All About Israel's Administered Areas From Six-Day War

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                       

  We Jews Do Not Enter Area A.  There is no similar sign on the other side for B and C.

Territories that were occupied by Israel in the course of the Six-Day War against Israel came about when the Israel Defense forces miraculously defeated the massed Arab armies which menaced Israel's frontiers.  There are 4 administrated areas.

1. Judea and Samaria (West Bank) of the Jordan.  This territory had been until 1948 part of the British Mandate of Palestine.  Between 1948 and 1967 it was ruled by Jordan, which annexed it in 1950.  Since Judea and Samaria were never officially annexed by the Israeli government, the IDF Civil Administration has jurisdiction over the districts today.

2. The Gaza Strip had also been, until 1948, part of the British Mandate of Palestine.  Between 1948 and 1967 (with a short interruption in 1956-7), following the Sinai War, it was administered by an Egyptian Military Government.  It was not annexed by Egypt. Israel left completely in 2005 but keeps control of shipping lanes to keep out arms to be used against her.  .

3. The Sinai Desert was, until 1967, under Egyptian administration. It was given back to Egypt in return for peace agreement in March 1979 by Sadat with Begin.  .

4. The Golan Heights were, until 1967, under Syrian administration.  Since the 67 War, the Golan has officially been incorporated as parts of Israel.

The status of the administered areas had not changed from June 1967 to 1973.  Pending a peace settlement in which the borders between Israel and its neighbors will be decided, it is that of territories occupied during a war.  Israel had not annexed any part of the areas.  East Jerusalem was reunified in June 1967 with West Jerusalem.

Population: By July 1972, almost a million Arabs lived in the administered areas.
640,600 of them in Judea and Samaria (2,270 sq miles)
388,600 of them in the Gaza Strip and North Sinai (140 sq. miles)
   8,000 of them in the Golan Heights (500 sq miles)

The population of the areas is predominantly Muslim.  The smaller Christian communities of Greek Orthodox and Latins are mainly in Ramallah, Bethlehem and Beit Jala.  In the Golan Heights there are Druzes.

Until a peace settlement, which will determine the political future of the areas, Israel's policy tries to achieve the objectives of co-existence and cooperation between the Arabs of the areas and Israelis.  It is trying to enable the people to live normal lives  and to maintain security to all alike.  During the 1970's, Judea, Samaria and Gaza were the 4th fastest growing economy in the world-ahead of such places as Singapore, Hong Kong and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself. (Historian Efrain Karsh).  Israel had been working hard to improve their lot.  

Local Authorities include 23 municipalities and 31 rural councils in Judea and Samaria.  Elections were held in 1972 in accordance with Jordanian law.  75% of voter participation caused about half the mayors to be replaced by new ones.   There were 3 municipalities and 7 rural councils in the Gaza Strip and North Sinai.  Liason officers of the Israel Ministry of the Interior approved their budgets, arranged to lend them funds at low interest, and audited their finances and administration.

Israeli Living in Administered Areas:  Between June 1967 and December 1972, Israel had established 14 towns in the Golan, 6 in Judea and Samaria, 7 in Gaza and North Sinai and 5 in East and South Sinai.  by 1977 there were 76 Jewish communities built in the Territories on undeveloped land.
 There are 3 different types:

1. Nahal villages:  Established by the IDF.  Nahal is a corps which combines military training with farm work.  Members become farmers when service ends.  The villages are military points, like those held by any other unit of the IDF.

2. Civilian villages:  Established in areas which Israel hopes may be assigned to its jurisdiction by peace treaties.  Israel knows where borders need to be for security.  These positions are not conditions and that in peace talks, everything will be negotiable.

3. Communities: Established where political future is not covered  with the assumption that should the area revert to Arab sovereignty under a treaty of peace, it should be allowed to continue to live in it just as Arab communities live in Israel..  We are talking about our ancient history of Judea and Samaria, established by King David and his son, King Solomon of which this land contains the Jewish holy shrines in areas beyond the bounds of pre-1967 Israel.  No Israeli would relinquish large parts of the administered area or accept any arrangement that banned Jews from living in places which are of religious and historical significance.

By 1977, some Israelis, such as the survivors of the Gush Etzion block, returned to rebuild Jewish communities that Arab forces had captured and destroyed in the 1948 war.  After 1977, 74 additional communities were built in the Territories on unallocated government land.  By 2005, the 150 communities included about 200,000 Israelis living on less than 2% of the land of Judea and Samaria.   80% of the people here live in communities close to the Green Line, currently consisting of suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.  The Green Line (a pre-1967 boundary) is not an internationally recognized border.  It is an armistice line, marking positions held by Israeli and Arab troops when the final truce was called at the end of the 1948 War.  the Green Line remained an armistice line because Arab leaders refused to negotiate to set final border lines.  The Oslo Accords called for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate for a final border between the State of Israel and a future Palestinian state.  To date, these negotiations haven't resolved outstanding issues to the satisfaction of both parties.

Disputed Territories:  The communities that Israel built in Gaza and Judea and Samaria were in undeveloped, uninhabited areas and are entirely legal.  Palestinians have legitimate claims to sovereignty over some of the land..  Many are longtime inhabitants who feel they have been deprived of political rights and self-determination.  Israel disputes their territorial claims and Israel also has strong claims to the land.  Therefore, these lands are referred to as disputed territories.  Israel has 3 types of claims:

1. Legal claims:  The British Mandate 1920-1948.  this was the last legal sovereign authority for the Territories.  Jordan and Egypt illegally held them between 1948 to 1967.  They remain unallocated portions of the British Mandate since no government formally replaced the mandate's jurisdiction.  The guidelines called for Jews to settle the area on what was called, The Jewish Homeland as per League of Nations.  the Jews' right to live on the land is a "legal right assured by treaty and specifically protected by Article 80 of the UN charter.  ...the Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of existing Palestinian population to live there.  (Eugene Rostow, former US under Secretary of State, 1990).

2. Historical claims:  Judea and Samaria (West Bank) were the cradle of Jewish civilization since the 2nd millenium BCE and had a continuous Jewish presence until the 1948 War when Jewish inhabitants were killed and about 10,000 were expelled by the Jordanians.

3. Security-related claims:  Arab states had repeatedly launched attacks against Israel from the Territories' strategic locations and UN Resolution 242 envisioned bilateral negotiations that would give Israel more secure borders and lead to greater regional stability.  Until 1988, the PLO officially continued to call for a Palestinian state to replace Israel, not for a separate state that would exist alongside it.  Today Abbas offers recognition if Israel takes his steps that would allow the destruction of the state as they continue to call for the destruction of the state!

Ending Occupation:   From 1993 to 2007, Israel gradually ended the "Occupation."  when the Oslo peace process began in 1993, Israel began ending its military administration as it turned civil governance of the Palestinian population over to their elected government.  In 1994 Israel began turning the administration over to the PA.  However, radical Palestinian groups call all of Israel "Occupied Territory."  Since 2005, Israel uprooted Jewish communities from Gaza.  Israel's goal was to help create a self-governing Palestinian state in all of Gaza and most of Judea and Samaria, incorporating land where 98% of Palestinians live.

Since 1993, the regions have been divided into areas A, B, and C.  Area A was assigned to the Palestinian Authority where most of the Arab residents live. According to many estimates, 1.5 million Arabs live in the region.  Accurate statistics have been difficult to obtain with claims that Arab demographics have been artificially inflated.   Area B is under joint control and has large tracts of barren land.  Israel has full control of Area C where most of the over 340,000 Jewish residents live.

