‘From the River to the Sea…’ and Other Slogans from Hell
By Jay McCarl
Have you really thought about that popular pro-Palestinian slogan, ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free’? Or how about, ‘Free Palestine!’? It abandons any further discussion of a ‘two-state solution’ (which was never a consideration in the first place—see any Palestinian Authority map). Think about it—if this slogan was ever fulfilled, it would mean that Israel has ceased to exist, whether through negotiations or war.
But how could such an arrangement be negotiated? If Israel acquiesced and reverted to ‘Palestine’—a vague territory arbitrarily defined by the British after WW1—would the Jews be permitted to continue living in the land? What about somewhere else in the region? Is it the intention of the Palestinian governing authority to allow Jews to live alongside them in peace and tranquility after decades of Israeli administration? Seriously? If the Jews were not pushed into the sea by war, they would still be forced out—but to where? Would they again be herded into Warsaw-like ghettos? Where? What country on earth would open its ports to 9 million displaced Jews? Remember the voyage of the MS St. Louis? Look it up—that infamous event involved fewer than a thousand people.
It’s a certainty that no Arab or Muslim nation would receive millions of Jewish refugees. Historically, they’ve turned out their own brothers, including Palestinian Arab refugees who fled Israel on the orders of neighboring Arab nations who were engaged in attacking Israel. What would any nation anywhere do with 9 million displaced Jews if they were forced to relocate? Would the U.S. take them in? How? Such a suggestion would (at least) shatter any remaining civility in its increasingly vicious culture war. I ask again—who would receive (much less welcome) them anywhere in the world? But the Israelis aren’t going to leave, because they can’t—there’s nowhere to go.
What is the endgame for the demonstrators crying out ‘From the River to the Sea..’ or ‘Free Palestine!’? In a word, genocide. This is precisely what these clever slogans champion—and those who align with them link arms and sing their kumbaya’s with the lethal ideologies of Hitler, Heydrich, Himmler, the Grand Mufti and the prophesied Antichrist. Turkish President Tayip Erdogan declared that ‘Israel is a terrorist state that will soon be destroyed’. This was nothing less than a call for genocide—an act in which the Turks have already proven themselves quite adept. If such slogans should ever threaten fulfillment, Israel’s response would be terrifying.
‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free’; ‘Free Palestine!’ are not just pop-cultural protests like those of the Viet-Nam war era, they mark people who are deceived or devoid of abstract thought, or worse, bent on the violent extermination of an entire ethnic group in support of a savage religious cult raging for another ‘Final Solution’.
Learn the language of Middle Eastern politics—especially of Israel’s enemies: snappy catchphrases that sell well in the west to a people prone to naively embrace catchy jingos. They have abandoned how to think—especially the students and ‘progressives’ marching backward into the medieval world.
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: An Exercise in Hypocrisy
By Lenny Wolfe, Israeli Antiquities Authority
Shortly after the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on Saturday 7th October, exactly 50 years and a day after the outbreak of the Yom Kippur I received a WhatsApp message from the son of close friends in Europe. He was concerned about the wellbeing of my family and myself. I thanked him and made some wide-ranging comments on the situation, mentioning that violence was no stranger in Islam. He accused me of making generalisations which painted me as a racist. At the same time an acquaintance of long standing said that the reason for the outrage of 7th October is the ‘occupation’, meaning Israel’s control of the West Bank and Gaza following the outcome of the Six Day War.
Immediately following the unbelievably barbaric massacre there was widespread condemnation of Hamas, and this is before the full extent of the barbarity became known. That widespread condemnation has been transformed into concern that Israel’s reaction will be disproportionate. I have been engaging with Arabs both Muslim and Christian and many other of the quaint minorities in the Middle East in addition to interested westerners for half a century. I speak a reasonable Arabic certainly enough to get into trouble, not always good enough to get out of trouble. In addition to having read widely I have an impressive collection of anecdotes and observations which I wish to employ to facilitate an understanding of the complexity of the situation here. First, I’ll deal with violence in Islamic society, which led to the accusation of my making sweeping generalisations which branded me as a racist.
