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April 02, 2014
The New Yorker Equates Israel's Annexation of Jerusalem with Nazi Anschluss
The New Yorker likes to insert into its articles digs at Israel. Another one popped up in the introduction to a piece on the Russian annexation of Crimea. George Packer writes,
Annexation has an ugly sound, owing to an unhappy past. The term describes, among other tragedies, Saddam Hussein’s attempt, in 1990, to swallow Kuwait whole, as the nineteenth province of Iraq; Indonesia’s invasion, in 1975, of East Timor; Morocco’s absorption, the same year, of Western Sahara; and Israel’s declaration, after the 1967 war, of East Jerusalem as part of a united capital. The German word for it is Anschluss. Like most coerced unions, annexations come wreathed in clouds of lofty, dishonest language—key themes are popular will, historic grievance, divine providence—but they almost always happen at the end of a gun.
The magazine has a reputation for skillful writing, but not so much for accuracy or for making sound historical analogies, especially when it comes to Israel.
With the exception of Israel, the annexations Packer lists - by Iraq, Indonesia, Morocco and Germany - share common traits; they were unprovoked acts of aggression ordered by authoritarian rulers. Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem was the result of a defensive war fought by a democratic state responding to aggression committed by Jordan. That's a big difference.
There are other differences too. Some of the annexations involved territories on which the annexers had dubious historical claims. There is no reasonable doubt about the connection of the Jewish people to Jerusalem. Furthermore, the city had only been divided for 19 years as a result of Jordanian aggression in 1948.
But the fact that Packer lumps together these distinctly different events, each with its own historical context, is of no importance to The New Yorker. All that matters is that it sounds clever and allows the smug writers at the magazine to take another swipe at Israel.
Posted by SS at April 2, 2014 01:55 PM
Comments
And was east Jerusalem legally part of another country in 1967?
No.
Posted by: gi at April 3, 2014 09:27 AM
Ahem... It seems the author's memory only goes back to the day he was born. The Holy Land of Jews and Christians goes back a couple thousand years and Jerusalem,Judah and Israel belongs to the Jews for the past 4000 years, even if they haven't always ruled.
Jerusalem has been conquered 25 times since antiquity. The seepage of Muslim Jihad into the area has no bearing on the ownership of the Jews' holy capital. It is, has been and always will belong to the Jews. Not to say anything easy to see, but I will. The Arabs have two holy cities in Arabia. Why should Jews and Christians give Arabs and Muslims their Holy Land?
Kathleen Wagar
Anoka Mn USA
Posted by: Kathleen Wagar at April 3, 2014 03:10 PM
Jerusalem has had a Jewish population majority since the late 1850s - that's 130 years already, before 'Palestinianism' was invented:
Jews were expelled from East-Jerusalem by the Jordanian occupation at 1948. They lived in East-Jerusalem for thousands of years. They returned to their homes after Israel liberated the city in 67.
Jerusalem was never in history the capitol of any Arab country. It has only been the Capitol of Israel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrqnxYbi2P4
Dr. Mordechai Kedar reveals: “Moslems fabricated myths to make Jerusalem holy for politics�?
George Packer will be happy if he can help the Palestinians destroy all Jewish history in Jerusalem.
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=5490
PA TV: Western Wall area to be turned into Arab housing neighborhood.
Palestinian Authority TV:
Western Wall area to be turned into Arab housing neighborhood - Jewish presence in Jerusalem will be erased from history.
Aug. 17, 2011
Posted by: Barry Meridian at April 3, 2014 06:18 PM
Just more pathetic antiSemitism thinly cloaked as unfair and unreasonable criticism of Israel.
Packer and the New Yorker seem less like the sophisticated journalists they would like to be considered, and more like racist hacks with this type of fashionably dishonest antiIsrael narrative.
Posted by: Al Neuman at April 3, 2014 06:43 PM
New York Times, The New Yorker, NPR, New York Review of Books…what is this? They all jump the bandwagon and say snide anti-Israel comments. Must be the editors want this, especially Jewish ones. It is very disturbing that George Packer gratuitously throws in anti-Israel remarks that show he has no idea of the actual history of Israel fighting a defensive war and winning it and yes, having all of Jerusalem for winning the defensive war after Jerusalem had been desecrated by Arab occupation. Let us speak the truth.
Posted by: GRF at April 9, 2014 03:59 AM
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