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

Nadene Goldfoot                                                            

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kerry's Plan A Dud With Palestinians

Nadene Goldfoot                                                               

The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, approached the Palestinian Authority (PA) with a new plan to boost their economy.  He offered to invest $4 billion in the private sector.    This plan was revealed last week at the world Economic Forum in Jordan.

Several Palestinian businessmen who attended the conference liked Kerry's economic plan and want  to meet with Israelis to talk about joint investments in Judea-Samaria.  Those who met with Israeli in the past few days are now being threatened and there  are calls out to boycott them and their companies by the mainline Palestinians.  Munib al-Masri, one of the wealthiest Palestinians in the world, has been condemned for meeting with Israelis before, during and after the conference.  He said that Abbas knew about his meetings.   Political activists against Israel from  Fatah and Hamas are also in on the boycotting and threats.

The Palestinians have rejected this plan which has resulted in threatening businessmen who want to work with Israeli counterparts.  They have condemned it thinking its a US attempt to bribe them into making political concessions to Israel. 

I lived in Haifa for 10 months in 1980.  It reminded me of Portland, Oregon in that it is a port city and is beautiful.  They even have a subway.  From my Ulpan, the school where I lived and took classes to learn  Hebrew,  I was able to have a nice walk to the beach on the Mediterranean Sea.  The Haifa Chamber of Commerce recently invited Palestinian businessmen from Jenin in Samaria to visit Haifa.  These visiting Palestinians are now targeted by the other Palestinians of the "anti-normalization" campaigners.  They are being very vocal and are growing so that the group now includes the Palestinian Writers' Union.

40% of the Palestinian economy today comes from donations.   You'd think that the chosen Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, an economist would support the businessman, but he's not.  The fact of the matter is that the Muslim Brotherhood, who Hamas is a part of, does not want to see economic prosperity in the Palestinian cities.  They want their people to live in misery and frustration in order to keep alive the fight against Israel.  They've had all sorts of opportunities to live happily ever after and they always say "NO."  The Palestinian people are simply pawns in  the chess game to take Israel.

Resource: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3740/palestinians-threaten-businessmen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenin
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/26/john-kerry-plan-palestinian-economy

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

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                       

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The State Israel Was In Ten Years Ago

Nadene Goldfoot                                            

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

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

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

              Let's start with some history about Israel.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                                The 1982 Lebanon War

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crash Course on the Arab Israeli Conflict

                                                                 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

                      Jordan 's Dead Sea Palms, a Health Resort

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

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

April 30, 2013]

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

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

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

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

1. Israel withdrawing to its 1967 borders including

    a. pulling out of East Jerusalem

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

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

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

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

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

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