THINK-ISRAEL features essays and
commentaries that provide context for current events in Israel.
The war Islam is waging against Israel and the West is top
priority. We report on global anti-Semitism, Islamism and creeping
Sharia. We aim to make sense of what's going on.
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We are told that there is a difference between extremist Islam and
peaceloving normal Islam.
Judging by their behavior,
Muslims are anti-West, anti-Democracy, anti-Christian,
anti-Jewish, anti-Buddhist, and anti-Hindu. Muslims are involved
in most of the conflicts going on in the world: in Afghanistan,
Algeria, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Cyprus, East
Timor, India, Indonesia (2 provinces), Kashmir, Kazakastan,
Kosovo, Kurdistan, Macedonia, the Middle East, Nigeria, Pakistan,
Philippines, Somalia, Sudan, Russia-Chechnya, Tajikistan,
Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan. Muslims practice terrorism,
intimidation, criminal acts, hijra,
taqiyya, bribery and stealth jihad in Western countries. And Muslim
Sunnis and Muslim Shiites battle each other in most of the Middle East.
Doesn't this mean that
extremist Islam is the norm and normal Islam is extremely rare?
"The Palestinian people does not
exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for
continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab
unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians,
Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical
reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people,
since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a
distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism.
"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which
is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to
Haifa and Jaffa. While as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand
Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim
our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite
Palestine and Jordan." (PLO executive committee member
Zahir Muhsein, March 31, 1977, interview with the Dutch newspaper
Trouw.)
The Palestinian leadership, including Ahmed Shukar and
Yasser Arafat, has openly admitted Palestinian "peoplehood" is a fraud;
See here.
"It should be remembered that in 1918, with
the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Britain and France were handed
more than 5,000,000 square miles to divvy up and 99% was given to
the Arabs to create countries that did not exist previously. Less
than 1% was given as a Mandate for the re-establishment of a state for the Jews
on both banks of the Jordan River. In 1921, to appease the
Arabs once again, another three quarters of that less than 1% was given to a
fictitious state called Trans-Jordan."
(Jack Berger, May 31, 2004.)
The total for all the 22 Arab League
countries is 6,145,389 square miles (SM). By comparison, all 50 states of
the United States have a total of 3,787,318 SM. Israel has
8,463 SM, about one-sixth of that of the State of Michigan.
Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan are Muslim but not Arab and are
not included.
World Arab population: 300 million;
World Jewish population: 13.6 million; Israel's Jewish population:
5.4 million. (Dr. Wilbert Simkovitz,
http://dehai.org/archives/dehai_news_archive/apr04/0223.html)
"... during the late 1940s, more than 40 million refugees around
the world were resettled, except for one people. They [Palestinian
arabs] remain defined as refugees, wallowing 60 years later in 59
UNRWA refugee camps, financed by $400 million contributed annually
by nations of the world to nurture the promise of the "right of
return" to Arab neighborhoods and Arab villages from 1948 that no
longer exist." (Noam Bedein, Jerusalem Post, January
6, 2009.)
Some 900,000 Jews left behind $300 billion in assets when they were
forced to flee for their lives from the Arab countries in the 1940s.
They hold deeds for five times Israel's size. (Independent Media
Centre, Winnipeg)
Re Israel's irrevocable ownership of Israel, Samaria, Judea,
the Golan and Gaza:
"Nothing that Israel's legal system says can change the facts
that: (1) the legal binding document is the Mandate of the League
of Nations and (2) the obligations of the Mandate are valid in
perpetuity." (Professor Julius Stone)
"By 1920 the Ottoman Empire had exercised undisputed sovereignty
over Palestine for 400 years. In Article 95 of the treaty of
Sevres, that sovereignty was transferred to England in trust for a
national homeland for the Jews. The local Arabs had never
exercised sovereignty over Palestine and so they lost nothing.
Their rights were fully protected by a provisio in the
grant: '...it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done
which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing
non-Jewish communities in Palestine...' The proviso has
been fully observed by the Israelis. Since 1950 the Arabs have
built some 261 new settlements in Judea and Samaria — more
than twice as many as the Jews, but you never hear of them. They
fill them with Arabs from Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan and by the
grace of God they become Palestinians. Allahu Akbar! The Arabs
call Judea "the West Bank' because they would look silly claiming
that Jews are illegally living in Judea." (Comment by
Wallace Brand on Martin Peretz "Narrative Dissonance" The New
Republic, July 1, 2009)
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!
Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as
hydrophobia [rabies] in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic
apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident
habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce,
and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet
rule or live.
"A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement;
the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law
every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property — either
as a child, a wife, or a concubine — must delay the final extinction
of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power
among men.
"Individual Moslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of
the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being
moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has
already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at
every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the
strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly
struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the
civilisation of ancient Rome." (Winston Churchill, The River War:
An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan, Vol II, pages
248-250, 1899.)
Two Imperatives: "To ensure its long term survivability as the
Jewish nation-state, Israel has to deal effectively with two
imperatives: The Geographic and the Demographic.
The first imperative calls for Israeli control (i.e.
sovereignty) over all the territory east of the coastal plain up
to the Jordan River—to prevent intolerable risks to its physical
survival; the second imperative calls for significant reduction of
the Arab presence in the territory under Jewish sovereignty to
forestall the emergence of an intolerable demographic threat to
its dominant Jewish character." (Martin Sherman; see here and here.)
Think-Israel tends to use salafist rather than
extremist or Islamist or militant or
fundamentalist or activist to describe generically a
pious Muslim, one who sticks as closely as possible to the
unfiltered words and actions of Mohammad and the first three
generations of Muslims, including, especially, the Companions of
the Prophet. In modeling himself as closely as he can on the
preachings and practices of Mohammad, a salafist can in modern
terms be precisely described as an uninhibited terrorist, a
theological supersessionist, a political supremacist who believes
Islam and sharia law must dominate and a social barbarian, who
wages jihad with whatever tools are available.
Thanks to the high quality of whitewash supplied by sympathetic
propagandists, he seldom is so described.
THE THEME OF THIS ISSUE
"In every country where Muslims are in the
minority they are obsessed with 'the rule of law' and minority
rights. In every country where Muslims are the majority there is
no 'rule of law' [except sharia*] nor minority rights." — source uncertain
"When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles."
— Frank Herbert, Children of Dune, page 164.
Islamic stealth jihad may no longer have the active support of
the White House but it continues to invade America's
infrastructure, preaching and practicing hate against America,
Israel and nationalism, often in league with other anti-American
groups. In Congress, Congressman Keith Ellison, himself a Muslim
with links to Hamas, supports Antifa attacks against
Trump
(see here). Among the universities, ivy-league Columbia
University is an egregious example of universities becoming
centers for pro-Palestinian political activism
(see here). Anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, pro-Arab propaganda is
disguised as scholarly lectures and credible research.
In religious practice, across America, from coast to coast, imams, presumably properly
vetted before they came to the States and not considered
extremists, tell their congregants, many of whom are Americans, to
kill Jews
(see here). It is in fact difficult to find any part of the
American infrastructure that has not been infiltrated.
This set of articles focuses on three areas where, increasingly,
attempts are being made to resist Islamic jihad's penetration of
America's infrastructure: the judiciary, the security agencies and
our educational system. People can be brought to the white heat of
indignation that an Arab child has lost its life because of the
difficulties its parents encountered getting out of the Middle East
war zone to Europe, but the response to Muslim infiltration of the
American infra-structure is tepid. Part of this is due to a lack of
publicity. Part is due to the Obama administration active support of
infiltration and vigorous tamping down debate, discussion and
eliminating information on Islamic terrorists from government databases. And
part is due to well-written (but misleading and often dead wrong)
claims about the innocence of such Islamic practices.
IDAHO TAKES MAJOR STEP TOWARD BANNING COURTS FROM USING SHARIAH LAW
by Benjamin Arie, February 25, 2018
When discussing the use of sharia in American law courts, we
need to make explicit what exactly is referenced. A Muslim may
have willed distributing his money unfairly among his children
because in Sharia women are second-class citizens. An American
law court will treat this as it would his choosing to leave all
his money to a hospital or to his cat. Nor are we talking about a
religious court — a Catholic court, a Jewish court, a
Lutheran court — outside of the American court system,
where the opposing sides agree to argue their grievance and
accept the decision of the religious court. What is at issue is
whether an American judge in an American court can base his
decision on Muslim law instead of the American Constitution. As
one consequence of the use of Sharia law, when a Muslim
wife sues for divorce, the wife automatically
loses financially and often she would also lose her children.
For years little was written about the increasing number of USA
law courts that were using sharia law in civil cases involving
Muslims. But in the last few years, some states have responded by
banning the use of sharia law in the courts. Benjamin Arie writes
about Idaho's recent ban on the use of sharia law in Idaho's law
courts. Some lawyers and politicians have objected to the law,
noting that judges and politicians already swear to uphold the
Constitution. Unfortunately, the oath of office too often was
ignored during previous administrations.
TRUMP RETURNS "JIHAD" TO INTELLIGENCE.
But will it reverse decades of entrenched indoctrination?
by Raymond Ibrahim, December 20, 2017
In 2008, Steve Coughlin, a counterintelligence expert in the
Koranic basis of jihad and a government contractor, was fired.
His job had been providing factual information on sharia to the
military. Many other experts on Islamic terrorism were, in Steve
Emerson's words, "banned from speaking to any U.S. government
counterterrorism conferences." In 2009, on orders from the White House, data bases in
our intelligence agencies were systematically gutted of
information about terrorist connections with Islam. Intelligence agencies could
collect emails and telephone calls from private citizens, but they
were forbidden to snoop around mosques, a locale where
like-minded terrorists often connect and develop their plots.
Years later, we learned from Pamela Geller
(here) that
"[n]ot only did the Obama administration scrub counter-terror
programs of jihad and Islam, ... his
administration scrubbed the records of Muslim terrorists. [...]
An agent of the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, for 15
years, Philip Haney, reported (February 5, 2016) that
after the Christmas Day underwear bomber, Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab, tried to blow up a crowded passenger jet over
Detroit,
'President Obama threw the intelligence community under
the bus for its failure to connect the dots. He said, 'This
was not a failure to collect intelligence; it was a failure to
integrate and understand the intelligence that we already
had.' [...] His words infuriated many of us because we knew his administration had been engaged in a bureaucratic effort to destroy the raw material — the actual intelligence we had collected for years, and erase those dots. The dots constitute the intelligence needed to keep Americans safe, and the Obama administration was ordering they be wiped away."
John O. Brennan, Prez Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor
and later his head of the CIA, successfully toned down
assessments of the extent of Islamic jihad in American, making
sure that the root cause of terror jihad was not systematically
explored. In 2013, Rowan Scarborough wrote an important article on the consequences
of not having information on potential terror attacks available:
"It is not just the case of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a radicalized
jihadist whom the FBI questioned in 2011 and cleared of
terrorism links. [Tsarnaev went on to kill and injure people at the Boston Marathon.] At least five Muslims have attempted mass
destruction in the U.S. since 2009, undetected beforehand by law
enforcement and the intelligence community."
(see
here.)
A reader of the Scarborough article,
raymondvilla, commented, "Never in the history of the world, has a nation under threat, been
ordered NOT TO NAME OR IDENTIFY THE ENEMY. Patriots for 50,000
years have cried out the name of the enemy they saw approaching.
But laws, made by the enemy within, have forbade Americans from
doing this. One of the most shocking evils in this century
surely."
This underscores the importance of President Trump's recent order to return
"jihad" to Intelligence. As Raymond Ibrahim writes below,
"According to the new strategy document, 'The primary transnational threats Americans face are from jihadist terrorists and transnational criminal organizations'; the document also vows to 'pursue threats to their source, so that jihadist terrorists are stopped before they ever reach our borders.'"
The July-October 2017 issue of Think-Israel featured an article
by Rafael Medoff on the "Arab World Studies Notebook, a
propaganda tract "depicting Israel as the aggressor in every
Arab-Israeli war and praising Muslim conquerors throughout the
ages for their 'gentle treatment of civilian populations.'"
(See here.) Considering how much money Saudi Arabia has invested
in Harvard, it is not surprising that the text is distributed by the
Harvard Outreach Center of the Center for Middle East Studies.
Receiving no satisfaction from school boards, parents who recognize
the danger of this indoctrination have resorted to suing the local
school administration. In Chatham, New Jersey, a mother is suing
because "the teaching of Islam veered consistently away from a
factual overview to flirt repeatedly with religious indoctrination."
The children were also given videos to watch at home. These were
"replete with biased, chastising statements encouraging the students
to follow the Quran and become
Muslim." (See
here.) In this article, Tabitha Korol discusses some
textbook and video sources used by schools teaching the about Islam.
As Korol notes, "This generation of children is being fed an
egregiously biased version of an ideology that is incompatible with
democracy and corrosive to our beliefs, morals, and ideals. Let us
be clear: their ultimate purpose is the conversion of our
children."
The influx of illegal and pseudo-legal immigrants from South
and Central America is well-documented. They cross the border
illegally or they come as tourists and have 'anchor' babies in the
States, creating a to-date unchallenged mechanism for
chain-pulling-in the baby's very extended family. Others come to
the border bringing their young children and depend on sympathy to
get across. A high number of these adults are young men, not
women, so it is not certain the children are theirs. All claim
they are political refugees. They are not. They are here for
economic reasons. With their entry, we've begun to see a high rise
in middling to quite horrible crimes and a large increase in
incarceration, welfare, medical and educational costs. There is
also additional health costs to Americans, in that the immigrants
bring communicable highly-contagious diseases we have just about
eliminated in the States. There's been encouragement of local
terrorism, and often forcible incorporation of local young people
into MS-13 gangs.
The number of Korans and prayer rugs scattered around at our
borders indicate that an unknown number of Muslims are coming in
under cover of the larger group of Hispanics. Unlike the illegal
Hispanics who 'hide' by living in large Hispanic communities,
these Muslim infiltrators simply disappear. It is feared they make
up the components of 'secret cells', waiting for orders to commit
acts of terror. Other Muslims enter legally from the Middle East
but come from countries known to be strongly salafist, with a
history of promoting Islam by acts of terror. The media, which are
generally for open borders, airbrushes reality by describing these
infiltrating Muslim terrorists as 'innocent undocumented
immigrants'. The administration is attempting to ban at least
those from several countries such as Somalia that are known to be
terrorist training centers.
Many Muslim immigrants comes in legally under the US Refugee
Resettlement program, a government-funded program that is very
quietly administered by the State Department, Health and Human
Services, and Homeland Security. The program was started in 1980
by the then-president Jimmy Carter; it has been continued by
every administration since then. Well over three million
refugees have been brought in for permanent resettlement
(see here). Of the 100,000 refugees resettled here in 2014,
some 40% were Muslim
(see here). The Office of Refugee Resettlement has issued a
cheery detail-free overview
(see
here). The immigrants are said to have been securely vetted
initially by UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency
(see here) but in many cases, even their real names remain
unknown. The program uses local Christian religious groups —
and even a Jewish group, HIAS — as their "welcome wagon." To
watch an eye-opening interview with an administrator involved on
the state level,
click here. The program is reported as costing more than $1
billion yearly, but considering the salaries paid to the large
number of UN, federal and state employees involved, the real cost
is likely to be much higher, even ignoring welfare and medical
benefits paid in perpetuum.
Frankly, it is not clear whether there is a single central
administration coordinating a number of resettlement programs or
whether there are several independent programs. For example, the
State Department has a resettlement program that deals just with
Syrian refugees. Typically, UNHCR tries to repatriate the
refugees or integrate them in the host country. Resettlement is
done to a third country only if the other two ways are
impossible. Nayla Rush writes, "The United States is welcoming
Syrian refugees only from the 22,427 who made it through UNHCR
referrals; it is not considering the remaining 4,368,012."
(See here.) However, with regard to the amount of money
involved, she also points out, "The United States has donated $4.5
billion to UNHCR since the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011."
According to the State Department the refugees coming to the
States "have been subject to the highest level of security checks"
by UNHCR but as Rush points out, "Americans are asked today to
welcome Syrian refugees without hesitation and have total faith in
the refugee resettlement program." Considering the amount of guess
work and reliance on probabilities in the initial vetting as well
as the known environmental instabilities in the Middle East, it is
dangerous to take third-party reassurances at face value.
Supporters of open borders and unvetted immigration are in
administrative control in many cities and states and on the
federal level, so hard data are often hard to come by. This set
of articles looks at the general problem of illegal immigration
as best they can.
While countless articles wallow in the misery of the adults and
children who come to the States illegally, Walter Williams raises
larger issues that affect all who live in the US, legally and
illegally. "Does everyone in the world have a right to live in the
U.S.? Do Americans have a right to decide who and under what
conditions a person may enter our country? Should we permit
foreigners landing at our airports to ignore U.S. border control
laws just as some ignore our laws at our southern border?" All
countries have the right to decide on these questions. Even the
US. And if we have the right to make decisions about who and when
and why foreigners can come into our country, it follows that we
can exclude those that don't meet our requirements. We can exclude
them before, during and after they enter illegally. This isn't a
game where you win by reaching the goalpost.
Come to think of it, even in games, you need to play by the
rules.
Determining the fiscal costs of illegal immigration must, by
the nature of the subject, rely on estimates. So, in any study,
it's important to know what components were analyzed and whether
the results are in line with what we can see for ourselves in
communities hosting illegals. One group that is credible, the
Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)
(see here), publishes
articles on illegal immigration, both statistical and
informational. FAIR published a study September 27, 2017, written
by Matt O'Brien and Spencer Raley, that estimates the annual cost
of the some 12.5 million illegal immigrants and the 4.2 million
citizen children of illegal immigrants to taxpayers at the
federal, state and local levels at $116
billion
(see here). A PDF copy is
available
here. There were complaints that pegging the number of
illegals at 12.5 million was too high. Raley pointed out in an
article in The
Hill
here that:
... this is based on the same criteria used by other
credible research organizations like Pew Research. However, for
ideological reasons, Pew leaves out illegal immigrants who are
beneficiaries of programs like Temporary Protected Status and
Deferred Action for Childhood of Arrivals. Failing to count these
individuals falsely suggests there are fewer illegal immigrants in
the country today than in the past and inappropriately lowers the
costs associated with the illegal immigrant cohort.
Proponents of open or at least relaxed borders often point out
that illegals work and pay taxes. True, but note that about a
third of the illegals work off the book, paying no taxes. The
money returned by those who do pay taxes falls far short of
government expenses incurred on the state and federal levels. FAIR
calculates that total governmental expenditures add up to $135
billion annually. But illegal immigrants only contribute about $19
billion in taxes, leaving a net deficit cost to taxpayers of $116
billion. Were we to factor in private charities and the
monetary burden this additional population places on our private
educational, welfare and medical groups, obviously the proportion
the illegals pay in taxes would be an even smaller percent of the
money it actually costs to take care of them.
Often in examining costs, what is overlooked is the disparity
of the impact on the individual states relative to the cost
burden to the federal government. Jordan Candler in an article
called "Illegal Immigration Is an Economic Bludgeon", January
18, 2018, sums up the O'Brien and Raley data on the state-federal
differential this
way (see here):
The federal government absorbs $46
billion in outlays, while state and local governments dole out $89
billion. At the same time, $15.4 billion in taxes goes to the
federal government, whereas just $3.5 billion goes to state and
local governments. In other words, as the Washington
Examiner's Paul Bedard put it, "State and local governments
are getting ravaged by the costs," and "The federal government ...
is getting off easy."
"In 2013," O'Brien and Raley add, "FAIR estimated the total
cost to be approximately $113 billion. So, in under four years,
the cost has risen nearly $3 billion. This is a disturbing and
unsustainable trend." Indeed. Democrats rail against what it would
cost to build a wall on our southern border. But the truth is
that, even if we use the highest cost estimates, the wall would
cost far less than what existing illegal immigrants already cost
taxpayers every year. That will only continue to worsen if
judicial activists and illegal immigration enablers continue to
make mitigation elusive.
In this article the Staff of the Association of Mature American Citizens
(AMAC) sums up some of the pertinent information in a
user-friendly way. It is a good introduction to a complex problem.
This article by Neal Asbury is a specific example of the
general statements about the actual cost of harboring illegal
aliens. It describes the medical costs of treating the illegal
alien without health insurance back in 2013. As Asbury writes, "A
2007 report by the Journal of the American Medical Association
found that in a four-year period, about 99 percent of those who
used Emergency Medicaid were determined to be immigrants that
entered this country illegally." It hasn't gotten better. The
increase in the number of illegals has only added more pressure on
an already dysfunctional system.
THE TRUTH BEHIND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, AS TOLD BY A CALIFORNIA NATIVE
by Beth Baumann, April 16, 2018
People understand that the money it costs to care for illegal
aliens is money coming out of their pockets. People feel the
agony of the family that loses a child to the barbaric cruelty
of some illegal. Their sympathy is immediate and genuine. But
it's harder to feel compassion (or even interest) for the more
prosaic interactions that over time erode the feeling of
neighborliness and community that most of us take for granted.
Beth Baumann describes her mother's car accident. No one died.
No one was even badly hurt. Her mother's car was hit by a drunk
driver. But this is where ordinary expectations went out the
window. The man who hit her mother was an illegal driving drunk
without a license and without real insurance.
FACTORING IN ACADEMIA IN THE GROWING SEPARATION BETWEEN
DIASPORA AND ISRAELI JEWS
Much is being said about the reduced interest Americans Jews,
especially young American Jews, have in Israel. Accurate or not, young
American Jews, as do other college age Americans, display an ignorance
of European history in general, not just Judaism and its recent
history. The dumbing down of academic rigor as their professors
promote globalism and socialism is turning out graduates chock full of
humanitarianism and politically-correct mantras, with little actual
integrated information or structured understanding. Some of what they
are taught is indeed anti-Semitic, disguised as anti-Zionism. Israel
is bad because Israel is gungho nationalist and many of our academics
have shown a remarkable ability to ignore the horrors directly
attributable to Marxism. They have reverted to a belief in the virtue
of a global government, one world with no borders. Doubtless, such a
world would be run by dedicated and gifted administrators such as
those now running the U.N. or the E.U.
There is one area some academics, Jews in the West and Israeli
Jews do see eye to eye. Ironically, these academics, who should be
knowledgeable, instead are among the leaders of the minimization
of the Holocaust. Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld cites Professor Israel Charney's
observations, "These Holocaust distorting scholars have firmly
decided not to see the victimization of the Jews in the Holocaust
as a major event in human history. The agonized fates of the
Jewish victims, because they are Jews, is nowhere to be
experienced in these seemingly advanced intellectual analyses. Yet
the Nazis themselves tell us over and over again explicitly that
they hate Jews."
Draining the Holocaust of emotion is quite a feat! But to what
purpose?
CAMPUS ANTISEMITISM AND PSEUDO-INTELLECTUAL COMPLICITY
by Rachel Hirshfeld, December 11, 2017
Anti-semitism on campus has some curious components. It certainly
exists. Hostility to campus Jews occurs sometimes subtly, but as time
goes by it has become more openly aggressive. Perhaps because
college administrators can't cope, they often deny there's a problem.
They claim the campus is safe, except perhaps for justifiably
repelling questionable ideologies. But that's the problem. Free and
uninhibited expression of any and all points of view is no longer in
fashion. The progressive bullies have proclaimed that Israel is evil
and backtalk is not treated kindly. Rachel Hirshfeld writes of the
repressive atmosphere Jews on campus encounter. She also discusses the
defects of a Stanford University report that stacked the deck in
selecting which type of student to study and so, unsurprisingly,
minimizes the degree of antisemitism, presenting "a highly inaccurate
and misleading account of antisemitism on campus."
HOTOVELY'S FAUX PAS: TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT AMERICAN JEWS
by Gil Troy, November 28, 2017
This article by Gil Troy writes about what happened at Princeton
when Hillel canceled a speech by Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister
Tzipi Hotovely after she voiced some home truths about American
Jewry. An interview with Hotovely can be
seen here.
THE MIDDLE EAST STUDIES ASSOCIATION IS FUNDAMENTALLY ANTI-ZIONIST
by Cary Nelson, December 26, 2017
In the previous issue of Think-Israel, we examined the American
Library Association and its pro-Palestinian proclivities. Cary
Nelson wrote this report after observing two panels at a Middle
East Studies Association (MESA) conference. We introduce it with
some comments from an Editorial Note entitled "The Non-Political
MESA Hijacked By Palestinian Agenda" from Israel Academia
Monitor:
(see
here)
MESA ... passed a resolution at the 2014 annual business meeting affirming "that calls for institutional boycott, divestment, and/or sanctions are protected free speech and legitimate forms of non-violent political action; it affirms the right of MESA members to engage in open and transparent discussion of the boycott of Israeli academic institutions in the context of the Annual Meeting and other forums." Simply put, the non-political association has bent over to help the Palestinians.
This should come in no surprise as over the years, MESA has shown
a strong pro-Palestinian bias. For instance, the group became
involved with Palestinian American Research Center (PARC)
[see here] which was
established in 1998 to promote Palestinian studies and exchange
among scholars interested in Palestinian affairs. PARC boasted
that in the latest MESA annual meeting it had 50 fellows and board
members
[see here] who participated 63 times throughout the conference. PARC
also sponsored some of the MESA panels. [...]
In contrast, in 2005 MESA objected to an academic boycott of
Israeli universities. Professor Ali Banuazizi, the then
president of MESA wrote "The Committee on Academic Freedom of
the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) is
writing to express its profound disagreement with the recent
decision of the Association of University Teachers (AUT) calling
on its members to 'refrain from participation in any form of
academic and cultural cooperation, or joint projects' with Haifa
University and Bar Ilan University, in Israel. We strongly urge
the Association to withdraw or rescind this resolution to
boycott these universities and blacklist their faculty at the
very earliest opportunity... We find thoroughly objectionable
the call of the AUT to refrain from any and all scholarly
interaction with the entire professional staff of two
universities because of the policies of the state in which they
are situated." All this changed in recent years. [...]
The pattern is clear. Professional associations are taken over by Palestinian activists and their sympathizers who maneuver the agenda toward attacking Israel while preventing any serious debate on the troubled Middle East.
by David Hazony and Adam Scott Bellos, December 12, 2017
David Hazony and Adam Scott Bellos write that "American Jews
are re-litigating the twentieth century, while Israelis are living
the twenty-first." American Jews raise conundrums, Israelis work
out the problems in a project as they push it along. Hazony and
Bellos write, "Israel has made its choices: security over
messianic peace-seeking, capitalism over socialism, pragmatism
over utopia. The country exists, and its foundations are now
stronger than those of many other developed democracies. American
deliberations about Israel's 'right to exist' suggest a surplus of
spare time and an absence of imagination. Israelis do not struggle
with the questions that grip American Jews because they have been
resolved, by choice or by history, or left permanently unanswered,
which is also an answer." Israelis are charging full steam ahead.
This is an essay to think about.
When President Trump declared that the US would finally follow
through on the US decision to move its embassy from Tel-Aviv to
Jerusalem, few believed him. After all, previous presidents had taken
advantage of the loophole that kept the Embassy in Tel-Aviv for six
months, then another six month, and then again. Friends of the
Religion of Peace warned that the peaceful Islamites would become
unpeaceful at such an insult. Did the US not understand the Arabs had
owned Jerusalem since forever? When it became clear that Trump meant
what he said, the State Department went into walk-slow-and-stall mode.
They virtuously pointed out that it would take a while (at least until
the Democrats returned from Capistrano) to find a site, to build, to
relocate the people. Amazingly, when they finally grasped
that Trump was serious, it took all of no time. What a little bit of push will do!
UNGA Item 5 draft resolution A/ES-10/L.22 submitted on December
19, 2017 expressed the anger of the UN members with changes in the
status of Jerusalem. Jose Ciprut observes that the UN may object
but, in analogy to Galileo's assertion that earth revolves around
the sun no matter what the authorities declare, so it is true that
Jerusalem is Israel's capital, no matter what the UN might wish. In
a larger context, Ciprut points out that their methods may be
updated but "...Islam is working to promote its own interests and
priorities in the bosom of Western civilization, using atavistic
mentalities and depleted worldviews to endogenize claims that are
not only historically and geographically false but also rhetorically
misleading."
TESTIMONY OF JOHN R. BOLTON ON MOVING THE U.S. EMBASSY IN ISRAEL
by John R. Bolton, November 9, 2017
John Bolton testified in Congress on what moving the U.S. Embassy
in Israel to Jerusalem means and doesn't mean. First, proximity to
the host government facilitates diplomatic relations. Moreover, we
would be doing in Israel what we do in the other countries of the
world, namely, we place our embassy in whatever city the country
declares is its capital. Nor does it jeopardize negotiations on
Jerusalem's final status, although time and reality have discarded
several previous notions, such as the one that Jerusalem be
internationalized. Putting it bluntly, Bolton said, "Moving the
Embassy may produce new talking points for those who have never
reconciled themselves to Israel's existence in the first place, but
it will not 'cause' any change in the existing geopolitical state of
play." Including the efforts called the 'peace process.'
William Kilpatrick recalls how many doomsayers there were
when the US announced it was moving its embassy in Israel to
Jerusalem. European politicians, Arab leaders, clerics from many
a church. Even the Pope chimed in. They all warned of the dire
consequences — we didn't want to rile up the Muslims, did
we? But why would they expect the Arabs to go berserk? They have
been reassuring us for years that Islam was a religion of peace.
The moral of the story? As Kilpatrick says, "As Islam expands
its global reach, it's becoming increasingly evident that the
'don't-do-anything-to-provoke-them' policy isn't working, and
never will."
The monstrous attacks of the Arabs on Israel are mirrored in
the attacks of the Indian Muslims on the Hindus in India. In an
early version of a two-state solution — it was supposed to create peace
by separating Muslims and Hindus when
India became independent in 1947 — a large piece of India was
used to create the Islamic state of Pakistan. It made no
difference. Muslim terrorism has continued unabated. Yet India stayed
pro-Palestinian in the UN. As this set of articles point out,
things are changing.
REASONS FOR THE CHANGE IN INDIA'S ATTITUDE TOWARD ISRAEL
by Jerusalem Post Staff, January 9, 2018
Despite the murderous harassment of Indian Hindus by Indian
Muslims, India has been strongly pro-Palestinian, even though it
gained them no advantage in the UN. Nor have the Indian Muslims
become more tractable about their claim to Kashmir. But things
have begun to change. The degree of shift is shown by the visit
made by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Israel, the
first such visit by an Indian leader. Aside from both countries
suffering from Islamist terrorism, Israel and India share similar
values and goals, as well as an interest in utilizing advanced
military and agricultural technology.
This is the executive summary of S. Samuel C. Rajiv's article:
"India and Israel elevated their bilateral relationship to that of
a 'strategic partnership' in July 2017. While agriculture and
opportunities for cooperation in the innovation economy hogged the
limelight during both the prime ministerial visits, the
defense/security peg of the partnership continues to have the
greatest traction. The two countries hope to take it forward with
an ambitious agenda that includes joint manufacturing as well as
joint research and development."
This isn't empty politician-speak.
Rajiv's article supplies us with impressive details.
CALCUTTA PRO-ISRAEL RALLY BY FAR-RIGHT HINDU MOVEMENT
by Amanda Borschel-Dan, February 15, 2018
Amanda Borschel-Dan describes a 70,000 people pro-Israel rally
that took place in Calcutta, India. The occasion marked "the
tenth anniversary of the founding of the far-right, anti-Muslim
Hindu Samhati nationalist movement." They passed a voice
resolution asking the Indian government to move its embassy in
Israel to Jerusalem. Hindu Samhati founder Tapan Ghosh spoke of
similarities between Israel and India, both having struggled
fiercely to obtain an independent homeland, both having been viciously
attacked time and again by Muslims, both having been forced to fight
against Islamic expansion. The photos accompanying the article
are compelling.
Hugh Fitzgerald responds to a Chinese writer, Ding Gang, who writes
that the Muslims in India have not been radicalized as they have in
the rest of the world, implying that Indian Muslims are different
than their co-religionists elsewhere. Fitzgerald cites Peter
Hammond's observations in his book Slavery, Terrorism and
Islam:
When the Muslim population remains under 2% in a country, they will be seen primarily as a peace-loving minority and not as a threat to other citizens.
As the Muslim population reaches 2% to 5%, they begin to recruit from ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, within prisons and street gangs.
From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food" and increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature such food on their shelves — along with threats for failure to comply.
The violence increases when the Muslim population reaches 20%.
After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues.
At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic
terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare.
Fitzgerald points out that circumstances — such as the
partition that reduced the number of Muslims in India — have
made for superficial differences, but Indian Muslims have done
more than their fair share of appalling acts of terror.
"The Arab world will fight Israel to the last Palestinian.
That's all they are walking munitions and objects of
exploitation." —Dave man, Jun 25, 2010
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE ARAB COUNTRIES AND
PALESTINIAN ARABS
By the start of World War in 1914, the Ottomans (Muslim
but not Arab) had dominated the Middle East, the south-west part
of Europe and North Africa since the 13th and 14th centuries
C.E. They sided with the Germans in the war and so lost most of
their land holdings. At San Remo in 1920, the international
community, as embodied in the League of Nations, fostered three
mandates to spell out the redistribution of the Middle East. Two
mandates became the start of carving Arab states from 99% of the
land. They often disregarded family and clan affiliations when
establishing borders between the new Arab states.
The third
mandate, the Palestine Mandate, reserved the remaining 1% in an
irrevocable trust for a Jewish homeland in recognition of the
historic association of the Jewish people and the land. Before it
was signed 2 years later, Great Britain split off 78% of the Mandate
land, the territory on the east side of the Jordan, to be
administered by the Hashemites; this is now the Hashemite kingdom of
Jordan. See Myths and Facts here for an excellent writeup.
1920 - Original territory assigned to the Jewish National Home
1922 - Final territory assigned to the Jewish National Home
Since 1922 by international agreement and as an irrevocable
trust, the Jews legally (and biblically and historically and by
right of conquest) own all of Samaria, Judea, Gaza, much of the
Golan and what became the state of Israel in 1948.
Israel's neighbors invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Israel
managed to survive but she lost Gaza to Egypt. Jordan seized
Samaria and Judea (AKA the West Bank) and the eastern part of
Jerusalem, which had a large Jewish population. Jordan killed or kicked
out all the Jewish inhabitants, razing their synagogues, and
filling the Jewish homes with Arabs.
In 1964 by fiat, Yassir Arafat, with Russia's help, created an entity
that had never existed: the Palestinian people, complete with an
ancient history, which they would frequently alter. The Arabs living under
Jordanian and Egyptian rule were specifically excluded from
being considered Palestinians. It was only when the Arab countries
invaded Israel again in 1967, and Israel regained Samaria, Judea and
eastern Jerusalem, that Arafat redefined the Palestinian people to
include the Arabs that lived under Jordanian and Egyptian
rule since 1948. The Palestinian people eventually included Arafat and
his band of thugs (the Palestine Liberation Organization), the
terrorist organizations Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, the local
Arabs who had become Israeli citizens, the local Arabs who lived in
Samaria, Judea and Gaza and the 1948 Arab refugees scattered in
various Western and Arab countries, Samaria, Judea and Gaza.
The Jews lost control of an intrinsic part of their land during
the 19 years from 1948 to 1967 of Jordanian and Egyptian rule.
Had that not happened, the Arabs would still hate Israel
and keep trying to destroy it. But the "Palestinian people" and their
fanciful history would not exist. The Jews would never have left, so
they would not be returning as "occupiers." Arab propagandists would
be deprived of an effective way to make counter-claim to Jewish land.
They would have to make do with the Arab refugees of 1948, who lived
well everywhere on charity while refusing to live anywhere but the
Jewish state. But because of these 19 years where the Arabs had a
toehold on land, the Arab could brew up countless geographic
and historic fables that, with the help of a uncritical media, have
won sympathy for these very special victims. In an inversion of
reality, Israel has been branded as the occupier of land belonging to
another people.
The "Palestinians" have been able to do what no Arab country has
been able to do militarily: convince many who are gullible or
willfully ignorant that they own the land of Israel, while killing
Jews without arousing the full power of the IDF.
The major Arab countries are now engaged in a
life-and-death struggle among themselves. They have withdrawn much of
their support, moral and financial, from the Palestinian Arabs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
REGARDING THE OFT-PROPOSED PALESTINIAN STATE, CONSIDER THESE
FACTS:
Arab refugees living in Samaria and
Judea, where the Palestinian State is to be installed, are excluded
from citizenship in the proposed new state.
The 1959 Arab League Decree #1547 disallowed Palestinians
from becoming citizens of Arab countries, thus perpetuating their
status as 'refugees' ad infinitum. Even if they were allowed
citizenship in the new state, millions have already lived in
host Arab countries for generations and many have gone to Western
countries — so these millions would be unlikely to return.
No Jew will be allowed to live in the Palestinian State,
not even the most dedicated Marxist Jews.
It is unlikely that many Arab citizens of Israel will leave to
live as do those unlucky enough to be living under Hamas or the
Palestinian Authority (PA)
Hamas and the PA spite each other, attack each other or talk about reconciling. Over and over again.
So will there be one Palestinian State or two? Who exactly will be the citizens of the
new state(s) of Palestine that would be entitled to the millions of dollars the world
lavishes on the 'Palestinians'?
Brigitte Gabriel on the history of Islam
Hypocracy Over Gaza by Pat Condell
The Arab world hates Israelis because the Koran tells them to hate Jews. They hate Israel because Israel is a modern, free, vibrant and democratic country, adjectives that describe none of the Arab countries. And, to make matters worse, Israel is full of Jews. Paradoxically, the Arabs also hate Israel's arch enemy, the Palestinian Arabs, who migrated from these Arab countries to where the Jews lived. As refugees fleeing Israel, these Arabs gained the sympathy of the world. Mordechai Kedar points out that they live better than all other refugees, receiving free food, education and medical care for themselves and their descendants. And they don't pay municipal taxes. Many have enough surplus to sell some of their food intake and rent out their homes. Moreover, Arabs are wary because Palestinian Arabs have a propensity to try to take over host countries such as Lebanon and Jordan, where they were repelled at the cost of thousands of lives. And the part of the Arab world that see "Israel as the only hope in dealing with Iran is not happy at the expectation that it must mortgage its future and its very existence to the internal fighting between the PLO and Hamas." In sum, "the Arab world has realized that there is no solution that will satisfy those who have turned 'refugee-ism' into a profession, so that the 'Palestinian problem' has become an emotional and financial scam that only serves to enrich the corrupt leaders of Ramallah and Gaza."
Guy Millière points out that the "Palestinians are the first people invented to serve as a weapon of mass destruction of another people." The European Union has become their main source of money; the UN has puffed up their illusion of being a country; and the global media and foreign politicians endorse their claim to be an actual people with geography and a history — a history they continually rewrite.
They claim to own Samaria and Judea because Jordan conquered this part of Israeli in 1948 and held onto it for 19 years before Israel reclaimed it. They have never shown any sign of wanting to — or
having the capability to — create the infrastructure of a viable state.
They were created and continue to be supported to try to kill off Israel. But circumstances in the Middle East have changed. Sunni Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia under threat of Shiite Arab countries such as Iran need Israel alive. So there is no need for the Palestinian Arabs. It will be interesting to see if the "Palestinians" can continue to breathe on their own, when the life support provided by Arab countries directly and via the UN are withdrawn.
The Palestinian Authority appears to be riding high. It got 128
nations to vote against the US recognizing Jerusalem as the
capital of Israel. This included India, which has been creating
significant ties with Israel. But support for the PA by India, as by other
countries, has been
eroding. As Caroline Glick writes, "The problem for the PLO/PA is that the world has changed
fundamentally while they were busy embracing terrorists and
getting away with it." Arab countries that cluster around Saudi
Arabia fear the growing threat from Iran. They need help. It
doesn't take much to realize that while "the Palestinians keep playing their old tricks, Israel is becoming a more and more significant regional and global power and the nations of the world aren't interested in weakening Israel when Israel is helping them survive and prosper."
PALESTINIAN STATE WILL NOT ACCEPT PALESTINIAN REFUGEES
by David Meir-Levi, September 25, 2011
David Meir-Levi discusses some of the shocking revelations the
Palestinian leadership made as far back as 2011 about the
character of their projected state. While others may talk about a
Palestinian state bringing peace, PA President Mahmoud Abbas sees
the future state becoming a member of the UN as a way to pursue
legal claims against Israel. In no way will it end their physical
aggression against Israel. The most surprising information is
that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the
Palestinian state! "It would not only apply to refugees in
countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other
132 countries where Abdullah [the PA's Ambassador to Lebanon,
Abdullah Abdullah] says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that
'even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps]
inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will
not be considered citizens.'"
Think about it: Palestinian Arab refugees now
living where the Palestinian state will be located will
continue to be Palestinians but not citizens of the Palestinian State. Around half of the
inhabitants of Samaria and Judea are refugees, and they will
continue to remain stateless. The Arab refugees living in various
Arab countries will remain stateless as will the Arab refugees
living in the West as non-citizens. Kinda puts an end to the
notion that what will solve the refugee problem is that Israel cut
out a significant piece of its historical self to create a
Palestinian state. And of course, UNRWA is expected to continue
the support of the refugees.
JIHADIS LIVING ON SUPPORT PAYMENTS FROM THE EUROPE THEY VOWED TO DESTROY
by Giulio Meotti, March 10, 2017
One popular theory claims that if we surround Muslims with
love, they will abandon their fiendish bloodthirsty religion and
become civilized. Giulio Meotti discusses one example of how the
theory operates in practice: "the jihadis' use of European
cradle-to-grave entitlements to fund their 'holy war'". Known
terrorists and their families have received "jobs, homes, public
assistance, unemployment benefits, relief payments, child
benefits, disability payments, cash support." This hasn't changed
their mission to destroy Europe. In fact one Islamist "urged the
faithful to seek unemployment benefits to devote full-time to war
against the 'infidels'". As Meotti says, "The cycle of welfare and
jihad needs to be stopped. Now."
There is an anomaly that makes most people sneer or chuckle.
Feminists who bridle at the slightest slighting of Western women
have no problem with Muslim women being treated as chattel in the
Middle East and even in Western countries. Bruce Bawer writes of
Swedish bureaucrats that speak proudly of their scrupulous
promotion of gender equality but accept Islam's sexual inequality.
This attitude has consequences that go beyond downplaying feminist
principles when they conflict with Muslim customs. It goes further
than favoring the husband when a Muslim couple divorce. Bawer
cites a case where a Muslim man raped a Swedish child. Because the
authorities respected Muslim customs, he was given a suspended
sentence; the welfare of the child was ignored. The real problem
is that by allowing Muslim men in Sweden to act as they would in
their home countries, Swedish law and customs get short shrift.
Swedish citizens in Sweden are being judged by Sharia law,
not Swedish laws and customs.
6,000 CHILD ABUSE ALLEGATIONS IN MUSLIM GROOMING GANG 'HOTSPOT' SANDWELL IN FIVE YEARS
from Breitbart London, January 11, 2018
These are three news items that appeared in Breitbart London
about Muslim gangs preying on mainly white British children,
grooming them for prostitution. The comments in the news items are
also well worth reading; they add details and sharpen the
image.
The scandal is that Muslim grooming gangs have been active for
years across the country but the police have ignored the practice,
even though the grooming involved child rape and human trafficking as
well as addicting the children to drugs and alcohol. It is said
the police feared being called racist or islamophobic were they to take action. Or they
feared there'd be a backlash against the Muslim community. Even
now, rather than using the word Muslim, the grooming gangs
are often described as Asian. What is new is we are just
now learning how many cities are involved. Initially, the practice
appeared to be confined to the city of Rotherham, where some of
the groomers were prosecuted almost a decade ago. It is also
becoming clear that many thousands of children were raped over the
years and the authorities — police and politicians —
preferred ignoring complaints and silencing whistle-blowers to
dealing with the problem, because it involved Muslims.
ISLAMIC ANTI-SEMITISM IN FRANCE: TOWARD ETHNIC CLEANSING
by Guy Millière, February 16, 2018
Guy Millière provides us with examples of how pervasive attacks on
Jews have become across France. French Jews have become so insecure
that many are leaving the country. It is not just the physical
attacks, which are often barbaric and are almost always committed by
Muslims. It is the non-response of French politicians and journalists,
who tamp down appropriate responses, rather than broadcast the
outrages. To be fair, as Millière points out, "In France, telling the
truth about Islamic anti-Semitism is dangerous. For a politician, it
is suicidal. ... It is almost impossible to win an election without
the Muslim vote." It is also a fact that instead of worrying that
their country is being taken over by the Muslims and speaking out
against Islam, many French mouth the same hatred of the Jews as do the
Muslims.
Steven Emerson and Pete Hoekstra pointed out in 2016 that terrorism was growing
in lethality and geography (see
here). Terrorism is increasing exponentially and is planet-wide.
This analysis was released in 2016. It is based upon extensive research, sources and multiple databases, including the University of Maryland Global Terrorism Database.
Whenever there's an act of terror, it is often explained in
specifically personal terms or because of local events both by the
perpetrator and by the news media. It is seldom attributed to a
profound belief in fundamental Islamic principles.
Terrorists in Israel use weapons at hand, explosives and
blazing kites, stones, cars and knives. The Palestinian Arabs are
said to have no other ways to fight an occupying power. They focus
on destroying the State of Israel and killing the Jews. But
ultimately, it's a slice of the same cake. The goal is the same as
it is anywhere else: to kill, convert or tax all infidels and make
sharia law the law everywhere. Terrorism in Israel — as is
terrorism elsewhere — is the product of the Islamic ambition
to gain control of all non-Muslim countries.
Terrorists in the Western countries claim to kill because of
bruised egos; supposedly they have been marginalized or ignored or
singled out.
The close connection between terror act and basic belief is
probably most easily seen in the rationale for raping Western
women because of their immodesty, an important precept anchored in
Mohammad's teachings.
In the Far East, in India, Muslim terrorism is attributed to
grievances over who owns the land. In medieval
times, the Muslims conquered different parts of India. (From
around 1000 C.E. to around 1500 C.E, they killed, according
to Growth of Muslim population in India by Profesor Kishori
Saran Lal, some 80 million Hindus in the process.) And salafists
insist that once land is taken by Muslims, it is Muslim forever
and ever. China has less of a problem, perhaps because China has
been as brutal and indiscriminate as the terrorists, retaliating
instantly and repeatedly. Japan has no acts of terror. They don't
let many Muslims into the country; and Islamic proselytizers are
deported. Street theatre, where hundreds of Muslims come and pray
on the streets paralyzing traffic as they do in New York City,
isn't allowed.
Acts of terror don't just happen. However the individual terrorist
explains his murderous act, he has been trained or persuaded to do
acts of terror because the salafist mission is to
model the world according to Mohammad's precepts and actions.
In Islam, as in other religions, there is a spectrum of
belief from mainly secular to extremely devout. There is a truism
that is often ignored when some new shocking act of terror occurs,
namely, the more pious the Muslim, the more likely is he to
commit or condone an act of terror.
The salafist message hasn't changed: Mohammad was the perfect
man and whatever he said after he came to Medina and whatever he
did -- his marrying a six-year old child, for instance -- should
be followed. Phrasing and implementation may have been
somewhat 'modernized' but Islam is anchored in what was
established in the 7th Century C.E. Denis
MacEoin
(January 5, 2018 here) explained the basic structure
currently motivating Islam's mission this way:
" ... the Salafi
style of fundamentalist Islam, based on a demand to return to
the practices of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the first
three generations of his followers (salaf means "predecessors"),
was already underway from the early years of the twentieth
century, notably through the work of the Egyptian writer Rashid
Rida. For Rida, and later for Salafis down to the Islamic State
enterprise, reform meant turning away from the Western models
that had inspired new legislation, and back to the earliest days
of Islam as embodied in the Qur'an, the ahadith (sayings and
acts of the prophet), and the biographies of Muhammad. In 1928,
another Egyptian, the schoolteacher Hasan al-Banna, established
the Muslim Brotherhood, the leading revivalist movement in Islam
since the 1920s, which remains to this day a major international
force for reviving fundamentalist Islam."
A major reason for the Palestinian lust for death and destruction
is the PA educational structure, which is run by UNRWA. It is not
geared toward peaceful coexistence. As Marcus Sheff wrote here:
The PA curriculum rejects negotiations with Israel to
achieve Palestinian statehood. According to the textbooks, the only
solution is victory via resistance and defeating Israel once and for
all."
Sheff described how training for becoming killing machines starts early.
Young Palestinians are taught that
martyrdom for boys and girls is a life goal, that dying is better than
living, and that jihadis the pinnacle of ambition. Those who risk
their lives by taking up arms are praised and those who choose the
path of non-violence are denigrated as cowards. In science lessons,
gravity is taught through the image of a boy with a slingshot
targeting soldiers. Math exercises instruct students to calculate
number of martyrs in Palestinian uprisings.
The new PA curriculum is packed with wording, imagery and ideology
likely to create prejudices, misconceptions, stereotypes,
misunderstandings, mistrust, racial and national hatred, and religious
bigotry. As for gender equality, women are not equal in life, only in
their value as martyrs in death.
A video entitled "Clip #5491
Terror Show At A Gaza Kindergarten Graduation Ceremony; Islamic
Jihad Leader To Israelis: We Are Not Terrorists, Don't Force Us
To Kill You" was posted May 30, 2016 by
Memri here. This video posted by the Clarion Project April 2, 2018 is called
"Mommy sent me to die."
Even now, there are a few sparks of light in the huge murky pool
where Muslims are inculcated with hate. Noor Dahri (a self-described
Salafist) was raised to hate Israel and Jews. Now he believes there is
no contradiction in being a practicing Muslim and Zionist.
See here. But it it is more than likely it will take a massive
effort reeducating Muslims and their groupies. This would need to
include not allowing PA or UNRWA personnel or salafist mullahs teach
the young.
This set of articles
contains various ideas on cutting off oxygen to the ideational brain
that directs the arm of terrorism.
TO TRULY FIGHT TERROR, COUNTER SALAFIST JIHADIST IDEOLOGY FIRST
by Ahmet Yayla, April 2, 2018
Both Sunnis and Shiites preach adherence to the dictates of
Mohammad and the Koran. In this article Ahmet Yayla focuses on
Wahhabism, a 19th Century version of Islamic fundamentalism
promoted by Sunni Saudi Arabia, which emphasizes affirming the
primacy of Allah, following Islamic law precisely and promoting
Islam by violent jihad. He describes the problem this way: "...
it is essential we understand that if we cannot neutralize or
counter the ideology behind these [terrorist] attacks, which is
Salafist jihadism stemming from Wahhabism, there will always be
new attacks regardless of the security precautions we take."
Yayla points out that for many years Saudi Arabia took the lead
in pouring huge amounts of money into building mosques around the
world that are run by hate-spouting clerics, distributing
textbooks biased towards salafism and recruiting foot soldiers
for terror. He concludes "that regardless of the political costs
and outcome, there is no true dealing of jihadi terrorism without
countering the Salafist jihadist ideology."
The Saudis have recently started restraining their imams. We
should do the same. Inciting for terror and training willing
adherents to wage war on the West are not part of the freedom
religions are guaranteed. Yayla proposes that imams be vetted and
Islamic textbooks scrutinized for hate content. This is excellent
advise but won't be easy, considering that much of the media and
the public have been conditioned to deny that terror committed by
Muslims stems from the fundamental ideology of the Religion of
Peace. Nevertheless, attacking salafist ideology is a necessary
component in the fight against Islamism.
WHY CAN'T WE MAKE PEACE? BECAUSE PALESTINIAN ELITES HAVE NO INTEREST IN DOING SO
by Ben-Dror Yemini, February 21, 2018
Generally speaking, this essay is about the support systems of
respectable organizations that cosset Muslim terrorists and shield
their acts of terror from effective punishment. Ben-Dror Yemini speaks
specifically of the Palestinian Arab terrorists who have chosen
their enemy wisely. They blame Israel for all their woes. This
wins them "honor, money and prestige" from multiple Jew-hating
groups, including academic organizations that deny factual history
in favor of Arab fables; Western media that cooperate in creating
fake videos that purport to show Israeli soldiers beating
defenseless Arabs; feminist groups that rail against Israel making
people go through security checkpoints while ignoring that Muslim
women are treated like chattel throughout the Muslim world;
humanitarian groups that expend all their pity on the
Palestinians, leaving none for starving Africans or the girls
brutalized by Boko Haram; and the NGOs that use their
semi-official positions to berate Israel for expelling illegal
'jobs' immigrants while ignoring Islam's bestial treatment of
homosexuals. These groups perpetuate Arab intransigence.
Yemini suggests ordinary rational people expose this overblown
Palestinian discontent by comparing it to the horrors that do
exist in the world. He also suggests withdrawing support for these
who feed on the conflict — "from elite Palestinian leaders
flying around the world in first class and elegant suits to
academics paid to write a flood of studies on the feasibility of
the right of return, to tunnel operators in Gaza, and families who
depend on stipends for sons killed in terrorist attacks
(shahids)." He might have added that destroying the twisted
logic of the respectables that shield the Palestinian Arab
terrorism industry would go a long way toward substituting sense
for nonsense.
This article by Vic Rosenthal sharpens our information on the
resources the handlers of Islamic terrorists rely on for ideas,
affirmation and whitewashing their activities. How to thwart
this outpouring of resources for Palestinian terrorism? Alexi,
a reader of this article said it well, "Fighting propaganda is HARD. It requires an all hands on deck, let no quarter be given hammering of the truth against the millions of falsehoods. There is no falsehood too small to go unchallenged and uncorrected."
It is certainly true, as the articles by Ben-Dror Yemini and
Vic Rosenthal above make clear, that Jew-haters pour much money
into promoting the notion that the Palestinian Arabs are preyed
upon by Israel. But this is a propaganda tool, aimed at making
the victim of Arab terrorism — Israel — be viewed as
the cause of terrorism. This inversion of predator and victim is
very different than the supposition that one can eliminate
Islamic terrorism by eliminating the putative cause, Israel. As
Raymond Ibrahim so clearly explains, the source of Islamic
terrorism is the salafic mission to have every infidel make one
of three choices: "conversion, subjugation/jizya, or the sword."
This is another way of saying there is nothing Islam's enemies
(and that means every non-Muslim) can do in the way of
pacification, appeasement or bribery to change resurgent Islam's
goal. Eventually, when we can not think of any other useless
remedy, we might recognize that to stop Islamic terror, we
need to stop the spread of Islam. Firmly and effectively.
Hopefully by reeducation but more likely by viewing Islam as a
political enemy rather than a peaceful religion, and by
suffocating the sources of its resources.
The virtues of solar and wind power are so strongly asserted, many
people are puzzled that the current administration supports the use of
coal and fossil fuel. Sun and wind are everywhere, clean, free and
they won't give out. All true. Unfortunately, the claim that renewable
power is capable of providing the total energy we need to run
our world is not true. There is still much to be done before energy
from renewable sources can be stored so it is continuously available
without random or cyclic
interruptions
(see here). So it is not surprising that in 2016, as an example,
the total world energy used for electricity, heat and transportation
came from 80% fossil fuels, 10% biofuels, 5% nuclear and 5% renewable
— hydro, wind, solar and
geothermal.
(See here.) Moreover, environmentalists reject the use of nuclear
power to fill the gap renewables can't handle. So, realistically,
eliminating the use of fossil fuels, as the Obama administration tried
to do, is premature.
Nevertheless, the blanket assertion that a global holocaust is
imminent so we must stop using coal and rely only on clean fuel for
our energy continues to be hyped by the media plus a large number of
our information gatekeepers plus the UN plus many of our ideological
environmental science experts. Many scientists expert in other fields
— though not the 97% claimed — also urge that the use of
fossil fuels be stopped. And what is perhaps most surprising: the
consequences of global warming have been presented so alarmingly that
many a civilian is willing to sacrifice his own comfort for the
greater good and supports using huge sums of money for global action
on the climate.
What is rarely asked in the debate on climate change is why the
emphasis on global warming, where we can do so little to ameliorate
the situation without going into pre-industrial stasis? Why is it
prioritized ahead of pressing problems we currently have the ability
to solve? Perhaps we should stop arguing versions of known facts
and/or resting our case on random phenomena that are blamed on
global warming. Perhaps we should instead look at the political
consequences that would certainly occur should we change our life
style and governmental administration.
We may not be able to change climate but we can do much to
change global politics. And maybe this is what it is really about.
Perhaps the salient factor is the large group of vocal and prestigious
academicians and politicians in high places in the West that want to
unite countries within some variant of socialist ideology as one world
without borders. It goes without saying they have never lived in a
non-democratic country. To further their actual agenda, they too
hammer the claim that mankind is specifically and uniquely responsible
for the rise of greenhouse gases.
Whatever else climate control would do or not do to cool the
atmosphere, it is a lever to to get people to do what needs to be done
to create a planet-wide infrastructure. The running of an
interconnected set of agencies organized on a global level would be
delegated to some planet-wide agency, a pseudo-government that would
be given overwhelming financial resources, thus enhancing its
political power. Blaming humans and their use of fossil energy as the
predominant, if not the only significant, factor in global warming
adds the element of guilt, always a good motivator for action.
The reasoning is simple enough. Climate control can't be done in
patches and bits. It needs a central controlling agency, a planet-wide
administrative structure with an integrated infrastructure to handle
the problem. This agency would have the power to dictate what
life-style practices need to be accentuated or eliminated -- to stop
pollution, of course. Once in place, such a planetary structure would
be found useful for handling world-wide epidemics and other
medical issues, for standardizing education and controlling proper
behavior, enabling food distribution -- you name it. And voila, we
would have a de facto single global government.
Had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election, large-scale planetary
activities to fight climate change would have begun almost immediately.
In fact, the 2016 Democratic Platform (DP) dated July 21, 2016, p45,
reads: "We believe the United States must lead in forging a robust
global solution to the climate crisis. We are committed to a national
mobilization, and to leading a global effort to mobilize nations to
address this threat on a scale not seen since World War II." From
the beginning these would affect every community and every corporation
(DP, p27-29). Such a political enterprise would be unable to do
anything meaningful to solve climate change. But it would have the
power to redistribute wealth and to control our lives.
What would likely evolve would be a two-tier political entity,
where the elite occupy the top tier. The rest of us would be on the
bottom tier, equally dependent on the government and equally
miserable, equally deplorable. It would be rather like the functioning
Marxist model in eastern Europe or perhaps even like the Muslim model
with heredity clan and tribal leaders on top, with all others
subjected to the leadership's interpretation of the Koran. For a real
nightmare, imagine having the characters now running the U.N. or the
E.U. in control of your life. It is the goal toward which the
globalists have steadily been working.
In the April-June 2017 issue, Think-Israel had a set of articles on
global warming
here. They made the point that blaming global warming on humans
and their industrial activities ignored important features of the
oceans, the interior of the earth, the atmosphere and the sun. It is
sensible to not waste money that would be better spent on doable
projects that obviously benefit the environment. This current set
follow up on some points made previously. Until we actually have a
continuous source of renewable fuel, using fossil fuel to meet the
energy needs of our modern world is more important than satisfying
a globalist ideology. Even with such 'selfishness' we can do much to
take care of tractable problems like upgrading electrical grids and
transportation structures. Judith Curry (see here)
talks about a pragmatic response to climate change. It includes
accelerating energy innovation, building resilience to extreme weather
[greenhouse gas atmospheric warming may already be reducing the
severity of the projected start of another ice age] and 'no regrets'
pollution reduction. She points out these have "near-term
socioeconomic and environmental benefits" without committing to
"costly policies with minimal impacts on climate, policies with
adverse, unintended consequence."
TESTIMONY, U.S. HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE & TECHNOLOGY
by John R. Christy, March 29, 2017
It is asserted by the elite of climate science that global warming
is due mainly if not exclusively to humans and their activities
which load the atmosphere with CO2. Their models are based on this 'fact'
and ignore the multitude of non-linear processes that are continuously
in play. To bring their modeling results closer to reality, climate
scientists have taken to including interactions of atmospheric CO2 and
extra greenhouse gases. But this widens the gap between model
results and measured temperature. John Christy makes a simple but
important point when he presents actual data that indicate that in
recent decades "the consensus of the [climate] models fails the test
to match the real-world observations by a significant margin." If they
have not been accurate predictors of "climate variation and change"
when we can check results, why, he asks, should we base future policy
decisions on them?
Christy is one of many qualified scientists who are uneasy about
the heavy explanatory burden CO2 has been made to carry, while other
plausible reasons for global warming are ignored either because they
go against the notion that humans are responsible for global warming
or because there is no good way of measuring them. These scientists
have been locked out by establishment climate scientists from
publishing in establishment trade journals and don't have access to a
sympathetic media. The very people that lock them out of these
information sources then say that because these scientists don't
publish in establishment-approved journals, their results are
spurious, or even worse, amateurish. Nevertheless, these scientists
raise serious questions about man-made global warming and suggest
other lines of investigation.
A good way to start learning about other potential factors
influencing our climate is to read an article by Makia Freeman
entitled "10 Prominent Scientists Refuting AGW (Manmade Global
Warming) with Solid Research"
available
here. Freeman's article contains many links to excellent videos.
In one video, David Evans probes the alarming overestimation of
warming by climate
models (see
here). In another, Nobel Laureate physicist Ivar Giaever makes the
case that global warming is pseudo
science (see
here). Professor Carl-Otto
Weiss here
calmly asserts the ultimate heresy: "Spectral analysis of Climate Data
shows all Climate Change is due to natural Cycles." A favorite way for
the tight bunch of climate scientists that determine climate change
doctrine to ignore an alternative opinion is to accuse the scientist
who holds that opinion of not being a practicing climate scientist.
It's hard to dismiss Dr. Judith Curry as an outsider, she having been
a prestigious professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and still
very active in the field. She and Michael Mann, a member of the inner
circle of establishment climate science and the creator of the
notorious hockey stick shtick, offer their very different points of
view in very different ways of expressing
themselves (see
here). Her talk was calmly factual, providing details and nuances.
Mann ignored all but his certainties. He often used words like
"irreversible" and "absolute" as in "absolute melting of the ice
sheets." I wonder if he seriously believes his assertions that global
warming is responsible for drought, wild fires, floods, homeless polar
bears and terrorism.
Sometimes manmade global warming is called Anthropogenic Global
Warming (AGW) because the projected coming global holocaust is said to
be due to people. They breathe out and they contaminate the atmosphere
by using fossil fuels. Or it's fuzzed up and called Climate Change,
where the only temperature change is from hot to hotter. In either
case, many assertions have been made about the cause and the effects
of global warming that have no factual support. This article by the
Friends of Science Society presents ten such incorrect statements
about manmade global warming.
STARVING POLAR BEARS: THE FAKE NEWS FACE OF CLIMATE CHANGE
by Susan Crockford, with Background by Larry Kummer
Susan Crockford writes of the relationship — actually, the
non-relationship — of animal death and global warming. She
decries the new fad of seeking out a sick or starving polar bear and
attributing his condition to global warming this way:
"We finally have this year's example of the new fad of claiming
every polar bear that died of starvation (or on its way to starving to
death) — and caught on film — is a victim of climate change.
"One starving bear is not scientific evidence that man-made global
warming has already negatively affected polar bears but it is evidence
that some activists will use any ploy to advance their agenda and
increase donations."
"if sea ice loss due to man-made global warming had been the culprit,
this bear would not have been the only one starving: the landscape
would have been littered with carcasses."
This set starts with the discovery of ancient Jewish coins at the Temple Mount that
might have been used for tithing.
It then moves on to the 19th century practice in Tzarist Russia of forcibly
inducting children into the army. The other essays are about more
familiar topics, the non-neutrality of the International Committee of
the Red Cross and the behavior of dedicated Muslims when they have the
power. The final essay by Majid Rafizadeh is a must read. It
documents the ongoing and intense brutalization, terrorization and
humiliation of Iranians by their own clerical leaders to ensure that
Sharia law is obeyed and Islam is practiced as dictated by Mohammad
and stored in the post-Mecca suras of the
Quran.
5 RARE JEWISH COINS DISCOVERED BY TEMPLE MOUNT
PROJECT
by Itzchak Tessler, May 21, 2018
Itzchak Tessler writes about coins discovered around the Temple
Mount that "are some of the first minted by Jews... [they] are dated
to the end of the 4th century B.C." "The coins were inscribed with
the letters 'YHD,' or Yehud, the Aramaic name for the First Persian
Empire's province of Yehud—roughly equivalent to the older biblical
kingdom of Judah." The area had been called Judea for thousands of
years, until someone figured out it would be easier to claim Jews
had no historic affiliation with the West Bank than persuade even
the most ignorant of the ignorant that Jews didn't come from Judea.
These coins were not found in situ where the surround would
provide additional information about them. As explained in
the Sun
Sentinel
here, "the Temple Mount Sifting Project, an archaeological
initiative [was] started in order to sift thousands of tons of dirt
illegally excavated and dumped in the Kidron Valley by the Islamic
Waqf in 1999. The Waqf excavations compromised the archaeological
integrity of the Temple Mount and sparked outrage in Israel, leading
many to suggest that the Waqf was intentionally attempting to
eradicate evidence of two Jewish Temples that stood on the Mount for
more than 800 years." Tessler's article provides more information on
the Waqf's lack of respect for Judaism's holiest site.
A CENTURY-OLD SIBERIAN SYNAGOGUE WAS BUILT BY ABDUCTED
CHILD SOLDIERS. IT'S BACK IN JEWISH HANDS
by Cnaan Liphshiz,
February 2, 2018
This article by Cnaan
Liphshiz was spotted by my cousin Ruth, who lives in Israel. Liphshiz
describes the career of Herzl Tsam, who was kidnapped into the Russian
army as a child and retired forty-one years later as a captain. In
retirement, he participated in building a synagogue in Tomsk. The
article resonated for us because the paternal grandfather of both our
mothers (who were sisters) had been captured at age 7 and kept in the
Russian army for 25 years.
The article set me to recalling what I
remembered of my mother telling me of my great grandfather. Articles
I've read lately say that when young children were forced into army
service, they were educated until they were 18, old
enough to be inducted into the regular army, to start serving their 25
years. From the information I have on my great grandfather, I'd
suggest that in at least one case, the child was captured, started
serving in the army in some capacity and was released 25 years later.
I've reconstructed some dates in my great grandfather's life using
information in the stories my mother told me and some old pictures to
support my assertion. I am in the process of writing it up.
Using material from "Humanitarians at War: The Red Cross in the
Shadow of the Holocaust," a recent book written by Gerald
Steinacher, Janet Levy writes, "The international Red Cross and the
Vatican conspired to aid thousands of Nazi war criminals and
collaborators, including German SS officers Adolf Eichmann and Josef
Mengele. Its wartime record is even worse." The International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) knew about the death camps as early
as 1941, but did not voice its knowledge. "The Nuremberg trials
exposed the depth to which the ICRC and the Swiss government turned a
blind eye to German atrocities, making their 'humanitarian neutrality'
a fiction. Unfathomably, ICRC officials viewed Germans as war victims
and even criticized 'undue Jewish influence' manifested in what they
viewed as the 'vengeance' of the Nuremberg trials." The ICRC is
no longer so obvious in its sympathies, but no one would suggest it
favors Israel against the Palestinians or is even close to neutral. As
an example, Sever Plocker in an April 2017 article here
wrote that "Jacques De Maio, who heads the International Committee of
the Red Cross delegation to Israel and the PA, asserts: 'There is no
IDF order to shoot suspects to kill,' while at the same time warns of
the humanitarian damage caused by occupation." This statement echoes
Palestinian propaganda, not actual facts.
WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE FOR CHRISTIANS AND JEWS WHEN ARABS RULED
JERUSALEM
by Richard Pollock, December 12, 2017
The title is something of a misnomer. In 1948 when
the Jews declared the formation of the sovereign state of Israel, five
of Israel's Arab neighbors invaded Israel. Jordan was able to seize
and hold the eastern part of Jerusalem, which included the Jewish
Quarter and the Temple Mount area, as well as Samaria and Judea (AKA
the West Bank). When the Arabs again invaded Israel in 1967, Israel
retook this land and Jerusalem was unified. Richard Pollock writes
about how objects and installations sacred to Jews and Christians and
cemeteries were treated by the Arabs during the 19 years Jordan
occupied Jewish land.
In this importantl essay, Majid Rafizadeh describes the changes that
occurred in just a generation in Iran after the Shah was overthrown
with the connivance of the then US president Jimmy Carter. Iran went
from a free and modern society to a totalitarian state which subjected
its citizens to extreme brutality in order to obtain complete
submission to sharia law. Iranians continue to live in fear as the
mullahs strive to return Iran to the grotesque piety of
Mohammad's Islam. A reader, Linda Goudsmit, made an interesting
observation: "Extremely powerful article - should be required reading
for every liberal and every apologist for Islam and open borders. If
Majid Rafizadeh had identified the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR, Muslim
Student Association etc as soldiers in today's jihad against the West
he would have exposed how the same methods used against his father's
generation are being used today against the trusting West to conquer
them."
This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions
and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds
page for the month is updated every few days.
There is a separate file that is the index for the articles on the
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clicking on the item in the index.
To access the Index, click the "Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on
the top of the Blog-Ed page.
Different Blog Ed pages will be down
intermittently until the Archive structure is
in place. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Think-Israel tends to use salafist rather than
extremist or Islamist or militant or
fundamentalist or activist to describe generically a
pious Muslim, one who sticks as closely as possible to the
unfiltered words and actions of Mohammad and the first three
generations of Muslims, including, especially, the Companions of
the Prophet. In modeling himself as closely as he can on the
preachings and practices of Mohammad, a salafist can in modern
terms be precisely described as an uninhibited terrorist, a
theological supersessionist, a political supremacist who believes
Islam and sharia law must dominate and a social barbarian, who
wages jihad with whatever tools are available.
