U.S. President Donald Trump asked the governments of Egypt and Jordan to take in Gazans so the repair of the region could be expedited. Trump acknowledged that Jordan already had many Arabs who had come from Palestine in the country – over half the country’s population, including the king of Jordan’s wife – but “I said to him that I’d love you to take on more, because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess, it’s a real mess…. I don’t know, something has to happen, but it’s literally a demolition site right now. Almost everything’s demolished, and people are dying there, so I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location where I think they could maybe live in peace for a change.”
Jordan has a large Palestinian Arab population because it invaded Israel in 1948 and ethnically cleansed Jews from the west bank of the Jordan River all the way through the Old City of Jerusalem. It then illegally annexed that region in 1950 and granted all Arabs – specifically excluding Jews – Jordanian citizenship in 1954.
Statements by Egypt and Jordan dismissed Trump’s suggestion. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said that “the deportation or displacement of the Palestinian people is an injustice in which we cannot participate.” The Jordanian monarch made similar comments.
Social media lit up as well. As hundreds of thousands of Gazans moved back to their towns in northern Gaza, The call of “return!” was echoed.
It’s a strange dynamic. The United Nations and its arm in the region, UNRWA, has insisted that 73% of Gazans do NOT belong in Gaza but in towns inside of Israel where grandparents left during their war to destroy the Jewish State in 1948. Yet now they insist that these same Arabs cannot be dislodged from Gaza, after they got decimated in a war initiated by their government.
The victim mentality is such an ingrained deformity in Palestinian Arab culture (courtesy of the United Nations), that attempts to efficiently rebuild infrastructure is met with the same tired complaint of “ethnic cleansing” as a “displacement plan” rather than a rebuilding plan.
Now is the time for Gazans to internalize that Gaza is their home, not Israel, as a condition to taking billions of dollars in aid in global charity.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) aged 66, questioned a young Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), aged 40, during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee vetting process for the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. It’s a short five-minute video and worth watching the entire exchange.
At 1:07, Van Hollen pointed his questions to adhering to UN Security Council resolutions and tied it to the Israeli-Arab conflict. Van Hollen said “long term peace must include security, self-determination and dignity for Israelis and Palestinian alike,” and added that “we should stand up and protect universal human rights and self-determination for all people, including both Israelis and Palestinians.”
He questioned Stefanik’s contention that Jews have a “Biblical right” to the land of Israel, and concluded his remarks at 4:59 by mansplaining that “when it comes to this very difficult issue [Jews living and praying in the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem], if the president is going to succeed at bringing peace and stability to the Middle East, we’re going to have to look at the UN Security Council resolutions – not just the ones on Lebanon, which we should enforce – but other UN Security Council resolutions [implying UNSC 2334], and it’s going to be very difficult to achieve that if you continue to hold the view that you just expressed [that Jews have a right to live and pray in Jerusalem and the West Bank], which is a view that was not held by the founders of the State of Israel who were secular Zionists, not religious Zionists.”
Some education is in order for this senator who airs his ignorance and Palestinian Arabs’ false propaganda so publicly:
David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and secular Zionist said to the British authorities in January 1937 before the Peel Commission which discussed limiting Jews to certain areas of Palestine that “Our right to the Land of Israel does not stem from the Mandate and the Balfour Declaration. It precedes those. The Bible is our mandate… I can state in the name of the Jewish People: The Bible is our mandate, the Bible that was written by us in our Hebrew language, and in this land itself, is our mandate. Our historical right has existed since our beginnings as the Jewish People, and the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate recognize and confirm that right.” The secular Zionist Ben Gurion explicitly tied the right of Jews in the land to the Bible.
Ben Gurion referenced the original Hebrew language of the Bible, which became and remains the official language of the Jewish State, the only country which speaks in the biblical tongue.
