Few Jordanians Will Mention "Israel"

Any Israeli trying to enter Jordan will be turned away at the border if he is wearing or carrying any Jewish religious paraphernalia. Jordanian authorities explain, that this behavior stems from - get this - "security concerns". Jews, after all, are prized targets for terrorists. By this reasoning, stopping people with overtly Jewish appearances, or who have Jewish ritual articles in their luggage, is a friendly gesture.

Another fact that demonstrates Jordan's inherent hatred of Jews is that during Jordan's occupation of the West Bank, the Jordanian kingdom undertook an unsuccessful attempt to make Jerusalem a Muslim city by forcing out approximately 10,000 Christian inhabitants. Remember, Jordan controlled the West Bank prior to 1967 and attacked Israeli population centers. Don't forget also that on July 20, 1951, King Abdullah of Jordan was assassinated. Do you know why? Simply, a Palestinian murderer who killed King Abdullah, was afraid that the old king would make a separate peace with Israel.

Here is another excellent example of Jew-hating indoctrinated Jordanians, who are entrenched so deeply into their Muslim identity politics, that they no longer comprehend why they should hate Jews, but hate them nonetheless. From Few Jordanians Will Mention "Israel":

As Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary, it is difficult to find people in Jordan who are willing to utter the word "Israel." For the majority of Jordanians I spoke to, all of the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River is "Palestine," notwithstanding the existence of a 1994 peace agreement between Israel and Jordan. In Amman and its environs, many tourist shops sell coffee mugs with a map of the West Bank and Gaza, as well as Israel proper, with the word "Palestine" on it. The map has the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Netanya marked on it.

In the five-star Royal Amman Hotel, Mohammed Alkalq, who is studying hotel management and was raised in Jenin, in the West Bank, said he left Jenin because "there is no tourism in Palestine, because of the war there." When asked who the war is between, he answered, "Between Palestine and the Jews." When asked if he means that there is a war between Palestine and Israel, he refused to use the word "Israel." He answered, "No, between Palestine and the Jews."

The relatively few Jordanians I encountered who were willing to use the word "Israel" are not of Palestinian origin.

As Steven Plaut so articulately states,

the pro-Palestinian movement is nothing more than the 21st century's reincarnation of medieval anti-Semitism, complete with medieval anti-Jewish blood libels. People who claim to feel empathy for Palestinians are typically motivated by hatred of Jews. The reason the pro-Palestinian movement wants the Palestinians to have a state is because it understands that such a state will operate as an instrument to attack Israel, murder Jews and seek the annihilation of the Jewish state.

Once one understands this fundamental fact of life about the Middle East and about world political motivations, everything else makes sense. The mind-numbing stupidity of the world media mourning Arafat in great cries of anguish, the fawning toadying of political leaders, the maudlin outpouring of love for the cause of the fallen terrorist Nazi - all are understandable. There is nothing at all confusing about it. These people are not broadcasting their undying love of Palestinians, but rather their undying hatred of Jews.

The world actually understands that there is no such thing as a Palestinian nation. Palestinians are just Arabs who happen to live in the western section of Palestine, differing little from Syrians or Lebanese. Most of them are from families who migrated into Palestine from the time of the beginning of modern Zionism, when Jewish capital and human skills were making western Palestine a much more comfortable place to live for Arabs from the neighboring lands. To describe them as a nation is as persuasive as describing Michigan's Arab community as a new Detroitian nation in need of self-determination.

In 1948, the entire West Bank and the Gaza Strip were seized by Arab states, illegally occupied by Jordan and Egypt, in their war to extinguish the newly created state of Israel. The Arab countries could have unilaterally erected a Palestinian state any time between 1948 and 1967 had they wished to do so, and Israel could have had nothing to say about it. There was no Palestinian national movement at all demanding statehood in these areas. In the entire world, there was no demand for a right of the Palestinian people to erect a state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Neither was there any demand for Palestinian self-determination east of the Jordan river. Transjordan was always as much Palestine as was the land west of the river, and the Palestinians have always been a demographic majority in Jordan (since its independence after World War I). So why have these East Bank Palestinians never felt the need for self-determination? Why have none of the caring supporters of Palestinians ever come out for a Palestinian state at least partly east of the Jordan River? Surely, establishing a state there, at least initially, must be much easier than doing so west of the Jordan; there are no pesky Israelis around.

FLAME teaches us that

in 1948, the Palestinian State of Jordan, in an act of naked aggression, invaded the just-born state of Israel. It managed to occupy Judea/Samaria (the "West Bank") and the eastern part of Jerusalem. For the next 19 years, and until 1967 when the territory came under Israeli administration after the Six-day War, Judea/Samaria was part of the Kingdom of Jordan.

During that entire time, nothing was ever heard of "Palestinian" peoplehood. The thought of creating a second "Palestinian" state in the "West Bank," in addition to the Palestinian state of Jordan, did not occur to anyone — certainly not to the "Palestinians," not to any of the 22 Arab countries, and not to the rest of the world.

