Monday, July 30, 2012

Assad Blames Israel For His Problems

Nadene Goldfoot
Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallem commented in a visit to Iran that "Israel is the mastermind of all in this crisis."  Iran is backing Assad's  Syrian regime against the Free Syrian Army so would love to blame Israel as well.  Whatever bad happens around the globe, they all blame Israel.

I'm sure that Israel would not be helping the Syrians, whatever side here.  Both have been terrible towards Jews and Israel.  Shoshana, Jewish,  escaped from Syria in 1974 at the age of about 25.  She had left her family there and felt so guilty about it because she remembers "the fright in the eyes of the younger children in her family, expecting some support from her.  They wanted to know why people shouted at them, "Jews, Jews!" and why they were different from the others.  The fear was that any time of day or night the security people might knock at the door and take either their father or one of the elder brothers--and they really didn't know what was happening.  The family lived in constant fear.  Teachers treated Jews differently.  They had to live in a ghetto, but this ghetto didn't have just Jews.  It included Palestinians and other Arabs who beat Jews.

Shoshana said she couldn't beat them back because they would then bring their whole family to fight.  The Arabs lived differently.  Shoshana was put in prison because she participated in a demonstration, which was illegal for all Syrians. First, 3 sisters, members of her family, and a girlfriend were murdered because they had tried to cross the border.  They couldn't bear life in Syria any longer and had tried to cross without a boy escorting them.  The girls were killed in a cave and burned.  There was a special office that "takes care of the Jews", called the "Palestinian Bureau," and they had a free hand where Jews were concerned.  The bodies of the girls, burned beyond recognition, were brought back in sacks and thrown on the doorsteps of their families' homes.

A report from 60 Minutes with Mike Wallace in the USA did not get the story right according to Shoshana.  Jews may have given good remarks verbally about Syria on the program but had no choice because the security people were there.  They had to say they lived well, so the "happy" families have since tried to escape.  "It's only when the Syrians are free can they tell the truth about their lives in Syria.".

Right now the Jihadists are taking over from the Free Syrian Army being they are being assisted with funding.  There are more religious chants than secular ones being heard.

They claim to new men joining them that "those whose intentions are not for God, they had better stay home, whereas if your intention is for God, then you go for jihad and you gain an afterlife and heaven".  Israel will not be backing people who are into jihad.  Religious donors come from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and possibly Turkey, countries the USA has also aligned with in this fight.

The Syria situation is not only an Arab Spring against Assad's immovable hand but is also religious within Islam.  The ruling house of Assad are minorities, the Alawites, which dominate Syria but are viewed by many orthodox Muslims as a heretical offshoot of Islam.  The trend right now is a more Salafi, jihadi group taking over the rebellion.  Isn't this what happened in Egypt?  These jihadists consider the entire world the Muslim homeland, so they are refusing any national, Syrian name for their fighters in Syria.

Resource:  Oregonian newspaper: Monday July 30, 2012 Front Page -Jihadists join ranks of Syria's resistance , A3-Developments in the Syrian uprising NYTimes news service
Book:  From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters p: 109-110 

Sunday, July 29, 2012

What Had Happened to Jewish Syrians?

Nadene Goldfoot
Aleppo, Syria has been taking a pounding from Syria's own army because they are in a Civil War, having started with the Arab Spring  in March 2011.  So far, 19,000 people have been killed in this uprising.  Russia is backing the regime who controls the country's army, but the USA is backing the rebel fighters.  The war is now centered in Salaheddiin, a neighborhood in Aleppo, Syria's largest city and its commercial center.  Syria has about 22,505,000 minus the deaths of which 90% are Sunni/Shi'a Muslims.  Jews have lived there, as they have lived in all the states in the Middle East.  In 1948 there were 30,000 living in Syria.

Then Israel was created on May 14, 1948.  Syria was one of the Arab states that had attacked the new state.  Syrian Jews were not expelled but weren't allowed to leave, either.  They had severe restrictions placed on them which lasted for over 20 years.

In the 1967 Six-Day War where Israel won against all odds having been attacked by all the Arab nations, restrictions on Jews in Syria were even tougher. and 57 Jews in Qamishli may have been killed in a pogrom. The communities of Damascus, Aleppo and Qamishli were under house arrest for 8 months.  Jews lost their freedom of movement.  They weren't allowed to work for the government or banks, couldn't get telephone or drivers' licenses and were banned from buying property.  Many Jewish workers were laid off following the Six-Day War.  Generally, they all were banned from leaving, but were sometimes allowed aboard for commercial or medical reasons, but if they did leave they had to put up a bond of $300-$1,000 and members of their family were used as hostages.  Bank accounts were frozen.  An airport road was paved over the Jewish cemetery in Damascus.  Jewish schools were closed and handed over to Muslims.  The Jewish Quarter of Damascus was watched by the secret police who were into their synagogue services, weddings, bar mitzvahs and other Jewish gatherings.  They monitored contacts between Jewish and foreigners and kept files on all Jews.  Jews had their phones tapped and mail read.

When I lived in Israel from 1980 to the end of 1985, I remember watching our TV which received programs from Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon, and most likely Syria.  I believe it was from Syria that I remember seeing rows of soldiers standing at attention outside showing how brave they were by doing the most ghastly act I've ever seen:  They were biting snakes and puppies in unison on command.  I know this sounds unbelievable, but it was so shocking to me that I've never forgotten it.  At the time my thoughts were that I hated to see anyone who had to tangle with them!

It wasn't until November 1989 that Syria started letting out Jews through pressure from the USA, but it was done on condition that they didn't emigrate to Israel!  In 1992, 4,000 remaining Jews were granted exit permits and left for the USA, France or Turkey.  About 300 mostly elderly Jews stayed.  By 2001 there were still about 200 Jews living in Syria of which 30 lived in Aleppo.  In 2003 there were fewer than 100 Jews living, and in 2005 the USA estimated that there were about 80.

The ban remains on Jews keeping them from politics and government employment.  They are the one minority that has their religion marked on their passports and ID cards.  Occasionally they have been attacked by Palestinian protesters, but the Syrian government supposedly took measure to protect them.  Two synagogues remain open in Damascus, and every 2 or 3 months a rabbi from Istanbul, Turkey visits to take care of koshering meat, which they freeze and use until his next visit.  Somehow, 41 Syrian Jews moved to Israel between 2000 and 2010.  That was quite an achievement from this country.

This is also a war of Sunni Muslims that are against Shi'a Muslims. " This clash pits the "Sunni front," led by Arab states and Turkey, which support the Sunni rebels, against the “Shiite front,” led by Iran and Hezbollah, which support Syria’s Alawite regime"  .Civilians are not being used as human shields, something we see in Gaza, but as cannon fodder.  This is even a higher level of brutality and cruelty that they are capable of.  

After reading about what has really been going on in Syria for Jews, I believe that Jack Avital's comments that he believe in the future of Bashar Assad are the bunk.  He told the Algemeiner that "everything is good, you can bet on it-Assad will be there another 20 years...he is an honest guy and 95% of the population supports him and will protect him."  If he said anything different, he most likely would have been killed.

Jews had lived in Syria since the beginning of times of their history with Abraham.  Another wave of Jews entered the country in 1492 when they were kicked out of Spain and had to go someplace.  Today, the largest Jewish Syrian community is right in Brooklyn, New York with a population of 75,000.

Reference: Oregonian newspaper, Sunday, July 29, 2012 page A9, Syrian tanks, artillery intensity attack on Aleppo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Syria
http:/www.sfgate.com/news/article/Jews-in-Syria-say-life-easier-but-f  (problems with viewing)
http;//algemeiner.com/2011/06/14/what-happening-to-syrias-jews/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Syria
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4236855,00.html


Friday, July 27, 2012

Are Olympics Meeting Modern Goal of Promoting Peace?

