Realizing the dream of friendly coexistence between the Jews and their Middle Eastern neighbors - by Yonatan Green

The UAE agreement constitutes the first such voluntary peace not achieved directly by military success. It marks a true and fundamental divergence from past Israeli relations with Arab-Muslims countries. And it may be said to be the first-ever such agreement that truly reflects Herzlian Political Zionism, fulfilling a dream of friendly coexistence between the Jews and their Middle Eastern neighbors. One can also be certain that the UAE did not decide to do so unilaterally; such a radical shift requires coordination with other Muslim-Arab powers and approval in advance.

Yonatan Green..
JNS.org..
08 September '20..

The recent agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, along with the Trump “Peace to Prosperity” vision that many consider to have been the catalyst for the normalization of relations between the two countries, together mark the most significant and resounding achievements of “Political Zionism” since the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan vote, and perhaps since the 1920 San Remo conference.

Since 1947, Israel has been in a continuous diplomatic limbo with regard to her borders and territory, and in her relations with her Arab-Muslim neighbors in the Middle East. Since that time, there have been no purely diplomatic breakthroughs of consequence that can be said to have altered this fundamental reality—until now. The Trump administration “Peace to Prosperity” plan marks the first serious acknowledgment of Israel’s territorial claims by a global power since 1947; while the UAE peace deal marks the first voluntary commencement of friendly relations with an Arab state, not in the immediate aftermath and shadow of defeat in armed conflict. These developments ought to be considered in the context of the different strategic attitudes that characterized Zionism from its inception as a modern national movement.

Since its very beginning, the Zionist movement diverged into multiple approaches towards achieving the common goal of establishing a homeland for the Jewish people. Perhaps the two most dominant of these were Practical Zionism and Political Zionism. While Practical Zionism focused on the physical immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel and other direct measures, Political Zionism (initially lead and inspired by Theodor Herzl) stressed the importance of obtaining international recognition and sanction of the Zionist objectives and working within a framework of international and legal cooperation. This is manifest in the Basel Program set out in the 1897 First Zionist Congress, which aimed for a “publicly and legally assured” home for the Jews, as well as the attainment of “government grants” to enable Zionist activity.

One can argue that until recently, Political Zionism can boast of (only) three major milestones.

The first is the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which the British government stated that they “view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object ….” This was the first time a world Power publicly endorsed and supported the Zionist project, a policy coordinated with other Allied Powers and pre-approved by the international community.

The second was the post-World War I 1920 San Remo conference and the ensuing 1922 Mandate for Palestine assigned to Britain, both of which explicitly endorsed and incorporated the 1917 Balfour Declaration. If the declaration was merely a letter between the British Foreign Minister and the Jewish Lord Rothschild, the San Remo Resolution and League of Nations Mandate were the unambiguous and formal commitments of the international community to further the Zionist cause. The Mandate went a step further in the preamble by recognizing “the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine” and by referring to “the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”

Both of the above were enormous victories for Zionism at a time when its success was far from certain. There is no doubt these diplomatic coups significantly affected the course of history for the Zionist project.

The third achievement of Political Zionism was the 1947 U.N. General Assembly vote on the partition plan. This vote by the international community constituted a clear reaffirmation of the Zionist cause of establishing a Jewish state, in the new post-World War II global order. One may rightly consider this as a lesser achievement—at that point, an independent Jewish state was an almost final and irrevocable reality that could have been challenged only by its violent annihilation (which was, of course, duly attempted). As such, the U.N. vote may be seen as a result of the success of Practical Zionism, and the acceptance of “facts on the ground,” at least as much as that of Political Zionism.

Since that time, the State of Israel and the Zionist movement have not secured significant diplomatic achievements of any magnitude approaching those listed above.

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Yonatan Green is the executive director of the Israel Law & Liberty Forum.

