French President Wants Jews out of Judea and Samaria
by Nadene Goldfoot
Israel is slightly smaller than New Jersey, or 1/3 the size of Oregon. As of 2006, the population was 7,026,000. including 187,000 Jews in Judea and Samaria and 20,000 in the Golan Heights and 177,000 in East Jerusalem. Of these, 76.4% are Israeli born Jews. European and American born make up 22.6%. We have 5.9% that are African born and 4.7% Asian born. 23.6% are not Jewish, but Arab citizens.

By comparison, Mexico City has 8,720,916 in the inner part of the city proper. Greater Mexico City has a population of 19.2 million people. New York City in 2000 had 8,008,278 people.

Israel is made up of 10,840 sq. miles. Without the territories it is only 8,000 sq. miles. California has 160,222 sq miles.

Only 17% of the land is arable. It's 260 miles long, 60 miles at the widest; 3-9 miles at the narrowest. We're talking about a very small piece of real-estate.

As of 2006, there are 44 Moslem states with 1 billion people in an area 672 times the size of Israel. They are so intolerant that they can't accept the creation of the only Jewish state in the world and have a written goal to drive the Israelis into the sea. The Arab world boasts at least 21 states with an area greater than that of the USA. None of these countries are a democracy, and they are still trying to keep Iraq from being one. They want our tiny state.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who is Jewish, has spoken to the knesset in Jerusalem and has told them that he thinks all Jews should be removed from Judea and Samaria (the West Bank). Then he called for a division of Jerusalem, which I and many of my friends are adament about not dividing. Under Jordanian rule, when they occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in the Bible. It is not mentioned once in the Koran. King David, a Jewish king, founded the city of Jerusalem. Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem. Jewish holy sites were desecrated and Jews were denied access to places of worship under the Jordanians. Jewish grave markers were used to build public urinals in occupied Jerusalem. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths. How much better off everyone is if Jerusalem is left in Israel's hands.

The history of the area shows that land has been continually taken from us in the name of peace. After world war I in 1917, Britain was given the task of supervising Palestine, which had become part of the Ottoman Empire, though it had remained a barren wasteland ever since 70AD when Jews were taken captive by the Romans.

Chaim Weisman had developed dynamite for the British, and it helped to win the war. As a reward, the Balfour Declaration was signed, giving a territory back to Jews as their homeland again. It included present day Jordan, Israel, and the administered territories. The promise was short-lived. The British ended by appeasing the Arabs and offered only half the territory to the Jews, who accepted it. After all the divisions and appeasing people, what was left for the Jews was three slivers of disconnected land along the Mediterranean Sea and Sinai desert, and access to Jerusalem, but as an island cut off from the slivers, surrounded by Arab land and under international control. 60% of the land given to us was the Negev desert. The entire amount of land was 10% of the original Palestine Mandate. We accepted this in 1948 and the UN pronounced us the State of Israel.

And now the French President wants us to give up part of this again. He is appeasing Arabs who do not need this parcel of land, which means so much to the Jewish people.

Jerusalem has no meaning to Moslems. There is no reason it should any part of it should be under their "control". First of all, over 3,300 years ago Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. The first Arabs arrived as conquerors in the 7th century, 2,500 years after the Jews had been there. This is when the Moslem religion was born. There never has been an independent Arab state of Palestine. That was just the name of the territory given by the Romans.

Jews repopulated Palestine in the 1800's and first they created kibbutzes, or kibbutseem because of growing anti-semitism in France, starting with the Dryfus trial, and pogroms in Russia. They bought land, drained swamps, and started settlements. They wanted their homeland back. They conferred with Arab leaders. In 1918 Emir Faisal's father, Hussein, had written and called upon the Arab population in Palestine to welcome the Jews as brothers and to cooperate with them for the common good. Some of the land was owned by Arab landowners who were living in Europe, and Jews bought it from them at very high prices, but it was precious to them. Obtaining land was all done legally. Now we are to give up the land we gained by blood, sweat and toil, according to the very people who persecuted Lt. Dryfus for being Jewish in France.

The world, including a few Jews like Sarkozy, think nothing of giving up land they are not living in. They know little about the history of their own people, and care about it even less. What they suggest is a gross violation of the rights of the Jewish people, and is a step in allowing Muslims to have more power, which they probably will use very unwisely. It's a good thing that the knesset will take his words with a grain of salt. But will the rest of the world?

Reference: Nadene Goldfoot notes
gerardrobins@sbc globe: Hana Levi Julian & Hillel Fendel: French President called for Division of Jerusalem.