Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: indigenous

Showing posts with label indigenous. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 06, 2022

Jews Building Homes: If the Thought Makes You Nuts, Congrats! You’re an Antisemite (Judean Rose)

What is it about Jews building homes that gets under peoples’ skin? We know what they claim. They say that building homes for Jews in disputed territory is an “obstacle to peace.” That, however, is an obvious lie. The real reason the world does not want Jews to build homes in Israel is Jew-hatred: antisemitism.

How do we know that the “obstacle to peace” mantra is a lie providing cover for hate? We know this because of history and precedent. The 600 homes of the Jews of Yamit proved no obstacle to peace with Egypt. The 2,530 homes in Gush Katif and the 270 residences in Samaria did not stand in the way of the great Gaza giveaway. And the 450,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria did not stop Oslo and local Arab autonomy.

Despite the thousands of homes built to shelter Jews in their holy, indigenous territory, Egypt still received the gift of Sinai, while the UNRWA “refugees” were given de facto states in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

Construction, even of Jewish homes in ancient Jewish land, did not prevent any of this from happening. Where Jewish homes once stood, today there are no Jews. These areas have been ethnically cleansed of any Jewish presence, with the exception of a handful of captives held by Gaza in the years since 2005, two of them almost certainly dead.

Jewish homes don’t get in the way of peace negotiations or Israeli concessions because Israel doesn’t let them. Instead, the Jewish State simply expels thousands of its own people, Jews themselves, and flattens their homes with bulldozers.

It really is that straightforward. Thousands of Jewish homes go up and come down. Sinai gets Egypt. The rest get autonomy and Gaza.

None of this truth is reflected in the July 1^st letter sent by 29 Democratic Congressmen to Anthony Blinken, on the eve of Biden's trip to Israel. The letter writers do not care that Israel anyway destroys the homes before handing over the land. They demand that the President pressure Israel to STOP BUILDING HOMES FOR JEWS!

We write to express our alarm over the Israeli government’s renewed effort to build settlements in the West Bank area known as E-1.

The writers, in their own words, write to express their “alarm” over Israel’s “renewed effort to build settlements” in parts of the Jewish homeland they don’t want us to have.

Note the EU symbol on this illegal Arab structure in "disputed" Israeli territory. The EU finances these illegal homes for Arabs while, like the 29 Democratic congressmen, it condemns legal Jewish construction. If that's not an overt expression of antisemitism, what is? (photo courtesy of Regavim)

As legislators committed to the goal of a just and secure peace between Israel and the Palestinians, we are grateful to this administration for its previous work to prevent harmful actions that move us further from this goal, including the successful prevention of E-1 settlement plans that were under consideration last year.

The 29 legislators call the building of Jewish homes, “harmful actions” and laud the President for preventing such construction in the past. They say these things, they claim, because they are committed to a “just and secure peace." This is a demonstrable lie. If they were committed to a just and secure peace, they would speak out not about Jewish homes, but Arab terror. Especially considering that according to a 2015 article by Batya Medad, 15 percent of the home-building Jews are American citizens, with all the right to the protections that citizenship affords.

Note the EU stickers on the solar collectors and homes of this illegal Arab shanty town. The world is happy to finance ARABS building (illegal) homes. (Photo courtesy of Regavim)

(Photo courtesy of Regavim)

Everywhere you find illegal Arab building on Jewish land, you will find evidence of world support. (Photo courtesy of Regavim)

We ask that you continue holding firm on this issue, especially as you prepare for President Biden’s forthcoming visit to the region.

The letter is by way of reminding Blinken that his job, as a court Jew, is to continue to hold firm against Jews building any more homes on their land.

As 26 Members of Congress wrote in a letter from November 2021, efforts to advance settlement construction in E-1 “pose an irreconcilable challenge to a lasting peace solution between Israel and the Palestinians… [and] have been referred to as ‘doomsday settlements’ because they would threaten the territorial contiguity necessary for a viable independent Palestinian state by dividing the north of the West Bank from the south, as well as the West Bank from East Jerusalem.”

The writers, from the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party, point us to the fact that their numbers are growing. In November there were 26. Now there are 29 of them, all demanding that Jews stop building houses. This letter, write the congressmen, echoes the November letter which states that Jewish homes “pose an irreconcilable challenge to a lasting peace solution.”

The homes themselves, are referred to as “doomsday settlements” without a hint of irony or any recognition that it is antisemitic to characterize a Jewish town in this manner. The 29 are quite frank in stating that there will be no peace if a Jew builds a home anywhere in Judea, Samaria, or Jerusalem. Which means that should Jews build homes, as far as these members of congress are concerned, they can be murdered by Arab terrorists with impunity and it will be the Jews' own damned fault.

