300-400 word essay
jqwe1001
gmePowerPointslidestopic4.pptWho promised Palestine to contemporary Jews? God or Britain?
In 1917 Britain issued the Balfour Declaration (promising Arab Palestine to world Jewry) and began a 30-year military occupation of Palestine to fulfill the promise through what British Colonel Charles Churchill envisioned in 1841 as a simultaneous and Europe-wide Jewish “agitation”
Speaking at a hastily convened meeting of the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Istanbul, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas demands UN takes charge of peace process after Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as capital of Israel [on 12/6/2017]. Abbas formally declared that “Jerusalem is and will forever be the capital of the Palestinian state” and “We do not accept any role of the United States in the political process from now on. Because it is completely biased towards Israel.” The Guardian, 12/13/2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/13/recep-tayyip-erdogan-unite-muslim-world-trump-east-jerusalem
Watch George Galloway
(long-time British Member of Parliament) discuss how “the Balfour Declaration, made by Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, promised on behalf of one people [the British] to a second people [the Jews] the land that belongs to a third people [the Palestinians]”, 6/4/2015: https :// www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZvmOQhcObw
Watch Alison Weir discuss “The Hidden history of how the U.S. was used to create Israel,” If Americans Knew, 5/5/2015, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4cNrbo15ME
Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 10/30/2015,
http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/Peace/Guide/Pages/The%20Balfour%20Declaration.aspx
Prince Charles, heir to British Throne, wrote in 1986: "Surely some U.S. president has to have the courage to stand up and take on the Jewish lobby in U.S.? I must be naive, I suppose!" Israel Hayom, 11/12/2017, http://www.israelhayom.com/2017/11/12/1986-prince-charles-letter-reveals-shocking-thoughts-on-jews /
Read the Balfour
Declaration to see who promised Palestine to contemporary Jews
Arthur James Balfour
In 1943, President Roosevelt’s special envoy to the Middle East US Army Lt. Col. Harold Hoskins warned: “Only by force can a Jewish state in Palestine be established or maintained” See PPT 9
In 1946, Albert Einstein warned that
a Jewish state in Palestine where a majority of the population is Arab would be “unjust and impractical.” Forward, 11/22/2015, http://forward.com/news/325189/what-was-einsteins-relationship-to-judaism-and-zionism /
http://www.valentinosghost.com/# anchorSummery
With the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration approaching,
“the Palestinian Authority said it plans to sue Britain for issuing the edict”
JTA,
7/25/2016
The Balfour Declaration – A Century of Jewish Power, VT, 5/17/2017, http://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/05/17/the-balfour-declaration-a-century-of-jewish-power /
We’re American Jewish Historians. This Is Why We’ve Left Zionism Behind, IMEMC News, 8/12/2016, http://imemc.org/article/65397-2 /
“The Palestinian people are likely to prevail” and “the Israelis are going to have to listen and finally back down…” PressTV, 5/4/2017,
http://www.veteranstoday.com/category/world-global/middle-east-issues /
Existence of Israel contrary to Torah teachings: Rabbi Weiss, Published on Apr 3, 2014, https :// www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuAy2xkeniY
The Rothschild Jewish family in 1906
http:// www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12909-rothschild
1
The British government promised Arab Palestine to world Jewry on 11/2/1917 and occupied Jerusalem on 12/11/1917 This British promise was expressed in a letter (dated 11/2/1917) by British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leading member a Jewish banking family in London. But the promise was not a personal letter from Balfour to Rothschild. It was debated by the British Cabinet “comma by comma” through the whole of 1917, approved by US President Wilson and the US Congress, and adhered to by France and Italy. It was also approved at the San Remo Conference held by the Allies in 1920 and incorporated into the Palestine Mandate of the League of Nations in 1922 which was actually an implementation document for the promise (known as the Balfour Declaration). L. Wolf, 1919; B. Tuchman, 1984; H. Cattan, 1969; Y. Hazony, 2000. The following are two DIFFERENT versions of the British promise: the left one was adopted, the right one was not. What is the difference between the two versions and why it is significant?
“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.”
“His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of the 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.”
Napoleon promised Arab Palestine to world Jewry in 1799
"Rightful heirs of Palestine! … Arise!… Hasten!..." France “offers to you [the Jews] at this very time, and contrary to expectations, Israel’s patrimony! France calls on you not indeed to conquer your patrimony, nay, only to take over that which has been conquered and, with that nation’s warranty and support, to maintain it against all comers.” Napoleon Bonaparte, 1799, quoted in F. Kobler, 1975.
https:// upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Charlotte_Sunday_Observer_front_page_May_27_1917%2C_Twenty-Century_Dream_of_Israel_May_Be_Realized_by_America%27s_Entry_into_War.jpg
http:// www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/battle_somme.shtml
Did Brits Kill New York City Cops to Get U.S. into WWII? The Daily Beast, 7/16/2017, http:// www.thedailybeast.com/did-brits-kill-new-york-city-cops-to-get-us-into-wwii
3
Geography of Russia’s Jews by Provinces and Regions in 1897
Provinces and Regions Jewish Population Percent of Total Population
Grodno Province 276,874 17.28
Kovno 212,230 13.71
Minsk 338,657 15.77
Mohilev 201,301 11.92
Vilna 205,261 12.80
Vitebsk 175,678 11.80
Kiev 427,863 12.03
Podolia 306,597 12.15
Poltava 111,417 4.02
Tchernigov 114,630 4.99
Volhynia 397,772 13.31
Bessarabia 225,637 11.65
Ekatrinoslav 100,736 4.77
Kherson 337,282 12.32
Tauride 66,125 4.57
Kalisz 72,339 8.59
Kielce 82,427 10.82
Lomza 90,912 15.69
Lublin 153,728 13.26
Piotrkow 222,299 15.83
Plock 50,473 9.13
Radom 113,277 13.89
Siedle 122,370 15.84
Suwalki 58,808 10.09
Warsaw 349,943 18.12
Caucasus Region 58,471 0.63
Siberia Region 34,477 0.60
Central Asia Region 12,729 0.16
Other Provinces/Regions 269,088
All Provinces/Regions 5,189,401 4.13
Source: Compiled from: Jewish Colonization Association, Recueil de matériaux sur la situation économique des Israélites de Russie, d'après l'enquête de la Jewish Colonization Association, Tome II: La Grande Industrie, Misère et Bienfaisance, Instruction, Paris: F. Alcan, 1908, Appendice, Tableau 1, 2, 3, and Carte (Note: the names of some provinces retain their French spelling). See also Jewish Colonization Association, Recueil de matériaux sur la situation économique des Israélites de Russie, d'après l'enquête de la Jewish Colonization Association, Tome I: Introduction, Agriculture, Artisans et Manoeuvres, Paris: F. Alcan, 1908, pages 21-23.
Population figures published by the Berman Jewish DataBank of the Jewish Federations of North America indicate that in 2016, US Jewish population was 6.8 million, and the world's Jewish population was 14.4 million.
http://www.jewishdatabank.org /
Original names and countries of the new* children of Abraham
Israeli Name Original Name Original Country Top Services to the State of Israel
David Ben-Gurion Grün Poland Prime Minister 1948-53 & 1955-63
Moshe Sharett Shertok Ukraine Prime Minister 1954-55
Levi Eshkol Shkolnik Ukraine Prime Minister 1963-69
Golda Meir Mabovitch Ukraine Prime Minister 1969-74
Yitzhak Rabin Rubitzov Ukraine Prime Minister 1974-77 & 1992-95
Menachem Begin Begin Belarus Prime Minister 1977-83
Yitzhak Shamir Yzernitzky Poland Prime Minister 1983-84 & 1992-95
Benjamin Netanyahu Milikowsky Lithuania Prime Minister 1996-99/2009-present
Ehud Barak Brug Belarus Prime Minister 1999-01
Ariel Sharon Sheinerman Belarus Prime Minister 2001-06
Ehud Olmert Olmert Ukraine Prime Minister 2006-2009
Chaim Weizmann Weizmann Belarus President 1949-52
Itzhak Ben-Zvi Shimshelevitz Ukraine President 1952-63
Zalman Shazar Rubashov Belarus President 1963-73
Yitzhak Navon Navon Spain President 1978-83
Chaim Herzog Herzog Poland President 1983-93
Ezer Weizman Weizman Belarus President 1993-00
Moshe Katsav Qassab Iran President 2000-07
Shimon Peres Perski Belarus President 2007-2014
Reuven Rivlin Rivlin Austria President 2014-present
Source: Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Personalities: The Presidents of the State of Israel and The Prime Ministers of the State of Israel,” 19 August 2006, http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/mfa. A couple of the biographies were updated from the website of Wikepedia Free Encyclopedia, 11 February 2008, http://en.wikipedia.org
*The “Semitic” ancestry and inheritance claimed by Zionism and Israel in the name of contemporary Jews have been rejected and exposed by many scholars, including (1) Hungarian Ashkenazi Jew Arthur Koestler in his book The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and its Heritage; (2) British archaeologist Michael Rice in his book False Inheritance: Israel in Palestine and the Search for a Solution, (3) Tel Aviv University Professor Paul Wexler in his four books (a) The Ashkenazic Jews: A Slavo-Turkic People in Search of a Jewish Identity, (b) The Non-Jewish Origins of the Sephardic Jews, (c) Two-tiered Relexification in Yiddish: Jews, Sorbs, Khazars, and the Kiev-Polessian Dialect; (d) Jewish and Non-Jewish Creators of “Jewish” Languages, and (4) Tel Aviv University Professor Shlomo Sand in his two books (a) The Invention of the Jewish People and (b) The Invention of the Land of Israel.
Ibn Fadlan visited the Khazar city [Astrakhan, Russia] on the Itil [Volga] River in 921 AD and wrote: “The Khazars and their king are all Jews” , Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness, translated with an introduction by Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone, Pinguin Books, London, 2012, p. 58.
