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Friday, March 12, 2010 • Volume X, Number 2,295
IT’S WRONG TO SUGGEST ISRAEL WAS THE DIRECT RESULT OF THE HOLOCAUST The United Nations has declared the day the Auschwitz death camp was liberated as International Holocaust Memorial Day. It was only appropriate that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was invited to address the ceremonies commemorating the 65th anniversary of the liberation by the Red Army of that place of horrors. In the minds of some, the establishment of the State of Israel is linked to the Holocaust, or even seen as a direct result of the Holocaust. U.S. President Barack Obama, probably unaware of the history of the Zionist movement, implied as much in his speech in Cairo last year. But the truth is almost the exact opposite. The extermination by the Germans of six million Jews during World War II came close to putting an end to the dream of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. The reservoir of Jewish immigrants to Palestine was decimated. Vladimir Jabotinsky, in his testimony before the Peel Commission in London on February 11, 1937, spoke of the aim of Zionism as the establishment of a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan River in which there would be room for “the Arab population and their progeny and many millions of Jews.” At that time, the Jewish population of Palestine was no more than 400,000. By the time the war had ended, millions of Jews had
been exterminated in Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Sobibor and the killing
fields of Russia. To Zionist leaders, it became clear that not only were there
not enough Jews to constitute a solid Jewish majority, which was the condition
for establishing a Jewish state, on both sides of the Jordan River, but that
Jewish immigration would not even suffice to establish such a majority in the
entire area west of the Jordan. It was the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who grasped the full potential of the destruction of European Jewry for ending Zionist aspirations, and therefore allied himself with Hitler. Arab leaders in Egypt and Iraq similarly found good reason to hope for Hitler’s victory. Yet after the war, the Yishuv (the Jewish community in pre-Palestine) and the remnants of European Jewry, who overcame British efforts to block their way to Palestine, had enough vitality and strength to bring about the establishment of the State of Israel in part of the territory that the League of Nations had originally mandated to Britain for the establishment of a Jewish state on both sides of the Jordan River. In Israel, we commemorate the Holocaust every year on the day the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt began. It is significant that we pay homage to the Jews of Europe who were exterminated on the day the Jewish survivors in the Warsaw Ghetto rose up to fight the Germans and their Ukrainian henchmen. It was the first uprising against the German conqueror in Europe. The Warsaw ghetto fighters knew they had no chance of defeating the far superior German forces. They received neither help nor encouragement from Washington, London or Moscow. It was only a year later, after the Germans had laid waste to the ghetto and killed and deported the remaining inhabitants, that the world began to appreciate the full significance of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Today, it is seen as an integral part of the history of World War II. It is a lasting testimony to the few hundred courageous youngsters who dared to challenge the German conqueror. Although defeated in the ghetto, their victory is written in the pages of history. It was on the eve of the uprising, on April 18, 1943, that Leon Rodal, Pawel Frenkel’s deputy in the Betar-led resistance, the Jewish Military Organization, said to Ryszard Walewski, who with a group of his fighters had joined Frenkel’s organization: “We will all fall here. Some in battle, weapons in hand, and others as vain victims ... Maybe someday, after many years, when the history of the struggle against the Nazi conqueror is written, we will be remembered, and, who knows, we will become like small Judea that fought mighty Rome in its day, the symbol of man’s spirit that cannot be suppressed, whose essence is the fight for freedom, for the right to live, and the right to exist.” A WORLD-HISTORIC FIND IN JERUSALEM The greatest threat to the hopes of those who think
parts of Jerusalem should be off-limits to Jews comes not when Jewish-owned
buildings go up in the city, but rather when Jews start digging into the
ground of East Jerusalem. Because the more the history of the city is
uncovered, the less credible becomes the charge that Jews are alien colonists
in what the media sometimes wrongly refer to as “traditionally
Palestinian” or “Arab” Jerusalem. That’s the upshot from the release of an amazing
archeological dig conducted just outside Jerusalem’s Old City. The
excavations conducted by archeologist Eilat Mazar in the Ophel area revealed a
section of an ancient city wall of Jerusalem. According to the press release
from the Hebrew University, under whose auspices the project was carried out,
the dig uncovered the wall as well as an inner gatehouse for entry into the
royal quarter of the ancient city and an additional royal structure adjacent
to the gatehouse as well as a corner tower. While ancient buildings are not
uncommon in the city, the significance of this discovery is the fact that
these edifices can be dated to the 10th century before the Common Era—the
time of King Solomon, credited by the Bible for the construction of the
ancient Temple in Jerusalem. Pottery found at the lowest levels of the dig is
dated to this era. Even more telling is the fact that bullae—seal
impressions—with Hebrew names were found, as well as seal impressions on jar
handles inscribed with the words “to the king,” which means they were
employed by the Israelite state in that time. Inscriptions on the jars, which
Mazar says are the largest ever found in Jerusalem, showed them to be the
property of a royal official. Daniel Mintz and Meredith Berkman funded the dig.