All the while, Israel's security needs remain urgent.  In Gaza, the Hamas-led Palestinian government continues to call for Israel's destruction and even after the recent cease fire, have fired rockets, missiles and mortars into southern Israel.   Israel has been repeatedly attacked from Palestinian and Lebanese territories.  Hamas has ties with Iran, Syria and Hezbollah and has forged ties with al Qaeda.  They all call for Israel's destruction.  

Today an even bigger threat looms over Israel with Iran getting atomic capabilities and their threat to destroy Israel.  Syria, though engaged in a 2 year old civil war and has killed almost or more than 80,000 of their own people, are now threatening Israel with missiles bought from Russia.  Egypt is falling apart since putting in a Muslim Brotherhood leader, Morsi.  Jordan is straining with taking in Syria's refugees and a large Palestinian citizen population.  The Middle East is heating up along with the weather.   

Resource:  Facts About Israel 1973, published by the Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem
Israel 101 published by Stand with Us, supported by Christians United for Israel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt%E2%80%93Israel_Peace_Treaty
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/163774 Sections A, B, C
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea_and_Samaria_Area
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2013/04/some-facts-about-occupation-subject.html
http://israel-nadene.blogspot.com/2013/05/1973s-real-nitty-gritty-on-judaea-and.html

The State Israel Was In Ten Years Ago

Nadene Goldfoot                                            

On December 28, 2003, I noted the following in my speech about Israel.  I noted that there were 44 Muslim states with 1 billion people in an area 672 times the size of Israel, yet the Muslims were having a fit over the creation of the only Jewish state in the world that is in their neighborhood.  They were more than intolerant.  22 large sovereign Arab states are in the Middle East including oil rich Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, who steadfastly refuse to absorb the so-called "Palestinian refugees;" preferring to keep them as political pawns in order to blame Israel for their plight!                                                                            
Arabs are living in Israel and are citizens.  They even have a political group and are in the Knesset.  Yet Jews are not allowed in Arab countries today.  The recent earthquake in Iran called for all people to come to help-except the Jews.

Israel has absorbed millions of Jewish refugees;  from the Holocaust, former Soviet Union, Ethiopian black Jewish community, and more than 850,000 Sephardic or Mizrachi Jews, many of whom were expelled from their homes in Arab lands where they had lived for generations, with no compensation for their property which was confiscated!

Since the moment of its recent birth on May 14, 1948, Israel was attacked by all the surrounding Arab countries.  Israel was then 55 years old, and its future was on the line.

              Let's start with some history about Israel.  

1.  Over 3,300 years ago, Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people.  this biblical kingdom was first ruled by Saul in 1020 BCE.(before the common era.).  King David ruled from 1010-970 BCE and King Solomon ruled from 961-920 BCE.  When Solomon died, the kingdom was split into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.  Then the Romans conquered the area in 70 CE and they renamed the area "Palestine."  To the Jews who never left, it has always been known as Eretz Israel.  Yes, never left.  Though much of the land was decimated, the people taken prisoners or killed, some did remain.  Thus, we have always had a Jewish presence in the land.

2. The first Arabs arrived as conquerors in the 7th century, 2,500 years after the Jews had been there.  

3. In 1917 after WWI, Britain was given the task of supervising Palestine.  The Jews had fought with the British, and the Arabs had fought with the Germans.  Chaim Weizmann developed dynamite for the British, and the Jews were rewarded the homeland they had striven for.  The British promised them a Jewish Homeland; a territory consisting of both present day Jordan, Israel and the administered territories.  This was called the Balfour Declaration.  

Because the British had 2nd thoughts about it and wanted to appease the Arabs, they offered only half of the territory in the end to the Jews, who accepted it.  The other half was offered to Emir Feisal, ancestor of today's King of Jordan.  Then they offered half of Israel's half to the Arabs who rejected it.  Actually, the Arabs had thought of the area as belonging to Syria and wanted it to go back to them.

4. There has never existed, in all of history, an independent Arab state of Palestine.  It has been since Roman times fairly recently belonging to the Ottoman Empire.  The British had the mandate of caring for it.  It has been practically uninhabited, a wasteland made of swamps and desert.  No one did anything with it.  It was as if it was waiting for Israelis to come back and build it again.  

5. In 1922 Britain transferred 2/3 of the mandated Palestine to the Hashemite Bedouins who were driven out of Saudi Arabia by a rival clan.  That became Jordan and no Jews are allowed to live inside it today.   Yet Jordanians came across the bridge to work daily in Israel.  This is how Jordan came to be.  Today Jordan is made up mostly of people called Palestinians.  The king of Jordan is married to a Palestinian woman.

6.  This brings us up to the end of WWII.  6 million Jews were killed due to Nazi Germany.   Those that survived could not longer live in Europe.  People there were still trying to kill them, especially in Poland.  They needed a home of their own to go to.  

Jews had been returning to Eretz Israel in the late 1800's and creating kibbutzim.  They had legitimately bought land, drained swamps and started building towns.  They wanted their homeland back. They worked toward that goal with several Zionist congresses.  They conferred with Arab leaders.  Much of the land was owned by Arab landowners who were living in Europe, and they bought it at high prices, because  it was precious to them.

In 1947 the U.N. partitioned mandated Palestine into Jewish and Arab states which the Arabs rejected and then started war to drive the Jews into the sea the minute Israel was declared a state.  200,000 to 570,000 Arabs needlessly left the area so they would not obstruct the victorious Arab armies in their planned massacre of the Jewish defenders.  Many were told to leave by their own leaders.  The Arabs did not win in their attack on the infant country and did not return.  They settled in refugee camps.  The whole situation is used as a club against Israel.  These people came from the surrounding areas such as Greece and the closer Arab neighbors seeking work with the new immigrants who were building a country.  If they had only been in Palestine for 2 years they were deemed "refugees" by the British who were keeping records, such as they were.

160,000 Arabs stayed in Israel in 1948.  200,000 had left their homes.  Many of the successful Palestinian Arabs are the Christians who live in Haifa.  They are not the terrorists.  Israel has had good relations with the Christian Lebanese who were in trouble in 1981-82.  Major Hadad, their leader, would come to Israel for his R&R.  He also came to our hospital.  We had a deal with him to take care of is family if anything happened to him.  I might add that Arab income is the highest in Israel compared to the rest of the Arab world.  

7.  At the same time, 700,000 Jews who lived in the Arab countries such as Yemen, etc, were driven from their homes and needed to come to Israel.  They came and were settled.

8.  Israel is less than 1/3rd the size of Oregon, or 1/19th the size of California.  It is made of 10,840 sq. miles.  California has 160,222 sq miles.  Without the territories it is only 8,000 sq miles, or 2 1/2 times the size of Rhode Island.  It's slightly smaller than New Jersey with a population of about 6.7 million.  5.4 million were Jewish as of May 2003.  Only 17% of the land is arable.  It's 260 miles long, 60 miles at the widest, 3 to 9 miles at the narrowest.  This is roughly the distance from La Guardia airport to downtown Manhattan.   We're talking about a very small piece of real estate.  In comparison, in the year 2,000, New York City had 8,008,278 people.  

9. Jordan is 70% Arab Palestinian Arabs.  Jordan is made of 2/3 of the original mandated Palestine.  Jordan is an Arab Palestine.  In actuality, they already have their state that is ruled by a Hashemite king, which their political leaders reject.  

