The 10 Most Important Arguments in Defense of Israel’s Right to Exist

1

The Jewish People Have a Right to a Country of their own in Their Historic Homeland.

Jewish civilization and national identity were formed over three thousand years ago in the Land of Israel. While most Jews were forced to live elsewhere they always struggled to return. The Jewish people are indigenous to the Land of Israel; they have always dreamed of freedom in their own land. Israel is 1/800 the size of the Arab world. There are 67 Raman Catholic majority countries, 49 Islamic, 49 Protestant, 14 Eastern Orthodox, 3 Hindu, and only 1 Jewish! – JVL

2

The Jewish People have Maintained a Continuous Presence in the Land of Israel.

A common misperception is that all the Jews were forced into exile by the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E. and then, 1,800 years later, the Jews suddenly returned to Palestine demanding their country back. In reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years. No matter how far we were scattered, we never gave up our rights or desire to return.

Even after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and the beginning of the exile, Jewish life in the Land of Israel continued and often flourished. Large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem andTiberias by the ninth century. In the 11th century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffaand Caesarea. The Crusaders massacred many Jews during the 12th century, but the community rebounded in the next two centuries as large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee. Prominent rabbis established communities in Safed, Jerusalem and elsewhere during the next 300 years. – JVL

3

The Jewish People Settled and Developed the Land.

By the early 19th century—years before the birth of the modern Zionist movement—more than 10,000 Jews lived throughout what is today Israel. The 78 years of nation-building, beginning in 1870, culminated in the reestablishment of the Jewish State.

When many Jewish people returned to the Promised Land in 1800s it was dry and barren. Today more than half of Israel is still desert. But as the Bible says, Israelis are finding unique ways to make the desert bloom and prosper. “We are not the first but maybe one of the first nations ever who really found the way to cultivate the desert and make it bloom,” said Alon Badihi, executive director of the Jewish National Fund. JNF has developed and forested the land of Israel for more than 100 years. –CBN

4

“Palestine” was NEVER an Arab Country.

The term “Palestine” is believed to be derived from the Philistines, an Aegean people who, in the 12th Century B.C.E., settled along the Mediterranean coastal plain of what are now Israel and the Gaza Strip. In the second century C.E., after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans first applied the name Palaestinato Judea (the southern portion of what is now called the West Bank) in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. The Arabic word Filastin is derived from this Latin name.

Jewish independence in the Land of Israel lasted for more than 400 years. This is much longer than Americans have enjoyed independence in what has become known as the United States. 4 In fact, if not for foreign conquerors, Israel would be more than 3,000 years old today. Palestine was never an exclusively Arab country, although Arabic gradually became the language of most of the population after the Muslim invasions of the seventh century. No independent Arab or Palestinian state ever existed in Palestine. When the distinguished Arab-American historian, Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history, absolutely not.” Anyone who tries to convince you that Israel came and replaced and Palestinian State is simply presenting a warped version of history. – JVL

5

The International Community Granted Political Sovereignty in Palestine to the Jewish People.

International law has traditionally held that in order to be defined as a state, political communities must meet four qualifications: First, there must be a people; second, there must be a territory; third, there must be a government; and fourth, there must be a capacity to enter into relations with other states. In advocating Israel’s admission to the UN in 1948, the U.S. representative to the UN Security Council argued that Israel fulfilled these conditions. In fact, the new attacks on Israel’s rights are particularly ironic since Jewish nationhood preceded the emergence of most modern nation-states by thousands of years. Still, today’s discourse has created doubts about the basis of Jewish peoplehood and the connection of the Jewish people to Israel’s territory. Whether the new assault on Israel is a byproduct of the radical secularization of certain intellectual circles who have no understanding of Jewish history, or whether it emanates from a more insidious anti-Semitism that has been re-born, its handmaiden is the general ignorance that is rampant about Israel’s unique roots. – JVL

6

The Territory was Captured in Defensive Wars.

The Arabs made clear they would go to war to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state. The chairman of the Arab Higher Committee said the Arabs would “fight for every inch of their country.” Two days later, the holy men of Al-Azhar University in Cairo called on the Muslim world to proclaim a jihad (holy war) against the Jews. Jamal Husseini, the Arab Higher Committee’s spokesman, had told the UN prior to the partition vote the Arabs would drench “the soil of our beloved country with the last drop of our blood. . . Husseini’s prediction began to come true almost immediately after the UN adopted the partition resolution on November 29, 1947. The Arabs declared a protest strike and instigated riots that claimed the lives of 62 Jews and 32 Arabs. Violence continued to escalate through the end of the year. The first large-scale assaults began on January 9, 1948, when approximately 1,000 Arabs attacked Jewish communities in northern Palestine. By February, the British said so many Arab

Despite the disadvantages in numbers, organization and weapons, the Jews began to take the initiative in the weeks from April 1 until the declaration of independence on May 14. The Haganah captured several major towns including Tiberias and Haifa, and temporarily opened the road to Jerusalem. The partition resolution was never suspended or rescinded. Thus, Israel, the Jewish State in Palestine, was born on May 14, as the British finally left the country. Five Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq) immediately invaded Israel. Their intentions were declared by Abd Al-Rahman Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League: “It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the Crusades.” – JVL

7

Israel is the only Stable Country in the Middle East.

While the Middle East burns all arounds us, Israel is the one shining star in a sea of darkness!

8

Zionism is the National Liberation Movement of the Jewish People, Not Western Colonialism

Zionism is a modern national liberation movement whose roots go far back to Biblical times. Its purpose is to return to the Jewish people the independence and sovereignty which are the right of every people. The Jews lost that independence and sovereignty in the Judaeo-Roman war two thousand years ago.

ZIONISM differs from other national Liberation movements in its point of departure. Whereas other movements arose among peoples who, though oppressed and exploited, continued to live on their own land, Zionism had to cope with Jewry’s unique position in the world: homelessness and exile. This movement sought to introduce a fundamental change in the geo-demographic position of Jewry in the world. It meant the transfer of a whole people back to its home, the land of Israel. Palestine has never been a state with a separate identity except in the minds of the Jews — in their prayers, in their historical memory, in their hopes, and national ideology. It is the Jews, and the Jews alone, who lent a special status and gave political, religious and cultural identity to that land. For all other people who occupied the land, Palestine was merely a piece of their empire. This was the case for Rome, Byzantium, Ottoman. Even for the Crusaders, Palestine was an extension of Christian Europe. – ZOA

Palestine-Israel History

Monday, May 16, 2016