Media Analysis

‘We have biblical rights to the land, the Bible is our deed’ — Israeli ambassador explains why West Bank belongs to Israel

The outgoing Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, says the West Bank belongs to the Jews according to the Bible, which is the Jewish deed to the land. So the talk of annexation is wrong; the land already is the Jews’ and the only question is whether to “extend sovereignty.”

Danon said he speaks not as representative of just the government of Israel, but the Jewish people.

Danon explained to Stephen Sackur of the BBC yesterday that Israel did not “blink” at annexation on July 1. July 1 was not a deadline for an announcement; now the discussion begins.

Don’t call it annexation; it’s extending sovereignty to Judea and Samaria.

You cannot annex something that belongs to you. When you annex something you do it from a foreign territory. I do not know from whom we are annexing it . . . Now there is a discussion of applying sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria.

AIPAC has agreed to this euphemism. So has David Harris of the American Jewish Committee.

The decision may not be popular in Israel, but it’s up to Netanyahu.

At the end of the day the decision will be made by the Israeli government, the elected government, whether we like it or do not like it. I want to bring you back to 2005 . . . when the government decided to pull out from Gaza and uproot the Jewish communities. Many Israelis were not happy about this decision, but once the government reaches a decision, we implement it . . .

On this issue the Prime Minister does not need the approval of Mr. Benny Gantz and his party, unlike every other decision in the unity government . . .

Though: “Any decision we will make will be coordinated with our allies in Washington.”

Sackur challenged Danon, don’t you believe in international law?

Danon said of course, but:

Before we speak about the legal issues, let’s speak about the biblical rights that we have to the land.

Sackur said, We’re talking international law, why are you introducing the Bible or ancestral history?

I will get to the international law in a minute. We do have biblical rights to the land. Whether you are Christian, Muslim, or Jew — you read the Bible, you read the stories of the Bible — it’s all there.

Is the Bible a legal document?

This is our deed to the land. That’s biblical. We have historical rights to the land . . . you just need to read a history book. You can go to Rome, and see the arch of Titus. And you will see evidence for our connection to the land.

Danon makes Israel’s claim clearer than ever, that Israel has the right to take over land and expel people based on a document of myths that is somewhere between 2000 and 3000 years old. His statement shows that the two-state solution was always a charade, on Israel’s part, and the rest of the world can finally set aside the fiction that Israel ever intended to see a Palestinian state. Sadly, the American media has never highlighted these intolerant Israeli attitudes, though they pervade the highest level of government. Instead, over decades the U.S. government went along with Israeli policies out of political cowardice. John Kerry made a good faith effort to try to bring about a solution in 2014 — and “Poof!” he said, Israel just built more settlements on occupied lands.

Danon said he represents all Jews as ambassador.

I am concluding five intensive years in my position and I can attest that it was a challenging task, and I represent not only the people of Israel, I represented the Jewish people in the U.N.

Sackur said what about the looming isolation if Israel goes through with annexation. Don’t you see a “grave danger.”

Today there is no isolation. We have diplomatic relations with more than 160 nations . . . I don’t think that strategy of threats is working on our decision-makers. . Let’s not speak about threats again, about sanctions and boycott. That’s not how you run diplomacy.

Danon doesn’t worry about evaporation of U.S. support either. He boasted, “As long as we have the U.S. support in the Security Council, we can be relaxed,” and Sackur asked whether he isn’t being complacent. No:

I think we have a bipartisan support for the state of Israel today. When you look at the Congress today, you see it. Yes, there are some extremists who call to boycott Israel, but the majority, when you look at the leaders of the parties, they stand with Israel. They understand the importance of the connection with the only democracy in the Middle East.

So I don’t get involved with the politics in the U.S. Regardless of the results of the elections, we will have the support in the UN, in the Security Council, and I have no doubt about it.

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(cont’d)
Renowned historian/anthropologist and “Holy Land” specialist, Professor Ilene Beatty: “When we speak of ‘Palestinians’ or of the ‘Arab population [of Palestine]‘, we must bear in mind their Canaanite origin. This is important because their legal right to the country stems… from the fact that the Canaanites were first, which gives them priority; their descendants have continued to live there, which gives them continuity; and (except for the 800,000 dispossessed refugees [of 1948 along with the further hundreds of thousands expelled before and after the war Israel launched on 5 June 1967]) they are still living there, which gives them present possession. Thus we see that on purely statistical grounds they have a proven legal right to their own land.” (“Arab and Jew in the Land of Canaan,” 1957)

“The Racist Gene” Haaretz, June 21, 2017: EXCERPT: “In 2013, the results were published of a study by the prominent British geneticist Martin Richards, who specializes in researching the maternal genome, which passes from the mother to all of her descendants. Richards researched the maternal genetic ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews. And lo and behold, he discovered that 80 percent or more (!) of the maternal genetic makeup of Ashkenazi Jews derives from European women – goys, heaven forbid. Gevalt! Devoid of any gene originating in the Land of Israel.”

