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Friday, June 26, 2020

Judea and Samaria, Our Ancient Homeland, Now Our Disputed Homeland Awaits a New Decision

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                       
Our Promised Jewish Home-Land from League of Nations 1920
No one has lived in ancient Israel as reclaimed country.  It has remained as "gone to seed", unwanted, untouched, except for all the empires that have tried to own it and have been overtaken by new ones.  The last to supervise this land were the Ottoman Empire of Turkey, who had overseers there to collect overly high taxes from poor native farmers who gladly sold out their land to the Jews returning from 1880 onward.  There were Jews there as well, joining other natives, people who had been brought in by the Assyrians back in 721 BCE when they had made an exchange of people after kidnapping the Israelites, many of whom were able to return later by the good graces of the King of Persia, King Cyrus. 

King David's Jerusalem, is in Judah, now Judea, which is known to non-Jews and others as the West Bank.  King Saul's capital was Samaria, which refers to the land surrounding Samaria.  As you can see from the map above, Samaria is the North and Judea is the Southern part of the disputed land originally part of the Jewish Homeland, promised to our Jewish leaders by the League of Nations and the United Nations, but given away by the British who held the 30 year mandate.

Until 1967, Jordan held Judea and Samaria because of Great Britain's giving away 80% of the promised Jewish homeland to Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia who needed land and people.  They got our original homeland of Judea and Samaria.  By the miracle of winning the 1967 War when Israel was attacked by all the Muslim countries, they regained their land from Jordan who had held it illegally anyway.

Before 1948, all people living in Palestine, renamed as such by the Romans in 135 CE, our land that once was Israel, included Jew and Arab alike.  So today, Palestinians are the Arabs and they have been living here for the past 53 years since 1967 and during this time have been under the Israeli sovereignty.  In a few days that should change to the Israeli annexation of established Jewish towns and cities in this part of the land that is Israel's disputed homeland.  The problem is that the Palestinian Arabs have been wanting to have their own state and will call it Palestine, made of Judea and Samaria.  Their state will house no Jews.  No Jews will be allowed to live there.  That must be realized by people banging their drums for a 2 state solution.
                                                                       
Fatah and Hamas, a dangerous political proposed Palestine
and the EU can't understand why Israel isn't happy about them
or why Israelis might feel defensive when they are too close by
The problem has been that the Palestinians are like the land, so divided up in their intentions towards Israel.  Some have been emphatically violent since 1967 and their Kartoum Conference in Africa where they signed on as never having peace with Israel, and nothing has changed since then.  This is where Hamas comes from, the terrorists.  Because they also run the government of Gaza, they are friendly and want to unite with Judea and Samaria's leadership, with the PA and Abbas. This is a very untrustworthy group of people, several being former active terrorists.

People are saying that the planned annexation could lead to a 3rd Intifada, and 50% of Israelis support this move.  25% would like the USA to give their backing to an annexation.  31% of Israelis oppose extending sovereignty because of the rattling of sabers from outsiders.  Let's face it.  A Palestinian State is a threat to Israel's security.  How can people not see this while clamoring for a state alongside of Israel?  There are Israelis who would like to annex all of Judea and Samaria, but this plan is picky;  only towns and cities, about 19 of them, with a population of 20,000 or more are expected to become part of Israel's domain.

The Jordan Valley is included in this annexation and they are not a part of any planned Palestinian state as it is, so they will actually benefit.

The Jewish population living in Judea and Samaria has grown.  When the British with the 30 year mandate oversaw the land, they kept Jews out of the country while letting in Arabs which was the opposite thing they were to do according to the mandate---they were to help Jews to build their Jewish Homeland.  They should be sued for breach of promise.  The Jewish population has now grown from 5,000 to over 460,000.  The brave Jews who have entered and chose to live here are mostly Orthodox Jews, more religious who came for religious reasoning.  All the sites of their history are of this part of the land, and they need to be preserved and remembered.

Prof. Yoram Ettinger gave a much lower estimate, by contrast, of just 1.7 million Arabs living in the region of the number given by the Palestinians.  They are known to give false numbers including dead relatives.  At any rate, they do have a higher population than the Jews living there.  

