The reason? Because (non-religious) Israelis with cell phones were walking or bicycling on the nearly empty major roads and Google saw that they were traveling very slowly (compared to normal car speeds.)
(h/t Yenta Press)
UPDATE: Video:
As we approach Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, we highly recommend a thoughtful meditation on the Jewish culture of self-criticism by Ruth Wisse recently published in the Wall St. Journal.Cruz, Ros-Lehtinen protest that UN resolution would 'delegitimize Israel'
Here’s an excerpt:
Jews rightly take pride in their culture of self-accountability—before the Ultimate Judge and justly established human authorities. This culture has created and sustained a remarkably resilient people. Lamenting the excesses of the current American electoral cycle, the columnist Ira Stoll imagines how much richer the country’s politics would be if “this spirit of self-examination were exported from the Jewish religion into the rest of American culture.” If democracy requires the patient improvement of life in a community, nothing furthers that goal better than the practice of individual and collective self-scrutiny.
But the millennial-long history of Jewish self-restraint also stands as a warning. It is all very well to focus on overcoming your failings. Yet the search for moral perfection can also render individuals, and nations, prey to those who believe in conquest rather than self-conquest and who join in holding you accountable for their misdeeds. The same confessional posture, praiseworthy when standing before the Perfect Judge, becomes blameworthy when adopted before an enemy that has you before a rigged tribunal.
In the 20th century, some modern European thinkers and political leaders began singling out the Jews for their alleged racial or religious or social culpabilities. Many Jews felt obliged to answer apologetically for these supposed failings, instead of exposing the evil ideology that had chosen them for its target. Jewish Marxists, for example, blamed Jewish capitalists and bourgeoisie, even though defamation was leveled equally at Jewish professionals, artisans, journalists and paupers.
No sooner had the politics of Jew-blame reached its genocidal apotheosis in Europe than it was taken up in the Middle East. Rather than accepting the principle of co-existence and concentrating on improving the lives of their own subjects, Arab leaders refused Jews the right to their homeland in a war that they, the Arab leaders, had initiated. Forcing almost a million Jews from their ancient communities in Arab lands, the same leaders blamed Israel for Arab refugees whom they themselves refused to resettle.
This calumny is by now the basis of political coalitions not only at the United Nations and in Europe but on campuses here in the U.S. So ingrained are the assumptions of Jew-blame that newspapers will often devote more coverage to the shooting of one Palestinian Arab by an Israeli, often unintentionally or in self-defense, than to the murders of Jewish civilians by Arab and Muslim terrorists. What such belligerents do with the aim of eliminating the Jewish state, friends sometimes do in the name of holding Jews to “a higher moral standard.” And, as previously, some Jews join the blame-shifting ranks, castigating the Jewish state for engaging in self-defense rather than apology.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., sent a letter this week to the Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization protesting a resolution the U.S. lawmakers say is part of a wider effort to delegitimize Israel.Palestinian soccer team honors Jerusalem shooter who killed two Israelis
"The United Nations' obsessive hostility towards Israel will be on display yet again this week as UNESCO considers another blatantly biased resolution that unjustly singles out our close ally Israel with false accusations and criticism, and attempts to erase the specific deep-rooted, historical connection of Jews and Christians to Jerusalem, Israel's eternal capital," Cruz's office said Tuesday.
The Texas senator and Florida congresswoman were joined in their letter by 39 of their congressional colleagues.
"For thousands of years, Jerusalm [sic] has played a defining, central role in the history and identity of the Jewish people," Cruz's office said. "For Christians, Jerusalem is a seminal spiritual site. This resolution flies in the face of, among other things, science as recent archeological excavations, notably in the City of David, have revealed incontrovertible, physical evidence that reaffirms Jewish and Christian ties to the holy city of Jerusalem. Members of the UNESCO Executive Board should vote against this intentional campaign to deny these historical truths, rewrite the history of Jerusalem, and delegitimize Israel."