When Ben Gurion read Israel’s Declaration of Independence on May 14, 1948 which he helped draft, the first lines were “ERETZ-ISRAEL [(Hebrew) – The Land of Israel] was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.” The “land of Israel” encompasses the entire Jewish Promised Land, not new borders concocted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1947.
David Ben Gurion declaring the State of Israel on May 14, 1948
Further, Van Hollen fails to comprehend that his various statements do not complement each other but CONTRADICT each other. One cannot adhere to every UN Security Council resolution and simultaneously respect the dignity and human rights of Jews.
UNSC 2334, which passed in the waning days of the Obama administration, tramples on basic human rights and dignity of Jews by denying their right to live and pray in their holiest location in the Old City of Jerusalem.
If the basic parameters of Palestinian dignity is to deny Jewish dignity, then there is no scenario in which there is “dignity for Israelis and Palestinians alike” which Van Hollen ignores.
The United Nations is deeply broken and amoral, yet Senator Van Hollen seeks to prop it up as something holy, a pagan temple amongst the socialist-jihadi alliance. Rep. Elise Stefanik intends to act like the Jewish patriarch Abraham when she enters the United Nations, who shattered the false idols in his father’s store. She is poised to enter that dark chamber and shed light on its systemic depravity.
Representative Elise Stefanik at her Senate confirmation hearing. (Photo: Tom Brenner for The New York Times)
Abraham’s actions 3,700 years ago launched monotheism. Perhaps the end of the United Nations’ sacred cows will usher in a period when Jews and Judaism will be openly and widely recognized on the Temple Mount and throughout Jerusalem.
ACTION ITEM
Contact Sen. Van Hollen’s office and let him know what you think of his comments. Feel free to send this article. DC phone: (202) 224-4654. Contact your representatives as well.
The signing of a ceasefire agreement in January 2025 must have been welcomed news for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Over the past fifteen months, it has watched its various proxies in the region get decimated.
Hamas’s leadership was killed and a majority of its fighters killed, injured, or captured, while Gaza has been largely destroyed.
Hezbollah’s military was soundly defeated, its leader killed, and a new non-Hezbollah aligned Lebanese president was elected.
Syria’s Iranian-backed government was routed, and the country’s armaments were destroyed.
And Iran’s defensive capabilities were eliminated by Israeli attacks, after Iran launched hundreds of missiles at Israel which caused little damage.
Over the course of the Iranian Proxies – Israel War which started on October 7, 2023, Iran went from being a regional power to an impotent joke. The ceasefire was really a call for the “mercy rule” in which one party was so decisively decimating the counterparty that third parties jumped in to save the stubborn vanquished from complete annihilation.
And yet.
The delusion of unique heavenly blessings have deeply intoxicated and blinded radical Islamic jihadi rulers. The chief cleric of Iran, Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei praised the resistance of the Palestinian people” and defeat of the “Zionist regime” upon the announcement of the ceasefire. He fashions himself “leader of the Islamic Revolution,” not just in Iran but around the world, to defeat infidels everywhere.
Much like Monty Python’s delusional defeated Black Knight in the film Holy Grail, the deranged leader cannot admit his utter defeat, and yells as the world passes by.
The lunatic had company.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards said “The end of the war and the imposition of a ceasefire… is a clear victory and a great victory for Palestine and a bigger defeat for the monstrous Zionist regime.”
Hamas’s Khalil al-Hayya said “The ceasefire agreement is the result of the legendary steadfastness of our great Palestinian people and our valiant resistance in the Gaza Strip over the course of more than 15 month. The agreement to halt the aggression on Gaza is an achievement for our people, our resistance, our nation, and the free people of the world. It marks a pivotal stage in the ongoing struggle against the enemy, paving the way toward achieving our people’s goals of liberation and return.”
The Palestine Chronicle tried to rewrite history that there were “Global celebrations” for the “Victory of the Resistance.”
In the United States, Nerdeen Kiswani, the leader of Within Our Lifetime wrote on X that “Gaza has won, Palestine has won, resistance has won. Imperialism and Zionism has lost,” and then threatened the United States.
