ROBERT STEINBUCH: Never Again |
The father of the modern Zionist movement to establish a Jewish national home was Theodor Herzl, an Austrian-Jewish journalist and playwright. In 1896, partially in response to the massacres of Jews in Russia, he published his seminal work "The Jewish State," calling for the creation of a publicly recognized Jewish homeland. During his time, he and others often discussed various places for Jews to re-birth a nation, while also recognizing Jews' historical and biblical claim to Israel.
Two weeks ago, I was listening to Salem Radio Media's program, the Dave Elswick show, on 101.1 FM. I've been a regular guest and occasional host of the show for years.
On that day's show, Dave was discussing Israel with a guest when his often-interjecting producer, Val Emmons, questioned the guest on air as to why Jews didn't create a country in other places, including Alaska and the Soviet Union. Wait, what?
Uh, no one ever offered Jews land to create a Jewish country before the British split Israel, which Britain controlled after seizing it from the Ottoman Empire (the Turks), who ruled the Holy Land for 400 years. The British also offered part of the land to Arabs, who rejected the proposal and attacked the Jews.
Prior to British control, Israel was subject to foreign rule since biblical times (in reverse chronological order and simplified):
An Egyptian-based Islamic dynasty starting in the 13th century.
Crusaders starting in the 11th century.
Islamic Dynasties starting in the 7th century when Arab armies from Arabia (now Saudi Arabia, because the Saud family took control of the country) invaded. During this time, the Muslim caliphate (a theocracy) built the Dome of the Rock as an Islamic shrine directly on the land of the ancient Jewish Temple Mount.
Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire starting in the 4th century.
Roman Empire starting in the 1st century (with a short period of partial independent Jewish rule). The Romans destroyed the second and last Jewish temple in Jerusalem.
Hellenistic (roughly Greek) empires starting in the 4th century BC.
Persian Empire (roughly Iran centered) starting in the 6th century BC.
Neo-Babylonian Empire (roughly Iraq centered) starting in the 6th century BC. They destroyed Solomon's Temple (the first temple) in Jerusalem and exiled large numbers of Jews.
Neo-Assyrian Empire starting in the 8th century BC.
The recurring fringe-online claim that Jews were offered a country elsewhere but insisted on Israel instead is an obscene distortion. In every case, the inchoate ideas were limited to, at best, non-sovereign resettlement. The tinfoil-hat revisionist history is frequently used to imply that the Jewish connection to Israel is arbitrary or optional.
The Alaska and Soviet Union claims are particularly comical. If the United States actually offered to relinquish part of our country to create another one, don't you think you would've learned about it in, uh, American history? You didn't, because it never happened.
And the Soviet Union was both atheistic and antisemitic. Recall that the Soviets were allies of the Nazis until the Germans double-crossed them. In reality, the proposal, as it were, was to create a Jewish ghetto in a remote area of Russia to serve as a communist indoctrination center with no connection to Jewish statehood.
But during her diatribe, Emmons claimed one alternative Jewish state location that was far more insidious than the others. Emmons said that Madagascar was offered in 1940 as a place for a Jewish nation. Here's what she left out:
Madagascar was proposed by--wait for it--the Nazis during World War II for the forced deportation of Jews out of Europe. Adolf Eichmann, who PBS aptly characterized as only second to Adolf Hitler in his "obsess[ion] with killing Europe's Jews," outlined in August 1940 the plan to deport four million Jews to Madagascar, with the area to be run by the SS. You know--the skull-and-crossbones insignia wearing murderers who operated the Nazi death camps. Since the Nazis later opted for genocide, the homeland "offer" was apparently off the table. (I can see a Tucker Carlson appearance for Emmons in the works!)
The repeated false framing that Jews were offered various places for their own country but demanded Israel instead is a fabrication that festers in the dark corners of antisemitic online spaces. It is used to portray the Jewish attachment to Israel as opportunistic and random--seeking to undermine the legitimacy of Jews' self-determination in their historic and biblical homeland.
When I asked U.S. ambassador to Israel and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee about some of these fantastical claims, he wrote: "Oh my! Haven't heard the 'Jews to Alaska' stuff. It never ends!
"Jews have a direct historic, indigenous and unbroken connection to the land of Israel for 3800 years. I'm not aware that anyone else has such a connection." Me neither.
Interestingly, in 2019, the radio station posted: "Val Emmons does not represent Salem Media Group in any way, shape or form and [] she will never appear on our air or in any posts relating to us again."
"Never again"--I can't escape the feeling that I've heard that before.
This is your right to know.
Robert Steinbuch, the Arkansas Bar Foundation Professor at the Bowen Law School, is a Fulbright Scholar and author of the treatise "The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act." His views do not necessarily reflect those of his employer.