The unwritten constitution of the State of Israel, the one that begins with "Go from your country … to the land that I will show you" - by Nadav Shragai

Future sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, like areas of the country that are already under Israeli sovereignty, is part of our national security in its broadest sense, because the question isn't only how we defend our existence, but also why we exist.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
03 July '20..
Link; https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/because-it-is-our-right/

A now-forgotten media debate that took place over 30 years ago is still relevant today. A group of highly decorated generals, retired career military, argued authoritatively that the settlements were of no value from a security and defense standpoint. The next day, Devar, the daily mouthpiece of the Histadrut Labor Federation, published a response from Cpl. (res.) Naomi Sapir. Sapir, better known as Naomi Shemer, threw cold water on the generals' opinion, as well as calm on the outraged settlers.

"Kibbutz Kinneret [Shemer's birthplace] has no security value, only Zionist value," the poet wrote.

"When Benzion Israeli went up there with two friends one pale morning, he didn't do so for reasons of security, only for Zionist reasons. It's lucky that no retired general was running after him with a security yardstick. The general would certainly kick all three out of there, and it's doubtful we'd have an IDF at all, or retired generals who issue security 'declarations,'" she wrote.

The fundamental principle in which Shemer believed, which is so lacking in the current discourse about sovereignty, was that "the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people … regardless of conditions or temporary ownership of territory, regardless of the essence of a passing rule or a question such as how many Jews are living in the Land of Israel at any given moment," as she wrote in Ma'ariv in December 1975.

That, if you will, is the unwritten constitution of the State of Israel, the one that begins with "Go from your country … to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1) and continues on to "the hope that is 2,000 years old" and the genetic code of "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem." Even the League of Nations recognized that genome 100 years ago as "the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine" and "the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country" and the Jewish right to "settle in any place in the west of Palestine, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea."

The fuss over sovereignty now lacks these foundations. We are tossed around morning and night by floods of information about the economic and security damage that will be visited upon us when sovereignty is applied. We are busy with simulations and assessments in attempts to gauge the responses of Europe, the Arabs, the Palestinians, and Hamas, but we are ignoring one thing: our right.

The Palestinians, on the other hand, are focused on rights – their own. They aren't afraid to kiss the furrows of "their land," to lie endlessly about their past here, falsify history, and wave keys to the homes where their forefathers lived. Our language, however, has become poor and diluted. Security is important but doesn't come before everything else. We cannot stake a claim for international legitimacy to Hebron and the Jordan Valley or even Beersheba without the Bible, the patriarchs and matriarchs, and the Temple Mount and the City of David; without Rachel's Tomb on the road to Efrata, and Eli and Shilo and the field of the patriarchs in Hebron and the angels who go up and down a ladder in Jacob's dream in Beit El.

2020 Edition - Proud to Be a Zionist by Elder of Ziyon

I wrote the original essay around 2002 and I have been modifying it since then. Here is this year's version:
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Elder of Ziyon..
29 April '20..

I am a Zionist and I am proud of it.

I know that Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and security, at least as much as any other country. Given Israel's unique history and the resurgence of antisemitism worldwide, Israel arguably has more moral legitimacy than any other nation on Earth.

I am proud of how the IDF conducts itself during its never ending war on Palestinian terror. There is no other country on the planet that tries to minimize civilian casualties in such a situation where innocent Israelis are being threatened, shot at, mortared, rocketed, stabbed and murdered in cold blood. At times there are discussions whether the IDF's moral standards are too high and end up being counterproductive - and what other army could one even have that conversation about?

I am also proud that Israel investigates any mistakes that happen on the battlefield and keeps trying to improve its methods to maximize damage to the terrorists while minimizing damage to the people that the enemy is hiding behind. This is not done because of pressure from "human rights" organizations - it is done because it is the right thing to do. Even when everyone knows that the world will accuse it of "war crimes," the IDF retains incredibly high moral standards, which can be easily proven for anyone who wants to investigate the situation impartially. (People willing to do that are, regrettably, few and far between.) It would be so easy for Israelis to say that since the world will accuse them of atrocities anyway, then why bother with holding themselves to such standards - but young Israeli soldiers do, day in and day out. The rare exceptions prove the rule.

