HEBRON AND JERUSALEM SHOULD BELONG TO THE ISRAELIS!

Decemeber 3, 2oo7

It is good that Pres. George W. Bush is openly-supportive to the ideas of a peaceful co-existence between Palestine and Israel and the immediate creation of an independent Palestine. I also believe in those ideals and ideas. But I hope that the whole American nation and the whole international community would recognize the fact that Hebron and Jerusalem have long been great symbols of Jewish history and culture. Hebron and Jerusalem have always been parts and parcels of the historic and cultural achievements of the Jews in general and, obviously, of Israel in particular. The final peace pact between Palestine and Israel should recognize the right of Israel to exist as a nation in the Middle East region, as well as Israel's right of sovereignty over Hebron and Jerusalem.

Here is a letter-of-appeal to all the leaders of the international community regarding the city of Jerualem. Kindly read this one:

A letter to the world from Jerusalem, Eliezer Whartman , THE JERUSALEM POST on Nov. 20, 2007. The following op-ed was adapted from one first written for the 'Times ofIsrael,' a fledgling weekly established shortly after the Six Day War.

After the war, the Israeli government announced preparations to return all the captured territories except for Jerusalem, in exchange for peace. The response came at the Khartoum Arab Summit Conference that year, at which it was announced that there would be no negotiations and no recognition of Israel. Israel came under tremendous international pressure to re-divide Jerusalem, which caused the author to sit down in a 'white heat of anger' and write this piece.

" I am not a creature from another planet, as you seem to believe. I am a Jerusalemite - like yourselves, a man of flesh and blood. I am a citizen of my city, an integral part of my people. I have a few things to get off my chest. Because I am not a diplomat, I do not have to mince words. I do not have to please you, or even persuade you. I owe you nothing. You did not build this city; you do not live in it; you did not defend it when they came to destroy it. And we will be damned if we will let you take it away. There was a Jerusalem before there was a New York. When Berlin, Moscow, London and Paris were forest and swamp, there was a thriving Jewish community here. It gave something to the world which you nations have rejected ever since you established yourselves - a humane moral code. Here the prophets walked, their words flashing like forked lightning. Here a people who wanted nothing more than to be left alone, fought off waves of heathen would-be conquerors, bled and died on the battlements, hurled themselves into the flames of their burning Temple rather than surrender; and when finally overwhelmed by sheer numbers and led away into captivity, swore that before they forgot Jerusalem, they would see their tongues cleave to their palates, their right arms wither. For two pain-filled millennia, while we were your unwelcome guests, we prayed daily to return to this city. Three times a day we petitioned the Almighty: 'Gather us from the four corners of the world, bring us upright to our land; return in mercy to Jerusalem, Thy city, and dwell in it as Thou promised.' On every Yom Kippur and Pessah we fervently voiced the hope that next year would find us in Jerusalem. Your inquisitions, pogroms, expulsions, the ghettos into which you jammed us, your forced baptisms, your quota-systems, your genteel anti-Semitism, and the final unspeakable horror, the Holocaust (and worse, your terrifying disinterest in it) - all these have not broken us. They may have sapped what little moral strength you still possessed, but they forged us into steel. Do you think that you can break us now, after all we have been through? Do you really believe that after Auschwitz we are frightened of your threats and blockades and sanctions? We have been to hell and back - a hell of your making. What more could you possibly have in your arsenal that could scare us? I HAVE watched this city bombarded twice by nations calling themselves civilized. In 1948, while you looked on apathetically, I saw women and children blown to smithereens, this after we had agreed to your request to internationalize the city. It was a deadly combination that did the job: British officers, Arab gunners and American-made cannons. And then the savage sacking of the Old City; the willful slaughter, the wanton destruction of every synagogue and religious school; the desecration of Jewish cemeteries; the sale by a ghoulish government of tombstones for building materials, for poultry runs, army camps - even latrines. And you never said a word. You never breathed the slightest protest whenthe Jordanians shut off the holiest of our holy places, the WesternWall, in violation of the pledges they had made after the war - a war they waged, incidentally, against a decision of the UN. Not a murmur came from you whenever the legionares in their spiked helmets casually opened fire upon our citizens from behind the walls. Your hearts bled when Berlin came under siege. You rushed your airlift' to save the gallant Berliners.' But you did not send one ounce of food when Jews starved in besieged Jerusalem. You thundered against the wall which the East Germans ran through the middle of the German capital -but not one peep out of you about the other wall, the one that tore through the heart of Jerusalem. And when the same thing happened 19 years later, and the Arabs unleashed a savage unprovoked bombardment of the Holy City again, did any of you do anything? The only time you came to life was when the city was at last reunited. Then you wrung your hands and spoke loftily of 'justice'and the need for the 'Christian' quality of turning the other cheek. The truth is - and you know it deep inside your gut - some would prefer the city to be destroyed rather than have it governed by Jews. No matter how diplomatically you phrase it, the old-age prejudices seep out of every word. If our return to the city has tied your theology in knots, perhaps you had better re-examine your catechisms. For the first time since the year 70 there is now complete religious freedom for all in Jerusalem. For the first time since the Romans put the torch to the Temple everyone has equal rights. (You preferred to have some more equal than others). We loathe the sword - but it was you who forced us to take it up. We crave peace - but we are not going back to the peace of 1948 as you would like us to. We are home. It has a lovely sound for a nation you have willed to wander over the face of the globe. We are not leaving. We have redeemed the pledge made by our forefathers; Jerusalem is being rebuilt. 'Next year' - and the year after, and after, and after until the end of time -in Jerusalem!"

In memory of my son Moshe who fell in a clash with terrorists in 1975 in Lebanon. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1195546681914&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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Such letter has words of wisdom. I hope all the Arab nations can understand such letter's full meaning.

I believe the peace talks between Palestine and Israel should move forward until both states would have finally realized the actualization of peaceful co-existence between them as sovereign states. But I also hope that the leaders of the international community should also realize that taking away Hebron and Jerusalem from Israeli sovereignty would be a great injustice to the Israeli people. The better alternative is to provide a linking land that will connect the Gaza Strip from the West Bank, so that the whole of Palestine would just be a single state and territory with true sovereignty and independence. I hope that an independent Palestinian nation would be a reality soon. I also hope that the Palestinians would recognize the reality that both Hebron and Jerusalem do belong to the Israeli nation.

Mahmoud Abbas, the recognized leader of the Palestinian Authority, has to denounce and condemn all forms of terrorism committed by fanatical Islamists. He should help in appealing to all Muslims that Islam has to be reformed as a religion in this modern world. It would be wonderful if Abbas can also call upon to all the political and religious leaders of the Islamic nations to democratize and secularize Islam in the modern world. Abbas must also respect the fact that Hebron and Jerusalem are parts and parcels of the Israeli territory. Such things, if Abbas can do all of those, will prove to this world that Abbas is really sincere in his image as a moderate when it comes to peace talks and political affairs. Abbas has to show to the world that he can really help in finalizing a peace agreement between Palestine and the Israeli nation. Such are obvious!