Are we getting soft in the head ...?
It happens all the time.
A neighbor knocks on your door and says: “I’m having some people round, would you mind if I parked in your driveway?”
But how would it be if you knocked on your neighbor’s door and said “I promise I won’t park in my own driveway.”
He’d be pretty astonished and think you were a bit soft in the head.
But that is exactly what Prime Minister Netanyahu did this week.
He sent a message to Jordan’s King Abdullah, reassuring him that he has no intention of allowing Jews to pray on their own sovereign and biblical Temple Mount.
The last thing I would ever call Bibi is soft in the head. But you do have to wonder why he felt it necessary to make such a grovelling statement, least of all to the King of Jordan.
Let’s not forget how Jordan treated the Old City after taking occupation of Jerusalem in 1948 and beginning an ethnic cleansing of its centuries-old Jewish population. Not content with removing the Jews, they destroyed all the synagogues – 58 in all, including the magnificent Hurva shul which has been so beautifully restored under Jewish liberation.
For the 19 years of its occupation of Jerusalem, Jordan refused to abide by the Armistice Agreement entitling Jews to have access to their holiest site, the Western Wall. Instead only the privileged few were able to snatch glimpses from Mt Zion on appointed days.
Today Jordan needs Israel more than we need them. Aside from saving his father King Hussein from more than one Arab assassination attempt, Abdullah knows the Jordan River is his safest border. He faces the new ISIS threat from the East and an unstable Syria to the North. And he’s probably shrewd enough to have figured out that the State of Israel will survive a lot longer than the crumbling House of Saud in the South.
And, for all his flag-waving for the Palestinian cause, the Jordanian King is terrified that Abbas will ever get control of the West Bank. He knows it will rapidly be taken over by radicals like Hamas and subsumed into the federation of terror enclaves funded by Iran and Qatar.
In spite of these stark realities, Netanyahu still felt it necessary to kowtow to an Arab king who occupies the East Bank of the homeland which was mandated to Jews by the League of Nations. The part that Britain stole from that mandate to gift to his grandfather. The same Britain whose parliament was last week so keen to dispossess us of our West Bank as well.
And, whilst on the subject of that vote – it was not just about dispossession of the West Bank. It’s inevitably about the creation of a new terror front on the narrowest part of our tiny Jewish state. The diehard Arabists of the British Foreign Office hope to achieve what they set out to do in 1948; leaving their arms and equipment for the Arabs to smother the new-born Jewish state in its cradle.
Since 1948 we have celebrated independence 66 times. But we are fooling ourselves with parades, street parties and concerts. True independence means asserting our national and sovereign rights in our own land.
This is our driveway. We park here.
We come and go as we please.
A neighbor knocks on your door and says: “I’m having some people round, would you mind if I parked in your driveway?”
But how would it be if you knocked on your neighbor’s door and said “I promise I won’t park in my own driveway.”
He’d be pretty astonished and think you were a bit soft in the head.
But that is exactly what Prime Minister Netanyahu did this week.
The last thing I would ever call Bibi is soft in the head. But you do have to wonder why he felt it necessary to make such a grovelling statement, least of all to the King of Jordan.
Let’s not forget how Jordan treated the Old City after taking occupation of Jerusalem in 1948 and beginning an ethnic cleansing of its centuries-old Jewish population. Not content with removing the Jews, they destroyed all the synagogues – 58 in all, including the magnificent Hurva shul which has been so beautifully restored under Jewish liberation.
For the 19 years of its occupation of Jerusalem, Jordan refused to abide by the Armistice Agreement entitling Jews to have access to their holiest site, the Western Wall. Instead only the privileged few were able to snatch glimpses from Mt Zion on appointed days.
Today Jordan needs Israel more than we need them. Aside from saving his father King Hussein from more than one Arab assassination attempt, Abdullah knows the Jordan River is his safest border. He faces the new ISIS threat from the East and an unstable Syria to the North. And he’s probably shrewd enough to have figured out that the State of Israel will survive a lot longer than the crumbling House of Saud in the South.
And, for all his flag-waving for the Palestinian cause, the Jordanian King is terrified that Abbas will ever get control of the West Bank. He knows it will rapidly be taken over by radicals like Hamas and subsumed into the federation of terror enclaves funded by Iran and Qatar.
In spite of these stark realities, Netanyahu still felt it necessary to kowtow to an Arab king who occupies the East Bank of the homeland which was mandated to Jews by the League of Nations. The part that Britain stole from that mandate to gift to his grandfather. The same Britain whose parliament was last week so keen to dispossess us of our West Bank as well.
And, whilst on the subject of that vote – it was not just about dispossession of the West Bank. It’s inevitably about the creation of a new terror front on the narrowest part of our tiny Jewish state. The diehard Arabists of the British Foreign Office hope to achieve what they set out to do in 1948; leaving their arms and equipment for the Arabs to smother the new-born Jewish state in its cradle.
Since 1948 we have celebrated independence 66 times. But we are fooling ourselves with parades, street parties and concerts. True independence means asserting our national and sovereign rights in our own land.
This is our driveway. We park here.
We come and go as we please.
posted by Zalmi | 9:58 pm
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