I am proud that Israel remains a true democracy, with a free press and vigorous opposition parties, while on a constant war footing. One only needs to read the hateful articles in Israel's left-wing publications on Israel's Independence Day to fathom how far press freedom goes in Israel.

I am proud of how Israel responds to seemingly intractable problems. In the early days of the intifada there seemed to be no solution - but the IDF found one, managing to bring deadly suicide attacks from 60 in 2002 down to practically none today. For every "successful" attack (if you can use such a term) there have been many failed attempts, and these are truly miraculous. The 'knife intifada," car rammings, and other violent "innovations" by Israel's enemies have largely died down because of Israeli defensive actions and innovative pro-active work on social media. Hamas has been reduced to celebrating attacks that cause only minor injuries because most of their major attacks, thank God, are foiled. Today there are new challenges, but each one is met and solved with brains and creativity.

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A great, albeit fragile, triumph of Zionism - by Caroline Glick

By coming to Jerusalem the visiting dignitaries embraced the truth at the heart of Zionism: Israel was not founded because of Auschwitz. It was founded because the Jews came home to live in their homeland as a free nation, finally. Had the State of Israel existed in 1939, Auschwitz would never have been built.

Caroline Glick..
Israel Hayom..
23 January '20..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/a-great-but-fragile-triumph-of-zionism/

What the foreign leaders who came to Jerusalem this week to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day and commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz will take home from their visits is unknowable. But we do know what they brought with them. Whether they intended to or not, the leaders who came this week to Israel’s capital to bow their heads in memory of the six million sons and daughters of Israel murdered in the Holocaust brought with them a recognition of Zionism’s foundational truth: The Land of Israel is the one and only, eternal homeland of the Jewish people.

In this sense, the event marks a triumph of Zionism over anti-Zionism.

This victory was never assured and there is no guarantee that this week’s achievement will endure.

Consider the achievement.

Modern Zionism – the movement to reconstitute the Jewish homeland in the land of Israel after nearly two thousand years of exile – provoked enormous opposition from the very start. Jewish nationalism flew in the face of the prevailing zeitgeist in elite Jewish and non-Jewish circles in the mid and late nineteenth century. That zeitgeist, conceived by Enlightenment philosophers and embraced by Reform Judaism asserted that the Jews were members of the Mosaic faith, not a nation. As such, they were free to assimilate – without their particular Jewish identity – into wider society.

The force of Reform Judaism’s rejection of Zionism in favor of universalism was undiminished by the Holocaust. It was undiminished by Israel’s establishment. It was given harsh expression in 1960.

As Daniel Gordis recounts in his book We Stand Divided: The Rift between American Jews and Israel, on May 23, 1960, then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion alighted the speaker’s podium at the Knesset and announced that Israeli security forces had captured Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann and brought him to Jerusalem to stand trial for his role in the genocide of European Jewry.

Israeli Jewry responded to the earth-shattering news with a sense that a great historical justice had been served. Eichmann’s capture was proof that the Jews were no longer homeless. By capturing Eichmann, Israel was taking responsibility for the Jewish people as a whole. They had a home. Those who harmed Jews anywhere in the world could henceforth expect to be held accountable by the Jews themselves, from their capital in Jerusalem.

The heads of the American Jewish community were not happy with this turn of events.

Joseph Proskauer, former president of the American Jewish Committee claimed Israel had no right to act in the name of the Jewish people. Rabbi Elmer Berger from the American Jewish Council said Israel’s capture of Eichmann was a "Zionist declaration of war" against the Jews in America.

Nahum Goldmann, the New York-based president of the World Zionist Organization suggested that foreign jurists should serve on the court tribunal. That is, he insinuated that Jews acting as Jews, (rather than Americans, or British), lacked the credibility to fairly judge the architect of the recent genocide of the Jewish people.