Remember, readers, the armies of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq invaded Israel with the declared intent of destroying it. Jews have always been forbidden to reside in Saudi Arabia and Jordan; there are no Jews in Libya; only under 100 in Egypt and Syria; and only around 17 remain in Iraq.

Jordan, originally named Trans-Jordan, is the partitioned land area that was allocated to the Arabs in 1948 when they refused the offer to have their own state.

Perfection Demanded Only from Little Israel

From Perfection Demanded Only from Little Israel:

As much as the dislocations arising from Israel's re-establishment obsess certain people today, they are tiny compared to dislocations that are hardly noticed anymore. For example, just a year before Israel's re-establishment, British-ruled India was partitioned into Hindu and Muslim sectors - India and Pakistan. This uprooted 15 million people and cost about a half million lives, but today no one outside India and Pakistan seems to care. Europe has partitioned itself too many times to count. From Finland down to Yugoslavia - whoops, Serbia now - it is impossible to walk more than a few miles without crossing what, within the last 200 years, used to be a national border or without finding a town whose name wasn't different not long ago. Traces of vanished and dispersed peoples can be found in practically every country - that's what Connecticut's Indian casinos are supposed to be about - but everyone is forgiven except for the Jews.

Palestinian Youth Story

Arabs killed Jews in 1948 just like they kill Jews in 2008. It's nothing new. Palestinian Youth's Story written in the Sunday May 16, 1948 edition of the Palestine Post is about a Jew murdered by an Arab. In context, the Palestinian youth refers to a Jew. Once you read this article, will you find it in your heart to cry for a murdered Jewish child?

(May 13) -- A boy came whisting through the gate. Tall, with clear wide-open eyes; a friendly smile beneath his stiff cataract of light-brown hair. That is how I saw him the last time.

His name was Jonathan. They called him Tanchik since he was a baby. He was 18 years and two months old when he died in Galilee.

He was shy, and of his feelings he betrayed even less than most boys. But in his letters home from Galilee, and especially the last that arrived after the news of his death, he wrote of the land about him with deep emotion. He had seen the undulating land at dawn with its blue band of mountains, in the last glimmer of spring sunset when the mountains still glowed with deep colour, and after the light had gone and trees stood out as thin black shapes under a dark sky brilliant with stars. With groping, clumsy phrases, he wrote of "this dear small land of ours, so beautiful, so well worth fighting for, with so much in it to treasure." In the same letter he asked for his particular Bible to re-read.

He was born in Palestine and knew no other land. His parents had wanted him, and only son, to go to the University. He preferred to go on the land.

He was not a student, but he thought for himself. And having thought something out, he respected his belief. He lacked some of the drawing-room accomplishments. But the virtues of generosity, courage, good temper, honesty and kindliness - the virtues of the gentlemen - those he had. He avoided hurting the feelings of others; yet in the end, quietly, pleasantly, he usually took his own way.

His personality was becoming distinctive, as his limitations were. His grasp was restricted largely to this land he loved. He was not an intellectual. If he was an idealist, it was half-unconsciously. There was imagination in him, and sensitiveness and common sense. Ideas could claim him, and he felt close to humanity, which embraced all things. The community was important, the community of his family, of his fellows, of his people.

Boy in Khaki

He finished school at 17. Then he went full-time into the Palmach. All his boyhood experience was thrown into that melting-pot. It set the hallmark upon his character. Once he came on leave, an N.C.O. There was nothing warlike about him. He was a big kid in khaki, a little self-conscious about his soldiering. But the man was near maturing. There was a new firmness in the line of his chin. His movements were more precise.

There is a common belief according to which Palestinian Jewish youth are a generation of hard people, intensely self-centred, intolerant, arrogant, repelling all not set in its own mould. Glittering, it is true, but with the brightness of a polished surface, throwing back the light to which it refuses access. No doubt there are some who fit this picture of the Palestinian. For, beneath there is an essential sympathy and friendliness, and a deep humanity. This youth of Tanchik's is a self-contained community. It is rough-and-ready. It recognizes personality and individuality and dislikes snobbishness. The prig stands no chance: you must be human. It knows no classes. Ideas are more important than men.

If its horizon is limited, it is because it is Generation One to the new Homeland. When you beat out new paths, relearn ways untrodden for a couple of thousands years, start re-building traditions - you haven't much thought for remote horizons. And yet, precisely because of the spirit of its own ancient traditions, and the bitter history of its people at the hands of mankind, it is keyed to human progress. But it hates the turgid sentiment, in which some of its elders indulge.

Time to Fight

They knew that the time would come when they would have to fight for their liberty and the right of their people to live here as free men. So soldiering came to them as a matter of course. The Haganah, the Palmach, itself the product of this youth, also helped to mould it. In its ranks, every one of them is exposed to the stark gaze of the other. They regard one another by simple standards, with a searching eye and a stringent judgment. "Is it a stout fellow? Is he the man for the job?" If he is not, they can be pitiless.

