Table of Contents
PART 1: OUR TIME, PLACE & ROLE IN THE WORLD
1.1 “Balanced” Reporting When My Weekly Emails Began
1.2 On the Inq’s Sidewalk
1.3 “Mr. Verlin is Right ….”
1.4 On Our Community’s Role
1.5 Mickey and Me Round 1 (I Won)
1.6 Mickey and Me Round 2 (He Won)
1.7 A Conversation Between CAMERA and Me
2.1 The Case for Picking Here & Now
2.2 Who We’re Up Against Here & Now2.2.1 The College Kids and Their Enablers
2.2.2 United Nations
#1236 9/29/24: JNS headline Wednesday, 9/25/24:
“UN General Assembly Passes Resolution Calling for Old City Jerusalem to be Jew-Free
“The Palestinian-fronted resolution passed by wide margin, demanding that the Israeli army and Jewish residents evacuate to pre-1949 line within a year”
2.2.3 Mainstream Western Media
2.2.4 Europe
#1249 12/29/24 Year’s Most Hypocritical Disinvitation
Hands down, Poland’s warning to Israel’s Prime Minister that if dares to attend the Holocaust memorial there of all places on earth, they’ll arrest him as wanted for Crimes Against Humanity. (See Jewish Voice, 12/22/24, Poland Confirms Netanyahu Will Be Arrested If He Attends 80th Auschwitz Liberation Ceremony). Need more be said?
Year’s Most Disrespectful Depiction of Christmas
It’s one thing that “Israeli officials reacted with bitter scorn to a Christmas message from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in which he called Jesus a Palestinian and suggested Israel was to blame for the exodus of Christians from the Holy Land” (Times of Israel, 12/14/24, Israel to Abbas: No, Jesus Was Not a Palestinian). (Do “Palestinians” claim Jesus’ death too, or only his birth?)
But et tu, Pope Francis? Times of Israel (12/11/24, Vatican Nativity Scene Showing Baby Jesus on a Keffiyeh Removed After Backlash) led with a photo of the wheelchair-bound Pope praying directly in front of a ‘Nativity of Bethlehem 2024’ display the front of which was a “depiction of the baby Jesus lying on a keffiyeh, the traditional scarf used by Palestinians as a national symbol.” The Vatican, according to the Crux news outlet, “did not offer a reason as to why the scene was removed.”
“The Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs in Palestine, an organ of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Palestinian embassy to the Vatican, along with several local institutions in Bethlehem” organized the creation and display of the scene, said the article, constituting sufficient notice to the Vatican that not an innocently apolitical scene was intended to be depicted, but it would be difficult, at least to the Jew writing this (me), to envision a deeper dishonoring of who Jesus was than to rip him from his own country, his own house and his own kin.
2.2.5 “As a Jew” American Jews
2.3 What’s the Answer?
We grassroots U.S. Jews must manifest Israel support, Jewish peoplehood and community self-respect. My “Grassroots U.S. Jew of the Year” for 2024 uses email to keep us informed and involved:
#1249 12/29/24: My Grassroots U.S. Jew of the Year
His name is Myron Sugarman and he’s 87 years old with bad eyesight. His real life profession had been slot machines and the like, and his memoir, The Chronicles of The Last Jewish Gangster: From Meyer to Myron, a good seller on Amazon, is more than well-worth the read. It spans six continents and is replete with adventure and narrow escapes, not all from the Feds, and there’s a chapter on Myron’s assistance to Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal and his relationship with him that’s moving indeed.
But what connects me to Myron is that he does what I do – email fellow grassroots U.S. Jews, encouraging Israel-support, Jewish peoplehood and community self-respect (and denouncing U.S. Jews’ blind loyalty to the Democrats and “the two-state solution”) – only he does so in spades. His ever-growing bcc email list [email him at charming@eclipse.net to sign on] is close to 2000, and he inundates us with knowledgeable passionate responses to news events, world leaders’ statements and actions, opinion articles and individual readers’ comments and questions, several times daily. Ok, if Myron’s “charming” then Yitzhak Shamir was the King of Kuwait, but by me he’s a Sheyner Yid (google’s spelling) and my 2024 U.S. Grassroots Jew of the Year. Keep going, Myron!