Nadene Goldfoot
It may mean nothing to the IOC but it means something to Israel and many Jews all over the world that this Olympics 2012 is the 40th year since the massacre of 1972's 11 Israeli athletes in Munich's summer games and that there has never been a recognition of  one minute of silence to honor them at an Olympic event.  The IOC has refused to do so this year.  Most of us feel that the refusal comes from being that the massacred were Israelis and that this is a slap in the face.  The officials do not dare to offend the many Muslims who will be there as well by recognizing a terrible fate that Israelis suffered by their attendance; being killed for being Israeli Jews by Palestinian Arab terrorists.  The war had followed these innocents to the Olympics.  It was really a slap in the face to the Olympics that the event was used to get recognition by terrorists.

New York City, hit with the refusal, including President Obama's demand that the International Olympic Committee hold a moment of silence at the opening ceremony, decided to do it on their own in New York, and so they have.  Ambassador Ido Aharoni, Consul General of Israel in New York was joined by other Jewish and community leaders and elected officials in honor of the 11 Israeli Olympians.  Avi Melamed was a survivor of the 1972 Israeli Olympic swim team and was there.  He told about attendees about the horrific event, having been there himself.  Munich, Bavaria is in southern West Germany.  Two were shot and killed immediately The remaining 9 were taken hostage and  were then killed by the Black September terrorists.

Of all the contestants, Israel manages to come out each time amid danger for their lives.  This doesn't happen to other athletes.  It isn't what the Olympics were created for so long ago in Greece.


But the egotism and amorality are still apparent from the ancient days; as is the antipathy for Jews.
Some still alive remember the summer Games of 1936 in Berlin, which Adolph Hitler exploited to help promote the Third Reich's image. 


Lebanon's Judo team is refusing to train alongside the Israeli team today and are demanding a curtain screen to be erected so that they don't have to see them.  Iran said they would compete with Israel, which they had refused to do before, but now are withdrawing that statement and most likely won't.  .

Another slap in the face to Israel is the IOC not recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel but listing the Palestinian "capital as East Jerusalem."  Have the Palestinians taken over Jerusalem now?  Unfortunately, the UN must be said to be the blame of this, but it isn't how Israel sees it.  To an Israeli, Jerusalem is and always has been and will be the capital of Israel.  It's like they had said that New York City was the capital of the USA.  Let's just forget about old George Washington and all that ancient history.

According to the Olympic philosophy, sport is being used as a means of educating people to good sportsmanship, sense of fair play, and respect for fellow athletes that comes from the participation.  It teaches men and women of different races, religions and nationalities to work peacefully together in competition toward common goals.  The Olympic Movement works to expand such lessons beyond the sports arena in the hope of promoting peace and a sense of brotherhood throughout the world!  These are excellent goals but are missing the mark with people who are non-compliant in learning them.

Their creed or guiding principal is: " The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle.  The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."  This is a quote form Baron de Couberlin.  This is really not followed up by the big nations who brag about how many gold medals their athletes bring home.  The pressure is on them to win.  

The Olympic symbol of the 5 interlocking colored rings  represent the continents of North and South America, Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe.  They symbolize the uniting of athletes from all over the world to compete at the Olympics.

The flame that is carried on the torch symbolizes the continuity between the ancient games starting in Greece to modern days.  The runners carry a burning torch brought from the Temple of Zeus in Olympia and it is carried overland from Greece by a relay of athletes.  It is used to light the flame in a giant torch, or cauldron in London, which will burn for the duration of the Games.  The flame was first used in the 1928 Games.

The Olympic flag's plain white background  is symbolic of peace throughout the games.

"Yael Arad delivered a silver medal, Israel’s first-ever medal, at the Olympics in Barcelona in 1992, 500 years — almost to the day — after the Jews were evicted from Spain…on Tisha B’Av. It was a stunning way to say to the Spanish people, “We’re baaack,” and to cap a century of nation-building that began with Herzl."

Resource:http://www.jcrcny.org/
 http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/athens_games/principles.htm
http://australianjoeyscouts1.4t.com/olympic/rings.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/files-show-neo-nazis-helped-palestinian-terrorists-in-munich-1972-massacre-a-839467.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece_at_the_Olympics
http://www.torah.org/features/holydays/nonolympicflame.html
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005680  1936 Olympics in Germany
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/olympic-dreams-jewish-nightmares-and-herzls-normalcy/

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Guess Who The White House Invited Over For a Chat: A Terrorist

Nadene Goldfoot
Seems as if our president wants to know the new Egyptian President, Mohamed Morsi  a little better, so has invited some of his retinue to the White House for a chat in September.  This included Hani Nour Eldin, new member of the Egyptian parliament who was part of a delegation of Egyptian parliamentarians.  Eldin was hosted as part of a cross-section of Egyptians seeking to peacefully shape Egypt's future.  

The problem is that Eldin has been a member of a banned Egyptian militant group, a foreign terrorist organization called Gama'a al-Islamiya.   Congress was not told that the USA would give him a visa to visit first, and yet Homeland Security went ahead and saw to it that he could enter and assured the country that Eldin was no security threat.  Evidently this broke a federal law in order to host Eldin in Washington.  Protocal was not followed in this case, which is a little unnerving.  The law says that it is a felony to assist members of specially designated terrorist organizations.  So our very law-makers get to break the very law they made.

The biggest problem as I see it in hosting Eldin is how the terrorists can take it.  They evidently will see their terrorism as pride and the cause of their attaining recognition from the White House.  It gives them power.  They will think that the White House is kow-towing to them and that force is what it takes to get their way.

The Egyptian president himself is a little unnerving as well, but our President means to change that.  Obama has stated that Morsi is a moderate, but how can he think this when he is the candidate for the Muslim Brotherhood?   One only has to read their charter to see what their goals are.  They have not been friendly towards the United States, or even to Egypt, for that matter.  They had been outlawed by Sadat, the Egyptian president who was later assassinated by them in 1981.

Morsi is friends with Omar Abed-Rahman, known as the "blind sheikh, who is the  leader of Gama'a al-Islamiya-the Islamic Group,  and would probably like to include him in his new government.  His group  murdered Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York in 1990.  He was the well-known jihadist in New Jersey who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.  His group was also the planners of the November 1997 Luxor massacre where 58 tourists and 4 Egyptians were killed.  Rahman and his group plotted the assassination of Mubarak when he was actively the president of Egypt.  It was also found that this very group intended to bomb New York landmarks including the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the UN headquarters.  


Rahman put out the fatwa allowing Sadat to be murdered because he had signed the peace treaty with Israel.  The group is listed by the State Department as a specially designated terrorist organization.  He was convicted for the 1993 bombing and angry enough about it to issue another fatwa calling for jihad against the US.  After 9/11's attacks, Osama bin Laden cited Rahman's fatwa as the religious justification for his actions.  


Morsi, the new Egyptian president called for Rahman's release.  What his reasoning could have been must have been a beaut.  He called for this during his inauguration ceremony,  which shows that he was more interested in winning than in being friends with the USA.  Not to worry, though.  Obama will change all that.  However, Rahman is in a North Carolina prison for seditious conspiracy.  Actually, he's in the Butner Medical Center section which is a part of this federal prison.

Morsi is not a friend of Jews or of Israel.  Mohammed Morsi told supporters earlier this year at a campaign event, “Our capital shall not be Cairo, Mecca or Medina. It shall be Jerusalem!”

Resource: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/caroline-glick/obamas-spectacular-failure/
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78957.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omar_Abdel-Rahman
http://usconstitutionalfreepress.wordpress.com/tag/hani-nour-eldin/
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/07/white-house-downplays-obamas-meeting-with-jew-hater-morsi/

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

A Few Jewish Olympians

Nadene Goldfoot
We lost 11 Jewish Olympians in a massacre in 1972 in Munich just because they were Jewish Israeli athletes and coaches and the killers were Palestinian terrorists. Unfortunately, on this 40th anniversary, the Olympics cannot take a minute out to remember those Jews who lost their lives after coming to this event.  Bob Costas, sports anchor  from NBC is leading the way by saying that he will honor the Jewish Olympians from 1972's massacre with a moment of silence, however.  He said the Olympic decision denying a moment of silence  was insensitive as well as puzzling.  

