Black American pastors rebuke Obama for accusing Israel of taking land
A national group of black American pastors says Obama’s claim that Israel “took land off people” ignores the Jewish people’s ancient bond to the land.
Etgar Lefkovits
6
mins read time
Originally published at
JNS
Mendi Glik
6
mins read time
Originally published at
JNS
U.S. President Barack Obama with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the tarmac at Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport, March 20, 2013. White House Photo courtesy of Pete Souza.
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
JNS
A national organization of black American pastors have categorically rejected an assertion made by former U.S. President Barack Obama that Israel “took land off people,” saying that claim was a dangerous omission of the Jewish people’s three-thousand-year-old connection to the Holy Land.
The strong pushback by the Christian leaders came just days after the first United States black president made the contested remarks in Northern Ireland, adopting a common claim used by anti-Israel activists.
Leadership will not be silent
“When a former president of the United States tells a European arena that Israel was founded on theft, he hands a talking point to every campus mob, every synagogue vandal and every ideologue who has spent half a century teaching that the Jewish state is a colonial crime,” said the Black Christian Leadership Council on Israel.
“The Council will not be silent while that happens, and we will not let the claim go unanswered in the African American churches we serve,” the statement added.
Obama’s new contention
At his talk, Obama said that after millennia of persecution, Israel “took land off people, and they were excessive. And those people understandably said: ‘This is injustice, and I want my land back.””
The church leaders noted that Obama himself had called Israel “the historic homeland of the Jewish people” during a 2013 visit to Israel, and had highlighted that Jews lived, worked the soil and prayed in that land more than 3,000 years ago.
“He was right then. He is wrong now. Nothing in the ground changed between 2013 and 2026. Only the audience did,” the statement continued.
The pastors added that in his Belfast speech, the former president omitted the historical connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, noting that it was never emptied of Jews and was both lawfully recognized and legally purchased.
“Unfinished business”
The group, which was established this summer and seeks to revive historic black–Jewish relations, plans to lead a major pilgrimage to Israel in November of 500 pastors and church leaders.
The tour, which has been dubbed “Unfinished Business,” commemorates a large-scale Holy Land visit originally planned by Martin Luther King Jr. in November 1967, which was postponed following the Six-Day War and later prevented by his assassination in 1968.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also fired back at Obama’s remarks.
“The Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in the land of our forefathers,” Netanyahu responded in a video rebuke posted on X.
“Our land is not stolen land. This is our homeland; it’s called Judea. That’s where Jews come from. We’ve been attached to it for thousands of years,” he added.
Originally published at: https://www.jns.org/news/u-s-news/black-american-pastors-rebuke-obama-for-accusing-israel-of-taking-land
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No, Israel did not ‘take the land’
BY MENDI GLIK
JNS
Recently, former President Barack Obama claimed that Israel “took the land” from the Palestinians and has “ceded moral ground” in its pursuit of security. These serious allegations demand a reckoning.
I am sure that Obama isn’t an anti-Semite. After all, as president, he was surrounded by many Jewish advisers and staffers, though mostly of the progressive variety whose affection for the Jewish state may be understated.
HaShem’s promise
Before diving into the cold, hard facts of international law, there is a fundamental truth that Obama and his ideological soulmates seem willfully to ignore: Israel belongs to the Jewish people because God promised it to them.
As millions of Jews in synagogues around the world read in the Torah, God declared to Abraham: “To your offspring I will give this land.” Now that we have clarified this foundational truth, we can move on.
Historical facts
First, there are a few undeniable historical facts: In 1867, the American author Mark Twain visited the region and recorded his observations in The Innocents Abroad. He described the territory of Palestine as a desolate, ruined expanse, largely devoid of inhabitants.
Decades later, on Nov. 2, 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, pledging support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. At the San Remo Conference in April 1920, this principle was codified into international law, forming the legal bedrock for the British Mandate. San Remo officially recognized the historic connection of the Jewish people to the Land and granted binding legal validation to the creation of their national home.
As for the name “Palestine” itself, its origins have nothing to do with Arab heritage. Following the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 C.E., the Roman Emperor Hadrian, enraged by Jewish resistance, renamed the region “Syria Palaestina” and erected the pagan city of Aelia Capitolina atop the ruins of Jerusalem, hoping to sever the Jewish people’s bond to their ancestral homeland. “Palestine” was a Roman geopolitical construct, not an Arab state.
