Continued Subversive Tactics of British Against Jewish Palestinian Settlement

Nadene Goldfoot
While Emir Faisal (1883-1933) descendant of Mohammad,  1st  son of Sherif Hussein bin Ali, Sharif and Emir of Mecca and his first wife Abdiyya bint Abdullah, of the Hashemite family of Saudi Arabia and one time king of Syria and of Iraq, was encouraged about Jews settling in Palestine, at least until he was talked out of it, the British, whose responsibility to encourage Jewish settlement, in reality was not going to encourage it at all.  In fact, they did everything to undermine it.  

Emir Faisal saw the Zionist movement as a partner to the Arab nationalist movement, both fighting against imperialism.  He explained this to Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter in a letter on March 3, 1919, the day after Chaim Weizmann spoke in the Paris conference.  Faisel's letter said:
"The Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement...We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home...We are working together for a reformed and revised Near East and our two movements complete one another.  The Jewish movement is nationalist and not imperialist.  And there is room in Syria for us both.  Indeed, I think that neither can be a real success without the other.

Also known as Faisal I, he was king of Iraq from 23 August 1921 to 8 September 1933. He died at age 50.  His son, Ghazi I reined from 8 September 1933 to 4 April 1939 and died at age 27. Ghazsi's son, Faisal II reigned from 4 April 1939 to 14 July 1858 and was then deposed.  He died at age 23.  The Hashemite dynasty was foreign to Iraq and were opposed by the majority Iraqi Shi'is and Kurds.  The 14 July Revolution established the Republic of Iraq.  

The 2nd son of Hussein, sherif of Mecca was ,Abdullah I who was the king of Transjordan, later called Jordan. He was king from 23 May 1946 to 20 July 1951 and then assassinated.  Abdullah, while visiting Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, was shot dead by "a Palestinian from the Husseini clan.  His son, Talal was then King from 20 July 1951 to 11 August 1952 and abdicated, being mentally ill.  He died 7 July 1972.  His son,  Hussein was King at age 17   from 11 August 1952 to 7 February 1999.  His son , Abdullah II was king from 7 February 1999 to the present day.  
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A different sort of Arab, the infamous Hajj Mohammed Amin el-Husseini,(1893-1974) in Jerusalem,  also claiming he was a descendant of Mohammad, was not about to accept Jews in Palestine. In 1921, Sir Herbert Samuel, high commissioner, had made him the Grand  Mufti of Jerusalem  from 1921-1937 and head of the Supreme Moslem council. During this time he promoted Islam and rallied the masses against the Jews.  Right away he began to organize  fedayeen, small groups of suicide squads, to terrorize Jews.  He was copying Kemal Ataturk's actions in Turkey who had driven out the Greeks from his country.  Husseini wanted to do the same, and tried to drive out the Jews.  It was easy to do because the British Administration was not taking any effective action against them so that they were actually revolting against British rule by doing this.  Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, who had been head of the British military intelligence in Cairo and later chief Political Officer for Palestine and Syria, wrote that "British officials "incline  towards the exclusion of Zionism in Palestine."

The British went as far as encourage the Palestinian Arabs to attack the Jews. Col. Waters Taylor, the financial adviser to the Military Administration in Palestine from 1919-1923 met with Haj Amin before Easter in 1920 and told he "he had a great opportunity at Easter to show the world...that Zionism was unpopular not only with the Palestine Administration but in Whitehall and if disturbances of sufficient violence occurred in Jerusalem at Easter, both General Bols, the Chief Administrator  in Palestine and General Allenby, the Commander of the Egyptian Force from 1917-1919, then High commissioner of Egypt, would advocate the abandonment of the Jewish Home.  Water-Taylor explained that freedom could only be attained through violence.

The Arab fear of being dominated was used as their excuse for their merciless attacks on peaceful Jewish settlers.  They were motivated by racial strife and misunderstanding.  In 1929, Arab convinced the mobs that Jews wanted the Temple Mount.  Jews had a custom of going to the Western Wall, which is part of the Temple Mount, and a riot started which was spread to Safed and Hebron and other villages and towns.

The British Administration made no effort to prevent this violence and nothing to protect the Jews.  After 6 days of rioting and killing, they finally brought in troops to stop it, after almost all the Jewish population of Hebron had fled or killed.  133 Jews were killed and 399 wounded in these pogroms.

Now the British did something.  They ordered an investigation, resulting in the Passfield White Paper.  Basically, it said that immigration and land purchasing of the Zionists were against Arab interests.  They interpreted the Mandatory obligation of the Arab community to mean that their resources are mainly for the growing Arab economy...So they placed restrictions on Jewish immigraton and land purchases.

Husseini again caused pogroms and riots in 1936 while chairman, and for this he was sentenced to exile in 1937.  He escaped  to Lebanon.  and later assisted Hitler and was largely responsible for the liquidation of the Jews in the Moslem areas of Bosnia.  In 1946 he escaped to Egypt.  After 1948, the birth of Israel, he set up a short-lived Palestine Goverment in Gaza which was later moved to Cairo. Husseini died in Beirut , Lebanon, unaccepted by the PLO as any sort of leader.   Palestinian historian Mattar blames him as the main culprit of sowing the seeds of the Arab-Israeli conflict.


Resource:  Myths and Facts, a concise record of the Arab Israeli conflict by Mitchell G Bard, PhD and Joel Mimelfarb
The standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haj_Amin_al-Husseini
http://frontpagemag.com/2011/11/08/voices-of-palestine-haj-amin-al-husseini/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_kings_of_Jordan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_kings_of_Iraq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_I_of_Jordan

How Jews and Arabs in Agreement Were Thwarted by the British and French

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                  

         1917 Balfour Declaration-After the fall of the Ottoman Empire

1894 was the year of the Dryfus Affair, where a French Jewish Captain was found guilty of treason when he really was innocent.  Anti-Semitism, something very common in Russia,  had now reached this ugly level in France.  It hit many Jews in the heart that they needed their own state and the only desire was for Palestine.  Besides, Russian Jews tired of pogroms had already started going  back to Palestine in the 1880's to establish a homeland with the First Aliyah.  Uganda was suggested but quickly dismissed.  After all, many Jewish prayers speak of Jerusalem, Zion and the Land of Israel.  Jews are told not to forget Jerusalem, the site of the temple, which is a major tenet of Judaism.  The Jewish calendar, holidays and festivals all originated in Israel and revolve around Israel's seasons.  Jews pray toward Jerusalem and say the words, "next year in Jerusalem" every Passover since 70 CE.  The Jewish religion, culture and history make clear that it is only in the land of Israel that a Jewish state can be built.

In 1913 the Zionists realized that they needed an agreement with the Arabs if they were going to live in Palestine.  Sami Hochberg represented the Zionists in a meeting with the Cairo- Decentralization Party and the anti-Ottoman Beirut Reform Society and reached an agreement which led to the adoption of a resolution assuring Jews equal rights under a decentralized government.  He also got an invitation to the first Arab Congress in Paris June 1913.

They were most receptive to Zionist aspiration.  Hochberg was encouraged by they response.  Abdul-Hamid Yahrawi, the President of the Congress said, " All of us, both Muslims and Christians, have the best of feelings toward the Jews.  When we spoke in our resolutions about the rights and obligations of the Syrians, this covered the Jews as well.  because they are our brothers in race and we regard them as Syrians who were forced to leave the country at one time but whose hearts always bet together with ours, we are certain that our Jewish brothers the world over will know how to help us so that our common interests may succeed and our common country will develop both materially and morally."

Yet when the WWI broke out, Arabs were opposing the Balfour Declaration, convincing the Zionist leadership of the need to work harder to reach an understanding with the Arabs.  First Chaim Weizmann met with Said Shukeir, Dr. Faris Nimr and Suleiman Bey Nassif (Syrian Arab nationalists chosen by British as representatives.  He told them of the need to live in harmony with Arabs in a British Palestine.

