In Other News, Anti-Semitism Continues to Rear Its Ugly Head

Recent events in France have brought the seemingly somnolent monster of anti-Semitism to the forefront of national consciousness. On Friday two Muslim terrorists killed 4 Jewish hostages at a kosher supermarket in Paris, in addition to massacring 12 people at the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. In a Wall Street Journal article covering news of the attack, a Parisian resident Hervé Laurent stated somberly: "Clearly something is broken in France."("Deadly Raid Ends Terror Spree in France," Meichtry, Gauthier-Villars, & Bisserbe, 2015). In response to the murders of Yoav Hattab, Philippe Braham, Yohan Cohen and Francois-Michel Saada, France ramped up its security on Jewish schools and synagogues in the vicinity, deploying up to 10,000 soldiers around the country to protect Jewish children.

So. The Holocaust is over, the Jewish blood libel has been ridiculed and summarily dismissed, the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition lie 500 years in the past. And yet the hate and prejudice that perpetrated these tragic events is still alive and well today. A few months ago the former chief rabbi of England, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, wrote an essay in the Wall Street Journal discussing this phenomenon, stating that, however much the media and other nations may attempt to mask the ugliness of its features, anti-Semitism continues to be prevalent and that, "Never again has become ever again." He cites recent examples from all across Europe: "In France, worshipers in a synagogue were surrounded by a howling mob claiming to protest Israeli policy. In Brussels, four people were murdered in the Jewish museum, and a synagogue was firebombed. In London, a major supermarket said that it felt forced to remove kosher food from its shelves for fear that it would incite a riot. A London theater refused to stage a Jewish film festival because the event had received a small grant from the Israeli embassy."("Europe's Alarming New Anti-Semitism," Sacks, 2014).

What is this monster, and how can Jews and non-Jews stop its evil and hate from infecting the world?

             
           

The Encyclopedia Judaica describes anti-Semitism as“a term coined in 1879, from the Greek “anti” [against], and “Semite” by the German agitator Wilhelm Marr… “Anti-Semitism”soon came into general use as a term denoting all forms of hostility manifested toward the Jews” (Heinemann, Gutmann, Poliakov, Weissman, Toury, & Hertzberg, 2007, p. 206-246).

However, to define the term “anti-Semitism”, examples serve better than any dictionary definition, and they exist in abundance. A few years after my family moved to the small Dutch farming town where we currently live, several of my little brothers were playing outside, and some boys their age rode by, yelled “Heil Hitler”, gave them the Nazi salute, and told them to go back to the ovens of Aushwitz. When my parents visited Israel they were walking in an Arab neighborhood and several small Arab children came out of their house and began pelting my parents with small stones: simply because they were Jews. These are examples of anti-Semitism on a very small scale, perpetrated by children bearing weapons no larger than tiny rocks and hurtful words... yet this attitude had to have come from somewhere. This is where anti-Semitism starts – in the minds and souls of young children, who grow up thinking that hatred for another race is not only normal, but is right and just.

The history of this monster is a long and tragic one. But nowhere in the pages of history can we find such a horrendous and tragic example of anti-Semitism on a mass scale aside from the Holocaust. A brief look at the statistics of the Holocaust should somewhat suffice to convey its utter horror: in 1933, about nine million Jews lived in Europe. By 1945, an estimated 5,830,000 Jews were completely wiped out. In a little over ten years after Hitler’s rise to power, two out of every three European Jews had been killed. An estimated 1.2 million Jewish children were murdered, mostly in the six extermination camps established in Poland where mass murder by gas was conducted systematically. Millions also died in these ghettos and camps from forced labor, starvation, disease, brutality, and execution (Leckie, 1987, p. 903-920).

During the Holocaust, one of the darkest times in Jewish history, the true colors of non-Jews all over the world were revealed when neighbors turned on neighbors, and friends upon friends. Historian Martin Gilbert recounts such an incident in the Ukraine his book The Righteous: A Jew managed to escape from the ghetto of Dabrowica in Poland, and sought refuge from a Ukrainian peasant whom he had thought his friend. But his “friend” responded, “You come to me asking me to help and save you?…Hitler has conquered almost the whole world and he is going to slaughter all the Jews because they crucified our Jesus…Get out of my sight, for the devil remains the devil, and the Yid remains a Yid” (Gilbert, 2002, p. 9).
        

