word for indigenous however, the description that opens the Declaration of Independence is the definition of indigeneity: the land in which a nation was born, the place where that nation first formed their culture, built spiritual, cultural and political institutions.

Israel is the land in which the Jewish people were sovereign and the place from which, as a Nation, the Jewish People influenced the world (through the ideas laid out in the Bible).  

Indigeneity is the strongest claim any People can have to any specific land: this specific piece of land and no other is the ancestral homeland of my People. While lacking the word for indigenous in Hebrew it was clear that the writers of Israel’s Declaration of Independence had clear understanding of the meaning and the power of this concept.

“After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.”

This second paragraph reinforces the first with the explanation that the Jewish People were forcibly removed from their ancestral homeland and did not leave or abandon the land from their own free will. Despite centuries of exile, the Jewish People never gave up the hope to return and regain sovereignty in their ancestral homeland. This is an extraordinary and unparalleled testament to the deep connection of a People to the land.

“Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, defiant returnees, and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.”

This paragraph takes Jewish hope to the realm of practicality: Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, impelled by Jewish history in the land and the connection that was continued in exile through hope and prayer, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. Jews not only retained esoteric hope but took action, in every generation, to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades (prior to the Declaration of Independence) Jews returned in their masses. Following this is a description mirroring the first paragraph of the document and elaborating the revival of the Jewish People in their indigenous land – reviving the language in which their original culture was articulated, building thriving communities, taking custodianship of the land (making the desert bloom), controlling their own economy and culture.

Here, for the first time, the document refers to “all the country’s inhabitants” – in other words, the Jews and non-Jews (Arabs). This was written after the Arab massacres of their Jewish neighbors:

·         In 1920 a number of settlements in the Galilee were attacked (among them Tel Hai where Trumpeldor and seven others were murdered) and in Jerusalem. Some 30 Jews were murdered and hundreds injured.

·         In 1921 Jews were attacked in Tel Aviv, Petach Tikva and Mikveh Yisrael and other communities, dozens were murdered and many more injured. 

·         In August of 1929 Jews in Jerusalem were attacked and entire neighborhoods were destroyed. In Hebron 69 Jews were massacred, many others were severely injured and the community was wiped out. Jews were also attacked in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Gaza, Ramleh, Akko, Beit Shean and more.

·         The great Arab revolt of 1936-1939 in which 630 Jews were murdered and some 2000 were injured. At first Jews hoped that if they kept their heads down, the violence would subside. Then Orde Wingate decided to help the Jews, teaching them self-defense tactics which changed the balance of power (and have since become fundamental elements of the IDF’s doctrine). 

It is within this context that the Declaration of Independence explains that the Jewish community 

while, loving peace knows how to defend itself and will bring the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants.

“In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country.

This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.”

Here the document moves from the explanation of indigenous rights to the discussion of Jewish rights under international law – from the first Zionist Congress, to the Balfour Declaration, it’s reaffirmation by the League of Nations which recognized the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.

“The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe - was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the community of nations.”

The Holocaust as an example, not a reason – in this paragraph the Declaration mentions the Holocaust, explaining that this is a clear demonstration of the need to solve the problem of homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State. It is important to note that the Holocaust is not brought as a reason or justification for the establishment of Israel but as an example of what can happen when the Jewish People have no Israel and are not seen by the community of nations as equal and with full privileges.

Survivors of the Nazi Holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland.

Here too as an example - also after the Holocaust, survivors and other Jews continued to make aliyah undaunted by difficulties and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland. It was not because of the Holocaust survivors that the State of Israel was established but they, whose dignity had been stripped from them, joined those already struggling to establish a life of Jewish freedom and were followed by additional Jews who all came together in their national homeland. 

“In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the struggle of the freedom- and peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations.”

This paragraph is an interesting assertion of rights of Israel’s Jewish community, not because they are freely given (as one might expect) but as something earned due to behaving like other peace-loving nations and through the blood of its soldiers.