Thanks to the high quality of whitewash supplied by sympathetic
propagandists, he seldom is so described.
THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
The Balfour Declaration was a significant benchmark in the
formation of today's Israel. It was stated in a letter sent to
Lord Walter Rothschild, a leader of the Jewish community in
England, by the British Foreign Secretary, Alfred Balfour, during
World War 1, while the land was still the Syrian Palaestina
province of the Ottoman Empire.
(See
here.)
November 2, 1917
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely,
Arthur James Balfour
A video on the letter and the history and politics surrounding its
transmission can be found
here.
This section presents information on the Balfour Declaration.
Further details of its lodgings historically and geographically
and ideologically in the history of modern Israel can be read in
the January 2016 issue of Think-Israel, beginning here.
THE BALFOUR DECLARATION IN CONTEXT OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF
THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL
by Bernice Lipkin, December 21, 2017
The Children of Israel became a people when they left Egypt
and settled on land ranging down from the Mediterranean and
extending over to a large swatch of land on the east side of the
Jordan river. The Romans eventually destroyed the Jewish Kingdom
and various conquerors added the land to their domains over the
centuries. But the territory was
never again homeland to any people until modern times, when in the
1800s Jews returned in increasing numbers to their homeland.
They, and the Jews who had always maintained a presence there,
were able to redeem their Land, a land they yearned for
during the two millennia of the Diaspora. The Balfour
Declaration was a significant benchmark in the formation of
today's Israel. It was an early confirmation that the effort to
reestablish a Jewish homeland had the blessings of important
members of the international community. Equally important, it
encouraged the Jews that this time their efforts would succeed.
THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
by Amb. Dore Gold, October 31, 2017
The Balfour Declaration was an early formal statement by
Britain of its commitment to what was already occurring, namely,
Jews were returning to redeem their ancient homeland. The
letter, sent with the prior approval of the Western allies, gave
voice to Britain's commitment to the Jews reestablishing a
national home in their ancient homeland. The language of the
letter was incorporated into the text of the Palestine Mandate,
which passed into international law in 1922. Dore Gold
emphasizes three important points: "1) the significance of the
Balfour Declaration and its standing as a commitment assured by
international law; 2) The participation of the Yishuv [the local
Jewish community] during the Second World War on the side of the
Allied Powers; 3) Great Britain's dishonorable retreat from the
obligations of the Balfour Declaration and its failure to reward
its faithful ally."
Daniel Mandel points out that "[t]he Balfour Declaration was
the first step on the political road to reversing two millennia
of Jewish statelessness and exile which had resulted in the Jews
being the most dispersed and persecuted minority in history."
Certainly, as Mandel points out, Israel "was not anyone's gift
to the Jews. The Jews of Palestine sacrificed scarce blood and
treasure to obtain and preserve their independence from five
invading Arab armies and internal Palestinian Arab militias ..."
Mandel also rebuts another argument: the Arabs and their
proponents have complained that giving the Jews some land was
unfair to the Arabs, or retroactively, the Palestinian Arabs.
One must admit that it is true that the Arabs took possession of
only the remaining 99.99% of the Middle East as a free gift for
which they didn't have to fight — except among themselves.
COLUMBIA PROFESSOR RASHID KHALIDI MOANS ABOUT BALFOUR
by Mara Schiffren
When Rashid Khalidi lived in Beirut, he was unofficial
spokesman for the PLO. As professor at Columbia and the
University of Chicago, his mission has been to promote Islam. In
Chicago, when ex-Prez Obama was on Woods Fund board, he helped
funnel money intended to help the disadvantaged to the Arab
American Action Network (AAAN), which was run by Khalidi's wife;
some of these funds were used to create propaganda to vilify Israel.
Obama has written how Khalidi influenced his own views. In this
article, Mara Schiffren writes of Khalidi, now a professor at
Columbia, and his speech on 'The Balfour Declaration from the
Perspective of its Victims.' The speech was unsurprising. Khalidi,
like Abbas and other Arab revisionists, revamped the history of
Palestine around the time of the Balfour Declaration to suit his
argument that the British had declared war against the Palestinian
people (who didn't then exist). He spoke of the Arabs as the
indigenous population of then Palestine, although it was the
Jewish inhabitants of the area that were usually the ones called
Palestinian, because they were the ones that invented agricultural
techniques, organized the Philharmonic Orchestra, started
the Palestinian Post and served in the army as the
Palestine Brigade. As Schiffren writes,
"The lecture epitomized the politicization of contemporary Middle East studies: by twisting a legitimate topic—the Balfour Declaration—into anti-Zionist, anti-Israel propaganda, Khalidi distorted the past in order to influence the present. His ahistorical claim that the Jewish people are not the indigenous population of Israel is a transparent effort to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state. There should be no room in academe for such hucksterism masquerading as scholarship."
It speaks to the creativity and imagination of politicians
and media people that, with all the evidence available that the
Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization, they are still
able to quibble, misdirect and assert that the Muslim
Brotherhood is not a terrorist group.
Bernice Lipkin rejects the argument made by ex-Prez Obama and
lately by the CIA that we should not identify the Muslim
Brotherhood (MB) as a terrorist organization. Nor does she find
what is said to be the legal definition of a terrorist
organization adequate, or even appropriate. She suggests using an
operational definition of terrorism. What is the
organization's ideology as translated into action? What has it
accomplished? What does the organization plan to do? Who does it
hang out with? What groups does it support, or is supported by? She suggests the
criteria proposed in two recent reports are better at
determining that organizations such as the MB are
terrorist.
IBRAHIM MUNIR, THE MAN WHO KEEPS THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD ALIVE
by Hany Ghoraba, December 12, 2017
Hany Ghoraba writes about an Egyptian, Ibrahim Munir, a
little-known but very important member of the Muslim Brotherhood
(MB). Munir became a member of MB at an early age and has been
hands-on in many of the MB organization's activities. He was
imprisoned in the early 1950s for taking part in a foiled attempt
to kill Egypt's then leader, Gamal Abd al-Nasser. After his
release and his move to London in the early 1980s as a political
refugee, he developed MB's global network, making London "its
political and financial base," its global headquarters. In London,
he "established a web of connections using his diplomatic skills
and contacts in the British government." He has continued to
foster a major but little-advertised MB connection with global
consequences: he has maintained the strong ties Sunni MB has had
with Shi'ite Iran since the early 1940s. More recently, using
subtle threats that the Muslim community would become violent
should MB be officially labeled a terrorist organization, he kept
MB "from being banned in the United Kingdom in 2014 after
then-Prime Minister David Cameron ordered an investigation into
the Brotherhood's activities in Britain and Egypt." His skills in
taqqiyya and double talk were evident when he defended
Hamas's acts of terrorism while claiming Hamas didn't violate
international law. Ghoraba writes that without Munir's diplomatic,
financial and media skills, by now MB would have lost their money
and media support and likely would have disbanded. I find it
interesting that in America the MB is using governmental networking and
specious arguments to prevent the US labeling MB a terrorist
organization.
STOPPING THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD'S STRATEGIC PLAN TO INFILTRATE AMERICA
by Mark A. Hewitt, December 22, 2017
Mark Hewitt tracks plans made by the Muslim Brotherhood and by
ex-Prez Obama to increase Muslim participation in America. In
2004, while conducting a search at the Annandale Virginia house of
Ismail Elbarasse, a fundraiser for Hamas, the FBI discovered boxes
of Muslim Brotherhood (MB) material, including a plan whereby the
MB would infiltrate North America. "Phase One [was the]
Phase of discreet and secret establishment of leadership;
and Phase Two [was the] Phase of gradual appearance on the
public scene and exercising and utilizing various public
activities. Establishing a shadow government (secret) within the
Government." In the fall of 2008, Barack Obama, then Democratic
candidate for the Presidency, issued a staffing order to hire
"Arab Muslims over Arab Christians for the top jobs." Plans for a
"Muslim Outreach" program were given to agency directors and
department heads, including NASA, the CIA and Education. In
November 2008, President Elect Obama's "administration officially
extended a welcome to the Muslim Brotherhood." His Secretary of
State, Hillary Clinton, "stressed her belief that 'we must
increase outreach not simply to American Muslims, but to Muslims
around the world.'" As Hewitt writes, "When Mrs. Clinton stepped
down from her position, Huma Abedin [Clinton's Deputy
Chief-of-Staff and daughter of MB members] was allowed to take
five boxes of 'physical files' out of the State Department that
include records described as 'Muslim Engagement Documents.'"
Hewitt makes the novel suggestion that Clinton's 33,000 deleted
emails were her correspondence with MB. Whether that will prove to
be the case or not, it is probable that Obama's Muslim
policy — including his forbidding the FBI to surveil mosques
— is yet to be intellectually absorbed by the public.
Mudar Zahran attributes the current rift between Saudi Arabia
(SA) and Qatar to a difference of opinion about the Muslim
Brotherhood (MB). "Qatar is the main financier of the MB group
not only in Jordan but the world." Qatar is also close to Jordan,
which has been allied with the MB since the 1950s. In fact, in
Jordan, MB is "registered as a charity, a political organization,
and a private business. While the king bans secularists and
liberals for a mere tweet, the MB owns its licensed satellite TV
network and daily paper in which they consistently preach
terrorism and death to America and the Jews." Recently, Jordan
has appeared to be trying to appease SA, while
continuing a defamation campaign against SA and President Trump.
Zahran believes that Qatar "will have to give up the MB
eventually. Once that happens, Jordan could face serious consequences..."
Marxists/Socialists and Muslims and their allies continue to
infiltrate US infrastructure. Muslim terror attacks have
increased in number but the public's initial reactions of horror
are quickly dampened by the media and politicians. Marxists
continue to take over academic societies, although there has
been some legal counterattacks. The bizarre cooperation of
feminist groups and pious Muslim women who advocate sharia law,
which regards woman as chattel, may be starting to come
apart. The Ahmadi Muslim community are unquestioningly moderate
and active proselytizers of their emphasis on peace. One
essay explores the consequences of their not making it known
that they are statistically insignificant and have little
influence on mainstream Muslim behavior or ideology.
MUSLIMS TEAM WITH ANTIFA TO OBLITERATE CRITICS OF 'RELIGION OF PEACE'
by Leo Hohmann, October 30, 2017
Antifa, a misnomer if ever there was one, stands for
anti-fascist and was started in Europe to counter fascism. It now
could serve as a prototype of how to stifle free speech and
intimidate people. Its 'spontaneous' happenings have
been funded by people like George Soros, which immediately tells us
Antifa is not out to do America good. Leo Hohmann provides
examples of how Antifa is using confrontation, riots, protest and
intimidation to cancel events across U.S on free speech. As do so
many extremist 'liberal' groups, this fascistic group works
with organized Muslims to prevent opinions they do not
share and facts they do not like from being transmitted. As
Hohmann puts it, "The travesty is that the anti-free speech leftists
and Muslims conduct their operations against the First Amendment
under the faux argument that they want to promote dialogue."
Sayfullo Saipov, a Muslim from Uzbek, now living in the Muslim
community in Paterson, N.J., drove a truck through a
crowd in New York City on Halloween, 2017.
Matthew Hausman uses the response of the politically correct
politicians and media as an example of how "secular westerners
still do not seem to comprehend the implications of Islamic
doctrine that divides the world into two halves — "dar
al-Harb" (the house of war) and "dar al-Islam" (the house of
submission)." There are no other categories. The only
end point resurgent Islam envisions is "the submission or
elimination of all whom they consider to be infidels." The
response of the Main Stream Media of course was as usual to
muddy the waters so that the meaning of the attack is blurred.
They wrote as if their major worry was that Muslims would
suffer a backlash, knowing that this doesn't happen. They also
know this false concern is an effective technique to prevent
people from giving serious consideration to how to respond to
the salafists.
Over the years, there have been a growing number of instances
where a small group of Marxist and/or Muslim activists take over a
professional society, then speak and act in its name. Early on,
they joined committees where they could call for social justice
— mostly on behalf of the Palestinian Arabs. In the process,
they could flay Israel. More recently, they identify as strongly
with the BDS movement against Israel, continue to be avowed
pro-Palestinian but are better funded. They also aim at taking
over higher positions in the society. A recent example has been
the American Studies Association (ASA), where some of its members
gained power and then used their position to use the prestige of
the ASA on behalf of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
campaign against Israel. An article in The Tower
(see
here) describes these machinations this way:
"The evidence shows that members of the U.S. Campaign for the
Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel [USACBI], a movement which
promotes BDS in the United States, have sought to take over the
ASA and similar associations," Jerome Marcus, of Marcus & Auerbach
LLC, the lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said. Among the
defendants in the lawsuit are Sunaina Maira, Neferti Tadiar, J.
Kehaulani Kauanui, Jasbir Puar, and Steven Salaita, who are
leaders of USACBI. [See http://chelm.freeyellow.com/confront.html
for bios.]
"This case is about the illegal, hostile takeover of a
non-profit, academic association by leaders of an anti-Israel
group," explained Jennifer Gross of the Louis D. Brandeis Center,
another attorney for the plaintiffs. "Through a series of
misrepresentations and breaches of duty, USACBI activists obtained
positions of trust in the ASA, and then abused those positions in
order to capture and exploit the assets of the ASA to advance the
agenda of the BDS movement.
[...] Because the membership of ASA
is generally opposed to boycotts, the USACBI activists who ran for
positions on the ASA board hid their support for BDS. The one
activist who acknowledged his support for BDS lost his election.
[...]
Once the BDS activists were in position they manipulated the association's rules in order to pass the anti-Israel boycott resolution.
"Lawsuit: BDS movement engineered takeover of American Studies
Association" by William A. Jacobson is a detailed analysis of how
academics used their positions to promote BDS
against Israel specifically. (See
here.)
Below the radar, such hostile take-overs have been going on for
several decades. The main difference is that, finally, there has
been some pushback instead of passive acquiescence. An early
example was the corruption of the American Library Association.
This was the introduction to N. Leonard Tolkan's article, when it
was first published in 2003.
"Most people would say their public libraries are apolitical and
desire only to educate the public by encouraging the purchase of
books of varying points of view, providing they are not hate
literature and providing they have their facts straight. So isn't
it surprising to find that the American Library Association (ALA)
— the oldest and largest and probably the most influential society
of librarians in the world — apparently considers it has a duty to
bash Israel and support the 'Palestinian' cause. N. Leonard
Tolkan, the author of this article, is a veteran librarian who,
for obvious reasons, chooses to remain anonymous."
NOTE: This article was originally published in the
September-October 2003 issue of Think-Israel.org. Only the
formatting has changed. The original article as is can be
retrieved at http://www.think-israel.org/tolkan.ala.html.
LINDA SARSOUR ACCUSED OF ENABLING SEXUAL ASSAULT AGAINST WOMAN WHO WORKED FOR HER
by Benny Johnson
Linda Sarsour has not been timid in demonizing Jews and
declaring she supports sharia law and Islam's treatment
of women. Yet the far-left feminist movement has continued to treat her
as a strong supporter of women's rights. But recently, another
Muslim, Asmi Fathelbab, has accused Sarsour of enabling a male
co-worker to harass her sexually when she worked at the Arab
American Association of New York (AAANY) in 2009. When Fathelbab
complained "Sarsour threatened legal and professional damage if
she went public with the sexual assault claims." After Fathelbab
left AAANY, Sarsour would contact her employers. As Fathelbab
puts it, "I haven't been able to obtain a steady job since 2009
..."
Bruce Bawer writes of the "Ahmadiyya, a small Islamic sect
that actually preaches everything that Islam as a whole pretends
to stand for: love, peace, forgiveness, and the brotherhood of
all humankind. It rejects terrorism, violent jihad, and the
concept of 'abrogation' whereby later, nastier passages of the
Koran are considered to trump earlier, nicer bits." The largest
group of Ahmadi live in Pakistan. Even there, they constitute a
minuscule percent of the population. Altogether, the Ahmadi are
about 1% of the Muslim world population, totaling 10-20 million
worldwide. Writings about the sect usually emphasize how they
suffer physically in some Muslim countries from attacks by
main-stream Islam. Or their temperate views are praised. Bawer
explores other aspects. He notes that they are activist
proselytizers. Members of the Ahmadiyya Community are often the
ones that run rallies declaring that terrorism is not part of
Islam's teachings. When they do so, it is unfortunately a fact
that this small group acts as if they speak for the majority of
Muslims. They distribute a booklet called True Islam,
where jihad is described as a non violent inner struggle, not the
meaning jihad has for the 99 plus percent of Muslims that are not
Ahmadi. When they say that Islam categorically rejects lying,
they are not being truthful. When they persuade people that they
are instructing them in authentic Islam, they are lying, which is
against their own teachings. By presenting their own views as
mainstream, they white-wash mainstream Islam and contribute to
the growth of a religion that is, in the main, the opposite of
what they preach.
If the articles below are an indication, there's
intensification but no major change in the relations between
the members of the different religious groups. Non-assimilating
Muslims continue to recreate the turbulence and disorganization
of the countries from which their families fled, the Jews are
leaving and the Christians practice dhimmitude or have lapsed
into paralysis.
HOW MANY MUSLIMS IN EUROPE? PEW'S PROJECTIONS FALL SHORT
by Soeren Kern, December 14, 2017
In as volatile a situation as the current "refugee" influx
into Europe, we should expect some underestimate of the number of
Muslims that are in Europe. But it is shocking to find how big
Pew's underreporting of the actual numbers is. The
Pew report compounds its misunderstanding of the situation by suggesting that even if the Muslim population triples in
the next 30 years, there will still be more non-Muslims than
Muslims in Europe.
As Soeren Kern points out, "The Pew report entirely ignores the
key issue of how Europe will integrate tens of millions of Muslim
migrants whose values — including anti-Semitism, polygamy, female
genital mutilation and honor violence — cannot be reconciled with
those of Europe's Judeo-Christian and liberal-democratic
heritage." Given that polygamy will increase the Muslim population
a lot more than honor killings will reduce it, the Muslim
population will continue to grow so rapidly that Europe will be even less
able to cope with the aliens than it is now.
BRITAIN: THE "ISLAMOPHOBIA" INDUSTRY STRIKES AGAIN
by Bruce Bawer, December 20, 2017
Bruce Bawer critiques a recent report published by the
Runnymede Trust on islamophobia. Although it is presented as a
serious academic document, it is routine Muslim apologetics and
has no depth in its analyses. It blames Western racism for all
problems from Muslim criminal behavior to Muslim poverty. It
ignores the connection between Islamic theology and "jihad,
sharia, the caliphate, the systematic subjugation of women, the
execution of adulterers and apostates and gays." It discusses
anti-Semitism, but ignores that the recent sharp increase in
Jew-hate is largely due to Muslim incitement. It sees honor
killings and female genital mutilation (FGM) the moral
equivalents of western domestic violence and child abuse. This
ignores that while Islam allows, even requires, wife beating, the
West condemns it. As Bawer concludes, the report "... would not
merit any comment at all if the Runnymede Trust were not taken as
seriously as it is in the corridors of British power."
EUROPE: THE ISLAMIZATION OF CHRISTMAS:
"AN UNBEARABLE, INVOLUNTARY SUBMISSION TO ISLAM"
by Soeren Kern, December 24, 2017
For centuries, Europe and Christianity were symbiotic. Now,
Europe's churches practice a lukewarm Christianity and Europe's
politicians have gone belly-up to appease the growing Muslim
population. The ordinary European, if not brain-washed by
the nobility of making his country multicultural, appears
bemused, if not entirely paralyzed. Soeren Kern highlights how
far this process of European dhimmitude has come by examples of
the muting of Christmas in Europe out of deference to Muslim 'sensitivity.'
Yves Mamou writes about two types of Muslim
anti-Semitism. There's the hard-core
Jew-hate that leads to acts of terrorism and there's soft
Jew-hate that accuse Jews as being behind any accusation of
Muslim wrongdoing.
Not so long ago in France, associating Islam with anti-Semitism
would land the speaker in court. Now, the problem is so
extensive, it can't be hidden.
"One out of every three
racist crimes committed in France in 2016 was against Jews
— who make up less than 1% of the population. ... [and]
the overwhelming majority of the attackers are Muslim." Physical attacks, intimidation and fear-creation have corroded
the Jewish neighborhoods.
As a
result, Jews have left the country or at least have moved out
of once stable neighborhoods that now are populated by large
numbers of uncivilized Muslims.
The article above is about large-scale group dynamics that
have impacted the lives of many Jewish communities in France. It
differentiated the type of religous Jew-hate that underlies open
acts of terror and the more seething type of Jew-hate that sees
a Jewish conspiracy whenever a Muslim is blamed or accused of an
immoral or criminal act. This article fills in details on a more
personal level. Giulio Meotti writes of Jews leaving French
suburban communities which used to have heavy concentrations of
Jews, abandoning their neighborhoods to the Muslims who moved in
and made life insecure and often impossibly awful for the Jews.
Decades ago, some of these Jews were forced to flee French-speaking Middle
East countries and, now, once again they need to pick up and
leave. This time, many are returning to the Middle East, to
Israel. The comments on the article are, for the most part,
thoughtful and well-worth reading. Many make the point
articulated by Yehoshua Friedman, one of the commentators,
"Europeans did not want 6 million Jews. Now they will get 60
million Muslims."
The Arabs in Israel? Arab woman may be treated as chattel at
home, but as human shields, they and their children have become a
major weapon of war and propaganda. At the same time, less use is
being made of the earliest successful Arab propaganda weapon, the
1948 Arab refugees. They continue to thrive and multiply as wards
of the UN. But, increasingly, people are asking for a realistic
count of how many refugees there are and how the funds donated to
them have been used. Israel is doing better at thwarting
Palestinian incursion and take-over of Jewish land. And the
Israeli public is less sanguine about the possibility of peace,
given the profound Arab hatred of the Jewish state.
Perhaps the comedy team, Latma, acting as Arabs, says
it best, "We lie about the facts. The facts. The facts. Because it
works. It works."
Eli Hertz describes how the Arabs in Gaza, Samaria and Judea
sacrifice their children voluntarily and with pride by sending
them out as suicide-murderers, where the children die
while killing Jews. The desire to be a shahid is
inculcated in the youngsters from the time they are toddlers.
The Arab leadership sees this as a win-win. If the Israelis
wound or kill an Arab child, the news media excoriates Israel. If
the Israeli soldier flat out refuses to harm the child, he or
those near him are likely to pay for this decision with their
lives. As Hertz says of this monstrous practice, "A criminal
Palestinian Arab leadership, along with cowardly and
intimidated Palestinian parents on the West Bank and Gaza,
exploit their children to engage in armed conflict — in
opposition to values held by the rest of the civilized world
and in flagrant violation of international law and common
decency."
Shoshana Bryen suggests this might be a good time "to review
the number of Palestinian 'refugees' in the world and the
world's obligation to them." Almost every refugee around the
whole wide world is resettled well within a decade. Except the
Palestinian Arab refugees. They are the only ones in the world
that can 'inherit' their refugee status from their
(great)(grand)parents. In fact, there are currently only around
30,000-50,000 who actually fled Israel in 1948, when the armies
of the Arab states invaded. Yet some 5 million Arabs (6 million,
if you believe the PA), most of whom have never been in Israel,
have, as wards of UNRWA, access to free food, housing, education
and medical care. And the numbers increase year by year. What is
more bizarre, when an actual count was made in Lebanon,
thousands of these refugees didn't seem to exist. In Lebanon,
UNRWA, the agency that handles these refugees, receives money,
on a per head basis, for 440,957 refugees. But only around
174,530 were there when they did a counting. 60% of the refugees
had gone missing. How did these refugees disappear? Where has
all the extra money gone? And why did UNRWA claim a budget
shortfall? Millions more Palestinian Arab refugees live in
Jordan, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank. We can expect missing
refugees there also.
Far from being a mystery, the discrepancy may have a simple
explanation. It has always been understood that the number of
persons counted as refugees was inflated. (Read
here.) Deaths are not reported. Local Arabs signed up as
'refugees' for the benefits; and their progeny continue to
receive them. Moreover, after 1967 when Israel recovered Samaria
and Judea, UNRWA added stateless persons to its refugee list.
Besides the sloppy ways the list of refugees has been
incremented, 'ghost-counting' was inflated because "Jerusalem
Palestinians are double-counted — once as Palestinian Authority
residents and once as Israeli Palestinians. And more than
100,000 babies born abroad are registered as West Bank
residents." The count is further increased because Arabs who
have become citizens of Arab countries or who live abroad are
still counted as refugees. In other words, even the refugees
available for counting are overestimated. And the higher figure
that includes 'the missing' was never close to accurate. Again,
where did the money go?
It is an open secret that there are many
Jewish girls, usually from lower-class or dysfunctional families,
marrying Arab boys, who court them and treat them
like royalty. Until they marry and the woman goes off to live with
him in his all-Arab village. Suddenly, she's treated like a
Muslim woman - as chattel, as an undervalued slave, who can
be beaten whenever her husband chooses, good for nothing but to keep
house and produce children. (see the video "Maya, Daughter of
Hamas Sheikh" here.) Mordechai Sones writes of such a woman
who asked a rescue organization, Yad L'Achim, for help after she
almost died from abuse. The rescue mission was
successful and,
bringing the story into the present, her son just became Bar
Mitzvah at the Western Wall. Another article by Sones is
about a young man raised as Muslim in eastern Jerusalem
who dreamt of becoming a 'shahid,' He discovered he was
Jewish — his Jewish mother having married a Muslim. Slowly he began
to exploring Judaism and completely changed his lifestyle.
(see here.)
David Weinberg writes of ways the Jerusalem municipality is
protecting Israeli sovereignty in the eastern part of Jerusalem
against Palestinian Authority incursion. Early this November,
cleaning crews, protected by police, came into the area for a
"sweep and clean" session. They hauled away "abandoned vehicles,
piles of garbage, and rubble from ruined buildings. They took
down dangerously placed signs and illegal sheds. They erased
graffiti, fixed broken street lights, and painted road safety
markings." They also checked that people under house arrest were
actually at home. Clean-up should certainly improve the lives of ordinary
residents but many people saw this as "part of a broader plan to
ensure effective and equitable Israeli rule over a united
Jerusalem." Edging out PA authority and asserting Israeli
sovereignty is being done by "demarcating the area of activity
of the municipal street cleaner, the youth counselor at the
local community center, the building inspector, the road
engineer, the policeman and the social worker, who provide
services for the residents and are clearly identified with
Israeli institutions." Whether local schools in the area will
use Israeli or Palestinian curricula is another area of
struggle. "Some [parents] support the introduction of the
Israeli curriculum into schools so as to broaden their
children's educational and professional horizons, while those
affiliated with the PA wish to preserve the Palestinian
curriculum due to its national characteristics." [What a polite
way to describe incitement to terrorism!] In addition, tax collectors
and building inspectors can play a role in encouraging quiet
orderly neighborhoods not racked by constant riots. As Weinberg
writes, "When multiple families in a clan are hit hard for back
taxes and utility bills, as well as for social security fraud,
the neighborhood suddenly goes quiet and the disturbances peter
out."
BACK TO ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATIONS? SOME BASIC
TRUTHS
by Amb. Alan Baker, November 14, 2017
If you don't already understand that the Arabs nurse a
profound and likely intractable hatred towards the Jewish state
and will do whatever they can to destroy Israel, you can learn
by inference from Amb. Alan Baker's list of conditions that must
come into existence to have peace between Israel and
the local Palestinian Arabs. He points out that peace is
impossible in the current atmosphere, in which the Arab
leadership disregards the promises made when signing the Oslo
Accords, in which the Arab leadership incites the populace and
encourages them to hate the Jews and in which they continue to
deny Israel's right to exist. Their attempts to win a state by
diplomatic means underscores that their professions of wanting a
negotiated peace are insincere. Nor has the international
community done anything to encourage Arabs to change.
International organizations continue to accept Arab professions
of peace while ignoring their hostile activities towards Israel.
Baker cautions the US to understand that without a real change
in Arab attitudes and behavior, the Israeli public will have no
inclination to enter into negotiations. Bitter experience, he
might have added, has made the Israeli public wise, if not their
leadership.
Two of this set of articles describe major information sources
that we can no longer rely upon. The third, the article by Matti
Friedman, describes how social media sources can scoop classic news
and TV and thus control initial perceptions.
Distorting, lying, minimizing, trivializing, eliminating
context, omitting important information, rewriting history and
geography, attributing affect and beliefs diametrically opposite
to the actual ones for both Arabs and Jews, and ignoring the
devotion of the Jewish people to Jerusalem for thousands of years!
In this gem of an essay, Evelyn Gordon describes how The New
York Times and other prominent media sources have used
all of these sleazy tactics to defend their silly assertion that
Jerusalem hasn't been all that important to the Jews over the
centuries. I wonder if these once-reputable information sources
have taken as their model of reliability UNESCO, which simply one day
decided to believe that the Temple Mount wasn't Jewish. Is it
possible that institutions, like people, can manufacture false
memories in their declining years? Is the New York Times
suffering from Falzheimers?
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that are "potent bad
actors" are international organizations with lofty mission
statements on public policy and human rights. They claim to be
impartial "champions of human rights" but in fact, have an
unacknowledged anti-Israel mission. Rael Jean Isaac writes about
Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International (AI), NGOs
that use their credentials to demonize Israel. They ignore facts
and geographic/historic context. Israel does, after all, do an
admirable job continuing to be democratic and humane, despite
living in a dangerous neighborhood, surrounded by Muslim states
that abide by the primitive 'religious' notions of
their bloodthirsty founder. These NGOs have a simple formula:
Israel can do no right, the Arab states and the Palestinian
Arabs no wrong. Their message is constant, although they dress
it in trendy contexts.
Isaac writes that these sort of NGOs are now also going after
bigger game: propagandizing for and physically enabling Middle
Eastern and African migrants to breach Europe's borders. In
their zeal, they have ignored legal requirements and physical
safety. "[H]uman rights NGOs operating in the Mediterranean [...]
[are] in effect partnering with human smuggling rings." Isaac
notes other ironies in this ill-considered gambit. "The NGOs
draw upon Europe's feelings of guilt for its colonial past and
above all for the Holocaust. ...Yet it is precisely the huge
wave of Moslems, the vast majority of migrants, with their
entrenched anti-Semitism, that will ensure that Jews are forced
to flee a hostile Europe."
IN WAR, THE BATTLE TODAY IS LESS ON THE GROUND THAN ON SOCIAL MEDIA
by Matti Friedman, December 14, 2017
Matti Friedman is a reporter and columnist who in recent years
has begun to reflect on how the media have reported events involving
Israel. Much more often than not, reporters have blatantly been biased
against Israel, shaping the actual facts — emphasizing some,
omitting much — into a weapon to injure Israel's reputation. In
this article he reviews a book by David Patrikarakos with the
intriguing title, War In 140 Characters. Patrikarokos writes of
the early 1990s and on, when the digital landscape was beginning
to become the important battleground. People's perceptions were what
counted, not the events themselves. The story transmitted by the
social media might be supported by (embellished) information from
the actual physical battleground or the information necessary to
win that particular information battle might be total fabrication.
Friedman points out that the Middle East pious Muslims such as
Hizbollah and those running the Islamic State have shown
first-rate talent in gaining attention and convincing a global
audience of the authenticity of their messages.
In addition to examining some historical events, this sections speaks of some new discoveries of ancient artifacts
and some recent uncovering of art and texts from the Holocaust.
People look over record book from 1836 that is displayed at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2017. These documents along with more than 170,000 other pages are part of a recently discovered trove of Jewish materials from Lithuania thought to have been destroyed during the Holocaust. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
During the Holocaust, the Nazis destroyed books and stole art produced
and/or owned by the Jews. More than 170,000 pages of textual
material was found in the Martynas Mazvydas National Library of
Lithuania. The story is here.
And some of the painting stolen by the Nazis have been discovered
and a small fraction of these have been returned to the families of
the Jewish owners. The section has an article on one such art collection.
ANCIENT TOMB DOOR WITH STUNNING MENORAH CARVING REVEALED IN ISRAEL
by James Rogers, December 19, 2017
James Rogers writes of the recent display of an ancient tomb
door with a carving of a menorah that was found in Tiberias in
2010. The Umayyads used the door as a base for a pillar inside a
mosque. The mosque was destroyed by an earthquake in 1068. In
the Crusader era, the door was part of a complex where they
produced sugar. The building collapsed at the beginning of the
thirteenth century.
Other recent discoveries include a 1500-year-old Christian mosaic
in Ashdod (see article below) and the 3200-year old skeleton of
a pregnant woman in the Timna Valley. A section of the Western
Wall has been uncovered; it was hidden for 1,700 years. And some
experts "believe they have found the lost Roman city of Julias,
formerly the village of Bethsaida, which was the home of Jesus'
apostles Peter, Andrew and Philip." Some new evidence supports
dating Christ's tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to the
Roman era.
WHERE MACCABEES OVERTHREW IDOLATRY, EARLY GEORGIAN CHRISTIAN
MOSAIC UNCOVERED
by Amanda Borschel-Dan, November 23, 2017
Amanda Borschel-Dan writes about a mosaic excavated in Ashdod,
at the ancient city of Ashdod-Yam. It provides archaeologists
with several firsts. There is evidence in Jerusalem that
Georgians were in Israel in the Byzantine period, but this is
the first Georgian church or monastery discovered on the Israeli
coast. It is the earliest known use of the Georgian calendar in
the world, Georgia itself not excepted. The inscription on the
mosaic is in Greek and states that the church's construction was
started in 292 according to the Georgian calendar (the year 539
CE.) And it is the first solid evidence "for the tradition
connecting Peter the Iberian to Ashdod-Yam." Peter
was a bishop. The Bir el Qutt inscriptions discovered in 1953 and
written in Georgian script are evidence that he founded the
first Georgian monastery in Bethleham. This new mosaic supports
the tradition that Peter was affiliated with Ashdod.
WHEN AND WHY THE WEST BEGAN TO 'DEMONIZE' MUHAMMAD
by Raymond Ibrahim, November 2017
The standard take on the Crusades is that they were attempts to
colonize the peaceable Islamic states in the Middle East. Karen
Armstrong, a well-known white-washer and apologist for Islam, explained, "Ever since
the Crusades, people in the west have seen the
prophet Muhammad as a sinister figure...The scholar monks of
Europe stigmatised Muhammad as a cruel warlord who established
the false religion of Islam by the sword."
Raymond Ibrahim points out that this is historically incorrect.
The West began to loath the prophet of the "Saracens" for
his bloody ways starting at or very soon after Mohammad's
conquests began. They were repulsed by his senseless brutality
and his extravagant killing of villagers and monks, who took no
part in his battles. As knowledge of Islamic theology became more
detailed, the Arab paradise was describes as a "sexual brothel",
"Allah was denounced as an impostor deity" and Mohammad as "a
cruel warlord". By the time of
the Crusades, these and similar depictions of Islam had a
four-hundred year history.
PRECIOUS NAZI ARTWORKS HIDDEN FOR DECADES REVEALED TO THE PUBLIC
by Justin Huggler, November 1, 2017
The occasion for this article was a recent exhibition of prime
art works collected by a Nazi dealer and not shown until
recently. Justin Huggler writes that many of these were simply
looted
from their Jewish owners by the Nazis and many were confiscated
under the pretext that they were degenerate art. "While hundreds
of the works in the collection are suspected of being stolen by
the Nazis, only six have so far been identitied as looted, and
only four returned to their rightful owners."
What Huggler writes about this specific collection is also true
for the many paintings hanging in private collections and
museums over the world: Many of them were looted from Jewish
owners. Many people who currently own them thought the sale
legitimate. Many knowingly bought and sold them directly or via
laundering through several exchanges. The chaos created by the
Nazis is still with us.
REFLECTIONS ON DEIR YASSIN, THE NAKBA, AND WAR CRIMES
by Dr. Arnon Groiss, November 22, 2017
Arnold Groiss uses two recently-published books with different
viewpoints — one by Eliezer Tauber and one by Adel Manna
— to provide context for the Deir Yassin massacre in the 1968 war. Israel's Arab neighbors invaded the
newborn Jewish State expecting an easy victory and a wholesale
slaughter of the Jews. The Arabs lost and labeled the reality
Nakba, disaster. Most of the Arabs in Israel fled the
country either through fear or from orders of the Arab leaders
during the invasion. The inhabitants of Deir Yassin were unique
because they stayed and fought from their houses until the end.
According to Tauber, the Israelis resorted to house-to-house
fighting, "storming in while shooting. This resulted in many
casualties, including non-combatants." War is ugly but
house-to-house fighting is SOP and not a massacre. Except for one
incident, those that surrendered were unharmed (see
here).
Manna describes the scenes in Deir Yassir in detail but ignores
that "the surviving inhabitants of [Jewish] Kfar Etzion, for example,
were massacred after their surrender." The embroidered
alleged massacre boomeranged in that the "mention of Deir
Yassin brought about mass flight or hasty surrender of
villagers elsewhere..."
Manna claims Israel had a premeditated policy of ethnic
cleansing, which Groiss says is totally wrong. Israel's Arab
policy for Arabs that did not flee was predicated on the
explicit instructions of the Hagana's Commander-in-Chief Israel
Galili: "Acknowledgment of the full rights, needs, and freedom
of the Arabs in the Hebrew state without any discrimination, and
a desire for coexistence on the basis of mutual freedom and
dignity." And indeed, the Arabs that didn't flee became citizens
of the new state, with voting rights and the same rights as any
other citizen. In the same war, in stark contrast, the Arabs who
conquered Judea and Samaria (relabeled the West Bank) and some
of the eastern part of Jerusalem destroyed entire localities and
expelled their populations to the last person. "Not a single Jew
was left in Gezer, Revadim, Ein Tzurim, Masuot Yitzhak, Mishmar
Hayarden, or Nitzanim after their surrenders [...] The Jewish
presence in the areas occupied by the Arabs during the war was
totally eradicated. All Jewish lands were taken over by the Arab
authorities, leaving them completely 'Judenrein'."
This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions
and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds
page for the month is updated every few days.
There is a separate file that is the index for the articles on the
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To access the Index, click the "Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on
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Please note that The Blog-Ed pages for
November-December 2017 are not currently available.
Different Blog Ed pages will be down
intermittently until the Archive structure is
in place. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Think-Israel tends to use salafist rather than
extremist or Islamist or militant or
fundamentalist or activist to describe generically a
pious Muslim, one who sticks as closely as possible to the
unfiltered words and actions of Mohammad and the first three
generations of Muslims, including, especially, the Companions of
the Prophet. In modeling himself as closely as he can on the
preachings and practices of Mohammad, a salafist can in modern
terms be precisely described as an uninhibited terrorist, a
theological supersessionist, a political supremacist who believes
Islam and sharia law must dominate and a social barbarian, who
wages jihad with whatever tools are available.
Thanks to the high quality of whitewash supplied by sympathetic
propagandists, he seldom is so described.
THE THEME OF THIS ISSUE
This issue is about Islam and how it affects the religious
practices and lifestyles of Muslims everywhere.
A Rule of Thumb that holds up well (no pun intended): the more
pious the Muslim, the more likely he is to promote Islam by
marginalizing the natives of his host country, by putting sharia
law above the law of the land, by terrorizing the public into
passivity and a willingness to be dhimmi, by insisting his demands
be met and, if his scheme doesn't work, playing the victim.
Return to What We Are Talking About
MUSLIM APOSTATES
Leaving one's religion, whether to atheism or to another
religion is never easy. For a Muslim, it is particularly
difficult, even if the ex-Muslim is not living in a Muslim country
that punishes apostasy with death. The general Muslim community
has no sympathy and his family is often blamed for this, which puts another
emotional burden on the apostate.
The ex-Muslim is leaving not just religious values, but an entire
configuration of attitudes toward his community and the outside
world. Tanveer Ahmed, a psychiatrist living in Australia, has
written, [It] "is one of the biggest barriers to the reform of
Islam, that Muslim identity is so tightly wrapped up in the
expression of self. We may see hijabs and beards as external
markers but they are fashion accessories to an inner outfit of
historical injustice, moral superiority and a barely disguised
middle finger to Anglo-Saxon, mainstream Australia."
(see
here.)
This set of articles deal with this issue, including two scholarly
articles on apostasy in Islam, one from the Muslim perspective,
one from the Christian perspective.
The more a Muslim country conforms to the precepts in the
Koran, the harsher the punishment for leaving Islam. Moreover,
there is strong grassroots support for the death penalty for
apostasy. So it is unlikely that someone leaving Islam will find
support from his family, friends or community. Hrishikesh Joshi
writes about leaving Islam in the West. Even in the USA and
Canada, many simply hide their atheism rather than confront
family pressure or hostility towards his family. Hrishikesh
Joshi writes of an support organization for ex-Muslims, which
helps many. Considering the hostility of many on the Left to
religion in general, we'd expect liberals to support Muslims
leaving the mosque. Liberals certainly applaud a Christian
becoming an atheist. But the attitude toward a Muslim leaving
Islam is one of suspicion and anger. The Liberal is more likely
to support the religious hierarchy and deny that practices such
as female genital mutilation (FGM) exists.
In a related area, this is a video where students support
religious freedom for Muslims, not Christians.
This is an authoritative paper on the laws of apostasy,
particularly as applied to a convert of Islam. It was written by
Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi, a Muslim scholar. It is important in that
it counteracts the glib phrases Muslim proselytizers throw
around such as 'There is no compulsion in the religion.' From
Rizvi, we learn the 'if's' and 'but's' that change
the conditions under which this actually applies. Rizvi deals
with apostasy by Muslims that sign up voluntarily or by being
born into a Muslim family and then decide to leave the 'only
true religion.' If you follow him on his narrow path of
reasoning, it sort of makes sense, sort of, that the only
punishment that can possibly apply to the ex-Muslim is death. It
helps if you believe as he does that "If a person is raised in a
society which protects his soul from the impurities of atheism
(kufr) and polytheism (shirk), or if a person is shown the Right
Path and accepts it willingly — can such a person reject the
Islamic faith?" As the Prophet Muhammad himself said, "Every
child is born with the believing nature (al-fitra), it is
his parents who make him into a Jew or a Christian."
This is a sister article to the one by Ayyid Muhammad Rizvi
above on Islamic law on apostasy, but written from a Christian
rather than a Muslim perspective. A scholar who goes by the nom
de plume of Silas writes on the consequences of leaving Islam.
For 1400 years, the sentence for apostasy has been clear and
unambiguous: death by execution for a man, life imprisonment for a
woman. They have insulted Islam.
Bill Muehlenberg writes that there are 12 countries —
all of them Islamic — that punish apostasy with the death
penalty and in another, Pakistan, blasphemy is punishable by
death. Every other human on the planet — i.e. non-Muslims
— has three choices: convert to Islam, become a dhimmi
(a second-class citizen) or die. That is Islam's policy. When
facts on the ground become propitious, Muslims will act on what
their religion requires. Muehlenberg rejects current fallacious
arguments that this doesn't represent "real" Islam by citing
some pertinent Islamic books. This is a shorter but
information-filled essay that
nicely sums up what the articles above elaborate in detail.
In what might well become a classic essay, Edward Cline writes
about the impact of Islam on a believer, even one who later
rejects it. Islam is weirdly different in its strong grip even on
those who knew it only as children. His 'case study' is Ayaan
Hirsi Ali, a well-known Muslim apostate and women's rights
activist. In recent years, she has modified her previous outright
rejection of Islam because of its practices. In 2015, Ali wrote an
article suggesting that "[t]o defeat the extremists for good,
Muslims must reject those aspects of their tradition that prompt
some believers to resort to oppression and holy
war
(here). Her current suggestions are how to bring Islam into
the modern era and make it, truly, a religion of peace
[emphasis added]. Whatever the dynamics that are going on in Ali's
psyche, as Cline makes clear, Ali can't strip Islam of its
intrinsic features and expect a gutted version with no
theological-political legs to stand on to attract people looking
for an all-encompassing super-power that at best tells them what
to do and too often gives them permission to do the monstrous
things they want to do.
It is a fact that the majority of terrorist acts are committed by
converts. Why this is true is speculation based on available
data.
The monograph at
https://www.icct.nl/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ICCT-Schuurman-Grol-Flower-Converts-June-2016.pdf discusses the literature on the overrepresentation of
"converts to Islam in Islamist militancy and foreign fighting."
It tentatively proposes several hypothesis:
(1) "Most converts, radicalised or not, are disillusioned to some
degree with modern or Western life and have displayed some form of
anti-social or stigmatised behaviour, such as alcohol or drug
abuse, before converting. Such background factors therefore do not
appear to be discriminating variables when it comes to accounting
for how and why some converts to Islam embrace extremism and militancy."
(2) [They are] "targeted by extremist networks" and the influence of friends
and partners with radical views."
(3) "Findings also emphasize the
role that "inspirational preaching" can play."
The authors of the monograph don't feel there is yet
sufficient data to come to firm conclusions.
The articles in this section examine aspects of the issue. One
in particular, the essay by Jahangir Arasli, integrates data and
context into a coherent summary. He doesn't disagree that the
future terrorist has particular stresses, but the question is:
what impels him to Islam? As Arasli writes, "The problems causing
this crisis might be psychological, personal, social, or of a
combined nature. But whatever the source of the problem, the
individuals came to see conversion to Islam as a remedial solution
to their troublesome life experiences." And does he see Islam as a
benign religion that will calm him or as one authorizing rage and
violence? The article makes an excellent starting point for more
research into a subject that we must understand because it is
vital to our security.
Abigail R. Esman writes about American and European converts
to Islam. Surprisingly, native-born converts to Islam are
"are four times more likely to become terrorists than those who
are born Muslims." Most of these are women. Converts,
particularly women, are actively recruited by terrorists
organizations because they "operate freely in Europe, Asia, and
North America without arousing the suspicion of security
authorities." And they recruit others. This is making for
new thinking in the counter-intelligence community on how to
handle this new threat.
Bruce Hoffman discusses the multiple possible and probable
reasons why people become terrorists. He concludes, "At the
start of the war on terrorism a dozen years ago the enemy was
clear and plainly in sight. It was a large terrorist
organization, situated mostly in one geographic location, and it
was led by an identifiable leader. Today, when the borders
between domestic and international terrorism have blurred, when
our adversaries are not only identifiable organizations but
enigmatic individuals, a complete re-thinking of our
counterterrorism policies and architecture is needed."
VIOLENT CONVERTS TO ISLAM: GROWING CLUSTER AND RISING TREND
by Jahangir E. Arasli
Jahangir E. Arasli provides us with an excellent historical
overview, pointing out that the 9/11 attack "marked the
beginning of a new stage of overt, broad confrontation of the
Global Jihad Movement (GJM) against the Western world." The
membership of the GJM is planet-wide. Arasli's descriptions of
individuals who converted to Islam and became jihadists
illustrate the "wide range of individuals, activities, and
operational patterns" in the amalgamation of future converts,
converts to Islam and Muslim immigrant communities in the GJM.
There is sufficient evidence to start making some general
statements of who is likely to convert, why he chooses Islam and
how this leads to acts of terrorism.
Julie Lenarz provides us with information on terrorists who
were labeled 'long wolf' but were nothing of the sort. She sums
up her article this way: "In an interconnected world, so-called
'lone wolf' jihadists are almost always part of a lethal pack.
And they will continue prowling for prey, undeterred, until we
recognize them as such." It might be hard to convince those who,
despite all the evidence, cling to the belief that each act of
terrorism is unique, unaffiliated, local and random.
TO MAKE A WESTERNIZED TERRORIST: COMBINE RESURGENT ISLAM AND
AMERICAN SOFTHEADEDNESS
by Bernice Lipkin
[This is a reposting of an article that first appeared on
Think-Israel April 30, 2013. Part 5 includes a section on the
economic reasons why Lone Wolf and Small Group Terrorism using
locals would increase, as it has, compared to spectacular and
expensive stunts
like using a flotilla to gain entry to Gaza. This was the
introduction:]
Bernice Lipkin examines the determined efforts of jihadists,
aided and abetted by an Administration that is an adherent of the
ideology of "progressivism." An unforeseen consequence has been
the emergence of the Westernized Muslim terrorist, who is native
to the West or who has lived here much of his life. The Lone Wolf
and small group terrorists, provided they are imbued with
passionate commitment, have advantages over the imported jihadist.
They have local knowledge and already "fit" into the environment.
The most compelling reason for large terror organizations to
utilize them is that it is cost-effective. As Lipkin points out,
"Supplies are cheap and terror enthusiasts are plentiful. With
reduced need for a large cast, synchronous operations and
complicated equipment, the 'script writer' can more easily mock up
a plot to use at an oncoming event that will guarantee attention."
"There is likely to be more opportunity for roughly scripted
rather than rigidly choreographed direction. The field workers may
be given the plot and left to work out the details. Or some tasks
may be carefully timed and others left for improvisation depending
on the circumstances." Until America changes its ways, Islam's
activities on behalf of Islamic supersessionism will continue.
'LONE WOLF,' OR 'KNOWN WOLF'? THE ONGOING COUNTER-TERRORISM FAILURE
by Patrick Poole
[This is a reposting of an article that first appeared on
Think-Israel, October 24, 2014.
This was the introduction:]
Patrick Poole writes about other consequences of the fallacious
belief that we need to Counter Violent Extremism (CVE) rather than
fight devout Muslims willing to be extremely violent in the
service of Islam, sustained by the certainty that Mohammad would
approve of what they do. Poole makes the case that far from being
untraceable nonentities, "terrorist actors are almost always part
of a network who were involved in recruiting and tasking terrorist
activity." As evidence, he writes of cases we've all heard of. As
one example, Russian Intelligence had alerted the FBI that
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the brothers who blasted people watching
the Boston Marathon, was a radical Islamist. He was also readily
tied to the near decapitation of three Jews, one of whom was said
to be Tsarnaev's best friend, in what may have been a terrorist
'rite of passage'. But there was no follow-up. Major Hasan at Fort
Hood is another example. I don't know what else Hasan could have
done to alert people that he was fanatical about protecting his
people, other Muslims. Yet the army authorities ignored all
indications because he was a Muslim. Which raises another
question: why would the Obama administration lay the blame for
terrorist acts on everything but what the Koran decrees is
acceptable behavior in the service of Islam?
The term Lone Wolf suggests that with no pre-history
of radicalism or dedication to Islam or urging by his family,
friends or a jihadi group, some one wakes up one morning,
suddenly suffering from — as Daniel Pipes calls it —
Sudden Jihad Syndrome. The opposite is true. Linda
Goudsmit points out, "Radicalization is an interactive social
phenomenon. Radicalization happens socially in mosques.
Radicalization happens socially in cultural centers.
Radicalization happens socially in prisons. Radicalization happens
socially in schools. Radicalization happens socially in homes.
Radicalization happens socially on social media. Radicalization is
not a monologue - it is a dialogue with Islam and there are no
lone wolves." She points out that what characterizes the terrorist
isn't being Muslim per se. It is being Muslim, following
sharia law strictly and being imbued with the desire to make the
whole world Islamic; in other words, Muslim terrorists are very
pious Muslims.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross writes of the growing skepticism that a
single terrorist or a small group of terrorists are unaffiliated
with a larger group that bolsters their morale, acts as
handlers, trains them directly or and/or provides training material and
instructs them how to use the equipment they need to carry out
terrorist attacks. Nevertheless, the rate of rejection of the
'Lone Wolf' myth is so slow, I fear it will be a long time before we
really understand that lone wolves are the foot soldiers of groups
of salafists, who may have tactical differences but who are all
dedicated to total war on everyone in the world who has not yet
recognized that Islam is the master religion and sharia the law that must be followed.
Islam is of course a religion. It does, however, demands of its
adherents that they strive to make Islam the supreme religion in
the world. The consequences have been — even
disregarding for a moment its encouragement of acts of terror
and violence — that Islam has been intrusive, disrupting
the lives of people of other religions or no religion to an
extraordinary degree.
This set of articles is about the political aspects of Islam and
some of the ways the very people that should be
guarding our cultural mores and our lifestyle are corrupted.
BIASED TEXTBOOKS TURNING YOUNG AMERICANS AGAINST ISRAEL, RESEARCH SHOWS
by Rafael Medoff
Pro-Palestinian propaganda described as "educational" is no
longer confined to the lectures of Arab and far-left academics
on college campuses. Rafael Medoff discusses anti-Israel bias in
high-school text material, in particular the Arab World
Studies Notebook, a 540-page volume of "unabashed
propagandizing" and false information. The Notebook is
ubiquitous. Some parents have complained at local schools and
the Notebook has been withdrawn in several schools. But there
has been no general withdrawal. In fact the book's author,
Audrey Parks Shabbas, "has claimed the Notebook has been
distributed to more than 10,000 teachers, and 'if each notebook
teaches 250 students a year over 10 years, then you've reached
25 million students.'" The Editor's Addendum
contains a 2003 letter pointing out problems with The Arab
World Studies Notebook. They have yet to be corrected! And
the Notebook continues to indoctrinate school age children.
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY STUMPS FOR THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD
by Andrew Harrod
Many a University has been corrupted by Middle East
'donations' but Harvard, Columbia and Georgetown stand out for
what they are willing to do for Arab money. President Bollinger
of Columbia had the chutzpah to place Rashid Khalidi, one of
Columbia's virulent Arab Jew-hating professors, on the search
committee for the Chair of Modern Jewish Studies. The Harvard
Kennedy School has been caught disseminating anti-Israel "work
books" to high school teachers across New England. In this
article, Andrew Harrod tells us of one of Georgetown
University's attempts to whitewash the Muslim Brotherhood (MB),
a major enabler of terrorism around the world. It was at an
event called "Post-Arab Spring Middle East: Political Islam and
Democracy," where speakers were willing to say that the MB "is
traditionally a reformist, gradualist movement [which] is
working on social change." Unbelievable, no? The moderator for
the conference is the Director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal
Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU), Jonathan
Brown, who at another occasion tried "justifying the practice of
slavery within Islam." This may all sound like moronic comedy,
but it isn't funny. It corrupts educational faculty and they in
turn no longer know how to teach students to think rigorously
and impartially and base conclusions on evidence.
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD POLITICAL INFILTRATION ON STEROIDS
by Janet Levy, October 8, 2017
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) has ambitious goals and the
determination and resources to have a good shot at success. To
make Islam supreme MB does whatever is necessary. It has
talented operatives who can create working relationships with
political leaders and it has assassins and terrorists, when
it needs to pressure people to accept dhimmitude. In the USA, as
Janet Levy writes, it "has focused on infiltrating all levels
and branches of the U.S. government. More recently, the Muslim
Brotherhood presence within the American political landscape has
intensified, accelerated, and become more visible with the
establishment of several nonprofit political action
organizations." They are also running some of their people as
candidates for Congress and state governments. This would
increase their political clout, which they can supplement with
well-placed donations to media, academics and politicians. They
can hire people to turn out slick propaganda emphasizing their
"multiculturalism and moderation. They work hard at achieving
their goals and they don't waste time looking for "moderate
Muslims". They leave that up to those who would
like to deny that Islamic extremists have anything to do with
Islam.
POLITICAL ISLAM AFTER THE ARAB SPRING: BETWEEN JIHAD AND DEMOCRACY
by Olivier Roy
Some people still hold the view that terrorism and rioting and havoc
by Muslims has nothing to do with Islam. This article
by Olivier Roy is very much in keeping with such main stream
writing on Islamization; i.e., terrorism is due to
marginalization, poverty, feelings of rejection, anything but
the direct action dictated by the Koran. Roy's view of
Political Islam, to date, has had the predictive power of
zero.
According to Wikipedia.org:
Roy wrote widely on the 2005 civil unrest in France,
rebutting the suggestion that the violence was religiously
inspired. He argues that Islamism is merely the rubric under
which troubled youth enact their violent inclinations. A view
adamantly opposed by Roy's intellectual rival, Gilles Kepel.
According to Judith Miller, in the wake of the September 11
attacks Roy argued that militant Islamism of the type
represented by Al Qaeda had peaked and was fading into
insignificance.
His book Secularism Confronts Islam (Columbia, 2007) offers a
perspective on the place of Islam in secular society and looks at
the diverse experiences of Muslim immigrants in the West. Roy
examines how Muslim intellectuals have made it possible for
Muslims to live in a secularized world while maintaining the
identity of a "true believer." But Roy's thesis is not based in reality. At best it
describes some atypical Muslims.
As we learn more about Muslim terrorists, their families, their life style and their
absorption
of the teachings of the Koran, it becomes more obvious that Roy's image of a
religious Muslim living harmoniously in Western secular society is invalid.
THE ISLAM IN ISLAMIC TERRORISM: THE IMPORTANCE OF BELIEFS, IDEAS, AND IDEOLOGY
A book review by Nidra Poller, October 17, 2017
This is a review of a recent book written by Ibn Warraq,
entitled 'The Islam in Islamic Terrorism: the Importance of
Beliefs, Ideas, and Ideology'. The public has been conditioned
to react as directed 'to the lethal narrative strategy of jihad
conquest. They do not think rationally, they react Islamically
to assaults of all varieties, on all levels, from hijab fashion
that they glorify to atrocious murders that they cover with
flowers, candles and denial. The intellectual ravages are
concealed behind a curtain of consensus.' Poller writes that Ibn
Warraq, himself an apostate, firmly states that the 'beliefs,
ideas, and ideology' of the subtitle of The Islam in Islamic
Terrorism, are enshrined in the Koran, extended in the
hadith and sunna, clarified and confirmed by certified Islamic
scholars, and translated into action from generation to
generation, from the time of Islam's prophet to the present
day." In sum, "Islamic ideology gives the jihadi the framework
within which to exercise his brutalized will." And no stack of
rosy portraits of Islam will change what has been the bitter truth
since Islam came into being.
Nonie Darwish writes about political Islam as practiced by
such groups as the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS from a point of
view that is not often considered by Westerners, i.e., its
impact on the stability and future of the Arab countries.
Darwish also discusses how favorite "tactics of the Arab media
— to accuse people of collusion in order to silence any
opposition — have now moved into US mainstream media
regarding Trump and Russia, which the US media would apparently
like to regard as their new "enemies." These are the same media that
defend sharia law and inaccurately insist that Muslim
terrorists who shout "Allahu Akbar" have "nothing to do with
Islam." What next!
We all know this picture from 1967 when the Jews won back a
piece of Jerusalem from the bad guys, the Jordanians, who had
snatched it two decades before, just when the modern State of
Israel was born, or, as some say, reincarnated. Do we also know
that General Moshe Dayan, the Jewish guy with black cloth masking
his lost eye, let the Arabs keep control of the Temple Mount,
which is located in the piece of Jerusalem that the Jordanians had
snatched? Big mistake. The conquered Arabs stopped being worried
the Jews would do unto them as they would have done unto the Jews,
had they won the Six-Day War. They started asserting their right
to destroy Jewish archaeological finds at the Temple Mount and
restrict Jews from coming there. So we had the ugly contrast of
Arab children playing soccer on the Mount, while Jews stoop to all sorts of
ruses to be able to pray at the holiest site in Judaism without
being arrested. Now after only a half century, the Israeli
Administration has forbidden soccer-playing. How long will it be
before Jews can freely pray on the site of the Second Temple?
Manfred Gerstenfeld brings us up-to-date on the latest rioting
on the Temple Mount: the Arabs stabbed two Israeli Druze policemen with
weapons they had hidden in the al-Aqsa Mosque. Israel installed
metal detectors to prevent Arabs from storing weapons in their
mosques to have them on hand the next time they decide to stab
someone. (Consider how many people in the Waqf had to know about
the weapons and did nothing.) Palestinian preachers, angry at
this restriction on their right to kill, stirred up their
audience. The Arabs dutifully rioted. As it does too often,
Israel foolishly backed down and removed the metal detectors.
The riots continued.
Arab excuses change seasonally or because of some event, but
the Palestinian Arab response is constant: rioting, nasty
behavior, terrorism. If it didn't do so much damage, it would be a
bore. Having the PA authorities start recurrent riots using some
available excuse is such a recurrent pattern. Having the Arabs hide
weapons in mosques, hospitals, UNRWA schools is a recurrent
pattern. Having the foreign press blame the Jews is a recurrent
pattern. Getting the Israelis to give the Arabs more concessions
is getting to be less of a recurrent pattern. Who knows, maybe
someday the Israelis will act like normal humans and stop the
Arabs' obnoxious behavior. Now that might bring peace.
Mark Silverberg considers some facts others ignore. Fact: the
policemen that were stabbed were there to protect the site and
the worshippers in the Mosque. Fact: it is a desecration to
bring weapons to the Temple Mount. Fact: installing electronic
security is done routinely in Mecca and Medina as it is in any
important or populated place that would attract terrorists.
Fact: many mosques have security installations. So why the
uproar? Silverberg suggests that "[t]he essence of the struggle
relates to a culture of hatred in Palestinian society that
refuses to grant Jews in Jerusalem (specifically) and in Israel
(in general) any status other than d'himmitude as non-Muslim
subjects who must pay the jizya or head tax for
protection in an Islamic-controlled Palestine that would stretch
from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This is
consistent with Islamic doctrine that states that any land once
under Muslim control is an endowment that must inevitably revert
to Muslim rule." Abbas and the Palestinian Authority — the
good terrorists — have continuously exacerbated this core
Islamic belief. Even the Nazis tried to hide their massacring of
Jews. The Arabs rejoice openly. Each murder of a Jew or even a
non-Muslim is seen as an occasion to gleefully celebrate. Arab
mothers celebrate the suicide-murders of their own children.
Arab children grow up dreaming of becoming martyrs. Under these
conditions, Israel's withdrawing the metal detectors can only be
seen as an Arab victory, giving them the confidence to try more
disgusting acts of terror in the future.
Elder-of-Ziyon sees this latest manifestation of Arab
irrationality as yet another example of the Muslin honor and
shame culture at work. That Israel had the power to close the
Temple Mount for a couple of days would be "a source of deep
shame that has been buried for years by the fantasy of Waqf
control." So what does a barbaric honor/shame culture do?
Meditate? Review its lifestyle? See what it can reasonably
salvage from the situation? Not when it can restore its sense of
superiority by making Israel look like a loser. Elder-of-Ziyon
points out, "The PA's reaction is completely bonkers by any
normal yardstick. If the world wasn't so reflexively
'pro-Palestinian' it wouldn't coddle the crazy demands, but the
Palestinians have made an art form of these kinds of crazy
demands that end up sounding reasonable over the years of
constant repetition." Maybe it's time for Israel to act the
grown-up. It's time to stop feeding the fantasies of what one
reader called "The People Who Never Were in a Country That Never Was".
NEW YORK TIMES MISLEADING ABOUT TEMPLE MOUNT RIOTS
by Richard H. Shulman, July 25, 2017
Richard Shulman points out that Jordan recently violated rules
of diplomatic immunity by retaining a guard of the Israeli
Ambassador. The guard had thwarted an terrorist attack, killing
the terrorist. It was quietly straightened out eventually. The
media made no buzz over what can still be a bad precedent
internationally. Jordan incurred no bad press.
Shulman also has an interesting take on this puzzling fact:
"The media keep falsely accusing Israel of violating
international law. The Arabs keep violating international law,
but the media mostly overlooks it." How do the media make this
work? Shulman suggests that "the media often describes
Palestinian Arabs as 'outraged.' It gives no explanation for
that, leaving the incorrect impression that they might have
justification and that maybe Israel mistreats them." The Arabs
have learned the media are on their side, no matter what the
facts are. This is certainly true in how the media reported the
Temple Mount riots. It is certainly true in larger issues, where
the media act as if the Palestinian Arabs own Samaria and Judea.
Were they to check with their own fact-checking department, they
would learn that Samaria and Judea belong to the Jews in an
irrevocable trust by international law. I suppose we won't be
seeing Israel reclaim its own land any time soon, if it was
willing to jeopardize its security on the Temple Mount because
the Arabs rioted.
ISRAELI SOVEREIGNTY OVER THE TEMPLE MOUNT IS CRUCIAL FOR PEACE
by Prof. Hillel Frisch, July 24, 2017
As Professor Hillel Frisch writes, "Regardless of its direct
security merits, Israel's decision to place metal detectors at the
entrances to the Temple Mount has been transformed by adversaries
and Israel alike into an issue of sovereignty over the Temple
Mount. Power-sharing there has always constituted a slippery slope
to disaster. The murder of two Israeli policemen at the Temple
Mount is an appropriate moment to rectify the situation by
reasserting Israeli sovereignty over the holy site."
It is frequently said that the Arab population in the
Territories is helpless to stop the barbaric acts of the PA and
Hamas leadership. It would be more accurate to say that they
have the same attitude towards Israel as their leaders. They
rejoice when Jews are murdered and often volunteer as suicide-murderers. They see nothing wrong in
kidnapping Israeli soldiers; they build tunnels to get at the
IDF. They lend themselves as human shields to protect missile
sites. As this video shows, they corrupt their children and
train them as assassins.
Jews and Arabs may live as neighbors but there is a big divide
in their lifestyles and attitudes. This extends to large matters
such as how much control someone should have over his own life
and how much he can decide his own future. And it applies to
what are considered 'weaknesses' in some societies: having
compassion to one's enemies, showing kindness to strangers and
helping those who need help. David Weinberg writes about the way
some Arabs have paid back the medical treatment they received in
Israel. Way back in 2005, people was shocked when an Arab girl
who was having her face treated for massive burns was caught
attempting to smuggle in explosives, so that she could blow up
the people helping her. People were flabbergasted. It made no
sense. To really twist the knife, she spoke enthusiastically
about how many Jewish children she had hoped to kill. Nowadays,
having women and even children attempt to smuggle in explosives
and weaponry has become commonplace. David Weinberg worked at a
medical center, where, at any time, Arab children from Gaza were
a quarter of the patients. He tells the tale of a Arab
who was the best match for his brother who needed a bone marrow
transplant. Security was concerned because the older brother was
a terrorist, but the medical staff overcame government and
security objections and the Arab child got his transplant. News
media don't let such incidents ruin their constant cry that
Jews are evil.
NEW UNRWA TEXTBOOKS FOR PALESTINIANS DEMONIZE ISRAEL AND JEWS
by Danielle Ziri, September 28, 2017
Danielle Ziri writes that schoolbooks in UNRWA
schools have variations on three themes when talking about Jews:
"delegitimization , demonization and indoctrination to violent
struggle." Palestinian Arab children are taught that the Western
Wall, Rachel's Tomb and even the Tomb of the Patriachs, where
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah are buried, are
Muslim holy places. Israel as a name is seldom used. Children
are prepared for future war against the Jews. Killing Jews is a
worthy goal. Considering that half of UNRWA's large budget goes
to education, that's a lot of money going into poisoning the
minds of Palestinian Arab children. The final irony is that
UNRWA is an agency of the United Nations, which was created so
that governments could resolved disputes peacefully.
CAN CHRISTIANITY TAKE ROOT AGAIN IN THE ARAB WORLD?
by Paul Merkley, July 3, 2017
The future of Christianity in the Middle
East is not promising. Paul Merkley writes that Christians, many
of whose ancestors were living in the Middle East (ME) centuries
before Muhammad, have been forced by Muslim mobs to flee their
homes. They are welcome only in Israel, the one ME country where
their numbers are growing. In Iraq in 1947, there were 4.7 million
Christians. Now there are 200,000. They are persecuted by ISIS and
by anti-ISIS groups. The local Kurds are hoping to create their
own homeland, and the Christians remember the Kurds' attempted
genocide of the Assyrians in the 1930's. Nor are the Europeans
interested in their plight. So even if parts of Iraq are reclaimed
from ISIS, it isn't likely the Christians will be returning to their
homes.
Saeb Erakat is the chief negotiator for the Palestinian
Arabs. Saeb Erakat claims Canaanite descent. It is not unusual
for the local Arabs, most of whom migrated into what is now Israel and the
Territories within living memory, to claim kinship with one
ancient people or another. Not letting actual history deter
them, many claim linkage to ancient people who have been extinct
for centuries. "As the argument goes, the Palestinians, by
virtue of their being descendants of the Canaanites, or the
Philistines, or the Jebusites, are the real indigenous nation
that sprung organically from this land." It would be amusing
except that after a while, the local Arabs begin to believe their own
lies and get very annoyed at anyone who prefers the truth.
As Alex Joffe writes, "Evidence shows Palestinian Arabs
descend primarily from three primary groups: Muslim invaders, Arab
immigrants, and local converts to Islam." The Jews, on the other
hand, "are the indigenous population of the Southern Levant;
historical and now genetic documentation places Jews there over
2,000 years ago, and there is indisputable evidence of continual
residence of Jews in the region." It would be
accurate to say that it was the incoming Arabs that practiced
colonialism, not the Jews.
When the modern state of Israel was born in 1948, her
neighbors invaded, intending to take over the country and rid
themselves of the Jews, once and for all. Jordan was more
successful than the others. She managed to take control of a big
chunk of the eastern part of Jerusalem as well as Samaria and
Judea. It was during this time that the newish United Nations
began to show how well it would carry out the dream of creating a
space where countries could work out differences without going to
war. Its way of handling Jews versus Arabs set a pattern.
Jordanian Muslims shooting at Jews were ignored. Muslims building
illegally were ignored. Jews daring to add to their houses were
chastised. Jordan destroying Jewish synagogues, using grave
stones as steps to the latrines and kicking out or killing every
Jew in the newly-conquered piece of Jerusalem and the Territories
was as pure an example of ethnic cleaning as there is. Yet no one
objected. Certainly not the U.N.