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fgene.2017.00087/full
Front. Genet., 21 June 2017 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2017.00087
“The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, and Yiddish”
“Recent genetic samples from bones found in Palestine dating to the Epipaleolithic (20000-10500 BCE) showed remarkable resemblance to modern day Palestinians.”

Danon like all of his fellow “biblical title” travellers is stark staring raving certifiably barking bonkers – or in more scientific terms completely off his trolley. He actually believes the c..p he is spewing out. In a civilised gathering he would definitely be the one that sane people would be desperately edging away from.

For the edification of Danny Danon. (I saw Danon’s interview with Stephen Sakur on BBC’s Hard Talk during which he made a complete fool of himself.)

The Jebusite/Canaanites were ancestors of today’s Palestinians and it was they who founded Jerusalem circa 3000 BCE. Originally known as Jebus, the first recorded reference to it as “Rushalimum” or “Urussalim,” site of the sacred Foundation Rock, appears in Egyptian Execration Texts of the nineteenth century BCE, nearly 800 years before it is alleged King David was born. Its name “seems to have incorporated the name of the Syrian god Shalem [the Canaanite God of Dusk], who was identified with the setting sun or the evening star…and] can probably be translated as ‘Shalem has founded’.” (Karen Armstrong, Jerusalem, One City, Three Faiths; Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1996, pp. 6-7)

It is estimated that the Hebrews did not invade until circa 1184 BCE and their resulting United Kingdom of Israel, which never controlled the coast from Jaffa to Gaza, lasted only about 75–80 years, i.e., less than a blip in the history of Canaan and Palestine. Even the Hasmonean Dynasty under the Maccabees lasted only about 70 years (circa 140 – 70 BCE) and it was under Roman control.

No credible archaeological evidence, or more importantly, writings of contemporaneous civilizations, have been found that prove Solomon or David actually existed. Nor has any evidence been discovered to confirm that the Jewish exodus from Egypt ever occurred.

The late renowned Jewish Israeli writer/columnist, Uri Avnery: “[David and Solomon’s] existence is disproved, inter alia, by their total absence from the voluminous correspondence of Egyptian rulers and spies in the Land of Canaan.” (“A Curious National Home,” by Uri Avnery, May 13/17 – http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1494589093/)
(cont’d)

To agree with Misterioso, in The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman (2001), the authors show how archaeology has now revealed that the Israelites were originally Canaanites indigenous to the land, as were/are the Palestinians. So-called “diplomacy” and politics/annexation based on theology, legends, and myths cannot stand up to history and archaeology. Myth is NOT fact. Stories may entertain and even enlighten; but they must not substitute for history and fact.

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-peter-beinart-s-great-change-1.8987401?utm_source=smartfocus&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-brief&utm_content=5018513

“Peter Beinart’s Great Change” by Gideon Levy, Haaretz, July 12/20

EXCERPTS:
“A page-one headline in Friday’s international edition of The New York Times (a day after the piece appeared in the paper’s U.S. print edition): “I No Longer Believe in a Jewish State.” No, the significance of this cannot be overstated. Peter Beinart, one of American Jewry’s most prominent liberal intellectuals, an observant Jew who was raised in a Zionist home, who was 28 when he became the editor of The New Republic, and who later became a senior columnist at Haaretz, has said goodbye to the two-state solution and in effect issued a divorce decree to Zionism, at least in its current format.

“In an impressive essay that has already made waves in the United States, he writes: ‘It’s time to imagine a Jewish home that is not a Jewish state.’ Beinart is not a lone voice in the United States. American Jews are beginning, if belatedly, to take a clear-eyed look at Israel, its darling. The Democratic Party is also doing so, slowly. Now we can hope that Beinart’s op-ed will motivate more and more intellectuals and others to look honestly and bravely at reality, as he has done, and to say what is still considered heresy, a betrayal of Israel and not politically correct in the United States.” (cont’d)