ADVERTISEMENT
Legal purchase of land
Fast-forward to modern legal precedents: In 2012, a commission headed by former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy examined the legal status of Judea and Samaria under international law. The Levy Report concluded that the classical laws of belligerent occupation do not apply to these territories. Why? Because Judea and Samaria were never a recognized, legitimate part of any sovereign Arab nation.
When Jordan illegally annexed Judea and Samaria following Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, Britain was virtually the only Western nation to grant formal recognition to it. Consequently, when Israel fought for its survival in the 1967 Six-Day War, it repelled aggression from Jordan, Egypt and Syria—sovereign state actors. It did not “take land” from a non-existent Palestinian state.
Furthermore, long before 1948, Jewish pioneers purchased land legally and systematically through official transactions recorded in Ottoman and British land registries. The narrative that Israel simply “took the land” collapses under the weight of both private property records and international law.
We are now just weeks away from the Hebrew month of Kislev, when Jews around the world celebrate Chanukah. Obama knows this holiday intimately, having hosted lavish White House Chanukah parties complete with latkes, kosher caterers and warm speeches. Yet while enjoying the festivities, he appears to have missed the foundational story of what he was celebrating.
Open a history book!
More than 2,000 years ago, when the Seleucid king Antiochus VII demanded that the Jews yield their land, Simon the Hasmonean issued a timeless response recorded in the Book Of Maccabees: “We have neither taken other men’s land, nor hold that which belongs to others, but the inheritance of our fathers, which was wrongfully held by our enemies for a time. But we, having opportunity, hold fast the inheritance of our fathers.”
In 1948, after two millennia of exile, the Jewish people finally returned to their sovereign ancestral home in the Land of Israel. Jews did not “take land” from anyone, nor do they hold foreign property.
Do not lecture us on morality, Mr. Obama. The Land of Israel belongs to Am Yisrael, the nation of Israel. It’s time to open a history book, drop the false narratives and respect the truth.
Originally published at: https://www.jns.org/opinion/mendi-glik/no-israel-did-not-take-the-land
Originally published at
JNS
Originally published at
JNS
ADVERTISEMENT
Black American pastors rebuke Obama for accusing Israel of taking land
A national group of black American pastors says Obama’s claim that Israel “took land off people” ignores the Jewish people’s ancient bond to the land.
Etgar Lefkovits
6
mins read time
Originally published at
JNS
Mendi Glik
6
mins read time
Originally published at
JNS
U.S. President Barack Obama with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the tarmac at Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport, March 20, 2013. White House Photo courtesy of Pete Souza.
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
JNS
A national organization of black American pastors have categorically rejected an assertion made by former U.S. President Barack Obama that Israel “took land off people,” saying that claim was a dangerous omission of the Jewish people’s three-thousand-year-old connection to the Holy Land.
The strong pushback by the Christian leaders came just days after the first United States black president made the contested remarks in Northern Ireland, adopting a common claim used by anti-Israel activists.
Leadership will not be silent
“When a former president of the United States tells a European arena that Israel was founded on theft, he hands a talking point to every campus mob, every synagogue vandal and every ideologue who has spent half a century teaching that the Jewish state is a colonial crime,” said the Black Christian Leadership Council on Israel.
“The Council will not be silent while that happens, and we will not let the claim go unanswered in the African American churches we serve,” the statement added.
Obama’s new contention
At his talk, Obama said that after millennia of persecution, Israel “took land off people, and they were excessive. And those people understandably said: ‘This is injustice, and I want my land back.””
The church leaders noted that Obama himself had called Israel “the historic homeland of the Jewish people” during a 2013 visit to Israel, and had highlighted that Jews lived, worked the soil and prayed in that land more than 3,000 years ago.
“He was right then. He is wrong now. Nothing in the ground changed between 2013 and 2026. Only the audience did,” the statement continued.
The pastors added that in his Belfast speech, the former president omitted the historical connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, noting that it was never emptied of Jews and was both lawfully recognized and legally purchased.
“Unfinished business”
The group, which was established this summer and seeks to revive historic black–Jewish relations, plans to lead a major pilgrimage to Israel in November of 500 pastors and church leaders.
The tour, which has been dubbed “Unfinished Business,” commemorates a large-scale Holy Land visit originally planned by Martin Luther King Jr. in November 1967, which was postponed following the Six-Day War and later prevented by his assassination in 1968.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also fired back at Obama’s remarks.
“The Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in the land of our forefathers,” Netanyahu responded in a video rebuke posted on X.
