The photo inset into this column has been around for many years. It made a reappearance recently, speeding through countless Internet connections in advance of the visit last month by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington.

The message intended by the map-maker is quite unsubtle, as is the message intended by the people who sent it: to point out the stark contrast between the extent of the territory of the only sovereign Jewish state on Earth with the territory of the states that surround it in the rather overwhelmingly Muslim milieu of the Middle East.

The map therefore is quite useful and instructive for its own sake, because there are so many people who are simply unaware of Israel’s geographic size in relation to the size of its neighbours. In light of the obsession with the Jewish state in so many parts of the world and the frequent distortion of the news about Israel in those same parts of the world, this number is likely very large.

The heading on the map, “End the unjust Jewish occupation of Arab land,” is intended to be sarcastic precisely because of the gross asymmetry between the Jewish and Muslim territory in the Middle East.

The heading does indeed score a bull’s-eye in accurately framing the dimension of the geo-political situation of that region of the world.

But sarcasm is a poor weapon for Israel’s advocates, even if emotionally gratifying.

Moreover, even as gratification, it is a short-lived reward because the heading is inaccurate: the non-Jewish countries in the region – that is, all of them except Israel –  are indeed Muslim, but not all Arab.

Israel’s advocates must always be accurate in their advocacy. The facts of Israel’s case are the facts of history.

Far worse, however, is the fact that the sarcasm is irrelevant to the main argument of the anti-Israel advocates. The Arab land that they say Israel occupies is the land that belonged to the Palestinians. By Arab land, some people mean the West Bank; others mean all of Mandatory Palestine (that is, the Israel of today).  

Israel’s advocates must always be pertinent in their advocacy. The relevance of Israel’s case is the relevance of truth over falsehood.

It is therefore, with these Israel- advocacy rules in mind – accuracy and relevance – that U.S. President Barack Obama’s historic speech in Cairo last week must be measured.

To be sure, the content of Obama’s speech ranged more widely than Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. In, by now, trademark eloquence he outlined broad principles on seven discrete issues, only one of which dealt specifically with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it was his remarks on this issue more than the others that undoubtedly held the Muslim world’s attention most closely.

There is no denying that Obama earnestly and fervently wishes to bring about a permanent peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The thrust of his remarks was to demonstrate friendship to the Muslim world and sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians, while insisting that  “Israel’s legitimacy” be recognized by the Arab states and by all factions of Palestinians, including Hamas.

He has made it clear time and again that he considers Israel an ally. Indeed he affirmed at the very outset that America’s bond with Israel “is unbreakable.”

But the president’s grasp of the justice of Israel’s case appears dangerously lacking in the relevant facts of history, ancient and modern.

“The aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied. Around the world the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust.”

In his speech, Obama anchored the Jews’ claim to sovereign statehood in the shallow waters of anti-Semitism. By referencing Europe and the Holocaust, he vindicated the non-Holocaust denial aspect of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s argument that Muslims should not pay the price for Christian misbehaviour and Christian guilt.

Unfortunately, the president failed to anchor the Jewish claim to rightful existence in the Land of Israel in the deep seas of Jewish and world history.

As Liberal MP and former justice minister Irwin Cotler has said, the Jewish people are aboriginal to the land that is the subject of the dispute with the Palestinians.

It was the Romans who adopted the name Palestina after they conquered the land and exiled the Jews. They obliterated the name Judea from the map. They could not, however, obliterate Judea from the hearts of the Jews who carried the name and the hope of return in every place and in every generation of their dispersion.

It would have been good if the president had explained on this basis to his Muslim audience the Jewish claim to rightful sovereignty in the State of Israel.-