I read with sadness Jake Jacobs’ “Jake’s Take” and enjoyed Barry Blum’s thoughtfully presented “My Turn” response, both in West Hawaii Today.
However, I believe that Barry Blum’s My Turn needs additional historical facts to backup in rebuttal of Jake Jacob’s hateful anti-Jewish and anti-Israel diatribe.
Palestine is an ancient region, comprising parts of modern day Israel, Jordan and Egypt, while a Palestinian is an Arab born or living in today’s Palestine, or whose ancestors lived there, while by British mandate of 1923, the territory was limited to west of the Jordan River, becoming in 1948 the State of Israel, more or less the ancient Canaan.
Jake Jacob’s unfounded claim that the Israelis took the land from the Palestinians illegally, followed by immoral racist oppression ever since, is utter nonsense. The historical fact is that Hebrew was spoken in Canaan (The Promised Land, Gen. 17:8) by the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Israelites. Judah, a kingdom in the southern part of Palestine, occupied by the two strongest of 12 tribes of Israel (Judah and Benjamin).
Yes, the vast majority in Canaan and Judah were Jews/Israelites, with minority Arab tribe(s), occupying part of the same territory.
Coming now to Jake’s claim of “brutal oppression and illegal occupation,” nothing could be further from the truth. The Israelis were dragged out of their homeland by Arabs into bondage and slavery, which led to the exodus (B.C.). In the 6th century B.C., the Jews were again dragged by Arabs to Babylonia into captivity, a.k.a., the exile. With the rise of Islam in the 6th century, the enslaving and killing of Jews was taken to new heights by the Arabs.
Vast numbers of Israelis fled the mayhem, however, a considerable number of Jews remained. Thus, the Jews didn’t simply throw the keys of their homeland away, but prostrated themselves under the Islamic yoke.
Then came the Soviet Empire under Stalin and Nazi Germany under Hitler and millions of Jews perished. The survivors from Eurasia fled to the free world. It is a historic fact, that the U.S. was one of the main targets.
However, large numbers of shiploads of Jews were rejected. Talking about xenophobia. Certainly, there was no chance that there were terrorists intermingled with those refugees, as is a reality in the case of the Muslim refugees. Nobody wanted the Jews. All they had left, their last attempt, was reaching their ancestral lands in Israel. They sacrificed everything, and they still do, against an Islamic mob mentality. They gave, as sign of good faith, the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians. What they got out of it was more mayhem and increased terrorism.
Who can blame the Israelis that they didn’t give the West Bank back. They certainly need that buffer to keep their rabid Arab neighbors at bay.
Jake’s claim is that we support undemocratic repressive regimes in the Islamic world. That is a fact, reality is, however, that from the 6th century until today, there was never a democratic non-oppressive, non-aggressive, non-authoritarian Islamic state, since there is no separation of religion and government in Islam, excepting Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey, which is slowly but steady reversing to Islam rule again.
Our so-called nation building, bringing freedom and democracy to an Islamic state, is a pipe dream. How did this administration’s proud proclamation of democracy for the “Brotherhood” turn out? The offer to them of our F16 fighter jets took the cake; to kill Jews again?
Jake also conveniently missed the billions of foreign aid to the Palestinians from the US. Jake, did you see the delirious Palestinians dancing in Gaza when nearly 3,000 Americans died on Sept. 11, 2001?
Klaus Conventz is a resident of Kailua-Kona