With the Six-Day War of 1967, Israeli Jews obliterated the stereotype of the Jew as a weak penitent. Israel’s triumph stirred Jewish pride and nationalism in Jewish hearts from the Soviet gulag to San Francisco. Following the war, the Reform movement formally embraced Zionism.

But the Reform Jews had been far from alone in embracing the anti-Zionist myth that rejected the fact that the Jews are a nation and that Israel is the Jewish homeland.

This position was happily embraced by Israel’s worst enemies – the Arab states, the Palestine Liberation Organization, (PLO), the Soviet Union, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iranian regime, and Hamas. From the Arab League to the PLO charter to the Hamas covenant, to the KGB propaganda shop, all of them insisted that Zionism was a form of European colonialism. The Jews had no roots in Jerusalem or the land of Israel. Judaism was a mere religion. Jews were not a nation. Israel itself was nothing more than a sop for European guilt. It was a European colonial project created to cleanse the conscience of Europe in the wake of the Holocaust.

A decade ago, the anti-Zionist forces scored their greatest political victory. On June 4, 2009, the new American president Barack Obama delivered his "Address to the Muslim World," at American University in Cairo. Before an audience that included a large contingent of Muslim Brotherhood members, specifically invited by the White House, Obama resonated their rejection of Jewish history and denial of the Jewish roots and rights to the Land of Israel.

Hebron: Where Jewish history in the Land of Israel began - by Jerold S. Auerbach

Whether Zionism retains any connection to the ancient sources and sites of Jewish history is entwined with the future of the Hebron Jewish community.

Jerold S. Auerbach..
JNS.org..
18 November '19..

In the upcoming Torah reading of Shabbat Chaye Sarah (Genesis 23:1-20), Abraham reveals his need to purchase a burial site for Sarah. The local Hittites, praising him as “the elect of God,” offer “the choicest of our burial places,” the Machpelah cave. Declining their generous gift, Abraham asks them to intercede with the owner, Ephron, so that he may buy it “at the full price.” Ephron emerged from the group, and repeated the offer of his cave and the surrounding field as a gift. When Abraham insisted on paying full price, Ephron sold it to him for 400 shekels of silver. Abraham’s purchase marked the beginning of Jewish history in the Land of Israel.

Following the first-century Roman conquest, no Jews remained in Hebron. Centuries later, after the rise of Islam, Muslim sources would claim that the prophet Mohammad had stopped in Hebron during his night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. Like the Western Wall, embraced by Muslims as the place where Mohammad’s horse was tethered, Machpelah—crowned by a massive Herodian edifice—became a Muslim holy site.

Jewish pilgrimages to Hebron were tolerated, and Jews were even granted permission to inhabit their ancient holy city, only to be expelled after the 11th-century Crusader conquest. In 1267, a Muslim edict prohibited non-Muslims from entering Machpelah; Jews were permitted to ascend only as far as the seventh outside step. A visitor watched “poor Israelite pilgrims … prostrated, stretching their necks like a burrowed fox in order to try to press their lips against their ancestors’ tomb.” That prohibition endured for exactly seven centuries. Dependent on the mercy of local rulers, Hebron Jews could only hope for a life of piety and burial near their ancestral tombs.

Jews came to Hebron, a visitor observed, only “to pray and die.”

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Jerold S. Auerbach, professor emeritus of history at Wellesley College, is the author of “Hebron Jews: Memory and Conflict in the Land of Israel” (2009).

The Zionist spirit that led our ancestors on the first aliyah dreamt the impossible - by Rabbi Uri Pilichowski

The Zionist spirit that led our ancestors on the first aliyah, that pushed for a state against the British Empire, and didn’t cower in the face of stronger Arab armies in 1948, didn’t think of the practical, they dreamt the impossible. I don’t know the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or if there even is a solution, but I know compromising on the Zionist dream for a less than ideal two state solution contradicts everything Zionism stands for. We must not accept the possible and forgo the dream. It is time we began implementing the impossible and actualizing our dreams.