Yaffa Eliach in his "Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust" tells the horrifically ironic story of Holocaust victim Zvi Michalowsky who survived a mass shooting near a church and climbed naked and covered in blood out of the pit after the Nazis had gone. He made his way to a Christian home and knocked on the door. When the widow saw him shivering on her doorstep she chased him away telling him, "Jew, go back to the grave!" But then Zvi had an idea. "I am your Lord, Jesus Christ," he told her, "Look at me - the blood, the pain, the suffering of the innocent - let me in." The woman's demeanor changed dramatically and she fell at his feet crossing herself - "My God, my God!" she cried, and welcomed him into her home (Eliach, 2011, p. 54-55). Yes, the Jews crucified Jesus, and for that, they were persecuted, tortured, and killed by the millions during the Holocaust. Yet in the name of avenging Jesus' death many Christians somehow forgot that their Savior Himself was also, in fact, a Jew.

          Anti-Semitism has existed as a social evil for centuries, it still exists today in the modern world, and Jews and Gentiles alike need to stand behind Israel and the Jewish community to prevent anti-Semitism using their words, their deeds, and their overall attitude of support.  It is prevalent everywhere, even in the free, democratic, culturally diverse country of America, as my brothers’ personal experience above demonstrates. The authors of Encyclopedia Judaica point out that anti-Semitic rhetoric and behavior has been more pronounced in some periods of American history than others, such as during the Civil War, when General Grant expelled all Jews from military territories in December of 1862. (Heinemann, Gutmann, Poliakov, Weissman, Toury, & Hertzberg, 2007, p. 206-246).  A significant increase in reported acts of anti-Semitism in America has been recorded during the last few years, as Jeffrey Ross explains in his Jerusalem Post article, Campus Anti-Semitism Grows In the U.S.; “In 1984, the "Annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents" of B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League showed incidents on six campuses. This figure doubled to 12 in 1985 and increased to 19 in 1986. In 1988, the number jumped to 38, the highest ever recorded by the ADL” (Ross, October, 1989, Jerusalem Post). Ross reports that a Holocaust memorial adjacent to the Yale campus was desecrated on the 50^th anniversary of Kristallnacht, and swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans were spray painted on the walls of New York State University. The next morning a philosophy professor told his class that the Jews had brought these incidents upon themselves (Ross, October, 1989, Jerusalem Post).

“Here? In America?” you might ask in disbelief. The answer is yes, anti-Semitism still exists in America – and not only do these incidences point to its existence, they demonstrate the fearful truth that an anti-Semitic attitude is growing in the United States.

Today anti-Semitism’s most powerful and frightening voice is not Germany, but Islam. Islam’s very ideology is based in hatred of the Jews and the belief that the entire Jewish race should be wiped off the map. “The Jews are said to have always abused the generosity and hospitality of the Moslems by stirring up unrest against them - from the Jews of Medina who betrayed the Prophet Mohammed to the Jews in today's Arab and Moslem world” (Israeli, 1990, The Jerusalem Post). Leaders of the Arab world such as Khomeini and Iran’s president Ahmadinejad are very vocal in their hatred of the Jews. If we wish to avoid yet another Holocaust, we must take measures to stop Muslim aggression on the Israel.

How can one individual hope to combat such a prevalent social evil, such widespread hatred of a people, such racism and violence? More can be done than one would think. One man's stand for the Jews, one solitary voice of support for Israel, one person speaking up against any expression of anti-Semitism, is a powerful, unquenchable light in a dark world. Think how differently the Holocaust might have turned out if all the non-Jews had banded together and stood against anti-Semitism in the 30s and 40s. An entire generation of European Jewry might not have been lost. A great many Jews were saved because of the bravery of righteous men and women. Over 19,000 non-Jews have been recognized as Righteous “Among the Nations” By Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem (Gilbert, The Righteous, dust cover).

In the preface to his work The Righteous, where he recounts the stories of the noble Europeans who helped save the Jews during the Holocaust, Martin Gilbert describes this scene: “On 28 October 1974, while walking on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, I saw… a procession on its way to one of the city’s Christian cemeteries.” Surprised that most of the procession seemed to be Jewish, Gilbert asked one of them whose funeral it was, and was told that it was that of a German Christian, Oskar Schindler, who had helped save the lives of more than 1,500 Jews during the Holocaust (Gilbert, The Righteous, p. ix).