We had wrestlers and weightlifters:  Eliezer Halfin, Yosef Romano, Mark Slavin, David Berger, Zeev Friedman, and officials and trainers:  Yossef Gutfruend, Amitzur Shapira, Kehat Shorr, Andrei Spitzer, Jacov Springer and Moshe Weinberg. Yossef and Moshe were shot in the beginning, and the others taken hostage only to be killed later.

The worry is  this year is that there could be more attacks being the Olympics is coming right on the heels of the Bulgarian attack on Israeli youth tourists who had just finished their high school education.  More precautions are being taken.

Just a Few Past Olympians: 
Alfred Flatow, 1896 Athens for Germany, horizontal bars; killed in Holocaust
Janos Garay, Hungarian, fencing, 1924 Paris
Helene Mayer, fencing in 1928 in Amsterdam, took gold at age 17.
Ilja Szrajhman, Poland, swimming, 1936 Berlin, died in Warsaw Ghetto
Mark Spitz,  1972 Munich, gold, swimming, USA
Brad Gilbert, tennis,1988, Seoul,  bronze, singles
Larry Brown, NBA basketball, 1964, gold 
Ernie Grunfeld, NBA basketball, 1975, 1976 gold,
Irina Slutskaya, 2002 ice skating 
Sasha Cohen, ice skating, 2006, silver
Sarah Hughes, ice skating, 2002, gold
Lenny Krayzelburg, swimming, 2000, 2004, gold
Scott Goldblatt, swimming, gold, 2004.  Athens

This year the USA is sending a few Jewish contenders to the Olympics.
Jason Lezak, swimming
Anthony Ervin, swimming
Alexandra Raisman, gymnastics
Julie Zetlin, gymnastics
David Banks, rowing
Tim Morehouse, fencing
Yury Gelman, fencing coach.

Israel is sending:  
 An American born: pole vaulter.  They will have 37 contenders in 8 sports; tennis, swimming and gymnastics being a few of them.  Israel will be competing against Iran in any event this year.  Iran had refused to compete with Israel in 2004 in Athens and 2008 in Beijing.

Resource:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/olympics-massacre-munich--the-real-story-524011.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/olympics-2012-israel-taking-all-necessary-measures-to-protect-athletes/2012/07/24/gJQA5bRf6W_blog.html
 http://www.csjl.org/teensports.php?item=4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre
http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/olympics/detail.php?content=holocaust_athletes&lang=en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Spitz
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/olympics/2012/07/23/bob-costas-israeli-athletes.ap/index.html
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/olympics/2012/07/23/iran-israeli-olympics.ap/index.html

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Anti-Israel Jew: UN's Richard Anderson Falk

Nadene Goldfoot
The UN Human Rights Council's Richard Anderson Falk, American Jew, is now accusing the Jewish Community of being "responsible for  the massive and enduring confiscation of Palestinian land and rights."

First, I am surprised that he is Jewish and calls himself an American Jew because as a Jew, he should know more about the history of Palestine and of Israel.  It's as if he were raised in Gaza. "Falk described his family background as "assimilationist Jewish with a virtual denial of even the ethnic side of Jewishness". This must mean that perhaps his grandparents were Jewish but his parents have not practiced Judaism or observed holidays and  haven't even eaten bagels and he cares nothing about the religion and has not cared to learn about its history.  His father seems to have been  Edwin A Falk, a lawyer in private practice in Poundridge, Westchester, New York.  His mother, Helene, was a publicity agent and was born in Japan.  He grew up with an older sister, Joan.  


 He joins the rarified community of Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein.  We, strangely as it seems, do have a few Jews who have taken the opposite viewpoint and support the Palestinians no matter what while castigating the whole Jewish community.  As he says in his own blog, "I was drawn to the Palestinian struggle as a result of friendship with prominent Palestinian exiles while still a student."  I say that his knowledge stopped with that connection.

This man, born in 1930, is a Princeton graduate and professor.  He has committed the outlandish act of posting an anti-Semitic cartoon that was condemned last year by David Cameron, British Prime Minister on his  blog. The cartoon depicted a dog with a Jewish head-covering  and a sweater with the letters "USA" urinating on Lady Justice while devouring bloody human bones. By doing so, he effectively provided an international warrant for terrorism.  He used language and logic used by terrorists of Jewish community centers, synagogues and schools throughout the world. It was then copied onto the Palestine Chronicle and other websites.  Racist remarks against Jews, Judaism and even the US government is unacceptable, and by an American Jew is disgusting. 

Since then he has copped a plea of ignorance for what he had done and posted on his blog.  Are we supposed to accept this idea that he has no idea of what amounts to anti-Semitism?  Give me a break!  The very worst type of anti-Semitism comes from Jews themselves.

Hillel Neuer of UN Watch has written to Obama and other world leaders condemning Falk's diatribe in that he is not upholding standards required by the UN.   Falk is the UNHRC's Special Rapporteur for the permanent investigation of "Israel's violations of bases and principles of international law."  He has published racist remarks against Jews and Judaism.  He must see himself in a special class of one unique person.  He certainly doesn't agree with several other Jewish international law experts.  I note that Israel  expelled  Falk in 2008, and according to the video posted below, Falk didn't seem to have the understanding I do as to why.

Resource: UN Watch  briefing@unwatch.org.  UN's Richard Falk accuses "organized Jewish community" of crimes against Palestinians" UN Watch urges President Obama to take action.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Falk
http://blog.unwatch.org/index.php/2011/07/07/after-jewish-dog-cartoon-uns-richard-falk-apologizes-to-jews-and-animals/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkF1XxdXQFc
http://richardfalk.wordpress.com/ Falk's blog

Monday, July 23, 2012

The British 1939 Double Cross

Nadene Goldfoot
Even Churchill had second thoughts on what Britain had done with their mandate in Palestine, though he had helped to draw up the Churchill White Paper of 1922 hindering the Jews in achieving their national home.

   The British  were given the charge to help bring about the Jewish National Home and managed to double cross Chaim Weizmann and the Zionists by reducing the agreed upon allotted land and gave 75% of it to the Arabs instead. The idea that the White Paper tried to induce, that Jews were to be "illegals" in their "Home" was never universally accepted.  This had been about the  White Paper coming down on the Jews' heads keeping them out of the land.  In 1936, Protestant and Catholic leaders in New York said that the British government must uphold its covenanted pledges to the Jewish people and to the world...that the British rescind its illegal, unjust and indefensible partition of Palestine to restore Transjordania to its proper place as part of the Palestine territory and throw it open to Jewish settlement.   Britain disregarded their announcement.  


"I should feel personally embarrassed,"  Churchill said, "in the most acute manner if I lent myself, by silence or inaction, to what I must regard as an act of repudiation."  The breach, he explained, was the 1939 White Paper (McDonald's) declaration drawn up by Britain after the agreement they accepted of taking on the responsibility of the mandate to help bring about the Jewish National Homeland.  

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, president of the USA, questioned the legality of the White Paper's policy, but the State Department supported it.  Later, the State Department acted the same way with Truman.  There was a clique of secret John Foster Dulles supporters inside the administration and were paying more attention to the British views than Truman's.  James  Forrestal, a manic, ambitious and very right-wing investment banker called the "boy wonder" of Wall Street with reservations about Palestine,  lunched with Loy Henderson, his ally and was told about the views of Ernest Bevin, the notoriously anti-Semitic British foreign secretary.  Bevin was out to get arrangements with Washington to keep London's role in the Middle East as the important one.  Bevin had described the president's support for Jewish immigration to Palestine as a "crude desire for votes in New York," and therefore was not one of Harry Truman's favorite people.  They were part of a clique against Truman ever  voting for the Jewish state.

Others shared Churchill's outrage.  A member of Parliament, Herbert Morrison, reminded the government of the aid being given by Hitler and Mussolini to the upper-class Arab leaders in Palestine ever since British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had shown his partiality to the Arabs.  The White Paper had the audacity to give the Arabs the veto over Jewish immigration.  This was 1939, when Jews were passionately trying to enter their "Jewish National Homeland."  or die in Europe.  Countries either had small quotas for Jewish immigrants or didn't allow them in their countries at all.  The USA wouldn't even extend their Jewish quotas in this dire time of need.

