To whom does the land rightfully belong (and if you didn’t get it, this is referring to the country formerly known as Judea, later renamed Palestine, and now called Israel)? Ever since the Romans expelled the majority of Jews from Judea, people the world round knew the answer: the Jews.
Who else could claim ownership of a land named Judea? Muslims; who did not exist at the time of the expulsion, 1940 years ago? Christians; who had yet to form into a religion and laid no claims on the land? Buddhists? Hindus? Eskimos? The question of ownership, had it been asked before the 20th century would have seemed absurd.
Since the 1967 war, however, popular perception outside of Israel has opened up to the myth of ancient Palestinian nationhood. That insidious myth has in recent years begun to penetrate even into the Israeli consciousness. “It is our land, indeed, but they also have legitimate rights” is the common refrain. Do they?
Let’s examine land ownership on a national level, and how it is transferred from one group to another. From time immemorial the ‘Right of Conquest’ was a legitimate means of gaining legal ownership of territory. That is to say, if country A and country B go to war, and country B loses, country A is the legal owner of whatever territory of B that it comes to control by the end of the war.
The 4th Geneva Convention and the UN Charter, however, banned such practices and refused to recognize the legality of the Right of Conquest. A “territorial integrity” clause was added to the Charter to prevent ipso facto claims that would open the door for virtually every nation’s right to existence to be disputed. Any already existing state which is a member to the Geneva Convention and a UN member is protected from prior claims under this clause.
As far as the land of Judea is concerned, on both a moral and legal basis, the right of ownership is clear. If the right of conquest is morally viable, so while the Jewish people lost their land in 70 CE, they were within their rights to regain it by conquest in 1948 and 1967. The Geneva Convention and UN Charter are irrelevant because Palestine did not exist in either 1948 or 1967 as a country and certainly was not a UN member state. Jordan and Egypt, the occupiers of Gaza and the West Bank, were not legal possessors of the land they occupied from 1948-1967.
If conquest is not a moral means of attaining and losing ownership, so the Jews never ‘lost’ Judea, and its merely been stolen from one group after another, though legal possession always remained with the Jewish people.
In either case Judea, the whole of Judea, which certainly includes the West Bank and Gaza Strip, clearly belong only to the Jewish people.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Do They Still Have It?
It’s been 16 years since the Republican takeover of congress in 1994. Hitherto the minority party in both chambers of congress, the Republicans surged to take over both; going from 44 Senators and 176 Reps to 52 and 230 respectively.
The Republicans capitalized on anxiety over President Clinton, then in the middle of his first term. More importantly the GOP mobilized its conservative base of support and pledge loyalty to the spirit of the Constitution with its Contract with America. Voters who had been frustrated over George Bush’s tax hike and failure to stick to conservative principles saw a newer, wiser GOP emerge in 1994.
Since then, however, the party has gone back to its old ways, like a dog returning to its vomit. George W. Bush was as much a failure as a president as his father; spending more than Clinton and racking up a massive debt while paying only lip-service to the voters who put him in office.
Obama’s 2008 election was a wake-up call, reminding us what is at stake if the GOP strays from its values. The election upset last night in Massachusetts by Scott Brown over his Democratic opponent shows the potential for a great rebound to the conservative values that put the GOP in power in 1994. The question is does the Republican leadership have what it takes? Can the GOP outgrow the Iraq War, support for big-business, and the daunting image of W. Bush’s failure?
The mid-term elections this November are, more than a critique of Obama’s disastrous presidency, a test for the Republican party. Last night’s upset in far-left Massachusetts shows that if they are true to their roots, they can reshape America’s political map in a big way. If not, it will be politics as usual.
The Republicans capitalized on anxiety over President Clinton, then in the middle of his first term. More importantly the GOP mobilized its conservative base of support and pledge loyalty to the spirit of the Constitution with its Contract with America. Voters who had been frustrated over George Bush’s tax hike and failure to stick to conservative principles saw a newer, wiser GOP emerge in 1994.
Since then, however, the party has gone back to its old ways, like a dog returning to its vomit. George W. Bush was as much a failure as a president as his father; spending more than Clinton and racking up a massive debt while paying only lip-service to the voters who put him in office.
Obama’s 2008 election was a wake-up call, reminding us what is at stake if the GOP strays from its values. The election upset last night in Massachusetts by Scott Brown over his Democratic opponent shows the potential for a great rebound to the conservative values that put the GOP in power in 1994. The question is does the Republican leadership have what it takes? Can the GOP outgrow the Iraq War, support for big-business, and the daunting image of W. Bush’s failure?
