ללא מחבר No Author

From Golda to Huckabee: The Palestinian People Do Not Exist!

Mike Huckabee channels Golda Meir

 

It was only when modern-day Israel was established in 1948 that the Arabs began using the term “Palestine” as a way of attacking Israel’s legitimacy.

Moshe Phillips | November 19, 2024

Moshe Phillips is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel, a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education group

When former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador-designate to Israel, appears at his Senate confirmation hearing, he’s sure to run into some harsh questions from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and other critics of Israel concerning some of his past comments about Palestinian Arab identity.

All Huckabee will need to do in response is quote the words of Golda Meir.

In 2008, Huckabee said: “There’s really no such thing as a Palestinian. You have Arabs and Persians. And there’s such complexity in that. But there’s really no such thing. That’s been a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.”

And in 2015, he told The Washington Post: “The idea that they have a long history, dating back hundreds or thousands of years, is not true.”

None of which is any different from what one of Israel’s most famous and beloved prime ministers said, repeatedly.

Golda Meir, the prime minister of Israel (and leader of its Socialist Labor Party) said in an interview with the London Sunday Times on June 15, 1969, that until very recently: “There was no such thing as Palestinians. When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either Southern Syria, before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine, including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist.”

That was not some one-off comment. Meir said it again and again. For example, here she is on the BBC’s “This Week” program in 1970 (the segment can be viewed on YouTube):

“What difference is there between Arabs who were on this side of the Jordan and the other side of the Jordan, Arabs in the east bank and the— west of the border of the west bank? I mean, when were Palestinians born? What was all this area before the First World War? When Britain got the mandate over Palestine, what was ‘Palestine’ then? Palestine was then the area between the Mediterranean and the Iraqi border.”

The interviewer then cut in: “You say there is no such thing as a Palestinian—”

Meir: “No, east and west bank was Palestine. I’m a Palestinian. From ’21 until ’48, I carried a Palestinian passport. There was no such thing in this area as ‘Jews and Arabs, and Palestinians.’ There were Jews and Arabs.”

She continued: I don’t say there are no Palestinians. But I say there is no such thing as a distinct Palestinian people. Of all the Palestinians who live in Jordan, why have the Palestinians in the West Bank become more ‘Palestinians’ since the fifth of June ’67 than they were before? Why didn’t they set up a Palestinian country, in addition to Jordan? … They should have set up another, independent Palestine, and fought from there. They didn’t do that. They adopted the fact that they are in Jordan, they have adopted Jordanian citizens[hip]. They are the majority in Jordan, they are in parliament, they are in government. What has happened since then—why have they become more Palestinian-conscious since the war of ’67?”

The answer to the prime minister’s question (Why did Palestinian Arab identity suddenly emerge after 1967?) was answered succinctly by Huckabee: It was invented to serve as “a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.”

All serious historians and anthropologists know the truth. There is nothing about the Palestinian Arabs that genuinely distinguishes them from the Arabs in Jordan or Syria. They all speak the same language. They all have the same history and culture. Almost all of them have the same religion.

This is why, throughout history, they never demanded the creation of a separate “Palestinian” state. The region was occupied by fellow Muslims for many centuries—Turkish Muslims for 600 years, and Jordan and Egypt from 1949 to 1967. Yet these “Palestinians” never asked their fellow Muslims to set up a “Palestine.”

Meir alluded to the ironic fact that Jordan itself used to be called “Palestine”—that is, before the British arbitrarily sliced off the eastern 75% of the Palestine Mandate territory in 1922, barred Jews from the area, and renamed it “Transjordan” (which was later shortened to “Jordan”). The people there were magically transformed from “Palestinians” to “Transjordanians” with one wave of a British wand. Isn’t it remarkable how today’s outspoken critics of colonialism have nothing to say about the British colonial decrees that arbitrarily redefined the meaning of Palestine and Palestinians?