– – – – –
And here’s the back cover of Here & Now, #1235 9/22/24:
“Today’s American Jews live in a ‘miraculous age,’ Charles Krauthammer wrote, that of the rebirth of Jewish homeland sovereignty after eighteen hundred years. But much of the world denies the Jewish people’s claim to the Jewish homeland’s heart and soul – historic Jerusalem and defensible Judea-Samaria biblical hill country heartland, calling them ‘occupied Palestinian territories.’ Many call Israel ‘a settler-colonial state’ with no historical or legal claim to the land of Israel at all.
“American Jews must not be silent! For twenty-four years, Here & Now: U.S. Jews and the Issues Confronting Us author Jerome Verlin has sent weekly emails to fellow grassroots American Jews citing and debunking anti-Israel canards in the media, world forums and public speech. This book’s excerpts from them, organized by subject, passionately and knowledgeably answer numerous ancient – ‘King David was as real as King Arthur’ – through modern – ‘Israelis are white European oppressors of Palestinian natives’ – falsehoods, enabling today’s American Jews and empathetic Christians to confidently confront such malevolent myths.”
3.1 Myths Delegitimizing Israel’s Sovereign Rebirth in 1948
3.1.1 “Jewish and Palestinian States”
3.1.2 “Israel Was Created & Founded in 1948”
3.1.3 “The Palestinian Refugee Issue”
3.1.4 “Israel is an Apartheid State, a Settler-Colonial Project”
3.1.5 “Israelis are White Europeans”
3.2 Myths Delegitimizing Areas Liberated by Israel in 1967
3.2.1 “Captured by Israel in 1967”
3.2.2 “Ultranationalists’ Greater Israel”
3.2.3 “Israel’s 1967 Borders”
3.2.4 “Judea-Samaria” as “the Biblical Name” for “the West Bank”
3.2.5 “Settlements”
3.2.6 “West Bank” Isn’t a Synonym for “Judea-Samaria”; It’s an Antonym
#1247 12/15/24: 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.”
3.2.7 “East” Jerusalem’s Ours
3.2.8 “Occupied Palestinian Territories”
3.3 Myths Delegitimizing Israel’s Actions Today
3.3.1 Israel Committing “Genocide” in Gaza
#1227 7/28/24 Vice-President/Presidential Candidate Harris was among the Democrats not attending Netanyahu’s speech [July 24th] to Congress, but did meet with him afterwards. I want you to compare what Bibi said to Congress about the worldwide hysteria that Israel’s committing “genocide” in Gaza with what Harris said after her meeting with Bibi.
Bibi to Congress:
“I suggest you listen to Colonel John Spencer. John Spencer is head of urban warfare studies at West Point. He studied every major urban conflict, I was going to say in modern history, he corrected me. No, in history. Israel, he said, has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history and beyond what international law requires. That’s why despite all the lies you’ve heard, the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare.”
Harris (per The Hill, Friday, 7/26/24, Bolton: Netanyahu Should Be ‘Very Worried’ About Harris Behavior, Remarks) after skipping Bibi-to-Congress but after meeting him afterwards:
“‘I’ve said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, but how it does so matters,’ she told reporters following the meeting, saying she discussed with Netanyahu ‘the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians.’”
4 Dreams – 1 of 2
PART 2: OUR HERITAGE: ERETZ YISRAEL
5.1 Beginnings
5.1.1 Conquest vs. Indigenous Origin: Does It Matter?
5.1.2 Rooting for Joshua
5.1.3 Joshua’s Altar
In July, it happened again – Palestinian Arabs desecrating a Judea-Samaria site evidencing three-millennia homeland Jewish presence in Israel. Our #1225 covered this, prefaced by Amb. David Friedman stating Joshua’s Altar’s significance.
#1225, 7/14/24
The Message of Mockery Left for Us at the Altar
If you could pick two guides for a trip down “the Biblical Highway” from Shechem and Shiloh in the north through Jerusalem down to Hebron and Beersheba in the south, you couldn’t pick better than Mike Pompeo and David Friedman, as I related last week in reviewing the DVD of their Route 60: The Biblical Highway, which had been America’s most-watched movie the first two nights of its brief last summer theaters run.
There are moving moments for our guides at sites on this journey: walking the Pilgrims’ Road that Jesus and the Apostles along with multitudes of other Jewish pilgrims had walked two millennia ago; at the Western Wall and Holy Sepulcher Church in Jerusalem; at Rachel’s Tomb; at the Patriarchs’ Tombs beneath Herod’s still-standing edifice in Hebron, and elsewhere.