Nassif said, "There was room in Palestine for another million people without affecting the position of those already there."  Dr. Nimr used his Cairo newspaper to dispel the misconceptions about Zionist aims.

World War I started on July 28, 1914. The Ottoman Empire sided with the Germans.   The Allied nations of Europe were planning the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire.  Along came the very secret  Sykes-Picot Agreement (Asia Minor Agreement) of November 1915  and signed on May 16,  1916 to control Western Asia  that involved Britain and France with the help of Russia for the results after the overthrow.  They would divvy up the land between the British and the French.  Russia later exposed their secret plan after the Russian Revolution in October 1917.  .

The Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, saying that the British government favors the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people was accepted by no other than Emir Faisal (Feisal) ,  a descendant of Muhammed the Prophet, son of Sherif Hussein, the big leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks.  It came about after long negotiations started by Chaim Weizmann,  right after the outbreak of World War I.  In 1918 Weizmann met in Aqaba with Emir Faisal, son of Sharif Hussein of Mecca, the leader of the Arab movement, to discuss prospects of reaching an understanding on the establishment of independent Arab and Jewish states.  President Wilson of the USA supported the American Zionists, headed by Brandeis.  The document was approved by other Allied governments and incorporated into  the Mandate in 1922.  Faisal had signed an agreement with Chaim Weizmann and other Zionist leaders when they had attended   the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.  

He had said, "Mindful of the racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish People, and realizing that the surest means of working out the consummation of their national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab states and Palestine."

Here we have the leader of the Arab nationalist movement and the Zionist movement reaching an understanding.  This demonstrates that Jewish and Arab aspirations were not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Evidently the ending of the Ottoman Empire that came at the end of WWI gave several Arab chieftans the inspiration to have their own statehoods, which now would be independent from the Turkish rule.  There was no immediate need for the Arabs like there was for the Jews, who had been suffering nothing but hardships and death by having to wander amongst the nations trying to find a home that never materialized.  The latest cause of the need came from the many pogroms that were happening in Russia's Pale of Settlement, where Jews had been confined.  The Arabs saw the opportunity after 400 years of Turkish rule and decided that they needed a piece of the action as well.  They were instigated by such as "Lawrence of Arabia,' too..

Here we have two plans running at the same time.  "Lord Balfour wrote a memorandum from the Paris Peace Conference which stated that the other allies had implicitly rejected the Sykes-Picot agreement by adopting the system of mandates.  It allowed for no annexations, trade preferences, or other advantages. He also stated that the Allies were committed to Zionism and had no intention of honoring their promises to the Arabs.^"

The agreement looked to the fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration and called for all necessary measures "to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants on the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil."

Faisal had conditions to accepting the Balfour Declaration and that was depending on the British wartime promises of independence to the Arabs.  As he later saw it, these were not kept, though many were rewarded with it, he felt he was not.  He had been planning to receive aid from the Jews in building his future kingdom and had met Dr. Weizmann in Transjordan in 1918 and Paris in 1919 where they had reached an agreement on mutual aid..  Later, because he was ousted from Syria by the French in 1920, and because of influence of the Palestinian Arab leaders, his attitude to Zionism became hostile.

What had happened in the battle of the Arab revolt (Arab Awakening) of June 5 1916 against the Ottoman Empire was that a Thomas Edward Chapman, brilliant but illigitimate son born in Wales in 1888 came on the scene in October 1916  to be known as Lawrence of Arabia.  Lawrence was the son of Anglo-Irish Sir Thomas Chapman b; 1846, 7th Baronet and his partner, Sarah Lawrence, also illigitimate born in 1861,  a Scottish governess,  and was related to Sir Walter Raleigh.  He met with Faisal and then managed to take the ill-disciplined Arabs and turn them into a fighting force of 3,000 against  50,000 Turks and win.  He and his force were under General Allenby in Palestine by December 9, 1917 when they entered Jerusalem. "

In 1919 Faisal led the Arab delegation to the Paris Peace Conference and, with the support of the knowledgeable and influential Gertrude Bell, argued for the establishment of independent Arab emirates for the area previously covered by the Ottoman Empire.

Lawrence accompanied the Arab delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference June 28 1919,  where they fully expected their reward for helping the Allies in the war - full independence. Britain and France carved up the Middle East into their own zones of influence and the French even ejected Faisal from Damascus."

Even the American Congress felt the public support for the Balfour Doctrine and a resolution  approving it was adopted in 1922.  In 1944 both national parties, Republicans and Democrats,  called for the restoration of the Jewish Commonwealth, and again in 1945, a similar resolution was adopted by Congress.

Faisal, or Faisal Ibn Hussein was born in 1885 in Saudi Arabia and died in 1933.    His father, Hussein, was sherif of Mecca, Arabia.  Faisel had dreams of creating pan- Arab nationalism.  Faisal  was the leader of the rising against Turkey from 1916 to 1918 and then became the king of Syria. only to be ousted by the French in 1920 because  Faisal's Arabs and the French fought each other, ending Faisal's reign quickly. The French then held the Syrian mandate.  He  did become king of Iraq in  1921. 

 Iraqi independence came in 1932, but came with lots of persecution of Jews who lived there, mainly in Bagdad.  Hundreds were killed and wounded in a pogrom in 1941.  Iraq had been one of the nations attacking Israel in 1948.  123,500 of the Iraqi Jews then moved to Israel in Operation Ezra and Nehemiah.  All their property in Iraq had been taken by the government.  Only 150 Jews were found there in 1991.

The Arab Higher Committee, a central council of the Arab National Movement in Palestine from 1936 to 1948 were led by the mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin el Husseini.  Their aim was to fight Zionism and the Palestinian Jews.  They were outlawed by the British mandatory  government in 1937 as they organized riots and killings in 1936.  The leaders were exiled to the Seychelles, islands east of Africa.  They re-established in 1945 and again caused riots and killings in 1947-1948.  After Israel was established in 1948 the king of Jordan did away with the committee, but the mufti tried to revive it as the Palestine Government in the Gaza Strip.

Here we had had Chaim Weizmann and his discoveriy and invention to produce acetone. Acetone was used in the manufacture of cordite explosive propellants critical to the Allied war effort.  
Without this, neither the British, French nor Arabs would have won,  along with the extra soldiers provided through Lawrence of Arabia who took Palestine.  Both  the Jews and the Arabs were cheated out of what they had been promised, though the Jews did have a written Declaration over what the Arabs had presumed would be their reward for their outstanding fighting.   In the end the Arabs were given far more of the Ottoman Empire than what they had dreamed of and sooner than the Jews. Suprisingly, they refused more than half of the share offered to the Jews because they wanted it all.

Resource: Myths and Facts by Mitchell Bard and Joel Himelfarb
New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal-Weizmann_Agreement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/lawrence_of_arabia.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faisal_I_of_Iraq
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/weizmann.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Weizmann
http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Sarah_Junner_Lawrence_(1861-1959)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria
.  

How Jews Acquired Land in Palestine

Nadene Goldfoot
World War I started in July 1914.  At this time the Arab leaders of the Ottoman Empire  joined hands with the Germans against the English, Americans and Western Europeans.  Part of the land in Palestine, which was part of the Ottoman Empire, was owned by Arabs living in Cairo, Damascus, Beirut and even in France.  There was really nothing to attract them to this malaria infested swamp and desert.  Of the sparse migrant population living there, 80% were deb-ridden peasants, semi-nomads and Bedouin Arabs.

Many Jews returned to their land to join Jewish towns and cities and start new ones in droves in the 1880's and avoided buying land in places where Arabs might be displaced.  Many were interested in agriculture as this was something that they had been denied living in Russia's Pale of Settlement.  They bought land that was uncultivated, swampy, cheap and without anyone living on it.  From 1880 to 1948, 73% of Jewish plots were bought from large landowners, not poor fellahin.   People who sold land to Jews included the mayors of Gaza, Jerusalem and Jaffa.  As'ad el-Shuqeiri, a Muslim religious scholar and father of PLO chairman Ahmed Shuqeiri, took Jewish money for his land.  King Abdullah leased land to the Jews.  Many leaders of the Arab nationalist movement, like members of the Muslim supreme Council, sold land to Jews.  In those days, they were just trying to make a living.      

