{"id":43124,"date":"2018-04-18T03:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T07:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=43124"},"modified":"2018-04-17T17:05:28","modified_gmt":"2018-04-17T21:05:28","slug":"israel-at-70","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2018\/04\/18\/israel-at-70\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel at 70"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the National Post<\/em>, Barbara Kay<\/a> explains why the world should (but largely will not) celebrate the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the state of Israel on Thursday:<\/p>\n

Making the case for Israel\u2019s territorial and political rights involves a deep knowledge of Jewish and Arab history, understanding of the complexities around the reconstruction of the modern Middle East from the ashes of the Ottoman empire, and a plod through a litany of declarations, mandates, commissions, conferences and international legal documents that most Israel defenders aren\u2019t even aware of, let alone able to deploy in debate with rhetorical economy.<\/p>\n

Moreover, since the 1967 war, which changed so much on the ground, even the Israeli government hasn\u2019t pressed itself to defend Israel\u2019s historic rights in any systematic way (apart from crises, as in 2016, when the Palestinians drafted a resolution for UNESCO, whose language deliberately detached Jewish ties from Judaism\u2019s holiest sites). With the 1993 Oslo peace process, the issue of legal rights fell further off the communications radar.<\/p>\n

When it became clear over the next tumultuous decade that terrorism could not destroy Israel, Israel\u2019s enemies ramped up the campaign to undermine her legitimacy as a member state within the international community. Once the Palestinian strategy of revisionist history replaced organized physical violence \u2014 including outright lies as in the UNESCO fiasco \u2014 it became clear that a fact-based counteroffensive was needed.<\/p>\n

For in the end, it will be international law and accords, not blood libels and emotional mantras, that will settle the matter of Israel\u2019s literal legitimacy. Israel was created, like many other countries, after a successful war in which no other country came to its aid. Gaza, Judea and Samaria were conquered by Jordan and Egypt illegally, as they had no claim to them, while Israel did. The Palestinian territories are not in fact \u201coccupied\u201d in law; rather they are \u201cdisputed.\u201d The word \u201csettlements\u201d imply Jews are foreigners in their own homeland, which they are not. Jews have built 140 communities in Judea and Samaria since 1967, which excites condemnation. The Arabs have built 260 communities in Judea and Samaria since 1967, which excites \u2026 silence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the National Post, Barbara Kay explains why the world should (but largely will not) celebrate the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the state of Israel on Thursday: Making the case for Israel\u2019s territorial and political rights involves a deep knowledge of Jewish and Arab history, understanding of the complexities around the reconstruction of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,370,11],"tags":[304,291,446,292,691],"class_list":["post-43124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-middle-east","category-religion","tag-antisemitism","tag-israel","tag-judaism","tag-palestine","tag-unitednations"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-bdy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43125,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43124\/revisions\/43125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}