Why is it that people call Israel aggressors?  Since its inception, Israel has had to be defensive to exist.  It is constantly being attacked.  We haven't started any war nor do we want their land.  We have always wanted peace.  

The Palestinians and the surrounding neighbors have not accepted a Jewish presence in their Muslim neighborhood.  Their goal has always been to drive the Jews out and take over the land.  Only after the War of 48 (War of Independence) where 6 Arab armies attacked Israel, and the War of 56 and the war of 67 (6 day war) when Israel conquered the Gaza Strip, the vast Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights, and also repossessed the provinces of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and the eastern part of Jerusalem, which had been occupied by the Jordanians 19 years earlier when they invaded Israel in 1948, and the war of 73 (Yo Kippur) has Egypt and Jordan, the two closest neighbors, begrudgingly accepted Israel's presence, much to the horror of their Arab brothers.  To make peace with Egypt, Israel returned all the Sinai to Egypt.  Israel has always been prepared to give autonomy to Arabs living in Judea and Samaria and has wanted to keep it for security reasons.  

Israel is one of the smallest countries in the world.  It is the only democracy in the area.  

Since Israel's inception, all men and women are in the army by age 18.  I had to get used to seeing so many soldiers with their guns on the streets when I lived there from 1980-1985.  You get used to it after awhile.  All men serve in the IDF for a month every year until the age of 55.  It's called, "going into the milueem."  that affects wherever they are working.  They just usually don't get replaced.  There are no substitutes, even in school.  

You learn to never  pick up any trash on the streets.   It could be a planted bomb.  Every building, such as schools, stores, etc., have checkers at the door going through your purse, etc., before entering.  children have to learn this as soon as they learn to walk.  

One time while shopping in the Hadar area in Haifa, I saw the police robot at work.  A box of cookies had been left on the sidewalk.  The police were called, and the robot shot at it.  Luckily, it was only a big box of cookies, but you never know.  It could have been a planted bomb.  I almost picked up a loaf of bread I found outside my school.  That's when I learned that bombs had been planted in such loaves.  This was in 1980.  We learned that bombs were placed in every sort of container imaginable, even toothpaste boxes.  

Our apartment had a bomb shelter in the building, but our German shepherd, Blintz, was not allowed in it, so I decided that I would not go in, either.  

Everywhere you looked you saw young soldiers, both men and women in uniform carrying rifles.  I was told they even have to sleep with their rifles.

We trained for the civil guard and did our duty every month.  We rode in a police van and I took Blintz with me on my tour.  

                                                The 1982 Lebanon War

While going to Haifa to the hospital to check on my crushed elbow that had 6 screws in it, I saw tanks coming up the highway and thought that there were so many of them, and wondered what was going on.  The hospital was empty.  The doctors were in a hurry and couldn't make an appointment for an operation for me to take out the screws.  It was an army hospital, and the doctors knew that we were at war and they would soon be swamped with patients.  Israeli hospitals take in any wounded, Israeli or Arab.  My junior high male students went there and talked to the Arab injured by using English in order to help the nurses and doctors in their care of them.  

People live in high rise apartments.  There are very few homes except in the new towns in Judea and Samaria.  I saw a few homes in Safed.  One belonged to my writer friend, Dov Silverman.  Some had been excavated from an ancient earthquake and were restored as lovely homes.  I visited a friend who lived in one of those.  

This is a very brief summation of the history of Israel.  I suggest the following books for further information:

The Case For Israel by Alan Dershowitz.  it is excellent.  In his summation, Dershowitz doesn't even count the ancient historical claim of the Jews for the land.  He starts with the United Nations charter as a legal state.

Palestinians have constantly been offered a chance to have their own state alongside Israel and  always Israel has accepted the offer and the Arabs have refused it.

The Palestinians want to be able to allow all Palestinians to return to the area.  This would flood the land.  Actually, there were very few original Palestinians (stateless people, migrants as you will) in Israel in 1947-48.  They would want to overpower the area by population in this "return"

Sharon has said he will trade land for peace.  The Arabs do not want to recognize Israel's existence.   Arafat continually made other Arab leaders angry by not accepting offers.  

Another book to read if you're really into it is From time Immemorial by Joan Peters.  It was written by a non-Jewish woman reporter who originally thought the Palestinians were being given a raw deal by Israel.  In her research she discovered just who Palestinians really were.  Peters spent 7 years researching for this book.  The main thesis of the book is that the Palestinians were a ragtag group of workers who came into the area  from the surrounding countries.  The president of the USA thought so much of the book that he had Peters working for him in the White House.  

Read Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad.  It shows just how empty Palestine was at his time in the 1860's.  

Read Myths and Facts-a concise record of the Arab-Israeli conflict by Mitchell G. Bard, PhD.  

Crash Course on the Arab Israeli Conflict

                                                                 

Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel,  gave an interview and was asked about Israel's occupation of Arab lands.  His response was, "It's our land."  The reporter (CNN or the like) was stunned.

Here are the overlooked facts in the current Middle East situation.  These were compiled by a Christian university professor.  It should take you only 1.5 minutes to read!!!  It makes sense and it's not slanted.

1.  Nationhood and Jerusalem:  Israel became a nation in 1312 - 1271 BCE,  2,000 years before the rise of Islam.

2. Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, 2 decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

3. Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 BCE, the Jews have had dominion over the land for 1,000 years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.

4. The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 CE lasted no more than 22 years.

5. For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital.  Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity.  Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.

6. Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy scriptures (Bible).  Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.

7.  King David founded the city of Jerusalem.  Mohammed never came to Jerusalem. (The farthest mosque is not an accurate description of Jerusalem.) 

8. Jews pray facing Jerusalem.  Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.

9. Arab and Jewish Refugees:  In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews.  68% left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.

10. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.  Arab leaders were incensed with creation of Israel, kicked out the Jews.

11. The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000.  The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.

12. Arab refugees were INTENTIONALLY not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory.  Out of the 100,000 refugees since WWII, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands.  Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.

13. The Arab-Israeli Conflict:  The Arabs are represented by 8 separate nations, not including the Palestinians. All Muslim countries back them.   There is only one Jewish nation.  The Arab nations initiated all 5 wars and lost.  Israel defended itself each time and won.

14. The PLO's Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.  Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority (PA), and has supplied them.

15.  Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship.  Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.

16. The UN Record on Israel and the Arabs:  Of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.

17.  Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.

18. The UN was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.

19. The UN was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

20. The UN was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount AND the Western (Wailing) Wall.

Resource:UPDATE: 7/1/13  http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/prager-university-the-middle-east-problem?utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content=12Tribe+Films%3A+Martin+Luther+King+Jr%3A+%E2%80%9CIsrael%E2%80%A6+is+one+of+the+great+outpost+of+democracy+in+the+world%E2%80%9D+and+More+&utm_campaign=20130630_m116492712_7%2F1+12Tribe+Films%3A+Martin+Luther+King+Jr%3A+%E2%80%9CIsrael%E2%80%A6+is+one+of+the+great+outpost+of+democracy+in+the+world%E2%80%9D+and+More&utm_term=pragerU_jpg  Excellent Video by Dennis Prager
Email from cousin Denise Bremridge
Christian University Professor

Peace Proposal from Kerry and Abbas At World Economic Forum to Israel

Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

                      Jordan 's Dead Sea Palms, a Health Resort

This alert from Palestine Media Watch tells it all.  What Abbas says in English is one thing, but what he says in Arabic to his people is another thing. Palestine Media Watch can translate from Arabic to English and tell us the real scoop.   "Jibril Rajoub, senior PA and Fatah leader:

"We as yet don't have a nuke, but I swear that if we had a nuke, we'd have used it this very morning."[Al-Mayadeen TV (Lebanon), 

April 30, 2013]

You have to understand what people stand for and what their motivation is besides what comes out of national media- and then be able to get a translation.   

