Eastern European Jews "Ashkenazis" and the Zionism Movement Leading to Prime Ministers

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                

Ashkenazi Jews include Karl Marx, Albert Einstein with an IQ of 180, Sigmund Freud, George Gershwin, Golda Meir, and Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism born in Podolia.  

We can thank the French for their anti-Semitism-(hostility to or discrimination against Jews) which brought on an Ashkenazi' movement to establish Israel after a 2,000 years wait.  In 1894, there was a young brilliant and efficient French Jewish captain named Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) who was on the French general staff and someone accused him of selling secret documents to Germany, which he was innocent of doing.  He was found guilty in the court system and faced life imprisonment. The verdict was influenced by invalid documents which had not been communicated to the defense.  The fact that he was Jewish made him a suspect.  He kept proclaiming his innocence both in the Paris trial and from his cell in Devil's Island.  Finally he was found innocent in 1906.  Anti-Semitism was flourishing in France at this time.  Not only in France, but Russia as well.  The movie, "Fiddler on the Roof" shows one incident of a pogrom, attacks on Jewish communities raiding and pillaging.  Golda Meir, former Prime Minister of Israel had been in such pogroms when young.  About 1,850 years of anti-Semitism met wherever Jews traveled was just about enough!  My own grandmother in Poland suffered from broken legs in such a pogrom.

Ashkenazi Jews had had it in Eastern Europe.  In 1893 the Zionism Movement started to secure the Jewish return to the Land of Israel.  Nathan Birnbaum coined the term Zionism in 1893 but aspirations of our return goes back as far ass the Babylonian Exile of 587 BCE.

The Hibbat Zion movement produced extensive literature besides encouraging the migration of Jews to Palestine and founding settlements there.  Theodore Herzl (1860-1904) from Budapest, Hungary and a student in Vienna, Austria, influenced by what had happened to Dryfus,  organized the first Zionist Congress in 1897.  He's called the father of political Zionism.  Their aspirations were to establish for the Jewish people a national home in Palestine guaranteed by public law.  From that grew the Basle Program of Zionism which took the assumption that the Jews are still a people or nation, many of whom cannot or will not assimilate themselves to other peoples, and wish to retain their identity as a national community.  They had lots of support except from the extreme religious factions that claimed that only Divine Providence could restore the Jews to their land.

 Herzl wrote "The Jewish State" published in 1896 where he defined Jews as a people whose assimilation was impracticable and whose plight would deteriorate owing to its social and economic position.  He concluded that the solution was the founding of a Jewish state by international agreement.   Many liberal Jews denied the nationhood of the Jews whom they maintained to be only a community united by religion. I believe WWII changed a few minds.

In the 1890's Baron Edmond de Rothschild supported Jewish colonies that were suffering financial difficulties and lack of technical experience.  Hertzl went on to create the World Zionist Organization and its institutions.  There was the Jewish Colonial Trust in 1898 and the Jewish National Fund in 1901 to purchase land in Palestine as the perpetual property of the Jewish people.

The presidents of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) have been notables such as Theodor Herzl, David Wolffsohn, Otto Warburg, Chaim Weizmann, Nahum Sokolow, Chaim Weizmann again, and Nahum Goldmann.  Chairmen of the Zionist Executive have been:  Nahum Sokolow, David Ben-Gurion, Berl Locker and Nahum Goldmann, Zalman Shazar and Rose Halprin, Moshe Sharett and Rose Halprin, A. Pincus, Rose Halprin, and Emanuel Neumann, Louis A. Pincus, Pinhas Sapir, Yoseph Almogi, Arye Leon Dulzin and Simcha Dinitzs.

Jews who migrated as far north as Russia found themselves barred from Russia proper by the edict of Catherine II.  They were only allowed to live in The Pale of Settlement, Czarist Russia which included Poland, Lithuania, White Russia (Belorussia) , Ukraine, Bessarabia (formerly Romanian, then Moldavian and Ukrainian Republics)  and Crimea (peninsula in Black Sea).  Permission to live outside its  confines was granted only to certain groups, that is members of the liberal professions with a high school diploma, big businessmen, skilled artisans and ex-Cantonists.  It existed from 1791 to 1917.

The prime ministers of Israel have been:
David Ben Gurion (David Gruen b: 1886 in Plonsk, Poland),
 Moshe Sharett Moses Shertok b: 1894 Kherson, Ukraine),
Levi Eshkol(Levi Shkolnik b: 1895 Oratovo, Ukraine),
Yigal Allon (b: Yigal Peikowitz, 1918 Kfar Tavor, Palestine, father-immigrated in 1890, probably from Poland) ,
Golda Meier (Golda Meyerson b: 1898 Kiev, Ukraine),
Yitzhak Rabin (b: 1922 Jerusalem, parents-Nehemiah and Rose Smidowitz of Ukraine and Belarus, part of 3rd Aliyah),
Menachem Begin (b: 1913 Brest-Litovsk, Poland),
Yitzhak Shamir (Icchak Yezernitsky/Jeziernicky b: 1915 Ruzhinoy, Poland),
Shimon Peres (b: 1923 Belorussia) ,
Benjamin Netanyahu (b: 1949 Tel Aviv, Israel said to have IQ 180-genius level-, father Benzion b: Warsaw, Poland, grandfather Nathan Mileikowsky, Zionist),
Ehud Barak (Ehud Brog, b: 1942 Kibbutz Mishmar Hasharon, Israel, father immigrated in 1930 from Pusalotas, Lithuania) ,
Ariel Sharon ( Ariel "Arik" Scheinermann, b: 1928 Kfar Malal, Palestine, parents of German- Polish and Russian)
Ehud Olmert (b:1945 Binyamina Giv'at Ada, Palestine, parents from Ukraine and Russia)

Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Prime_Ministers_of_Israehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzion_Netanyahu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Netanyahu
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3418778,00.html
http://www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/kurenets/k_pages/rabin.html

How Were the Jews Treated When Jerusalem Fell in 70 CE As Told by Josephus

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                       

" On the 10th of August, in A.D. 70 -- the 9th of Av -- in Jewish reckoning, the very day when the King of Babylon burned the Temple in 586 B.C., the Temple was burned again. Titus took the city and put it to the torch, burning the Temple."

 Josephus( 38 CE-100 CE)  was a 32 year old captive general and also a Cohen from Judah. He had gone to Rome in 64 on a semi-public mission.  The Jews revolted in 66 and he was regarded as an expert in political affairs and was sent as a representative of the government to Galilee where he assumed military command.  He was captured by the Romans in Jotapata and went over to the Romans- a turncoat.   He was made a historian for the Romans.

