Finally, Israel gets it!

Joseph Farah

For more than five years, I have been conspicuously alone in pointing out the racist, anti-Jewish nature of policies that require the evacuation of Israelis from Gaza, Judea and Samaria and, more lately, the halts on building and repairing homes and businesses owned by Jews in Jerusalem. Finally, someone in Israel has figured this out and called the policies advocated by Barack Obama and the international elite what they are.

"Israeli law does not discriminate between Jews, Muslims and Christians or between eastern and western Jerusalem," said Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. "The demand to halt construction by religion is not legal in the United States or in any other free place in the world. I do not presume that any government would demand to freeze construction in the United States based on race, religion or gender, and the attempt to demand it from Jerusalem is a double standard and inconceivable."

Barkat was responding to Obama's remarks on Fox News Channel about the approval of 900 new apartments in the southern Jerusalem community of Gilo as "settlement activity," suggesting, irrationally and irresponsibly, that it justified Palestinian violence. The Palestinian Authority quickly adopted Obama's line to rationalize future terrorist attacks.

However, even the most appeasing Israelis – people like Shimon Peres – see Gilo, with its existing population of 30,000 Jews right in the heart of the Israeli capital, as undisputedly Israeli territory, land that will never be negotiated away.

It's clear now Obama, like the Muslim world, doesn't believe any Israeli territory is beyond dispute.

This is what I have been saying and writing since 2004.

No more ethnic cleansing – not in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world.

When the Palestinian Authority demanded that all Jews leave Gaza in anticipation of declaring it to be part of a future Palestinian state, the world did not notice the implications.

Why would Jews not be welcome living in a Palestinian state?

Because the Palestinian leadership is racist.

Why would blatant ethnic cleansing of this sort be embraced by the world when ethnic cleansing in other parts of the world is roundly denounced? Why is there an exception made for Jews? Why is it OK to remove Jews from their homes and businesses in the Middle East? Why is it acceptable to forbid Jews from building and repairing homes and businesses on the basis of their religion? How can this be tolerated, let alone condoned and championed as progressive policy by people like Obama?

I made the same point in 2005.

What would you say if I told you the United States is backing a plan to uproot forcibly people from their homes because they are Muslim?

You would probably be incredulous, I said.

You would probably be shocked, I said.

You would probably be outraged, I said.

And you would be right.

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Well, rest assured there was no plan backed by the United States to uproot forcibly peaceful Muslims from their homes anywhere in the world.

There was, however, a plan to do just that to several thousand peaceful Jews, many of whom have lived for a generation in thriving communities – showcases of prosperity and freedom for their neighbors.

This anti-Semitic ethnic cleansing plan was known as the "disengagement" plan in Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

There is only one reason these people were displaced – because they are Jews in a land where Jews are not welcome.

And the world condoned it.

Earlier this year, I pointed it out, again.

In May, Obama announced he would be taking what he and his administration referred to as "a more balanced approach to Middle East policy."

I explained what that meant.

"It means the U.S. government is now using its clout with Israel to insist Jews, not Israelis, mind you, but Jews, be disallowed from living in East Jerusalem and the historically Jewish lands of Judea and Samaria, often referred to as the West Bank," I wrote. "I want you to try to imagine the outrage, the horror, the outcry, the clamoring, the gnashing of teeth that would ensue if Arabs or Muslims were told they could no longer live in certain parts of Israel – let alone their own country."

I returned to this theme in September after what I called "Obama's Judenrein speech."

"The Nazis had a word for what Barack Obama declared in the United Nations General Assembly last week," I wrote. "When a city or a district or a nation was 'clean of Jews,' it was pronounced 'Judenrein.' The goal of the Nazis was, of course, for all of Europe to be cleansed of Jews – then the whole world."

Was I being harsh?

Not if you understand the nature of Obama's demand for an end to "Israeli settlements" in Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem – and, now apparently, the entire city.

Since Obama took office in January, the U.S. government has greatly increased pressure on Israel to halt any and all of the following:

* building of new homes and businesses by Jews in these areas;

* building additions on existing homes and businesses by Jews in these areas;

* repairing of existing homes and businesses by Jews in these areas;

Why would the U.S. government want to stop Jews from building homes and businesses in lands that have been under Israel's control for the last 42 years and a part of Israel's history for the last 3,000 years?

Because the U.S. government has predetermined that these lands are going to be part of a future Palestinian state – one that will be conspicuously Jew-free.

In other words, Barack Obama is in favor of an ethnic-cleansing operation – one that will eventually require the forcible removal of all Jews, no matter how long they have lived in these areas, no matter what they paid for their properties, no matter what.

I'm gratified to see an Israeli awakening to what has been the plan from the beginning.

Jews in the Middle East are starting to get the picture – if a little late.