Preserving this territorial contiguity is vital to the prospects for peace and a two-state solution, and we remain strongly opposed to any such effort to entrench the occupation of Palestinian territory.

The antisemitic letter signed by the 29 Democrats uses all the familiar catchwords to cover their hate. Peace, blah blah blah, Two-state solution, blah blah blah, Occupation, blah blah blah. But the end game remains the same, the goal is no Jewish presence. And no building homes in the meantime. They don’t want the Jews to be comfortable.

How do we know the shibboleths of peace, two-state solution, and occupation are meaningless doublespeak? We know it because neither Jew nor Arab wants two states for two peoples. There are a million polls to attest to this fact. And here's another, quite salient fact: Jewish homes are always destroyed by Israel when the Jewish State cedes Jewish territory to Muslims.

We were heartened that the Biden administration shared Congress’s concerns and upheld the strong stance held by previous administrations of both parties in opposing settlement construction in E-1. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides has called the proposed settlements a “disaster” and has described the Biden administration’s efforts to prevent it as going “full bore.”

The congressmen were “heartened” to hear that Biden also wants Jews to stop building homes. They want to remind Blinken that even Nides, also a Jew, fell into line, calling Jews building homes a “disaster.” They are saying they want Biden to come down on the Jews “full bore” to make them stop. building. homes.

This administration has demonstrated the progress that serious diplomatic engagement on these sensitive issues can lead to, and we are looking forward to the President’s first visit to Israel this month. Despite this administration’s clear commitment to preventing settlement construction in E-1, the Israeli government has recently reversed its position and announced plans to move ahead with E-1 settlements once again, scheduling the final hearing on the objections to the project within days of the President’s planned visit. United States intervention at this pivotal moment is critical. In recent months, there has been an increase in violent clashes, and we are hopeful that the President’s visit will help ease tensions and reassure both parties of the United States’ commitment to a negotiated peace.

They are so looking forward, say the letter-writing Dems, to the President giving Israel a good diplomatic thrashing over Jews building homes. The Jews know that Biden doesn’t like Jews to build homes, yet the Israeli government has announced brazen plans to even build MORE Jewish homes. The Democrats speak of the causal effect of Jews building homes to “an increase in violent clashes” AKA Arab terror.

We are encouraged by reports that the Biden administration has pushed the Israeli government not to move forward with the planned hearing on E-1 settlement construction, and we hope you will continue to prioritize this issue with the current interim Israeli government and any future coalitions.

The 29 Democrats say they are encouraged by the fact that Biden is pushing Israel to stop all these conniving Israeli plans of building more homes for Jews. They hope, as well, that Jews building homes will be treated as a major issue on Biden’s agenda for his Israel visit.

We urge you to continue emphasizing in the lead-up to this visit that settlement construction in E-1 remains a red line for the United States, and to use every diplomatic tool at your disposal to ensure that Israel does not further advance these devastating plans.

In conclusion, the signees “urge” the President to keep “emphasizing” that when Jews build homes, it crosses a “red line," and suggest he should use “every diplomatic tool at your disposal” to ensure this building of Jewish homes, comes to a stop. Their message to Biden is that the very thought of Jews taking shelter in their historic homeland--actually LIVING there--is in their opinion, a “devastating” thing.

Sincerely

They mean all this. Sincerely.

We know it to be true: antisemites and antisemitic congressmen come and go. They each in turn, get the chance to lend authority to the antisemitic hate they spew. They will say, for example, that no Jew has the right to build a home on his land, and that no wonder the Arabs get violent at the very thought of it. The truth does not matter to them. If the truth mattered a damn to them, they'd realize that violence derives not from building homes, but from hatred for those who seek shelter therein.

A Jew building a home is a harmless thing. Bricks and mortar, red tiles and heavy machinery, they matter not. There is no natural relationship between construction and violence. Violence comes from hate. The building of homes for Jews no more invites Arab terror than the rape victim's choice of clothing provokes sexual violence.

The 29 congressmen should be ashamed of blaming Jewish victims for being attacked and murdered by vicious Arab terrorists. But the 29 are not ashamed. They are proud to reveal their naked antisemitic hatred, before the entire world.

Here are their names:

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Canadian Arab lawyers create a ridiculous definition of "anti-Palestinian racism"

The Arab Canadians Lawyers Association is planning to release a paper on May 9 where they will define what they call "anti-Palestinian racism."