  He tells about Jerusalem's fall in 70 CE.  It had been under siege. The people were rounded up from remote places and were shut up as in a prison.  The Roman army surrounded the city.  Many died.  The Romans had slain some of them, some they carried away as captives, and with others they made them search for underground passageways with Jews in hiding  and when they were found,  they were slain.  2,000 people were found slain, partly by their own hands and party by one another, but destroyed by famine. The stench from dead bodies  was intolerable.  Most of the Romans got away from the bodies but the greedy ones went among the dead that lay in heaps and walked upon them while searching for wealth.  Many  of those that had been put in prison by the tyrants were now brought out.  Simon, a leader of the Jews was among them.  He had been forced to surrender.  He was reserved for the triumph march and when there,  was to be killed.  The Romans then set fire to the extreme parts of the city and burnt them down and entirely demolished its walls.

 This attack on Jerusalem was  the 2nd time it had been desolated. It was the 6th time it had been taken.  This time it happened in the 2nd year of the reign of Vespasia on the 8th day of the month of Gorpieus (Elul),  Shishak, king of Egypt was first, Ptolemy, the son of Lagua, then Antiochus, Pompey, Sosius and Herod took the city but preserved it, but before all these, the king of Babylon conquered it and made it desolate 1,468 years and 6 months after it was built.  The first king (2000-1550 BCE )was Melchi-zedek, a Canaanite and called it Salem or Jebus.  King David of the Jews fought the Canaanaites and he and his people lived there.  It was demolished entirely by the Babylonians 477 years years and 6 months after him.  From King David to this destruction under Titus was 1,179 years, but from its first building till this last destruction were 2, 177 years.  The conquerors did not take into account its great antiquity, vast riches, diffusion of its nation over all the habitable earth or the greatness of the veneration paid to it on a religious account that been sufficient to preserve it from being destroyed.  The siege of Jerusalem then ended.

Caesar gave the order to demolish the entire city and temple but leave as many of the towers standing as they were of the greatest eminency,  such as the towers called Phasaelus, Hippieus and Mariamue.They also left  much of the wall that  enclosed the city on the west side.  It was spared so as to afford a campground for the soldiers  as were the towers also spared to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was and how well fortified it was which the Roman valour had subdued.  The 10th Legion was left as a guard. with some horsemen and companies of footmen.   The 12th Legion had been overcome by the Jews under Cestius, their general.  He expelled them out of all Syria and sent them to Melesine, near the Euphrates which was in the limits of Armenia and Cappa Jocia.  Titus was going to Egypt. so he went to Cesarea by the seaside and laid up the rest of his spoils in great quantities and gave the order that the captives should be kept there for the winter season which hindered him then from sailing into Italy.

While Titus was sieging Jerusalem, Vespasian boarded a merchant-ship and sailed from Alexandria to Rhodes .  There he sailed away in ships with 3 rows of oars and was received in 3 cities he passed by, from Ionia into Greece to Corcyra to Iapyx and then journeyed by land.  Titus marched from Cesarea to Cesarea Phillippi and put on many shows of a great number of captives that were destroyed by such acts as throwing a great number to the wild beasts, and others by the multitudes were forced to kill one another.  While watching the arena slaughter, he heard of the seizure of Simon, the son of Gioras who had taken his friends with him.  They were all stone cutters.  They had their iron tools and provisions and let himself and them down into a cavern underground.  They had reached the spot where they had to dig their way to continue so that they could rise and get into a safe place.  Simon put on a white frock and buttoned over that a purple cloak and appeared above ground.  The army was there and he found out what had happened to his people.  He was bound up.  He voluntarily gave himself up and was taken to Caesar.

While Titus was at Cesarea, he celebrated the birthday of his brother Domitian and had a 2,500   Jews killed in his honor.  Some had to fight against beasts in the arena, some were burnt, and others had to fight each other.  The Romans killed 10,000 this way.  Caesar ambled onto Berytus, a city of Phoenicia and a Roman colony and stayed a long time celebrating his father's birthday where he had a multitude of the captives here destroyed the usual ways.  The Jews in Antioch were in danger.  Josephus mentions, " For as the Jewish nation is widely dispersed over all the habitable earth among its inhabitants, so it is very much intermingled with Syria.by reason of its neighborhood, and had the greatest multitudes in Antioch by reason of the largeness of the city.

Titus Caesar was getting ready to enter Rome.  Everyone came out on the road to greet him, wives, children, all.  He could barely reach the royal palace for all the people in the way.  He made his sacrifices of thanksgiving to his household gods for his safe return to the city.  The throng of people feasted and drank in Antioch and begged him to remove all the Jews of their city.  Jerusalem fell and all Jews everywhere were in jeopardy. The Germans revolted from the Romans but were subdued.  The Samaritans overran Mysia but were compelled to return to their own country again.

Within three years of Jerusalem's liberation under the Bar Kochba revolt in 132 CE, Rome marched against the rebels and killed Bar Kochba in 135 CE. The Sanhedrin officially labeled him a false Messiah and Jerusalem was again in Roman hands. Jewish Jerusalem was once again blotted out and Aelia Capitolina was built on its site as had been planned. Because the war had cost the lives of Roman heroes, the Jews were thenceforth forbidden to enter Jerusalem upon penalty of death. Hadrian attempted to destroy every connection Jerusalem had with the Jewish people. Christians of Jewish background were also excluded from the city, but gentile Christians were able to remain.  Jews that were left alive were sold in the Roman Empire as slaves.

Resource: Josephus by Whiston, Kregel publications
http://www.templemount.org/destruct2.html
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

What Genetics Tells Us About Our Ashkenazi Origins

Nadene Goldfoot                                                           

Ashkenazi Jews (from Europe) came originally from Israel and Judea according to historic evidence.    What do DNA studies tell us about our origins?  Arthur Koestler (b: September 5, 1905 in Budapest, d: March 1, 1983) , who wrote the Thirteenth Tribe back in 1976 thought Ashkenazi Jews all came from Khazaria, a southern part of Russia.  He belonged to the Communist Party in Germany and resigned in 1938.  He is also known for his book, "Darkness at Noon", and died of suicide in 1983.  His wife was Jewish but he wasn't.  We learn that in Khazaria, the kagan or king had converted to Judaism and his royal house followed suit.  This happened in about the 7th century CE.  Koestler's book is used against Jews in that he diminishes the fact that Ashkenazim also came from the Middle East and were descendants of Abraham just like the Sephardi and Mizrachi Jews were.  Today some Muslims are trying to use this as reason for Israelis not to be in Israel and that they should all leave since about half the population of Israel is of Ashkenazi descent.