In 1920, David Ben-Gurion, then a Labor Zionist, said he was "concerned about the Arab fellahin, who he felt was the most important asset of te native population."  He said that under no circumstances must we touch land belonging to fellas or worked by them.  He even advocated helping to liberate them from their oppressors.  Only if a fellah leaves his place of settlement should we offer to buy his land, at an appropriate price, he advocated."  


Jews bought all of the available empty unwanted land.  Then they had no other choice but to buy cultivated land.  They found Arabs willing to sell because of migrating to coastal towns and because they needed money to invest in the citrus industry.

John Hope Simpson, liberal Parliament member,  came to Palestine in May 1930 and saw that Jews had paid very high prices for the land and also paid people living on the land a lot a money which they were legally not bound to pay.  So in fact they had overpaid to people not holding title to the land.  He authored the Hope Simpson Report in 1930, following the widespread 1929 Palestine riots.  Arabs had slaughtered 133 Jews, and the British security forces wound up killing about 116 Arabs to stop them  Many on both sides were injured.  

Lewis French, the British Director of Development for Palestine, conducted a survey in 1931 of landlessness and finally offered new plots to Arab who had been dispossessed.  3,000 applicants were received by the British, of which 80% were found to be invalid because they were not filed by landless Arabs.  It was a racket.  They found only about 600 landless Arabs, of which 100 accepted the Government land offer.  

Now the German affect on Arab's attitude towards Jews was really taking effect and by April 1936, Arabs were attacking Jews.  They were instigated by Fawzi al Qawukji, a Syrian guerrilla who was close to the Mufti of Jerusalem.  The British sent out a new commission led by Lord Peel to investigate in November.  89 Jews had been killed and more than 300 wounded.  The Peel Commission found that the Arab complaints were baseless.

Original land owners who had remained on the land and had sold it  had been without resources or training needed to develop the land.  They saw a good deal and sold it.    Land now turned into orange groves was uncultivated swamp and sand dunes when it was bought by the Jews, but they were prepared to deal with it.  They also found that the Arab population had increased, making available land scarce for anyone to buy.

1938 was the height of the Arab revolt and Arabs were attacking Arabs and Jews.  The British High Commissioner to Palestine believed the Arab landowners were complaining about sales to Jews just to jack up the prices.  However, there were Arab landowners who had been terrorized by their own people and decided to leave and sell their property to the Jews.

In  1944 Jews paid between $1,000 and $1,100 per acre in Palestine for arid or semi-arid land.  That same year, rich black soil in Iowa was selling for about $110 per acre.  It was exorbitant and the Jews had been taken, but to them it was worth it.

Come 1947 and Jews owned about 463,000 acres in Palestine.  About 45,000 of these acres were acquired from the Mandatory Government.  30,000 were bought from the many churches and 387,500 were bought from Arabs.

King Abdullah of Transjordan had written in his memoirs that "Arabs are as prodigal (reckless, extravagant) in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping."  He was assassinated in 1951 at age 69.


Resource:  Myths and Facts:  a concise record of the Arab-Israeli conflict by Mitchell G. Bard and Joel Himelfarb
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hope_Simpson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_hope_simpson.php
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/ben_gurion.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_I_of_Jordan

Osama bin Laden is Dead, But Al Qaeda Attacks Israel

Nadene Goldfoot
Al Qaeda, the terrorist group of Osama bin Laden, is alive and well, flourishing in Syria and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.  Born from its parent, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda is percolating right along, and was the group that attacked the Israeli fence builders along the Sinai border with Egypt.  "The MB is a movement, not a political party," they say, "but members have created political parties in several countries, such as the Islamic Action Front in Jordan and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank and the newly created Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt, headed by Morsi.".  These are arms of the MB that take on the responsibility of carrying out their goals with jihad.  For instance Hamas may be a political party, but they are also terrorists attacking Israel constantly.   

It was the 19 terrorists who hijacked 4 planes on 9/11 that were Al Qaeda members, and we found out in 2004 about Osama bin Laden being the leader of the attack.

Many of  Al Qaeda  terrorists seen attacking  Israel this month are from Libya.  In fact, Hamas tried to get them to stop, and they immediately fired 5 Grad missiles towards Ashkelon instead.  Luckily, Israel's Iron Dome stopped them.

Al Qaeda is found in Egypt, Libya and Syria.  Ayman al Zawahiri, b: 1951 in Egypt and a physician  is the present leader.  He took over from bin Laden on May 2, 2011. "On the same day, al-Qaeda renewed its position that Israel was an illegitimate state and that it wouldn't accept any compromise on Palestine"  An uprise of terrorism has been going on since the first of June.  It's so bad that Cairo's military has sent out their 999 Unit to try to counter the jihadis.  They've been active along the northern border with Syria as well.  It appears to me that Al Qaeda could be a force  fighting against the Egyptian militia causing some sort of civil war as they are extreme Islamists.  


We see that the Muslim Brotherhood has spawned not only Hamas but Al Qaeda as well, both terrorist organization, all bent on attacking Israel, the only non-Muslim state in its way.  Too bad that the MB is not broad-minded in their philosophy and cannot tolerate either Jews or Christians around.  It's hard to understand such a viewpoint except to see it as extremely dangerous, ego-centered and ready to stamp out everything  in its way through subterfuge and violence.  

Resource: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/06/28/the-al-qaeda-muslim-brotherhood-coalition/2/
http://debka.com/article/22114/Al-Qaeda-behind-anti-Israel-attacks-from-Gaza-Sinai-Egypt-posts-elite-unit (Excellent article)
http://articles.cnn.com/2011-08-12/world/egypt.al.qaeda.operation_1_al-qaeda-cells-el-arish-north-sinai?_s=PM:WORLD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_al-Zawahiri
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks

How Britain Took Away the Jewish Homeland

Nadene Goldfoot
The Balfour Doctrine had established the Jewish Homeland perimeters which was coming about at the end of World War I.  Chaim Weizmann had helped the British win the war by his invention in organic chemistry by fermenting acetone-butyl, used in bombs.   Without it, they most likely would have lost.  This is one reason why Britain was going along with the creation of the Homeland in Palestine.

Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill then turned around and rewarded Sherif Hussein's son, Abdullah for his contribution to the war against Turkey in 1921.  Churchill installed him as Emir and took away nearly 4/5 of Palestine, 35,000 square miles, to create Transjordan.  Britain had already given the Hejaz and Arabia to the Saud family, so this was the consolation prize for the Hussein family.  The kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd was unified in Saudi Arabia on 23 Sept, 1932 by King Abdul Aziz al-Saud though he had started to take it in 1902.  Its area is 870,000 square miles.

1922 was the year that 80% of what was the historic land of Palestine and the Jewish National Home as defined by the League of Nations was given away to become Transjordan by the British.

Knowing that the Jews were to establish their homeland, the cold-blooded British placed restrictions on Jewish land purchases in what remained of Palestine, going against the provision of the Mandate in Article 6 that said, "the Administration of Palestine...shall encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency...close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and wastelands not acquired for public purposes." 


By 1949 the British had allotted 87,500 acres of the 187,500 acres of cultivable land to Arabs and only 4,250 to Jews.  They had limited the absorptive capacity of Palestine by partitioning the country.   Less than a million people lived in an area that now supports more than six million.  


In 1915 about 83,000 Jews lived in Palestine along with 590,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs.  The British immigration restrictions on Jews went against the hopes for them while Arabs were allowed to enter freely.  By 1922, the Jewish population was 84,000 while the Arabs numbered 643,000.  In 1935, when conditions started to become bad for German Jews due to Nazis, the British then cut the quota  by 1/3.  


