“WHAT THE WORLD SAYS ABOUT ISRAEL IS UNFAIR, UNTRUE AND UNACCETABLE”

Tribute to the passing of Freda Keet whose inimitable “VOICE OF ISRAEL’ carried from Jerusalem across the globe

By David E. Kaplan

Backtrack to a time when Israel was struggling to survive.

The Jewish state faced multiple enemy states waging war as well as multiple terrorist groups attacking Jews on planes, ships and murderous infiltrations across Israel’s borders. All this, while struggling to establish a viable economy and absorbing Jews from all over the Diaspora. It was in this vulnerable and fragile milieu, that anxious Jews around the world would tune in to listen to the English service of Kol Yisrael – the ‘Voice of Israel’

Radio Royalty. Foreign journalists, diplomats and opinion-makers all tuned in to listen to Freda Keet broadcasting to the world in English on ‘The Voice of Israel’.

Those older enough, may well remember hearing the unmistakable commanding but eloquent voice of Freda Keet – born and bred in the former Rhodesia, today Zimbabwe – who passed away this August in Israel.

As well as an investigative journalist and war correspondent, Freda anchored the English radio news during Israel’s tumultuous years from 1963 -1985. She was one of a handful of journalists granted permission to travel to the Suez Canal during the War of Attrition (1967-1970) and again in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War. Following her retirement from fulltime broadcasting, Freda became deeply concerned about the growing crises with Israel’s public relations, and went on to  lecture widely – at her own expense – across the world, particularly throughout the United States. In 2002, I interviewed Freda for Telfed Magazine on how the media had changed and its implications for Israel.

Look, with radio it was very different. There was no TV in Israel in the early days and everybody used to be glued to their radios for news. We all recall how passengers sat quietly in a bus while the news came on. Radio was king and the English service was well respected – foreign journalists, diplomats and opinion-makers all tuned in. We made a huge impact.”

How familiar her voice was  – even in lands that had been at war with Israel – is revealed in this chance meeting she had following the 1967 Six Day War, when as a war correspondent, she crossed over into the liberated sector of Jerusalem that had been occupied by Jordan and visited the Russian Orthodox Church on the Mount of Olives.

 “It was unbelievable. The Mother Superior, who had never seen my face, knew all about me from my voice on Kol Yisrael. She, and all the nuns, used to listen to the English news. We were truly a bridge to the outside world.”

Broadcast News. Investigate journalist Freda Keet taking notes to later use in her international radio broadcast on Israel’s national news service, Kol Yisrael.

In a talk she presented in 2014 at Beth Protea, the South African retirement home in Herzliya in central Israel, she spoke about her youth growing up in a vibrant Jewish community in Bulawayo:

Looking back, I can see quite clearly that everything I became, or did in my life came from growing up in Bulawayo. My Judaism, my commitment to Israel, my love of theatre – I started acting very young in school productions – so looking back now,  not only was it an amazing life,  it molded the person I am. I grew up in a home full of books; all very left-wing and we grew up on these books. My father had come from Belarus and had actually fought in the Russian Revolution; my mother was from Lithuania. They met in Bulawayo. My Dad had earlier settled in South Africa and rumours spread that  gold had been discovered in Rhodesia, so he rushed up to Rhodesia; he never found gold. Instead he found my mother.”

Freda was the product of that lucky strike!

Most influential said Freda, was belonging to the Jewish youth movement Habonim. “It was my or should I say our lives. I remember the Sunday mornings, the scramble to get dressed and always spending hours,  looking for this thing called a ‘woggle’ – that platted piece of leather that held together your blue and white scarf. I thought about it later…. We used to stand by this little palm tree – simbolising the land of Israel –  that never grew an inch in all the years I knew it,  and which we used to recite the Habonim pledge:

“The upright shall flourish like the palm”.

The palm may never have grown in all those years, said Freda, but she and all those idealistic youngsters did as did Israel.

When later as a roving goodwill ambassador for Israel, Freda carried the symbolism of that palm tree with her. “I travel constantly. I’m on the road morning, noon and night, spending my life at airports and I always wear something like a scarf or a broach that identifies me as an Israeli.”

Maybe a throwback to the impact of the Habonim ‘woggle’ – holding it all symbolically  – like a scarf – together!

Zionism in Africa. All in their youth movement uniform, Southern African Habonim in the 1950s. Note the scarf and woggle on each member fondly referred to by Freda Keet.

Freda, who dedicated her life to Israel outreach, explained in the 2002 interview about the unique Israeli word of ‘Hasbara’ (loosely meaning public relations):

Israel’s obsession with Hasbara is understandable. Foreign to any other nation’s lexicon, the need for Hasbara is tied in with the history of the Jewish people. Being a pariah people reviled and abused for over 2000 years, we finally made it into the ranks of the family of nations. We have paid a price, an appalling price, for this membership.”

Freda stressed three reasons why Hasbara should remain an obsession.

Firstly, for the dignity and honour of the Jewish people.  What the world says about us is unfair, untrue and unacceptable. We are obliged to fight it. Secondly, the war that was once against Israel has become much wider. Today, it’s a war directed at the Jewish people worldwide and we are obliged to fight it on their behalf.”

The third reason, asserts Freda, is:

for our survival. If initially the strategy of the Arab world was to delegitimise the State of Israel, they have now gone way beyond that. We are now defending an attempt to delegitimise the very existence of the Jewish People in their land, in effect, to delegitimise Jewish history. The plan is to eat away at the roots, the very bedrock of this nation. The message is clear. What is taught to Arab children, appearing on Arab websites and TV networks, is that Jews have no historical belonging in this land.”

Freda articulated this point by citing Arafat’s behaviour at the Camp David talks.  “With his back to the wall, Arafat had to come up with a reply to the offer made by Israel. Arafat’s response was, ‘I can’t negotiate with the Jewish people over Jerusalem. There is no historical evidence linking these people to Al Kuds. There is no evidence linking the Jewish people with our land of Palestine.’ True, this diatribe is not new. We’ve heard it all before. But to have said it before the President of the USA and that it hardly solicited a ripple of protest was staggering. If the Arabs can be so brazen in the articulation of these lies eating away at the very legitimacy of the Jewish people to this land, then the whole existence of this country is a fake and a bluff and therefore unacceptable to the family of nations. The disappearance of the State of Israel will become an absolute matter of course. It is for our sheer survival that we have to fight back by whatever means possible.”

CRISS-CROSSING AMERICA

On the lecture circuit, mainly in America where she had become  a familiar figure to thousands of Christians, she was often asked:

Why is the world so obsessed with Israel?” A classic example of this obsession was the case Freda cited at the time of “the UN Geneva Convention of Human Rights, which passed into International Law after WWII. “It has met only once – not to address the massacres that took place in Africa’s Rwanda or Burundi, or in Europe’s backyard of Bosnia and Kosova. The only occasion it saw fit to assemble for Human Rights violations was to condemn Israel.”

