On the 24th of May 2011, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of the State of Israel, finally used the right lexicon when he stated to the entire world: ” In Judea and Samaria, Israelis are not foreign occupiers.’ The fact is that Israel is not occupying any land.
The Arabs gave up the right to any land under Israel’s control, to include Judea and Samaria – which, to begin with, was never theirs, as they illegally occupied it for nineteen years – when they waged war upon Israel in 1967. They lost the war and Israel won it. This is where the story should have ended on June 12, 1967.
Through time immemorial the spoils of war, to include land, have gone to the victors, not the losers. So why does the world expect Israel to go back to its 1967′, which is in fact 1949′, ceasefire demarcation lines?
Why, as in this case, when the Jews are involved, the rules change and the losers, in this case the Arabs, get to be treated as the winners?
I always say, and say it again, there is one set of rules that applies to the entire world, along which the entire world operates, and there I another set of rules, the world concocted for Jews only, which, the world will not operate along but, expects Jews to abide by and operate along. The question one should ask is why the bias and duplicity?
But allow me to go back to the main issue, which is Judea and Samaria, a mountain territory, expanding eastward and touches the west bank of the Jordan River; a territory Israel gained, back, in 1967′ when it won its second major war against the Arab aggression.
I write “gained, back,” because this territory, that includes the Old City of Jerusalem, was part of the official State of Israel of 1948. But the nascent state, fighting for its survival against the attack of five Arab countries, could not defend and protect this area and it fell into the hands of Jordan, to be freed and returned back to its owners after nineteen long years.
Since 1976′ the land of Judea and Samaria has become rather a controversial topic. While Israelis were permitted, under many limitation and constraints, to settle there, the government of Israel chose to leave the territory under military rule, not Israel’s sovereign law, making the 500,000 Israelis now living there rather confused as to whom they really belong.
The area has been a subject to Arab terror attacks and the Israel’s security and military forces watch over it with vigilance.
Some say that Judea and Samaria is occupied land; some call it disputed land; I call this part of the State of Israel the orphan Land of Israel. The Israeli government chose to leave Judea and Samaria as a bargaining chip in the event peace with the Arabs could be achieved.
Many myths, lies and distortion, all caused by brainwash, surround the Judea and Samaria land of beauty and ancientness.
Israelis rightly use the names Judea and Samaria to what many still refer as “West Bank.”
If one looks up UN General Assembly Resolution 181, which recommended partitioning of Palestine Trusteeship, formerly the Palestine Mandate under the League of Nations, one will see that it consistently refers to the land as “Judea” and “Samaria,” and never uses the term “West Bank,” which is a later term that came to be by the Jordanians in their need to differentiate this area from what is “East Bank,” the Arab country of Jordan.
As the story goes, after King Solomon died, his kingdom was split to Israel and Judea. For more than 3,000 years, Judea was the name of the southern portion of the territory in question. Nearly 3,000 years ago, King Omri of Israel, the Jewish northern kingdom, which was later conquered and Jews were expelled from there by the Assyrians, built a city he named “Shomron,” after a man named Shemer. Shemer sold his land to King Omri on which he then built the city. Shomron became the Hebrew name for the entire region, and is rendered in English as “Samaria.” The Book of Matthew tells us that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which is in, guess where? West Bank, Palestine? No and no to the two. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in Judea.
The term “West Bank” was coined by Jordan which was the illegal occupier of Judea and Samaria and had ruled it for, thankfully, only 19 years out of its 8,000 year history. This illegal occupier, the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan, conquered and annexed this territory in 1948, in a war of aggression against the nascent state of Israel with one goal in mind, genocide. The only countries to have recognized Jordanian rule in Judea and Samaria, as legitimate, were Britain and Pakistan and Pakistan now denies having to have recognized it!
So, why does the world insist on the name “West Bank” that was given to the land by an illegal aggressor occupier who ruled the place for only 19 years? It has to do with the government of Israel and Israelis wrongly using the name “West Bank” when addressing the area. Instead they should have, long ago, entrenched the names Judea and Samaria in their lexicon. It might have also to do with the fact that “Judea” means “the Land of the Jews” and that just rankles too many people. If so, it is a defeatist approach, Ghetto mentality of avoiding getting into people’s face with the truth; they simply can’t say what needs to be said, which is Judea and Samaria.
No matter what, if we keep on using the name “West Bank” we fall into the hands of Israel’s enemies. We then officially separate Judea and Samaria from the sovereign State of Israel and its legal right to it.
Just as we use the names Galilee, Negev, the Dan and Sharon Regions and even the Golan, we need to add Judea and Samaria to the state of Israel’s regions’ list of names and kill the name “West Bank.”
Since Judea and Samaria are, legally an integral part of the Jewish Homeland, by not treating the area as such, we, collectively and systematically, whether Israelis or not, are assisting Israel’s enemies in their ongoing delegitimization of the State of Israel process.
We now have a new way to address the issue: Judea and Samaria is vital important strategic land Israel simply cannot afford not to have as part of its sovereign land and in Judea and Samaria, Israelis are not foreign occupiers.
This is what every true Israel and true Jew must shout to the world, and to our own, ceaselessly. Period.
