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Israel’s Supporters Must Stop Using These 13 Phrases
Algemeiner ^ | Lee S. Bender and Jerome R. Verlin

Posted on 06/17/2015 11:29:48 AM PDT by SJackson

Mainstream Western media coverage of Israel is laced with expressions intentionally crafted to delegitimize the Jewish State. The good news is that these terms weren’t written in stone 3,300 years ago, but are post-Israel independence creations. By forfeiting this language, we forfeit our history. Here are 13 phrases we must stop repeating.

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#1 – “West Bank:” Claims that “Judea and Samaria” is simply the “biblical name for the West Bank” stands history on its head. The Hebrew-origin terms “Judea” and “Samaria” were used through 1950, when invading [Trans]Jordan renamed them the “West Bank” in order to disassociate these areas of the Jewish homeland from Jews. The UN’s own 1947 partition resolution referred not to “West Bank,” but to “the hill country of Samaria and Judea.” This term is not shorthand for “Judea and Samaria.” Under this formulation, Jordan is the “East Bank” of the original Palestine Mandate, which was designated as the homeland for the Jewish People.

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#2 – “East” Jerusalem or “traditionally Arab East” Jerusalem: From the city’s second millennium BCE origins until 1947 CE, there was no such place as “East” Jerusalem. The 19 years between when invading Jordan captured part of the city in 1948 and was ousted by Israel in 1967 was the only time in history, except between 638 and 1099, when Arabs ruled any part of Jerusalem. Palestinian Arabs have not ruled an inch of it for one day in history. In the past three millennia, Jerusalem has been the capital of three native states – Judah, Judaea, and modern Israel – and has had a renewed Jewish majority since 19th century Turkish rule. Eastern Jerusalem is a neighborhood of the city that Israel reunified in 1967.

#3 – “The UN sought to create Jewish and Palestinian States:” It did not. Partitioning Palestine between “Palestinians” and Jews is like partitioning Pennsylvania between Pennsylvanians and Jews. Over and over in its 1947 partition resolution, the UN referenced “the Jewish State” and “the Arab” [not “Palestinian”] State.

#4 – 1948 was the “Creation” and “Founding” of Israel: Israel wasn’t “created” and “founded” in 1948 artificially and out-of-the-blue. Israel attained independence that year as the natural fruition into renewed statehood of a people that had twice before been independent in that land, and after centuries of hard work to re-establish a Jewish State in this historic homeland.

#5 – “The War that Followed Israel’s Creation:” Israeli did not choose this war; it was hoisted on Israel by almost every Arab state, which rejected the UN partition and tried to push the Jews of Israel into the sea. And it was a homeland Jewish army, Haganah, which became the IDF, that threw back that multi-nation foreign invasion.

#6- “Palestinian Refugees of the War that Followed Israel’s Creation,” or the “Palestinian Refugee Issue:” It was the invading Arab nations bent on Israel’s destruction that both encouraged and caused the bulk of the Arabs to flee Israel. And a greater number of media constantly ignore the indigenous Middle Eastern Jews who were expelled from vast Arab and other Muslim lands in the wake of the Arab-Israeli War. Their number is greater than the amount of Arabs that fled tiny Israel. That Israel absorbed the bulk of these Jews, while Arab “hosts,”including in Palestine itself, isolate the Arab refugees’ descendants in Western-supported “refugee camps” does not convert the Arab-Israeli conflict’s two-sided refugee issue into a “Palestinian” refugee issue. Had the Palestinian Arabs accepted the UN partition plan, they would also have been celebrating their 66th anniversary.

#7 – Israel “Seized”Arab Lands in 1967: It did not. The 1967 war, like its predecessors, was a defensive war forced upon Israel. Israel’s neighbors did not want to compromise; they simply wanted to destroy the Jewish State. The new Israeli territory was meant to provide a security barrier and ensure this could never happen. Moreover, these were not “Arab Lands.”

#8 – Israel’s “1967 Borders:” The 1949 Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement expressly declared the “green line” it drew between the two sides’ ceasefire positions as a military ceasefire line only, without prejudice to either side’s political border claims.The post-’67 war UN resolution 242 pointedly did not demand Israel retreat from these lines.