“Our land is not stolen land. This is our homeland; it’s called Judea. That’s where Jews come from. We’ve been attached to it for thousands of years,” he added.
Originally published at: https://www.jns.org/news/u-s-news/black-american-pastors-rebuke-obama-for-accusing-israel-of-taking-land
ADVERTISEMENT
No, Israel did not ‘take the land’
BY MENDI GLIK
JNS
Recently, former President Barack Obama claimed that Israel “took the land” from the Palestinians and has “ceded moral ground” in its pursuit of security. These serious allegations demand a reckoning.
I am sure that Obama isn’t an anti-Semite. After all, as president, he was surrounded by many Jewish advisers and staffers, though mostly of the progressive variety whose affection for the Jewish state may be understated.
HaShem’s promise
Before diving into the cold, hard facts of international law, there is a fundamental truth that Obama and his ideological soulmates seem willfully to ignore: Israel belongs to the Jewish people because God promised it to them.
As millions of Jews in synagogues around the world read in the Torah, God declared to Abraham: “To your offspring I will give this land.” Now that we have clarified this foundational truth, we can move on.
Historical facts
First, there are a few undeniable historical facts: In 1867, the American author Mark Twain visited the region and recorded his observations in The Innocents Abroad. He described the territory of Palestine as a desolate, ruined expanse, largely devoid of inhabitants.
Decades later, on Nov. 2, 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, pledging support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. At the San Remo Conference in April 1920, this principle was codified into international law, forming the legal bedrock for the British Mandate. San Remo officially recognized the historic connection of the Jewish people to the Land and granted binding legal validation to the creation of their national home.
As for the name “Palestine” itself, its origins have nothing to do with Arab heritage. Following the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 C.E., the Roman Emperor Hadrian, enraged by Jewish resistance, renamed the region “Syria Palaestina” and erected the pagan city of Aelia Capitolina atop the ruins of Jerusalem, hoping to sever the Jewish people’s bond to their ancestral homeland. “Palestine” was a Roman geopolitical construct, not an Arab state.
ADVERTISEMENT
Legal purchase of land
Fast-forward to modern legal precedents: In 2012, a commission headed by former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy examined the legal status of Judea and Samaria under international law. The Levy Report concluded that the classical laws of belligerent occupation do not apply to these territories. Why? Because Judea and Samaria were never a recognized, legitimate part of any sovereign Arab nation.
When Jordan illegally annexed Judea and Samaria following Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, Britain was virtually the only Western nation to grant formal recognition to it. Consequently, when Israel fought for its survival in the 1967 Six-Day War, it repelled aggression from Jordan, Egypt and Syria—sovereign state actors. It did not “take land” from a non-existent Palestinian state.
Furthermore, long before 1948, Jewish pioneers purchased land legally and systematically through official transactions recorded in Ottoman and British land registries. The narrative that Israel simply “took the land” collapses under the weight of both private property records and international law.
We are now just weeks away from the Hebrew month of Kislev, when Jews around the world celebrate Chanukah. Obama knows this holiday intimately, having hosted lavish White House Chanukah parties complete with latkes, kosher caterers and warm speeches. Yet while enjoying the festivities, he appears to have missed the foundational story of what he was celebrating.
Open a history book!
More than 2,000 years ago, when the Seleucid king Antiochus VII demanded that the Jews yield their land, Simon the Hasmonean issued a timeless response recorded in the Book Of Maccabees: “We have neither taken other men’s land, nor hold that which belongs to others, but the inheritance of our fathers, which was wrongfully held by our enemies for a time. But we, having opportunity, hold fast the inheritance of our fathers.”
In 1948, after two millennia of exile, the Jewish people finally returned to their sovereign ancestral home in the Land of Israel. Jews did not “take land” from anyone, nor do they hold foreign property.
Do not lecture us on morality, Mr. Obama. The Land of Israel belongs to Am Yisrael, the nation of Israel. It’s time to open a history book, drop the false narratives and respect the truth.
Originally published at: https://www.jns.org/opinion/mendi-glik/no-israel-did-not-take-the-land
Originally published at
JNS
Originally published at
JNS
ADVERTISEMENT
Black American pastors rebuke Obama for accusing Israel of taking land
A national group of black American pastors says Obama’s claim that Israel “took land off people” ignores the Jewish people’s ancient bond to the land.