Morrison begged his colleagues to stop this evil thing being done.  ..I ask them to remember the sufferings of these Jewish people all over the world.  I ask them to remember that Palestine, of all places in the world, was certainly the place where they had some right to expect not to suffer or to have restrictions imposed upon them.  Look at the extent of the country---this little patch of territory.  Transjordan has been taken away.  (Transjordan was included in the Jewish National Homeland but given to the Arabs).  

Nevelle Chamberlain (18 March 1869-9 Nov 1940) should have been thinking about the encroaching  Nazis.   "I believe the persecution arose  of two motives", he wrote to his sister in a letter:  A desire to rob the Jews of their money and a jealousy of their superior cleverness.  No doubt Jews aren't a lovable people;  I don't care about them myself---but that is not sufficient to explain the Pogrom."

Chamberlain believed in appeasement of an enemy.  The White Paper of 1939 reinforced his belief.  A year earlier was the agreement in Munich that sacrificed Czechoslovakia to the Nazis to gain "Peace in our time," as he put it.  Perhaps he thought that with the White Paper the Arab Revolt would die down.  Actually it must have encouraged what George Antonius, an Arab writer and representative called a "substantial advance towards the recognition of Arab rights" and what the Jews called "a surrender to Arab terrorism" which I say is still going on today at the UN.

Resource:  From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters, pages 346-349.
The Secret War Against the Jews by John Loftus and Mark Aarons p. 161
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill_White_Paper
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Paper_of_1939
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Morrison





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Sunday, July 22, 2012

BBC Omits Jerusalem in Olympic Game Listing


Nadene Goldfoot                         Jerusalem, capital of Israel
Of course, the BBC omitted Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel in their list of Olympic games website.  They are using Tel Aviv as the address instead.  Facebook has a campaign going on to let people know that Jerusalem is its capital.  Israel's Knesset, the parliament building is located in Jerusalem, created in 1949.  Their permanent building was built in 1966.  BBC had the chutzpa to list East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian Arabs Olympic team.  After a complaint from Israel, they merely wrote that Jerusalem was the seat of Israel's government.

Situated in the center of the Judean mountains is the capital of Israel.  The land area was occupied by ancient Judah and by the old city of Jerusalem.  An ancient shekel found from 68 CE is made of silver with the inscription, "Holy Jerusalem" along with 3 pomegranates.  King David captured the city in 1010 BCE and made it his capital.  We know that Joshua had captured the land of Canaan by 1320 BCE and defeated Adoni-zedek, king,  but his city had remained an independent enclave between the tribal areas of Benjamin and Judah.  It had maintained its independence with some Philistine help until then.  David dealt leniently with the Jebusites, and then  established himself in the city. King David's son was the very wise King Solomon.

King David had brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and made it the religious center of Israel. His empire reached from the Red Sea to the Euphrates.  The Olympic games had started in neighboring Greece in 776 BCE.  Since 70 CE Jews have prayed to return  and have promised not to forget Jerusalem lest they lose the use of their right hand. 

The Jerusalem Law of 1980 extended Israel sovereignty over the entire city.  The city had been divided in 1948 into two parts between Jews and Arabs due to Jordanian takeover of the eastern part, and it was liberated in the June 1967 War by Israel and made one city again.  It seems that the international community didn't bother to condemn Jordan for the takeover of what was to be the Jewish National Homeland, the land Jordan is sitting on, and is not willing to accept Jerusalem as Israel's capital, either.

Israel has participated in the Olympics since 1952.  They won a medal finally in 1992 in Barcelona.
The Olympic games of 1972 will be remembered as the time 11 Israeli athletes were murdered in what was called the Munich massacre.  The team was taken hostage and then killed by the Palestinian terrorists, Black September, who then demanded 234 terrorists be freed out of Israeli jails.

Resource: Facebook
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4258329,00.html
http://www.olympic.org/
http://www.olympic.one.co.il/  all in Hebrew
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/sports.html
http://www.nostos.com/olympics/ history of Olymics
http://www.aish.com/jw/s/Olympic_Silence.html

1938 Desperation: For Jewish National Homeland Entrance But Denied

Nadene Goldfoot
Hitler was in the act of persecuting Jews in the 30's who had become the scapegoat of the ills of Germany.   It was a time when small Jewish children weren't even allowed to play in parks with other children.  On the doors of schools was painted:  "Cursed be the Jew."


President Franklin D. Roosevelt called up an international conference at Evian, France for July 1938 which was called a humanitarian gesture of concern for Jewish victims of the Nazis but had no solutions for reducing emigration barriers of these people.  Jews had been standing in lines in Vienna and other cities trying to leave and escape the Nazi persecution without success.

Austrian Jews seemingly overnight were stripped of their security rights and all their property in most cases.  By the end of April 1938 more than 500 Jews had committed suicide.  They saw the Jews in Vienna and other cities turned down by all the foreign consulates one after the other.  No country would take them in.  Only a few countries had quotas that hadn't yet been filled while many wouldn't allow Jews in at all because they did not have baptism certificates.  .

32 countries could not bring themselves to help out the Jews and Palestine, according to the British who held the mandate of rule there stated that "only limited immigration could even be considered."  They said that its absorptive capacity of Jews" had been pronounced to be full."  Truth was that they did not want Jews to enter, and they were the ones holding the mandate with the responsibility to develop the Jewish Homeland, and they were doing everything possible to keep Jews out.  Such people as Anthony Eden, Britain's Foreign Secretary from 1935-1938 and innumerable other positions  was most anti-Semitic.  His secretary noted in his diary in 1943 that he is immovable on the subject of Palestine.  He loves Arabs and hates Jews.  Britain's Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, who shaped so much of British policy from 1937-1940 told his cabinet that " if we must offend one side, let us offend the Jews rather than the Arabs."  So at a time when Jews needed their own land desperately, they could not enter what was designated to be  the Jewish Homeland save but a few.  Thus, 6 million Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust.

Chaim Weizmann was kept out of the Evian meeting because Jews had no state to represent them and only states were invited to the meeting.  He couldn't even speak in a private meeting there because Great Britain protested against it.  The United States was not about to change their laws at this crucial point in time to allow more than their usual restricted amount of Jews into the country.  The USA quota of Jews per year  from Germany and Austria combined was 27,370 and that was not changed.

Peru also had strict quotas for Jews entering their country.  They also had a ban on doctors and lawyers out of fear of an invasion by intellectuals.   They praised the USA for their quotas on Jews and said that this guided their immigration policies in Peru.  The rest of the countries followed suit.  The one exception was Santo Domingo who offered to take in 100,000 refugees, and Holland and Denmark, who decided to let in refugees without restrictions.  We know what happened to Holland's Jews towards the end of the war with "The Diary of Anna Frank."  Denmark was then invaded by the Nazi in 1940 so Jews were under attack then.  The Danes managed to help many of them escape to Sweden.  Only 645 Jews made it to Santo Domingo  though 5,000 visas were issued.

Resource:  Book:  From Time Immemorial-the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine by Joan Peters p. 333-334
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_the_Danish_Jews
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/sosua.html

Saturday, July 21, 2012

The Big Lie: That Arabs Were Displaced By Israel

                                                     Mandate for Jewish National Home
Nadene Goldfoot
The Jewish Homeland shrunk to less than 20% of its original size which had been decided by the Balfour Doctrine and okayed by the League of Nations.  What became Israel in 1948 was a fraction of Western Palestine where Jews had already settled and had been living.   Immigrant Jews had returned to the land in the 1870's to join the small native Jewish population and until it became a state in 1948, the area of Jewish settlement remained about in the same area.  It had been underpopulated land and had been set upon by Bedouin exploitations, plunder, nomadism , tribal uprisings and natural disaster during the Jews' first aliyah or return to work and reclaiming of  the land.

The major part, 3/4  of the Jewish Homeland, had been taken over by Transjordan, which was land east of the Jordan River.  Yasser Arafat had stated that Jordan is Palestine.  Even King Hussein and Prince Hassan of Jordan have also stated that Palestine is Jordan and Jordan is Palestine.  That happened to be a good 80% of land promised to the the Jews. In fact, Palestinian Arabs and Jordan had a battle in 1970-1971 called the "Black September" period, when King Hussein fought against Arafat's PLO forces who had been operating opening in Jordan until then.  It was considered a Civil War and the final crackdown against those of his people who were trying to establish a separate Palestinian state under Arab Palestinian rule instead of his own.