Jews have long felt that their creative zeal comes from living in their own land of Israel and certainly holds to be true.  Many inventions have been rolling out of Israel, much of it being in the medical technologies benefiting all of mankind.  The philosopher Ahad Ha'am (1856-1927) maintained that Jewish cultural creativity would come about when we were speaking our own language and being masters of their own fate in our own land.

We have historic  evidence that Jews settled in many countries outside of  Israel and Judah before 70 CE, but certainly afterwards.  Slaves are bought and sold.  That's what the Jews had become.  They were taken to the many parts of the Roman Empire.

Population geneticists find through the Y chromosome haplotypes of males which show that ancestors of Ashkanazi Jews were Judeans or Israelites and show some European ancestry among them as well and some apparent central Asian and east Asian elements.

A paper published in 2000 by Harry Ostrer and Michael Hamamer, PhD's, showed that Ashkenazis, Italians, North Africans, Iraqi, Iranian, Kurdish and Yemenite Jews often share common Y-DNA haplotypes that are also found among many Arabs from Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.  Only a small % of Jews Ydna originated outside of the Middle East.  The conclusion was that Jews hadn't intermarried with non-Judeans including converts to Judaism outside of the mother country of Judah.  They saw the close relationship between Ashkenazi Jews and Italian Jews concluding that the main ancestors of Ashkenazis were the ancient Jews of Rome.  That goes along with the history I had found about the scattering of Jews after 70 CE when Jerusalem was taken by the Romans and the Jews became slaves and were carted away, leaving just  Jews  that could not be rounded up.

Scientists see that Jews from Europe, NW Africa and the Near East look like each other more than they look like their gentile neighbors in Europe.

Now we'll look at the mtDNA carried by both men and women.  There we find results showing the same conclusions as the Ydna except that with the mtDNA, there was a larger degree of European ancestry along with some central Asian and east Asian elements.  There are basically 7 major haplogroups of mtDNA with just a few additional ones found, such as my grandmother's mtDNA (W).  mtDNA  does not mutate as quickly as Ydna.   While Jewish men, wherever they were, remained Jewish, they traveled a lot.  They became traders or peddlers going into unchartered places.  They would then take the native women for their wives.  When they created a stable environment with the women learning about Judaism,  they then considered both parties to be Jewish bearing Jewish children.  So the mtDNA would have picked up more DNA from outside sources.  African mtDNA was not very prevalent among modern Jewish populations.

In 2002's mtDNA study, the Bene Israel of India were very close to 2 mtDNA hapalotypes of Indian people and Ethiopian Jews whose mtDNA matches Ethiopians and Somalians.  A portion of the mtDNA comes from non-Jewish peoples where they had lived.  This also goes in testing Georgian Jews and Ashnkenazic Jews.  It goes to prove that men picked up their women where they were traveling.  The Ydna is usually Judean.  This is why Jews might resemble their neighbors more.  A 2004 study found the most prevalent mtDNA haplogroups among Ashkenazim are K with 32%, H with 21%, N1b with 10%, and J1 with 7%.  K is found in small numbers in Europe and the Middle East. N1b is Middle Eastern origin. K is a subbranch of U believed to have first appeared in the early stages of the Holocene Epoch when populations expanded into Europe after the last glacial maximum.  About 1/3 of people with Ashkenazi ancestry carry a subclade of this haplogroup.  Bryan Sykes calls K, Katrine with fair hair and greenish brown eyes and her clan flourished in northern Italy and beyond.  One of her descendants was "The Iceman."  Today, 6% of native Europeans are K's.  It is still frequent around the Mediterranean with descendants today all over Europe.  W was found in the western Ural Mountains and the eastern Baltic area, though it is also found in India.  My W paternal grandmother came from Poland/Lithuania in the Suwalki area and said she was a Litvak.  She was very short with black curly hair and brown eyes.

A January 2006 study by Doron Behar informed us that about 40% of Ashkenazic Jews descend from the mtDNA of one of 4 women.  One of the 4 women is also found genetically in some non-Jews in the Middle East.  I might add that we have had Assyrians and Babylonians steal our people from Israel in the past.  If they weren't eaten or slaved to death, their descendants would be today's Muslims in the Middle East.

 In one 2000 study, the only  Slavic population tested were Russians.  The only Turkic population tested were Anatolian Turks.  The Medieval empire of Khazaria would need people tested today from Turkics found in tribes from north Caucasus and central Asia.  That has yet to be done.  I note that my own line of Ydna is Q1b1a, said to originate from Siberia, Mongolia and parts of Turkey about 24,000 years ago. Give a group 20,000 years, and they can migrate pretty far for many reasons.  That's what they must have done to wind up in Lithuania and be my family line.

In a 2001 study of Y-dna of 79 Jews, the Kurds were included along with Arabs. Comparisons  were made with data from Slavic Poles, Belarusians and Ukrainians, people who lived in the Pale of Settlement.  That was an area of 25 provinces set off for Jews to live in  starting in 1791 as they weren't allowed into Russia during Catherine II's reign.  By 1882 the May Laws were established keeping Jews out of rural areas.  The Pale didn't end until August of 1915 and legally until March 1917, the end of WWI.  In the early 1900's thousands of Jews immigrated to the USA including my Jewish Lithuanian grandfather with his Q1b1a genes.  Others immigrated to "Palestine" or England.  The scientists wrote that Kurdish and Sephardic (Spain, Portugal) Jews were indistinguishable from one another.  Both differed slightly but significantly from Ashkenazi Jews.  There had been a separation of the people for almost 2,000 years starting in 70 CE or even longer.  Babylonian Jews, kidnapped by Babylonia in 597 and 586 BCE were taken to Persia where we find Queen Esther and many Jews.  That would up the chances if their descendants were today's Sephardis.  The scientists explained the happening as "low-level gen flow from the European population and or genetic drift during isolation"...

Jews were more closely related to groups in the north of the Fertile Crescent such as Kurds, Anatolian Turks and Armenians than to their Arab neighbors.  They identified haplogroup R1a1 as a European marker found in substantial frequencies among Hungarian, Sorbs, Poles, Belarusians and Ukrainians and less often among Macedonians, Udmurts (tribe in Russia), and Turkic Chuvashes along with some Kurds and Bedouins.  I might add that a recent DNA test on King Tut of Egypt surprised us all with a result of R1...My own son, whose father was from England is R1b1a2, non Jewish and is 1 point off of being the Atlantic Model Haplotype.  25% of his genes are from Jewish sources and according to Jewish law, having a Jewish mother makes him Jewish as well.  .  The report found 12.7% of Ashkenazic men studied showed R1a may be due to intermarriage with Khazars or eastern Europeans.  I believe they shouldn't ignore the possibilities of picking those up in Great Britain as well.  It's full of R1b's.  My mother's gentile father was R1b1a2a1a1b4.  Jews were in Britain sometime after 70 CE but were all expelled in 1290 CE.  Where did they go?  Possibly Germany or eastern Europe.