According to the ACLA, “Anti-Palestinian racism operates to silence the Palestinian experience and expressions of solidarity with Palestinians, including characterizing those who defend Palestinians and are critical of Israel’s policies or conduct as antisemitic.”

First of all, no one - and I mean no one - tries to "silence expressions of solidarity against Palestinians." It is a straw man. The people who style themselves as "pro-Palestinian" invariably cross the line into a seething hatred for Jewish nationalism and often against Jews themselves, and that is what Jews oppose.

But more insidiously, the ACLA is saying that non-Palestinians can be the victims of "anti-Palestinian racism" - based not on national origin or ethnicity or race, but purely on their political opinions!

So they are not only defining certain treatment of Palestinians themselves as racist, but also pointing out that anti-Zionists who are practicing antisemitism is also part of anti-Palestinian racism. Anyone can be a victim of anti-Palestinian racism - based purely on their political beliefs.

That is a breathtaking expansion of the word "racism."

Up until now, those who tried to declare Israel guilty of racism depended on an ICERD definition that they take out of context that discrimination based on "national origin" is also racism. Palestinians themselves are not a race. They define themselves as part of the Arab people, even though many of them can trace their ancestry not only to the Arabian peninsula but also to traditionally non-Arab areas including Turkey and Kurdistan. They do not have a single national origin. Israel treats Arab citizens differently from Arab non-citizens, which proves that race has nothing to do with this. Palestinians and their supporters of all races together are certainly not a race. Perhaps realizing this, the ACLA decided to expand the definition of race to absurd lengths. So they now say that members of a political group can be victims of racism - and the only reason they redefine racism is to call Zionists racists.

Why is calling anti-Zionists antisemitic "racist" but calling Zionists racists cannot be antisemitism?

By saying that criticism of political positions is racism, this means that the ACLA will have to admit that people who discriminate against Zionists are racists as well! Zionism is no less a defined group of people as anti-Zionists are.

If those who call anti-Zionists antisemitic are racist, then you must also say that those who call Zionism "racism" are racist as well.

It is an absurd redefinition that has only one purpose: to tar any Zionist as a racist. And - by their definition - calling people haters is itself an act of hate.

No doubt they would argue that the case of Palestinians is different than any other, and there are unique reasons why political Zionists are by definition racist but political anti-Zionists are by definition oppressed victims of racism. Yet those double standards are yet more proof that they are themselves bigots.

Thanks, Arab Canadian Lawyers Association! By your rules, you are a bunch of racists.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Liar academic Juan Cole really upset at Jeffrey Goldberg for pointing out facts about Jews

Juan Cole, the twelfth rate academic whom I have shown to be a tendentious liar many, many times, is very upset at Jeffrey Goldberg:

Phil Weiss at Mondoweiss, the most lucid and informed voice on the American Jewish left doing journalism critical of right wing Zionism, reports on remarks of The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg at a Jewish Community Center forum in Manhattan.

In Weiss’s telling, Goldberg argued to his audience that Israelis are like the Seminole indigenous people of Florida, and the Palestinians are “the cowboys.”

This framing of the issue is completely ahistorical and frankly ignorant, and is offensive on all sides.

It's worth reading the entire section that Weiss quoted from Goldberg, because it is quite accurate, which is why it bothers the serial liar Cole.

Many Palestinian leaders understand the conflict not as the conflict between the cowboys– the Jews– and the Indians– the Palestinians.

But the Jews are the Indians, and the Arabs, the Palestinians, the cowboys, in the following sense. What happened in the Middle East– this is not a political commentary about what should actually be done leading to a fair and equitable solution to the challenge here– but what happened here is the equivalent of the Seminoles sitting in Oklahoma or wherever they are today, scattered around the United States– Seminoles coming together and deciding that they’re going back to Florida. And going back in such numbers and telling the whites and blacks and Hispanics of Florida, Oh by the way, we’re home and we’d like a state, and we’d like to take over Florida.

The people of Florida would probably say to them, you haven’t been here in 200 years. This isn’t your home. And the Seminoles would say, Actually, it is our home. This is where our people are buried. This is the center of our religion, this is where we were expelled from.

That [discussion] doesn’t happen; and people need to understand that – what’s happened is, it’s really interesting from an analytical perspective. As Israel has become more and more powerful as a country, and every year it becomes more powerful, it becomes bigger, it becomes more militarily powerful, economically powerful, it’s lost more and more control of its own narrative. The narrative is of an indigenous people coming home to its homeland and to some degree, to a large degree, to some degree, willing to share that homeland or at least parts of that homeland with the people who moved in after. Right? But they lost total control of that narrative, because the people who were opposed to Israel’s existence are very very powerful and clever narrators as well.