They judge a man by his worth among his fellows - to be a hevraman is a cardinal virtue. The spirit of the Haganah is above all the spirit of friendship and loyalty; friendship in a community of danger; friendship between officers and men.

The are doubly armoured. Bu the insurgent hope of a normal, vital youth that sees the uprising of a new world upon the shoulders of its generation; and by the immediate stakes: the fulfillment of an age-old striving for freedom - or the indefinite perpetuation of a bitter subjection.

He was ready for life. Just within reach of his long arms lay waiting for him. But somewhere in Galilee, in the soil he loved, he lies buried in his uniform.

Tanchik's part is ended. It was not unworthy of this youth to which he belongs and of the momentous hour to which he was born.

Sunday May 16, 1948 The State of Israel is Born

A nation that has freed itself

May 16, 1948:

There are days in the human record on which the night never falls. They shine forever; and in its rays the human race is able to pick its ways forward. The constancy of the Jewish people has brought the fecund day into being, until the bridge of their suffering between which spans two thousand years has become a luminous rainbow.

The hurt that remains is of another order. It is of the common lot of free men, and must continue until each people's pride in its own right gives way to pride in the right of all. This shining day will light up the road to that end, in which the door will be loose on the latch, and the coming and going of the people will be without let.

The Jewish nation has freed itself, and by the act has prised a guilt from the conscience of the world. It is a deed in which, at length, the bitter faggots which stoke fires of racial hatred may be turned into the green saplings of comradeship: in that uplifting measure, the rebirth of a free, independent and righteous Israel, will be of comfort to all men, and of universal fruition.

The deeper consequences must bide their time against present and urgent benefits. Men, women and children are passing, in these hours, through the gates. You can hear them singing. You can see the shine in their eyes. You can feel the straining spirit that would burst from freed bodies to be quicker in the land. The gates are opened by Cyprus, Italy, in Germany, Bulgaria: the walls of the ghettoes and the wires of the concentration camps are down. The people stride over them and along the road that will take them home, set them upon their own soil, under their own sun, beside their own temples, among their own kin. Never before has any people known so bitterly the years of detention or so joyously the moment of release. It is in a man's soul and behind his smarting eyes that the miracle is felt. A miracle it is: not only that a people has come to free Statehood; but that the Jewish people has come to it, whose moral, social and often physical serfdom, has been a burden on the civilized conscience.

In the circumstances of the nation's rebirth, the civilized conscience has added burden to its burden. The politics of great powers have provoked and connived at bloodshed: and the smoke of a needless war lies across the day like a vandal's stroke. The Arab people are impoverished and put upon the sterile road of strife to fulfil a vanity and preserve a tottering plan. The setting of one people against another is for the good of neither; and in the reckoning, the count of the Arab against the powers that proclaim their friendship to him will be more than the count of the Jew against those who have molested his path to freedom. Unless all the people of this land are made wholly free, none of them will be free; and the State of Israel will be strong only in the strength of both the free peoples of Palestine. And as it can be said that the subject Jew was an assurance of subjection for the Arab, it is right - it must be right - to say that the free Jew is a promise of freedom for the Arab. In that will lie a righteousness of the new State of Israel.

Men and women have done well and can turn to each other with a blessing. They have set their bodies as a shield harder than steel and their faith has been a striking force sharper than a wedge of tanks. They have been few and wonderfully brave. They are still few and they must still be brave; and the mother's son must go off at dark and the mother wait at the dawn. It is the heroism of a cause and of men who live it in their hands as well as in their hearts. They, and a leadership who, in this crisis, has been wholly of them and in their tenacious temper, have brought into being the State of Israel, which has been won on the soil of Israel and nowhere else. There is cause to thank these men and women and their leadership and to bear their deeds in honour for the rest of eternity. Theirs is the day upon which night falls.

U.S. recognizes Jewish State

Sunday May 16, 1948

WASHINGTON (May 16) -- Ten minutes after the termination of the British Mandate on Friday, the White House released a formal statement by President Truman that the U.S. Government intended to recognize the Provisional Jewish Government as the de facto authority representing the Jewish State.

The U.S. is also considering lifting the arms embargo but it is not known whether to Palestine only or to the entire Middle East, and the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Jewish Provisional Government.

The White House press secretary, Mr. Charles Ross, told correspondents today that reaction so far to the recognition had been overwhelmingly favorable. He said this step had been discussed with Mr. Marshall and Mr. Lovett before action was taken, and it had their complete support.

Mr. Ross said that the President had decided several days ago to grant American recognition to the Jewish State, but due to protocol regulations he could not announce his policy until a formal letter arrived. "We were able to move very quickly when the messenger brought the letter," he said, "because the President had already determined the course of action to be taken."

The Palestine Post, Sunday May 16, 1948

The Palestinian Arabs and the Palestinian Jews were both residents of the Mandate of Palestine, from which the term "Palestinian" comes from.