The solution to the problem of anti-Semitism is not to passively stand on the sidelines and allow Jews to be attacked. To prevent anti-Semitism, you must support Israel, support your Jewish friends and neighbors, support the entire Jewish community. Stand up against anti-Semitic slurs and jokes even when the situation may be awkward or uncomfortable.  Support Jews with your words, your attitude, and most of all through a united stance against all forms of anti-Semitism. Support them to turn the tide of hatred that they have endured for so many thousands of years as a nation. Support them because God has called us to show love towards every race and people and to stand against racial hatred and prejudice. The massacre of the 4 Jewish men in Paris on Friday is the brutal culmination of more subtle forms of anti-Semitism: indifference, apathy, and silent betrayal.

This is not an ancient or outdated social problem – this monster is not asleep or dead or forgotten in the past - its ugliness is alive and well in today’s modern world, as evidenced by America’s apathetic and even hostile attitude towards Israel and Islam’s violent and unwarranted acts of hatred towards the Jews. We must never let another Holocaust happen again in a civilized country, as it did in Germany of 1939. We must stand with the Jewish people and declare, as did the citizens of Billings, Montana in 1939 when the Klu Klux Clan was waging their anti-Semitic hate campaign: “Not in our town” (Ross, Dec. 4^th, 1995, Columbian).

References:

Eliach, Yaffa. Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust. 2011. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Gilbert, Martin. The Righteous. 2002. Doubleday Publishers: Great Britain

Heinemann, J.; Cutmann, J.; Poliakov, L.; Weissman P.; Toury, J.; and Hertzberg, A. et al. Antisemitism, Encyclopaedia Judaica. Ed. By Berenbaum, M. and Skolnik, F. Vol. 2. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. P. 206-246.

Israeli, R. 1990, Aug 09. Antisemitism and Israeli Islam. Jerusalem Post. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/320997884?accountid=12085

Leckie, R. Delivered From Evil: The Saga of World War II. 1987. Harper and Row Publishers, New York, N.Y.

Ross, J. 1991, Jun 25. U.S. Campus Antisemitism Grows. Jerusalem Post. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/321023782?accountid=12085

Ross, L. (1995, Dec 24). Not in our town. Columbian. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/252751995?accountid=12085

An Editorial From the New York Times. Oct. 20^th, 2003. Islamic Anti-Semitism, Loud and Clear. Pittsburgh Post - Gazette. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/391022693?accountid=12085

Senior Thesis - Proof Three, Parts One & Two

The Right of the Jews to the Land of Israel, Proof III

Meritorious Right

The Jewish nation not only possesses the right of military conquest and historical ownership, but the right of merit as well. Under the hands of the Jews the land of Israel has blossomed from a bare desert to a prosperous nation in a short 64 years. Since 1948 Israel has developed into a country with more companies in NASDAQ than all of Europe combined, ranking third after the U.S. and China; in 2008, it had more than twice the global venture capital of the U.S., 30 times that of Europe and 80 times that of China. (Student Life, Dan Senor Speaks About Israel’s Economic Success by Becky Prager.) This is merely one of many statistics proving, in simple black-and-white fact, that the Jews have earned their right to possess Israel.

Merit, according to definition, is “the quality or actions that constitute the basis of one’s rewards or punishments.” Our fundamental sense of justice, an innate part of every human being’s consciousness, creates an awareness of what we and others deserve for our actions. The idea of justice is also an important concept in the history of human rights, something for which wars have been fought, laws have been passed, violence has been perpetrated, and philosophies have been formed. I don’t attempt to argue that, because the Jews suffered the horrors of the Holocaust in the mid-twentieth century, they deserve a land of their own, though it certainly should be compensation. Rather, the fact that Israel’s economy has flourished since 1948 proves that they are amply capable of its care, representing the only democracy in the tempestuous Mideast.