If you read the Oregonian this morning about the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa, you will see on page A4 a picture of John Kerry, Mahmoud Abbas and Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in Jordan at the Dead Sea.  It is the worst picture I have seen.  Peres is staring straight ahead looking rather sickly next to Kerry who is smiling and whose right hand is almost touching Abbas's while Abbas has such a grin on his face and has is left hand extended to Kerry's right hand.  It just looks like they're laughing at some joke and enjoying themselves so, and Peres is just sitting with his hands folded in his lap out of it.    The heading is "A plan to invigorate Judea and Samaria (West Bank). Of course cameramen take upteen takes on pictures.  They couldn't possibly get a picture of all 3 smiling  and being more together.  Well, maybe that just wasn't the case.  I can understand why Peres felt a little out of it if that was the case as the picture conveys to me.  (picture by Jim Young/The Associated Press)

I just sent an article I wrote in 2008 to a friend about all the things Israel did by 1973 to help Judea and Samaria in agriculture (see reference below) , which is much  what Kerry is proposing to Abbas.  I bet Peres is sitting there saying, but didn't we do all this ages ago? Of course now it's been proposed by the Arabs. 

The Arab proposal offers Israel full recognition and normalization with all Arab nations in exchange for:

1. Israel withdrawing to its 1967 borders including

    a. pulling out of East Jerusalem

2. A "just" settlement for Palestinian refugees who wish to return home to live in peace or receive compensation.-(sure...)

This proposal would give the region of West Bank an estimated $4 billion in economic boost.  Where would it come from?  Promises from the Arab states like they do at the UN or cash from the USA?  It always winds up with the USA carrying the load.  

Abbas is saying, "so what are we waiting for?  We plead with you.  Just read these 2 pages. "  Well, we waited for 5 years for him to sit down and talk to us, and it doesn't look like he is doing much talking to Peres in the picture.  I don't think Israel can possibly go for this even with the inducement to be able to converse with Syria or Iran, if they're even in on this.  How lucky can Israel get?  These proposals that Kerry thinks are so neat would break Israel apart.  Good grief!  Netanyahu wasn't at the meeting.  He's busy with the chemical "Sarin" attack practice of the whole country of Israel, no doubt.  Also, a missile just came into Israel from southern Lebanon late Sunday night.  

Abbas isn't fooling Israel.  Most people there are tri-lingual.  He can't pull the wool over their eyes.  His proposal are the two topics that cannot be given into for Israel.  Obviously, Kerry's forte is economics, not history.  

Reference:  Palestine Media Watch http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=9090 Abbas falsely proclaims that there is no PA incitement
http://israel-nadene.blogspot.com/2013/03/land-of-judea-samaria-west-bank-and.html  about all the agriculture activities Israel had done to help Judea and Samaria 

Oregonian newspaper, page A4, A plan to invigorate West Bank-by Anne Gearah and William Bogth, Washington Post, also News Update: Syria-Lebanon strife page A4.  

Life Outside of Israel and Judea in Diaspora: Expulsions in an Intolerant World Society

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                         

                     The Life, Culture and Religion of the Byzantine Empire

 Jews faced expulsion from Rome in 139 BCE by the praetor, Hispanus.  Jews had migrated to Rome from Alexandria, Egypt.  They then made up a significant part of the population there.   This was during the Ptolemaic era.   They had then gone to Rome.  Josephus, the Jewish general who had been the historian for the Romans said that he himself had led 120,000 Jewish captives, probably from the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE  to Egypt from Jerusalem and other parts of Judea, Samaria and Mt. Gerizim.  Soon after they were freed of their bondage  by Philadelphus.

The Roman Empire made Constantinople its capital by the 4th Century and this was called the Byzantine Empire.  This empire extended throughout the world and included "Palestine" even by the year 637.  The eastern emperors  had specific religious attitudes towards Jews.  Justinian (527-65) created anti-Jewish laws in his Code, and also issued a decree in 553 which affected the conduct of the synagogue services.  Heraclius around 614 to have issued an edict ordering the conversion of the Jews.  Judaism was continually forbidden by successive emperors; by Leo in 223, Basil I in 873-4, Romanus Lucapenus in 932-6, and so it went.  Each time Jewish life picked up and continued.  It was not about to be stomped out.

Benjamin of Tudela around 1170 found Jewish communities throughout the Byzantine Empire.  He discovered that Jews were treated with contempt in Constantinople.  The last remaining Jews there were conquered by the Turks in 1453.

The results of religious intolerance grew in the early Middle Ages.  Forced conversions to the dominant faith of Christianity without the alternative of exile was frequent during the days of the Byzantine Empire.  Jews faced expulsions when they refused to be converted to Christianity.  Today, the city of Constantinople is renamed as Istanbul.  The Eastern orthodox church grew out of it and separated from the Western Church with its headquarters in Rome in 1054.  Later it again divided into the Greek Orthodox and the Russian Orthodox with each group being independent.

  This is why the Pilgrims braved a journey in the Mayflower and sailed from Holland to the unknown land of America in 1620.  Though they were Christians, their outlook was a little different than the English viewpoint.  Thus, the USA became a country of religious tolerance; not quickly, but eventually.

We're still wondering if Christopher Columbus was Jewish by birth.  He wrote letters to his son in Hebrew.  His interpreter, Luis de Torres, a converted Jew, was the first European to set foot on American soil. His name was Yosef ben HaLevi Halvi.   Jews who were hiding the fact and pretending to be Catholics that had been converted were called Marranos.  Marranos had settled in both the Spanish and the Portuguese colonies because of the Inquisition of 1492.  The term, Marranos is not used today. Jews do not eat any meat from pigs.   It means "swine" in Spanish and was applied in Spain and Portugal to the descendants of baptized Jews who were suspected of secret adherence to Judaism.  Another word used today to replace the pejorative term of Marranos is Anussim, a Hebrew word.   Inquisitors would have people report on suspects who were thought to have evidence of them refusing to eat any pork products.  It is said that the Inquisition still exists in Portugal today!

 After the massacres in 1391 in Spain, more Jews in this position grew to appreciate their Jewish heritage.  All the Jews of Portugal for forcibly converted in 1497.  With the Inquisition in Portugal by 1540, the Marranos/Anussim were persecuted in Spain to the close of the 18th century and into Mexico into the 1800's.  Many escaped to Italy, North Africa and Turkey.  Anussim in Italy lived in Ancona, Ferrara, Venice and Leghorn.  Antwerp was another popular center in the 16th century.  Amerstadam, Holland was another as well as the Hague and Rotterdam.   When Brazil was under Dutch rule (1630-54) the first openly Jewish communities were founded by native Anussim and immigrants from Holland.

By 1880, the Jewish population in the USA had grown to 250,000 mostly from German Jews.  A small group settled in Canada then.   The pogroms of 1881 in Russia brought Russian Jews and immigration continuing into 1914, when it was lessened.  Jews went into Latin America such as Baron de Hirsch's agricultural colonies in Argentina.  1924's legislation in the USA  caused more Jews to immigrate to Canada and South America.  By 1933 those Jews in Germany were trying to immigrate to these places.  Spanish-speaking Sephardi immigrants were attracted to South America.  By 1989, Jews of the USA numbered 5,825,000.  47,000 lived in Central America and 390,000 lived in South America.

