This land is our land

Can we stop with the make-believe and tell it as it is? In “Two tales of one Western Wall visit” (July 2), British Home Secretary Sajid Javid, according to the Government Press Office visited the Old City of Jerusalem as part of his visit to Israel, whereas the statement issued by the British Consulate General in Arabic and English, explains that Javid visited not Israel, but “the Occupied Palestinian territories.”

This parallels the make-believe situation with the Arab countries that our government so proudly boasts have turned to us in friendship. The bottom line there is that they want another state for the Arabs on our land plus the convenience of having us as allies against Iran, whom they are unwilling to confront themselves. Nothing more.

We now have US senior adviser Jared Kushner saying, “I have a lot of respect for President Abbas, he’s devoted his life to make peace… I believe in his heart he wants to make peace,” adding that US President Donald Trump is “very fond of Abbas personally and that the door is always open for the Palestinian leadership” (“Trump fond of Abbas but PA reaction to Bahrain hysterical,” July 4)

The reality is different. Abbas, a terrorist in a suit, has sworn to destroy us, encourages hate and vengeance in his state-controlled media and schools and denies any legitimacy by us to any part of our land and holy sites, saying that his ‘Palestine’ will not have even one Jew. Islam came only 2,200 years after Judaism, so from where do their rights to our Jewish land emanate? In the devious minds of our enemies and so called friends?

Time to call a halt to this madness of negotiation over our land. EDITH OGNALL Netanya

Regarding “German government contractor: IDF ‘executes’ peaceful Palestinian protesters” (July 4), Amnesty International representative Petra Schoning demonizes Israel at a speaking event. Among other things, she mislabels the disputed territories west of the Jordan River as “Palestinian territories.” The misnomer is commonly applied by pro-Arab and Arab propaganda sources, regardless of legal error, as fact, and reality is of no consequence to them. Those who seek truth or wish to avoid blatant anti-Israel bias employ terms such as “disputed territories,” “Judea and Samaria,” or “West Bank.”

Since the early 1920s, no legal authority with the power to make international law has designated any territory in Palestine as the homeland of any nationality – not the League of Nations (following the Palestine Mandate given to Great Britain), the United Nations General Assembly (which, according to the UN Charter, has no power to create a country or apportion territory), nor UN Security Council, as in Resolution 242. It would be wise, therefore, for The Jerusalem Post to avoid such terminology in its reporting and leave it for commentators or propagandists who wish to misuse it to distort reality. BERNARD SMITH

Jerusalem