1.) Economic History of prosperity

Economically Israel’s recent history has been characterized by growth and prosperity. During the British Mandate as Britain was preparing to hand Israel over to the Jews, their economical and political systems developed separately from those of the Palestinians’; Israel experienced rapid growth during this era due to the influx of both immigrants and capital. After this, in spite of the financial challenges it faced with immediate wars, new settlements, and adjustment to new government, its transition from British territory to Jewish state went relatively smoothly. Israel introduced a New Economic Policy in 1952 and achieved an especially high growth rate from 1950 to 1965 – real GNP increased by 11% while GDP per capita grew by 6%. “Following independence, the new state’s economy was structured around three basic elements: high defense costs, mass immigration absorption, and the building of new institutions such as banks, a national insurance institute, and government agencies, all of which necessitated massive infusions of public money into the economy.” (MERIA, Middle Eastern Journal of International Affairs, Journal, Volume 6, No. 3 - September 2002, Israel’s Economic Growth; Success Without Security, by Linda Sharby.)

2.) Success Against All Odds

As demonstrated by this brief summary of Israel’s economic history, the Jews faced and overcame numerous challenges at the inception of their new state. A mere few of the numerous odds against them were; a wasteland left by centuries of foreign misrule, six wars, enemies on all sides, an economic boycott by the disgruntled Arabs, an isolated diplomacy, and monumental task of creating a new nation from scratch. “Nonetheless, Israel has a strong, modern, and diversified economy that in 2000 posted an annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $104.1 billion, 40% of which consisted of exports of goods and services. Growth for 2000 reached six percent. Israel’s per capita Gross National Income (GNI) for 2000, at almost $17,000, placed the state ahead of Spain, Portugal, Greece, and New Zealand… 64-year-old Israel now ranks as a high-income economy and was identified as one of the most global emerging markets by Foreign Policy magazine’s Globalization Index. Over the past decade, Israel’s high-technology industry, second only to California’s Silicon Valley in concentration of firms, powered economic growth and attracted massive Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the country, a figure that reached $4.4 billion in 2000.” (MERIA, Middle Eastern Journal of International Affairs, Journal, Volume 6, No. 3 - September 2002, Israel’s Economic Growth; Success Without Security, by Linda Sharby.)

As Mr. Wohstetter of the American Spectator points out in his article Israeli Exceptionalism, the United States at its inception was faced with none of Israel’s challenges – America was a land rich in natural resources, protected by two oceans, and populated by a few primitive Indian tribes, yet it took a full century to progress from George Washington’s inauguration to the “final frontier.” “Along the way, America had time to develop and prosper, shielded from the destructive wars of monarchical Europe, until in 1917 it came to the rescue of a Europe attempting to commit suicide.

“Israel had no such luxury. Shooting started the very night that news of the November 29, 1947 UN partition resolution reached the Mideast, and continued through Israel's May 14, 1948 proclamation of statehood. Sixty-three years of unremitting Arab hostility have followed. Israel is a tiny island surrounded by more than one-quarter of a billion Arabs, virtually none of whom think there should be a single Jew in the Mideast.” (The American Spectator, Israeli Exceptionalism, by John D. Wohlstetter.)  

 In 1867, 81 years before the Jews took possession, American author Mark Twain described the Holy Land, outside of Jewish settlements: “There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent--not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings...” Yet in less than a century, under the care of the Jews, Israel became one of the most prosperous nations in the world, surpassing even highly developed countries such as the U.S. in high-tech developments, exports, sales profits, etc., especially since it shifted its economic policy from socialistic to capitalistic during the past twenty years. She ranks third in the world in the number of university graduates per capita, possesses the highest per capita number of scientists in the world, publishes the largest amount of scientific papers per capita in the world, possesses one of the lowest inflation rates during the global economic crisis (2.3 %,) and the 24^th largest economy in the world, (in spite of being the 81^st smallest country.) Israel’s economy is based on significant resources such as copper, sulfur, citrus, dairy, vegetables, poultry and beef while the industry is primarily composed of high-tech projects, along with chemical and plastic productions. This makes for a highly diversified economy, a prerequisite to political and national financial stability.

 In 64 years Israel has been forced to fight 6 full-scale defensive wars to maintain her place in the nucleus of the Middle East. Yet she has developed into one of the most industrious and fertile nations in the world. How did this happen?

