The Last Exile

h/tip Daled Amos

The original UN vote for partition of the British Mandate for Palestine called for the ‘internationalizing of Jerusalem, although there was a tiny significant point, which hardly any one wants to acknowledge or even discuss; the ‘internationalizing’ of Jerusalem had a best before date.

Ten years after partition, the citizens of Jerusalem would determine, in a majority vote which nation – Israel or Arab Palestine – they would want to join. If that vote was held in 1948 or even ten years later in 1958; the majority of citizens of a united Jerusalem would have been Jews, and I suspect the vast majority of Jerusalemites would have voted to join Israel. Even today, if all the citizens of both West and East Jerusalem, Arab or Israeli, the vast majority of Jerusalemites would still vote to remain as part of the Israeli nation. This ‘clause’ was on the prime reasons it was imperative for the invading Arab armies to ethnically cleanse – at all costs or at any price – ‘East Jerusalem’ of all its’ Jews.

The history of Jerusalem did not start in 1967. Thousands of years of Jewish history took place in what is now called “Arab East Jerusalem. Only when the Jewish residents were driven from their homes in 1948 was the city divided between East and West. This video shows the reality of Jerusalem today and includes interviews from survivors of the fall of Jerusalem.”

From Palestinian Media Watch comes this Palestinian Authority TV documentary which recently aired on August 10th.

“They [Israelis] know for certain that our [Palestinian] roots are deeper than their false history. We, from the balcony of our home, look out over [Islamic] holiness and on sin and filth (Jews’ praying at Western Wall) in an area that used to have [Arab] people and homes. We are drawing our new maps. When they [Israelis] disappear from the picture, like a forgotten chapter in the pages of our city’s history, we will build it anew (residential area). The Mughrabi Quarter will be built here (on the Western Wall Plaza).

The television network of the so-called ‘moderate’ Palestinians. Now according to a certain blogger of my acquaintance, accusing the Palestinians of “anti-Semitism or racism, is a stretch. To put it mildly.” For some strange reason ’stretch’ isn’t the word which comes to mind when I think Palestinian anti-Semitism. As rampant as Jewish anti-Semitism has been for centuries within the Arab world; what I find far more disturbing is those who enable Palestinian racism and prejudice by giving it a complete pass.

Update: Since Dr. Dawg just can’t seem to get it. Maybe a picture of the handiwork of the people he works so hard to provide moral cover will help him get it.

May the Lord answer you on a day of distress; may the Name of the G-d of Jacob fortify you. May He send your help from the Sanctuary, and support you from Zion. But for heaven’s sake; don’t get caught praying on the Temple Mound. Ynet News:

Jerusalem police detained a Jewish father and daughter in suspicion the two tried to pray in the Temple Mount complex in violation of the law. The two were taken in for investigation.

And if I have any Christian readers left – don’t get too smug as even a mouthed ‘Our Father’ could see you a stint in the Israeli hoosegow via the oh-so-politically-correct-secular Israeli police.

Update: It hardly seems possible but the incident grows more ridiculous – a father and a bride-to-be were not even openly praying but possibly only ‘mouthing’ silently words…..

A NY Times article touches on the contentious issue of Jewish ownership of land in Jerusalem.

JERUSALEM — Jewish nationalists and Palestinians clashed in an East Jerusalem neighborhood on Tuesday after the Israelis took over a house by court order in a predominantly Arab area. The house at the center of Tuesday’s flare-up is in Sheik Jarrah, a district just north of the Old City, where three Palestinian families have been evicted from other houses in the last year after losing a lengthy legal battle in the High Court and lower district and magistrates courts. A Jewish association won its claim to historical ownership of the land in question, and has plans to build a large Jewish housing complex there.

