Jerold Auerbach writes today about the Chevron massacre:
The Jewish community of Hebron—some 700 people—recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of their return. This month they commemorate the 80th anniversary of Tarpat. All the other ancient peoples mentioned in the Bible have vanished. But Jews, a community of memory, still live in Hebron.
Hebron Jews are relentlessly vilified as fanatics who illegally occupy someone else’s land. As religious Zionists, they are the militant Jewish settlers whom legions of Jewish and non-Jewish critics love to hate. It is seldom noticed that their most serious transgression—settlement in the biblical land of Israel—is the definition of Zionism: the return of Jews to their historic homeland.
The inadmissibility of acquiring land by force apparently doesn’t apply to Arabs.
Let’s not forget that when a terrorist killed a 10 month old girl in Chevron eight years ago, the PA refused to take responsibility for the crime.
Which is one reason why it elicited not even a note of remorse from the Palestinian Arab leadership. Reuters did manage to find a member of Yasser Arafat’s cabinet in Amman, Jordan, at a meeting of Arab dictators exploring ways to keep financing the attacks on Israel. It quoted the minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo, as saying there is no evidence that the baby was killed by Palestinian fire. “We believe that the atrocities of the occupation are responsible for all crimes that have claimed the lives of Palestinians and Israelis,” he said.
Thus the Jewish presence in Hevron, which was removed by force eighty years ago, is considered illegal, not just by the Palestinians but by much of the world.
More from Sanny Benoit.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