Religious intolerance continues in the USA but has taken on a new form.  By being intolerant to Israel, people  are venting their intolerance again towards Jews.  I notice many Protestant groups that are boycotting Israel's products as a religious body in trying to force them to think their way, not towards religion, necessarily but towards their attitude towards the Palestinians whom they know very little.  They side with a people trying to destroy Israel.  This is plain enough for me to see that they are not much different than the Byzantine Empire's attitude towards Jews.  On the other side of the coin are the Evangelical Christians who support Jews in order to carry forth their own religious concepts and that they support our right to live there as Jews.

139 BCE:  Jews expulsed from Rome

 19 CE        "        "                       "

 49/50        "        "                       "

115 CE     Jews expulsed from Cyprus

1182      Royal dominions of France-expulsed Jews who wouldn't convert

1290     All Jews expulsed from England

1306      Jews expulsed from France
1322       "                                "
1394      "                                "
1348/49  Jews expulsed from Germany  after Black Death Massacres
1349-60 Jews expulsed from Hungary
1421     Jews expulsed from Austria
1484     Jews  kept out of Andalusia, an autonomous community in Spain with Seville as capital
1492    Jews expulsed  from Spain and Spanish dominions including Sicily and Sardinia of 180,000
1495    Jews expulsed from Lithuania
1497    Jews expulsed from Portugal or fate was forced conversions, also Sicily and Sardinia
1498    Jews expulsed from  Navarre, now part of Spain and France
1502    All Jews expulsed from Rhodes, or forcibly converted or taken as slaves
1512   Jews expulsed from  Provence, a province of SE France
1541   Jews expulsed from kingdom of Naples, Italy
1569   Jews expulsed from smaller centers of papal dominions in Italy and France.
1727   Jews expulsed from Little Russia
1739    "                              "
1742   "                              "
1747  Jews expulsed from Russia again.
1891  Jews expulsed from Moscow and St. Petersburg
19th Century Jews expulsed periodically from areas outside of PALE OF SETTLEMENT (Russian land where Jews were allowed to live-Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Belorussia, Ukraine)
1930's during Nazi power people with Jewish ancestry, regardless of present religious affiliations, compelled their emigration by means of ferocious persecution before they even started to deport and exterminate Jews.

For the Jewish people today, the remnant of a people who brought to the world the 10 Commandments and laws of which acts are acceptable and which aren't,  as well as a vast history of the beginnings of man in the Middle East and even brought into the world Jesus according to their own history,  there has been nothing but intolerance and unacceptedness.  Because Jews refused to convert and let go of their beliefs, they have suffered mightily.  Here they are today in their own land once again.  They know what has happened to their people when they were forced to leave.  They hold on with all their might to land legally theirs once again.

One of the miracles of today are a few Christians who are actually studying the Torah and are finding it awesome.This is not through any Jewish proselyting but they are discovering this on their own.   I believe this has brought on new found respect for the Jewish people who have always found it awesome and worth saving.  Perhaps if such an attitude existed long ago, the world would be a much different society.  At least we can say that many Jewish lives wouldn't have been uprooted or wouldn't have suffered such horrible deaths.  .

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10721a.htm on Navarre
http://sefarad.org/sefarad/sefarad.php/id/29/  "I am a Marrano"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marrano
http://www.jackwhite.net/iberia/portugal.html   excellent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_de_Torres
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Egypt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemy_II_Philadelphus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnaeus_Cornelius_Scipio_Hispanus
Facts About Israel , divisionof Information, Ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem 

THE Land, Ha'Aretz- PALESTINE

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                      

Territories for Simeon, Judah, Dan, Benjamin, Reuben, Ephraim, Gad, Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali and Manasseh

Palestine was Jewish land.  It was a basic tenet to Christian theology that the loss of the Jews' national independence was an act of G-d.  It was designed to punish the Jewish people for their rejection of "Christ." Christians felt they had to help G-d so that some emperors' minimal criteria of oppression and restriction of the Jews was always maintained as well as the maximum sort, such as in the Spanish Inquisition of 1492.

Eretz Yisrael (Israel and Judea) was the country of the Jews of which even the size and geography is outlined in the Torah/Bible.  That it was his country was a part of his theoretical exercise, an article of his theology and a sophisticated political feeling.  It was a pervasive and inextricable part of his daily life.

Jewish prayers and Jewish literature are filled with the love and longing for and the feeling of belonging to Eretz Yisrael and has been going on for the past 4,000 years.  It's part and parcel of our DNA.  It's in our soul.  "There is no theme so pervasive in the literature of any other nation," no theme that has yielded so much thought and feeling and expression as the relationship of the Jew to his land in Jewish literature and philosophy.  After all, G-d had led Moses back to the land and through Moses directed the people of the Exodus  where they should settle.

Jerusalem was taken and burned in 70 CE by the Romans.  The Jews' attachment to this land has never wavered.  Though many of the Jews were led away then as slaves, there were others, especially in the Galilee, who had never left.  Jewish life was maintained in the country.

In 135 CE, Simon Bar Kochba led a revolt against the Romans which failed. It had been the fiercest and longest revolt ever faced by the Roman Empire.  There were 580,000 Jewish soldiers that died defending their land.  Many civilians died of starvation and pestilence.  985 Jewish villages were destroyed.

 That was over 60 years after the 2nd Temple was destroyed.  The Romans decided to waste the country then in a determined effort to stamp out the Jewish identity.  They plowed over Jerusalem at the direction of Emperor Hadrian.  Then they renamed it Aelia Capitolina, and Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina.

Banished from Jerusalem, Jews went to the Galilee in the northern section of their land.  Refugees returned.  Jews sold into slavery were redeemed and returned.   There arose some of the most important creativity of the Jewish people when the Mishnah and the Jerusalem Talmud were finished.  Most of the people farmed the land.

The Roman Empire became Christian by the 4th century CE.  Their policy was to stop any spark of Judaism that might show up.  Even so, 43 Jewish communities in Palestine in the 6th century were revived:  12 towns on the coast, in the Negev and east of the Jordan,  and 31 villages in Galillee and in the Jordan Valley were reborn.  National restoration was in the hearts of the Jews.  In 351 they staged another revolt which was put down.  In 438 the Empress Eudocia ended the ban on Jews' praying at the Temple site.

This caused the Jews to think that a period of restoration had finally come and they made an alliance with the Persians who invaded Palestine in 614.  Jews fought at their side and overwhelmed the Byzantine garrison in Jerusalem.  They governed the city for the next 3 years.  The Persians made peace with Emperor Heraclius and Christian rule was reestablished.  This meant that Jews were banished from the city again.  The Byzantine persecution started up again but was short-lived because in 632, when Mohammed died, the Moslem Arab invaders came and conquered the land.  By 640, Palestine had become part of the Moslem Empire.

They ruled for 450 years, first under the Omayyads (mostly all Arabs) who governed tolerantly from Damascus, and then under the Abbasid dynasty (mostly all Turkish) who governed from Baghdad.  So Jews were governed either tolerantly or persecuted and then ruled by the Fatimids from Cairo.  The Moslem Arabs took away lands from the Jews that they had held onto for 20 generations after the fall of the Jewish state.  The Crusaders came after them and had ruled Palestine or parts of it for a little more than 2 centuries and it was they who massacred the Jews in the cities.  Under the Moslems and Crusaders, the Jewish communities of Palestine held on with their prayers and chutzpah and survived.  The Jews had been some of the best fighters against the Crusaders.  When the city of Jerusalem fell, the Crusaders had gathered the Jews up in a synagogue and burned them.  Haifa was defended by the Jews for a month from June to July 1099.  In that year, 1,000 years after the 70 CE fall of Jerusalem, there were Jewish communities that had sprung up all over Ha'aretz (Palestine).  50 of them remain well known, such as Jerusalem, Tiberias, Ramleh, Ashkelon, Caesarea and Gaza.