Daniel Greenfield explores how differently the Jews and Arabs were
treated. Another way of saying it is: the politicians condoned
the Islamization of Jerusalem and did what they could to make it
happen. We've progressed to where Jewish settlements (that is,
Jewish towns and cities in Samaria and Judea) are considered
obstacles to peace. What they mean is the Jewish residents are obstacles to
giving away Jewish land. When Jordan joined the other Arab countries and invaded
Israel again in 1967, Israel begged Jordan to stay out. Like so
many with his political make-up, Moshe Dayan really didn't want
to liberate Jerusalem. But Jordan went to war, lost and the
secular Jews were stuck with having to handle their own property.
What is puzzling is why the Jewish politicians and administrators
continue go along with the pattern of unfairness the
representatives of the governments of the world have established.
Why don't they grow up and enjoy the gift of land that belongs to
them?
The Arabs loot, murder Jews with knives, guns and cars, kidnap
citizens, set fires destroy orchards and steal cars. Israel
responds, sort of. She jails murderers, and then pays for them
to study for college degrees. She releases thousands of
murderers for a couple of Jews or Jewish bodies. But, little by
little, she is becoming stronger and more sensible. She is
beginning to reclaim houses the Jordanians took from the Jews
and filled with Arab squatters from neighboring countries. She
is even working on stronger legal punishments against acts of
terror. Slowly, little by little, she is beginning to accept her
sovereign claim to the Territories and is beginning to act as
normal people do when they are under attack.
CONCESSIONS TO PALESTINIANS: CHOKING OR INFLAMING TERRORISM?
by Yoram Ettinger, October 03, 2017
Yoram Ettinger examines the patterns of Israel's concessions
to the Palestinian Arabs. Do these actions contribute to peace
or increase acts of terror? The consequences of some of her
actions were predictable. She released Palestinians from jail,
many there for committing grotesque murders. As you would
expect, the rate of recidivism was very high. She gave the Arabs
control of an aquifer, an important asset in a water-short area.
They promptly destroyed it. She kicked all the Jews out of Gaza
in a pointless unilateral move. The Arabs destroyed the
greenhouses and used the extra space to make home-made weapons
of war. Hamas and other terrorist groups moved into the vacated
space. Land for peace doesn't work. It's time to try something
else, this time taking into account the safety of Jewish
citizens.
ISRAEL'S RELEASE OF SECOND RAMALLAH LYNCH MURDERER VIOLATES INTERNATIONAL LAW
by Prof. Louis René Beres
When two Israelis lost their way and drove to the Police
Station in Ramallah, the Arab police turned them over to the
gathering mob, which lynched and slaughtered the Israelis and ate
their body parts. Israel has recently released the second of these
monsters. Professor Louis Beres says it just right: this "is
wrongly exculpatory, legally contrived, and nationally
self-destructive." He points out, "A core element of longstanding
international law is the rule Nullum crimen sine poena, or
"No crime without punishment." He points out the consequences
of releasing this criminal.
ARAB SQUATTERS EVICTED FROM JEWISH PROPERTY IN JERUSALEM
by Hezki Baruch, September 5, 2017
Hezki Baruch writes a factual account of the reclaiming of a
Jewish house occupied by Arab squatters. I wonder how many readers
understand how rare such a story is. When Jordan invaded the new
state of Israel in 1948, it gained control of the eastern section
of Jerusalem, as well as Judea and Samaria (aka The West Bank). It
killed and/or evicted every Jew from the area. It invited Arabs in
from the neighboring areas to take over Jewish property. Israel
regained the land when her Arab neighbors invaded again in 1967.
But the Israeli authorities did not do what was right and just,
namely, evict the Arab squatters and allow the Jews to reclaim
their property. Instead, it has been a painfully slow and
expensive process for Jews to reclaim their property, one house at
a time. Either the Jews have had to buy out the Arab squatter or
sue him in court; and the media, of course, portray the Arabs as
the 'victims'. I had occasion to visit the area on an
AFSI-conducted tour in 2002 and wrote about it in an article
entitled "The Settlements Revisited" (see here.)
Amb. Alan Baker points out, "The language of occupation law
has been politicized, and partisan political expressions such as
'Occupied Palestinian Territories' have become common language by
the UN and by such humanitarian organizations as the International
Red Cross. This terminology has no legal basis and prejudges
ongoing, agreed-upon, and internationally-endorsed negotiation
issues between Israel and the Palestinians. Their use by
humanitarian organizations such as the International Red Cross is
incompatible with its own constitutional principles of neutrality
and impartiality." Baker reviews other occupations and annexations,
suggests that the "the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC), the main repository and arbiter of the [Geneva]
conventions, have given themselves an overly wide and liberal
margin in interpreting accepted factual definitions in the
international instruments" and concludes that "the actual and
unique factual, political, legal, and historic situation of the
territory [Judea and Samaria] ... sets it apart from the
simplistic international definitions."
In the States, salafists are doing honor killing and FGM. But
they are also paying attention to propaganda. They haven't abandonned
their aim of having sharia rule the world, but they are painting an image of forward-thinking feminists
and progressives who welcome diverse points of view in a
multicultural society. Of course, once sharia is imposed, the
feel-good imagery will be stripped away.
LINDA SARSOUR CALLS FOR US MUSLIM JIHAD AGAINST ASSIMILATING
by Barry Shaw, July 9, 2017
Linda Sarsour in her own person appears to be a blend
of the rigidly pious Muslim and the extremely
progressive Socialist.
She is completely devoted to jihad and sharia law, while speaking
in favor of identity politics, multiculturalism and a fuzzy sort of
Marxism. She is a strong believer in Islam, which treats woman as
second class citizens, yet, paradoxically, she is in the forefront
of the liberated woman's-rights movement. As a good
and pious Muslim, she hates Israel, as does the new Far Left.
Barry Shaw observes that
"Sarsour has been hiding her agenda behind the cloak of liberal
progressivism but, occasionally, her real identity emerges." She
told her Muslim audience in a recent speech that their priority
was not to assimilate and please any other people or authority.
"Our top priority is to please Allah and only Allah."
THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD: PEDDLING SHARIA AS SOCIAL JUSTICE
by Judith Bergman, March 30, 2017
The Muslim Brotherhood (MB) seems to be working on changing its
image, if not itself. Judith Bergman tells us about the new MB.
Its spokesmen claim to be tolerant, non-judgmental and believe
in diversity. Either they've given up on believing in the conformity
that Islamic sharia law imposes or they are lying. The
spiritual leader of the Brotherhood, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, talks
about a "non-violent conquest of non-Muslim lands." He says he
believes in a gradual importation of sharia law. Despite the
new slogans, he reassures us that when sharia does take over, hands
will still be chopped off for theft, apostates will still be
killed, and woman will still be beaten at their husband's whim.
As the title of Judith Bergman's article says, the Muslim
Brotherhood is peddling Sharia as Social Justice.
READ MORE
MICHIGAN MOSQUE PAID DOCTOR TO PERFORM GENITAL CUTTINGS ON GIRLS
by Robert Spencer, June 14, 2017
In 2012, a report by the US Center for Disease Control and
Prevention found that roughly 513,000 women and girls in the
United States were at risk of undergoing FGM, which was more than
twice an earlier estimate based on 1990 data.
In 2016, Unicef estimated 200 million women in 30 countries had
undergone the painful procedure. Spencer writes about a mosque that is said to have
paid a Muslim docter to perform FGM on young Muslim girls.
WE'RE SO AFRAID OF MUSLIMS WE'RE IGNORING DOMESTIC 'HONOR KILLINGS'
by Andrea Peyser
Andrea Peyser presents some recent cases of honor killings
that took place in the USA. Fathers killed their daughters
because the girls didn't want to marry men chosen for them or
because they wanted to be and dress like other girls in the West. It's
estimated that there's a couple of dozen honor killings a year in the States,
but they receive little publicity and are often mislabeled as
ordinary domestic violence.
Hugh Fitzgerald writes about Karen Armstrong, a well-known
apologist for Islam. She goes in for interfaith harmony and
preaches the doctrine of "let's all get along.' She talks about
a Charter for Compassion but she has a sharp enough tongue for
those who challenge her vapid statements and meaningless
prattle. She also has stories that she claims are
about real events in Islamic history. In her version, Christians
carried on murderous crusades against innocent Muslims. She
writes that Muslims stopped trying to conquer countries in
Europe once they lost Granada, their last stronghold. In the
time stream most of us live in, while the Muslims did lose
Granada, they were busy taking over in Greece and Albania and
Rumania and Hungary and pitting their strength against the gates
of Vienna. She would have it, as do other Islam apologists, that
the Christians of Spain gave both the Jews and the Muslims the
choice of convert or leave or die around the same time. The Jews
were indeed given those options in 1492. The Muslims were not.
They stayed on, free to practice their religion, free to work
and trade and more around freely. She spins her stories as if
both the Jews and the Muslims were twinsies in suffering, as if
both groups were expelled from Spain on the same date. But, as
Fitzgerald informs us, "Karen Armstrong has sympathy for the
Jews in Spain only insofar as that sympathy can be transferred
to the real objects of her pity, the Muslims, and she will do
nothing to help readers to recognize the difference in the two
cases, that of the Jews being one of undeserved mistreatment,
that of the Muslims a matter of geopolitical prudence."
In Europe, Muslim salafists get a lot of help from Europe's
politicians and leaders, who filter reality through their vision
of multiculturalism and diversity being the keys to a well-run
society. These leaders don't even try to do anything while Islam
and Sharia law take over their countries. In
England, lower class children were groomed for years for
prostitution and the police ignored it for fear of being
accused of islamophobia. It was an open secret, but the
Mainline Press did not inform the public.
Nowaday, people don't talk much about honor
crimes of murder because the media tend not to label them as such.
The politicians denied there were 'no-go' zones but people found out about them.
Sweden has become the rape capital of the
world since the Middle Eastern
"refugees' started arriving. It's not hard to figure out that the more
Muslims there are in a country, the higher is the crime rate.
European natives who want to preserve their culture have to
struggle not only against the activities of
the Muslim migrants but their own politicians and their own media. There is no united front.
Andrew McCarthy reports that just as in the States, the media
in England are the last to suspect that a Muslim running down
a city street knifing people and yelling Allah Akbar
is acting out of religious fervor, not poverty or rejection or a
lack of self confidence. As in the States, they see the mosque
as the equivalent of a church or synagogue, a place to pray.
They don't seem to understand that a
mosque in the West, as are mosques around the world, is "a
center for sharia indoctrination, assimilation resistance, and
anti-Western politics." Many Muslims in England have polygamous
marriages and earlier marriages. They also have a high birth
rate. The result is they are producing children at a much higher
rate than the natives. In 2004 Bernard Lewis said Europe would
be Islamic by the end of the century. Such population
comparisons make his prediction likely.
Soeren Kern lists a couple of dozen honor attacks that
occurred in Germany in some five months in 2017. Men murdered
their wives, girl friends and daughters for the Islamic crime of
disobedience. This is likely the tip of the iceberg because, as
Kern points out, police, politicians and the media don't want to
inflame the public by letting people know the truth. He writes,
"Increased censorship by the police and the media, aimed at
stemming anti-immigration sentiments, makes it impossible to
know the names and national origins of many victims or
perpetrators, or the true circumstances surrounding many
murders, which often appear to be honor killings but are
downplayed as "domestic disputes." The fact that honor killings
common in the Middle East are prevalent in Europe suggests that
the Muslim immigrants have made little adjustment to their way of
life to conform to the mores of European culture.
NEW STUDY FINDS MUSLIMS & LEFTISTS RESPONSIBLE FOR VAST MAJORITY OF ANTI-SEMITIC HATE CRIME
by Paul Joseph Watson, August 25, 2017
In the USA, the media persistently write that right-wing groups
such as the KKK, not the left-wing BLM and Anti-Fa, are the ones
responsible for anti-Semitic hate crimes. In contrast, Paul
Joseph Watson reports, "A major new study has found that
left-wingers and Muslims are responsible for the overwhelming
majority of anti-Semitic hate crime in several different
European countries." It is more than likely that this is also
true in the States but it doesn't get reported because it
contradicts the prejudices of the press.
Muslims complain they
are the major target of hate-crimes. This notion is reinforced
by the media, which tend to report the number of crimes
committed as a percent increase over the previous year rather
than as percent of the total number committed in a particular
category of hate. Thus, if in one year there are 10 hate crimes
against a particular ethnic group, and the next year there are
twenty, then the media can 'truthfully' say there's a 100%
increase. The majority of the media reported a shocking increase
in anti-Arab crimes based on Race/Ethnicity or Ancestry. But
relative to the total number of hate crimes in this
category, 4216 victims in 2015, only 1.1% were victims of
anti-Arab bias. Note also we don't how many of these were crimes
against property, not person. In comparison, 53.2% of the total
number of crimes in the Bias Against Race category were because of
anti-black bias; 18.7% of the total number of crimes were
because of anti-white bias. Of the 1402 Anti-Religion hate
crimes committed, 21.9% were victims of anti-Muslim bias, but many more,
52.1%, were victims of anti-Jewish bias. These figures come from
https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2015/topic-pages/victims_final/.
It was not reported, but I'd be willing to bet many of the
anti-Jewish hate crimes were committed by Muslims.
Guy Millière wonders why so many politicians and media
play 'blame the victim.' They blame Geert Wilders, the Dutch
political leader, for violence when the violence is
directed against Wilders. It doesn't come from
Wilders. Like President Trump, he is the victim of unswerving
hate. In his case, it is because he has been warning the Dutch
that if they continue their generous immigration policy, they
will lose their freedom and control of their country to Islam.
It was so hard to find a reason to charge Wilders with a
political crime, the prosecutors resorted to misinterpreting
some words from a speech he once made. People don't want to
hear the truh; it's too frightening. But ignoring what the
Muslims are doing doesn't stop them from ethnically cleansing
entire neighborhoods of the Dutch natives who once lived there.
Bruce Bawer paints us a picture of Erna Solberg, head of the
Conservative Party in Norway and current Prime Minister. As
Bawer puts it, "When it comes to Islam, she's always been a
first-class dhimmi." For her, "Muslims are always the victims
and Norwegians the bad guys," no matter what the facts are.
Despite the damage Muslims do in Norway, Erna chortles on about
"Norway as a place where Muslims and non-Muslims live together
in harmony, and warned about certain unnamed mischief-makers at
both 'extremes' who seek to sow division." Bawer wonders if,
by 'division', she means the body parts "strewn all over
promenades in Nice, bridges in London, and concert arenas in
Manchester," courtesy of Muslim terrorists.
SHARIA POLICE: GERMAN COURT RULES IN FAVOR OF ISLAMIST 'BROWN SHIRTS'
by Jim Kouri
After "a series of radical Islamist attacks, rapes and
assaults," apparently the Germans feel they need help in
controlling their recent immigrants. As Jim Kouri writes, a
"criminal court in Germany has given its blessing for a
quasi-squad of Muslim refugees and immigrants to act as de
facto Sharia police." As a result, a merry band of faith
cops have harrasing Muslims and non-Muslims to make them conform
to sharia law.
"Germany's political leaders are tolerating what amounts to a parallel German universe; one
that allows Muslim immigrants and refugees to take the law into their own
hands, often with tragic consequences."
THE JEWASHING OF GEORGE SOROS:
MILLIONS OF JEWS ARE ANTI-SEMITIC FOR CALLING OUT AN ANTI-SEMITE
by Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield describes some things about George Soros's
history that likely helped make him the loathsome Jew-hater he
is today. "There's no denying that George Soros is a warped and
twisted man. Especially when it comes to the Jews. But he's also
the money man behind a great deal of leftist activism.
Especially anti-Israel activism." And so such truth-seekers as
the staff of the New York Times decry "'Israel's War
Against George Soros'. That's right up there with Poland's war
on Nazi Germany." "According to the New York Times,
criticizing an anti-Semite whose Jewishness can only be found
with a DNA analysis is anti-Semitic, but attacking millions of
Jews defending themselves against genocide isn't." Greenfield
points out that when not blaming Soros's victims,
the Times is Jewashing Jew-haters. The New York
Times may have been started by Jews but it is ending up as
an instrument to destroy Judaism.
ISRAEL-BASHER, BIASED HISTORIAN CANNOT HEAD CENTER FOR JEWISH HISTORY
by Morton A. Klein, October 24, 2017
Mort Klein writes about another Jew who has become a bitter
enemy of the Jews and Israel. What makes this case so bizarre is
that this Jew, David Myers, is head of "the prestigious Center
for Jewish History (CJH), in New York." Mort Klein recounts many
facts that would more than qualify Myers to be a hoodie, either
a grand-pooh-bah of the KKK or the chief speaker at the start of
yet another well-funded anti-Fa riot. As Klein writes, "The
Center for Jewish History should be led by an honest, carefully
accurate historian or other executive — not by hostile-to-Israel
propagandist David N. Myers."
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) can be considered a
predecessor of groups such as Anti-Fa, except SJP has an
exclusive focus: how to destroy Israel.
They are good at street theater and confrontation. They flunk on
facts and honest information. As Richard Cravatts writes of
them:
"SJP has a long history since its founding in 1993 of bringing
vitriolic anti-Israel speakers to their respective campuses (now
numbering over 200 with chapters), and for such collateral
activities as sponsoring the pernicious Israeli Apartheid Weeks,
building mock 'apartheid walls,' and sending mock eviction
notices to Jewish students in their dorms to demonize Israel and
create empathy for the Palestinian Arab cause."
SJP is not a model for
how to hold rational civilized discussions on college campuses.
DEPRESSING CONCLUSIONS TO BE DRAWN FROM THE SAD STORY OF THE KURDS
by Mordechai Kedar, October 23, 2017
In contrast to the Palestinian Arabs, who are not a people, but a
propaganda tool created from the scratchings of Yasar Arafat's
pen, the Kurds are a legitimate people. One would think that if
any group merits a sovereign country, it is the Kurds.
Mordechai Kedar points out that they "are the largest ethnic
entity in the world, which does not have a state of its own." In
recent years they have been the most important force fighting
against ISIS. 90% of the Kurds support independence. Yet Turkey,
Iran, Iraq and Syria say no, as do the USA and Europe. Why?
There's oil in that area. Lots of oil. That's why.
For Israel,
the expectations of the Kurds and the
nay-saying by the neighboring Arab countries is a lesson Israel
should take to heart. Because of the Iranian threat, the anti-Iran
Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt have become much
more friendly to Israel. In Israel this has been greeted by some
as the start of a strong union if only Israel accepts Arab peace
proposals and establishes a Palestinian State. Kedar suggests that
once the Iranian threat dissipates, no matter how much Israel
helped the anti-Iran coalition, the warmth of the Arab countries
will also dissipate. Kedar concludes, "Israel must not jeopardize
its existence, security and interests by placing them in bankrupt
Arab insurance companies."
SECOND TEMPLE-ERA MIKVEH DISCOVERED UNDER AL-AQSA MOSQUE
by Nadav Shragai
Nadav Shragai writes, "Al-Aqsa mosque was destroyed in an earthquake in 1927. As
it was being rebuilt, the British archaeologist Robert Hamilton documented the excavation
of its foundations. He hid away the findings that the waqf found inconvenient. Today,
thousands of findings, including a seal with the inscription "From Gibeon to the king" unearthed by Dr.
Gabi Barkai and Zachi Dvira, shed light on the Temple Mount's Jewish period."
This article and the next one discuss artefacts and structural details of
the First and Second Temples.
SECRETS UNDER THE AL-AQSA MOSQUE: A PHOTOGRAPHIC ESSAY
by Lenny Ben-David
"Jews believe that the "foundation rock" beneath the Dome of the
Rock is atop Mt. Moriah, the site of the binding of Isaac. King
Solomon built his Temple upon the rock in the tenth century before
the Common Era (BCE), but it was destroyed in 587 BCE by the
Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. Seventy years later, the second
Temple was built by Jews returning from Babylon with King Cyrus's
blessing. Years later it was rededicated by the Maccabees in
approximately 160 BCE after its defiling by the Seleucids." It too
was destroyed, this time by the Romans. When the Muslims invaded
and captured Jerusalem, they built a mosque — the al-asqa
mosque — on the area of the Temple Mount, as a symbol of
their dominance. In 1927, much of the mosque collapsed.
Robert Hamilton and another English photographer took advantage of
the reconstruction period to photograph under the mosque. Hamilton
promised the Waqf that he would make 'no mention of any findings that the
Muslims would have found inconvenient' such as findings from the
time of the Jewish Temples. The photographers documented the
mosaics, passageways, cisterns, and lumber that apparently were
part of the Temples." The photos in this article are some of those photographs.
HOW AN EARTHQUAKE IN 1546 MADE THE "KOTEL" POSSIBLE
by Meir Loewenberg, July 4, 2017
Over the centuries, the area around the remains of the Second
Temple was built up, blocking access to the Temple Mount walls.
Meir Loewenberg tells us that what made the Kotel, the Western
Wall, accessible was a massive earthquake in 1546, which destroyed
many of the houses that had blocked access. The ruler at the
time, Sultain Sulamein, had the ruins cleared and a small area
was prepared where some hundred Jews could pray at a time. It
was used in times of crisis. They started holding daily services
there in the middle 1800s. When the Jews took possession of the Temple Mount,
they reconstructed the area, making it accessible for thousands.
HOW A NETWORK OF CITIZEN-SPIES FOILED NAZI PLOTS TO EXTERMINATE JEWS IN 1930s L.A.
by Steven J. Ross, October 8, 2017
As the Nazis started gaining momentum in Germany in 1933, a
group of Nazis held their first meeting in Los Angeles. It was a
time that many 'wannabe Nazi; groups were being formed, to rant
about overthrowing the government and killing the Jews. Leon
Lewis, a Jewish lawyer, decided to investigate these
anti-Semitic groups. He
recruited a small number of people, all but one of whom were
Christian, to go undercover and join every Nazi and fascist
group in the city. The initial plan was to find evidence for
illegal activities and turn the evidence over to the police.
Steven Ross tells us that soon after infiltrating the groups, they
discovered a plot to take control of the armories in the vicinity.
Lewis notified several of the Police, local FBI and Sheriffs.
He was shocked to find they were all sympathetic to the nazi groups,
seeing the radical lefties as the real threat. Between 1935 and
1945, they uncovered several plots. One was to kill a couple of
dozen actors. Others were to kill Jews, steal munitions from the
Armories and blow up military installations. Unable to make the authorities act, the citizen-spies
were able to get some of these plans canceled by making the Nazi members worry
about internal leaks and betrayals.
MY AUNT HAD A DINNER PARTY, AND THEN SHE TOOK HER GUESTS TO KILL 180 JEWS
by Gili Izikovich, July 13, 2017
Gili Izikovich writes about a German journalist, Sacha
Battyany, who discovered one day many years after the War ended
that his aunt made a lunch party and afterwards took her guests
out to kill Jews. He began an investigation into his family that lasted years.
He interviewed family members, traced his
grandfather's history, read a diary his grandmother kept, even
talked to someone that was at the lunch. He also explored "the
connection between his grandmother, Marita, and an Argentinean
woman named Agnes Mandel, a Jewish refugee from the village in
which the two grew up, one as the daughter of the local nobleman
and the other as the daughter of village Jews who were
murdered." The result was a book. "The picture that emerges from
the book is well-rounded, moving from the personal to the
historic, as it emerges that the victim and the criminal are
part of the same family."
There is supposed to have been a massacre of Arab residents by
Jews during the Arab invasion of the new-born State of Israel in
1948. Arab who lived in Deir Yassin have reported there was no
massacre. It was a hoax perpetrated by Arab leaders to incite the
local Arabs. It boomeranged in that it make many Arab residents so
fearful that they fled out of the country. Like the Rachel Corey
and Al-Dura hoaxes, which have also been exploded, the Deir Yassin
"Massacre" lives on in Arab mythology. Shimon Cohen writes about
Professor Eliezar Tauber's new book on Deir Yassin.
This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions
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There is a separate file that is the index for the articles on the
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Please note that The Blog-Ed pages for
July-October 2017 are not currently available.
Different Blog Ed pages will be down
intermittently until the Archive structure is
in place. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Think-Israel tends to use salafist rather than
extremist or Islamist or militant or
fundamentalist or activist to describe generically a
pious Muslim, one who sticks as closely as possible to the
unfiltered words and actions of Mohammad and the first three
generations of Muslims, including, especially, the Companions of
the Prophet. In modeling himself as closely as he can on the
preachings and practices of Mohammad, a salafist can in modern
terms be precisely described as an uninhibited terrorist, a
theological supersessionist, a political supremacist who believes
Islam and sharia law must dominate and a social barbarian, who
wages jihad with whatever tools are available.
Thanks to the high quality of whitewash supplied by sympathetic
propagandists, he seldom is so described.
1
THE THEME OF THIS ISSUE
We live in an odd time. A divisive time. For some, Donald Trump's
election was a win for American values. For others, it was an
unbearable impediment in what had been a fairly smooth transition
to a global society, a utopia where national difference and
borders were no longer a threat to peace because there were no
national borders that mattered. Had all gone as planned,
administrative control would eventually shift to some
international body, a larger version of the European Union
perhaps. Or maybe the UN or some similar structure. Concern for
the environment would be used to quiet any objections individual
groups might raise while the core of global control was being
firmed up. There would likely be an internal struggle to decide
which pigmented group would actually be in charge. It has been a
given for years that whites had to be cut down to size. In the
last decade we went from reducing pride in American exceptionalism
to degrading the white race, eradicating 'white privilege'. One
would suppose that WASPS would not smilingly expose themselves to
a future of being powerless, discriminated against in the society
they created and having to fight for any sort of equal treatment.
But many many whites in the western countries had been persuaded
to see their demotion as a good thing. They agreed with ex-Prez
Obama that putting the USA and its dominant culture down a peg or
two was a top priority.
In an augmented EU or a herniated UN-type
government, the odd-couple symbiosis of global socialists and
religion-focused Muslims would likely continue, despite their very
different value systems.
The Muslims might no longer be a solid block but even when
divided, they have common goals they are furthering using
their oil money. They would certainly continue their religious
mission to install sharia law everywhere. Success would mean a
de facto global Caliphate. Whether an Iranian or a Saudi
Arabian would be the Caliph they would decide later.
They also have a common interest in preventing the West from
exploiting its own oil and gas resources or restricting the
expansion of Muslim communities.
The globalists also want to unify the world, but with a
socialist agenda in redistributing wealth. The dream of many an
academician and politician in the West is to unite countries
within a socialist unification. Protecting the environment and
undoing global warming are the levers currently being used to pry
open a massive global effort to fight climate change and eliminate
human practices said to be polluting the atmosphere. The stated
policy of the Democratic party in the
USA (2016
Democratic Party Platform, July 21, 2016, p45) is to lead this
global enterprise. Given the complexity of the task, an
over-the-whole-world government would be needed to organize the
project. Surprise, surprise — such a government would also have
the infrastructure to control the global economy and handle
welfare and healthcare. At the moment, the envisioned control
mechanism seemed to be a global glob, a fuzzy sort of socialism
where the majority of people are dependent on the government and
the super rich are the milk cows providing renewable money. Not
all the very rich. Not the politician and administrators who run
the show, of course. What appears to be envisioned by the
globalists is more a two-tiered socialism where a small elite
class lives for us, takes vacations for us, flies in comfort in
their own planes for us — an expanded version of the Obamas
taking vacations that cost millions while access to jobs and
health care and education for the middle class diminished.
Into what some had seen as a marvelous future, Brexit and then
Trump were the proverbial wrench in the machinery. In the USA,
under the Trump administration, it is a time of rage, crumblings, new
mottoes and simultaneously a time of satisfaction, sharpenings and
new adhesions. The re-seating of reporters in the White House news
briefings was emblematic — dissing the wise elders of the New
York Times and allowing unvetted scamps from nowhere with no
lineage to warm the best seats! It brings up the image of the
unwashed commoner being allowed into Andrew Jackson's White House.
Shockingly uncouth. But Trump is succeeding in overturning many of
the arbitrary and ill-advised decisions of the previous
administration. Nevertheless, to assume that the government's
oligarchical power structure is being dissolved may be premature.
Already we've seen some of Trump's choices bringing into power
those who happily served in the Obama administration.
The Trump administration may end up as a brief stop on the road to
socialism but it is at least a pause. Individualism, nationalism
and free choice might yet survive. It's too soon to do an
analysis. And so this issue of Think-Israel is a jumble of
comments on some chunks that are coalescing in the chaos.
We have become accustomed to some politicizing of science.
Savvy scientists have adjusted by linking their research to one
politically important cause or another, however shaky the
connection. In climatology it's easier to get funding and have
your papers appear in the proper trade journals if you conform to
the views promulgated by a group of climatologists that are
politically powerful and act as arbiters for the field. (For an
interesting take on at least one of the arbiters, look at a video
featuring Mark Steyn, who has been sued by the climatologist
Michael Mann for defamation,
here.) Now we are seeing the reverse. Not only is science
being used to bolster and promote particular political goals, but
many in the role of politician or evangalist or advocate is
himself a scientist or science administrator. Believers in
man-made global warming base their messages of environmental doom
on scientific 'facts', but often these facts ignore contrary evidence,
exceptions, areas of uncertainty and a multitude of possible
environmental contributors to climate. The stated goal is to halt
global warming. Whether the final solution is taxing western
economies down to some degraded, barely-functional level or us
installing a "one world government" to control climate, the end
result will restructure our political system and limit our
freedom of action. As Gary Stix wrote back in 2012, "Effective
World Government Will Be Needed to Stave Off Climate
Catastrophe,"
here. It is of little comfort that "Seven In 10 Brits Support
'World Government' To Protect Humanity From Global Catastrophes,"
(Ian Johnston 23May2017,
here.)
For an excellent video on major topics in climate science and
climate change, see
here.
Alarmists sneer at contrary views by skeptical scientists,
claiming they aren't really in the field. Listen to Dr. Judith
Curry, a leading Earth and Atmospheric Sciences scientist and her
sober talk on the current 'data versus dogma' polarization
here.
Do 97% of Climate Scientists Really Agree? See
here.
This video talks about Al Gore and how the global warming scare
began. See
here.
POLITICS DISGUISED AS SCIENCE: WHEN TO DOUBT A SCIENTIFIC 'CONSENSUS'
by Jay Richards
This is a very wise and a very sensible article by Jay
Richards who suggests caution in accepting the premise that we are
rapidly heading towards a global overheating of the earth. To
avoid this, it is argued, we must overhaul our economy and
politics and put ourselves in the hands of some global
governmental institution such as the United Nations. Richards
points out that a consensus that there is warming doesn't tell us
about agreement or non-agreement on how much warming there is
and what is causing this warming. He writes that "A
consensus should be based on solid evidence. But a consensus is
not itself the evidence. With well-established scientific
theories, you never hear about consensus. No one talks about the
consensus that the planets orbit the sun, that the hydrogen
molecule is lighter than the oxygen molecule, ... The very fact
that we hear so much about a consensus on climate change may be
enough to justify suspicion."
Bernice Lipkin writes of the infusion of supposedly rock-solid
scientific information into political arguments by supporters of
Anthropogenic [man made] Global Warming (AGW) and the growing
investment of scientists in participating in social activism,
not as individuals but as scientists. She contrasts the modes of
behavior when the scientist is acting as advocate and when he is
behaving as a scientist.
MOVING BEYOND IMPASSE IN CLIMATE CHANGE COMMUNICATIONS
by Katie L. Burke
In a most polite, politically acceptable way, Katie Burke lists
some of the most commonly used ways to sell a product.
Specifically, how can a scientist learn to persuade in ways that
have been scientifically-determined to work? Stripped down, these
tactics teach how to engage the audience, including emphasizing
what you and the audience have in common. Be local in scale and
approach. Talk about how AGW hurts them and their families. Let
the audience know that the social groups important to them, the
people they admire and trust, accept there's a problem with the
climate changing. In fact, everyone except maybe a small number of
foolish and ignorant deniers know there's a problem, and who wants
to associate with them, anyway. Remember, the less intelligent the
audience, the more (simple) pictures and slogans the better. And,
for pity sakes, like any good politician, try out your speech on
your own focus group before you go before a bunch of civilians.
There are some obvious tips that might be added to the list.
Don't waste your time explaining the difference between
short-time weather and long-term climate. Any unusual weather
patterns or odd events can be — and have been — blamed
on man-made excessive warming. So let the
audience tell you what they have or haven't seen in years. Don't
reject these notions. You don't have to actually lie; just
be suggestive.
Accentuate the positive; eliminate the negative. Push renewable
energy sources, natural stuff like wind and sun. Don't talk about
how these aren't close to ready to supply our energy needs.
Play up the horrors of excessive heat and how it's harmful to
their family's health. Don't mention that the actual data don't
support the idea that irreversible heating is just around the
corner. They need to be roused. Tomorrow may be too late, if we
don't stop our bad habits.
Coo in a dignified manner. Your body language and voice tones
should say: You are doing the right thing joining us. You already
share our values. Let's face it, guys. We humans are the reason
why it's getting hot. And we have to do something about it.
Together.
Share with them something related to AGW and supposedly not
widely known that they can use next day in the office or while
waiting for the kiddies to finish the game.
Content matters some. Delivery matters a lot.
This isn't education. This is salesmanship. Don't confuse the
two. Your academic degrees are for show.
Choose your words carefully. Words have baggage. Labels count.
Nuances are a sign of weakness. Keep it simple. (I wish there was
a word like Mantrasize.)
It is interesting that Burke tells speakers not to follow the
example of the Organizing for Action (OFA) group, that has been
selling Climate Change by attacking conservative politicians
directly. It has been, in Burke's opinion, a failure. I'd be
interested on her take on why George Soros' OFA is interested in
raising the alarm on Global Warming. I'd be hard-pressed finding
anything Soros has done to strengthen America or protect it.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE CLAIM THAT "97% OF CLIMATE SCIENTISTS AGREE" ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING?
by Neil L. Frank
If you google terms such as consensus 97% scientists global
warming, almost all articles in the return list will
report or cite reports that some 97% of climate scientists
agree that there is global warming. Some articles go beyond
the basic statement and add unsupported commentary and
interpretation, often stressing the dangers of global warming.
Few studies break down the summary numbers into distributed
degree of support.
Nor do the summaries tell us how many support the alarmists'
certainty that a heat holocaust is around the corner. Neil L.
Frank has posted one of the few papers that put the consensus
mantra in context. He raises such issues as: how were the
questions phrased, how reliable is it to infer attitude from
an abstract, and what, exactly, were the scientists agreeing
to. These are important considerations that the bald statement
that '97% agree there's global warming' doesn't address. In
fact, given how the data were obtained and the absence of
"denier" articles in US journals, it is surprising the
investigators didn't find 100% agreement.
The set of articles below deal with some symptoms and indicators
of the advancement of Islam's conquest of Western host countries.
When the pious immigrant Muslims and their children born in Europe feel
confident enough to exert their Allah-given rights of
superiority, they start small by demanding hallel food in schools
and hospitals and want any pig signs and drawings removed from
books to piggy banks. As they progress, they demand substituting
their political, cultural, educational and lifestyle values for
what the native have or might want. They aren't blending in or giving
into multicultural pressures, so anything that looks like
assimilation is given publicity, sometimes prematurely. They
encourage hate-the-Jews where ever they go. What's most ominous,
they are working toward criminalizing criticism of Islam, which,
in Muslim countries, is already treated as blasphemy. In another
example not dealt with in these articles, Eileen Toplansky
writes of artists and writers, so courageous in not visiting
Israel to support BDS, who surrender up their freedom at home
(American Thinker,
23apr17,
here):
European writers, artists and museum directors admit that they are accepting their dhimmi status by:
removing the art work "Persepolis" because it combines a Persian Islamic rug and a female head.
veiling antique Roman statues in the Vatican to avoid offending Iran's visiting President Hassan Rouhani.
censoring London's Mall Gallery exhibition titled "Passion for Freedom" because it shows a family of toy animals living in an enchanted valley while in the background another set of toy animals are dressed as ISIS, ready to invade the idyllic view. The installation entitled "ISIS Threatens Sylvania" was eliminated because of its alleged "inflammatory" content.
withdrawing a portrait of the Prophet of Islam from the Victoria and Albert Museum of London because a group of Muslims protested.
scrapping the dedication of a new section of the Louvre in Paris concerning the artistic heritage of Eastern Christians. Recall that Eastern Christians have been systematically decimated by the Islamic State but the Louvre caved to fear.
MUSLIM 'REFUGEE' CALLED INTEGRATION SUCCESS — THEN SLIT HIS BOSS'S THROAT
by Selwyn Duke
Assimilation of the Middle Eastern refugees in Germany has been
often asserted, but actual examples are hard to come by.
So when a hair salon in Herzberg, Germany, hired a
refugee Syrian, this was hailed as an example of successful
integration. Then he slit his boss's throat. Selwyn Duke points
out that, as much as the Germans deny it, there isn't any integration.
"In fact, the only successful integration going on is that of
many Germans, who've been integrated into delusion."
'They are just like us,' just isn't so. The multiculturalists
build sand castles of diversification and integration and the
Muslim immigrants wash them away, time and again.
Edward Cline chronicles some of the multitude of changes the
Muslims are forcing on the British, who not too long ago were
confident enforcers of their own views of what constitutes
civilized society. No longer. While terrorist groups insist they
are the ones responsible for the ever-increasing terror attacks
committed by Muslims, British politician deny it is "Islamic
terrorism." The list of cowardly caving-ins in every aspect of
Western life grows daily.
In the USA, successive administrations have been seeding the
country with a steady influx of Muslims, distributing them
everywhere (See
here.) To date, given the size of the States, except for
acts of terror, the impact hasn't been felt. But Britain and
France are models of what happens when small colonies of Muslims
grow to a size where they become confident enough to actively
threaten the way of life of the natives. Dennis MacEoin writes
about the city of Birmingham, which is said to be the most
radicalized in England — some wards in the city are almost
entirely Muslim and some public schools are controlled by
Islamic religious leaders, who preach hate and intolerance.
Terrorist attacks have increased sharply the past five years
over all of Britain. Reports note there is a clear link "between highly-segregated Muslim areas and terrorism." France
may be in worse shape. It has some 751 no-go zones, where French
law is ignored. In general, the response to Islamist
criminality is weak. To date, we in America haven't strayed from
the path that doomed Europe — we continue to go along with
the increasing demands of Muslims in school and the work place.
MUSLIM EXTREMISTS DRIVE ANTI-SEMITIC VIOLENCE IN WESTERN EUROPE
by Simon Kent
Simon Kent writes about a new report that indicates Muslims are
"major perpetrators of anti-Semitic violence in Western Europe."
"Attitude surveys corroborate this picture in so far as
anti-Semitic attitudes are far more widespread among Muslims than
among the general population in Western Europe."
While right-wingers may be severely
anti-Semitic, the report indicates it is left-wingers who not
only have
strong anti-Semitic views but carry out hostile attacks.
In this article, Clifford May discusses self-censorship, an
accurate indicator of how much the media recognize that speaking
out against salafists might be bad for their own well-being. He
notes that Canada is considering criminalizing any criticism of
Islam, true or false. It is a pursuit that radical Islam has
pursued for years. As May writes, "Canada's Muslim reformers
understand that what is being contemplated is not so different
from a blasphemy law. And they know the impact such laws have
had in other countries."
Recently, a 52-year old convert to Islam created terror havoc
at the House of Parliament. Aside from his obvious motivation,
he left no explanation why he did what he did when he did.
Douglas Murray
(see
here) has speculated what working journalists would want
to know and how criminalizing 'Islamaphobs' would hamper them.
Would we be allowed to ask who ISIS are inspired by? The question must linger. It must be hovering over the mind of many a Canadian journalist as they ponder the terrorist attacks that have previously taken place in their country and wonder how they would go about reporting an attack such as that in Westminster last week.
Would they be allowed to say that the perpetrator was a Muslim? Would they be allowed to say that he was a convert? Would they be allowed to mention the Wahhabi point? Or would this tread into the realm of the "Islamophobia". Let us assume that they would be allowed to mention these things in print. Would they be allowed to go any farther? Would they be allowed to ponder in opinion columns or quote people in reportage who said that Masood and indeed ISIS had not got their ideas from nowhere? Would they be allowed to say that there is a tradition of violence within the Islamic religion, which has sadly permitted just such actions for a rather long time. Or would they have to lie?
People who do not side with settlement demonizers focus on proving that Israeli Jewish settlements
aren't evil and that settlements won't thwart peace. Some even dare
say — in the face of a high-pressure campaign against Jewish
settlements and settlers that has co-opted the moral high ground — that settlements are legal and
settlers are ordinary Israeli citizens, which they are. And so we
present some well-written articles on the actual status of the
Israeli settlement policy.
That's not where the focus should be. It should be on how to
reunite Israel and the territory that Jordan took in 1948 when she
invaded the new state of Israel, territory that Israel recovered
in 1967, when Jordan again invaded Israel. Israel needs to absorb
the Territories and carry out the second half of the Middle East's
exchange of populations. The first half happened in the 1940s and
1950s when the Arab countries expelled their Jewish populations. The
800,000 Jewish refugees quickly became full-fledged citizens of
the State of Israel.
Martin Sherman is courageous enough to point out that it's time
to act on the obvious. Any half measure — a two-state solution
or a single bi-national state — will lead to Israel's loss of its
Jewish character and likely its sovereignty. In the end, depending
on what Israel does, the Land of Israel will end up either Jewish
OR Muslim. It can not be both. If this seems too drastic a
conclusion, consider that in a two-state solution, the Arabs will
not allows Jews to live in their state. But in Israel, with a
Jewish population of 6.5 million and where the Arabs are
citizens, the number of Israeli Arabs has already grown from the
200,000 counted in the 1949 census to 1.8 million today. (In fact,
the most popular boy's name given to Israeli newborns, Jews and
Arabs combined, continues to be Mohammad,
Times of Israel.) A binational state would start today with
the additional 4.5 million or so Arabs living in Samaria, Judea
and Gaza plus an unknown number of the 6 to 7 million Palestinian
Arabs living in Arab countries and elsewhere. To see what this
would mean, consider what the relatively small proportion of
Muslims coming into Europe has already done to erode native
European culture and civilization.
These videos are but a few of the many available that explain
what is legal, namely, the Jews legally and irrevocably own the
Jewish land allocated to the Jews by the international community
at San Remo in 1920. (See the January-June 2016 issue of
Think-Israel below for details,
here.) The fact that so much effort has been expending on
demonizing the settlements by the members of Peace Now and other
treasonous JINOs (Jews In Name Only) suggests that they,
like many others, ignore the stipulations of the various
agreements and would like to create conditions that would make it
easier to illegally gift the Arabs with Samaria and Judea. Many of
them dream that this is the first step in an Arabs take-over of
all of Israel.
our legal rights
Professor Avi Bell of U San Diego
Edwin Black is author of "IBM and the Holocaust"
Prof Eugene Kontorovich, professor at Northwestern Law
ISRAEL'S NEW SETTLEMENT POLICY: EVALUATED AND EXPLAINED
by Malcolm Lowe
Malcolm Lowe describes the current policy of the Israeli
government on new construction in Jewish towns in Samaria and
Judea. What is not new is that "All the settlements created by Israel before the Oslo accords are legitimate, including the new Israeli housing estates created in the extended boundaries of Jerusalem."
New construction must be contained within the current construction lines; "the establishment of new
wildcat outposts" is not permitted. The new stipulation is that
new settlements are allowed but only when they are the legal
substitutes for towns believed to be legal when they were built
but subsequently shown to have private Arab ownership, so the
Jews, who had bought their homes in good faith, had to abandon the
sites. Lowe doesn't mention that the freeze on Jewish construction
during the Oslo negotiations was for three months only. Yet Israel
maintained a freeze on construction in the Territories, even in
areas that, under the most idiotic giving away of land, would
remain Israeli. The Arabs are yet to carry out any of their
contractual promises, yet Israel has perpetuated a crippling
restriction on itself. This noble self-sacrifice has not made the
local Arabs any more willing to accept a Jewish state.
Curiously, while any new Jewish building is
greeted with 'international' outrage and is minutely monitored,
the Arabs have no such restrictions in the areas they control.
A deeper mystery is why Jewish officials remain silent about their
legitimate claims to the land, affording the Arabs the opportunity
to sprout all sorts of fantastic claims without hinderance.
ISRAEL BALANCES US PEACE PUSH WITH GOAL OF BOLSTERING SETTLEMENT ENTERPRISE
by Alex Traiman, June 14, 2017
Israel is in a bind of its own making. By its foolish policy
of curtailing building in areas of Samaria-Judea directly under
its control, even by the Oslo Accords, it made itself vulnerable
to foreign meddling. Every few years, when the diplomats can prop
up some Arab 'leader' they can designate as 'peace partner', the
world engages in a ritualistic 'peace process.' The Arabs are
adamant that they won't give up a centimeter of 'their land', or
they make some peaceful noises but everyone knows they won't keep
any contractual obligation. Israel, on the other hand, makes
generous, often self-destructive, concessions. Why would a
diplomat waste breathe trying to persuade the Arabs, when the
Jewish concessionists are so eager to screw themselves?
It's a no-brainer that the 'peacemakers' will push only Israel for
concessions. What has changed over the years is, as Alex
Traiman writes, that pressure has built up for more housing in the
Territories. As a spokesman for Hebron said, "We have hundreds of
families on a waiting list. We haven't built anything new since
2005," Moreover, it's hard to convince Israelis that the
Territories are under some evil Jewish occupation, when it's their
friends and relatives who, except for the chronic terror attacks,
vandalism and looting by the Arabs, are living ordinary lives in
Samaria and Judea. In the words of an Israeli spokesman of a
settlement, "Within Israel, most people understand that the
450,000 Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria are an irreversible fact."
In response to the assertion of a New Zealand lawyer that the
Jewish settlements are illegal, Orit ben Tzvi has encapsulated
some of the main points for what by now should not need restating:
the Jewish communities in Samaria and Judea (aka the West Bank)
are legal. When the Allied forces defeated the Ottoman Empire in
World War 1, in recognition of the historic connection of the
Jews and their ancient homeland, a small portion of the Ottoman
land was set aside at the San Remo conference of 1920 as a future
Jewish state. Samaria and Judea, as well as Israel 'proper', Gaza
and much of the Golan are in perpetual, irrevocable trust for the
Jewish people. The 1922 Mandate for Palestine was based on the San
Remo Resolution. As ben Tzvi points out, "The only binding
resolution of international law, a resolution which has never been
countermanded, is the 1922 Mandate for Palestine." The rest of
Ottoman land, some 99.9% of the Middle East, was given to the
Arabs. It is a sorry fact that before the international community
in the person of the League of Nations voted on this law in 1922,
Britain excluded the land on the East side of the Jordan river
(75% of the land allocated for a Jewish state) from the Jewish
domain, giving it to the Hashemites to administer. Over the years
until she withdrew from "Palestine" and the Jews finally got their
state in 1948, she violated her oath to help the Jews develop the
infrastructure of a viable state. She sided with with the Arabs,
even helping the Nazis exterminate Jews by not letting them come
into "Palestine." ben Tzvi also discusses the other points raised
by the initial rejection of Israel's ownership of the land. For further
information, go to the January-June 2016 issue of Think-Israel
(see below).
Alan Baker has written a brilliant summation
of the legal ways
available to respond to terrorism, whether local or
international. Failed ways of dealing with terrorism include
appeasement and negotiation. As Baker writes, "The enhanced
ideological element of today's terrorism, seeking in many
instances to enhance the rule of Islam throughout the world,
defies any logic of negotiation or specific legislative or social
change. This "zero-sum" form of terror knows no means of
conciliation or compromise. It cannot be negotiated. It needs to
be addressed assertively."
Nations have begun more effective measures — attempting to dry
out the terrorist's money supply and increasing punitive measures.
Israel, relatively late in the day, has increased its
counter-terror legislation. "It increases punishments for
organizers of terrorism and enables courts to convict terror cell
leaders more easily."
But in truth, even these measures have fatal
defects:
(1) When the terrorist leaders and
inciters of terror are the very same people that are in charge,
such as is case with Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority
(PA), the lower-level criminal may be more easily imprisoned but
the organizers and resource-suppliers have no fear of punishment.
Even though the PA leaders brag openly of paying the family of
terrorists and educate the Arab children to practice terror, they
remain in power.
(2) Enough persistent acts of terror — synchronized,
sequenced or random — will, after a while, overload any
legal system that relies on careful investigation and
identification, followed by a fair trial and multiple appeals.
(3) An unintended consequence of using the state's "crime
budget" mainly to stop acts of terrorism before they occur and
deal with those that they don't catch ahead of time is that there
is little left to deal with 'normal' low-level crimes:
small-amount embezzlement, fraud, petty theft, graft, battery and
abuse. In the long term, allowing small-time crime to grow
undeterred may be as damaging to the State as acts of terror.
Baker makes a case for stronger measures for quelling
incitement internationally, but this is a formidable job, unlikely
to be successful in the short term. In the next article below,
Martin Sherman considers the need for Israel to expel the local
Arabs. Demographic reasons aside, these Arabs are from the same
pool as the Arabs that commit acts of violence. Transferring these
Arabs either to their own sequestered State in some portion of the
vast land holding of the Arabs or giving them citizenship in the
Arab countries where they now reside would seem to be a way, both
benign and efficient, to empty the pool where terrorism festers.
And it would better the lives of the Arab refugees, who have living
temporary for some four generations.
MARTIN SHERMAN VS. CAROLINE GLICK — ON SOVEREIGNTY
by Martin Sherman
Martin Sherman speaks plainly on maintaining Israel as a
sovereign nation, a Jewish state. He point out what's wrong with a
partial or an entire absorption of the Arabs, limited autonomy,
and other attempts at dealing with a recalcitrant group that
doesn't wish to assimilate, while maintaining the character of the
State as Jewish. If Israel is to survive, she must carry out two
operations in synchrony. As Sherman writes, "She must satisfy two
imperatives: the geographic and the demographic. The first of
these imperatives calls for Israeli control (i.e. sovereignty)
over all the territory east of the coastal plain up to the Jordan
River—to prevent intolerable risks to its physical survival; the
second imperative calls for significant reduction of the Arab
presence in the territory under Jewish sovereignty to forestall an
intolerable demographic threat to its dominant Jewish
character.
In practice, this means: she must annex all of Samaria and Judea;
they are, after all, hers legally. And she must carry out the
second stage of a population transfer, which was begun when the
Arab countries kicked out or killed their Jewish inhabitants in
the 1940s. The Jews fled, forced to leave behind their property
and valuables. The Arabs do not have to suffer by a transfer. Many
implementations have been suggested, from 'buying'
citizenship in one of the Arab countries to moving to Jordan or
some other area in the vast space once owned by the Ottomans. (The
suggestion by Lewis and Bernice Lipkin is to be found
here.) In moving, he would be bettering his present condition.
Our biggest, most dangerous concern is that rogue countries,
Iran and North Korea, have or will soon have sophisticated,
long-range nuclear weapons. The Trump administration has begun
paying attention to North Korea. But the Mullahs of Iran are a
wily bunch. They look exotic, not pudgy; they have the veneer of
religion to clock their evil plans; they appear to be better at
intimidating, persuading and bribing than North Korea; they have the sympathy of
much of the media, having persuading news distributors that
they should be able to do what they want to do.
Under consideration right now is the Joint Comprehensive Plan
Of Action (JCPOA), that was said to solve our problems with Iran's
nuclear ambitions. The JCPOA was to change the pace of Iran's
progress toward acquiring nuclear bombs, and to make her more
responsible when she eventually acquired such weaponry. The
JCPOA is a curious document that is said to be binding
on the United States, even though it is not a treaty.
Congress didn't act on it. They did take a
vote on whether to continue to debate it, which isn't the same
thing at all. It is not even an executive agreement.
It was passed internationally in a unique way. The
representative of the involved countries (P5+1) and Iran did
gather together in Vienna, Austria. But no one signed it. No one
consented with raised hand. And the deed was done.
(See
here.)
The Iranian theocrats are a very large threat. At the least,
they can use their technology to de facto control the
Middle East. If they realize their dreams, they will possess
nuclear missiles that can wipe out Israel in one blast and reach
the USA to knock out much of America.
For a thorough examination of the Iran Deal, see the July-October
2015 issue of Think-Israel.org
here.
Now that the smoke has dissipated and the mirrors swept away, it
is becoming even more obvious that the JCPOA is a danger to our
national security. As Michael Rubin put it, "it is long past
time for Congress to demand the testimony of John Kerry, his chief
of staff and top aides, in order to understand just what risks
they were willing to inflict on the United States of America for
what appears increasingly to be a Potemkin agreement."
To put it
bluntly, ex-Prez Obama could not have done more to aid Iran
carry out its plans for world domination. He told bold lies to
maintain the fiction that the JCPOA was working out. He dropped
charges against people illegally procuring US microelectronics
and other equipment for Iran. He avoided Congressional
supervision. He misrepresented the deal, describing it as a way
to control Iran's nuclear productivity, while Iran was clearly
stating it would brook no involuntary inspection and it would
not curtail its own nuclear plans. And, as Claudia Rosett has pointed
out
(here), he committed the USA to "facilitate exchanges and visits
to nuclear power plants outside of Iran."
Let's spell this out: Iranians can legally come and examine our
work on nuclear fusion, from whence cometh hydrogen bombs. A
reader of her paper, Really Mike, pointed out "there is a secret
codicil to Annex III, Section D, item 8, pages 4-5. It says: 'to
help the Iranians decide which nuclear plant to visit, the US
will provide complete architectural and engineering drawings for
each facility under consideration.'"
Thanks to Shoshana Bryen discussion of recent Middle East
history, we can cut through all the misleading information the
Obama Administration fed us about how the West was restraining
Iran's nuclear and political ambitions. An improbable patchwork
coalition of Shiites, Iraqi and Iranian, with America help, has
been fighting the Islamic State, battling for Mosul and helping
Bashar Assad continue to reign in Syria. While the West focuses on
what to do about Syria, Iran, with help of its
ally Hezbollah, is quietly taking over the "Shiite Crescent", the
northwest route from Iran to the Mediterranean Sea, pushing Sunni
Syrians out as it progresses. In the southwest, Iran generously
supports the Houthi rebels in Yemen. And, as Bryen writes,
"Iranian weapons brought in through Sudan and Eritrea threaten the
stability of Sunni Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco,
lining the Mediterranean Sea opposite NATO's Southern Command."
Obama's "make nice" strategy has not made Iran less aggressive.
The Iranian mullahs do not see themselves as pariahs. They see
themselves as the protector of Shiite Islam, and however the West
rationalizes its concessions to Iran, the mullahs have used the
resources given them to solidify control of more and more of
the Middle East.
This article by Matthew JR Brodsky emphasizes Iran's strong
reinforcement of Shiite Syria. It also underscores Bryen's point
in her article above that Iran is working on many fronts,
successfully so, to become the major power in the Middle East.
Brodsky concludes that the USA's focus on ISIS and somewhat on
Syria is too narrow. He writes, "Iran remains on the march and
poses a greater long-term strategic threat to the United States
and its allies than does ISIS.... for the United States, the war
in Syria should be more about Iran than ISIS."
Iran is steadily growing in power. But she has some serious
problems. Shahriar Kia writes about the National Council of Resistance of
Iran (NCRI) a highly visible group that opposes the current
Iranian regime. They recently held a meeting, in which the NCRI
president, Maryam Rajavi, said the Iranians are suffering from
Mullah rule. As she put it, "The Iranian society is simmering."
American conference speakers suggested that declaring the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to be a terrorist group would be
a good move. Kia writes that "[f]ormer and current members of
Congress from both sides of the aisle in the U.S., along with a
very prominent Arab world figure, were among the many others also
seeking regime change in Tehran." Many believe that the goal of
ridding "the world of Tehran's criminal mullahs" would already be
attained, had the West not "adopted a disastrous policy of
appeasement vis-à-vis Iran."
A major problem for Iran is environmental. Because of
unregulated over-extraction of the available water supply, she
is losing her water supply. In the 1980's, simple techniques in
controlling water distribution were beginning to pay off, and
farming became more reliable, But, as Nik Kowsar writes, "The Islamic
Republic has literally killed a large number of aquifers and
alluvial plains, and blocked the rivers that fed these aquifers
through its compulsive dam-building." During Rafsanjani's
presidency, suggestions by experts on how to recharge aquifers
were ignored. Kowsar writes of his own experience attempting to
change water management during Mohammad Khatami's
administration. The main result of his efforts was that he had
to flee the country. Land erosion and water loss continue.
As the Far Left showed more and more of its core hatreds, Israel
was demonized by politicians, the media and Jews whose real
religion is Marxism and/or Globalism. Thanks to the new Trump
administration, things are somewhat better at the US State
Department and some pro-Israel information is reaching the public.
But the tepid Jews and the JINOS, Jews in Name Only, either don't
fight back or fight against Israel. Inverting reality, Jews are
called the bad guys, and the terrorists are said to be the
victims. This video makes the point.
UNDER TRUMP, ISRAELI VICTIMS OF TERROR AT LEAST GET GENUINE CONDOLENCES
by Gregg Roman
Gregg Roman's article points up a notable fact: the US is no longer
treating terrorist activity against Israel as if Israel were somehow
at fault and should not respond to brutal attacks. Obama's leaving
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alone in the middle of an
official meeting to go off to have his supper was a calculated
insult. His attitude was mirrored in how the American State Department
behaved towards Israel directly and in the United Nations
whenever Israel was attacked and responded. Considering that Israel
is the USA's most reliable ally in the Middle East, the changing
attitude towards Israel is obviously intelligent.
GERMANY: PUBLIC OUTRAGE FORCES TV NETWORK TO AIR 'CENSORED' ANTISEMITISM DOCUMENTARY
by Vijeta Uniyal
Vijeta Uniyal writes about a documentary on anti-semitism in
Europe — "Chosen and Ostracised — The hatred of Jews in
Europe" — that a German network was reluctant to show.
As Uniyal writes, "Anti-Israel campaign has some powerful
political backers within the European ruling establishment. The
documentary reveals that European governments contribute nearly
€100 million each year to supposed charities and NGOs that run
anti-Israel and anti-Semitic campaigns. The facts uncovered in the
documentary will undoubtedly cause some embarrassment to leading
German charities that turn a blind eye to antisemitic incitement
peddled by their local partners operating in Israel and
elsewhere." The pressure from the public was sufficient to make
the Geman network run it. But, apparently, it is again
'unavailable.'
Despite the genuine sense of shock and anguish people
experience visiting Holocaust museums and other memorial
buildings, the impact of these memorials on increasing the
determination of Jews and non-Jews to defend Jews currently under
attack from Resurgent Islam and its allies has been minimal.
Instead, Jews have generally put their hopes in promoting
tolerance, to the point of becoming a danger to themselves. As Tom
Umland, a reader of the original publication, commented,
"Tolerance of that which ... in reality is intolerable or leads to
the intolerable reflects only the hope of Jews that they
themselves will also be tolerated - for once... It's an error of
an overly simplistic understanding of their reality. That
excessive or unthinking 'tolerance' can act to actually promote
intolerant perspectives in others seems surprising at first but
unchallenged attitudes lead to complacency. Sadly there are almost
too many complacent Jews who take thinking about the Holocaust to
be sufficient response to its reality. Glad to see that there are
others who perceive more deeply. Yes, it can 'happen again', it
already has, but not against Jews, thanks to Israel."
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN FAMOUS NOVELISTS 'CONFRONT THE OCCUPATION' IN THE WEST BANK
by Mattie Friedman
Matti Friedman writes about the silliness of some American writers
who hopped over to Israel, spoke (not necessarily literally) to
some Arabs, and heard yet again of the horrors of having to wait
at checkpoints. The Westerners swallowed all they heard and,
without wasting time to check out the facts, hurried home to write
about the effect the awful Israeli occupation has on Palestinian
Arabs. A reader, Mendel, said about this article: "Well meaning
fools. The Arabs have been playing the left for suckers for years.
Much as the Soviets did 60+ years ago." But why, I wonder, do so
many of these useful idiots have to be Jews? During Israel's
retaliation in Gaza in 2014, Israel was urged to be more
proportionate; which in practice would mean either building the
Gazan Arabs the bomb shelters their leaders had not bothered doing
OR destroying Israeli bomb shelters so more Jews would be killed
to even things up. Similarly, in comparing the relative large
proportion of (Leftist) Jews who criticize Israel to the total
number of Jews versus the relative small number of articulate critics
coming from the huge number of people belonging to other
religions, shouldn't some Jewish Jew-haters retire, just to even
things up?
The Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is another anti-Israel
organization that wears a Jewish name. Founded two decades ago,
it is focused on destroying Israel but it often changes its
arguments, dressing its message in the latest in trendy
Jew-bashing. At a recent panel discussion, John Rossomando tells
us, JVP made it clear than Israel can not be allowed to exist
because "... the problem is with the ideological foundation of
the state itself: Zionism. Zionism at its core is white
supremacy." A panelist, an Ethiopian Jew, lamented Israel's
racist policy regarding Ethiopian Jews. She saw no irony in the
fact that Israel rescued thousands of Ethopian Jews, who were
living in primitive conditions, insecure, constantly in fear of their
hostile neighbors. In a relatively short time Israel taught them
how to thrive in the modern world. This panelist should
be lamenting that the unrestricted freedom Israel gave her
unfortunately also gave her the freedom to join groups which
don't encourage her to accomplish much of anything. As a proper
Marxist organization, JVP encourages 'minority' groups to feel
'victimized' and act down-trodden.
Starting with some historic betrayals, this issue's History
Section transits via Alex Rose's article to the history of the
fallacious Arab claims to Jewish land. An article on the history
of the Muslim Brotherhood, a major source of global instability,
follows. The Section ends with the use of new techniques to
clear up ancient mysteries.
BRITISH JEWS TO MAY, CORBYN: SUPPORT PALESTINIAN STATE TO GET OUR VOTES
by Susie Dym
The Jewish Board of Deputies (BoD) is urging British leaders to
establish a Palestinian state! This is not as surprising as one
might think, given its
history since its founding in the 1750s. Susie Dym reviews its
less than admirable history of failure to support Jewish
integrity and growth.
Paul Bogdanor writes of Rezso Kasztner, who aided the Nazis by not
informing the Hungarian Jewish community that they were being
tricked into going quietly to a concentration camp. Kasztner is
certainly not worthy of the whitewashing now going on, which
describes him as an "unknown hero" of the Holocaust. His actions
were not heroic, but a disorganized community in denial of activities
that hinted at their coming doom certainly didn't help matters.
From the end of World War 2 on, the level of specific proof was
so high that relatively few Nazis have been punished for their
crimes against the Jews and others. For a while, prosecutors
believed things would change if they reduced the criminal charge
to 'accessory to murder', which carried a lesser "penalty in
Germany of five to fifteen years in prison." It hasn't worked
because of a prolonged appeals system, where several convicted
Nazis died before their appeals were exhausted. Because of its
high cost and low yield, there is now pressure to abandon use of
this accusation. Efraim Zuroff, however, suggests that the value
of such prosecution to public education and historical
documentation makes it worthwhile to retain the law.
Alex Rose justifiably takes issue with Martin Kramer's article on
the Balfour Declaration, which claimed that Great Britain had no
authority to dispose of the land, i.e., the vast land area of the
Middle East (ME), which had belonged to the Ottoman Empire until
it fought on the losing side in World War 1 (WW1). Actually Arabs
and pro-Arabs don't mind that the Arabs gained control of 99.9% of
the ME. It's the paltry one tenth of one percent (Israel, including
all of Jerusalem, Samaria, Judea, Gaza and much of the Golan) then
known as Palestine and in trust for a Jewish State that bothers
them. Rose demolishes the myths that Britain promised what was
then called Palestine to the Arabs as well as to the Jews and that
therefore the Arabs were cheated out of their land. The cheating
Britain did was to renege on its contract to help the Jews build
up Palestine, especially by not allowing Jews who managed to
escape the Nazis to enter Palestine, legally set aside as the
future State of Israel by the legal follow-ups of the Balfour
Declaration: the San Remo Conference and the Palestine
Mandate.
Alex Grobman has written a detailed and historically-accurate
article exploding the oft-asserted Arab fabrication that the Jews
stole land belonging to the Arabs.
If the listener is ignorant, the Arabs will claim they had
owned areas of great wealth and productivity in
Palestine. In actuality, those Jews who returned to their homeland
in the late eighteen hundreds found a small number of people from some fifty
ethnic groups living in unsanitary conditions on mosquito-infested land that
had lost its topsoil and had turned into swamp or desert. Yet,
when the Jews bought this land, paying top dollars to often
absentee owners, and, against all odds and after many
failures, developed a thriving agriculture, the Arabs claimed they
were cheated. The returnees also found a moribund economy and
frequent raiding of defenseless villages by the Bedouins.
They took steps to correct the
situation both for themselves and the local Arabs. These
improvements were not important to the wealthy Arab leadership,
who happily sold large amounts of land to the Jews, but condemned
establishing a Jewish homeland on land they continued to regard as
theirs.
THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD, FOUNTAIN OF ISLAMIST VIOLENCE
by Cynthia Farahat
The Obama administration with a straight face and full
knowledge of the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology and terror
activities claimed the Brotherhood was not extremist. Without
equivocation, Cynthia Farahat points out that "The Muslim
Brotherhood has operated as a terrorist entity for almost a
century." And it has given rise to both open terrorist
organizations such as Hamas and the Islamic State and
"respectable" front organizations such as CAIR. Farahat writes of
its history from its inception almost a century ago. It uses
whatever tool is necessary: it hobnobs with powerful politicians,
it funds social causes, it assassinates enemy leaders and bombs
civilians, it creates riots and havoc — it instigated riots
globally because some cartoonists had drawn an image of Mohammad.
It has adherents on campus, in the Government and in all strata of
society. With its huge supply of money, excellent organization,
infra-structure and its dedication to making Sharia law the law of
every land, it is a threat to the Far West, the Far East and all
countries in between.
MULTISPECTRAL IMAGING REVEALS BIBLICAL-PERIOD INSCRIPTION UNNOTICED FOR HALF A CENTURY
by Shira Faigenbaum-Golovin et al
This article by Shira Faigenbaum-Golovin and associates is
about a way to read the writing on ancient shards, where the
writing is no longer visible in ordinary light. Consider the
implications for reassessing ideas that were based on less
evidence. As one sentence in this article says, "There are almost
20 words on the recto with a changed reading (half of the total!)"
There have been many articles summarizing this new approach to
examining ordinary shards uncovered at archaeological sites. Some
explain the technique; some its implications, some link it to
political points-of-view. The article presented here is the
original one. Considering that so many politicized scientists are
spending their time promoting their political ideas, we thought
it would be interesting to read a scrupulously performed and
well-written account of a scientific study with a significant
result.
The Bene Israel is a Jewish community that lived in India for
several hundred years. Their history was unknown and when they
came to Israel, their being Jews was questioned by the Israeli
Rabbinate. Chabin writes how modern tools used in studying
population genetics were used to delve into the Bene Israel's
pre-Indian history. The techniques used can't tell who
specifically is Jewish and it isn't certain when the community
came to India. It may have been as early as two millennia ago,
perhaps even earlier, in 175 BCE. By comparing members of the Bene
Israel to samples from various Jewish groups as well as to
non-Jewish groups in India and Pakistan, the researchers could
conclude that "the Bene Israel have significant Jewish ancestry
that likely originated from a group of Jews from the Middle
East."
This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions
and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds
page for the month is updated every few days.
There is a separate file that is the index for the articles on the
Blog-Ed page. You can access an article immediately from this index by
clicking on the item in the index.
To access the Index, click the "Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on
the top of the Blog-Ed page.
Please note that The Blog-Ed pages for
April-June 2017 are not currently available.
Different Blog Ed pages will be down
intermittently until the Archive structure is
in place. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Think-Israel tends to use salafist rather than
extremist or Islamist or militant or
fundamentalist or activist to describe generically a
pious Muslim, one who sticks as closely as possible to the
unfiltered words and actions of Mohammad and the first three
generations of Muslims, including, especially, the Companions of
the Prophet. In modeling himself as closely as he can on the
preachings and practices of Mohammad, a salafist can in modern
terms be precisely described as an uninhibited terrorist, a
theological supersessionist, a political supremacist who believes
Islam and sharia law must dominate and a social barbarian, who
wages jihad with whatever tools are available.
Thanks to the high quality of whitewash supplied by sympathetic
propagandists, he seldom is so described.
THE THEME OF THIS ISSUE
This issue expands the section devoted to examining Propaganda
and Public Relations. This issue we talk about lies — lies
by omission, lies by puffery, lies by denying the obvious and
observable, lies by trivialization, lies by turning oneself into
a living lie. Lies by downplay, lies made out of whole cloth,
lies by distortion, lies by willful misinterpretation and other such forms of
fakery. They are seldom discrete. They overlap, they bump over
each other, they change form, they compress becoming dense mantras,
or expand into puffed-up lunacy.
We can't cover every area, of course. That would take a 3-volume
treatise. We start by trying to pin down what qualifies as
fake news and some of its consequences.
Fake News is a new term for an old malady. It's
new enough that its borders are still fuzzy. Is fake news just a
superabundance of typos and minor accidental errors? The news
media pounced on President Trump for saying there was an immigrant
riot the night before he spoke about a riot (actually, Trump was
referring to a video he saw about the riot), while ignoring that
Sweden has a real problem with its Middle Eastern refugees, who
refuse to assimilate.
Or is fake news the equivalent of a less than a full
understanding of the significant facts? We saw this when citizens
of some Muslim countries were suddenly restricted from using their
visas to come to America. The news media labeled them immigrants
and ignored that the targeted countries were notorious for
breeding terrorists and that's what we wanted to keep out.
