Yesterday this site slagged Mortimer Zuckerman (and got his name wrong, as Morton; sorry Mort!) for his deceptive suggestion on Huffington Post that the West Bank is part of Israel. Recently the Washington Post made the same error in an obituary. And it corrected it here.
This is a common claim in the American Jewish community. I gather that the Hebrew School at Beth Elohim temple in Brooklyn, a leading Reform synagogue, has maps on the wall of Israel without the Green Line. No West Bank, no Palestinian territory. Beth Elohim did great work last week by hosting Rashid Khalidi, and its rabbi, Andy Bachman, is a good guy. Rabbi, I commented on your blog about this but haven't gotten a response. A friend of mine says he saw the map without a Green Line on it. How do you justify teaching children this when you are for the two-state solution?
P.S. Horowitz tells me that many Hebrew schools have maps like this. Jack Ross says, It's not uncommon, in fact at the religious school I went to (Beth El - Bethesda, MD) they still had a map showing the Sinai as part of Israel in 1999! But really, the question we should be asking is why they have maps of Israel at all.
This strikes me as most interesting in terms of the very frequent complaints Israeli supporters make about Palestinian maps, vis a vis the "Israel right to exist" issue.
That is, the complaint is that Palestinian school maps show all of "Israel -Palestine" as "Palestine only".
Green lines, like vowels, are unrecognized by Hebrew speakers.
Dom,
Most maps in Israeli school textbooks omit the green line and have done so since 1967. There was an attempt in 2006 to re-introduce the green line on school book maps but the Knesset overruled the then Education Minister's decision.
Its just another example of the double standard–Israel accusing others of doing exactly what it does.
From an article by Gershom Gorenberg:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+mystery+of+the+green+line.-a0172249512
Why do Jewish groups start to complain and whine when the Saudi school in the U.S. doesn't recognize Israel.
Double standards.
"But really, the question we should be asking is why they have maps of Israel at all."
They're being taught that, for a Jew, Israel should be the most important country in the world. And for decades they've succeeded.
RE: "Hebrew school maps of Israel without Green Line"
MY COMMENT: I wonder what the maps look like in Israeli schools and textbooks?
MY BAD: I see that 'tree' had answered my (non)question (excuse the question mark) up above: "Most maps in Israeli school textbooks omit the green line and have done so since 1967." Muchas gracias!
The "green line' is a cease fire line, not a boundary. Palestine no longer exists. sorry to break the news to you.
Has Israel ever existed? It's never defined its borders.
Once again Chris Berel gives legitimacy for more aggression in the future for all those Jihadists and would-be freedom fighters for Palestine's sake.
No grievances ever for former Israelis. The imbalance won't stay like this forever.
"Israel no longer exists. Sorry to break the news to you."
Jihadis do not count on me for inspiration. They have been taught hatred for Jews in their homes, streets, schools and mosques. Their mothers beg them to become shahids.
Did palestinian humanity ever exist? Doesn't look like it.
But there is no more palestine. Just a bunch of arabs willing to murder in its name.
Did palestinian humanity ever exist? Doesn't look like it.
This statement looks like the speaker has long lost their own humanity.
It wasn't always like this Chris. For almost 1400 years the Palestinians: Muslims, Christians and Jews alike lived together in peace and tolerance– "convivance".
Even when the first Zionist congress expressed their intent to colonize Palestine did this melting pot of religion and race go on with their usual lives. In hindsight you might accuse them of naiveté, but they did not know how different the Ashkenazim was from their own Jewish population.
Anyways.
In a few years this abominable project will come to an end. Putting Liebermann in his office will only speed up the process. There will be life as usual in Palestine, and Israel but a bad dream. Just like Hitler's "Gross-Deutchland".
You mean non-Muslims lived miserably in an Arabo-Islamic Palestine, where Muslim immigrants from Bosnia and Algeria in the 19th century had more rights than native Jews whose families had never left in 1800-odd years, or the few Jewish faithful from Bokhara, Izmir and Spain who found their way back to Eretz Israel to live as dhimmis under the Sultan.
Either you replace Israel with utopia, which will have a Hebrew flavor and be dependent on the "democratic" Israeli parties like Hadash, Balad, and Ra'am-Ta'al, or you return it to Islamist misrule, with a preparatory genocide "pour encourager les dhimmis."
Or Eurosbara, you could have a secular bi-national state with Hebrew and Arab flavour and democratic parties that cater for both Jews and Arabs.
As for your bullshit about the 'Arabo-Islamic Palestine', I suppose you have proof of that? I won't hold my breath