Honour and dignity are of the highest importance in Muslim society. Honour killings are a common occurrence. If a Muslim woman has an extra-marital affair, she is in danger of being killed for sullying the family honour. If she is suspected of this without any proof whatsoever, her life is also in danger. Almost fifty years ago at university in Jerusalem I commented to a fellow student, a Muslim, that I noticed that he enjoys a certain success with Jewish women. If I was to have a relationship with a Muslim, the chances are that her life would be taken. Until now nearly five decades later if I see him at a lecture he looks away. On another occasion I was in a car with a villager from whom I buy antiquities. I mentioned that his cousin cheated me at the same time swearing at him. The driver rebuked me saying, “Be careful, we kill people over such slighting of honour”.
While Muslims demand respect, it in no way seems to be reciprocal. In addition to the above, the violent multiple rapings of young women on the 7th October certainly supports the last claim. There can be no greater monumental show of disdain, disrespect, and total irreverence than the demonstration of some 300,000 supporters of Palestine on Armistice Day in London, trampling the memory of British and Commonwealth soldiers who died for our freedom. Suicide bombings are regrettably a hallmark of violent conflicts where Muslims are involved, whether it be in Israel, Iraq or one of many other venues. When I mentioned this to an acquaintance who sympathises with the Palestinian cause, he reminded me that Joseph Trumpeldor, a Zionist leader who was killed at the Battle of Tel Chai in 1920 said, “It’s good to die for our country”. Trumpeldor didn’t mean that one should join the ranks of the suicide bombers, but should fight heroically and if you happen to be a casualty of the fighting then it was the result of doing a good deed.
Another point that exposes me to charges of being a racist is the following. One of the characteristics of Arabic society is a discernible chaos. In Arabic the word is ‘fauda’ and there is an Israeli television. series with that same name. In many Arab towns, cities or places where there is a large Arab population one is met with an ordered chaos. Good examples are Shepherd’s Bush and Edgeware in London, many areas of Amman in Jordan and parts of Jerusalem. At the same time the Emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the Gulf are notable exceptions. Am I a racist or am I particularly observant?
The 7th October surprise attack on the Israeli towns, kibbutzim and other villages in the region bordering the Gaza strip was an unprecedented orgy of murder, rape, burning and desecration of bodies and other wanton acts of destruction that I have still not internalized. My favorite Sura in the Koran is chapter 63, ‘The Hypocrites’. I mention that since the 7th of October the aftermath is replete with hypocrisy from both the western and the Muslim world. Immediately after the massacre there was unanimous condemnation by world leaders even from Turkey’s Erdogan, who is famed for his duplicity. Erdogan is able to rebuke Israel claiming that Hamas is a legitimate organization of resistance out of one side of his mouth while out of the other side is reviling the Kurds, fellow Sunni Muslims and sending the military to destroy them. All this is in the shadow of 1.5 million Armenians massacred by Turkey in the period leading up to 1915, and needless to say, denied by them.
I certainly disagree with the claim that all this was precipitated by the “occupation” meaning Israel’s control of the West Bank and Gaza following the Six Day War in 1967. A sensible modicum of historical depth adds much needed perspective. The period from the beginning of Islam in the 7th century till the demise of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century merits a mention but only briefly. Jews and Christians being ‘People of the Book’ (Ahl al Dhimmi) enjoyed a status whereby they paid the poll-tax, the jizyah, were exempt from the army and enjoyed the protection of the ruler. Sometimes the protection was afforded at other times certainly not. Competing heirs to the throne or Sultanate were executed, or at best kept in a golden cage—meaning that they purportedly enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle, but their movements were very restricted. Such violence and the cheapening of life was almost a hallmark of the times so we can ignore this era.
