The New York Times, the leading mainstream/left-wing newspaper in the country, spent this past week telling of the destruction in Gaza. On May 22 was a typical online headline for the paper: "The Everyday Misery of Life Under Israeli Occupation." Israel does not occupy Gaza. If life is miserable for the Palestinians they have only their leaders to blame, their leaders who have refused time after time after time every peace deal offered. The Times did manage to have a daily Op-Ed by a Palestinian or a Palestinian supporter.
I kept looking in the New York Times for reporting on the attacks on Jews across the country, and in New York City, home of the Times, and home to more Jews than any other city in the country. Never found it. It reminded me of an article in the Times years ago discussing riots in various cities in Europe. They said the riots were carried out by immigrants. But the "paper of record" did not see fit to tell their readers that all the rioters were Muslim immigrants. Nothing bad about Muslims, and nothing good about the Jews. That's the New York Times.
The USA Today "reported" (I use that word loosely for the mainstream media, as their reporting is propaganda) that last weekend thousands protested the "uprooting of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 after the creation of the state of Israel and the initial Arab-Israeli war. The event is referred to as the Nakba, or catastrophe." A brief history. The Ottoman Empire controlled much of the Middle East for 400 years. But in WWI, the Ottomans lost and the allies won. The geographic area of Palestine was given to the British, with the area being referred to as the British Mandate. After the UN was formed following WWII, the British turned over the Mandate to the UN. In 1947 the UN voted "partition," dividing the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Up until then, "Palestine" was just as much the home of the Jews as it was of the Arabs.
In May, 1948, the Jews announced the independence of the country of Israel, on the small piece of land given by the UN partition. The very next day five Arab countries attacked - the first of many efforts to wipe Israel off the map. Were hundreds of thousands of Arabs displaced? Yes, but that is far from the whole story. Many left out of fear over the impending war. Many left because the invading Arab countries told them to leave, that Israel would be destroyed, and that they could return to their homes afterwards. Except that did not turn out to be the case. The tiny country of Israel, out manned and out gunned, won that war.
The war ended in 1949 with no peace agreement. The 1949 borders existed until the Arabs tried to destroy Israel again in 1967, when Israel won a decisive victory in the "Six Day War." In that war, Israel captured the area known as the West Bank (historic Judea and Samaria), the eastern part of Jerusalem holding the Old City, the Golan Heights, Gaza, and the Sinai. Following the Yom Kippur war in 1973, when Egypt had recaptured part of the Sinai, Israel mad a peace agreement with Egypt which returned the Sinai to the Egyptians. But let's be clear. From 1949 to 1967 Jordan controlled the West Bank and Egypt controlled Gaza. There was no call for a Palestinian state during that time. Not until the Jews got control.
Just like left-wing ideology has taken over the mainstream media, so too for academia. It was reported that over 700 Harvard faculty members signed a letter in support of the "Palestinian liberation struggle," and their right to fight the Jews. Here is part of the letter, filled with the same lies and half-truths as the USA Today article. "Since its establishment, Israel has implemented several forms of hegemonic rule imposed over Palestinian lives, starting in 1948 with the military rule imposed on Palestinian areas in Historical Palestine."
In 1948 Israel was fighting for its very life. It is unclear what the letter writers mean by "Historical Palestine." There has never been a country of Palestine. There was a country of Israel 2000 years ago, and again since 1948. Otherwise, the area known as Palestine, a name generally affiliated with the Philistines, was an area of land on the eastern Mediterranean that was controlled by various foreign invaders. The last such invaders, as noted above, were the Ottomans. Yet, I have seen on social media a belief by many (and by many with Arabic and Muslim names) that the Jews have had no connection to the land of Israel before WWII.
It has been reported that 230 Palestinians were killed in this latest fighting, including 65 children and 39 women. (Per the USA Today. Not that I trust Hamas to accurately report their casualties.) That was too much for Biden, who forced Israel into a cease-fire. It has also been reported that in 2003 alone, in the war in Iraq, 12,133 civilians were killed. In 2006 that number rose to 29,517; and overall to over two hundred thousand. No, I am not celebrating anyone's death. We Jews do not do that. But I am showing the degree to which Biden, who claims to be a strong supporter of Israel, was cowed by the likes of Rashida Tlaib and the left-wing of his party.
I believe Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (hated by the left) had it right: "I think at least half the Democrats are hostile to Israel, the rest of them are afraid of those who are hostile to Israel." Probably explains why we've heard so little from Chuck Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader, who used to be a strong supporter of Israel; but now apparently fears the consequences of speaking openly in support of Israel.
So let me be clear. The conflict going on between Israel and the Arabs from 1948 to today is not about land. Arabs were killing Jews in the area in the 1920's. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem sided with Hitler during WWII. The fighting is about exactly what Hamas tells us it is about - the desire to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews.
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