Jews' Return to Their Land Sparked By Pogroms and Government Restrictions

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

                                           19th Century Pogrom in Russia
Ever since 70 CE, life was one event after another of persecution for Jews. 1096 saw Crusaders slaughtering Jews as they went through European towns on their way to take Jerusalem.  1492 was the year of the Spanish Inquisition and forced conversions of Jews in Spain.   In 1648 to 1656, 100,000 Jews were murdered in the Chmielnicki massacres in Poland.  In 1727 and 1747, Jews were expelled from Russia.   In 1838, the entire Jewish community in Meshed, Persia (today's Iran) were forcibly converted to Islam..

 Jews finally had a formal emancipation in Central and Western Europe from the 18th to 20th centuries, but it did not put an end to discrimination and social ostracism of Jews. This was supposed to be the removal of the disabilities imposed on Jews that had been in place from the 4th century  on.  The Christian Empire enacted an elaborate system of discrimination against Jews which was adopted and intensified in medieval Europe as well as in the Islamic world.  It brought in the Ghetto system aiming at keeping Jews away from the gentile society.      The Dreyfus case in France was a good example of Jewish discrimination and anti-Semitism in 1894 when he was condemned to life imprisonment and ordered to Devil's Island. This led to the affect it had on Herzl and to the development of Zionism.

Continued oppression and outbreaks of pogroms in Eastern Europe were combined with extreme poverty for most of the Jews.  The Hep Hep riots against them began on August 2, 1819 in Wurzburg, Germany. Hep! Hep! was an anti-Jewish slogan used during these riots.  The cry was then said to be of Crusader origin, being formed from the initials of the words Hierosolyma est perdita (Jerusalem is lost).   This continued and reached Denmark, Poland, Latvia and Bohemia.  By 1821 Odessa, Russia  had pogroms against them.  This started up a wave of pogroms.  More occurred in 1859.

A new movement came out of all this suffering of returning to their land and of a revival of Jewish national life.  The Yishuv-the Jewish community already living in Palestine that had never left, started it all.  In 1860, they built the first quarter outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.  Two Hebrew periodicals were regularly published in Jerusalem calling for a return to the Land.  It couldn't have happened at a better time.

In 1870, the first Jewish agricultural college was established in Mikveh Israel which today is on the outskirts of Tel Aviv.  Back in Russia, the next year of 1871 and non-stop until 1921 were years of anti-Jewish pogroms in the towns of Russia including the Pale.  By being in the Pale, it was so much easier to attack Jews.  It was no wonder that the early 1900's saw the immigration of over a million Jews.

By 1881 and subsequent years, Jewish immigrants that belonged to the Hibbat Zion (Love of Zion) movement arrived in Israel from Eastern Europe.  Meyer Levin's "The Settlers", a historical novel, tells about their arrival from the turn of the century to the Balfour Declaration and covers over a 1/4 of a century of turbulent events and their hardships as pioneers.  Some had joined existing villages while others founded new ones.  Some of the villages established during the last 2 decades of the century are large towns today; Hadera and Rishon Le-Zion, for example.

From  1882 to 1890, 750,000 Jews living in Russia were forced to re-settle in the Pale of Settlement; 25 provinces of Czarist Russia,  areas under Catherine II's reign of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, White Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Crimea.  In 1891 Jews were then expelled from Moscow and St. Petersburg and sent to the Pale.

The Jews who returned to the Land during this period are known as "the First Aliya."  Aliya  literally means: going up-spiritually, ascent;.  In practice, it has come to signify immigration to Israel.   The conditions in which the first Aliya-and subsequent waves of immigration-settled in the Land were extremely harsh.  The population was small and dispersed.  Communications were poor and insecure.  The Land had been completely neglected.  Pioneers faced swamps,and with it,  malaria,  The Ottoman Empire, which lasted for 400 years by 1917, was hostile and oppressive towards both Arabs and Jews, which is probably  why the native Jews hadn't been able to keep up the land.  Life for these pioneers was a continuous ordeal and new villages survived precariously.

By 1897, Theodor Herzl organized the First Zionist Congress in Basle and founded the World Zionist Organization.  Zion  had been the traditional synonym for Jerusalem and for the entire land, so was the proper word to use.  A growing realization that Jews should follow the path of self-determination which other nations were following such as the Greeks, Italians and Poles.  Zionism became the national liberation movement of the Jewish people.  It's aims were to carry out the return of Jews to the Land and the revival in it of Jewish national life; socially, culturally, economically and politically.

So a 2nd Aliya came to Israel in 1904 to 1914 which reinforced existing villages and founding new ones.  The Yishus began to organize itself politically with socialist groups figuring prominently.  In 1909 the first kibbuts-Degania-was establish on the southern shore of Lake Kinneret.  That same year was when Tel Aviv was founded on the sand dunes outside of Jaffa.

Hebrew was becoming the principal language of the Yishuv with the emerging Hebrew literature.  Life was still harsh and many of the newcomers left.  However, by 1914, there were 85,000 Jews in the Land.  The Land became occupied by Britain 4 years later with the end of WWI and they governed it for 30 more years.  They left and Israel was declared a state on May 14, 1948.  .

After all the suffering Jews have had to endure for 2,000 years at the hands of the governments of the world, they finally passed the Balfour Declaration that gave Jews the right to have their own land back, a decision on November 2, 1917 with the League of Nations.   The promise on paper was given to establish the Jewish National Home, and now even that is in limbo with nations today with discrimination in the UN.  The struggle continues for rights and recognition in our own homeland.  This time we're not going to be driven out.  

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom
Facts About Israel by the Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem 1973

Archaeology Proves Israel's Past History

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                      

Archaeology has helped to uncover facts about the Jewish past in Eretz Yisrael over the last 3,000 years.  Archaeologists are uncovering the whole story which goes back to Canaan, and Christianity.  Found has been the head of a clay statue from the Neolithic period that was found in Jericho.  A pitcher with a Greek decoration was found at Taanach.  Representation of a menorah was found in the ruins of Gadera.
                                                                             

Israel's Department of Antiquities and Museums is responsible for safeguarding the sites of archaeological excavations and their antiquities which are protected by law.  It carries out  country-wide surveys and prevents damage to sites from development and building, looks after the mapping and registration of new finds and supervises the archaeological work of local and foreign expeditions.

2013's February started off with a dig finding an ancient wine press in Jaffa from the Byzantine period.  In April was discovered a ritual bath from the 2nd Temple period.  May uncovered a dig of a 2,000 year old stone quarry in Jerusalem and a 1,500 year old Mosaic in southern Israel.  This month of June uncovered 2,000 year old cooking pots in Jerusalem.  "

• "Three complete cooking pots and a small ceramic oil lamp were uncovered inside a small cistern in a drainage channel that runs from the Shiloah Pool in the City of David to Robinson’s Arch near the Western Wall..  A distant cousin, Chaim Goldfus, PhD  was involved in this recent find."  