In order to understand what’s going on historically you need to understand history…

It is completely natural that the people of Florida would say to the Seminoles who are walking back 200 years after the Trail of Tears, coming back to Florida, What the hell– what do you mean? You don’t live here, your father wasn’t here, your grandfather, your great grandmother, nobody was here, you can’t claim this as your own, but that’s because we don’t really understand and privilege historical memory, among other things.

Cole can't handle the truth, so he sputters. The next sentence in his article is that "Goldberg apparently can’t bring himself to say the word 'Palestinian,' as though all Arabic-speakers are indistinguishable." As you can see above, Goldberg used the word Palestinian and didn't use the word Arab. Cole apparently knows that his brain-dead followers won't bother clicking on the link that proves he cannot help making things up.

Cole then goes on an extended pseudo-history of Jews with cherry picked (and possibly made up) facts where he strenuously tries to say that Jews aren't from Palestine - he doesn't seem to subscribe to the Khazar myth but something close - and that Jews hardly ever controlled Palestine, and that Jews weren't interested in living there anyway.

As an example:

The Crusaders killed or expelled most remaining Jewish populations. From about 1100 until the early twentieth century there were virtually no Jews in Palestine. Oh, there were a handful here and there– a few Kabbalist mystics at Safad, retirees in Jerusalem. But I wrote a book about Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of the Middle East and the French report that they only found 3,000 Jews in geographic Palestine in 1799.

That's an interesting and counterfactual view. Jews were the majority in Palestine until the Muslim invasion - yes, the Arabs were colonialists, even though Cole falsely claims that most Palestinians have been there for millennia. (Research shows that the only truly indigenous Palestinians are the Christian community, and most of them were originally Jews.)

Since the Muslim invasion, the Jews that lived there went through an astonishing number of massacres and expulsions from both Christians and Muslims. Yet through it all, they kept coming back. Dozens of major rabbis kept immigrating with their students, often to be slaughtered again (with a few major earthquakes that also killed hundreds.)

This Wikipedia article fills in the gaping historic holes that Cole doesn't want you to know. The overwhelming conclusion is that Jews were always spiritually tied to their land despite it having very few ways of supporting them. This is the exact opposite to what Cole wants you to believe.

What about the 3000 Jews that Cole says he found out about? Well, his book on Napoleon says it - without a citation.

However, it was estimated that there were 4000-6000 Jews in Jerusalem alone in 1815, only 16 years later. This doesn't count Jews in Hebron, Safed, or Tiberias. Perhaps the French person Cole refers to, whoever that is, isn't so trustworthy.

Cole continues to lie:

The European Jews were brought to Palestine by British imperial policy during the early twentieth century heyday of colonialism, and by the rise of Fascism in Europe that drove out or killed millions of Jews. Because of the complications of the Holocaust, Jewish migration into Palestine is not exactly like the voluntary settler=colonialism of the Pieds Noire in Algeria,

Cole, the self described expert, apparently has never heard of the Perushim, the First Aliyah, the Second Aliyah. He thinks that somehow the British brought the Jews to Palestine, even though practically none of those were from Britain. He pretends that most Jews came to Palestine post-Holocaust not because they wanted to but that they were forced to. As someone who has looked up the Holocaust archives for my parents and relatives, I can tell him that the refugees filled out forms where they were offered where they would like to emigrate to. My parents chose America, they weren't forced to go to Palestine; one of my uncles and his mother chose Palestine.

In other words, Cole is a liar. Nothing new about that.

And by denying Jewish history including how fundamental Israel has always been to Jews and Judaism, Cole is proving that he is dabbling in antisemitism as well.

(h/t Dan, who reads Cole so I don't have to)

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Palestinians hold a conference where they claim to be Canaanites (update)

On Saturday a "Palestinian Canaanite Conference" was held in the Mahmoud Darwish Museum in Ramallah.

At the conference, Palestinian prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh claimed that the Palestinians are descendants of the Canaanites.

There is no historic evidence of this claim. But Shtayyeh seems to know this, because at the same time he said that this is a war of "narratives."

"We launched this conference because Israel is waging a systematic war against us. Of all those wars - geography, demography, water and money - the most dangerous is the war of the narratives."

Shtayyeh continued, "All the excavations under the Aqsa Mosque, the settlers' attacks on the Ibrahimi Mosque [Cave of the Patriarchs], Joseph's Tomb, and the enactment of the Law of Nationalism all relate to the war of the narratives."

