{"id":58146,"date":"2017-07-27T04:29:17","date_gmt":"2017-07-27T09:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=58146"},"modified":"2017-08-07T05:14:57","modified_gmt":"2017-08-07T10:14:57","slug":"truth-power-rejecting-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/truth-power-rejecting-terror\/","title":{"rendered":"Truth to Power: Rejecting Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"

It should come as no surprise that, when it comes to Middle East politics, not everyone agrees with us. And it\u2019s not necessarily because others are evil or anti-Semitic.<\/span><\/p>\n

We have a narrative. In extremely abbreviated form: Jews and Arabs both lived in the land that the Romans called \u201cPalestine.\u201d (They called it this in order to thumb their noses at the Jews, by renaming the Jewish homeland after the inhabitants\u2019 ancient enemies, the Philistines.) This later became part of the Islamic Caliphate, the Ottoman Empire and then the British Mandate. In 1947, the land was partitioned. About 20% was given to the Jews and called Israel; the other 80% was given to the Arabs and became modern-day Jordan. In 1967, Arab nations attacked Israel and were defeated. In the battle, Israel acquired the portion of Jerusalem they did not previously control, including the Kotel. Under international law, when a country acquires land in a defensive war, they\u2019re entitled to keep it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Historically, there was never an indigenous Palestinian people. Originally, it was just Jews under Roman rule. Muslims came in the seventh century when the Caliphate invaded and conquered the land. After that, it was Jews and Arabs (as well as Christians and others) under Islamic, Turkish or British rule. There never was an Arab state called Palestine. The flag of pre-partition Palestine had a Jewish star on it. The football (i.e., soccer) team of mandate Palestine was called \u201cNivcheret Eretz Yisrael Bechaduregel\u201d (The Land of Israel National Football Team), was managed by the Eretz Israel Football Association and played out of Maccabiah Stadium in Tel Aviv. The mandate-era newspaper\u00a0The Palestine Post<\/i>\u00a0is still around but it changed its name in 1950. You probably know it better as\u00a0The Jerusalem Post<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, from our point of view, even without bringing religion into it, it\u2019s a no-brainer that the Jews have an ethical, social, historical and political claim to Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

But others are raised in different environments and are exposed to different things. Some people may be overt liars who distort history but others are innocent people who rely on the words of their teachers and religious authorities. Some may recognize our narrative but challenge our rights based on their own perceived rights. Others may simply have different opinions.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not limited to people who live in the West Bank and Gaza. For starters, we have to expect that Muslims and Arabs in general are going to accept the Palestinian version of the narrative, no matter how flawed we may think it is. And what about people living in the US, UK, France, or elsewhere? We have to expect that when presented with the Israeli and Palestinian versions of history, at least some people are going to take the Palestinians\u2019 word. Again, this need not be motivated by anti-Semitism; it\u2019s strictly a numbers game.<\/span><\/p>\n

In short, it would be na\u00efve to expect that everyone will agree with history as we tell it, no matter how well-documented our claim is. That\u2019s fine. I can accept that.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I can\u2019t accept is that people who object to terrorism when carried out by organizations like ISIS turn a blind eye to identical atrocities when committed in Israel, or they even actively justify them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Recently, two Israeli Druze police officers were killed on the Temple mount. Comments on the BBC\u2019s Twitter feed include such gems as<\/span><\/p>\n