“Against the backdrop of the events that typically cause Israel to be in the news …people often forget that there are normal things happening in Israel. And in many cases, extraordinary things, like the amazing performance of the Israeli economy over the past decade. Haaretz reports that the TA-25, the flagship index of the Israeli stock market, has increased forty percent in the last year. A period that has included a month of warfare, massive public discontent with the Israeli political echelon, and the takeover of Gaza by Hamas. …What accounts for this growth? A vital factor is of course the Israeli culture, which embraces entrepreneurship, risk-taking, and ingenuity… (Michael J. Totten, Middle East Journal, July 13, 2007, The Israeli Economic Miracle, by Noah Pollak)

Aside from supernatural factors, which are clearly the key to the Jews’ success, several Jewish characteristics help explain how they overcame the monumental challenges facing their new country to meet with such results. For one thing, their enemies have been predominantly external, excepting the violent pockets of Palestinians throughout the country. Israel has never experienced a civil war, nor does it appear that she will anytime in the near future. Moreover, her military is one of the best in the world – out of necessity Israel has invested significant amounts of time, money and resources into defending her borders. “National military service is mandatory for all Israeli citizens over the age of 18, although Arab citizens are exempted if they so please and other exceptions may be made on religious, physical or psychological grounds.  Men serve three years in the IDF, while women serve two.” (Wikipedia, Israel Defense Force, Service) In 2010 Israel’s money supply decreased which could lead to stability in the long term – flooding a country with excess cash can lead to inflation, but Israel should be able to keep their inflation low. (MoneyNews.com, Israel: A Safe Haven of Economic Prosperity by Jacob Wolinsky) 

All of these practical factors contributed to Israel’s unexpected economical success. From a pragmatic point of view, the Jews overcame impossible odds by mustering their available resources and indefatigable Jewish ingenuity to make their nation one of the most prosperous leaders in the world today. Contrast their country to Cyprus, which was likewise ruined by Turkish rule, yet stands far beneath Israel in terms of financial success. Cyprus’ climate and agriculture are very similar to Israel’s. Perhaps the different nationalities occupying these territories have something to do with this contrast.  

The Right of the Jews to the Land Of Israel - 2

About a month ago I posted the first part of my thesis' first proof. This first proof is that of historical right - essentially proving through history that the Jews are Israel's legitimate owners. In my latest post I outlined history's general summary of Jews in Israel - in this post I will attempt to back that up with archaeological evidence, upon which huge importance is placed in today's scientific, rationalistic world. This research was very rewarding, because it's important to know that tangible proof of our ownership exists. Enjoy :)

The Jews’ historical presence in Israel is not only found in the records of the past, but embodied in physical objects of today, such as jewelry, writings, art, furniture, buildings and so forth. As historian Andrea Berlin said, archaeologists view physical remains as cultural data. For many, items such as money or pottery serve as factual evidence that something or someone once existed where it was found. Monuments and artifacts that have stood the test of time transport us back into history in order to see characteristics of previous cultures, to ponder their ideas and thoughts - even to discover new civilizations. Physical remains exist as proof to our pragmatic eyes that lands were settled, nations were born, wars were fought and ancient communities lived and worked in modern territories. It is simple to discard the Torah and claim that the Jews never existed in the Holy Land – that their presence was conjured up by pro-Israel fanatics seeking to discredit the Arabs. But it is not so easy to dismiss shards of Hebrew pottery found in the south of Jerusalem dating back 3,000 years ago, nor artifacts found inside the Temple Mount and Old City of David from 1000 BCE.

The evidence of the Jews’ existence reaches even further back into the past than David, however. According to the Torah, Joseph lived in Egypt for 93 years serving the Pharaoh. Historical evidence supports this account also - “Imhotep (2655-2600 BCE, Egyptian ii-m-hatāp meaning "the one who comes in peace") was an Egyptian polymath, who served under the Third Dynasty king, Djoser, as chancellor to the pharaoh … He is considered to be the first architect and engineer and physician in early history… The Upper Egyptian Famine Stela, dating from the Ptolemaic period, bears an inscription containing a legend about a famine of seven years during the reign of Djoser. Imhotep is credited with having been instrumental in ending it.” (Wikipedia, Imhotep) The similarities between the historical Imhotep and the Biblical Joseph are too vast to be ignored – according to history, both were physicians, architects, and overseers; moreover, both lived to be 110 years of age, married into the priesthood of On, interpreted dreams, instituted a tax of one-fifth, and came from families of twelve. (Were Joseph and Imhotep the Same Man? The Genesis of Israel and Egypt, by Emmet Sweeney, 2001,2nd Edition)