#9 – “Israeli-Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem:” That the media insistently calls Israeli presence in the heart of Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria “Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories” does not make it so. “Occupation” is an international law term referencing foreign presence in the sovereign territory of another state. The land of Israel’s last sovereign native state before modern Israel was Jewish Judaea. The land ratio of Arab lands to Israel is 625-1, 23 states to one.

#10 – “Jewish Settlers and Settlements” vs. “Palestinian Residents of Neighborhoods and Villages:” A favorite media news article contrast is referencing in the same sentence “Jewish settlers” in “settlements” and “Palestinian residents” of nearby “neighborhoods” and “villages.” Jews are not alien” settlers” in a Jerusalem that’s had a Jewish majority since 19th century times or in the Judea-Samaria Jewish historical heartland.

#11 – Israel’s “Jewish State” recognition is “a new stumbling block”: New since Moses’ time. The Jewish homeland of Israel, including continuous homeland-claiming Jewish presence, has always been central to Jewish peoplehood. In 1947, British Foreign Secretary Bevin told Parliament that the Jews’ “essential point of principle” was Jewish Palestine sovereignty.

#12 – “Palestinians accept and Israel rejects a Two-State Solution:” Wrong on both counts. Both the U.S. and Israel define ‘Two States’ as two states for two peoples – Jews and Arabs. Many on the Arab side insistently rejects two states for two peoples. Many Israelis, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, support that plan – conditioned on an end to Palestinian terror. The Arabs continuously and consistently deny Israel’s right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish People, no matter where its borders are drawn.

#13 – “The Palestinians:” The United Nations’ 1947 partition resolution called Palestine’s Arabs and Jews “the two Palestinian peoples.” Nothing is more self-delegitimizing and counter-productive to achieving peace based on Arab recognition of Jews’ right to be there, than that Jews should go around calling Palestinian Arabs “The Palestinians.” They have no distinguishing language, religion, or culture from neighboring Arabs, and have never been sovereign in Palestine, whereas the Jews, with a presence stretching back three millennia, have had three states there, all Jerusalem-based. Most Palestinian Arabs cannot trace their own lineage to the land back more than 4 generations.


TOPICS: Editorial; Israel
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1 posted on 06/17/2015 11:29:48 AM PDT by SJackson
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To: SJackson

So according to #2 I’m supposed to stop using the word “East”?


2 posted on 06/17/2015 11:37:51 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear
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To: SJackson

You forgot Trans Jordan that included both Palestinians - Arabs and Jews, and then divided into 3 distinct regions/countries. Or maybe I missed it or don’t know what I’m talking about.


3 posted on 06/17/2015 11:37:54 AM PDT by A Navy Vet (An Oath is Forever)
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; Lent; GregB; ..
Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

..................

4 posted on 06/17/2015 11:41:00 AM PDT by SJackson (an emotional nation, not a rational nation. You work from your gut and not your mind, BHO on Israel)
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To: SJackson

That is why I only believe in a 3 state solution - Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Israel keeps the Gaza Strip, West Bank (oops, Judea and Samaria), and Golan; the Arabs there go back their REAL respective countries.
Pity that their actual countries don’t want them (and neither does any other rationally governed nation).


5 posted on 06/17/2015 11:51:40 AM PDT by Little Ray (How did I end up in this hand-basket, and why is it getting so hot?)
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To: Little Ray
Pity that their actual countries don’t want them ...

Yes. Jordan is Palestine (or should have been if the Arabs didn't go to war), so a chunk of Jordan should be carved out to house the miscreants. But Jordan kicked them out. Originally Israel was to be much larger with a share of land now in present-day Jordan.

6 posted on 06/17/2015 12:14:37 PM PDT by roadcat
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

That’s going to play hell with my GIS system...


7 posted on 06/17/2015 12:27:10 PM PDT by WayneS (Yeah, it's probably sarcasm...)
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To: SJackson
My bottom line on this Israel vs Palestinian issue is:
Until Israel built a wall, the Palis would murder bomb weddings, cafes, marketplaces, buses, et al. Seemed there was new Intifada called yearly once Arafat was only offered some 95%? of his demands at the Camp David Accords.