Ros-Lehtinen's office added Tuesday that the proposed U.N. resolution's "ill intent" is clear
"[T]o deny the historical record of the Jewish peoples' connections to their holiest city and to imply that Jerusalem is inconsequential to Jews and Christians, with the intent of laying the groundwork for additional UN efforts to delegitimize Israel and undermine its status as the capital of the Jewish State," he office said.
"Furthermore, this irresponsible and reprehensible resolution falsely lays the blame for the violence on Israel since last October while ignoring the acts of terror and violence that are being incited by the Palestinian Authority and Abu Mazen. UNESCO was created to build intercultural understanding yet, as is the case across the entire UN system, intolerance and intentionally corrosive behavior on the part of many of the organization's members has undermined its original mission and only further underscores the need for drastic reform throughout the entire UN system," they added.
And anti-Israel activists want Israel kicked out of FIFA!
On Sunday, October 9, 2016, we reported how Palestinians celebrate murder of two Israelis in Jerusalem shooting attack.
Video has been released of the “heroic” drive by shooting being celebrated:
Those celebrations included approval and encouragement of further attacks from both Fatah and Hamas news outlets, a phone call of congratulations from the political head of Hamas to the killer’s family, dancing outside the home of the killer, and the killer’s 14-year old daughter praising the attack.
Israeli police closed the candy store owned by the killer’s family, so I guess they’ll have to find another source of goodies to hand out.
And now this, a Palestinian soccer team holding a banner honoring the killer.
Oh, by the way, the Palestinians and anti-Israel activists want Israel kicked out of FIFA because security checks of Palestinian soccer teams disrupt their ability to play. Let’s see, soccer team honors terrorist killer who conducted shooting spree that killed two Israelis — certainly no security concerns with those fine young men.
The Jewish people and the Jewish state face extraordinary challenges today. Luckily, we can handle all of them. But to do so, we need to be capable of judging ourselves fairly.
Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish year because it is the day that the Torah sets aside for us to reckon with ourselves. We are commanded to give an accounting – before our fellow men and before God – for our actions in the previous year. We must make amends to both for our misdeeds. And since none of us is perfect, every one of us has things to atone for.
Yom Kippur’s power stems from a basic assumption that forms its core. That assumption is that we are all moral agents. We all have to make an accounting.
This basic assumption is the most liberating notion ever created. Moral agency is what makes us free. It doesn’t matter how wretched or rich our external circumstances, the fact that the Torah enjoins all of us to take responsibility for our behavior means that as far as God is concerned, we are not slaves and never will be slaves.
The converse is also true.
We are only free for as long as we are capable of accounting for our actions. This means that preserving our ability to properly judge ourselves is the key to preserving our liberty.
This is true not only for the Jewish people as individuals. It is true as well for the Jewish state, Israel.
On Sunday, just hours after an east Jerusalem Palestinian shot and killed two Israelis in the capital, politicians hit the airwaves.Security forces on high alert in Jerusalem as Jewish Israelis mark Yom Kippur
Some called to punish residents of Silwan, the east Jerusalem neighborhood where the terrorist came from. Others called to immediately authorize the construction of homes in Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Agriculture Minister and Bayit Yehudi member Uri Ariel said: “Massive building and removing from the heart of our enemies the idea that we will ever move from a united Jerusalem... will minimize the potential for attacks in Jerusalem.”
Bayit Yehudi MK Mordechai Yogev said: “Every attack requires a Zionist response of authorizing new building plans in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.”
This has happened before.
After the brutal murder of 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel, Education Minister Naftali Bennett called on the government to build in the settlements. A few days later, the government approved the publication of a tender to build 42 additional homes in Kiryat Arba.
The IDF was set to place the West Bank and Gaza border crossings under a general closure on Tuesday evening at the start of Yom Kippur. The closure was scheduled to be lifted on Wednesday night.