 The king considered them criminals and conspirators using commando movement to disguise their treason and plots to destroy the unity of the Jordanian and Palestinian people. Thousands died, mostly the Palestinians who later retreated to Lebanon.   It was a similar situation to Syria today, only the king was fairly good and not about to be undercut and displaced.  He eventually married a Palestinian girl, born in the USA whose father was from Syria, Queen Noor, one way to keep the peace.  One good thing about him, he kept the peace with Israel.  King Hussein has since died, and his son, King Abdullah II also married a Palestinian girl, Queen Rania, born in 1970 whose father was from Kuwait.

The Jewish National Homeland had been split into 2 separate unequal Palestines:  Eastern Palestine--or the Arab emirate of Transjordan east of the Jordan River and Western Palestine, which was less than 1/4th of the League of Nations Mandate.  Where the Jews actually lived in 1870-1880 was only a segment of the area of Western Palestine.  Transjordan, nearly 38,000 square miles,  had been filched by the Arabs with the British permission and assistance.  Israel got less than 8,000 square miles in the end.

The land of Transjordan had been conqauered by King David.  W Ammon was held for a time by a Jewish family, the Tobiads.  From the 8th century to the 19th century it had been mostly left to the Bedouin except when the Crusaders were there.  In 1921 it was detached from the Jewish Homeland for Abdullah who renamed it the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan in 1946.  In 1948 he took over the Arab area of Palestine which his grandson, Hussein lost to Israel in the 6 Day War.  In 1990 Jordan's population was 3,000,000 of which many were Palestinian Arabs and its capital is Amman.  By 2011 the population of Jordan was 5,568,565 and 95% Sunni Muslim which is their state religion.

The Muslim population in "Palestine around 1917, the time of the Balfour Declaration, was made up of mostly transient and landless nomads.  Sherif Hussein commented in a 1918 article that the native soil of Palestine could not keep the Arabs from " wandering....in every direction."

Palestine did not become Israel.  Israel is but a sliver of what it was to have been.  Palestine was indeed to have become the Jewish Homeland but because of British dealings, it didn't happen.  It should have been the land east and west of the Jordan River from the Mediterranean to Arabia and Iraq, and north and south from Egypt to Lebanon and Syria.

Arnold Toynbee, historian, said in 1918 that the "desolate land which lies east of the Jordan stream was capable of supporting a large population of irrigated and cultivated scientifically.  The Zionists have as much right to this no-man's land as the Arabs, or more."

The land was previously referred to as Palestine, and that was but a small piece of land compared to Arab countries created around it.  It was also called South Syria, or Eastern and Western Palestine, or part of Turkey, but by the international mandate known finally as a Jewish National Home.  The USA mentioned much about it, and said it was to "recognize Palestine as a Jewish state as soon as it is a Jewish state in fact."

So all around it independent Arab statehood arose., but not within Palestine itself, unless you count Transjordan.  After WWI the Arabs in Syria and Iraq had statehood.  Saudi Arabia got about 865,000 square miles of land which was pure Arab land.  Surely the Arab would not begrudge the "small notch" of Palestine east and west of the Jordan River, thought Lord Balfour.  Little did he know his own country and the Arabs.

Britain had to help themselves by recognizing Abdullah and his emirate in the land east of the Jordan River that was to be the Jewish National Home.  He was the royal son of the Hejaz (Saudi Arabia), because the Arabians of the Hejaz had been the biggest helpers against the Turks in WWI.  His brother, Emir Feisal, and Lawrence of Arabia had agreed to abandon all claim of his father to Western Palestine if Feisal got Iraq and Eastern Palestine as Arab territories.  Never mind that Chaim Weizmann had developed chemicals to create bombs that worked for England and with that they would have lost the whole war against Germany and had been promised the land first for the Jews in return for his contribution to the war effort .

So this idea of Jews displacing the Arab is nothing but bunk.  Arabs actually took over land meant for the Jews by taking Transjordan illegally. Folke Bernadotte in 1950-1951 said that "The Palestinian Arabs have at present no will of their own.  Neither have they ever developed any specifically Palestinian nationalism...It would seem as though in existing circumstances most of the Palestinian Arabs would be quite content to be incorporated in Trans-Jordan."

Resource: Book:  From Time Immemorial-the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine by Joan Peters p 234-241
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September_in_Jordan
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Noor_of_Jordan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Rania_of_Jordan


Friday, July 20, 2012

Beating the Odds in 1948: The Plan Gone Sour For the Arabs

Nadene Goldfoot
Arabs thought for sure that they would win in a war against the embryonic Jewish state of Israel in May 1948.  There were only 650,000 Jews there and no professional army and no air force existed until 4 fighter planes were scraped together later.   Jews had individual groups of fighters which were the  Haganah, Palmach, Irgun, Lehi, and allied Bedouin tribes.  Altogether they numbered 29,677 and grew to 115,000 by March 1949.   By May 26, 1948 they were all identified as the IDF, Israel Defense Force.  The past few years had been spent fighting against the British.  For the past 6 months the Jews had also been fighting against Arabs and advance units from the armies of Syria, Iraq and Jordan along with the British assistance in many ways.

The British had opened land frontiers allowing neighboring armed Arabs to pour in.  The British even announced in the House of Commons at the end of February that 5,000 Arabs from the neighboring countries had entered Palestine in the preceding 3 months.  They refused to open a port for the Jews which the United Nations had recommended.  They kept up a blockade in the Mediterranean to prevent reinforcements from reaching Israel.  Even the USA announced an embargo and enforced it so that Jews were also deprived of  supplies that could have come to them from ports as ships were not allowed to leave and go to Israel.  .  

Then the Arabs were given material support by the British government.  They provided arms and ammunition for the war.  The UN criticized them about  aiding this aggressive invasion by saying that the State of Israel did not legally exist and could not therefore be invaded.

The leaders of the Arabs were the British in  the Transjordanian Arab Legion.  British soldiers were the officers.  The British had been cooperating in planning some phases of the war against Israel.  On January 15, 1948, a new treaty was signed with Iraq at Portsmouth.  The British Foreign Minister, Ernest Bevin, had reached an agreement with the Iraqi leaders.  With this agreement the British sped up the supply of weapons and ammunition from Britain to supply automatic weapons for 50,000 policemen.  The purpose was to arm the Arab fighters to be able to fight in the liberation of Palestine.  Iraqi forces would enter every area evacuated by British troops in Palestine so that a Jewish state would not be formed.

Six weeks later, Bevin and the PM of Transjordan along with General John Bagot Glubb, commander of the Arab Legion, approved of Transjordan doing her share by invading and occupying the area allotted for an Arab state.

The  Arabs had the numbers, arms and ammunition and plans to overtake 3 fronts against a Jewish force of untrained, poorly armed men along a coastal strip of land.  A slaughter was promised by the Arab leaders.  The Arabs had a history of conquering half of the world 1,300 years earlier.  They counted on winning in a few weeks or days.  Palestine would be a part of the reborn Arab empire.

Fighting against the newly formed Jewish state were Egypt with 10,000-20,000, Iraq with 3,000-15,000, Syria with 2,500-5,000, Transjordan with 8,000-12,000, Lebanon with 1,000, Saudi Arabia with 800-1,200, Yemen with 300, and Arab Legion Army with 3,000-6,000.  Volunteers also fought with these soldiers.  The Holy War Army, Arab Liberation Army, Muslim Brotherhood,  the Anglo Egyptian Sudan Group and volunteers from Pakistan came.

Against all these odds of a huge attack against the few, the Jews won. 6,373 had been killed including some civilians.  The Arabs lost anywhere from 8,000 to 15,000.   To the Arabs, they feel they have been dishonored and Israel has become the focus of all their frustrations and  hatreds.  Arabs have not lost their desire for vengeance which has only grown deeper with time.  They still are bent on destroying Israel.