From Joseph’s family, who later joined him in Egypt, emerged the numerous Jewish people, a nation fathered by Joseph and his eleven brothers, the Twelve Tribes of Israel. According to the Torah, the Jews remained in Egypt in the small region of Goshen for 430 years after Joseph. Extraneous evidence supports this fact as well – for instance the details of Egyptian life given in the Torah are surprisingly consistent with the historical culture of the time: “If the Israelites did not spend time in Egypt, it is unclear how the author of Genesis and Exodus would have known enough to so accurately describe Egyptian… customs… In the Joseph narrative, when the author mentions the titles of the Egyptian officials, he employs the correct title in use and exactly as it was used in the period referred to….In Genesis 41:40 Pharoah elevates Joseph to a high position, which corresponds precisely to the office of prime minister or vizier of Egypt, who was the chief administrator in the country, second in power to Pharaoh himself.” (Quartz Hill School of Theology, Israel’s Sojourn in Eyypt.)

A papyrus scroll in the Brooklyn Museum dating from the reign of Sobekhotep III (the pharaoh who reigned one generation before Moses) was acquired in the late 1800s by Charles Wilbour. It is a decree by the pharaoh for a transfer of slaves, half of which are Semitic in origin. (Did the Exodus Happen? Answering the Skeptics, by Dr. David Lewis) A city called Avaris, unearthed by the Austrian archaeologist Manfred Bietak in the land of Goshen underneath the city of Rameses, provides additional proof of the Israelites’ presence in Egypt; “The people who lived in Avaris were not Egyptian but Asiatic Palestinian or Syrian. The finds there included numerous pottery fragments of Palestinian origin. Several factors about the graves were particularly fascinating: - 65% of the burials were of children under 18 months of age, the norm for this period being 20-30%. Could this be due to the killing of the male Israelite children by the Egyptians, recorded in Exodus 1:22?” (Did the Exodus Happen? Answering the Skeptics, by Dr. David Lewis, John Fulton)

If the Jews’ presence in Egypt can thus be so conclusively proved through archaeology, it must follow that the subsequent Exodus and conquest of Canaan recorded in the Torah is also true. The Egyptian historian Manetho recounts how Egypt collapsed in the reign of Dudimose: ‘In [Dudimose’s] reign, for what cause I know not, a blast of God smote us; and unexpectedly, from the regions of the East, invaders of obscure race marched in confidence of victory against our land (Egypt). [These were the Amalakites, or “Hyksos,” as they came to be called.] By main force they easily seized it without striking a blow and having overpowered the rulers of the land, they then burned our cities ruthlessly… and treated all our natives with cruel hostility, massacring some and leading into slavery the wives and children of others.” The Amalekite invaders thus found the Egyptian nation, devastated by Divine judgment, easy prey.

A papyrus dating from the end of Egypt’s Middle Kingdom was found in the early 19th century and interpreted by A.H. Gardiner in 1909. “The papyrus describes violent upheavals in Egypt, starvation, drought, escape of slaves (with the wealth of the Egyptians), and death throughout the land. The papyrus was written by an Egyptian named Ipuwer and appears to be an eyewitness account of the effects of the Exodus plagues from the perspective of an average Egyptian.” (The Ten Plagues – Live from Egypt by Rabbi Mordechai Becher, Ohr Samayach) Some suggestive phrases found in this papyrus are, “Plague is throughout the land. Blood is everywhere….The river is blood… Men shrink from tasting and thirst after …All is ruin. All animals, their hearts weep. Cattle moan... The land is without light… the children of princes are cast out in the street… he who places his brother in the ground is everywhere. It is groaning throughout the land, mingled with lamentations… Gold and lapis lazuli, silver and malachite, carnelian and bronze… are fastened on the necks of female slaves….” These events correspond exactly to the ones recorded in the Torah – the plagues of blood, cattle disease, darkness, death of the firstborn, and the plunder of the Egyptians.

After their departure from Egypt, the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. They conquered Canaan around 1250 BCE under their leader Joshua. They established their presence and remained in this land until the Babylonian exile in 598 BCE.