In 2005 a study by the same researchers studied 495 Ashkenazic men and R1a1 was found in 11.5% of them.  Kurds were among the closest paternal relatives of Jews.  Both Ashkenazic and Mizrakhi Jews (Egypt)  and Muslim Kurds shared several haplotypes and chromosomes more than Jews and Palestinian Arabs shared.  The mountains of  Turkey, Iran and Iraq have been home to the Kurds.  Our tradition says that the first Jewish settlers went to Kurdistan in the time of Ezra. in the 5th Century BCE. (400 BCE).  Ezra worked for the Persian government.  In 458 BCE he went to Jerusalem.  Jews had been in exile from Jerusalem.  Today's Kurds are Muslims.  This is the group that Iraq's Saddam Hussein killed by gas.  Jews also have a similar relationship with Armenians and Anatolian Turks.

My own study  in 2011 of a 90 year old Ashkenazi Jew in Portland who was a Cohen in the synagogue turns out to be a Cohen by Ydna as well.  His Ydna test was J1c3d, the Cohen gene.  His haplogroup is the same as an Iraqi Muslim with a branch on the Arab showing that connection.  The Cohen gene is found among 45% of Ashkenazic Kohens and 56% of Sephardic Kohens.  It is found in only 3-5% of non Kohen Jewish men from Ashkenazic and Sephardic branches and in the Bene Israel Jews of India.  All Kohens are descendants of the Israelite high priest Aaron, brother of Moses.

The Lembas in South Africa claim Jewish heritage and are thrilled to have it show up in their genes.  Italians in central and southern Italy carry it which is no surprise.  Kurds in Iraq, Armenians, Palestinian Arabs and Hungarians in Budapest also are J1's.  4 out of 5 Samaritans from Israel and Palestine are very closely related to J1 which shows they are descended paternally from the original Israelites.  Jews are either Cohens, Levites or Israelites.  Now, Levites are supposed to be from the tribe of Levi and should have the same DNA as Abraham and Moses.  They are the assistant priests  and 2nd to read the Torah after the Cohens.

52% of Ashkenazic Levites were R1a1.  It is found that 11% of Sorbs have the same dna and 8.5% of Belarusians.  Have the scientists also considered that we lost some Jews to conversion along the way?  Sephardic Levites do not have this dna.  Whoever the founder of R1a1 was probably lived around the year 1,000-1,014 after the separation of Sepharim and Ashkenazim in 70 CE.  Due to so many attacks on Jews, the Jews may have had to take another person  to fill this role.  A few Jews are R1a which is not the same thing as R1a1.  P-M45 Ydna  is found in people of central Siberia and central Asia like the Uzbeks.  5.2% of Ashkenazic men have the Q-P36 haplogroup of Q1b1a.  It's my grandfather's haplogroup.  American Indians are also Q's from farther back.  We broke off from them.  At first it was thought to be of Khazar origin but today it's thought that Hungarians are more likely.

Resource: Robert Gabel, here is the R1a project with all haplotypes assigned to the subclades: http://www.familytreedna.com/public/R1a/default.aspx?section=yresults
The Jews of Khazaria 2nd Edition by Kevin Alan Brook
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_people
The New Jewish Encyclopedia
The Thirteenth Tribe by Arthur Koeestler
Abraham's Children by Jon Entine
The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/01/jewish-genes-what-haplogroup-could-they.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews

The Scattering of Jews Throughout the World: Where Did They Go After 70 CE?

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                       

                  The Arch of Titus in Rome Depicting the Jewish Slaves Taken from Jerusalem
                                                               
The last king of Israel was Hoshea (730-721 BCE).    Assyria in western Asia  had attacked Israel and taken away many of the people as slaves in 732 BCE.  Jerusalem had become a vassal of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.   Judah had divided from Israel and was the southern section of Israel. The last king of theirs was Zedekiah (597-586 BCE).  From 587-6 BCE The Babylonians, also of western Asia, the land of Shinar or of the Kasdim (Chaldees),  of Ur, (Iraq), were from the Chaldees, an ancient Babylonian city.  It was Abraham's place of birth.  The Babylonians  had conquered Jerusalem.  Nebuchadnezzar II fought Pharoah Apries's attempt to invade Judah.  Jerusalem was mostly destroyed including the 1st Temple and the city's prominent citizens were deported to Babylon.

Cyrus the Great came along in 539 BCE and conquered Babylon.  He allowed the Babylonian Jews who had been there for almost 50 years to return from captivity to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.  That was about 2 generations that had lived in Babylon.

Artaxerxes III tried to retake the city and Jerusalem revolted against him in 350 BCE.  The city burned down in the melee.  Jews who supported the revolt were sent to Hyrcania on the Caspian Sea.

Jerusalem capitulated from 332-200 BCE  to Alexander the Great and is later incorporated into the Ptolemaic Kingdom in 301 BCE and then the Seleucid Empire of 200 BCE.  Things got worse for Jews.  By 175 BCE Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a Seleucid,  tried to eradicate the Jewish religion by outlawing Sabbath and circumcision.  He sacked Jerusalem and erected an altar to Zeus in the 2nd Temple after plundering it.  In 164 BCE the Hasmoneans take control of part of Jerusalem while the Seleucids had control of the fortress (Acra) in the city and most of the surrounding areas.  By 63 BCE the Roman Empire under Pompey took Jerusalem.

Before 70 CE Jews were living in France.  Communities existed there during the Roman Empire period.  Christianity came along and established anti-Jewish laws.  By 1306 they were thrown out.  In 1420 the Jewish community in Toulouse, France was annihilated.

General Titus 70 CE, a Roman, ended the major part of the Great Jewish Revolt that had begun in 66 CE and destroyed  the 2nd Jewish Temple. that he referred to as "Herod's Temple."   Many Jews were killed.  Those residents of Jerusalem who survived the attack were scattered through Rome's Empire by the Romans themselves.  This victory was called early as the fighting went on for 3 more years.  Vespasian had commanded the Roman campaign against the Jews until the death of Nero in 68.  Vespasian then passed his command to his son, Titus and returned to Rome.  There he was declared the new Emperor in 69.