What they are not in control of is the Muslim site in Jerusalem of the Mosque of Omar or Dome of the Rock which was purposely built in the center of the Jews' 2nd Temple area by the Caliph Abed al Malik in about 738 CE to replace the temporary structure set up by the Caliph Omar a century earlier.  It is situated on the traditional site of Mt. Moriah, where the Torah says is the site where Abraham offered up Isaac as a sacrifice.    This seemed to start a Muslim tradition of putting their stamp on an area saying they were taking over with their Muslim religion.  In this way they thought they were burying the older religion by building theirs over it.  Moshe Dayan (1915-1981) Israel's Minister of Defense, allowed the Muslims to have authority over a very precious Jewish site, so what is going on under it is unknown.
                                                                         

                                         Carmel's Caves in Israel, Neanderthal Findings
Archaeological digs began in the 19th Century CE and had a boost after Israel's birth in 1948.  In the Jordan Valley, Galilee and the Carmel Range, bones of early man, the Neanderthals,  were found with tools and the remains of animals that he hunted.  The oldest discovered date back to over one million years ago and was named Tabun.who lived 103,000 to 80,000 years ago.    The next oldest found was Amud who lived from 55,000 to 47,000 years ago, and the earliest was Kebara who lived 60,000 years ago.  Neanderthals were found to have lived from 130,000 to 28,000 years ago.  The company, 23&Me can find the % of Neanderthal genes in people who take their dna test, for most of us do carry some of those genes. Since Neanderthals were not found in Africa, the average European will have about 2.5% Neanderthal genes, which would include Jews since 3 digs have discovered their bones in caves in Israel.    

Bits of Canaanite settlements in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE were found in the biblical sites of Hazor, Megiddo, Ashdod, Jerusalem and Shechem.  These have proved to be the settlements of the Israelites on their return from Egypt towards the end of the 2nd millennium BCE and especially after the establishment of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.  The digs provide many details about the daily life, architecture, arts and forms of religious worship that went on in that period.

Remains form the 2nd Temple days, especially the Hasmonaean period through the Jewish revolt against the Romans in the 1st century CE were unearthed in Jerusalem, Caesarea, Beit-Sha'an, Tiberias and Jaffa.  The most impressive relics of fortresses in the Judaean Desert were the Masada and Herodion, which were bases for the revolt which ended in 70 CE with the devastation of the land and its conversion into a Roman province.

Archaeologists couldn't get into Jerusalem until 1967.  Since then they have uncovered detailed evidence of the city's fortification and the magnificent public and religious edifices.  They also saw how its burning and capture by the Roman legions left its evidence.  Traces of the camp of the Roman 10th Legion and remains of the Roman Jerusalem where found.  They had named the city "Aelia Capitolina" in the 2nd and 3rd centuries and this evidence was found.
                                                                     

In the Judaean desert are caves which were explored that led to the discovery of the "Letters of Shimon Bar-Kochba, the commander of the 2nd Jewish revolt against the Romans in the 2nd century (135 CE).  This event is comparable in historical importance to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The unbroken presence of the Jewish community throughout the Byzantine period of the 4th to 7th centuries was uncovered by finding beautiful synagogues in the Galilee, Judaea and in the south.  Evidence of the new Christian community that developed at that time was also discovered.

Great edifices built by the Moslem conquerors in the 7th century and after had  been uncovered in the early 70's.  .Found were the palaces of the Omayyad rulers in Jerusalem and the antiquities of Ramla.

The Christian Crusaders' period of knights who came and conquered and held the Holy Land between the 11th and 13th centuries is now better known and understood as their fortresses at Akko (Acre), Caesarea, Jerusalem and Kochav Hayarden have been cleared and reconstructed.

Mamluk and Turkish remains from the Middle Ages at the beginning of the 20th century have been investigated.  Archaeological activity has been expanded and sites are connected with neighboring cultures.  The Phoenicians on the northern seashore, or the Roman period Nabatean settlements in the Negev were receiving closer treatment in the early 70's.
                                                                   

This is a mural of the Jews brought into Egypt as slaves found in Egypt and taken by my cousin, Denise on her vacation there.  This backs up the Exodus story in the Torah.

Outside of Israel has also been found evidence of the Jewish civilization.  Discoveries in Egypt of the 5th to 4th centuries BCE of Aramaic Papri at Elephantine (Yeb), numerous Greek and a few Hebrew papyri of hellenistic and Roman times, the Edfu ostraca, and the Jewish temple at Leontopolis.  Jewish inscriptions of the hellenistic or Roman periods exist in most Mediterranean lands.  The Jewish catacombs in Rome and Carthage and tombstones in the Crimea exist.  Synagogues of the classical period have been found in Greece, Yugoslavia, Italy, Asia Minor and Syria, especially Dur-Europos, remarkable for its biblical frescoes are proof of existence.

The Palestinians have refused to accept the fact that Jews were in the land long before they were.  This is part of their political brain washing of their people, that only they have the right to the land and that Jews are foreigners.  However, they cannot dispute these findings that show we were here long, long ago and have come home to roost.  .  

Resource:  Facts About Israel: Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem
http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_2.htm Neanderthals, great site.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/geo/Mount.html  Excellent information
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/israelexperience/history/pages/archaeological%20excavations%20in%20israel%202003.aspx

French Anti-Semitism Very Much Alive

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                   

                                         French General Unrest  in Court, January 24, 1789
The incident occurred on September 30, 2000.  It was the 2nd day of the 2nd Intifada.  "Jamal al-Durrah and his 12-year-old son, Muhammad, were filmed by Talal Abu Rahma, a Palestinian cameraman freelancing for France 2 as they sought cover behind a concrete cylinder after being caught in crossfire between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian security forces. The footage, which lasts just over a minute, shows the pair holding onto each other, the boy crying and the father waving, then a burst of gunfire and dust, after which the boy is seen slumped across his father's legs."

This trial about accusing Israel of killing a Palestinian boy and documenting it on a French TV station started on September 14, 2006.  An Israeli is accusing the TV station of doctoring the video.  "At no point in the footage is Mohammed shown being shot, and there was no blood on the boy or his injured father, the report says. France 2, the investigation concludes, edited out the last several seconds of Abu Rahma's footage, "in which the boy is seen moving his hand", it adds."

“More than a decade on and Karsenty is still embroiled in the controversy surrounding the Al-Dourah case. A modern day Emile Zola in some respects, he was one of the first to accuse the France 2 television network of airing staged video of the apparent death of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy. Whether in suing or being sued, Karsenty has made the case that some media outlets will go to great lengths to frame Israel as an aggressor and criminal state. Today, Karsenty continues to monitor the media as it errs through his Media-Ratings, which monitors the media in France for bias.”

A French TV station, Franc 2 was at the scene in Gaza and staged the killing of a Palestinian boy by the Israeli IDF.  Karsenty saw that it had been photo-shopped and sued the French government for slandering Israel with it.  He did not win his case in court.  In a turnaround, it was he, the  "French media analyst Phillipe Karsenty who was then convicted of defamation for accusing French state television of falsifying their video.

Today, there isn't much that video cannot do.  Superman can fly faster than the speed of sound and look real.  Photo-shop is used all the time for photos and video work.  The boy that was supposed to be shot was seen later very much alive.  This type of thing is not the first set up for visual appeal by the Palestinians.  There are many people working to expose just such situations.  Camera is one of them.