Trains Planes and Automobiles. Freda Keet used to crisscross the US addressing audiences on Israel.

Opening today’s papers in August 2022, an Israeli can be justified in asking what has changed since Freda’s observations nearly two decades ago in 2003. The editorial in The Jerusalem Post (29 August 2022) reads:

Despite  the critical refugee problems taking place around the world as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and the Ethiopian-Tigray conflict – to give just a few examples – only the Palestinians merit an ongoing UNSC monthly spotlight….”

The obsession with Israel is unrelenting!

In answer to the obvious question of “Why?”, Freda replied:

They attack Israel because it’s easy. Israel is the equivalent of a cheap date. There are no consequences. Attacking Israel exacts no price. You can’t attack any other country because they all belong to geographic blocks and the members protect each other. You cant raise the issue of Tibet because you would offend the Chinese. Zimbabwe is taboo at International Conferences. There was recently a meeting at the UN where Zimbabwe was on the agenda, but South Africa insisted that it be removed. So if you cant discuss Africa because it will annoy the Africans, can’t raise violations in Muslim countries because it will offend Muslims, what are you safely left with? Israel! It will not annoy anyone.”

Bringing Israel to Jews Abroad. Lecturing overseas, Freda Keet addressing a synagogue in the USA.

Freda amusingly reveals how easy it is to misread a situation. “I share a birthday with VE Day, the 8th of May marking the end of the war in Europe. I recall when I was very young the Church bells in Bulawayo ringing on that day and I always thought it was to celebrate my birthday. It was a knock to my pride to discover later it was not.”

Freda did not need church bells to herald her presence. For that she had her unique voice.

The woman who was “The Voice of Israel’ and thereafter for over two decades waged an unrelenting public relations campaign for Israel abroad leaves a lasting legacy. Her eloquence and passion won her a huge Jewish and non-Jewish international following.

If Israel “radio was king” Freda Keet was its queen.


Freda Keet addressing Beth Protea on growing up in the Jewish community of Bulawayo, Rhodesia, today Zimbabwe. This clip was filmed by Dave Bloom as part of his Zimbabwe Jewish Community project started 20 years ago with a website www.zjc.org.il  (currently being rebuilt) and a Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/zimjewishcommunity






While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

Lay of the Land Weekly Newsletter- 28 August 2022

Unveiling the contours and contrasts of an ever-changing Middle East landscape Reliable reportage and insightful commentary on the Middle East by seasoned journalists from the region and beyond

Home

Like this content? Please share and tweet it to your friends and followers.

To subscribe via email please send a mail noting your request to: layotland@gmail.com 

Please visit/ join/follow our social media platforms:

 Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/LotLSite/

Twitter: Lay Of The Land – @layoftheland5

Also available on YouTube @The Israel Brief  – Simply click on the red subscribe button to receive alerts when a new report is posted.



What’s happening in Israel today? See from every Monday – Thursday LOTL’s The Israel Brief broadcasts and on our Facebook page and YouTube by seasoned TV & radio broadcaster, Rolene Marks familiar to Chai FM listeners in South Africa and millions of American listeners to the News/Talk/Sports radio station  WINA, broadcasting out of Virginia, USA.

THE ISRAEL BRIEF

(Click on the blue title)



Articles

(1)

MUNICH METAMORPHOSIS

Images from ‘blood on the tracks’ to ‘love on the tracks’

By David E. Kaplan

Hanna in Heaven. Hanna Minenko proudly parading the Israeli flag in Munich after taking bronze.

While most Jews and particularly Israelis have historically negative images of Munich being once the capital of the Nazi movement and the Olympic setting for the mass murder of Israeli athletes in 1972,  this month in Munich the Israeli flag was proudly paraded following its athletes winning medals at the 2022 European Championships.

MUNICH METAMORPHOSIS

(Click on the blue title)



(2)

MY FAVOURITE GENTLEMAN

Remembering a pioneer, Lay of the Land contributor, a gentleman and my friend.

By Rolene Marks

Flying High. He took Israel’s national airline El Al all the way to the Supreme Court and won 

Making legal history in Israel, Jonathan Danilowitz didn’t just fight for what is right in the courtroom but also in the battlefield of public diplomacy. With the Jewish state facing a tsunami of hate, this former South African became a tireless advocate for Israel and Jewish issues and an inspiration to others – including the writer – in the battle against the purveyors of lies, distortions and irrational hatred.  

MY FAVOURITE GENTLEMAN

(Click on the blue title)



(3)

THE LAST SHABBAT SUPPER

The day  – 80 years ago this week – my great grandfather ‘died’

By Jonathan Feldstein

Painful Portrait. The writer’s great grandparents, the Birnbach’s, murdered in Poland in 1942.

It was the foresight of his great-grandparents to start getting their children out of Poland in the 1930s that the writer is alive today and can reflect from Israel that fateful terrifying ‘last’ Shabbat in 1942 when the remaining family – like all the Jews in Kańczuga – were rounded up and shot. While the bullets were German, the jeers from the those who lined up to celebrate or just watch, were Polish!

THE LAST SHABBAT SUPPER

(Click on the blue title)


LOTL Co-founders David E. Kaplan (Editor), Rolene Marks and Yair Chelouche

To unsubscribe, please reply to layotland@kenmar11





While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

The Israel Brief- 22-25 August 2022

The Israel Brief – 22 August 2022 – Hizbollah threatens Israel. Berlin police open investigation into Abbas’s comments. Bull in a bank. Complaining Bella Hadid.



The Israel Brief – 23 August 2022 – Victory over Ben and Jerry’s. Russian FM condemns Israeli airstrikes in Syria. Abbas in Turkey. First Israeli flight over Saudi Airspace.



The Israel Brief – 24 August 2022 – PM Lapid rejects meeting with Norwegian FM. Bennett appeals to Biden to not sign Iran deal. 19 envoys want clarification on NGO issue. Rocket kills Palestinian child.



The Israel Brief – 25 August 2022 – PIJ Commander charged with terror. Suspect arrested in connection with murder of young woman. Static and Ben-El split. Gal Gadot visits residents in south.





While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

MY FAVOURITE GENTLEMAN

Remembering a pioneer, a Lay of the Land writer but most of all, a wonderful gentleman and friend, Jonathan Danilowitz.

By Rolene Marks

We make a living by what we get; but we make a life by what we give”. These were iconic words once spoken by Winston Churchill. Jonathan Danilowitz epitomised this. Jonathan lived his life dedicated to helping others; and he leaves behind an extraordinary legacy.

