I recently received this question from a reader in Arizona, who happens to be a fervent Christian Zionist. “We are hardly getting much news about Israel and what I have seen seems rather fragmented and confusing. It seems that Israel is not unified against their enemies. Is this the case?”

Here’s my answer:

Here are some suggestions for daily news about Israel: Israel Today. It’s a free Israeli paper here, available in both Hebrew and English online. (https://www.israelhayom.com/) Then there’s the more liberal Jerusalem Post (https://www.jpost.com/) and the Times of Israel (http://timesofisrael.com/). Here’s an easy litmus test to determine the political slant of the paper: does the website you look at use the Jordanian-invented term, “West Bank,” or Judea and Samaria, names which date back to ancient times. 

“Judea and Samaria” was the name mentioned in the 1917 Balfour Declaration for a “national home” for the Jews. The idea was soon adopted, in toto, by the League of Nations, and later the United Nations. In contrast, the term “West Bank” was made up in 1950 by the Jordanian monarchy to sever Israel’s connection to its homeland, geographically situated on the western side of the Jordan River, the border between Israel and Jordan. Our former home for 26 years was in Samaria, in Alfe Menashe. It is located 60 miles from the Jordan River and certainly not on the western bank of the river. It’s similar to the distance between Atlantic City and Philadelphia. Could Atlantic City accurately be described as located on the East Bank of the Delaware River? However, even if  Alfe Menashe were next to the Jordan, the correct name of its location would still be Samaria.

 Now to the question, are Israelis unified? Do you know the expression: 2 Jews and 3 opinions? Both sides of an argument are valued in Judaism, even to the point of recording the majority and minority viewpoints in the........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)