Palestinian Arabs have no absolute, natural right to self-determination of their own country without the reciprocal absolute natural right of the Palestinian Jew.

The Palestinian Jew has the right to veto such "rights" of the Palestinian Arabs since Palestinian Jews had a prior right to create a national existence in the lands of the Mandate of Palestine, because the Palestinian Jews were there first.

Palestinian Jews were there first, in spite of the Muslim waqf having tried to destroy the archaeological evidence.

Moreover, the rights asserted by such Palestinian Arabs - to eradicate all Jews from all of Arabia - would pose the gravest of dangers to the prior rights of the State of Israel and trigger the absolute, natural right of self defense of the Palestinian Jews to preserve themselves by wiping out the challenge so that it does not ever arise again.

Sunday May 16, 1948:

STATE OF ISRAEL IS BORN

(May 16) -- The first independent Jewish State in 19 centuries was born in Tel Aviv as the British Mandate over Palestine came to an end at midnight on Friday, and it was immediately subjected to the test of fire.

As "Medinat Yisrael" (State of Israel) was proclaimed, the battle for Jerusalem raged, with most of the city falling to the Jews. At the same time, President Truman announced that the United States would accord recognition to the new State. A few hours later, Palestine was invaded by Moslem armies from the south, east and north, and Tel Aviv was raided from the air. On Friday the United Nations Special Assembly adjourned after adopting a resolution to appoint a mediator but without taking any action on the Partition Resolution of November 29.

Yesterday the battle for the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road was still under way, and two Arab villages were taken. In the north, Acre town was captured, and the Jewish Army consolidated its positions in Western Galilee.

A Reminder of the Fight for Jerusalem

While carrying out excavations in the Western Wall Plaza, researchers unearthed a 60-year old Davidka mortar shell dating back to Israel's 1948 War of Independence. The tiny Davidka shell uncovered this week serves as a timely reminder that once upon a time, the Jewish people were willing to fight for Jerusalem. A sad but excellent article from Michael Freund.

Today in Jewish History - Tevet 14

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Yahrtzeit of Pinchas Rutenberg (1879-1942), founder of the Israel Electric Corporation. A Russian Jewish immigrant, Rutenberg was a visionary and pioneer, whose efforts to bring electricity to Israel is regarded as a crucial factor in building a strong modern economy. Rutenberg's flagship project was a hydroelectric plant on the Jordan River in 1931, which he built after gaining Winston Churchill's political backing and Baron Edmond de Rothschild's financial support. In 1948, the plant was destroyed by the Arab Legion.

Today in Jewish History - Kislev 6

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In 1958, Jerusalem inaugurated a new water reservoir, thus assuring the Jewish holy city of an adequate water supply for the first time in its 3,000-year history. Jerusalem's shortage of water was long its weakness in time of military siege. Back in the days of King David, a tunnel had been dug from the Old City to a neighboring valley, to channel water inside the Old City Walls. In modern times, the problem was exacerbated in 1948 when the Arab blockade of Jerusalem left its residents without a water supply.

What happened in 1917? Who was Lord Rothschild? What was the Balfour Declaration?

What happened in 1917? Who was Lord Rothschild? What was the Balfour Declaration? Sponsored by Aish.com:

In 1917, the British government gave final approval for the Balfour Declaration, calling for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in historic Israel. The declaration took the form of a letter from Arthur Balfour, British Foreign Secretary, to Lord Rothschild, who had once been a member of the British Parliament.

In 1922, the United States Congress formally endorsed the Balfour Declaration. In the ensuing decades, the British would slowly whittle away at their commitment -- first lopping off 80 percent of the land east of the Jordan River to create the Kingdom of Transjordan (now Jordan), and then restricting Jewish immigration and rights to purchase land to the west of the Jordan River.

The volatility of the situation ultimately forced the British to withdraw from the region in 1948.

Today in Jewish History - Tishrei 6

Sponsored by Aish.com:

In 1948, Egypt launched a large-scale offensive against the Negev region of Israel. This was part of the War of Independence, an attack by five Arab armies designed to "drive the Jews into the sea." Though the Jews were under-armed, untrained, and few in number, through ingenuity and perseverance they staved off the attacks and secured the borders. Yet the price was high -- Israel lost 6,373 of its people, a full one percent of the Jewish population of Israel at the time.

"Historical insight" from a Jewish self-loather

An excerpt from the excellent, must-read essay by Seth Frantzman, currently in the doctoral program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and whose master's thesis was on the 1948 war, in a counterpoint rebuttal of Ilan Pappe, a communist anti-Zionist self-loathing Jewish historian at Haifa University who has defended a student, Teddy Katz, for written essays documenting a fictitious Israeli massacre at the village of Tantura in 1948, and presenting it as truth. Via JPost:

It has become fashionable in recent decades to frame the 1948 war as one in which the Arabs were victims of Zionist aggression. Anti-Zionist scholars such as Noam Chomsky, Rashid Khalidi and Ilan Pappe have presented the war as if the only important events were Deir Yassin and the flight or expulsion of Arabs from Haifa, Acre, Tiberias, west Jerusalem, Jaffa and numerous villages.