If the Jews’ own proof were not enough, and one still found oneself in need of external sources to be convinced, other ancient cultures testify to the presence of Jews in Israel. The Tel Dan Stele is an inscribed stone discovered in 1993 during excavations at Tel Dan in northern Israel dates back to the 9th century BCE - its author was a king of Damascus, Hazaelor, and it contains an Aramaic inscription commemorating victories over local ancient peoples including "Israel" and the "House of David." The Mesha Stele from around the same period is similar, written by King Mesha of the Moabites. “Revisionists insist there was no such entity as "Israel" until at least the 9th century BCE. Yet a well known Egyptian inscription dated to about 1210 BCE clearly identifies an Israel in the land of Canaan as a people that had to be reckoned with. The inscription, which depicts the victories of Pharaoh Merneptah in Canaan, reads in part: ‘Israel is laid waste, his seed is no more.’” (Archaeology and the Bible, pt.2, by Rabbi Dovid Lichtman, aish.com) Thus the presence of Jews in the land of Canaan, conquered by them under Joshua, is not only confirmed by their own history recorded in the Torah, but by extraneous evidence from other contemporary cultures.

The Right of the Jews to the Land of Israel

Hello! 
Wow, it sure has been awhile.... who knew summer vacation could be so busy??? (Vacation?? What's that?? I think I may have heard that word somewhere before....)
This is part of the thesis I am currently working on about the legitimacy of the Jews' claim to Israel. This thesis consists of four proofs - historical right, right of conquest, right of merit, and legal right.In the first proof, I have attempted to prove through history why the Jews should possess Israel.
Any comments and criticisms will be much appreciated. I hope you enjoy! (Note: This is only part of proof one - for those of you who know me, you won't be surprised to learn that I got a little carried away :) )

"Israel is the very embodiment of Jewish continuity. It is the only nation on earth that inhabits the same land, bears the same name, speaks the same language, and worships the same God that it did 3,000 years ago. You dig the soil and you find pottery from Davidic times, coins from Bar Kokhba, and 2,000-year-old scrolls written in a script remarkably like the one that today advertises ice cream at the corner candy store." (Charles Krauthammer, The Weekly Standard, May 11, 1998)

Shakespeare said, “Time is the justice that examines all offenders.” It is an honored element binding together nations, peoples, traditions, beliefs… and possessions. Often we give credence to an idea because it is old. We value objects with long pasts, not merely because they have been widely accepted, but because they have stood the test of time. Likewise nations dwelling in an area of the world for centuries have proven that they are bound to their land; they possess a connection stronger than money or legal documents – this bond is their past, and a past is perhaps the most significant of all links between person and place that exist.

The Jewish people settled the towns and states of ancient Canaan around 3000 BCE under Joshua.  King David conquered Jerusalem in 1000 and established a powerful Israelite kingdom over much of Canaan including parts of Transjordan. When his son Solomon died, the kingdom was divided into Judea in the south and Israel in the north. The Assyrians conquered Israel in 722 BCE and 136 years later the Babylonians took over, sending the Jewish people into exile. 50 years after that, the Persian king Cyrus conquered the Babylonians and allowed some of the Jews to return to their homeland. Cyrus was followed by Alexander the Great and then by Alexander’s general Seleucus. Finally, in 167 BCE, the Jewish people drove the Seleucids out of their land. 

However, the Jews were foreordained to enjoy their freedom for only 106 years –the new masters of the world, the Romans, sacked Jerusalem in 61 BCE. They ruled Israel until the 300s, (AD) when the Byzantines took over, followed by the Muslims, the Turks, the Crusaders, the French and then the British. It seemed as though every nation in the world was destined to control the Holy Land at one point or another during history.

Throughout these periods of foreign invasion, the Jewish people never stopped travelling to Israel and settling in the land. By the fourteenth century large Jewish and Arab populations existed there. The first wave of modern Jewish immigrants settled in Israel in 1881, during what is known as the “First Aliyah.”  The Zionist movement, propagating a return of Jews to their land, became a formal organization in 1897 with the first Zionist congress in Basle, Switzerland, organized by Theodor Herzl.  The principal goal of the Zionists was to establish a Jewish homeland in the Palestine area, populated by Jews from all over the world. Then the Second Aliyah began 20 years later with the immigration of over 40, 000 Jews from Eastern Europe in 1904. By 1914 there were at least 100, 000 Jews in Israel.  

In 1917, the British expressed their support of the creation of a Jewish homeland in Israel with the Balfour Declaration, which stated, “His Majesty's government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a  national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object…” Also in 1917, the new Jewish Legion, a group of volunteers, aided the British in their conquest of Israel. From this Jewish Legion and the violence sparked by Arab riots in the 1920s sprung the Haganah, Israel’s future army of the early twentieth century.