This all came about with the ambitions of the British imperialists who were looking out for their own domination of the Fertile Crescent through Arab puppet states they could control.  They even established the Arab League in 1945 and thought they had taken care of reducing any Jewish Homeland with their White Paper of 1939.  The Arabs thought so, too.  That's why they had accepted this decree.  When Britain forced the French out of Syria, they thought that also meant the end of the Jews.  A miracle had happened.  The Jews were there to stay.

Resource: Battleground, Fact and Fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz, page169-171
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War
Frank Sinatra famously played the role of a pilot in Cast a Giant Shadow,  as Vince, an expatriate American pilot who takes part in what becomes a suicide mission to bomb Arab positions.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Proud to be a Jew


 Only 65 years ago, Jews were brought to death like Sheep to slaughter. NO country, NO army.
Only 60 years ago, Seven Arab countries declared war on little Israel , the Jewish State, Just
a few hours after it was established. We were 650,000 Jews against the rest of the Arab world.
No IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) or Air Force. We were only a Small group of stubborn people
with nowhere to go. Remember: Lebanon , Syria , Iraq , Jordan , Egypt , Libya , and Saudi Arabia , they all attacked at once. The state that the United Nations "gave" us was 65% desert.
We started it from Zero.
 
Only 41 years ago, we fought three of the strongest countries In the Middle East , and we
crushed them in the Six Day War. Over the years we fought different coalitions of Arab
countries With modern armies and with huge amounts of Russian-Soviet Ammunition,
and we still won. Today we have a beautiful country, a powerful Army, a strong Air Force,
an adequate Navy and a thriving high tech industry. Intel, Microsoft, and IBM have
all developed their businesses Here. Our doctors have won important prizes in the
medical Development field. We turned the desert into a prosperous land. We sell
oranges, flowers, and vegetables around the world.
 
We launched our own satellite! Three satellites at once! We Are in good company;
together with the USA (300 million Residents), Russia (220 million residents), China
(1.3 Billion residents) and Europe ( France, England, Germany over 200 million residents),
we are one of the only countries in the World that have launched something into space!
 
Israel today is among the few powerful countries that have Nuclear technology &
capabilities. (We will never admit it, But everyone knows.) To think that only 65 years
ago we were disgraced and Hopeless. We crawled out from the burning crematoriums
of Europe. We won in all our wars. With a little bit of nothing we built An empire.
Who are Khaled Meshal (leader of Hamas) or Hassan Nasrallah (leader of Hezbollah)
trying to frighten us? They are amusing us.  As we celebrate Independence Day,
let's not forget what this Holy day is all about; we overcame everything.
 
We overcame the Greeks, We overcame the Romans, We overcame the Spanish
Inquisition, We overcame the Russians pogrom, We overcame Hitler , we overcame
Germany and overcame the Holocaust, We overcame the armies of seven countries.
 
Relax chevray (friends), we will overcome our current enemies. Never mind where you
look in human history. Think about it, The Jewish nation, our condition has never been
better than now. So let's lift our heads up Never mind which country or culture tries to
harm us or erase us From the world. We will still exist and persevere. Egypt ? Anyone
Know where the Egyptian empire disappeared to? The Greeks? Alexander Macedon?
The Romans? Is anyone speaking Latin Today? The Third Reich? Did anyone hear news
from them lately? And look at us, the Bible nation – from slavery in Egypt , we are still
here, still speaking the same language. Exactly here, exactly now. Maybe The Arabs
don't know it yet, but we are an eternal nation. All the time that we will keep our identity,
we will stay eternal. So, sorry that we are not worrying, complaining, crying, or fearing…
 
Business here is beseder (fine). It can definitely be much better, But it is still fine. Don't
pay attention to the nonsense in the media, They will not tell you about our festivals here
in Israel or about the People that continue living, going out sometimes morale is down,
so what? This is only because we are mourning the dead while they are celebrating
spilled blood. And This is the reason we will win after all.
 
Please forward this e-mail to all of your Jewish friends Everywhere in the world.
You are all part of our force to Keep our existence. This e-mail may help some
of us lift our heads up and be  Proud to say: I AM A JEW
אני יהודי 

Resource: Tuvia Mozorosky in Israel, formerly Portland, Oregon 

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Palestine: That Unwanted Backwater That Only Jews Could Love

Nadene Goldfoot
Palestine was just a battleground or a corridor to Arab rulers and their non-Arab successors.  Sometimes it was just an outpost.  Its people were simply a source of taxes and manpower for supplying endless foreign and bloodthirsty wars.

No non-Jewish culture developed here.  The population remained "an ethnic hodgepodge of the different invaders."  Crusaders came and found people speaking Arabic but made up of dozens of races not counting Jews or Druze, who practiced 5 versions of Islam and 8 of Christianity.  The Umayyad empire had died but Islam had continued with none interested in this backwater land except for what they could get out of it for the imperial armies.

Mamluks in 1250 followed the Crusaders and were not interested in Palestine.  They divided the land to administer.  It was just a conquered land and the people living there were exploited and treated as hostiles.  Arabs were treated as conquered subjects.  They didn't improve under the Ottoman Turks, either.  Being Muslim got you no favors.  Jews were more heavily taxed than the Arabs and hated just a little more by the Arabs than the Turks.

Arabs helped to ruin the land by the constant forays and warfare from the deserts.  They laid waste the land east of the Jordan River during the Abbasid and Fatimid eras.  In the 13th century with Mamluks on the scene, Bedouin raiders plundered livestock and destroyed crops and plantations and were the bane of the farmers.  Bedouin camps dotted the countryside and served as bases for highway attacks on travelers and on caravans that carried merchandise and on pilgrim cavalcades.

Count Volney wrote about Palestine in 1785 and said, "peasants are making inroads on each other's lands, destroying their corn, durra (sorghum grains), sesame and olive-trees, and carrying off their sheep, goats and camels.  The Turks are negligent in repressing this.  The Bedouin are at open hostilities with them.  Peasants resist their authority or do mischief to each other.  There is an anarchy more dreadful than the despotism that prevails.  Mutual devastation  makes Palestine more wretched than that of any other land.  This county is more frequently plundered than any other in Syria because it lies next to the desert and is open to the Arabs".

"Bedouin nomads tore up their olive trees, destroyed their crops, filled their wells with stones, broke down their cisterns, took away their livestock-and sometimes were called in as allies to help destroy the next village."

So, by the middle of the 19th century, Palestine had suffered hundreds of years of abuse and had become a treeless waste with a sprinkling of emaciated towns, malaria-ridden swamps in once fertile valleys, and the once thriving South Negev was now a desert, with a population that almost dwindled to nothing.

Palestine was mentioned only once in the Koran as being a holy place for Jews and Christians.  It wasn't mentioned as being holy for Muslims.  If anyone wanted an education, they didn't go to Palestine.  They went to Damascus or Cairo.

Edward Robinson (1794-1863) , American Christian archaeologist and theologian, has one of the arches in Jerusalem named after him, Robinson's Arch, which is on the SW flank of the Temple Mount and once supported a staircase which led to the temple.  He wrote in 1838 that hundreds of names of villages and sites were only Arabic rendering or translations of ancient Hebrew names, either biblical or Talmudic.  Arabs called the land "Filastin" where is just the Arabic transliteration of "Palestine," the name given by the Romans when they tried to obliterate the "presence' of the Jewish people after 70 CE.  He traveled the land with missionary Eli Smith who spoke Arabic.  They were identifying ruins that were connected to the Bible.

Sir George Adam Smith, author of Historical Geography of the Holy Land, wrote in 1891 that no civilization could take the place of the Turks except the Jews who have given to Palestine everything it has ever had of value to the world.

This land was unloved by its rulers from 70 CE on.  It was uncared for by most of its handful of inhabitants.  By the middle of the 19th Century, it began to become alive again with the return of the Jewish pioneers.

