Adalah-NY against Jews in Judea

November 15, 11:46 AMNY Israel Conflict ExaminerRichard Shulman

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Adalah-NY petitioned the renter of space to a Hebron Fund event cancel its contract.  The Adalah-NY website contains the text it sent to the landlord, making that, so far unsuccessful, attempt.

The letter has too many details for me to discuss in detail here.  The overall case Adalah-NY makes against the Hebron Fund is that it supports Jewish development in Hebron, whose Jews ethnically expel Palestinian Arabs, and do so for racist reasons. That case misrepresents the issues.

The overall fallacy in that case: (1) The Hebron Jewish community has been the victim of ethnic cleansing by the Arabs in the past; (2) It has suffered Arab riots (and diplomacy) attempting to drive it out; and (3) Palestinian Arabs have committed many terrorist and sexual assaults in recent years; and (4) The Palestinian Authority bars Jewish residency and imposes capital punishment upon Arabs who sell land to Jews. 

All this ethnic cleansing and racism – Radical Muslims depict Jews as inherently evil, which make it an alleged racial trait) --  goes unmentioned in Adalah-NY’s case.  Indeed, Adalah wants Jews out of Judea, their homeland.  Now there is ethnic cleansing!  

The letter offers what seems to be much evidence.  I notice that it all is one-sided and simplistic.  It cites as respected authority organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, ACRI, B’Tselem, the State Dept., and the UN, whose bias I have exposed often.  It boils down to Israel-bashing.   

Thus the letter states that Hebron’s Jews, always in inapplicable pejorative terms such as “occupied” and “settler,” as people “…who are regularly described, both worldwide and among Israelis, as violent racists.”  Described, that is, by the Israel-bashers mentioned above.  The Hebron Jews are accused of violating international law and promoting ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs from their homes in Jerusalem.  Let’s discuss ethnic cleansing in Hebron.

Jews had lived in Hebron for about three millennia.  In 1936, the Arabs there rioted, murdered, and drove out the Jewish community, for reasons of religious bigotry.  That was ethnic cleansing.  That was violent.  That was bigoted.

When Israel liberated the area, it did not restore the houses to the families of the Jews from whom they were confiscated.  Gradually, relatives or other Jews sought to regain those properties.  They paid for the property a second time.  That is unjust to the Jews, but one cannot say it is unjust to the Arabs paid for relinquishing stolen property.

Since Arabs get murdered for selling property to Jews, some of the paid Arabs claimed they didn’t sell the property.  In such cases there and in Jerusalem, the courts have found the Arabs’ documents false and the Jews’ evidence sound, in once case by videotape.  The letter puts this in an inflammatory way, “Taking over homes, terrorizing and expelling Palestinian residents.”  The 150,000 Arabs in the Arab zone are not bothered, only a few living in houses owned by Jews.  Adalah-NY indignation against Jews is misdirected, it should be against fraudulent Arabs.

Unfortunately for the rightful Jewish owners, organizations similar to Adalah-NY misrepresent court evacuation orders as ethnic cleansing.  Israel’s governments, being appeasement-minded or anti-Zionist, hesitate to enforce the law, the orders, and contracts.  These cases drag on, and become the scene of Arab and Jewish leftist protests, sometimes violent.  But if Jews are to be denied enjoyment of their own property, because they are Jews, then the government is biased, but against Jews, like Adalah-NY.

Adalah-NY makes a broader argument, against the whole Jewish community of Hebron, as well as the Hebron Fund.  It cites some State Dept. official’s misrepresentation of the Geneva Conventions to call Judea-Samaria “occupied” and Jewish residency there illegal.

As I have explained before, the area is not occupied, because they were not part of a sovereign country.  Ask whose country is being “occupied?”  Judea and Samaria are unallocated territories of the Palestine Mandate, to which Israel is the paramount heir.  Therefore, Jewish communities in it are allowed.  Interested in legality, Adalah-NY?   Complain about the thousands of illegal Arabs’ houses, often built on land the Arabs don’t own and without permits where required.    
 
Adalah-NY uses the erroneous claim of Jewish residency being illegal in Hebron, to support complaints about the tax-exempt status of the Hebron Fund.  President Obama’s new stance on Jewish communities is also part of Adalah-NY’s appeal to the fundraiser’s landlord.  The landlord now is supposed to take a politician’s word about what is the law, though other politicians have said otherwise?

The letter also claims that the Jews commit violence against the Arabs.  It then claims that the Hebron Fund, by subsidizing housing there, indirectly supports violence.  What a weak connection!  I find the charge irresponsible. 

Sometimes, streets in the Jewish sector are closed to Arabs.  Adalah-NY calls that racist.  No, it is not.  If anyone were racist, it would be the Arabs, whose frequent acts of terrorism against the tiny Jewish community prompted the administration to close off Arab access.  Jews could not pass on those streets without being accosted by Arabs.  Why doesn’t Adalah-NY acknowledge those many Arab attacks?

A similar misrepresentation is made of the closing of the old Arab market.  Arab terrorists used the market, which adjoins the Jewish neighborhood, as platforms or staging points for attacks.  A superior new market was built for the merchants.  The Palestinian Authority ordered merchants to stay in the old market, so as to keep confrontation going.

There has been so much Arab terrorism over the years, and so little Israeli government protection.  This includes riots, snipers, attempted rape, etc…  No justice for the Jews.  What should they do?  Perhaps now some Jews do react to the Arab population as the enemy. 

Indeed, the main instances of violence cited were reactions to Arab violence.  One is the rampages by the late Rabbi Levinger.  I didn’t like his style.  In reaction to terrorism, he led some followers to car-smashing expeditions into the Arab sector.  Adalah-NY omitted this motivating factor, painting the Palestinian Arabs as innocent victims.

Another event was the Hebron massacre.  The evidence allowed into court does not fit the government’s explanation.  The government acted as if a major pogrom were coming.  Perhaps the Jewish doctor accused of the massacre were trying to head it off.  That is what my Israeli colleague, who knows the locals, tells me they are grateful to him for, not just for violence against Arabs, as Adalah-NY claims.  It also is possible that he was set up by the government.  It did have a dirty tricks section of agents provocateurs.  They committed violence against Arabs.  Their goal was to blame Jews and defame the whole religious and settler movement.

Anti-Zionist organizations have been accusing settlers of violence for years.  Most of those charges either are frame-ups by the government or non-existent.  I’ve reported many cases of Israeli leftists leading Arabs into Jewish areas, to destroy their crops, and to get the government to arrest the Jews if the Jews defend themselves.

The numerous documented cases of Arab terrorism, however, are real.  They took a big toll.  If terrorism is a justification for removing people, start with the thousands of Arabs who committed terrorism!

To see the original article on Adalah-NY, click here