The mid-term elections this November are, more than a critique of Obama’s disastrous presidency, a test for the Republican party. Last night’s upset in far-left Massachusetts shows that if they are true to their roots, they can reshape America’s political map in a big way. If not, it will be politics as usual.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Jewish Skinheads
As reported here http://jewservative.blogspot.com/2009/12/special-place-in-hell.html at the end of December, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, or ACRI, is an unabashedly leftist organization which uses the guise of “civil rights” to pursue a rabidly anti-Israel agenda. In December it was their case in the Israeli Supreme Court to open up the Israeli-built 443 highway back up to Palestinian Authority traffic, despite the enormous security risk to Jewish drivers.
Lately the ACRI has worked on other projects, such as attempting to oust Jews who have come to reclaim property in historically-Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem that were stolen by Arabs. Following the invasion of Israel by 7 Arab nations, Jordan illegally seized control of east Jerusalem and expelled the Jewish inhabitants, a phenomenon which also occurred across the West Bank in places like Hebron, Neve Yaakov (now part of Jerusalem), Kaliya, and Gush Etzion, whose inhabitants were massacred in 1948.
Backed up by ownership papers and supported by the Israeli courts, Jews have begun to recover property stolen by Arabs in the Shimon HaTzaddik (or Sheikh Jarrah) neighborhood near the Old City.
The ACRI has helped squatting Arabs fight this historical justice tooth-and-nail both in the courts and now on the streets in the form of angry and often violent protests. The Jewish residents of the neighborhood have been forced to hire private security guards as police protection is often inadequate to protect them from the angry mobs incited by ACRI’s goons.
Given this, it was a very pleasant surprise Saturday night when I heard on the news that ACRI’s director, Haggai Elad, was arrested along with 14 other far-left activists and anarchists during an illegal protest outside of Jewish homes in Shimon HaTzaddik.
While the Israeli security apparatus is very eager to arrest Jews on the right of the political spectrum, it has given tremendous leeway to all but the most outrageous behavior of leftists. But I guess somewhere in the chain of command someone realized that this group is nothing but a gang of Judeo-Nazis, harassing Jewish civilians and using violence to prevent justice. Here is a visual example of their handiwork in front of a Jewish home:
Lately the ACRI has worked on other projects, such as attempting to oust Jews who have come to reclaim property in historically-Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem that were stolen by Arabs. Following the invasion of Israel by 7 Arab nations, Jordan illegally seized control of east Jerusalem and expelled the Jewish inhabitants, a phenomenon which also occurred across the West Bank in places like Hebron, Neve Yaakov (now part of Jerusalem), Kaliya, and Gush Etzion, whose inhabitants were massacred in 1948.
Backed up by ownership papers and supported by the Israeli courts, Jews have begun to recover property stolen by Arabs in the Shimon HaTzaddik (or Sheikh Jarrah) neighborhood near the Old City.
The ACRI has helped squatting Arabs fight this historical justice tooth-and-nail both in the courts and now on the streets in the form of angry and often violent protests. The Jewish residents of the neighborhood have been forced to hire private security guards as police protection is often inadequate to protect them from the angry mobs incited by ACRI’s goons.
Given this, it was a very pleasant surprise Saturday night when I heard on the news that ACRI’s director, Haggai Elad, was arrested along with 14 other far-left activists and anarchists during an illegal protest outside of Jewish homes in Shimon HaTzaddik.
While the Israeli security apparatus is very eager to arrest Jews on the right of the political spectrum, it has given tremendous leeway to all but the most outrageous behavior of leftists. But I guess somewhere in the chain of command someone realized that this group is nothing but a gang of Judeo-Nazis, harassing Jewish civilians and using violence to prevent justice. Here is a visual example of their handiwork in front of a Jewish home:
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
From Der Sturmer to CNN: Media Fascism
Lies, falsehood, and half-truths are always frustrating. But they are especially galling when are used to portray the victim as the aggressor, to warp justice in the fullest way possible. Some in the media have, unfortunately, refined this form of abuse to an art.
In 1942 it was Der Sturmer, the German weekly newspaper which portrayed the Jews, then being systematically destroyed by Germany, as oppressive and malignant. Der Sturmer was, however, only one paper, and a Nazi one at that. In contrast, today there is nary a media outlet that doesn’t warp reality in a gross fashion, turning Jewish victims into Jewish criminals and oppressors.
Today it is virtually impossible to read one article or hear one news story on the “Mideast Conflict” without finding reference to refugees; refugees for whom we are meant to feel sympathy for and antipathy towards those who caused their flight; refugees whose miserable plight is one of the core issues of the conflict.
Of course the refugees mentioned are the Arab refugees who fled Israel in 1948 – some compelled by Israel and others answering the call of the 7 invading Arab armies to vacate – and the Arab refugees alone. This is, however, a double spit in the face of both justice and the Jewish people.
First, it should be made absolutely clear who the were victims in the war that began in 1947 and did not end until 1949. When the UK declared its intention to leave the country in May 1948, the Arab community exploded with violence against their Jewish neighbors.
Those who would later become hapless refugees had spent the 1920s and 1930s massacring Jews and rioting against the British in an effort to close the country off to Jewish immigration, just as their fellow Arabs poured in from Jordan and Syria.
They were, of course, successful at convincing the British, who closed the country to Jewish immigration in 1939 on the eve of World War II and the Holocaust, locking millions of Jews out from their one possible avenue of escape.
History will never erase the terrible crime of Israel’s Arab civilians who guaranteed that Europe’s Jews would have no escape from Hitler; civilians who took it upon themselves to carry out bloody pogroms against Jews long before there was a Hamas or PLO or “occupied territories of 1967” or even a State of Israel. Let it be known that the Arabs of Israel were the allies of the Nazis during WWII, with a song welcoming the Fuhrer’s armies to the country: “No more monsuier, no more mister/In heaven Allah, and on Earth Hitler”.
When these same Arabs rose up unified against the Jewish people beginning in 1947, not one village in the entire country except for Abu Ghosh refrained from joining the battle to annihilate Israel before it even existed. Thus it is no surprise that Israel’s fledgling army forces, under Yitzhak Rabin, expelled hundreds of thousands of these Arabs, with many more fleeing of their own accord. We should have no pity on these people who rose up to destroy Israel and, in their failure to do so, were cast into exile. To feel sympathy for them is to spit in the graves of the more than 7,000 Jews they killed from December 1947 to the signing of the Armistice in 1949; 7,000 out of a mere 600,000 Jews who then lived in Israel.
To add insult to injury the one refugee group we should truly feel pity for is utterly ignored in the media. While only 450,000 Arabs left Israel as refugees, more than 900,000 Jews were forced to flee the Muslim world. Israel alone supported these refugees who came after virtually all of their property had been confiscated by the nations they fled. Yet the media continues to emphasize the importance of the “refugee issue” in ending the Mideast crisis. The fact is that Israel solved its end of the issue, and if there is any refugee problem today it is the fault of the Arab world.
In 1942 it was Der Sturmer, the German weekly newspaper which portrayed the Jews, then being systematically destroyed by Germany, as oppressive and malignant. Der Sturmer was, however, only one paper, and a Nazi one at that. In contrast, today there is nary a media outlet that doesn’t warp reality in a gross fashion, turning Jewish victims into Jewish criminals and oppressors.
Today it is virtually impossible to read one article or hear one news story on the “Mideast Conflict” without finding reference to refugees; refugees for whom we are meant to feel sympathy for and antipathy towards those who caused their flight; refugees whose miserable plight is one of the core issues of the conflict.
Of course the refugees mentioned are the Arab refugees who fled Israel in 1948 – some compelled by Israel and others answering the call of the 7 invading Arab armies to vacate – and the Arab refugees alone. This is, however, a double spit in the face of both justice and the Jewish people.
First, it should be made absolutely clear who the were victims in the war that began in 1947 and did not end until 1949. When the UK declared its intention to leave the country in May 1948, the Arab community exploded with violence against their Jewish neighbors.
Those who would later become hapless refugees had spent the 1920s and 1930s massacring Jews and rioting against the British in an effort to close the country off to Jewish immigration, just as their fellow Arabs poured in from Jordan and Syria.
They were, of course, successful at convincing the British, who closed the country to Jewish immigration in 1939 on the eve of World War II and the Holocaust, locking millions of Jews out from their one possible avenue of escape.
History will never erase the terrible crime of Israel’s Arab civilians who guaranteed that Europe’s Jews would have no escape from Hitler; civilians who took it upon themselves to carry out bloody pogroms against Jews long before there was a Hamas or PLO or “occupied territories of 1967” or even a State of Israel. Let it be known that the Arabs of Israel were the allies of the Nazis during WWII, with a song welcoming the Fuhrer’s armies to the country: “No more monsuier, no more mister/In heaven Allah, and on Earth Hitler”.