This is almost a repeat of the Dryfus affair when a French Lieutenant was accused of being a spy for Germany and it was a wrongful accusation, only Dryfus was sent to prison.  It was the straw that broke the camel's back in a string of anti-Semitism.  Because he was Jewish, it had to be him who was the spy.

Resource: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_al-Durrah_incident
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2006/09/al-dura-trial-starts-today.html
http://www.sott.net/article/261998-The-killing-of-12-year-old-Mohammed-al-Durrah-in-Gaza-became-the-defining-image-of-the-second-intifada-Only-Israel-claims-it-was-all-a-fake
http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/06/26/philippe-karsenty-on-al-dura-verdict-a-dark-day-for-french-democracy-and-a-dark-day-for-the-truth-interview/
http://www.jta.org/2013/06/26/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/karsenty-convicted-fined-for-defamation-in-al-dura-case

Whose Leaders are Natives of Eretz Yisrael?

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                  

                                                      Jews of Israel

Lots of static has been coming from the Palestinians in their offense against Jews by saying that Ashkenazi Jews are not native to Israel and should not be there.  Historically, the land was almost desolate after 70 CE when Rome attacked Jerusalem and burned it.  They took away many Jews as slaves but left some in the land.  Conquerors were also in the habit of moving out people from the conquered land to another in order to shake up the leadership.
                                                                     

                                               Kibbutz Degania Alef and its Sabras

Arabs have been very nomadic and only a few owned land by the time Ashkenazi Jews returned from Russia.  They came to settle in their first and successive large groups of Jews called an Alliyah in the 1880's.  It was like the land was waiting for Jews to return and nourish it as it was in terrible condition of being either swampy with only mosquitoes living in it or had become a desert. The only thing growing were plenty of weeds.   When the Christian writer, Mark Twain, visited the "Holy Land" starting on February 1, 1867, it was fairly desolate.
                                                                     

                                             A Sabra couple on a Moshav

As Israel's National Anthem, Hatikvah,  points out, so long as still within our breasts the Jewish heart beats true;  so long as still towards the Easts to Zion  looks the Jew;  so long our hopes are not yet lost--Two thousand years we cherished them--to live in freedom in the land  of Zion and Jerusalem.

Joan Peters, another Christian reporter did a deep research into the settling of Palestine and came up with facts that Palestinians cannot disprove.  Her book, "From Time Immemorial"-the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine is all from the actual records; not heresay.  Barbara Tuchman said that Joan's research made a superlative book.  Joan went back to the past and traces to the present with her unmatched skill as a researcher.  This book strikes a heavy blow against the broad consensus of who the Palestinians are and where they came from.  To sum it up quickly which she proves, they came in from neighboring lands near and far in order to work where the Jews were building.  There was no work for them in their lands.  Actually, I see this as a similar situation with Mexicans illegally entering the USA to work.  The difference is that Mexicans have to political agenda to take over the USA.  They had enough of a war with us long ago.
                                                                   

                               Young  Egyptian Yasser Arafat
Arab Palestinian leaders of today are not natives of the soil.
1. Yasser Arafat was born August 24, 1929 in Cairo, Egypt.  Chairman of PLO
2. Mahmud az-Zahar was born in 1945 in Cairo, Egypt.
3. Saeb Erekat was born on April 28, 1955 in Jordan and is a Jordanian citizen.
4. Faisal Abdel Qader Al-Husseini was born in 1948 in Bagdad, Iraq.
5. Sari Nusseibeh was born in 1949 in Damascus, Syria.
                                                                         

              Yigal Allon- one of founders and commander of Palmah before 1948
Our Jewish leaders of today are natives of the soil.
1. Yigal Allon was born October 10, 1918 in Kfar Tavor, Ottoman Empire, Palestine (today's Israel) and became the Interim Prime Minister of Israel in 1969.
2. Isaac Rabin was born March 1, 1922 in Jerusalem, than part of the British Mandate of Palestine, today is Israel.  Prime Minister in 1992.
3. Benjamin Netanyahu was born October 21, 1949 in Tel Aviv, Israel.  Prime Minister twice: 1996-1999; 2009-2013.
4. Ehud Barak was born on February 12, 1942 in Mishmar HaSharon, British Mandate of Palestine, now Israel. Prime Minister from 1999-2001
4. Ariel Sharon was born on February 26, 1928 in Kfar Malal, British Mandate of Palestine, now Israel. Defense Minister 1981,
5. Ehud Olmert was born September 30, 1945 in Binyamina-Giv'at Ada, British Mandate of Palestine, now Israel. Prime Minister from 2006-2009.
6. Izhak Navon was born on April 9, 1921 in Jerusalem, then British Mandate of Palestine, now of Israel.  He was President from 1977-1982.
7. Ezer Weizman was born on June 15, 1924 in Tel Aviv, then British Mandate of Palestine, now of Israel.  President from 1993-2000.

By 1972, Israel had 47.2% of their population made up of Sabras-Jews born in Israel.  Jews born in Asia and Africa which were mainly the Arab countries made up 25.7% of the population.  Ashkenazi Jews born in Europe and the Americas made up 27.1% of the population of Israel.

The biggest surge of Jews from America, Europe and Oceania came in 1919 to 1948 which amounted to 385,066.  From Asia and Africa came 44,809.  The immigrant  population then was 452,158 of which Arabs and others amounted to 22,283 .

From May 15, 1948 to 1951 came 334,971 Jews from America, Europe and Oceania.  330,456 came from Asia and Africa.  The immigrant population  was then 648,201 with 18,774 Arabs and others.

1961 to 1964 was a big surge of Jews with 86,748 from America, Europe and Oceania and 133,561 from Asia and Africa.  The immigrant population was 220,323.

Israel's Arab minority population was 126,000 in 1948 which grew to 458,500 by 1972.

Today, Israel, as of March 31, 2013, has a population of 8,012,400 .  1,656,600 are Arabs or 20.6%.  Others, which would be Christians and other denominations make up 318,100 or 4% of the population.

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War
Hatikva: posted by Gail Hopke
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Facts About Israel by Division of Information, Ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem 1973
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel

Campus Antisemitism: Quaker Organizers

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                        

Why does this Christian group of Quakers  have it in for the Jews?  This Protestant group,  started in 1654 by George Fox,  has developed into an anti-Israel sledgehammer.  They have planned a veritable war using BDS against Israel and are extremely pro Palestine and anti-Israel.  For a people saying they are pacifists, this is quite a turn-about.  This is extreme anti-Semitism to the point of training people to  fight against us better through the use of BDS.  They are very much activists against Israel who side with the Palestinians.

The American Friends Service Committee, also known as AFSC, is the political arm of the Quaker movement.  They hare planning to hold a Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) summer camp in New York on July 28th to August 1st.  The description is a "5 day intensive program for campus BDS organizers.  There are those leaders who have campaigns running already and those who are hoping to get one launched  in the 2013-2014 school year.

