History of Jerusalem's Western or Wailing Wall-The Kotel

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

Still standing in the Old City of Jerusalem is the Western or Wailing Wall (Kotel maaravi in Hebrew)  built by Herod I.  What is there are the remains of a wall that enclosed Herod's Temple (Solomon's Temple (961-920 BCE) which was rebuilt into the 2nd Temple and then rebuilt again by Herod). The Temple had been destroyed in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar and rebuilt in 538-515 BCE  as the 2nd Temple. Details of building the temple are found in I Kings 6, and II Chronicles 3:1.   Major reconstructions were done in the periods of Simon the Just, Judah the Maccabee, Simon the Hasmonean, and Herod.  This Herodian wall surrounding the Temple hill measured  913 x 1,515 x 1,586 x 1,050 feet and the extensive area enclosed was party obtained by leveling and filling between the Tyropoeion and Kidron valleys.  This means that if one walked completely around the 4 walls, they would have walked 1,543.507 meters or 0.959091 miles.  That's just a little bit short of a full mile.

The 1st Temple that King Solomon built was built for G-d (Hashem).  It was 60 cubits long, 20 cubits wide and stood 30 cubits in height.  Quarried stone was used to build it.  It is written in Kings that hammers, chisels, or any iron utensils were not heard in the Temple when it was being built.  Now, a cubit probably was a measurement from Egypt as far back as 3,000 BCE.  It was the distance from your elbow to the tip of your middle finger.  So it could be about 45.72 centimeters or 17 to 21 inches.

 Herod I., who became known as 'the Great" even though he was a murderer,  was born in 73 BCE and died in 4 BCE.  He had been appointed as King of Judea by the Romans because he captured it in 37 BCE with Roman forces.  His father was Antipater, an Idumean (people, descendants of Esau, had been converted to Judaism,  from the Mt. Seir area once called Edom), and his mother was a Nabatean (also Arabs  who occupied Edom in 6th century BCE), lived in Petra), by the name of Cypros. He married Mariamne, a granddaughter of the high priest, Hyreanus, a Hashmonean, which gave him a free hand in internal affairs but still could not conduct an independent foreign policy. (Hashmoneans were a priestly family and dynasty founded by Mattathias of Modiin.    It was Mattathias and his 5 sons, Judah the Maccabee being one who was the hero in our Chanukah story).    Herod was ruthless.  He murdered his own brother-in-law- Aristobulus, the last Hasmonean high priest, and his own wife, Mariamne, their 2 sons, Alexander and   Aristobulus and Antipater, his first son.   He is guilty of many things but he was quite the businessman by enhancing the wealth of Judea through his commercial operations.  Then he rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem on a magnificent scale and erected the 2 new cities of Sebaste and Caesarea.  He was known outside of Judea as a spokesman and protector of the Jews.  When he died he left a will partitioning his kingdom among his 3 remaining sons:  Archelaus, Herod Antipas, and Philip.

  The wall  is made up of 5 lower courses, each over 3 feet high.  It continues over 60 feet underground.  The Temple's Holy of Holies (inner sanctum) stood at the western end of the Temple so this part of the wall was considered as sacred in our history as far back as the Talmudic Period because at least the 10th century regular services were held before it.  The original Temple was built by King Solomon as a shrine for the Ark, sacred vessels and offerings with a court for worshippers.  It had a hall, shrine and the inner sanctum.  We know that the holy of holies was 32.5 X 32.5.cubits and went from east to west.  In this room was kept the Ark, and had a raised floor and was windowless.  A small cedar altar overlaid with gold stood at the entrance to the holy of holies.
                                                                       

Problems surround the Wall.  The area in front of the Kotel  was Muslim property.  A serious argument broke out between Jews and Muslims in 1929 and again in 1931.  A special commission of the League of Nations regulated the rights of the parties.

What had happened was that during the Roman war, the Temple served as a center of military activity, and was destroyed by the conquering Romans in 70 CE.  A Roman temple was later built on the site.  Since the Moslem Period, a mosque has stood there called the Mosque of Omar, established in 1193.  .

From Israel's birth again May 14, 1948, Jews were cut off from the Wailing Wall which was under Jordanian control even though there was a paragraph in the Israel-Jordan 1949 Armistice Agreement affirming  Jewish right of access.
     

Jews could not go to the Wailing Wall until the miracle happened when in June 1967 Israel won a war of an attack from  all surrounding states but mostly by Syria, Jordan and Egypt  in which Israel  surprised everyone by winning.  The war lasted from June 5th to June 10th.  The Wall now came under Jewish sovereignty for the first time since the 2nd Temple period.  Soldiers rushed to the Wall to pray.
                                                                         

 It was on Shavuot of 1967 ( Sivan) 6 when people could visit the Wall.  200,000 went there and danced and said prayers.  What became the custom was to write a prayer on a piece of paper and insert it between the stones.

Jewish tourists coming to Jerusalem usually go there first. One has to realize that the remaining wall which once went around the Temple area built first by King Solomon  is over 2,000 years old.  That's where   our ancestors had prayed.  It's where the High Priest entered the holy of holies on Yom Kippur, our Day of Atonement.  The Priests, which would have been the Cohens, descendants of Aaron, brother of Moses, Levites and certain Nethinim  performed services there. (The Nethinim were Temple servants, originally conquered Canaanites who were given the jobs by King David to assist the Levites in the Temple.  These people were exiled to Babylon along with the Jews and returned with them under Zerubbabel and Ezra.  They were given a special quarter of Jerusalem.  They had accepted Ezra's covenant but were still debarred from the Jewish community.  They kept their identity down to amoraic times.  )  Amoraic times covered from 200 to 500 CE when the oral Torah was being discussed.  

