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Who is a “Settler”?
Dear Editor:
A French book publisher, Hachette, is recalling three high school textbooks that refer to the victims of October 7 as “Jewish settlers.”
Of course the books should be recalled. The implication of the term “settler” is despicable— it suggests that the 1,200 Jews who were murdered, raped and tortured by Palestinian Arab terrorists were doming something that provoked their attackers and justified their fate. That is not what French high school students should be taught.
But let’s not forget—in the eyes of both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, every inch of Israel is “Palestine,” and therefore every Jew in Israel is indeed a “settler.”
— The maps that adorn the PA’s offices, and appear in the PA’s school books, label all of Israel—from the river to the sea—as “Palestine.” Which makes the October 7 victims “settlers.”
— The constant statements by PA and Hamas representatives referring to “78 years of occupation”—that is, since Israel’s establishment in 1948—mean that all of Israel is “occupied Palestine.” Which makes the October 7 victims “settlers.”
(Just last month, Mahmoud Al-Habbash, senior adviser to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas, declared: “We have been under a long occupation of over 108 or 107 years, since the Balfour Declaration.”)
— The chants and banners at pro-Hamas rallies around the world, championing “Resistance to Occupation,” began on October 8, 2023—weeks before a single Israeli soldier had entered Gaza. There had been no Israeli “occupation” there since Israel withdrew all of its soldiers and civilians from Gaza in August 2005.
The “occupation” to which pro-Hamas demonstrators refer is the existence of a state of Israel of any size in the area “from the river to the sea,” even one confined to the narrow pre-1967 armistice lines. According to their view, the Jews at the Nova music festival and in the kibbutzim near Gaza were indeed “settlers.”
The poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou once said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” The PA and Hamas have been showing us for years exactly who they are, and exactly whom they consider a “settler.”
Sincerely
Prof. Rafael Medoff
Should An Antisemitic General Decide Jerusalem’s Borders?
Dear Editor:
A Belgian citizen who resides in Jerusalem was informed last week by the Belgian government that it will not renew her passport, because the neighborhood where she lives is “not recognized by international law.”
In fact, international law (the Geneva Conventions) doesn’t even apply in this matter, because the Arab-occupied parts of Jerusalem and its environs were not the sovereign territory of any state when Israel liberated them and reunited the city in 1967.
Regardless of what Belgium is saying, the actual basis for anybody calling parts of Jerusalem “occupied territory” has nothing to do with international law. It was determined by something far more arbitrary—how far Arab troops happened to have advanced during their 1948 invasion of Israel.
Many of those troops were commanded by British military officers assigned by the government of Prime Minister Clement Atlee. Their job was to assist in what the head of the Arab League vowed would be “a war of extermination and a momentous massacre.”
The commander in chief of the Jordanian (then called “Transjordanian”) army was Major-General John Bagot Glubb. He was a great proponent of the antisemitic idea that it is the Jews’ own fault that everybody hates them.
“Nobody can endure them long because they do not assimilate themselves easily and thus become a state within a state,” Glubb asserted. Jews were all “bitter,” he claimed, “and people who hate and sneer are unpopular with their neighbours.”
So Glubb commanded his Arab troops to wipe out those bitter, unpopular, hate-provoking Jews, including in and around Jerusalem. And wherever Glubb’s troops happened to find themselves on the day Israel and Transjordan signed their armistice—April 3, 1949—became Jerusalem’s de-facto border.
It wasn’t based on history, or religion, or demography, or international law. It was pure chance. Which makes the Belgian government’s current position on recognizing certain parts of Jerusalem completely arbitrary.
Consider these absurdities:
In Jerusalem’s Ramot neighborhood, if you live on the north side of Even Shmuel Street, you’re an “illegal Jewish settler” who is not allowed to hold a Belgian passport. But if you live on the south side of Even Shmuel Street, you’re fine.
In the Ramat Eshkol neighborhood of Jerusalem, those who residee on the western part of Yam Suf Street are acceptable to the Belgian government. But those who happen to live on the eastern part of the street should be considered pariahs, Brussels says.
The same is true for Churchill Street, in Jerusalem’s French Hill section. One side of the street has Belgium’s approval, the other side does not.
By the way, quite a few Arabs live in Ramat Eshkol and French Hill. Media reports estimate that Arabs make up anywhere from 7% to 20% of the residents of French Hill. Presumably that makes them “illegal Israeli settlers” in Belgium’s eyes.
Absurd? Arbitrary? Of course. But that’s what you get when a government today bases its policies on the actions of an antisemitic British military officer from long ago.
Sincerely
Prof. Rafael Medoff
Gaza is Israeli Sovereign Territory
Dear Editor:
Under international law, Gaza is Israeli.
Palestinianism is a terrorist entity with no legal, historical or ethical claim to the territory.
In 1917, the Balfour declaration expressed support for a national home for the Jewish People in their ancestral homeland, then part of southern Syria in the Ottoman Empire.
WWI ended in 1918 and Turkey lost its empire.
In 1920, at San Remo, Britain, France, Italy and Japan created mandates for Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Palestine (the Jewish Homeland). Churchill split Palestine, giving 78% of it to the Hashemites from Saudi Arabia.
In 1922, the League of Nations unanimously ratified the San Remo accords, recognizing the Jews to be an indigenous people, with a historical connection to the land.
The Anglo-American Convention, 1924, stipulated that America accepted the Mandate for Palestine, acknowledging Gaza to be within Israel’s borders.
In 1945, the United Nations was founded. Article 80 of its charter states what was promised the Jews cannot be taken away. This means no U.N. resolutions affecting Israeli territory have the force of law.
In 1947, U.N. Resolution 181, sought to share the Jewish state with the Arabs. The Arabs refused and started a war to ‘drive the Jews into the sea’. The Arabs suffered a disaster, a Nakba. Egypt and Transjordan illegally occupied Gaza, Judea and Samaria, areas Israel repossessed in 1967.
In 1964, to diminish U.S. influence, the Soviet KGB and Egypt formed the Palestine Liberation Army. They gathered fighters from throughout MENA, calling them ‘Palestinians’. That was the origin of Palestinianism.
In 1995, the Oslo Accords allowed Yasser Arafat and 100,000 followers to enter Israel. Areas A and B are under PA or joint supervision. Area C, 60% of Judea and Samaria, is solely under Israeli control.
In 2005, Israel gave Gaza to the PA, free of all Jews, to allow them to establish their own society.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Gazans carried out war crimes against Israel.
As Gaza is still Israeli sovereign territory, Israel has the right to veto membership in the U.S.-led Gaza executive committee.
Sincerely
Len Bennett, Author of ‘Unfinished Work’
Deerfield Beach, Fl.