They will include anti-Israel activities such as developing their campaigns, organizing, anti-oppression analysis, nonviolent direct action developing , study of history of BDS movement which started in 2005, woriking with activists, strategy sessions with leaders, and to get the pro-Palestinian students to organize better targeting Israel, boycotting products from Israel, passing divestment resolutions and pushing that Israel is an apartheid regime.

How nice.  My thought is who are these leaders?  They sound like Nazis to me.  One giant truth stands out.  Israel is not an apartheid state but the total opposite of the very meaning.  Since they are planting such a viscous lie, what about everything else they are teaching?  Pure anti-Semitism!

Why would such a part of Christianity act in such a way?  Their beginnings included people being hung in Salem or at least being outcasts for being these different Quakers.  I even found a Quaker on my mother's branch of our genealogy tree and went to the funeral get-together of the celebration of his life.  How those  distant Quaker relatives would have screamed if they knew that they had a Jew hanging on their tree.  I gave them a whole line of my genealogy searches leading to them as well, being a nice person.    So I am very disappointed to find out that Quakers are leaders in this BDS movement.

There are people who see something and do not have the background to interpret it without a study of the history that brings about the visual experience. There are many groups and people such as  "British Foreign Secretary William Hague, who are pressing Israel not to go all out on Hamas, while Khalid Mashaal, head Palestinian,  calls for the destruction of Israel.  This comes even though Hamas has been raining rockets, missiles and mortars down on southern Israel since 2001 and there has only been a brief let up at the end of 2012.  The whole truth of Israel being rightfully there as a state is ignored in their fight against Israel.  What they see is what they figure to be the poor underdog, throwing rocks against Jews with unlimited weapons.  This is only what they want to see, not the truth.
 
One minor piece of propaganda being used could be the old diary of Nancy Parker McDowell which the Quakers are printing off.  She was a teacher in Ramallah which was under control when she taught there from 1938 to 1939.  The British were tough against the Palestinians there as she wrote.  She didn't know what was going on against the Jews.  But she saw the Arab as the underdog then.  It had nothing to do with Jews, but now that the Jews are fighting these same people, she sees them in the shadow of the British meanies.

The Quaker Friends Fiduciary Corporation (FFC) is divesting from Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Veolia Environment.  This came about from "reaction to demands from “Palestinian rights advocates.”  Heavens, they simply wouldn't be caught listening to the Jews' side of the situation.  "There are only about 80,000 Quakers in North America.  Their spokespersons are heatedly anti-Israel. Quakers are traditionally pacifist of course.  But Quaker ire does not typically focus on Hamas or Hezbollah terror, nor on the violent threats of Israel’s neighbors."  No, evidently they just don't like Jews.

"The Religious Society of Friends is a movement that began in England in the 17th century. Members of this movement are informally known as Quakers, a word that means, "to tremble in the way of the Lord." In its early days it faced opposition and persecution;  however, it continued to expand, extending into many parts of the world, especially the Americas and Africa.

Mary Dyer was thus executed in 1660. Three other martyrs to the Quaker faith in Massachusetts were William Robinson, Marmaduke Stephenson, and William Leddra. These events are described by Edward Burrough in A Declaration of the Sad and Great Persecution and Martyrdom of the People of God, called Quakers, in New-England, for the Worshipping of God (1661)In 1657 a group of Quakers from England landed in New Amsterdam (later called New York). One of them, Robert Hodgson, preached to large crowds of people. He was arrested, imprisoned, and flogged. 

Quakers do differ from other Christians in that they actually are closer to how Jews believe in many respects. They  profess to bring about  peace, integrity,  humility, and community.  They have no written creed.  

  Bible - Quakers' beliefs stress individual revelation, but the Bible is truth. All personal light must be held up to the Bible for confirmation. The Holy Spirit,  who inspired the Bible, does not contradict Himself.

Heaven, Hell - Quakers believe that God's kingdom is now, and consider heaven and hell issues for individual interpretation. Liberal Quakers hold that the question of the afterlife is a matter of speculation.
Sin - Unlike other Christian denominations,  Quakers believe that humans are inherently good. Sin exists, but even the fallen are children of God, Who works to kindle the Light within them.

"Historically, the Society of Friends has endorsed strong moral codes including the refusal to participate in war, the refusal to own slaves, and the elimination of many worldly structures. Socially, they were committed to various causes including women's suffrage, the abolition of slavery, and prison reform."  In other words, from their inception, they have been activists in social affairs.  Though they had picked very worthwhile causes in the their past, I do not agree with their siding with the Palestinians at all, being an Israeli Jew myself; for I know all our history and why we have this fight on our hands with the Palestinians and they do not.

The way it comes down, since the USA support Israel's rights, the Quakers have taken the Palestinian's side. They have done it out of emotion, not out of intellect or facts, much like so many others have done.  We still find people accusing Jews with "the blood libel" even though blood is something forbidden to us in our religion and many will go through hell and high water before touching anything non kosher or that has any blood in it, but people are believing it anyway.  It's just easier to pick a side and hate and accuse rather than bother to dig up facts to prove otherwise.  In looking at the hearts of people, I find very few defenders of Jews except with the followers of Pastor John Hagee, of the Evangelical Christians.  

Resource: Quakers Planning Hate Israel Summer Camp » the Jerusalem Connection Blog -
http://www.thejerusalemconnection.us/blog/2013/06/17/quakers-planning-hate-israel-summer-camp.html by Nitsana Dirshan-Leitner, Shurat Hadin
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/12586
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-d-tooley/quakers-divest-from-israel/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Quakers
http://christianity.about.com/od/quakers/a/quakersbeliefs.htm
http://www.patheos.com/Library/Society-of-Friends-(Quaker).html

USA's Position on Anti-Semitism

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

                                                        March 2009 in Riverside, California

Anti-Semitism is:  The belief or behavior hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish. It may take the form of religious teachings that proclaim the inferiority of Jews, for instance, or political efforts to isolate, oppress, or otherwise injure them. It may also include prejudiced or stereotyped views about Jews. (adl)

"Deligitimizing the Jewish people to their right to self-determination and denying Israel the right to exist is a form of anti Semitism.  However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitism."  (state government)

 The problem with the UN is that they continually harp on Israel and on no other country.  I see this as being due to an abundance of Muslim countries at the helm who have unwarranted amounts of anti-Semitism to start with.  Whatever Israel does in their eyes is wrong to them as their intention is to wipe out Israel as proclaimed in their charters."  (documentary)

The video documentary below zeros in on Canada's situation of anti-Semitism.  Canada has even harsher laws pertaining to this than the USA does.

Today with the creation of Israel we see anti-Semitism in the form of  the political efforts to undercut and destroy Israel, which is a Jewish state created out of the necessity of preserving the life of Jews after 2,000 years of suffering from anti-Semitism!