 Israel has done a considerable amount of landscaping the area.   The area around the western and southern walls of the Herodian Temple compound was extensively excavated  starting in  1968  directed by B Mazar, of which  many remains dating from Temple times were uncovered.

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Tanach, The Stone Edition; Kings 6.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/six_day_war_1967.htm
http://www.bonayich.com/Portals/102/tichon_pic_stuff/Series%204%20Unit%201%20-%20Introduction%20to%20the%20Amoraic%20Period%20-%20English.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoraim
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque_of_Omar_(Jerusalem)

Those Who Bash Israel

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                           

Jews make up less than 1% in this world, and Israel's Jewish population is 6 million.  About 6 million live in the USA and possibly about 2 million are scattered through other parts of the world.  It's become the social and acceptable thing to do:  bash Israel. It's a small group of people living in a small country.   So many journalists are doing it.    Israel's become the scapegoat of the world right now.

 Right after 1967 Israel  was the most popular entity when single handed and with the tiniest force on earth of IDF soldiers, Israel withstood the attack of the surrounding and even more distant Arab countries-and lo and behold, little Israel won the battle which not only allowed her to survive such an immense attack, but also to regain land she had lost to Jordan that was rightfully hers in 1948.   Egypt, Jordan and Syria were the main countries attacking.  Nasser had even had the UN troops sent away, giving him more of a free reign.  Then Nasser blocked the Straits of Tiran.  He moved 100,000 men and 1,000 tanks into the Sinai while the other Arab states quickly made their  moves of attack on Israel.  The Arab world was hysterical in wanting to attack Israel.  It was over in 6 days.  Israel won.   She gained East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and Gaza.  Now, Israel  was being praised instead of being kicked around.

Before 1967, the Arab nations were not really interested in helping the Palestinian Arabs do anything.  They wouldn't assimilate them into their countries of which had much land.  They just wanted to hold them in abeyance as a thorn in the sides of the Jews and did so with refugee camps.  " The Palestine-for -the Palestinians" cause had been met with complacency and crass ignorance. Musa Alami, an Arab Palestinian activist, writer and innovator tried to interest the Arab world in a propaganda program in 1948 and was told that all that was needed was a few brooms to drive the Jews into the sea."  Now they saw that they needed more than that. They should have known because they lost the war of 47-49 and 1956.  This was the 3rd attack.  It wasn't the last, either.  They tried again in 73 and lost that one, too.

The bashing has even reached Australian journalists who have really never known many Jews as the population there had gone from extinct to having been quite small, but now has reached 100,000 in a country of 22.5 million.  Jews were not allowed into Australia during the 1930's or WWII.  It wasn't until after the war and with a lot of pressure was this island country accepting any Jews into their Anglo country.  Today Australia has the 9th largest Jewish population in the world.  

Isi Leibler, from Australia, points out that reporting is relying on untrustworthy and prejudiced sources such as false testimonies from Arab propagandists.   Some people quoted  might be disgruntled or retired officials who have an ax to grind against Israel.  Human rights organizations have taken sides without having any background so are also highly questionable.  People forget to ask the basic question, What's Your Source ?  What do you know about it?  Don't just state it and say that's it.  Isi has even seen quotes that are merely uncorroborated accusations that Israeli soldiers beat a child "to a pulp" that that is used without being checked.  Islam has also grown in Australia with 475,000 now, which is 4 times more than Jews living there.
                                                                         

Are journalists aware that no country has a better record of military practices than Israel?  Soldiers are trained to follow a strict moral code and punishes those to do not follow it.  The country lives under a stricter moral code anyway than most countries.  Isn't that a basic difference anyway between Israel and other lands?  Only the Jews were ready to follow a lot of laws of behavior?   How about the fact that the USA doesn't even allow the Ten Commandments to be on public property but in Israel, it's basic law.  Muslims have their worship and so do Christians and others in Israel.  There's freedom of religion in Israel, but it is a haven for the Jewish people, since that's why it was created in the first place.
                                                                                   

                                                  Jerusalem, City of David

The UN is the first site to use double standards, attacking only Israel 99% of the time.  Look at the people who are on the Human rights committee for 2014, 2015 and 2016.  .  11 Muslim majority countries of the 47 on the committee as well as Russia and China.  There is Algeria, Burkina Faso, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Maldives, Morocco, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone and United Arab Emirates.  Israel's size compared to the Arab world is about 1/625 or  1/6 of 1%.  Israel is the only country who has come back to its original land of its history.  It's the only country in the Middle East where the Christian population is thriving instead of disappearing-by any reason, attacks, or being forced to leave.  Israel now has 6 million Jews and 1.7 million Arabs in a sea of 300 million Middle Eastern Arabs and Muslims.  Can they ever get any justice?

There is so much bashing and lying going on that I work to find the truth and present such facts.  There is no need for me to criticize Israel as there is enough negativity already presented by their own reporters.  Israel doesn't mind someone bringing out a mistake made.  "Israel itself is made up of hyper-self -critics and their highly critical public who always demand transparency and rectification of mistakes or misdeeds.  "Israel's hyper self-criticism, at times even masochism, underlines the highly developed sense of morality to which the Jewish state holds itself."  Nobody is under a magnifying glass more than Netanyahu is.   Though he is a Prime Minister of such a little country of only 8,019 square miles, no leader from another country is under more pressure or surveillance.  Israel is smaller in size than El Salvador, New Jersey, Taiwan, UK, California or France.  The Jews of France are suffering under so much anti-Semitism today that many have already made aliyah to Israel.  France is made up of 211,209 sq miles yet can't contain their people from being so hateful against Jews. 2,185 French Jews made aliyah in 2013.  There are about 2.1 million Muslims in France.  Roman Catholicism is first and Islam is 2nd in this country.
                                                                       

There are 56 Islamic countries in the world of which 48 are the majority.   Islam has 1.3 billion adherents.  Christianity is still the most populous with 2 billion people.   Roman Catholics make up 49 countries.  Protestant countries of majority number 20.  There are 12 Eastern Orthodox countries.    4 Hindu countries have  900 million people.  Let's not forget that there are 360 million people who are Buddhists, and then there is our 1 Jewish majority country, Israel.