It was only when modern-day Israel was established in 1948 that the Arabs began using the term “Palestine” as a way of attacking Israel’s legitimacy. And it was only in 1967 when Israel took over the areas where most of those Arabs reside that they began using the label “Palestinian” in earnest, actively trying to create out of thin air a distinct identity in the hope of delegitimizing and displacing Israel.

So Bernie Sanders better bring a large handkerchief with him to the hearings. He’s going to need it to wipe all the egg off his face when ambassador-designate Huckabee starts quoting Golda Meir to him.

From Israpundit, here.

Rabbi Avi Grossman: The Past, Present, and Future of Halakhic Practice

Listen on YT here…

Premiered Sep 5, 2024

Judaism Demystified: A Podcast for the Perplexed – Episode # 99 with Rabbi Avi Grossman “Halakha Demystified”

• Episode 99: Rabbi Avi Grossman “Halakha Demystified”

• In this episode, we sit down with Rabbi Avi Grossman to explore the complexities of Halakha and its relevance to contemporary Jewish life. Rabbi Grossman begins by discussing why “Demystifying Halakha” is crucial for understanding and practicing Judaism today. We dive into the idea that the entire Torah was always meant to be practiced, a concept that significantly shapes our understanding of Halakha. Rabbi Grossman explains how Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah stands out from other halakhic codes, particularly in its detailed guidance on practices like observing Passover with a paschal lamb and instructions for when it is not available. Rabbi Grossman further elaborates on the Mishneh Torah’s intention to serve as a complete legal code for all generations and all aspects of Halakha. We also discuss the Vilna Gaon’s role in reviving “orphaned” commandments, understanding the importance of these commandments, and their impact on Halakhic practice. The conversation takes shifts to the importance of maintaining a critical approach to halakhic issues, questioning the automatic precedence given to later authorities. We explore the significance of national obligations and self-governance in Halakha, questioning why these aspects may have fallen out of common practice. Finally, Rabbi Grossman challenges the “fallen-out-of-use” fallacy, addressing the belief that if certain practices are no longer observed, it must be by divine will. You don’t want to miss this fascinating discussion.

• Bio: Rabbi Avi Grossman brings a diverse and rich background to our discussion on Halakha. He holds a BS in Biology from Queens College of the City University of New York and an MBA from Jerusalem College of Technology in Israel, with teaching credentials from the David Yellin Academic College of Education in Jerusalem. Ordained by both Beis Medrash L’Talmud and Rabbi Abba Bronspiegel, Rabbi Grossman is the director of the Torah L’Maaseh program at Yeshivat Ramot in Jerusalem and is widely recognized for his shiurim on Machon Shilo’s YouTube channel. Additionally, he serves as a senior editor for the Steinsaltz Center’s Tanakh publication project and is the founder of Torah Le’Maaseh. Rabbi Grossman is also the author of *Haggadat Hapesach*, a unique Passover Haggadah that emphasizes the Paschal offering as the centerpiece of the Seder. His extensive academic and rabbinical achievements, coupled with his commitment to Jewish education, make him a compelling authority on the application of Halakha in contemporary Jewish life.

Who Should Pay for Science? A: Not the State!

Who Should Pay for Science?

The Free Market 13, no. 8 (August 1995)

 

As Congress considers cuts in science funding, lamentations are rising. “We’re dominated by fools,” said one Democrat. “At risk is the type of Government-financed research that has put men on the moon,” intoned the New York Times. “Such cuts portend wide changes in American science and American life.” A few years ago, a Harvard physicist compared federal refusal to build the Superconducting Supercollider to medieval Europe allowing itself to be overrun by the Moors.

All hype. There is no reason for taxpayers to support trips to the moon, particle physics, or any other research not directly serving defense against external or internal aggression, the core function of government. Funds for basic research can be allocated by the market.

Bear in mind that, while some socialized science is worthwhile—weather satellites, for example—private industry, not the government, manufactures the satellites and the launch vehicles. Agencies like the National Bureau of Standards that run their own facilities buy their equipment from these contractors. (Dupont, not “the Manhattan Project,” built the plant that made the plutonium for the atom bomb; had it had the will and the money, it could have built the plant on its own.)