Fought for Change. Jonathan Danilowitz fought to earn partnership benefits for gay and lesbian people in Israel.

I used to tell Jonathan he was my favourite gentleman. And he was. His quiet dignity, integrity and the elegant way that he carried himself was the embodiment of being a gentleman. In the wake of his death, the tributes coming in from all over the world were a testament to the great legacy that he leaves behind – but seldom drew attention to. This was his way of doing things – quietly making an enormous impact without wanting or needing the spotlight on him.

Born in Krugersdorp, South Africa, Jonathan made Aliyah to Israel in 1971.

Jonathan was a pioneer and made his mark in the world with his customary grace and dignity. 

Jonathan’s first job was working for El Al, the national airline as a flight attendant and would later become an in-flight manager. He would make his mark not just through sterling on-board service to his passengers; but would change the landscape for Israel’s LGBTQ+ community.

In one of Israel’s most widely publicized legal cases which made history with the precedent that it set, Jonathan sued the airline in 1989 in the Tel Aviv Regional Labour Court to receive an airline ticket for his longtime partner. For many that may seem a trivial issue to take to court but the reality for same-sex couples was very different.

The suit was filed as a response to El Al’s agreement with the Histadrut labour federation that entitled employees to two free tickets a year, one for the employee and one for his or her “spouse”. At the time this excluded same-sex couples and Jonathan fought for the right to have his same-sex partner recognized as his common-law spouse so that he would enjoy the same civil rights as his colleagues.

Flying High. The man who took Israel’s national airline all the way to the Supreme Court and won – Jonathan Danilowitz.

The case would eventually go to the Supreme Court in 1995.

The Supreme Court agreed with the National Labor Court ruling in 1992 against El Al, saying the national airline’s discrimination against Danilowitz and his partner was illegal and obliged it to grant equal benefits to LGBTQ+ partners. This ruling is considered to be a landmark case in the history of Israel and is featured in the Supreme Court Museum in Jerusalem.

Reflecting on his trailblazing legal victory in his book “Flying Colours”, Jonathan wrote:

 “Deep down inside, I harbour a chip of pride that I played a small role in the way the world views homosexuality. ‘Gay Pride’ – I savour the true meaning of those words.”

Book of Revelations. Writing of his experiences with pathos and humor, Jonathan Danilowitz cracks open the closet and many other doors in his intimate yet revealing book ‘Flying Colours’ that deals with issues ranging from Apartheid to airlines, Israel and the struggle for gay rights.

Jonathan didn’t just fight for what is right in the courtroom but also in the battlefield of public diplomacy. Jonathan, or Jonny as he was known to so many of us was a tireless advocate for Israel and Jewish issues, taking on some of the most preposterous invective with his usual aplomb. He took great pleasure in supporting many of us. I was so honoured to have Jonny in my corner, cheering me on, especially on those days when facing the tsunami of hate just became too much to bear. He would remind me exactly for what I was fighting for and I have no doubt I was not the only one.

I clearly remember attending a protest with him and how he relished being in the trenches.

Along with all of Jonny’s amazing activism, he still worked tirelessly for LGBTQ= rights and served as Chairman of Aguda, Israel’s LGBTQ= task force. In 2020, he was awarded Tel Aviv’s Yakir Ha’ir in 2020 in recognition of his struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.

Jonathan was a pioneer, a trailblazer and activist but more than that he was just a wonderful human being who enriched the lives of all of us who knew him.

“He was a life lived to its fullest, a friend to all, a loving and loved being who will be sorely missed” says cousin, Vanessa Fisher.

He will be sorely missed. Rest in peace Jonny, you remain my favourite gentleman.





While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

MUNICH METAMORPHOSIS

Images from ‘blood on the tracks’ to ‘love on the tracks’

By David E. Kaplan

Heartbreaking as it is to read the news everyday about Ukraine,  it was  heartening to see a Ukrainian grace the front page this week of The Jerusalem Post but in another context altogether. Actually, she is as much Israeli today as Ukrainian and this time it was sport rather than war that dominated the front page visuals!

As soon as I saw the smiling female athlete holding aloft in Munich, Germany the Israeli flag with outreached arms, I immediately recognised this triumphant sports lady having interviewed her some years earlier as editor for Hilton Israel Magazine. Under her delightful photo it was reported that Hanna Minenko  had won the bronze medal for Israel in the triple-jump at the 2022 European Athletics Championships, adding a fifth medal to what had become by far Israel’s best-ever showing at the major event. And it was to improve even more.

V for Victory. Former Ukrainian flashing the victory sign for Israel in Munich.

My mind drifted back to 2016 when Minenko – together with her husband former Israeli decathlon champion Anatoly-Minenko entered the lobby of the Hilton Tel Aviv for the interview. All eyes followed her and for obvious reason. Striking, statuesque and slim, the then 26 year-old was wearing an attractive tight-fitting dress revealing the long legs that had been taking the long and triple jumper at great lengths to new heights.

In early 2016, Minenko had only been living in Israel for three years and already held the national record in both the triple jump and long jump. The local media hailed  her as the best ever Israel female track and field athlete. In August the previous year, she had established a personal best of 14.78 meters (m) in the triple jump while winning the silver medal at the 2015 World Athletics Championships in Beijing.

Smiling lovingly at her husband while affectionately clutching his hand, she said:

 “I first fell in love with my Israeli, then I fell in love with Israel.”

It had been a case of ‘Love on the Tracks’ – literally!

Anatoly, who was originally from Kazakhstan arrived in Israel in 1997 at the age of ten with his parents. Fast forward the athletes met for the first time years later at a training camp in Yalta, where Hanna says:

He impressed me by the way he was dancing at the disco. He is a very good dancer and thereafter, we stayed in touch through Skype and emails.”

We have a Liftoff. “While many long and the triple jumpers focus on going for height, I concentrate on the speed of my run up,” says Hanna Minenko. “I capitalise on my best asset – my long legs.”

When Anatoly later proposed to Hanna on her birthday at a restaurant in Tel Aviv “it was not easy for me to make up my mind to settle in Israel. People in the Ukraine said there were lots of problems, it’s dangerous, there’s war and conflict; no sort of normal life.”

However, like most visitors to Israel who soon discover that Israel is far removed from what they read about in newspapers or see on television, “I was so amazed when we got married and I came to live here. Life here is wonderful and exciting. I love the atmosphere, the culture, the food and most of all – the people who are warm and so much friendlier than in the Ukraine where life is economically difficult. This country is a success and it shows in the people and their lifestyles. I’m very happy with our home in north Tel Aviv, not far from my club – Maccabi Tel Aviv.”