Jews spent many years in the planning stages of creating Israel. "Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, Mayor of Jerusalem in 1899 said, Who can challenge the rights of the Jews in Palestine?  Good Lord, historically it is really your country."   Emir Faisal, the head leader of the Arab world in 1919 said, "We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement...We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home...Our two movements complement one another."  And he was right, except that England botched up the plans and the Jews and Israel have been suffering from the errors of Great Britain's decisions.

There are 2 kinds of journalists:  the real kind who checks their sources and those who just want to sell papers with gossip.  That's the kind that people have become when they hear the word "Israel" today, the gossipy kind.  If you pick up a new item about Israel and they are bashing it unrestrained, use it for trash.  Go to a better source that you can trust.

Update:  3/15/14" Unlike its commercial competitors (such as ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and NBC), the network, Al Jazeera in USA,  doesn’t care that much about general viewer ratings. Rather, it aims to influence opinion makers like teachers, broadcasters, and editorial writers.
Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/12228/al-jazeera-america-twisting-israel-news-targeting-opinion-makers/#MzOjGHQdxHiEcfGz.99"
Resource:  Isi Leibler, http://wordfromjerusalem.com/?p=5009  Bashing Israel
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters
Israel 101 from Stand With Us
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/australia-s-jewish-population-rises-to-100-000-1.443623
http://www.ibtimes.com/aliyah-french-jews-fleeing-israel-escape-rising-anti-semitism-muslim-extremism-economic-crisis
http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/france-the-looming-battle-over-muslim-integration/2014/01/01/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_France
http://web.wm.edu/so/monitor/issues/15-1/2-kepple.pdf

England Sunk to EU Level of Anti-Semitism

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                   

The English have had years of clarity where they surpassed the USA in being able to judge what is morally responsible but lately they've missed the mark completely.  They were first to give the black slaves in the islands their freedom before the Americans did.  Now they've joined the EU in demonstrating their anti-Semitism.  Richard Bogle was a freed slave, freed by the British when he left Jamaica in the early 1800's and went to California to pan for gold when he met up with a wagon train going west.  This wagon train held the slaves owned by the train's leader who would not be accepted to live in Oregon.

They have become morally warped by joining the EU in the anti-Semitic act of Boycotting Israeli towns who produce foods and flowers in the Judea-Samaria Jordan Valley.   They joined the bandwagon entirely and blindly in this BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement that is an international campaign that brought down apartheid in South Africa.  They're trying to bring down the Israeli government by doing this.  What is important to know is that Israel's society is the exact opposite of apartheid, so it makes no sense at all, except that it was started by those that have sided with the Arabs who lived in Palestine at the time of 1948 when Israel was accepted into the UN as a state.  The Arabs didn't go along with this and fought against the new state.  The BDS campaign was started by Palestinian Arab activists in 2005 to pressure Israel to leave the "occupied" lands.

What are the "Occupied Lands" that the Arabs outside of Israel want for their state?  They think they should get all of Judea-Samaria, the Gaza Strip where Hamas terrorists have the power, and east Jerusalem which has been united with the rest of Jerusalem since 1967.  Israel has been suffering from constant attacks of missiles, mortars and rockets from Gaza since the day they relinquished it and moved out completely for the sake of peace.  Now they are to be attacked from 3 fronts and Kerry is going along with this?  Note that "Palestine" is to be Judenrein-free of all Jews.  Only Arabs can live there.  Talk about apartheid, but that's okay if the Arabs practice it.  I haven't noticed any BDS people upset by this.

You can't be living in an occupied land when you were attacked by all your neighbors who tried to kill you and destroy your land when you are the one who won:  and won by a miracle at that. The fact is that this was to be part of the Jewish Homeland in the first place and is some of the 80% that was lost to the Jews by the bungling of England.   The numerical odds in 1967 of the Arabs winning were far greater  but Israel won, as she also did in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982 and all the fights since then.  This is the only Jewish country in the world, cut down to 20% of the original size promised, and they are holding onto this 20% which is only 8,000 square miles for dear life.  Yet we see that it's much easier to give into the Arabs who are making a stink and want sections now of the 20% left, and threaten Israel.

I note that the AP article in our Oregonian newspaper  today wrote that "The Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, lands that Israel captured in a 1967 war, and the valley would form Palestine's eastern border with Jordan.  This is most misleading as it was a war Israel had to fight defensively.  They did not attack the Arabs.  Every war has been defensive that Israel has fought.  The way the newspaper writes, it sounds like Israel is the aggressor.  False!!!

 The newspapers are complicit in calling the towns "settlements."  Europe, England and the USA called groups of people who are living together names like villages, towns, cities.    We do not call them settlements.  A settlement according to the dictionary is a place NEWLY settled.  These places in the Jordan Valley are not new.  We think of settlement when we think of pioneers coming to the West in the USA in the 1800's and their first stop as a wagon train produced some settlements that went up.  Also, Israel uses the established names of Judea and Samaria, not the West Bank, which is the name given by Jordan who took the area illegally.  And why not, only the Jews complained.  Not England.  Psychologically, the Romans called the land Palestine to erase the Jewish stamp on the land, and Jordan did the same thing.  The worst part is that established nations go along with it.  What's in a name of a land is a lot of history and ownership. The Arabs never owned Palestine.  It was under the Ottoman Empire for the last 400 years and they were Turks but Palestine  never became a state.  This was simply undeveloped land.