"But while parts of Europe remain caught up in racial unrest, the Middle East is home to the harshest anti-Semitism in the world today. Nazi-like language is regularly expressed by the media and governments in the countries that oppose Israel and the West. And as dozens and dozens of terrorist incidents have demonstrated, there are many in Middle Eastern countries willing to act on these beliefs." (adl)

Incidents have lessened from 2010 to 2011. For the past 20 years, the incidents have been much higher and 2011 is the lowest in incidents, hopefully due to some education against it.  Yet these numbers are horrific.   In 2010 there were 1,239 incidents in the USA.  By 2011 it had decreased by 13% to 1,080 incidents.  Incidents involved were:  

What incidents have taken place? There were 731 cases of harassment, threats and events.   A great deal is done at schools and come from children, adolescents and teenagers harassing Jewish students,  They are bullying them, using words involving Nazis and Holocaust.  Being a Jewish child during WWII, I never experienced such things in Portland, Oregon, thank goodness until high school, when I realized why I wasn't making it into the schools top sororities, or heard disparaging remarks about Jews in the cafeteria.  I did get accepted into a school sorority of lesser status, however, which shows you what class of people  is responsible for where the anti-Semitism comes from.  
                                                                                    
College campuses have been a hotbed of anti-Semitism, especially in the form of anti-Israel propaganda.  

• On February 24, 1995, at the University of California at Berkeley, the Muslim Student Association sponsored a rally in support of Hamas, the Middle East extremist group, soon after a series of bus and sidewalk bombings in Israel. Students from several northern California campuses carried a sign depicting an Israeli flag with a swastika in the middle and symbolically volunteered to serve as future suicide bombers. A Jewish observer was spit on by one of the demonstrators. 

• On October 10, 1996, the Daily Illini, the newspaper serving the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, published an Op-Ed essay attacking Israel after the opening of an archaeological tunnel in Jerusalem. In addition to references in the essay equating Zionism with racism, the piece was accompanied by a cartoon depicting a skeleton, with a blazing gun in one hand, making a peace sign with the other, and clothed in a robe with a Jewish Star on its chest. The cartoon and essay caused a widespread reaction in terms of letters to the editor over the following weeks. 
                                                                        
  
  Colleges and Universities have been hosting "Israel Apartheid Week", usually in the Spring between March 11-15 put on by the Palestine Solidarity Committee. This started in Toronto, Canada in 2005, then spread to 55 cities by 2010 in Canada, UK, USA, , SA. Judea and Samaria, Mexico, Norway and Australia.   Even such well known people such as Alice Walker, author of the Color Purple,  are one of the leaders. Being that Israel is practicing the opposite of apartheid slays me in the promotion of such an accusation, but that doesn't seem to stop a lot of college level people to want to believe this.  One of the promoters in Portland was the Socialist Party where I tried to give a speech showing this wasn't true at all, but of course was rebuffed and threatened.  That such people on higher education campuses should be smarter and less gullible doesn't seem to hold water when it comes to racial or religious hatred. 

330 cases of vandalism involving anti-Semitic slogans written on property or destruction of Jewish property occurred.  There were 19 physical attacks of Jews.  This all comes from reports involving 45 states and Washington DC.  I wonder why the other 5 states do not have such reports.  (adl reporting on jewishvirtual library)

Reference:  http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/fs/2010/122352.htm

http://isradocu.blogspot.co.il/2013/06/jew-bashing-new-anti-semitism-canada.html#ref=Wibiya_bar2  video about anti-Semitism in Canada

http://archive.adl.org/hate-patrol/antisemitism.asp

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/ADL2011audit.html

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/charles-jacobs/israeli-apartheid-week-learn-to-crush-it/

Chilling Factors Against Israel's Creation From England and USA

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                

The Balfour Declaration of 1917 and Internationally enforced at San Remo Conference in 1920  was a decision of the whole world made through the League of Nations to create the Jewish Homeland (a national home).  This was decided after WWI when the Ottoman Empire fell as it had sided with Germany and the Axis powers.  Jews had been discriminated since 70 CE when they were dispersed by the Roman Empire who took  Samaria (Israel) and Judea and with it the city of Jerusalem.  The creation of Christianity caused undo hardships against Jews through every generation and increasing persecution such as the Spanish Inquisition and pogroms in Russia.  Finally, Jews had their fill and decided to return to what had become a wasteland with their absence: Eretz Israel in 1880's with the First Aliyah.   Along came the Alfred Dryfus Affair in 1894 accusing a French soldier on the general's staff of selling secret documents to Germany and was given a life imprisonment.  He was Jewish and innocent.  Anti-Semitism was in full swing.  Jews realized then that their formal European emancipation was a joke.  By 1897, Theodor Herzl, Austrian reporter,  created the World Zionist Organization to return to their land.
                                                                       

The British were given the mandate to see that the Jewish Homeland was created that all the nations had signed onto.  They really didn't care about Jews as much as they were after foreign propaganda purposes,  according to sources in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.   Germany came out with Hitler's anti-Semitic "25 points" which was spread to the populous by his speeches in 1920.  What was said in Germany was heard in England.  During this same year, both England and the USA were very interested in  gaining oil interests in the Middle East.  The invention of the automobile made this a very serious acquisition and needed gas to run.

Harry St. John Bridger Philby, better known as Jack Philby,  was a British spy who spied on Zionists, and carried on a secret war against Jews.  His close friend was Allen Dulles, brother of John Foster Dulles, who because of his influence, created a US policy in the Middle East that lasted through George Bush's White House in the 1990's.  Reports are that this secret service M16 agent Philby is the secret founder of Saudi Arabia.  He had passed intelligence information that caused the military victory for the House of Saud to ibn Saud.  Philby used Dulles to influence American policy against the Jewish Homeland and to help him in the development of Saudi Arabian oil.  They had a partnership and both wanted to make a lot of money.  They created a partnership with American oil companies and were against the British interests as well as were in favor of Nazi Germany!

By 1921, Haj Amin al-Husseini was appointed the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem by the Jewish British High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel.  He was also appointed as head of the Supreme Moslem Council.  .  Arabs were attacking Jews in Jaffa and  Petach Tikvah who were helped by the British officials.  Of course the outcome was a suspension of Jewish immigration by the British.   Allan Dulles headed up the Near East Division in Washington from 1922 to 1926.  He met most of the emerging Arab leaders and met Chaim Weizmann and then decided that a Jewish Homeland would be a zero to helping the USA get oil fields by complicating  American oil companies from getting into the region.  He held a private audience with Abdullah of Jordan.  Dulles and his colleagues in the State Department had decided that Jews were an obstacle to Arab oil.

The Arabs had helped the British to win the war by fighting against the Ottoman Empire.  Chaim Weizmann, a chemist in England, helped by inventing  better ammunition  which definitely caused the British to win.  Besides that, Jews had also fought with them against the Ottoman Empire.  The Arabs were ticked off about the reward as they saw it, of land to the Jews for their homeland.  To pacify them as well, Eastern Palestine, called Transjordan, about 75-80% of the Jewish Homeland to be, was given to King Abdullah for his state of Transjordan as their reward.  In other words, the Jews have now lost 80% of their homeland by 1922.  In the same year, Winston Churchill wrote the White Paper which limited Jewish immigration to "capacity to absorb new arrivals".  This was indeed limiting their numbers.