In other words, the entire purpose of the conference was to push the fiction that Palestinians are Canaanites, because even the Torah admits that the land was Canaanite before the Israelites conquered it. Identifying as Canaanite allows Palestinians to claim that not only were they there before the Jews, but that the Jews had expelled them thousands of years ago.

Even more absurdly, Shtayyeh claimed that the modern Palestinians still worshiped Baal as their alleged ancestors did: "Baal was the most important god among the Canaanites, and we to this day call on his name when we pray for water for the land which is watered from rain water."

Worshipers of Baal were known for other things he might not wish to be associated with.

Engraving of Baal Pe'or, defecating

UPDATE: Shtayyeh ("Winter") is a relatively rare name for Palestinians. I see a Shtayeh family centered in northern Egypt and a Syrian Bedouin tribe with that name in the 19th century.

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Lebanese politician tweets map of 'Palestine" that shows Judea and Samaria

Walid Joumblatt, president of the Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanon, tweeted this image that came from a Haaretz article showing an Israeli artist's depiction of Palestinians superimposed over a "map of Palestine." Joumblatt added a caption, "Palestine will remain."

If you look closer at the artwork, though, you see that it shows a decidedly Jewish perspective on the Land of Israel. Judea and Samaria are noted; Shechem is on the map without using the name Nablus as it is currently referred to, current "settlements" of Bet El (Bethel) and Shiloh are listed, there is no "east Jerusalem."

This "pro-Palestinian" tweet proves that Jews are the indigenous people of the region, having been in the area far longer than any Muslims.

Joumblatt's caption was incomplete - it should have said "Palestine will remain the Jewish homeland forever."

(h/t Yoel)

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Israel’s Jewish Indigenous Land Rights: A Conversation with Dr. Nan Greer, Part 2 (Judean Rose)

Last week, Dr. Nan Greer gave us an overview of the various international definitions of what it means to be an indigenous people. We learned about Greer’s work in protecting the indigenous rights of peoples as disparate as the Mayangna and Miskitú peoples, Native Hawaiians and other ethnic groups on Hawai'i Nei, and the Cahuilla-Serrano people of California. Now Greer is turning her energies toward legalizing the indigenous rights of the Jewish people. To that end, Greer spent the summer of 2018 in Israel meeting with anyone she could to explain her mission and enlist their assistance—people like Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Amb. Dr. Alan Baker, and Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked.

Here, Greer expands on her work on indigenous rights in Israel and abroad.

Judean Rose: How did you become interested in indigenous land rights?

Nan Greer: As a child, my parents were dedicated to helping those in poverty - specifically children. As I grew up, I was taken around the world by them, and introduced to different forms of charity, community development, and community assistance. When of age, I worked with my parents to form a family foundation dedicated to assisting those marginalized in society.

As such, after graduating from college, I traveled to Central America. While working there, I was asked to visit marginalized indigenous communities in rainforest areas. Upon meeting the Mayangna and Miskitú indigenous peoples, I was asked to assist them in documenting and defending their rights to ancestral lands. From 1995 until the present, I have worked with these indigenous communities, including on the first indigenous land rights case argued under international law (Awas Tingni vs. Nicaragua). Working with the 9 territories of the Mayangna, and other Miskitú territories in the BOSAWAS Biosphere Reserve, we established a methodology of documenting the indigenous right to land under international law - providing an example for other indigenous groups around the world.

Nan Greer at left during community meeting.

While these methods are shared worldwide, one particular indigenous group has continually been denied support in this area. In fact, many have refuted the idea that Jews are indigenous to their homelands. While Jews in Europe were once told to “go home,” once home, Jews were then told to get out, as they were now considered colonists. This is another terrible narrative obviously made up to reject the rightful claim Jews have to their homelands, Israel.

Judean Rose: How did you become interested in specifically Jewish indigenous land rights? Are you Jewish?

Nan Greer: I am not Jewish. This year, I have applied for and been accepted into a Jewish Orthodox conversion program. I was not baptized until I decided to do so under the Episcopalian Church at age 13. I attended catholic schools from 6th grade until graduating from my undergraduate school, Seattle University. While a church-goer for some time, it wasn’t until I began reading the history of Jews, their cultural, social, political, economic, and religious experience, that I become fascinated with the Jewish religion.

I have come to reject the racist theories of Christian replacement theology, in addition to the idea espoused that Jews killed the Christ-figure - it is astounding that Catholic popes only exonerated Jews of this “crime” in both 2015 and 2017, so recently. During my time learning about Jewish connections to the lands of Israel, I have come to reject other religious teachings, and favor those of the Jewish Modern Orthodox religion.