The strange thing about observations and perceptions is that if Hanna’s family were worried for her all those years back living in Israel, it is Hanna who must be worried for her family today in Ukraine!

I asked her what were her favourite Israeli foods to which she rattled off:

Hummus, falafel, pita, Israeli salads and fruits – all the popular dishes.”

‘Street Food’, I noted and asked, “Don’t you have to watch your diet?

The food is mostly healthy here,” she replied.” It is much easier to keep your weight down in Israel than in the Ukraine, where it is so cold for most of the year that you eat heavier and fattening food, exercise less, and are largely housebound because of the bad weather. Here in Israel – with a predominantly warm climate – your intake of food is less because you don’t feel the need to consume so much, and what’s more, you spend more time outdoors working it off. This place is ideal. My message to Ukrainians: If you want to lose weight and enjoy eating – visit Israel.”

In the three years that Hanna had been in Israel she learnt Hebrew. With so active a schedule, I asked how she managed it?

Well, Anatoly was little help because together we speak Russian.  And when I arrived, I only spent a month at the Ulpan learning Hebrew because I had to train most of the day and was frequently abroad competing. So what did I do? I listened to Israeli pop music and picked up the language and the intonations. For this I must thank Arik Einstein and Shlomo Artzi. It’s the best way – and of course watching TV – to pick up the language and absorb the culture.”

So from popping the question to pop music, Hanna was proudly Israeli and said:

I love the people here so much and my way of expressing my feelings is by standing proudly on the podiums at international sports events.”

She had again that opportunity this week in Munich, which for Israelis, seeing their national flag flying proudly in the Bavarian capital had special significance. After all, Munich had been the capital of the Nazi movement where Adolf Hitler and members of his inner circle, people like Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring, began their notorious political careers. It was where Hitler and his fellow fascists attempted in the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, a failed coup d’état to take control of Munich and where, at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, 11 Israeli sportsman were taken hostages by Palestinian terrorist. All of them were murdered.

Murder in Munich. Israeli victims of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre(Photo: Courtesy of the Olympic Committee of Israel)

These are the negative images that are implanted in the minds of Israelis, so seeing the flag of the Jewish state paraded victoriously in this symbolic city sent a message as much about the athletes in blue and white as the country they represent.  If in Munich in the early 1920s seeds were sown to exterminate the Jewish people, a century later in 2022, Jews representing their national homeland  were winning medals.

One of the last comments of Hanna in the 2016 interview was to “be an example to the young generation” and “what would make me even happier–would be hearing ‘Hatikva’ at the podiums”.

Well, Israel’s national anthem was heard loud and clear this week in Munich when Israeli Olympian gymnast, Artem Dolgopyat, despite an injured leg, won gold, affirming Israel’s increasing ascendancy in international sport.

Strikes Gold. Israel’s Artem Dolgopyat celebrates his gold in the men’s floor exercise final event at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Munich, Germany, on August 21, 2022. (Ina Fassbender/ AFP)

Interestingly, Artem, like Hanna, was also born in the Ukraine. Together, these Ukrainians are both taking Israel to new heights.

While Hanna continues jumping for glory, Israelis will be jumping for joy!



“Israel’s Fastest Woman”. A month after winning bronze at the World Marathon Championships in Eugene, Oregon, Kenyan-born Israeli, Lonah Chemtai-Salpeter‘s wins another bronze in the 2022 European Championship 10,000 meters in Munich.





While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

THE LAST SHABBAT SUPPER

The day  – 80 years ago this week – my great grandfather ‘died’

By Jonathan Feldstein

The reality is that my great grandparents didn’t just die, they were murdered. They were two of six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their willing accomplices throughout Europe. And it wasn’t just the two of them, but their children and grandchildren, and scores of cousins, nieces and nephews, and neighbors. They were lined up and shot in a communal grave on the outskirts of Kańczuga, the Polish town in which they lived and raised their families for generations. Their murder took place 80 years ago this week.

Painfull Portrait. The writer’s great grandparents, Shalom Yaakov and Dreizel Birnbach who 80 years ago this week were – together their children, grandchildren, and rest of their family murdered in Poland during the Holocaust. (Family collection).
 

We know what happened from the testimonies and writings of some who had escaped, or those who were deported earlier and survived. Survivors communicated with their neighbors years later. My great aunt told me she would write to the mayor of Kanczuga after the war, sending along care packages as a bribe for him to provide information, any information, about her parents, siblings, and nieces and nephews. Even if what he said was partly fabricated as the historical record seems to demonstrate, it gave her some sense of closure. 

When the war ended, some survivors came back to Kańczuga to look for other survivors, and try to start their lives over in the only place they knew as home.  Several Jews who returned were murdered by their Polish neighbors in a pogrom that took place in April 1945, after the war officially ended. I knew the three young men who buried the victims and extricated the survivors to safety from their Polish neighbors threatening to finish the job. As old men, they shared vivid details with me. Willie Kramberg, with whom I became close, was always “happy” to do so, but prefaced that he won’t sleep for three days as a result of reliving the horrors.

Jewish Life Deleted. The Dzikower Synogogue at the intersection of Sawicki and Wegierska streets in Kańczuga in 1941 (top) and a store in 2019 (bottom). (Courtesy Collection of the Switalski Family)

I have written and spoken about my family’s life, and death, in Kańczuga many times.  I heard stories from my grandmother and great aunt, about their parents, siblings, and nieces and nephews. Though I have never been there, Kanczuga is part of my family’s history, but in the distant rear-view mirror. I have a sense of nostalgia for this place which I have never visited, in which my family lived for generations, yet no urgent desire to do so. 

I am grateful that my great grandparents had the sense to begin to get their children out of Poland in the 1930s.  But now, as a grandfather, close in age to that of my great grandparents were when they were murdered, I look back and weep at how painful it must have been not to be able to save everyone much less themselves.  They knew they needed to get their families out of Poland, that time was running out even before the Nazis arrived, but didn’t know when that time would be. Until that last Shabbat, when the Jews of Kańczuga were rounded up and massacred, I suspect they did everything they could to save their family.

Futures Denied. Some six years later, most of these happy faces of Jewish youth taken in Kańczuga in June 25, 1934 would be no more. (Laufer family collection)

Shabbat is a joyous day to celebrate surrounded by family. The sense of helplessness that must have overcome them in those last hours, on their last Shabbat, is incomprehensible as I think about what happened that Saturday 80 years ago. 

The Jewish community had been rounded up and crammed into one of the synagogues.  A hot August day with many times more people packed in than the building was built for. I don’t know if they were told they were being “deported” and given any hope, or not.  I just know how they perished.