Arab demands were given attention by the White Paper in 1939, the height of Nazi persecution in Germany. This is when my uncle came to New York.  The Paper said that an Arab state would be created within 10 years and Jewish immigration was to be limited to 75,000 for the next 5 years, and then it would stop altogether.  Jews could not buy land in 95% of the territory of Palestine.  Arabs were not about to create their own state, but they were allowed to immigrate without restrictions.   The Hope Simpson Commission from London found that the 1929 Arab riots came from ignoring the illegal Arab immigration from Egypt,.  Transjordan and Syria and that this displaced the Jewish immigrants.  


Jews couldn't enter Palestine for the length of World War II when they were being gassed by Nazis.  Even after the war, the British refused to allow the survivors to find sanctuary in Palestine.  On June 6, 1946, President Truman urged the British to relieve the suffering of the Jews in displaced persons camps in Europe and accept 100,000 Jewish immigrants.  Ernest Bevin, the Foreign Minister, answered sarcastically that the USA wanted displaced Jews to immigrate to Palestine "because they did not want too many of them in New York."  


Some Jews got to Palestine anyway on old leaky ships that the members of the Jewish resistance organizations smuggled in.  Between August 1945 and May 14, 1948, 65 "illegal" immigrant ships, carrying 69,878 people arrived from European shores.  The British caught on in August 1946 and caught 50,000 and interned them in camps in Cyprus. 28,000 were still imprisoned when Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948.   There were 600,000 Jews in Israel by the time  it was again a state in 1948.  


It is truly a shunda that Britain broke their promise to the League of Nations and did not uphold their responsibility of creating the Jewish Homeland, but instead gave most all the land away to the Arabs and kept Jews from entering the country.  There must be a special section in the Book of Life for that.  They could take the responsiblity of the 6 million murdered in the Holocaust along with the Nazis.  


Resource:  Myths and Facts by Mitchell Bard and Joel Himelfarb
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi-Arabia

Re-Creating the Caliphate: Muslim Brotherhood's Secret Plans to Bring Islam Into Egypt

Nadene Goldfoot
The Jazira Plan, a plan to Islamize Egypt, was given the nod by Mohammed Badi,  head leader of the Muslim Brotherhood last week.   They have a few changes to administer:  Jazira means island or peninsula, referring to the Arabian Peninsula.  It's not just a plan for Egypt but a regional plan.  They are thinking of recreating the Caliphate in the past.  In February one of the leaders said tht they hope to achieve reinstating the Caliphate, that this is their dream.  The first goal is the renaissance of Egypt, then the Arab world and then the Islamic world, all to come gradually.  Safwaf Hegazy spoke in a rally during the campaign and said that they are seeing the dream of the Islamic Caliphate coming true at the hands of Mohammed Morsi, and that the capital will be Jerusalem.

1. Replace the national anthem with the anthem of the Islamic Caliphate.
2. Police uniforms will be swapped for "Islamic garb."
3. The Ministry of Information will be disbanded and replaced by an office that will "Publish Islamic heritage only", and regulate culture.
4. Students will be required to memorize Quranic verses to advance in school.

The name of their plan is interesting as the TV program run by the Brotherhood from Qatar is called "Al Jazeera."   Recent polling indicates that in the West Bank and Gaza, Al Jazeera is the primary news source for an astounding 53.4 percent of Palestinian viewers.  It most likely plays a huge part in agitating the people against Israel.

The Muslim Brotherhood has  won in Egypt.  They won in Tunisia in 2011 when President Ben Ali was overthrown and the Islamist party won.  A Hamas official spoke at the event with praise.  The Brotherhood is expected to win in Libya next month.  Yemen's most powerful party is Isiah and is a Brotherhood affiliate.  Sudan says it is putting in Sharia law but still might have an Islamist revolution.  Syria might be overthrown by Brotherhood-supported rebels.  Turkey has fallen to Islamist leadership.  Qatar's Emir's good friend is Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi , head of the Muslim Brotherhood 's beliefs and is subsidizing their rise.  Saudi Arabia has always been a theocracy of Islam.  

The first thing they will do is institute Sharia law in Egypt.  It will come gradually.  Qaradawi explains that his democracy is different from the western version.  That it is, but right now just having their first election for president is not bringing about immediate power.  The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces still holds the most power in Egypt.  A constitution has to be written.  Only time will tell what will be the fate of Egypt.

Resource:  http://www.radicalislam.org/analysis/muslim-brotherhood-draws-plans-islamize-egypt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera

Senior Hamas Official, Kamal Ranaja, Assassinated

Nadene Goldfoot
A Hamas senior official, Kamal Ranaja, alias Nizaar Abu Mujhad,  was assassinated in Damascus, Syria in his apartment.  Of course Mossad (National Intelligence Agency of Israel) is being suspected.  Kamal is thought to be one of the deputies of the late Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, military commander,  who was killed in 2010.  

The funeral is to be held  on Thursday.  Hamas officials are meeting in Jordan.

According to a Syrian opposition activist, a former journalist,  President Bashar al-Assad had him tortured before having him killed because Hamas turned their back on Assad following the violent crackdown on the Syrian opposition.  


With all the violence going on in Syria with the army killing the civilians, this is far more likely.  I doubt if even Mossad  would want to "mix in" right now in this tumult.  It's too dangerous there even for the U.N. monitors.  


Right now the White House is urging Assad to leave while Russia has interests there and  wants others to stay out of the fight.  So now we see that Hamas has been directed by a Syrian Palestinian living in an apartment there.  Mabhouh, his boss in 2010 was responsible to getting arms from Iran to Syria and onto Gaza.  He probably had taken over the responsibility.  


Resource:  http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=275522
http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-operative-assassinated-in-damascus/
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4248468,00.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mossad
http://www.mossad.gov.il/Eng/AboutUs.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashar_al-Assad
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/157306

Why Hamas-Fatah Don't Want Their Own State

Nadene Goldfoot
It's quite obvious why the Arab Palestinians haven't established their own state for the past 64 years.  They were given the same opportunity that Israel had at the very same time by the United Nations,  only refused it because they had empirical  goals.  Their goal was to have all the land and they would not allow Jews to have an island in their midst.  They were conditioned to the "Ottoman Empire" thinking. So for those leaders, they wanted it all and would only settle for all or nothing, which meant fighting for it all. A few Arabs would have had to live under a Jewish government in the way it was divided.  That wouldn't have been so bad considering that today 1.4 million Arabs are citizens of Israel living a much better life than any other Muslims in any other Muslim majority countries.

Nearly 80% of what had been promised to the Jews for a Jewish National Home was severed by the British in 1922 and turned into what became Transjordan with Jewish settlement there barred.  The UN divided the remaining 20% of Palestine into the 2 states; one for Jews and one for the Arabs.  This means that Arabs got 80% of the territory of the Mandate as it was while Israel held a bare 17.5%.  Gaza was still being occupied by Egypt.  What Israel wound up with was a small sliver of their own pie. Jordan then annexed East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1950 but lost it again to Israel in the 1967 War against Israel.  It was land promised to be part of  the Jewish Homeland in the original deal!  Jordan's eyes were bigger than their ability to wipe out Israel, even with all their Muslim neighbors.    

At the time of the 1947 partition resolution, the Arabs did not have the majority population in the area allotted to the Jews or in Jerusalem.  They were even offered a bigger share of land and had the population there already.

The British restricted the Jewish immigration while Arabs were free to come into the land which they did, taking advantage of the rapid development stimulated by the Zionists in creating towns to live in.  They came in by the thousands.

Prior to the British Mandate in 1922, the Palestine Arab population had been declining.  Afterwards, Arabs began to come there from all the surrounding countries.  The Arab population grew along with the Jewish settlers who improved the quality of health conditions in Palestine.

