Biden rewrites Israel’s history
“Both the Israelis and the Palestinian people have deep and ancient roots in this land,” President Joe Biden declared at his July 14 press conference in Jerusalem.
The first subject of the president’s sentence is obviously true. The second, however, is utterly false.
The Palestinian Arabs do not have “deep” or “ancient” roots in the Holy Land. Their roots are shallow, recent, and for the most part artificial.
There were less than 300,000 Arabs living there in the 1880s, and they did not call themselves “Palestinians.” They defined themselves as “southern Syrians,” or as members of particular clans.
As Jewish pioneers began developing the land in the decades to follow, illegal Arab immigrants flocked to the area from neighboring Arab countries, attracted by the prospect of jobs and higher living standards. The British authorities turned a blind eye to this mass Arab influx.
The British occupied the country colloquially known as “Palestine” during World War I. In 1922, they decided to partition the country. The Arabs were given the 78% on the eastern side of the Jordan River. It was called “Transjordan,” then later “Jordan.” The Arab residents weren’t magically transformed from “Palestinians” to “Transjordanians” to “Jordanians.” The arbitrary slapping of a name on a region did not change their identity.
It was only in the 1960s under the guidance of the Soviet Union that Arab propagandists began actively calling the Arab residents of the area “Palestinians.” Those terms had no historical basis and were invented to advance the anti-Israel agenda. The fact that the United Nations and the Western news media adopted that language did not make it legitimate.
By contrast, archaeologists almost daily dig up new evidence of the Jewish people’s very deep and ancient roots in the Land of Israel. There have been a slew of discoveries in the past few years demonstrating the historical Jewish presence in that region.
A 2,000 year-old ritual bath (mikveh) was uncovered in the Lower Galilee—meaning that the residents of that region were practicing the same religious rituals that Jews throughout the world practice today. Those Galileans were Jews. They weren’t “Palestinians.” The word “Palestine” had not yet been invented.
In the Givati Parking Lot excavation in Jerusalem, archaeologists discovered Hebrew-language inscriptions dating back 2,600 years. One was a stone seal with the words “belonging to Ikkar son of Matanyahu.” The other was a clay seal impression that read, “belonging to Nathan-Melech, servant of the king.” They weren’t in Arabic. And the names weren’t Yasir or Mahmoud.
Excavators from the University of North Carolina discovered two stunning mosaics at the site of a 1,600 year-old synagogue near Huqoq, in northern Israel. One depicts a scene from the exodus of the Jews from ancient Egypt. The other shows images based on verses in the Torah’s Book of Daniel. The mosaics do not show scenes from the Koran. There is nothing Arabic of Islamic or “Palestinian” about them.
New laboratory testing methods developed at Ben-Gurion University deciphered a description on a 3,000 year-old seal: it has the Hebrew words “L’Shema, ever Yerov’am,” that is, “Belonging to Shema, the servant [or minister] of Jeroboam.” That’s the Jewish king, Jeroboam II, who ruled in the Land of Israel nearly 3,000 years ago.
Far Left is pushing to make Palestinian 'return' a viable option
Many have forgotten that in 2001, Israel passed a law rejecting the right of return. The law states that "Refugees will not return to Israeli territory unless it is with the approval of a Knesset majority." The law discusses Palestinian refugees, but without going into details about Palestinian identity, and it rejects any right of return. The Nakba Law, passed in 2011, gives the finance ministry the authority to dock the budgets of government-funded institutions that call for or work toward the end of Israel as a Jewish state, as well as deny funding to groups that mark Independence Day as a day of mourning.Caroline Glick: ‘If Russia sends a nuclear attack on the U.S., it’s going to arrive’ | Mideast News Hour
This law is virtually unenforced, while the government continues to effectively fund MKs and parties like Ra'am and the Joint Arab List, many of whose members publicly speak out against Israel's existence as a Jewish state and hold Nakba ceremonies on Independence Day. For the first time, an Arab party – Ra'am – became a member of the coalition, despite its official support for implementing return for Palestinians refugees. 'We murdered the Arab Jebusites'
The Arab school system in Israel still teaches a book by Ghassan Kanafani, Return to Haifa. Kanfaani, a native of Acre who was a writer and spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was killed in Beirut by Israeli forces in 1972, two months after the slaughter at the Lod airport perpetrated by a branch of the PFLP. The book deals with an encounter between Arab refugees who return to their homes in Haifa after the 1967 Six-Day War and the Holocaust survivors who live there. The book centers around the Nakba experience and Palestinian return.
Zameret, who has chair of the Education Ministry's Pegagogic Department disqualified the book from the curriculum and was attacked for his decision by radical leftists and groups like Zochrot, recalls that the book was "written by Jewish extremists, Palestinians, and international observers."
"The book supposedly presents both sides of the conflict," Zameret says. "The Palestinian side represents Zionism as having allied itself with British colonialism, fulfilled its aspirations, stole another people's country, erased their identity, and oppressed every liberation movement. Mount Zion is described by the Palestinians as a mountain that looks over the eastern half of Jerusalem, which is in Palestine, and [the book] explains that in that same part of the city, the Jebusites once lived. When King David conquered the city [it says], he emptied Jebus [as Jerusalem was then known] of its residents, seized the fort that was on the mount, and called it Zion. In short – we are criticized as having expelled and murdered all the Jebusites, the 'Arab Jebusites.' That is what they wanted us to approve."
Zameret cannot comprehend how the Israeli school system allows Arab schools to teach Return to Haifa.
"Then they wonder that left-wing Israeli groups, Jewish and Arab, are actively promoting right of return, and preparing lesson plans to further increase awareness of the lies about the Nakba," he says.
If Russia decides to attack the United States with a nuclear weapon it’s going to arrive, according to David Wurmser of the Washington-based Center for Security Policy. “I don’t think most Americans perceive that because their elites have convinced them that there is no such option,” Wurmser said in an interview with Caroline Glick on this week’s “Mideast News Hour.” “I think there is a misperception out there in America of our own power and strength.”
Glick and Wurmser also discuss the fallout from President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel and the Middle East and the deeper reasons for the U.S.’s refusal to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
Finally, they move to Israel itself and the stakes in the coming election.