Judean Rose: Can you tell us about your work in Israel?

Nan Greer: A previous student from my classes at Kaua`i Community College asked what I think about the case of the Jews in Israel. We began talking about this in 2014, and by 2016 my previous student loaned me enough funding to allow me to travel to Israel. How amazing it is that students can often become our teachers!

Noe Coleman - Current Nicaragua Indigenous Representative to MesoAmerican Group of Indigenous; leader, Matumbak - Mayangna meets with one of Greer's students at Kaua`i Community College.

I arrived with my family in December of 2016 and stayed through mid-January 2017. During this trip, I interviewed various individuals dedicated to protecting the lands of Israel. I began to examine the case of Jews as indigenous under the structure of international law. I was surprised as to how marginalized they had become under international structures that were dedicated to protecting indigenous populations such as the Jews.

Since my travel to Israel in 2016 and 2017, it has become apparent that other ethnic groups, specifically Arab-Muslim groups, are pressuring the international community to reject the indigenous status of the Jewish people, both in international and national law. Many cases have arrived at the Israeli Supreme Court, without proper legal documentation/evidence of legal right, that have caused the Israeli government to remove their own Jewish people from the lands of their forefathers. This has happened repeatedly in Judea and Samaria, with additional pressure on areas of East Jerusalem, such as the community of Ramat Shlomo. This is a violation of the rights of Jewish indigenous people, with a potential of permanent damage and loss of critical land long recorded as Indigenous.

With abundant archaeological data, literature and historical records, in addition to the obvious maintenance of distinct Jewish culture, religion, and socioeconomic forms, it is apparent the Jewish people of Israel are afforded legal protection as a people under international law - a protection that is not being upheld currently. Assisting the Israeli government to self-declare the Jewish people indigenous, and to sign the UNDRIP (Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People) with reservations, is an enormous first step in protecting the right of Jewish indigenous to their own lands, culture, religion, history, and maintenance as a people, in perpetuity. With the historical onslaught against their ethno-religious group, Jews have been discriminated against for several millennia. As the global community furthers legislation protecting culture groups around the world, there is a clear demand to protect the Jewish people - there are more than 6 million reasons why this is important.

Nan visits the Knesset to stump for Jewish indigenous land rights.

Among the experiences of the Jews is a multi-generational response to discriminatory attack. As many other indigenous communities’ experience, depression is a common affliction passed from one generation to the next. While this may be some of the experience of the Jewish people, they stand resilient in the face of their past, recreating a miraculously developed nation state in only the past 70 years - with a large number having returned, rejoining their small minority of permanent residents in Israel, to repatriate their lands after two thousand years, restore their spoken Hebrew language, and to reinvigorate their ancestral culture in their homelands, and the birthplaces of their forefathers.

While not all in the international community recognize their astounding resilience and recapitulation as a people, Jews are truly an example to the world of cultural survival, protecting cultural diversity in a world often devoid of such distinctions. Were we not to protect the Jewish people at such a juncture, we would fail humanity, and further the vicious anti-Semitic campaigns set out in history at various times, annihilating those who have led the world religiously, culturally, and environmentally. Not protecting the Jewish people is simply not acceptable under human rights, and humanity at its base.

A radiant Nan after visiting the Temple Mount

Judean Rose: What has been the response of Israeli leadership to the idea of declaring the Jewish people the indigenous people of Israel?

Nan Greer: Many people in the Israeli government have been supportive of declaring Jews indigenous to Israel. However, many also have challenged this, stating national sovereignty is sufficient to protect the Jewish people. I disagree with this.

While other ethnic groups in this geographical locale have gone to the United Nations, introducing various motions and resolutions to condemn Israel, great pressure has been put upon Israel by the international community, a community that has not had the benefit of truly examining the Jewish indigenous case. Due to the lack of engagement in international circles such as the UN, Jewish people have not had their rights protected under international laws focused on protecting indigenous people, such as the UNDRIP - the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People. It is imperative that the international community recognize the Jewish people as indigenous, that Jews are afforded protection under international law designed to protect such traditional people. To deny any indigenous status in the land of Israel to the Jewish people is anti-cultural, anti-historical, and anti-religious under international law.

Nan meets with US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, Tammy Friedman, and Dr. Mordechai Kedar

Judean Rose: You teach at Redlands University in California. What do you teach there and what has been the response of your students and colleagues to your work on behalf of Israel? Do they know about your work for Israel?