At the end of their journey, an emotional trip for this pair of devout Christian and Jew, as for us, Mike asks David which site had moved him the most. “Joshua’s Altar on Mt. Ebal,” David replies, evidencing at the inception of our people’s life in our homeland its deepest meaning for us. Mt. Ebal is in Samaria, liberated [the MSM says “captured,” as though we’d had no prior connection] by Israel 1967 [and “occupied” as opposed to “ours,” per most of the world].
And so it was with some anguish and anger I read on Israel International News this Friday (7/12/24):
“Palestinians Destroy Part of Joshua’s Altar”
“Activists From the ‘Fighting for Every Dunam’ Forum Discover that Arabs Once Again Destroyed Several Layers of Stone At Joshua’s Altar on Mount Ebal”
Friday’s INN article reported that at two places “ancient stones were not only toppled to the ground but also broken into pieces.” It said that “last month a powerful explosive device was found hidden among the altar stones, which terrorists intended to detonate remotely, in addition to the burning of tires on the altar stones, graffiti spraying, and other destruction.”
5.2 Our Biblical Kingdoms
5.2.1 Was King David More Real Than King Arthur?
5.2.2 Was King Solomon’s Fabled Temple Merely a Fable?
6.1 Do the Non-supernatural Passages of the Bible Carry Evidentiary Weight?
6.2 The Jewish Temples: What Remnants of Them Remain?
6.2.1 Western Wall Isn’t Sole Remnant of Jewish Temples, Even of Wall
6.2.2 How Much of the Temple Mount Still Stands? (You’ll Be Surprised!)
6.2.3 Miracle It’s Still There After Three Thousand Years?
6.2.4 Muslims Didn’t Always Deny Solomon’s Temple Was There
6.2.5 Media Has Moved From Temple Mount to Haram-al-Sharif to Entire Complex as “Mosque”
7.1 Passover
7.1.1 We’re In the Same Tale Still
7.1.2 But Maybe J Street Isn’t?
7.1.3 Musing on Moses’ Last Thoughts
7.2 Hanukkah: Not Just a Civil War Between Jews
8.1 Suppression of History vs. We Never Abandoned Physical Presence
8.1.1 Suppression Position #1: “Israel Captured Historic Jerusalem and Judea-Samaria Heartland From Jordan in 1967”
8.1.2 Suppression Position #2: “Israel Was Founded Because of the Holocaust In 1948”
8.1.3 Suppression Position #3: “Jewish Connection Dates From the Late Nineteenth Century Zionist Movement”
8.2 Between Hadrian and Herzl
8.2.1 The Romans Did Not Exile Us Jews
The Bar Kochba Revolt, CE 132-135, wasn’t the final homeland Jewish revolt against Rome. A June 2024 news article reported finding of evidence of a fourth century homeland Jewish revolt, forcefully put down, by Rome.
#1222, 6/23/24: … I was pleased to read on the internet this week (Monday, 6/17/24) a Fox News article, Ancient Treasure Among 1,650-Year-Old Objects Unearthed in Israel, subtitled The coins date back to the fourth-century Jewish revolt against Constantius Gallus.
In my book [Israel 3000 Years: The Jewish People’s 3000 Year Presence in Palestine] I’d cited Roman-Byzantine period synagogue and other Jewish remains unearthed all over the land, the writing in the land of the Mishnah and then Palestinian Talmud, Roman recognition of the Patriarch as head of the homeland’s Jews until the fifth century, and 20,000 or more homeland Jews fighting alongside the invading Persians in the year 614 against the hated Romans’ Byzantine heirs. But now there’s more.
Monday’s article’s lede: “Archeologists in Israel recently made a ‘dramatic’ discovery that provides invaluable historical knowledge about Jewish life in the ancient Roman era of Israel, official said.” They said that “written evidence is sparse” about the Jewish revolt against Roman Caesar Flavius Constantius Gallus in 351 – 354, but a building, a coin hoard and related finds are “a clear indication that the revolt was forcefully put down with violence and cruelty, and was not simply a local uprising event, as some earlier studies contended.”