It was decided on November 2, 1917 by the Balfour Declaration and then  by the League of Nations after WWI that the Jews, who had been without their state of Judah since 70 CE and had suffered greatly from anti-Semitism should be rewarded for Chaim Weismann's invention that improved their ammunition.  They also assisted  in fighting against the Axis and were rewarded by having Palestine as the Jewish Homeland after being homeless for 1,847 years.   England held the mandate, but changed the rules themselves by giving up land east of the Jordan River to the Arab leader, Abdullah,  who became the grandfather of Jordan's present day king.  In truth, Jordan is Palestine today, which actually puts Jordan in jeopardy as they are ruled by a Hashemite king.  In fact, the scuttle-but now is that Jordan may fall next because of all the aliens who have entered Syria in fighting against their president Assad. They'll want to overtake Jordan next.   Assad  is a nasty man, a hater of Jews, but he was hassled first by the Muslim Brotherhood and was fighting against them as they were trying to take over and kick him out as he is an Alawite Muslim, not a Sunni or even a Shiite.

England has been very hard on Jews in the past.  In 1290 they expelled all Jews out of England.  What started it?  Probably the Crusades that Germany led in 1096 where they massacred Jews living in European towns as they went through on their way to Jerusalem. England did their share also when they went through.   In three years they reached Jerusalem and massacred the Jewish community there along with Muslims because they couldn't tell one from the other and they didn't like Jews anyway.  Jews and Muslims teamed up against the Crusaders then, probably the only time they've been on the same side.

That act was followed by the expulsion of Jews from France in 1306.  Then as it spread in Europe, 12,000 Jews were massacred in Toledo, Spain in 1365.  Hungary got in the act by expelling Jews from 1349 to 1360, Austria in 1421 and then of course we get to the Spanish Inquisition of 1492, and then after that Portugal.  So England and Europe knew that they have been complicit in creating anti-Semitism in this world.  Perhaps they knew that this was the time to do something to make up for their sins and create the Jewish Homeland.

Today, after fighting a 2nd world war, England, the EU and even the USA are not about to fight against anything that might affect their comfort zone like the USA has done in the past.  The leaders are giving into the Muslim Brotherhood who have been led by their religious leader, Qaradawi,  whose compact is to destroy Israel and kill Jews.

The Boycott has been going on for several years now.  It is ironic that who is hurting are the 6,000 Arabs that are employed on the farms there have been greatly hurt by the boycott along with the farmers who have lost 14% of their exports.  Translated into money, that's a loss of $29 million dollars just last year.   That's because the Western European supermarket chains of Britain and Scandinavia are not buying their peppers, dates, grapes and fresh herbs.  7,000 Jews are economically hurting from the boycott.

Most Arabs living in Judea-Samaria do not want to be taken over by Fatah or Hamas.  They'd rather stay under Israeli management.

Who is England and the EU really caring about?  Isn't this comparable to the Crusades?  Kill off the Jews and their country?  Let the Arabs take it over?  Keep the 22 Arab nations of the neighborhood happy?  Sit back, close your eyes, watch your telly.  There never has been a state of Palestine.  Most all Arabs there were recent immigrants who came to find work from the Jews who were building up places like Tel Aviv. In fact, many Arabs were Beduins who were nomadic and ranged the whole land on camels.  The Arabs called themselves Syrians, not Palestinians.  Before 1948, both Jews and Arabs were referred to as Palestinians on their passports.  The name came from the Romans who renamed it in 135 CE.   A few had been landowners but most of them sold their holdings to the Jews so they could live in better places than this scrubby unwanted land that only Jews could love and nourish.  They charged exaggerated high prices and Jews paid because for them this was all  holy land and they had signed a compact with G-d through Moses to care for it.

England, you held the mandate to make sure the Jewish Homeland was created.  You've botched it terribly.  Now you've joined the side that is out to destroy Israel.  You're just like the Muslim Brotherhood in this.  So is the EU who have a longer history of anti-Semitic acts including the Holocaust.  Evidently you've all turned into wimps or gave up studying history, for this is an unforgivable sin.  We are now at the stage of 1939, back to the horrors man allowed 75 years ago.  It's time to get some backbone and some brighter students who are not sheep who follow the crowd  to stop such acts as this BDS movement.

This is why Israel is a very needed state.  Had Palestine  been open before and during  WWII, lives would have been saved, but England made sure that refugees from Germany and the rest of Europe would never land in "Palestine."  It was closed to them even though they were to have a Jewish Homeland.  It wasn't until 1948 and another vote in the UN that Israel was allowed as a state, and now everyone is in the act of destroying the only viable democratic state in the Middle East.  May G-d have mercy on Israel for their neighbors and "friends" know not or care not for what they do to harm you!  Once again Jews are being sacrificed politically.

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-british-1939-double-cross.html
From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters
Oregonian Newspaper1/11/14 page A3, boycott stings Israeli farms in West Bank, by Karin Laub, AP from Netiv Hagdud, Judea-Samaria

Some Facts About "Occupation"; The Subject That Norway Holds As Reason to Support Terrorists

Nadene Goldfoot
Here are some facts that most people are not aware of in their zeal to discredit Israel as being those "terrible occupiers" of Palestinian Land."