Nan Greer: I am an adjunct lecturer at the University of Redlands where I teach cultural and environmental anthropology, in addition to indigenous land rights. I have an ethnically diverse group of young students dedicated to learning. However, often times these students, as in other universities around the United States, are taught narratives to believe, rather than how to think. As such, many of my students have been misinformed about the Jewish people. While several of my students are Jewish, these unique individuals often do not identify themselves as such for fear of mistreatment and discrimination.

In fact, I commonly find out their Jewish affiliation at the end of the semester, or privately after classes. I am astounded as to the consistent fear of Jewish students in a learning environment that purports to be all inclusive - as my own experience and evidence suggests (as documented in numerous publications), these unique students suffer anti-Semitism, ethno-religious rejection, and ridicule, these very students must be protected and strengthened in their incredible identity and uniqueness.

Judean Rose: What are your impressions of Israel and the Israeli people, particularly during your most recent stay here over the summer? Could you ever move to Israel?

Nan Greer: Both my daughter and I want to stay in Israel and live here permanently. We are very sad about having to leave. We are however, planning on finishing our conversion to Judaism and making Aliyah when possible. If ever there was an opportunity to move to Israel prior to this, I am certain we would take it!

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Hillary Bids for Jewish Support (Mike Lumish)

Hillary Clinton has a recent piece in The Forward entitled, How I Would Reaffirm Unbreakable Bond With Israel — and Benjamin Netanyahu. Despite her role in the most anti-Israel administration in American history, Clinton wants us to believe that she cares about Israel, has an "enduring emotional connection" to the land and its people, and has done all sorts of good work in supporting the Jewish state.

She tells us:

I have stood with Israel my entire career. As a senator, I fought to get Magen David Adom accepted to the International Red Cross when other nations tried to exclude the organization. I wrote and co-sponsored bills that isolated terror groups, and pushed to crack down on incitement in Palestinian textbooks and schools. As secretary of state, I requested more assistance for Israel every year, and supported the lifesaving Iron Dome rocket defense system. I defended Israel from isolation and attacks at the United Nations and other international settings, including opposing the biased Goldstone report.

Although I do not distrust Hillary's intentions toward Israel, you know what they say about good intentions and the direction of its paving. It is her foreign policy ideology that I do not trust. It is her unwavering belief in the ongoing failed Oslo nonsense.

It is the likelihood that after eight years of Obama's antics we will get more of the same from Hillary.

She reminds us that "in 2012 I led negotiations for a cease-fire in Gaza to stop Hamas rockets from raining down on Israeli homes and communities."

The is sort-of true. Clinton did lead the cease-fire effort at the time, but its primary effect, whatever its intention, was to save Hamas from Israeli retaliation. If Clinton was interested in preventing Hamas rocketeers from ruining the lives of Israeli children then she might not have waited until the moment that Israel started shooting back before interfering. Hamas sent thousands of rockets into southern Israel in the years preceding that engagement and if Hillary was so opposed she might have used her influence to see about de-funding the Jihadi organization.

She didn't.

Aside from outlining the various ways that she has been allegedly friendly to Israel in the past, she also assures us that she will be friendly to Israel in the future.

And while no solution can be imposed from outside, I believe the United States has a responsibility to help bring Israelis and Palestinians to the table and to encourage the difficult but necessary decisions that will lead to peace. As president I will never stop working to advance the goal of two states for two peoples living in peace, security and dignity.

This is the big problem.

And it is why no one who cares about the well-being of the Jewish State of Israel, or the well-being of Jewish people, in general, should support Hillary's campaign for president. Hillary, like Barack Obama, is a devotee of the Oslo Delusion. We already know how this movie is going to end because we have seen it many times before.

It looks something like this:

1) The US and the EU demand negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

2) The parties agree to talk and then the PA, the US, and the EU demand various concessions from Israel for the great privilege of sitting down with the PA's foremost undertaker.

3) Israel fails to meet all the concessions, thus causing the PA to flee negotiations, which they never had any intention of concluding to begin with.

4) The PA and the EU and the left-leaning American administration place the blame for failure at Jewish feet.

5) The EU and various European countries announce additional sanctions, thereby essentially joining the anti-Semitic anti-Zionist BDS movement.

6) Jihadis seek to murder Jews.
We are in phase number six of the current round at this particular moment... as anyone who cocks their head out the car door window in Jerusalem, and listens to the screams, will attest. Young Arab-Muslim men are running around Israel stabbing old Jewish ladies and young Jewish children and many in the West believe Israeli Jews richly deserve it. Part of the reason that many in the West, particularly on the Left, think that Arabs have every right to kill Jews is because people like Barack Obama and his administration constantly blame Arab violence on their Jewish victims.

