containing slogans that are either blatantly untrue or completely misleading. Consider the following:
1) “Set Palestine Free From the River to the Sea.” Based on the interviews of people chanting this slogan, it appears that many have no idea what it means. In the first place, Americans who have always been geographically challenged, have expressed no knowledge of what river or sea they are talking about!
And when they are told that the chant refers to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, they still don’t get the point that it is talking about the annihilation of the state of Israel. It’s just a nice sounding chant that rhymes.
For those who do understand the meaning of the slogan, it is an expression of appalling AntiSemitism.
2) “End Apartheid in Israel!” This is a slogan that garners massive support, but the slogan
expresses a total lie. There is no Apartheid in Israel. None! Zilch! Nada!
Two million Palestinians live in Israel. They are citizens of Israel, and as such, they have
complete freedom to live where they please and to use any hospital or means of transportation.
There is no enforced separation of Jews and Arabs of any type that exists in Israel.
Arab Israelis have the right to vote and to serve in the Israeli parliament (the Knesset). They also
have access to all the welfare services of the state. They have every freedom that the Jews have. In fact, they have been given a freedom Jews do not have! All Jews, except the small percentage of Ultra-Orthodox, are required to serve in the military — both men and women. Palestinian citizens are exempted from this requirement, although some voluntarily serve in non-combat positions.
The only Apartheid that exists in the Middle East is in the Arab countries where all their Jewish
populations were forcibly evicted after the Suez War in 1956. The fact of the matter is that no Jews
are allowed to live in Arab nations. That is true Apartheid!
3) “Free Palestine from Colonial Oppression.” This is sheer nonsense. The Jewish people are not colonialists. They are not outsiders who have taken over someone else’s land. The land theymcurrently occupy (and much more they do not yet occupy) was given to them by God as an eternal possession (Genesis 12:1-3, 7, 14-15; 16:18-21; 26:3; 28:4, 13; 35:10-12; Exodus 6:7-8 and Psalm
105:8-11).
The Jews occupied this gift of God 3,500 years ago and lived there for 1,500 years until they
were forcibly ejected from the land by the Assyrians and the Romans. After their final ejection in
70AD, the land laid vacant and desolate for 2,000 years. The few Arabs who lived there considered themselves to be Syrians because most of the land was owned by absentee Syrian landlords.
During this long time span, the land was never an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.
In short, there was never a Palestinian state with a Palestinian government. Nor was there a Palestinian language or culture.
4) “End 75 Years of Occupation.” Israel is not an occupying power. The land they are “occupying” was not only given to them by God, it was also legally granted to them by the United Nations.
At the end of World War I, the area which was known as Palestine was simply a province of the
Ottoman Empire of Turkey. Since the Turks sided with Germany during World War I, the victorious allies decided to dismantle the Ottoman Empire by dividing its pieces between the British and the French. The area called Palestine was assigned to the British and they later began to rule it as a League of Nations Mandate.
5) “Free Gaza!” This is another nonsensical slogan. Israel granted complete sovereignty to Gaza in 2005, and did so at great social and financial cost. The Israeli army forcibly evicted 9,000 Jews from their homes in 25 settlements and turned the entire area over to the Palestinians.
Jews had to blow up their synagogues to keep them from being desecrated by the Arabs. They
also had to dig up their cemeteries and move the bodies of their loved ones to keep the graves from being desecrated. The removal cost the Israeli government $900 million. Further loses included $120 million in annual flower production and 15% of Israel’s agricultural exports, including 60% of its tomato and herb exports. Also lost was 70% of Israel’s organic produce.
After Israel’s withdrawal, hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aide flowed into Gaza from
many nations, including the United States. This money was for humanitarian assistance and the
rebuilding of the area’s infrastructure, particularlyhospitals and schools. But when Hamas took over in 2007, these donations were diverted to the purchase of military weapons and the construction of over 300 miles of concrete tunnels for launching attacks into Israel.
6) “Stop the Israeli Genocide!” This would be an appropriate slogan if it were addressed to Hamas because the goal of Hamas is to destroy Israel and kill all its Jewish population. But the slogan is greatly misdirected when aimed at Israel.
Israel’s desire is to live at peace with the Arabs. The only war Israel has ever started is the Six
Day War in 1967, and it did so because the surrounding Arab nations declared that they were going to attack and annihilate the Jewish state. Israel decided its only hope for survival was a pre-emptive attack.
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