Moshe Phillips is national chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel, AFSI, (www.AFSI.org), a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.
Death, taxes, and vicious anti-Israel statements from the UK's Foreign Office may pretty much be the only three constants in this world. Nonetheless, there are some lessons to be learned from the latest screed issued by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband.
The timing of Miliband's statement-issued just hours after the third anniversary of the October 7 Hamas-led terrorist invasion -is chillingly detached and wrongheaded. But its policy pronouncements are far worse.
The most notable part of the official statement was the lie that "East Jerusalem is occupied territory."
The Foreign Office also threw in expelling all Jews from Judea-Samaria which is what is truly meant by declaring "the UK’s role in support of [a] two state solution." All of the full statement featured on the official UK government website is outrageous and despicable. But it is the Jerusalem section that warrants the most attention.
What Miliband is calling for, in effect, is a Jew-free zone in what he calls "East Jerusalem" - a term meant to define it as an entity, when it is really just the eastern part of the city - if it were to be under the Palestinian Authority (PA). And make no mistake about it, by calling for "a two state solution" and saying "East Jerusalem is occupied territory" he is formally saying that it is UK policy that there be no Jews in "East Jerusalem."
The UK statement is nothing less than a demand that members of one faith, Jews, be kicked out of the part of the city where their holy sites are situated. As the watchdog group Honest Reporting has stated "There are multiple laws under which the PA currently prosecutes citizens who sell land to Israelis, with courts having cited numerous statutes and ordinances in their verdicts."
Anybody who knows even a little of the history and geography of the region knows that "East Jerusalem" does not actually exist. That’s because in Israel, "East" and "West" are not simple geographic terms as they are in the United States. The Upper East Side in Manhattan, South Philadelphia, and East L.A. are names that are used to denote neighborhoods and sections of a city.
"East Jerusalem" is the term that Arab propagandists and their media sympathizers invented to try and erase the unique Jewish identity of Jerusalem.
By "East Jerusalem," they actually mean the heart of Jerusalem, the walled Old City section where the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, are located.
The eastern part of the city where the Jordanians destroyed 58 synagogues, and desecrated thousands of Jewish gravestones in the Mount of Olives cemetery.
The area where Jordan practiced real-life apartheid, by preventing Jews from entering for nineteen long years.
In the Christian Bible, every instance in which a specific location in Jerusalem is mentioned refers to an area that the UN wants Israel to surrender. The term "East Jerusalem" cannot be found in a Christian Bible. Because "East Jerusalem" is about as real as the Twilight Zone.
The words "Next Year in Jerusalem!" that Jews the world over will proclaim at the close of the Yom Kippur service, and that is also a highlight of the Passover Seder, refer to the ancient parts of Jerusalem that the UN includes as part of this mythical creation of "East Jerusalem." There is no such thing as "East Jerusalem."
Israel's "Jerusalem Law" (formally "The Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel") was passed by the Knesset on July 30, 1980, while Menachem Begin served as prime minister. It should be recalled that the UK at that time had an outrageous reaction to the law as Israel declared to the world that Jerusalem was "complete and united."
Wikipedia for sure does not have all the answers, but the entry on this subject at least makes clear when people use the mistaken term "East Jerusalem" what they actually are saying is that "East Jerusalem includes the Old City and sites of religious significance to Muslims, Christians, and Jews." In other words, "East Jerusalem" is Jerusalem's Old City and its surrounding neighborhoods; the Jewish, original and oldest parts of Jerusalem are in this "East Jerusalem."
What lessons can we learn from this? Here are three:
First, the UK's current government is composed of rank hypocrites. They know that Jordan occupied, despoiled and desecrated Jerusalem's Old City for nineteen years, and barred Jews from entering-and now they are saying Jews should again be barred.
Second, it is time for American Jewish tourists to reconsider their upcoming travel destinations. The UK has for far too long been a destination for Jewish tourists. Yet the idea that the U.K. government is advancing would prevent any American Jewish parent from organizing a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah ceremony at the Western Wall-because the Wall is in "occupied East Jerusalem."
Had Ed Miliband attended Yom Kippur services late last month, he would have stood alongside millions of Jews worldwide and proclaimed the ancient prayer at the conclusion of Neilah: 'L'Shanah Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim'-'Next Year in Jerusalem!' He might want to take a closer look at his Machzor. It does not say 'Next Year in East Jerusalem' nor does it say 'West Jerusalem.' It does not carve up the holiest city in Judaism, nor does it ask for divine restoration in a geopolitically partitioned enclave. That is because nowhere in traditional Judaism-neither in the Torah, nor in the Siddur, nor in thousands of years of rabbinic literature-does the concept of 'East Jerusalem' exist. Nor does it exist on ancient maps.
By adopting an artificial political name for Jerusalem, that was specifically designed to erase Jewish history, Miliband isn't just taking a policy stance; he is denying the very words spoken by the people he claims to understand.