“On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.”

The United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel but this was not something the nations swooped in and did for the Jewish People; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution – which they did. Was the statement of legal fact, that the recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable, a premonition of future questions regarding the legitimacy of the Jewish State?

“This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.”

The right to be master of your own fate is a natural right. The Jewish People, like all other nations, have the right to their own sovereign State.

Accordingly we, members of the People's Council, representatives of the Jewish Community of Eretz-Israel and of the Zionist Movement, are here assembled on the day of the termination of the British Mandate over Eretz-Israel and, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.

In accordance with all the reasons given above, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, on the termination of the British Mandate over Eretz Israel the representatives of the Jewish Community of Israel (not the Jewish world community) and of the Zionist Movement (the National Movement for Jewish self-determination) declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. This was an important determination that the Jewish historic name of the land would be the name by which the new State would be called.

“We declare that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the elected, regular authorities of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st October 1948, the People's Council shall act as a Provisional Council of State, and its executive organ, the People's Administration, shall be the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called "Israel." 

The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

Here the document declares the State of Israel open to immigration of all Jews, the basis for what is now called the “Law of Return”.

While the document clearly discusses Jewish rights, it is important that here, we see for the second time, mention of “all inhabitants.” The addition of these two little words explains a crucial concept - the Jewish People are recognized as indigenous and have the rights of an indigenous people returning to their ancestral homeland. The other inhabitants, while not indigenous, are recognized as having rights do to their residence within the land and thus, in accordance with the visions of the prophets of Israel who described what the Jewish State needs to look like and in accordance to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations the State of Israel will provide for the benefit of all, not just the Jews but for Jews and Arabs alike: the development of the country, freedom, justice and peace, complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions.

These rights were later established in Israeli law but it is important to note that those were a realization of this declaration which was based on the ancient visions of what a Jewish State needs to be.

“The State of Israel is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.

We appeal to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building-up of its State and to receive the State of Israel into the community of nations.”

The declaration expresses the willingness of the new State to cooperate with international bodies and requests that the United Nations assist the Jewish People and receive the State of Israel into the community of nations.

“We appeal - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.”

Here, for the first time, the Arab inhabitants of Israel are addressed directly, in the context of the previous pogroms against the Jews of Israel and the winds of war that were recognized by the declarers - with the request to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.

“We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.”

The declaration does not stop with the Arab inhabitants of Israel but extends a hand of peace to all neighboring Arab countries and an offer of collaboration – that they assist with the settling Jews in the sovereign Jewish State (a request that includes the Jews living at the time in Arab lands) and a promise that the State of Israel will do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.

“We appeal to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream - the redemption of Israel.”

The last request is to Jews around the world to assist with the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and stand by the Jews of Israel in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old dream - the redemption of Israel.

Placing our trust in the Almighty [the first and only time God is mentioned in the document], we affix our signatures to this proclamation at this session of the provisional Council of State, on the soil of the Homeland, in the city of Tel-Aviv, on this Sabbath eve, the 5th day of Iyar, 5708 (14th May, 1948). 

David Ben-Gurion

Daniel Auster Mordekhai Bentov Yitzchak Ben Zvi Eliyahu Berligne Fritz Bernstein Rabbi Wolf Gold Meir Grabovsky Yitzchak Gruenbaum Dr. Abraham Granovsky Eliyahu Dobkin Meir Wilner-Kovner Zerach Wahrhaftig Herzl Vardi Rachel Cohen Rabbi Kalman Kahana Saadia Kobashi Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Levin Meir David Loewenstein Zvi Luria Golda Myerson Nachum Nir Zvi Segal Rabbi Yehuda Leib Hacohen Fishman David Zvi Pinkas Aharon Zisling Moshe Kolodny Eliezer Kaplan Abraham Katznelson Felix Rosenblueth David Remez Berl Repetur Mordekhai Shattner Ben Zion Sternberg Bekhor Shitreet Moshe Shapira Moshe Shertok

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