8.2.2 Jews Were Present Throughout Muslim Empire Rule
8.2.3 Homeland Jews Fought the Crusaders
8.2.4 Jews Were Still There Under the Mamluks
8.2.5 Four Hundred Years Under the Turks
8.2.6 British Misruled the Mandate, Barring Jews From Our Jewish National Home
8.3 So Why Weren’t There More Jews There in 1948?
PART 3: AMERICAN JEWS
9.1 The Loneliness of a Right-wing Non-Orthodox American Jew
9.2 A Stroll Down Estrangement Lane
9.2.1 July 2018: Reform, AJC Bitterly Criticize Israel’s Nation-State Law
9.2.2 October 2018: Israel “Very Important” Issue to Just 52% of U.S. Jews
9.2.3 April 2019: “Establishment Jewish Groups’ Unprecedented Plea”
9.2.4 May 2019: “U.S. Jews Won’t Budge on Two-States”
9.2.5 October 2019: Reform Rejects JNF Land Purchases Beyond Green Line
9.2.6 July 2021: “U.S. Jews Have Widely Differing Views on Israel”
9.2.7 December 2021: 93 Rabbinical Students Call Israel “Apartheid”
9.2.8 May 2022: Survey Says Young Americans’ Israel Support Slipping
9.2.9 December 2022: Should American Jews’ Israeli Support Be “Conditional”?
9.2.10 January 2023: Decline in Sense of Peoplehood
9.2.11 June 2023: “Betrayal: Failure of American Jewish Leadership”
9.2.12 July 2023: Many US Jews Oppose Israeli “Judicial Reform”
9.2.13 January 2024: Young U.S. Jews Say “Biden Too Pro-Israel”
9.2.14 February 2024: Reform Statement Demands “Palestinian State”
9.2.15 March 2024: Majority of US Jews Favor “The Two-State Solution”
9.2.16 April 2024: “Pro-Hamas Jews are Jews for Antisemitism”
9.2.17 May 2024: Anti-Zionism at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
#1220 6/9/24: [Add this to section 9.2.17, on Reconstructionist Rabbinical College:] Asaf Romirowsky, this week, Jerusalem Post, 6/4/24, We Must Become October 8 Jews:
“Rabbi Deborah Waxman, president and CEO of Reconstructing Judaism, recently argued that the kind of rabbis the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College produces must care deeply about the Jewish people across geography and we stand in solidarity with Israelis. We also hold a longstanding opposition to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and support for Palestinian self-determination.” [emphasis added]
9.2.18 November 2024: Jewish Exponent Asks “Should Israel Annex Part of West Bank?”
#1243 11/17/24: Alas, the Dirty Words are still out there – in the mainstream media, in world forums, in public speech, alas, even by us. Here’s one here and now, the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, in its poll of readers this very week:
“Do you believe that Israel should pursue plans to annex parts of the West Bank?”
Enuf already said about “West Bank.” Now then, “annex,” in referring to Israel’s application of its own sovereignty to Judea-Samaria. Here are two dictionary definitions of “annex.” Encarta: “to take over territory and incorporate it into another [emphasis added] political entity – e.g., a country or state”. Cambridge: “to take possession of an area of land or a country, usually by force or without permission.” So a newspaper calling itself “Jewish Exponent” characterizing as “annexation” Israel’s application of sovereignty over land half a century in its possession of which it has the strongest legal and historical claim? For shame! So how did the vote go? At my voting: 33.19% in favor of “annexing,” 66.81% against. You supporters of “the two-state solution – two states along the 1967 [1949] lines with mutually agreed swaps”: Think what you’re for ripping from our Jewish people’s homeland of Israel – historic Jerusalem and defensible Judea-Samaria biblical hill country heartland, rendering it militarily indefensible and Jewishly meaningless.
10.1 What a Half-Century’s Donations of Used Books to the Library Says About Us
10.2 My Private (ok, shared with a parrot) Israel History Library
PART 4: OUR RELATIONS WITH OTHERS
11.1 “Islamization” of Holy Land Delegitimizes Christians Too
11.2 Much of the World’s Against Us, But We Jews Are Not Entirely Alone
PART 5: “MIDDLE EAST PEACE”
14.1 Israel’s Largest Ethnic Stream is Mizrahi
14.2 The Consequence of Israel Being Seen as “White European”
14.3 Melanie Philips: Palestinian Arabs are the Colonialists, Not Us
Jordan Needn’t Be “Transformed” into a Palestinian Arab Homeland; It IS Already
16.1 “Palestine” is Not a Dirty Word, But Calling Palestinian Arabs “THE Palestinians” Is