What concerns us more is the British rule in Palestine from December 1917 till May 1948. The period is replete with riots, pogroms and massacres of Jews by Arabs in 1920, 1929 and 1936. I don’t know of any warnings given by Arabs before they carried out an outrage. The Mufti, or religious head, of Jerusalem from 1921 to 1948 was Haj Amin el Husseini. His meeting Hitler in 1941, inciting the Farhud—the anti-Jewish pogrom in Iraq in 1-2nd June 1941 and establishing a Bosnian Muslim SS unit—branded him as being rabidly anti-Semitic and the worst possible choice for the appointment. Ironically, he was appointed by Herbert Samuel, the Jewish High Commissioner of Mandatory Palestine. Such a man gives no warnings.
Granted there were outrages carried out by the Jewish underground groups. However, in many instances warnings were given when civilians were in danger of being collateral damage. I can personally confirm one such warning. Adina Hai-Nissan, a member of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, phoned the King David Hotel, the adjacent French Embassy and the Palestine Post of the impending bombing. The British refused to heed the warning locking up all the employees. That the British ignored the warning resulted in 91 deaths and some 40 injured. How am I so certain that warnings were given? Adina was my erstwhile mother-in-law and I often discussed it with her.
‘Accessory after the fact’ is how I would term the media, institutions and prominent individuals that gave unbalanced coverage and spewed downright falsehoods about the situation in the Gaza envelope and the Gaza Strip. The BBC true to their venerated tradition downplayed the horrendous excesses carried out by Hamas on the 7th October. I refer to murder, rape, mutilating of bodies, burning alive, decapitation including babies, gouging out eyes and other barbaric atrocities from the repertoire of ISIS. Furthermore, the BBC termed Hamas ‘militants’ and not terrorists. Likewise, Jon Donnison, the BBC reporter, said on air after the explosion in Al Ahli Hospital that he could see no possibility other than an Israeli airstrike as the cause. It later turned out that the explosion was caused by a Hamas rocket fired close to the hospital. The rocket launchers situated themselves there knowing that Israel would not bomb a hospital.
I fully appreciate that the Prime Minister of Israel Bibi Netanyahu is much more comfortable telling outright lies than telling the truth. Nevertheless, the army and other institutions in Israel still maintain a high moral stance and experienced journalists know full well to believe them rather than Hamas and other terrorists. If the journalist or publication has an agenda, then nothing will induce honest impartial reporting. Granted a lukewarm apology was tendered the following day, but with the number of anti-Semitic incidents rising exponentially all over Europe and the USA, that doesn’t help much. The damage was done. Most of the newspapers in the purportedly liberal West stress the hardships of the civilian population in Gaza glossing over the Hamas atrocities that resulted in 1400 murdered Israelis, tourists and foreign workers on the 7th of October.
Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the UN, called Gaza a children’s graveyard but did not give a scathing condemnation of the Hamas terrorists’ atrocities of 7th of October. Regarding the UN one could say that that is par for course. Antonio, go easy on the Jews. The lucky ones were expelled from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal several years later. The unlucky ones were murdered, many in much the same way as the victims of the 7th of October. Don’t be hurt if I remind you that any Spaniard or Portuguese not descended from a Jew or Muslim is descended from a priest.
Julia Hartley Brewer interviewing Douglas Murray on Live Talk asking if the Israeli reaction to the 7th October will be proportionate. Douglas Murray in his inimitable manner says that the words, ‘proportionate’, ‘proportionately’ only appear in a context with Israel, and that they don’t apply in a war, going on to ask if ‘proportionate’ means will Israeli soldiers rape precisely the same number of young women, kill precisely the same number of young people and so on or target a city with precisely the number of residents as Sderot. For me the word ‘proportionate’ conjures up the following UN scenario. Israel is buried under a landslide of complaints and resolution while Iran, Syria and North Korea might have one complaint each lodged against them.
The situation in the universities is intimidating, partly caused by the encroaching Woke culture. The sheer weight of the number of Pro-Palestinian anti-Zionist groups deprive in many instances, pro-Israel Jewish students and academic staff a certain freedom of expression. That in itself, is bad enough. The fact that the university administration does not intervene is more serious. Apropos Woke, an anti-colonialist ideology which is against the slave trade and appropriating cultural heritage, one of the spin-offs is that material culture is being returned to former colonies. Allow me to elaborate.