They are a New York couple whose funding is supporting both the dig and the
preservation of the site for public viewing as part of the national park that
exists around the Old City walls. You can view pictures of the site here. The significance of this extraordinary find is that
it provides new proof of the existence and power of the Davidic monarchy, the
Israelite state that it led, and the more than 3,000-year-old Jewish presence
in Jerusalem. These new discoveries, along with those of a previous dig in a
different area of the city of David, contradict contrary Palestinian claims
that the Jews have no claim to the area. They also debunk the assertions of
some Israeli archeologists who have sought to portray the kingdom of David and
Solomon as an insignificant tribal group and not the regional empire that the
Bible speaks about. Indeed, Mazar believes that the strength and the form of
construction required to build these structures correlates with biblical
passages that speak of Solomon’s building of a royal palace and of the
Temple with the assistance of master builders from Phoenicia (modern-day
Lebanon). Moreover, contrary to those who speak of the Jewish presence in the
city as a passing phase in ancient times, the discovery of Jewish seals, which
speak directly of an Israelite state, proves that what Mazar has found are not
the remains of a Jebusite fort conquered by the Jews but rather of a great
city built by David and his son Solomon. While finding ancient Jewish artifacts as well as
the traces of Solomon’s city in Jerusalem may seem nothing out of the
ordinary, for the last century and a half, a great many academics and
intellectuals have attempted to put down the existence of the ancient Jewish
kingdom—which has always served as a symbol of Jewish nationhood—as a
religiously inspired fiction. This deconstruction of both biblical literature
and history has sought to undermine the very idea of the historical truth
about ancient Israel, as well as the notion that Jewish nationhood had its
roots in the past. This has been put to use by anti-Zionists and Arabs who
have thought that if they could destroy the idea of King David’s existence
as a historic figure, they could delegitimize modern Israel. Thus, Palestinian
propagandists and the Palestinian Authority itself, which has steadfastly
denied any Jewish connection to the Old City, the Temple Mount, or even the
Western Wall, have copied revisionist scholarly work doubting Jewish history
and incorporated that work into their negotiating position about the city’s
future. The Muslim religious authority that controls the site of the Temple
Mount has vandalized the area, destroying a treasure trove of antiquities in
the ancient place because its officials fear that any find revealing the
Jewish origins of the place will undermine their fallacious claims that seek
to portray Jews as foreign occupiers in their own ancient capital. It serves the purposes of the enemies of modern Israel to pretend that there is no such thing as biblical history or an ancient kingdom of Israel. But what Eilat Mazar and her colleagues have done is to illustrate once again just how deep the roots of Jewish Jerusalem run. Three thousand years. ISRAEL’S HISTORIC ROOTS ARE REAL Speeches and comments made by Binyamin Netanyahu of late have been rather heavy on their biblical and historical references. In his speech at Bar-Ilan University last June, he declared: “The connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel has lasted for more than 3,500 years ... This is the land of our forefathers.” And in an interview with talkshow host Charlie Rose in September, he mentioned a signet ring found by the western wall in Jerusalem, dating back 2,700 years and bearing the name “Netanyahu Ben-Yoash” inscribed on it in ancient Hebrew. The context of these comments and the motivation for Netanyahu’s recent announcement of a plan for the refurbishment of national heritage sites are one and the same: Israelis view those elements that seek to erase the historical ties of the Jewish people to the land as part of larger strategy aimed at delegitimising the state of Israel. Senior politicians and Israeli thinktanks have identified this phenomenon as a serious threat to the country, and the heritage restoration project is an example of the Israeli reaction to this challenge. Unfortunately, the inclusion in the restoration plan of two of the most sacred Jewish sites, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb, has sparked riots in the West Bank and Jerusalem over the past few days and led supposedly moderate Palestinian leaders to burst forth with disturbingly inflammatory