(Jerusalem Post) Zina Rakhamilova - "You [Israel] have literally made the desert bloom," President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen stated in a message addressed to Israeli President Herzog on the occasion of Israel's 75th Independence Day. She said she saw it with her own eyes when she visited Israel's Negev. The Palestinian Authority Foreign Ministry responded by describing the phrase as a "racist trope" and calling for an apology. The fact that early Jewish immigrants took a desert wasteland that was sparsely populated, with few natural resources and limited water supply, and turned it into the flourishing and thriving place we see today is irrefutable. In 1866, American author Mark Twain visited the region and described it as "a desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds....We never saw a human being on the whole route....There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere." Jewish immigrants began to cultivate the land using modern agricultural techniques and expanded trade and tourism. They transformed the countryside with communities of Jewish farmers. Under the British Mandate, the Jewish population continued to develop the land, building roads, schools, and hospitals and establishing a thriving economy. The Jewish people transformed this region of the Middle East into a prosperous country and saying so is a fact, not a "racist" remark against Palestinians.
2023-05-04 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive