JRV1288

WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG:  I hope I’m wrong, but I fear that President Trump doesn’t adequately appreciate that Judea-Samaria is not just what makes Israel militarily defensible, but alongside historic Jerusalem makes our people’s land of Israel homeland more Jewishly meaningful than Uganda.  Whose Job One is detoxifying Americans’, all the way up to the President’s, poisoned perceptions of western Palestine’s, the land of Israel’s, Jewishness?  That of we grassroots American Jews.  Read on for one grassroots way to play.

I hope to Hell I’m wrong, but I fear that President Trump, light-years America’s most pro-Israel president, hopefully misunderstandingly, didn’t just stab Israel and our Jewish people in the back this week, he twisted the knife.  At bottom, whose fault is that?  Ours, us grassroots American Jews.  Hopefully, Trump didn’t fully appreciate either the magnitude of the concession he made or the bottomless depth of contempt embodied in the Jewish homeland-delegitimizing words that he used.  President Trump [emphasis added a little]:

“I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank.  I will not allow it.  It’s not going to happen.”

So often I read that those who oppose the world imposing a Palestinian state inside the land of Israel “at this time” base their objection on “the Palestinians not being ready for peace.” Of course they’re not, never have been and never will be for peace with a Jewish state, whatever its boundaries. But “The Palestinians” not being ready for peace is not the core reason.  House Speaker Mike Johnson, speaking after President Trump mouthed these Jewish homeland-delegitimizing words, expressed that fundamental reason best (Israel National News, Sunday, 9/28/25 (this morning), Mike Johnson: Judea and Samaria Belong to Israel, Geopolitical Forces at Play):

“Judea and Samaria belong to Israel.”

That’s just how Bibi himself succinctly put it last week, asserting at the “E-1” site our Jewish people’s homeland claim to the land of Israel

“This place belongs to us.”

Beyond the Land Concession Itself: The Terminology the President Used

Make no mistake, by us “West Bank” and “annexation” are Dirty Words, Jewish homeland delegitimizing terms, period.

“West Bank” isn’t a synonym of “Judea and Samaria,” three-millennia-in-use Hebrew-origin Jewish homeland place names, used even by the UN in 1947.  The Jew-demeaning mainstream media delights in deceiving readers that “Judea and Samaria” are “the West Bank’s biblical names.”  “West Bank” is an antonym, coined by invader [Trans]-Jordan in 1950 for the same reason the Romans renamed defeated Judaea as “Palestine” – to disassociate what had been Jewish from Jews. It’s a Shanda for we Jews to say it.

Now, here’s Google on “annexation” in its “international annexation” context:

“Definition: The forcible acquisition of territory from one state by another, often after military occupation.”

Google’s accompanying image is of an outstretched hand grasping.

To show you how stupefyingly sleepwalking our own Jewish media can be, here’s a “World Israel News Staff” article a fortnight ago, 9/14/25, under the banner “Help Israel Win the Media War”!  WIN led an article quoting Finance Minister Smotrich calling on Netanyahu to “apply sovereignty” and Justice Minister Levin asserting “it is time to apply sovereignty to Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley” with “Israeli ministers are urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to officially annex Judea and Samaria ….” And it headlined this plea to “Help Israel Win the Media War” as Israel May Annex Judea and Samaria After UN ‘Palestine’ Vote.  Well, at least WIN didn’t headline and lead “West Bank.”  But here’s Google on sleepwalkers: “They have limited awareness of their surroundings and cannot recognize hazards.”

So why am I blaming us grassroots U.S. Jews for Trump mouthing “annex” and “West Bank”?  This weekly tirade of mine that you’re reading (perhaps alas sleepwalking through) is #1288.  From the beginning I’ve pleaded with those of you fellow grassroots U.S. Jews who “Put-Up-With-Me-Weekly” that influencing the minds of Americans vis-à-vis Israel, especially in disabusing the public of the poisoned pejoratives pervading the media’s contemptuous coverage of our Jewish people’s homeland every day, is primarily our obligation, not that of Israel, engaged at the moment, as said Bibi this week at the UN, on seven fronts in the Mideast.  Back in these emails #2, I put it this way:

“Incessant media repetition of unbalanced portrayals of the fundamental contested claims does Israel the deepest damage by poisoning the public’s perception of history, justice and equitable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

And now – notwithstanding our three-millennia homeland history’s recognition by the UN-endorsed League of Nations Palestine Mandate that the land of Israel with historic Jerusalem and Judea-Samaria at its very core is our “Jewish national home” – this vaster-than-Covid-spreading-virus has infected the mind of the President of the United States, who believes Israel’s trying to “annex” the “West Bank.” 

And want something even scarier?  Not on what won’t happen, but will.  President Trump’s latest peace plan calls for the Palestinian Authority “to play a role in governing Gaza.”  Jewish Voice this morning, 9/28/25, Trump’s 21-Point Gamble: Bold Gaza Blueprint Pits Ceasefire Dreams Against Israel’s Security Red Lines.  The existential danger’s not just “Pay-For-Slay,” no less genocidal (yes, that’s the word) than Hamas.  It’s one giant leap toward the fatal for Israel “two-state solution.” 

And, much appreciated grassroots Jewish Democrats who put up with me, don’t gloat over my dismay over Trump’s No-West-Bank-Annexation.”  When confronted with “pro-Palestinian” protestors on her book tour this week, Kamala Harris, who boycotted Bibi’s speech to Congress in defiance of her VP job description of presiding over the Congress and told reporters after meeting Bibi afterwards that “she discussed with Netanyahu ‘the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians,’” responded to this week’s protestors “What’s happening to the Palestinian people is outrageous, and it breaks my heart,” but [by me, still thankfully] “I’m not president right now, there’s nothing I can do.”  Image if she were President.  And, Jewish Dems, don’t gloat either over this.  The Jerusalem Post reported this morning:

“Forty-seven Democratic congressional representatives sent a Friday letter calling for the United States of America to recognize a Palestinian state to President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio….”

Bottom Line for Us Grassroots U.S. Jews

Well, my fellow anguished grassroots American Jew, here’s an armchair way for you to enlist in the cause of Uncle Shmuel Needs You. 

My deal with my book Here & Now: U.S. Jews and the Issues Confronting Us (ok, Amazon) publisher includes a website.  I’m including on it a 100% organization-free multi-grassroots-author blog with comment threads on all sides of those issues confronting us.  My aim is a Grassroots American Jewish Street.  The site’s live but a work-in-process of a novice (me) frantically deciphering WordPress.  The first posts will include an already-written “debate” between a journalist friend to whom a western Palestine sovereign Arab state is not an anathema and me, on either-side-of-which we earnestly solicit your comments.  But more than that, email me a Word doc expressing your view, either way, on one of these issues, and, if approved for form, etc., but not on the position you’ve taken, I’ll post in your name or nom de plume.  Game?

Regards,

Jerry