Humanitarian, medical and other urgent journeys will be permitted, the army said.
One day after a deadly Jerusalem terrorist attack jarred the nation, police on Monday said extensive security measures for Yom Kippur, beginning Tuesday night, have been implemented throughout the capital, with “nothing being left to chance.”
In anticipation of thousands of visitors from around the world visiting the Western Wall beginning Monday evening, Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said nearly 4,000 officers will be on hand to closely monitor all activity.
“Overall general security assessments have been made across Israel, with an emphasis on all public areas such as synagogues, central bus and train stations and the Old City,” he said Monday afternoon. “At the same time, during the festivals themselves, we’re having more than 3,500 officers in Jerusalem to carry out security measures, with an emphasis on the Old City, where we’re expecting thousands of people to arrive to go to the Western Wall on Tuesday and Wednesday.”
According to Rosenfeld, a wide range of elite units will be based in Jerusalem, including Border Police, counterterrorism units, special patrol units and undercover units.
“If necessary, they will give an immediate response to any type of incident,” he said, “and these security measures are standard measures taking place despite the terrorist attack that took place over the last 24 hours.”
“The level of security across the country and in Jerusalem is relatively high, and this will continue for as long as necessary throughout the festival period, including Succot, which will last for over two weeks from today,” Rosenfeld said.
An East Jerusalem man was indicted Tuesday for planning to carry out a suicide bombing on a bus in the capital, officials said.BBC headlines for same story differ according to target audiences
On September 9, the Shin Bet security service arrested alleged Hamas operative Muhammad Fuaz Ibrahim Julani, a resident of the Shuafat refugee camp, a few days before he planned to carry out his attack, the agency said.
Over the past few months, Julani, 22, had been planning to carry out a terror attack on behalf of Hamas, the Shin Bet said.
In September, he told an accomplice he planned to carry out the suicide bombing as “this is the way of God,” according to the indictment.
The Hamas terror group’s operatives in the Gaza Strip had been in contact with Julani through the internet in order to plan the bombing and had also encouraged him to recruit other people to carry out attacks, according to the indictment filed against him Tuesday in the Jerusalem District Court.
“This investigation reiterates and highlights the unrelenting effort by Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip to instigate severe terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank,” the Shin Bet said in a statement.
While failing to accurately describe it as terrorism, the BBC News website’s English language report on the attack in Jerusalem on October 9th did make it clear to audiences that the perpetrator was a “Palestinian gunman” in both the headline and the opening paragraph.Ben-Dror Yemini: The sickness of narrative thinking
In contrast, the headline selected for the BBC’s Arabic language report on the same incident failed to provide visitors to the BBC Arabic website with any information concerning the identity of the attacker.
The headline reads “Two Israelis killed and 6 wounded in shooting in Jerusalem”. The report’s opening paragraph reads:
“The Israeli police said that two Israelis were killed and six others injured as a result of shooting near the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem.”
In recent years, the truth has fallen casualty to storytelling; the Palestinian narrative of the Nakba must not override the truth that the Arab armies came to try and destroy Israel in its inception, and must not infantilize the Arab population by not holding them accountable for their actions.
A severe disease has stricken the institutes of knowledge, media, and academia in Israel. It's the disease of narrative thinking. There is no longer and truth, no historic facts. We are living in a new world. Instead of serious research aimed at finding the truth, the world now sees reality through different stories, with each community, group, people, and country having its own.
Case in point, the claims made by MK Ayman Odeh (leader of the Joint List party) following the death of former president Shimon Peres. According to Odeh, the "Palestinians of 1948" (how Israeli-Arabs define themselves), who experienced the "Nakba," are victims of the Zionist enterprise, of which Peres is a main representative. So why should the victim come to the criminal's funeral?