In 1928 the British came up with their "Organic Law" which provided separate Commissions for Palestine and Transjordan which was against the Mandate.   Jews were prohibited from settlement in Transjordan.   Arabs were incited by Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini in the Wailing Wall incident and also incited his followers into anti-Jewish attacks in other places.  The US company, Gulf Oil, started exploration in Bahrain and then turned over its interests to Standard Oil of California and went to to Kuwait to explore.  The British government had invoked agreements it made with Kuwait and Bahrain that oil development was to be only to British concerns.  The US had a campaign to replace Britain and dominate the Middle Eastern oil and Britain backed off after a lot of negotiations.
                                                                       

                                               Grand Mufti and Adolf Hitler
The Shaw Commission found Jewish immigration in 1925 and 26 excessive and recommended restriction of Jewish immigration and land sales in 1929.  They had a Ratification of Agreement regarding Transjordan.  Arabs  massacred Jews in Safed and Hebron, 2 of the  4 Holy cities to Jews.  Arabs also rioted and assaulted Jewish villages  and in Jerusalem caused by deliberate religious inflammation for which Mufti and his party were solely responsible.  Who did Britain favor in this?  The High Commissioner Chancellor came out with a Proclamation on September 1, 1929 called the "Protection of Cultivators Ordinance" enacted for "displaced" Arabs.  This is when Philby visited Jerusalem and formed a lasting friendship with the Grand Mufti Haj Amin al Husseini.  He then "went" Arab by converting to Islam and even had his own concubines but had to go through circumcision at age 45  before he could have his 4 wives that were promised to him.  He was even given a house and a job by the Mufti.

The next year found Arabs rendered "landless" and unemployed and were caused by the Jewish immigration in 1930 with the Hope Simpson Report.  State lands were then allocated for "landless Arabs" instead of the Jewish settlement which was called for in Art. VI of the Mandate.  This Report ignored whether Jewish purchase had caused their landlessness or if they ever owned land in the first place.  The 1930 Passfield White Paper came out which restricted Jewish immigration and land acquisition which was based on this "absorptive capacity. decision."   Hitler's plan for Jews' demise  was already in motion and was gaining popularity.

However, the Hope Simpson findings were disproved by investigation and other British studies in 1931. They passed an amendment to the Protection of Cultivators Ordinance.  It was to further benefit landless and displaced Arabs.

Muslims were again incited against Jews in 1933 at the Festival of Nebi Rubin by Musa Kasem Pasha al-Husseini's violent speech against Jewish immigration.  There were strikes and anti-Jewish riots.  The government was accused of favoring Jews.  Hitler came into power.  The Cultivators' Ordinance of 1933 replaced earlier laws.  It instituted allowances of subsistence area or remuneration for any Arab "statutory tenant" not grossly neglecting areas of grazing or occasional presence.

By May of 1932, oil was discovered in Bahrain.  Ibn Saud had consolidated his rule and proclaimed the modern nation of Saudi Arabia.  Jack Philby helped to start exploration for oil there, as well.  This grew into the Arabian-American Oil Company, Aramco.

In 1934 there was an influx of 30,000 to 35,000 Arab immigrants from the Hauran-Syria to the Jewish settled areas in Western Palestine during a 3 month period.  The population movement was recognized by Syrian leadership and the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, but denied by and omitted from the British Mandatory Government data, records and statistics.  In other words, Syria knew about this and recorded it but the British would not.  They were allowing the illegal immigration of Arabs into the land set aside for the Jewish Homeland.   At the same time, the British government instituted the practice of deducting the estimated numbers of illegal Jewish immigrants from the Jewish immigration quotas.  This is when Jews wanted to emigrate from Germany.  Mein Kampf had come out and spelled danger for the Jews.

Anti-Jewish pogroms and riots were happening in Eretz Yisrael by 1936, just as Jews had experienced in Russia.  Arabs were striking with the imported assistance of hired Syria and Iraqi mercenaries.  This was known as the "Arab Revolt."

A royal Commission in 1937 was appointed to investigate the deteriorating Palestine conditions.  Lewis Andrews, District Commissioner for the Galilee, was assigned to administer the Commission's tour.  He was murdered outside his church by "moderate" Arab terrorists.  Nearly 100 Jewish deaths resulted and the Government personnel were murdered with about 150 wounded.  The Palestine Royal commission Report then recommended the partition of the land into one Jewish and one Arab state.
                                                                 

Unemployment rose and the Jewish immigration restrictions continued causing illegal Jewish immigration to rise in 1938.  Germany was most dangerous now for Jews and they were trying to get out of that country.  There was the Mufti-led guerrilla warfare that was aided by imported Arab rebels and included anti-Jewish pogroms, and the assassinations of other Arabs, ambushes of the military and the general sabotage which led to the occupation of the Old City of Jerusalem.  The Mufti engaged in a plan of systematic extermination of his opponents.

There was rivalry between Husseini and Nashashibi which brought on violence and rebellion..  348 died in the first quarter of the year 1939.  England declared war against Germany.  The Nazis committed atrocities against the Jews of Europe.  Arab leaders collaborated with the Nazis and other axis.  The English government came out with a White Paper that enforced the new rigidly pro-Arab, anti-Mandate policy that restricted Jewish immigration for the next 5 years  and afterwards at the discretion of the Arabs of Palestine. This was all strictly against the mandate they had promised to uphold.  This was a promise to the whole world who had signed the Balfour Declaration.

Land Transfer Regulation came out in 1940 which were enforced by the White Paper of 1940.  It prohibited transfers of most land in Western Palestine except to a Palestinian Arab.  Again, this was in violation of Article 6 of the mandate.

The Nazi hatred against Jews spread to Baghdad in 1941 when the Jewish community was attacked by mob killing 180 Jews.

There were only about a half a million Jews in Germany at the beginning of WWII.  Hitler wanted Jews to emigrate.  There were very few countries that would accept more than a handful.  They couldn't hardly get into Palestine as Ibn Saud, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem hated Jews, he said in 1937 because  of their persecution and rejection of Christ and their subsequent rejection of Muhammed.  Ibn Saud reiterated that for him to be killed by a Jew or to kill a Jew ensures him an immediate entry in Heaven and into the august presence of G-d Almighty.  This appealed to Philby and was an inducement to converting to Islam.  He became a double agent for the Third Reich and publicly pretended to help Jews while privately helped the Nazis.  He made a profit for the House and Saud and for himself this way.  He was always out to hurt the British Empire's position in the Middle East.

The USA entered WWII on December 7, 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese.  By May 14, 1948, Harry Truman said yes to the creation of Israel in the new United Nations.  He was not a part of the scheme of the State Department, who was more anxious for oil and wanted to keep Israel from becoming a state.  It was a miracle that Harry Truman was President at that time in history.  It was a miracle that Israel was able to have a population of 650,000 by that time in order to create their own state. (600,000 people of the Exodus had entered Canaan).   From the moment of creation, Arab countries then persecuted their Jewish communities and there were mass expulsions where most went to Israel.  Jews were denied the right of national identity in the Soviet Union and could not practice Judaism by attending a synagogue or reading Hebrew.