A parade took place in Rome.  Besides all the booty that the Romans seized out of Jerusalem which was gold and silver, yards and yards of fine material were the Jewish slaves.  They walked not as a mob but an orderly line of prisoners worth seeing clothed in a variety and beauty of clothing that diverted the eyes of the Romans from their injuries incurred in battle.  The sacking of Jerusalem is depicted on the Arch of Titus in Rome today.  Romans viewed the objects taken from the holy Temple:  a golden table, a 7 golden lamp stands with branches or arms extended emphasizing the honor paid by the Jews to the number seven.  The tablet of the Jewish Law was carried last, then ivory and gold  objects.  Vespasian and Titus rode on horseback at the end.  This was a holiday celebrating their victory against the Jews. Jews have lived in Italy since the 2nd century BCE in Rome and then in the southern ports and along trade routes in at least 40 places. In the 1200's in Naples persecution in Naples forced some Jews to convert.    In 1541 the Jews of of kingdom of Naples were kicked out.  

From 132 - 135 CE the last stand against the Romans was fought by the Jewish Bar Kochba who lost the fight with the very brutal Romans.  Hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed or exiled.   Hadrian formally re-established Jerusalem in 136 as Aelia Capitolina and the land as Palaestina.   He forbade the Jewish and Christian presence in the city, but Jews lived in other parts of what was Israel and Judea.  Two years later the restrictions were relaxed for Christians but not for Jews.  From Italy many Jews wound up in Middle East lands until 1948.  Others headed for Germany and on up from there into Eastern Europe.

The Roman Empire dates from 27 BCE, when Octavian became Emperor, Augustus.  Kings ruled it first, then the Roman Republic, and then by an emperor.  The slaves brought to Rome could have been sold and transported to other parts of the Roman Empire which would be in today's lands of Britain  but not yet Scotland,  Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Egypt and the north coast of Africa.  The Romans in charge spoke Latin.  By 1355 there were 12,000 Jews who were massacred by a mob in Toledo, Spain.

Trade was most important for Rome, a city of more than a million people, the largest in the world at that time.  Possibly Jews got involved in this.  They needed wheat from Egypt, tin from Britannia, mainly from the peninsula of Cornwall, grapes from Gaul, etc.  In return, the Romans built capitals into fine cities, protected people from raids by barbarians and provided education and career opportunities for the young adults in the provinces such as careers in the Roman army.  They had a staff of civil servants.

Their political power shifted to Constantinople and the Catholic Church replaced Rome's authority.  Germanic tribes living along the northern borders of the empire and were mercenaries in the Roman army emerged as powerful forces in their own.  The Visigoths were one of many German tribes.  Rome experienced an invasion of the Visigoths.

Hungary became home to Jews from the 100's as a Jewish grave was found dating back to the 2nd century.  .  Jewish communities were known about in the 800's.  From 1349 till 1360 Jews were thrown out of Hungary.

In 321 there were Jews living in Cologne, Germany.  They settled in other places then along the Rhineland.  Jewish soldiers were in the Roman garrisons in Germany as well.  by the 8th and 9th centuries the Carolingian royal house was pro-Jewish and encouraged the settlement of Jews because they wanted to develop trading.  Romania was also home to Jews since the 300's.  They were among the 1st settlers of the city of Roman in 1391.  In 1421 Jews were kicked out of Austria.  Jews had come to Austria with the Romans, but for sure in  906.  It was the persecutions going on in Germany that forced them to move to Austria.  The Holocaust, murdering 6 million Jews started in Germany with the Nazi regime from 1939 to 1945, but offenses started much earlier in the 1930's.

By 324-325 the Emperor Constantine held the 1st council of Nicaea and made Jerusalem a Christian patriarchate.  Waves of Christian immigration to the city began.  Jews were finally allowed to enter once a year to pray at the Western Wall on Tisha b'Av.  The first monastery in Jerusalem on the Mount of Lives was built in 380.

Jews lived in Poland from the 800's on.  It is thought that settlers came from either Germany, Bohemia or Kiev in Russia or the Byzantine Empire.  The thought is that they were reinforced by KHAZAR elements.  Khazaria was an empire in southern Russia created in the 700's.  The Kagan converted to Judaism and it was a haven for Jews suffering from discrimination in other states.  Early settlers in Poland were thought to be traders.  In the Dark Ages they helped to open up the area to civilizing influences.  The first Jewish charter was in 905.  Then the Tartars of Russia invaded Poland in 1240. To restore the economy, the kings encouraged immigration of merchants from Germany.  They brought with them their language of Yiddish which is a combination of Hebrew and German, rituals and passionate devotion to Talmud study.  1648-1656 was the scene of 100,000 Jews murdered in Poland in the Chmielnicki massacre.

Also in the 800's were Jews that immigrated to the Ukraine in waves from KHAZARIA, the Caliphate and Byzantium until the 1100's.  Jews immigrated there from Central Europe from the 1300's to the 1400's.   and from Poland from the 1500's to 1600's.  Massacres of Jews then took place. to the 1700's.  Hasidic movements sprang up in the 1700's.  Zionism took place here from 1800 to 1900's.  People moved in here from Galicia and White Russia.  It was always a center of anti-Semitism and the scene of many pogroms.from 1905 to 1918.

In 1099 the 1st Crusaders captured Jerusalem from Muslims and slaughtered most of the city's Muslim and Jewish inhabitants.  The Dome of the Rock was converted into a church.  In 1267 Nachmanides went to Jerusalem and prayed at the Western Wall and reported that he found only 2 Jewish families in the city.  As they weren't allowed to really live there, Jews found other places nearby that weren't on the radar of tourists.

Again, Hungarian Jews had a segregation of Jews from others in the 1200's and they had to wear a badge.  Jews living in England in 1290 were thrown out.

In 1321 Jews were starting to live in Lithuania.  By 1398 Karaites lived around Kovno totaling 10,000. by 1495, after the Spanish Inquisition, to 1502 they were thrown out of the country, in line with Spanish Christianity.  They were allowed back in by 1529 but had to wear the Jewish badge by 1566.  Jews were living in Latvia in Courland from the 1500's.  2,000 lived there in 1795 when it was annexed to Russia.

In 1492 was the Spanish Inquisition in Spain when all Jews either had to convert to Catholicism or leave the country. They left for Portugal.  180,000 Jews left.  50,000 converted and remained.  In 1497 Jews in Sicily, Sardinia and Portugal were kicked out of their countries.  In 1502 all Jews in Rhodes were either converted or taken into slavery.