Or, sliding along the scale from innocent error to deliberate
lying, is fake news a distortion of some of the facts and omission
of others? In any investigation, the facts are not all equal in
value. After all, what makes a doctor a good diagnostician is his
ability to pull out the significant facts from a welter of data.
Yet, from another perspective, the facts considered significant
are unlikely to be the same in both right wing publications and
leftist ones. Nationalist publications will likely give facts
different weights than do globalist ones. An organization devoted
to identity politics is unlikely to highlight the same information
as an organization designed to unite all around American core
values. One might ask: when does emphasis on particular facts
while ignoring other significant facts become distortion?
Or does fake apply only to the far end of the graph, where
'facts' are invented and informational items are trimmed and
pasted together to form a complete distortion of reality? A
notorious recent example (examined below) was when a former British
intelligence agent, Christopher Steele, who had either retired or
been dismissed from MI-6, was paid, it is said by Jeb Bush and/or
other GOPers, for an unsubstantiated and implausible account of
Trump's purported relationship to Russian leaders, including his
supposed activities in Moscow when he was there as judge of a
beauty pageant. Some items were contradicted by documented facts
and the activities didn't fit Trump's way of doing things, yet
John McCain passed the report on to the FBI and several
journalists. Despite admission by Democratic leaders that the
Trump-Russia collusion is fake
("Democrats Admit Trump-Russia Collusion Is Fake Finally" here), it has become part of the Democratic credo, accepted as truth.
These are the same people that were not outraged when Hillary
Clinton, with Prez Obama's approval, helped make it possible for
Russia to acquire control of one-fifth of all of the USA's uranium
production
capacity, (NY
Times, 23April2015).
It might be a while to come to a consensus on what
constitutes fake news. But it is obvious that with
undisciplined social media and agenda-promoting press and TV
people, the spread of false assertions has clearly
become more extensive. It doesn't help that supposedly reputable
news sources make a habit of running headlines and inlines that
are opposites in content. Assessing information has often become a
bewildering chore, damaging our ability to make intelligent
assessments of situations.
This set of articles makes a try at defining fake news and then
judges its different
impacts in several situations. A nice low-keyed video worth viewing is
"How to Spot Fake News" from FactCheck.org
here,
Characterizing fake news is not easy, if at all
doable. In this article, Ashe Schow presents a reasonable way
of discriminating fake news. A story that is completely made
up is obviously fake news, while satiric stories are assumed to
be fake but hope to cleverly make a point. Ashe includes other
categories that are less clear. One thing is certain: if one
considers why a story was written in addition to its actual
compilation of facts, analysis can get very complicated.
OUR MAN IN LONDON: THE SCANDAL OF THE 35-PAGE 'INTELLIGENCE DOSSIER' DIRECTED AGAINST DONALD TRUMP
by Prof. Michael Keefer
Does fake news affect opinion? We start with this article by
Michael Keefer on the impact of a recently published dossier on
President Trump's supposed collusion with Russia to win the
presidency. Keefer focuses on plausibility in assessing the
truth-value of the dossier. Too many people think as did Andrei
Soldatov, writing in The Guardian, "despite all these
failings ["factual confusion, unverifiable details"], Steele's
representation of Kremlin procedures and motivations "sounds
about right...whatever the truth of Putin's connections with
Trump, makes it all pretty scary." Keefer concludes, "I would
describe this reasoning—according to which a document
whose analytical method is problematic and whose evidential
basis is variously confused, unverifiable, highly questionable,
or wholly absent, can nonetheless be accepted as
plausible—as mental debris. If any categorical distinction
can be made between thinking of this order and the kind of
arguments that sent accused witches to the stake in the 16th and
17th centuries, I should like to know what it might be." The
dossier may be implausible and unverifiable, but some, even in
the media, have accepted it because it says what they want to
hear.
by Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow. And a Separate
Summary by Charles Hartwell
Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow did a controlled study
investigating the impact of false stories on the 2016 election.
Their results indicate that false defamatory stories about
Hillary Clinton did not cause her to lose the election. And
exposure to pro-Trump fake stories had almost no effect. In sum,
fake news had virtually no impact on the election results. The
introductory Executive Summary by Charles Hartwell is an
independent article summing up Allcott and Gentzkow's detailed
analysis of their experimental design and results. The influence
of fake news might, of course, differ in other circumstances.
Clearly, a search for patterns determined by examining the
impact of false and/or misleading information in particular
events and conditions would be a useful investigation.
FROM FAKE NEWS AND FAKE MEDIA TO FAKE HISTORY AND FAKE TRUTH
by David Kupelian
David Kupelian considers the long term effects of fake news.
He discusses how the Mainstream Media' (MSM) "has become the
very enemy it condemns." "[C]oncern over 'fake news' [has
become] a new weapon for attacking opposing viewpoints,
'conspiracy websites'" and [...] legitimate news." "Much, if not
most, of what America's 'mainstream media' report today as news
is either misleading or flat-out false." Thanks to a biased and
corrupted media, too many believe a video caused the attack on
the American compound in Benghazi and that anthropogenic global
warming is a settled science and can not be questioned. Kupelian
points out that "fake news, when codified over time, becomes
fake history." What make this possible are the underlying
assumptions that have conditioned our thinking; i.e., Islam is a
religion of peace, America is a deeply racist nation, capitalism
is inherently predatory, etc., etc. And this trend is
increasing.
LEADERS OF THE 'SPONTANEOUS RIOTS', RALLIES, RANTS AND
RUMORS AGAINST A TRUMP PRESIDENCY
Marches, rallies and 'spontaneous' gatherings that deteriorate
into riots are the most visible signs of discontent. They seems so
down-to-earth, accidental clumpings of people attracted to a
particular place on a particular day. If the media agree with the
purpose of the gathering, the entire congregation is praised as
serious and discerning. However, with patience, one can find
internet videos of interviews of ordinary folk that haven't a clue
why they are marching, or, maybe, they went to the wrong rally.
Many are there to promote identity agendas. For others, it's a
Fourth of July happy type of celebration, whatever the date.
Others vent and growl on cue, when the cameras shine on them. Most
walk placidly, carrying posters that, surprise, surprise, just
happen to be just like those carried by half a hundred of their
neighbors.
Nidra Poller said this about the highly publicized Woman's
March that took place January 21, 2017, "The self-appointed female
nation, outraged by the words and deeds of the new president, took
to the streets on the 21st of January, the day after the
inauguration. Protesters marched in a compact mass estimated at
700,000 to a million in Washington DC, with another million
tallied in national and international sister marches[...]The
world's media gushed with enthusiasm over the movement's scope and
message, which was clicked into contemporary history on its own
terms, in the name of women's dignity." Using sharia-devout Linda
Sarsour as anchor, Poller provides a sobering analysis of the
tainted ideology behind this seemingly virtuous movement.
("Feminine Spring," February 16, 2017,
see here.)
One worrisome phenomenon in the turbulent and emotional acting
out of anger at Donald Trump being elected president is the set of
people who are reacting like sophomoric seniors. It isn't just
trust-fund babies and IQ 80s, it's supposedly rational beings that
run respected scientific organizations. People considered worthy
of being elected to the prestigious honor society, Sigma Xi, are
planning to join the March for Science in April. At least some of
them are. It's not clear what they are marching for. Or against.
But march they will.
Marches, even riots, often look staged. As they should. Too
many are carefully contrived and coached. In addition to the
uniform rants and foul-mouth ravings against the new
administration, they share fixed sources of money and
organization. The Trump administration realistically acknowledged
(Newsmax, March 22, 2017) "there are people working in the
government who are likely part of what has been called the 'deep
state' — an inner core of Obama loyalists seeking to stop the
Trump presidency." This section records some reality about the
actual leadership of the discontented.
George Soros
See also: "Everything George Soros Doesn't Want You To Know" on
Soros using religious organizations to corrupt their belief
system.
SOROS'S SMEAR SCRIPTS: WELCOME TO THE VAST, MEGA-FINANCED LEFTIST ASTROTURF CAMPAIGN AGAINST PRESIDENT TRUMP
by Matthew Vadum. A Discover the Networks addendum
lists some of Soros' groups that also target Israel
Matthew Vadum writes
of astroturfing where participants attempt to stack a
public forum or townhall with their members to dominate the
questions asked and appear to be the majority opinion. They are
taught to denounce Trump's attempts to prevent terrorists from
entering the US as unvetted refugees by following a slick script
designed to elicit
sympathy and ignore facts.
Criminalize, islamophobia, xenophobia, pregnant
mothers afraid to get prenatal care (aka illegal aliens),
justice and love are important words in their
vocabulary. As Vadum observes, "This language is reminiscent of
communist revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara's famous statement
that 'the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of
love.'" The object is to convince Congressmen that they speak for
the majority. The contacts listed in the script are members of
organizations funded by George Soros. Another Soros-funded
institute, The Center for Social Inclusion, teaches "Democratic
congressmen how to smear their opponents as racist." The Center
"practices the same pathological mixture of Marxism and identity
politics that President Obama was raised on. The group was
founded based on the assumption that America is an evil
structurally racist country that systematically oppresses
everyone who is not Caucasian." Repeated often enough, the belief
that whites are racists becomes inculcated. As Vadum says, using
the racist smear "to shut down open debate over government
spending is a fascistic frontal assault on freedom of thought and
expression that takes Alinskyite sliminess to new depths."
DiscoverTheNetworks provides us with the history of Linda
Sarsour, the quintessential islamophile. She labels people as
islamophobic even if they have much reason to find Muslim
terrorism loathsome. Like any pious Muslim, she will allow no
criticism of Islam, warranted or not. A feminist in a hijab, she
has won praise from the news media who either don't know her evil
history or don't care. I always wonder about devout Muslim female
believers in sharia law — say, someone like Huma Abedin's
mother who works for a sharia takeover of the West — what
would happen if sharia law were to win out? Will they go happily
back to a sequestered harem, the chattel of their husbands or male
relatives? Or do they envision a two-tiered Islam, with the
commoners completely controlled by Mohammad's preachings, while
the elites are allowed to run their lives as they see fit. It
would be the Islamic equivalent of the two-tiered Socialism our
political Marxist elite expected to come about, with Hillary
elected as proxy for Obama's third term.
HOW OBAMA IS SCHEMING TO SABOTAGE TRUMP'S PRESIDENCY
by Paul Sperry
All the fervor and energy and dedicated effort that people
expected from Barack Obama during his presidency is finally being
manifested, now that Obama is back to being a community organizer.
With lots of money available to him and thousands of devoted
globalists and socialists ready to be moles in the new
administration or activists around the country, Obama and his
live-in advisor/handler/motivator, Valerie Jarrett, are ready to
run his new organization, variously described as deep state
or shadow state, from his new home in Washington.
Robert Barnes writes of the Orwellian fashion in which the
media attempt to restrict the meaning of "fake news" or "deep
state" to to the needs of their own ideologies and agendas. Or
they ignore the term; or deny, for example, that the deep state
exists. Yet the notion of a power group setting up a structured
organization running counter or in parallel with the official
government has been studied for more than a half century.
Working with intelligence sources, often government agencies,
media implementers of the deep state's mission malign political
people like Trump of Flynn, broadcasting innuendo loosely based
on surveillance by these government agencies. Trump may have
made the first cut into seriously looking into the deep
government and its spying activities by suggesting that the
"illegal intercepts and illicit leaks of those intercepts should
be the scandal, not incredulous reports of collusion [e.g., with
Russia] unsupported by the legally innocent conversations found
on those intercepts." A major figure in the current deep state
is ex-President Obama, who is putting to use his experience
initiating spy operations on American citizens during his time
in office.
The anti-Trumpists scored a victory in getting rid of Michael
Flynn, an ardent and savvy enemy of Salafist Islam.
Two separate consequences have resulted.
First: Flynn was replaced by Gen. McMaster as National
Security Advisor. Unfortunately, McMaster seems to be more
concerned with downplaying Islamic terrorism than in dealing
with it. He has distanced jihad terrorism from "true" Islam,
ignoring that jihadists are pious Muslims acting in accordance
with the Koran. They are enjoined to fight the infidel until the
whole world embraces sharia law. As Robert Spencer has pointed
out
(here), "One cannot defeat an enemy that one does not
understand, much less one that one refuses to understand. ...
When one's duties include national security responsibilities,
one has a professional duty to know the enemy or do due
diligence to know the enemy. To fail to do so makes one
professionally negligent in one's duties."
Second: when the news media revealed the surveillance
conditions underlying the conclusion that Michael Flynn had
unauthorized interactions with the Russian ambassador to the US,
it popped open a large can of worms: members of the Obama
administration appear to have been spying on the Trump election
team for some time, as they have on journalists, congressmen and
other American citizens. The story is that they were looking at
foreign infiltration and just happened to listen to the
Americans on the other end of the telephone or email. That
doesn't explain, why, as they did with Flynn, they released the
names of the Americans, a felonious act. Will these illegal
activities be ignored as they were in the Obama
administration?
THE NEXT NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR MUST BRING HIS OWN STAFF
by Kenneth R. Timmerman
When the Obama administration started, we were treated to a
whole new vocabulary such as throw him under the bus,
which described an activity the administration, unfortunately,
would routinely indulge in. The Trump administration is barely
in place and we need to learn a new vocabulary: the Deep
State, political operative and shadow
warriors, terms describing the malevolent activities
ex-President Obama and his cronies have initiated. As Kenneth
Timmermnan writes, "Want to know who broke the law by leaking
information gleaned from a highly-classified U.S. intelligence
program to monitor foreign diplomats about Michael Flynn? ...
start by looking at former CIA director John Brennan, an Obama
political operative." The president who spent quality time on
the golf course during his presidency has suddenly become hard-working
and politically involved. His first mate is the former CIA
director, John Brennan, infamous for defining Islamic jihad as a
spiritual journey and welcoming members of the Muslim
Brotherhood into Federal agencies. Together, they have stuffed
NSA with political operatives of their own choosing. To date,
they have 'destroyed Michael Flynn before he could destroy
them.' Clearly, President Trump needs to watch his back.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO DISCREDIT RADICAL ISLAMIC IDEOLOGY?
by Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D.
Lawrence Sellin writes that Lt. Gen McMaster, who replaced Lt.
Gen. Michael Flynn as National Security Advisor, has a weak
strategy for defeating Resurgent Islam, which is working without
let-up to replace Western democracy with sharia law. Unlike
Flynn, McMaster views Islam's salafist ideology as a distortion
of the true Islam. Actually, it is a valid expression of
Mohammad's view of the world and his desire to put Islam above all
other religions in the world. McMaster's solution is information
warfare against what he sees as non-authentic Islam. However, as
Sellin points out, "Pumping out more counter-propaganda, while
leaving the sources of the ideology free to go about their dirty
business" [is] "counter-productive."
DEMOCRATS SHOULDN'T DISMISS NUNES' SPYING CLAIMS SO QUICKLY
by David Harsanyi
David Harsanyi writes of the growing evidence that President
Trump, while he was a Presidential candidate and when he was
President-elect, and his transition team were under surveillance
by the Obama administration. Within the context of keeping
tabs on foreigners, it is legitimate to record the conversations
of Americans on the other end of the phone. What is not
legitimate is uncovering the names of the Americans, when the
conversations have no foreign intelligence value. What is
appalling is disseminating the information.
In a companion piece entitled "Here's Why Nunes' Obama Spying
Revelations Are Such A Big Deal," Mollie Hemingway writes,
(see here):
"It matters not whether the Trump team were officially the
targets, whether the targets were designed to obscure the real
targets, or whether it truly was incidental collection." What is
important is:
1) Information was collected on the Trump team by Obama administration agencies.
2) This information had no reason to be shared in intelligence reports to Obama officials.
3) Obama officials may have flouted legally required attempts to minimize and mask personal identifying information.
4) This had nothing to do with Russia.
To put it bluntly, as James Rosen wrote: ("Potential 'Smoking
Gun' Showing Obama Administration Spied On Trump Team, Source Says," 24mar2017,
here) "Republican congressional investigators expect a
potential 'smoking gun' establishing that the Obama administration
spied on the Trump transition team, and possibly the
president-elect himself, will be produced to the House
Intelligence Committee this week [...] The
intelligence is said to leave no doubt the Obama administration,
in its closing days, was using the cover of legitimate
surveillance on foreign targets to spy on President-elect Trump ..."
SUSAN RICE'S WHITE HOUSE UNMASKING: A WATERGATE-STYLE SCANDAL
by Andrew C. McCarthy
The media and such mags as The New Yorker have done a
yeoman job minimizing the significance of Susan Rice's having
intelligence-gathering agencies openly write out the names of
Americans who had turned up in a report she got on Russian
activities in this countries. In this article Andrew McCarthy
makes the very important point that it is the intelligence agency
— in this case it was the combined effort of three
intelligence agencies — that writes the report that
decides, with due regard to privacy issues, whether it is
necessary to reveal the name when an American is mentioned. They
rarely find it necessary. Susan Rice was not an investigator or
collector of information, only a receiver, and, given the nature
of the material, would know from context who the people were. So
why would she ask for the names in clear, if not to make the
leaking and utilization of the information more effective? And
she did have Obama's backing. Herman Cain
(here) in discussing McCarthy's article writes, "They could
have told her no, of course, but she was the National Security
Adviser and she worked directly for the president. Were they
likely to tell someone with that kind of standing no?"
TRIVIALIZING AND DENYING THE OBVIOUS, WITH SWEDEN'S WOES A PRIME
EXAMPLE
Sweden has long seen seen itself as the best place to live,
with personal freedom and government backup. Donald Trump
pointed to Sweden's problems with its immigrant Muslims,
incorrectly saying he'd seen a riot on TV, when what he'd seen was a
TV discussion about Sweden. Surely, news editors and publishers
know that Malmo is the rape capitol of the world, and that the
Swedes are being terrorized by Muslim immigrants.
Yet Trump's mistake became the high point of many articles
flaying him and denying that anything was amiss in Sweden. When
riots broke out shortly thereafter, the misplaced emphasis by
the news media on Trump's mistake while denying Trump's
important points — the high crime rate and lack of
adaptability of the Muslim "refugees" in Sweden — became
an excellent example of techniques that characterize some news now
labeled 'fake news.' The sudden focus on Sweden brought to light
that some Swedes, like other Westerns, were having belated
buyer's remorse about their Muslim immigrants from the Middle
East and Africa.
This essay by Bruce Bawer can be read just for pleasure. But
it does have a moral. It tells the story how the news
media and politicians yet again lambasted President Trump, this
time for saying Sweden had problems with its Muslim immigrants.
Those who insist that Sweden is a model of civic harmony got
their comeuppance when soon afterwards there was yet another
ugly eruption by the migratory adherents of the religion of
peace. The politicians continue to pretend there's no problem,
while civilized living in Sweden's cities disintegrates. Bawer
points out that the newscasters could have gotten the real story
if they'd interviewed truth tellers. Instead they provided us
with a neat example of news that is fake because it denies
observable truth.
Fjordman paints a picture of a people who are under attack
both by the foreign immigrants they have generously allowed
into their once happy country and by their own native leaders
who continue to deny the havoc the Muslims have caused. As he
points out, "Swedes are ... attacked as an ethnic group [by the immigrants], but they are
aggressively barred [by the native Swedes] from identifying and defending themselves as
a group of people with a shared heritage and shared interests.."
As a result, "[i]n just two generations, Sweden has become an
increasingly dysfunctional and crime-ridden country. The main
cause of this negative transformation is non-European mass
immigration." Fjordman highlights the bizarre attitude, common
not only in Sweden but in other Western countries including the
USA, of condemning legitimate criticism of Muslim behavior
while condoning nasty remarks about the native culture.
SWEDE DEMOCRAT LEADERS PEN WSJ OP-ED IMPLORING AMERICANS TO AVOID THE MISTAKES SWEDEN MADE
by Scott Morefield
It may be true that by careful selection, one can prove that
Swedes still believe their country is still Utopia or,
contrariwise, that they
are living fearful lives, harassed by a foreign clump of Muslims
that doesn't assimilate and doesn't live by Sweden's rules of
civility. That doesn't make the two opinions equally valid. Crime
statistics validate the argument that Sweden has serious problems.
And as Scott Morefield points out, the growth of the Swedish
Democratic Party — it is Anti-European Union and advocates a
severe reduction in immigration — is another indication that
many Swedes are repudiating Sweden's immigration policy. Swedes have
been suffering from having tried to absorb a religious group that
refuses to assimilate, or even to live their own way but without threatening
Sweden's native population. The pattern of Islamic aggression
— riots and rapes — may be different than in
Israel, where Muslims knife, stone, crash vehicles and snipe at individuals
and small groups, but the result is the same: the country's citizens are
fearful, angry and resentful.
The public has become more aware of the incoming Muslims in
their neighborhoods because the newcomers have rapidly increased
the crime rate and spread diseases not seen for years. The
incomplete and mostly irrelevant response of left-leaning
politicians and opinion-makers has been to push "compassion" and
argue that "America is a country of immigrants." This may be
true, but our immigrant ancestors that came through Ellis Island
were sent back if they were diseased. Moreover, they needed
someone to vouch they would not be a burden on the public
treasury.
Articles in this set are concerned with
how the government has been using religious organizations to
'welcome wagon' incoming refugees. It's been a win-win for the
organizations that provide a veneer of godliness and for the
Obama administration and its Islamic, Marxist, globalist and
multidiversity adherents, eager to seed the USA with Muslims.
The only losers have been ordinary American citizens, both in
dollars and in security. Additional information is available in
"Refugee Resettlement: The lucrative business of serving
immigrants," written by James Simpson, published in July 2015 by
Capital Research Center (CRC) and archived at
https://capitalresearch.org/article/refugee-resettlement-the-lucrative-business-of-serving-immigrants/.
A PDF version is
available
here. The impact on people
neglected by or harmed by the religious groups who are busy
caring for Muslim "refugees" is also examined.
Video Source:
"https://needtoknow.news/2017/04/whistleblower-reveals-un-planned-invasion-refugees-us-already-underway/",
March 22, 2017:
US: A Missouri woman is interviewed by radio-show host, Josh
Tolley, and tells how she became involved in her state's
refugee-immigration program and how the program is far more
extensive and advanced than most people realize. She describes
how the UN, under the heading of Agenda 2030, is planning
immigration into the US similar to what is happening in Europe.
The goal is to create chaos and lay the foundation for breaking
the US into smaller political units with equal UN representation
— and the end of America as a sovereign nation. -GEG
This video is an absolute must for understanding an insidious
government program that brings in Muslims each year to all parts
of the United States. In it, a Missouri official points out, the
process to make the 'refugees' U.S. citizens starts immediately. They
receive social security and free housing, free medical care, free
food. They are not vetted. In fact, in many cases, their real
names are not known. Many leave the area and there is no further
information about them. The program was started by the Carter
administration and was continued by every administration since
then.
SUPPING WITH THE DEVIL: WHEN RELIGIOUS LEADERS TREAT WITH
SUPPORTERS OF ISLAMISM
by Babs Barron
Babs Barron wrote this essay because of her unease viewing the
collaboration of the Reform Synagogues Movement of which she is a
member with Citizens UK, "a coalition of faith groups that include
extremist Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood organizations." Together
this inter-faith coalition brings Syrian refugees into the UK. It
references a video that gives us a sense of what some
participating Jews think this is all about. Filled with pride in
what they are accomplishing, they ignore the elephant-sized
problem that, thanks to the orientation of Citizens UK, too many
of these "refugees" will, sooner or later, be a danger to the Jews
and Christians who have so willingly come to their aid.
Abraham Miller writes, "The Jewish roots of HIAS go back to
rescuing Jews from the Russian pogroms of the 19th century. Its
role as a lifeline for Jews who had nobody else to help them is
prominently displayed in its fundraising pitched to Jews, but the
word 'Hebrew' might 'offend' the Muslim refugees from the Middle
East that HIAS is now busy resettling in America." Like the
Christian organizations that participate in settling Muslims in
the USA, they are well-paid by taxpayers' dollars. After three
months, they can dump the "refugees" on governmental welfare,
which again comes out of the taxpayers' pockets. Miller suggests
it's time for HIAS to return to rescuing European Jews, victims
of the co-religionists of the Muslims that HIAS is "rescuing."
UNHOLY ALLIANCE: CHRISTIAN CHARITIES PROFIT FROM $1 BILLION FED PROGRAM TO RESETTLE REFUGEES, 40 PERCENT MUSLIM
by Michael Patrick Leahy
Michael Leahy provides us with statistics about the cost of
bringing in "refugees." The USA spends hundreds of millions of
dollars resettling refugees across the USA, and providing many
of them with free food, shelter and education indefinitely. The
initial resettlement of the entering refugees is often handled
by voluntary agencies (VOLAGS), who are handsomely paid for
their services. Five of the top nine VOLAGS are Christian. After
3-4 months, the VOLOG can turn the refugees over to the local
welfare office. The monetary rewards are so great that often
traditional charity efforts are neglected, while a VOLAG
concentrates resettling refugees. Over time, "more than a
million Muslims have been brought to the United States through
this program." As the number of Muslim refugees increases, the
danger that some of these migrants from the Middle East
may be potential terrorists increases. As more Muslims invade
the USA, the public is being forced to confront this problem
because they commit obscene crimes — raping children as
young as a five — and re-introducing diseases not seen in
a long time.
DESPITE SETBACKS FOR ISLAMIC STATE, EGYPT'S COPTIC CHRISTIANS REMAIN AT RISK
by Sean Savage
Sean Savage write of one example of the terrorism that
Christians are subjected to in many Arab countries. He writes of
the Egyptian Copts, who are being terrorized and often
slaughtered, victims of the Islamic State (IS). They are also
targeted by followers of the Muslim Brotherhood because of their
minority status and because Egyptian President Abdel Fattah
El-Sisi has protected them. Many Christian churches in the West
are committed to resettling Muslim Arabs from the Middle East. Or
they side with the Palestinians Arabs, actively aiding BDS
activities. Why do they take so little interest in the fate of
their co-religionists in the Middle East?
Quakers for peace is about as accurate as Islam is
a religion of peace. Quakers may sound quaint and their
thous and thees are charming but their best schtik
is hate, with particularly hateful words directed towards
Judaism. They have produced some highly virulent anti-Jewish
propaganda. In this article, Asaf Romirowsky contrasts the Quaker
reputation for promoting peace with their day-to-day advocacy for
Banning, Divesting and Sanctioning (BDS) Israeli goods and
products and otherwise isolating Israel from normal relations
with other countries. YogiRUS said of this article:
"The Quakers and their Washington lobby,
the America Friends Service Committee, are one of the oldest,
dishonest, and hypocritical anti-Israel operations in the
nation's capital. They are involved in virtually every
anti-Israel effort, always to remain anonymous, especially in
recruiting other church groups to their cause. They are, beneath
their pacifist camouflage, as anti-Semitic as they come. In
effect, they are major supporters of the BDS movement and many
Jews are unaware of this fact. By doing so, they underwrite
terrorism. Kindly read [this article] carefully and forward it to
many others. This is really important."
I was reading in the Jerusalem Post about Csanád
Szegedi, a far-right Hungarian politician, who, as is typical for
European anti-Semites, trivialized the Holocaust, was certain Jews
were evil foreigners, and blamed them for anything and everything
that is wrong with the world. Then he discovered he was one of
them, the Jewish people, a people he despised
(see
here). One fact, small in the scheme of things, and his
world view changed completely. It made me wonder if the inverse
also works. Is there some small but weighty conviction,
some shard of ideology, working in the minds of Jews who hate
Jews, Judaism and Zionism? Is there some idea stuck in the
Jewish anti-Jew's mind that swamps awareness of the amazing
civilizing and moral impact Jews have had on humanity? Is there
some ideological notion that can make him ignore how small
Jewish 'crimes' are relative to the deeds of so many other
countries? Bernie Sanders, for example, who was born around the time of
the Holocaust, was apparently brainwashed for life in his hippy
days so that forever after he has been promoting the interests
of Hamas and Islam and Marxism against Israel and Judaism and
nationalism. This section has other examples of Jews who don't
identify as Jews except when needing credentials to be
critical of Jews.
Steven Plaut, who died January 17, 2017, was a
Princeton-trained economist and professor of economics at
University of Haifa. He was a most incisive critic of the
stupidity of Israeli politicians and the fatuous fantasies of
Jewish academics who filtered facts through their Marxist
anti-Jewish ideology. His articles, both serious and
humorous-sarcastic, were brilliant and on-the-mark. This article
from 2011 is about Yoav Peled at Tel Aviv University. This article
details Plaut's shrewd observation: "The worst enemy of radical
Marxist pseudo-academics seems to be even more radical Marxist
pseudo-academics."
I've no idea if they are related but I have just come across a
video of an interview by Tavis Smiley with Miko Peled, a Jewish
activist for the Arabs, who has recently written a biography of
his father and himself.
Pelo gifts Smiley with a nicely-voiced summary of the Arab
fraudulent claim to Jewish land (see here).
He seems to have no knowledge of
modern Israel's history and the Jewish legal and moral right to
the land of Israel, which includes Samaria and Judea (AKA the West
Bank.) He certainly ignores facts that can, for example, be found
in the January-June 2016 issue of
Think-Israel,
(here below). Or do historic and legal facts mean nothing when compared
to whatever drives him to help the Arabs destroy Israel?
AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE PUSHES LETTER PROMOTING ISLAMIC TERROR STATE
by Daniel Greenfield
In the USA, the Muslim Brotherhood has a single objective: to
replace US law with Sharia law. To fulfill its mission, it does
whatever will work, from generating Muslim-defense groups,
making the lives of Jewish students on campus miserable to
encouraging 'lone-wolf' acts of terror. One of their spin-offs
is Hamas. Another is the notorious Islamic Society of North
America (ISNA). It is well-known ISNA is a front for collecting
money for Hamas. Yet, as Daniel Greenfield tells us, the
American Jewish Congress (AJC) and ISNA have formed the
Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council, which promotes the Islamic
version of peace between Jews and Arabs: Israel gives up land,
the Palestinian Authority and Hamas take and take — until there is no
Israel.
AMERICAN LIBERAL JEWISH LEADERS FUEL ANTI-SEMITISM
by Isi Leibler
Isi Leibler writes of the "crass political exploitation of their
Jewish identity by American leaders of purportedly 'nonpartisan'
mainstream Jewish organizations" in behalf of a 'progressive'
anti-Trump political agenda. As Leibler writes, "... liberal
Jewish leaders have declared a hysterical war against the Trump
administration. Led initially by the Anti-Defamation League but
rapidly joined by the Reform and Conservative wings of the Jewish
community, many Jewish community leaders have exploited their
positions to endorse a vicious campaign in which Trump is
portrayed as a satanic anti-Semite promoting fascism and racism,
representing the antithesis of Jewish values. This, despite the
reality that his presidency highlights an unprecedented acceptance
of Jews at the highest levels of government. ... in promoting
their personal political agenda and vulgarizing and demonizing
Trump while posing as Jews motivated by religious principles, they
are hypocritically exploiting their leadership positions and
fueling anti-Semitism. ...This becomes even more stark in contrast
to the eight years of Obama's administration, during which not a
single condemnation was uttered against the outrageously biased
statements in relation to Israel." It is bitter irony that
"... today, the prime global anti-Semitic threat emanates not from
neo-Nazis but from the witches' brew of far-left and Muslim
anti-Jewish incitement, which has transformed many American
university campuses into hotbeds of anti-Semitism."
I wish I could say that Leibler exaggerates. It is more the case
that, if anything, he has understated the childish antics of America's Jewish leadership.
ISRAELI POLICE: FBI ASSISTED IN ARREST OF JCC BOMB THREAT SUSPECT
by Deborah Danan
We're conditioned to discovering yet another intellectual Jew or
academic Jew who can dish out Jew hate every bit as ugly as what
comes from non-Jewish Marxists, globalists and Muslims. We are
still in the head-shaking stage when we learn that yet another leader of
a large Jewish organizations is working hard to bring in unvetted
Muslims and/or is contributing to anti-Israel 'Jewish'
organizations, while defending Muslim Brotherhood organizations. But what is unique
among Jewish anti-Jews is the recent arrest of an 'ordinary' Jew
who sent out a large number of bomb threats to Jewish schools
and centers, disrupting the lives of Jews around the globe,
engendering fear and paralyzing normal activities. The suspect,
Michael Kaydar, a teenager, is a dual citizen of the US and
Israel, and lives in Ashkelon, Israel. He used Google voice to
sound like a woman, paid in Bitcoin, which isn't registered, and
tapped into relays. In this article, Deborah Danan emphasizes
the attention-getting aspects of making bomb threats. She cites
articles by Brian of London that emphasize possible political
agendas. Whether these are sufficient explanation, or even part
of the explanation, we have yet to learn.
THE PERVASIVE ASSAULT ON ISRAEL BY JEWS: WHY DOES THIS HATRED PERSIST?
by Alex Grobman
Visualizing Jewish Jew-hate as a virus, to quote from a
citation in the article, "[t]hose infected with the virus
exaggerate Israeli sins real or imagined, while excusing or
rationalizing Palestinian Arab anti-Semitism and outrages against
Jews." But why? Alex Grobman examines several possibilities.
Noting that "[i]dentification with the aggressor is the defense
mechanism by which one adopts the perspective of one's abuser,"
hating Jewishness can, in many cases, be the ticket to inclusion.
This may explain "why Jewish self-hatred is so pervasive within
institutions to which belonging carries prestige. From campus
groups with popular coeds to elite private colleges to social
registries, to think tanks to insider punditry, to Israel's
Europhiles..." Grobman suggests ways to counter anti-Israel bias
by presenting accurate information to specific questions. He
suggests we ignore the Jewish self-haters and work with
"organizations fighting against the delegitimization, and prepare
ourselves and our children with the knowledge to fight back."
THE JAPANESE HERO WHO SAVED MY GRANDFATHER FROM THE NAZIS
by Dovid Greenwald
Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat assigned to the
Japanese Consulate in Lithuania. Defying his government's
restrictions on visas, he issued transit visas to Lithuanian
Jews to escape to Japan. Dovid Greenberg meditates on Sugihara's
bravery and goodness and the impact he had on future generations
of the Jews he saved. Sugihara's home in Lithuania is now a
museum, maintained as a tribute to a brave man who did what was
right.
PHOTOGRAPHING THE WARSAW GHETTO: ALBUM OF A GERMAN SOLDIER
from Yad Vashem
The Warsaw Ghetto uprising took place in the spring of 1943
when the Polish Jews that had been forced into the Ghetto
resisted the efforts by German soldiers to move them to
Treblinka. Before this final act of resistance, many German
photographers had come to the Ghetto and recorded the sheer
misery suffered by the Jews who were starving, freezing and
without medical care. Here are some of the pictures that have
been preserved at Yad Vasham and other places.
Matthew Shaer writes of a story told about the escape of some
Jewish prisoners from Ponar, a Nazi concentration camp near the
city of Vilnius in Lithuania in World War 2. They had been part
of a group forced to disinter and cremate the skeletons of Jews
previously killed by the Nazis. The Germans were losing the war
and wanted to erase all signs of what they had done. But no one
knew how the Jews had escaped, so the story was considered a
fable. Richard Freund, an American archaeologist, and other
scientists, studying aerial photos and contour maps, and using
tomography, have uncovered the escape route: the prisoners had,
slowly with small scoops, dug a 3-foot wide tunnel under the
woods past the barbed-wire fence.
LETTERS SHOW ONE AMERICAN JEW 'SAVED MULTIPLE WORLDS' DURING SHOA
by Debra Rubin
Debra Rubin writes of one American Jew, who saved family
members and their friends trying to escape from Europe during
the Nazi period. America had a quota in effect. Moreover, as
sponsor, he needed to demonstrate he had the financial means to
support them, so they would not be a burden on the USA. The
quota was not as restrictive in Cuba or Argentina, but the cost
of a visa was very high.
IMMIGRANTS PRESERVE EARLY HISTORY OF STATE OF ISRAEL
by Judy Lash Balint
About the time that Steven Spielberg got started recording
the reminiscences of Holocaust survivors, Aryeh Halivni founded
Toldot Yisrael (Chronicles of Israel) to record personal
histories of Jews who lived through the Mandate period and
the early years of the State of Israel. Judy Lash Balint writes
of some of these recountings of raw history.
50 YEARS LATER, AMMUNITION HILL HERO RECALLS KEY BATTLE FOR JERUSALEM
by Steve Linde
As written in Wikipedia, "Ammunition Hill (Hebrew: Giv'at
HaTahmoshet) was a fortified Jordanian military post in the
northern part of Jordanian-occupied East Jerusalem and the
western slope of Mount Scopus."
It was seized by the Jordanians, who invaded the new-born
state of Israel in 1948, severing the connection between Western
Israel and Mount Scopus. Steve Linde writes of some of the IDF
heroes of the 1967 Sixth Day War who recaptured this part of Israel,
when Jordan, together other Arab countries, again invaded Israel.
This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions
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page for the month is updated every few days.
There is a separate file that is the index for the articles on the
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To access the Index, click the "Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on
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Please note that The Blog-Ed pages for
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Different Blog Ed pages will be down
intermittently until the Archive structure is
in place. We apologize for the inconvenience.
History Section (Blum, Karsh, Bedein, Rogatchi, Foreign-Affairs)
Editor's Note:
Think-Israel tends to use salafist rather than
extremist or Islamist or militant or
fundamentalist or activist to describe generically a
pious Muslim, one who sticks as closely as possible to the
unfiltered words and actions of Mohammad and the first three
generations of Muslims, including, especially, the Companions of
the Prophet. In modeling himself as closely as he can on the
preachings and practices of Mohammad, a salafist can in modern
terms be precisely described as an uninhibited terrorist, a
theological supersessionist, a political supremacist who believes
Islam and sharia law must dominate and a social barbarian, who
wages jihad with whatever tools are available. Thanks to the high
quality of whitewash supplied by sympathetic propagandists, he
seldom is so described.
OUR MOST SURPRISING ELECTION:
Based on this observation, I was cautiously optimistic
before the election: attendance at any Donald Trump get-together
was huge and enthusiastic; Hillary Clinton could barely fill a
gym and many of the photos taken there were photoshopped to show
fill-in people. But Trump's incontestable win was a dream wish
and a most welcome reality.
Ahead of the election, savvy watchers of election day
illegalities were wary of illegals and others being trekked from
voting site to voting site. Warnings were issued: look for a bunch
of people that doesn't look like locals and who have come with a
"handler". Viewers were encouraged to follow them to their next
voting place; to report them immediately and to take pictures.
(REF: Project Veritas). Moreover, there are already reports from
early voters that they voted 'Trump-Pence', but when they checked
the results, the vote now read 'Clinton-Kaine.' Unfortunately,
electronic voting machines can be rigged. Some technical people in
India have been circulating information about possible fraud in
their elections for several years. In the US, we apparently have a
similar problem. As one indication, the SmartMatic machine comes
from a company owned by George Soras. We were cautioned that a way
to thwart machine rigging was to demand a paper ballot.
By law, a voter is entitled to receive one. Concern that a
voter's wishes would be ignored by a variety of techniques was not
a paranoid idea — in the 2012 election, for example, several
counties in swing states had more votes registered than there were
people living in these counties — it helped Obama win.
Before the election, Trump was excoriated for refusing to say he
would unconditionally accept the election results; Hillary, in contrast,
assured us she would not quibble with the count. After the
election, things changed rapidly and rabidly, with Hillary
indirectly and Prez Obama, both directly and indirectly, trying to
foment a "grass roots" rebellion against the election results.
What's important is that America may have been stopped from its
precipitous fall into economic and political ruin. The salafists
and the globalists and the Marxists have weakened so much of the
country's judicial, academic, political and media institutions, it
is unlikely that one man can undo the damage in one, even two,
terms. But the efforts to weaken America and destroy Israel will
certainly slow down if not completely stop. And for that, we should be grateful.
Every few years we post an article on the correlation of the
number of Muslims in a host country and their increasing
demands for perks and power until they are strong enough to take
over. These articles are general observations about the process
of takeover — and what cultural features of Islam and the West
contribute to Islam's success.
This article is one of the core articles on Liberty versus
Sharia on the Civilus Defendus website. As they write:
Sharia rejects freedom, embraces discrimination, condones misogyny, promotes subjugation and is eternally in conflict with infidels, with you and me. Muslims fare little better under this barbaric, dogmatic form of totalitarianism. No amount of political correctness, muticulturalism or moral equivalence will actually improve Sharia — it must be rejected outright.
Consider the 1400 year history islamification of Egypt, North Africa, Central and SE Asia and the current assault on nations across the globe including France, Kenya, the UK and US. Consider the murder of Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and both Muslims and non-Muslims by the followers of Islam as a dark and ominous glimpse into the future. We must take a stand to end the creeping annihilation of liberty and culture; to stop this islamic conquest. To not stand up is moral cowardice.
TRUMP CALLS MUSLIM MIGRATION "THE ALL-TIME BIGGEST TROJAN HORSE"
by Ted Belman, September 26, 2016
Ted Belman describes the invasion of Europe by hordes of
Muslims as a Trojan-horse tactic: the followers of Islam appear harmless
but when the opportunity arises, they wage civil war against the
natives, who by then have been lulled into inactivity or are too
weak to oppose the Muslims. He makes the important point that
because Islam has always refused to accommodate any other
religious group and have maintained superior power by ruthlessly destroying
competing groups, over the centuries they have kept control
over the countries they have conquered.
DENYING ISLAM'S ROLE IN TERROR: EXPLAINING THE DENIAL
by Daniel Pipes, Spring, 2013
Daniel Pipes writes of a major problem that impedes the West from intelligently
fighting back against the salafists, namely,"[t]he
establishment denies that Islamism—a form of Islam that seeks to
make Muslims dominant through an extreme, totalistic, and rigid
application of Islamic law, the Shari'a—represents the leading
global cause of terrorism when it so clearly does." He
substantiates his argument with examples of denial both in the
USA and Europe. The more interesting question that Pipes tackles
is: why the denial of the obvious?
THE IMPACT OF ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM ON FREE SPEECH
by Denis MacEoin, June 19, 2016
Free speech and freedom of expression appear to many of us as
"there" as the air we breath. But the last few years have
demonstrated, once again, that Thomas Jefferson was right when he
urged the need for eternal vigil to safeguard freedom and
independence. Denis MacEoin writes of the censorship of our freedom
of speech by various sharia-promoting Muslim groups and Western
groups that kowtow to Islam either out of conditioned conformity to political
correctness or fear of reprisal, should they oppose Muslim teachings.
MacEoin writes how "perceived irreverence towards
Islam" is avenged and how anger toward the Muslim community that
nurtures jihad is averted by Muslims claiming the Muslim
community is the real victim. To date, it has too often been a
winning combination.
There is one generalization that holds up: where ever
Muslims come, hatred of some group, likely a minority, spikes.
Hate crimes increase, many of them committed by the Muslim
immigrants, others by natives of the host country, who are
predisposed negatively against the minority and/or who, like good
dhimmis, accept Muslim attitudes as part of their acceptance of
(selective) diversity. In this article, Bat Ye'or details a
specific example: Europe's hatred of the Jews of Israel. And some
consequences.
Multiculturalism and diversity is
a brilliant slogan. It sounds so civilized; so encouraging of
harmony among people brought up in different environments, with
different lifestyles and different values. In practice, it is a
numbing phrase designed to subdue realistic "bad thoughts" about
other groups, designed to encourage feelings of guilt in those
that intuitively don't buy the hype. In practice, it is much used
to persuade people to accept bad political gestures — to accept
people who are unacceptable. As Walter Williams points out, it is
oblivious to the fact that the different cultural values are not
equally good. Multiculturalism is doomed to fail without mutual
respect and tolerance. When the political system is working, the
West encourages individual rights and freedom; while, for the
most part, immigrant Muslims have no intention of conforming to
the mores of the host country, or even meeting it half-way.
Unfortunately, the virtue of believing in the equality of
ideas stops people from reacting, and by the time they act — as
Angela Merkel has finally seen the havoc wrought by yet another
idea that thrives in academia, but is a menace in the real world
— it's too late. In this case, the Muslims have taken over.
Hijrah is Jihad by large-scale immigration of Muslims to
another country. In the main they resist assimilation but appear
to fit in while their numbers grow sufficiently so they can begin
to implement a takeover of the host country. Hijrah has
been practiced quietly for decades in Europe. Except when a
Muslim is outed as outrageously manipulating welfare benefits or
turning native children into prostitutes, this method of takeover
is mostly ignored. More recently, infiltration has increased
sharply as Europe has welcomed refugees from Syria and other
Middle East war zones. This may satisfy the egos of European
leaders that they are being virtuous but it has proven to be a
bad decision in several ways. First, it has provided a means for
actual terrorists to come into Europe, with a sharp increase in
acts of terror. Second, the new "refugees" have mainly been
adult, working-age males, who account for the major increase in
crimes and rapes in the countries that welcomed them. This video
called "Europe's Last Chance" by Pat Condell is an excellent
summation of what the so-called Muslim "refugees" are doing to
destroy the European lifestyle.
This is an excellent summary of Hijrah as presented on the
Prepper Forum. Hijrah was practiced initially by Mohammad himself,
who left Mecca and went to Medina, where he began violent jihad
against infidels. Today it is used to describe an
invasion of a country by Muslims purporting to be peacefully
intentioned. It is a way of infiltrating a host country with more
and more Muslims until there are enough Muslims to start
activities to take over the country. The article also includes a
video by Dr. Bill Warner on Hijrah.
MAJORITY OF PARIS ATTACKERS ENTERED EUROPE POSING AS REFUGEES
by Lisa Daftari
Lisa Daftari points out a specific danger in allowing unvetted
refugees to enter a host country: it provides an easy route in for
single terrorists and for a group of terrorists, who maintain
contact and keep on schedule via cellphone and social media.
Included are readers' comments that find these facts relevant to
the Obama's administration's encouragement of unvetted Syrian and
Somali "refugees" in the US.
GERMAN ASYLUM SEEKERS REFUSE TO WORK INSISTING 'WE ARE MERKEL'S GUESTS'
by Siobhan Mcfadyen and Monika Pallenberg
As Siobhan Mcfadyen and Monika Pallenberg
write, "ASYLUM seekers in Germany are refusing to undertake work
to counteract boredom - using Chancellor Angela Merkel's generous
hospitality as an excuse." This has been underplayed by the media,
perhaps because the almost universal reaction has been open disgust. As
one reader, Rick Nash, writes, "Ya Its not Merkel Of Germany Or
Justin of Canada's Money being spent on them its our hard earned
Tax money being wasted on them while we work day and night the f
muslims refugees enjoy free hotel with hot halal food free
cellphones and lap tops to all their multiple wives and their many
kids many young strong men who are so disobedient and lazy? shower them with with welfare money Nice while we have to
struggle everyday at work??? Good job our political correct leaders
very nice". Angela Merkel herself has stated that "only 1 in 10K
new migrants is employed." READ
MORE
EUROPEAN HUMAN RIGHTS CHIEFS ORDER THE BRITISH PRESS NOT TO REVEAL WHEN TERRORISTS ARE MUSLIMS
by Matt Dathan
A recent report from the European Commission against Racism and
Intolerance (ECRI) recommended that "the British media be barred
from reporting the Muslim background of terrorists." Matt Dathan
writes that the report is concerned that "when the media stress
the Muslim background of perpetrators of terrorist acts, and
devote significant coverage to it, the violent backlash against
Muslims is likely to be greater than in cases where the
perpetrators' motivation is downplayed or rejected in favour of
alternative explanations." ECRI's concern for the Muslim community
is certainly heartwarming, even if its comprehension of what's
going on is limited.
Giulio Meotti writes about several current-day European philosophers
that have taken up the cause of Islamic jihad, or, at the very
least, justify Muslim barbaric behavior.
It is a given that capitalism and the West are bad, hence
Jihad is praiseworthy in that it is a way of countering the power
of the West, of leveling the field. One of these philosophers,
Michel Onfray, has become popular not only with the at-home French but
also with French jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq, presumably
when they have some quiet time to read and aren't busy butchering their enemies.
Like Barack Obama, Onfray puts much of the blame for whatever
event is under discussion on George W. Bush. Other philosophers,
sounding much like sociologists,
excuse jihad for reasons such as 'revenge for humiliation',
rootlessness, and inequality. And like the sociologists, they feel
no obligation to check their generalities against the facts.
FRENCH ISLAMISM AND THE FUTURE OF EUROPE: A BRIEFING BY
GUY MILLIÈRE
by Joshua Buri
Joshua Buri summarizes a talk given by Guy Millière on the
large increase in radical Islamic groups in France. Moreover, some
of the major ones are no longer freelance but have ties to the
Muslim Brotherhood. Aside from the increase in network linkages,
there are more no-go zones and a prison system that allows Islamic
preachers to attract potential jihadists. In addition, more people
are "returning from the Middle East with radical beliefs and
training." As terrorists have become more organized, politicians
appear less able and less willing to handle these new
developments. Yet people are reluctant to complain, given that
they will be labeled fascist and racist and can be fined for
criticizing Islam.
ANTI-SEMITISM WAS REQUIRED, ANTI-ISLAMISM IS VERBOTEN
by Janet Levy
The 'sensitivity' of the Germans to the huge influx of Muslim
immigrants is extraordinary — they tolerate the refusal of
the Muslims to adapt to the German lifestyle, their destruction of
property and high rate of crime, their refusal to work, their
attacks on women. German politicians and police play down Muslim
anti-social behavior, to the point of eliminating "'rape' from
police reports." Some people assume that the Germans are being
super-kind to make up for their fiendish cruelty to the Jews
during World War 2. Using statistics on the current German
attitudes toward Jews, Janet Levy points out that "a large
percentages of Germans still harbor harsh, anti-Jewish sentiments"
while adopting a "policy of acceptance and tolerance toward
Muslims." Add to that the favoritism Germany extends to Muslim
countries at the UN. Levy suggests that Germany's attitude toward
the Muslims "may actually mask an underlying anti-Semitism that
stubbornly remains despite the passage of time."
The might of the Europe Union (EU) continues single-mindedly to
be turned against Israel. It also exerts more control over the
member states than originally intended. Michael Freund
points out that the Brexit movement, where the Britain electorate
voted to leave the Union, is the start of the dissolution of the
EU. He argues that this is a good thing for Israel. Some of the
member states of the EU are more friendly to Israel than the EU
allows them to be. And second, it means "a return to the idea of
the nation-state, which has served as the basis of modern Western
civilization." This can only benefit Israel, which could serve as
prototype of what a nation-state can accomplish.
Fifteen years ago on a Tuesday, the eleventh of September,
Resurgent Islam caught our attention long enough to announce
dramatically that it was at war with us. Unlike the immediate
impact Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor had in World War II and
despite the growing number of terrorist attacks, it's not clear
that the majority of Americans, even now, are aware we are at war.
There are those who believe Muslims are just like anyone else
and consider it islamophobic to single out the relatively few
Muslims who exhibit extreme behavior. After all, out of the
billions of Muslims on the planet, it is only some 10-15%
estimated to be involved in acts of terror. They believe in the
Moderate Muslim Majority as passionately as once they believed in
the tooth fairy. They are incorrigible.
Another group, a very large group, many of whom are avid
readers of the MSM such as the New York Times, recognize
that Muslims who blow up malls or shoot their colleagues are
indeed 'extremists'. This group is even willing to call terrorists
'terrorists' if they commit the act of terror locally. But they
blame these acts of terror on outside factors. These poor souls
are acting out their misery or their rage or their low
self-esteem. They are poor. They are psychologically or socially
or medically damaged. They are Muslims who are angry because
society marginalized them or ignored them or because their
marriages are dysfunction. Why call them terrorists? This attitude
is fostered by a large group of bought media people and
academicians.
Because so many opinion-makers have trivialized the problem,
there has been no outcry that Muslims associated with Islamic terrorist
front groups are welcomed into the White House and our security
agencies. As I write this, it is finally coming out in the MSM
that Huma Abedin helped Hillary Clinton, her boss, in using
private servers for State Dept official business. What is less
stressed is that she is the child of high-level members of the
Muslim Brotherhood, an organization devoted to replacing Western
values with Sharia law by any and all means, from infiltrating
America's infrastructure to funding acts of terror. She herself
worked for many years for a Muslim organization devoted to
promoting sharia in the West. This information has been available
for years. In fact in the July-August 2012 issue of Think-Israel,
we had an article called "In The Matter Of Vetting People In High
Places" that highlighted the fact that Huma, given her family
connections, could not possibly have passed the vetting all
government security positions receive. But apparently she passed
or bypassed the vetting required by law. Another section in the
2012 issue, the Girls of the Brotherhood, contained more
information on the entanglement of Huma and the Abedin family in
terrorist groups.
In addition, there is a third group fighting on the side of the
salafists and doing great damage to our country. These are the
self-censors. It is epitomized by the NY Times which invokes
freedom of speech to show contempt for religions other than Islam.
Thus, the Times waxed poetic about Serrano's insulting
Christ in Piss photograph. They had no fear of publishing
cartoons of Jews dressed in Nazi uniforms stepping on or over a
poor waif representing the powerless Palestinian. But the
Times avoids provoking Muslims. The public is encouraged to
be concerned with Muslim 'sensitivities'.
To add to the difficulty, the Obama administration has been
importing 'refugees' from countries such as Somalia and Syria,
countries that breed and train terrorists. Despite official
reassurances, there is no way that these immigrants can be
adequately (or even minimally) vetted. They are, in the main, men
in the age group that become members of ISIS, al-Qaeda and other
terror organizations. They are overwhelmingly Muslim; hardly any
of them are Christian. They have started making significant
contributions to crime statistics all over America.
And we've seen the growth of the 'grass roots' riots. They are
selective. They only occur when a member of the majority (a white,
particularly a policeman) kills a member of the black minority.
They are not spontaneous nor are they generated locally. 70% of
the arrested Charlotte rioters were from outside North Carolina.
Similarly, previously in Ferguson, only 1 of the 51 people
arrested was a local. The instigators at Ferguson were bought and
paid for by George Soros (Washington Times, 14Jan2015), who
is determined to do to Americans what he did to Hungarian Jews,
when he betrayed them to the Nazis. These outside instigators
waited in the hotel for the situation to ripen. Then they picked
off the targets of the 'spontaneous riot': vandalizing local
shopkeepers, looting, demolishing local businesses. These riots
are becoming a major tool in denigrating western standards and
intimidating local governments.
An effective response has been slow in coming. The Obama
administration is clearly pro-Muslim and Prez Obama himself has
made no secret of the fact that he wishes to clip America's wings.
And the damage done by present-day academics and judges by
deflecting the concerns of the public is yet to be fully assessed
— we may not see the full impact until today's college
students take over the government and the economy in the future.
Here too, what has received the least attention has been the
damage done by the self-censors, the timid publications that
fearlessly slam the West and Israel, while softpedaling the
barbaric behavior of the salafists. They have a direct and
probably measurable impact on many of their readers.
Depending on what parameters and signs and symptoms you find
significant, you can decide that we are finally waking up to our
danger; or you can point at indicators that show we remain sound
asleep, while the salafists poke holes into our judiciary and
educational systems and media channels and fill them with Islamic
propaganda on the beauty of the Islamic way of life.
Are we falling in deeper into the hole Islam and its Marxist
buddies are digging? Or are we coming to grips with Salifism and
starting to wake up?
Tom McLaughlin presents a clear picture of well-meaning, humane,
civilized individuals in transition in their attitudes toward
refugees. He described a townhall meeting set up by Catholic
Charities Maine to gain support for bringing in Muslim refugees from
Somali and Syria. McLaughlin himself is knowledgeable about jihad.
Nevertheless, in a meeting intended to make people sympathetic to
housing, feeding and accepting refugees in Maine, he was clearly
pleased the audience was low-keyed and polite, not angry and
emotional. He described one member of the audience as a man who
became "rambunctious and interrupted" the propagandist on
the podium to point out "that schools incur enormous costs to
provide ESL (English as a Second Language) teachers for refugee
children." Later, a reader wrote, "A day after the rambunctious man was
driven from the meeting room by those who insist upon a certain
blindness, pipe bombs went off in Manhattan and New Jersey, and a
crazed Somali screaming 'allahu-akbar'" brandished his machete and
slashed several innocent bystanders in St. Cloud, Minnesota. No
one was killed, thankfully, and the rambunctious man, and a few
impertinent town criers, are now vindicated.
Michael Cutler writes of the importance in controlling borders
and points of entry such as airports to counter terrorist attacks
from outside-the-country terrorists. Unfortunately, immigrants
coming from the same pool as potential terrorists usually have
little paper documentation and there is no way to conduct field
investigations to determine immigration fraud and bogus background
stories. That means there is no real way to vet immigrants coming
in as refugees from countries such as Somalia and Syria, where
numerous terrorists live and train. The growing crime statistics
confirm that the backgrounds of these Middle-Eastern immigrants is
of serious concern. The difficulty is not reduced by officials
arguing compassion and charity as reasons to ignore a realistic
danger to America's security.
STATE DEPARTMENT: UM, ISIS AGENTS ARE POSING AS REFUGEES
by Counter Jihad
Counter Jihad provides us with a case study documenting how
ISIS terrorists have successfully blended in as refugees in Middle
East refugee camps while, for a long time, the State Department
tried to reassure the public that there were no terrorists among
the refugees. Forced to back down from that assertion, they now
claim their vetting process is adequate to keep terrorists out of
America. Another lie. If the article minimizes anything, it is in
implicitly suggesting ISIS is the main terrorist problem, just as,
a few years back, al-Qaeda was the focus. In point of fact, there
are hundreds of terrorist groups, of all sizes and resources,
competing to see which can do the most damage to the infidel, or
to Muslim sects with somewhat different ideology.
BOMBING SUSPECT IS NO LONE WOLF, BUT A TERRORIST WITH A FAMILY OF SYMPATHIZERS
by Paul Sperry
Every time there is a terrorist attack, there is a slight
arousal in the general public. Then like a candle lit with a damp
match, the flame sputters and goes out. And the chant is repeat:
this guy is not affiliated with real genuine Muslims. This is just
a random act. But in truth, lone wolf terrorists seldom are
without help and support from the mosque, clerics, family, TV and
videos, and salafist groups that study the Koran. New York bombing
suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami said he received instructions from
terrorist leaders. In this article, Paul Sperry focuses on the help and
"spiritual" support the lone-wolf often receives from his family.
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD'S TIES TO THE OBAMA
ADMINISTRATION
by Slater Bakhtavar
The Muslim Brotherhood has never hidden its strong efforts
to replace Western practices with sharia law. It has conducted
jihad in the West from stealth infiltration of western
infrastructure — the Western media, judiciary, academic
institutional, K12 educational textbooks and church groups.
inter alia — and it has financially supported Hamas
and other terrorist groups. It has developed a network of
political friendships in many countries and it is capable of
ginning up riots over a cartoon of Mohammad. It has many front
groups, which, during Obama's administration have gained entrance
to the White House and our security agencies. It has also been
able to secure government positions for members of its front
organizations. It is a measure of its success that Huma Abadin,
a member of one
of its leading families was privy to top secret
information at the State Department, when Hillary Clinton was in
charge. And had Clinton won the presidency, Abadin would be one of
the people in control of the White House.
GENERAL FLYNN: MILITARY FIRED ME FOR CALLING OUR ENEMIES RADICAL JIHADIS
posted by Fuzzy Slippers
The New York Times (NYT, 3Dec2016) noted that Lt.
Genl Flynn has "argued that the United States faced a singular,
overarching threat, and that there was just one accurate way to
describe it: "radical Islamic terrorism." Clearly not the view of
NYT. Nor that of Prez Obama. Flynn, himself, speaks clearly on the
danger of radical Islam, flying directly into the stormy
indignation of the many Muslim and pro-Muslim groups that would
like to suppress his insights. He has, however, the backing of the
collective opinion of counter-terrorism experts and specialists on
Islamic law. And it is hard to
dismiss the growing number of terrorist incidents as random acts
of terror by free-lancers, when so many of the terrorists and
their families move between the USA and fundamentalist Muslim
countries, where adherents are trained to follow the dictates of
the Koran precisely. Perhaps under Trump's administration, it will
now be allowed to link Islam and jihad in the same sentence in
government data bases, and specialists on Islam will not
lose their jobs for daring to say that Islam's holy documents dictate that
pious Muslims practice jihad and live by sharia law.
Alex Grobman writes about one of the more despicable lies
anti-Jews, Jews and non-Jews, tell: they denounce Israel as an apartheid state.
In this essay, he attacks them both for their ignorance and false
statements and for the damage they do to Israel's reputation. The
essay is also a thorough discussion of the features of apartheid
as once practiced in South Africa and why it is inapplicable to
Israel. As
Grobman points out, "Apartheid is a legal system of segregation
based on color, with a white majority in control of the
government. Under apartheid, people of color could not vote, hold
office or travel freely in their own country." That doesn't
describe Israel. The apartheid concept has also been severely
distorted in an attempt to cover very different situations:
dealing with illegal African migrants that are not refugees but
who come for economic benefits; and governing some 4% of the
Arabs living in the Territories. Israel is always depicted as
treating the Israeli Arabs badly so it is puzzling that these
put-upon citizens of Israel will not give up their citizenship to
live under the rule of the Palestinian Authority. Very puzzling.
HALF A YEAR ON, DUMA 'SUSPECT' FOUND INNOCENT OF
ALL CHARGES
by Orli Harari
After much brouhaha and insistence that there was evidence to
indict several Jewish settlers for the crime of firebombing the
home of Saad Dawabsheh in the Arab village of Duma on July 31,
2015, and causing the death of Dawabsheh, his wife and their
18-month old baby, all the suspects have been released except for
one, Amiram Ben-Uliel, who, together with an unnamed minor, was
indicted on January 3, 2016. Eye witness reports were found
faulty; it was known that the Dawabsheh clan had been engaged in a
nasty feud with another clan for years; there was no reason to go
as far as the middle of the village to find a random target; and
the external evidence made it unlikely a stranger in the village
would have survived. There have been similar torchings of
Dawabsheh clan houses before and after the July 2015 torching and
these were ruled Arab arson, yet the only investigation made for
the July firebombing was to find evidence against several Jewish
settlers. Orli Harari describes what happened to one of the
suspects.
Just a few years ago, the claim that the head of the United
Jewish Appeal (UJA), would fund the New Israel Fund (NIF), which
openly funds vicious anti-Israel organizations and supports the
BDS campaign to destroy Israel, would be rejected as scurrilous
nonsense. Today, given our experience with the interacting
anti-Israel organizations that call themselves Jewish and say they
are working to benefit Israel but whose deeds promote Israel's
destruction, it comes as a bitter fact but not as a surprise.
Pamela Geller provides us with information on some of the people
behind the UJA's support of NIF. Additional material from JCCWatch
records actual amounts supporting several traitorous Jewish
organizations, citing the UJA's JCF's annual reports. The only
mystery left is why would Jews willingly support groups that
operate to destroy Israel? Are these Jews just simple idiots easily
manipulated by Israel's enemies or is the answer darker?
J-Street, New
Israel Fund (NIF) and B'Tselem are known to be notoriously
anti-Israel, but UJA, HIAS and ADL are old-time Jewish
institutions and we don't expect them to be spending their time on
projects that harm Jews, both as Jews and as American citizens.
Admittedly, ADL has never been more than lukewarm protective of
Jewish interests but never has it been as overtly hostile as now.
ADL's new chief is intemperate in criticizing Israel and
protecting Muslims. Moreover, the ADL is directly lobbying
against "laws that would obstruct the
Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS), claiming it suppresses
academic freedom and inhibits Islamic speech." If that weren't bad
enough, UJA, HIAS and ADL are currently promoting the importation
of unvetted Arabs from sharia-compliant countries, seeding them
everywhere. Why would any Jewish organization, or
any organization that cared about Americans, help bring in Muslims
bent on hijra (jihad by immigration)? Tabitha Korol tells
of her experience trying to learn why. To say that the Jewish
Federation and ADL were not forthcoming about their
support of migrants coming from Arab countries that are chock
full of terrorists is an understatement. It suggests they
suspected donors might not feel their money was well-spent or even
minimally contributing to their safety. As Korol put it, "Why are
HIAS, Catholic Charities, World Churches, ADL and other
multiculturalists saving the predators instead of the prey?" What
we are seeing in not just a foolish waste of money; we are witnessing
an invasion designed to soak up available welfare and destabilize
America.
SIMONA SHARONI, FORMER ISRAELI SCHOLAR PROMOTES FALSE
ALLEGATIONS AGAINST ISRAEL
by
Israel-Academia-Monitor
Some sixty
five years ago, and for many years after that, in academia, the
conservatives I knew were, for the most part, boring and
humorless, and often openly anti-semitic. The liberal leftists
were the defenders of tolerance, accepting all ethnic groups, and
with a great sense of humor. But now the Democratic party that
represents them has been taken over by a dour, constrictive group
of people on the very far left. They are David Duke-style haters
of those not conforming to their ideology. They consider their
Marxist-based ideology, wrapped in euphemisms, the only acceptable
policy. It is as if the current far left and the ordinary
republicans have swapped places, with the lefties adopting
anti-semitism as a core value — although they claim to be
directing their animosity only at Israel and Zionism. They chant
the same false pro-Palestinian slogans and know nothing of
Israel's legal and historic ownership of the Land of Israel (see
Think-Israel,
jan-jun 2016 issue). They blithely talk about Israel's
occupying Palestinian land and breaking international law, with
not an iota of knowledge of the actual situation or applicable
laws. This suggests they have little actual expertise and
knowledge of the Middle East, despite their claims to be scholars.
It suggests their enmity isn't based on fact but is a product of
their political ideology. The chatter of these new democrats is
rife with socialism's putative desire for a uniformity of wealth
and a cargo-cult belief in a never-ending supply of freebies. They
snicker at nationalists and patriots. They are believers in a
global world order (which, to unbelievers, looks much like tired
discredited old socialism). They believe they are working for a
new and better way of life. Incongruously, they makes common cause
with Radical Islam, whose medieval ideas of a good life includes
mutilating girls and treating women like chattel, killing gays,
chopping off hands for minor crimes and not tolerating any
religion but their own.
This article is an editorial note from the Israel Academic Monitor
about a faculty member in Gender and Women's Studies, who uses a
fanciful analogy between the Palestinian as victim and her
studies on rape to preach her activist ideology inside and
outside the classroom. Academic freedom protects teaching and
expressing a point of view presumably based on scholarship in the
subject matter. It does not cover statements on other matters.
Yet she claims academic freedom covers her non-academic
activities, while insisting she is immune from investigation by
those who seek the records pertaining to her hire by her
university and conferences attended under the Freedom of Information Act.
The previous article dealt
with the radicalization and partiality of many of America's
academics, one dreadful consequence being that many Jewish
students now feel threatened and insecure in the toxic
environment created by hostile pro-Muslim professors. The plight
of the Jewish students can be seen as one aspect of what is
happening, more generally, to American Jewry. After World War 2,
when the events of the Holocaust became known and overt
anti-Semitism was viewed as being in bad taste, American Jews
prospered. The Jews were prominent in the professions and
business. They were good citizens. They fit in well with the
relaxed secular casual style of interaction they encountered. The
liberality and neutrality of the Democratic Party suited most of
them. But times have changed. The Democratic party has been taken
over by illiberals, who are both anti-Jewish and pro-Muslim.
More and more, Jews who are Democrats find themselves forced to
conform or confront. If they support Israel, they feel the anger
of the current leaders of the party: those involved in the BDS
movement, those promoting an Israel-hating Iran and those who,
favoring a global world order, regard Israel as a nationalist
enemy. On the Republican side, neither the party or its members
— aside from a smattering of Klansmen, skinheads and
neo-nazis — are anti-Israel. Nor have Republican Jews been
coerced into agreement with the fluctuating power plays of the
election. Yet many prominent Jews pointlessly lambasted Donald
Trump, even after he became the Republican candidate for
president. Observing that the majority of the Jews are Democrats
and they have lost political power — the anti-Semites that
control the Democratic party almost succeeded in writing a plank
in the Democratic platform proclaiming they sided with the
Palestinian Arabs in the Palestinian versus Israel controversy
— Caroline Glick, in a gloomy but possibly realistic
prediction, writes of the twilight of American Jewry.
George Soros plays no favorites between the USA and Israel. He's out to
destroy both. In the States, he works closely with Muslim groups;
some of his billions have gone to weaken various counterterrorism
measures that were intended to fight Muslim jihad (John
Rossomando, IPT News, 7oct2016; algemeiner, 10oct2016). He worked
to promote the Iran Nuclear Deal. He sponsored the out-of-town
rioters in the Black Lives Matter Ferguson and Charlotte NC
'protests', designed to cause community destabilization and
public mistrust of the police (plantfreewill.com, 23sep2016). His
electronic SmartaMatic voting machine, used at many voting
places, has been shown to be untrustworthy. He is a strong
supporter of groups such as J Street and New Israel Fund, which
call themselves Jewish, but whose efforts are aimed at destroying
Israel and Zionism. Such an agenda is not surprising in an
individual who, as a teenager, worked with the Nazis to rat out
Jews and steal their property. It was, he has said, the happiest
time of his life. In this essay, P. David Hornik focuses on
Soros' funding of organizations that attempt to damage Israel directly.
A LIST OF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES TO PROPERLY BOYCOTT ISRAEL
by Michael Ordman
It must be admitted that the campaign to boycott Israel's
products and service has been haphazard, cherry picking some
areas, ignoring others. In the interest of
providing information on how to carry out a more effective
boycott, Michael Ordman has written a complete guide to Israeli
products and services so that the dedicated boycotter can perform
the activities needed to properly boycott Israel. Unfortunately, as
comprehensive as Ordman's guide is, it has missed some products
made in Israel, the Bible, for one. A video on how to deal with
that omission is available
here.
