(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . The Art of the Possible. [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-30 Otto Von Bismarck once noted that politics is the art of the possible. If he was right, and I think he was, then talk of a greater Israel encompassing all the West Bank is the artless rhetoric of the impossible. This is a good thing for Palestinians (the people, and not their corrupt leadership), whose bleak domestic and economic plight is as undeniable as is their right to live in this region unfettered by a fear of expulsion or mistreatment, which would violate the fourth Geneva Convention protocols. But talk of removing all Jews from the West Bank [again] also violates Geneva Convention protocols, and from an historical perspective is madness. It is the cradle of Jewish civilization. Jews had lived in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, since ancient times. The only time in millennia that the West Bank had no Jewish presence was from 1948 to 1967, when Jordan dismantled all Jewish communities from the region and expelled all Jews. There’s a term for cleansing an entire ethnicity from a region that even shared its name with the people. (The actual name of the Jewish people is יִשְׂרָאֵל‎ - Israel.) But modern political discourse doesn’t use “ethnic cleansing to describe the forced removal of a 3,000-year-old population from the very cradle of Jewish civilization. Still, it happened. And it led to the desecration of several of Judaism’s most sacred sites. Since its establishment, the State of Israel was badly disappointed by agreements transferring responsibility for Jewish holy places to neighboring Arab or Palestinian rule. Jordan had obligated itself within the framework of the Armistice Agreement that it had signed with Israel on April 3, 1949, to allow “free access to the holy sites and cultural institutions and use of the cemeteries on the Mount of Olives.” Jordan did not honor this. At the end of 1949, Israeli lookouts posted on Mount Zion reported that Arab residents began uprooting the tombstones and plowing the land in the cemeteries. The destruction of the cemeteries continued over the course of the 19 years that the Jordanians ruled eastern Jerusalem. Four roads were paved through the cemeteries, in the process destroying graves including those of famous persons. Skeletons and bones were strewn about and scattered. Tombstones were used as paving stones for roads in the Jordanian Army camp in Azariya, east of Jerusalem. In Azariya, a telephone booth was found built out of tombstones, and Jewish tombstones were also used as flooring for latrines. Uprooted tombstones were also used in Jordanian military positions surrounding the city. Both the newer sections and ancient graves were destroyed, some a thousand years old. A gas station and other buildings, including the Intercontinental Hotel, were erected on top of ancient graves. Israel attempted to focus global attention and alert international institutions to the destruction that was being perpetrated, but to no avail. In 1954, Israel protested to the United Nations over the destruction of graves and the plowing up of the area. In 1956, the Jordanians attempted to pave a new road through the cemeteries, Israel complained, and the work was halted. In July 1963, Israeli lookout posts again reported that Jordanian soldiers were destroying the tombstones. After the site was liberated in 1967, about 38,000 smashed or damaged tombstones were counted. The slow rehabilitation of the mount and the tombstones has continued until this very day, and Jewish burial at the site was renewed. Jordan did not allow Jews free access to any of their holy places, and for 19 years, until 1967, Jews could not go to the Western Wall, Rachel’s Tomb, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem (Nablus), or other sites sacred to Jews which remained in Jordanian hands. This Jordanian action was even contrary to the Mandate for Palestine adopted by the League of Nations, which provided for the establishment of a Jewish state, and specifically encouraged “close settlement by Jews on the land.” Considering all this, such binary discourse (“It’s all ours!” vs. “It’s all OURS!”) will achieve nothing. It will continue to obscure Jewish and Palestinian legitimate arguments and block any progress. I drive this point home because of a man I knew when I was a child. His family lived in and around Hebron for more than 500 years that we know of. He left the region decades before the 1929 Arab massacres, and traveled to Europe. Less than two decades later he would come to the United States with his new wife and begin a family. Because of this man, the issue of Jews living in the West Bank is personal. He was my grandfather. Although he died when I was a young boy, I like to think that he’d want us to share. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/30/2202451/-The-Art-of-the-Possible?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/