By 1517 the Ottoman Empire captured Jerusalem under Sultan Selim I, now Caliph of the Islamic world.  In 1700 Judah the Pious and 1,000 followers settled in Jerusalem.  In 1821 the population majority in Jerusalem were the Greek Orthodox Christians.  In 1860 the first Jewish neighborhood was built outside the Old City walls, so from 1873 to 1875 Mea Shearim was built.  The returning Jews came in 1882, known as the 1st Aliyah. They were Russians tired of being in pogroms.   However, by 1901 the Ottomans had restrictions on Jewish immigration and land acquisition in Jerusalem.  1901 to 1914 was the period of the 2nd Aliyah and 40,000 Jewish pioneers entered.

It wasn't until 1812 that Bessarabia, formerly Romanian, part of Moldavian and Ukrainian Republics, were found to have Jews living there.  At this time it was annexed to Russia.  Jews weren't allowed in Russia proper  from 1791 until 1882 as decreed by Catherine II.  That's why they were confined in the Pale of Settlement which constituted Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraiane and Belorussia.  Bessarabia and White Russia are also included in this.  Jews had been kicked out of Russia by 1727 and again in 1747.  In 1871 to 1921 anti-Jewish pogroms took place in the towns of Russia.   From 1882 to 1890, there were 750,000 Jews living in Russia who were forced to re-settle in the Pale, even though the decree was up. This is when many Jews managed to leave for the USA and Great Britain.  Even in 1891, Jews were expelled form Moscow and St. Petersburg.  

In 614, a Jewish force of about 20,000 aided the Persians (today's Iran) in the conquest of the land of Palestine.  In exchange, the Persians promised some autonomy and the right to return to Jerusalem.  This was ended by the Byzantines coming to power.  In 1838 in Meshed,  Persia, the entire Jewish community was forced to convert to Islam or face death.

WWI from 1914-1917 had the Ottomans on the side of the Axis powers of Germany and they lost.  The British took control and held the mandate.  The Balfour Declaration was issued a month before the end of the war.  The 3rd Aliyah happened from 1919 to 1923 and brought in 35,000 Jewish immigrants to the mandatory Palestine region.  From 1924 to 1928 the 4th Aliyah had 82,000 Jewish immigrants entering Palestine.  From 1929 to 1939, a bad year in Germany for Jews, the 5th Aliyah brought in 250,000 Jewish immigrants.  Many were turned back that were escaping Nazi Germany.  This was already announced to be the National Jewish Home and was cleared by the League of Nations, but Britain had sided with the Arabs by then.

In 1941, when WWII started, the Jewish community in Baghdad was attacked by mobs which killed 180 Jews.
1948-49 amounted to an Arab Israeli War and all Jewish residents of the eastern part of the city were kicked out by the Arab forces and the entire Jewish Quarter was destroyed.

Jews found land to live in-but only temporarily.  They had to be on the move.  Now they're staying put in their own country after 2,000 years of this turmoil only to face fighting for it for dear life.  As for the Land of Israel and Judah, it was never occupied by people who ruled for 1878 years from 70 to 1948.  Foreign governments claimed the land; and that was it.  The name was changed and not much else.

Resource:http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/rometriumph.htm
 http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/roem/hd_roem.htm
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0015_0_15340.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/pale.html
facts about Israel from division of information, ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Atheists-Wanna Rethink? Miracles That Have Come Out of Israel

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                   

Amazing things have happened in Israel.During the War of Independence in 1948, Jews were outnumbered in Safed 10 to 1.  The Jews were also outgunned and out-positioned.  Somehow they were able to route the Arabs which some ascribed to Davidka, a homemade mortar which caused more noise than damage and less accurate than any gun.  Others thought the miracle was the off- season rain that fell during the siege.  The Arabs were sure the Jews had an atom bomb and the rain was the fallout.  Some thought the Arabs saw the rain as a sign from G-d that his hand was against them.

They left expecting to return victorious because their leaders promised this would happen.  Most of them  walked the road of the Wadi Amud and passed the water pumping station built by the British.  They didn't touch it.  Had they blown it up, being victorious would have meant little as the summer was beginning and the populous would have had no water.  They thought they were leaving it for themselves minus the Jews  This pump was still serving the city of 16,000 in 1983.

Safed is in the Galilee close to the Lebanon border.  It's where I lived for 4 plus years teaching English in the junior high on David Elezar Street.

Miracles are listed in the Torah, but I am awed by all the miracles that have happened in our day from Israel.  The very fact of the Six Day War of 1967 (June 5-11, 1967)  is a miracle in itself.  Moshe Feiglin wrote about it yesterday.  He calls this war The War of Miracles.  The reason is that suddenly Israel was attacked by all the Arab nations.  With insurmountable odds, Israel came out of it a winner in Six Days, gaining land they used to own a few thousand years ago.  Jerusalem, the center of our religion, had been divided since 1948.  Part of it still was in Jordan's hands. Israel's Labor Party and the national Religious Party  wasn't even thinking of liberating it at that time.  Moshe Dayan saw no reason.

It was General Avihu Ben Nun, a friend of Moshe Feiglin,  who was a young pilot in 67.  He told him an awesome story.  He, with the IAF were flying low and reached Egypt's airports without being detected which was a miracle in itself.  While they were bombing the Egyptian airfield, a heavy Egyptian bomber about to land surprised him as it came in his sight.  What should he do?  Hit the bomber or stay on target.  He stayed with the mission.  Some other jets chased the bomber but he escaped them.

Much later Ben Nun met a Jordanian who had been the Egyptian air controller at the airport.  As it turned out, Hussein had been told by Israel that if he stayed out of the group action of attacking Israel, all would be well between the two countries and he was going to stay out of it except something strange happened.  When the Israeli pilots were bombing Egypt, The Egyptian President, Gamal Abdel Nasser,  called King Hussein of Jordan  and told him that the Egyptian planes were bombing Tel Aviv and Haifa and asked him if he wanted to lose Jerusalem?  Hussein, checking facts, called the air controller who told him he couldn't see anything and while talking suddenly saw his screen fill up with hundreds of Egyptian planes on their way to Tel Aviv.  He reported this to the king.  What he really saw was Ben Nun and his comrades on their return flight to Israel after destroying the Egyptian air force on the ground.  They now were flying at normal altitude instead of flying low like before.  This phone conversation caused Hussein to enter the war which resulted in the liberation of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.