The Arab refugees of 1948 were organized by clan and tribe.
Steadily, from the early years of the 20th century, they had come
as individuals in large numbers into Mandated Palestine where
there were jobs. Many maintained their ties to their home
countries. Over the years, as they became perpetual refugees with
access to free medicine, education and food, they were rebranded
as Palestinian refugees and have become corrupt, manipulating the
refugee system, often keeping a job and/or citizen status while
continuing to receiving UNRWA perks. In turn, they are prevented
from living normally by the restrictive rules of their host
countries and political administrations. The Arab leaders insist
that, unlike any other refugee in the world, they can be
resettled permanently nowhere but in Israel; they insist that
even those 'refugees' whose (great) grandparents fled Israel when
the Arabs invaded in 1948, have the right of
return. A particularly egregious example is the Palestinian
Authority (PA), which receives billions of dollars to benefit the
local population, 40% of which are Palestinian refugees. The PA
has refused to take responsibility for these refugees. In fact,
the PA has announced that when there is a Palestinian state,
these refugees will not be allowed to be citizens, nor will the
PA provide them services.
Many of the new refugees from Syria and other Middle East war
areas are genuinely in need of help. But much of the relief
effort has not focused on women and children but on able-bodied
men, used by their leaders to invade European countries and now,
thanks to an Obama initiative, the USA. They disrupt the host
countries, terrorizing the natives and soaking up the available
welfare. Many have a 'world owes them a living' attitude; they
are anti-social and increasingly responsible for the minor and
major crimes in the host countries. They also make an excellent
cover for terrorists to enter Western countries. The migrants
have been, overwhelmingly, Muslim men, while Christians and Yazidis
remain in the war zones, preyed upon by the different sides in the
ongoing conflicts.
In the West, in addition to the immigrant terrorist manpower, there is
increasing use of Muslim native-born or long-term residents that
are capable of functioning as 'lone wolves'. As Ryan Mauro has
pointed out (Mauro: Counterjihad 28Nov2016, and Kirby: LifeZette,
23Mar2016), there are some 22 compounds providing guerrilla
training in the US and 70 percent to 80 percent of U.S. mosques
are estimated "to have ties to radical Islam, either from the
textbooks they use or the content of the sermons that imams
preach." These facilities are reinforced by TV sermons and Muslim
outreach groups that act as talent scouts.
While terrorist training and activities are becoming more
decentralized, the Palestinian Authority, a major center of
training and terror activities, is unraveling.
The discontent in the populace, refugee
and not, has led to civil unrest throughout the Territories. It
is a reasonable prediction that if this insurrection boils up
into sustained civil warfare, the end result will be another "Arab
Spring", i.e., a takeover by whatever group (or takeovers split
among several groups) is the most religiously fundamental and
bloodthirsty.
In 1938, well before
Israel became a state, William Ziff published The Rape of
Palestine, in which he provided evidence indicating that the
British, who were by Mandate honor-bound to help the Jews develop
the infrastructure for a state, instead, did all in their power
to keep Jews out of then Mandated Palestine, and thwart their
efforts at statehood. This included allowing Arabs to commit acts
of terror and come in freely, while they hunted down Jews, who
were illegal according to the illegal British regulations. Sheree
Roth points out the importance of the book is that it
substantiates later scholarly works indicating that the Arabs
were Johnny-come-lately and not indigenous and not returnees.
They came because the "Jewish settlers made it an attractive and
prosperous place."
This is Chapter 2 of Samuel Katz's book, 'Battleground.' It is
a meticulous account of the history, the politics and
the dynamics of the creation of that unique entity: the Arab, now
the Palestinian, refugee. As Samuel Katz writes, "The Arabs are
the only declared refugees who became refugees not by the action
of their enemies or because of well-grounded fear of their
enemies, but by the initiative of their own leaders. For nearly a
generation,[Battleground was published in 1973] those leaders have willfully kept as many people as
they possibly could in degenerating squalor, preventing their
rehabilitation, and holding out to all of them the hope of return
and of 'vengeance' on the Jews of Israel, to whom they have
transferred the blame for their plight." Almost a half century
later, conditions have deteriorated even more: there is little
work on creating the infrastructure of a civilized community and
there is more emphasis on the barbaric murder of Israelis.
After the death of her husband, President Franklin Roosevelt,
Eleanor Roosevelt was a human rights activist, promoting the civil
rights of blacks and of women. She urged the United States to join
the United Nations, which was envisioned as a permissive
environment in which countries could settle differences peacefully
and in a civilization fashion. She also had a weekly radio show
and wrote a daily newspaper column called "My Day." This article
is the My Day column of March 23, 1956. Roosevelt recognized then
what is still not well-understood: for there to be even the start
of relations leading to peaceful coexistence, the Arabs need to
accept that Israel exists, that it is a Jewish State and
that it will continue to be a Jewish state.
Nowadays, as Evelyn Gordon
writes, while the Palestinian refugees continue to receive
generous UN help, the new refugees from the wars in the Middle
East suffer from inadequate facilities in Middle East countries.
Gordon points out that the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Samaria
and Judea (aka the West Bank), despite receiving billions of
dollars to benefit the local Arabs, has refused to take
responsibility for the heredity Palestinian refugees, who
constitute a large part of the local population. This is hardly
fair, considering how useful they have been as a prop for
anti-Israel, pro-Arab propaganda. Much of the sympathy the world
lavishes on the Palestinians is because people pity the
refugees, who, thanks to the leadership in the Arab countries and
the Territories, have remained 'homeless' these many years.
Jim Kouri writes about determining
refugee fraud, one duty of The Department of Homeland Security
(DHS), which was set up to protect America from terror attacks.
When the House of Representatives requested a report on asylum
claims, including "the extent to which DHS and DOJ have designed
mechanisms to prevent and detect asylum fraud," results indicated
that some key information was not being captured for the
individual application, and DHS has not implemented assessment of
"fraud risks across the asylum process, in accordance with leading
practices for managing fraud risks." In such circumstances,
vetting Muslim refugees can not be done thoroughly.
This video points out another problem with DHS and other
security agencies: by executive decree from the Obama
administration, these agencies scrubbed references to radical
Islamic terrorism; i.e., the information on Islam,
jihad and Muslim in security databases has been
purged. (This is not a joke.)
THE FRAYING PALESTINIAN POLITICAL ENTITY IN THE WEST BANK
by Pinhas Inbari, August 2, 2016
The present-day leadership of the
Palestinian Authority (PA) doesn't have as firm a grip on the
Territories as did Yassir Arafat. Pinhas Inbari details some new
dynamics in three major cities under PA control: Hebron, Nablus
and Ramallah. There are, for example, direct challenges to PA
rule; there are attempts to link up with Iran or Jordan; there are
attempts to organize NGOs into a political force. And in some
places, there is a complete collapse of administrative organization and
government. Inbari warns, "The fragmented Palestinian West Bank
will be a weaker entity than the weak states that collapsed in the
Arab Spring. When the Palestinian entity collapses, the vacuum
will be filled by the negative forces that have become the
nightmare of the world."
LIBYA: Libya is a study in When Amateurs Meddle,
from murdering Gaddafi to dealing with the consequences
inadequately. The Response Action Network summed up the final
House report on the Benghazi attack in 2012 this way: "The final
report of the House Select Committee on Benghazi found that senior
members of the Obama administration, including then-Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton and senior White House adviser Ben Rhodes,
twisted the facts during and after the Sept. 11, 2012, terror
attack in Benghazi, Libya, to preserve the illusion that the
threat of terrorism was fading, just weeks before President
Obama's re-election." (ResponseAction, June 28, 2016.)
There is much of the story of the 9/11 2012 Benghazi terror
attack that is still known only in sketchy detail
(see "The
Benghazi Smudge-Out," Sep-Oct, 2012; the second half of the
source text contains additional notes on the attack and the
aftermath): why wouldn't Clinton allow the security detail to
carry guns in America's Cairo embassy and why was she already
apologizing for the Life of George movie that the Obama
administration insisted was responsible for fomenting unrest in
Cairo and violence later in Benghazi; in August 2012, why did
Clinton not renew the contract with the ex-Seals who were
providing excellent security for the U.S. ambassador in Libya,
and why did she then hire a group of local al-Qaeda-affiliates,
who fled when the terror attack began; why was ex-Seal Tyrone
Woods forbidden to go help defend his fellow Americans (he did
anyway and lost his life); why did Obama not sign the papers to
dispatch the planes that were standing by, ready to come to help
the US personnel fighting off the terror attack? Did Clinton and
Obama stay in the Incident Room and watch the attack on the
compound in real time or did they leave?
ISLAMIC STATE: A year and a half ago, this was an accurate
description of the Islamic State. It was written by Mordechai
Kedar, who, in a more recent article (see below), describes the Islamic
State in decidedly different terms because IS's circumstances have
changed so radically.
The organization called Daesh appeared on the Middle Eastern
stage in the middle of 2014, although it was founded 14 years
earlier as the Iraqi arm of Al Qaeda. The world paid the
organization scant attention until it suddenly began to take over
wide areas of northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria with record
speed. At first, international attention focused mainly on the
videos in which the organization's soldiers were seen butchering
foreign journalists.and even now, the world considers this group
of Jihadists a terrorist organization, despite the fact that in
June 2014, that organization declared itself a state, "Islamic
State" and began calling its leader a Caliph.
[...]
Islamic State is growing by leaps and bounds, more and more
organizations are joining it and more and more people are adopting
its ideas. This state did not exist a year and a half ago, but it
has metamorphosed into the latest thing in international politics.
It is a serious threat to Western civilization and if the West
does not begin serious military action, the danger will turn into
an existential one. The longer the West waits to respond, the
harder, longer and dearer the war — and yes, it is going to be a
real war — against Islamic State.
("Daesh: It's not an Organization, It's a State," 9Jul2015)
IRAN: Although Prez Obama made Iran's hegemonic
expansion a key feature of his foreign policy, as Bob Blackman,
M.P., UK House of Commons, has said
("It Does No Good to Expect the Best from Iran," 2Aug2016):
"Through its repeated test-firings of nuclear-capable ballistic
missiles, its provision of weapons to foreign conflict zones, and
its general antagonism toward Western powers and the world
community, the Islamic Republic has clearly been violating the
'spirit' of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the
nuclear agreement concluded by Iran and six world powers last
July. Various indicators have included a rising tide of executions
and politically motivated arrests, as well as Tehran's
undiminished sponsorship of terrorism and its escalating
involvement in the affairs of Middle Eastern countries including
Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Lebanon. According to the well-reasoned
conclusion in a July 18 UN report, Tehran's activities are still
at odds with the interests of most democratic nations. Whereas the
Western powers had hoped to provide concessions in order to
promote the evolution of a kinder, gentler and friendlier Islamic
Republic, what they got instead was a regime that is taking
advantage of a financial windfall to go on doing whatever it
wants, while also crying foul any time anyone dares to criticize
and oppose it."
BRITISH PARLIAMENT CONFIRMS LIBYA WAR WAS BASED ON
LIES
by 'George Washington'
As this article concludes: "the Libyan war [2011] was based on
fake intelligence, was carried out for reasons having little to do
with national security or protecting civilians, destroyed a nation
and created a 'shit show', spread terrorism far and wide, and
created waves of refugees." By murdering Gaddafi, who had
renounced hostilities against the West in favor of negotiation,
the US taught other Muslim dictators it didn't pay to placate the
USA. Even worse, because the US did not secure these arsenals,
Gaddafi's huge stock of weaponry was looted and these weapons
ended up in the hands of different groups of terrorists all over
the Middle East, increasing warfare and terror and, in general,
increasing the destabilization of the region. To bolster Obama's 2012
election propaganda that terrorism had been significantly reduced,
senior US officials, including Hillary Clinton, played down the
burgeoning terrorism. This included ignoring the pleas for help
by Ambassador Stevens and the US Government personnel working in
the CIA compound in Benghazi when local terrorists attacked. (See
next article below.)
OBAMA-CLINTON CIA GUN-RUNNING OPERATION IGNORED IN HOUSE BENGHAZI REPORT
by Jim Kouri, July 1, 2016
The final House report on the Benghazi attack in 2012 wrote of the
political underpinnings of the Obama administrations failure to
protect the US personnel in Benghazi before and during the
terrorist attack. But as Jim Kouri writes, the House report says
little about the Obama administration's gun running of Gaddafi's
guns to the Syrian rebels. Another question is why Obama failed to
sign off on orders to send available and ready rescue teams to the
besieged US personnel, when they were attacked by a hoard of local
terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda.
Both Syria and
Iraq are successfully fighting back against the Islamic State.
Just a few months ago, Islamic State was vicious and sadistic and
growing rapidly. It is still vicious and sadistic but it has lost
significant amounts of land and resources. It is still dangerous.
Mordechai Kedar notes that what is happening "to thousands of IS
fighters is what happened 15 years ago to the earlier version of
avant-garde Jihadism, that is, al Qaeda. On October 7, 2001, less
than a month after 9/11, the war began against Mullah-led
Afghanistan, which had become al Qaeda's host state." In that
war, al Qaeda's infrastructure was destroyed but its scattered
members formed new branches in many Middle East countries.
Similarly, "we are in the midst of the process of the export of
jihadists from the Islamic revolution to all four corners of the
globe, with emphasis on those with Islamic populations, as those
residents extend a friendly welcoming environment to Jihadists,
provide them with easy access to ways of enlisting more
militants, and offer available shelter in case government law
enforcers look for suspects."
ISIL'S VIRTUAL PLANNERS: A CRITICAL TERRORIST INNOVATION
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross And Madeleine Blackman, January 4, 2017
The main news media like the idea of an supposedly independent
"lone wolf" act of terror — they don't have to figure out
how to absolve the peaceful religion of Islam yet again. But "lone-wolf"
attacks don't just happen. They have to be scripted and detailed;
equipment, props and extra actors need to be supplied and
coordinated. Finally, the last piece in the chain, the suicider,
needs to be motivated and more or less trained to carry out
his/her role (see, e.g.,
To Make A Westernized Terrorist, Part 5, here). This may
involved direct contact with the handler, but, depending on the
simplicity of the plot, direction and inspiration can often be
done long distance without actual contact, by what Daveed
Gartenstein-Ross and Madeleine Blackman call "a virtual planner."
"Planners are integrated into ISIL's geographical command
structure ... according to their nationality and linguistic
skills, and are tasked with planning attacks in familiar areas.
The available social media and ease of communication have
facilitated 'virtual contact' and extended ISIL's reach.
"[A]daptations in jihadists' external operations efforts are
outpacing states' efforts to find effective ways to counter them."
IS ISIS DISTRACTING US FROM A MORE SERIOUS IRANIAN THREAT?
by David Daoud, November, 2014
David Daoud wrote in 2014, "In its quest for global cooperation
in the fight against ISIS, the U.S. and its partners are turning
to Iran for help. But it is the ayatollahs, not the caliphate,
that the West should be worried about." Here it is years later
and the US continues to believe it can work with imperialistic
Iran for mutual benefit. The Iranian leaders use our fear of
ISIS to gain concessions and flip from appearing to be civilized
to having fear-inducing temper tantrums. But they have never
changed their minds that the West and Israel as their enemies
and they haven't stopped working on ways — everything from
terrorism, conventional warfare, directly or by proxy, to
nuclear bombs — to destroy us. Iran's aim to cripple the
West and destroy Israel is all of a piece with its plans to
control the entire Middle East, and probably beyond. Iran is
much more of a threat than ISIS is.
The
JCPOA (better known as the Iran Nuclear Deal) was passed with a
show of silence at the UN, a non-vote in Congress and a flurry of
self-congratulatory nonsense by the Obama administration that covered
up that the USA had committed itself to helping Iran gain access
to information about hydrogen fusion while Iran committed itself
to doing just what it wanted to do, even to the point of it being
the one to collect the 'evidence' that would show whether or not
it was cheating on the deal. Fred Fleitz tells us why the Nuclear
Agreement is not binding and why it should be "either discarded or
substantially renegotiated,". In addition, he specifies the terms
of a meaningful nuclear agreement.
PATTERNS OF SUBVERSION: IRANIAN USE OF PROXIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST
by Jonathan Spyer, September 5, 2016
Jonathan Spyer writes about the Iranian support of "proxies
in major conflicts in the
following areas: Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and the Palestinian
territories. In addition, there is evidence that Iranian agencies
are active among Shi'i populations — as yet without major effect —
in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action adopted in October of 2015 has produced no major impact
on the pattern of Iranian regional commitments. However, the
release of tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief has
enabled the Iranians, who were in some danger of overstretch, to
now freely commit to supporting more strongly their various allies
and proxies in the Middle East."
When the speeches by the eminent authorities who have taken it
upon themselves to regulate various aspects of our lives are
blather while factual informative reports are suppressed or distorted,
Houston, we have a problem.
The dynamics of Political Correctness (PC) seem simple
enough. People are encouraged by their peers, their teachers, by
the media to go with the flow, where the flow is
controlled by whoever or whatever group has the muscle to psych
out the timid. He or they can then decide what opinions are worth
having, what speech mannerisms are acceptable. These are
politically correct.
George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty
Four provided a vivid example of how restricting vocabulary
limits freedom of thought. As George Carlin concluded, "Political
Correctness is Fascism pretending to be Manners."
This video, "The History Of Political Correctness," is important
background information on how our intimidation by PC came to be.
What is surprising is that our most supposedly ethical and
'caring' posture is grounded in Marxist philosophy and its purpose
was to suppress undesirable speech, where those in charge defined
undesirable.
(Occasionally, the video stops working on my computer
but is directly available at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjaBpVzOohs
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujdG7TxX40w)
Richard Shulman offers us two assessments of
Shimon Peres, who died at the age of 93 on September 28, 2016. The
first is by Steven Plaut, who noted "that for most of his career,
Shimon Peres was a great man." Unfortunately, he "spent his last
25 years committing Oslo, endangering the very existence of Israel
with his delusions." The second assessment, by Peter Baker of the
New York Times, is just what one would expect from someone
who shares the New York Times rigidly left ideology.
Shulman refutes Baker concisely and to the point. Also included
are some quotes from Peres, collected by Roger A. Gerber and Rael
Jean Isaac under the title: What Shimon Says: Shimon Peres In
His Own Words and available from Americans for a Safe Israel
(AFSI) at
https://www.afsi.org/pamphlets/WhatShimonSays[1].pdf
In the second half of his life, Shimon Peres rarely let facts
overshadow his fantasies. It was as if he truly believed that
'wishing will make it so.' At his funeral and in most of the
media, the eulogies had the same lack of ballast. As Martin
Sherman puts it, "The demise of Shimon Peres unleashed a tidal
wave of mendacity and hypocrisy that underscores the dominance the
delusional dictates of political correctness have over political
discourse in (and on) Israel." Sherman's examples would be
amusing if the thinking they represent weren't so dangerous to
Israel's security.
Know before
Whom you stand - and conduct your politics accordingly
by
Matthew M. Hausman, December 14, 2016
Muslim front organizations of the Muslim Brotherhood and other
terrorist organizations have co-opted many a rabbinical group,
especially those groups that are committed to trendy social and
humanitarian causes, disregarding their obligation to safeguard
"the religious and national integrity of the Jewish people."
Matthew Hausman discusses one such situation, where the Muslim
group CAIR, an anti-Jewish group committed to advancing sharia law
in the West, persuaded rabbis to act as their agents in
suppressing a synagogue discussion on radical Islam, when
knowledge of Muslim tactics is very important to maintaining the
security of the Jewish community.
How do we explain rabbis who
worry about Muslim sensitivity (an important word in the
vocabulary of PC) when what is needed is "Jewish assertiveness,
support for Israel, and criticism of radical Islam"?
Hausman includes an interesting
discussion of how the Diaspora mentality, strong during the
Roosevelt presidency, continues to encourage "self-rejection and
identification with hostile critics."
CLIMATE DATA DENIERS ARE TRYING TO 'BORK' TRUMP'S EPA TRANSITION LEADER
by Nicolas Loris, December 1, 2016
Nicolas Loris writes about Donald Trump's pick for head of the
EPA. Myron Ebell will cut back on the out-of-control regulations
the EPA generated during the Obama administration. Moreover, he
will take a non-believer's view of current policy on global
warming. As Loris writes, "As costly as our current energy and
climate policies are to the economy
(they would cost the U.S. a net loss of 400,000 jobs and up to $2.5 trillion), they are
projected to have negligible impacts on global
temperatures—even if you believe the questionable climate models
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
When judged by their actual effect, it becomes clear that the real goal of international climate policies is a power and money grab that no one, not even its most vocal supporters, believes will have much impact on the climate."
A comment by Richard Willson pretty much summed up most of the
arguments that had convinced many of us. He wrote:
"The C02 anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) hypothesis has not
withstood the test of time. CAGW is based on predictions of the
flawed, 1980's vintage global circulation models that have failed
to match observational data both prior to and since their
fabrication. Climate changes continually and is determined by
natural forces - primarily small variations in solar radiation -
that humans have no significant control over.
The CO2 content of the atmosphere is a response to climate change, not a cause of it.
There is no reason to sabotage the world's developed economies and
relegate the third world to poverty by failing to use fossil
fuels, the most cost effective form of energy. Renewable energy
currently provides less than 5% of total usage at great taxpayer
subsidy expense, and only that when the wind blows and the sun
shines, and it will be a very long time before it is available in
quantities and at costs that can replace fossil fuel"
He didn't mention how the data were processed. Remember the
hacked emails from British climate scientists a few years back?
One programmer cheerfully admitted that when he multiplied two
negative numbers and got a negative number, he knew just what to
do. He tossed out sensor data (where any one sensor covers a
very large area) until he got a positive result. I also found
troublesome what was to be done with all the money and power to
be given the UN to help control climate. I could understand if
efforts were devoted to developing face masks that broke down
CO2 or long-lasting diapers that blocked the methane from cow
farts or distributing rafts for polar bears made homeless when
polar ice melts. But I don't understand giving my money to a
third-party so other countries can continue pouring CO2 into the
atmosphere. That doesn't make much sense.
With tongue resting comfortably in cheek, Burt Prelutsky
explores the wisdom of the choices made by those who select common
earthlings for prestigious Nobel prizes. And then there's the
question: how do they do it? Until Prelutsky mentioned it, I'd
never wondered how "they determine that those who write prose or
poetry in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Finnish, Russian,
Icelandic, Polish, Nigerian, Egyptian, Portuguese, Hungarian and
Hebrew, are worthy of the million-dollar windfall?" How indeed,
considering the vast number of obscure poets and novelists writing
in languages unlikely to be the mother tongue of any one on the
committee. While I'm still trying to come up with a solution that
will have the Committee finish examining the combinatorics in time
to hand out the next big prize, Prelutsky is on to politically
important people who may sound PC but have been shown up as
totally corrupt by their own emails. One thing you can say, the
amounts of money the Clintons got for selling influence was on a
scale befitting those that held high office in a powerful country.
Pikers with other people's money they are not. As William Stoecker
commented, "the Nobel prizes are part of a larger pattern. The
elites, and especially their slimestream media whores, give
prizes, titles, and accolades to one another to convince the
dumbed down sheeple that they are ruled over by the most saintly
and brilliant people imaginable, when the truth is the exact
opposite."
In addition to Holocaust material, we have a study in contrasts:
Israel's taking in Holocaust survivors and the Jewish refugees expelled from the Arab
countries when Israel was reborn and its rescue of the Jews held
captive in Entebbe versus its signing onto the Oslo Accords and
then expelling the Jews from Gaza.
An interview with James G. McDonald, first US \ ambassador
to Israel, from May 12, 1952, when Israel was taking in all the
Jewish refugees being expelled from the Arab countries, young, old,
healthy, ill:
Israel's terrible mistake, the expulsion of the Jews from
Gush Katif in Gaza in August, 2005:
Some of us remember the Israeli rescue of the Jewish hostages
in Entebbe on July 4, 1976. The mission coincided with the
celebration of the 200th anniversary of the adoption of the
Declaration of Independence in the USA. TV and radio time was so
finely choreographed that it was initially hard finding
details about Israel's amazing feat. Ruthie Blum bemoans the fact
that in today's Israel, "the ability or will to execute such
missions, rather than negotiate with and capitulate to terrorists'
demands, has diminished considerably." As she says, nowadays, Israeli
teachers and television teach that "peace is a
goal, rather than a byproduct of victory."
Efraim Karsh recounts the history of the Oslo Accords, the
first of which was officially signed between Israel and the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on September 13, 1993.
They stand out "as the starkest strategic blunder in [Israel's]
history." They have been no better for the local Arabs living in
Samaria, Judea and Gaza, currently subjugated to "the corrupt and
repressive PLO and Hamas regimes." They have erased "the
astounding economic boom [that] begun under Israel's control
[1967]". The core problem continues to be that the Palestinian
Arab's view of the Oslo process has never changed; it was seen
"not as a springboard to peace but as ... a 'Trojan Horse'
designed to promote the organization's strategic goal of
'Palestine from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea'
— that is, a Palestine in place of Israel." The Arabs and
their European backers and the UN continue to ignore the PLO's
violations of their contractual obligations. The obligations the
Accords impose on Israel jeopardize Israel's security,
especially now that so many Israeli Arabs have become radicalized
and treasonous, while the Arabs in the Territories focus on a
variety of hate-filled suicide and missile attacks against Israel,
which do nothing to better their own lives. Though Karsh is
hopeful that someday the Territorial Arabs might begin to "value
the virtues of coexistence," I believe the more recent history of
Arab repudiation of the Oslo Accords in favor of making deals with
a politicized UN makes it all the more urgent that Israel formally
free itself from the dead weight of the Accords.
REMEMBERING HILLEL KOOK: A GIANT OF 20TH CENTURY JEWISH HISTORY
by David Bedein
David Bedein reviews "Shake Heaven & Earth: Peter Bergson and
the Struggle to Rescue the Jews of Europe" by Louis Rapoport.
Hillel Kook (aka Peter Bergson),
during World War 2 (WW2), came to the USA to organize efforts to
rescue Jews from being slaughtered by the Nazis. He was "a man
of with tremendous organizational agility, who operated under
the worst of hostile circumstances," including battling
establishment Jews led by Rabbi Stephen Wise, who was persuaded
by President Roosevelt not to make WW2 a Jewish war, as if one
of Hitler's major objectives was not to exterminate Jews and
Judaism.
The details of the death of Raoul Wallenberg, who saved
thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, remains a mystery. Inna
Rogatchi suggests the answer may be found in the Russian
Presidential Archive. She rejects the authenticity of the
evidence available in the biographies and diaries of several
prominent Russians and offers another answer to the mystery of
Wallenberg's death. She believes it is unfinished business until
"three elements are implemented:[...]admission, apology and
compensation."
WHAT HEIDEGGER WAS HIDING:
UNEARTHING THE PHILOSOPHER'S ANTI-SEMITISM
a review essay from Foreign Affairs, November/December 2014
Martin Heidegger has been regarded as a most influential
Western philosopher since the publication of his Being and
Time in 1927. He was an adherent of the Nazi party from 1933
until its termination and never renounced it, its deeds or its
ideology. It was known he was anti-Semitic but his admirers
dismissed — and continue to dismiss — his
anti-Semitism as being part and parcel of the 'times' or a
defect in his character, and not intrinsic to his philosophy.
But as this review of Peter Trawny's Heidegger und der
Mythos der jüdischen Weltverschwörung (Heidegger and the
Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy) makes clear, a
reexamination, prompted by the discovery of Heidegger's Black
Notebooks, indicates that he had his own polished
idiosyncratic version of standard Nazi cant. As did the Nazis,
he believed the Jews were thwarting the German race from
fulfilling its destiny. No matter what he knew of the
concentration camps and the condition of the Jews, he regarded
the Germans as the real victims, because of Jewish
manipulation.
What is happening now in Germany seems a fitting
ending to the Holocaust. Having rid themselves of their loyal
and productive Jewish population, the Germans are now being
overwhelmed by immigrant Muslims, who believe in the superiority
of Islam and who, for centuries, have practiced large-scale
genocide even more ruthlessly than the Germans have, except
perhaps in the Nazi era.
See also: Adam Kirsch, "Heidegger Was Really A Real Nazi,"
Tablet Magazine, September 26, 2016,
here; and Richard Wolin, "National Socialism, World Jewry, and
the History of Being: Heidegger's Black Notebooks, Jewish Review
of Books," Summer 2014,
here.
Think-Israel tends to use salafist rather than
extremist or Islamist or militant or
fundamentalist or activist to describe generically a
pious Muslim, one who sticks as closely as possible to the
unfiltered words and actions of Mohammad and the first three
generations of Muslims, including, especially, the Companions of
the Prophet. In modeling himself as closely as he can on the
preachings and practices of Mohammad, a salafist can in modern
terms be precisely described as an uninhibited terrorist, a
theological supersessionist, a political supremacist who believes
Islam and sharia law must dominate and a social barbarian, who
wages jihad with whatever tools are available.
Thanks to the high quality of whitewash supplied by sympathetic
propagandists, he seldom is so described.
INTRODUCTION: THE OCCUPIED LAND OF ISRAEL
by Bernice Lipkin
Resurgent Islam wants to dominate the world. Israel is in the
way. So Israel has to be taken out of the game. Outright invasion
and conventional war haven't worked, so the salafists are doing
other things — everything from demonizing
Israel in the press and in academia to terrorizing Israeli
citizens using Arab women and children, a clever
adaptation of lone-wolf tactics. Neo-Marxists, globalists,
multiculturalists and some main-line churches are big supporters,
either because of their own intrinsic Jew-hate or hate of Israel for
showing how successful an independent nation-state can be.
NGOs and media people, academics and politicians, including those
running the European Union, have been more than worth their hire.
Self-hating Jews, many of whom identify with Utopian visions
— Marxism or globalism or some other anti-Jewish ideology
— use their Jewish credentials to persuade the ignorant they
know what they're talking about. It hasn't helped those resisting
Muslim domination that the USA twice elected a Muslim who is
openly helping Iran take over the Middle East.
In the first World War, the Ottomans, who ruled all of the
Middle East, sided with Germany, which lost the war. Consequently,
backed by the League of Nations, the Ottoman land was divided up
by the victors, mainly England and France. These actions were
authorized by the League of Nations in the form of contractual
mandates. Britain received a Mandate for Mesopotamia (Iraq).
France handled Syria and the Lebanon. The third Mandate, the Palestine
Mandate, put the region of the Bible into an irrevocable trust for
the Jewish people. When the League was dissolved, its legal
authorizations remained unchanged but were handed over to the United
Nations.
The Arabs were gifted with 99.9% of the area. The original
intent was to have a single Arab state, but this proved
impractical. After some iterations, the Arab States of Syria,
Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, TransJordan, Bahrain
and Qatar were created. Turkey was set. Many of these states had artificial
borders, ignoring the dominant relations — family, clan and
tribal — in the area
(Gabriel Scheinmann, 2013).
The third Mandate, the Palestine Mandate, was unique in that it
took heed of the special relationship of the Jews and their
ancient homeland. This amounted to less than one percent of the
Middle East for a future state. And then, before the League could
vote on the land division, the Brits gave 78% of the land destined
to be the Jewish State — the region on the east bank of the
Jordan River — to be administered by Abdullah, son of
Hussein, the Sharif of Mecca. It was initially called Transjordan
and now is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
In 1948, after the end of the Second World War, Egypt, Syria,
Transjordan, Iraq and Lebanon declared war and invaded the
just-born State of Israel. Most of the Arabs living in Israel fled
— the total is estimated at anywhere from 300,000 to 400,000
up to 700,000 Arabs, with the low end being most probable (Samuel
Katz, Eretzyisroel.org).
The 1949 Census counted 160,000 Arabs still living in Israel.
The Arab refugees were given a UN relief agency all to
themselves, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Any one who
had lived in Mandated Palestine for at least two years before
fleeing in 1948 could register. The refugees were called
"Palestine refugees", not Palestinian refugees. They served
as a wonderful propaganda ploy. Posters of sad-faced refugee
children hung in the UN building in NYC; they received more
sympathy than the victims of Nazism and Fascism. In 1967, Arabs
fleeing the Territories when the Arabs again attacked Israel were
added to the refugee register. UNRWA also supports "internally
displaced persons" living in Israel, Samaria or Judea.
Unlike all other refugees who are mostly settled within a
decade, the UNRWA Arabs and their descendants became, and continue
to be, refugees in perpetuum.
All other refugees over the whole world that are helped by the UN share a single agency,
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). UNHCR supports
every refugee world-wide, including the Palestinian refugees
UNRWA doesn't handle, and on a smaller per capital budget. In
2013, UNHCR cared for over 42.9 million people, including the
refugees from the current war in Syria and elsewhere in the
Middle
East
(Brett D. Schaefer and James Phillips, 2015).
UNRWA only supports those Arab refugees that live in Jordan,
Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank) and
Gaza. As of 2012, UNRWA supported approximately 4,950,000
registered patrilineal descendants, and 30,000-50,000 original
UNRWA refugees from
1948
(WikkiPedia, 2016). There are said to be more than 7 million
Palestinian Arab refugees in toto world-wide. This is an
amazing demographic, considering that there was a total
population (Muslims — Turks, Arabs, Circassians, Bosnians,
Syrians, etc. — Christians, Jews) estimated anywhere from
200,000 to 350,000 in 1860 in the area that is now Israel, the
Territories and Jordan! UNRWA no longer has a compelling reason to
exist
(Emanuel Marx, Middle East Quarterly, 2012). UNRWA's staff no
longer serves the typical immediate needs of refugees. There is no
reason why it is still the major supplier of food, housing,
education and medical care for the "refugees." It also has become
a major source for teaching hostility and hate towards Israel. It instills
in the local Arabs the belief they own Mandated Palestine and have
the right to return to Israel.
In 1950, the UN General Assembly considered that "the
reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near
East, either by repatriation or resettlement" [emphasis
added] was "essential in preparation for the time when
international assistance is no longer available, and for the
realization of conditions of peace and stability in the area;"
(U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) res. 393 (V), Dec. 2, 1950, (1).) So
it should be a good thing that, as of 2013, 40% of the refugees
supported by UNRWA have full citizenship in Jordan, Syria and
Lebanon. However, they have not had to relinquish their refugee
benefits and status, and they continue to swell the refugee count.
Other reasons for the spectacular increase in the number of
Palestinian "refugees" in 60 years are these: many Arabs living
close to refugee camps have registered as refugees for the
extensive refugee
benefits
(Samuel Katz, Eretzyisroel.org), deaths are not reported and
the birthrate of the Palestinian refugees is many times the rate
in Western countries.
IN 1964, YASSIR ARAFAT, HEAD OF THE PALESTINE
LIBERATION ORGANIZATION (PLO) created a people, calling them
the "Palestinian Arab People". Initially, the Palestinian people
were the Arabs living in Israel. The local Arabs living in the
Territories — Samaria, Judea and Gaza, which were then under
Jordanian and Egyptian control — were excluded, as were the
Arabs in Jordan. Israel gained back the Territories in 1967 and
when the Palestinian Charter was revised in 1968, the Arabs in the
Territories became "Palestinians." As Article 5 of the Palestinian
National Charter (PNC) of 1968 states:
"The Palestinians are those Arab nationals
who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of
whether they were evicted from it or have stayed there. Anyone
born, after that date, of a Palestinian father - whether inside
Palestine or outside it - is also a Palestinian."
(Avalon. Palestinian National Charter)
This is much the same as the definition of a UNRWA Palestine
refugee, except there's no minimum residency specified,
yet neither the original Palestine National Charter of
1964 nor the Palestinian National Charter of 1968 mentions the
Palestine refugees as such. Jews who lived in Palestine "before
the Zionist invasion" (year unspecified) would be allowed to
stay.
On behalf of the new entity, the PLO claimed all the land of
the Palestine Mandate as a homeland; i.e., it included all of
Israel (including all of Jerusalem), Samaria, Judea, the Golan and
Gaza. Thus, Palestine became the Arab name for Biblical Israel; it
was coextensive with Mandated Palestine, i.e., the land that was
by international law in 1922 intended as the future Jewish
Homeland. Articles 19 and 20 (PNC, 1968) are of interest in how
the Covenant dealt with facts both legal and existential.
Article 19: "The partition of Palestine in 1947
and the establishment of the state of Israel are entirely illegal,
regardless of the passage of time, because they were contrary to
the will of the Palestinian people and to their natural right in
their homeland, and inconsistent with the principles embodied in
the Charter of the United Nations; particularly the right to
self-determination."
Article 20: explained
why the Jews could not make a similar claim.
"The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for
Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are
deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of
Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and
the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being
a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews
constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are
citizens of the states to which they belong."
This ignores that the Arab States in the 1940's and 1950's had
forced out their Jews because of their supposed national
affiliation with the new state of Israel. Nor does it explain why
Palestinians Arabs, who are member of the religion of Islam and
claim to be an integral part of the Arab nation, can have an
"independent nationality."
The Covenant pledges the Palestinian Arabs to "armed struggle"
— with "commando action" as their modus operandi to
win back their homeland. Article 27 promises the Palestinian Arabs
won't "interfere in the internal affairs of any Arab state" — an
unkept promise, considering that the PLO has thuggishly attempted
to take over the government in Jordan (1970) and Lebanon (1975).
Continuing a trend, in 1990 it supported Iraq's invasion of
Kuwait. In fact, while they modestly see themselves as the
vanguard that will liberate their homeland, their ultimate
objective is to become a part of a comprehensive unity among the
Arab states (Article 13).
Not coincidentally, the PLO Covenant was adopted just four years
before a second Arab invasion of Israel, which ended with Israel
taking or taking back — depending on your point of view —
Samaria, Judea and the eastern part of Jerusalem, territory that
Jordan had conquered in 1948. Until then, most of the local Arabs had
accurately seen themselves as the descendants of Arabs who had come to
Israel in the 20th Century, after the British and the Jews created a
lively economy. They were well aware, by family names and family
history, of the Arab States from which they had migrated. Thanks to
propaganda that ignored facts, their children and the world belatedly
discovered — and wholeheartedly believed — that the
Palestinians were an ancient people, whose land was stolen by the
Nazi-like Jewish invaders, who mistreated the indigenous natives, the
Arabs. Western pro-Palestinians, including many a churchman, suggested
that the Palestinians had few resources to fight mighty Israel, hence
they were to be excused for resorting to what in any other group would
be considered barbaric and brutal terrorism.
Despite the propaganda, many Arabs seem to know the actual
condition of an Arab in Israel. Even after Israel became a State,
Arabs have kept coming into Israel by hook and by crook —
coming in to work and staying, coming in to marry a cousin and
never leaving, sneaking in, or using a passport its original owner no
longer needs.
USING THE REFUGEES TO CREATE SYMPATHY FOR THE ARAB CAUSE was
the first success the Arabs had in their military and media
campaigns to kick the Jews out of the Land of Israel.
Nevertheless, and despite the words of the Covenant, the Palestine
refugees have specifically been excluded from becoming citizens of
the envisioned future State of Palestine. The Daily Star
reported that the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations,
Abdullah Abdullah, confirming Mahmoud Abbas's words, has stated
that "This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as
Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where
... Palestinians reside... [but] even Palestinian refugees who are
living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are
still refugees. They will not be considered citizens."
(Daily Star, September 15, 2011). The Palestinian Authority
expects UNRWA to continue footing the bill. Nor will the State
allow a Jew to live there, no matter when his ancestors came to
Israel.
Since 1967, the core of anti-Israel propaganda is the assertion
that the Palestinian Arabs own Palestine. For now, they are
willing to take control just of what they call the Palestinian
Territories. The Arabs use a simple mantra: the Jews stole
Palestinian land and are occupying it. There are many colorful
and inventive side
streams (David
Meir-Levi, May 2006) but the major thrust is the contention
that the Arabs are the true owners of the land. In the
face of the blasting hostility from the world presses and
political leaders, Israel has responded with timidity and appears
to have lost confidence in the rightness of its
claim
(Michael Devolin, January 2014). It doesn't speak up about its
ownership of its land. It doesn't voice its history of symbiosis
with its ancient homeland. Afraid to fight the enemy to the point
of winning, the Israeli elite have turned their anger inward and
bully very religious Jews, many of them inhabitants of
"settlements," a term that should remind people that they are the
closest thing Israel has to the early settlers of modern Israel,
the pioneers who came in waves from the 19th century on to
redeem the Jewish homeland and who succeeded in creating a state.
Ironically, these demonized "settlers" are among the most
patriotic segment of the population and many serve in the IDF,
requesting assignment to the infantry, the tank corps and other
dangerous jobs.
Perhaps because they still hope to process a peaceful
settlement with some segment of the Arab world, Israeli leaders
have refused to speak up and tell the world about Israel's right
to the land. The land belongs to the Jews by right of God's
promise to the Jews. The land belongs to the Jews because the
moral foundation of the Western world was developed by the Jews in
their homeland. The land belongs to the Jews because of the
continued presence of Jewish inhabitants in the Land of Israel
throughout the centuries. The land belongs to the Jews because of
the symbiosis of Jews and the Jewish homeland — the land
went to rack and ruin when they weren't there in sufficient
numbers to tend to it. The land belongs to the Jews because of the
devotion of the Jews, who, over the centuries, have remembered
their homeland daily in their prayers where ever they were. The
land belongs to the Jews because international law, recognizing
the special relationship of the Jews and their homeland, put the
Jewish homeland in an irrevocable trust for the Jews, which
continues to this very day. The land belongs to the Jews by right
of conquest — the Jews bested the Arab invaders who came to
destroy them.
The world needs a strong Israel to fight the war resurgent
Islam is waging. Israel's elected officials need to regain
confidence to fight global terrorism appropriately in their part
of the world. The emphasis on a peace process, which is designed
to take nibbles out of the tiny Jewish state, is going
in the wrong direction. The Oslo Accords and the Gaza Retreat have
already placed organized, hostile and unmonitored groups of Arabs
inside Israeli land, where they can easily sustain an effective
terror campaign and where they put Israel's water supply at risk.
It is time to consider realistic alternatives to the "peace
process", which saps Israel's strength and goes nowhere.
"Arab and Jewish Refugees — The Contrast"
(Eli
E. Hertz, MythsandFacts.org, 2007) is a
well-detailed article on how the Arab leaders caused the creation
of both Arab and Jewish refugees when the modern State of
Israel came into being. Most of the more than 800,000 Jews that
were forced to flee from the Arab countries were absorbed in the
new Jewish state even though it had few resources, and got no help
from the UN. The Arabs that fled from Israel when ordered to leave
by the Arab countries that invaded Israel in 1948 are still not
permanently resettled after more than sixty years in the Arab
countries that host them. There are almost no Jews left in Arab
countries. Why not implement the second half of an ordinary
population transfer, and resettle the Arab refugees in some part
of the vast Arab land holdings, where they can live on their own,
rather than as dependents of the UN?
THIS ISSUE OF THINK-ISRAEL EXAMINES ONE TOPIC AND ITS
IMPLICATIONS: the claim that Israel is occupying land that belongs
to the Palestinian People. Obviously, we have a point of view. We
assert that by any valid measure the Land of Israel belongs to the
Jews. We further assert that it is the Arabs who are trying to
dispossess the Jews.
In this undertaking, we used articles from Think-Israel,
starting from 2002 when Think-Israel was established until the
present. Viewed in the aggregate, it is spooky how many stories
from way back could have been written today in 2016, with little
or no change. Are we in an early decade of another hundred year
war? Or is it because our recent and current leaders have insisted
that Islam is a peaceful religion and refuse to
say Jihad and Islam in the same sentence? In either
case, we have not started to fight back seriously.
There is overlap in content among the article, in part because
we tried to pick a variety of presentations, from those suitable
for the casual reader that wants to get the 'gist' of the matter
to those with the information required by someone charged with the
responsibility of presenting an accurate and detailed lecture to a
classroom or a jury. Altogether, they constitute a very small part
of the large number of articles, both relevant and excellent, that
we have presented over the years. Look them up. Read them. It will
be an enriching experience.
The articles below divide into two parts: general articles and
legal arguments:
PART 1: General Articles That Address Several Questions:
1) Who are the Palestinians people and what is the history of
their ancient kingdom of Palestine?
2) What is the history of the Palestinian Arabs and
what is the history of the Jews in the Land of Israel?
What are the claims of the Palestinian Arabs and what
are the claims of the Jews in Israel?
3) Question 3 describes Arab and media propaganda tricks and
suggests how to counter them. Most of the papers provide facts and
insights. Perhaps when Jews learn to present these truths with the
vivid imagery that Arabs and their sympathizers do so well,
people will finally understand the facts of the matter.
4) Israelis want a permanent separation from the Arabs. Arabs
take their mission to destroy Israel seriously. So a peace process
that has Israel giving up land while keeping an expanding Arab
population in Israel is ineffective, if not suicidal. Are there
better alternatives?
PART 2: Applicable Legal Concepts And
Pertinent Legal Documents:
Relationships among the pertinent legal documents confirming
the Jewish ownership of the Land of Israel
Applicable legal concepts and terminology
Israel's legal ownership of the Land of Israel: significance
and implications
Does Israel own Judea and Samaria? Are the settlements legal?
International law and the 4th Geneva Convention
Later UN Resolutions
Israelis Are Occupying Jewish Land, Not Arab Land
SUMMARY:
There Is No Palestinian People. The so-called
Palestinians are part of the Middle East's Arab population, with
no difference in ethnicity, culture, religion or foundational
history. Their life-style in any Muslim country depends strongly
on how closely their leaders (the country's "president" or king,
their clerics, their tribal rulers, the heads of their clans)
subscribe to trying to imitate the mores and practices of early
Islam. They came into Israel, as in many other countries, as
invaders; the sum total of their contribution to civilization has
been to carry out multi-level jihad to reduce non-Muslims to dhimmi status
under the rule of sharia law.
Sovereignty. After the Romans destroyed the
sovereign Jewish State of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish
people, the area was conquered and under the rule of Arabs,
Christians, Persians and an assortment of Muslim groups for the
next two millenia. Currently, the instant-mix assortment of Arabs
and other Muslims who call themselves the Palestinian People claim
the Territories are their country, and, when talking among
themselves, they claim Israel itself as their country. But they
are neither ancient nor indigenous. There has never been an
independent sovereign entity called Palestine. Even more
generally, from Roman times on, at no time did any people
(re)establish a national homeland under Arab rule or any one
else's sovereign rule, until the Jews returned to redeem their land.
The Jews Own The Land Of Israel. They own the
land by irrevocable International Law; by Bible; by History; by
creating the Moral Foundation for the Western World there; by
always Maintaining a Presence there; by their Devotion; by
teaching their children to Never Forget Their Ties To The Land; by
Talking about it and Including it in their Prayers (they prayed
seasonally for rain in Israel when they had been living thousands
of miles away for hundreds of years); by steadfastly Keeping the
Commandments under changing conditions; by Celebrating its
Festivals And Fast Days And Holy Days without pause; by creating a
meaningful substitute for service to the Temple on the Mount; by
finally Redeeming a Land that had fallen on hard times; by
Creating a Vibrant Society; by Retaking on the Burden of figuring
out how humans can balance personal growth and community
responsibility; and if these reasons don't convince, by the way
most all other people have gained land: by the Right of
Conquest.
In Short: the Jews of Israel own the Land of
Israel: Israel, Samaria, Judea, Gaza and the Golan. The Arab
invaders are illegally occupying this land. This issue of
Think-Israel provides substantiation and clarification, using
facts, observations, history and analysis.
PART 1: GENERAL ARTICLES
QUESTION 1: THE PALESTINIANS
Who are the Palestinian People?
What is the history of their ancient kingdom of Palestine?
Why invent the Palestinian People?
Who are the Palestinian People?
The invention of the Palestinian people is the keystone of the
successful propaganda campaign that insists that Israel is
occupying the homeland of the Palestinian people, inheritors of
the ancient land of Palestine. It is so pervasive and commonplace a
notion that it goes unquestioned. It's one of the store of items
that millions of people take for granted. Successive Israeli
governments know better, but desperate to paper together some sort
of peace between Jew and Arab, they don't challenge this factoid.
Their silence has brought them more and
more unbridled terrorism by the local Arabs; and
more and more overt hate displayed by Palestinian sympathizers
around the world.
Yashiko Sagamori asks the right questions about the obscure
birth of the Palestinian people. This was one of the first
articles to puncture the false claim that the local Arabs were a
people, separate from other Arabs. Arab propagandists have spun a
web of lies, bestowing a fictitious history to a mixed bag of
Arabs, 95% of whom had come into Israel in the 20th century
legally and illegally because of the new economic opportunities
made possible by the British and the Jews. Yashiko Sagamori asked
reasonable questions that would apply to any place calling itself
a state. The pro-Arab weavers of fantasy may persuade the ignorant
and those prone to see evil in anything Jews do. But they can't
answer these questions truthfully because the pseudo-people, the
Palestinians, have no country of origin called Palestine. There
may be minor differences in accent or style of life because of where they came from but in the main
they are indistinguishable from other Arabs in religion, history,
food, and culture.
This is a very excellent review of the facts about the
"Palestinian People" and their short but violent history. Eli E.
Hertz notes that "[m]ost so-called Palestinians are relative
newcomers to the Land of Israel." How true. If they were truly
indigenous, their huge jump in population in a relatively short
time under poor environmental conditions would be the biggest
demographic miracle in history. Also,
why was there no mention of a
(indigenous) "Palestinian people" until Israel captured the
Territories after it was invaded by the neighboring Arab
countries? As Hertz writes, "Suddenly a separate Palestinian
peoplehood appeared and claimed it deserved nationhood — and 21
other Arab states went along with it."
Crafty Yasser Arafat is the one credited with deciding that
the Arabs weren't going to destroy Israel by fighting the Jews
head on. So he invented the Palestinian people, who, he claimed,
were native to Palestine (a state that had never existed).
Ignoring that this "people" were mostly natives of the neighboring
Arab countries, he declared Israel was occupying Palestinian land.
Ergo, these newly-branded Palestinians were justified — and here
the media and many a mainline church agreed with him — in doing
anything and everything to regain their land. As Moshe Dann points
out, "the fraud worked!" "The success of 'Palestinianism' is a
tribute to what money, influence and Jew-hatred will buy and
attract." It's time this hoax was exposed.
Victor Sharpe provides us with an excellent and concise history
of "the Arabs who call themselves Palestinians." Far from being
a unique people, they are no different from the Arabs in the
states that neighbor Israel. And, in fact, almost all of their
ancestors came into present-day Israel and the
Territories after 1900 from these countries, after the
Jews began returning to their homeland in large numbers.
"[T]here is no such thing as a Palestinian people; no such thing
as a Palestinian history; and no Palestinian language exists.
There has never been any independent, sovereign Palestinian
state in all of recorded history — let alone an Arab independent
state of Palestine." What is remarkable is that, without a shred
of evidence, they have convinced so many that they are the
original inhabitant of the land and that the Jews, who are the
indigenous natives, are occupying Palestinian land. Lest you
discount this history because the author is Jewish, Sharpe
provides statements by Arabs and other non-Jews that the
Palestinians are not a people and descriptions of how desolate
and underpopulated the land was before the Jews came to redeem
their homeland.
OF COURSE THE "PALESTINIANS" ARE AN INVENTED PEOPLE
by Jerome S. Kaufman, December 11, 2011
In this article, Jerry Kaufman sums up what Newt Gringrich
said a week before. In actuality, the Palestinians are a fake
people. They had not developed into a people over the centuries.
Those we called Palestinians have no identity distinct from the
general Arab population. In fact, as Kaufman records, prior to the
birth of the State of Israel during Britain's control of the area,
it was the Jews that were the 'Palestinians", not the Arabs. They
published the Palestinian Post (later changed to the
Jerusalem Post); and they formed the all-Jewish Palestinian
Brigade that fought as part of the British Army in World War 1.
In fact, even the separation of the population as Arab or Jew
is inaccurate; Arabic is a major language spoken in the area, but
the people were of many ethnic groups. The 1911 edition of the
Encyclopedia Britannica lists half a hundred groups living in
Mandated Palestine — Beduins, Circassians, Jews, Christians,
Arabs, Assyrians, Chaldeans, etc. There was no group called
Palestinian or one that called itself Palestinian. Michael Curtis
of the BESA Center puts it this way in an essay entitled
"Palestinians: Invented People" (BESA Center Perspectives Paper #
157, December 20, 2011.
Available
here.)
"...no independent Palestinian state has ever existed, let
alone one that manifested a 'Palestinian identity.' A few
examples can illustrate this. The first Congress of
Muslim-Christian Associations in the area met in February 1919 to
consider the future of the territory formerly ruled by the Ottoman
Empire, which dissolved after World War I. The Congress declared:
"We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria as it has never been
separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by
national, religious, linguistic, moral, economic, and geographical
bonds." The celebrated scholar Philip Hitti, testifying before the
Anglo-American Committee in 1946, stated there was no such thing
as Palestine in history, "absolutely not." The United Nations
Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), in its September 3, 1947
report, remarked that Palestinian nationalism, as distinct from
Arab nationalism, was a relatively new phenomenon. It concluded
that Palestinian identity was part of a rich tapestry of
identities, mostly predicated on Arab and Islamic solidarity.
"The Palestinians themselves reached the same conclusion.
Palestinian spokesperson Ahmad Shuqeiri told the UN Security
Council in 1956 that Palestine was nothing more than southern
Syria. The head of the Military Operations Department of the
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Zuheir Muhsein, declared
on March 31, 1977, "Only for political reasons do we carefully
underline our Palestinian identity. ...the existence of a separate
Palestinian identity is there for tactical reasons." The PLO, in
its own Charter or amended Basic Law (article 1), states that
Palestine is an integral part of the Arab nation. That "Arab nation" never
included a state known as "Palestine." Indeed, the inhabitants of
the general Palestinian area were not subjects of an Arab nation
but of the Ottoman Empire, which ruled the area from 1516-1918.
This was the last recognized sovereign power in the area. The area
of Palestine was a district of the Empire, officially a
vilayet (province), not a political entity. No independent
Palestinian state has ever been established, nor was there a
single administrative or cultural unit of Palestinians. Arabs in
the area were not different in any way from other Arabs in the
Middle East. Nor was Israel established on the ashes of any state
other than the Ottoman Empire.
"On the other hand, a sovereign Jewish state existed prior to
the rise of the Roman Empire. While the Romans destroyed the
Second Temple, changed the name of the land to Syria Palestina,
and banished the Jews from Jerusalem, this did not eradicate all
Jewish presence in the area. Moreover, the Jews in the Diaspora
maintained a strong consciousness of the historical connection of
the Jewish people to Palestine — a connection that was
acknowledged in the League of Nations mandate."
This is a much-amplified version of an essay first posted in
March 2003. Using information from various sources, many of them
Arab, this essay makes clear that the Palestinians are not native
to Palestine. They are not an ancient people. They are not a
people. Advertised as the original natives of a (never-existent)
state of Palestine, they are the most successful scam the Arabs
have ever run in their obsession to destroy Israel.
What is The History Of The Ancient Kingdom Of Palestine
It's impossible to write actual details about the existence of
an ancient kingdom that never existed. At least it is for anyone
who respects facts. The Arabs have a gift for appropriating Jewish
history and filling in the blank spaces with moon dust. We don't
have that talent, so we offer, instead, these articles which
contain in-your-face facts on history and migration patterns that
indirectly confirm this statement: the "Palestinian people" did
not arise from a Palestinian homeland in Israel or anywhere else.
For the most part, they are Arabs that came, legally and
illegally, in large numbers from
the neighboring Arab countries after settler Jews opened up new
economic opportunities and especially between 1917 and 1948 when
the British ignored their entry but suppressed Jewish immigration.
Nowadays many
a propagandist talks about Palestine as if such a sovereign
political entity exists anywhere except in the fancy-filled
illogic of Jew-haters. It doesn't exist. What's more — it never
did. The fallback position of these Jew-haters when forced to
admit the facts is: but the land belongs to the natives that
were driven out or marginalized when Israel became a state.
Again, this is wrong. Most of these "natives" came into the land
after the Jews and the Brits created economic opportunities
— or are the descendants of those that did. Steven Simpson
provides us with an excellent history of the development of the
"Palestine" myth, which has become one of the more important ways
to attack the legitimacy of the Jewish state. Unlike the notion
that the Palestinian Arab homeland is Palestine, the legitimacy of
Israel is warranted by history, morality, international law and
the rules of conquest.
Tsafrir Ronen bluntly provides us with some historic facts
that are usually ignored by diplomats formulating a fantasy of two
people living side by side in peace, when the reality is that one
of these people — the Palestinian Arabs — is not an authentic
people. They were invented as a way to challenge the Jewish
people's return to their land. As Ronen writes, "[t]his is the
essence of the Arab propaganda war, which is intended to steal the
identity of Eretz Yisrael and to transform it into Palestine, and
by such means to turn the Jewish people into occupiers of Eretz
Yisrael. That's the whole story." Who says so? The Palestinian
Arabs. Their very own leadership says so. Openly. And in print.
Read some of their statements in this article.
THE HISTORY AND MEANING OF "PALESTINE" AND "PALESTINIAN"
by Patricia Berlyn, February 15, 2004
This is a tightly woven excellent review of the badly-misused
terms: Palestine and Palestinians. Having no
history to speak of — the families of most of the Arab inhabitants of Israel
and the Territories came there after 1900 — the Arab leadership
claimed the geographic (not political) region of the Ottoman
Empire called Syrian Palestine was actually once their kingdom.
WAS THERE A PALESTINIAN ARAB NATIONAL MOVEMENT AT THE END OF THE OTTOMAN PERIOD?
by Wallace Edward Brand, September-October 2011
During the 400 years in which the Ottomans ruled what later
was known as Mandated Palestine, there was no Palestinian state,
no Palestinian people and no Palestinian Arab nationalist movement
among the local Arabs and other Muslims and non-Muslims. Yet some
40 years later, Yasir Arafat proclaimed there was a Palestinian
people and Palestine had always been their land. Wallace Edward
Brand examines whether there is evidence of a nationalist movement
in the period between the end of Ottoman rule after World War 1
and the artificial creation of Palestinian peoplehood, during the
time that the Jews were building the infrastructure of a State and
redeeming their ancient homeland.
THE SMOKING GUN: ARAB IMMIGRATION INTO PALESTINE, 1922-1931
by Fred M. Gottheil, Winter, 2003
Palestinian Arabs base their claim to Israeli land on "deep
and timeless roots in that geography and that their own
immigration into that geography has at no time been consequential.
To challenge that contention, then, is to challenge their
self-selected criterion for sovereignty." Fred Gottheil not only
challenges that assertion but demonstrates the likelihood that many
of the Palestinian Arabs migrated — or are descendants of those
who migrated — to Mandated Palestine and continue to this day to
migrate to Israel to take advantage of economic conditions made
available by the British Mandatory Government and the Jews. His
facts and figures are in line with what Winston Churchill —
well-informed about the British Mandate — said about the Arab
influx into Israel: "far from being persecuted, the Arabs have
crowded into the country and multiplied."
Once the question is raised, the "because" becomes evident:
these people are called Palestinians, so obviously Palestine must
belong to them. Knives and rocks and hideous murders of Jewish
women and children are the only weapons these poor victims have
to oust the Israeli invaders. So whatever they do to regain their
land, the world forgives them.
Articles in this section add a more basic reason for
the continued antagonism to the Jews, no matter how much Israel
caters to the local Arabs. According to the Qu'ran, the Jews have no right
to the Land. So any way of destroying Jewish credibility and their
physical presence is virtuous.
Robert Reilly asks a critical question: why were the
Palestinian people invented? The short answer is they serve as a
political ploy, as visual aids to keep us focused on the
unfairness of a nascent Israel surviving invasion by her
neighbors. Their suffering becomes justification for the Arab
doing any loathsome deed to drive the Jews out. The assertions
that the Arabs Palestinians own the land, that they were
driven from their homes, that they are Cinderella and Israel is
cruel step-mother are latter-day accretions. The basic issue is
that by the rules of Islamic theology, Jews have lost their right
to the Holy Land. As Reilly puts it, "... Jewish sovereignty in
Israel is incompatible with the Qu'ran..." Therefore they must not
be allowed to be a sovereign power.
Shelby Steele discusses the Arab war against the Jews, in which
the Arab aggressors have successfully persuaded themselves and
others that they are "victims of colonialism, ... victims of
white supremacy." What is so thought-provoking about this essay
is that Steele homes in on the power of a "poetic truth", a
fantasy powerful enough to counter factual reality. As he points
out, "Poetic truths ... are marvelous because no facts and no
reason can ever penetrate. Supporters of Israel are up against a
poetic truth," one that is supported by the West, which "lacks
the moral authority" to speak the truth. We must counter the
Arab narrative and Steele indicates some procedures for
restating the narrative.
SOVIET RUSSIA, THE CREATORS OF THE PLO AND THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
by Wallace Edward Brand, January-February 2010
If Yasser Arafat was the father of the Palestinian People,
Russia was its mother. Wallace Edward Brand writes about the role
Soviet Russia played in literally creating the Palestinian People
in 1964 and in establishing Yassir Arafat as its leader. He bases
much of this on the revelations of Major General Ion Mihai Pacepa,
who has been vetted and certified as a credible source. Creating
the "Palestinian" people as a propaganda weapon to counter
Israel's ownership of Mandated Palestine has also been confirmed
by many Arab sources (cf. here.)
WHAT IS "PALESTINIAN LAND" AND WHO ARE THE "PALESTINIANS"?
by Dafna Yee, January-February, 2007
People casually use the terms "Palestinian" and
"Palestinian Lands" without realizing they are adopting a lie
conceived by the P.L.O. and perpetuated by a pro-Arab media. They
are subscribing to the notion that Israel exists on Palestinian
land. It is, as Yee writes, "aiding Israel's sworn enemies in their goal to replace Israel with 'Palestine.'"
In this essay Dafna Yee untangles some of the history of how
some local Arabs became the "Palestinians." And why historically
and geographically there is no such thing as Palestinian land.
ISLAM AND THE OTHER: THE AL-WALA' WAL-BARA' DOCTRINE
by David Bukay, February 23, 2014
Steele's article above on the Palestinian cultivation of
victimhood is a special case of how Muslims view their
relationship to all other religions and groups. What powers the
Muslims' shameless attempts to destroy non-Muslims physically and
culturally rather than live peaceably with them is the al-Wala'
wal-Bara' doctrine. Muslims see themselves as peaceful and
non-Muslims as aggressors. So Muslims must defend themselves.
David Bukay describes it this way: "...Muslims can viciously
attack at almost every possible opportunity while crying out they
are victims of oppression and aggression. They can perpetuate
obscene inhuman acts of violence, terrorize and intimidate, while
they accuse the other of colonialism, apartheid, racism, and
Islamophobia." In this binary world, "... it is the right against
wrong; and it is the pious against the evil-doers; it is Paradise
or Hell. There are no legitimacy, consensual recognition and
acceptance of the other, unless he becomes Muslim or he is subdued
to Islamic rule."
QUESTION 2: THE HISTORY OF AND CLAIMS TO THE LAND OF ISRAEL
What is the history of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel?
What is the history of the Jews in Israel?
What are the Palestinian Arab claims to the Land of Israel?
What are the Jewish claims to the Land of Israel?
What are the Jewish claims specifically to Samaria and Judea
(aka the West Bank)?
What is The History Of The Palestinian Arabs in the Land of Israel?
"Palestinian" history is fabrication on a grand scale. Much of
it is an appropriation of the Jewish connection to the Land of
Israel. When they can't sell the notion that the Palestinian Arabs
are a discrete people, Arab fabricators dust off another fantasy:
after the Arabs conquered the land in Mohammad's time, they
intermarried with the locals, who voluntarily converted to Islam,
and all lived happily in a fruitful and peaceful land until the
Jews came. The closest applicable history is this: the Arab
followers of Mohammad (NOT Palestinians) conquered
Palestine in 636 CE. They held it until 661 CE, when the Umayyad
Caliphate of Damascus took control. The Abbasids took control in
750 CE and then the region was governed by a number of Arab
semi-autonomous rulers until the Fatimids gained control in 1098,
to lose the land almost immediately to the Crusaders. That was the
end of any sort of Arab rule. From then until World War 2, the
area was ruled by different Muslim and Christian groups, with the
Ottoman Turks ruling it from 1516 until World War 1. We could
extend the term Arab to include any Muslim rule, but then we get
further and further from any Palestinian specificity. The Arabs
from Arabia were one of some 50 ethnic groups that lived in the
area, which deteriorated more and more into a moribund land of
rocks and sand by the 20th century, when waves of Jews came to
redeem their homeland.
A FEW UNFASHIONABLE FACTS WORTH KNOWING ABOUT THE MIDDLE EAST
by Steven Plaut, January-February, 2005
This essay is strictly facts — no interpretation. Steven
Plaut accurately makes the point that "Palestine was stolen from
the Jews by the Arabs and not the other way around."
Articles in Think-Israel — as well as much of the background page
— have made the same points in different ways. And we will keep
repeating the truth until the Arabs and their buddies stop lying.
by Y.K.Cherson and Rachel Molschky, appendix by Dr. Rivka
Shpak Lissak, January 9, 2014
Y.K Cherson and Rachel Molschky recount the non-history of the
Palestinian Arabs. They seem to have been known to no one in
earlier civilizations. The Assyrians knew the Jews. They didn't
know the Palestinians. The Babylonians didn't write about them. In
Roman writing and sculptures and friezes, there's no mention of
Palestinians. Isn't that odd, considering that the Romans and the
Jews mixed it up in exactly the same spot for years? And then one
day, Yasser Arafat said, "Let there be Palestinians." And the
world immediately believed in this miraculous birth.
There is an addendum by Dr Rivka Shpak Lissak that deals with the
question: when did the Arabs come into "Palestine." Note, we said
Arabs, not Palestinians.
FOUNDING NATIONAL MYTHS: FABRICATING PALESTINIAN HISTORY
by David Bukay, May-June, 2012
As David Bukay points out, "By appropriating to themselves the values,
traditions, and historical facts that belong to the Jews, Palestinians
have managed to fabricate a 'legitimate' history and political
traditions out of nothing while denying those of Israel." Quite an
achievement, particularly when so much of their version is absurd,
using historic and geographic facts in a farcical fashion. For
example, they claim with a straight face that Jesus the Jew — born well before Islam was invented and the
Arabs invaded the area — was
their first shahid (martyr). And make no mistake. They have convinced many purportedly
educated and knowledgeable people that this is so. At least, their Western
comrades, including churchmen, have raised no objections.
When you read this, you might — as I did — hear a pin popping an
over-inflated balloon. The global main stream media, the
leftists of Israel, including some who govern the country, and
the (un)paid Arab-aiders have hidden the facts under reams of
false information. And here comes irrefutable evidence from the
very long period which started whe the Muslims conquered the
Land of Israel in the 7th Century C.E. until the Jews in the
late 19th century returned in droves to redeem the Land, joining
the Jews who had never left Israel. During this period, the
Arabs had taken a thriving and productive land and turned it
into an unproductive rock-strewn wilderness (rather like what
they are doing in Gaza today). Avi Goldreich writes of a 17th
century book which, simply by describing the reality of the time
makes us aware that the Land of Israel was then unfruitful and
had few inhabitants. And of those inhabitants, the Muslims were
a minority, a small minority. As Winston Churchill noted many
years later, some 95% of the Arabs in Israel and the Territories
migrated into Palestine in the 20th century to coattail on the
Jewish enterprise.
In 1878, less than a hundred and fifty years ago, what is now
Israel, Gaza, Samaria, Judea, the Golan and Jordan was a "desolate
arid wilderness, almost empty." It was barely able to sustain the
estimated 100,000 to 250,000 Arabs, Bosnians, Circassians, Jews,
Christians and other scattered groups who lived there. Zeev Galili
writes of a map done at the time, showing all the settlements and
their sizes. It is a guide to a realistic estimate of the
population at that time.
Elliot Green writes of a time — all of a hundred years ago
— when there was no such entity as Palestine, let alone a
Palestinian people. There was not even such a thing as Arab
nationalism. As they had from Biblical times, Jews lived in the
Land — then an undifferentiated part of the Ottoman Empire — and
were not called occupiers. Arabs lived there and were not called
owners.
This is an examination of a history text disseminated on many Arab
websites and some neutral sites that provide historical documents on
the Middle East. It is said to have been produced by a group of Jewish
scholars, an anonymous group that calls itself Jews for Justice in
the Middle East. We think it's a fraud.
What is The History Of The Jews in the Land of Israel?
"Whereas there is irrefutable archeological, ethnographic and
literary proof that Jews have inhabited Israel since time
immemorial, there is no similar evidence of an ancient, indigenous
Palestinian people. To compensate for their lack of historicity,
the Palestinian Arabs deprecate the Jewish connection to Israel
with lies and distortions that are often repeated by their
supporters on the left.
"They contend, for example, that the Jewish People originated
in Europe and that the Temple never stood in Jerusalem. They claim
that the Jews were complicit in the Crusades, although Jews
suffered far worse than anyone else at the hands of the Crusaders.
They argue that the archeological record, which is so rich in
linguistic, cultural and architectural evidence of ancient Jewish
life in Israel, is simply the product of Zionist propaganda. In so
doing, they project their own lack of national bona fides onto the
only people with a continuous link to the land.
"The audacity of such claims is truly Orwellian." (Matthew
Hausman, May 2013,
here.)
This set of articles reviews the history of Jews in the Land of
Israel and their treatment in Arab countries.
HISTORY OF JEWISH SOVEREIGNTY OVER ISRAEL OVER 3000 YEARS
by Roy Chweidan, March-April, 2010
This article was written to counter the pernicious and
widespread myth that the Arabs pre-date the Jews in Israel.