All government does is channel resources, thereby influencing what problems will be explored and who will do the exploring. The question is whether the government has any more business doing this than it has deciding what shows run on Broadway. An author wishing to have his play produced solicits the support of investors, whose decision to buy in is influenced by idealism plus the number of tickets the play is thought to sell. It is not too much to ask scientists wishing to perform experiments to find backing in the same way.

Much research is already market-driven. Pharmaceutical firms fund development costs, and in the process supply a cornucopia of new medicines. Altruistic alumni support university laboratories. The system of weather and communication satellites, if profitable, would certainly be self-supporting once privatized.

Sure, runs the reply, but that’s because most people grasp the practical applications of science. The big argument for subsidizing fundamental research is that it is over nearly everyone’s head. Just as the average person has a sufficiently clear idea of what breakfast is all about to decide for himself whether to try a new cereal, he knows enough about how he feels to choose medications. When he lacks expertise, but knows what the experts think, he can rely on their judgment—reading only critically acclaimed books, and taking tests his doctor orders. But the average knowledge consumer cannot evaluate basic research. Unfamiliar with curved spacetime and the zoo of elementary particles, unable to understand so much as the titles of articles in physics journals, he cannot even evaluate evaluations. He has no way of deciding whether to help finance searches for gravity waves of proton decay.

Market transactions based on adequate information may satisfy all transactors, but too few people know science for success in the marketplace to measure the value of basic research. Hence (the argument concludes) government must direct resources where the scientific community says they should go.

The flaw in the argument is that it overlooks the scientist’s obligation to get his ideas across. After all, a would-be researcher is selling something; in exchange for support, he offers to pursue certain lines of inquiry. If he wants any takers, therefore, he had better be able to explain what he wants to find out and why finding it out would be good.

He hardly bears this burden alone, for all new products are to some degree unfamiliar, and must be explained to the public. People were not born knowing the advantages of automatic transmissions over manual. Vladimir Zworkin had to persuade the management and ultimately the stockholders of RCA to fund his research into the wireless transmission of images. The uses of television seem obvious to us now, because they have shaped our world; Zworkin lived in a different world, most of whose inhabitants were as familiar with electromagnetism as we are with the topics of current research.

A researcher can persuade others to support him in numerous ways. His sales pitch, like Zworkin’s, might be the prospect of a lucrative new technology. Research has epistemic as well as financial rewards: a scientist can appeal to the intellectual curiosity of his peers, pointing out how his project might help their own research.

Most psychologists interested in the heritability of personality traits would be happy to support a study of the heritability of alcoholism, for instance. A scientist might offer a subscription service, publishing a newsletter for contributors to keep them posted on breakthroughs. (Thus did Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica come into the world; a number of Newton’s acquaintances put up the money to allow him to publish it, and in return they received copies.) He can try to make his case to laymen in laymen’s terms.

Should he fear his ideas are too abstruse, he might seek to interest professional sages like Carl Sagan who have the public’s ear. Ernest Rutherford once said, “If a piece of physics cannot be explained to a barmaid, then it is not a good piece of physics.” Rutherford may have exaggerated, but if the barmaid can’t understand the physics, why should she be expected to pay for it?

Suppose a scientist proves unpersuasive, he enlists no support, and his experiment is not done. An unwanted service has been removed from the market, whether we say the public is blind to its own interest, or that our man failed to make them see it. But—the second argument for subsidized science—don’t we lose knowledge, and didn’t I as much as admit, when I mentioned intellectual curiosity, that knowledge is good? Of course it is, but, like every other good, its acquisition carries costs which must be balanced against benefits.

Not all knowledge is worth having. Nobody cares how many blades of grass there are in Central Park. Some knowledge that might be worth having cheaply—like what all your associates really think of you—is too expensive. You have better things to do than snoop around the office all day. The human race does not have the resources to answer every question. Choices must be made. On the principle that those who want something should be the ones who pay for it, those who want a particular question looked into should be the ones who finance the looking.

Continue reading…

From Mises.org, here.