That's not all.  Ben Nun had made the decision to not go after the tempting Egyptian bomber.  Who had been in it?  Only the Egyptian chief of Staff and the entire army command.  That mistake turned out to be the best thing ever.  The pilot had to evade the chasing Israeli jets in so many skillful evasion techniques that it shook the poor Egyptian chief of Staff up and from the plane he ordered his army to evacuate the entire Sinai Peninsula.   The Israeli jets refueled, and then attacked the retreating Egyptian armored forces.  The Egyptians were hastily in retreat mode.

The moral of this story is that Jerusalem was liberated in spite of the Jews and the Arabs.

There are many other examples of miracles. I remember one about an enemy plane overhead and the Israeli gunner 's  gun froze. While he was trying to fix it, another enemy plane ran into the one he had spotted and they both blew up.

 The people of Safed felt a protection for their holy city.  The Lebanese border is only 14 kilometers or 8.6 miles away as a Russian katusha rocket flies.  Terrorists loved to fire them at Safed but usually always fell short and exploded in the wadi.  Once there was a direct hit on an abandoned warehouse and another time one hit the telephone pole.

During the Yom Kippur War from October 6-25, 1973.  a direct hit was on the fuel pumps in the central bus station on the 2nd day of the war.  There was no fire or explosion and the pumps remained workable.  The rocket that entered the air shaft in the only unoccupied apartment building in the block of 10 new buildings caused damage to 2 apartments but no injuries.

What protected the people is thought to be the 7 sons of Hannah of ancient days.  They were killed by the Greeks when the Maccabees started to revolt and are buried with their other on the side of the hill over which the katushas pass.  What they were doing was slowing down the rockets so they fell harmlessly in the wadi.

Dov Silverman told of when he was walking on guard duty on the outskirts of Safed.  His partner was a Hasid (very religious group) of the Breslau sect of Hasidim.  The Hasid pointed at the hill at the left of the Safed cemetery and told him to look at the hill where are buried 10,000 tzaddikim (holy Jews).  The belief is that when the Messiah comes from Meron to Safed, they will all rise and go with him to Jerusalem.
Silverman asked when this would take place.  The Hasid answered that it would happen when his Rabbi moved to Safed and lives opposite Mt. Meron where the famous Rabbi Bar Yokhai and his son were buried.    Building was already in progress to house the Rabbi and his followers in Safed, located opposite Mt. Meron.   Thus they await another miracle.

On Yom Kippur 1973 the people of Safed stood as one.  The Syrians were attacking and had reached within 12 miles of the city.  Elicu Pearl and Silverman had been driving for 3 days Casualties were coming in a steady stream.  They saw some little kids on the side of the road throwing dirt clods under cars on their way to the hospital.  Elicu later told Silverman that they had been keeping the road holes level so the hurt soldiers wouldn't bounce and feel the pain.  Silverman later wrote that on Yom Kippur 1973 the souls of the people of Safed appeared before the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be judged.  They stood as one before G-d, as they stood as one against their enemies.  Both times they proclaimed, "Hear Oh Israel, The Lord Our G-d Is One."

Israel has had to fight for its life after being attacked  in at least 14 different occasions from November 1947 to today; on the defensive for its 65 years.  From 1947 on, the Palestinian Arabs have been offered a state of their own and they have refused each time.  Instead, Israel keeps on getting attacked.  Is it any wonder that Israel is all for the Palestinians to have their own state when they can bring themselves to recognize Israel as the Jewish state and decide to live in peace with her?  Maybe a miracle will happen and they will finally come around to living in  peace with Israel.

Reference:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_war.  .
Legends of Safed by Dov Silverman
The Source by James Michener-chapter about the Miracle of Safed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Israel
Moshe Feiglin website: May 8, 2013 http://www.jewishisrael.org/eng_contents/articles/73/article7340.html
http://www.jewishisrael.org/
http://www.mflikud.com/

What The Talmud Really Is

Nadene Goldfoot                                                               

I have found lies on webpages about the Talmud on facebook and they are horrendous.  Most comments are  from Muslims.  They have no idea what they are doing except spreading hatred for Jews.  Someone creates a website, and they all are so fast to believe what is libelously written about the Talmud  that they probably are falling over themselves.  If the Palestinians and their cohorts and suppliers aren't hitting us with rockets, they're hitting us below the belt in our religion.  No telling what their sources are; mostly from some Nazi type of imagination.  Let's get into what the Talmud  really is.

When we were in exile after 70 CE, we wound up in the world in two general areas.  There, our religious leaders needed to write down more about the 5 Books of Moses in teaching materials, so created the Talmud, which means "Teaching" in Hebrew.  One Talmud was written in Babylonia and was called the Babylonian Talmud.   The other was called the Palestinian Talmud as it was written in what was called Palestine, which was the land of Judah renamed by the Romans.

Jews didn't just read the Torah and other books which eventually made up the Tanakh, or "Old Testament."  They discussed it with other learned men, and these discussions were written down like one takes notes in a meeting by the secretary.  So they are a compilation of the records of academic discussion and of the judicial administration of Jewish Law by generations of scholars and jurists in many academies and in more than one country during several centuries after 200 CE.

Each Talmud contains the Mishnah together with a gemara, which is both a commentary on and a supplement to the Mishnah. The Mishna  is the legal codification containing the core of the Oral Law.  It's divided  into 6 sections.  The 1st deals with religious laws pertaining to agriculture.  The 2nd deals with the laws of our Sabbath and the festivals.  The 3rd section deals with women and the laws of marriage and divorce and vows.  The 4th deals with damages, civil and criminal legislations.  The 5th deals with holy things, laws of Kashrut, how to kill a kosher animal without causing pain, consecrated objects.  The 6th deals with the laws of ceremonial purity.  It's very well organized.  The Talmud is a study of different interpretations by very wise men.

They both contain non-legal digressions.  The Babylonian Talmud contains about 2 1/2 million words and is more than 3 times as long as the Palestinian Talmud.  The gemara of the Babylonian Talmud is in Hebrew and eastern Aramaic while the gemara of the Palestinian Talmud is in Hebrew and Western or Palestinian Aramaic.  As it turns out, the Babylonian Talmud is by far the more important of the 2 compilations.

I do not own a Talmud.  I have a Tanakh or Bible, the Jewish version, The Stone Edition.  I also have a set of Haftorahs, which is the Bible in two volumes with commentary.  I love to read the commentary or explanations.  A person who is a biblical scholar would have a Talmud and they would also be in the synagogue libraries.  I find that at present, the best edition available is the Vilna edition of 1902 which has a large number of commentaries and has been reprinted many times.

Where the so called Talmud came from that got into the hands of these anti-Semites probably was created in someone's basement. How could they ever read a Talmud?   They would have had to break into a synagogue and steal one.  I am sure that if it was printed into English, it would be far over their head in understanding.  This stuff is pretty deep,  meant for rabbis, really.