There is no negotiation possible with such lunacy. It is probable that the Iranian nuclear program must be destroyed with impunity rather than dismantled with discussions in the global community.
The sad truth is that radical jihadists who despise Jews are in the majority of the Middle East, as shown in repeated ADL polls. Coexistence will only be a reality under the “wings of democracy,” with jihadi groups and countries stripped of weaponry and capabilities to destroy religious pluralism.
There is probably no greater example of a failed state in the world today than Syria.
A bloody civil war killed an estimated 600,000 people and displaced many millions internally and around the world. Headed by a ruthless leader who gassed his own people, backed by a leading state sponsor of terror in Iran, the Syrian government fell quickly to a US-designated terrorist organization, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). In its wake (and before), many actors took over swaths of Syria.
The United Nations Security Council met to address the failed Syrian state on January 8, 2025, to consider how to stabilize the situation.
Geir O. Pedersen, Special Envoy of the U.N. Secretary-General for Syria, spoke to the committee about the various parties who are operating in Syria beyond HTS including: the Syrian Democratic Forces and YPG, a US-backed Kurdish militant group, who operate in the northeast; the government of Turkey which has taken over much of northeast Syria along the border of Turkey; a U.S.-led coalition which is fighting ISIL in the northwest; and Israel which has been taking out military sites and chemical weapons in the south.
During his review of the situation, Pedersen only cast Israel as a bad actor, both in “violating the 1974 disengagement agreement,” (with a government that no longer exists), and in “using live ammunition against civilians,” echoing a theme of the U.N. that Israel is seeking a genocide of Arabs in the region.
Tom Fletcher, Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator also addressed the council. He similarly spoke of challenges in Syria and only highlighted Israel as a rogue actor harming civilians.
Tom Fletcher report to UNSC highlighted Israel impacting “civilians, including children”
Other countries weighed in, including Syria, Iran and Russia, which took aim at Israel and the United States. No one mentioned Turkey’s seizing land and killing Kurds in Syria.
Syria at the UNSC points finger at the US and Israel only
Turkey addressed the Council even though it is not a member and leveled attacks against Israel, the Kurdish army and ISIS.
Israel did not address the council.
In a failed state with a terrorist group in charge, many terrorist groups operating openly, and several foreign governments with military personnel fighting in Syria, Israel was the spotlight at the U.N. for harming civilians and children.
In the 1970s, the United Nations was seized with the notion that Zionism is racism. Today it is awash in the belief that Israel is a genocidal state. It will most certainly distract the global body from addressing root causes of instability and death in Syria and beyond.
Henri Dunant (1828-1910) was a humanitarian who created the International Red Cross in 1863 which helped lead to his selection as the first winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. He is also known (although such mention has been stripped from Wikipedia) for being a strong Christian Zionist, as far back as 1866 when he advocated for “the re-settlement of Palestine by the Jewish people.” His advocacy led Theodore Herzl to invite him to the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland in 1897.
The dream of Jews returning to their homeland gathered momentum in the second half of the 19th century, despite the Ottomans making it hard for Jews to move to Palestine. In 1800, Jews made up about 3% of the region of Palestine, growing to 8% by 1882 and nearly 14% by the close of the Ottoman period in 1914.
Jews have moved to the land of Israel in far greater percentages than either Christians or Muslims since 1800
This predated the Balfour Declaration of 1917, when the British government appreciated the Zionist Federation’s appeal to reestablish their national home in Palestine.
“His Majesty’s Government 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, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
Despite Zionism being about the GOAL of creating a Jewish national home in Jews’ historic homeland, the term continues to be used decades after the modern State of Israel was established in 1948.
