The Jewish State: Israel

Psalms Chapter 137 תְּהִלִּים

א  עַל נַהֲרוֹת, בָּבֶל--שָׁם יָשַׁבְנוּ, גַּם-בָּכִינוּ:    בְּזָכְרֵנוּ, אֶת-צִיּוֹן.	1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
ב  עַל-עֲרָבִים בְּתוֹכָהּ--    תָּלִינוּ, כִּנֹּרוֹתֵינוּ.	2 Upon the willows in the midst thereof we hanged up our harps.
ג  כִּי שָׁם שְׁאֵלוּנוּ שׁוֹבֵינוּ, דִּבְרֵי-שִׁיר--    וְתוֹלָלֵינוּ שִׂמְחָה: שִׁירוּ לָנוּ,    מִשִּׁיר צִיּוֹן.	3 For there they that led us captive asked of us words of song, and our tormentors asked of us mirth: 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.'
ד  אֵיךְ--נָשִׁיר אֶת-שִׁיר-יְהוָה:    עַל, אַדְמַת נֵכָר.	4 How shall we sing the LORD'S song in a foreign land?
ה  אִם-אֶשְׁכָּחֵךְ יְרוּשָׁלִָם--    תִּשְׁכַּח יְמִינִי.	5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
ו  תִּדְבַּק-לְשׁוֹנִי, לְחִכִּי--    אִם-לֹא אֶזְכְּרֵכִי: אִם-לֹא אַעֲלֶה, אֶת-יְרוּשָׁלִַם--    עַל, רֹאשׁ שִׂמְחָתִי.	6 Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I remember thee not; if I set not Jerusalem above my chiefest joy.
ז  זְכֹר יְהוָה, לִבְנֵי אֱדוֹם--    אֵת, יוֹם יְרוּשָׁלִָם: הָאֹמְרִים, עָרוּ עָרוּ--    עַד, הַיְסוֹד בָּהּ.	7 Remember, O LORD, against the children of Edom the day of Jerusalem; who said: 'Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.'

"I remember the days when we were told, 'All you need is to get the PLO to recognize Israel, and recognize Israel's right to exist in safe and secure boundaries."
"The Jewishness of the state of Israel, this is a new addition. We are working to establish a pluralistic, democratic, inclusive state in Palestine. Not an exclusive state based on religion, ethnicity or whatever."
Hanan Ashrawi, PLO member, negotiator

In actual fact, the Palestinian Authority and its President Mahmoud Abbas, stated categorically that the new Palestinian-state-in-waiting, the non-exclusive, inclusive, democratic pluralistic state, would host not one Jew, not one single Jew would be welcome to befoul the existence of the new state, meant exclusively, in point of fact, for Palestinians. That the original Palestinians were Jews is simply incidental to this story.

There are many states within the Middle East and many also in North Africa and Asia. They distinguish themselves by being Islamic. In the Middle East, the states are both Islamic and Arab with two exceptions. Is Saudi Arabia an Arab state? Is Iraq? Is Syria? Is Egypt? The Gulf States? Jordan? Arab states, though their exclusivity varies from Lebanon's type to that of Saudi Arabia. But they are Arab states.

Arabism is not exclusive to Islam, though it boasts as its genesis with the authenticity of the Arabic language expressing its origins. Islam is not exclusive to the Arab states, though they claim predominance in authenticity of genuine Islamic provenance. History and heritage and their scriptures support this, though it is a matter of no little resentment among others whose Islam derives from theirs.

Israel, modern Israel, was created both by Zionist devising and determination and United Nations acquiescence, as a recognition that Jews, not necessarily by divine provenance, but certainly by historical right and cultural destiny aligned with religious devotion, clinging to the past, planning for the present and looking to the future represented as a homeland of safe haven for the most traditionally persecuted ethnic community on the face of the Earth.

To deny the obvious is to remain forever deliberately and wishfully ignorant of reality and morality. "This is the Jewish land. This is the Jewish state. When we make an agreement it is an agreement between the nation state of the Jewish people and a nation state of the Palestinian people", stated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Palestinian people comprising an Arab state wish to make an agreement with an amorphous, non-identified ethnic group with no prior claims to origins.

For the Palestinians the denial of Israel as a Jewish state is a deliberate political artifice of crafty design. Paramount in their thought process is a return to 'Palestine', a reoccupation of the lands they fled in anger and fear when Jews took possession of a Jewish state. A state that democratically accepts a pluralistic state with a majority Jewish population recognizing civil rights for Palestinian Arabs, people of Greek and other origins, Kurds and Bedouin.

"It's hard to compare the matter to other countries because of the unique aspect of Judaism. It is not just a religion or a nationality or an identity -- it is all in one", stated Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, making a stab at explaining to a doubting world a complex yet quite explicable fact beyond a shadow of a doubt.