When these same Arabs rose up unified against the Jewish people beginning in 1947, not one village in the entire country except for Abu Ghosh refrained from joining the battle to annihilate Israel before it even existed. Thus it is no surprise that Israel’s fledgling army forces, under Yitzhak Rabin, expelled hundreds of thousands of these Arabs, with many more fleeing of their own accord. We should have no pity on these people who rose up to destroy Israel and, in their failure to do so, were cast into exile. To feel sympathy for them is to spit in the graves of the more than 7,000 Jews they killed from December 1947 to the signing of the Armistice in 1949; 7,000 out of a mere 600,000 Jews who then lived in Israel.
To add insult to injury the one refugee group we should truly feel pity for is utterly ignored in the media. While only 450,000 Arabs left Israel as refugees, more than 900,000 Jews were forced to flee the Muslim world. Israel alone supported these refugees who came after virtually all of their property had been confiscated by the nations they fled. Yet the media continues to emphasize the importance of the “refugee issue” in ending the Mideast crisis. The fact is that Israel solved its end of the issue, and if there is any refugee problem today it is the fault of the Arab world.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Israel on the rise, America on the decline?
Earlier this week Special Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell made a thinly veiled threat to Israel. Should Israel not immediately resume direct negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, America, it was implied, would with hold loan guarantees for the Jewish state.
The Israeli response was pleasantly surprising. “We can live without US money” replied Danny Danon, a member of the ruling Likud party. Ignore the fact that Israel HAS been bending over backwards to tempt the PA back into negotiations. This is a welcome change for Israeli leaders who have traditionally heeled to American administrations, particularly when the threat of withholding money is sounded.
This is yet another sign of the waning influence of America in Israeli politics. This is rooted in two developments; 1) the gradual strengthening (and capitalization) of the Israeli economy, and 2) the trend towards a more right-wing and independent mindset in Israel.
Compare the reaction in the early 1990s when James Baker, Secretary of State for then President George HW Bush, threatened Israel in exactly the same manner. The Bush Administration threatened then attempted to block loans to Israel to pressure it to end the expansion of settlements in the liberated territories of 1967. Though the move was ultimately blocked by Congress, it sent shock waves through Israeli politics, and aided in the 1992 takeover by Yitzhak Rabin’s Labor party.
After nearly two decades of suicide bombings and a total failure of the negotiating process, sentiments in Israel have changed, shifting to the right and away from dependence on foreign countries.
This highlights a change in Israel to the right; fiscally, socially, and foreign policy-wise; which mirrors the exact opposite movement in America.
America has, since Reagan left office in January 1989, lacked a truly conservative proactive leadership. At best there were watered down Neocons like George W, weak kneed leaders like his father who caved into every demand of the Democratic Congress, or Congressional leaders during Clinton’s Administration who merely reacted to Democratic initiatives. Today’s Republican party is even worse; capable of nothing more than symbolic resistance to Obama’s programs.
And Americans have, lacking a real alternative, really turned to the left. America and Israel truly are moving in opposite directions: America towards a more liberal, socialist, debt-ridden future (the debt is already 13 trillion dollars, or 100% of the annual GDP), while Israel grows more conservative and capitalist, with a booming economy and now a negative total debt (they owe 28 billion dollars and are owed 60 billion, mostly by the US incidently).
The Israeli response was pleasantly surprising. “We can live without US money” replied Danny Danon, a member of the ruling Likud party. Ignore the fact that Israel HAS been bending over backwards to tempt the PA back into negotiations. This is a welcome change for Israeli leaders who have traditionally heeled to American administrations, particularly when the threat of withholding money is sounded.
This is yet another sign of the waning influence of America in Israeli politics. This is rooted in two developments; 1) the gradual strengthening (and capitalization) of the Israeli economy, and 2) the trend towards a more right-wing and independent mindset in Israel.
Compare the reaction in the early 1990s when James Baker, Secretary of State for then President George HW Bush, threatened Israel in exactly the same manner. The Bush Administration threatened then attempted to block loans to Israel to pressure it to end the expansion of settlements in the liberated territories of 1967. Though the move was ultimately blocked by Congress, it sent shock waves through Israeli politics, and aided in the 1992 takeover by Yitzhak Rabin’s Labor party.
After nearly two decades of suicide bombings and a total failure of the negotiating process, sentiments in Israel have changed, shifting to the right and away from dependence on foreign countries.