There are a number of reports from this ‘clash’ in Sheik Jarrah I could have chosen but I picked this one because its the most blatantly representative on how a complex issue is slanted under the guise of even-handedness. Now on to the heart of matter -

The latest Jewish residents to move into the area were escorted by the police and private security guards and immediately removed furniture from the property, which was built by a Palestinian family headed by Refka al-Kurd, 87. The small, one-story structure was built about 10 years ago as an extension of the Kurds’ original home, but it was unoccupied, having been sealed by the authorities after it was determined to have been constructed without the proper permits. “The authorities took our keys to the property because we built it without permits,” said Nabil al-Kurd, 66, who lives in the original house. “But it seems the settlers can live here without permits because they are the sons of God,” he said bitterly, referring to the Jewish newcomers. Shmulik Ben-Ruby, the spokesman for the Jerusalem police, said his force acted in line with the court decision that determined that the property “is owned by Jews.” Blood spattered the forecourt on Tuesday after a Jewish man was hit on the head by Palestinians who attacked the new residents with clubs and stones. Later, after a day of scuffles, a Palestinian woman, Nadia al-Kurd, was taken to the hospital with what was thought to be a heart attack.

Now what the NY Times glosses over is the actual court ruling wherein the land was found to be owned by Jews who were ethnically cleansed from their land during the illegal occupation by the Jordanian government and instead focuses on the ‘pitiful plight’ of the Palestinians being evicted.

In fact, the Palestinian family never did receive title by the Jordanian government for the land during their occupation and the Israeli court ruled this family could have kept occupation of this property providing they paid rent to the legal owners of the land which the family refused to do. The Jewish owners then moved to have the court evict the squatters from their property in order to move in paying tenants. The evictions have nothing to do with ‘illegal’ building permits but by interjecting it into the article it gives a nice aura of grievance and a sense of institutional discrimination to the Palestinian narrative under the Israeli court system.

And I would be remiss if I did not point your attention to the fact the NY Times piece only mentions the names of the Palestinians victims of the ‘clash’. How do I know all this? It’s easily cross referenced this with the Arutz Sheva report.

(IsraelNN.com) A “welcoming” committee of Arabs and foreign anti-Israel activists, including those from the United States and Sweden, attacked Jews with clubs and stones Tuesday as a new family moved into a home in eastern Jerusalem. Police stopped the attack but not before blood was streaming down the face of a Jewish guard at the site.

The Palestinian demand for East Jerusalem conveniently ignores that there is a long documented history of Jewish ownership of land in East Jerusalem. An ownership which was only terminated by the illegal occupation by the Jordanian government which cleaned the land of Jews from their ancient community in 1948-49. In order for the Palestinians to make East Jerusalem for the ‘capital’ again requires a significant second expulsion of Jewish property owners and their Jewish tenants.

Libya has decided to man-up and do its bit for peace in the Mid-East. Ynet News.

Libya intends to submit a draft decision to the UN Security Council calling Israel to freeze building in West Bank settlements despite the expected veto from the United States.”We are in talks with the Palestinians and members states of the Security Council. This is what we plan to do,” said Libyan Ambassador to the UN Mohammad Shalgham.

The Israeli plan to build 900 units for the Gilo suburb of South Western Jerusalem has set-up a wave of international condemnation. Of course, it might be a tad more effective if Gilo was actually located in East Jerusalem but no matter – why let facts get in the way of a united front of indignation to shout down the Israelis with? But Gilo raises a few interesting facts which are often ignored and shouldn’t be. The Jerusalem Post ran one of the better articles on land ownership in the disputed territories. Here’s a brief excerpt:

THE REALITY is that Gilo is very different than the outposts in the West Bank. It is not in east Jerusalem as widely reported. It is a Jerusalem neighborhood with a population of around 40,000. The ground was bought by Jews before WWII and settled in 1971 in south west Jerusalem opposite Mount Gilo within the municipal borders. There is no inference whatsoever that it rests on Arab land.
The current building approval was not a deliberately provocative political decision by Binyamin Netanyahu as reported in some media. The plan was initiated a long time ago by the Israel Land Administration. Since Gilo is an integral part of the city, the approval was given by Jerusalem’s Construction and Planning Committee and, as Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat said in a statement released by his office, “Israeli law does not discriminate between Arabs and Jews, or between east and west of the city. The demand to cease construction just for Jews is illegal, as in the US and any other enlightened place in the world. The Jerusalem Municipality will continue to enable construction in every part of the city for Jews and Arabs alike.”