Rabbi Uri Pilichowski..
TOI Blog..
27 October '19..

Zionism’s strength was in its creativity and imagination. The founder of modern Zionism, Theodore Herzl, famously said, “If you will it, it is no dream.” Zionism aimed to make the impossible – the return of the Jewish people to their land after 2,000 years and establish their own state – possible. For 2,000 years Jews thought and told each other that they’d only be able to return to the land when Messiah brought them back. Zionism told the Jews to actualize their national aspirations. It left no room for inhibition because of practical considerations. The impossible became feasible, and the impractical became reality. Herzl, Ben Gurion and Jabotinsky, Peres, Begin and Rabin didn’t listen to those who said a Jewish state couldn’t happen – they figured out how to make it happen.

Fast forward a hundred years and facing the same obstacle of local Palestinians and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israelis are told they only have two choices. They can either live in a Jewish democratic state by creating a Palestinian state (the two state solution) or keep one state that either loses its Jewish character or maintains apartheid like policies without its democratic character.

Limiting its options to only the two mentioned above contradicts Zionist thought- Zionism, built on the refusal to be limited maintains that there is always a better way. Zionism believes in dreams not limiting itself to practical solutions. What seems like a dream can happen, if only Zionists will it to happen.

The two state solution wasn’t an actual consideration in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict until George W. Bush dangled it in front of the Palestinians as a carrot if they’d rid themselves of Palestinian ruler Yasser Arafat.The Oslo process never aimed to create a Palestinian state. The same peace activists who were the mediators during the Oslo Process and had no problem with the Palestinians only having autonomy over their own cities and not their own state, today decry the future of the Jewish state if Israel doesn’t quickly implement the two state solution. There is no rational reason why in 1993 there was no imperative to create a Palestinian State, but there is an imperative in 2019.

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Rabbi Uri Pilichowski is an educator. As a teacher, author and speaker, he teaches Torah and Politics, where he specifically emphasizes rational thought and conceptual analysis.

Isms and the BBC's take on 'Zioinism' - by Roza I.M. El-Eini

Indeed, Shindler’s presentation on Zionism is so desiccated, so unsympathetic and ridiculing of the Jewish plight and of the Jews’ desperate desire for national self-determination, for Am Israel Chai, that, by any standards, it is unworthy of critique. However, since Shindler prepared this for no less a public organization than the BBC, with its vast and sprawling network across the internet and the world, and proudly puts it on his own website, it has to be scrutinized for what it is and a record of this scrutiny is here made.

Roza I.M. El-Eini..
JPost/Opinion..
05 October '19..

On its website, the BBC has an animated series entitled An A-Z of -isms – including one episode titled “Zionism: A Very Brief History” – and gives this strapline: “Writers, academics and thinkers share their takes on some of the world’s most important ideas (plus a few fun ones).”

The corporation declares that it is “the world’s leading public service broadcaster,” and creates “distinctive, world-class programmes and content which inform, educate and entertain millions of people in the UK and around the world.” Therefore, although, so far, only 79,300 or so of those millions have clicked the Zionism animation, it must be remembered that it is on the BBC’s website and not on some obscure ranter’s internet outlet.

As it is, for now, one of the most viewed -isms, it cannot be ignored and remains relevant. Also, Israel is a subject close to the BBC’s keyboards.

In setting itself up as educator, and because it is here dealing with “some of the world’s most important ideas,” the BBC is duty-bound to ensure editorial rigor of its content. Yet, the corporation shirks this duty when it complacently defers it to the author of the “potted history” of Zionism. Using drab and noisy illustrative cartoons that are in some cases inaccurate and inappropriate, with the voice-over veering high and low, further underlines the utter slovenliness of this BBC product.

Clearly, the Zionism -ism was also a “fun one” of the -isms. Theodor Herzl gets tomatoes thrown at him, Jews are swivel-eyed and other such – it adds up to a bit of a list in this 3.08-minute agitated animation.

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The writer is a specialist in British Mandate Palestine and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.