Author: David Mark

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Are We The Occupiers In Hebron?

There is a common mantra the international leftwing and woke movement repeats over and over. – “Israel is the occupier.” While it is easy to refute such nonsense, videos and images from cities like Hebron can make it hard to assuage even veteran Israel supporters.

After all, at first glance Hebron is jarring. A little more than 1,000 Jews live among at least 150 thousand Arabs. The IDF appears to be all over the place and security barriers divide various areas. Despite the fact that the larger Jewish community of Kiryat Arba abuts Hebron, the Jewish community in Hebron can still feel isolated.

However, the images and a videos one sees from afar or the experience one has in person is not the whole picture. In fact, the heavy security presence in Hebron only exists in about 3% of the city – the area that is controlled by Israel since the Wye River Accords otherwise known as H2. The rest of the 97% of Hebron – known as H1 is officially controlled by the Palestinian Authority.

The reason for the heavy military presence in H2 is due to the pogroms, terrorism, and violence against the Jewish community in Hebron. This has gone on well before the 1967, when the Jewish people regained sovereignty in Hebron and long before 1948, when the Jewish people regained their independence.

There has been a continuous Jewish presence since Biblical times except for about 70 years during Byzantine rule, long before the current Arab presence began. Jews were massacred there in 1929 and the Jews that returned to what is known as the Tel Rumeida neighborhood, were forcibly removed in 1936 by the British.

While the international left likes to paint a distorted image of Hebron, the fact is, it is hard consider control over just 3% of a city – occupation – especially when that 3% contains residents and holy sites that have been maligned by the majority Arab population for centuries.

It is time to look at Hebron holistically and within a broader historical context instead of pigeonholing it into the same false conflict paradigm that exists within the anti-Israel leftwing.

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Are The Gazans Being Washed Away?

As everyone knows by now Israel moved most of the Gazans to what is known as a humanitarian zone in an area known as Muwasi. This is a small strip of land along the Gazan coast near Khan Yunis. Despite being in tents, the area is known for its beautiful beaches so how bad could it be? Up until now, the Gazan “civilians” seemed to be doing fine despite being out of permanent homes. However, things are changing.

Strange flooding is now occurring across Gaza’s beaches bringing destruction to many of the tents closest to the sea. With summer ending and colder weather coming, Gaza’s “civilians” appear to be out of solutions. With their current plight increasing one question that keeps on repeating itself: why aren’t the other Arab nations taking them in?

The answer is simple – none of the other Arabs countries wants a Hamas sympathizing populace amongst it. Wherever the Gazans go death and destruction will follow so they remain to watch their tent city begin to wash away.

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Exclusive: Jewish Shepherds Attacked Near Hebron, But Why Are They Being Targeted?

On the afternoon of August 24th, four Jewish teenagers who work on a farm near Ma’ale Hever, a small Jewish community in the Hebron Hills, were violently assaulted by a group of Arabs while the Jewish youth were grazing sheep. The Arabs surrounded the Jewish youth and proceeded to throw rocks and cinder blocks at them. When security forces came to help they were attacked as well.

At the end of the incident, the Arab attackers were arrested (one had been shot by security forces when he attacked them) and the Jewish youth were taken to the hospital to treat their wounds. While this can be seen as an isolated incident or just a scuffle between Jews and Arabs with dueling land usage claims, this is a mistake.

The Biden Administration has been claiming that there is a scourge of violence directed from Jewish “Settlers” at Arabs in Judea and Samaria. Evidence not only suggests otherwise, but most of the violent incidents across Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank) are perpetrated by Arabs or Internationally Funded Leftists. When Jews defend themselves they are accused of being violent terrorists.

One of these incidents happened to me in the summer of 2019. My son and I and his friend went for a hike near Ma’ale Hever. An Arab shepherd who tried attacking some Jewish youth a week before spotted us. Another Arab came at us with a spiked staff and had his dogs surround us. Being armed I pulled my gun out and threatened to shoot his dogs who were trying to attack us. The Arabs called them off. A few minutes later we were surrounded by 7 Arabs that were all armed with wooden staves that had nails at the end of them. If it wasn’t for the arrival of the army, it would have gotten extremely violent very fast.

These sorts of incidents are now growing, being egged on by the Biden State Department, which paints all Jews living in Judea and Samaria as some sort of “illegal occupier.” This false narrative gives Arabs leaving in the area the feeling that all types of resistance is permitted – a similar approach as those Woke protestors siding with Hamas on US college campuses.

The fact is, like the rest of the Land of Israel, there have been Jewish communities existing in various places throughout the Land – yes even in Southern Judea – known as Har Hebron or Hebron Hills. Some of these communities existed for thousands of years only to be chased out or forcibly converted by Islamic colonizers. I will tackle this in another post.

The root cause of the violence in Har Hebron, like other areas of Judea and Samaria is that somehow the mere presence of Jews equals some sort of illegal affront to the “local” Arabs who have been deemed indigenous by today’s global DEI warriors. The Arabs in Judea and Samaria like the rest of Israel are anything but indigenous unless they are from the communities forcibly converted by Islamic colonizers 1,300 years ago.

The incident outside of Ma’ale Hever is part of a larger campaign to delegitimize the Jewish presence anywhere in our ancestral homeland. Facts are facts and not matter how hard Biden and his team wish that Jews in Judea and Samaria are the root cause for regional problem, it is the Islamic Jihadist refusal to accept the Jewish return back our ancestral, biblical, and indigenous homeland that is the real cause for regional issues.