Depending on the gullibility of the audience they claim to be the
early Canaanites; or Philistines; or they claim that in Temple
times it was a Palestinian state filled with Palestinians like
Jesus and his mother Mary; or they claim they intermarried with
the natives when they conquered the land in Mohammed's time, and
this is the next best thing to being native themselves. They
ignore that 90-95% of them came after 1900 into what is now Israel
and the Territories. Roy Chweidan presents a short summary of the
actual history of Israel starting in the period of the Judges.
There are also two appendices: European Coalition for Israel,
"90th Anniversary Of The San Remo Conference," April 25, 2010; and
Eli E. Hertz, "Jerusalem," March 17, 2010.
JERUSALEM, CAPITAL OF THE JEWS: THE JEWISH IDENTITY OF JERUSALEM IN GREEK AND ROMAN SOURCES
by Rivkah Fishman-Duker, November 2008
As Rivkah Fishman-Duker writes, by the early second century
CE, when Tacitus wrote his history, it is clear that the narrative
of the circumstances of Jerusalem's foundation had become
standardized among Greeks and Roman writers. Descriptions of the
Temple are always part of the accounts of Jerusalem and Judaism.
In addition to physical descriptions, Fishman-Duker describes the
religious aspect of the Temple, which differed radically from
Greek and Roman paganism. Their accounts range from the factual to
the libelous and bizarre. As Fishman-Duker writes, "The references
to Jerusalem in these classical texts not only demonstrate the
historical attachment of the Jewish people to Jerusalem, but also
contribute to our knowledge of Jews and Judaism in the ancient
world."
Jenny Grigg highlights the major periods in the history of the
city of Jerusalem, pointing out that not only is it Judaism's
holiest site and capital of Jewish states both in ancient times
and in modern times, but there has been a Jewish presence there
for some 3000 years. As for the Palestinian Arabs, their claim
to the city "seems to be based solely on their desire to possess
it." Paradoxically, to ensure that people of all religions can
worship in Jerusalem freely requires that Jerusalem remain under
Israel's sole rule.
Many feel Gaza has little connection with the Jews. Gary
Fitleberg recounts the history of Gaza, including some material
from that well-known reference book: the Bible. It was part of
the territory allocated to the tribe of Judah. Samson brought
down the Temple of Dagon in Gaza. After Jerusalem fell, it was
an important Jewish center during many invasions and changes of
ruler. It certainly has more affiliation with the Jewish people
than many people realize.
This essay — a chapter from Shmuel Katz'
Battleground: Fact and Fantasy in Palestine — makes
the point that the Jews didn't create a homeland in recent
times. Israel has been their homeland for thousands of years.
They needed to regain it and redeem it. And that too took
thousands of years, though during that time, no matter how hard
the local conditions and how oppressive the rulers, there were
always some Jews living in the Jewish homeland. By the mid-1800s
while still under Ottoman rule, the entire region that
was to become Mandated Palestine after World War 1 was
Darfur-poor, economically a derelict and practically empty of
people. Katz writes that the total population —
Jews and non-Jews — at that time is estimated at 50,000-100,000 people.
The millions of Arabs currently in Israel and the territories
are mostly 20th century immigrants and their descendents. Katz
makes it clear that the "historic ownership [of Palestine] by
the Arab people or by a 'Palestinian entity' is a fiction
fabricated in our own day." It is about time the Arab propaganda
that claims the Palestinians/Arabs are the natives and/or a
"Palestinian/Arab nation" who have been dispossessed by the
invasion of the Jews is recognized to be the fantasy that it
is.
ISLAM AND THE JEWS: THE STATUS OF JEWS AND CHRISTIANS IN
MUSLIM LANDS, 1772 CE
by Jacob Marcus, January-Febraury, 2008
"In 1772," Jacob Marcus wrote, "a Muslim scholar in Cairo
was asked how Jews and Christians should be treated." This text is
his reply. It is in keeping with earlier Muslim practices (see,
e.g., Andrew G. Bostom (ed.), The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism:
From Sacred Texts to Solemn History) and indicates a continuity in
discrimination against Christians and Jews throughout Islamic
history. It certainly calls into question modern spins on Muslim
intolerance — that it is due to their unhappiness with what Israel
and America are doing; that it is due to a few irrational fanatics
on the fringe of the religion; that it is due to Muslim shame at
being left behind by western technology and science; and that it
is due to modern dictatorships and would disappear if democracy —
usually defined as the right to vote, which many Muslim
dictatorships already have — was adopted in Muslim countries.
THE FORGOTTEN OPPRESSION OF JEWS UNDER ISLAM AND IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL
by Elliott A. Green, December 1, 2008
Elliott Green writes, "Contrary to what many Jews and other people
have believed, conditions in Muslim lands were often worse for Jews
than in Christendom". They were subject to the extortion tax levied on
all infidels, but they were singled out as the enemy and as inferior
beings in the Quran and ever after were ranked at the bottom of the
social structure, living in fear and humiliation over the centuries.
It was particularly poignant to see this in Jerusalem, where, as
Chateaubriand wrote, "these legitimate owners of Judea [are] slaves
and strangers in their own land." Ignoring history, or perhaps banking
on the general ignorance of their readers, writers such as Professors
Walt and Mearsheimer speak of the innocent Arabs hounded by the Jews,
a neat inversion of reality.
Another myth is that until the Jews came back in numbers to their
homeland, Jews had lived harmoniously under Arab rule.
Circumstances varied but, as in this article, he was always a
dhimmi. What The Elder of Ziyon describes is a page out of the diary
kept by James Silk Buckingham on his travels. He was entertained
in Damascus by the local prime minister. The guests included a
Jew, described by Buckingham "as the wealthiest and the most
powerful of all present", a personage who managed the machinery of
government. Yet as a Jew, he was dhimmi. The other guest sat or
stood; the Jew sat on the ground.
by Chedva Margolit; foreword by Steve Kramer, April 28, 2008
As Steve Kramer writes in his foreword: "Nothing is more
appropriate on the 60th anniversary of Israel's Declaration of
Independence than reading the words of a young Jewish wife who
left America and came to Israel for love of Eretz Yisrael." This
essay is to be treasured.
Palestinian Arabs claim the land because they claim they are
the descendants of the Philistines and/or the Canaanites. But the
Arabs didn't conquer the area until the 7th Century CE and by then
the ancient Philistines and Canaanites were dead thousands of
years. They also claim they own the area specifically designated
by the British as Palestine and once the southern part of the
Ottoman province of Greater Syria. But there were few Arabs living
there (see
here). The area was economically depressed and there were
relatively few people living there, counting everyone. The
inhabitants were some fifty ethnic groups, practicing some half
dozen religions. The official language was Turkish. Arabic, the
language of the Koran, was, according to Wikipedia, used mainly
for religious practices. Moreover, much of the land was owned by
absentee landowners, not the locals. The present-day Arabs in
Israel and the Territories can't even claim to have married the
long-time inhabitants, because most of today's Arabs or their
great granddaddies came into the area after 1900. So their
major claim is that it's their land because they say so. That may
enough for the U.N., the E.U. and other such fair-minded groups,
but it's not much of an argument.
If a Palestinian sympathizer tells you Jesus was a Palestinian,
remind him Jesus was born a hundred years or so before the Romans
conquered Israel and renamed it "Syria Palaestina", hoping, as do
the Arabs today, to eradicate the attachment of the Jews to their
homeland. From then through the Ottoman period, it was
geographically the southern part of the Syrian province.
Politically, it was nothing. The Brits revived the name
Palestine for the area, and the Jews called themselves
Palestinians, until the creation of the State of Israel. If the
Palestinian sympathizer tells you that there was a
country/state/kingdom called Palestine that is now occupied
by Jews, understand that he thinks you are ignorant enough to
believe anything.
Lawrence Auster examines the Arab claim to Palestine. He
points out that the Arabs — and that includes the 'Palestinians' — are
not native to Palestine and their control of Palestine has
long been over. Besides, Arab control was sandwiched in
among conquests by other ethnic groups that also were not
indigenous to the region. Auster also demolishes the Arab claim
that the Jews stole their land. As he writes, "The claim is
laughable coming from the Arabs, who conquered and reduced to
slavery and penury ancient peoples and civilizations stretching
from Persia to the Atlantic; who rejected an Arab state in
Palestine alongside the Jewish state under the 1947 partition plan
and then sought - unsuccessfully - to obliterate that nascent
Jewish state; and who never even spoke of a distinct Arab state in
Palestine until the founding of the terrorist Palestinian
Liberation Organization in 1964, sixteen years after the founding
of the state of Israel."
Muslims haven't tried to change their barbaric ways. Instead, as
Tabitha Korol writes, they have concealed them; whitewashed them;
spoken bald-faced lies; intimated critics by yelling Islamophobia at
any negative remark about Islam, no matter how accurate, no matter how
mild; vandalized and destroyed religious emblems and places and
renamed areas (calling Judea and Samaria the West Bank) in order to
delegitimize their victims and deprive them of visual and verbal
confirmation of their history. Like parasites they present other
people's histories as theirs — which, I suppose, is understandable,
given their own history. Korol presents some of their fantastic claims
and refutes them with facts.
William Rabinowitz paints a searing picture of a not-too-bright
current-day Jewish college student, who has absorbed a
pro-Palestinian attitude from his teachers, the local Muslim
students and the TV and newspapers and can faultlessly repeat the
party line. Rabinowitz responds with very different answers to
someone who had been indoctrinated to believe that the
Palestinians are indigenous to Israel and own the land. Rabinowitz
seems to specialize in humor-coated history, wrapping little-known
historic facts in whimsy. In this essay, he points out that after
the Jews were defeated by the Romans and through the thousands of
years of the diaspora, there was always a Jewish presence in
Israel He writes about the Jews of Pek'in, Israel, a community
where Jews have been in continual residence for the last 2 and 1/2
millenia. It is a fact that has been obscured as attention is
usually focused on the immigration of Jews starting in the 19th
century to redeem their ancient homeland.
With the connivance of the United Nations, the Palestinian
Arabs have had free reign to attempt "to rob Israel of its
history, heritage, and homeland." As Jerold S. Auerbach points
out, "Plundering Jewish history and claiming Israeli land is, of
course, the raison d'être of Palestinian existence." They have
claimed Abraham was a Muslim, as was Jesus and presumably all the
Jews living in Israel at the time of the Second Temple. They have
claimed they have been in Palestine for eons, ignoring that most
of the "Palestinians" came to what is now Israel and the
Territories after 1900. The latest outrage is claiming "the Dead
Sea as Palestine's own 'heritage site.'" While attempting to steal
Israel's identity and history, they go well beyond the usual
identity theft. They also claim Israelis have no history; Jews
never had a Temple; they never had sovereignty in Israel
There is always the argument thrown up — so ok,
there's nothing special about the Arabs who are living in Israel and the
Territories. But they deserve their own place, don't they?
Even the U.S. went from a position of not negotiating with the PLO
in 1991 — which was and is and will be a terrorist
organization committed to destroying Israel — to its current
promotion of such a state in just 10 years. In this article,
Patricia Berlyn critically examines the current
reasonable-sounding arguments that are put forth by the
well-meaning and not so well-meaning as reasons to establish a PLO
state for the Palestinian Arabs.
The homeland of the Arabs and the Arabs who call themselves
Palestinians is the Arabian Desert. The Homeland of the Jews is
the Land of Israel. When England and France wrote up the Mandates
rights of the Jewish People to their national
home." This is exactly right. It should be required reading for
every self-styled maven, journalist, politician, ethicist and
humanist — including the Jewish leaders of Israel — who thinks he
knows Middle Eastern political history, when his information is,
more often than not, anectodal and received from dubious sources.
Alex Rose writes of the time of the
Balfour Declaration, when the resolve of the English to create a
Jewish state was strongly asserted by influential members of the
British Cabinet. He also examines the Arab case against the creation of
the Jewish State, showing that their arguments were and are
invalid. Jews have claims to their land biblically, by their
unbroken ties to the land historically, and by their reclamation
of their homeland.
November 2 marks the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration,
the letter that laid out Britain's intent to help establish a
Jewish State. Sean Gannon writes about the Declaration in context
of the Arab argument that the Jewish claims have no legitimacy.
Its language was later incorporated into the League of Nations'
Mandate, which put the land irrevocably in trust for the Jewish
people. The Trust was passed on to the League's successor, the
United Nation. It has not been abrogated.
AN ANSWER TO THE NEW ANTI-ZIONISTS: The Rights Of The Jewish People To A Sovereign State In Their Historic Homeland
by Dore Gold and Jeff Helmreich, November 16, 2003
Dore Gold and Jeff Helmreich's article touches many of the
concerns raised in ignorance or out of hate by those who reject
the notion that the Jews, long a people forced out of their home
and subject to the wills of others, have returned home. And are
doing remarkably well.
I have some quibbles with Gold and Helmreich's otherwise
accurate account. It is true that many Arabs have done less well
than other groups. But the authors could accurately have noted
that Arabs are favored in civil suits by the judiciary. And they
have a larger share of many service budgets, sometimes because of
conditions they themselves have created. For example, due to the
generation after generation marriages of close cousins, many Arab
children have genetic defects. What this means is that spending by
well-baby clinics is for kidney dialysis machines for the Arab
children and lolly pops for the Jews. And the statement that
"Israel was built as a haven for Jewish refugees fleeing
persecution" is an inadequate explanation. It is true that if the
state of Israel had existed in the early 1940s, more Jews would
have escaped the Holocaust. And persecution and pogroms in the
Diaspora were a fact of life (or more often, death) over the
centuries. But the primal instinct that led Jews to come to their
ancient homeland was to fulfill their identity as a people. As
Gold and Helmreich write, "Throughout Jewish history, national
independence was perceived as a condition for Jewish
self-fulfillment. Redemption was tied to the idea of return."
JERUSALEM: OUR REDEEMABLE RIGHT: JEWS HOLD LEGAL SOVEREIGNTY OVER ISRAEL'S ENTIRE CAPITAL CITY
by Michael C. Duke, December 2, 2010
Michael Duke writes about the legal foundation stone of
Israel's right to Israel and the Territories — including
all of Jerusalem — and about a lawyer who spent a quarter
of a century determining precisely that the Jews are the legal
owners of all of Jerusalem. The document is the San Remo
Resolution of 1920; the lawyer is Jacques Gauthier, an expert in
international law. San Remo did not just set the future for
Mandated Palestine — which the Jews have redeemed and
partially reconstituted — but it also mandated the future
Arab states of Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Later, other modern Arab
states were carved out of the vast expanse of the Middle East by
the same authority. That trust passed to the U.N. when the
League of Nations was dissolved. The U.N. has not gained respect
for its embarrassing embrace of the Arab attempt to delegitimize
Israel but even the U.N. must realize it can not break an
irrevocable trust with Israel as beneficiary by trying to give
away Biblical Israel and some of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Arabs without simultaneously destroying the basis for the Arab Middle East.
Specific Jewish Claims To Judea And Samaria, Where The Settlers
Live
Samaria and Judea and the Golan, as well as Gaza, are integral
parts of the Land of Israel. However, because so much venom has
been spent denying the legitimacy of Jewish towns (AKA
settlements) in the Territories, we include some specific
information about the Settlements and the Settlers.
(From the May-June 2009 Introduction to articles on the
Territories, slightly revised)
These articles are about the bravest of the brave: the settlers,
Israel's staunch nationalists. They know it's their land and they
plan to live there, despite the dangers and the hardships, during
the times their government encourages them and during the times
the government, at the bidding of foreigners, harasses them.
Thanks to years of conditioning, the Po' Palestinians have the
sympathy of the West and their terrorism is excused, while almost
everyone is emotionally certain that the villains, the main
obstacles to peace, are the Jewish settlers (a sneer is
obligatory when you say settlers).
Jordan conquered Samaria and Judea and the eastern part of
Jerusalem in 1948, when the Jews fought off the first Arab
invasion of Israel. Many of the settlers are Jews who returned to
the area when the Jews took the area back after the second Arab
invasion of Israel in 1967. The settlements are their towns and
villages and cities and trailer camps and compounds. Why are these
patriotic Jews demonized? Perhaps because they can't be persuaded
by Arab-aiding nonsense. They know that this land is Jewish: by
God's will, by the Bible, by history, by devotion, by never
completely leaving the land over the centuries, by international
law that established an irrevocable trust for the Jewish people,
and by conquest after fighting off the invading Arabs.
With all the facts on Israel's side, how does one promote the
claims of a non-people, the Palestinians? Simple. First: Demonize
the "settlers". Then no one will complain when you steal Jewish
land. Second: Call Judea and Samaria the West
Bank. It's easier to pretend that a place called the West Bank
belongs to the Palestinians than to try to claim that the
Palestinians own Biblical Israel.
Rachel Neuwirth briefly traces the history of Judea and
Samaria over the centuries. She points out that "[t]he Jewish
presence there has been continuous, except for 19 years from 1948
to 1967 when the area became judenrein" under Jordan's rule.
"After the 1967 war, the Jewish people have simply been returning
to the land from which they were forcibly expelled during the
first Arab-Israeli war of 1948-49."
The 4000-year old city of Hebron in Judea, Judaism's second most holy
city, is the site of the Machpelah, the Cave of the Patriachs,
where Abraham and Sarah are buried. The Jews lived there no
matter what the political climate throughout the centuries. In
1929, when rumors started to spread that the Arabs were planning
to attack the Jews, many Jews refused to believe it. Sammy
Benoit (Yid with Lid) writes of the massacre in August, 1929.
Arabs, who for years had been friendly neighbors, turned vicious
and, encouraged by the mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini,
slaughtered the Jewish population. The British removed the Jews
from the city, not the Arabs — an early example of rewarding
terrorism. The Jews were denied permission to return to Hebron.
After 1967, when Israel regained the city and against the
opposition of the local Arabs and their own government, Jews
began to resettle in Hebron. Since then, the Jews
continue to be harassed by the Arabs and by the Israeli
government, which make no secret of the fact that it favors the
Arab population of Hebron in any dispute.
Yoram Ettinger devotes this article to a recap of some
important historical facts about Samaria and Judea — Biblical
Israel — and to explaining the region's importance to Israel's
security needs as articulated by American military leaders. As he
pointed out in a previous paper that to talk about: "[d]efensible
borders for the Jewish State on the one hand, and a giveaway of
the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria on the other hand,
constitutes a deadly oxymoron." The current paper adds substance
to that conclusion.
When Shmuel Katz writes history, he writes from his own
knowledge and experience — he's been there, done that. Here he
cuts through the claims by the Arabs and their sympathizers that
the major obstacles to peace are the Jewish settlements in the
Territories. Very simply and very accurately, Katz explains that
these settlements are indeed legitimate: "the Mandate remained the
defining document for governing Palestine." As he puts it, "From
the point of view of international law these settlers are as legal
as any resident of Manhattan or of Shreveport, Louisiana." He
points out that the second clause of the Geneva Convention of 1949
— the one that dealt with occupied territories — makes
it clear that it does not apply to the Jewish presence in Judea
and Samaria: "because Jordan was not a sovereign possessor but an
illegal invader, and similarly was Egypt an illegal invader of
Gaza. Israel liberated both areas, restoring them to the territory
of the Palestine Mandate of 1922."
Thanks to the groundwork laid by Peace Now and other
anti-Jewish groups like them, many descendants of Jewish settlers
of European stetlach and Christian descendants of settlers
of the Wild West are convinced that Israeli settlers are the major
reason there's been no peaceful resolution between Jews and
Arab StatesArabsPalestinians Mahmoud
Abbas. They are certain the settlers in the Territories are
chronically and stubbornly in violation of the Law. The lowly
outpost is perceived as particularly evil, perhaps because it is
easier to demolish than Ariel, a settlement city of some 20,000.
So the outpost — often a single trailer or two — has come to stand
as a symbol of all Israeli building on supposedly Arab land. Moshe
Dann points out that when the State shows bias against Jewish
Israelis, "when government officials don't apply the law
equitably, the authority of the state is undermined." His
examination is particularly appropriate when one realizes that
Arabs are taking over land and building illegally with enormous
help from the European Union and Arab countries and without a
murmur of disapproval from a cowed Israeli government.
THE COGNITIVE WAR AGAINST ISRAEL IN THE SETTLEMENT DEBATE
by Richard L. Cravatts, September-October, 2012
Do the Jewish state and the Territories belong to the Jews?
The question was brought into prominence in 2012 by a report
issued by a committee of Israeli legal experts, chaired by Supreme
Court Justice Edmund Levy. The jurists focused narrowly upon the
legality of Jewish settlements in Samaria and Judea — affirming
that towns and villages in Samaria and Judea are indeed legal,
thus undermining the demonization of "settlements" by those who
fear that Jews living in the "West Bank" (as they ahistorically
call it) will make it harder to give away Jewish land to the
Arabs. In place of the capricious and often malicious treatment of
Jewish citizens living in the towns and villages of Samaria and
Judea, it recommends easing regulations, halting scheduled
demolitions and planning building as the population grows.
Richard Cravatts spells out some collateral implications of
the Levy Report. It makes clear that the world has been fed a
fanciful tale by the Arabs. It calls an intellectual halt to the
fallacious anti-Israel propaganda promulgated by hostile Western
politicians, diplomats and media for whom "the perennial victim
status of the long-suffering Palestinians trumps any sovereign
rights of Israel regarding its borders, security, and even its
survival in a sea of jihadist foes who yearn for its destruction."
Thus, Samaria and Judea (aka the West Bank), Gaza, and the eastern
part of Jerusalem have been untruthfully called "Arab" land and
Israel the "occupier", oppressing the po' Palestinians, who have
no way to fight for their rights except with rocks, knives and
explosives against the enemy, in the person of Jewish babies
asleep in their cribs, Jewish toddlers in their beds and Jewish
children at school.
As of 2016, the Jews of Samaria and Judea are still not treated
as first-class citizens. Nor has the Israeli government
popularized the Levy report, which addresses what Israeli leaders
have known since Israel acquired permanent title to Samaria and
Judea almost a hundred years ago. I hope it doesn't take as long
for Western leaders to accept the truth of the Levy report as it
took for the Vatican to admit officially that the earth revolves
around the sun — it finally conceded this in 1992, 359 years
after Galileo was condemned for speaking the truth.
by Daniel Kaganovich and Michael Butler, March, 2004
When all the arab-promulgated arguments are shot down, the
nuisance-value one remains: "Yeah, so they're not legally or
historically entitled to it, so maybe some of them came in
illegally just yesterday, but if you give the territories to
these 'Palestinians' there will be peace." This presupposes that
removing Jewish settlements will reduce friction. Daniel
Kaganovich and Michael Butler argue that removing the source of
the "friction" (Jews) will not make a dent in the ideology that
causes it. It will only encourage its spread."
Shiloh, north of Jerusalem, is another town destined to be given
as a free gift to the Arab terrorists, should Ehud Olmert have
his way in the next few weeks. Carol Iannone writes of a chance
visit she made to Shiloh some years back. She captures its
atmosphere perfectly. Of her first sight of the town, she
writes, ".. there was something extraordinary about its
placement against the emptiness of the landscape, something
dreamlike about the way it stood shimmering in the open,
sun-filled air." She describes her visit to the young settler
couple thus, "... there was just a pervasive contentment. So far
from being belligerent fanatics hysterically claiming their
entitlements, this couple possessed modesty and humility, and
conveyed a sense of quietness and assuredness and peace." "I
felt strangely at home there as well. The land of the Bible is
my country too, I felt. There is even a Shiloh in America, where
men also staked their lives on their vision of nationhood."
What are the techniques used to demonize Israel
and the Jews?
Answering Those That Denigrate Zionism
Answering The Canard That The Jews Stole And Are Occupying Arab Land
Arguments Derived From The 'Jews Stole Arab Land' Assertion
From Lies Of Omission To Theatrical Hoaxes
This section focuses on media tricks and techniques.
A major technique is suppressing pertinent facts that put a
different coloration on assertions by Arabs and their media
buddies. In the Quotation Section above, there is an item about
Zahir Muhsein of the PLO executive committee, who admitted that
Palestinian "peoplehood" was a fraud. The newly created people
were a collection of Arabs from different clans in the Arab
countries. What was claimed to be the ancient kingdom of Palestine
had been, for hundreds of years, the geographical name for the
southern part of the Syrian province of the Ottoman Empire. The
usual pro-Arab rebuttal to Muhsein's devastating admission is to
point out that he happened to prefer being counted among the
Syrians Muslims — as if he were an outlier. What the
rebuttal ignores, as pointed out by Tsafrir
Ronen
here, is that he was not unique. Many, if not most, of the
Palestinian leadership, at the inception of the Palestinian
people, felt the same way.
As another example, the Israeli Arab leader, Mohamed Kanana,
makes much of the statement, "Twenty percent of the population
[mostly Arabs] own only 3 percent of the land." Perfectly true.
But as Jared Israel writes (see
here), "He [Kanana] leaves out a crucial fact: Jews make up
80% of the population of Israel but own only 3.5% of the
land!"
Bald-faced lies are often used. They range from the libelous
— claiming Gazans are impoverished
(here) and claiming that Israel is responsible for the
physical and psychological problems suffered by Palestinian
children
(here) — to the ludicrous, such as the claim that Mossad
uses animals and birds to spy on their neighbors
(here.) A couple of the articles point out some of the major
ways used to mislead the uninformed. We also document some of the
more serious hoaxes perpetrated by the Arabs and/or their media
aiders — from doctored tourism to manufactured massacres.
When an event or a process defies logic — it couldn't happen but
it has — it is often helpful to ask: were this a planned
manipulation, how could it have come about. Richard Cravatts
sequences a set of propaganda procedures that would explain how
Israel came to be seen as an apartheid occupier of another
people's land — a statement that is contrary to fact. He does all
but ask who might be pushing the buttons. I'd vote for the Muslim Brotherhood and/or Saudi Arabia.
Arab propaganda is simple but effective. It makes
easy-to-digest assertions in a convinced and convincing manner and
then repeats them ad nauseum until they become generally accepted.
David Meir-Levi has prepared a list of these lies — lies that have
been exposed as lies time and again. Yet the Arabs and the
pro-Arab media continue to promulgate these lies, despite the fact
that they should know better. Maybe they do. Certainly, we should
be wary about accepting the word of any Middle-East "expert" who
talks about Israeli "occupation" of "Palestinian" land.
[2016 NOTE: The two articles, this and the next one below, by Paul Lademain complement
each other and provide excellent advise for countering the skillful
way the pro-Arab media create the framework for inculcates
negative attitudes about Israel.]
Here be words of wisdom on how to designate areas, places and
people, when labels are sensitized political statements. Paul
Lademain provides us with simple rules that allow us to fight
Israel's fight when we speak of events in the Middle East.
Lademain's instructions have the added bonus that we will be
speaking accurately and won't have adopted the meretricious
language used by Israel's enemies. You will find ways to add to
the list. I, for one, was alerted when a well-meaning supposed
advocate for Israel said, "He is a Hamas activist." I corrected
him, pointing out that the correct term is Hamas terrorist. As
Lademain says, "Be ye not fools, O Israel." Master his examples.
You'll be surprised how soon they become automatic, and other
people repeat your language choices.
Paul Lademain has some sensible advise for those who do public
relations for Israel. They may seem obvious but Israelis don't
seem to understand how they reinforce Arab propaganda, when for
example, they call Judea and Samaria "disputed territory." Jews
shouldn't be disputing that the "West Bank" is Jewish (which, by
the way, should always be called by its proper name: Samaria and
Judea). They should know it is Jewish and say so. In this essay,
Lademain suggests Jews stop using Arab terms that have the wrong
denotation: occupiers, illegal settlements, extremist when
terrorist will do nicely. Settler has become a pejorative term.
Don't use it. Simple, isn't it? He also suggests learning actual
history. For instance, Yasser Arafat "confessed that he had no
intention of complying with the terms of the Oslo Accords when
he signed them. That being the case, his signature means nothing
because he rejected the agreement while pretending to agree to
its terms and this pretense renders the agreement void." Simple,
isn't it? And oh yes, when someone expects you to collapse in
defeat by yelling international law, make them define whhich one
they are talking about. And make them try to link their argument
to it. That's not so simple.
Short, direct, informative, this essay by Yvette Alt Miller lays
out common ways the media avoid telling the truth. Presenting it
in such a way that is easily dismissed. Or telling it partially.
Her examples are actual instances of bias against Israel. Miller
suggests readers practice finding instances of these tricks, to
better understand what they are being fed by the media. My prime
example would be the New York Times, which managed to downplay
the ongoing Holocaust in World War 2. Most newspapers may not be
as clever hiding such a big story but the omission and
trivialization of Prez Obama's close friendships with a slew of
Marxists before he was nominated come close. This is a very
useful reference.
In May, The New Yorker published an article by Jeffrey Goldberg demonizing the Jews who live in the territories. It slanders the Jews and absolves the Arabs by its choice of value words and selective details — details that give us a distorted picture instead of an understanding of what's going on in Israel's heartland. Richard H. Shulman analyzes Goldberg's article in detail.
Bernice Lipkin writes that "...the Arabs and their
pro-peace marxist Pals are excellent at creating realistic hoaxes.
With the help of the lackey-media, these hold up, at least until
someone looks at them carefully. Or until someone takes a photo of
the directors setting up the hoax.
"What is also becoming clear is that apparently it is as easy for
the hoaxsters to fool themselves as it is to fool anyone else.
They begin to believe their own lies. The world then can not be
trusted. Whoever doesn't agree with them must be lying. Whoever
denies Arab claims is conspiring against the Arab world. It can't
possibly be that they themselves are not credible. This is not a
mentality that is attuned to progress or new knowledge. It won't
reject ideas that don't stand up to experience. Indeed, the
opposite is true. The world and all within it must conform to the
notions the Arab know to be true. There is no room for argument."
Snookering Rachel Corrie into believing she was in
"Palestine" to protect the locals was small potatoes compared to
the current Tourist Flimflam. Combine the respectability of
Harvard; the illusion that the tourist is taking the trek that
Abraham or maybe it was Jesus or somebody like that there took;
eye-rolling pious wishes to promote peace between Abraham's
children (as if Mohammad were an uncircumcised Jew); and an
efficient tourist agency that organizes comfortable trips with
congenial fellow-travelers directly to authentic Arabs on the West
Bank and even, titter, titter, Gaza — how can an ordinary
middle-class tourist on the yokel-level information-wise not
believe that what he sees and what he hears must be the straight
story. And that's the cleverness that beats all. A marvelous
illusion, where some truth and a big helping of lies are put
together to encourage the visitor to become a supporter of the
Arab narrative: the "Palestinians" own the West Bank (and the rest
of Israel), which the Jews are currently occupying — real history
and geography be damned. Janel Levy provides us with the details
of a current scam, worked by the seemingly respectable and having
all the cleverness of an excellent con. The returnees will become
live 'witnesses' to a great injustice, never realizing they've been
had.
This is a compilation of doctored and fraudulent pictures taken recently in Lebanon by different cameramen and utilized as anti-Israel propaganda. They have been classified and analyzed by zombie of the zombietime website. This article is both fascinating and instructive.
On July 30th, Israel returned fire against Hezbollah rockets
launched from Qana in Lebanon. Civilians were killed, including
children. Hezbollah declared it a massacre; the pitiful pictures
of dead children were shown around the world; and Israel was
once again castigated. But within hours, people began suspecting
what happened at Qana was a hoax, not a "massacre." Some
bloggers examined the photos of the massacre carefully; others
noticed other bloopers and inconsistencies. And the careful plot
to discredit Israel began to unravel.
THE BLACKOUT — A HAMAS-ALJAZEERA CO-PRODUCTION / STAGED GAZA BLACKOUT PICTURES
by Martin Solomon, January-February, 2008
These pictures of the Gaza blackout are instructive. There
is no way that the pathos-filled pictures could have made their
way to print without the collusion of Arab photographers, who took
them at angles that hid the light and the truth. The news editors
are equally culpable. They presumably knew that the Gazans were
not in an electricity blackout. They knew that creating hoaxes is
an often-used tool in Arab propaganda. Why did they print the
Israel-demonizing pictures without verification?
Considering how often Zionism is used as a derogatory epithet
by bigots, it is sad how little these people actually know about
"Zionism, its origins and its natural achievement in the birth of
the State of Israel." In this excellent essay, Salomon Benzimra
explains the multi-faceted nature of Zionism and its centrality
for Jewish peoplehood.
Zionism is often thought to be a recent movement and,
according to some, no longer of significance. In this insightful
essay, Michael Anbar argues that "Zionism is a non-separable,
fundamental aspect of Judaism — an aspect without which Judaism
loses its meaning as a national culture. Eliminating Zionism and
the hope for the Messiah leaves Judaism without its soul, leaving
a dead skeleton of bare rituals." Perhaps that is why Jew-haters
try so hard to rid Judaism of its Zionist convictions.
INTRODUCTION TO NATIONS UNITED: HOW THE UNITED NATIONS IS UNDERMINING ISRAEL
by Alex Grobmam, Jul-Aug, 2009.
Dr. Alex Grobman is a historian who writes on contemporary issues
affecting the Jewish community. In his book,
Nations United: How The UN Undermines Israel and the West (2006)
he focuses on
the gross hostility the U.N. has shown toward Israel. This essay
is the Introduction to the book. It lays out the context — the
centuries-long Jewish attachment to Israel and the Jewish return
to reclaim and restore its land, the mission we call Zionism. And
it characterizes Anti-Zionism, which, promulgated by obsessive
Arab bloc voting in the U.N., became international in scope. As in
the rest of the book, the writing is direct and the ideas
comprehensive.
This article could be entitled Zionism in Action. In a
few lines, Hilda Terry sketches out a picture of what life was
like in way back then, when Jews started coming in large numbers
to Palestine in the late 19th century to redeem their homeland.
Drawing on family stories and letters, she writes about the early
Zionists and their battle to bring the Land of Israel back to life
from the place of swamps, sand and rocks it had become. They
purchased "unlivable land nobody else wanted" and that only at
outrageous prices. Their enterprise boosted a near-dead economy
and attracted Arabs from the neighboring country. When Israel
gained Samaria and Judea and Gaza in 1968, Israel improved the
quality of life of the local Arabs, until the Arab leaders
stopped her. As Terry writes, "Gaza was a place where even the
earlier Egyptian soldiers had been shocked by the shabby
barefooted natives wading in freely flowing open sewage. Stuck
with the unexpected custody of this sorry Arab town, Israel
immediately began building new homes with electricity and plumbing
for their new charges." Israel reduced infant mortality in the
Territories and taught the Arabs more efficient and more
productive ways to farm. But the Arab leadership, then as now, was
interested in destroying Israel, not improving the lives of the
ordinary Arabs.
Michael Devolin explains the animus against Zionism as well as
ever I've seen it done. As he writes,
"Western journalists have portrayed religious observance, especially Jewish observance, as something shameful and an embarrassment for their envisioned type of intellectual. ... Zionism has become their Exempli gratia in the war they have made against all things Jewish. Therefore Zionism is never mentioned as a practical and ancient commandment of the Torah, a commandment as conspicuous and practical as the prohibitions against stealing and murder; instead it is transmogrified as a Jewish evil simply because the political and expansionist objectives of Islam and Christianity have always been given more precedent in the press than the right of the Jew to live safely and securely in the land of Israel."
Zionism is nothing more or less than our ancient connection to our land. We are obligated to redeem it, should it — as it did during centuries of foreign and Ottoman rule — fall on hard times. It's a matter of family affiliation and affection. It isn't a symbol. It is symbiosis. To thrive, Jews need their Land. The Land of Israel needs them.
In recent years, the mainline Protestant churches — joined by
the niche Quakers and Mennonites — have wholeheartedly subscribed
to the political BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign
intended to destroy Israel. Simultaneously, ignoring history,
Bible and cultural differences, their theology now asserts that it
is not the Jews but the Palestinian Arabs, a 'people' that, in
1964, sprung full-grown and in an instant from Yasir Arafat's brow,
that are the ancient Israelites. Paul Merkley writes of this
bizarre inversion of factual history. There is one other notable
correlation with the churches adopting this Arabian
counter-history. As Merkley pointed out previously (here), the United Churches of Christ "has lost approximately
300,000 members (about 20% of its membership) since 2005, the year
when its convention passed its first divestment resolution."
Indeed, the rate at which the Methodist, Episcopal and Lutheran
churches have also lost members makes the designation "Mainline
Protestantism" questionable.
Elliott, a reader of the original article, said, "Great article!
This really gets to the heart of the PR issue. We have a great
product, we just need to sell it as well as we do Intel chips and
Israeli tech know-how..." If we were to continue to describe what
Jeremy Gimpel says in marketing terms, it would be that what is
needed is not just being pro-Israel but being a passionate Zionist
and making that clear to everyone. Israeli politicians talk about
security when they should telling the world about their
enthusiastic commitment to redeem their ancient homeland. Some
promoters have even gone totally ahistoric and promote bikinis,
beaches and surfing, as if those were Israel's reason for being.
It is the passion that Israelis have for their Land that people
need to hear. Then they will understand why Israelis are, despite
the religion-based hatred of their neighbors and the mindless
propaganda to demonize Israel, a people happy to be living in the
Jewish state.
Answering The Canard That The Jews Stole And Are
Occupying Arab Land
If there's anything most people are sure about regarding the
Arab-Israeli hostilities, it is that the Arabs own the Land.
Therefore it follows that, somehow or other, the Jews illegally
got hold of it. How exactly this came about is seldom explored.
That the neighboring Arab countries invaded Israel time and again
is not emphasized. That when the Jews fought back successfully,
they took back land that already was legally theirs is
ignored. On the contrary, once the belief that the Jews were in
the wrong was solidly embedded in 'global consciousness', other
derogatory ideas became plausible: the Jews must have taken the
land by illegal aggression; the Arabs are refugees and it must be
because of the Jews; the Jews must be treating the conquered
people badly because that's what conquerors do, etc., etc. As Max
Singer put it in his article "Thieves Get No Sympathy,"
here:
In emotional terms, thieves don't have
rights, even to security. How could we expect support for a
"thief's" assertion that the victim shouldn't use illegal means to
recover his land, that he, the "thief," needs stolen property to
protect his security, or that consideration should be given to the
citizens the usurper has settled on the stolen land?
Our demand for "defensible borders," for example, is heard as
"Israel needs to keep Palestinian land in order to defend itself."
This doesn't grab Europeans who don't even worry much about being
able to defend themselves, much less Israel.
The Palestinians, by contrast, are heard as saying, "we are a
proud and ancient people; our land was stolen by colonialist
foreigners, and we will fight until we get it back." The reply
that they are fighting too dirty, or that Israel needs the land to
protect its security, doesn't carry much emotional weight.
Given the core indictment, it didn't take much to charge the
Jews with additional crimes. They didn't just steal the land and
milk its resources, as the Europeans did in the West and in the
Far East. They stayed and made their home there, or as the Arabs
would have it, they turned the Arabs into refugees and are
occupying the land they stole.
In 2003, during George W. Bush's administration, the peace
process was refurbished by the Quartet (the US, some members of
the UN, the European Union and Russia) and renamed the Roadmap.
For the first time, the US Gov't itself called the Territories
(Samaria and Judea — aka the West Bank — and Gaza)
"occupied." This implied that the Arabs in the Territories were
long-time inhabitants, a conclusion that ran counter to the facts.
Serious Arab immigration has started after the Jews began coming
back in large numbers to redeem their homeland. Some 95% of the
Arab inhabitants had come as immigrants after 1905 — they
had never had roots in the land. In fact, despite pro-Palestinian
claims that Israel was treating the "Palestinians" terribly, Arabs
have been pushing their way into Israel and the Territories to
live. Well over 400,000 Arabs had entered the Territories since
the Oslo Accord of 1993 as tourists, workers and spouses and never
left. Few questioned why people would want to live in a country
that treated them badly. Few asked how the Jews could be occupying
Palestinian land, when not even the Arabs had ever owned the land,
except for some years after the Muslim invasion of 672
CE.
Singer's solution for fighting the keystone Arab's argument is
a good one:
[...] Entrenched anti-Israel sentiment
will not be moved until we state that we are a proud and ancient
people; that the disputed land is our homeland, and was ours
historically; that the land was assigned to us by the League of
Nations, and we will fight to protect our country.
Boycotters and all those who sympathize with the po'
Palestinians because Israel is "occupying" Palestine should read
this essay by Boris Shusteff. In simple terms, he makes clear that
the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews. The San Remo Conference of
1920, confirmed by the League of Nations in 1922, "gave"
the Jews the part of the Ottoman empire that encompassed the
ancient Jewish homeland, just as it "gave" the Arabs
all the rest of the part of once Ottoman Empire that we
call the Middle East. The land allocated to an eventual Jewish
state was much less than 1% of the Middle Eastern land area; it
included what is now Israel, Samaria, Judea, Gaza, the Golan and
Jordan as a solid block. The specifics of the allocations were
written as three separate mandates (Syria, Iraq, Palestine) to be
carried out by the Mandatory powers: Britain and France. Between the San Remo Conference
in 1920 and the authorization by the League of the Palestine Mandate
contract in 1922, Britain split off 78% of what was to be
Jewish land — the land east of the Jordan river that is now Jordan
— to be
administered by the Arab Hashmites. After the United Nations was formed
in 1945, the League of Nations was dissolved in 1946, transferring
all its assets to the UN. The treaties deposited with the League
of Nations and the trusts and the legal status of countries
created by League of Nations' Mandates were transferred to the
United Nations. There has never been a binding resolution passed
by the Security Council changing the ownership of Mandated
Palestine, nor, by the legal doctrine of estoppage, can there
be. The San Remo Conference action that made the Jewish people the
owners of Mandated Palestine remains the applicable international law.
With this essay by Israel Kasnett, we add to our store of
articles on Israel's irrevocable right to Mandated Palestine with
information on the view of the Peel Commission of 1937 on the
Balfour Declaration and the Mandate. The Commission confirmed the
large increase in Arab population in Palestine since 1920. It
states: "Jewish immigration and subsequent economic growth in
Palestine led to increased Arab immigration from other countries
by those seeking economic opportunity."
This essay by Efraim Karsh is
exquisitely detailed yet very understandable. It dissects the
misleading and fallacious threads that are woven together into the
charge that Israel is occupying Palestinian Arab land. As the
title says, "What occupation?" In addition to demolishing the
non-factual Arab "narrative", Karsh defines precisely what is
really keeping the pot boiling: "It is not the 1967 occupation [of
the Territories] that led to the Palestinians' rejection of
peaceful coexistence and their pursuit of violence. Palestinian
terrorism started well before 1967, and continued — and
intensified — after the occupation ended in all but name.
Rather, what is at fault is the perduring Arab view that the
creation of the Jewish state [in 1948] was itself an original act
of 'inhuman occupation' with which compromise of any final kind is
beyond the realm of the possible." As Karsh makes clear, the
Palestinian Arabs regard the lawful establishment of the State of
Israel itself as the original sin, even though Israel was at the
time located in a very small part of its lawful entitlement.
As part of this essay, Michael Zebulon provides facts about
Britain's unlawful severing of the land east of the Jordan River.
Indeed, Zebulon has the gift of making it fun to learn some necessary
information we should all know about "Palestine" and the
"Palestinian people". The Arabs have another kind of gift — they
have been able to invent a people — the Palestinians — and a
country called Palestine, where this people is said to have dwelt
from ancient times. Never mind that there is no P sound in
Arabic, so ironically, having a suspected terrorist say
Palestine is an effective shibboleth. But we have the facts
of geography and history available and they are an excellent way
to counter the Arab fantasy. We simply need to speak up.
The belief that the Arabs own the Land that is Israel and the
Jews do not is a political version of Goldilocks and the three
bears. The Jews owned it too long ago and too short a time ago.
But the Arabs who conquered the area at the rise of Islam — well,
that's just the right time ago. Another popular pro-Arab argument
is that it has "been nearly 1,900 years since Jews exercised
sovereignty there — and it is absurd to argue that any group still
has rights to land they last governed such a long time ago."
Steven Plaut turns that argument on its fez with a few home truths.
For one, If recency wins, then the birth of modern Israel trumps
because the last time the Arabs held the land was much earlier.
And even then, it was Arabs, not Palestinian Arabs,
in charge. It's a pleasure to watch a logical mind spell out the
implications of the fanciful nonsense the Arabs dish out. There
is an appendix from MidEast Web for Coexistence that provides a
"Brief History of Israel And Palestine."
Ever read a book or a gang-up of books, proving something you
know in your bones is wrong? The arguments dazzle and seem too
weighty to push aside. It is only later that you have that
'hey-wait-a-minute' moment, when you notice a gap, an
inconsistency, a puzzling omission. This is roughly what has
happened to the history of newly-reborn Israel and its 1948 war of
survival, when it was attacked by its Arab neighbors, intent on
destroying the non-Arab state. The story was told accurately at
first. Then the New Historians revised the interpretation of these
events and announced that the original version was a myth. The
issue was not, they declared, Israel's remarkable accomplishment:
redeeming Jewish land and constructing a free and democratic
Jewish state in a relatively short amount of time. The issue was
that through no fault of their own, the local Arabs suffered
severely in 1948 and it was all because of what Israel did
intentionally.
Using the New Historian Benny Morris as both focus and foil,
Avi Becker recounts distortions, misinterpretations and down-right
lies told by the New Historians. What made these whoppers so
pernicious is that Israel was cast as a figure of evil, which
needed to atone for its sins. It was put on the defensive in
political negotiations. These accusations were eventually used to
try to delegitimize Israel. Benny Morris was a key figure in
framing the features of the New History; he fashioned a strong
base on which others constructed ever more-outlandish
interpretations. It is ironic that it would be Morris who later put
a stop to this nonsense by supplying essential information the New
Historians had omitted: First, the Arabs saw the 1948 War
as just another battle in their unswerving religious Jihad over
the centuries to become top dog over all other
religions. Second the Arabs, not the Jews, started the 1948
war and, by this action, rejected a partition resolution that
would have given them land. Ironic.
The truth that the Arabs don't own the Land of Israel and the Territories is just beginning to crack the cement of lies cast
around the historic events. It doesn't help that many readers, who
were, for their own reasons, so eager to accept the New
Historians' lies, will be just as motivated to ignore the
truth.
David Ha'ivri writes in particular about distributing
information about the Jewish citizens who live in Biblical Israel.
But his advise is of general value to improve Israel's ability to
communicate. As he says, "The problem is mainly that Israel's
advocates are not addressing the particular issues for which
Israel is under attack. By avoiding and not responding to the
accusatory claims, it appears that Israel doesn't have a good
answer." The comments in the original Ynet article serendipitously
illustrate how to provide right answers. Someone pushes the
incorrect but frequently-used "Israel is violating international
law in occupying the West Bank." Knowledgeable readers respond
appropriately. New points are raised and answered. A reader, "Gee"
from Zikron Yaakov, puts Israel's ownership of Samaria and Judea
succinctly this way:
"First under international law for it to be 'occupied' it needs
to meet two conditions. The 'occupier' has to not have a legal
claim to the land. The second part is the people claim need to
have said legal claim.
Gaza, Judea and Samaria meet neither condition. Our claim to
the land is enshrined in the UN Charter and the Covenant of the
League of Nations - so we do have legal claim to the land.
Then there is the little fact that the Arabs do not have any
legal claim to the land. Nobody on this planet has managed to date
to produce said legal claim. So the Arabs are squatting on the
land illegally. So much for the claim of international law."
Arguments Derived From The 'Jews Stole Arab Land' Assertion
This section examines other matters, including some that are
ignored, once the notion that the Jews are occupying Arab land is
firmly established. For example, if someone is convinced that the
Jews are occupying Palestine — I've made people laugh in
derision by telling them the easily-verified fact that the Jews
are occupying their own, not Arab, land — then it is a
short step to believing the Jews must be responsible for all
those millions of Arab refugees. Few suggest the actual and
obvious: most Arabs left because their leaders told them to leave
and because they feared the Jews might do unto them as they would
have done to the Jews, should they have won the war(s). As
another consequence, people are not outraged that the Arab
refugees now in their fourth to sixth generation —
medicated, fed, housed and educated on our money and growing from
a few hundred thousand in 1948 to 7-8 million — are still
with us, when almost every other refugee in the whole wide world
is (re)settled within a decade. The Arab refugees are a wound
that has not been allowed to heal in the normal manner, which is
say, by settling the refugees in other parts of Arab Land. They
continue to serve as a propaganda ploy that the Jews occupy their
land.
There were, actually, two sets of refugees created around the
time that Israel became a state. Everyone know about the Arabs.
Few know about the more numerous Jewish refugees, who were kicked
out of the Arab countries, fleeing mainly to Israel to avoid being
killed. They were absorbed by Israel and helped to resettle
without any help from the U.N. These Jews left behind an enormous
amount of property and personal goods worth billions and billions
of dollars. In contrast, the claim of so many Arab refugees that
they left behind much land and prosperous farms in Israel when
they fled the war zone is not in sync with the actuality that
under the Ottomans very few Arabs held private property in Syria
Palestine and most of those that did lived elsewhere and were
unlikely to have become refugees.
(See
here.) Until the Jews came and revitalized the Land of the
Jews, the Arabs, along with every other ethnic group in Palestine,
lived in squalor. Most were landless laborers or tenant farmers on
land that produced little. They had nothing much to leave behind.
Those Arabs that came after the Jews created economic opportunity
came for jobs, not because they had wealth to invest. Yet the
circular reasoning persists: if an Arab lives less well than a
Jew, it must be that the Jews must have taken away the Arab's
property. Clearly, until the thinking public truly understands
that the Jews took nothing away from the Arabs — except
perhaps the Arab delusion that Islam should reign above all
religions — all sorts of collateral crimes can be attributed
to the Jews. And the global public will excuse Arabs for
committing barbaric acts against the evil Jews.
Foster the belief that the Palestinian Arabs own the land of
Mandated Palestine and even many a churchman will feel anything
the Palestinians do to regain their land is justified. (see
here). After all, they only have guns, rocks and knifes to fight
against a well-equipped Israeli army.
The media and politicos have bought into "returning" Arabs some
of their land, so there is much discussion about where the proposed
Arab state will be located. There is less said about the
question: is there to be one Arab state, two or three? After all,
78% of the land that was to be Jewish was cut away illegally by
the British and given to the Arabs to administer. They now call
it Jordan. Then there is Gaza, abandoned by the Jews in a moment
of idiocy. It is ruled by Hamas and is a training ground for
terrorism for several bloodthirsty groups. Will that stay
independent or be linked to the Palestinian entity? And if so,
what if the locals again vote to be ruled by Hamas?
As another matter, ignorant tweeters and journalists are sure the
Land was always called 'the West Bank' and that the Jews quite
recently invented fancy names for it. Judea and Samaria may
sound vaguely familiar, but there is no impetus to identify them
as the very accurate names of the region since ancient times.
Until Syria became a war zone, there were always voices raised
urging Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria. Jewish
security concerns are still ignored, because who wants to help a
thief hold onto his stolen land? Maybe when people are open to
listening to the truth, that attitude will change.
The Norwegians seem to have no concept of the world-class
proxy war taking place in the Middle East: the Palestinian Arabs,
both those controlled by the Fatah Terror Group and those in Gaza
under the thumb of the less polished Hamas, are the foot soldiers
of resurgent Islam. The terrorist activities they practice in
Israel are eventually emulated and exported. On the other side,
Israel, not by its own choice, has been thrown into the front
lines and given the role of defending Western values of fair play
and 'live and let live.' Ironically, some of those who should be
most grateful haven't a clue. One such is Norway's Ambassador to
Israel, Svein Sevje, who condemns Norwegian terrorism against
Norwegians but condones Arab terrorism against Jews. This is
based, he claims, on Israel's occupation of Arab land.
He, as do others, also discounts the improved economy, education
and medial care that Israel brought to a blighted area.
Wallace Brand responds in this essay with the actual facts about the
so-called Israeli occupation.
I've read a lot of accusations that Israel treats its Arab
population despicably, even brutally. But when it comes to
specifics, the only problems adduced are the fence to keep out
terrorists and being stopped at checkpoints. Pat Gilsan brings up
an interesting point. Why, she asks, if Israel is so awful, why
are Arabs coming from all over the Arab world to Israel, and
staying, legally and illegally. As she says, "Nobody leaves a good
place to come to a bad place." She also answers the Arab claim
that Israel is occupying land belonging to the 'Palestinian
people' and counters with facts that show that the only genocide
has been by the Arabs and perpetrated against the Jews. The
solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict? "The answer is not to give
up land. The answer is to transfer the Arabs."
QUESTIONS REASONABLE PEOPLE ASK ABOUT ISRAEL AND YESHA
by Yechiel Leiter, May 10, 2007
Yechial Leiter does an excellent job explaining why Israel and
Yesha (Samaria, Judea and Gaza) belong to the Jewish
people by history, by religion, by unbroken affiliation, by
international law and by conquest. By the same token, he
explains why this land does not belong to the Palestinian
people. Part of the explanation is that there is no Palestinian
people, there never was a Palestinian nation and there never was
a state of Palestine. Among the errors he corrects is the notion
that the correct name for the land on the western bank of the
Jordan is the West Bank, suggesting that the Jews who call it
Samaria and Judea recently invented these names. The opposite is
true — the area was called Samaria and Judea from biblical times
until Jordan named it the West Bank when it invaded Israel in 1948.
Drora bat-Melech is an Israeli whose parents and grandparents
were authentic refugees. Together with some 150 to 250 thousand
other Jews, they were forced to flee from Iraq in the
1940s-early 1950s, even though the Jews had lived in Iraq for
some 2500 years, more than a thousand years before the Arab
invaders conquered the area. Not only were they kicked out,
leaving most of their possessions and real estate behind, they
had to pay the Arab government for the privilege of being
allowed to leave alive. The scene was replayed in the other Arab
states. The Jews received no help or compensation from the U.N.,
but the new state of Israel absorbed them and made them
citizens. Bat-Melech was a refugee from Iraq but she was an
'aboriginal' in Israel because in 1922 their ancient land was
restored to the Jews in recognition of their historic attachment
to it; it was held in trust until they could develop the
infrastructure and population to be a state. In 1948, when the
neighboring Arab states invaded the new state of Israel, Arabs
who fled — many of them left on orders of their leaders,
and expected to return as soon as Israel was demolished —
were placed into camps in Arab states, in Gaza and in Samaria
and Judea, when these was under Jordanian control, where they
were treated as aliens and denied citizenship. Unlike any other
group of refugees ever, they were given refugee status in
perpetuum, they and their descendants, even those "refugees"
who had come brand new to Mandated Palestine just a couple of years
before they fled as refugees.
PALESTINIAN MYTHS: THE RIGHT OF RETURN OF THEIR REFUGEES
by David Bukay, January 29, 2014
David Bukay writes of a myth the Arabs have fostered: that the
Arabs who fled Israel in 1948 and who were relabeled as Palestinians
are entitled to return to their homes, they and their children and
their grandchildren and their great grandchildren. Retroactively and
much later than the events of 1948, their supposed loss of what is now
the State of Israel came to be labeled nakbah, a disaster. They
had no problem ignoring that the local Arabs never were in control of
the land. They simply covered the facts with a fantasy that their
identity, hitherto proudly Syrian, was always Palestinian. Their
fantasy and their status as refugees would ordinarily have disappeared
in a few years, except for the fact that they were put on lifetime
support by the UN and given an agency, UNRWA, that tends exclusively
to their needs, sustaining them physically, educating them, medicating
them and keeping their fantasy fresh.
"A LAND WITHOUT A PEOPLE FOR A PEOPLE WITHOUT A LAND"
by Diana Muir, March-April, 2008
"A Land Without A People For A People Without A Land" has it
exactly right. Note that it says A People, not People.
An alternative version makes the meaning even clearer: "a country
without a nation" in need of "a nation without a country."
Using the high estimate, in 1890, there were some 500,000 people (some 50
ethnic groups, including Jews, Christians, Arabs and other
Muslims) in the desolated Ottoman territory that would become the
portion of mandated Palestine west of the Jordan river and that
included today's Gaza, Israel, the Golan, Samaria and Judea. A
staple in the Arab list of grievances is that the early Zionist
immigrants were shocked to find that the land wasn't empty —
implying there was a thriving Palestinian population that
Israel subjugated. Diana Muir concludes that certainly it was
known there were some people on the land. A land without
a people means the territory "was without a national character".
The notion of a
Palestinian national identity "only developed in reaction
to Zionist immigration." She tracks the origin of the phrase and
its use as anti-Zionist propaganda.
If Samaria and Judea and Gaza are Palestinian Land,
not Jewish land, then the political arbiters of morality are
right to help the Palestinians regain their land. The latest
international threat to Israel's sovereignty and security comes
from the road map issued by the Quartet. It is Oslo all over
again, but more virulent — instead of negotiations, it would
impose dangerous restrictions on Israel. The UN, the EU and Russia
didn't fight Iraq. Apparently, Israel is more their size.
QUESTION 4: ISRAELIS WANT A PERMANENT SEPARATION FROM THE ARABS. ARABS WANT
TO DESTROY ISRAEL
Every peace process calls for Israel to give up land,
making it easier for Arabs to attack her, while she keeps an
expanding and hostile Arab population. Does that address Israel's
concerns?
How do we deal with the initial supposed reason for Arab
hostility: the plight of the Arab refugees of 1948 and 1967? Their
rapidly expanding numbers alone are enough to destabilize any
plan.
Are there better alternatives to solve the Arab-Israel
hostilities than unrealistic "peace processes"?
What's delaying an effective solution?
Will Current Peace Processes Bring Peace?
Peace process arguments have little to do with core concerns on
either side. Arabs bring up the ongoing plight of the unsettled
refugees, soft-pedaling that the 1948 and 1967 Arab refugees won't
be allowed to become citizens in the projected Palestinian state.
They argue that they want the return of their land, when what they
want is an expanded base, a place like Gaza, from which to launch
more effective attacks against Israel. The Jews argue their need
for security — thus implicitly admitting they know that
giving up land won't bring peace. They talk security and not the
passionate love of the land most Israelis feel. Their leaders say they are willing
to share the land. This feeds the world's certainty that
the land belongs to the Arabs.
Current peace processes offer Israel one of two options: a
bi-national state or two neighboring states, one Jewish, one
Arab. Either one means the local Arabs can proceed with less
hindrance to try to destroy Israel. Either one means less land
available for growth of Jewish communities, while the Arab
population expands rapidly. Either one means eventually the Arabs
are in control and the Jews are dhimmis, dead or converted to
Islam. This is suicidal.
Actually, there is no real difference between the choices. A
bi-national state of Arabs and Jews would soon be under Arab
control, because Israel already allows Arab family reunification
and ignores the presence of Arabs who enter illegally or who
overstay their visa. As the Arabs gain political control through
larger population numbers, intimidation, bribery and the help of
their Western friends, they will, as they have done in every other
host country, demand social services, regulations and laws
customized to favor Islam. This will be the case whether or not a
bi-national state would accept a sizable number of UNRWA's
"refugees". The conundrum is this: according to the Arabs, Israel
is supposed to take in any and all of the over seven million
refugees that wish to return. On the other hand, Fatah and most
Arab countries insist that these refugees can not be citizens of a
Palestinian state. And such a state would still have a hostile
Hamas-controlled Gaza as a neighbor. In the two-neighboring states
option, the Arab state would be ethnically cleansed of Jews, as
Gaza is now. And if Fatah or any like-minded group is in power, it
will not accept any Arab refugee. On the other hand, the
reduced-in-size Jewish State would have an expanding Arab
population and a continuation of Israel's policy of allowing a
continuous influx of Arabs, including many of the supposed
descendants of the 1948 and 1968 refugees. How long would it
remain Jewish?
A peace treaty that would be worth while for Israel's to sign
would:
Stop the expansion of the 1948 "refugee" population.
Disperse the current refugees to an area or areas of Arab Land.
Increase the separation between Jewish land and Arab land sufficiently
so that terrorists have minimal access to Israel.
Keep Israel in the Land of Israel and the Land of
Israel in Israel.
Show as much consideration and respect for Israel and its concerns as
it does for the Arabs and their demands.
These conditions would need to be in place prior to "peace" and
easily enforceable because treaties with the Palestinian Arabs are
worthless.
THE BLACKMAILER'S PARADOX: ARAB-ISRAEL NEGOTIATIONS ARE A GAME
by Prof Yisrael Aumann, July-August, 2010
Professor Yisrael Aumann applies game theory to how to
negotiate with Arabs. In the Blackmailer's Paradox, it is the side
that doesn't flinch, that makes unreasonable demands and doesn't
compromise, that walks home with the goodies. To date the Arabs
have played the game better, convincing Israel to be the one that
must compromise. Aumann suggests some necessary changes in
Israel's negotiating stance. Of course in real life, the problem
is more complex. Negotiation implies a willingness to compromise.
Unfortunately, the Arabs aren't just unreasonable — the goal of
Islam's leaders is to destroy Israel, no matter what the costs.
But Aumann is certainly right that the Israelis need some street
smarts.
THE ARAB WAR ON ISRAEL: THE MORASS OF MIDDLE EAST
DIPLOMACY
by Rachel Neuwirth, May 11, 2006
This is an important paper that explicates the
many levels on which the peace process is ill-conceived. It makes
understandable why, despite years of trying and the efforts of
diplomats, political leaders, analysts and media people to solve
the "Israeli-Palestinian" conflict, the result has been a failure.
One reason is that their focus was "on the mechanics of
implementation," while fundamental information was ignored. They
never investigated the basis of the claims of the newly-minted
Palestinian people. Nor did they seem to know about Israeli's
irrevocable legal claim to Mandated Palestine. Rachel Neuwirth
suggests that the "fallacy of the ongoing political dogma [the
creation of a Palestinian state] should be recognized" and an
approach based on historical/legal truths should be substituted.
Over the years, we have seen each peace negotiation for ending the
Arab war against Israel put the burden of making headway on
concessions by Israel. This appears a reasonable, even fair,
activity only because it is anchored in the commonly-held
deep-seated conviction that a Jewish State is at fault by just
being in the Middle East, which is otherwise Muslim (if one
ignores all the other minority religious and ethnic groups in the
Arab states). However, for true understanding, it isn't enough to
know the facts. You need to know what pseudo-reality the facts
demolish. Patricia Berlyn provides us with both: the non-facts
that too many believe and the actual facts. As applied to the
prototypic Peace Process, she breaks the major premise into
component and derivative assertions, which are also false, and
provides us with actual facts why this is so. If you are so used
to the fantasy that has been created about the Arab-Israeli
conflict that your first reaction is to deny Berlyn's "Reality"
remarks, may I suggest you check the facts out before rejecting
them. Preferably in an authoritative source.
For generations, Western Middle East "experts" have urged
Israel and the West to start "dialoguing" with Hamas. At stake is
whether Hamas will openly acquire the windfall money the USA is
giving the Palestinian Arabs. Hamas has acted as the spoiler,
openly refusing to recognize Israel as legitimate, while offering
a truce with a 10-year expiration date, providing that Israel
first settles the millions of Arabs who claim descent from the
original ~420,000 Arab refugees. The PLO appears to be more
accommodating to Western views, but basically it is just as
vicious as Hamas. In this essay, Alex Rose reviews two fundamental
Palestinian documents: the charters of Hamas and the PLO. Hamas's
Charter, which says that its mission is to eradicate Israel, is
phrased as a religious compulsion, and hence can not be revoked.
The PLO charter is a political document, which has often been said
to have been revoked — but never has. Both make clear that the
Palestinian Arabs regard the destruction of Israel as their
mission, and they continue to steadfastly affirm this intent both
in word and deed. This will not change, no matter how much the
West denies reality or trivializes Muslim core values.
THE PREREQUISITE FOR PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST:
ARAB RECOGNITION OF THE LEGITIMACY OF ISRAEL
by Kenneth
J. Bialkin, March-April 2010
THE
peace process — it seems always to apply only to the
Arab Israeli conflict — certainly hasn't lacked high-level
presidential involvement, from the Elder Bush to Obama, plus the
presence of the U.N., the E.U. and their cohort of diplomats and
politicians. Nevertheless, as Kenneth J. Bialkin puts it: "A peace
process which rests upon Israel's unilateral concessions is doomed
to fail — unless and until the world also demands that the Arab
states (including the Palestinians) recognize Israel's legitimacy
and sovereignty, explicitly and openly. ... This is the most
important prerequisite for peace." As the previous article by Rose
suggests, this would require a rejection by both Hamas and the PLO
of their foundation eschatology. And a rejection of the Koran's
decrees against Jews. Obviously, politicians and diplomats find
pressuring Israel to make concessions a far easier task than
trying to convince Muslims to betray fundamental convictions.
We are so used to hearing "human rights" associated with the
Arab encroachment of the Land belonging by every legitimate
measuring stick to Israel that it comes almost as a shock to read
Judah Tzoref's valid argument that Arab aspirations can not be
fulfilled by depriving the Jews of their right "to human and
national equality."
Bernice Lipkin summarizes some of Israel's recent history of trying to
make peace when the Palestinian Arabs don't want peace and have made
no effort to cooperate. It is time to stop these attempts to obtain
the currently unobtainable. She suggests that it's time to stop
appeasing terrorists and go back to nation-building as the San Remo
Resolution anticipated. Suggestions for additional reading materials
are provided.
Professor Sharon asserts that
the war between two civilizations — "between the civilization
based on the Bible and between the civilization based on the
Koran" — started a long time ago. It will continue as long as
Islam is bound by its holy books, as long as it has the imperative
to rule the world. In consequence, peace as
understood in Judaism or Christianity, is impossible between Islam
and other religions, cultures and civilizations. It puts the
current diplomatic ways of obtaining peace between the Arabs and
the Jews in the same category as attempting to square the circle.
It is possible to envision a secession of hostile
activities by Muslims, but that won't come about by a peace process in which
Islam is enlarged rather than constrained.
The previous article by Moshe Sharon spoke of large group
dynamics that are based on antithetic religious principles. This
article by Yashiko Sagamori investigates these cultural
differences as acted out on the personal level. Sagamori makes the
simple but profound observation that the more humans believe they
resemble each other, the less do they understand their cultural
differences. Take us and the Muslims.
The Destabilizing Impact Of The Perpetual Arab Refugees
BACKGROUND:
Refugees are usually resettled either back to where they came
from or in other countries within a few years. The only exceptions
are the Arabs who fled Israel in 1948 and their multi-generation
descendants. After 60 plus years, they are still
refugees. UNRWA, the UN agency that supports these refugees and
only these refugees, provides lifetime welfare benefits, rather
than focusing on resettlement.
There are two UN agencies dedicated to handling refugees. The
UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was established on a temporary
basis to deal with the Arabs who fled the new state of Israel when
it was attacked by its Arab neighbors in 1948, as soon as the
State of Israel came into being. Additional refugees were added in
1967, when Arabs fled when the Arab countries again invaded Israel.
Over the years Arabs labeled "internally displaced persons",
Arabs who live in Israel, Samaria or Judea,
have also been registered as "refugees".
The original group of refugees has increased enormously, starting with
an estimated 300-400,000 to 750,000 refugees, and is now over 7
million. UNRWA handles only the Arab refugees living in Jordan,
Lebanon, Syria, Samaria and Judea (the West Bank), and Gaza, which
totals 5.49 million people. The other UN agency, the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), handles every other
refugee in the world, including the Palestinian refugees not
handled by UNRWA.
Brett D. Schaefer and James Phillips of the Heritage Foundation
compared the two agencies this way
(March 5, 2015):
"As of July 1, 2014, UNRWA reported a staff of 30,252 to support 5.49
million persons (5.09 million 'registered refugees' and 398,229
'other registered persons') in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and
Gaza Strip. UNRWA reported expenditures of $1.1 billion in 2013,
including $678.9 million in regular budget expenditures ($206 in
total budget expenditures per individual and $125 in regular
budget expenditures per individual).
"UNHCR reported a staff of 7,735 in 2013, a 2013 budget of $5.34
billion, and budget expenditure of $2.97 billion to support more
than 42.9 million refugees, internally displaced persons, and
'others of concern' to UNHCR in more than 100 countries ($124 of
total budget per individual or $69 in budget expenditure per
individual)."
THIS SECTION EXAMINES TWO FACETS of the problem of the
Palestine refugees: (1) the enormous increase rather than diminution
of the number of refugees over the years, and (2) the
relationship of the refugees and the peace negotiations between
Israel and the Palestinian Arabs (also see previous section on
the peace process):
(1) Put simply, stopping the exponential growth of Arab refugees, a
festering problem, means reexamining the role of UNRWA. UNRWA
hasn't reduced the number of refugees. Quite the opposite. UNRWA
has grown the Arab refugee problem into a large, almost
intractable, problem. In conjunction with Muslim clerics and
political leaders, they have instilled in their charges the
certainty that the Land belongs to them. They have carefully
cultivated an attitude of revenge. They have nurtured a cult of
death, helping to train their clients in techniques of terrorism
from the time they are toddlers. Instead of dissolving their
client's refugee status and making them independent, they have
made the refugees dependent and incapable of running their own
lives. UNRWA needs to be separated from the Arabs it has
psychologically crippled.
Israel solved the problem of the Jewish refugees from Arab
lands — it made them citizens and helped them reconstruct
their lives as Israelis while keeping what they wanted of their
old customs and traditions. Though Israel was a new country and a
poor country, it did this with no help from the U.N. The wealth
and real property the Jews left behind when they were forced to
flee is still in the hands of the Arab states.
The Arab countries have resources to solve the other refugee
problem. The refugees live in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, but there
are 22 Arab states, which could take in groups of these Arabs,
depending on their resources. Or they could finance the
construction of a Palestinian Arab state somewhere within the
99.99% of the Middle East the Arab own. It could be much larger
than Israel and the Territories and still be a tiny portion of the
land the Arabs have. At this point, someone is sure to say: but
don't you understand, the Arab refugees want to return to their
homeland, just as the Jews did over 2000 years of the Diaspora.