While the bullets were German, the jeers from the those lined up to celebrate, or just watch, were Polish. If they were close enough to the Poles, no doubt my relatives saw neighbors they had known all their lives. The Nazis needed wagons and the like to move the Jews from the synagogue in the center of town to the communal grave that the men had been forced to dig outside the town. The Nazis didn’t just bring in their trucks and buses to deport Jews when they invaded. In many places they were forced to walk kilometers to their death, or carted out of town as it might be too “unpleasant” to massacre hundreds or more people too much in public. Where vehicles were needed, they were borrowed or requisitioned from the local Poles, often with the Polish “driver” leading his own horse to carry away his neighbors to their death.

From a Symbol of Life to a Symbol of Death. The ‘Great Synagogue’ – also known as the ‘New Synagogue’ – that was in construction before the outbreak of World War II was a source of great pride to the Jewish community of Kańczuga, until it was transformed into a symbol of Jewish extermination. Around 200 Jews were rounded up in the synagogue before their execution in Siedleczka in August 1942. One wonders what lessons have been learned seeing the antisemitic graffiti on the wall.(Courtesy Laufer Family Collection)
 

I met Benny Schanzer decades ago. He was a teenager when he was being deported 80 years ago.  He shared with me that my great grandmother, Dreizel, saved his life by telling him simply, “You’re too young”.  I don’t know if my great grandmother had any hope for herself or any of her family being saved even at those last horrible moments. She knew the end was near. Benny understood, escaped, and survived to tell me the story decades later.

Before the war and the Holocaust, Kanczuga had about 1000 Jews, representing between a third to half of the population.  There were instances of Jews and the mostly Catholic Poles getting along including attending school, doing business, even serving in civic capacities together.  Antisemitism existed as it did throughout Europe, largely but not exclusively due to Catholic teaching about the Jews.  That sowed the fertile ground in which antisemitism thrived. My grandmother used to me that the ground was soaked in our blood.  She did not mean it metaphorically. Antisemitism didn’t always involve overt persecution, but it was pervasive to the degree that at least my great grandparents had the sense and ability to be able to get four of their children out of Poland. And that when the Jewish community was being deported to their death, local Polish neighbors celebrated, and then took the homes and property of the Jews who once lived next to them.

As a result of four children surviving then, I am here. Including my brothers, our wives, children, and grandchildren we are 22 people. 80 years is not that long ago, but it feels like ancient history.  It’s a significant milestone we cannot let pass without remembering our relatives who were murdered, and honoring the survivors, thanks to whom we are here. 

A Relic of Jewish Life. Following their mass murder, a reminder of a vibrant Jewish life is revealed in these sad remains of a Kańczuga Jewish newspaper.

This year dozens of descendants of the former Kanczuga Jewish community will gather virtually from at least three continents, to remember.  We represent one very small group of descendants of one very small Jewish community, in one very small Polish village.  And my family, a few dozen within that one small town, whose matriarch and patriarch did everything possible to have their children survive. On that level, the incomprehensible number of six million becomes real. 

It’s the sum of hundreds of thousands of entire families, like mine.



You’re invited to join the memorial for the Jewish community of Kanczuga, Monday, September 5 at 9:00pm Israel time, 2:00pm Eastern/11:00am Pacific (US), to remember the victims and honor the survivors who suffered so much but thanks to whom we are here.


About the writer:

Jonathan Feldstein ­­­­- President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians – is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Jornal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.





While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

Lay of the Land Weekly Newsletter- 21 August 2022

Unveiling the contours and contrasts of an ever-changing Middle East landscape Reliable reportage and insightful commentary on the Middle East by seasoned journalists from the region and beyond

Home

To subscribe via email please send a mail noting your request to: layotland@gmail.com 

Please visit/ join/follow our social media platforms:

 Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/LotLSite/

Twitter: Lay Of The Land – @layoftheland5

Also available on YouTube @The Israel Brief  – Simply click on the red subscribe button to receive alerts when a new report is posted.



What’s happening in Israel today? See from every Monday – Thursday LOTL’s The Israel Brief broadcasts and on our Facebook page and YouTube by seasoned TV & radio broadcaster, Rolene Marks familiar to Chai FM listeners in South Africa and millions of American listeners to the News/Talk/Sports radio station  WINA, broadcasting out of Virginia, USA.

THE ISRAEL BRIEF

(Click on the blue title)




Articles

(1)

THREE DECADES LATER

The long arm of Iranian injustice takes out famed writer’s eye

By David E. Kaplan

Lethal Outreach. The Iranian republic has the same nefarious intentions towards the Jewish state as it has to Salmon Rushdie.

There is no time limit on Iranian threats as Salman Rushdie was ruthlessly reminded and which Israel needs no reminder.  When Iran bellows “DEATH TO ISRAEL”, exhibits the Star of David on its paraded missiles and is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, Israelis are not duped by false façades at the Iran nuclear talks in Vienna.

THREE DECADES LATER

(Click on the blue title)



(2)

THE FATAL FLAWS OF THE ONE-STATE SOLUTION

Finding a solution – reappraising the Israel-Palestinian impasse

By Samuel Hyde

Searching for Solutions. The ‘Two-State Solution’ vs the ‘One-State Solution’ have both its attractors and detractors.

Since the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991, Palestinian leaders have walked away from every deal on the table because any “solution” that does not lead to the dissolution of Israel is ipso facto rejected. Currently compounding this process are present proposals from proponents of one-statism which are for the writer, more “ideological” than “well-reasoned”. Israel is not obliged to commit suicide!

THE FATAL FLAWS OF THE ONE-STATE SOLUTION

(Click on the blue title)



(3)

5 EU COUNTRIES THAT SHOULDN’T BE THROWING STONES

Accusing Russia of rewriting the Holocaust for its current propaganda is fair – but not when you’ve always whitewashed the Holocaust for your own purposes

By Dr. Efraim Zuroff

Participating in Ponary. Lithuanian collaborators enthusiastically guard Jews before their execution at Ponary, Lithuania.

While the Russians are manipulating history to justify its invasion of Ukraine, the plea by Eastern Europe leaders to set the record straight is in the words of the writer “the height of hypocrisy and chutzpah.” These are the very same countries guilty of creating false narratives of events in the Holocaust to cover up its own complicity in the systematic mass murder of Jews.

5 EU COUNTRIES THAT SHOULDN’T BE THROWING STONES

(Click on the blue title)



LOTL Cofounders David E. Kaplan (Editor), Rolene Marks and Yair Chelouche

To unsubscribe, please reply to layotland@kenmar11





While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).


THREE DECADES LATER

The long arm of Iranian injustice takes out famed writer’s eye

By David E. Kaplan

Be warned – those that stab you in the eye will have no compunction to stabbing you in the back. This is the cautionary message to those participants in the Iran nuclear deal from the murderous attack on Sir Salman Rushdie!