Israel unilaterally gave the Palis their own state - it's called Gaza. Once given that, they immediately destroyed much of the Israeli built infra-structure just because they hate anything Jewish. Don't even get me started on the so-called Palistinian refugee camps. They're not camps as in tents, they are towns.

The Palis are a gutter culture and NO one wants them, well maybe ISIS would since Palis are as intolerant, blood-thristy, and treat women like property. Surprised Pali supported Hamas hasn't joined with ISIS. Or are they different Islam sects? Sorry, I'm losing track of which muslim wants to kill which muslim.

What diseased thinking occurs in a brain pan that just wants to rape, murder, maim, abuse children, destroy ancient historical artifacts for the sake of some unproven god? I've read parts of the Koran and the Hadiths. Both are just a contradictory mishmash of crap. How can so many be so void of individual purpose that they so easily fall for this inhumanity being their only mission for living? WTF?

Islam is a scourge on humanity by its so-called Holy books. It is incompatible with liberty. I wouldn't have a problem if they all disappeared yesterday, including the Trojan Horse moderates.

8 posted on 06/17/2015 12:39:48 PM PDT by A Navy Vet (An Oath is Forever)
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To: SJackson
It's for sure that if Arabs (Lebanese, Syrians, etal) were forcibly removed from their country like the Israelis were and then wanted to come back to their homeland, the whole world would be rejoicing and condemning anybody who tried to stop them. And whatever other ethnicity was living on the land at the time would be expected to cede or abdicate.

Yet when the Jews returned and established their homeland, they were condemned as usurpers and oppressors. The Israel they created thanks to Zionism changed a mostly barren desert wasteland into one of the world's few working democracies. Name a Muslim state that's accomplished as much in the last sixty-seventy years.

9 posted on 06/17/2015 12:52:18 PM PDT by driftless2
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To: roadcat

Jordan kicked them out when the Palis tried to overthrow the monarchy; The Jordanian army killed them by the thousands. Remember the “Black September” terrorist group? Well, “Black September” was when the Jordanians crushed a Pali uprising in 1970.

Nobody wants the Arabs of “Palestine.”


10 posted on 06/17/2015 1:31:39 PM PDT by Little Ray (How did I end up in this hand-basket, and why is it getting so hot?)
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To: Little Ray
Nobody wants the Arabs of “Palestine.”

They remind me of the nomadic outlaws in the "Road Warrior" and "Mad Max" films. Bloodthirsty degenerates who trample on civilized peoples. No purpose to exist except to wreak havoc. The Arab nations at large keep them that way to hurt the very tiny Jewish nation. The Arab nations have more than enough riches and land to take in the Arabs of "Palestine", but will not, which is a major reason why I dislike Arabs in general - besides their idiotic muslim faith. (Note that there are good Arabs of "Palestine", but they are mostly Christian.)

11 posted on 06/17/2015 2:51:55 PM PDT by roadcat
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To: SJackson
Almost 4000 years ago God promised Abraham that his progeny would own and eventually occupy all the land between the Nile and Euphrates rivers. He doesn't go back on His promises, therefore Israel owns all that land given to it by the One who created it, and in accord with God's timetable Israel will eventually occupy every last square foot of the land that God gave to Father Abraham. Nothing that the Arabs, Iran, or the UN can do will change or over ride God's unbreakable promise to Abraham, and Israel's enemies (including Obama) may as well get used to it.

Footnote: The book of the Apocalypse does say that Israel will be driven from it's land and into a place of security during last half of the dreadful 7 year Apocalypse that will come upon the entire earth before Jesus Christ returns to claim His throne in Jerusalem. Therefore the Israelis will be forced entirely out of their promised land for a short period of time, but they will still own it and will return to live there for 1000 years. Many, actually most, bible scholars have various different interpretations of the book of the Apocalypse, but I happen to believe the one I ineptly described is closest to the what the actual events of the future world will prove to be.

12 posted on 06/18/2015 8:29:26 PM PDT by epow (Luke 22:36 -"if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one," Jesus Christ)
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