Partitioning Palestine was based on the irreconcilable territorial claims of Jews and Arabs so a compromise had to be taken to create two states.  1947 was when the Arab members of the United Nations supported the partition of the India and the creation of the new state, predominantly Muslin, of Pakistan. That came about because Muslims and Hindus were attacking each other in India all the time.   This way they moved the Muslims out into their own space.   Palestine was a different matter in allowing a Jewish state of Israel within their Muslim midst.  Hindus have given up a piece of their land for the Muslims in order to have peace..

Fatah and Hamas have never considered their people in their decision not to accept the many times offered chance to create their own state, but are led by the Muslim Brotherhood goals of creating an empire again.  All they have had to do is to recognize Israel as their neighbor with rights of being Jewish.  Then they would have to tell their people to stop hating and shooting at this only Jewish state in the world and that the plan on the table is for peace instead of driving the Israelis into the sea.

It's time to realize that after 64 years, the Arabs are not up to creating their own state at all. The attack on Israel has not been stopping.  There is no reason to think that Judea and Samaria (West Bank) will be a Palestine State with the goals they presently hold.  When they discard the Muslim Brotherhood, that will tell us that they want to live in the present instead of their 15th century empire of the past.  The 3 generations of Arabs living in Gaza and Judea and Samaria need to have their own type of Arab Spring and throw out these Muslim Brotherhood terrorists of Hamas, and even of Fatah since they've turned toward the Hamas line and start from scratch.

Resource:  Myths and Facts-a concise record of the Arab-Israeli conflict by Mitchell G Bard and JOel Himelfarb page 34- 35.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_West_Bank_and_East_Jerusalem_by_Jordan

Why President Morsi of Egypt Can Be Dangerous for Israel

Nadene Goldfoot

The motto of the Muslim Brotherhood is:

Allah is our objective

The Prophet is our leader

The Qur'an (Koran) is our law

Jihad is our way

Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope

This is the party that just got Morsi elected President in Egypt.  Egypt is probably going to change, and not for the better, despite the nice promises he has made to be so moderate.  A lot depends on how much he will keep promises, and as a politician, that is a slippery slope.  It's more important to look into his belief system and his past deeds.    Already he has announced that he is reconsidering Egypt's former peace deal with Israel.  He intends to build ties with Iran to create a strategic balance in the Middle East.

"According to the Anti-Defamation League, several former Brotherhood officials from the organization's 15-member Guidance Council assumed key roles within the new party, and used their positions in the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) of which the now President Morsi was head of  to reiterate the Brotherhood's long-standing hostility toward Zionism and support for other organizations that oppose Zionism"


The Muslim Brotherhood is dangerous for Israel because the terrorist organization, Hamas, is an offshoot of it and is carrying out the doctrine of both.  Hamas means:
 the Islamic Resistance Movement.  It was started in 1987 in the First Intifada.  Their goals are:

To raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.
They will not recognize Israel
They believe that all of Israel belongs to the Palestinian people.
They call for the destruction of Israel.
There will be no peaceful negotiations
Jihad means to attack others to get what they want, and they won't mind dying to in order to get what they want, in fact they get extra credit it if they do.   If so, they'll be rewarded in heaven with their 72 virgins.   A jihad is a holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty; a crusade for a principle or belief. 
They are the ones who are constantly shelling southern Israel with mortars, missiles and rockets which go on to this very day. 

"The Egyptian cleric Safwat Higazi spoke at the announcement rally May 1, 2012  for the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate Morsi and expressed his hope and belief that Morsi would liberate Gaza, restore the Caliphate of the "United States of the Arabs" with Jerusalem as its capital, and that "our cry shall be: 'Millions of martyrs march towards Jerusalem."


The Brotherhood was much noticed after President Obama made his famous Cairo speech at al-Azhar University in Cairo in 2009 where he was not being particularly nice about Israel.  In his speech he goes along with the prevailing Washington idea of the two state solution where Israel could not continue to  build anything, and praises the  Muslims for their  outstanding accomplishments.   He was showing a huge outreach to the Muslim world in this speech.  Egypt has a population of more than 79,089,650 people of which 90% are Sunni Muslims with Coptic Christians in the wee minority.  Islam is a state religion.  They have a large militry power of active troops numbering about 450,000.  It's the 5th largest majority Muslim population in the world  with Obama's Indonesia  with 228,582,000 population being first.

After this Cairo speech,  by  February 2011 the Brotherhood dominated the Egyptian parliamentary elections.  In April  Secretary of State Clinton ordered the transfer of $1.5 billion in a lump sum with no strings attached in a grant to Egypt.  It's labeled for peace and security.  Egypt has been accepting money from the USA each year.  In 2006 they got $1.8 billion.

Peres in Israel feels that Egypt must remember their economic situation and will have to consider their economy in order to exist.    

Reference: http://www.gruntig.net/2012/06/rally-for-egypts-newly-elected.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxCy2gCPMXc Peres is interviewed about Egypt today
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood
http://blog.standforisrael.org/issues/terrorism/hamas
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/25/muslim-brotherhoods-bait-and-switch/ by Frank Gaffney
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/politics/04obama.text.html?pagewanted=all Obama Cairo Speech
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2141940009976831016#editor/target=post;postID=3265076590958184276 Stand for Israel
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brianwingfield/2011/01/29/making-sense-of-u-s-foreign-aid-to-egypt-and-elsewhere/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brianwingfield/2011/01/29/making-sense-of-u-s-foreign-aid-to-egypt-and-elsewhere/ on peace with Israel, reconsidering
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/06/26/muslim-brotherhood-draws-up-plans-to-islamize-egypt/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=c5efdde5fc-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/06/25/when-egypt-fell-on-the-glazov-gang/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=b6bf3654f3-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag Noni Darwish 

Morsi's Feelings Towards Israel

Nadene Goldfoot
The Oregonian newspaper continued with information about Mohammed Morsi b: 1951, Egypt's newly elected president,  this morning.  He has a long record of opposition to the Egyptian-Israeli ties. He was elected to the Zionism Resistance Council in his home province.  Later he co-founded the Egyptian Commission for Resisting the Zionist Project.   However, he has declared on Sunday that his Muslim Brotherhood government will follow the Egyptian international commitments, including the peace treaty with Israel.  During the campaign he promised to be a centrist ruler despite his Islamist background and roles in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Morsi joined the Muslim Brotherhood in 1977.  This is when the movement was banned.  He was elected to Parliament in 2000 where he was in charged of the Brotherhood's unofficial parliamentary bloc from 2000 to 2005 when he was defeated.

By January 28, 2011, Morsi was detained with 34 other leading Muslim Brotherhood officers by Mubarak's government, but escaped when security guards left their posts at the prison where he was held.  He was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's guidance council .  Then  he became head of its Freedom and Justice Party of which he just resigned from on Sunday. This resignation seems to be a symbolic move.

The military arm has dissolved the Brotherhood-led parliament and has seized legislative power.  The generals have guns and tanks and armored vehicles to hold authority.  The Brotherhood leaders and ruling generals have had face-to-face meetings last week between the Brotherhood's parliamentary leader, Saad el-Katatni and Gen. Sami Hafez Enan.

Jihad el-Haddad, Brotherhood spokesman, said on Saturday that that the Brotherhood made its demands for the reinstatement of the parliament and the empowerment of an elected president.  They had agreed on Friday that further talks with generals would be conducted by a new "national front" it had formed with more secular advocates of democracy.  They will have greater collaboration and openness than formerly.  The Brotherhood happens to be thought of as Egypt's best-organized political force.  They barely won over Ahmed Shafiq, who was a former air force general and Mubarak's last prime minister.  The vote was 13.2 million for Morsi, and12.3 million for Shafiq, or 52% to 48%..  

Now he promises to build a coalition government and promises that his prime minister will be independent and his governemt would include Christians.  He promised not to turn Egypt into a theocracy but said Islam should provide governing principles.