And so, things should be made clear: There was indeed a Nakba. There was a disaster. Crimes were committed during the Independence War, whose victims were local Arab people. And those who would deny this are at least as bad as MK Odeh and his "narrative." We need to acknowledge this not in order to identify with the victims on a human level (not that this is unimportant), but because these are facts.
The thing is, MK Odeh ignores the fact that the Arab leadership of that period, to which he is a successor, mad it unequivocally clear: Not only are we not interested in compromise and in a division of lands, we plan on conducting a massacre.
Chairman of Hamas political bureau Khaled Meshaal has called the family of Misbah Abu Subeih, the 40-year-old Palestinian who carried out a resistance attack in Jerusalem yesterday, offering the Movement’s condolences to the family and praising the courage of the late martyr.Hezbollah's political wing also cheered the murderous rampage in Jerusalem. That "political wing" is still not considered a terror group by the EU or UK.
“Palestinians are proud of this hero who sacrificed his life and blood to defend his people and the holy Aqsa Mosque,” Meshaal said.
He reaffirmed Hamas’s position that resistance remains the chosen road toward the liberation of Palestine.
“Our resistance shall persist until the land and sanctities are liberated, the prisoners are freed and the refugees are back to their homeland.” He stated.
In a separate phone call, Deputy Chairman of Hamas political bureau Ismail Haniya said that Abu Subeih set a model for the generations to follow.
“He was a staunch defender of Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque both in his life and his death,” Haniya said.
Why has this festering wound of deprivation and suffering perpetuated and grown? Why haven’t Arab host nations closed the camps and integrated the Palestinians into their own populations? And why, indeed, are there still refugee camps in areas ruled by the Palestinian Authority? Accountability lies not with Israel, but with Palestinian leaders and Arab States.
The same is true of the origins of the refugee exodus. In 1947, the UN Partition Plan proposed two independent states. Israel accepted, but Palestinian leaders, whose state would include the West Bank and Gaza, rejected the proposal. How many Palestinian refugees would there be had the Palestinians accepted this offer of statehood? Zero.
In 1948, Israel declared statehood. The next day Israel was attacked on all sides by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. Those nations failed in their quest to destroy Israel, and the war they launched caused an exodus of Palestinian refugees. How many Palestinian refugees would there be had the Arab nations not attacked Israel in 1948? Zero.
There is an oft-repeated but false narrative that Israel “expelled” the Palestinians from their homes in 1948. In fact, at Israel’s founding Prime Minister David Ben Gurion proclaimed that all Arab inhabitants were invited to stay “on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its bodies and institutions.” Many Palestinians left, implored to do so by the same Arab leaders who were bent on destroying Israel. A handful were expelled during the war. But, the Palestinian Arabs who took up Ben Gurion’s offer to stay in Israel are today (along with their descendants) among the 1.8 million Arab citizens who are part of a thriving and diverse democracy.
Notably, former Syrian Prime Minister Haled al Azm stated in his memoirs: “Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the UN to resolve on their return.”
Solutions to the problem have been routinely rejected by Palestinian leaders. In 2000, the Camp David accords offered Palestinians another opportunity for statehood. The offer included 97% of the occupied territories, additional land swaps, and $30 billion in compensation for the refugees. But, the proposal also required recognition of Israel’s right to exist in peace. Yasser Arafat rejected it.
The Gaza-bound flotilla received international media coverage, especially when Roger Waters joined the party and announced that Pink Floyd was reuniting for a special performance for the boat’s passengers. What did we gain from that, asked my friend, who was listening to foreign media reports. Instead of taking over the boat and reminding the world of the Gaza blockade, which turns into a siege when translated into foreign languages, Israel could have acted differently. Why confront a small group of women and turn them into heroes? We could have turned them into what they really are: Useful idiots.Vic Rosenthal: Goodbye, Barack
Want to enter Gaza? Go right ahead. We’ll even equip you with medicine and tomato boxes. It’s true that hundreds of Israeli trucks transfer goods into the strip every day, but if you want more – be our guest.