Resource: Battleground, Fact and Fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz p. 110-115
http://archaeology.about.com/od/rterms/g/robinsone.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Robinson_(scholar)

Monday, July 16, 2012

The Almost Egyptian and Turkish Plans for a Jewish Palestine

Nadene Goldfoot
In 1831 Mehemet/Mohammed Ali conquered Palestine and took it from the Ottoman Empire Turks.  He ruled it from Egypt for 9 years.  It was nothing but a wasteland.   At this time Sir Moses Montefiore (first English Jew to be knighted in modern times) began plans and visited Mehemet Ali in Egypt in 1839 to put forward his idea for a Jewish settlement to regenerate Palestine.  Mehemet Ali liked the idea and accepted it.  Montifiore was discussing details with him when Mehemet was forced to leave Palestine which meant that it returned to Turkish rule.

1867 brought Mark Twain to Palestine on a vacation who wrote that "desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds--a silent mournful expanse.--there was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere.  Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country."

In 1879 the Turks were presented with the same idea for Jewish colonization and autonomy in a part of Palestine as Mehemet Ali had been.  Laurence Oliphant (English proto-Zionist, writer of The Land of Gilead and Haifa)  worked out the details and showed the Turks that it was in their own interest, as well as Britain's, to help in the Jewish restoration in Palestine.  The leading people of Britain, such as Prime Minister Lord Beaconsfield, Foreign Secretary Lord Salisbury, and the Prince of Wales (King Edward VII) recommended the idea to the Turks for Jews to settle in Gilead.  Even the French government with advocate Foreign Minister Waddington added their encouragement.  Gilead was the region of Transjordania, which became Jordan much later.  It was originally settled by the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh.  It was part of the northern kingdom and was captured by Assyria in 732 BCE with its people taken into exile.

The Sultan was interested in the plan and their Foreign Office proposed some amendments to be discussed but  in 1880 an election drove Lord Beaconsfield from office and he had been Turkey's friend.  William Edward Gladstone replaced him, a man the Turks considered an enemy.  The Jewish settlement was then forgotten.

Jews hadn't forgotten the idea of settling again in Palestine and the 1st Aliyah had started in 1881-1882, Eastern European  Jews returning to the land and working the soil.  It was a wave of immigration to join Jews who had never left. 35,000 Jews faced inclement climate, disease, crippling Turkish taxation and Arab opposition. Half left after a few years but had established new rural settlements with the rest moving to larger towns.  A 2nd Aliyah happened from 1904-1914 bringing in 40,000 mainly Russian Jews fleeing pogroms.

This came at a time when there were Christians who didn't like the idea of the Jews' return because it interfered with their idea of Jews being punished by the "edict" of exile.  Yet there was the fact that Palestine was a virtually empty land.  "No nation has been able to establish itself as a nation in Palestine up to this day," wrote Prof. Sir John William Dawson in 1888.  "No national union and no national spirit has prevailed there. The motley impoverished tribes which have occupied it have held it as mere tenants at will, temporary landowners, evidently waiting for those entitled to the permanent possession of the soil."

It wasn't until 1895 that Theodor Herzl, Jewish  reporter in Paris, wrote A Jewish State which started the Zionist movement.  His idea was that of a perfect idealistic Utopian state.He wrote, "We have sincerely tried everywhere to merge with the national communities in which we live, seeking only to preserve the faith of our fathers. It is not permitted us....Palestine is our unforgettable historic homeland.".  His plan was for the establishment of a Jewish state by international agreement as a solution to their problem of not being accepted by the other nations.  For centuries the Jews were seen as the helpless, vulnerable minority and it was only right to restore their human rights to live as equal citizens of the world.  He died in 1904 at age 44.

Moses left Egypt with 600,000 Jews.  Israel was reborn in 1948 with 650,000 Jews.  By 1951 they had absorbed 690,000 Jewish immigrants.  The miracle had begun.

Reference: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Muhammad_Ali_Pasha_the_Great
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Battleground, fact and fantasy in Palestine
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Immigration/First_Aliyah.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Aliyah
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/herzlex.html
.  

Saturday, July 14, 2012

British Plan to Take All of Ottoman Empire

Nadene Goldfoot
Many countries had wanted their own Colonial expansion like England and France.  The Kingdom of Italy's public also wanted their country to expand as well.  Libya was a territory of the Ottoman Empire and the only part of North Africa not already controlled by a European power, so in 1911 Italy demanded that the Ottoman Empire transfer Libya to Italian control. After a guerrilla war, the outbreak went on to the First Balkan War which forced the Ottoman Empire to sue for peace and accept Italian claims over both Libya and the Dodecanese.

World War I started in 1914.  At that time the Ottoman Empire controlled 2.4 million square km (926,645.181 square miles) of territory.  It included all of Turkey and most of the Middle East.  In the land were Arabs, Kurds, Greeks, Armenians and other minorities such as the Jews and Christians.  It was ruled by an Islamic Caliphate Sultan, Mehmed V.  It had existed for 400-600 years and the non Muslim subjects suffered from discrimination, and sometimes outright persecutions.  The 10 years before 1914 the empire had many political upheavals so was not in the best position to be in a world war.

 England entered the war with their Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa Empire. They were allied to France and declared war against Germany on August 4th 1914. Germany had invaded Belgium.  Russia was in the war from a treaty to Serbia and Germany was allied to Austria-Hungary and saw the Russians as an act of war against Austria-Hungary.  America was threatened by Germany's submarines so went to war on 6 April 1917.  Italy, at first staying neutral, finally sided with the British.   This "Great War" suffered more casualties than any other war.  37 million people had died, 9 million as soldiers in war. It had started with the assassination of one man, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, Bosnia. (interesting note is that in Bosnia, Jews are still not permitted to run for elected office who discriminate against Jewish and Roma-Gypsy minorities.  Bosnia was again in a war from 1992-1995) The Great Empires were destroyed.

 A group of senor British officials in Egypt and the Sudan during the early part of WWI had the hair brained idea of bringing the Arab-speaking parts of the Ottoman Empire under British control after the war.  Governor General of the Sudan, Sir Reginald Wingate's words were to have a "federation of semi-independent Arab States under European guidance and supervision...owing spiritual allegiance to a single Arab primate, and looking to Great Britain as its patron and protector."  


Captain Orde Wingate, Sir Reginald's nephew,  came to Haifa in 1937 as being anti-Zionist, and believed as many English did that only Britain stood between these "exploiting Jews and the Backward, unprotected Arabs."  p. 106 Genesis 1948.  In 3 months he was to become a mystical Zionist as extreme as any Jews and more aggressive.  He had informed Ben-Gurion and other Jews that he wanted to devote his life to their cause and fight their battle.   The British sent him away in 1939 because he was good friends with Jews and was later killed in Burma in WWII. 


The Balfour Doctrine published in 1917  caused a problem for the British who had grandiose ideas.  The Arabs, who had fought against the Turks, wanted their own nation as well but didn't have a written doctrine like the Jews had.  So the British, who must have seen their dreams materialize with Arabs at the helm, From 1919 to 1948 tried to appear as honest arbitrators but in reality were active participants in the confrontation against the Jews.  "The Arab attack on Zionism would never have begun had it not been for the British inspiration, tutelage and guidance." p 45. Battleground.  


However, a Jewish state was to be established, not at once, but as soon as the Jewish people immigrated and developed the land to become the majority.  The country had 500,000 Arabs.  That's half-million people.  There were only 90,000 Jews.  The British must have figured that the Jews would never be able to establish their Jewish Homeland.  They saw British control through the granting of a mandate which they obtained.  They saw a group of Arab states in Arabia, Syria and Mesopotamia being semi-independent.  They would be the British mentors and advisers in Jedda, Damascus and Baghdad.  Already they controlled administration in Cairo and Khartoum.  This would be the next feather in their cap, the British Mandatory Administration in Palestine.  Britain would thus have the whole control of the Middle East from the Mediterranean to the borders of India.  


They could not control the Zionist diplomacy to get the consent of France from releasing any control in Palestine.  France had control in Syria.  The French were sensitive to American opinion during WWI and had already acquiesced in the Balfour Declaration by agreeing to waive their claims to Palestine and let Britain have the whole mandate over Palestine.  France had the claim to Transjordan but gave that up as well to Britain.  France had the mandate over Syria and Lebanon.  They already held the protectorate of Morocco from 1912 and didn't give it up until 1956.  