He also calls for Egypt to not be subordinate to the USA and suggests he will confront their close ties to Washington they had under Mubarak.  Jay Carney, press secretary, is concerned about human rights and the minority Coptic Christians that have been attacked.  I'm concerned about keeping the peace treaty with Israel.  I have a feeling that the only thing holding Egypt to this will be the money that the USA doles out to Egypt.  Morsi sounds like he will try to free them from this line of economic aid.

Resource: Oregonian newspaper 6/25/12  page A4, New Egyptian president was a professor in US, and front page, continues on page A5, McClatchy Newspapers 
Oregonian newspaper 6/24/12 page A9, Results of Egypt's vote still up in air by David D. Kiripatrick, NY Times

Morsi Plans to take Jerusalem Now

Nadene Goldfoot
Now that the Muslim Brotherhood's contender, Morsi, won the Presidential election in Egypt, a cleric, Satwat Higazi, who was the campaign manager for Morsi, had announced that Jerusalem would become their capital.  Like so many campaign promises, that's not going to happen.  That gives us an idea as to how much of the peace plan they intend to keep, doesn't it?  The question will be now how much money will the United States keep giving them?

Mohammed Morsi won by 51.7% of the votes beating out Shafik.  This was the 1st election that Egypt has had since Mubarak.  There were rumors that Morsi's side was stuffing the ballot box.  Perhaps that's why they went into overtime to count the ballots.  .

I am reminded of " The LORD will give strength unto his people; the LORD will bless his people with peace" from Psalms 29:11.  We certainly will need that strength now in striving for peace.  Our neighbors are certainly not of that mind-set.  Morsi has already called for a review of the peace treaty with Israel.  The military says they will decide just what he can do to the government.  He is not from the military which other leaders have been.  Morsi promises to be a moderate but modern leader with an Islamist agenda who will have a transparent government.  He promises to have an Egyptian renaissance with an Islamic foundation.  This man is intent on having Sharia law in the country for sure.  Sharia law does not favor Israel in any way.  

The United States congratulated their milestone victory.  Morsi did go from being involved in an outlawed group calling for terrorism if you look at the doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood which  was not allowed during Mubarak's time or Sadat's.  Morsi went from being a prisoner to a president in very few steps, swept in with the Arab Spring. 
   
Reference:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9znepNvkrxI&feature=youtu.be
http://www.jpost.com/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/egyptian-cleric-claims-muslim-brotherhood-presidential-candidate-will-make-jerusalem-the-capital-of-the-caliphate/
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/profile-egypt-s-mohammed-morsi-goes-from-prisoner-to-president-1.443597

Just What Was the Ottoman Empire That Sided with the Axis in WWI? ?

Nadene Goldfoot
The Ottoman Empire was huge. It's height of glory was in the 16th and 17th Centuries.  The Ottoman Empire was, in many respects, an Islamic successor to the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.It was started in 1299 CE by Osman I Khan of the Oghuz Turks and continued up to the end of WWI of November 11, 1917.  Turkey took it over October 29, 1923 but just the Turkish part.  When  Turkey decided to side with Germany in WWI the regime crumbled and the sultanate was finally abolished by Kemal Atatürk in 1922.  It had included:
1. Turkey
2. Saudi Arabia-part of
3. Iraq
4.Syria
5. Sinai of Egypt
6. Palestine
7. Lebanon
8. Armenia
9. Azerbaijan
10. Most of SE Europe and north to Hungary and parts of southern Russia and Iran and N.Africa with Egypt.

What did the Ottoman Empire do with  all these places?  Collect taxes and send the money to Constantinople.

The Ottoman Empire maintained a harem for the Sultan of supposedly beautiful, intelligent slave girls that were either captured in war, recruited or from neighboring countries that were to be concubines of the ruler.  One palace had 400 rooms where they were kept.  In 1853 the new palace had lavish rooms for them.  Eunuchs, male slaves who had been castrated,  watched over them.

Palestine was simply deserted land filled with swamps and desert.  The Ottoman Turks had conquered it in 1516.  They did very little except for Suleiman the Magnificent who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem in 1537.   It was a province, a region brought under control of another government that just collected revenue. The Empire was declining  when Jews started to resettle in the 1800's.  

Resource: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071216141619AARQsWu
http://histclo.com/essay/war/ip/ott/ott-pal.html  About Palestine Under the Ottomans
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_the_Ottoman_Empire
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Which_countries_were_aligned_with_the_Ottoman_Empire
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/ottoww1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Harem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sultans_of_the_Ottoman_Empire

What Jews Did During World War I

Nadene Goldfoot 
World War I started; the axis (Germans, Austrian-Hungary, Ottoman Empire) against the allies the rest of the Western powers, ie Great Britain, USA, etc.)  What was the cause of the war?  Not the Jews.  Long-term causes of the war included the imperialistic foreign policies of the great powers of Europe, including the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, the British Empire, the French Republic, and Italy. The assassination on 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by a Yugoslav nationalist, (Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb)  in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina was the proximate trigger of the war.

 Jews lived in Germany. In 1910 there were 615,021 Jews.   The World Zionist Organization 's center was in Berlin, so they decided at the beginning of the war to have a liaison office in Copenhagen, Denmark, which was neutral.  Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire at that time. In the beginning of the war Jews found themselves on both sides of the war.   The supporters of the allies or "alliance" between England and France were in a minority but included Chaim Weizmann in London and Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who got busy and established a Jewish Legion in the British army.  Pinhas Rutenberg went to the USA to  do the same thing in the American army, Baron Rothschild in Paris and Joseph Trumpeldor, who with Jabotinsky created the first auxiliary unit in the British army and were known later as the Zion Mule Corps.

Chaim Weizmann invented acetone, important in making explosives,  as a chemist which helped Britain to win the war.  The importance of Weizmann's work to the ongoing war effort encouraged Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to issue the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in support of Weizmann's Zionist objectives as Weizmann ascended to the presidency of the British Zionist Federation.


On 2 November 1917 the British government sent a declaration of sympathy with Jewish-Zionist aspirations and approved it and published it as the Balfour Declaration after its author, Lord Balfour.  The government approved the declaration on October 31, 1917, the same day the British attacked southern Palestine which led to the conquest of this area and of Jerusalem within 6 weeks.
In 1917 the British had 2 new Jewish battalions in the army that would fight on the Palestine front:  one from England with Ze'ev Jabotinsky  and the other from the USA by David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi.  By 1918 a 3rd battalion was in Eretz Israel.

The Jews in Palestine, called the Yishuv, lost many people and suffered a lot.  The population went down from 85,000 to 56,000 because of people leaving, deportations, economic situation and disease.  Turkey had told all foreign nationals in Palestine to take out Turkish citizenship or leave on October 30, 1914.  That began the Jewish exodus.  The Balfour Declaration was published and that along with the British forces conquering Jerusalem was thought to be a part of the Messiah's coming.

Finally 400 years of Turkish rule came to an end in September 1918.  The British military regime replaced it and the Jews thought that soon, because of the Balfour Declaration, its promises would come to fruition.

On June 4, 1918, Weizmann met with Emir Feisal in south Transjordan to discuss cooperation between the Jewish and Arab national movements.

August 20, 1918, a delegation of doctors and nurses from the Hadassah Organization of America arrived in Eretz Israel with medical equipment to help Yishuv members who needed medical attention from the effects of World War I.

November 11, 1918, end of WWI.  Chaim Weizmann became Israel's first president on February 1, 1949.

Reference: http://www.jewishagency.org/JewishAgency/English/Jewish+Education/Compelling+Content/Eye+on+Israel/120/Chapter+Four+World+War+One.htm
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/wwi-chemist-dr-chaim-weizmann-and-israel/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_Weizmann
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbs_of_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina
http://www.edwardvictor.com/GermanyFrame2main.htm  Jewish population in Germany, listed by dates

What Happened to the Planned Jewish National Home During World War I: Arabs and Jews

Nadene Goldfoot
World War I ran from 1914 to 1918.  On August 1, 1914 the Ottoman Empire signed a secret alliance treaty with Germany, who declared war on Russia that very day.  By the 5th of August the Ottomans closed the Dardanelles.  On November 1st Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire.  By the 5th,  France and the United Kingdom also declared war on them.