For years, Barack Obama - and people who think like him - have essentially told the world that the real problem is that Jews are so arrogant that they think that they should have the right to build housing for ourselves in Judea... not to mention Samaria. Thus, suddenly, the word "settler" begins to gain evil connotations and the Jewish people are encouraged to split between those of us who oppose these evil settlers and those of us, being evil ourselves, support the evil settlers.

I support the evil settlers.

That land and those hills represent the very heartland of the Jewish people and no one is going to tell me that Judea belongs to the Arab conquerors of Jewish land. Since at least the Peel Commission of 1937, the Jewish people in the Land of Israel have, over and over again, demonstrated their willingness to share what little bit of Jewish land there is with their hostile neighbors.

Time and again they were rebuked.

What Hillary Clinton needs to understand, and what Barack Obama never learned, is that this is not a war over land. It is a centuries-long Arab-Muslim imposition of imperial supremacy upon all non-Muslims, most particularly those that they call the children of orangutans and swine, i.e., the Jewish people.

What Hillary Clinton needs to understand is that while Israeli-Jews are not victims, because they refuse to be victims, this does not mean that they are oppressors, either. It is the Arabs, not the Jews, who have turned that particular human tendency into an art-form.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 11 years and over 22,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

Jewish pilgrims shot outside holy site.

Every year there is a pilgrimage of thousands of Jews to Hebron, to mark the Torah portion that describes how Abraham purchased the Tomb of the Patriarchs from Ephron the Hittite.

Many of the pilgrims sleep in tents because there aren't enough houses for them to stay.

This year, despite the danger, thousands more were set to come:

Defying the threat of terror and the stormy weather, thousands of Jews are planning to take part in the annual Shabbat Chayei Sarah festivities in Hebron, a celebration of the purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs (Me’arat Ha’Machpela) by Abraham which is recounted in the weekly Torah portion named after Abraham’s wife who was buried there 3,691 years ago, according to Jewish tradition.

This Shabbat, November 6-7, the Jewish community of Hebron and neighboring Kiryat Arba will open their homes to guests from throughout Israel and around the world who will come to Hebron to read the Torah portion recalling the passing of the Biblical matriarch Sarah and her husband Abraham’s purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs as a burial plot. The cave subsequently became the final resting place of Abraham himself, as well as his son Isaac and his wife Rivkah, and their son Jacob and his wife Leah.

“The city of Hebron is proud and eager to host the myriad guests who will be joining us in celebration this Shabbat,” Yishai Fleisher, International Spokesman for the City of Hebron, said in a statement. “Israel has been hit by a plague of jihad, yet it continues to operate everyday with optimism and resilience. We look forward to a fun and festive experience for all the good people, government ministers, rabbis and educators, Jews and non-Jews who will come to pay tribute and join us in solidarity.”

Apparently, the idea of thousands of Jews on a religious pilgrimage was too much for some Arabs. From TOI:

Two Israeli teens were hurt Friday evening in a shooting attack near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron.

One of the two, a 16-year-old, was seriously hurt and the other, aged 18, sustained light injuries. The younger teen was hit by gunfire in the upper body. He was taken to Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, Channel 2 reported.

Maariv said both of the victims were conscious at the scene of the attack.

The gunfire apparently came from the direction of the Abu Sneina neighborhood of the divided city, targeting worshipers as they emerged from the tomb.

Large numbers of IDF troops were deployed to the Palestinian neighborhoods surrounding the Jewish settlement in Hebron to search for the cell behind the attack, the Ynet news website reported.

Imagine the world outcry if teenage Christians were shot by snipers leaving the cathedral in Notre Dame. That's pretty much the equivalent to what happened here. But since the victims are only Jews, and it happened in the territories that the world believes should be Jew-free even though Jews have been there for thousands of years. In other words, the lack of media outrage is because too many believe that the Jews deserve it.

There is a rich irony here. Abraham purchased the burial site, publicly, for an exorbitant price, specifically so that later generations would know that this land undoubtedly belonged to him and his designated descendants. David did the same with the Temple Mount, and Jacob did the same with a section of Shechem (Nablus.) And these areas is the very areas that the world insists that Jews have no right to.

AP reports that the Tomb of the Patriarchs is in the "center" of Hebron. No, it's on the edge, and Kiryat Arba is adjacent to H2. Hebron is a huge Arab city and there are no IDF restrictions for the vast majority of Arabs who live there. Not that you would know that from reading the mainstream media.