Israeli flag at Western Wall, Jerusalem

A man holds an Israeli flag during a march in support of the united city of Jerusalem at the Western Wall during the current wave of terror. Mendy Hechtman/Flash90)

Now that we have a state for which so many of our people have died, there is no longer any excuse to sacrifice more lives or more land. 

I was a dental hygienist working in Public Health in a Toronto suburb when Israel went to war in 1973. My colleagues in public health had no idea that I was Jewish. We were having lunch when one of the health inspectors said: “To hell with Israel. We need the oil.” Subtext: Sacrifice the Jews. And why not? It wouldn’t be the first time.

During WWII Hitler couldn’t annihilate the Jews fast enough. He tried murder by bullets in the Ukraine but that was too slow and cumbersome.  It takes a certain mind to develop a military industrial complex to put people into ovens. But he did. Near the end of the war his generals pleaded with him not to murder the Jews but use the Jews for more slave labor. But no. Into the ovens with all expedience. He diverted trains from the front lines to take Jews to the ovens. And that worked out well for the Arabs. Let us never forget the bond between the Mufti of Jerusalem and Hitler.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the time of World War II, Haj Amin al-Husseini, had strong Nazi connections. In 1941, he visited Hitler and sought to bring the Nazi program into the Arab world. The Mufti was a relative of Arafat (who was a Husseini).  Arafat called him “uncle,” and looked to the Mufti as his mentor. In today’s world they would be called BFF’s- Best friends forever.

After the Holocaust there was a brief moment in time when the Jews were forgiven for their “sins.” Those times are long past. Anti-Semitism is more prevalent and more virulent than ever before-including pre-Holocaust. And it is displayed in the insistence that the Jewish state be sacrificed to appease the Arabs, again.

When Netanyahu compared the Mufti to Hitler, Dr. Afridi, a Muslim Pakistani-born religious studies professor at Manhattan College in New York, who also serves as the college’s Director of the Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education Center and  a member of the ethics and religion committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington responded “I was surprised that this came out at this tense time, and it is going to make my work harder to raise awareness of the Holocaust and of anti-Semitism.”  She said this in reference to the current wave of terror in Israel. She said that blaming the Palestinians for the Holocaust makes it “very challenging for those of us who do want peace and who are doing the fact checking and who are working to bring people together.”

Palestinian terrorist

A Palestinian terrorist. (AP/Mahmoud Illean)

She is working to bring people together in peace. Which people? Those who terrorize the Jews on a daily basis? As of December 4 there have been 87 stabbings, 32 shootings and 13 car rammings against Jews in their homeland, by Muslims. And what of those who glorify the killing of Jews? The Muslims who teach their children to kill Jews – in their classrooms, in their mosques and in social media? Israel must sit down with people who are taught to hate Jews and destroy Israel, and make peace? Can anyone name another nation that has been asked, coerced, into doing such things? Have any other people been asked to sacrifice their own safety in the name of making peace with those who continue to call for annihilation?

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked recently said, “I would say that the Middle East is having some profound changes during the last years. The entire region is shifting, and the nation states all collapse. It’s a tribal landscape now, and every bit of territory abandoned by the West is seized by radical Islam. So we really have no other choice than to continue and manage the conflict.

“The problem is with the Americans and the Europeans who continue to insist on this paradigm of a Palestinian state here and now, and who continue to insist that the settlements are the root of the conflict, which is just an utter lack of understanding of what this conflict really is about. Just look at this recent wave of knife violence: It has nothing to do with the settlements. It’s a blood libel, really, promoted by the Islamist Movement in Israel and the Palestinian Authority and arguing that Israel wants to destroy Al Aqsa. That’s how they get people in the streets, by trying to turn a conflict between two nations turned this into a conflict between religions. I just feel bad that the international community, Europe and the United States, are just stuck in the ‘90s.”  Truer words were never spoken.

Recently Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, while condemning stabbing attacks by Palestinians against Israelis, added that Israel’s response was “disproportionate” and included “extrajudicial executions.” Her proof: “The number of dead on the other side is greater than the original death toll by several factors.”

That Jews are being murdered in their own country by cowardly terrorists doesn’t seem to make her radar. That the Jewish state is defending her citizens from terror makes no difference to her. Why would it? Wallstrom asserted that terrorist attacks like the one November 13 attacks in Paris, in which 130 people were murdered could be laid at the feet of the Jewish state because of the frustration of Muslims in the Middle East, including that of Palestinians.

325,000,000 Muslims Threatened by 7 Million Jews?

Is she suggesting that 325,000,000 Muslims who live in the area are so frustrated by the 7 million Jews in Israel who will not sacrifice their lives, land and safety to appease them that terror is justified?

The West is stuck in the Kumbaya years of the Oslo Accords, signed by Rabin, who really didn’t want to sign the accords. Indeed, on October 5, 1995, he stated: “We committed ourselves before the Knesset not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement and not to hinder building for natural growth.  First and foremost in our concerns is a united Jerusalem, as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty.”

And with his death, his story was lost and the Left turned him into a false prophet for their own agenda, one that appears to call for the demise of the Jewish state.

Enough.

And it seems it’s enough for Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely. She distributed a document to all Israeli diplomats that states that Israel has valid property claims to Judea and Samaria, as “Jewish affinity” with the region, including for example, Hebron is thousands of years old… These are not new communities, and not ‘colonization,’” and therefore, the “section of the Geneva Convention which prohibits the transfer of a population to occupied lands does not apply” in the case of Judea and Samaria. “Never at any point of time in history were Jerusalem or the West Bank under Palestinian Arab sovereignty.”

This is a remarkable change in direction. Now that we have a state for which so many of our people have died, there is no longer any excuse to sacrifice more lives or more land. I don’t know why this report was finally taken out of the drawer or why Minister Hotovely decided to share it. All that matters is that the Government of Israel stands behind her actions and the Levy Report and put an end to this constant badgering of Israel to give land for peace. It is time to #ENDARABOCCUPATION. The Arabs are the occupiers. The land belongs to the Jewish State of Israel.

This article is the third in a four-part weekly series, titled: “Lies Our Leaders Tell Us.” The purpose is to raise awareness of the Levy Report. Click on the links below for Parts 1 and 2. 

https://unitedwithisrael.org/lies-our-leaders-tell-us-time-to-bury-the-two-state-lie/

https://unitedwithisrael.org/lies-our-leaders-tell-us-who-gains-from-the-fabrication-of-a-mythological-leader/

Article by Diane Weber Bederman

Diane Weber Bederman is a multi-faith, hospital-trained chaplain who lives in Canada, just outside Toronto. She writes about religion in the public square and mental illness on her blog, "The Middle Ground: The Agora of the 21st Century." Bederman is the author of "Back to the Ethic: Reclaiming Western Values," published Dec. 2015 by Mantua Books (available on Amazon).