To: Here & Now Subscribers
From: Jerry Verlin, Editor (jverlin1234@verizon.net)
Subj: Here & Now #1247, 12/15/24
WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: “West Bank” is just one of the anti-Jewish homeland loaded lexicon’s poisoned pejoratives. But it’s a big one, as recognized and contested right now by such Christian stalwarts for Israel as U.S. Senator Cotton and U.S. Ambassador to Israel-designate Huckabee. It more than behooves us to stand with them. It’s a mitzvah in the full sense of that word.
Time Now for Us Grassroots U.S. Jews To Stand With Contesters of Poisoned Pejoratives
Who wrote this and when?
“At this critical moment, members of our community must speak out against mischaracterizations in our local media poisoning the public’s mind against Israel…. Responding to these misstatements, as opposed to averting our eyes and ears, is a matter of individual and community self-respect.”
I did, January 7, 2001, in weekly email Alert #1 of which this week’s is now Here & Now #1247, a fortnight shy of twenty-five years. But what I said then is just as relevant now. Mischaracterizations – i.e., toxic terms and malevolent myths, by me Dirty Words, about our Jewish people’s historic homeland of Israel – are just as prevalent now, in the media, in world forums and public speech, including by us, as they were back then. Right now, important U.S. leaders are contesting these terms, and we U.S. Jewish grassroots must stand with them, not withstanding some key U.S. Jewish leaders using these terms.
Ok, to take one example, it takes a little gumption, chutzpah, for us grassroots to come out say “Judea-Samaria,” in the face of instant media condescending correction we’re quaintly using “the biblical name for the West Bank.” In fact, “Judea” and “Samaria” are Hebrew-origin biblical names, but what the media omits is that they remained in active use for three thousand years, including by the United Nations itself in 1947: “The boundary of the hill country of Samaria and Judea starts on the Jordan River….” And when we ourselves say “West Bank,” we’re thoughtlessly, shamefully, parroting the name the Jordanian invader coined in 1950, for the same reason the Romans had renamed Judea as “Palestine” eighteen hundred years earlier – to disassociate what had been Jewish from Jews.
Perhaps we grassroots have been waiting for an important person or two to lead the way in challenging not just “West Bank” but the whole loaded lexicon of Jewish homeland-delegitimizing pejoratives we’ve been mostly silently suffering like slaps in the face. Well, right now, at last, some important people are out there contesting these slurs that have been unjustly denigrating, defaming, both our people’s homeland and us, and we’re out of excuses to keep staying silent.
Let’s start with my idea of a U.S. Senator (R-Ark.), Jewish Voice, this month, 12/6/24, Senator Tom Cotton Introduces Legislation To Eliminate Federal Use of the Term “West Bank.” The Jewish Voice rightly put it:
“This initiative represents a powerful step in affirming the Jewish people’s historical and legal connection to their ancestral homeland and shines a proverbial spotlight on the importance of truth in geopolitical discourse.”
This Jewish Voice piece is a terrific article, laying out the legislation’s great importance to the Jewish homeland and U.S.-Israel relations. I urge you to go read it. Senator Tom Cotton’s Legislation to Rename the ‘West Bank’ – The Jewish Voice. How can we grassroots U.S. Jews not openly support this?
Now, as for Sen. Cotton and us becoming, as it were, “more Catholic than the Pope,” see Jerusalem Post, 12/9/24, [MK] Rothman Proposes Bill To Change All Mentions of ‘West Bank’ in Israeli Law to ‘Judea and Samaria.
Need a little bit more of a push to stop acquiescing even yourself saying “West Bank” and the other anti-Jewish homeland slurs? Here’s Mike Huckabee, President Trump’s designee for U.S. Ambassador to Israel. United With Israel, last week, Incoming US Ambassador to Israel: ‘Sovereignty Over Judea and Samaria Is Israel’s Decision to Make, delightfully sub-headed “There Is No Such Thing” as the West Bank and There Is No “Occupation” Said Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee:
“Asked by INN whether he intended to alter his language with regard to Judea and Samaria, referred to by much of the world as the West Bank, Huckabee said, ‘I can’t be what I’m not. I can’t say something I don’t believe. As you well know, I’ve never been willing to use the term ‘West Bank.’ There is no such thing. I speak of Judea and Samaria. I tell people there is no ‘occupation.’ It is a land that is ‘occupied’ by the people who have had a rightful deed to the place for 3,500 years, since the time of Abraham.
“A lot of the terms that maybe the media would use, even the people who are against Israel would use, are not terms that I employ, because I want to use terms that live from time immemorial, and those are the terms like ‘Promised Land’ and ‘Judea and Samaria.’ These are biblical terms, and those are important to me, and so I will continue to follow that nomenclature unless I’m instructed otherwise, but I don’t think that will happen.”
Believe, Gentle Reader, that as a grassroots U.S. Jew, you personally are part of absolutely assuring that that indeed will not happen. Long ago, Hillel taught us that if we’re not for ourselves, others will not be for us. Here are two “others,” a Christian U.S. Senator and a Christian U.S. Ambassador-designate, who are fully for us. What would Hillel say if we don’t stand with them and thereby for ourselves?
Regards,
Jerry
Optional PS: I have plenty to say in my new book Here & Now: U.S. Jews and the Issues Confronting Us on “West Bank” and the loaded lexicon’s other pejoratives. E.g.: Chapter 3: Debunking Toxic Terms & Malevolent Myths; section 3.2.4 “Judea-Samaria” as “the Biblical Name” for “the West Bank”; section 3.2.6 “West Bank” Isn’t a Synonym for “Judea-Samaria,” It’s an Antonym. And plenty, Chapter 9 Gone Astray, lamenting key U.S. Jewish groups going along with anti-Jewish homeland terminology in criticizing our people’s homeland’s assertion of right to our homeland. Go see.
hi