The Third, Fourth and Fifth Aliyahs were initiated by the growing anti-Semitism and rise of Nazism in Europe – together these waves of immigration brought 350, 000 more Jews to the Holy Land. However the Arab revolt during 1936-1939 caused the British to tighten restrictions on Jewish immigration and the Jews to form a clandestine movement called the Aliyah Bet, which smuggled Jews into Israel under the noses of the British. Many Jewish immigrants, however, were turned away or rounded up by English soldiers and detained in camps such as the one on the island of Cyprus. The cessation of British support of a Jewish state in Israel had the unintended effect of placing the Jews on the offensive and in open opposition of Britain.

Finally in 1947 the British officially announced their decision to end their Mandate in Israel.  The newly created United Nations approved the “Partition Plan for Palestine”, (United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181,) on November 29, 1947, which sought to divide the country into two states—one Arab and one Jewish. Jerusalem was designated a corpus separatum—an international city—to be administered by the UN. A United Nations Special Committee was created to draft proposals for a Jewish state in Palestine and the State of Israel was proclaimed on May 14^th, 1948.

            “[The Jews’ claim to their land] was not a new claim, but rather a reassertion of a historic right that had never been conceded or forgotten. Even after the destruction of the last Jewish commonwealth in the first century, the Jewish people maintained their own autonomous political and legal institutions: the Davidic dynasty was preserved in Baghdad until the thirteenth century through the rule of the Exilarch Resh Galuta, while the return to Zion was incorporated into the most widely practiced Jewish traditions, including the…Yom Kippur service and the Passover Seder, as well as in everyday prayers. Thus, Jewish historic rights were kept alive in Jewish historical consciousness.” (An Answer to the New Anti-Zionists: the Rights of the Jewish People to a Sovereign State in Their Historic Homeland by Dore Gold and Jeff Helmreich, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Jerusalem Viewpoints, November 16^th, 2003.) The Jews were merely retracting their own possession in establishing their own state. Throughout history they had maintained a strong presence in the land despite the oppression of their various subjugators. 

Junior Thesis - Part One

“On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable. This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.” Israeli Declaration of Independence, May 14^th, 1948

In 1947 the UN voted to partition the ancient land of Palestine. The British officially withdrew on May 14^th, 1948 and the Jewish National Council proclaimed the State of Israel, recognized soon after by the United States. The next day, Arab forces from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded the new nation. After the cease-fire on Jan. 7, 1949, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion became Israel's first president and prime minister - this new government was admitted to the UN on May 11, 1949. Since then Israel has been a focal point of terrorist attacks, controversy, disagreements and conflict.                                                                                                                                “Abbas declares that he would never deny the Jews’ right to Israel.” “Some question insistence on Israel as a Jewish state.” “Israeli cabinet has approved passing of a new law requiring all non-Jews to swear loyalty to Israel.” “Palestinian father reaches out after racist attack kills son.” These are a mere few of many current headlines all related by one dominant theme – the legitimacy of the Jews’ right to Israel. From this question stem all arguments against Israelis concerning the Palestinian conflict, terrorism in the Middle East and the continual peace process attempts between Middle Eastern leaders.

However, the general question which must be settled before the specific case of Israel comes to trial is, why does any nation own a land? What constitutes a “right” of a people group to possess a plot of soil which they deem “their” country? No one contests the right of the English to the isle of Britain nor that of the Americans to make their home upon the northern continent of America. Yet from the very day of its birth, dissenting voices have opposed the right of the Jewish people to own the land of Israel, consisting of a total 8, 019 square miles of desert bordering the Mediterranean. These arguments take many forms, valid and invalid, and the accusation that the Jews are the illegitimate owners of Israel is mainstream, held by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. It is a claim found everywhere, on jihadist websites, in the media, in the newspapers and on television. It is propagated by use of photos, articles, videos, essays, and speeches. Its roots are anti-Semitic and its effects are bias and prejudice against the Jewish people. Yet the accusations, if valid, are weighty ones – if true, the Jews have much to answer for.

There are, generally speaking, four universal laws widely accepted that constitute the right of a nation to own a land. These are; right of military conquest, right of merit, legal right, and historical right. Israel has proved throughout the past and continues to prove to the world today that she fully possesses all four of these major rights and that any contrary argument is based in prejudice or ignorance.