Marked Man. Living with a bounty on his head since 1989, Sir Salman Rushdie was stabbed onstage multiple times as he was about to give a public lecture in 14 August 2022 at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua , New York. [File: Charly Triballeau/AFP]

There is no time limit on an Iranian threat to inflict harm; whether on an individual or a country. This is why Israelis are observing the ongoing Rushdie affair through a microscope and not rose-tinted spectacles. They understand clearly the razor sharp message delivered on August 12, 2022,  in a place few outside the USA have ever even heard of –  Chautauqua, New York and they worry about allowing a menace state to get hold of menacing weapons. Particularly when the intended recipient of Iran’s venom is the world’s only Jewish state. For a people that failed to heed the warnings in the 20th century are not going to make the same mistake in the 21st century. Jews today take it very seriously when Iran bellows “DEATH TO ISRAEL”, exhibits the Star of David on its paraded missiles and is HELL-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.

The Writing is on the Missiles. What could be clearer of Iran’s intentions when “Death to Israel” is plastered on its Islamic Revolution Guards Corps’ missiles?

While much of the ‘civilised’ world was horrified at the stabbing of Indian-born British-American novelist Salman Rushdie on a public stage, what was Iran response? Afterall, the attempted murderer, 24 year-old Hadi Matar, was specifically carrying out the fatwa (religious edict) delivered on the 14 February 1989 by the then world’s most prominent Shi’a Muslim leader and the Supreme Leader of Iran. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The edict  called for the death of Rushdie and his publishers. 

Words Kill. Born in the US to Lebanese parents who emigrated from Yaroun, a border village in Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon,  Hadi Matar arrives for an arraignment in the Chautauqua County Courthouse in Mayville, N.Y.(Gene J. Puskar / AP)

Iran blamed the victim – Rushdie! He had it coming; he deserved it.

Extensively commenting on the attack, Iranian media were calling the attempted murder “divine retribution“, while the state broadcaster daily, Jaam-e Jam, highlighted the news of Rushdie might losing an eye with this tasteless admonishment:

an eye of the Satan has been blinded“.

It was a play on words following Rushdie’s famed novel ‘The Satanic Verses’.

Matar’s Mug Shots. Facing charges of attempted murder and assault of author Salman Rushdie, Hadi Matar is reported in a New York Post interview saying that “I respect the Ayatollah. I think he’s a great person”.

So while Rushdie – widely regarded as one of Britain’s finest living writers – was knighted for his contribution to the arts in 2008 by Queen Elizabeth II by the traditional placing of a sword on his shoulder, the long arm of Iran instead inserted a knife into the esteemed writer’s eye.

Despite Iran’s fingerprints found glaring at the scene of the crime in Chautauqua, the Islamic republic not only denies any culpability but  accuses the victim and his supporters. Is this a country we are seriously believing will engage honestly regarding the nuclear deal that has existential ramifications for Israel, the region and the world?

Marking the country’s first public reaction to the Rushdie attack, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said the following In a televised news:

Regarding the attack on Salman Rushdie, we do not consider anyone other than [Rushdie] and his supporters worth of blame and even condemnation.”

Dead Set to Kill. Iranian women are seen on February 17, 1989, holding banners reading “Holly Koran” and “Kill Salman Rushdie” during a demonstration against British writer Salman Rushdie in Tehran. (Norbert Schiller/AFP)

Kanaani should have been reminded that on 14 February 2006, the Iranian state news agency reported that “the fatwa will remain in place permanently”. The following year, Rushdie reported that he was still receiving a “sort of Valentine’s card” from Iran each year on 14 February letting him know the country has not forgotten the vow to kill him.

It was a vow they kept – thankfully not successfully –   on August 12, 2022, and Rushdie is thought likely to lose sight in one eye as well as suffering nerve damage in his arm and liver.

Is Iran’s theocratic leadership ever to be believed and trusted, particularly as the country wants to make good on its promises, not only to kill Rushdie but to wipe out Israel?

Rogues Gallery. A view of banners depicting Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in the Lebanese town of Yaroun, where the parents of the attempted killer of Rushdie emigrated to the US from. (August 15, 2022. REUTERS/Issam Abdallah)

Since being elected Supreme Leader in 1989 – taking over from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini – Ayatollah Sayyed Ali  Khamenei has made it crystal clear he wants Israel – as a country – to disappear.

On December 4, 1990, he expressed:

Regarding the Palestine issue, the problem is taking back Palestine, which means disappearance of Israel. There is no difference between occupied territories before and after [the Arab-Israeli war of] 1967. Every inch of Palestinian land is an inch of Palestinians’ home. Any entity ruling Palestine is illegitimate unless it is Islamic and by Palestinians. Our position is what our late Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] said, “Israel must disappear.”

Doubling down on Iran’s commitment to hasten the demise of the Jewish state, Khamenei on August 19, 1991, expressed:

“. . . Our view regarding the Palestine issue is clear. We believe the solution is destroying the Israeli regime. Forty years has passed [since establishment of the state of Israel], and if another forty years passes, Israel must disappear, and will.”

Iran’s obsessional determination to expunge  Israel from the map has persisted unabated.

In the opening speech to an international conference in support of the Palestinians’ Intifada on April 22, 2001, Khamenei endeavours to mobalise the Muslim world to the mission of destroying “the Zionist regime”:.

He tells his listeners:

 “rest assured that if even a portion of the Islamic world’s resources is devoted to this path [Intifada], we will witness the decay and eventual disappearance of the Zionist regime.”

“Israel must Disappear”. Ayatollah Khamenei has made it crystal clear he wants Israel to disappear having expressed: “Any entity ruling Palestine is illegitimate unless it is Islamic and by Palestinians. Our position is what our late Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] said, “Israel must disappear.”

A decade later in a Friday prayer sermon on February 3, 2012, the Supreme Leader addressing past and future Iranian involvement in anti-Israel activities, expressed explicitly that Israel must not be allowed to survive:

“We have intervened in the anti-Israel struggle, and the results have been the victories in the 33 days war [the 2006 war with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon] and the 22 days war [Israel’s attacks on the Gaza strip in December 2008]. From now on we will also support any nation, any group that confronts the Zionist regime; we will help them, and we are not shy about doing so. Israel will go, it must not survive, and it will not.”

When it comes to ending Israel, there is no letup in warning signs. If the Nazi imagery of the Jew was that of the rodent, for the Iranian leadership it is a “cancerous tumor” that “must be removed”. Speaking at a meeting on June 4, 2013, about the steadfastness of his predecessor Ayatollah Ruhhollah Khomeini – the man who issued the apostasy fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the present Ayatollah said:  

our magnanimous Imam is the person who never changed his mind about the Zionist regime; that ‘the Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor that must be removed’.”