In 1516 the Ottoman Turks were tolerant and fairly  friendly towards the Jews.  30 Jewish communities were recorded then:  Haifa, Sh'chem, Hebron, Ramleh, Jaffa, Gaza, Jerusalem and many in the north.  Their center was Safed (Tzfat) which became the largest in Palestine and took on the spiritual leadership of the whole Jewish world.  The mystic Caballa was developed.  8,000 to 10,000 Jews lived here in 1555 and the population grew to 20,000 or 30,000 by 1600.  Some of the Galilean villages survived, showing that Jews clung to the land for 15 centuries in succession.  Jews brought in the first printing press into Palestine, and Asia, for that matter.  It was brought to Safed and printed in Hebrew.  Maybe it was their prosperity that caused Sultan Murad III in 1576-77 to deport 1,000 wealthy Jews from Safed to Cyprus, where he needed some economic assistance.

                                          Chronology of Jews in Ha'aretz

1250 BCE    Moses' appointed leader, Joshua, led the 600,000 Israelites into the Land of Israel
1000-922 BCE  King David and son Solomon ruled a united Jewish kingdom in Israel
721 BCE           10 of 12 tribes of Jacob  are defeated by Assyrians and taken into exile, slavery
586 BCE           Babylonians defeat kingdom of Judah and exiled leaders, people to Babylon
539 BCE          Cyrus the Great of Persia sends Jews back to Israel, live and rebuild temple
458 BCE          Ezra leads exiled Jews back to Israel
332 BCE          Alexander the Great conquers Israel
167 BCE          Jewish Maccabees revolt against Greek  Antiochus IV Epiphanes
37-4 BCE        Herod, appointed by Rome, ruled over Judea, works on Temple
70 CE              Titus, emperor of Rome, crushes Jewish revolt
135                  Bar Kokhba Revolt
1096          First Christian Crusade massacre Jews across France, Rhineland, Bohemia on way to Jerusalem
1146                Second Christian Crusade, Jewish communities attacked
1453               Ottomans conquer Constantinople, invite Jews to return to the city
1880-1897      Theodor Herzl holds 1st Zionist Congress for return to Eretz Yisrael, Jews have returned
1904-1914      2nd Aliyah, 40,000 Jews from Russia return to Ha'Aretz, 3rd and 4th aliyote followed
Nov 2, 1917   Balfour Declaration of Jewish National Homeland Declared
May 14, 1948  State of Israel Declared; 600,000 Jews in Population
2013               Israel population :  6 million Jews, 1.7 million Arabs

There is no other people in the world who have maintained their love for their original land as much nor as long as the Jews have, nor has there been a people from the ancient days that have existed for so long as this people maintaining their religion.  Though Judaism has grown along with the generations, the main concept has remained the same.  It is not an "old time" religion but one that is prevalent in today's age along with its people who are  among the most creative and intelligent. Judaism is based on social righteousness.   Jews in Israel continue to cling to their beloved Ha'Aretz; the tiny speck of land of Israel;   the granted 20% of what used to be theirs.

Jews were chosen by G-d to carry out a heavy duty, and only G-d knows how hard they have tried to do this.  They were chosen not because they were the best of all people but because they had such a stubborn trait, a stiff-necked people.  They had been chosen to carry the message of G-d's law to the world, based on the covenant between G-d and Abraham and renewed at Sinai with Moses.  Isaiah described Israel as  those whose sufferings will bring salvation to the world.  One thing we know.  Jews have long suffered in the world.  Israel was said to be a kingdom of Priests and a holy nation.  How many people of the world still scoff at the Golden Rule today?

Resource:  Battleground-fact and fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz
Jews and Power by Ruth R. Wisse
The Source by Leon Uris

A Lot of BS From BDS People Against Israeli Product

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                 

                                                    Funeral of Gilani Brigade IDF Soldier

BDS is active here in the United States and The University of Denver has been targeted by starting a petition by DU Students for Justice in Palestine.  They are accusing the Golani and Givati Brigades of the IDF of egregious human rights violations of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, which in itself is a false claim according to what Professor Eugene Kontorovich of the Northwest U. School of Law would say about occupying Palestine.

This Denver group, with Arabic written on their website, faults the brigades of being involved in the Operation Cast Lead intervention of Israel's IDF in Gaza in 2008-2009.

They then accuse them of imprisoning children in Israeli dungeons.  This is such an outrageous lie that one cannot even think how they came up with this one.  Any kidnapping has been on the side of the Hamas terrorists, like the kidnapping of Shalit.    They're also accusing Israel of "ethnic cleansing!"

They claim that an Israeli product should not be bought because they are "subsidizing their living costs, playing expenses in the 5 and 6 figures."  The truth of this is most likely through being a tax-payer, and Israel does pay higher taxes than we Americans do.  Our taxes also pay for the living costs of our soldiers as well.  The money to any IDF soldier would be in shekels, not dollars, so where the decimal point is, would be interesting.  I know that as a teacher, I was only making the equivalent of $300 per month in 1981-85 in Israel as a junior high teacher of English.  You don't go to Israel to make money but to help a country who is righteous and is being wrongly attacked.  Israel doesn't have any other ulterior motives than to protect its citizens from harm.  

It just so happens that Israel has been commended for their care in not harming civilians in Operation Cast Lead. Goldstone had to eat his initial report. Cast Lead  came after rockets, mortars and missiles came from Gaza into Southern Israel since 2001, with more flying in each year.  In 2000, the 2nd Intifada started, meaning that there were growing Palestinian attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians.  Hamas took over in 2005 and they really flew in helter-skelter, at civilians.  Gaza was warned that Israel could not accept this attack and they had to stop which they didn't, bringing on Israel's operation. The 2nd Lebanon War started in July 2006 and the Golani Brigade fought to protect Israel like all the others involved.  They all fought for 34 days against Hezbollah.  That go around didn't end until September 8th.   One June 6, 2009, 3 soldiers of the Golani Brigade were killed in northern Gaza in friendly fire.  3 others were severely wounded and 20 more had minor injuries.

As for "occupation,"  Palestine was to be the Jewish Homeland as decided by the League of Nations.  However, Britain, who had the mandate, made changes and decided to reward King Abdullah 80% of the Jewish Homeland by creating Transjordan.  Actually, Israel is not occupying what was earmarked theirs in the first place.  Israel turned over Gaza to Egypt, but then got it back in 1967.  They left in 2005 for the sake of peace, and Jews have been living there ever since Samson and Delilah.  Peace didn't happen.  Gaza's Hamas  terrorists just felt freer to attack Israel daily instead.  So who is trying to do the ethnic cleansing?  It's the Arabs living in Gaza.  The proposed state of Palestine is to be only for Muslims.  They won't allow any Jews to live there.  That's Judenrein in German, which is what the Nazis tried to bring about.  I find it amazing that what is slung at Jews and Israelis is exactly what  the slingers are actually doing.

