It's also worth mentioning that it's not secret the Romans renamed Israel into Palestine in order to weaken the region's Jewish identity. The gift that keeps on giving.

"Muslims ethinically cleansed Jews from Judea"? That is a gross error and a misrepresentation of the historical fact that it was always the Muslim RULERS, from the second Caliph Umar al-Khattab right to the Mamluk rulers and (later on) the Ottomon rulers who allowed Jews to co-exist peacefully and side-by-side with their Muslim and Christian neighbours. The current State of Israel IS a foreign state, an European colony transplanted into the culture of the Middle East.

Theodore Hertzl was not a Jewish Middle Eastern, he was an atheist German. And that is the father of Zionism. Oh btw, the name is not "Judea" any longer, its called "West Bank". Outdated geographical names is for those who have a severe identity problem, no offence.

- MENJ

I did mention that in my fisking.

Cohen's article is another version of the shifting logic of the the pro Palestinian crowd that has many versions but always gets around to the same result. Everything is Israel's fault and there really shouldn't be a state of Israel. Witness the almost universal statements of "Of course Israel has the right to defend itself" that has shifted to "Israel is defending itself to hard" Huh? If it has the right to defnd itself then it needs to do what it has to do to get the aggressors in this war to surrender or at least stop lobbing missles. The logic of the world opinion should be translated as "You have the right to defend yourself but you can't win."

The ground always shifts. For decades we heard nothing but "two state solution." Arafat and his cronies frustrated almost every two state solution. Now the chattering classes have rewarded Palestinian intransigence by shifting to the newest solution of "the two state solution can't work, so now there should be a single Palestinian state." Gee what a shock. Their answer to the problem is the end of Israel, the solving of the Cohen "mistake" conundrum. Thank God that Israel has a intellectual and theological problem with the notion of suicide.

Menj, I suggest you read my fisking. of Cohen's previous column. I link to some history about Muslim treatment of Jews. If you had 2 columns of data about Christian and Muslim treatment of Jews, the positive and negative would be about equal. Jews fled from Muslim rule to Christian territory just as much as the other way around.

" The current State of Israel IS a foreign state, an European colony transplanted into the culture of the Middle East. Theodore Hertzl was not a Jewish Middle Eastern, he was an atheist German."

Zionism is a 2000 year old movement to return Jews to their country, called Zion among many other names. Its modern form is a national political movement similar to other national movements of the time. It had many fathers and mothers, one of whom was Herzl.

You are implying that European Jews are significantly different from Arab Jews, which isn't true, and that Jewish religion and peoplehood are two separate things, which they aren't.

I know part of ancient Judea is now called the West Bank. But I used its name at the time of the event I referred to, when it was the name of the Jewish nation.

Menj

While there were rulers who granted great freedoms to minorities like Jews, it was whimsical. It changed when they died. When they woke out of bed angry. When they were replaced. There were European slave owners who also treated their slaves well, and sometimes even set them free or married them. Does that justify slave-owing?

Anyone who supports the right of self-determination for Palestinian Arabs cannot deny a Jewish State. Both were and always were minorities who were crushed by Arab rulers to the point of almost no existence.

Yes, Hertzl was European. That is natural, only Jews in Europe grew to the opportunities of Europe, while Jews indigenous to the Muslims lands were simply trying to feed themselves. Why is is unfair that the Jews with most opportunity facilitated the recreation of Israel?

Further, speaking of "Outdated geographical names", the word Palestine was invented by Europeans too, Romans, who wanted to erase the Jewish identity of Israel. The gift that keeps on giving.

Some people just don't get it.