By SUA Staff – Why is it, that after 45 years, the US media still mischaracterizes the 1967 war in the Middle East?
Why, not because they cannot read or study factual history, rather, they chose to adopt revisionist history. In the following article below, it is clear that this is yet another example of how the so-called “newspaper of record”, the NY Times, rewrites history and slants its news – blatantly.
When the Arab nations lined up to annihilate Israel in 1967, Jordan controlled in part, what is referred to as Yesha. Yesha is an acronym in Israel for “Yehuda Shomron ‘Azza'”, also known as the West Bank (Samaria and Judea) and the Gaza (Azza) Strip, and is one of a number of terms used to describe the areas won by Israel after the Six-Day War of June 1967.
In the area of Yesha on the “West Bank” of Judeah and Samaria, the NY Times claims Israel “took” it from Jordan. Unfortunately for the NY Times, that is a myth:
MYTH
“Israel attacked Jordan to capture Jerusalem.”
FACT
Prime Minister Levi Eshkol sent a message to King Hussein saying Israel would not attack Jordan unless he initiated hostilities. When Jordanian radar picked up a cluster of planes flying from Egypt to Israel, and the Egyptians convinced Hussein the planes were theirs, he then ordered the shelling of West Jerusalem. It turned out the planes were Israel’s, and were returning from destroying the Egyptian air force on the ground. Meanwhile, Syrian and Iraqi troops attacked Israel’s northern frontier.
Had Jordan not attacked, the status of Jerusalem would not have changed during the course of the war. Once the city came under fire, however, Israel needed to defend it, and, in doing so, took the opportunity to unify the city, ending Jordan’s 19-year occupation of the eastern part.
Another fact they missed was the pre-war set, and the position of Jordan:
King Hussein of Jordan signed a defense pact with Egypt on May 30, 1967. Nasser (Egypt) then announced:
The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel . . . to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation. This act will astound the world. Today they will know that the Arabs are arranged for battle, the critical hour has arrived. We have reached the stage of serious action and not declarations.
President Abdur Rahman Aref of Iraq joined in the war of words: “The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear—to wipe Israel off the map.” On June 4, Iraq joined the military alliance with Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
Buoyed by false reports of Egyptian success, Jordan initiated offensive actions against Israel from the eastern portion of Jerusalem and from lands it occupied west of the Jordan river (the West Bank). Israeli forces responded by attacking Jordanian military positions. After a three days of fierce fighting, especially in and around Jerusalem, Israeli forces defeated the Jordanians and gained control of all of Jerusalem as well as the West Bank, the historical heartland of the Jewish people known to Israelis as Judea and Samaria.
Additionally;
Jordan (originally called Transjordan) was created out of the Palestine Mandate by Great Britain in 1923, and achieved full independence in 1946. In 1948, during the war against Israel, Transjordan conquered and annexed what became known as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Old City of Jerusalem, but only Britain and Pakistan recognized its sovereignty there.
In fact, one small issue defies logic, how was Judea every anyone else’s but Israel’s, since it was originally Judah, one of the 12 tribes of Israel? The very name Judea (Yehuda) is part the root for the term “Jew”. How was Judea ever an ancestral Arab homeland, let alone a “Hashemite” homeland, since it was a land conquered from the Jews?
Even the Nazis called Jews “Juden”. History, fail to know it – doomed to repeat it – shame on the NY Times – again!
NY Times Claims Israel ‘Took’ Yesha from Jordan in 1967
A NY Times editorial rewrites history: Israel “took” Judea and Samaria from Jordan in 1967, when Jordan fled the areas in the Six Day war.
By Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu – Israel National News
A New York Times editorial Tuesday rewrites history and claims Israel “took” Judea and Samaria from Jordan in 1967, when Jordan fled the areas after joining other Arab nations as they converged on Israel in the Six Day War.
The editorial lambasted Israel in last week’s non-binding report by a government-appointed judicial panel, which contradicted the international community’s claim that Israel is an “occupier” and that it is illegal for Jewish communities to exist in Judea and Samaria.
The editorial stance of the Times was not surprising, but its editorial actually twisted the fact that Israel never “took” or conquered Judea and Samaria. The newspaper also repeated the frequent claim, not supported by facts, that all of Judea and Samaria were under authorized Jordanian sovereignty.
The Israeli panel of three legal experts, chaired by former High Court Justice Edmund Levy, pointed out that Jordan actually was the occupier of what mainstream media calls the “West Bank, which also is a misnomer because the literal definition is all of the land west of the Jordan River and reaching the Mediterranean Coast.
The United Nations partition plan of 1947 was to divide Israel, administered under the British Mandate, between Israel and a new Arab state after Britain had created the artificial country of Transjordan. After the Arab world refused to accept the idea of a Jewish State of Israel, the War for Independence broke out and ended with the Temporary Armistice Lines of 1949. Jordan assumed sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria because its forces had occupied the area.
Jordanian forces fled the entire area during the Six Day War in 1967, leaving Israel to administer Judea and Samaria. Israel could be termed an “occupier” in the land that fell under its control and had been part of the country, but Jordan itself had occupied Judea and Samaria in 1947.
Nevertheless, The New York Times editorial continues to allege that Israel is in violation of “the Fourth Geneva Convention [that] bars occupying powers from settling their own populations in occupied lands.”
Even the editorial’s headline – “Wrong Time for New Settlements” – was a bit misleading concerning the newspaper’s opinion, which does not leave an option for a “right time” for settlements.
The Times also concluded that the Levy report was a “disastrous blow” because “pushing ahead with new settlements in the West Bank” is an obstacle to “peace talks, the best guarantee of a durable solution” to the Palestinian Authority-Israeli dispute.”
The newspaper even warned that the report also will damage Western efforts to halt Iran’s unsupervised nuclear development.
It reasoned that the report will bring about “new international anger at Israel…that could divert attention from Iran just when the world is bearing down with sanctions and negotiations to curb Tehran’s nuclear program.”