The newspaper, The London Times called for the inclusion of Eastern Palestine as essential to the Jewish state east of the river Jordan (Transjordan).  On September 19, 1919 the paper said, " the Jordan River will not do as Palestine's eastern boundary." It was to be part of the Jewish Homeland and so passed into British control-to be given up later to the Arabs without a fight. Britain had the mandate for 30 years and said good-buy to Palestine on May 14, 1948 when Israel declared it's state.  


The ceremony for the state was to take place at 4pm on Friday, May 14;  8 hours before the mandate would officially end at midnight.  The Sabbath started on Friday night so no Jewish leader would sign the Declaration after sundown.  The Jews had 24 hours to get ready for this momentous occasion.  They wanted this written declaration to show proof that there had been a Jewish State.  Ben Gurion,  first Prime Minister signed the document.  Hatikvah, the Jewish national anthem was played. Gurion declared that Israel was re-born.  30 years before, General Allenby had entered Jerusalem on foot to be welcomed joyously as the liberator of both Arab and Jew from Turkish despotism.  On May 14, 1948 sullen, silent faces bid farewell to the British.  They may have wondered like  Sir Alan Cunningham as to how it was possible to divide this country as they had.   The Arabs attacked quickly .  


Resource:  Book:  Battleground, fact and fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitioning_of_the_Ottoman_Empire
Book:  Genesis 1948 by Dan Kurzman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_protectorate_of_Morocco


Thursday, July 12, 2012

UN HUMAN RIGHTS; More Chutzpa Than Any Group

Nadene Goldfoot
Sudan is scheduled to be on the Human Rights Council in the UN.  Their president, Omar Al-Bashir was indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court and they have won a seat on this UN's Human Rights Council.   Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General  and Navi Pillay, High Commissioner for Human Rights from South Africa,  have been urged to speak  out against this country.  So have Hillary Clinton and the EU's Catherine Ashton.  

What else is crazy about this Human Rights election?  Syria will be on it in 2014 and the USA failed to get the council to pass a condemnation for this country.

Libya's Col. Muammar Qaddafi, who won by a landslide,  chaired the body in 2003 and reelected as a member in 2010 is the one being replaced with Sudan's representative.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch feels the cause of human rights will be severely damaged if the Sudanese regime wins a seat, but I feel the council already has damaged itself with its past history.  They have some standards that countries need to have in order to sit in this position and they are being ignored.  Those who judge others are the worst human rights offenders.  Are we living in Chelm?  This is obscene.

And this is the elite body ready to judge Israel.  Heaven help us.  It is the Sudanese who have invaded Israel escaping from the horrors of their country and came by the droves through Egypt.  Sudan, in Africa, has a population about 43,939,598 of which 70% are Sunni Muslims.  It is the 8th largest Muslim majority country in the world.

Resource: UN Watch  http://www.unwatch.org/cms.asp?id=3300682&campaign_id=63111
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_refugees_in_Israel




A Jew Caught Fighting Back in Judea

Nadene Goldfoot
In Judea, a single Jew  was caught on video fighting back against the violence from the Arabs.  The United Nations Human Rights happened to get a hold of this video from Ramallah showing a Jewish man kneeling to fire his pistol at dozens of rock-throwing Arabs.  The man could have had rubber bullets or real ones, for that matter, but this is the first time a religious Jew has been pictured fighting against the aggression from the Fatah-Palestinian Arabs.  They know they can't rely on the army being there at all times so have taken to protecting themselves.  However, how can one stop rock throwers other than to scare them off with a pistol?


A teeny article made it into  the Oregonian newspaper this morning in the inside World section.  They reported that attacks by Jews against Palestinian Arabs has risen by about 150% each year since 2008.  There have been 154 attacks this year, they said. 


 What they neglected to say in this article is that over 300 missiles, mortars and rockets have hit the southern Israel population from Gaza's Arab terrorists so far this year affecting over one million Israelis.  They neglected also to say anything about how Fatah (Arafat's old terrorist group)  has teemed up with Hamas terrorists who took over the head terrorist position of Gaza,  so that the Arabs in Judea-Samaria have also been terrorizing Jews in order for the Jews to have to the need to be fighting back.  Judea-Samaria's Jewish population is  orthodox.  These religious people aren't out to cause problems, but some are not going to take them without resisting, either.


Matthias Behnke is the Head of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in '"Palestine" headquartered in Ramallah. (Note: Palestine is not a  state, yet it seems to be considered as such by the reference from the PA)  He is the one who reported this situation of Jews defending themselves against Arab marauders with rocks. 


 The Human Rights Council includes Qatar, who themselves are breaking human rights towards their workers who are not citizens and who are much against Israel.  Their head religious personage is Qaradawi, who spews out religious hatred of his Muslim Brotherhood beliefs against Israel and Jews all over the world.  He's the one who riled up the Egyptians to vote for the Muslim Brotherhood in personal visits to Egypt before their latest election.  


 Ramallah, where the report came from, is only 6 miles north of Jerusalem and is the capital of the Palestine Authority.  This is Yasser Arafat's old headquarters.  They will now use this fact of Jews fighting against Arabs in Judea as one more human rights breakage of the Israelis without mentioning the years they have been attacked.  Behnke called this criminal behavior.  I imagine he has remained mum on the attacks on the southern Israel population from his friends.  The UN Human Rights Council manages to find more complaints against Israel than any other country.  I doubt if they are even aware of any other country, only the so called Palestinian Arabs.  Syria is killing off thousands of their own people in the past 16 months, causing even their own ambassador to Iraq, Nawaf Fares,  to defect, as announced today.  Yet the UN Human Rights continues to harp on Israel's misgivings.   They wouldn't dare to find fault with one of their own Arab countries. This Human Rights Council will have Syria on it in 2014 because it is their turn to be on it.  


He connects the fact that Jews have come into Judea and Samaria and have settled there in the past 45 years and how "terrible" that is to him, but why not when the Arabs themselves refuse to come to a peace settlement needed first with Israel in order to create their own state of Palestine.  The longer they have refused to do this, the more settlers  have come into the land.  


Since this video was made known by Behnke in Ramallah, the paper also noted that it's only been a few days since Israel announced that their courts have also concluded with several other international lawyers that Israel is not occupying the "West Bank", original names being Judah and Samaria.  The fact remains that Jordan had no legal claim to the land.  They had just taken it at the start of the 1948 War.  Therefore the legal term of Israel "occupying" after the 1967 Six Day War is null and void.  It is incorrect.  So they have concluded that their villages, towns and cities are legal.  Israel won that 1967 war and they have the right to live in their ancient homeland.  Besides that, Judea and Samaria, lands West of the Jordan River, are to have belonged to the Jewish Homeland in the first place as decreed in the Balfour Declaration. 


So, to sum this report up, I'd say that:   good for the Jewish population to have stood up for themselves in Palestinian attacks.  You have scared the breeches off of a Human Rights Palestinian for doing so. The thought of Jews fighting back without the army doing it must be a new reality for the Arabs.   I'd also say that rocks and bullets are not equal, but neither were arrows and bullets back in the old American West, either.  We have come a long way in human rights thinking since then, so maybe there is some better way of doing this to get the Arabs to leave you alone.  


The PA must accept responsibility for this because they teach their people in their schools to hate Jews and that they are not even human.  They are going to have to start re-brain washing them if they want to live in peace in Judea.  Jews have tried their utmost to have peace with them and have been batting their heads against a steel door in doing so.  All the Arab programs on Al-Jazeera, outside gatherings and parent control all center on  hatred for Jews.  There's no way the Jews can fight this attitude after 45 years of trying unless the Arabs are interested in changing.  




Resource: Oregonian newspaper, 7i/12/12 page A6, Report:  Attacks on Palestinians rising, from wire reports, also page A8,Newsmaker  Nawaf Fares from AP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2012
http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/world-report-2012-qatar
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4254397,00.html
http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=3288&ed=189&edid=189 telling who Matthias Behnke is at very bottom of page.