These views are those of the "new historians" - leftist scholars who in the 1980s began to reinterpret Israeli and Palestinian history. He is the author of six works on the history of the Israeli-Arab conflict and the Middle East. In his recently released book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Pappe claims that Israel prepared a special plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine's Arab population known as Plan D for dalet. Pappe's "evidence" is derived from his interpretations of files found in the Hagana and Israel state archives.

But Pappe makes one egregious mistake. He never bothers to ask the same question of the Arabs he does of the Jews: What about their lists, their intelligence reports and their ethnic-cleansing plans? What were Arab intentions in the five months between the passage of the UN partition plan on November 29, 1947, and the birth of Israel?

The archives of The Palestine Post, now The Jerusalem Post and then the newspaper of record of Mandatory Palestine, provide some of the answers and tell a very different story from the one presented by Pappe.

-- Sixty-two Jews were murdered by Arabs in the first week after the UN partition plan was passed, and by May 15, 1948, a total of 1,256 Jews had been killed, most of them civilians. These deaths were caused by Arab militias, gangs, terrorists and army units which attacked every place of Jewish inhabitation in Palestine.

The attacks succeeded in placing Jerusalem under siege and eventually cutting off its water supply. All Jewish villages in the Negev were attacked, and Jews had to go about the country in convoys. In every major city where Jews and Arabs lived in mixed neighborhoods the Jewish areas came under attack. This was true in Haifa's Hadar Hacarmel as well as Jerusalem's Old City.

Massacres were not uncommon.

-- Thirty-nine Jews were killed by Arab rioters at Haifa's oil refinery on December 30, 1947. On January 16, 1948, 35 Jews were killed trying to reach Gush Etzion. On February 22, 44 Jews were murdered in a bombing on Jerusalem's Rehov Ben-Yehuda. And on February 29, 23 Jews were killed all across Palestine, eight of them at the Hayotzek iron foundry.

-- Thirty-five Jews were murdered during the Mount Scopus convoy massacre on April 13. And 127 Jews were massacred at Kfar Etzion on May 15, 1948, after 30 others had died defending the Etzion Bloc.

-- In Arab countries more than 100 Jews were also massacred and synagogues were burned in Aleppo and Aden, driving thousands of Jews from their homes.

Back in Palestine many small kibbutzim were subjected to attacks, including Gvulot, Ben-Shemen, Holon, Safed, Bat Yam and Kfar Yavetz - all in December. In January and February, it was the turn of Rishon Lezion, Yehiam, Mishmar Hayarden, Tirat Zvi, Sde Eliahu, Ein Hanatziv, Magdiel, Mitzpe Hagalil and Ma'anit.

In March and April these attacks culminated with an assault on Hartuv by 400 Arabs based in the village of Ishwa and an attack on Kfar Darom by members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Arab attackers also bombed The Palestine Post in February. In March, the Jewish Agency, the Solel Boneh building in Haifa and an Egged bus were also bombed.

Some of today's scholars prefer to present every massacre of Jews as a "response" to some Jewish deed, and to portray as a "myth" the very idea that Israel struggled desperately for existence in 1948.

But it was no myth.

The fact is 1,256 Jews were killed in five months. Even before the first Arab villages were captured in April, 924 Jews had already been killed.

Ilan Pappe should have pondered what might have been if those Jews had not been slaughtered.

For more on the scourge known as Illan Pappe, see this, this and this.

Click here to read the full essay, Ethnic cleansing in Palestine?

"Rectify Injustice" Against Israel, Cotler Tells U.S.

From "Rectify Injustice" Against Israel, Cotler Tells U.S:

Former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler and other Canadian scholars presented the U.S. Congress Thursday with its first testimony on Jews driven from Arab lands following Israel's creation in 1948. The group was among experts helping U.S. lawmakers decide on a pair of bills that would oblige the Bush administration to actively oppose the Arab-led practice in Middle East peace efforts to speak only of Palestinian refugees. General discourse for decades has all but ignored tens of thousands of Jews, Christians and other minorities who were similarly turned into refugees. "The time has come to rectify this historical injustice," Cotler told members of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in Washington.

Steve Malzberg is back

I discovered last nite that the great talk show host, Steve Malzberg is back on the radio, this time on WOR. WOR New York has announced that political commentator and longtime WABC Sports Talk host Steve Malzberg joined WOR on May 7, for weekday evenings, 9-11 PM and is also syndicated nationally by the WOR Radio Network (weekdays, 9 PM-Midnight ET). Steve can also be heard on Sunday morning 3-5 am on WOR Radio and streaming at www.wor710.com as well as on the WOR Radio Network around the nation at different times throughout the weekend. For the latest videos, stories, and posts, check out his blog.