Lets start with the fact that Canaan, or Eretz (land of)  Canaan, as the Jews called it originally, almost 4,000 years ago, was named Israel as it was the Israelites who entered and took it and then later the land was Israel and Judea.  These were Jewish states.  Israel was created first with King Saul in the 11th century BCE, then King David and  King Solomon.  When Solomon died in 920 BCE, the Jews divided up as if they were Republicans and Democrats and created Judea  with the southern half with the remainder of the tribe of Judah which included Jerusalem.  They were the more religious of the two by then.   There was never a country or state called Palestine.  It was the Romans who simply renamed the land as "Palestine, out of nastiness in order to minimize the Jewish association with it, which they then called it Palestine Syria."  After 70 CE it was no-man's land except for the remaining Jews that lived there as well as nomadic Arabs that wandered through on their way to better places.

True, our case rests on land held 4,000 years ago, but no one has really wanted it or lived there besides Jews who hadn't left and some nomadic Arabs wandering through.  The few Arab landowners lived elsewhere, not in the swamp and desert, and weed-filled barren land it had become from neglect after 70 CE.  Many rulers have held title, but none lived there.  It was only after many  Jews returned in the 1880's CE as pioneers fleeing from pogroms that Arabs tagged along to get jobs from them. If Arabs wanted their own state, which the British assumed that they would, wouldn't they also have accepted their offer in 1948?    No, their goal was just to oust the returned Jews.

By 1948 CE we find Egypt occupying Gaza and Jordan occupying Judea and Samaria, the original Jewish land.  Jews had congregated in Western Palestine and had built Tel Aviv and other cities along the coast.  That's one reason why England gave away 80% of the Jewish Homeland after WWI to Transjordan.  Yes, the Jewish Homeland had included Jordan's site as well.  Take out your Old Testament and read about the land G-d had allotted to Moses and the freed slaves.  It's there in detail.

Palestinian terrorism began before any occupation in 1929 when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem ordered terrorist attacks against Jewish residents of Hebron.  The Jews had lived there since Abraham bought a cave to bury Sarah.  Hebron, because of that, is a Jewish holy city and has been for generations.  Today it's taken over by the Arabs.

After 1967's war whereupon the Arab countries attacked Israel in the attempt to drive her into the sea and destroy her, Israel, with guts, determination and the will of G-d won, defying all odds.  That's when she inherited Gaza and Judea-Samaria and they became "occupied" by her. Did Israel attack these places to take them to occupy?  Indeed not.  It had enough problems to deal with.  This was almost the straw that broke the camel's  back.  However, it did allow Jews to go to the sacred Western Wall for the first time in Jerusalem since before 1948 to pray, which the soldiers all did.  Now Jerusalem, Israel's capital, is a unified city. It was our capital between 1,000 BCE and 586 BCE and again between 516 BCE to 70 CE.   I must say thanks to Ha Shem (G-d) , who works in wondrous ways.  Had the Arab countries not attacked in 1967, this would not have happened.  "The armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon are poised on the borders of Israel...to face the challenge, while standing behind us are the armies of Iraq, Algeria, Kuwait, Sudan and the whole Arab nation." So said the King of Jordan.   It was over in 6 days.

Terrorism grew worse after Israel ended its occupation of southern Lebanon and Gaza around 2005.  These unoccupied lands  became launching pads for rockets and missiles and mortars and the Palestinians started kidnapping soldiers.

No matter how kind Israelis reacted to Palestinians and no matter how many good programs they set up to help them attain a normalized life, the Palestinians had a set mind of attack and kill, shown by voting in Hamas, terrorists and ousting Fatah's Abbas-Yasser Arafat's replacement.

Islamic terrorists have sworn to continue terrorism even if Israel were to end its occupation of the Judea-Samaria area , and Israel has about 3/4 of the way already by allowing the PA to govern themselves.  Israel just keeps minimum rights there for their own security.  The sad fact is that Terrorists regard all of Israel as occupied.  They do not recognize the UN decision of their legal statehood of May 14, 1948.  If there were no Israel, terrorism would continue as long as any part of the world is not under Islamic control.  Just check out and see where Shaaria law is to supersede USA law lately.  It's already happening.

Countries have occupied others in the past.  For instance, the Tibetans have never resorted to terrorism against innocent Chinese civilians, though they have never been offered independence, and their occupation has been longer and more brutal than anything experienced by the Palestinians.  From 1911 to 1949 Tibet was an independent country till the Chinese invasion and occupation.  The difference is in the temperament between Tibetans and Palestinians, of course, helped along  by their different religious goals in life.   After WWI England occupied "Palestine" which had been part of the holdings of the Ottoman Empire.  France occupied Syria and Lebanon.  The British were terrible towards the Jews but allowed Arabs into the country illegally.  Britain also occupied India since the 1800's  and other places, but they've never been occupied, themselves.

The United States "occupied" Germany and Japan after WWII.  How would Americans like it if they continued to attack the USA from there or other areas closer.  Israel is in a far more precarious position of having Gaza and Judea-Samaria on the left and right borders of tiny Israel.

Occupation doesn't cause terrorism unless the occupiers are very cruel, and Israel has bent over backwards to help the Palestinians but were "slapped in the face" for doing so.  After all, Israel was occupied by the Romans in the first century and suffered greatly from it.  These Arabs were treated terribly by their Arab occupiers and Israel mistakenly thought they were actually freeing them.

Terrorism causes occupation and the measures taken to bring safety to the citizens.  Israel would have left Gaza and much of Judea and Samaria if not for the fear of terrorism from those areas.  Would Israel have gone into southern Lebanon in 1982 if it had not become a base for terrorism?  No.  Israel had to repeat this again in 2006 to stop rocket attacks and retrieve kidnapped soldiers out of Lebanon.

The international community did nothing to protect Israeli citizens from cross-border rocket attacks, kidnappings and suicide bombers.  If occupation is the only resource for Israel for protection, they may need to do it.  Israel has given land for peace, while the Palestinians have ventured nothing but more attacks.  Israel will not give land again which will be used for terrorism.