Etgar Lefkovits
6
mins read time
Originally published at
JNS
Mendi Glik
6
mins read time
Originally published at
JNS
U.S. President Barack Obama with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the tarmac at Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport, March 20, 2013. White House Photo courtesy of Pete Souza.
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
JNS
A national organization of black American pastors have categorically rejected an assertion made by former U.S. President Barack Obama that Israel “took land off people,” saying that claim was a dangerous omission of the Jewish people’s three-thousand-year-old connection to the Holy Land.
The strong pushback by the Christian leaders came just days after the first United States black president made the contested remarks in Northern Ireland, adopting a common claim used by anti-Israel activists.
Leadership will not be silent
“When a former president of the United States tells a European arena that Israel was founded on theft, he hands a talking point to every campus mob, every synagogue vandal and every ideologue who has spent half a century teaching that the Jewish state is a colonial crime,” said the Black Christian Leadership Council on Israel.
“The Council will not be silent while that happens, and we will not let the claim go unanswered in the African American churches we serve,” the statement added.
Obama’s new contention
At his talk, Obama said that after millennia of persecution, Israel “took land off people, and they were excessive. And those people understandably said: ‘This is injustice, and I want my land back.””
The church leaders noted that Obama himself had called Israel “the historic homeland of the Jewish people” during a 2013 visit to Israel, and had highlighted that Jews lived, worked the soil and prayed in that land more than 3,000 years ago.
“He was right then. He is wrong now. Nothing in the ground changed between 2013 and 2026. Only the audience did,” the statement continued.
The pastors added that in his Belfast speech, the former president omitted the historical connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, noting that it was never emptied of Jews and was both lawfully recognized and legally purchased.
“Unfinished business”
The group, which was established this summer and seeks to revive historic black–Jewish relations, plans to lead a major pilgrimage to Israel in November of 500 pastors and church leaders.
The tour, which has been dubbed “Unfinished Business,” commemorates a large-scale Holy Land visit originally planned by Martin Luther King Jr. in November 1967, which was postponed following the Six-Day War and later prevented by his assassination in 1968.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also fired back at Obama’s remarks.
“The Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in the land of our forefathers,” Netanyahu responded in a video rebuke posted on X.
“Our land is not stolen land. This is our homeland; it’s called Judea. That’s where Jews come from. We’ve been attached to it for thousands of years,” he added.
Originally published at: https://www.jns.org/news/u-s-news/black-american-pastors-rebuke-obama-for-accusing-israel-of-taking-land
ADVERTISEMENT
No, Israel did not ‘take the land’
BY MENDI GLIK
JNS
Recently, former President Barack Obama claimed that Israel “took the land” from the Palestinians and has “ceded moral ground” in its pursuit of security. These serious allegations demand a reckoning.
I am sure that Obama isn’t an anti-Semite. After all, as president, he was surrounded by many Jewish advisers and staffers, though mostly of the progressive variety whose affection for the Jewish state may be understated.
HaShem’s promise
Before diving into the cold, hard facts of international law, there is a fundamental truth that Obama and his ideological soulmates seem willfully to ignore: Israel belongs to the Jewish people because God promised it to them.
As millions of Jews in synagogues around the world read in the Torah, God declared to Abraham: “To your offspring I will give this land.” Now that we have clarified this foundational truth, we can move on.
Historical facts
First, there are a few undeniable historical facts: In 1867, the American author Mark Twain visited the region and recorded his observations in The Innocents Abroad. He described the territory of Palestine as a desolate, ruined expanse, largely devoid of inhabitants.
Decades later, on Nov. 2, 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, pledging support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. At the San Remo Conference in April 1920, this principle was codified into international law, forming the legal bedrock for the British Mandate. San Remo officially recognized the historic connection of the Jewish people to the Land and granted binding legal validation to the creation of their national home.
As for the name “Palestine” itself, its origins have nothing to do with Arab heritage. Following the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 C.E., the Roman Emperor Hadrian, enraged by Jewish resistance, renamed the region “Syria Palaestina” and erected the pagan city of Aelia Capitolina atop the ruins of Jerusalem, hoping to sever the Jewish people’s bond to their ancestral homeland. “Palestine” was a Roman geopolitical construct, not an Arab state.
ADVERTISEMENT
Legal purchase of land
Fast-forward to modern legal precedents: In 2012, a commission headed by former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy examined the legal status of Judea and Samaria under international law. The Levy Report concluded that the classical laws of belligerent occupation do not apply to these territories. Why? Because Judea and Samaria were never a recognized, legitimate part of any sovereign Arab nation.