Facts are this:  there is no peace plan of a Palestine and Israel going on today.  Trump's plan has been immediately rejected by the Palestinian Arabs.  It seems that they have been routinely doing so for all these years anyway, so haven't really changed.  They never liked John Kerry's plans that gave them more.  Abbas has refused to speak with Netanyahu during Obama's 8 years as president.  Trump is offering the Arabs a state with his plan, such as it is.

Face it.  Israel left Gaza, lock, stock and barrel for the Palestinians and they took it and started shooting at Israel and really haven't stopped.  Israel had a taste of being the good guy and getting it between the eyes.  Not again.  The two- staters want unbelievable action from Israel and nothing from the Palestinians.  They actually expect Israel to again leave 90% of Judea Samaria by evacuating from their established towns and cities and dividing Jerusalem now that it is a united city again in Israel's land.

700,000 Jews including those living in East Jerusalem live in 131 towns in Judea and Samaria.  About 30% live outside of blocs deemed part of the ABC division anyway.  Israel would have to evacuate 93 towns and about 140,000 Jews.  After the Gazan experience of evacuation of 9,000 Jews and how that went over, it's not going to happen again.  The result has been 15 years of violence from Gaza.  They fear that the Judea-Samaria will turn into Hamatan-land of Hamas terrorists and their weapons.

Since 1967 the Palestinians led by Arafat and now Abbas, have been deviously attacking Israel every which way including boycotting, divestments and sanctions.  1973 came along and Israel signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan which ruined their plans.

Israel has been holding territory that the Palestinians planned to claim as theirs.  They have not advanced their position these last 12 years and it's been a stalemate.  Much is depending on Trump's re-election.  If Biden becomes President, he will change and back the Arabs as he has said he would.

What the commentators have left out is that Jews continue to make aliyah to Israel and many are religious Jews, wanting to live in Judea-Samaria.  Rabbis are speaking that this is the time, and it's not a political reason but a religious one. We all recognize that this is a unique period with the coronavirus pandemic, for sure, harming economic and political factions in the world.  We are living in a period we thought we would only read about, not live through.  Though Israel is surrounded by enemies including Iran, they remain strong and ready to face such problems.   These Jews want to live under Israel's umbrella of  protection, something they haven't been able to do under the present situation.  That means that the Arabs would be protected as well if they're not the attackers.

Netanyahu was just in the USA speaking to US heads about the annexation.  Nothing was decided.  Will they give the support they said they would?  Can Israel afford to take on this responsibility of defending Jews in Judea-Samaria?  Just recently American surveyors were in the land helping the Jews to get these facts, facts they need to know no matter what the outcome will be.  The move is said to be happening within a day.

Update 6/29/2020:  Following the release of the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan in January, Netanyahu altered his sovereignty plan, calling for the application of Israeli law over about 30% of Judea and Samaria – including most of the Jordan Valley – under the framework of the Trump plan.
Under the coalition deal with Blue and White, Netanyahu is permitted to formally introduce his sovereignty plan to the Knesset and government only from July 1st  https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/FMfcgxwJWXbpcjpRdZbTvzJKZXVkFgSB

Reference https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/understanding-the-application-of-israeli-sovereignty-to-the-west-bank
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/FMfcgxwJWXXVJwgcNBLjnwPqjfTKlwQc
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/a-settlers-view-of-israels-future.html
https://www.jta.org/2020/06/10/israel/israel-could-annex-parts-of-the-west-bank-on-july-1-heres-what-you-need-to-know  This one shows how befuddled some of the people are who live in Judea-Samaria.  They don't know if they want annexation or not from one minute to the next.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/FMfcgxwJWXWNMlGcPdsKFJrNGnfbRpTk Here Blattner lists many references to read on this topic.   
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/18/878305307/netanyahu-plans-to-annex-parts-of-the-west-bank-many-israeli-settlers-want-it-al NPR found another religious Israeli that doesn't want the annexation to happen.  Amazing!
To read what Ron Dermer said will cost me a $ so I won't be reading or listing it.  There's plenty enough to read without paying for one man's opinion that no doubt will be against Netanyahu and ceding the towns and cities starting on July 1.  Several references sent to me were like that; and I was unable to open them for free.




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