Many of the exhibits in western museums and private collections were acquired during the colonial era without the understanding of the local population. The so-called ‘Elgin Marbles’, which were taken from the Parthenon in Athens in the early 19th century with or without the permission of the Ottoman authorities, are being demanded back by the Greeks. That demand can be justified but there is also a case for flexibility on both sides. The Benin bronzes which were created in the Kingdom of Benin which is now part of Nigeria, between the 13th and 16th centuries were looted by British troops in 1897, were dispersed among the British and other museums. They are now in the process of being returned to one of the descendants of the ruler of Benin.
The irony, ladies and gentlemen, is that the rulers of Benin were very active slave traders. Last time I was in the USA I asked the daughter of a friend the manager of a Starbucks café why American coffee is so weak. The reply was that Americans don’t like strong tastes. A couple of years ago an Arab dealer asked me for coins associated with the story of Judas Iscariot in the New Testament. Itamar, my assistant asked me if he could deal with the transaction. I said, “Go ahead”. He sold them for more than I had intended to ask. A couple of days later the dealer’s son came by and kissed Itamar on both cheeks saying, “We like strong people”. Maybe there is a connection between strong tastes and determined behaviour.
The best comment on Arab society that I know, I fished out of an interview several years ago in Ha’aretz newspaper with Professor Moshe Many, a urologist and the President of Tel Aviv University. He said that Arabs appreciate someone who has a European education but knows that the shortest distance between two points is a zigzag. The following anecdotes fairly well illustrate the above.
Several years ago, I was visiting a neighbouring Arab country and while drinking coffee with an antiquity dealer a local walked into his shop with a plastic bag. He pulled out of the bag a pottery bowl with an inked inscription. The dealer dismissed it with a derisory gesture of the hand. However, I noticed that the inscription was early Islamic Arabic and according to the chronology of the class of object would be one of the earliest of this class of inscription. I asked Issa the dealer what the gentleman wished to do with the bowl. He replied, “Ask him”. The fellow wanted to sell it and the price he was asking was a miniscule fraction of its true worth. However, if I was to immediately agree to the price the chances are that he would refuse to sell to me thinking it was much more valuable. I started haggling and this is what I mean by a zigzag being the shortest distance between two points.
On a far more sophisticated level the negotiations between Barak Obama and the Iranians regarding their nuclear facilities is a sterling example of the president of the most powerful country in the world having circles run around him in an unprecedented zigzag manner by a motley crew of clerics in mediaeval dress. The cherry perched on the icing at the top of the cake is provided by the following. Islamic society is steeped in tradition. Such tradition makes transition to western ideas of the late 20th and early 21st century a virtual impossibility. Homosexuality is frowned upon by the Islamic religious authorities.
Other religions in Islamic countries are hardly tolerated. For example, the Coptic Orthodox Christians in Egypt who comprise 5-15% of the population are frequently subjected to persecution and acts of murder. When the Hamas took over in Gaza gays were rounded up taken up to rooftops and thrown off. The same was done to PLO bureaucrats who had previously run Gaza. That many in the west support the simple Palestinian people I can understand. Could an educated western liberal please explain to me why there is so much ignoring of Hamas’s aforementioned barbaric atrocities on the 7th October by such revered institutions as the BBC and the New York Times?
The atrocities I refer to are wholesale rape, which ends in murder when the victim is no longer of use, the burning of defenseless Israeli citizens, the beheading of innocent Israelis including babies. As someone who considers himself a student of Levantine behaviour I would be very interested in receiving an intelligent answer. Could the same educated western liberal please explain to me why the Red Cross has not visited the hostages? Could the same educated western liberal please explain to me why international women’s organisations have ignored pleas for help from Israeli women that were raped on 7th October?
—Lenny Wolfe, Jerusalem
Jay McCarl 