So Gilo, much like Har Homa, was legally owned Jewish land prior to the ethnic based cleansing which resulted in the illegal occupation of the land by Jordan. The legal owners of the land were never compensated by the Jordanian government nor were the Jewish landowners allowed to return to their land after the armistice was signed in 1949. While the pro-Palestinians apologistas are quick to declare the Israelis are ‘illegally occupying’ so-called Palestinian land they are just as quick to overlook or even outright ignore the extensive Jewish ownership of land throughout the British Palestine Mandate long before the state of Israel was declared. I leave the last words to Professor Kedar.

A Sudanese man bordered an Egypt Air flight in Istanbul and attempted to hijack the plane and divert it to land in Jerusalem instead of Egypt. Jerusalem Post:

Security guards thwarted an attempted hijacking Wednesday on an EgyptAir flight from Istanbul to Cairo by overpowering a man who threatened the crew with a knife, a security official for the airline said.

A Sudanese man used a knife from the in-flight meal to threaten crew members after the plane left Turkish airspace and demanded that the flight be diverted to Jerusalem, the official said. Guards on the flight were able to detain the man and no one was hurt, he said.

The flight landed safely at Cairo airport. The man was arrested and was being questioned by state security, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not an official spokesman.

I have heard of Jerusalem having a rather remarkable and strange effect on visitors but I think this is the first case I have heard of where the syndrome has worked long-distance. The Sudanese man should consider himself lucky for only being arrested rather than shot and killed by Egyptian security officials.

In a follow-up to Defending Jerusalem, I found this article at the Jerusalem Post on Har Homa. (Photo – Sarah Levin)

The hill between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, known today as Har Homa or Homat Shmuel, was once called Jebl Abu Ganim. In 1940, a group of Jews purchased 130 dunams of land in the area, which it transferred to the Jewish National Fund for forest plantation development.

After the Six Day War, the hill was captured from the Jordanians and more of its land was bought from Arab landowners. As early as the Eighties, plans to build housing there existed, but were canceled on grounds of nature conservation.
In March 1997, under then-prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, serious planning for the area began. About 75 percent of the land was expropriated from Jewish owners and the rest from residents of nearby Arab villages, like Beit Sahur.

From 1996-1999, MK Meir Porush (UTJ) served as deputy housing minister. Those were the days the ministry, in coordination with the Prime Minister’s Office, planned the new neighborhood southeast of Jerusalem. “I was in charge of the plans for Har Homa. There was a lot of opposition to the project from left-wingers [because of its location in east Jerusalem], there were lots of warnings that the Americans would never authorize it, but here we are, and for me, I see it as a big personal privilege given to me by God, to fulfill and be a part of this project,” Porush recently declared in an interview with Arutz Sheva.

There is nothing clear about land titles or building within East Jerusalem. While many outside Israel refer to East Jerusalem as ‘Arab’ East Jerusalem and maintain it should be part of a ‘Palestinian state’ the fact remains that there was always a significant Jewish presence within East Jerusalem until the Arab blockade of 1948-49.

While US Secretary of State bristles at the suggestion of alleged settlement building at Har Homa – it was Jewish owned, titled, deeded land prior to the Jordanian invasion and occupation of East Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem Post reports US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice is upset with Israeli ‘settlement’ building in East Jerusalem. Apparently, she intends to make the ‘settlement’ activity loom large in her discussions with Israeli Foreign Minister Livni. I think Livni should not even bother attempting to reason with Rice but rather defer all dialogue on Jerusalem to Professor Kedar. He stood up to the anchor on al-Jazeera pretty well.

And in another news – the IDF reports terror activity in Jenin, recently turned over to the US trained Fatah security forces have allowed Jenin to once again become a hotbed of terrorism…imagine that.