The answer is that it is a publicist's dream but a complete lie to
say that Israel belongs to the Palestinian people. There is no
Palestinian People. There never was a Country or State that was
called Palestine. They have no claim to land that most of them
came to after the Jewish Aliyah made the area economically
attractive. The land was owned by the Ottomans for hundreds of
years before the Europeans conquered it in WW1, not by Arabs.
It is ludicrous that so many local Arabs have kept their
benefits-rich refugee status while living under Arab governance in
Gaza, Samaria and Judea. It is pathetic that their pretending that
their environment and culture is alien to what they had before
their (great) grandparents left Israel — a few miles down
the road — is accepted by their logic-deficient and
history-ignorant sympathizers.
(2) As the American Friends Service Committee, a pro-Arab group,
writes: "The Palestinian refugee issue is at the heart of
the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."
Establishing a Palestinian State in the Territories would give the
Palestinian Arabs a state of their own, thus negating the
argument that the Jews were occupying the Palestinian Homeland. It's
been assumed that a Palestinian State would provide a permanent home for the Arab
refugees now scattered in several Arab states.
But the establishment of a Palestinian State will not bring peace.
The leaders of the Arab countries and the Palestinian
Authority continue to insist that all the Palestine refugees have
the right to be repatriated to Israel. They have openly said they
intend to continue hostilities until the refugees return to their
homes in what is now Israel.
Pro-Arab sympathizers such as the Holy Land Principles
Org write (see
here): "If their [Arab refugees's] right to return to Israel
is respected, they will thus be able to choose the option most
appropriate to them, i.e. return to Israel, take the nationality
of a new Palestinian state or resettle in a third country." In
point of fact, the Palestinian Authority has already firmly stated
that the refugees will not be allowed to become citizens of this
Palestinian State anymore than they have been allowed to become
citizens of all other Arab states except Jordan, where, despite
their citizenship, they are still counted as refugees. Nor can
they elect to resettle permanently in a third country. They can't
even elect to settle in the particular Arab country from which
they or their (grand)parents migrated to Mandated Palestine, often
just a few years before they fled. They are now UNRWA-registered
refugees and as such, they are an important asset for the Arabs to
use to fight Israel. The Arab countries don't want to settle the
refugees permanently because they want millions of refugees
invading Israel.
Israel would be foolhardy to let in even some of the
refugees because they have been indoctrinated to work towards
making Israel part of the Palestinian State; i.e., destroying the
Jewish character of Israel.
Considering the importance of continued Jihad and global conquest
in the Muslim culture, there may be no political or educational
way to peaceful relations.
THE PALESTINIAN REFUGEES ON THE DAY AFTER "INDEPENDENCE"
by Jonathan D. Halevi, December 2010
Hard statistics are hard to come by. But In 1948, what would
become the new State of Israel (and not including the Golan, Gaza, Judea and
Samaria) had somewhat less or much less (depending on the
estimate) than 690,000 to 736,000 permanent Arab residents. (See
MidEastWeb.) After the Arab invasion of the new-born State of
Israel in May 1948, subtracting the couple of hundred thousand
Arabs that remained, and accepting the artificial inflation due to
double ration cards, not reporting the dead, registration of Arabs
in the Territories and poor Arabs in the Arab host countries that
had never been to Israel — there were at the very
most — 595,000 refugees, well below the number of Jews
who were forced to flee the Arab countriess. In August 1948, the U.N.
estimated the number of Arab refugees needing help at 330,000. The
U.N. now supports around 5 million people [as of 2010], the
putative original refugees and their multi-generation descendants. As of 2016, the
number of refugees registered with UNRWA plus those living elsewhere is well over 7 million.
Jonathan Halevi does an excellent job of making us understand
Arab thinking on the right of return of the Palestine Arabs to
Israel. In essence, even if a sovereign Palestinian Arab state
were to be established, this would have no impact on changing the
status of the Palestine refugees. The Arabs have locked
themselves into a refusal to accept anything but an unfettered
return of the more than seven million Arab "refugees" to Israel
before they consider ending their armed struggle with Israel.
This is reinforced by their interpretation of Resolution 194 and
additional resolutions of the General Assembly of the U.N.,
although none of these resolutions are binding. In this context,
note that PA Chairman Abbas has stated that the Arab refugees
will not be allowed to become citizens of any future state of
Palestine.
Ignoring for the moment that Israel is a sovereign country,
perfectly capable of deciding for itself who it will allow in,
the rejectionism of the Arab leaders appears to leave only one
path for the registered refugees: if the refugees can't be
citizens of a Palestinian state and the Arab leaders in the
different Arab states continue to reject any "resettlement of the
refugees in any Arab state, the Arab Peace Initiative essentially
leaves each refugee with no choice but to go to Israel itself."
The Arab states now hosting the 'refugees' are a way station in
which to collect the refugees and strengthen them to work to take
over Israel when they to go back to their old homes in Israel
— Halevi cites a 2010 poll of Palestinians where the
majority agree that "Palestinians must work to get back all the
land [i.e. Israel] for a Palestinian State. Those that think
that inundating Israel with even thousands, let alone millions,
of Arabs is the humanitarian thing to do and downplay that it
will destroy Israel should give consideration to creating a
destabilizing precedent. Give this a thought: after World War Two
there were millions and millions of
refugees
(see here
and
here); many of them were resettled in new places. What if
these refugees and their children and their grandchildren and
their great grandchildren began to demand the right of return?
We have added an appendix using part of an article written by
Eli E. Hertz in 2012 and entitled "UN Resolution 194 and the
'Right of Return.'" Additional legal assessments of Resolution 194 and the
right of return are:
Ruth Lapidoth, "Do Palestinian Refugees Have a Legal 'Right
of Return' to Israel?'", available
here,
Ruth Lapidoth, "Security Council Resolution 242: An Analysis of its Main Provisions,"
here
and
Constantine Kaniklidis, "The Israeli/Palestinian
Conflict: The Evidence", available
here.
Michael Bernstam describes Gaza, with its eight UNRWA refugee
camps as "a totalitarian paramilitary camp at war with its
neighbors and other Palestinians." Typically, refugees are
helped over an immediate crises and encouraged to resettle
somewhere or other in a timely fashion. In contrast, UNRWA, the
agency established in 1949 exclusively for the Arab refugees,
has continued to provide generous handouts, medical care,
education and social services to the children and grandchildren
and great grandchildren of the original refugees. UNRWA, with
its complete welfare program for an ever-expanding clientele
living in 59 refugee camps scattered over several Arab countries
and in the Territories, has thwarted economic development,
destroyed opportunities for peace in the Middle East, and
created, along the way — both metaphorically and literally — a
breeding ground for international terrorism." Keeping these
professional refugees on the dole has prevented them from
developing a nation-state. It follows that the best way to
improve their lot would be to abolish UNRWA.
Claudia Rosett puts the essential facts about the Gaza populace bluntly, "In the current violence of Gaza, we are seeing the fruition of one of the most bizarre creations of modern diplomacy: a UN-supported welfare enclave for terrorists." and "Hamas has been running Gaza as a territory reduced to basically two industries: aid and terrorism." Strip out the fantasy that Hamas is mostly a beneficent social services agency. Strip the cunning propaganda that there's something so unique about the "Palestinian" Arabs that, unlike any other group of refugees in the world, they are never to be resettled anywhere but in the land they claim as their own and until then they are entitled to the services of an entire U.N. agency just for them. Strip out diplomat language that tries to hide that the United Nations has been corrupted. And you are left with the essentials Rosett states so well. Instead of being a force to encourage civility and human rights, the U.N. has become another forum for promulgating Arab propaganda and bankrolling terror.
Unlike all other groups who have become refugees
temporarily, the refugee status of the Palestinian Arab is
artificially maintained by the United Nations Relief and Welfare
Agency (UNRWA). The problem is not just political. As Moshe Dann
writes, "... UNRWA receives funding from terrorist organizations
(including al Qaida connected) and [UNRWA's] 'refugee camps' are
major centers of terrorism." And terrorism is not the way to
promote peaceful co-existence.
UNHCR, an agency of the United Nations, has helped millions
of refugees since WW2 to find new homes in a timely fashion.
Refugeehood isn't transferable to the next generation. UNHCR
handles all refugees except the Arabs refugees, who have an
agency, UNRWA, dedicated to them and their children and
(great)grandchildren, with no termination point in sight. Unlike
all other refugee groups, they have been preserved as refugees
until they can return to their homes in Israel. UNRWA feeds them
and provides them with education and medical services. It also
allows them to be inculcated with hate toward Israel and trained
as terrorists. Elliott Abrams makes the case that "Palestinian
refugees should be handled by UNHCR with the intention of
resettling them. That process should begin with a redefinition of
who is a refugee entitled to benefits, so that benefits are based
on need rather than on status." It would improve life for them. It
might even improve the chances of peace in the Middle East. (For
additional material on UNRWA and how it keeps the refugee problem
from being resolved, see the exchange of comments at the end of
the article.)
Alternative Ways To Reduce Hostilities Between Arabs And
Jews
An immediate solution to being besieged to give up land would
be to annex Samaria and Judea. Israel has international law on its
side, as well as Biblical promise, and an extraordinary history of
devotion to the homeland: there were always Jews living in Israel
despite having to endure dreadful hardships and Jews kept its
memory alive for 2000 years when living in the Diaspora. In recent
times, Israel created a modern state out of a malaria-infested,
rock-strewn wasteland, a state that in a few short years has
benefitted the entire world with innovative electronics and
medical techniques. It has served as an instructive example of how
to live civilized when barbarians want to reduce you to their
level. Even demographic trends are in its favor. It also has the
reality underlying the creation of most countries — it
conquered the land fair and square, regaining more of its own land
each time the Arab countries invaded Israel to demolish it.
The problem is that Israel is still groggy from years of
believing that it must cater to world opinion. Unfortunately, it
doesn't have the luxury of deferring action. As the first of this
set of articles points out, the world, with Israel in the
foreground, is in the midst of the latest jihad by resurgent
Islam. It must rid itself of Fifth-Column Arabs in Israel and
curtail the growth of the Arab population so that it doesn't
reach the "take-over" stage of Muslim control of a foreign host.
(See Richard Butrick's article in the January 2013 Think-Israel
issue
here.)
Annexation is a short-term solution. A better solution and one
that gives the Arabs that call themselves Palestinians their own
land is to give them their own place(s) within the vast land area the
Arabs own. See e.g., Section 1 of the September-October 2010
Issue. This will require regional support — but, after all,
the Arab states were responsible for the local Arabs becoming
refugees. In fact they created two sets of refugees: Arab and
Jewish.
This set of articles examines alternative solutions that have a
chance of succeeding because they are based on realistic goals and
historically good solutions.
Some suggest that money be given to individual families to
assist them to set up in an Arab country — they would be
given a sufficient dowry to make them attractive to the Arab state
they were negotiating with.
Others suggest the Palestinian Arabs now living in the various
Arab states stay where they are but have their status changed so
they become citizens of the respective states.
As a third-way: give the Palestinian Arabs, including the
refugees, a large tract of Land in Arab Land — Saudi Arabia
and Sinai have been suggested. Fence it in. Help them farm if they
wish. Help them set up infrastructure, if they wish. Spend the
money that now goes on fences in Israel and UNRWA salaries and
terrorist training camps on helping the Palestinians truly learn
how to run a state. And if they prefer terror and murder and
adding nails dipped in rat-poison to their explosives, let them do
it — to themselves. Their choice.
Muslim leaders have persuaded the current American
administration that their jihad against the West is America's
fault because it supports Israel. The Arab jihad against Israel is
Israel's fault because it inhibits Arab nationalism. Blaming
Islamist violence in Afghanistan and Iraq and the nuclear threat
in Iran on Israel's supposed occupation of Arab land conveniently
forgets that the Arabs were massacring Jews in the Holy Land well
before Israel was a state — "Palestine" was never a state —
during the time when Jew and Arab lived equally in squalid
conditions under the Ottoman rule. As Wallace Brand makes clear in
this essay, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is just another
manifestation of the Third Wave of jihad by a resurgent Islam. The
Islamists have again begun a religious war around the world,
aiming at world dominance. "Terror in the West is not caused by US
support for Israel; terror all over the world is the result of
Islamist imperialism."
Lewis Lipkin defines population exchange as "the legal and
enforced exchange of populations so as to eliminate conflict by
eliminating contact." He notes that "[p]opulation exchange is not
a new idea. Sometimes a complete separation is the only way that
two groups unable to live together can get on with their lives.
It might be time to complete the separation of the Jews and the
Arabs. The Jews were evacuated from Arab countries when Israel
was born. Maybe it's time to do the second half of the transfer:
move the Palestinian Arabs to Arab countries." If it is moral and
not racist to contemplate the removal of hundreds of thousands of
Jews, who have legitimate ownership, from Samaria and Judea, it is
not racist to transfer Palestinian Arabs to one or more Arab
states. There are, moreover, practical reasons. First, were an
Arab state to be established in Samaria and Judea, it would, like
Gaza, become yet another area from which to launch attacks
against Israel. Second, as Lipkin points out, "The neck between
the 1967 border and Netanya on the Mediterranean coast is less
than 10 miles. There is no depth to defend against external
attack — against external attackers that are supported by 5th
columns that can draw on some 2 million internal enemies. Neither
the geographic situation or the demographics are acceptable." As
we have seen, any Israeli concession encourages the
diplomats of a hostile Europe and UN to pressure Israel to give
up yet more land. And if the Palestinian Arab population is not
resettled in Arab Land, the Peace Diplomats will pressure Israel
to allow a sufficient number of alleged 1948 "refugees" to come
live in Israel, where they can more easily work to destroy it.
For political reasons, UNRWA has provided the Arab refugees of
1948 and their descendants with lifetime welfare when the goal —
as it is for all other refugees — should have been (re)settling
them permanently as soon as possible. To rehabilitate the Arab
refugees, Martin Sherman advocates (1) eliminating UNRWA and (2)
removing the anti-refugee discrimination in citizenship,
employment and housing practiced by the Arab states that currently
host the refugee camps. For those Palestinian Arabs living in the
Israeli Territories — Samaria and Judea (the West Bank) and Gaza
— he recommends that Israel and such international donors that
wish to participate give them generous financial help to relocate
to Muslim countries as individuals, not under the control of their
leaders. A 2004 poll indicated over 70% would take such a deal. It
would also financially benefit the countries that accept them. For Israel,
it would be cheaper than the enormous military costs it currently incurs to
defend itself from neighboring Palestinian states. And for the
international community, especially the European Union, the money
they invest in the Palestinians might actually benefit the community.
Decisions about giving up land that actually belongs to
Israel have been based on false assumptions about demographics and
the belief that West Bank Arabs feel strongly about the land.
Robert Barnes suggests that a realistic alternative strategy
should be explored, i.e., encouraging Arabs to emigrate. He
discusses some practical considerations that would make this plan
feasible.
by Bernice Sacks Lipkin and Lewis Edward Lipkin; appendix by
Richard H. Shulman
It would be suicidal for Israel to allow a Palestinian state to be carved out of Biblical Israel, particularly one that would control a major component of her water supply and is capable of shooting missiles everywhere in Israel. But there remains the festering problem of a growing Palestinian refugee population living on cradle-to-coffin debilitating welfare, taught to hate Israel and the West and used as pawns to make claim to Jewish land. The Editors of Think-Israel propose that the Palestinian Arabs — those from the refugee camps and those residing in the Territories — be helped to establish a viable state within the land given to the Arabs by the League of Nations when the Ottoman Empire was dissolved. The state would be physically well-separted from Arab population centers and legally independent of the Arab country that previously owned the land. Within their state, the Palestinian Arabs would have complete control of their politics, education, culture and living style. Given recent political developments in the Middle East where Israel's military and technological strength is a major asset, the strengthening of Israel's appreciation of its own religious roots and a growing disbelief in the reliability of supposedly impartial external organizations, this is a propitious time to create such a state.
A NEW PLAN FOR RESOLVING THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT
by Richard H. Shulman, September-October 2010
Richard Shulman's plan for resolving the Arab-Israeli
conflict takes into consideration Israeli Arabs as well as the
Arabs living in the Territories. The plan lays down a sequence of
feasible steps that are primarily Israel's responsibility:
beginning with changing Israel's attitude and policy of doing
anything and everything for a peace that can't come about under
prevailing conditions. Israelis need to start thinking with their
heads and start basing their actions on their own interests and
their actual experience with the Arabs, not on the wishful
thinking or the frank anti-Zionism of ignorant foreign diplomats,
politicians and media. Some changes are obvious: favoring the
Arabs no matter what the merits of their case in police actions
and in the judiciary needs to stop; Arab sedition in Israel and in
the Territories is no longer to be tolerated; the Oslo Accords are
to be nullified and Jewish areas in the Territories are to be
annexed. It is much less clear whether eventually expulsion will
be required. Discussions before hand should consider that it would
violate Israel's concept of civil rights as well as creating much
opposition. On the other hand, "[e]xperience shows that a large
Muslim minority is not compatible with majority survival." It does not help resolve the conflict for the
U.S.A. to pressure Israel to make peace while ignoring Islam's
goal of destroying Israel. In fact, America herself needs to make
changes in how she reacts internally to Muslim demands and
infiltration. She needs to recognize that the fight against global
Islamic jihad must be fought globally.
Scraping away false facts that serve as base for unworkable
peace proposals to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, Rachel
Neuwirth uses significant factual data on land availability to
propose a resolution that would benefit the Palestinian Arabs as
well as the Israelis; namely, transfer the Palestinian Arabs to
their own place in a sparsely inhabited part of an Arab country
such as Saudi Arabia.
Gennadiy Faybyshenko notes that the Saudi Arabian Initiative
— which provides for the creation of a Palestinian state inside
Samaria and Judea and the return of enough Arabs to almost double
Israel's Jewish population — would mean the end of Israel. That
won't do. But given the Saudi concern for their Palestinian
brethren and given that Saudi Arabia is huge but sparsely-settled,
a comfortably-sized state for the Palestinian refugees could be
set up in some small portion of Saudi Arabia. Refugee problem:
solved! A state for the Palestinians: created! And, that, according to the Obama administration, is the key to peace and harmony in the Middle East.
Steven Shamrak envisions giving the Palestinian Arabs a larger land area than what they have now by relocating them in the Sinai Desert. The separation between them and Israel would be beneficial to both groups.
UPDATE: RE Shamrak suggestion: in 2015-6, Sisi of Egypt offered the PALs a
home in Sinai. They rejected it. Right now, they can walk to
Jewish neighbors and slaughter them. Sinai would be inconvenient.
THE DEATH OF OSLO AND THE REBIRTH OF JORDAN-IS-PALESTINE
by Matthew Hausman, March 11, 2012
Matthew Hausman elegantly demolishes the notion that the Oslo Process was a vehicle for peace, and suggests an alternative procedure — declaring Jordan, which already has a Palestinian Arab majority, as the Palestinian state. He makes clear that the Jews have had a historic and religious attachment to their homeland for thousands of years and in point of fact never completely left it. The Palestinian Arabs, in contrast, "had no ancestral connection", nor were they a nation or a people. They were mostly immigrants from the neighboring countries, attracted by the economic opportunities created by the Jews and the British. That being the case, moving them to nearby Jordan does not sever them from their homeland. Just the opposite — it gives a motley group of Arabs, the local Arabs and for the millions living in the refugee camps in the various Arab countries, land that could become their homeland.
The British were given the administration of the Palestine
Mandate to aid the Jews settle Palestine as a homeland. Instead,
the Brits gave the administration of the portion of
Palestine east of Jordan River — some 78% of the Land of
Israel — to the Hashemites. Over time, the Arab rulers
called the area Transjordan and now it's the Hashemite Kingdom of
Jordan, and the majority of its inhabitants are
Palestinian Arabs. Sarah Honig writes about Jordan, pointing out
some home truths.
It is Paul Lademain's contention that Israel's leaders — he doesn't think highly of them — are not dealing correctly with the Arabs encroaching on Jewish land. He
bluntly diagnoses what's wrong with Israeli
governments wanting to demonstrate kindness to their enemy more
than showning concern for their own people. As he wrote in ("Israel's Leadership is ignorant of Law", (Nov 21, 2009):
Arabs, especially those educated in the US, apparently
understand British law better than today's Israelis and one of the
most important laws pertaining to the ownership and title to land
is: Possession is 9 points of the law (aka: Possession is 90 per
cent of the law.) This "common law" is in effect throughout the US
and incorporated into statute, and known as "the law of adverse
possession". The law of adverse posssession" allows a trespasser
who gains control over lands belonging to another for a statutory
period to destroy the true title-holder's claim to its property.
The law of adverse possession is well understood by the invading
arab scofflaws, and when Israelis — many in Israel's current top
leadership — automatically refer to every arab as a 'palestinian'
they are, wittingly or not, aiding and abetting the seizure and
destruction of their own nation — bit by bit, piece by piece, and
acre by acre.
By so easily hoodwinking Israelis — getting Jews to call Islamics
'palestinians' and rewarding them with superior rights — the
arabs, who pose as poor and oppressed, are thereby enabled to
buffalo Jews at every turn. Worse still, some powerful women
lodged in Israel's highest court use every imaginary excuse to
reward the Islamics at the expense of Jews — as if these Jewish
women were ashamed of being Jews in a Jewish state.
As we've repeatedly said in the past, we must say it again:
Nations who agree to relinquish their land or their power in
exchange for air-kisses are correctly perceived as "losers,"
because even if they win the war, they invariably lose the peace.
For instance, when Israel bowed to US pressure, and strove to
appear magnanimous by bargaining away its right to assert control
over lands in its possession, Israel was punished by the world
community for its naivete and failure to understand how to
exercise its rights and powers. In short, Israel's status as a
nation was immediately diminished by this unnecessary sacrificial
gesture. A gesture that generated only short-term, illusory
benefits. [...]
To perfect control over YOUR land you must first resolve that
the land is YOURS — and shall always be yours — and to do so
without any qualms and with absolutely no guilt. This new attitude
will allow Jews to assert domination and control over their
promised land without trembling and worrisome second-guessing,
which bad habits have led Jews into the delicious trap of
analysis-paralysis — that is, delicious to the arabs, who joyously
moved in and began to conquer Israel through their sheer numbers
(and untrammeled fecundity) until finally they reached a tipping
point which permitted them to launch attacks on Israeli
civilians.
An effective prescription for peace can be stated in two
words: get real. Israelis need to stop pretending they can
sweet talk into normal, peaceful behavior a bunch of people taught
by their holy books and their holy men and scholars and political
leaders that they are destined to reign over the planet; and that
they must never stop working towards that goal. To change the
odds, Israelis need first to change themselves somewhat. They need
non-Marxist, non-globalist education, a fistful of facts not
wishful thinking, new attitudes and firmness of purpose. They need
to figure out how to give up the intruders, not Jewish land.
Perhaps most of all, they need to admit that much of the Jew's
confidence that what he is doing is the right thing to do comes
primarily from his spiritual connection to God and the land of
Israel. That doesn't seem too much to do when the alternative is
oblivion at the hands of a determined group of death cultists
aided by Western "friends" with reasons of their own for
eliminating the Jews.
Annexing Samaria and Judea, a
large part of the territories, may be a small timorous step but
it's a step in the right direction. John Hinderaker points out
that annexing Judea and Samaria would "entirely moot the idea of
an independent Palestinian state, not just deter the U.N. from
supporting one for the moment" — an excellent reason for openly
claiming land that actually belongs to Israel by international
law. What would become of the Arabs living in Samaria and Judea?
Hinderaker suggests a new interpretation of the 'right of
return': "all Arabs now living in Judea and Samaria would be
allowed, or if necessary required, to return to their compatriots
in Jordan, Gaza, Egypt and Lebanon."
Yoram Shifftan has written significant articles exploring both
Israel's ineffective hasbara and her legal right to Biblical
Israel. In this essay, he asks why Israel's image continues to
deteriorate. He delves and uncovers a major reason: Israel does
not rebut Arab lies with the historical and geographical facts
that are both accurate and that support her claims.
Unfortunately, this lack of resolution is part and parcel of a
larger problem — Israel is still dominated by a small but
influential group that puts liberal secularism above patriotism.
ISRAEL NEEDS TO STOP ARGUING THE PALESTINIANS' CASE AND START ARGUING ITS OWN
by Evelyn Gordon, June 11, 2015
Evelyn Gordon writes an article that shouldn't have to be written.
As the title says, it's time Israel stopped acting as unofficial
spokesmen pleading the Palestinian cause. With all its savvy in
medicine and technology, one would think she could come up with some
intelligent way to talk to the world and tell it about the irrevocable
right of the Children of Israel to the Land of Israel.
Victor Sharpe points out that the fatal flaw in the succession
of peace plans is that "[f]or Muslims, no non-Muslim state or
nation that is on land once conquered by Muslim armies in the
name of Allah will ever be tolerated." This cuts down the number
of intelligent options for Israel to 1. "Unpalatable as it must
be, the only solution for Israel is to make not one additional
concession but resolve to face the entire world if need be
rather than deny Jewish history, Jewish faith, and the Zionist
cause." It must ignore "the siren calls of a fraudulent,
beguiling and deceptive peace."
Tom Carew uses the recent Lebanon War as a starting point on
how we need to restructure our thinking about what our objectives
are in fighting our Jihadist enemies. Instead of praising the IDF
goal of saving enemy civilians at the cost of sacrificing Israeli
citizens, he suggests rational war aims are directed at winning, not
posturing. He then, succintly, provides the context in which these
objectives will be applied — the Fanatical Jihadi Fringe (FJF) war
against everyone else. As he points out, there's "no possible
scope for any negotiation or compromise with the FJF, because...
for the FJF, there is simply nothing to negotiate."
JANUARY 2016 UPDATE: Unfortunately, the
theme of maintaining political correctness as defined by those not
friends of Israel has continued into 2016. It was prominent in
2014 when Israel went into Gaza. Jewish children died because
Israel would not eliminate Arab mortar guarded by human shields.
In this year of 2016, the Arabs are using men, women and children
to snipe, knife and stone Israeli civilians, seemingly at random.
Instead of trying to kill as many terrorists as possible, the
Israeli government has put an IDF soldier on trial because he
killed a terrorist who had been secured but before it was
absolutely determined whether the terrorist was wearing an
explosive. Will Israel never learn?
Martin Sherman wrote this remarkable essay in January 2003. He
pointed out that "[t]he Jewish people have taken their
peace-making efforts to irrational extremes." What he said then is
true now: "The time has come for Israel to assert its fundamental
right to self-defense and for the Jews to remind the world that
they can be fearsome warriors when pushed to the wall. It is time
to convey to the public at home and abroad that Jewish patience is
at an end, that Jewish lives are not cheap and the letting of
Jewish blood will no longer be acceptable. It is time for this
embattled nation to arise, to cry "havoc" and let slip the dogs of
war. Only then will it be clear that the present policy of
restraint was indeed a noble gesture of benign strength and not of
ignoble faintheartedness."
WHAT ISRAEL SHOULD DO NOW: A TIME FOR MORAL CLARITY
by Rabbi Yosef Y. Jacobson, January 16, 2004
Rabbi Yosef Jacobson responds "to some of the painful questions people
of goodwill are asking today." His answers are succinct and
clear and explain why basic concepts many accept as true — that
there is a Palestinian people and that Israel is occupying
Palestinian land — are not true. Given the facts, he suggests
that "[t]he best way to bring about genuine peace in the
Arab-Israeli war is by Israel putting an end to any future
negotiations on the land. Israel must assume full security and
military control over all of the territories under the united
banner of a single country, Eretz Israel."
Barbara Lerner writes about the Muslim ambition to become top
dog globally, with Islam the supreme religion and all other
religions treated as inferior. Destroying Israel seems to be a
necessary step. When invading Israel didn't work, Israel's Arab
neighbors began waging a stealth war. Their weapons were oil
money, taqqiya (creative lying, approved by the Koran,
whereby a Muslim could do and say anything and not feel
honor-bound to keep his word) and the newly-invented Palestinians
that would invert reality and become the quintessential victim. They
are succeeding in discrediting Israel — which was out of its
league at playing their propaganda game — and winning the
overwhelming support of the Europeans. Lerner points out that our
acceptance of Muslim's assertions and our denigration of our own
Jewish and Christian Biblical values earn the West contempt and
make the Muslims more confident they will win. "To change their
minds, and our future, we need to reject the Palestinian
Taqqiya and embrace Biblical Israel."
ISRAEL MUST REACQUIRE SUFFICIENT IDEOLOGICAL DETERMINATION TO PERSEVERE, PROGRESS, REPULSE, AND OVERWHELM ITS ADVERSARIES
by Major General (res.) Gershon Hacohen, October, 2015
Gershon Hacohen advocates a major change in Israel's attitude
towards terrorists and in its ways of keeping its enemies at bay. He
urges a change from reaction to proaction. He promotes a policy
change from minimal and mostly responsive actions that at best
contain terrorist activity to actions that will overwhelm Israel's
adversaries and stop the low-level but constant terrorism. He
advocates viewing "Israel as a stepping stone for redemption and
as the Jewish national spiritual homeland" rather than "as a safe
haven." As it is now, Israel is locked "into a defensive posture"
dictated by the actions of the Arabs. She should be seizing the
initiative. She is the one to "re-shape and shake-up the strategic
environment"; she is the one that should be determining the facts on the
ground. Jerusalem as a whole needs to be connected seamlessly to
its satellite communities. As Hacohen writes, "We are seeking the
return to Zion in all regions of our homeland! And if Israel does
not insist on this, it will steadily withdraw inward, toward the
coastal plain, and edge towards decline." Jewish settlements in
Samaria and Judea should be treated as the "forward outposts of
Zionism" that they are.
Hacohen's assessment of Israel's squeamish and inadequate
response to Arab hostility is readily confirmed. It is absurd that
Jewish citizens only obtain permission to build in Samaria and
Judea with great difficulty, while the continuous illegal building
by Arabs is ignored by the authorities. It is shameful that the
Arab Waqf sets the rules so that Jews can not pray on
the Temple Mount but Arab children play ball games on Judaism's
Holiest Site. It is almost fifty years since the Jews reclaimed
eastern Jerusalem from the Jordanian invaders, and it is still a
slow, painful and expensive process for Jews to reclaim their
property. Too many politicians, judges and the media acquiesce in
Arabs continuing to squat rent-free in buildings that legally
belong to Jews. They don't stop the Arabs from building new constructions on land owned by
Jews. They have allowed whole neighborhoods to be taken over by the Arabs in
this manner. The upshot has been that the Arabs have become
arrogant. Snotty Arab children have no fear of punishment as they
terrorize Jewish children or harass IDF soldiers. Jews on the
Temple Mount are attacked by Arab women screeching at them. Jews
are arrested for moving their lips — they might be praying! All
this makes the Arabs more and more confident that they will eliminate the
Jews and take over all of Israel.
PART 2: LEGAL CONCEPTS AND PERTINENT LEGAL
DOCUMENTS
RELATIONSHIPS AMONG THE PERTINENT LEGAL
DOCUMENTS CONFIRMING THE JEWISH OWNERSHIP OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL
The articles in this set connect the relevant legal documents,
emphasizing the importance of the San Remo Conference and the
ensuing Mandate for Palestine.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916): Also known
as the Asia Minor Agreement, this was a
secret agreement between Britain and France on how they would
divide the Middle East region of the Ottoman Empire among the
Allied Powers, with specific areas marked out on an official map.
France would control today's Syria, Lebanon, northern Iraq and
southeast Turkey; Britain would control the area that is today's
and the Negev would be a single Arab state or a confederation of
Arab states; and the area southward from Gaza to the Dead Sea and
covering the Ottoman Sanjak of Jerusalem would be under
international administration. Jerusalem and Jewish interests were
not mentioned. They did worry about controlling arms importation
into the Arab territory. The treaty was officially nullified by
the Allies at the San Remo conference in April, 1920. The full
text is available at
avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/sykes.asp.
The Balfour Declaration (November 2, 1917): This was the famous
letter Lord Arthur James Balfour sent to Baron Walter Rothschild
acknowledging that: "The British government favored the creation
of a Jewish national home in Palestine." The full text is
available at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/balfour.asp.
The Covenant of the League of Nations (1919 plus
amendments to 1924): This detailed
the structure and membership of the newly-formed League of
Nations. Some of the text indicated concern with how to implement
the League's Mission, which was: to promote international
co-operation and to achieve international peace and security.
Article 8, for example, called for reducing national armaments.
According to Article 12, arbitration was the method of choice for
settling disputes. Article 22 of the Covenant established "the
principle that the well-being and development of ... peoples [not
yet able to stand by themselves] form a sacred trust of
civilization." The full text is available at
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp.
The San Remo Conference (April 19-26, 1920): The
Allied Supreme Council passed resolutions at San Remo, Italy, that
created mandates for administering the new partitions of the once
Ottoman Empire. The boundaries would be finalized by the Principal
Allied Powers. On April 24th, they passed the resolution for
Palestine, confirming, as Joshua Teitelbaum put it (September
15, 2010, here) "the historic roots of the
internationally-recognized right of Jewish self-determination. It
recognized the existence of the Jews as more than individuals who
subscribed to a certain religion — Judaism — but rather as
a corporate group deserving of national expression, in this
case in the form of a national home." This document, backed by the
entire membership of the League of Nations, authorized the
decision to put the land on both sides of the Jordan River, the
land that was once Biblical Palestine, in a permanent trust for
the Jewish people with the understanding "that this would not
involve the surrender of the rights hitherto enjoyed by the
non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political
status enjoyed by Jews in any other country...." It incorporated
the provisions of the Balfour Declaration combined with Article 22
of the League of Nations Covenant. The full text is available at
http://www.cfr.org/israel/san-remo-resolution/p15248
The Treaty of Sèvres (August 10, 1920): This
was one of group of documents that spelled the end of the Ottoman
Empire. In signing the Treaty of Sèvres, the Ottomans
relinquished all of their non-Turkish territory. The treaty spoke
of an independent Armenia and an autonomous Kurdistan; these
provisions were later voided by the Treaty of Lausanne. Articles
94 and 95 of Section 6 of Part 3 recapitulated the San Remo
provisions; Britain was given the mandate for the southern half of
the Ottoman province of Syria, the region known as Palestine. The
full text is available at http://www.hri.org/docs/sevres/
The Franco-British Boundary Convention (December 23,
1920): This demarcated the boundaries between Palestine,
Mesopotamia and Syria-Lebanon — between the British and French
mandates — rectifying the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. Much of
the Golan was illegally put in the French-controlled area, and
hence removed from the Palestine Mandate. Otherwise, with some
modifications, Palestine was most of the land that had been Jewish
in Biblical times. It was land on both sides of the Jordan River.
The full text is available at
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2213236
The British White Paper (June 3, 1922): In response to the
violence starting in 1920, where the Arabs rioted, looted Jewish
shops and massacred Jews, the British issued this White Paper
reassuring the Arabs (!) that the Balfour Declaration did not
"support "the disappearance or the subordination of the Arabic
population, language, or culture in Palestine." And, as the Jewish
Virtual Library put it (here),
it "also established the principle of 'economic absorptive
capacity' as a factor for determining the immigration quota of
Jews to Palestine." On the other hand, it stated unequivocally
that "the Declaration, reaffirmed by the Conference of the
Principle Allied Powers at San Remo and again in the Treaty of
Sevres, is not susceptible of change." The White Paper noted that
letter from Sir Henry McMahon to the Sharif of Mecca did indeed
promise Arab independence from the Ottomans within particular
territories. However, the same letter excluded "the portions of
Syria lying to the west of the District of Damascus. This
reservation has always been regarded by His Majesty's Government
as covering the vilayet of Beirut and the independent Sanjak of
Jerusalem. thus excluded from Sir Henry McMahon's pledge." The
full text is available at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/brwh1922.asp
The Mandate for Palestine (July 24, 1922): Between the time
the provisions of San Remo were formulated and the time they were
confirmed and detailed in the Mandate for Palestine, Winston
Churchill illegally handed over "the administration" of
Transjordan (the land west of the Jordan and ove three quarters of
Mandated Palestine) to Abdullah, Sharif Hussein's second son; the
region eventually became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The
Mandate gave "civil and religious rights" to all the residents of
the Land (no mention was made specifically of "Arabs"). Article 2
said, "The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country
under such political, administrative and economic conditions as
will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home, as laid
down in the preamble, and the development of self-governing
institutions, and also for safeguarding the civil and religious
rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race
and religion." The full text is available at
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp
The Anglo-American Convention (December 3, 1924): In 1922
President Warren G Harding signed the unanimous joint resolution
of Congress recognizing a future Jewish state in "the whole of
Palestine." The Anglo-American Convention is a follow-up document.
President Calvin Coolidge by proclamation confirmed the United
States of America's acceptance of the provisions of the Mandate
for Palestine. It included the full text of the Mandate for
Palestine. The US needed a separate document, other than the
Mandate for Palestine, because it was not a member of the League
of Nations. There was the ambiguity that the USA's acceptance was
in part because "the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that
the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the
declaration originally made on the 2nd November, 1917, by the
Government of his Britannic Majesty," when Palestine meant the
land on both sides of the Jordan River, not just the land that
remained after Britain essentially gave TransJordan 78% of the
land in 1921. The full text is available
http://www.alliedpowersholocaust.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/1924-Anglo-American-Convention.pdf
The United Nations Charter (1945): The assets of the
League of Nations, including the Palestine Mandate, were
transferred to the new United Nations organization — it came into
being June 26, 1945 --- after its Charter came into effect on
October 24, 1945. The League of Nations held its last assembly in
April 8, 1946, and dissolved itself on April 20, 1946. The UN
charter has 19 Chapters and covers membership, agencies, the
General Assembly, the Security Council and the Secretariat, among
other subjects. Chapters, in turn, contain Articles, that specify
rules, regulations, policy, and procedures. Article 80, Chapter
12, is most relevant to the Mandate for Palestine. Speaking of the
International Trusteeship System, it states that "nothing in this
Chapter shall be construed in or of itself to alter in any manner
the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of
existing international instruments to which Members of the United
Nations may respectively be parties." Often informally labeled the
Jewish People's clause, Article 80 of the UN Charter means that
the Jewish right to Palestine and the Land of Israel continues
in perpetuum, even though the Mandate expired May 15, 1948,
when Israel became a sovereign State. It confirms that the right
to the Land of Israel and Palestine is vested in the Jewish People
and can not be altered or abrogated. This means, for example, that
it would be illegal for the UN to transfer ownership of any part
of Palestine to the Palestinian Authority. The full text of the
Charter is available at http://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/
This is a superb presentation by
Eli E. Hertz on the Legal Aspects of
Jewish Rights to the Land of Israel. It begins by asking What is
Palestine? It explains the importance of the term Mandate
and presents the chronology of the events leading to signing of the
document that placed Mandated Palestine in an irrevocable trust for
the Jewish people, to develop into a Jewish state. Three facts are of
particular importance. (1) The representatives of the League of
Nations viewed the Mandate as reinforcing an already existing historic
connection between the Jews and their ancient homeland. The Land was
theirs by right. The Jews would be redeeming, reconstituting and
recreating their national Home in situ. (2) The rest of the
Middle East part of the Ottoman Empire (some 99.99% of the land) was
cut up into states that were given to the Arabs. In some cases there
was a long-established connection to the land. In others, boundaries
were arbitrary and were a poor fit to the clans and sects of the
various local Arabs living in that particular region. (3) The Assets,
Rights and Obligations of the League of Nations were transferred to
the United Nations where it came into being. The Palestine Mandate is
valid.
The version on Think-Israel of Hertz's article is in slides
format. A presentation that emphasizes the text material is
available on the Myths and Facts website here.
SUMMARY OF ISRAEL'S LEGAL RIGHTS TO JUDEA AND SAMARIA
by Ted Belman, November-December, 2009
Ted Belman summarizes the unbroken series of treaties and
resolutions, laid out by the San Remo Resolution, the League of
Nations and the United Nations, that give the Jewish People title
to Mandatory Palestine and the city of Jerusalem. Ownership of
the Land went from the defunct Ottoman Empire to the present
State of Israel. The Arabs were never involved. The
"Palestinians" had never owned the land; they had never had a
state on the land. Considering that during the same period and by
the same mechanisms, the Arabs acquired title to over 99% of the
Middle East, the Arabs can hardly be considered to be deprived of
land.
by Canadians for Israel's Legal Rights, August 10, 2011
This article focuses on the sequence of events that led to the
San Remo Conference.
It describes the context and environment within which the San
Remo Conference took place.
It also serves as a sister paper to the next article below, Howard Grief's article on the San Remo
conference. It was produced by the Canadians for Israel's Legal Rights
(CILF).
THE RIGHTS OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE
OVER THE LAND OF ISRAEL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW
by Howard Grief, December 5, 2010
Howard Grief discusses the documents that established the firm
legal foundation of Israel being the exclusive owner of the land
designated as Jewish by the League of Nations. The Land of Israel
— current Israel, Samaria and Judea (aka West Bank), the
Golan and Gaza — was given to the Jewish people as a
perpetual trust and handed in that condition to the successor to
the League of the Nations, the United Nations. This is a clear
presentation of the documents that preceded the document of
ownership and some of the history of the time. Any whittling away
of this trust is illegal, whether it is attempted by a foreign
country, the Israeli government or the U.N. itself. The question
that remains is why have successive Israeli governments not
asserted their claim. For that matter, why would a Jewish
government allow control of the Temple Mount, its most holy site,
by the Arabs?
TWO NOTABLE EVENTS RECALLED THROUGH THE PRISM OF HISTORY
by Alex Rose, June 6, 2010
Alex Rose writes about two notable events of historical
importance. The first was the San Remo Conference of 1920. "It
recognized the exclusive national Jewish rights to the Land of
Israel under international law, on the strength of the historical
connection of the Jewish people to the territory previously known
as Palestine." The San Remo Resolution "remains irrevocable,
legally binding and valid to this day." The second was Abba Eban's
speech to the UN General Assembly's Special Political Committee in
1958 suggesting transfer of the Arab refugees to the states
responsible for the problem — the Arab states that had invaded
Israel in 1948 and 1967. Actually, these states were responsible
for two sets of refugees: the Arabs from Israel and the Jews from
the different Arab countries. Israel, with few resources, took in
the Jews. The Arabs had huge resources but have reneged. It's time
they faced up to their responsibility.
Jerold Auerbach does what shouldn't be necessary — he reminds
the politicos of the U.N. that its creating a Palestinian State
in what was Mandated Palestine would be illegal. It would
violate the U.N.'s own role as guarantor that what was Mandated
Palestine is held in an irrevocable trust for the Jewish people.
It is, in fact, incorporated in the UN Charter as Article 80.
Auerbach also explores why Israel has not made this information
generally known. He writes, contrasting a secular government and
more or less religious settlers: "At best ambivalent - and
usually hostile - toward Jews in Judea and Samaria, government
officials have resolutely maintained silence about the
international guarantees for the 'close settlement' of Jews west
of the Jordan River." But that doesn't do away with reality:
Israeli settlements are legitimate because Samaria and Judea
belong to Israel. They are legally Israel's by the same
authority that gave the rest of the Ottoman Middle East to the
Arabs. "The Palestinian claim, by contrast, is a contrived
recent invention. ... Devised by Arabs who only recently
identified themselves as 'Palestinians,' it is built on the
foundation of perpetual victimization claims, the international
determination to delegitimize Israel, and - perhaps most
revealing - the pillaging of Jewish and Zionist history."
Annexation by Israel of at least pieces of Samaria and Judea is
a low-keyed but necessary solution.
The articles in this Section are concerned
with some fundamental legal concepts and how they do and do not
apply in determining whether Israel is occupying Jewish land or
Arab land. Specifically, the first article discusses what the
rights of a sovereign state entail in context of the Jewish
ownership of the Land of Israel. In the second article, the
oft-times clashing concepts of self-determination versus the
rights of a sovereign state frame a discussion of the legality of
the settlements in Judea and Samaria. The third article explains the essential difference
between legal and legitimacy. The final
article in the set discusses the impact of media sloppiness in
using legal terminology and citing legal documents.
Because some of the information in Part 2 on Israel's claim to
Jewish land depends on the legal concept of a Trust, we
repost here "The Palestine Mandate in a Nutshell", written
by Wallace Edward Brand. It first appeared in
Introduction to the September-October 2014 Issue (see here and
below). The "unshelled" version is at
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2385304. See
also Brand's discussion of Israel's ownership as applied to
Judea and Samaria
here.
The text of San Remo Agreement provided: "The High Contracting Parties agree to ENTRUST... the administration of Palestine . . .
Trust law for non-lawyers
After finding an intention to set up a trust, look for:
The "settlor", the person or entity setting it up. He
contributes the trust res.
The cestui que trust or "beneficiary" of the trust.
The trustee.
The trust res or the thing place in trust.
The purpose of the trust.
The term of the trust.
These are the vital elements of a trust. Some are expressed; others
may be inferred. For example if you place a delicate Ming dynasty
bowl in trust for your daughter aged 5, others may infer that the
purpose of the trust that is to vest when she is 30 is to preserve
and protect it until she is capable of doing that herself.
The 1920 San Remo agreement of the Allied Principal War Powers
contained the British Balfour Declaration of Policy word-for-word.
The 1922 Palestine Mandate approved by 51 countries that were
members of the League of Nations, and also by the United States,
filled in the details needed to apply the Balfour Policy.
One. At San Remo, the settlor of the trust was the Supreme
Council of the Allied Principal War Powers in WWI. They defeated
Germany who commenced the war and the Ottoman Empire who joined
Germany in making war on the Allies. Under customary International
Law, the victors in a defensive war may negotiate with the
vanquished to establish new boundaries for it and keep all the
territory outside the new boundary. In this way the Ottoman Empire
was reduced to Turkey. The remaining Turkish territory in Europe
was allocated by the Supreme Council at the 1919 Paris Peace
Talks. Claims for territory in the Middle East — Syria,
Mesopotamia and Palestine — were resolved at the reconvening of
the group at San Remo, the following year. At the Paris Peace
talks the Allies set up the League of Nations including Article 22
of its Covenant that provided for "mandates". These were
combination trusts and guardianships for countries that had been
colonies of Turkey for 400 years. The Mandatory was to provide
stability and tutelage for their political development to become
independent representative governments over time.
Two. The cestui que trust is the beneficiary. The beneficiary
has no right to go to a "law court" to protect his rights. That is
only the right of the trustee. He has legal dominion over the
trust res. For a tangible piece of property, such as a Ming
dynasty bowl, only the trustee has the right of possession. If it
is stolen, only the trustee can go into a court of law to reclaim
it. The beneficiary is limited to protecting his rights against
abuse by the trustee. He is entitled to go into a court of equity.
The beneficiary here was the Jewish People or World Jewry. It was
the Jewish people and the Arab people who had submitted competing
claims for collective political rights to Palestine at the Paris
Peace talks. Woodrow Wilson's Commission of Inquiry in searching
for those throughout the world having the right of
self-determination had said of the Jews that Palestine was "the
cradle and home of their vital race" and noted that the Jews were
the only people that had no other land.
An express term of the trust made the World Zionist Association
the formal advisor to the mandate government. Another term
required the trustee to facilitate only Jewish immigration so the
Jews could become a majority.
Three. The mandate was based on English law concepts of trusts
and guardianships. Britain volunteered to be trustee or
"mandatory" and was selected.
Four. The thing placed in trust, the trust res, was an
intangible, the collective right of a group to establish a
government and provide for its administration. This is referred to
as "group political rights". An individual political right,
sometimes referred to as included in "civil rights", is the right
to one vote for each citizen.
Five. The purpose of the trust was, in the case of most of
the mandates, providing a stable government until such time as the
majority of the people in the territory of the state developed
politically and could represent themselves - there having been no
opportunity in the last 400 years for the inhabitants of the
former Turkish colonies to do that. It was also, in the case of
the Palestine Mandate, to avoid an antidemocratic Jewish
government. At the time the Jews were in the minority in the
entire territory of Palestine and if they had legal dominion over
the political rights, an antidemocratic government would be in
power. One purpose of the Palestine Mandate was to delay
representative self-government until the Jews were in the majority
within the area to be ruled.
Six. The term of the trust — it was to end when the Jewish
population in the area to be ruled was in the majority and the
Jews had the capability, just as any European Government to
exercise sovereignty. That would avoid an antidemocratic
government such as later was founded in Syria by the French, of a
minority of Alawites that under Hafez Assad and Bashir Assad has
caused so much misery and destruction.
Historical note
In 1948 the Jewish population within the Armistice Line in
Palestine became the majority. The trust res partially vested. In
1967 it became completely vested. Coincidentally the UN Partition
Resolution 181 was enacted on November 29,1947, not long before
1948 when Israel proclaimed its independence. That is why many
people believe that Resolution 181 is the root of Israel's
sovereignty. But the Arabs rejected this Resolution. By law it was
only a recommendation that must be approved by all involved before
becoming international law. It died at birth when rejected by the
Arabs.
In 1964 the PLO charter was drafted in Moscow. It posited that
there was a "Palestinian Arab People". In the '60s also the Soviet
Diplomats at the UN promoted two International Conventions
dignifying the right of any "people" to have the right of
political self-determination not just under natural law, but also
under international law. These became effective in 1976. But the
drafters at the UN made sure that these rights under international
law were subordinate to the right of a preexisting state to
territorial integrity because since the new world order was
established after the Peace of Westphalia, national boundaries of
sovereign states have been inviolable.
LEGAL RIGHTS AND TITLE OF SOVEREIGNTY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE TO THE LAND OF ISRAEL AND PALESTINE UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW
by Howard Grief, February 2004
Howard Grief's book, "Legal Foundations and Boundaries of
Israel under International Law" was one of the first and one of
the most complete explanations of Israel's indisputable sovereign
rights under international law to Israel, Samaria, Judea, Golan and
Gaza. In this essay, Howard Grief brilliantly fulfills his objective
"to set down in a brief, yet clear and precise manner the legal
rights and title of sovereignty of the Jewish people to the Land
of Israel and Palestine under international law." He makes clear
that Jewish National Home meant the Jewish State and its
boundaries are co-extensive with those of Palestine, including
both Cisjordan and Transjordan. He makes clear that the existence
of a Palestinian nation "is the greatest hoax of the 20th century
and continues unabated into the 21st century. This hoax is easily
exposed by the fact that the 'Palestinians' possess no distinctive
history, language or culture, and are not essentially different in
the ethnological sense from the Arabs living in the neighboring
countries of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq." He makes clear that
"The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Hague Regulations of
1907 are acts of genuine international law, but they have no
direct application or relevance to the legal status of Judea,
Samaria, the Golan and Gaza which are integral territories of the Jewish
National Home and the Land of Israel under the sovereignty of the
State of Israel. These acts would apply only to the Arab
occupation of Jewish territories, as occurred between 1948 and
1967, and not to the case of Israeli rule over the Jewish
homeland." He makes clear that Israel's title to all of Palestine
was not abrogated by later UN resolutions asserting that the
"Palestinian people" have legal right to Judea, Samaria and Gaza.
This paper should be part of your cache of information for the
next time you are told that Resolution XXX of the U.N. guarantees
the rights of the Palestinian Arabs to YYY.
INTERNATIONAL LAW, SELF-DETERMINATION AND THE SOVEREIGN
STATE: AS APPLIED TO THE STATUS OF SAMARIA AND JUDEA
by Wallace Brand, January, 2016
Part I examines the legal basis of the Levy report, which
concluded that Jewish settlements are legal. In fact, the
legality of Israel's presence in Judea, Samaria and East
Jerusalem was res judicata as of April 25, 1920, when [at
the San Remo Conference] World Jewry received a beneficial
interest in the political rights to Palestine that was intended
to mature into a legal interest. The policy for the Arab States
that were established at around the same time by other Mandates
was to deal with the current Arab inhabitants but the beneficiary
for Mandated Palestine was World Jewry. The Mandate thus
confirmed a living connection between the Jews and their
homeland, extending over some 3700 years. As Wallace Brand
writes, "... under International Law, the Jewish
People have sovereignty over Palestine west of the Jordan River
and the Arab people residing in Palestine calling themselves "The
Palestinian Arab People" do not."
Part II "shows that International Law does not support
unilateral claims of secession from a sovereign state such as that
of the alleged Palestinian Arab People because when there is a
tension between the right of a 'people' to self-determination and
the territorial integrity of a sovereign state, the latter is
paramount."
Michael Zebulon provides us with a lively exposition of a
serious topic: the legality of the Jewish settlements in Samaria
and Judea. It is written in the form of a rebuttal to Pres. Obama
who has questioned their legitimacy. Zebulon delves deeply into
the concept of legitimacy and why the term is not twin to legality
This essay provides a well-rounded description of the commitment
in international law to the all-member ruling by the League of
Nation that what was called Mandated Palestine s in an
irrevocable trust for the Jewish people for all time. The trust
was given over with no changes or exceptions to the U.N. Read
this. It will sharpen your understanding of why settlements are
legal. And legitimate.
DOES THE INTERNATIONAL NEWS MEDIA OVERLOOK ISRAEL'S LEGAL RIGHTS IN THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT?
by Dan Diker, June 10, 2003
This is a meticulous examination of how the media, by using
sloppy language, intentionally or unintentionally further Arab
land claims. The media promote the wrong idea that the Arabs have
international law on their side, even though, as an example, the
drafters of Resolution 242 did not plan on an Arab state, except
Jordan, west of the Jordan River. As Dan Diker writes, "The
emotionally charged Palestinian liberation story is, for many
reporters, more compelling than the dry, factual context of
history, especially existing international laws and resolutions
that support Israel's narrative."
ISRAEL'S LEGAL OWNERSHIP OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL:
SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPLICATIONS
There are far-reaching consequences of Israel's legal ownership.
This section deals with some of the implications of Israel's ownership of
the Land of Israel.
As Matthew Hausman writes (see here.)
The acceptance of the San Remo program by the League of Nations —
and the restatement of its ambitions in the 1922 Mandate for
Palestine — evidenced an acknowledgment of the Jews' status as an
indigenous people and their right to settle anywhere in their
homeland, including Judea and Samaria, and thus underscored the
legal basis for the reestablishment of the Jewish state.
Consequently, traditional recognition of the Jews' indigenous
rights should inform any proposals for resolving the Arab-Israeli
conflict. This would be consistent with the ideals set forth in
the "Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples," voted on by the
U.N. in 2007. Of particular relevance is the language contained in
Article 10, which states:
Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands
or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free,
prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned
and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where
possible, with the option of return.
Though the true intent of this nonbinding declaration may have
been to promote the Palestinian cause at Israel's expense, it
cannot be divorced from the long-standing recognition under
international legal conventions that the Jews are indigenous to
the Land of Israel. Accordingly, it implicitly reinforces the
Jewish connection to lands the Palestinians now attempt to claim
as their own, and provides justification for potential
resolutions that are premised on legally-cognizable Jewish
claims, rather than on politically-motivated or apocryphal
Palestinian pretensions.
Hausman points out, "A Palestinian state created by
dispossessing Jews from their ancestral lands would be in
violation of international law and would represent a repudiation
of history." Arguably, this would also be the case were an Israel
government itself to act against Jewish ownership of the land.
Two articles in this section examine this issue.
INTERNATIONAL LAW REGARDING THE LAND OF ISRAEL AND JERUSALEM
by Elliott A. Green
Elliot Green brings the significance of San Remo up to the present time.
"International Law" is often used as a buzz word
implying that Israel is violating international Law and is "occupying"
the Land of Israel illegally. On the contrary, as Green
writes:
International law has recognized Jewish rights to sovereignty over
the Land of Israel and to settlement throughout the land. In April
1920, at the San Remo Conference (part of the post-World War I
peace negotiations), the Principal Allied Powers, acting on behalf
of the international community, recognized all the land between
the Jordan River and the sea, including Jerusalem, as part of the
Jewish National Home, based on the Jewish people's historic
rights.
[...] The San Remo decision for the Jewish National Home was ratified by
the League of Nations in 1922 and endorsed by a joint
resolution of the United States Congress that same year, with a
more official US endorsement coming in the Anglo-American
Convention on Palestine (proclaimed 1925).
[...] When the UN was founded in 1945, it reaffirmed through its Charter
the existing territorial rights of peoples as they had been before
the war (Article 80). This applied of course to the Jewish
National Home.
[...] Hence, the areas that Jordan called "West Bank," as well as east
Jerusalem (which had thousands of Jewish residents before 1948),
remained part of the National Home even during Jordanian occupation.
THE EXCLUSIVE POLITICAL RIGHTS GRANTED TO THE JEWS IN 1920 AT SAN REMO
by Wallace Edward Brand, September-October, 2012
Wallace Brand writes that the solution to the Arab-Israeli Conflict
is usually presented as either a single bi-national state with an Arab
majority OR two states, with the Arab state cutting Israel or residing
in its heartland. He reminds us there is a third way that is based on
rights to the territory granted at San Remo almost a hundred years
ago: a single Jewish state. In this article, he discusses the
background, details and implications of the momentous San Remo
decision.
Salomon Benzimra points out the significance of the Sam Remo
Conference. For one, "for the first time in history, Palestine
became a legal and political entity." The so-called
Palestinian people — the local Arabs in Israel and the
Territories — had never had a state or sovereignty. Also, the
"de jure sovereignty of Palestine was vested in the Jewish
people." The San Remo conference was, as Benzimra notes,"a major
historical milestone," yet in recent time, the irrevocable grant
of sovereignty over the Land of Israel by the Jewish people made
by the international community has hardly been mentioned, thus
allowing nonsensical claims that the Jews were illegally occupying
the land to be taken seriously [emphasis added].
This was written before PM Sharon evacuated the Jews from
Gaza. But it is applicable to any giving away of Jewish land.
Yoram Shifftan provides a meticulous analyses of the legal
status of the "territories". He bases the legitimacy of the
Jewish claim to Biblical Israel — Gaza, Samaria and Judea
(aka the West Bank) — on rock-solid international law.
Israel holds Biblical Israel as a sacred trust for all future
generations and can not gift it away. What is surprising —
and appalling — is that Israel's diplomatic corps and its
educational system did not proclaim these truths; they were mute
while the Arabs invented fanciful claims that the world accepted
as valid. A decade later, we are still suffering the consequences
of the Gaza give-away.
ISRAEL'S STRANGEST SELF-DEFEATING PARADOX: Forgetting To Teach Itself And The World Jewish National Rights In Palestine
by Yoram Shifftan, July-August, 2004
Yoram Shifftan expands on earlier articles that discussed
the centrality of international law to support Israel's right to
mandated Palestine — land the Arabs claim as theirs. He suggests
that Israeli leaders have been delinquent in not teaching the
facts to their own citizens as well as proclaiming them to the
world. He emphasizes the continuing obligations of the Mandate.
This was written at the time of the Annapolis Summit, which
based "peace" activities on false premises in yet another
attempt to nibble away more of the land that is Jewish. One
indication that Jerusalem was on the cutting board was P.M.
Olmert's clearly expressed annoyance that diaspora Jews believe
they have a stake in and a say about Jerusalem. Olmert claimed
Jerusalem was solely an Israeli issue. Ted Belman summarizes the
arguments that acknowledge the legality of world Jewry's claim
to Jerusalem.
Eli E. Hertz demolishes the propaganda piously sprouted by
those who want to break the indivisible connection of Jews and
Jerusalem. How does he do this? By stating the facts of history,
contrasting the age-old and ageless connection of Jews to
Jerusalem to the meager and politically-motivated connection of
Muslims to Jerusalem. Legal information on the
internationalization of Jerusalem and U.N. resolutions on Jerusalem
are to be found in the second half of the article.
This essay is both readable and worth reading.
DOES ISRAEL OWN JUDEA AND SAMARIA? ARE THE
SETTLEMENTS LEGAL?
The Land of Israel is in a perpetual trust for the Jewish
people. Because Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank) and
every bit of Jerusalem are part of the Land of Israel, they
belong to the Jewish people. There should be no need for
additional discussion. However, Jordan occupied the area for some
nineteen years after she invaded Israel in 1948, so there was time
for all sorts of fanciful concoctions to take root.
In 1967, when Israel was able to reclaim the Territories — Judea,
Samaria, the Golan and the Gaza Strip — and the eastern section
of Jerusalem, like Jack's beanstalk, these fantasies grew
tall and expansive. Unfortunately, Israel didn't appreciate how
important it was to set the record straight right away. In fact,
since the Oslo Accords of 1993, Israeli governments have not even
responded to Arab accusations that Israel is violating
international law by building settlements in Samaria and Judea.
Perhaps they fear introducing reality into that long-playing
fantasy: the Peace Process. Perhaps they fear being the ones to
put a spoke in the mum-mum policy Western politicians cherish:
making global peace by putting another Arab state inside
Israel.
The attacks on the settlements have been vicious and
successful. Most of the world is sure the Jewish settlements
should not be allowed. Even the White House, when it isn't
fighting for transgender bathrooms, bemoans settlement activity.
The American Administration ignores the crumbling of the fragile
political structures in the Middle East, while using its power to
eat away at land that legitimately belongs to Israel. This
misguided mission is more than irrational when you consider it
speaks quaintly of two people, Israelis and Palestinians, who need
to share the same land, ignoring that new forces, more vicious and
more recalcitrant than Fatah or even Hamas, are acting as directed
by the Koran to use any and all means to put the entire world
under Sharia law.
In 2012, PM Netanyahu appointed a committee of legal experts
to focus on a specific issue: are the Jewish settlements in
Samaria and Judea legal or are they violating international law?
The Committee's report was a well-phrased reiteration of some of
what became international law at the San Remo Conference almost a
hundred years ago, namely, the Jewish people own Judea and
Samaria. Nothing has changed that fact. The Levy Report has
affirmed that the decades-long presence of Israel in Judea and
Samaria is not "belligerent occupation." Israel has the
legal right to settle in Judea and Samaria. To date, PM Netanyahu
hasn't acted on the Report, while those that wish to do to the
Jews in the Territories what Ariel Sharon did to the Jews of
Gaza continue to tell tall tales.
[Part of this introduction
was taken from the introduction to the November-December 2013
Issue of Think-Israel.]
Israel and Palestine by the renowned Professor of
International Law, Julius Stone, "presented a detailed analysis
of the central principles of international law governing the
issues raised by the Arab-Israel conflict." His student, Ian
Lacey, has provided us a summary of the main points, using the
text of the original. Lacey's extracts can be downloaded from
Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council. October 13,
2003. We present here Part I, entitled "The Legal Status of
the Territories."
ISRAELI SOVEREIGNTY OVER JERUSALEM, JUDEA AND
SAMARIA
by Wallace Edward Brand, March-April, 2010
Wallace Brand writes on the legal
underpinnings of Jewish ownership of the Territories — Samaria
and Judea — and of the eastern part of Jerusalem. These areas
were assigned to Israel in the San Remo conference in 1920 and in
the Mandate for Palestine. They were part of the area held in
trust for the Jewish people. They were destined to become part of
the modern state of Israel as soon as the Jewish people built the
infrastructure and population to exercise sovereignty. But Britain
was a bad trustee. Between the San Remo Conference and the League
of Nations voting on the Mandate, Britain lopped off the area east
of the Jordan, Trans-Jordan, to be administered by a Hashemite
sheikh, leaving 26% percent of the land — Samaria, Judea,
Gaza, the Golan and what became Israel proper — in trust for
the Jews. Jordan captured Samaria, Judea and Gaza when the
neighboring Arab countries invaded Israel at her birth in 1948.
Israel did not get them back until 1967-8, when her Arab neighbors
again invaded Israel. Foolishly, she did not immediately formally
annex Samaria and Judea, thus giving the local Arabs the
opportunity to invent out of whole cloth a history and geography
that claimed that the Arabs owned the area. They also tried to
redefine 'national home' as being a part of, not all of, the
Palestine Mandate. Brand makes clear why that didn't work. He also
makes clear that Jewish settlements are legal because they are
built on Jewish land.
Eugene V. Rostow wrote two articles on the Jewish settlements
for the New Republic during the presidency of George H.W. Bush.
The first, published April 23, 1990, was written a few months before Saddam Hussain of Iraq
invaded Kuwait and precipitated the first Gulf War. Bush excluded
Israel from fighting during the War and then, after the USA had
forced Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, he pressured the then Prime
Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, to attend the Madrid Conference, a
Middle East peace initiative that led to Oslo 1. The second
article was published October 21, 1991, just days before the Madrid Conference. Mr.
Rostow helped draft the UN Security Council Resolution #242, which
called on Israel and the Arab States (not the Palestinians) to
make peace, and allows Israel to administer the territories until
there is a just and lasting peace.
In these essays, Rostow imparts important information on several
matters. First, he emphasizes Israel's right of settlement, which
was bestowed by the League of Nations and written into the
Palestine mandate. He observes that "[t]he State Department has
never denied that under the mandate 'the Jewish people' have the
right to settle in the area." However, the State Dep't inter
alia objected to the Jews building in the territories by
insisting "that Jewish settlements in the West Bank violate
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which deals
with the protection of civilians in wartime. Where the territory
of one contracting party is occupied by another contracting party,
the convention prohibits many of the inhumane practices of the
Nazis and the Soviets before and during the second World War - the
mass transfer of people into or out of occupied territories for
purposes of extermination, slave labor, or colonization. For
example, Article 49 provides that the occupying power "shall not
deport or transfer part of its own civilian population into the
territory it occupies." Rostow makes clear Article 49 doesn't
apply because the "Jewish settlers in the West Bank are
volunteers."
Rostow makes clear that it is not Israel's legal
standing that is at issue. He points out that "[t]he controversy
about Jewish settlements in the West Bank is not, therefore, about
legal rights but about the political will to override legal
rights." He asks whether "the United States prepared to use all its influence in
Israel to award the whole of the West Bank to Jordan or to a new
Arab state, and force Israel back to its 1967 borders?"
JEWS BUILDING SETTLEMENTS IN JUDEA AND SAMARIA IS LEGAL
by Salomon Benzimra, January 2, 2012
Salomon Benzimra summarizes the major points of the Levy
Report on the legality of the settlements. The Report addressed the
problems that stem from incorrectly characterizing Israel taking back
its own land as an "occupation." The Report notes that "No 'special
rights' were conferred to the Jewish people. The Supreme Council
recognized a pre-existing right by calling for the 'reconstitution' of
the Jewish National Home in Palestine — and not the 'creation'
— it being clearly understood that it would turn, in time, into a
sovereign Jewish State, pending an expected Jewish population
majority." This article is essential reading. It goes a long way to
correcting the falsehoods the Palestinian Arabs and their ignorant
friends in the media have been peddling.
PROFESSOR BERMAN'S MISTAKEN VIEWS ON THE LEVY REPORT
by Wallace Edward Brand, August 5, 2012
In this essay Wallace Brand focuses on the principle that law is by
judicial process, not by concensus. He discusses the circular argument
accepted by many that goes like this: most lawyers disagree with the
Levy Report. Therefore those wishing to explain why the Levy report is
accurate and the opposition have got it wrong should be kept from
confusing the public. The critical argument is that the
Levy Report is not a new idea thought up by Israel right-wingers but a
circumspect restatement of what was decided a century ago on how to
prepare for a Jewish State. In point of fact, by the time the League
of Nations issued the Mandates for Jewish and Arab states, the British
had lopped off some 78% of the land intended for an eventual Jewish
state and given it over to the Hashemites to administer — when no one
objected formally, this eventually became transJordan and then Jordan.
Ted Belman presents the opinions of some eminent jurists that
confirm one consequence that Judea and Samaria were given as an
irrevocable trust to the Jewish people; namely, that they can
build housing and businesses, and public and private institutions
upon their land. Those that would help the Arabs try to steal the
land are fond of citing the Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC) to
claim that Jewish settlements are illegal, but in point of fact,
the FGC doesn't apply.
FIGHTING BACK — THE LEGAL CASE FOR JUDEA AND SAMARIA
by Nadav Shragai, November-December, 2013
Dror Eydar has suggested that the "[t]he fight against our
possession of those parts of Israel that are the most important to
our identity as an ancient nation is a fight against the return to
Zion (see here). Reducing the number of legal Jewish settlements
while ignoring rogue Arab settlements will make an eventual Arab
take-over of the land easier. In this essay, Nadav Shragai writes
that, finally, some jurors are now counterattacking with the
easily substantiated truth: Israel has historical and legal rights
to the land. He quotes some of their arguments.
APPLYING CONSTITUTIONAL LAW TO THE 1967 LIBERATION OF JUDEA, SAMARIA AND GAZA (BIBLICAL ISRAEL)
by Howard Grief, September-October, 2007
This is Attorney Howard Grief's elegant summary explaining why
Justice Meir Shamgar was incorrect when he ruled that Israel's
reestablishing itself in Biblical Israel was illegal.
In this issue we get at the nuts and bolts. One can trace almost
all — if not all — the difficulties that Israel has
had in the last 40 years defending its irrevocable right
to Samaria, Judea and Gaza to Justice Shamgar's incorrect
legal advice. Had the appropriate law been applied, we wouldn't
be needing to rebut the "pernicious Occupation Myth." Shamgar's
original ruling "provided our enemies with an enormous
propaganda victory in the eyes of the world, for the term
'occupation' implied that Israel had taken over by war the land
of another people to which it had no right under international
law, an absolutely false implication."
The Fourth Geneva Convention (FGC) Relative to the Protection of
Civilian Persons in Time of War was signed August 12, 1949.
Part 3 deals with the Status and Treatment of Protected Persons.
Section 3 in Part 3 deals with "Occupied Territories".