 They are not the first to attack our sacred literature.  There was a Talmud burning by the Catholic Church in Paris on June 17, 1242.  24 cartloads of Talmuds pages were burned as a sequel to the religious Disputation there 2 years earlier.  It happened again  in Italy in 1322.   Then in the 16th century many volumes of all types of Jewish literature was destroyed in Rome on September 9, 1553.  Rabbinic works found in raids on the Jewish quarters were burned sporadically.  Thousands of volumes of the Talmud were burned in Poland by order of Bishop Dembowski  in 1757.

These misguided and hateful fools can barely understand their own  reading material at a 4th grade level most likely and now they're telling their 'like" friends that they can read and understand something in a foreign language and understand the points of view of very scholarly people like a group of PhD's.  Most interesting.

If you read my post on comparing Judaism to Islam, the Muslims have the same amount of religious dogma just like we do.

Resource: http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/02/differences-between-judaism-and-islam.html
 The New Standard Jewish Encycloopedia
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/talmud_&_mishna.html
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Rabbinics/Talmud.shtml
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Rabbinics/Talmud/Talmud/Studying_Talmud/First_Page.shtml
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14213-talmud

Iran's Aim To Be Top Dog in Middle East With Rockets for Gaza

                                                                     

Nadene Goldfoot
Iran is not showing us any signs that the Palestinians are only striving for a just peace with Israel or that it is only a perception of ours  that they only dislike the "expansionist policies of Israel". Some naive persons believe they will all shut up if a just peace is established.  What is a just peace in their eyes is plain destruction of Israel, as they have already stated.  If they want a just peace, why can't they bring themselves to recognize Israel as the Jewish state?  Did someone say this is not about religion?
                                                                     
Sorry, but their expansionist opinion is that of Israel  having established the state of Israel in the first place.  Israel is not a state aiming to expand and become an empire. It only wants what was promised to them through legal channels but since 80% of that had been stolen, expects to keep the rest without having to fight for it every second or give up anymore land.  That's why recognition is necessary.   The so called Palestinians are simply pawns in the game of the many to wipe Israel out.   Such happened in 1967 when every Arab country under the sun attacked Israel but Israel managed to keep them at bay and won!  By doing this, the Arabs cooked their own goose.  Israel was able to legally win back Judea, Samaria  and east Jerusalem by default from their greediness. The state that was cheated in the first place in 1948 was Israel as the Brits with the mandate in their pocket gave away 80% of the promised land of the Jews to the Arabs who created Jordan.  Yes, land east and west of the Jordan River was promised to be part of the Jewish Homeland as defined by the League of Nations.

Frankly, I don't see the King of Jordan as the most greedy one, but he joined the fight in 1967 rather reluctantly, I thought.  It was Egypt who led the fight.  Jordan had peer pressure to engage in this.  Since then he has been a fairly good neighbor.  I don't think he wants war again.  He did sign a peace treaty.

  The sorry state of affairs  is that the Arabs living in Gaza and in Judea and Samaria still will not recognize Israel.  It will not go through the mistake of leaving Gaza, lock stock and barrel only to gain rockets falling into their country again.  The true fact is that they're not out for any sort of "just"  peace and the West and everyone else has blinders on if they can't admit it.  Now the offer is a trade off of land to go back to 67 lines which are indefensible as previously proven- with still no recognition.  No deal, folks.  Israel is not stupid.
                                                                     

To muddy up the waters, Iran has sent Gaza 50,000 missiles and thousands of anti-tank rockets.  On February 8, 2013, Ali Akbar Velayati, advisor to Iran's supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei for International Affairs said that their shipment of simple Fajr missles to Gaza put 3 million Israelis in bomb shelters.  My,  doesn't that make Iran look like the power house. Then 3 days later, Ali Saeedi, Khamenei's representative in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps piped up with the comment that they were Fajr-5 missiles that Iran gave to Gaza as a gift.  Gazans are naming their new born babies after the Fajr-5 missiles.

Only 6 months ago  in November 2012, Javad Karimi  admitted that Iran sent Gaza 50,000 missiles and thousands of anti-tank rockets.  He sounded like he was bragging when he said that "Launching Fajr-5 missiles at the center of Tel Aviv attests to a major victory in the conflict over Palestine in favor of the Iranian nation (you see, it's all about Iran, not Palestine) and allowed Iran to once again prove its strength to the world.  Already he's claiming victory and it was because of the crucial role Iran played in it.

Fajr-5 missiles have a range of up to 80 km. or 50 miles.   The distance from Gaza to Tel Aviv is 71km or 44 miles.   Iran was proud of the damage Israel took from them in November 2012 in the Operation Pillar of Defense.  This transfer has been confirmed.  They struck Tel Aviv against the advice from a revolutionary in North Africa.  Fajr-5's were developed in 1980-1990 when China exported the WS-1 MLRS to Iran.  From there they have copied and manufactured them.  The Fajr-5 missiles were supplied to Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, when Gaza was shooting rockets into southern Israel in mass numbers.

At a November 2012 Basij conference in Mashhad, Iran,  Javad Karimi said they did it because "if we do not defend Gaza, we will suffer casualties in the streets of Mashhad.    He considered hitting Tel Aviv a major victory  in favor of the Iranian nation and allowed Iran to once again prove its strength to the world.  Lee Smith, author, would call this Iran's bid to be "The Strong Horse" in the Middle East.  Mashhad is 530 miles east of Tehran close to the borders of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, a main oasis along the ancient silk road to China.

I see.  Empowering Gaza with missiles will keep Gaza from signing any peaceful agreements with Israel which might take away Iran's power among its peer group.

Now we get down to the nitty gritty.  Iran is also showing everyone how there is no conflict between Shi'ites and Sunnis by helping out Gaza because on November 17, 2012, the daily Kayhan, a close person to Khamenei,  claimed that the launch of missiles like the Fajr-5 at Israel by the Islamic resistance in Gaza shows that Iran supports the Islamic resistance front and completely disregards the artificial conflict between Shi'ites and Sunnis."   Boy oh boy, the Gazans are going to have to pay for this through the nose.  They're not going to get off easily.  They now owe their soul to Iran.

Resource:  Daily Alert; www.dailyalert.org.   from MEMRI.
Book:  The Strong Horse; power, politics, and the clash of Arab Civilizations, by Lee Smith  Lee writes and researches to find out why the Arabs hate us.   He has lived in Cairo, Beirut and Jerusalem and discovered the clash within the Arab civilizations themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashhad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fajr-5