Resource: Updated 6/30/13  Video: http://www.israpundit.com/archives/56077  A must to watch.  Take notes. Notice Waldheim was Nazi officer  15 minute video on role of Haj Amin al Husseini and Nazis.  Excellent!  
From Time Immemorial -the origins of the Arab-Jewish conflict over Palestine by Joan Peters, 1984.
The Secret War Against the Jews-how Western espionage betrayed the Jewish people by John Loftus and Mark Aarons, 1994.
Facts About Israel, Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem

Who Were the Samaritans of the "West Bank?"

Nablus, 2007 in the shuk and its candy display

Whatever Happened to Israel=Kingdom of Samaria?

Nadene Goldfoot
We know that the West Bank is really the ancient site of Judea and Samaria.  What were they?
Israel was the first and only state created by King Saul in the 11th century BCE, and after him governed by King David and then his son, King Solomon.

The empire of Judah split off from the empire of Israel and was the southerly of the two kingdoms in 933 BCE. after the death of King Solomon.  It was made up of the tribe of Judah, most of Benjamin and it is thought to also had absorbed the tribe of Simeon which was isolated in the extreme south.  Judah was the poor state as they had no access to the sea which was the trade route.  It never got involved with international problems and people there led a more tranquil life.  It included the city of Jerusalem and the Temple, so preserved Mosaic monotheism in a purer form.

Israel, the northern state,  was sometimes called the kingdom of Samaria after the city which became its capital in about 890 BCE.  The tribes left there were from Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulun, Naphtali, Asser, Dan, and living in what is now known as Transjordan were the tribes of Reuben, Gad and part of Manasseh.  Israel was much larger than Judah.  In its 210 years it had 19 kings of 9 dynasties.  10 died in violence and 7 ruled for less than 2 years.

When Israel and Judah separated, the ancient city of Shechem, today renamed Nablus,  which was connected to Israel, became the religious center of the Northern Kingdom.  The political capital was transferred by King Omri to his newly built city of Samaria about 883 BCE.  The Israelite kingdom continued to exist until it fell before Assyria.

Samaria, the former Israel and also the city,  was attacked by the Assyrians in 722 BCE.  The King of Assyria, Shalmaneser besieged it and at the end of 3 years they were able to take it. He died one year before it was taken in 723 BCE, so the city actually fell to Sargon who carried away 27,290 people.  The people taken away were the more prominent and dangerous, the rich, the priests, and the ruling class.   The people were deported to various parts of Assyria and to the cities of the Medes.  Colonists, which were Cutheans (a member of a group of people of ancient Babylonia who were sent as colonists to Samaria),  were sent to take their place.  The colonists were soon troubled by lions in the district which they thought were divine visitations due to their ignorance of the manner of the god of the land.  They sent for an Israelite priest and settled at Beth-el, with the result that a mixed form of religion was established, partly Israeli (Jewish) and partly idolatrous brought in by the colonists.  In 720 Syria again united against the common enemy and a fresh campaign began.  The political existence of Samaria came to an end.  Only Hosea and Amos, biblical prophets, worked in the Northern kingdom of Samaria.  Elijah and Elisha tried to check idolatry and social injustice when they saw it.

Today, the name only refers to a small group of people living in Nablus (Shechem) and they called themselves “Bene Ysirael” or “Shomreem.”  The people of Samaria were thought of as the remnant of Israel.

A man named Josiah kept the people away from high places and collected money to repair the Temple from the tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim and of the remnant of Israel.  Later, their claim to participate in the building of the Temple was rejected by Zerubbabel because of their mixed origin.

Sargon sent colonists to Samaria from many cities of Babylonia as a precautionary measure.  There happened to be 3 importations of foreigners by Sargon, Esar-haddon, and by Assurbanipal.  They occupied the site of the defunet kingdom of Israel, then called Samaritan, consisting of the poorer Israelites and other aliens ruled over by an Assyrian governor.  It was deprived of its priestly caste so had to ask for the services of a priest.

Samaria later found itself governed by a Persian strap.  It became the natural refuge for all who were dissatisfied with the reforms taking place in Jerusalem.  The priest, Manasseh, was a malcontent.  the governor of Samaria under Darius was Sanballat.  His daughter was married to Manasseh, the son of the high priest at Jerusalem.  Because he had married a foreigner, Manasseh was expelled by Nehemiah and so settled in Samaria in about 430 BCE.  It must have been Manasseh who fixed the Israelite character of the Samaritan's religion.

A century later in 332 BCE, Alexander the Great gave permission to build a Temple on the holy hill of Gerizim, near Shechem.  This became the center of Samaritan worship.  The Temple was in existence for about 200 years when it was destroyed.  Samaria was then occupied by John Hyrcanus.  Mt. Gerizim was sacred to the Samaritans because the idols of Laban were buried there.  The Samaritans used to light beacon-fires to deceive the Jews as to the appearance of the new moon.  Usually they sided against the Jews and with their enemies.  The country passed into the hands of the Romans around 135 BCE and Samaria was rebuilt and embellished by Herod.  His wife, Mariamne was a Samaritan.  The city of Shechem was occupied by the Romans, who called it Flavia Neapolis, where the name of Nablus comes from.

Judea of the south, the newer state, and Samaria , the older state, in reality, Israel of the north, were the Jewish homeland.  This is where Jacob's 12 sons, who created the 12 tribes of Israel had lived.  This is where Moses had led the 600,000  Jews on the exodus.  This is what the Arabs are depriving us of, our own homeland in their zeal to create their  Palestine that they have talked about for the past 65 years. Israel or Samaria had Shechem/Nablus and Judea had Jerusalem as their religious centers.  The Samaritans were not considered true Jews as they had created such a mixed religion.

Http:///.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=110&letter=S     From 2009
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Operation Defensive Shield in Jenin and "Jeningrad" and Samantha Power

Nadene Goldfoot                                                            

The Jenin refugee camp was created in in Judea-Samaria in 1953 within the city of Jenin's boundaries on land that the UNRWA leased from Jordan.  It was home to 13,055 Palestinian refugees.  Most of the people living there were from the Haifa area and the Carmel mountain district and had relatives inside the "Green Line."  Other residents there were from Gaza and Tulkarm who moved into the area in the 1970's, and of course there were those form Jordan who moved there when the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 and when the PA was established.

Jenin had become a hotbed of terrorist activity.  From April 1-11, 2002, Israel had gone into this refugee camp as part of Operation Defensive Shield to halt terrorist activities and it turned into a battle referred to by some as a massacre.  About 52 Palestinians were killed of which the majority were fighters and 23 IDF soldiers.  PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat praised people of Jenin saying that their battle paved the way to the liberation of the "occupied territories."  This battle became known among the Palestinians as "Jeningrad."

Just on March 27, 2002 during Passover, a Palestinian Hamas suicide terrorist killed 30 people at the Park Hotel in Netanya and injured 140 people, one of many terrorist attacks happening in Judea and Samaria.

Israel had discovered  labs and factories that were making bombs and rockets, such as the Qassam II were within Jenin.  When the IDF troops entered, they found the Palestinians well prepared. Israel had some indications it was going to be hard-going but they weren't prepared to find how hard it really was.  Israel knew of 23 suicide bombings and 6 attempted bombings that came from Jenin.  This included the Matza restaurant suicide bombing.  They blamed the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah on these who were in Jenin.