This highlights a change in Israel to the right; fiscally, socially, and foreign policy-wise; which mirrors the exact opposite movement in America.
America has, since Reagan left office in January 1989, lacked a truly conservative proactive leadership. At best there were watered down Neocons like George W, weak kneed leaders like his father who caved into every demand of the Democratic Congress, or Congressional leaders during Clinton’s Administration who merely reacted to Democratic initiatives. Today’s Republican party is even worse; capable of nothing more than symbolic resistance to Obama’s programs.
And Americans have, lacking a real alternative, really turned to the left. America and Israel truly are moving in opposite directions: America towards a more liberal, socialist, debt-ridden future (the debt is already 13 trillion dollars, or 100% of the annual GDP), while Israel grows more conservative and capitalist, with a booming economy and now a negative total debt (they owe 28 billion dollars and are owed 60 billion, mostly by the US incidently).
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
GOP Chairman: “Bushes Derailed Party, Need Return to Values”
In his new book, GOP head Michael Steele offered some candid and much needed advice to a party that has spent the last few years on the ropes.
The Republican party, he argued, lost its way after Reagan and has managed to frustrate both base supporters and moderate independents. Much of this is due to the political ineptitude of the two Bush presidents, who allowed and at times even aided Democratic excess in big government spending.
Steele cited George H.W. Bush’s early 1990s tax hike, his son George W. Bush’s refusal to veto a single Democratic spending bill in 5 years of presidency, and the wasteful pork-barrel spending of the latter Bush’s TARP fund, which he likened to a massive government kickback.
By caving into Democratic policy, Steele, argued, not only did the GOP frustrate its base of conservative support but gave independents little reason to vote Republican.
The fact is Steele is 100% right, and a biting critique is just what the party needs. Over the last 20 years the party has strayed from its ideological roots, leaving it nothing more than a watered-down version of the Democratic party. This is the reason for the GOPs decline, and this is reason for the country’s left turn in 2008, electing its most grossly socialist president ever.
The Republican party needs to return to its conservative roots if it wants to survive. The neo-conservatism (which is nothing more than a fancy term for a fiscal liberal in Republican’s clothing) of GW Bush needs to be replaced with the classical and honest conservative ideology of William Buckley, the builder of the modern Republican party.
The Republican party, he argued, lost its way after Reagan and has managed to frustrate both base supporters and moderate independents. Much of this is due to the political ineptitude of the two Bush presidents, who allowed and at times even aided Democratic excess in big government spending.
Steele cited George H.W. Bush’s early 1990s tax hike, his son George W. Bush’s refusal to veto a single Democratic spending bill in 5 years of presidency, and the wasteful pork-barrel spending of the latter Bush’s TARP fund, which he likened to a massive government kickback.
By caving into Democratic policy, Steele, argued, not only did the GOP frustrate its base of conservative support but gave independents little reason to vote Republican.
The fact is Steele is 100% right, and a biting critique is just what the party needs. Over the last 20 years the party has strayed from its ideological roots, leaving it nothing more than a watered-down version of the Democratic party. This is the reason for the GOPs decline, and this is reason for the country’s left turn in 2008, electing its most grossly socialist president ever.
The Republican party needs to return to its conservative roots if it wants to survive. The neo-conservatism (which is nothing more than a fancy term for a fiscal liberal in Republican’s clothing) of GW Bush needs to be replaced with the classical and honest conservative ideology of William Buckley, the builder of the modern Republican party.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
The Arabs In Israel: Laws and the Leftists Who Distort Them
Leftists and Israel-haters (or PC anti-Semites as they are more accurately known), both inside Israel and out, both Mosaic in origin and not, have long decried Israel’s construction of Jewish housing in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as being “clearly illegal”, citing the 4th Geneva Convention as their source. They claim, as leftists will, that the text bans what they hold to be an immoral act of an occupying entity in occupied territory; that it is illegal for the occupier to build communities in the occupied territory. But is this really banned by the Geneva Convention?
First, it’s important, since this is the JEWISH Conservative and not the Atheist-Postmodernist-Moral relativist Conservative Blog, to point out what Judaism says about the situation. The Book of Numbers (33:52-53) clearly commands: “then ye shall drive out ALL the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places. And ye shall drive out the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein; for unto you have I given the land to possess it.”