The Givati Brigade is an infantry Brigade that also serves as an amphibious force.  "They also participated in the ground phase of Operation Cast Lead." in Gaza (ended in 2009).The brigade's reconnaissance battalion entered the Tel el-Hawa neighborhood in search of Hamas operatives two days before the cease fire went into effect. An estimated 40 Palestinian gunmen were killed as dozens of apartments were swept.   Hamas reportedly decided to fire the commander of the Gaza City Brigade after its forces fought against the Givati."  They were a brave group of young men.

Anyone that harbors hatred for these young men who have been called upon to protect their people from rockets, mortars, missiles, suicide killers and from people trying to destroy their whole country will probably choke on their own bile filled with hatred and misunderstandings.  I say:  good for the company that these college students are tying to blackball with their demanding that their university not buy their product.  These soldiers need all the pats on the shoulder that they can get.

Israel had to stop rocket fire into Israel and prevent the weapons being smuggled into the Gaza Strip.  When the IDF went into Gaza, they weren't aiming for people.  Their target was the police station, military targets, weapons caches and rocket firing teams.  They went after political  (Hamas terrorists) and administrative institutions in the cities of Gaza, Rafah and Khan Yumis.

Occupation?  There aren't any Jews living in Gaza, but Israel reserves  the right to protect itself from attacks which is "unconscionable".

Here are a few words from a non-Jewish Scottish Professor to the Edinburgh University Student Union about boycotting Israel products.  It's from his letter.  "University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak.

 

 I do not object to well-documented criticism of Israel . I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it’s clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens.

Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya , Bahrain , Saudi Arabia , Yemen , and Iran . They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world’s freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that protects the Bahai’s…. Need I go on?
 

 The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott. I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side. Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and that is to protect them from one-sided argument.

They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930′s (which, sadly, there was not), don’t you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it?"

Resource:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golani_Brigade
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Givati_Brigade
Petition to the University of Denver and Sodexo Foods from DU Students for Justice in Palestine
Letter from Scottish Professor to Edinburgh Student Union 

When The Third Temple Will Be Built

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

                              Cornerstone for the 3rd Temple: 1999 with Temple in the Middle

The 3rd Temple, following the destruction of the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, is to be built no later that the year 2,240.  That gives us 227 more years to start building.  The very first Temple was built by King Solomon (961-920 BCE) and destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.

The stipulations are many.  When the 2nd Temple fell in 70 CE, most all the Jews of Judah were dispersed.  Some were scattered into the Middle Eastern lands while others left it completely and were taken to Rome, and then later to Germany and points in eastern Europe.  Synagogues were created as a house of learning and prayer.  The 3rd Temple or Ezekiel's Temple  called the Beit haMikdah is described and prophesied in the Book of Ezekiel.  It is to be a house of prayer for all people and is to be an eternal edifice and permanent dwelling place of the G-d of Israel on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The organization in Jerusalem called the Temple Mount get their plans that they already started working on in the 1980's from the Book of Ezekiel, chapters 40-47.  The Temple Scroll also has descriptions of the 3rd Temple.

Orthodox scholars and rabbinic authorities believe that rebuilding the Temple should happen when our Moshiach is at the hand of divine Providence and that Jews should try to rebuild the temple themselves.  Jews believe that the Moshiach is due anytime from now to about 200 some more years.  Christians are anxious for Jesus and his 2nd coming so are also anxious to have Jews rebuild the 3rd Temple.  The question of sacrifices which took place in the 1st and 2nd Temples are to become part of the 3rd Temple agenda, and there is mixed thought on that.  Orthodox feel that this will be resumed, but Maimonides wrote in his "A guide for the Perplexed" that "G-d deliberately has moved Jews away from sacrifices towards prayer, as prayer is a higher form of worship"  Then again, in his book, "Mishneh Torah", thought to be the final authority in Jewish law, says that animal sacrifices will resume in the 3rd temple and details how they will be carried out."  It could be that only grain offerings will be offered.
                                                                     

                                              Model of the 3rd Temple As Seen in Jerusalem

In an orthodox synagogue, one would hear prayers for the reconstruction of the 3rd Temple.  The morning prayer service includes a study session of the daily Temple ritual and offerings as a reminder.  They would also hear the daily and special-occasion psalms that the Levites used to sing in the Temple.  After the Torah reading is a prayer to "restore the House of our lives and to cause the Shekhinah (Divine Presence) to dwell among us.  The Amidah includes prayers for acceptance of the "fire-offerings of Israel."  It ends with meditation for the restoration of the 3rd Temple.

The Temple had rules of ritual purity before entering.  The laws of "family purity" are based on these Temple rules that are followed today at home.  Other rules come from the Temple days such as immersing in the mikveh before Yom Kippur, washing hands in the morning and before meals and after attending a funeral.  If ever the Israeli authorities permit Jews to ascend the Temple Mount, one has to observe certain ritual purity rules first..  Going to the mikvah is going to be expected.

Rabbi Shlomo Goren, Chief Rabbi of the IDF in August 1967, organized public prayer for Jews on the Temple Mount.  This was after winning the Six Day War which was a miracle in itself.  Jews had not been allowed there since 1948 by the Muslim Jordanians.  Rabbi Goren was all for Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount even though our 2nd Temple had been destroyed there and replaced with a Muslim mosque. The site was holy.  They had to fight off Muslim guards and Israeli police, but held a prayer service.  Rabbi Goren continued to pray in the Makhkame building overlooking the Temple Mount and conducted yearly High Holiday services there.  He called for the establishment of a synagogue on the Temple Mount and this call has been picked up by his brother-in-law, Chief Rabbi of Haifa, She'ar Yashuv Cohen.

This was despite the fact that Moshe Dayan had given the keys to the Temple Mount to the Muslim Waqf, so Goren was criticized by the Israeli Defense Ministry for doing this.  The Chief Rabbis have since restated that no Jews were allowed on the mount due to the issues of ritual and impurity.  The secular people went along with this as it kept the peace with the worried Muslims.  Goren continued to say that Jews were not only permitted but commanded to ascend and pray on the mount.  He did support building the 3rd Temple on the Temple Mount and was involved in projects involving the site, possibly such as the Temple Mount group.

Opposing this were the Chief Rabbis of Israel; Isser Yehuda Unterman and Yitzhak Nissim, along with others saying that they had warned for generations against entering any part of the Temple Mount.  This could have been prompted by the government's pressure in preventing Muslim-Jewish friction over the Mount.  The rule remains.  It is forbidden for Jews to enter any part of the Temple Mount.  In January 2005 a declaration was signed confirming the 1967 decision of Moshe Dayan who single-handedly made this decision on his own without consulting anyone.  The Jewish state of Israel controls everything in Jerusalem except the Temple Mount, which many people are frustrated about.  They feel the need to pray there as well.  Non Muslims are allowed to enter mosques in other places.  For the waqf to have this ruling here in Jerusalem is unfair, they state.  It happens to also be a big tourist attraction, and Christians have been allowed to visit.  Only the Jews are kept away.  This is the only discrimination going on in Israel and it comes from the Muslims against the Jews over the most precious holy site in Jerusalem.

Right now the biggest problem is the creation of Palestine in which the Arabs are insisting on taking over east Jerusalem which includes many sites such as the Western Wall that Herod built around the Temple area where all Jews come to pray today.  Israel has been legally unified as one city again, making life much better for all.  Thoughts about the 3rd Temple are causing the Muslims to react most fearfully with rioting.  If they were really smart, they'd open it to all people for prayers, fullfilling the desire of Levi Eshkol, who was Prime Minister in 1967 and died in 1969.  Then there would be no cause to riot.  All would be happy.