For Iran’s leadership, there will never be an acceptance of the Jewish state. It is in their words, “a tumor that must be removed.”

Is it any wonder that Israelis are warry of the future when they read recent headlines in The New York Times:

Some Glimmers of Optimism About Iran Nuclear Deal.

You won’t find too many Israelis feeling positive about an Iran that is as dead set on ending the existence of Israel as it is dead set on possessing nuclear weapons.

Iran Calling the ‘Shots’? Iran wants compensation if US pulls out of nuclear deal again.

And what is the current status of the deal that at best is little more than kicking the can down the road to confront a nuclear Iran later?

Well, instead of iron clad assurances from Iran, what is apparently holding up the deal is not a worried world seeking assurances but a Tehran seeking guarantees that it will be compensated if a future US president pulls out! For Iran it is all about resuscitating its economy and that means the removal of the sanctions regime.

Hadi Matar in court accused of attempting to murder Salman Rushdie

However, in the wake of the US withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Accord, Iran has increasingly violated the agreements it made under the deal and expanded its nuclear programme.

If Iran wants these sanctions lifted, they will need to alter their underlying conduct; they will need to change the dangerous activities that gave rise to these sanctions in the first place,” the State Department spokesperson, Ned Price, said at a recent briefing.

Does anyone really believe that Iran will “change its dangerous activities”?

Would love to get Salman Rushdie’s take on this!





While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

The Israel Brief- 15-18 August 2022

The Israel Brief – 15 August 2022 – Terror attack in Jerusalem. IDF foils terror tunnel. Melbourne University Student Union passes BDS motion. Celebrating 2 years of the Abraham Accords.



The Israel Brief – 16 August 2022 – IDF soldier killed in tragic incident. Gaza residents confirm IDF claim of misfired PIJ rockets. Israel wants UN official reinstated. Israel wins gold in Munich. All this on the Israel Brief.



The Israel Brief – 17 August 2022 – Abbas appalling Holocaust comments – updates. Turkey and Israel restore full diplomatic relations. Israel appeals to Russia to postpone JAFI hearing. Israel wins gold!



The Israel Brief – 18 August 2022 – German Chancellor Scholtz speaks to PM Lapid. Did PIJ operatives refuse to enter tunnels? Did IDF strike a third country? Will Britain move it’s embassy to Jerusalem?






While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).

THE FATAL FLAWS OF THE ONE-STATE SOLUTION

By Samuel Hyde

Proposals of single-state arrangements have been presented to leaders from as early as the 19th century and consistently rejected by both the Jews and Arabs of the land. Therefore the notion that the conflict stems from attempts to partition the land is nothing short of ahistorical, and presenting the one-state idea as new, is nothing short of deceptive.

Over recent years, versions of single-state arrangements have been promoted in dozens of books and hundreds, perhaps thousands of articles and opinion pieces. These one-state arguments are often presented with an aura of sophistication and unconventionality, making them sound appealing. Yet, in truth, one-statism is more an expression of an ideological pursuit or political desperation than a well-reasoned proposal.

Searching for Solutions. ‘Two-State Solution’ may be arduous, but ‘One-State Solution’ appears both unwelcome and unworkable.

Those bursting at the seams of the one-state idea as if it is hot off the press are frequently disingenuous about the motivations that drive their intentions. The people puppeting this idea tend to drift within fringe elements of Western intellectual circles with an already unfavorable attitude toward the Jewish state or in the ideologically driven messianic Israeli right who seek sovereignty over the entire land due to religious dogma.

Both groups claim to despise the other, yet for differing but predaceous reasons, they have reached a consensus – the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot succeed, shouldn’t succeed, and that there should be no further attempts because the idea of partition itself is unjust. This is simply a lazy conclusion. Failure to deliver a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could only count as evidence of the infeasibility of the two-state solution if the process itself were not flawed. The peace process, however, has been so flagrantly flawed that finding fault in the proposed two-state solution amounts to the de-facto exoneration of Palestinian rejection and diplomatic mismanagement.

From Here to – hopefully not – Eternity.  May a solution finally find favor.

In theory, the one-state idea is utopian. In actuality, it is disastrous. It has no support among the vast majority of Jewish-Israelis or Israeli-Arab leaders. In terms of the Palestinians, a study conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research found that only 6% support a single state with equal rights for all.

Young activists, favorable to the preaching of the Israeli messianic right, dress up their talk of the one-state paradigm as the only authentic way for both peoples to achieve justice and reach peace. Oddly, they have concluded that the maximalist vision of the Palestinians – a Palestinian state “from the River to the Sea” could find harmony alongside the Jewish maximalist vision of a Jewish state “from the River to the Sea”. But one could only reach this conclusion if they were to negate the core principle as to why these two maximalist visions exist.

From the Jewish-Israeli perspective, this vision is unique because it is held solely by a fractional minority of the population – Yesha, the settler movement, and their supporters. In this view, there is no acceptable Jewish sovereignty without the wholeness of the land and no acceptable sovereignty in the land unless it is Jewish. From the Palestinian perspective, this maximalist vision is the driving force behind what has always been the Palestinian cause – no Jewish state within any borders – “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

There is no synchronous element to the attitudes behind these two visions. Both movements are negative in nature, preferring to deny the other’s rights and sovereignty above advancing their own.

On the one hand, you have a movement of Israelis who want to settle the land to spur on the messianic dream. On the other, the Palestinians, who believe their claim to the land is exclusive and supreme over that of the Israelis. In both of these visions, neither side dreams of, nor is willing to concede political independence, power, and state-governance to the other.

This optimism surrounding the potential coexistence of Palestinians and Israelis in one state is particularly unwarranted as binational and multinational arrangements show strain elsewhere. If aspirations for self-determination are strong enough to currently challenge the cohesion of developed countries such as Belgium, Spain, and Canada, even without a backdrop of conflict, why try it between two belligerent parties who are actively engaged in conflict? The two peoples in Belgium have very few cultural, historical, and social distinctions between them. Jews and Arabs, on the other hand, do not share a religion, language, institutions, a common historical experience, model figures, or social structures. The failure of the binational model in Belgium is thus all the more damning to any reasoning for implementing this idea between Israelis and Palestinians. Given the profound animosity and distrust due to religious, political, and social divisions between Palestinians and Israelis, the internal ethnic violence that tore apart Yugoslavia and has caused perpetual strife in Lebanon and Iraq is more probable than this fantastical presentation.

On the opposite side of the fence, one encounters people such as Peter Beinart and his comrades who seek to mobilize a one-state movement on the Western left.