Gil Troy, a historian and author of “The Zionist Ideas,” explained that Zionism has three principle components: that Jews are a nation; that Jews have ties to their particular homeland in the land of Israel; and that Jews have a right to establish a state in that homeland, much like other people have rights to their own country. The first two principles are simple facts while the third is a matter of rights, not aspirations. Such definition makes Zionism an ongoing principle rather than that a mission which was accomplished in 1948.
Pro-Israel books using “Zionist”
The view of Zionism as a relevant reality or historical ideology arises in the national anthem, “Hatikvah”, written in 1877 as the Zionist movement gathered initial momentum.
“As long as within our hearts / The Jewish soul sings, / As long as forward to the East / To Zion, looks the eye / Our hope is not yet lost, / It is two thousand years old, / To be a free people in our land / The land of Zion and Jerusalem”
Today, some object to the lyrics speaking of Israel from a purely Jewish perspective when 25% of the population is not Jewish. Others do not like the fact that it has no religious foundation and only speaks of being “free” in the land. I would add that the text is inherently dated with words like “our HOPE” and “TO BE a free people” when Israel has long been a reality.
Israeli flag at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem (photo: First One Through)
Significantly, discussions around “Zionism” have continued in political fora as if the world is still debating the FORMATION of Israel.
In November 1975, the United Nations General Assembly passed Res. 3379 which stated “zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination,” by lumping it into a category of trespasses including “colonialism and neo-colonialism, foreign occupation, apartheid and racial discrimination.” The resolution was rescinded in 1991 through the efforts of the United States.
Keith Ellison, Minnesota’s attorney general and one-time member of Congress once said “Zionism, the ideological undergirding of Israel, is a debatable political philosophy,” making the foundation of the Jewish State a questionable endeavor.
Linda Sarsour, a member of the anti-Israel Democratic Socialists of America said that “nothing is creepier than Zionism,” invoking the old UN resolution that Zionism is a form of racism.
Steve Erlander wrote in The New York Times that “Zionism was never the gentlest of ideologies. The return of the Jewish people to their biblical homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty there have always carried within them the displacement of those already living in the land,” repeating the stale U.N. slander.
Israel’s enemies continue to call it a “Zionist entity”, refusing to mention the name of the country, as if to do so recognizes its existence or right to exist.
The continued use of the word “Zionism” today by anti-Israel agitators is not a theoretical review of Jewish aspirations to return to their homeland in the 19th century and early 20th century, but a concerted effort to demonize and/or destroy Israel today.
For starters, by attempting to define Zionism as a form of racism, people mark Israel as a racist and apartheid state regardless of its actions. While it is the most liberal country in the entire Middle East, if Israel’s underpinning ideology was built on “colonialism” and “racial discrimination,” then its existence is a continuation of the racist ideology, permeated by original sin.
Secondly, if Israel is not viewed as a functioning liberal and democratic reality but merely a vehicle of “Zionism,” its existence entails the continued “displacement of those [Arabs] already living in the land.” When Rep. Rashida Tlaib introduced a resolution in Congress about the “Ongoing Nakba,” she was not discussing 1948 history but a belief in the “ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians for illegal settlements.” She imagines the entire history and ongoing reality of the reestablished Jewish State as a “catastrophe.”
Further, anti-Israel people believe that when JEWS use of the word “Zionism,” it means that the goals of the Jewish State are far from completed. Not only does Israel seek the land east of the 1949 Armistice Lines (E49AL/ “West Bank”) and Gaza, but it seeks “Greater Israel” encompassing “the area from the Nile to the Euphrates,” as speakers at the United Nations contend. It means Jews want to see a third Temple built on the Temple Mount in place of the Dome of the Rock.
In short, when anti-Israel people use the term “Zionism,” they are discussing more than a philosophy but an evolving reality. Anti-Israel activists seek a future which resembles 1947 or 1917, when there was no Israel and no international support for a Jewish State. When those same people hear Jews use “Zionism,” they believe that Jews want a future which looks like 2,000-plus years ago, with a Jewish Temple and sprawling Jewish kingdom.