Israel left Gaza after a 2 day occupation in July 2006 and what happened?  A rocket from there hit an Israeli kindergarten causing children to go to the hospital.  Israel had left leaflets when they departed warning of dire consequences if rockets were fired again.  Our enemy feels that their deaths are worth the trouble if they can kill Israelis.  They put Arab mothers on pedestals who have given many sons to the cause.   Where we toast a l'chaim to life, they must be praying for death where they will be rewarded.

People who are notorious for not having human rights in their countries are Syria, Zimbabwe, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Cambodia and the former Soviet Union.  They always blame everything on their revolutions.  Islam has allowed extremists to bubble up in their religion such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groups.  They are oppressors of women, gays, racial minorities, religious dissidents and real human rights advocates.  Saudi women can only ride a motorcycle while covered completely and if accompanied by a male family member in designated areas. This wouldn't be so terrible but their counties can get up to 130 degrees F.   They torture and murder civilians, use human shields in their zeal to attack Israel with propaganda.  That's probably how they conducted their past year's voting in of Hamas once again.  How is it that all these groups come down on Israel and every other country is following suit?  Can they not see the Pied Piper of Hamelin through the haze?  They're following the wrong ideals!  There are Muslim states such as Syria that follow Iran who advocates nuclear proliferation and  environmental destruction.  There are 49 Muslim majority states, so there are others as well.

Jews are extremely  sensitive in calling to attention the bad points about Islam as they have put up with people doing this to them for the past 2,000 years.  But I must point out that the Muslims were on the side of the Nazis in WWII so are also a political group as well as a religious one, even going to Hitler in Germany and were so desirous of seeing Jews destroyed that they are still reading Nazi literature for their recreational time.  It amazes me since they are also Semites, but they see a great distinction.

Yet we have weak-minded professors from Columbia U. that planned to travel to Iran to apologize to Ahmadinejad   for Columbia U.'s president Lee Bollinger who gave a critical introduction of him on September 24, 2008.  .  It's like apologizing to Hitler, and I imagine we have Americans today that would have done just that back in 1939.  Ahmadinejad, who must be the #1 worst person in the world today,  is a bigoted tyrant who has incited genocide and whose government has murdered innocent Jewish children, women and other civilians in Argentina.  It is his country who wants to wipe Israel off the map with an atomic bomb and right after that dump a few on the USA as well for good measure. It is he who is helping Assad's regime in Syria who have killed over 60,000 people already.  This past week alone they killed 6,000 or better.

In our letters to the editor of the Oregonian of March 30th were 2 letters complaining that Israel was now calling the shots to attack Iran's nuclear facilities because Obama promised that he had Israel's back.  They didn't like allowing Israel to call the timing of this should it ever happen.  It is a huge responsibility to protect one's own land from harm.  If irrational Iran  cannot be stopped by all that Obama is doing, there is only one alternative left before being incinerated, folks, and this includes the USA in the wake of all this as well. Israel is not suffering from paranoia as it's not an imagined fear.

 Iran has announced publicly over and over of their sense of purpose in destroying Israel.  You must be a student of Islam to understand that they don't make rash threats.  They first warn, and then they do the deed.  Even some Arabs such as the Saudis are counting on the Israelis to stop Iran for they're in dire danger as well.  It wasn't too long ago that Iran fought Iraq, a Sunni state against a Shi'a state.  Christians have had their Catholic-Protestant battles and the Islamists have this difference that makes them fighting mad. To allow a 4th religion in the area is beyond their comprehension.   Look at what's happened to the Christians in Egypt lately.

Israel isn't occupying Gaza at all.  That's why the Palestinian Arabs have shot at southern Israel citizens. They try to  make sure that weapons do not get to them since they use them all against Israel, though.  Wouldn't you?   So tell me, what's all the to-do about "occupation" being the reason that people have been supplying terrorists with finances to continue with?

Resource: The Case Against Israel's Enemies by Alan Dershowitz page 182-185, Copyright 2008
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/67_War.html
Oregonian newspaper March 30, 2013 letters to the editor.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/01/columbia_university_professors.html
Facts About Israel 1973 published by Division of information,  Ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters -a book all Norwegians should read.
http://www.savetibet.org/resource-center/all-about-tibet/china-tibet-a-brutal-occupation
http://www.san.beck.org/20-1-BritishIndia1800-48.html

Jerusalem and the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel

Nadene Goldfoot
Jerusalem "Yerushalayim." was and is the capital of Israel.  It's located in the center of the Judean Mountains.  It is sometimes called "Zion," which was the name of King David's fortress.  It was also known as the City of David (1000-960 BCE)  .  Poetic names are city of righteousness,   faithful city, city of G-d, the holy city, and city of truth. King David was a warrior.  His son, King Solomon brought in the religious aspects of Judaism by building the Temple.  This city was and still is the most important religious city to the Jewish people.  Jews pray in the direction of Jerusalem.  We are told not to ever forget this city on the threat of losing the use of our right hand.  We are back.

Jerusalem was taken by the pagan Romans in 70CE.  From then on many countries have tried to take it since Christianity placed Jesus in Jerusalem and the area.  In 1099 it was stormed by the Crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon.  They made it the capital of the Latin Kingdom.  Then in 1187 Saladin, the Ayyabid sultan retook the city for Islam.  Under the Ottoman Empire it decayed. In 1492 Jews were forced out of Spain and many removed to Jerusalem, but their numbers were restricted by the Muslim government.     By the 18th century the population of Jews and Muslims was under 10,000 with most of the city lying in ruins.  The 19th century brought the Aliyote of Russian Jews who had bought land and started building.  By 1838 there were 50,000 Jews from many countries with the population of 68,000.  They were able to bring about a railway line to connect the city with Jaffa by the 1880's.  In 1898 the German Emperor William II visited Jerusalem.  He met with Theodore Herzl who represented the Zionist Organization.

