Occupied or liberated?

(JNS) — Among many journalists who seem to know little about Jewish history or international law, New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief Patrick Kingsley and unrelenting critic of Israel Thomas L. Friedman (among others) share a common misnomer. They repeatedly refer to Israel’s “occupied territory,” located in what became known as Jordan’s “West Bank” after Israel’s war of independence in 1948.

Two decades later, following its stunning victory in the Six-Day War, Israel regained the biblical homeland of the Jewish people in Judea and Samaria. Ever since, Israel has been accused of violating the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the transfer of the population of an occupying power into the territory it occupies. Israel, to be sure, did not “transfer” anyone. Despised “settlers” returned of their own volition, determined to reclaim their ancient homeland.

Jewish history in their promised land began in Hebron where, according to the biblical narrative, Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah as the burial site for his wife, Sarah. Anything but “occupied” territory, it was there that David became king of Israel, ruling for seven years before relocating his throne to Jerusalem. So it was that Hebron—the foundation of Jewish life in the Promised Land—became deeply embedded in Jewish history and memory. (There were no Palestinians then.) But for millennia, it remained a tiny and impoverished community of Jews, barely able to summon a minyan for prayer. By the 19th century, Hebron Jews lived in a cramped ghetto, the frequent target of hostile local Arabs.

During violent Arab rioting in 1929, the Hebron Jewish community was decimated. Dozens of residents, including rabbis, were brutally slaughtered, and Jews were forced to leave their ancient holy city. Hebron became Arab-occupied territory, and Jews did not begin to return until Israel’s stunning victory in the Six-Day War four decades later. Now the Hebron Jewish community, with fewer than 1,000 residents, is adjacent to the thriving Arab city of more than 200,000 Palestinians.

Amid relentless criticism of Israel, The New York Times is oblivious to the reality that there already is a Palestinian state, with a Palestinian majority population, in historic Palestine. A century ago, British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill removed the land east of the Jordan River from Palestine as a gift to the Hashemite Sheikh Abdullah. Churchill anticipated that it would become a future Arab state. It did, identified as the Kingdom of Jordan. Jewish settlement there was prohibited.  As yet, there were no “Palestinians.”

Now, in biblical Judea and Samaria, nearly 3 million self-identified Palestinians outnumber half a million Jews who are persistently denigrated as malevolent settlers. Settlements have been described as “a lunatic enterprise,” expressing “the sins of occupation” and severely damaging to Israel’s “soul.” Settlers, according to historian Howard Sachar, are “fanatics” and “zealots.” A Hebrew University professor described the return of Jews to Hebron as “a national disgrace, a genuine sin and crime.” Political scientist Ehud Sprinzak insisted that the settlement movement, combining “ultranationalism, militarism, ethnocentrism and religiosity,” is “incompatible with modern democratic principles.” So Israel is relentlessly castigated for its illegal “occupation”—of its biblical homeland.

Times laceration of Israel, even when, as now, it is under siege from its Arab neighbors (Hamas in Gaza; Hezbollah in Lebanon), has been relentless. Obsessed with Palestinian suffering, it pays little attention to the toll exacted from Israel. The Hamas massacre of 1,200 Israelis in southern Israel on Oct. 7 was quickly overshadowed by unrelenting criticism of Israel for its determination, by force as necessary, to destroy Hamas and prevent a repeat attack. So, too, with Lebanon, where Hezbollah has driven thousands of Israelis in the north to vacate their homes to escape its continuing air and rocket assault.

But the newspaper of record’s editors, columnists and reporters prefer to lacerate Israel for its determination to protect its citizens and destroy its enemies. They ignore the reality that settlement in the Land of Israel defines Zionism. Perhaps its daily motto, “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” should be revised to read “All the News That Fits Our Discomfort With Israel.”