In other words, Zionism is not just a highly charged word for some, but conjures up the perception of ongoing goals as opposed to actual present facts.
The facts are that Israel is the most pluralistic society in the Middle East where Arabs have more rights and a higher standard of living than in neighboring Arab countries. Israel has shown its willingness to SHRINK its borders for peace. Israel has proven that it can create a viable, functioning economy and society, despite regional actors refusing to accept its existence.
The plain truth is that Israel is a model state to be replicated, while cast as a Zionist ideology to be terminated.
Zionism was a dream and Israel exists. The transition was marked in the last line in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, “the realization of the age-old dream – the redemption of Israel.” Israel supporters should acknowledge Israel’s declaration and stop calling themselves “Zionists” as it enables anti-Israel fanatics to whitewash their desire to destroy the Jewish State.
A proud “Zionist” woman at the Celebrate Israel parade in New York City in 2019 (photo: First One Through)
People are pro-Israel, anti-Israel or Israel-ambivalent today. Do not let those who seek the destruction of Israel to hide behind a “debate” about the “political philosophy” of Zionism.
On September 15, 2020, the Trump Administration announced the Abraham Accords which included the normalization of relations between Israel and both Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Within a few weeks, Israel normalized relations with Sudan, and then with Morocco.
The agreements were mocked by socialist-jihadi media, including Al Jazeera and Vox. They maintained that regional agreements without addressing Palestinian Arabs were destined to fail. So eager to discredit Republicans Donald Trump and his champion for normalization in the region, Jared Kushner, they forgot that Democratic presidents started the “outside-in” approach, with Jimmy Carter spearheading peace between Israel and Egypt in 1979, and Bill Clinton bringing Israel and Jordan together in 1994.
Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, US Jimmy Carter, Israel’s Menham BeginIsrael’s Yitzhak Rabin, US Bill Clinton, Jordan’s King Hussein
Even as the latest Palestinian war against Israel rages, the various peace and normalization agreements Israel struck with nearby Arab countries has held, to the dismay of the socialist-jihadist platforms like Time Magazine which urge the cancellation of the Abraham Accords.
Israel has repeatedly shown that it can compromise for peace while the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) have shown themselves incapable of breaking from their toxic narrative that Israel doesn’t deserve to exist, making it an impossible negotiating party.
Democratic and Republican administrations have shown leadership in bringing Israel into the regional community withhold being held hostage to the intransigence of inept Palestinian Arab leadership. Hopefully the next Trump administration will continue to build on viable paths to stability.
The United Nations has long shown its anti-Israel bias in its various agencies. The global leader of the UN has also shows his disregard for civilians around the Middle East, preferring to coddle vile dictators as his clients.
In the aftermath of unveiling of the brutal torture regime of Bashar al-Assad’s prison system which killed over 100,000 people, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres chose to highlight the historic opportunity for the Syrian people as the country was taken over by a hybrid of jihadi terrorist groups of ISIS and Al Qaeda.
While he was making his absurd comments, a young US Congressman named Ritchie Torres was rebuking Syria and its sponsor of Iran’s “machinery of death,” and also called out the “international community” which ignored and continues to ignore the axis’ crimes against humanity, preferring to expend its energy on Israel’s defensive battles.
We know that Iran, Syria and the “axis of resistance” is evil. We must also acknowledge that the United Nations is an enabler of their atrocities and consider how to shrink the global body’s menacing actions.
The United Nations has long come together to fight only two terrorist groups, ISIS (Da-esh) and Al Qaeda. The UN tracked and sanctioned individuals and groups associated with the terrorist groups for decades.
ISIS continues to be very active, with 153 attacks in the first six months of 2024 between Syria and Iraq. It is projected that the group may have double the number of attacks in 2024 as 2023.
So it is no surprise that Israel is worried about the Islamist militant group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), taking over Syria, to Israel’s immediate northeast. According to the BBC, “HTS was set up under a different name, Jabhat al-Nusra, in 2011 as a direct affiliate of al-Qaeda. The leader of the self-styled Islamic State (IS) group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was also involved in its formation.”