Unlike other references throughout the 5 Books of Moses to the conquest of the Land of Israel, the command given here does not mention the 7 Canaanite nations which dwelled there at the time. That is because, as the classical biblical commentator Ohr HaChaim pointed out that these verses refer to any foreign elements inhabiting the land, not merely Canaanites. The Land of Israel, as stated repeatedly throughout the Bible, belongs to the Jewish people and to no one else. Occupying the whole of the country is not only not problematic in Judaism it is a commandment, just as it is a commandment to “drive out ALL the inhabitants of the land”.
That is because those foreigners who occupy the Land prior to the establishment of Jewish sovereignty will never accept Jewish control over what they consider to be their land. Thus, the verses after the commandment to conquer Israel warn: “But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then shall those that ye let remain of them be as thorns in your eyes, and as pricks in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land wherein ye dwell”.
But for those who worry about a Geneva Convention that Israel signed in good faith, it’s relevant to point out what it actually states. The section in question, Article 49 of the 4th Convention, states as follows: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”. The implication is clear. An occupying power cannot force its own citizens out of the country into occupied territory, as Germany did to its Jewish citizens in World War II. But this says nothing about building homes and allowing citizens to buy them, and it is typical liberal dishonesty to say that it does.
Another point of equal importance; there is almost no basis for claiming that the West Bank is even occupied territory, since the only inheritor of the previous legitimate possessor (the British Mandate) is the State of Israel. Palestine never existed as a country and is not a claimant, and Jordan, from whom Israel captured the land, was an illegal occupier.
That is the sheer depth of the lie: not only is Israel not occupying the West Bank, even if it were, the construction of settlements would not be illegal. Not only that but the same Article (49) quoted by the anti-Israel crowd against the settlements states that occupying powers may legally evacuate or remove all occupied peoples for security or military needs. This even applies to “Protected Persons”, that is people who are protected by the Geneva Convention by virtue of their nation’s signing the agreement. But the residents of the West Bank are, by and large, not nationals of any such state and therefore do not even fall into this category, giving them no protection whatsoever.
This is just one more example of the outrageous lies and distortions of the leftist anti-Israel clique, who turn truth completely on its head.
First, it’s important, since this is the JEWISH Conservative and not the Atheist-Postmodernist-Moral relativist Conservative Blog, to point out what Judaism says about the situation. The Book of Numbers (33:52-53) clearly commands: “then ye shall drive out ALL the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places. And ye shall drive out the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein; for unto you have I given the land to possess it.”
Unlike other references throughout the 5 Books of Moses to the conquest of the Land of Israel, the command given here does not mention the 7 Canaanite nations which dwelled there at the time. That is because, as the classical biblical commentator Ohr HaChaim pointed out that these verses refer to any foreign elements inhabiting the land, not merely Canaanites. The Land of Israel, as stated repeatedly throughout the Bible, belongs to the Jewish people and to no one else. Occupying the whole of the country is not only not problematic in Judaism it is a commandment, just as it is a commandment to “drive out ALL the inhabitants of the land”.
That is because those foreigners who occupy the Land prior to the establishment of Jewish sovereignty will never accept Jewish control over what they consider to be their land. Thus, the verses after the commandment to conquer Israel warn: “But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then shall those that ye let remain of them be as thorns in your eyes, and as pricks in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land wherein ye dwell”.
But for those who worry about a Geneva Convention that Israel signed in good faith, it’s relevant to point out what it actually states. The section in question, Article 49 of the 4th Convention, states as follows: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”. The implication is clear. An occupying power cannot force its own citizens out of the country into occupied territory, as Germany did to its Jewish citizens in World War II. But this says nothing about building homes and allowing citizens to buy them, and it is typical liberal dishonesty to say that it does.
Another point of equal importance; there is almost no basis for claiming that the West Bank is even occupied territory, since the only inheritor of the previous legitimate possessor (the British Mandate) is the State of Israel. Palestine never existed as a country and is not a claimant, and Jordan, from whom Israel captured the land, was an illegal occupier.
That is the sheer depth of the lie: not only is Israel not occupying the West Bank, even if it were, the construction of settlements would not be illegal. Not only that but the same Article (49) quoted by the anti-Israel crowd against the settlements states that occupying powers may legally evacuate or remove all occupied peoples for security or military needs. This even applies to “Protected Persons”, that is people who are protected by the Geneva Convention by virtue of their nation’s signing the agreement. But the residents of the West Bank are, by and large, not nationals of any such state and therefore do not even fall into this category, giving them no protection whatsoever.
This is just one more example of the outrageous lies and distortions of the leftist anti-Israel clique, who turn truth completely on its head.
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