rhetoric. Mahmoud Abbas even raised the spectre of “religious war” in light of the inclusion of these two sites. The international community weighed in too, with the US State Department and the UN secretary general, both reprimanding Israel for the decision. Why has the seemingly innocuous announcement to upgrade these sites prompted such a caustic response? Muslims have full access to the Cave of the Patriarchs and the Islamic waqf’s role in administering it remains unchanged. Rachel’s Tomb is currently only accessible via Israel, but this has been the case since the late 1990s, owing to the high number of Palestinian attacks against the site in recent years. Regrettably, it seems that this latest uproar, just like the unrest last autumn regarding the Temple Mount, is yet another example of the general Palestinian unwillingness to accept and acknowledge the deep-seated historical roots of the Jewish people in the region. This is evidenced by numerous statements made by Palestinian political and religious leaders in recent days, such as that of Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem and highest Islamic authority in the Holy Land. He said that Israel has “devoted all of its efforts to steal Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem, Hebron, and Palestinian cities to change their Arab and Islamic character to prove the country is Jewish”. The theme of Israel “stealing” Islamic sites for its own cultural and political purposes was also explicitly mentioned by Abbas, as well as by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (who called for a new intifada as well). The implication is that the Cave of the Patriarchs has nothing to do with the Jewish people and the Israeli government is fabricating history for political ends. But the shrine is mentioned in the Bible and has been a focus of Jewish pilgrimage for more than 3,000 years. It is Judaism’s second holiest site and is central to Jewish national identity as the burial place of the people’s three forefathers. The riots and denunciations spawned by the heritage sites plan, as well as those over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and numerous others, illustrate the ongoing battle being waged by the Palestinian political and religious leadership to disconnect national Jewish symbols from the state of Israel. And this tactic is just part of a wider strategy to delegitimise the very notion of a nation state for the Jewish people, a campaign that is being orchestrated both by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza as well as by their sympathisers in the west. Campaigns for a one-state solution, like that announced by senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat last week, as well as skewed investigations into the conduct of the IDF, arms embargoes and all manner of boycotts are viewed in Israel as a sincere drive to undermine the country’s legitimacy and, by extension, the necessity for its existence. This delegitimisation campaign gained significant momentum following the second Lebanon war in 2006, ironically during the tenure of the most conciliatory Israeli government ever. However, despite the dismantlement of settlements and withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the Kadima party’s disengagement plan for the West Bank on the back of which it won the 2006 Israeli elections, and Ehud Olmert’s unprecedented peace proposal to Abbas in December 2008, the delegitimisation campaign has continued and even intensified. It appears to Israelis that they can do no right. It is little wonder, therefore, that in 2009 the electorate chucked out the dovish Kadima-led government, which had improved Israel’s international and political standing not a jot, and voted in a government that promised to galvanise national strength and purpose against those forces, military and political, arrayed against it. The refurbishment of two shrines central to Jewish history in no way threatens Palestinian political ambitions. What it does do is present an obstacle to those who wish to erase Jewish history in the region, and that is the central Palestinian animus in this particular furore. The Israeli siege mentality, engendered by the unrelenting pressure of the political campaigns against the country, is only reinforced when Israel is condemned for identifying with symbols of historic Jewish significance. If Palestinian leaders, enabled by the international community, continue to cast aspersions on Israel’s historic roots, and ultimate legitimacy, the mood in the region will only get worse. Shabbat Shalom to all our readers.
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