The United States is playing close attention.
On December 9, shortly after HTS took over Syria, the U.S. Department of Defense issued a release that “Centcom, together with allies and partners in the region, will continue to carry out operations to degrade ISIS capabilities, even during this dynamic period in Syria.” U.S. Air Force fighter and bomber aircraft struck more than 75 targets on December 7 as part of the effort to denigrate ISIS.
The United Nations Secretary General suddenly was worried about foreign involvement in Syria. Despite the UN stating clearly that ISIS and Al Qaeda are a global threat, UNSG Guterres tweeted that he was deeply concerned about the “recent and extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
The U.S. has been operating in Syria for years, so it would be strange for Guterres to suddenly admonish the U.S.’s efforts to destroy ISIS. Turkey has conducted many raids inside Syria since 2016 and controls large swaths of northern Syria directly and through proxies.
Turkey-controlled areas in northern Syria
One must therefore assume that Guterres sudden interest was in regards to Israel’s attack on Syria’s air force, navy and chemical weapons stockpiles, as the Jewish State does not want the new Al Qaeda-linked regime to have such destructive capabilities next door.
Even though the UN labeled ISIS and Al Qaeda dangerous terrorist groups for years and said nothing about the United States and Turkey fighting in Syria for a long time, the head of the UN suddenly became concerned about Israel removing weapons from Al Qaeda-linked jihadi groups.
It is another sign of the depravity at the United Nations, and why it should be neutered in terms of funding and voice in international law.
The media has begun paying more attention to Syria as the country’s 54-year old regime has fallen to insurgents tied to ISIS and Turkey. As part of its coverage, it has marked the Golan Heights on its maps. It makes this an opportune time to review the very different coverage of two contested areas – Golan Heights and West Bank – between Israel and its neighbors.
In the Media
The Guardian’s map of the Golan Heights in December 2024
The Guardian presented a map of the Golan Heights calling the separation between Israel and Syria as the “1949 Armistice line.” It also noted that the Heights were “captured by Israel from Syria during the 1967 Six-day war.” Both of these statements are factually correct.
And completely divorced from how the media describes the “West Bank.”
Rather than use the term “1949 Armistice line”, the press calls it the “1967 border” even though it was never a border nor meant to be a border. As described in the 1949 Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement in Article VI, “The Armistice Demarcation Lines defined in articles V and VI of this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto.” In other words, the lines were simply set to separate the warring parties but political negotiations would craft the contours of the land in the future.
In regards to the phrase “from Syria,” the media never notes that Israel didn’t capture the “West Bank” land from Palestine but from Jordan, as Palestine did not exist.
The media – and the United Nations – mislead people that Israel took the West Bank from Palestine in an aggressive war. That is completely untrue, and obfuscated by terminology.
Geography
The Golan Heights are an actual topographical piece of earth. The large hills and mountains shoot up from the Sea of Galilee and beyond from volcanic activity.
Not so for the “West Bank.” It has no geographical or historical significance, other than being east of the 1949 Armistice line. It wasn’t even called the “West Bank” until after the 1967 Six-day war, as Jordan had illegally annexed it in 1950 and the UN just called it part of Jordan.
Arab States Breaking the Armistice Agreements
The Israel-Syria and Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreements specifically called on all parties to not take military action against the other. Both Arab states violated those agreements.
Syria shelled the farmlands of Israel’s Galilee for years, forcing Israel to defend itself and take the Golan Heights to keep Syria from repeating the attacks. Similarly, Jordan attacked Israel in June 1967 and Israel captured the region in a defensive action during the Six-day war.
