Israeli Judenrein

Israel Harel hits the nail on the head in this USA Today op-ed, Let Jews Live on Homelands.

The term Judenrein means an area cleansed of Jews. In the past, this German concept was applied throughout Europe. Now we hear American and other liberals saying that Jewish communities on the biblical land of Judea and Samaria, the cradle of the Jewish nation, must be emptied of all their inhabitants, so that even in a Jewish homeland there can be Judenrein areas.

The expulsion of the Jews from Europe, which reached its height during World War II, was a manifestly barbaric and inhumane act. But there, at least, the Jews were unwelcome guests, having lived in that area for merely a thousand years or so. However, to drive out the Jewish community of Hebron, where the matriarchs and patriarchs of the Jewish people are buried and King David first ruled 3,000 years ago, is unthinkable.

The United States is dotted with towns named for biblical cities in Israel: Hebron, Shilo, Bethlehem. But according to the terminology of many in the U.S. press, the Israeli Shilo, the original one, is a "settlement," and consequently must be cleansed of Jews.

If someone decided to expel Jews from Shiloh, Ohio, or Hebron, Neb., USA TODAY might be among the first to come out against what it would likely term racism. Why then does it support the expulsion of Jews from the original Shilo the Jewish one? Why are Jews living in their own homeland considered "an obstacle to peace"?

Why is the only place in the world where Jews cannot live according to liberals the very place where the Jewish faith was born, where it developed monotheism, where the Judeo-Christian civilization took shape and where the Jewish people returned after 2,000 years of exile?

It is not the presence of Jews in the settlements that is a provocation to Palestinians; it is the presence of Jews anywhere in Israel on either side of the Green Line, the 1949 armistice line.

So, if you support the expulsion of Jews from Europe, America or anywhere else, you're a racist. But if you advocate the expulsion of Jews from the heart of their homeland, you're a liberal.

Liberals' demand to drive Jews off their own land to create a Judenrein area, in the land of the Jews, of all places, is the height of hypocrisy by those who claim to be fair-minded advocates of justice in the world.

Israel Harel, a political columnist for the Israeli Haaretz newspaper, is former chairman of the council that represents Jewish settlers.