Nadene Goldfoot
There is much misunderstanding as to the rights of Jews who are living on land that is only a few minutes away from Jerusalem by car. Most non-Jewish and even our own Jewish people are not aware of the history of this land nor why there are Jews who are breaking international law to live there.
Our Jewish biblical history goes back to King Saul and King David and King Solomon to about 1060 BCE, which is almost 3,000 years ago, and ended in the burning of Jerusalem in 70 CE. We are the natives of Judea and Samaria, which the present world population calls "The West Bank."
There are some of the Palestinian Arabs who are in denial about this as they have plans for the land to become their nation. They are not native people. Those Jews who were living here from 1880 and on during our first returns called the First Aliyah from Europe, Jews suffering under the Pogroms of Russians, were soon joined by surrounding Arabs looking for work. Any Arabs owning land sold it to returning Jews at immensely high prices, but were successful and quickly left for better places such as Beirut, Paris, etc. These Arabs referred to themselves as Syrian Palestinians. They had no intentions of creating another Muslim country.
By 1929, a instigator against Jews who had a cushy job, awarded to be the new Sherif of Jerusalem by a Jewish Englishman, was Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti, a big fish in a small fishbowl. He was terrified that he'd be replaced by a Jew, so he instigated murderous attacks on the Jewish population as if he were America's killer, Charles Manson, or Hitler himself.
England was given a 30 year mandate, ending on May 13, 1948 to be those in charge of Palestine. They were charged with helping the Jews to create their Jewish Homeland, but they renegged on that and aided and abetted Arabs to enter during WWII while keeping Jews out. They had better fish to fry as Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was looking for deal on land he could rule over, so they broke the trust of the League of Nations by going ahead and giving him 80% of the promised Jewish Homeland, which ultimately was called Trans-Jordan, then, Jordan. Out of the 20% left, came Judea and Samaria (West Bank-named by Jordan). Judea and Samaria have been divided into areas A,B,C, A for Arabs C for Jews and B for both, as I understand with Arabs building in Jewish land without permission which has been going on. )
There went Judea and Samaria, land surrounding Judea. Samaria was the former capital of Israel after Solomon had died, when a divide occurred where Israel split into Israel and Judah. Judah, the land including Jerusalem, was the largest of the tribal land, and they also included parts of the tribe of Benjamin and Simeon. The northern 10 tribes were abducted, never to be seen or heard from again.
They experienced their own Israel Civil War, which weakened both sides. To complicate matters, the Assyrians took advantage and attacked Israel in 721 BCE, carrying off most of the intelligencia into their hinterland, where we find today that the Pashtos of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India are the native people taken from us. (Today the Pashtos are fighters. Maybe they were back then, too, but the Assyrians were the Roman Army of that period, unassailable).
Jump to 1948 and the birthdate of Israel, May 14, 1948. There was a war between the still instigated Arabs that started on November 29, 1947 and lasted until the signing of the Armistice Agreements in 1949 called The War of Independence.. We lost Judea and Samaria, and were only able to hold onto the coastland, pretty much and Jerusalem. We didn't get Judea and Samaria back until we went through attacks which were wars in the Sinai War of 1956 and then faced a war made up of all Arab nations, the Six Day War of 1967, and with G-d's help, surely, won that war. We had to win. There was no other choice other than being driven into the sea.
First we were praised such as President Zelensky of Ukraine is today, as being so brave, standing up to such a force. Then, the usual world-wide anti-Semitism sunk back into the picture and we were hated people once again, That remains, as I noticed a sneer on a shop-keeper's face when he ease-dropped on my conversation with my friend about sending something to a community outside of Jerusalem, saying under his breath, "Well, it depends on who lived their first." He was not referring to us Jews, but was thinking that the Palestinians were there first. They are newcomers, as Journalist Joan Peters has pointed out in her well-researched book that puts Noam Chomsky to shame, FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL. Peters had been on the Palestinian side first, but her research showed her otherwise. There were only a few landowners, and they sold out to the Jews at very high prices and made a bundle, leaving happily all those taxes that were bleeding them of the Ottoman Empire.
There is a Jewish Israeli who has made wonderful TV programs about his discoveries, many of which involve the history of Jesus, called "The Naked Archaeologist." In one of his productions, he showed homes of Arabs with nameplates still a part of the home with the name of Jews on it in Hebrew. This showed that they had been Jewish property but had been taken over by the present Arabs. There were enough of them found to make a strong point.
So that brings me to the point of my explanation of who lives in Judea and why they need to be there.
Beit El is a Jewish community in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Judea. It's in the Binyamin Region of Judea. It's the Orthodox Jews who have defied world opinion and have moved out into Judea and Samaria. "The Orthodox Jewish town is located in the hills north of Jerusalem, east of the Palestinian city of al-Bireh, adjacent to Ramallah."
Ramallah is now the headquarters of the Palestinians. "In 1838 American biblical scholar Edward Robinson visited the area, noting that the inhabitants were Christian "of the Greek rite". There were 200 taxable men, which gives an estimated total population of 800–900 people. The village "belonged" to the Haram al-Sharif, Jerusalem, to which it paid an annual tax of 350 Mids of grain." So, first it all was Jewish land, then this fell into Christian hands, and lastly the Muslims. Ramallah is 6 miles north from Jerusalem, and had become part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
Pisgat Ze'ev is an Israeli city in the Jerusalem neighborhood, which others call a settlement, in East Jerusalem and the largest residential neighborhood in Jerusalem with a population of over 50,000. Pisgat Ze'ev was established by Israel as one of the city's five Ring Neighborhoods on land effectively annexed after the 1967 Six-Day War.
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Kafr 'Aqab had a population of 189 Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 250 Muslims, in 59 houses. In the 1945 statistics the population of Kafr 'Aqab consisted of 290 Muslims and the land area was 5,472 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 829 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land, 2,736 for cereals, while 10 dunams were built-up areas.
In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Kafr 'Aqab came under Jordanian rule, and was annexed in 1950.
In 1961, the population was 410 persons.
After the Six-Day War in 1967, Kafr 'Aqab has been under Israeli auspicious. The population in the 1967 census conducted by the Israeli authorities was 287, of whom 8 originated from the Israeli territory. It is still in the northernmost Palestinian Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem.
Israel has confiscated 2,037 dunams of land from Kafr 'Aqab in order to construct the Israeli settlement of Kokhav Ya'acov.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2006, Kafr 'Aqab had a population of 10,411. Primary health care for Kafr 'Aqab is most likely obtained in Al-Ram. In 2007, Kfar 'Aqab was described as a middle class suburb.
While Kafr 'Aqab was unilaterally annexed by Israel with the rest of East Jerusalem and falls under its full jurisdiction, it is separated from Jerusalem by the Israeli West Bank barrier. Municipal inspectors never inspect the area beyond the barrier. This creates "a planning nightmare and developer's dream".
The al-Faruq mosque in Kafr 'Aqab offers weekly classes in the Islamic teachings of Hizb ut-Tahrir, so part of their land was used by Kokhaav Yaakov, but they still exist and have a mosque offering classes.
Resource:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramallah
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beit_El
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisgat_Ze%27ev
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