Camp militants had taken over the authority and Israel wasn't quite aware of how bad it was because of its location compared to other camps.  In February, residents had burned 7 vehicles from the governor of Jenin and even had opened fire on the Palestinian Authority men.  Ata Abu Rumeileh became the chief security officer of the camp and oversaw the entrances, instituted roadblocks, and kept strangers away.   The camp became known as the martyrs capital.  They had about 200 armed men including members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Tanzim, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas.  There were 28 suicide bombers sent from the camp from 2000 to 2003 during the 2nd Intifada.  Mahmoud Tawalbe was a key planner who worked in a record store while chairing the local PIJ cell.  31 militant attacks that took 124 lives came out of Jenin, more than any other city in the Judea-Samaria vicinity.

If Israel was like other countries, they could have bombed the camp of Jenin from a safe distance and starved the terrorists out.  They chose to enter and not harm civilians.  This is their way.  First they announced that the people should leave as they were coming in.  When they did enter the camp they went from house to house to avoid civilian casualties, not to inflict them.  To their disappointment, terrorists were deliberately hiding behind civilians.  Senator Joseph Biden, May 6, 2002.  

When the terrorists saw the Israel Infantry entering, they felt the fight was going to be like hunting.  One remarked that he couldn't believe it when he saw only soldiers.  They knew they could easily get killed when they entered.  It was a very hard fight because they fought at close quarters with only a few meters between the combatants.  Sometimes they fought in the same house.  Thabet Mardawi, Islamic Jihad terrorist, captured in Jenin.  

The IDF regularly puts themselves at risk in order to reduce the risks that they might pose on  civilians.  There have been very small numbers of civilian casualties despite the fierceness of the fighting.  Professor Michael Walzer, Princeton U, 2002

Evidently it was this battle that caused Samantha Power, who was influenced by Michael Ignatieff from Harvard, to proclaim that Israel needed to be invaded by American troops.

Resource:  http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2013/06/power-corrupts/?utm_source=Mosaic+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=d2f448e049-Mosaic_2013_6_7&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0b0517b2ab-d2f448e049-41144429
http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=118
Israel 101 from StandWithUs magazine, page30, The Battle of Jenin

Is Samantha Power, Selected to be Ambassador to UN, A Fair Person?

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                

                         UN, General Assembly, New York, New York, USA
President Obama has announced that he will nominate foreign policy confidant Samantha Power, a pro Palestinian  and anti-Israeli human rights speaker,  to replace Susan Rice as the US ambassador to the UN.  This is pretty earthshaking news as she inferred  in 2002 about the need to invade Israel!  She has been connected to Obama for a long time.  In 2008 she was forced to resign from his campaign because of her negative remarks she made about Hillary Clinton. She is to take office in July, 2013.

I have the website for her 3 minute long 2002 interview with Harry Kreisler of Berkeley University asking her questions as first on my list below, but here is a rundown of what she said and felt.  She was asked that if she were the advisor to Obama, what would you say to him. Her answer was shocking being that Israel is the one and only democratic state in the Middle East and has been called a friend of the USA by other presidents since Harry Truman.

She advised to invest in the new state of Palestine in the amount of billions of dollars that it would take to have a mammoth protection force that was meaningful.  She seems to be worrying about their genocide from Israel, not the other way around.  She thought that both political leaders (Arafat and Sharon)  had been dreadfully irresponsible and the situation requires external intervention.   She wanted to put something on the line which might mean alienating a domestic constituency (Israel) of tremendous political and financial import (support to Israel).  It's plain to see who she is already bent to support.

Though today she disavows the clip, she obviously was referring to AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobby.  Her planning the backing of a "meaningful military presence" sounds like an invasion for sure.  When she was again interviewed, this time by Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper in 2008, she disowned her own comments that are on the video, copping out with saying that she didn't understand them and they sounded weird" even to her today.  Of course, there's going to be lots of backlash to this appointment because of that interview.  She's now bemoaning that the statement was made "some time ago" and now regrets them.  She then came up with, "Judaism teaches that a person is judged primarily by their actions."  She doesn't know about loshen hora, then.  Words hurt as much as bombs do many times over.

Samantha 43 years old, is an Irish American  writer that started her career as a journalist covering the Yugoslav Wars. From 1998 to 2002 she worked on Human Rights at Harvard where she she worked as a professor.  She was a senior adviser to Senator Barack Obama until March 2008 when she had to resign.  She is an immigrant from Dublin, Ireland and came with her parents at age 9 to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1979.  She went to high school in Atlanta, Georgia and graduated from Yale University.  From  1993 to 1996, she had a job as a journalist and then returned to the USA and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1999.

Her specialty in writing is human rights and genocide.  During her 2005-6 work for Senator Obama, she got him interested in the Darfur conflict.  Very young and having worked in a real job for only 6 years, I don't see anything on her resume saying she's an expert in the Palestinian Israeli conflict.  She seems to me to have already made a judgement against Israel if she felt they needed to be invaded and all monies must be spent on creating Palestine.  She's very one-sided in her decision-making without facts to back up her feelings.

Obama presents her as a woman who has been a relentless advocate for American interests and values.  So Israel doesn't count anymore with this administration as being one of America's interests or values?  Why is it that Obama never selects people who are pro-Israel?  Samantha is copping a plea and so are the reporters writing about her 2002 Freudian slip, if that is what it was.

Heavens, if she is still thinking like she did at age 32, she's be ready to invade Israel but not Syria, whose government has already killed off 80,000 or more in which the USA certainly has not invaded to set things right.  She doesn't get it in that it is the Palestinian Hamas terrorists who are terrorizing and trying to kill the southern Israelis with mortars, missiles and rockets.  We are wondering where the Human Rights people are  and never meet any except when Israel is forced to recapitulate to stop the attack and who  are noted by other army heads as doing it in a very humane way, more than others would.  It would help if she studied the situation, and not only from Palestinian propaganda.

May I suggest my favorite author, Joan Peters, reporter, non-Jewish, who also thought the Palestinians were being treated unfairly.  After she did a real job of researching such as a reporter should do, she wrote her book, From Time Immemorial and wound up advising presidents.  Now that was a reporter who deserves a prize!  She was not swayed by biased people, even though she went into the research with strong opinions.  She came to see the facts and printed them.  They reshaped her viewpoint.  Samantha!  Read her book!

Resource:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFdt6fjdHQw&feature=youtu.be
 http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/israeli-newspaper-focuses-on-samantha-powers-remarks-in-2002/
http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/short-decade-old-youtube-clip-likely-to-dog-power-confirmation-as-u-s-ambassador-to-un.premium-1.528003?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.216%2C2.219%2C
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Power
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/06/05/who-exactly-is-samantha-power-obamas-new-u-n-ambassador-pick-everything-you-need-to-know/#
6/7/13: http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/an-israel-hater-heads-to-the-u-n/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6e48846891-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag&utm_term=0_57e32c1dad-6e48846891-156514682