Last nite I listened to Steve's excellent interview with Research Director of CAIR Mohamed Nimer. Listen to Nimer promote CAIR's Jew-hating, American-hating party line here, a re-broadcast of the interview originally aired on 7/5/07.

Excellent job, Steve. Next time, however, take time to refute the mythology that "palestinians" were forced from their homes at gunpoint in 1948. All of us can benefit from reading some more about what really happened in 1948.

40th Anniversary of the Reunification of Jerusalem

Via Israel HighWay:

Most Jews in Israel and throughout the world barely remember a time when the Old City of Jerusalem and the rest of east Jerusalem were not an important part of the fabric of the city and the country. For 19 years, from the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 until the Six Day War in 1967, Jerusalem was a city divided by barbed wire and dangerous "no-man’s land" running roughly north to south separating the Jewish people from the Old City of Jerusalem. The Old City, the City of David, was the cornerstone of 2,000 years of Jewish longing for Zion. The long-held dream of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel was finally achieved, but the heart of the land was at once visibly close and miles away.

When Israel was born in 1948, its citizens and armed forces were unable to defend the Old City, and it fell to the Jordanian Legion. Jews were cut off from their holiest sites in Jerusalem, including the Kotel (Western Wall), the City of David just outside the Old City Walls, Mt. Scopus and the ancient Mount of Olives cemetery.

Throughout this time the Jewish character of the Old City was systematically destroyed by the Jordanian government. Thousands of Jewish residents of east Jerusalem and the Old City were driven from their homes. Fifty-eight Jerusalem synagogues, including some that were hundreds of years old, were destroyed or ruined and others were turned into barns for animals or public bathrooms. The entire Jewish Quarter was destroyed, houses were built immediately adjacent to the Kotel and all access to the ancient city was completely denied to Jews. Then suddenly, in the middle of the Six Day War, Israel found itself, unexpectedly, in control of the Old City.

With the news that Israel had taken control of the Old City and east Jerusalem, Israelis from all over the country began flocking to the Kotel to celebrate their young country’s miraculous victory. With Israeli sovereignty in all of Jerusalem, the holy sites of the world’s three great monotheistic faiths were opened to all, as they had never been under centuries of Muslim rule.

Now, 40 years later, many Israelis don’t know an Israel without a united Jerusalem offering free access to the Kotel and the important cultural and historic sites in the Old City. What was once "no man's land" dividing Israeli west Jerusalem from Jordanian-controlled east Jerusalem is now home to many landmarks and tourist attractions. One such place is the Haas Promenade, the first stop for many tour groups because of its scenic overlook of the entire Jerusalem panorama.

In recent years, Jerusalem has struggled as a growing and modern city. The city's narrow and winding streets are often snarled with traffic, and the city center, the site of frequent terrorist attacks during the Second Intifada, has struggled to keep shoppers and to attract people seeking entertainment who favor the modern indoor mall on the outskirts of the city. However, the city is in the midst of a major building campaign centered around the Jerusalem light rail system which will connect the outlying neighborhoods of the city with the center of town. The light rail, with its signature "Bridge of Strings" at the entrance to the city, will serve as a catalyst for new pedestrian malls, shopping areas and a reduction of traffic in and around the city center.

However, everything is not settled. To this day, 40 years after the unification of the city and almost 60 years after the founding of the State of Israel, the world refuses to fully accept Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Children born in Jerusalem to American parents are issued U.S. passports with the country of birth left blank. For decades, only two countries, Costa Rica and El Salvador, maintained their Israeli embassies in Jerusalem, and both of those countries announced last year that they would be moving their embassies to Tel Aviv.

The issue of Jerusalem has played a significant role in various diplomatic discussions in recent years and remains a key "final status" issue in the on-again, off-again talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The Oslo Accords, the negotiations at Camp David and the other interim discussions have all touched on the future of Jerusalem but opted to postpone the discussion. This year’s controversy over the Mugrabi Gate excavations shows just how sensitive an issue Jerusalem can be. The Mugrabi Gate serves as the entry point to the Temple Mount for all non-Muslim visitors. The bridge was built after the Six Day War to bring visitors to the Temple Mount. Recently it was heavily damaged during torrential rainstorms, and Jerusalem city architects ruled that is must be replaced with a more permanent and safer structure. In February, initial excavations of the site for the new bridge brought a swirl of controversy from the Muslim world, with Muslim and Arab leaders accusing Israel of seeking to undermine mosques on the Mount. Israel defended the decision to rebuild by inviting inspectors from various countries to observe and inspect the area themselves. A UN ruling on the incident cleared Israel of wrongdoing, acknowledging that they had acted with professionalism.

What is the future of Jerusalem? Will it remain the undivided capital of Israel or will the world demand official Palestinian sovereignty in parts of the Holy City? The answers to these questions remain unclear to all; but on this, the 40th Yom Yerushalayim, we should all stop to appreciate the Eternal City.