November 8th, Sultan Mehmed V declares Jihad on the Allies.  The Ottomans try to take the Suez Canal but fail to do so January 28 to February 3, 1915.  April 29, 1916 was when the British forces were under siege at Kut and surrender to the Ottomans and June 5, 1916 was the start of the Arab Revolt.  Arabs wanted to break away from the Ottoman Empire, a land of Turks who were not Arabs, and establish their own land from Aleppo, Syria to Aden, Yemen.  However, even by 1908 this wasn't very strong.  "Many Arabs gave their primary loyalty to their religion or sect, their tribe, or their own particular governments."  Sherif Hussein bin Ali , Arab, sided with the UK and France.  In 1913 the Arabs held the 1st Arab congress in Paris and wanted reforms in the Ottoman Empire, not a new established country of their own.  


August 3-5, 1916  was when Ottoman attack on the British in the Sinai peninsula failed. This is now bringing the fight to the land that is to be the Jewish Homeland.  By January 9, 1917 Battle of Rafa took place when. the British drive the Ottomans out of Sinai.  On March 26, 1917 started the first Battle of Gaza. The British attempt to capture the city fails.


APRIL 6, 1917  THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ENTERED THE FIRST WORLD WAR BY DECLARING WAR ON GERMANY.  


April 19, 1917 was when Second Battle of Gaza took place. The Ottoman lines resist a British attack. On  July 6, 1917,  Arab rebels led by Lawrence of Arabia seized the Jordanian port of Aqaba.  From October 31 to November 7th  the Third Battle of Gaza took place.   This time the British broke through the Ottoman lines.  During this period, on November 2nd, the  Balfour Declaration was received:  The British government supports plans for a Jewish "national home" in Palestine.


DECEMBER 7, 1917 THE UNITED STATES DECLARES WAR ON AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.


December 8 to the 26, 1917 Battle of Jerusalem. The British enter the city (December 11).  February 21, 1918 was when the British captured Jericho.  September 19 to 21, 1918 was the Battle of Megiddo. The British conquered Palestine.  October 1, 1918 and Damascus was entered by the British.  By the 30th of October The Ottoman Empire signs the Armistice of Mudros.


Finally, on November 11, 1918, At 6 am, Germany signs the Armistice of Compiègne. End of fighting at 11 a.m.


Because the Ottoman Empire had been on the Axis side with Germany, they lost the war and had to give up their empire.  The war had also sapped their treasury.  This is how the British came to hold the mandate over the land until May 14, 1948.

 There were 15 million deaths in this war; 10 million were military personnel and 7 million were civilians. The United States had lost  116,708 soldiers or 117,465 total deaths.  This amounted to 0.13% of their population, which was at that time 92 million people.  The Ottoman Empire had lost 2,921,844 or 13.72% out of a population of  21.3 million people. Military deaths alone for them amounted to 771,844 soldiers. They had lost a lot of people from famine and disease.   It was the deadliest conflict in human history.  

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_timeline
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Revolt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties

Just Because We Were Jewish, We Couldn't Live There

Nadene Goldfoot
Jews may be slightly paranoid for good reason.  We've been kicked out of so many countries in the past 2,000 years that we just wait around for the other shoe to fall.  Look at the history we've had being the unpopular guy. Even in the wonderful United States Jews suffered from anti-Semitism, especially from 1920-1951.  There was a limit as to how many Jews could enter the country-even just before the Holocaust, how many could attend medical school, and certainly weren't welcomed in country clubs.  We were reminded who we were in others' eyes and words. Our children have been very lucky to not have had to experience such facts.   Losing our country caused us to wander throughout the world.

     70 CE Thrown out of Jerusalem, taken as captives or killed by Romans, fall of Jerusalem
  115 CE  Thrown out of  Cyprus
 640, 721, 873 Forcibly converted to Christianity in Byzantine Empire-the cue to leave
1096 German Crusade, massacred in European towns-if alive, better to get out of town
1099 Jerusalem Jews massacred by Crusaders
1146 Converted to Christianity by force in Spain
1290 Thrown out of England
1306 Thrown out of France
1355 12,000 Jews massacred by mob in Toledo, Spain
1349-60 Thrown out of Hungary
1391 Converted to Christianity by force in Spain-those that were found again
1420 Toulouse, France Jewish community all killed
1421  Thrown out of Austria
1492  180,000 Jews thrown out of Spain, 50,000 forced to convert to Christianity if remaining (Marranos) Spanish Inquisition
1495 Thrown out of Lithuania
1497 Thrown out of Sicily and Sardinia and Portugal
1502 Converted to Christianity by force in Rhodes or expelled or taken into slavery
1541 Thrown out from Kingdom of Naples
1648-56  100,000   massacred in Chmielnicki, Poland
1727-1747  Thrown out of Russia
1795-1835-Moved from Russian towns to Pale of Settlement (Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Ukraine, Belorussia) 
1838  Converted by force in Meshed, Persia, entire Jewish community
1871-1921  Attacked, many killed  in Pogroms in towns of Russia/Pale of Settlement (Musical-Fiddler on the Roof) (Golda Meier story) (Immigration to USA and "Palestine") 
1882-1890    750,000 thrown out of Russia and into Pale of Settlement  4 million living in Pale; 4% of Imperial Russia
1891  Thrown out of Moscow and St. Petersburg 
1917-2012 Denied right of national identity in Soviet Union/Russia
1939-45  Holocaust-killing of 6 million by Nazis and European collaborators
1941-2012  Attacked, 180 killed in Baghdad by mobs (part of Axis on Germany's side in WWII) 
1948-Dminni status (3rd class)- persecuted in Arab countries, kicked out en mass


Now we have our own state again on our original soil.  We are not wandering again unless we are tourists!  

Resource:  Facts About Israel 1973-Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/pale.html

The Return of Jews to the Homeland: In the Beginning

Nadene Goldfoot
Though many of the most elite Jews had been killed or taken captive at the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, many men and women also remained and continued to live in Eretz Israel, and were known as the Yishuv.  They built the first quarter outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem.  As a little girl, we used to put our pennies in the Karin'ah meen Box, also known as Tzedakah or the Pushke box  at Sunday school for the poor Jews living in "Palestine".  A blue and white pushke box was for the Jewish National Fund, which shows that thousands of little Jewish children also helped to pay for land bought through this fund.

 A new movement had started in the 19th century of a revival of Jews returning to the promised land.   In the 1860's, 2 periodicals published in Jerusalem called for the return to the Land.  Mark Twain visited Palestine on a trip he set out on from Brooklyn, February 1, 1867 and wrote in his book, THE INNOCENTS ABROAD, just how desolate the land was. In 1870 the first Jewish agricultural college was established in Mikveh, Israel (today outside of Tel Aviv).  In 1878 Jews from Jerusalem, one of which was Yehoshua Stampfer, Rabbi Stampfer's father of Portland, Oregon,  founded the first new village in the Land--Petah Tikva (1973 had a population of 85,000) ten miles east of Tel Aviv. By 2009 the population had grown to 209,600.  Other villages were founded near Jerusalem and in the Galilee, but Safed had always been there with legends back as far as Noah himself.   

By 1881 on, Jewish immigrants from the Hibbat Zion (Love of Zion) movement arrived from Eastern Europe.  Some of the immigrants joined existing villages and others founded new ones.  Hadera and Rishon started off as villages and are now towns.  This first group of immigrants were called the First Aliyah.  Aliyah means ascent, so moving to Israel means going up, spiritually.  The conditions these pioneers lived under were just as bad if not worse than American pioneers,  as the land was in serious neglect and now contained swamps which held mosquitoes that carried malaria.  The Ottoman Empire was hostile and oppressive towards everyone.  New villages were lucky to survive.