These are the 6 paragraphs of Article 49, the Article most often cited
as applicable to Israel's citizens living in Samaria and Judea:
Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.
Nevertheless, the Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand. Such evacuations may not involve the displacement of protected persons outside the bounds of the occupied territory except when for material reasons it is impossible to avoid such displacement. Persons thus evacuated shall be transferred back to their homes as soon as hostilities in the area in question have ceased.
The Occupying Power undertaking such transfers or evacuations shall ensure, to the greatest practicable extent, that proper accommodation is provided to receive the protected persons, that the removals are effected in satisfactory conditions of hygiene, health, safety and nutrition, and that members of the same family are not separated.
The Protecting Power shall be informed of any transfers and evacuations as soon as they have taken place.
The Occupying Power shall not detain protected persons in an area particularly exposed to the dangers of war unless the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand.
"The Occupying Power
shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population
into the territory it occupies."
In response to assertions that the Geneva Convention made
Jewish settlements in Samaria and Judea illegal — the Arab
settlements in the area are always ignored — Eugene
Kontorovich wrote
(September
7, 2012, here):
"Whatever "deport or transfer" means, and I think it is clearly
ambiguous, it relates only to action by the occupying power. It is
Israel, not private individuals, who can violate the anti-transfer
norm. There is no auto-transfer.
[...] Thus the spontaneous or voluntary movement of Israeli
nationals (the only controversy seems to concern Jews)
simply does not trigger 49(6). True, there are many who wish to
read 49(6) this way, but it transforms a prohibition on
governmental deportation or transfer into a requirement that the
government STOP its nationals from moving to occupied territory,
which is quite far from what the text says. (And indeed many but
not all settlements were built against the will of the
government.) Art. 49(6) was designed to prevent governmental
efforts at demographic transformation (as have been seen with
considerably less fuss in Tibet, Western Sahara, etc) rather than
create ethnically or nationally exclusive zones.
[...] "The desire to have an international legal ban on 100% of the
settlements, despite the diverse circumstances of their creation
and continuation, stretches the language far beyond what it can
bear. And it doesn't help matters that the Article gets little or
no traction in other comparable cases, that one could learn from
the international community's treatment of those precedents.
"Finally, the Convention assumes that nationals of the occupying
power are not also nationals of the occupied territory. Given that
the occupying territory had no nationality in 1967 (it was not
Jordan, and it did not have its own citizenship), this makes it
quite hard to apply to the given situation. Indeed, some of the
"transferees" were indigenous to the occupied area, and had as
much claim to its "nationality" as anyone. Certainly international
law had recognized the area as a Jewish "homeland," making it
quite unlike other transfer situations.
[...] Israel is not obliged to abide by glosses of professors and
committees rather than a plain language approach to a not-often
applied provision.
In a comment entitled, "The International Court of Justice (ICJ) Inappropriate Use of the Fourth
Geneva Convention: the ICJ lacks the authority to affect ownership
of any part of the Territories," Eli Hertz pointed out (September
8, 2012, here):
"The language of Article 49 was crafted in the wake of World
War II and the Nazi occupation — an occupation that led to a war
of aggression in which Nazi Germany attacked its neighbors with
impunity, committing a host of atrocities against civilian
populations, including deportation and displacement of local
populations in occupied Europe. Millions were sent to forced labor
camps and those of particular ethnic origin, most notably the
Jews, were sent to their deaths in the gas chambers. The drafters
of Article 49 were concerned with preventing future genocide
against humanity.
"But that has not stopped critics and enemies of Israel, including
members of the UN and organs such as the International Court of
Justice (ICJ) from using the Geneva Convention as a weapon against
Israel, even when statements by authoritative analysts, scholars
and drafters of the document contradict everything said by those
who distort history for politically motivated reasons.
[...] "How that (Geneva) Convention could apply to Jews who
already had a legal right, protected by Article 80 of the United
Nations Charter, to live in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the
Gaza Strip, was never explained." It seems that the International
Court of Justice never explained it either."
This set of articles deal with the misuse of the FGC by those
opposed to Jewish occupation (in the sense of Jews occupying their
own homes in their own homeland) of Samaria and Judea. As was
pointed out above in discussing Israel's legal ownership of the
Land of Israel, "'A Palestinian state created by dispossessing
Jews from their ancestral lands would be in violation of
international law and would represent a repudiation of history.'
(Hausman, 27mar11). Arguably, this would also be the case were an
Israel government itself to act against Jewish ownership of the
land." Two articles in this section examine the attitudes of
successive Israeli governments to Jews living in the
Territories..
THE QUESTION OF THE APPLICABILITY OF THE FOURTH GENEVA CONVENTION ON OCCUPATION TO JUDEA, SAMARIA AND GAZA
by Howard Grief, March-April, 2009
Howard Grief makes clear why applying rules from the Fourth
Geneva Convention (FGC) to Israel's ownership of Judea and Samaria
(the "West Bank") and Gaza rests on dubious and incomplete
interpretions of FGC. Briefly, the IDF can not be considered a
"hostile army" occupying Judea, Samaria and Gaza because these
areas did not belong to Jordan or Egypt. By irrevocable trust, the
land belongs to Israel. He also overturns the myth that Israel is
an occupier of Arab land, because Mandated Palestine was never
Arab land. This is an important paper. We have included appendices
on some basic documents that indicate that the Peace Process and
the Two-State solution violate Israel's irrevocable right to
Mandated Palestine.
Professor Eugene Kontorovich describes the legal status of the
Jewish towns and villages — "settlements" — in simple
language, making the legal context very plain. He points out
that a settlement in Samaria and Judea may not meet the
requirements of "Israel's building or zoning rules, and thus are
sometimes called 'illegal,'" but "in general, the 'unauthorized'
settlements raise no issues under international law." Yet, from
the hue and cry that arises when an Israeli living in Samaria or
Judea adds a bedroom to his house, one would think profound evil
was being perpetrated. He concludes, "The Geneva Convention was
designed to protect against governmental efforts to forcibly
change the ethnic make-up of an area, efforts of the kind that
occurred in World War II. It would be a bitter irony if it were
misread as requiring that any territory be kept free of Jews, or
any ethnic group."
Remembering that the International Red Cross had no problem
accepting the Arab's Red Crescent (which has often taxied
terrorists into Israel) but refused to allow the entry of the
Jewish Magen David until it agreed to not display the Magen David
sqymbol, it comes as no surprise to learn that the International
Red Cross is a politicized anti-Israel participant in demonizing
Israel. In this essay, Moshe Dann focusses on how they misuse the
provisions of the Geneva Convention, specifically Article 49.
THE SETTLEMENTS AND THE MONSTROUS CHARGE OF
ILLEGALITY
by David Isaac, November-December, 2010
Jewish settlements in Samaria and Judea
(aka the West Bank) are legal by international law: the
San Remo Conference and the Mandate for Palestine.
How could they not be, when that entire area is Jewish by an
irrevocable trust created by the same International Authority that
created many of the Arab states? Yet, as David Isaac writes, a
great deal of the anti-Israel propaganda by the European Union and
the American administration inter alia has been focused on
claiming that Jewish settlers are fanatics, their settlements
illegal. On the other hand, Arab settlements, built on private
land not their own — or even on public land — are never
considered illegal. What's going on is that propagandists want to
turn over the land to the Palestinian Arabs, without the problem
of having to expel a lot of Jews living on the land. Their major
arguments are based on dismissive readings of the Geneva
Convention of 1949 Article 49, initiated in 1978 by Herbert
Hansell on behalf of the Carter State Department. Isaac points out
why their interpretation is fallacious.
Dr. Yoram Shifftan continues his brilliant explication of
the legal bases for Israel's possession of Samaria, Judea and
Gaza. Citing Julius Stone, Professor of International Law,
Shifftan carefully extracts the applicable and appropriate legal
interpretations from the inaccuracies that have wantonly been
heaped over the truth.
WHO IS ENTITLED TO GIFT AWAY JEWISH NATIONAL RIGHTS?
by Yoram Shifftan, September-October, 2004
This is a companion piece to the previous article, which
focusses on the lack of awareness of the legal foundation of the
right of the Jews to what was Mandated Palestine. This essay
makes the point that the Land of Israel can not be gifted to
another group until its citizenry is fully aware of the
legalities and the consequences of such an action.
Eli Hertz talks about the international law that pertains to the Middle East. The territory the Ottoman Empire had owned for hundreds of years was taken over by England and France after World War I. The area labeled Mandated Palestine was to be Jewish. The rest — 99.9% of the Middle East — was carved into present-day Arab states; this was never challenged. Only the peaceable Jewish state must show cause for existing, despite its title to the land.
The UN's Security Council Resolution 242 is the major argument
for the negation of the Palestine Mandate. A complete analysis,
including the text of the Resolution, can be found in Ruth
Lapidoth's article, "Security Council Resolution 242: An Analysis
of its Main Provisions,"
here.
Resolution #181 of 1947 is also frequently cited as proving that
Jewish settlements in the Territories are illegal.
In point of fact, no later resolution can nullify
the Palestine Mandate, which made the Jewish people the
beneficiary of the region that was Biblical Israel with no time
limit.
When Israel was near birth in 1948, her Arab
neighbors invaded. Israel repelled the attack but Egypt held onto
Gaza and Jordan captured Samaria and Judea (aka the West Bank)
and a piece of the eastern part of Jerusalem. Some lawyers have
argued that when Israel became a state, the Palestine Mandate
terminated. They concluded from this that Israel no longer held
title to the Arab-captured territories. Yisrael Medad wrote this
counter argument (September 12, 2012,
here.):
"Article 80 of the UN Charter,
once known unofficially as the Jewish People's clause, which
preserves intact all the rights granted to Jews under the Mandate
for Palestine, even after the Mandate's expiry on May 14-15, 1948.
Under this provision of international law (the Charter is an
international treaty), Jewish rights to Palestine and the Land of
Israel were not to be altered in any way unless there had been an
intervening trusteeship agreement between the states or parties
concerned, which would have converted the Mandate into a
trusteeship or trust territory. The only period of time such an
agreement could have been concluded under Chapter 12 of the UN
Charter was during the three-year period from October 24, 1945,
the date the Charter entered into force after appropriate
ratifications, until May 14-15, 1948, the date the Mandate expired
and the State of Israel was proclaimed. Since no agreement of this
type was made during this relevant three-year period, in which
Jewish rights to all of Palestine may conceivably have been
altered had Palestine been converted into a trust territory, those
Jewish rights that had existed under the Mandate remained in full
force and effect, to which the UN is still committed by Article 80
to uphold, or is prohibited from altering.
"As a direct result of Article 80, the UN cannot transfer these
rights over any part of Palestine, vested as they are in the
Jewish People, to any non-Jewish entity, such as the "Palestinian
Authority." Among the most important of these Jewish rights are
those contained in Article 6 of the Mandate which recognized the
right of Jews to immigrate freely to the Land of Israel and to
establish settlements thereon, rights which are fully protected by
Article 80 of the UN Charter."
A comprehensive discussion on Article 80 can be found in Howard
Grief's article "Article 80 and the UN Recognition of a
'Palestinian State'" and its comments here. Return to What We Are Talking About
OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES?
by Salomon Benzimra, July-August, 2004
Salomon Benzimra points out a logical inconsistency. When
the Arabs waged war against Israel in 1948, the UN was bound to
defend Israel because of Resolution 181. As Salomon Benzimra
notes, they did no such thing. Winning that war, Israel's conquest
of some of the land allocated by the UN to the Arabs was
(properly) deemed valid. So why was Israel's conquest — when the
Arabs again attacked Israel in 1967 — declared an occupation? He
traces the problem back to the preamble of UN Resolution 242.
Wallace Brands explains one reason people think the Jewish
settlement in Samaria and Judea are illegal. In point of fact,
they are not. He describes the situation at the UN, when Russia
got passed "a resolution promoting the 'inalienable rights of the
Palestinian People' without any examination of whether there was a
Palestinian People or what their rights were and then was able to
form a UN 'Committee for the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of
the Palestinian People'". Relying on meretricious legal opinions,
the Committee "concluded that the Jews were, under international
law, engaged in illegal occupation of Judea, Samaria, East
Jerusalem and Gaza." Julius Stone, an authority on international
law, "showed that the Resolutions the opinion was based on were
not International Law but mere recommendations that died at birth
when the Partition Resolution, No. 181 of 1947, died at birth
because it was rejected by the Arabs." He also pointed out what
the UN Committee legal support should have known: the rights of a
people to self-determination can not abrogate "the territorial
integrity of a preexisting state, [in this case, Israel], and that
right is paramount." But the damage was done, and the incorrect
conclusion — that the settlements were illegal — is
believed by too many.
Eli Hertz presents the pertinent information about two U.N.
Resolutions — 181 and 242 — that are often used inaccurately to
'prove' that Israel needs to give up yet more of its tiny country
to the Arabs. Resolution 187 was adopted by the General Assembly
in 1947 and would have partitioned mandated Palestine into a
Jewish state and an Arab state. It was never adopted by the
Security Council, so it was never a binding resolution. In any
event, the Arabs rejected it. It became null and void when the
Arab states invaded the new-born state of Israel in 1948. U.N.
Resolution 242 was adopted after the 6-day war by the Security
Council. It said that Israel was to return some of the land it
conquered when the Arab states formally agreed to allow Israel to
live in peace with secure and recognized borders. It did not
mention Palestinian Arabs.
SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 242: A VIOLATION OF LAW AND A PATHWAY TO DISASTER
by Howard Grief, September-October, 2008
In 1948, Jordan, one of the Arab armies that invaded Israel,
conquered the eastern part of Jerusalem, Samaria and Judea. Israel
regained these areas after the Arabs invaded Israel again in 1967.
The U.N. passed a non-binding resolution, 242, when fighting
stopped. The Arabs have often falsely claimed that according to
Res. 242, Israel was to return to the pre-1967 borders. Howard
Grief's comprehensive article explains exactly what Res 242 did
and did not assert. And what it was wrong in asserting —
i.e., "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war"
does not apply in that Israel was not the aggressor. It had been
threatened by imminent aggression. "In this case it is certainly
admissible under international law for the state under imminent
attack to keep the territory that was captured from which the
planned aggression emanated." More importantly, Grief makes the
point that "the Security Council does not have and never had the
authority or right to order Israel to withdraw from territories
that constituted historical and legal areas of the Jewish National
Home and Land of Israel that had been recognized implicitly or
explicitly as belonging to the Jewish People in various acts of
international law: the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920; the
Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920; and the
Mandate for Palestine, confirmed by the League of Nations on July
24, 1922 and accepted by the United States in the Anglo-American
Treaty on Palestine of December 3, 1924." This land is held in a
perpetual trust for the Jewish people.
THE PALESTINIAN UN UPGRADE: SETTING THINGS STRAIGHT
by Alan Baker, December 5, 2012
This is a straight-forward summary of what Mahmoud Abbas'
request to the UN General Assembly to upgrade the area
controlled by the Palestinian Authority to a state did and did
not do. Alan Baker points out that it "neither created a
Palestinian state, nor did it grant any kind of statehood to the
Palestinians." It has no effect on the situation on the ground
between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, no matter how much
significance the media give the political charade.
Unfortunately — and this wasn't within the scope of the article
— media distortions are likely to be believed by a public
trained to sympathize with Palestinian victimhood.
The San Remo Conference in 1920 established that Mandated
Palestine — some one tenth of one percent of the Ottoman
Middle East — was to be in trust for a Jewish State. The
rest of the Middle East would be divided into Arab states. When
Israel's Arab neighbors invaded Israel in 1948, Egypt took Gaza
and Jordan seized Samaria and Judea and a chunk in the eastern
part of Jerusalem. So the new State of Israel, while it maintained
legal ownership, lost physical access to these areas. During, this
time, the local Arabs never contended that they, not Egypt and not
Jordan, owned the land. But when the Jews reclaimed their land in
1967, the newly-congealed Palestinian people began asserting that
Israel was occupying their land and, retroactively, "50
years late want a separate distribution just for them."
Julius Stone, a law professor predominant in both jurisprudence
and international law, approached the problem of culpability from
a fresh point of view. Boiled down it is: the groups that
benefitted from the situation that occasioned the Palestinian
Arabs misfortune are responsible, in proportion to the benefits
received, with the Arabs having obtained 99.99% of the Ottoman
Middle East land holdings. He points out that the refugees were "a
by-product of the Arab State resort to military force in 1948, in
order to destroy the State of Israel." He reminds us that the Arab
states not only encouraged Arabs to flee Israel when they invaded
Israel in 1948, but they are responsible for actively forcing
almost a million Jews to flee the Arab countries, leaving their
homes, businesses and personal property behind. Israel did far
more than its share by absorbing the Jewish refugees as full
citizens, while the Arab states are yet to take responsibility for
either the Arab refugees or the Jewish refugees. It remains the
responsibility of the Arab states, Jordan in particular, to
resettle the Palestinians. Stone concludes that "[t]he growth of
more specific Palestinian Arab consciousness in the last decade,
even if this now represents a peoplehood entitled to
self-determination, cannot be projected back into time so as to
invalidate a distribution of decades before. And this is the more
so since, in all but name, there is an already existing Arab State
in Palestine ... Jordan." Stone also demolishes Arab claims to the
land based on conquest — Jews conquered the area both and after
the Arab — or population numbers or displacement.
Stone is a major figure in the legal understanding of major
issue in the Arab-Israel conflict. In this issue of
Think-Israel, several authors cite him extensively. See for
example, articles by Yoram Shifftan
here, here, here,
and
here. Howard Grief cites Stone's opinions
here
and
here.
Wallace Brand cites
Stone
here and Ian Lacey devotes his article to
summarizing Stone's analysis of the "central principles of international law governing the
issues raised by the Arab-Israel conflict."
A complete list of relevant articles can be found by googling in
the search box on the top of this page.
Thanks are due Wallace Brand for sending
Think-Israel a digitized copy of the original of this pamphlet.
The notion that Israel is occupying Arab land has been used
to condone the barbaric behavior of the Arab terrorists and
condemn whatever Israel does to defend itself. Yet, as Howard
Grief demonstrates, it is a fundamental egregious error. He
examines the origins of this myth in meticulous detail.
Surprisingly, it was the fault of Jews — the jurist Meir Shamgar,
in particular — who applied the wrong laws when the Jews overcame
the Arab invasion of 1967 and came into control of Gaza, Samaria,
Judea, Golan and the Sinai. Only later were these inappropriate
concepts picked up and used so effectively by the Arabs.
The myth that Israel is occupying land owned by the
Palestinians is so ingrained, it seems to be received truth. A
large part of this belief is due to Arab propaganda, reinforced
and amplified by cooperative news and TV media. Some of the blame
goes to Shimon Peres and the Israeli leadership who decided that
the Oslo Accords would be strengthened if the Jews allowed Arab
lies to go unchallenged. But now Howard Grief writes of another
source of the belief that Israel is illegally sitting on Arab
land. He writes of the shocking fact that it was an Israeli judge,
Meir Shamgar, who ignored international law and applied the wrong
concepts when Israel successfully fought back the invasion by the
neighboring Arab States. She did more than fight back. She
regained land that was rightfully hers by international law. But
over the years, rather than reinforcing Israel's claim, sloppy
thinking by some of the Israeli judiciary has given the
cotton-candy narrative spun by the Arabs a seemingly solid
foundation. In this and in his other writings on Israel's
ownership of the land, Grief provides us with the facts and a
broad understanding of what these facts mean.
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE OCCUPATION AND THE SETTLEMENTS
by Ted Belman, July-August, 2010
As Ted Belman writes, "The pro-Palestinian propaganda machine
has succeeded in stigmatizing the Israeli occupation and the
settlements. Time and again we hear about the 'brutal
occupation' and the 'illegal settlements'. We rarely hear the
truth in opposition to these lies." He provides us with a clear
statement of the facts. To the fact that the land is Jewish by
international law — meaning that the U.N. is supposed to be
helping the Jewish settlements to expand — add the fact that
some 95% of the supposed indigenous "Palestinians" came in after
1900, and it becomes Ph.D. thesis-level puzzlement how the Arabs
and Arab-aiders have managed to make everyone believe lies that
invert the truth.
THE JEWISH RIGHT TO LIVE IN WESTERN PALESTINE: The Irrelevancy Of 'Belligerent Occupation' and the 4th Geneva Convention
by Yoram Shifftan, May-June, 2005
The jurists of Israel in the Ministry of Justice appear to
excel in creative albeit inappropriate reinterpretation of the law
— and not only Israeli law, but international law. Misapplying the
concept of "belligerent occupation" and the 4th Geneva convention,
they recently rejected the appeal of the Gazan Jews that the
government be stopped from carrying out Sharon's unilateral
disengagement plan. Yoram Shifftan explains why the bases of their
rejection are inapplicable to the current situation. He has called
the Israeli justice system "a legal system a là demand,"
tailored for the legalization of the uprooting.
The Ottoman Empire ruled the Middle East from the 1500's for
some 400 years. It had the bad judgment to side with Germany in
World War 1, and so lost its enormous land holdings to the Allies,
particularly the British and the French. With legal authorization
from the League of Nations (LON), at the San Remo Conference in
1920, the Allies created three mandates for dividing these Ottoman
holdings: the Syrian, the Iraqi and the Palestinian. The first two
— which distributed more than 99% of the land to the Arabs
— eventually gave rise to many of the current Arab states,
including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Kuwait.
The third mandate reserved the small amount of land remaining,
the land that had been Biblical Israel,
the land on both sides of the Jordan river — today's
Israel, Samaria, Judea, Gaza, the Golan, and Jordan. — for a
Jewish state that would be formed when the Jews had sufficient
infra-structure and population.
The Palestine Mandate (for the Land of Israel) was legally
launched at San Remo. Between then and the LON's ratifying the
Mandate in 1922, Britain allowed the land east of the Jordan river
to be "administered" by the Hashemite Arabs, leaving what is today
Israel, Samaria, Judea, Gaza and part of the Golan in perpetual
trust for the Jews. It then — also illegally — ceded
the Golan Heights to France in 1923. For the next few years until
World War 2, these were the highlights: the Arabs often rioted and
occasionally slaughtered their Jewish neighbors wholesale; the
British illegally blocked immigration from Europe to Palestine
when Nazi Germany began systematically annihilating Jews; and the
UN tried unsuccessfully to divide Mandated Palestine between the
Arabs and the Jews. During World War 2, the Jews of Palestine
fought on the side of the British and at home in Palestine they
fought against the British.
The neighboring Arab states started attacking the State of
Israel even before its birth day on May 14, 1948, and to almost
everyone's surprise, the Jewish state survived. But it lost land.
Egypt took control of Gaza. And (Trans)Jordan captured Samaria and
Judea and a small piece in the eastern part of Jerusalem. Jordan
kicked out and/or killed each and every Jew living there and
filled the area with Arabs from everywhere. In addition to the new
Arab inhabitants, many of the Arabs who fled Israel during the
Arab invasion also came to live there as refugees.
This went on for 19 years. The local Arabs never asked for
self-determination. They never demanded a new state or talked
about regaining their ancient land — not until the
neighboring Arab states again attacked Israel in June 1967, and
Israel was able to win back its land. It was then that the Arabs
mostly abandoned conventional warfare. although they would try
again in 1973. They continued guerrilla "lone wolf" and
small-group terrorism. Indeed, it was in designing small but
effective attacks that the local Arabs have been at their most
creative. But they began to emphasize propaganda via the media and
academia as well as political initiatives by friendly groups such
as the European Union and "humanitarian" institutions such as the
United Nations. They built on top of the sympathy they had
successfully created for the Arab refugees who had fled Israel in
1948. The local population, declared a people in 1964, was to
become a major tool to battle Israel.
When Jews started making aliyah in large numbers in the late
1800s, Ottoman Syrian Palestine (Israel, the Territories and
Jordan) was severely underpopulated but rich in ethnic variety
— less than 350,000 people, split into some fifty ethnic
groups including Arabs, lived there in 1860. Most of them were
Muslim. There was a large jump in immigration from the neighboring
countries starting in the early 1900s, because of the economic
opportunities made possible by the Jews and later also by the
British, after the Ottomans lost their land holdings.
The population in the Territories including Gaza was greatly
enlarged after 1948 by 'Arab' refugees that were clients of UNRWA.
Moreover, at the end of the Arab-Israel War of 1948, after Jordan
kicked out all the Jews from Samaria, Judea and some of eastern
Jerusalem, she encouraged the entry of Muslims from neighboring
states. In December 1948, UNctad estimated a population of
415,000 to 426,000 on the West Bank (Samaria and Judea), and some
81,000 in Gaza. They estimate that by May 30, 1967 there were
900,000 people on the West Bank and 450,000 in Gaza. The majority
were registered as refugees. In 1968 there were 290,000 Muslims
and 103,000 Christians and other non-Jews living in Israel. Jordan
had been cut out of Mandated Palestine in 1922, but some 70% of
her population was said to be Palestinian. In 1967, there were no
Jews in the Territories, Jordan having killed them or expelled
them after she gained control of the area in 1948.
In 1964, the Muslims living in Israel and the Territories
— Sudanese, Bosnians, Circassians, Turks, Egyptians, Syrians
and Bedouins, etc., plus their kin in Jordan and elsewhere —
were suddenly a single people: the Palestinians. In fact, the
Palestinian Arab leadership asserted they were the descendants of
the Philistines, the Canaanites; they were the original owners of
Palestine, the aboriginals — whatever fancy took them,
history and geography be damned. Until the Jews made aliyah,
Syrian Palestine had, for hundreds of years, been an unsanitary,
poverty-stricken, under-populated place, with high infant
mortality and a stagnant barely viable economy. Most inhabitants
lived hand-to-mouth. But now, the refugees claimed huge fortunes
in land and personal property left behind in Israel.
Their new status as a people made new narratives plausible.
Retroactively, the Jews became occupiers of Palestinian land.
Because the Jews had been denied habitation in the Territories for
almost two decades, the Palestinian Arabs could pretend the Jews
had never lived there.
Life began for the Palestinians as a people in 1964. Their
history's zero time was 1967. They complained after 1967 that the
Jews were occupying Palestinian land. When details were needed,
like reusing ancient columns as building blocks, they reused
Jewish history as their own, exchanging only heroes and villains.
In their history, there never was a Jewish Temple on the Temple
Mount. Jesus was a Palestinian. The Palestinian Arabs had happily
lived for eons in Palestine until the Jews invaded.
So successful have they been in selling such absurdity that the
Arab refugees have become somewhat superfluous. The few hundred
thousand original refugees, augmented by their progeny and by
non-refugee locals, have grown into the millions. They continue to
be fed, educated, medicated and housed by UNRWA, a special UN
refugee agency. The head of the Palestinian Authority isn't about
to take on UNRWA's burden. He has announced that these refugees
will not be part of a future Palestinian State, not even those
currently living in Samaria and Judea. He is, however, looking out
for their future. He has demanded that the refugees have the right
to return to their (mostly illusory) pre-war dwellings in
Israel, all seven million of them.
It is worthwhile reflecting on a simple fact: had the Hashemite
State of Jordan and Egypt not captured some of the Land of
Israel and held it for nineteen years, none of this would have
happened. The Arabs would still conspire to destroy Israel, all of
Israel, but Samaria, Judea, Gaza and the eastern part of Jerusalem
would be seamless parts of Israel. They would not be available as
detachable containers to be filled with all sorts of agit-prop,
fantasies, claims and assertions by pro-Arab propagandists. As it
is, the 19 years of Jordanian occupation were the occasion for
starting all sorts of creative theatrics. Arabs have hijacked
Israel's history and have attempted to steal Israel's land. They
have inverted history and claimed Israel is occupying Palestinian
land. Given successive Israeli governments that don't even answer
back, they have convinced most of the world they are in the right.
Just think. Had Israel not lost control of some of her land for a
few years, the Arabs would not be asserting rights they never had
in the Land of Israel.
JANUARY-JUNE, 2016 BLOG-EDS
This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions
and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds
page for the month is updated every few days.
There is a separate file that is the index for the articles on the
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clicking on the item in the index.
To access the Index, click the "Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on
the top of the Blog-Ed page.
Please note that The Blog-Ed pages for
January-June 2016 are not currently available.
Different Blog Ed pages will be down
intermittently until the Archive structure is
in place. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Think-Israel tends to use salafist rather than
extremist or Islamist or militant or
fundamentalist or activist to describe generically a
pious Muslim, one who sticks as closely as possible to the
unfiltered words and actions of Mohammad and the first three
generations of Muslims, including, especially, the Companions of
the Prophet. In modeling himself as closely as he can on the
preachings and practices of Mohammad, a salafist can in modern
terms be precisely described as an uninhibited terrorist, a
theological supersessionist, a political supremacist who believes
Islam and sharia law must dominate and a social barbarian, who
wages jihad with whatever tools are available.
Thanks to the high quality of whitewash supplied by sympathetic
propagandists, he seldom is so described.
ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF WAR
Islam is waging a religious war and its religion is to wage war.
Muslims do not wage jihad out of desperation or
poverty or a sense of inferiority. They wage war because Islam is
a Religion of War. It's built on a mission: to conquer all other
religions, to reduce all other people to dhimmitude, if they don't
convert or choose death instead. Playing the victim and declaring
that any criticism of Islam is islamophobia are weapons of
intimidation to paralyze the enemy into inaction. Israelis and
Westerners do fear Islam's irrational and overblown responses to
the ordinary give and take among people and groups. This is not
phobic; it's rational.
A reader, Dilbert WhoKnows, said on Nov 27, 2015 (a comment
on an excellent article by Hussein Aboubakr here) "Students of Islamic history
know that the religion has not been corrupted by fundamentalist
forces. The religion has simply re-taken its original format
of violent conquest, and murderous domination of non-believers
after a hiatus of several centuries of Islamic power stagnation.
The stagnation of Islam power was due to the rise of the west
and other stronger peoples who were able to stop the Islamic
conquest and push it back towards its Arabian center. The
Islamic world essentially imploded on itself and remained stuck
while the rest of the developed world continued to move forward
faster and faster. The anger and frustration felt throughout the
Islamic world is due to the cognitive dissonance where the
religion teaches that they should righfully dominate everyone
else, but in reality they are the most backwards and undeveloped
of all the nations on earth. Thus the change can not come from
within as the needed changes are direct contradictions to the
basic tenets of the faith."
See also the video "Fear of Muslims is Rational"
here.
Daniel Greenfield makes the case that "Islamic violence is a
religious problem." When salafist terrorists murder and rape,
"[t]hey are not perverting a great religion, as our politicians
claim, they are living it." Greenfield makes the point crystal
clear by this comparison: "What the Ten Commandments are for the
Jew, or the resurrection of Jesus is for the Christian — the
physical dominance of Islam is to the Muslim. It is the basis and
fulfillment of his faith." Muslims may talk the spirituality lingo
— it's persuasive propaganda in the West — but, as Greenfield
says, "Islam is not primarily an inward spiritual experience, but
an outward expression of tribal honor." Islam is a religion of
war, not peace.
THE ANATOMY OF DENIAL: MULTICULTURALIST DELUSIONS IN AN AGE OF
TERRORISM
by Bruce Thornton
While salafists proudly boast how well they mirror Mohammad's
activities — slaughter, violence, invasion, enslavement, rape,
vandalism — Western multicultural ideologues insist that Islam is
a religion of peace. Bruce Thornton suggests several reasons for
this, including differences in religious intensity. He notes that
"Western secularism has rendered us incapable of understanding
passionate religious beliefs." For the most part, religion in the
West is or is becoming compartmentalized and tepid whereas "the
commands of Allah and the words and deeds of Mohammed are a living
presence in every aspect of a devout Muslim's life." If Mohammed
condoned violence fourteen hundred years ago, violence is
acceptable today, no apologies necessary. This is a thoughtful
essay directed at the problem why all sorts of palliative
treatments are suggested to stop Muslim expanionism and violence,
but the obvious source of the problem, Islamic doctrine, is
willfully ignored.
Barry Shaw describes Islam as a kinetic religion because it
must, by its own rules, continue to press on and never stop until
it obtains its religious objective: the expansion of Islam to every part of
the world. Muslims may come into a new host country weak and
ill-equipped but they have the obligation to establish a presence
there and "turn it into solid Launchpad from which to expand to other
locations, which must be controlled and fortified before spreading
out to the next stage of the expansion. This can be done
militarily or peacefully, depending on the political environment
into which Islam intends to expand." But done it must be, no
matter how much Western appeasers would like to pretend it ain't happening.
Stephen Coughlin is a leading expert and lecturer on how
Islamic jihad is directly derived from Islamic religious doctrine
and how the Holy Books serve as primers for current terror
activities. Many of us have read how he was fired by the Defense
Dep't because associates of the Muslim Brotherhood objected to his
factual lectures on the clear and present danger of Islam to
America
(see
here). If firing Coughlin was intended to suppress his
message, it boomeranged — Coughlin has published his analysis as
a book that is reaching a larger audience. Moreover, being fired
for revealing the source of Islamic terrorism serves as
authentication of the truth of Coughlin's charges today in the
same way that being 'banned in Boston' by self-appointed book
censors certified the importance of the ideas expressed in a book
a half century ago.
In this article, Edward Cline reviews Coughlin's book,
"Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of
Jihad." Part 1 of this review describes how criticism of
Islam, even if true, is against Sharia Law, and thus is
considered to be religious blasphemy. In the USA, executive
edicts from the White House have forbidden government training
manuals and data bases for military and defense analysts to
associate terrorism and Islam. Hence our defense and security
agencies are blocked from openly identifying acts of terror
committed by Muslims, unless these acts are called aberrations of
the Religion of Peace. In actuality, the commands for jihad
against all non-Muslims, for violence, for plunder, for slaughter
and for viewing women as chattel are directly from the
to-be-followed more recent instructions of the Koran and Hadiths.
The earlier peaceful sections have been abrogated.
In part 2 of this review, Cline
focuses on Coughlin's "explication of the roles of Sayyid Qutb,
the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation in the emasculation of America's power to defend
itself from 'civilization jihad'." As Cline notes, "If there is a
'failure to communicate' the peril in which America finds itself,
it is not Stephen Coughlin's failure."
THE RELIGIOUS FOUNDATIONS OF SUICIDE BOMBINGS: ISLAMIST IDEOLOGY
by David Bukay
This classic essay by David Bukay points out the disparity of
the Western belief — promoted by Islamic apologists such as
Professor John Esposito of Georgetown U. and John Brennan,
Director of the CIA — that jihad is some sort of internal
spiritual struggle and the actual meaning of jihad as spirited
warfare against all who are not yet in submission to sharia law.
Bukay points out that jihad was defined as an internal struggle
only when "Muhammad and his band of followers were small and
relatively weak and so prone to compromise." This interpretation
was abrogated (i.e., canceled, voided, superceded) by Mohammad
himself. Since then, Jihad has meant the necessary violent
and non-violent never-ending struggle to ensure Islam's victory
over every non-believer everywhere. It is a compulsory duty for
Muslims, not subject to debate. It justifies every way of
conquering the enemy, including committing suicide, which is
otherwise prohibited by Islamic law. Those killed participating in
jihad are considered to be living with Allah in Paradise, where
they enjoy special rewards. Jihad is as central to Islam today as
it was in Mohammad's time. As powerful and as deadly.
This section deals with some general conditions affecting the
entire Middle East. The basic conflict is between the Sunnis and
the Shi'ites.
Attempts to readjustment the balance of power between the two
groups have led to large-scale violence and governmental
destabilization over the entire region. Open hostilities between
the groups are likely to intensify now that Iran will have
nuclear resources with which to lord it over her neighbors.
Maj.Gen. (res.) Yaakov
Amidror wrote on January 24,
2016
in a BESA Center perspective Paper:
"During this upcoming period, Iran will behave like a regional
power, and anyone who does not accept its status will have to
deal with its increasing power and the strength of its
emissaries in the region. The American move in making the deal,
and its ramifications for Iran's stature, serve as a kind of
proof for the Sunnis of an American decision to align with the
Shiite side of the struggle."
At the very least, Iran will do what it does well: create disorder
and disruption by fighting through its many proxies. And the
response by the other states will contribute to the breakdown of
civility and the rejection of limits on barbaric behavior.
As Jonathan Spyer noted in a recent paper, the main problem in the
Middle East is the domination of political Islam by
"States, indifferent to any norms and rules, using terror and
subversion to advance their interests, Jihadi armed groups, and
the refugee crises and disorder that result from all this are the
practical manifestations of it." (See
here).
Meantime, the world struggles to "understand" what has caused
all this. Many reasons have been proposed for the sharp increase
in violence. Both groups are said to suffer overt frustration
because the status of the Muslims in the world doesn't match the
superiority their religion tells them they are entitled to have.
The reasons adduced to explain the current perturbations are for the
most part fanciful and independent of Islam itself. Israel, of
course, has been blamed for the region's woes, as has the West.
But it is becoming recognized that the motive power behind the
surge of what is called radical Islam terrorism is that both the Sunnis
and Shi'ites are committed to unlimited jihad for the sake of
Islam. They aren't deviating from the tenets of Islam. They are
very much rooted in the beginnings of Islam in thought and in
action.
Return to What We Are Talking About
LEADERSHIP OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD AND ISLAMIC JIHAD IS WHAT IS AT STAKE FOR MUSLIMS
by Col. Tom Snodgrass (Ret.)
Tom Snodgrass provides a primer explaining the similarities and
differences between the Sunnis and Shi'ites. Both are dedicated to
replacing the US Constitution — and the administration of every
non-Muslim country — with sharia law. Neither will give up until
they obtain this objective. The US has been dealing with the
different factions piecemeal, supporting the Sunnis here, the
Shi'ites there. Snodgrass suggests the US needs to "adopt a
comprehensive strategy which is based on the reality that the U.S.
loses regardless who triumphs in the Islamic religious sectarian
war: Islamic State Sunni Salafist Wahhabis, al-Qaeda Sunni
Salafist Wahhabis, Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, or Shia Khomeinist
Twelvers."
In the current war between the Sunnis and the Shi'ites in the
Middle East, Iran is the major source of funding for the
political-military organizations acting as Iranian proxies
and fighting for the Shi'ite side in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.
Jonathan Spyer explores how successful these different alliances
have been. Spyer believes Iran will be more successful creating
chaos in the region than developing a sustainable hegemony over
the Middle East.
Clive Kessler has an interesting perspective: Islam since it
fell behind the West, has tried various governmental and
administrative fixes, from secular to military to Marxist. It has
now gone back to its violent religious beginnings, to
sharia-dominant "pure" Islam and idealization of that perfect man,
Mohammad. Kessler talks about only a minority taking the terrorist
route. But given there were 2.08 billion Muslims in the world as
of 2014, even if only 15% are terrorists and their support
structure, that is 312 million people,
which is close to the entire population of the USA (318.9 million
in 2014). Not proven is whether Islam
ever actually discarded Sharia as society's glue. Not proven is
whether Islam ever had the creativity it takes for success. Soon
after its formation it absorbed the Persian and Hebrew cultures,
inter alia. Its rampages were effective but are hardly
proof that Islam intrinsically can build and create as well as it
can pillage, destroy and make subservient. Islam's blaming
everyone and everything but itself and its lack of introspection
stands in sharp contrast to the way, for example, the Chinese, another ancient
people, found its way to modernity through many blunders and false
starts. It reshaped its people, not the world.
For years, we were told that the Po' Palestinian Arabs were
sadistically violent only because they had no other way to fight
the Jewish invaders of their homeland, an explanation that assumed incorrectly
that these Arabs owned the land. As justification for
barbaric behavior, the notion they were fighting to regain a
homeland began to fall apart when the salafists started
doing unto the West what it had done in Israel. One could patch
together a commonality that the West was under attack because it
aided Israel or because it had done Islam wrong, but
the uniqueness of the underpinning of Arab terror
— that it was fighting for its land — was
lost. As Brig.-Gen (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser wrote (December 3,
2015,
here.)
"What disturbs the Palestinians is that as radical Islam's direct
warfare against the West expands, they lose a key asset for
promoting their goals. If, as is becoming increasingly clear, the
Palestinian issue is not the heart of the problem, then the West's
expression of regret for its "crimes" on this issue will not solve
the greater problem. The request for penance must be much more
far-reaching; Iranian President Hassan Rouhani recently made
dialogue with the United States conditional on an American request
for Iran's forgiveness. In addition, the more the connection
between the two kinds of terror grows, the more the radical
Islamic component of the Palestinian rejection of Israel's
existence as the democratic nation-state of the Jewish people and
preference for a violent struggle to eliminate it, is exposed. The
West would better understand how difficult it is to promote a
settlement and may (as Israel would hope) come to understand that
the terror against Israel is essentially part and parcel of the
terror against the West."
The Pro-Palestinian propagandists are now using a second line of
justification: the actions of the terrorists are due to
'frustration, desperation, fury at being dealt a poor hand,
shame, etc.' — environmental and external reasons, not part of
the Religion of Peace. Nevertheless, it is becoming clear that
they don't want a homeland — they rejected Genl Sisi's offer of a
homeland in the Sinai. What they want is to take over all of
Israel and evict the Jews because they controlled the area for a
time centuries back. The reasons for terrorizing the West have
also become suspect. It isn't because the West wronged them. It
isn't because they suffer from frustration or poverty or
desperation. It's
because they have a mission to impose Sharia law globally on all.
In this essay, Mark Humphrys rejects the absurd notion that the
fight for a Palestinian homeland is the well-spring for
Arab terrorism throughout the Middle East. He points out that the
sociological certainty that poverty and frustration cause acts of
terrorism is also wrong. Most terrorists capable of the self-direction
needed to carry out a successful terror attack come from the
upper classes. He identifies the motive power of Islamist
terrorism: Islam.
This section begin with the history of the treatment of the Jews
in Iran, from the time it was the Persian Empire until today.
The other essays explore the new threats to global survival
which became reality when the so-called nuclear deal with Iran
was accepted by Prez Obama. After a flurry of reports detailing
the defects of the JCPOA in the summer of 2015, news articles
on progress were markedly reduced. This set of articles brings us
up to date.
Many of the Deal's dangers were obvious from the start; many
warned of the consequences. For example, see
here. These possibilities have become reality, with Iran
running the show: deciding what it will and will not do, dictating
to the West, deciding what the IAEA — the agency responsible for
monitoring the nuclear deal — may and may not examine. In the
last issue of Think-Israel, in the Section entitled "We Can Still
Defeat the Iran Nuclear Deal", where
we concluded that there were ways to stop Iran's unimpeded
drive to become a nuclear power (see here).
These ways are still available. And using them is more necessary
than ever.
In step with Iran's punching its way out of the paper bag full
of JCPOA's restraints on its nuclear ambitions, there has been a
reconsideration of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT),
an early attempt at restricting nuclear proliferation. The NPT has
no bite, no ability to stop Iran's ambition, but coming from the
mouths of the European Union and the American President and the
Muslim-riddled United Nations, it has enough strength to tie up
Israel to make it incapable of responding to Iranian threats and
activities.
The maneuver to paralyze Israel is multi-pronged.
Besides trying to ensure politically that Israel doesn't use
nuclear power, there is a "special relations between the
PLO/Fatah and Iran." This is the documentation at hirhome.com/iraniraq/plo-iran2.htm:
"PLO/Fatah, now better known as the 'Palestinian Authority,' will
govern a Palestinian State in the militarily strategic
territories of Judea and Samaria (or 'West Bank') if the Middle
East 'peace process' concludes with a 'Two-State Solution.' Given
that Iranian leaders daily promise the destruction of Israel,
most people assume that PLO/Fatah has nothing to do with Iran. It
would be absurd, they implicitly reason, for Israeli leaders to
give strategic territory to an Iranian proxy. And yet, it is a
historical fact that PLO/Fatah helped install Ayatollah Khomeini
in power and create the current Iranian Islamist regime. It has
maintained a close relationship with this regime ever since. This
short film PLO/Fatah and
Iran: The Special Relationship from HIR at http://www.hirhome.com documents that
relationship:"
Alex Rose traces the treatment of the Jews through the
dynasties from ancient Persia to its transformation to modern-day
Iran. With few exceptions, Jews, like other religious minorities,
were treated harshly by successive rulers, well before the Arabs
conquered Persia. The Arab rulers were Shi'ite, so the traditional
brutality of the Muslims was reinforced by the Shi'ite doctrine of
purity, najis, which emphasized the fear of uncleanliness
caused by non-believers — Jews and Christians. An episode of
Jewish "pollution" was often the trigger for a pogrom or forced
conversion to Islam. The current rulers of Iran, the mullahs, may
be conversant with modern technology but they are as obsessed with
Jew-hate as most of their predecessors.
The Iran Nuclear Deal was not signed, not affirmed by raised
hand, not treated as a treaty by the US executive, not voted on
directly by the US Congress. It is a non-binding set of plans,
which unfortunately the USA Administration seems to feel
honor-bound to implement, while Iran has announced it will do what
it wants, when it wants. Roger Aronoff points out that the State
Dep't's spin on these facts is to emphasize verification
rather than contractual agreement, even though Iran has already
stated it is now and will continue to be non-compliant when the Deal
interferes with its own plans. As for the rigorous monitoring that
verification demands, IAEA, the monitoring
agency, has already shown itself to be incapable of standing up to
Iran's bullying. The upshot is that "President Obama is
perpetrating a dangerous hoax through his triumphal advocacy for
this so-called deal, and the media, for the most part, are
participating."
Yigal Carmon, co-founder of MEMRI, an institute that does
scrupulous translations from the Arab media, has examined the
end-game activities of the Iran nuclear deal. The final bits and
pieces were to be in place by December 15, 2015 so the
participants could begin carrying out their agreed-upon Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Instead, "[t]he JCPOA is
best characterized by bangs and whimpers — by bold prohibitions on
Iran that peter out in qualifying terms such as 'unless,' 'except
if,' and the like." Moreover, by her actions and temper tantrums, Iran has
totally "rewritten" the JCPOA so Iran will be doing just what she
wants to do. In fact, Iran is the one
stipulating conditions the West must agree to — or else Iran will
stop her version of cooperation. The IAEA monotoring agency has long been intimidated into not
going against Iran's inperious demands. As Carmon says, "With every passing
day, Iran is more and more in violation of the JCPOA. But neither
the Republicans nor the Democrats, nor the media, nor anyone else
will acknowledge this, for the implications are too devastating."
The Obama Administration continues to tout the Iran Nuclear
Deal as having thwarted Iran's ability to acquire nuclear weapons
for at least a decade. Even if Iran doesn't already have the
bomb, Obama's claim is unlikely. It ignores "other crucial
requirements for effective nonproliferation." Emily Landau
examines the impact of the JCPOA on the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty (NPT), which was enacted in 1970 as the way to stop "the
spread of nuclear weapons and the destabilization that could
result." She points out that "[i]nstead of shoring up the
nonproliferation regime, the Iran deal is likely to dangerously
undermine it" in that it will likely lead non-nuclear NPT members
to reexamine their commitment to current NPT regulations and
restrictions. As it is, taking advantage of a loophole, Iran, a
member of the NPT, like North Korea and Iraq before it, has
already been substantially advancing "a military nuclear
capability under the cover of a supposedly civilian one." The
supposedly mature nuclear countries irresponsibly have made no
attempt to punish the rogue countries, which quickly learned that
in pushing nuclear proliferation beyond legal limits, they would
suffer no loss in "long-term status, wealth, and power."
Contrariwise, as Landau writes in an article entitled "The
NPT's Challenge To Israel" (see here), over the years, there has been intermittent but substantial pressure on
Israel, not a member of NPT, to become a member — maybe the only
member — of a "nuclear-weapon-free zone" in the Middle East. As
Landau writes, "the only way for Israel (or any of the other
states outside the treaty) to join the NPT is as a non-nuclear
weapon state; therefore the call for Israel to join the NPT is
necessarily a call for Israel to disarm itself of whatever
nuclear capability it is assumed to have."
Ignoring Iran's genocidal rants and NPT's own, albeit weak,
acceptance of the right of self defense, many have argued that Israel
and Iran should have equal NPT obligations. Now that Iran has
shown itself to be erratic — using its growing expertise in
nuclear matters to intimidate — logically, we'd expect the
pressure on Israel to disarm itself would discontinue. But logic
isn't a prominent feature of Arab demands. Landau concludes that
much depends on whether the Arabs think that "increasing
attention to Israel had a realistic chance of producing results."
The salafists are determined to win Europe from the control of
the "Crusaders" — they want another shot at the Christians they
weren't able to defeat at the time of the Crusades. Instead of
mounting a realistic defense against the Muslim invasion of
Europe and infiltration of the US, Western leaders blame
everything and everybody but Islam. This set of
articles identifies some of the ruses Western leaders employ to
avoid having to deal with reality. They allow uncontrolled
immigration of an unassimilable culture. They refuse to give up
their precious ideology — diversity and multiculturalism — even
though, should the salafists win, there will be no diversity,
only the uniformity of sharia law. There will be no respect for
all cultures; all cultures will be treated as inferior to Islam.
They continue to see Israel as the root cause of global problems
and try to cripple it, even though as Dr Shine observes, "Israel
stands at the forefront of the war against terrorism." A video
called "Paris Attacks: Western Politicians are Accessories to
Murder" featuring Paul Weston here reinforces the observation
that the weak and ineffective behavior of Western politicians
contributes to the harm the salafists have been able to do the West.
Edward Cline write about the demented mental
state of the political elite of Europe who, ignoring the
devastation, crime, social diseases and economic disruption the
Muslims has brought to their countries, continue
to preach a distorted form of Christianity: when faced with Muslim
anti-social behavior, turn the other cheek and pretend
even harder that Muslims will allow themselves to be reshaped into
civilized Europeans with Western values. As Cline notes, using German
Chancellor Angela Merkel as a supreme example of
ideology-motivated behavior, "Her 'mind-set' of plurality and
diversity is directly at odds with those of the disdained hoi
polloi." Ordinary folk who rely on the evidence of their eyes
are sneered at and given misinformation or no information to keep
them from objecting to the social upheaval the Muslims have
engendered. To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The political
elite are different from you and me."
Haim Shine writes bluntly and accurately,
"For many years, European policymakers have endlessly regurgitated
the fallacy that the 'suffering' of Palestinians motivates
terrorists across the globe. This baseless and hypocritical claim
stems from a desire to appease Arab countries and promote European
business interests." There is no connection between the
Israel-Palestinian conflict and Islamic terror. Instead, there are
two facts that are for the most part disregarded: (1) Salafists
regard France and Germany as 'Crusader states' and are ready to
continue their battle with the Christian Crusaders; and (2)
through no desire on its part, nevertheless, "Israel stands at the forefront of
the war against terrorism." Until this is acknowledged and the war
against Islamic terrorism becomes serious, people will die from
terrorist acts. It would behoove European and American politicians
to stop pushing Israel to make suidical concessions and to
understand that, as Shine writes, "Any ceded land would turn into
a forward base of radical Islam."
The Main Stream Media (MSM) continue to emphasize the
humanitarian aspects of the refugee influx into Europe, primarily
Germany, with its generous welfare benefits and enthusiastic
welcome of the refugees by its Chancellor, Angela Merkel. The
media ignore that their own photos show that currently 69% of the
Syrian refugees coming by sea are not women holding toddlers but
grown men, well dressed and equipped with cell phones (see here).
The MSM don't explain why wealthy Middle East countries such as
UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain won't take in refugees, especially
when these countries have the same culture, attitude toward women
and family, religion and language as the refugees. In Europe,
refugee absorption is not doing well.
The European public was brimming with friendliness
towards the refugees only a short while ago. Its
enthusiasm was much reduced
after major increases in crime were reported and took a sharp
plunge after a mass attack against women took place on New
Year's Eve 2016 in various German cities, particularly in Cologne where
Arab migrant gangs harassed and attacked women sexually. The way
the gangs assaulted lone women and "diverted outsiders' attention"
(see
here) suggests the attacks were pre-planned and coordinated.
More and more, harassment of native women is being reported from
Western European countries. In Sweden, 77% of the rapes are
committed by Muslim males, who are 2% of the population (see
here.) Other facts are just as indigestible. ISIS is openly
bragging that thousands of their members have entered Europe as
unvetted refugees or on fake passports, while surveys show that 25%
of the Syrian refugees in Europe (with an estimated range
from 13% to 80%) sympathize with the Islamic State (see
here). And most European Muslims want Sharia, not European, law
(see here).
In this article, Soeren Kern focuses on the social and
political perturbations triggered by the large increase of
refugees into Germany in 2015, adding to those already there. Far
from keeping a low profile or showing gratitude for their
resettlement, the Muslim community is already beginning to be
angry and aggressive towards the natives. They are demanding
modifications in the lifestyle of the Europeans in line with their
own religious and social practices. This doesn't sit well with the
native populations, but the responses of the politicians, police and judicial
authorities have been mixed. Many such as Henriette Reker, mayor of
Cologne, are blaming the women victims for the New Year's Eve
attacks. For the most part, the police are overwhelmed and can no
longer offer much protection to the native population except for
major crimes such as murders and rape (see
here.) Various reports on the impact of the refugees on
Europe's welfare systems and economy, and its political and social
institutions, are available here. Another
report by Baroness Cox in England
(see here) highlights the impact on the English and Muslim
communities of polygamous muslim males having as many as 20
children each. It is safe to say that Europeans are just beginning
to think through the consequences of the fact that the Muslims have a
much higher birthrate than the natives.
Pamela Geller writes of the strange inertia that has taken
over the West. Westerners seem to have lost the will to defend
themselves against the Islamic invaders. In France, they have reacted to the
recent horrible terror attacks in Paris with meaningless
ineffective gestures. As one example, they composed a clever
hashtag, which was "just the latest in an endless stream of
manifestations of the sophomoric, embarrassing, preening
self-indulgence that is endemic in our sick culture." The Eiffel
Tower peace symbol is another example of creating a hollow symbol
instead of mounting an adequate defense of Western culture
against the savages that would destroy it. Much of the media have
responded to the Muslim challenge by blaming "right-wing
extremists," as if that declaration will harm a single one of our
real enemies. In a show of lunacy, heads of state meeting in Paris
ignored the attacks on Paris except to mouth solemn nothings; they declared
global warming as the greatest threat to mankind. The West has
yet to recognize we are at war. In war, "you either win or you are defeated."
To show weakness only makes it easier for the salafists to defeat us.
THE REACTIONS OF THE ISRAELI AUTHORITIES TO THE ARSON ATTACK AND MURDER IN THE ARAB
VILLAGE OF DUMA
This section discusses the arson attack on a house in the Arab
village of Duma that left a mother and father and their baby dead.
The police usually quickly identify a murderous terrorist. When
the current intifada struck Tel-Aviv at the start of 2016, within
a day, the police correctly determined that the terrorist was an
Israeli Arab from Wadi Ara, yet despite their six-month long,
wide-sweeping, monomaniacal investigation of Jewish suspects, they
have never found any evidence that Jewish settlers were
responsible for the Duma tragedy. So eager have some secular
security/police/judiciary been to blame religious Jews, they have
treated these suspects — some of whom are in their teens
— brutally, not letting them sleep, putting them in
isolation, incarcerating them beyond the legal limits, refusing
them their religious rights, preventing them from seeing their
families and lawyers, beating them and torturing them to try to
force them to confess. When some the suspects were released, they
were placed under house arrest, almost as a gesture of spite and
frustration.
One reader, Dov Blair Epstein (INN, Jan 2, 2016), summed up what
many thought: "amazing, just like that, name of [Tel-Aviv] killer
found. Maybe they're also looking for the real killers of the
Dawabshe baby....oh, no, that HAS to be a Jew." What is more
shameful, the disgraceful treatment of the suspects was not the
work of a few arrogant policemen going well beyond their legal
authority; the directive to torture Jewish suspects came from the
Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein (see here.)
These are some of the pertinent elements of the story that are,
to put it politely, underreported. The arson attack in which three
members of the Dawabsha family died occurred in July 2015. There
were no eye witnesses and no evidence, but only Jews were blamed,
even when the authorities knew there was no reason to suspect
them. It was not until December 2015 that Internal Security
Minister Gilad Erdan admitted that there was no evidence to try
the suspects. The police have ignored the ongoing murderous clan
war in Duma itself — the Dawabsha family is part of one of
the feuding clans. The Arabs immediately blamed Yehuda Landsberg
of Gilad Farm in Samaria, but had to retract the accusation when
it was discovered he was serving time for another crime. The
murdered family lived in the center of Duma, where access was
difficult, and an out-of-towner would be easily spotted, yet they
hung around long enough to hit two houses and watch until the fire
was working, without being caught. There was
graffiti sprayed on a nearby wall, the Magen David and two phrases
— "revenge" and "long live the Messiah." "Revenge" had
components of Arab calligraphy but was immediately attributed to
the Jews.
What was the motivation of the responsible authorities? Was it the
desire to make Arab terrorism less out-of-proportion by adding some Jewish
'terrorists' to the other side of the scale? Was it the fear of
Arab rioting if they focused on the logical suspects, the Arabs of
Duma? Was it the taking advantage of the opportunity to demonize
'Settler' Jews in the Territories to make it easier to give up
Jewish land? Was it the fear that Jews might start to behave as
reprehensibly as the Arabs? Was it the fear that Jewish
vigilantism might force the Government to deal with Arab
terrorism seriously rather than symptomatically? Or was it simply
an opportunity for the extreme secular to lash out at religious
Jews, whom they loathe more than they do the Arabs who are trying
to destroy the State of Israel? So rabid have some members of the
Israel Security Agency (Shabak) become,
that when the case against the Jews faltered, a video
appeared of a Jewish wedding in which Jews were said to be
stabbing a picture of an Arab baby and otherwise, well, behaving
like Arabs. Some anecdotal material has appeared that makes the
video questionable. As an example (see here),
a woman from Kfar Etzion, a close friend of the groom's family, asks
The family tried to find out from all the guests who brought
these images ... just a mystery. Did not find.
Who gave the weapons? The group has no weapons! Also, the weapons disappeared two minutes right after the song.
Who took the video? The photographer was somewhere else. According to the owner of the hall, GSS agents came several hours earlier, and installed cameras all over the room! After the wedding they came and took them.
In short, it turns out that unfortunately, someone organized and initiated all of this in advance.They distributed weapons and pictures and in a shocking way stabbed the picture of the boy in front of the camera. It is important to know the truth, how much it hurts. (translation unclear...)
In a conversation with those in charge of Security of this event, hundreds of plainclothes police arrived ... in civilian clothes. Presented him with a police ID.
Neither the Groom nor his family nor his Bride or her family recognize who danced with the picture.
And now, Shabak has announced they will be taking two of the
suspects, Amiram Ben-Uliel and a minor, to trial. Under a
government gag order, news from the courts has just about ceased;
information is by way of rumors.
There is much to ponder in the behavior of the Israeli authorities
involved in the harassment of the Jewish settlers, in what is a
striking contrast to the care taken not to injure the human
shields of missile emplacement in Gaza — as just one example. What
is indisputable is that, as many have observed, we have witnessed
the acting out of a morality play illustrating, once again, the
Talmudic observation that those that are kind to the cruel will
in the end become cruel to the kind.
'SETTLER' PAYS TROUBLING CONDOLENCE VISIT TO ARAB VILLAGE
by Hillel Fendel
Yonadav Tapuchi joined a group of Jews who went to Duma on a
condolence visit and to "give a clear message that there are some
acts that have no justification." It didn't take long for him to
realize he'd been suckered into being a anti-Israel propaganda
prop. As Hillel Fendel records, Tapuchi's observed that the second
house that was burnt, the one where the Dawabsha family lived,
was not only hard to reach but would have been hard to enter. Yet
the arsonists had time to navigate to the middle of the village,
enter two houses, set the second on fire, "wait with the parents,
spray graffit in two places ... and then run away through the
middle of the village with all the townspeople surely already up
and on their feet seeing the flames and hearing the family's
cries. Something here is very fishy..." Yes, indeed.
The global media have distributed
a video purporting to show religious Jews poking holes in a photo
said to be of the dead Dawashba baby at a wedding where the
wedding guests were said to be celebrating the arson attack in
Duma. This article was written by Lenny Goldberg, father of the
bride at the wedding where this happened. Yes, he agrees, some
waved rifles and toy guns.
Some do take rifles to celebrations, never knowing when some
murderous Arabs will decide to crash the party. But the ominous
and lurid attributions in this story appear to have been added
after the fact. To me, the blurry photo looks more like the image
of a Yeshiva boy. Or maybe it's a new-Age Rorschach. The waving of
guns while dancing is said to show hatred of the Arabs. If true,
it is certainly different than the way the Arabs celebrate a
Jewish death. They don't wave toy guns. They shoot real bullets in
the air, which occasionally kill a celebrant or two. The Arabs
aren't timid about showing their joy openly and instructing their
children in how to celebrate the death of an enemy. They want
photographers to take close-up pictures of their joy in killing.
Here, the Jewish father of the bride notes that while everyone
dancing is wearing white shirts, "the guys holding the signs are
wearing jackets and their faces are blurred." He doesn't know
them. He has good reason to suspect that this was a Shin Bet
setup.
Tuvia Brodie makes the point that when the police ignore a
clan-war motive and focus solely on Jews as the perpetrators,
"professional police investigation may not be your agenda." He
goes on to discuss the political benefits to Israel's Left of
having Israel's Right "accused of unravelling Israel's democracy."
Leftists, particularly Marxists, pit democracy against Judaism and they believe that anything that weakens
Jewish identity contributes to increasing democracy. And the
importance of Duma? As Brodie puts it,
"Duma: it's the newest weapon in the Left's war against Jewish Israel."
Jacob Freedman writes that rhetoric and talk hasn't and won't
stop episodic terror attacks. Palliatives such as putting
protective barriers at bus stations are not enough. Effective
treatment would include affecting the families of the Arab
terrorist, who, to date, continue to receive their welfare
benefits in food, medicine, housing, tuition. More importantly,
Jewish identity needs to be strengthened.
Israel is treated
as the enemy by the present American Administration. The UN spends
an inordinate amount of time castigating Israel for breathing. The
European Union and the United Nations lavishly fund and support
her belligerent enemies. Almost all of the global media have a
pro-Palestinian Arab slant and the salafists crow with joy that
Hamas and Hezbollah and Isis are encircling the Jewish State. In
response, Israel is doing some things well. She is reaching out
and creating trade agreements with Asiatic countries. Closer to
home she is sharing renewable energy and water conservation
technology with Greece and Cyprus. She now has a office in Abu
Dhabi as part of her membership in the International Renewable
Energy Agency. Egypt and Israel have drawn closer, because both
realistically fear the harm a nuclear Iran will do to the Middle
East. And she has invented and innovated so many of the medical,
computer, water and agricultural appliances and electronics
— as well as techniques
and conveniences the world relies on — that a sincere believer in
the anti-Israel Boycott-Divest-Sanction (BDS) movement should withdraw
from civilization and go live in a cave to make sure he isn't
inadvertently using something that comes from Israel (see a new video
here or here.
Or listen to Pat
Condell on BDS here).
In this set of articles, we emphasize Israel's need to make
major attitudinal changes if Israel is to overcome successfully
the damages done to Israel's citizenry by Israel's Arab citizens
and neighboring Muslims. One way to start is to emulate the
realistic appraisals of Moshe Saperstein, a delightful essayist
with a style that combines sarcasm, dry humor and straight-out
bitching. That's so much better a way to do a refutation than by
reciting long boring and lofty speeches about how Israel wants
peace while ignoring that her enemies are trying their best to destroy her. On the Temple
Mount and on the streets of cities and towns randomly across the
country, the Arabs have sent in their crack troops —
aggressive screeching women and cute-looking youngsters, the
younger the better ‐ using knives, guns, stones, and vehicles
as weapons. It's awful that often the only way to stop the
darlings is with a bullet, but that definitely does help protect
Jewish women and children. The articles by Gershon Hacohen and
Barbara Ginsberg should be read with care because much of the
Jew's confidence that what he is doing is the right thing to do
comes primarily from his spiritual connection to God and the land
of Israel.
ISRAEL NEEDS NEW WAYS TO RESPOND EFFECTIVELY TO THE THIRD INTIFADA
by
Stephen Kruger
In the Israel-Arab
relationship, Stephen Kruger sees Israel as the battered partner.
To change her role in this unwanted relationship, Israel needs to change her
responses to the current Third Intifada. Blowing up empty houses
is ineffective. Israel needs to cast aside her overly
protective concern for the "innocent Arab civilian."
She need to take direct control of Judea and Samaria, part of the
ancestral Jewish homeland. She needs to respond to the concocted
fantasy that there was a Palestinian people who controlled
Mandated Palestine in the misty past, a fantasy that the Arabs
sold to the world, because Israel, in the interests of peace,
never spoke up. She needs to assert her rights to land that is
hers (a) by the Bible, (b) legally by the San Remo Conference and
as a
United Nations trust; and (c) by right of conquest, when she deflected
the aim of her hostile neighbors to destroy her and took
possession of additional land as a result.
Will the "world" scream? Of course. Doesn't it always, no matter
what Israel does?
An indication of how ill-prepared Israelis are attitudinally to
fight effectively is that we are in the midst of the Third
Intifada and Israelis are still debating how to handle a terrorist
neutralized after he's committed his act of terror. They aren't
even sure if the context should be normative civil law or wartime
necessity. Mordechai Kedar writes of the basic political
differences that underlie the opposing views. Morally superior
liberals don't want to stoop to the level of the enemy. They
"relate to the terrorist stabber and murderer as though he is a
member of civilized society who has, unfortunately, strayed from
the proper path, but is entitled to all the protection afforded by
law to any criminal..." Unfortunately, because the terrorist is
treated as a hero by the Arabs and enjoys generous benefits in
prison, including the ability to obtain advanced degrees at
Israeli taxpayer expense, this ends up encouraging terror and murder.
Whatever the morality of killing the terrorist on the spot, it
does have the effect of deterring terrorism. As Kedar
points out, in the Middle East, he "who succeeds in convincing his
enemies that he is invincible and that they had better leave him
alone for their own good, has a chance of achieving peace."
SUNNI POLITICAL ISLAM: ENGINE OF THE 'ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN' CONFLICT
by Jonathan Spyer
With all due respect to those that insist that the current
problem with the Muslims is not their religion but their political
aspirations — and not denying that the Muslim movers and shakers
do indeed plan to rule the world under sharia by utilizing
politics, social acceptance and terrorism, among other means
— Islam's domination of all other religions is an unshakable
part of their religious tenets. It is also, as Jonathan Spyer,
points out, significant in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where
the "centrality of religion continued to fire the various
movements fighting Israel. The very name "Fatah," for example,
which is often — absurdly — described as a "secular"
movement, is a religious term. "Fatah" is in Arabic a term
literally meaning to "open," but is used in context to mean "to
conquer a land for Islam. [...] [T]he core energy on the Arab side
is one of religious rage — a feeling that the
re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in parts of the land
formerly ruled by Muslims constitutes a crime against god."
It would seem to me that an outsider, unfamiliar with the history
and geography of the conflict, is likely to side with the Arabs,
because instinctively he knows true owners of land do not
willingly give up their land. Thus Israel has weakened its
irrefutable biblical, historic, legal and conquest claims
to the land by promoting the secular and rational and offering to
share the land, while downplaying the deep-rootedness of the love that
Israelis, even secular Jews, have for their homeland.
I'M GETTING TO KNOW MY MOTHER; IGNORANCE IS BLITZ; FLAMES;
ONE MORE LAST THING; AND OTHER ESSAYS
by Moshe Saperstein
Rachel and Moshe Saperstein lived in Gush Katif in Gaza until
the Israeli Government of Ariel Sharon unilaterally kicked them and
another 10,000 productive and patriotic Jews out of their homes
and greenhouses. One theory claimed that tightening the borders by
cutting away Gaza would make defense more efficient. In point of
fact it brought Hamas closer to Jewish population centers and gave
them more room to train terrorists and assemble explosives. From
reading the Saperstein essays over the years, we understand how this moronic
displacement affected the involuntary participants. We know the
struggle it has been not to sink into depression but continue to
fight a recalcitrant and inefficient bureaucracy to regain
permanent housing for members of the original Gush Katif
community. Every so often we hear rumors that the politicians are
prepared to kick the Jews out of Samaria and Judea and the eastern
part of Jerusalem so the local Arabs can have their own state. One
wonders how the politicians, who in ten years, have not yet completed the
resettlement of the 10,000 members of Gush Katif community
plan to handle some 800,000 new Jewish refugees.
On the road they have traveled these last seventy years,
American Jews have come to a fork they had not anticipated.
There was optimism after World War II. It was symbolized by the
formation of the United Nations, which was founded on the belief
that hostilities between countries could be talked out and
negotiated. Wars weren't necessary to solve differences. Jews, too,
since the end of second World War, have been optimistic. They have
been more than comfortable as secular-appearing members of the
liberal intellectual culture: sophisticated, open to all ideas,
tolerant almost to excess, concluding from the Holocaust that they
should take a low profile as Jews while passionately defending the
human and civil rights of others.
Jews adored the idea that they could vote for an attractive,
articulate black man as President. Unfortunately, Prez Obama
didn't return their love. He was raised as a Muslim and had
internalized the major goal of the Koran: make Islam supreme;
all other religions are inferior, members of all other religions
are dhimmis His antipathy was reinforced
by his long-standing preference for socialism over democracy, a
socialism that includes despising religion.
Right now Jews are at a place where the familiar road has
stopped. The Liberals — now called Progressives — continue to
deviate further and further towards the extreme Left. The
old-fashioned benign liberal is considered quaint. To stay liberal
means adopting Marxism, socialism, white-hate and Jew-hate, as
well as becoming a partner to Muslim activists, who don't
negotiate or tolerate. Otherwise, one must go to the Right, to the
g