Take Action:

* Celebrate Yom Yerushalayim on May 16.
- Put an Israeli flag on your window or porch.
- Wear an Israeli flag pin.
* Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Attend a special service at your school or synagogue to mark the miracle of Jerusalem's reunification.
* Write a letter to your congressmen, senator, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanded that the American Embassy be moved to Jerusalem.

* Watch these video clips on Jerusalem:

- Jerusalem of Gold
- Matisyahu's Tribute to Jerusalem

Click here to listen to a live broadcast of the liberation of the Old City on June 7, 1967.

Arabs and erev rav Israelis plan to march against Israel on Yom HaAtzmaut

From INN: On the day most Israelis will be celebrating the 59th Yom Ha'atzmaut, Independence Day, some Arab and left-wing Jewish citizens will march against the foundation of the state.

The Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Internally Displaced (ADRID) is planning to hold its tenth annual Procession of Return. The march, which last year drew hundreds of participants, is set to take place Tuesday, April 24, in the village of Al-Lajjun, adjacent to the northern Arab-Israeli city of Umm Al-Fahm. ADRID was established with the goal of returning Arabs to the houses and villages they or their families left during and after the 1948 War of Independence.

In the 2006 Procession of Return, Arab and left-wing marchers waved PLO flags and black flags "as a clear and decisive statement in the face of the Independence Day celebrations across other Jewish areas of the country," according to Ido Tzvieli, writing in the website of the Israel-based Jewish-Arab Zochrot organization. Zochrot, which will be taking part in the procession in Al-Lajjun, is dedicated to promoting the Arab view of the establishment of the State of Israel as a "day of catastrophe" (Al-Nakba).

Leading Middle East researchers, however, note statements on the issue made by Arab leaders and spokespeople during and after the War of Independence, indicating that Arabs in the land of Israel mostly fled due to Arab propaganda. The Arab leadership promoted libelous accusations against the Jews of Israel and warned Arab villagers to make way for conquering Arab armies.

For example, the New York-based Lebanese daily Al-Hoda wrote that in 1948, Arab League secretary Azzam Pasha "assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and of Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade.... Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property, and to stay temporarily in neighbouring fraternal states."

Also during the War of Independence, hundreds of Jews were forced to abandon towns and communities that were conquered by Jordanian, Egyptian and other Arab forces, such as in Jerusalem, Gaza, Hevron and other parts of Judea and Samaria. The lands and homes abandoned by Jews were quickly taken over by Arab soldiers and civilians. In most cases, the properties taken over by Arabs have remained in their possession, even after the 1967 Six Day War, when Israeli forces returned to the areas in question. In addition, in the aftermath of the War of Independence, acts of official and unofficial retaliation against Jewish communities in Arab countries forced upwards of 700,000 Jews to flee their homes and emigrate to Israel and the West, in most cases leaving their possessions behind.

Jordan quietly gaining Temple Mount control

Be berry, berry qwiet. Don't look now, but Jordan wants to resume its re-occupation of Jerusalem that it had previously occupied from 1948 to 1967, where no Muslim, Jew, or Christian was allowed to pray, with no peep of outrage from the international community. Yet, when Jews are in their indigenous homeland, and open up the Temple Mount so that Muslim, Jew and Christian could pray, the world is infuriated. Arab occupation of Jewish land = good. Jewish occupation of Jewish land = bad. That's Arabist logic for you. Not surprising from a culture whose greatest gift to civilization is their claim to inventing the number zero. From WND:

Jordan has been quietly purchasing real estate surrounding the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in hopes of gaining more control over the area accessing the holy site, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials.

The officials confirmed to WND the Jordanian Kingdom has been using shell companies during the past year to purchase several apartments and shops located at key peripheral sections of the Temple Mount.

The officials said Jordan also set up a commission to use the companies to petition mostly Arab landowners adjacent to eastern sections of the Temple Mount to sell their properties. They said profits from sales at any purchased shops would be reinvested to buy more real estate near the Mount and in eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods. The shell companies at times have presented themselves as acting on behalf of the Waqf, the Muslim custodians of the Temple Mount, WND has learned.

Sheik Azzam Khateeb, who was installed last month as the new manager of the Waqf, is known to be close to the Jordanian monarchy. The previous Waqf manager, Sheik Adnon Husseini, was loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party and had relations with Israel and some Jewish groups.

The Israeli and Palestinian officials said Jordan recently placed a bid to purchase Jerusalem's Intercontinental Hotel, which is situated on an important road that leads to an ancient cemetery on the Mount of Olives, adjacent to the Temple Mount. Informed sources tell WND the hotel is owned by groups representing the Israeli government and is leased every 10 years to a new company. The last lease was signed in 1997 and expires later this year. It was not immediately clear whether Jordan's bid was accepted.

The Mount of Olives is site of many biblical events and is considered important to Judaism and Christianity.