In 1897 Theodor Herzl was in Basle, Switzerland and organized the First Zionist congress and founded the World Zionist Organization.  Zion is a synonym for Jerusalem and the entire land.  This came about to start with in France with the Dryfus Affair, where a Jewish serviceman was accused of being a traitor because he was Jewish but was innocent.  The many pogroms in Eastern Europe was enough to drive out the Jewish population.  Self-determination was a movement taken by other nations such as the Greeks, Italians and Poles.  Jews also realized they should follow this path.  Their goal was to allow a return of Jews to their ancient land and revive the national Jewish life in social, cultural, economic and political ways. Jews had been praying 3 times a day since 70 CE that next year they would be in Jerusalem.  It was time to return.

A 2nd Aliyah was underway from 1904-1914 which strengthened villages and founded new ones.  The Yishuv began to organize politically into socialist groups.  They were all highly idealists and were planning a Utopia for all.  In 1909 the first kibbutz, Degania Aleph was created on the southern shore of Lake Kinneret.  I was there visiting a friend.  Also in the same year Tel Aviv was founded on the sand dunes outside of Jaffa.  Hebrew was becoming the language of the Yishuv and they were creating Hebrew literature.  Life was immensely harsh and many pioneers left, but by 1914 there were 85,000 Jews in Eretz Yisrael.

By 1918 the land was occupied by Britain who governed it for 30 years.  This came about with the ending of World War I in 1917, and on November 2nd the British issued the Balfour Declaration which showed sympathy with the Jewish Zionist aspirations, promising support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.  Their allies like the USA were parties to the negotiations and approved of this.  So did some of the principal leaders of the Arab national movement.

  King Hussein of the Hejaz, wrote that they saw these Jews coming in and knew that the country was for them, the original sons, and to them it was a sacred and beloved homeland.  (Al Qibla, Mecca. No. 183, 23 March 1918:  George Antonius, Arab Awakening. p. 269)  However, at the same time, leaders of the Arab national movement were negotiating with Britain for the recognition of Arab national rights in the former territories of the Ottoman Empire throughout the Middle East.

January 3, 1919 was an agreement between King Hussein's son, Emir Feisal, chief Arab delegate at the Paris Peace conference and Dr. Chaim Weizmann of the Zionists.  The Balfour Declaration was endorsed and Palestine recognized as a separate Jewish entity, with which the then imminent Arab State would maintain diplomatic relations, on condition that Britain and France met Arab demands in other territories.  At this time before 1948, both Jews and Arabs were called Palestinians.

Britain was given the mandate on July 24, 1922 which incorporated the wording of the Balfour Declaration regarding establishing in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people.  It recognized the historical connection between Jews and the land and called on Britain to be the facilitators of the Establishment of their national home.  This mandate extended over both sides of the Jordan River.  Britain, however,  turned around and divided the land up in two parts, establishing an Arab emirate in Trans-Jordan and deprived the Jews of rights to the land east of the river.  Not only that but they made the new rule of Jews being forbidden from then on to buy land or live there.  At certain times they allowed Jewish immigration and other times they restricted immigration and even prevented buying land.  They were not following through with the charge they
were expected to uphold but were making up their own rules and favoring who they wished.

 Britain had never been that friendly towards Jews. Here we have a reporter and a chemist trying to  save lives by making some good points with the staid Brits. They wound up with very little of the original promised piece of land which turned out to be the bad sections as well.  They didn't say no, though.  A piece was better than nothing.    The Arabs, who had been offered the biggest and best part, said emphatically and have been since then, NO.

Resource: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qnXQ9_cMjLs
Facts About Israel, Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petah_Tikva
http://www.safed.co.il/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzedakah

Gang of Eleven Arab States in 1973 War Against Israel

Nadene Goldfoot

The 1967 Six Day War set the scene for the 1973 Yom Kippur War.  The Arabs wanted their land back, even after attacking in a mob and losing.  

Egypt's Sadat  was  demanding in 1971 that they would sign an agreement with Israel IF all occupied territories were returned to them from 1967. The next year he said war was inevitable and he was prepared to sacrifice one million soldiers in a showdown.  It remained a threat in 1972 and much of 1973 and he wanted the USA to accept his interpretation of Resolution 242;  total Israeli withdrawal from territories taken in 1967.  The USA agreed with Israel that Egypt needed to engage in direct negotiations, and Kissinger had opened a new dialogue for peace at the UN.  They all thought war was not on the table.  The surprise attack came on Yom Kippur, October 6, 1973.  This is the holiest day of the year for Jews, the day almost all are fasting and in the synagogues.  

The odds were awesome on 1st day!  

180 Israeli tanks against 1,400 Syrian tanks on Golan Heights

Abt 490  Israelis against 80,000 Egyptians along Suez Canal

By October 22nd, Resolution 338; cease fire called just when Israel cut off and isolated the Egyptian 3rd Army and was ready to destroy it. Israel had lost 2,688 soldiers in this war, which was more than any previous.  Consider that the population in Israel in 1972 was only 3,164,000 makes this a very high % lost in a war.  This war undermined the  growth record of Israel from May 1961 to May 1972 of 944,500.  Israel had had 315,000 immigrants.  This was a growth of 44%.  The Israeli Navy had sunk 34 ships and helped to save the population.   

Sadat  went to Jerusalem on November 20, 1977 and was highly welcomed. After attending the Camp David Accords in 1978, Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel on March 26, 1979.   He was gunned down by the Muslim Brotherhood (fundamentalists)  in 1981 because the killers had a different vision of Egypt, not the one Sadat had of believing in the development of a good relationship with the West.  Israel had returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt but kept the Gaza Strip which would go to the Palestinians for a state at the right time.  Since then Israel has withdrawn all from Gaza.  

We know that Egypt and Syria started the 1973 Yom Kippur War against Israel.  Their compatriots involved 11 other Arab states as well.  There's nothing like a gang to gang up on one tiny state and yet couldn't win with those odds.

1. Jordan was one of them, being Israel's neighbor, but he was probably the least enthusiastic.  It looks like he was kept out of the plans of Egypt and Syria.  He sent his 2 best units to participate, the 40th and 60th armored brigades--to Syria.  They were along the southern sector, defending the man Amman-Damascus route and attacked Israelis along the Kuneitra-Sassa road on October 16th.  3 Jordanian artillery batteries were also involved, carried out by almost 100 tanks.  

2. Iraq transferred a squadron of Hunter jets to Egypt a few months before the war started.  An Iraqi division of 18,000 men and around 200 tanks were deployed in the central Golan and were also in the October 16th attack against Israel.  Iraqi MiG's were over the Golan Heights by October 8th, the 3rd day of the war.  

3. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had men in the battle.  Saudis had a brigade of about 3,000 troops sent to Syria where they fought along the approaches to Damascus.  

4. Libya transferred Mirage fighters to Egypt to help out.  This was in violation of the Paris's ban on transferring French-made weapons.  From 1971 to 1973 Qaddafi had given Cairo over $1 billion in aid to rearm Egypt and pay the Soviets for weapons delivered.  

5. Algeria sent 3 aircraft squadrons of fighters and bombers, an armored brigade and 150 tanks.  

6. Tunisian soldiers numbering from 1,000 to 2,000 were positioned in the Nile Delta.  

7. Sudan stationed 3,500 troops in southern Egypt.

8. Morocco sent 3 brigades to the front lines including 2,500 men to Syria.  

9. Lebanon had radar units that were used by Syrian air defense forces.  

10.-11. Palestinians fought on the Southern Front with the Egyptians and Kuwaitis.  Lebanon also allowed Palestinian terrorists to shell Israeli  villages and towns from its territory.  

Resource: Myths and Facts-a concise record of the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Mitchell G. Bard and Joel Himelfarb

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern+History/Centenary+of+Zionism/The+Arab-Israeli+Wars.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_Sadat

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/sadat_speech.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81GdgmDA_L0 Sadat speech, part I 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=847888

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_conflict