Ideological Cul-de-sac. Once an outspoken advocate of 2 states, Peter Beinart has abandoned the concept for a binational state, saying it’s time to ditch Jewish-Palestinian separation ‘and embrace the goal of Jewish-Palestinian equality’.
 

Why should Beinart be entertained with the technicalities of his unoriginal proposal when Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi presented the same plan in a 2009 New York Times essay. Nonetheless, it is critical to grasp what this idea might cause if it were to receive the desired mass backing under the prying prelude of ‘human rights’.

Beinart’s arrival at the one-state solution rests on the idea that Israeli settlements have extended too far into the West Bank for prospects of a peaceful two-state solution. Yet, this is nothing more than a deceptive ploy.

The Jewish settlement system included 451,257 Israeli residents as of 2020. In recent years, the nominal growth of the Jewish population in the West Bank has stabilized at around 13,000 people. The yearly growth rate peaked at 16 percent in 1991 and has since declined, hitting 2.24 percent in 2021. According to three recent surveys, extrapolated from Shaul Arieli’s report “Deceptive Appearances” – the majority of settlers are pragmatic. Even if they disagree with the evacuation of settlements, they will accept the decision if it is sanctioned by a government decision and/or referendum as part of a peace accord. The Israeli NGO Blue White Future’s 2021 Voluntary Evacuation Survey gives solid evidence that 30 percent of the settlers east of the barrier would be willing to leave if sanctioned by the government even without a peace agreement. Less than one-third of the settlers subscribe to the maximalist vision of Yesha’s Greater Israel ideology, of that one-third, only a fractional minority claim they would resist with violence. And yet, the same threats were shouted from the mountain tops by this radical minority regarding the Sinai exchange and the Gaza disengagement; decades later, everyone in Israel is still awaiting the proclaimed violent resistance.

Whenever Israel felt reasonably confident that negotiators grasped the security threat and believed in the moral necessity of a Jewish state, it has been most willing to make territorial concessions. This was evident in the peace offerings by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert in 2000 and 2008 which would have birthed a sovereign Palestinian state thereby ending the occupation, with no settlements, and a capital in East Jerusalem. The Palestinians rejected these offers.

Similarly, George W. Bush‘s administration achieved more territory withdrawals by keeping Israel near and appreciating the risks it faced than Barack Obama‘s government did by deliberately attempting to keep distance between his administration and Jerusalem.

Israel illustrated its willingness once again in the negotiations of the Abraham Accords. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came close to or at least threatened to unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank. The stipulations made by the UAE for normalization with the Jewish state were clear from the start – all attempts at annexation must be ended. Almost instantaneously, Netanyahu, whose support base tends to be more favorable to the settlement movement, flushed annexation down the toilet simply to open flight paths between Dubai and Tel Aviv. That’s all it took.

The rupture of the settler dream has always been the two-state solution, so by sinking their teeth into the one-state idea, Beinart and friends have unwittingly become concubines to the goals of the Israeli messianic right they purport to despise.

Continuing to drive the one-state idea also has a detrimental effect on the Palestinians. Over a hundred Palestinians were killed in clashes on the Gaza border in 2018 and 2019 as they demanded their “right of return” to pre-1967 Israel – an action indicative of the Palestinian maximalist vision. Unlike the surrender of settlements, which Israel has proved willing to forgo for peace, as in the cases of Sinai and Gaza, “return” is the one demand that no Israeli government can accept if the Jewish fabric of the country is to be safeguarded. It should be noted that there is no legal “right” for Palestinians, by any international standards, to settle within Israel’s sovereign territory. Anyone who demands that Israel withdraw from parts or all of the West Bank must therefore equally demand the Palestinians relinquish the so-called right of return. These one-state advocates achieve the exact opposite.

There is no precedent under international law to force Israel and Palestine into a single state framework without the consent of both parties. Seeming both have consistently rejected the idea for well over a century, any attempt to do so at a political level effectively violates international law itself.

Yet, if Israelis and Palestinians are to consent to a joint political venture, both would need absolute certainty that their rights as individuals and as a collective would be protected. If either of the peoples believe that the other is not their equal, they will merely use the state’s system as a means to oppress or push the other people out of the territory.

According to a recent study, the most significant component for Israelis to uphold and maintain is democracy. When Western intellectuals advocate for a one-state solution while demanding that Israel maintain its democratic fiber, despite Arabs quickly becoming the majority and Jews a minority in a combined Israel-Palestine, due to immigration and growth rates, the onus of responsibility lies solely with the Arabs.

Since Jews have never been recognized as equal to the Arabs in any country where they have resided as a minority, Jews have every right to wonder if they will be treated fairly and equally under a single Arab majority state. After all, the Jews would be relinquishing their universal right to self-determination in a nation state of their own to live in one-state with the Arabs.

Unfortunately, there is little in today’s Arab-Palestinian society which inspires confidence that they are yielding a path to progress that includes protecting minority rights.

Are one-staters capable of providing proof without a shadow of a doubt that Jews will not be treated as dhimmis (a non-Muslim “protected person” in the Ottoman Empire) or ethnically cleansed as they were for centuries under an Arab majority? No.

In the same study, democracy ranked as the least important element of the settler movement, with Jewish sovereignty over the entire land taking precedence above all. As a result, the Arabs have every reason to wonder how they, as the majority population, will be protected in the settler vision of Jewish control over the entire land. What would it mean for the majority Arab population if this vision came true? To retain Jewish political control, would they be denied the ability to vote? In practice, what does a minority population reigning over a majority population with an anti-democratic attitude sound like? – Apartheid

An additional argument made by the Palestinians are concerns that in a single state where Jews effectively hold all political and economic power, there will be zero incentive to improve the lives of the Arabs, as is the current case in Jerusalem.

Are the settler activists able to prove without a shadow of a doubt that in their vision this will not be the ultimate fate of the Arabs? No.

To this argument, one-staters choose to deflect and deny, either missing the boat entirely or aiming at the wrong target altogether. They make the case that no one can determine such outcomes while no actual political moves have been made towards the one state paradigm. Yet, that is precisely the point, no political moves have been made towards this “solution” despite endless proposals for well over a century, because Israel is not suicidal.

The advocates of the one-state “solution” are blinded by ideology, lack an articulate resolution program, geopolitical strategies, and any robust policy proposals. Because of that the one-state paradigm would merely act as a spring-board from which a mirror of the Balkan war would erupt and serve to change the name from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the Jewish-Arab civil war. Despite its branding campaign, the one state paradigm is neither new nor a solution. It is simply fit to be dubbed the old and never ending delusion.


About the writer:

Samuel Hyde is a writer/research fellow at the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance, based in Tel Aviv, Israel. He is a contributing writer/editor of the book “We Should All Be Zionists” with former Israeli Knesset member Dr Einat Wilf.






While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).