Real estate ownership in Jerusalem's Old City is widely considered a sensitive matter. Previous Israeli-Palestinian peace proposals tentatively divided parts of the city based on Jewish or Arab residence.

Jordan previously controlled eastern Jerusalem and the Temple Mount from 1948 until Israel liberated the territory in the 1967 Six Day War. During the period of Jordanian control, Jews were barred from the Western Wall and Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest sites, and hundreds of synagogues were destroyed. Jordan constructed a road to the Intercontinental Hotel that stretched across the Mount of Olives, bulldozing hundreds of Jewish gravestones.

Jordan the past few months has boosted its public profile on the Temple Mount. The appointment of Khateeb as the new Waqf manager for the Temple Mount was widely seen as a nod to Jordan.

Gall of the Hashemites

More proof that anti-Zionism is racism. An excellent article from the excellent New York Sun, Gall of the Hashemites:

Jordan's King Abdullah II, speaking before a joint meeting of Congress Wednesday, seemed to blame Israel for all the world's problems. "The denial of justice and peace in Palestine," the king said, "is the core issue. And this core issue is not only producing severe consequences for our region, it is producing severe consequences for our world."

Balderdash is the kindest way to describe it. If the terrorists are upset about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, why are they setting off bombs in Indonesia and Spain and Saudi Arabia and Iraq, which are hardly in the vanguard of support for Israel? Given that the terrorists state publicly that their end goal is to make all of Europe and America subject to Islamic law, why should we believe that in fact they have the far more modest goal of merely seizing land belonging to the Jewish state?

The gall of the son of King Hussein, who perpetrated what the Arabs call Black September on the Palestinians [when Jordan expelled the PLO in 1970], to lecture the Americans on Palestinian Arab dispossession is astounding. Abdullah well knows that Jordan controlled the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967. If the Palestinian Arabs were dispossessed during that period, it was no one's fault but the Hashemites', who didn't exactly use those decades to establish a Palestinian Arab state.

Abdullah made reference to a Saudi proposal from 2002 that he described as the "Arab Peace Initiative." That plan would be more accurately described as the Arab Destruction of Israel Initiative. Its aim was to give the Palestinian Arabs half of the Israeli capital of Jerusalem, [force an Israeli] retreat to militarily indefensible borders, and absorb within those borders enough Arab "refugees" so that its character as a Jewish state would be eradicated.

One of the effects of the Islamist terrorist onslaught of recent years is that more Americans have thought more deeply about these matters. They will not be gulled by a foreign potentate
offering up Israel as a scapegoat for troubles that originate with the failings of the Arab and Islamic world and their nondemocratic leaders, Abdullah among them.

Consequences of a sovereign Palestinian Arab state

Received by email, from David Bedein, Bureau Chief, Israel Resource News Agency:

At a time when a Palestinian Arab sovereign state is so widely discussed, very few have taken the time to consider the consequences of establishing such an entity. Here are questions that every citizen can bring to the attention of the US government which conceptualizes the idea and to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which seems ready to swallow such an idea:

1. Encirclement. Will a proposed sovereign Palestine not swallow up Jordan , most of whose population is Palestinian, leaving Israel with a hostile state from the Iraqi border to the Mediterranean Sea , with a corridor across the Negev between Gaza to Hebron ?

2. Israeli Arabs: Will the Arabs of the Galilee and the Triangle not sue for "autonomy," and then l demand the fulfillment of UN Resolution 181-an Israeli withdrawal to the 1947 borders (evacuation of Nahariya, Acre, Nazareth, Jaffa, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat and Beer Sheva)?

3. Terror. Why will a new Palestinian entity disband terrorist organizations? After all, Machmud Abbas has so far refused to dismantle or disband the Al Aksa Brigades of the Fateh which continue to fire missiles into the Western Negev.

4. Armament. Why should there be any expectation that a sovereign Palestine will uphold any commitment for demilitarization, since the Palestinian Authority never upheld any such commitment since the Oslo accords?

5. Refugees. Based on Israel ’s surprising agreement to view the Saudi plan as a basis for a state, does that not mean that Israel will have to absorb descendents of refugees and displace thousands of Israelis from places like Haifa, Tfzat and Jaffa and 80 kibbutzim which rest on Arab neighborhoods or villages from where Arabs fled in 1948?

6. Air space. Will the Israel Air Force be forbidden from flying over the "West Bank," just as it was banned from the Lebanese skies?

7. Alliances. Based on diplomatic experience with the Palestinian Authority, will a Palestine not violate every prohibition on signing military agreements with countries hostile to Israel, placing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard on Israel’s borders?

8. Water. Like the Palestinian Authority before it, will a sovereign Palestine not carry out pirate drillings, and threaten the mountain aquifer of Judea and Samaria?

9. Jewish sovereignty. Will the momentum of a Palestine not erase the right of the Jews to the land of Israel in international consciousness?

10. Loss of independence. Will Israel not become a protectorate that is subject to the Quartet – the US, the EU, the US and the UN?