We could have taken the same opportunity to do other things. For example, to equip them with an official letter from the Israeli government, something that would be photographed well on the media. A letter adorned with arabesques in dozens of languages. And if Israel were smart, not only would it not have prevented media coverage, it would have invited a distinguished delegation of journalists from around the world to cover the delivery of the letter.
And what would be the content? Well, the following things should have been written: “The State of Israel wants prosperity and welfare for the strip’s residents. For that purpose, Hamas is required to accept the simple formula of demilitarization in exchange for reconstruction. Instead of investing in tunnels of death, instead of investing in the production of rockets directed at innocent civilians, it is possible to turn over a new leaf of cooperation, of economic investments, of project building. Israel is not interested in a blockade.
At last, after eight long years during which Barack Obama a) applied almost unrelenting pressure on Israel, much more obsessively than anything else he did, and b) taught us the painful truth about American liberal Jews – that for them, Israel is just another foreign country – he is leaving the White House. What comes next could be better or worse, but who here won’t be happy to see his particularly offensive brand of hypocrisy and hostility disappear?
But the game isn’t over until January 20, and soon there will be nothing to restrain him from acting on his obsession.
Last Wednesday, the State Department issued a press release in which it “strongly condemn[ed]” Israel’s plan to build 98 homes inside an existing settlement in order to house families that will be displaced by the demolition of another settlement, which has been ordered by Israel’s Supreme Court.
“Strongly condemn” is language normally used for terrorism or, for example, Russian and Syrian air strikes on hospitals in which dozens of civilians die.
The State Department claimed that Israel was violating its assurances to the US that it would not build “new settlements.” Israeli officials called the statement “disproportionate” and argued that it was neither a “new settlement” nor an obstacle to peace.
Administration lackeys like the New York Times and J Street echoed the criticism. The Times, in language that could have been (and probably was) written by NSC staffer and Obama confidant Ben Rhodes, blasted Israel and called for a Security Council resolution to “set guidelines” for Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. An administration official said that “the White House boiled with anger” (more Rhodesian rhetoric) over Israel’s plan.
We emphasize that there are a number of members of Congress who are working for the interests of the "Jewish lobby", which aims to form "a new Middle East..." And this Zionist lobby in the United States is aimed at causing unrest in Saudi Arabia that will cause the collapse of the Saudi state .. followed by the Gulf states until the "new Middle East" scheme is completed, putting the Gulf states are in crises like Syria, Libya and Iraq.
Hundreds of mourners joined family and fellow officers at the funeral of a 29-year-old cop killed in Sunday’s deadly shooting attack in Jerusalem.Danon to UN: Why don't you ask PA to condemn terror attack?
First Sergeant Yosef Kirma was laid to rest at around 6 p.m. Sunday at the capital’s Mount Herzl cemetery.
Kirma’s father Uzi eulogized his son. “Yossi, you were my friend. Now you are no longer with us any more. How is it possible to continue? What will I do now?” he said. “How can I move on from here? I love you so much.”
Kirma married in April. His wife Noy lamented their short time together. “We had so many plans together, a home, children, and you always supported my career. You loved me always, unconditionally, even more than I loved myself,” she said. “My Yossi, look how many people came just for you. You are my light and my heart.”
Chief Superintendent Meir Namir, Kirma’s commander in the elite tactical response unit Yasam in the Jerusalem Police, said Sunday’s attack “will be seared in the hearts of the policemen of the unit. Yossi was made of the stuff of the heroes of Israel. Now we salute you for the final time.”
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, penned a letter to the UN Security Council, calling upon that body to demand the Palestinian Authority condemn the murder of Yosef Kirma and Levana Malichi in Jerusalem on Sunday.
In his letter, Danon noted the numerous expressions of joy and celebrations by Arabs in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria following the terror attack. He also included photographs documenting the celebrations. In some cases, Arab residents were seen handing out candy and waving pictures of the terrorist.