World War I came along in 1914 and the population fell to 50,000.  December 1917 found the city occupied by General Allenby of the British Army.  British were given the Mandate to rule the land. that had been under the Ottoman Empire called Palestine, named by the previous Romans.  Jewish immigration in 1946 caused the population to reach 165,000 of which 100,000 were Jews.  Fighting broke out between Muslims and Jews.  The Arab Legion shelled and starved the Jews living in Jerusalem but the Jews didn't surrender to them.   May 15, 1948 saw the re-birth and establishment of Israel once more.  By 1949 the government and Knesset were transferred to Jerusalem.  I note that King David and King Solomon's Israel was far larger than today's extremely small Israel.

East Jerusalem held the homes of Muslims.  The city was divided into 2 parts from 1948 till 1967.  East Jerusalem had been under Jordanian domination.  June 5, 1967 was the start of the Six Day War when all the neighboring Arab states attacked Israel and lost.  Jordan had bombarded the city. The whole city came under Israeli control.  The first thing Jews did was go to the Western Wall and pray.  They had been kept from this most important site by the Muslims for almost 20 years.

On June 29, 1967, Israel formally united the 2 parts of the city and barriers that had divided them were taken away.  The Eastern part of the city had 139,600 Muslims and Christians and were united with the rest so that the total population in 1990 was 493,500, which is the same population as Portland, Oregon..  The Jerusalem Law of 1980 extended Israeli sovereignty over the whole city.  This brought many updates to the Arab section.

Israel has 1.4 million Arab citizens today.  There are plenty of mosques throughout the state.  In Jerusalem, starting on November 8th of this year at the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music is a month long "Nights of Tarab" celebration as part of an Arab Jerusalem Festival.  I have one of Edward Said's books.  He was a Muslim fighter against Israel.  Here we see the only Democratic country in the Middle East truly practicing democracy.  I hope the Muslims appreciate the state they live in safely.  While the Muslim Gazan terrorists  are shelling southern Israel's Jewish communities, there are Muslims that are enjoying  living in Jerusalem.

The fight continues with Muslims from many countries threatening to take Jerusalem, Iran and her neighbors being among them.

 From the time of King David who died in 960 BCE to losing 10 of the 12 tribes of Jacob to the Assyrians from 721-715 BCE, we see that 239 years after King David died, we lost our 10 tribes, taken from us by force. which means the children of Zilpah and Bilhah the handmaidens, and Jacob's 2nd wife, Rachel.  Leah, the first wife of Jacob and sister of Rachel  was the mother of 6 tribes.  Out of those, only Judah and Levi remained.  Reuben, Simeon, Issachar and Zebulun were most likely part of the kidnapped group as well.  Judah was the largest of all the tribes that remained.

 We read from the prophecies of Ezekiel,  who lived in the 6th century BCE and probably served in Solomon's Temple before its destruction in 586 BCE what is foretold for the Lost Ten Tribes and the Jews.  .  He was one that was exiled to Tel Abib on the river Kebar in Babylonia where he prophecied for about 22 years from 592-570 BCE.   In   Ezekiel  37:16, our 37th prophet,  which associates the final Redemption with the reunion of the whole House of Israel, I read:  . "Now you, Son of Man, take for yourself one piece of wood and write upon it, "For Judah and for the Children of Israel, his comrades; and take one piece of wood and write upon it, "For Joseph, the wood of Ephraim and all the House of Israel, his comrades.    Then bring them close to yourself, one to the other, like one piece of wood, and they will become united in your hand.  ....Thus said the Lord Hashem/Elohim:  " Behold, I am taking the wood of Joseph which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his comrades, and I am placing them and him together with the wood of Judah;  and I will make them into one piece of wood, and they will become one in My hand."

"Behold, I am taking the Children of Israel from among the nations to which they have gone;  I will gather them from all around and I will bring them to their soil;  I will make them into one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel, and one king will be  a king for them all;  they will no longer be two nations, and they will no longer be divided into two kingdoms, ever again.  ....I will purify them;  they will be a nation to Me,  and I will be a G-d to them.  My servant David will be king over them, and there will be one shepherd for all of them;  they will follow My ordinances and keep My decrees and fullfill them.  They will dwell on the land that I gave to My servant Jacob, within which your fathers dwelled;  they and their children and their children's children will dwell upon it forever;  and My servant David will be a leader for them forever.  I will seal a covenant of peace with them;  it will be an eternal covenant with them...then the nations will know that I am *Hashem/G-d Who sanctifies Israel, when My sanctuary will be among them forever.  

 Jews have been awaiting this time, and so the reports have come in from all over of finding them.  Eldad Ha-Dani reported them in the mountains of Africa.  Benjamin of Tudela heard of them in Central Asia.  David Reuveni claimed to be the brother of one of their rulers in some region of Arabia.  Antonio de Montezinos stimulated Manasseh ben Israel's political activity in  England with reports of finding them in South America.  Japanese and Anglo Saxons were thought to be them.  Finally it was thought that some were still in "Palestine" or assimilated, or absorbed by the last Judean exiles in 597-586 or were deported to an area  earlier such as Media, Assyria and Mesopotamia.  Today we see the Pashtuns of Pakistan and Afghanistan claiming descent of the Lost 10 Tribes.  Being Muslims, they are found to side with Iran in their hatred for Jews but with the desire to take their very teeny country.  What would  Ezekiel say to all this?  How are we ever going to be reunited peacefully?

* Jews do not want to over-use the word "G-d"  so use "HaShem" which means in Hebrew: "the name".  In respect, the orthodox do not even write out the word but use the dash instead of the o.