16.2 The Hijacking of “Palestine” and “Palestinian”
16.3 Why Palestinian Arabs Claim the Name “THE Palestinians”
17.1 What the Critics of U.N. Sec. Gen. Guterres’ Statement Missed
17.2 Everybody and His Brother Joins in the “Occupation” Canard
17.3 ZOA Answered 2021 U.S. State Dept. “Occupier” Claim
18.1 What the United States Means By “Two-States”
18.2 What the U.N. Means by “Two-States” (and How It Came by It)
18.3 Whose Idea was “Two-States Along the 1967 Lines” Anyway?
18.4 What Palestinian Arabs Mean by “Two-States”
18.5 What Israelis Think of “Two-States”
18.6 The Dangers to Our Jewish Homeland of “Two-States”
#1246 12/8/24: Just, Equitable, Jewish Homeland-Preserving Alternative
The seeming dilemma faced by many “two-states” supporting U.S. Jews is keeping Israel both “democratic & Jewish,” that absorbing millions of Judea-Samaria Palestinian Arabs, who really don’t like Jews very much, would destroy Israel’s Jewishness, while leaving them stateless in Israeli-controlled Judea-Samaria would render Israel “apartheid.” Ergo, surrender Judea-Samaria, “the West Bank,” to a new “Palestinian state.”
In his new book, One Jewish State, Trump’s first term U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman lays out an alternative to “the two-state solution,” which he, by me, convincingly presents as preserving of our Jewish people’s homeland’s Jewishness and is just and equitable to both Jews and Arabs.
The concept’s core is not new. Rabin, seen today as an icon of the left, said shortly before his assassination that a western Palestine Arab entity should be “less than a state,” that Israel must retain security control over the entirety of the land of Israel, Palestine west of the Jordan. During President Trump’s first term, Amb. Friedman and others worked out a “Vision of Peace,” under which portions of Judea-Samaria, larger than where Palestinian Arabs live now, would be set aside for up to four years during which no Jewish communities would be built there and the PA would take certain steps and agree to civil autonomy there subject to Israeli security control over all of the land west of the River and apply Israeli sovereignty over some of it, starting soon. The plan’s spelled out in Friedman’s first book, Sledgehammer (that title referencing its application to the failed “peace process” of decades). The PA rejected the plan, but still during Trump‘s term two Gulf and two other Arab states normalized relations with Israel in exchange for present “suspension” of sovereignty in the celebrated Abraham Accords. So that “Vision,” though rejected by “the Palestinians,” helped create the Abraham Accords.
In his new book, One Jewish State, Friedman takes Trump’s first term plan further. He criticizes the plan having called the Palestinian Arab autonomy area a “state” as misleading, given absence of defense and some other normal attributes of sovereignty. And such limited “statehood” could dangerously lead to down-the-road ambiguities. Further, Friedman recognizes dangers and problems in Israel applying sovereignty to only part of Judea-Samaria, demonstrably after Oct. 7 and Palestinian Arab expressed support for that atrocity, and hence calls for applying Israeli sovereignty over the entirety of Judea-Samaria including Palestinian Arab civil autonomy areas.
Given Jewish homeland rights to the entirety of the land of Israel, western Palestine, starting from its biblical Promised Land origin, continuous thrice-sovereign homeland-claiming Jewish presence over three millennia, San Remo and the Mandate, etc., Friedman says Israel has the strongest sovereignty claim, and citing the vastly higher economic status of Israeli Arabs says Judea-Samaria Arabs’ economic status and opportunities would be greatly enhanced under Israeli sovereignty.
But what about their political status? Friedman draws an analogy to Puerto Ricans. Puerto Rico is U.S.-owned territory and its residents have certain constitutional rights. But they don’t vote in U.S. presidential elections. Nor do they pay all the federal taxes paid by mainland Americans. Nobody calls America “apartheid” towards Puerto Ricans. And Palestinian Arabs dwelling in Judea-Samaria live right next door to eastern Palestine, Jordan, with its Palestinian Arab population majority. A homeland’s where your people are the majority, and easier and fairer than Israel being made “Democratic & Jewish,” Jordan could become “Democratic & Arab” and Judea-Samaria Arabs wanting national voting rights be allowed to move there.
A Final Word on Jerusalem
Photo Essay: Our Jewish Homeland Presence for 3,000 Years
- Beginnings
- Biblical Kingdoms
- From Hadrian to Herzl
- More Photos