However, what is happening today is that the Al Aqsa Mosque site on the Temple Mount has been closed by the Jerusalem police to Jews and non Muslim visitors today as the police are afraid of riots from the Muslims.  It is open every day except Friday in the morning and afternoon but one cannot pray.  It is forbidden unless one is Muslim.  The police in Jerusalem are carrying shields that are about 10 feet high and look like they are made of pexiglass as they are transparent.  That's to protect them from things that are thrown;  chairs, food, rocks, etc.  Religious segregation causing violence practiced by rules issued from the Waqf is the worst type of apartheid!    Oh, but Moshe Dayan certainly didn't know what he was doing when he tried to calm the Muslims down by handing their waqf the keys to the Mount.  He gave us back all of Jerusalem, but deleted the most special of all sites.

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Temple
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.templemount.org/recent.html
http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Temple-Mount-closed-over-security-concerns-313440

Temple Mount in Jerusalem Barred From Jews: No Jewish Praying Allowed

Nadene Goldfoot                                                          

           
The Temple Mount is on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. Today's 2nd Temple that was first built by King Solomon (961-920 BCE) in Jerusalem was on this same site.  . King David, his father,  wasn't allowed to build it as he was a king of war.  Solomon was known for his wisdom and peace and built it as a shrine for the Ark of the Covenant, the sacred vessels and offerings for worshippers.  

 The Babylonian exiles, Jews taken away by the Babylonians in 597 and 586 BCE were allowed to return in 538 BCE and they rebuilt the Temple by 515 BCE., known as the 2nd Temple.   When Jerusalem fell to the Romans in 70 CE, the Temple was destroyed, but not before the Romans carried off all the loot from it.  A Roman temple was later built on the site, and since the Moslem Period, the Mosque of Omar, otherwise known as the Dome of the Rock,  has stood there.  It was built in the center of the Temple area by Caliph Abd al-Malik in about 738 CE to replace the temporary structure set up by Caliph Omar in 638 CE. Mohammad had died in 632 CE.

The Temple Mount is referred to as al-Haram al-Sharif to Muslims and is ranked as one of the most sensitive religious sites in the world.  There have been sporadic riots here which is said to have the potential to ignite much wider unrest.

The Six Day War in 1967 was when the Temple Mount fell into Israel's hands again, after a wait of 2,000 years. Since then, Jerusalem is a united city.   Though Israel became a state on May 14, 1948, the eastern portion of Jerusalem, where the Temple Mount is, was barred to Jews by Jordan.   Prime Minister Levi Eshkol made plans to takeover the Temple Mount and thought that the administration of such a holy site should be filled equally by Muslim, Christian and Jewish clerics so that everyone would have the right to be atop the mount and pray at this holy site for the 3 faiths.  He wanted to have his dream of a multi-faith council to run the compound.  The Muslim mosque would not have been touched, but all faiths would be allowed up on top of the mount.

Moshe Dayan (1915-1981),  minister of Defense, deciding otherwise, gave the keys to the Muslim Waqf. Evidently, in his biography, Dayan clearly stated that the last thing he wanted was the Jewish Temple to be rebuilt, the Beit Hamikdash.  We are supposed to wait for the coming of the Messiah for that.  There is the Temple Mount Faithful Group that Stanley Goldfoot belonged to preparing for that day.  Being a progressive, Dayan didn't consult the Prime Minister or the Knesset, and the Israelis didn't get to vote on it.  That's who controls it to this very day.  Being Dayan was a war hero, there wasn't much Eshkol could do about it.   "Dayan had gone ahead and told the Muslims running the Temple Mount that they could continue to run the mosques there-and later went further by preventing Jewish prayer all over the Mount."  His reasoning was that he felt matters would get out of hand and lead to a religious clash.  He even told the chief of staff that the army chaplain was to remove the branch office he had established in the building which adjoins the mosque compound.  For this Moshe Dayan will be known as the man who gave away the Temple Mount giving the Muslims an opportunity to make Jerusalem a huge issue in creating a Palestine.

Jews have been allowed atop the Temple Mount but are not allowed to pray, say the Muslim rule.  Only Muslims are allowed to pray there.  Jews can't even look like they are praying.  Then the Waqf has done more construction on top and has thrown out relics from the Temple of which an archaeology team has begun to sift through the dirt.  It was deposited like garbage by the Muslims.

Since that day, Muslims have been trying to reclaim Jerusalem's Holy sites in order to de-legitimize the Jewish connection to the land and the city.   It's their way of wiping Israel off the map and into the sea.  Police are forced to bar Jews from entering the Temple Mount.  Of course the Muslims had threatened violence. No excuse is listened to, such as bringing children there to demonstrate rituals associated with the Temple, like the bringing of the first fruits on Shavuot.  People can't understand this and feel it's unfair to them.  However, hundreds of Jews were able to visit the Mount over Shavuot.  At times, dozens of Muslims sat and blocked the entrance of Mughrabi Gate, the one non-Muslims have to use to ascend the Mount.  Any Jews who could manage to run the gauntlet were followed and harassed by Muslims, yelling the whole time the Jews were up there.  This year a riot did break out and the police had to intervene and closed the gates and evacuating the Jews.

There's more than what meets the eye in this clash.  The Islamic Movement in Israel had told its followers that Jewish groups were planning to desecrate, storm or endanger the al-Aqsa mosque and even arranged buses for worshippers to come and "protect" the site.  Sheikh Raed Salah, head rabble-rouser said to his crowd, "We'll liberate al-Aqsa with blood and fire!"  He told his crowd that Israel wanted to build a synagogue on top of the mosque.  Hamas's Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, told some foreign ambassadors that the riots were due to "an assault by extremist religious settlers on the Temple Mount compound."  Syria's foreign ministry added that Damascus believes the Israeli security forces' invasion of al-Aqsa was part of Israel's scheme to Judaise Jerusalem and destroy the mosque"  I don't think these people ever read a real history book.  These were all lies.

Jerusalem and the Temple Mount are parts of Israel that are  re-establishing the Jewish National Home.  The synonym for Jerusalem happens to be "Zion."  Every day for 3 times a day for the past 2,000 years, Jews all over the world face Jerusalem and pray for it to be restored to its former glory.  It's unfathomable that Jews are banned by its own government from praying on the Temple Mount.  What a concession we have given to the Muslims!  What concessions have they ever given us to promote peace!  None.  Recently a female Knesset member decided to get to the bottom of this matter and find out why they can't pray there.  Many are angry with their government  for allowing this to happen.
                                                                     

Today, Jews pray at the Western Wall(Wailing Wall) that surrounded the Temple, built by Herod.  The Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple was at the western end of the Temple is very close to this wall.  It was regarded as sacred as far back as the Talmudic Period of the 10th century CE.  From 1948 till 1967, Jews were kept away from this wall which is now under Jewish sovereignty.  On Shavuot 1967, 200,000 people visited.

In the meantime, Muslim adults and children are not taught of the Jewish connection to Israel and their land.  Muslims all over the world do not understand the depth of feeling Jews have for their holy places and their historical homeland.  "Palestinian and Muslim leaders must desist from the incitement against Israel and the deligitimisation of the Jewish connection to the land."

Resource: Arutz Sheva, news@israelnationalnews.com, 5. Police Bar Jews from Temple Mount As Muslims Threaten More Riots
http://www.templemount.org/recent.html
The New Jewish Encyclopedia
http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2013/05/jerusalem-day-how-moshe-dayan-made-the-temple-mount-a-palestinian-issue-2636624.html