Internationally Defined Borders
International powers created the various lines for Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Palestine after World War I. Each region slowly declared independence but not without difficulties. Each has gone through several wars, including civil wars. A populace more comfortable with tribes and clans operating under the umbrella of the Ottoman Empire for centuries were thrust into statehood. While modern academics blame the regional powers for “colonialization” and “imperialism” which left the locals bereft of natural resources, it was actually the imposition of statehood that has confounded much of the Middle East. Syria, Iraq and Lebanon are perfect examples of the internal strife which has killed millions over the decades.
“Palestine” was similarly crafted by world powers, and then quickly divided further by chopping off the region east of the Jordan River for the Hashemite Kingdom to rule. The balance of the land (which most people think of as pre-1948 Palestine) was designed to be “a national home for the Jewish people,” in the Palestine Mandate as adopted by the League of Nations. While the Golan Heights was marked by the powers to be part of Syria, those same powers marked the “West Bank” to be part of the Jewish homeland.
On one hand, Israel captured the Golan Heights after Syria broke the Armistice Agreement, and on the other, Israel RECAPTURED the West Bank/ area east of the 1949 Armistice Lines, in 1967 after Jordan broke its Armistice Agreement.
Names
Republicans in the United States are putting forward resolutions to stop calling the land “West Bank” and instead refer to it as “Judea and Samaria.” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) said in introducing the resolution that “The Jewish people’s legal and historic rights to Judea and Samaria goes back thousands of years. The U.S. should stop using the politically charged term West Bank to refer to the biblical heartland of Israel.” That is partially true.
Judea and Samaria have historical context and are much bigger contours than the “West Bank.” The West Bank is an artifice of war; it is just the land the the Jordanians took in the 1948-9 war in which they attempted to destroy the nascent Jewish State. The more accurate term for political purposes would be to call it E49JAL, for the area east of the 1949 Jordanian Armistice Lines.
Conclusion
The media is correctly referring to the Golan Heights, an actual region with topographical significance, as having an Israeli side captured FROM SYRIA, across the “1949 Armistice line.” It should similarly stop using the terms “borders,” “West Bank” and “from Palestine” which are all factually incorrect and attempt to frame the conflict with the Stateless Arabs from Palestine (SAPs) in a duplicitous manner that portrays Israel as the aggressor.
Media outlets will discuss the roughly 600,000 people in Syria who were killed in the civil war and the millions of people who were internally displaced. They will recount how Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons on his own civilian population. They may even trot out videos of London-educated Asma al-Assad, Bashar’s wife, on how she stood by her husband.
I would like to share one name: Hamza al-Khateeb, a 13-year old boy taken by Syrian forces in April 2011, whose corpse was returned to his family a month later.
Here is the story as relayed on May 31, 2011 by Al Jazeera:
In the hands of President Bashar al-Assad’s security forces, however, Hamza found no such compassion, his humanity degraded to nothing more than a lump of flesh to beat, burn, torture and defile, until the screaming stopped at last.
Arrested during a protest in Saida, 10km east of Daraa, on April 29, Hamza’s body was returned to his family on Tuesday 24th May, horribly mutilated.
The child had spent nearly a month in the custody of Syrian security, and when they finally returned his corpse it bore the scars of brutal torture: Lacerations, bruises and burns to his feet, elbows, face and knees, consistent with the use of electric shock devices and of being whipped with cable, both techniques of torture documented by Human Rights Watch as being used in Syrian prisons during the bloody three-month crackdown on protestors.
Hamza’s eyes were swollen and black and there were identical bullet wounds where he had apparently been shot through both arms, the bullets tearing a hole in his sides and lodging in his belly.
On Hamza’s chest was a deep, dark burn mark. His neck was broken and his penis cut off.
Hamza al-Khateeb, 13 year old boy in Syria tortured by Syrian forces
The scale and savagery of the attacks in the Middle East are sometimes reduced to numbers such as the million who were killed in the Iran-Iraq war. As Syria falls, it is worth remembering a single soul who was brutally maimed and killed to comprehend the deep moral depravity that permeates – and must be expunged from – the region.
First One Through 