Danon argued that the Security Council must “demand that the Palestinian Authority immediately halt the incitement [against Israel] and strongly condemn the murders in Jerusalem.”
“The time has come,” he added, “for the international community to explicitly and unconditionally declare that support for terror or aid to terrorists is unacceptable, and that it will demand from Palestinian Authority leaders to accept this. The Palestinian Authority’s silence following these chilling murders and the subsequent disgusting celebrations is deafening.”
“In the streets of Gaza they are celebrating a murderous terror attack against innocents, and are praising the lowly murderer. These celebrations and the support for terror are the real impediment to peace, and the primary cause of the terror attacks and the murder of Levana Malichi and Yossi Kirma. In Gaza a generation of children is being raised on hate and violence.”
At the bottom of his piece last week “Netanyahu, this is what ethnic cleansing really looks like,” Prof. Daniel Blatman is described as a “historian.” In that case, Blatman betrayed his profession when he attributed to me things I have never claimed and distorted the events of the 1948 war.
First, throughout the article Blatman ignores the basic fact that the Palestinians were the ones who started the war when they rejected the UN compromise plan and embarked on hostile acts in which 1,800 Jews were killed between November 1947 and mid-May 1948. (In that, by the way, the Jews differ from the Serbs, who started the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and did in fact carry out ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and elsewhere).Other examples of Morris destroying others who pretend that history shows Israel's birth to be the original sin:
Regarding the second stage of the 1948 war, Blatman claims that the Arab countries invaded prestate Israel in order to rescue their Palestinian brothers from the ethnic cleansing that the Jews had launched, and that most of them attacked the new State of Israel in order to do this. During this alleged cleansing “over 400,000” Arabs – who according to Blatman made up over half the Palestinian Arab population – were expelled from their homes and forced to flee by May 14. (Actually, there were about 1.2 million to 1.3 million Arabs in the country at the time.)
The real number of those who fled and were forced to flee was apparently smaller, but more importantly, the Arab countries attacked the State of Israel largely to harm it, if not to destroy it. The fact is, their leaders threatened to invade even before the UN resolution was passed on November 29, 1947, and before a single Arab had been uprooted from his home. And they continued to threaten an invasion in the following months, until May 1948.
It wasn’t the tragedy of the Palestinians that motivated the Arab countries during their invasion. The truth is, the flight and expulsion of the Arabs from their homes in prestate Israel, especially from early April until May 14, 1948 (in that connection the capture of Jaffa, Tiberias and Haifa, and the Deir Yassin massacre have always been mentioned), fostered extremism among the Arab populations surrounding prestate Israel and were one reason Arab leaders decided to invade on the eve of May 15.
But more important factors influenced the Arab leaders in their decision; for example, Jordan’s King Abdullah wanted to expand his country’s borders, the Egyptian king wanted to deny the Jordanian king major territorial achievements, and the leaders of Syria, Iraq and Egypt feared the reaction at home if they did not invade. Concern for the welfare of the Arabs in prestate Israel was not the main motive for the Arab invasion.
According to Blatman, I claimed that “over half a year before the Arab invasion began” the leaders of the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Eretz Israel, aspired to expand the country’s borders beyond those decided on in the UN General Assembly resolution, “and to minimize the number” of Arabs who would remain in the Jewish state.
This is nonsense, a distortion of my words and of history. Of course, leaders in a country’s early years are interested in enlarging the country’s territory, but there’s a big difference between personal and political aspirations.
In political terms, the Yishuv’s leaders aspired to enlarge the area of the state in the making only beginning around March-April 1948, not starting in November 1947. And this happened only after four months of Arab combat against the Yishuv, which was staging a strategic defense. And it happened only after the Arab leaders stated clearly morning, noon and night that they intended to attack the Jewish state when the British left.