When Jordan illegally annexed Judea and Samaria following Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, Britain was virtually the only Western nation to grant formal recognition to it. Consequently, when Israel fought for its survival in the 1967 Six-Day War, it repelled aggression from Jordan, Egypt and Syria—sovereign state actors. It did not “take land” from a non-existent Palestinian state.
Furthermore, long before 1948, Jewish pioneers purchased land legally and systematically through official transactions recorded in Ottoman and British land registries. The narrative that Israel simply “took the land” collapses under the weight of both private property records and international law.
We are now just weeks away from the Hebrew month of Kislev, when Jews around the world celebrate Chanukah. Obama knows this holiday intimately, having hosted lavish White House Chanukah parties complete with latkes, kosher caterers and warm speeches. Yet while enjoying the festivities, he appears to have missed the foundational story of what he was celebrating.
Open a history book!
More than 2,000 years ago, when the Seleucid king Antiochus VII demanded that the Jews yield their land, Simon the Hasmonean issued a timeless response recorded in the Book Of Maccabees: “We have neither taken other men’s land, nor hold that which belongs to others, but the inheritance of our fathers, which was wrongfully held by our enemies for a time. But we, having opportunity, hold fast the inheritance of our fathers.”
In 1948, after two millennia of exile, the Jewish people finally returned to their sovereign ancestral home in the Land of Israel. Jews did not “take land” from anyone, nor do they hold foreign property.
Do not lecture us on morality, Mr. Obama. The Land of Israel belongs to Am Yisrael, the nation of Israel. It’s time to open a history book, drop the false narratives and respect the truth.
Originally published at: https://www.jns.org/opinion/mendi-glik/no-israel-did-not-take-the-land
Originally published at
JNS
Originally published at
JNS
ADVERTISEMENT
Black American pastors rebuke Obama for accusing Israel of taking land
A national group of black American pastors says Obama’s claim that Israel “took land off people” ignores the Jewish people’s ancient bond to the land.
Etgar Lefkovits
6
mins read time
Originally published at
JNS
Mendi Glik
6
mins read time
Originally published at
JNS
U.S. President Barack Obama with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the tarmac at Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport, March 20, 2013. White House Photo courtesy of Pete Souza.
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
JNS
A national organization of black American pastors have categorically rejected an assertion made by former U.S. President Barack Obama that Israel “took land off people,” saying that claim was a dangerous omission of the Jewish people’s three-thousand-year-old connection to the Holy Land.
The strong pushback by the Christian leaders came just days after the first United States black president made the contested remarks in Northern Ireland, adopting a common claim used by anti-Israel activists.
Leadership will not be silent
“When a former president of the United States tells a European arena that Israel was founded on theft, he hands a talking point to every campus mob, every synagogue vandal and every ideologue who has spent half a century teaching that the Jewish state is a colonial crime,” said the Black Christian Leadership Council on Israel.
“The Council will not be silent while that happens, and we will not let the claim go unanswered in the African American churches we serve,” the statement added.
Obama’s new contention
At his talk, Obama said that after millennia of persecution, Israel “took land off people, and they were excessive. And those people understandably said: ‘This is injustice, and I want my land back.””
The church leaders noted that Obama himself had called Israel “the historic homeland of the Jewish people” during a 2013 visit to Israel, and had highlighted that Jews lived, worked the soil and prayed in that land more than 3,000 years ago.
“He was right then. He is wrong now. Nothing in the ground changed between 2013 and 2026. Only the audience did,” the statement continued.
The pastors added that in his Belfast speech, the former president omitted the historical connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, noting that it was never emptied of Jews and was both lawfully recognized and legally purchased.
“Unfinished business”
The group, which was established this summer and seeks to revive historic black–Jewish relations, plans to lead a major pilgrimage to Israel in November of 500 pastors and church leaders.
The tour, which has been dubbed “Unfinished Business,” commemorates a large-scale Holy Land visit originally planned by Martin Luther King Jr. in November 1967, which was postponed following the Six-Day War and later prevented by his assassination in 1968.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also fired back at Obama’s remarks.
“The Jewish people are not foreign occupiers in the land of our forefathers,” Netanyahu responded in a video rebuke posted on X.
“Our land is not stolen land. This is our homeland; it’s called Judea. That’s where Jews come from. We’ve been attached to it for thousands of years,” he added.