Re: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xU9CauJP4Pg#! on Jerusalem
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia on Jerusalem
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vie/Jerutoc.html  Jerusalem
Tanach, the Stone Edition; Torah, Prophets, writings
Update: 6/14/16 http://www.israelrising.com/the-pashtuns-are-the-tribes-of-israel/?utm_source=fb-pashtun-tribes&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=lost-tribes

Occupation? Israel's Involvementa in Judea and Samaria Isn't This

Nadene Goldfoot
Looking at the facts may be hard as they are so flavored with political involvement that they are almost hard to decipher today.  The fact is that Israel was attacked by all the neighboring states in 1967 and won.  The many against the littlest on the block is what occurred.  It wasn't a fair fight nor was there even a logical reason to attack.  It was out of greed and misplaced  egotistic righteousness on the attackers' parts. In fact, it was downright coveting, that sin listed in the Ten Commandments that many think is out of date.

In winning, Israel took over the West Bank, a name given to Judea and Samaria by Jordan, who had occupied the area without any legal basis in 1948 when Israel was created a state legally through the UN.  Israel did not take land from a state called Palestine.  It was taken from Jordan who occupied it illegally in the first place from 1948 to 1967.  Actually that area had been supposed to be a part of the future Jewish state under the British Mandate, and they in turn had the Mandate because the Ottoman Empire had it and lost it at the close of the 1st World War, and they had lost it to the Allies because the Ottoman's had sided with Germany who was defeated, but then the only people noticing this little fact are a few Israelis and a smattering of other caring historians.

"Occupation" is often used as a political word.  The people who use it do not understand the general or legal meaning of the term.  By using "occupation" it reduces complex situations of competing claims and rights to Right and Wrong.  Today it's freely used when talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which implies that Israel bears ultimate responsibility for the welfare of the Palestinians and is used in an extreme derogatory manner.  This denies Israel's right to even defend itself against the continual Palestinian terror.  It takes away the Palestinian's responsibility for their own actions and the consequences thereof.  It's another assault on Israel's legitimacy, as if Israel didn't follow enough of the rules to be re-established after its 2,000 year hiatus.  It has nothing to do with Israel's status as an occupier under international law, which I'm sorry to say, is not being followed by the U.N. itself.

Israel maintains that Judea and Samaria are "disputed territories" under international law.  This does not stop them from developing and settling its own ancestral homeland.  What had become absolute untended and wild wasteland, left alone for Israel's absence of  2,000 years, was sacred land to the Jews, land of historic and valued meaning.  It was only when Jews had returned to their brothers who had never left the "Palestine" area-in reality Judah and Israel but renamed by the Romans to remove the stigma or fact that it had been the Jewish state, did the nomadic Arabs come around hoping to get jobs.  They had no interest in building another state themselves.  When Mark Twain visited in the 1860's it was an utter wasteland.  One should read his "The Innocents Abroad"  when he traveled to "Palestine" in 1867.  When he visited Jerusalem there were only 14,000 people living there: " Moslems, Jews, Greeks, Latins, Armenians, Syrians, Copts, Abyssinians, Greek Catholics, and a handful of Protestants of which there were 100.  Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of Moslem rule more surely than the cresecent-flag itself abound."   page 240.

Today we still hear the obligatory call of "OCCUPATION' from Judea and Samaria even though  they were placed under the Palestinian Authority (PA-meaning Fatah through Abbas) on September 28, 1995.  Israel had then withdrawn its military forces and today one cannot call it "occupied" by Israel.  The agreement did include the presence of Israeli troops in the area.  That was a part of the Agreement, but that this presence can not longer be looked upon as the O word-OCCUPATION.  Let's face it.  The Arab people living there are constantly fed a diet of hatred for the Israelis by their leaders, no less.  They have not ended their attempts and successes of killing Israelis.  Thus the need for this policing of terrorism.  If it didn't happen there would be no need.

The miracle of this all is that Judea and Samaria were originally to be a part of the Jewish Homeland, decided upon on November 2, 1917: England was in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.  It was given international ratification.  This was laid down in the preamble.  Therefore, the British Mandate was to carry this out, but everything got under the control and pressure of politics going on under the surface and once again the Jews were screwed.  They wound up settling for far less.  Another miracle came along under the guise of a slaughter of little Israel and who knew the little land of milk and honey could conquer all those armies?  Our rose garden in Eden is full of thorns, though, one of which is the UN who cannot bring themselves to accept Israel today.  Probably they never thought they'd last for 64 years in the first place.  But they have and in doing so are trying more than any other country would to be be fair to those that hate them and desire their blood.

Occupation?  Are the people locked up inside a ghetto as the Jews had been treated in Italy's  past?  No!  Since 1967 Israel had an Open Bridges policy allowing movement of people and goods between the administered areas and Arab countries.  People traveled overseas freely through Israel's airports and harbors.  Open bridges over the Jordan River permitted regular trade with the Arab countries and free movement of persons either way.  People had family reunions, work and study advantages.  In 1972 people in the administered areas visiting Arab states were over 100,000.  Every summer residents got permission for visitors from Arab states to stay with them for up to 4 months.  152,000 arrived, with some asking to remain and most went on to visit---yes---even Israel.  There were more than 40,000 Arabs joining their families by the end of 1971.  An arrangement with Egypt was an exchange of people, so that 3,1000 Palestinian Arabs had been brought back.  Any problems?  Only the ensuing terrorism against Israel that doesn't make any sense at all.

Resource: http://emetnews.org/analysis/why-is-israels-presence-in-the-territories-st
http://emetnews.or/analysis/occupation-whose-occupation.php  by Moshe Sharon
Book: The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, copyright 2009 by Seven Treasures Publications
Facts About Israel, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem by division of Information.