Regarding minimizing the number of Arabs, at no stage of the 1948 war was there a decision by the leadership of the Yishuv or the state to “expel the Arabs” – neither in the Jewish Agency nor in the Israeli government; neither in the Haganah General Staff nor in the Israel Defense Forces General Staff. Nor did any important party in the Yishuv, including the Revisionists, adopt such a policy in its platform.
It’s true that in the 1930s and early ‘40s David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann supported the transfer of Arabs from the area of the future Jewish state. But later they supported the UN decision, whose plan left more than 400,000 Arabs in place.
It’s also true that from a certain point during the war, Ben-Gurion let his officers understand that it was preferable for as few Arabs as possible to remain in the new country, but he never gave them an order “to expel the Arabs.” (In July 1948 he even decided against the expulsion of the Arabs of Nazareth, while he halfheartedly ordered the expulsion of the Arabs of Lod and Ramle.)
The atmosphere of transfer that prevailed in the country beginning in April 1948 was never translated into official policy – which is why there were officers who expelled Arabs and others who didn’t. Neither group was reprimanded or punished.
In the end, in 1948 about 160,000 Arabs remained in Israeli territory – a fifth of the population. Over the decades, this number has grown to 1.6 million. (This month their leaders decided not to attend the funeral of Shimon Peres, who tried to promote a compromise based on a two-state solution.)
If Blatman reads my books he’ll learn that already on March 24, 1948, Israel Galili, Ben-Gurion’s deputy in the future Defense Ministry and the head of the Haganah, ordered all the Haganah brigades not to uproot Arabs from the territory of the designated Jewish state. Things did change in early April due to the Yishuv’s shaky condition and the impending Arab invasion. But there was no overall expulsion policy – here they expelled people, there they didn’t, and for the most part the Arabs simply fled.
It’s true that in mid-1948 the new State of Israel adopted a policy of preventing the return of refugees – the same refugees who months and weeks earlier had tried to destroy the state in the making. But I still consider this policy logical and just.
I don’t accept the definition “ethnic cleansing” for what the Jews in prestate Israel did in 1948. (If you consider Lod and Ramle, maybe we can talk about partial ethnic cleansing.) And certainly there was no ethnic cleansing that was “one of the most successful of the 20th century,” as Blatman puts it.
On the contrary.
In the end, 160,000 Arabs remained in Israeli territory, and not all those who tried to return from Arab countries after 1948 were expelled, as Blatman claims. Many were expelled, and many somehow returned, were allowed to stay and became citizens of the Jewish state.
Incidentally, Arab countries carried out ethnic cleansing and uprooted all the Jews, down to the last one, from any territory they captured in 1948 – for example, the Jordanians in Gush Etzion and Jerusalem’s Old City, and the Syrians in Masada, Sha’ar Hagolan and Mishmar Hayarden. The Jews, on the other hand, left Arabs in place in Haifa and Jaffa, and in the villages along the country’s main traffic arteries – the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway and the Tel Aviv-Haifa highway – a fact that does not conform with the claim of “successful” ethnic cleansing.
Regarding the current preoccupation with the subject, it’s absurd, to put it mildly, to claim that uprooting Jewish communities from the West Bank is “ethnic cleansing,” but there is logic to the presence of Jews in Arab areas, just as Arabs live in the Jewish state. In today’s circumstances, the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria is an obstacle to a possible peace between us and the Palestinians. I have always opposed this enterprise, because a division into two states for two peoples is the just and logical solution.
Unfortunately, Benjamin Netanyahu is right when he says the main obstacle to peace is the unwillingness of the Arabs on both sides of the Green Line to agree to a compromise based on two states for two peoples, and their rejection of the legitimacy of the Zionist enterprise and the State of Israel.
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The Apartheid charge, the Abraham Accords and the "right side of history"
With Palestinians, there is no need to exaggerate: they really support murdering random Jews
Great news for Yom HaShoah! There are no antisemites!