Originally published at: https://www.jns.org/news/u-s-news/black-american-pastors-rebuke-obama-for-accusing-israel-of-taking-land
ADVERTISEMENT
No, Israel did not ‘take the land’
BY MENDI GLIK
JNS
Recently, former President Barack Obama claimed that Israel “took the land” from the Palestinians and has “ceded moral ground” in its pursuit of security. These serious allegations demand a reckoning.
I am sure that Obama isn’t an anti-Semite. After all, as president, he was surrounded by many Jewish advisers and staffers, though mostly of the progressive variety whose affection for the Jewish state may be understated.
HaShem’s promise
Before diving into the cold, hard facts of international law, there is a fundamental truth that Obama and his ideological soulmates seem willfully to ignore: Israel belongs to the Jewish people because God promised it to them.
As millions of Jews in synagogues around the world read in the Torah, God declared to Abraham: “To your offspring I will give this land.” Now that we have clarified this foundational truth, we can move on.
Historical facts
First, there are a few undeniable historical facts: In 1867, the American author Mark Twain visited the region and recorded his observations in The Innocents Abroad. He described the territory of Palestine as a desolate, ruined expanse, largely devoid of inhabitants.
Decades later, on Nov. 2, 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, pledging support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. At the San Remo Conference in April 1920, this principle was codified into international law, forming the legal bedrock for the British Mandate. San Remo officially recognized the historic connection of the Jewish people to the Land and granted binding legal validation to the creation of their national home.
As for the name “Palestine” itself, its origins have nothing to do with Arab heritage. Following the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 C.E., the Roman Emperor Hadrian, enraged by Jewish resistance, renamed the region “Syria Palaestina” and erected the pagan city of Aelia Capitolina atop the ruins of Jerusalem, hoping to sever the Jewish people’s bond to their ancestral homeland. “Palestine” was a Roman geopolitical construct, not an Arab state.
ADVERTISEMENT
Legal purchase of land
Fast-forward to modern legal precedents: In 2012, a commission headed by former Israeli Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy examined the legal status of Judea and Samaria under international law. The Levy Report concluded that the classical laws of belligerent occupation do not apply to these territories. Why? Because Judea and Samaria were never a recognized, legitimate part of any sovereign Arab nation.
When Jordan illegally annexed Judea and Samaria following Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, Britain was virtually the only Western nation to grant formal recognition to it. Consequently, when Israel fought for its survival in the 1967 Six-Day War, it repelled aggression from Jordan, Egypt and Syria—sovereign state actors. It did not “take land” from a non-existent Palestinian state.
Furthermore, long before 1948, Jewish pioneers purchased land legally and systematically through official transactions recorded in Ottoman and British land registries. The narrative that Israel simply “took the land” collapses under the weight of both private property records and international law.
We are now just weeks away from the Hebrew month of Kislev, when Jews around the world celebrate Chanukah. Obama knows this holiday intimately, having hosted lavish White House Chanukah parties complete with latkes, kosher caterers and warm speeches. Yet while enjoying the festivities, he appears to have missed the foundational story of what he was celebrating.
Open a history book!
More than 2,000 years ago, when the Seleucid king Antiochus VII demanded that the Jews yield their land, Simon the Hasmonean issued a timeless response recorded in the Book Of Maccabees: “We have neither taken other men’s land, nor hold that which belongs to others, but the inheritance of our fathers, which was wrongfully held by our enemies for a time. But we, having opportunity, hold fast the inheritance of our fathers.”
In 1948, after two millennia of exile, the Jewish people finally returned to their sovereign ancestral home in the Land of Israel. Jews did not “take land” from anyone, nor do they hold foreign property.
Do not lecture us on morality, Mr. Obama. The Land of Israel belongs to Am Yisrael, the nation of Israel. It’s time to open a history book, drop the false narratives and respect the truth.
Originally published at: https://www.jns.org/opinion/mendi-glik/no-israel-did-not-take-the-land
Originally published at
JNS
Originally published at
JNS
ADVERTISEMENT
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© 2026 The Jewish World · Since 1965 - The Capital Region's gateway to Jewish life
Designed and Developed by Ta-Da Studios
© 2026 The Jewish World · Since 1965 - The Capital Region's gateway to Jewish life
Designed and Developed by Ta-Da Studios
© 2026 The Jewish World · Since 1965 - The Capital Region's gateway to Jewish life
Designed and Developed by Ta-Da Studios