Ibn al-Faqih’s kitab al-buldan of the tenth century noted with a spontaneous precision that “the Khazars are all Jews, but Judaized (only) recently” (من قريب).
Ibn Rusta on the Khazars 903-913 AD: “Their supreme authority [Khaqan] is Jewish, and so is the Isha [king] and those commanding officers and important men who support him. The rest of them follow a religion like the religion of the Turks” p 117
Soviet Government Plans Jewish Republic in Siberia, Kalenin Says Jewish Telegraphic Agency, January 3, 1923, http://archive.jta.org/article/1926/08/16/2762918/soviet-government-plans-jewish-republic-in-siberia-kalenin-says
The establishment of a Jewish republic in Siberia, under the auspices of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, is the latest plan of the Soviet Government, according to an article published in the New York "Herald-Tribune" by Elias Tobenkin, American Jewish writer and author of the novel "The God of Might", who spent five months in Soviet Russia as correspondent for the "Herald-Tribune."
Mr. Tobenkin reproduces in his article an interview with Michael Kalenin, President of the Soviet Republic, on this matter.
"'I would like to see a Jewish republic established in Russia, in Siberia. It need not be a very big republic--half a million people would do. Nor need the whole of this half million population be exclusively landworkers. Such a Jewish republic could very well consist of a combination of peasants, with home artisans and skilled mechanics,' Kalenin stated….
"The President of the Soviet Republic at this point found himself discussing Zionism. M. Kalenin did not seem familiar with the word 'Palestine' and regularly substituted the word 'Mesopotamia' for it.
"'I understand,' he said, 'that there is a movement on foot in certain countries of Europe and in America to settle Jews on land in Mesopotamia [Palestine]. Of course, we are not going to hinder any one who wishes to leave the country to expatriate himself. But it is an insult to us to say that Jews need to go away from Russia to engage in agriculture or in any other pursuit. There is not the slightest juridical discrimination among nationalities in our country. There is not a trace of a Jewish question in law or in fact anywhere in the Soviet Union.‘… "The Jews, by reason of their not being permitted to take root in the soil, had, before the revolution, a merchant class running up to 42 per cent of the total Jewish inhabitants in Russia. The revolution, with its ban on private trade, left this class economically helpless…"'It is the plan of the Jewish spokesmen in Soviet Russia to give their people a natural footing in the country by converting 20 per cent of the Jewish population into farmers.”
Text of Kalinin’s Statement on Jewish Question in Russia Jewish Telegraphic Agency, July 30, 1926 http://www.jta.org/1926/07/30/archive/text-of-kalinins-statement-on-jewish-question-in-russia
The statement of M. Kalinin, chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, dealing with the Jewish question in Soviet Russia and particularly with the Jewish Colonization question and the opposition manifested against it by some peasant elements….
“The first stages of the revolution fell most severely upon the small traders and the artisans, upon just that section of the population which consisted almost exclusively of Jews... The small nationalities feel that the Soviet Government is a real mother, not a step-mother. We have discovered among us peoples of whose existence no one knew and today they are equals among equals. All of them enjoy national autonomy. Only the Jews dispersed among the other nationalities could not obtain territorial autonomy, although their numbers, from two-and-a-half to three million people in the Soviet Union, gives them the right to autonomy... So the Jews have asked the Soviet Governments to provide them with land. The Government of the Soviet Union realized that the greatest part of the Jewish masses can be saved from ruin and destruction only by settling them on the land and for this reason a committee was formed for settling the Jewish toiling masses on the land... The Jews have by fate been made accustomed to life in a temperate Southern climate. They live in the Ukraine, Poland and South Russia. Czarism did not allow them to go northward and Siberia was closed to them... So the Government seeks to settle them in places where the climate and other conditions are not dissimilar from those to which they are accustomed. During the Czarist regime, a great number of Jews emigrated to America and of late there is the idea of settling most of the Jews in Palestine, an idea supported by foreign Jewish capitalists. This movement is still very strong. The Zionists wage a campaign against the Soviet Government, enticing the Jewish impoverished masses to Palestine where they fall into slavery to British and Jewish capital. The Soviet Government cannot sit by and see not the rich man but the beguiled Jewish poor learning its territory. The Jewish communists, not those communists who occupy important positions with us who are only Jews by descent, but those Jewish communists who live among the Jewish masses have approached the Government asking it to settle in the Soviet Union those emigrants who would go to Palestine and for this purpose to raise the funds which are being collected abroad for the settling of the Jews on the land in Russia."
Soviet Joseph Stalin’s Promised Homeland for the Jews (1928)
8
In 1943, US Army Colonel Hoskins warned President Roosevelt against the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine
In a 1943 secret memo to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, special envoy to the Middle East US Army Lt. Col. Harold Hoskins, warned against the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine: “… Not only you as President but the American people as a whole should realize that, if the American government decides to support the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine… they are committing the American people to the use of force in that area, since only by force can a Jewish state in Palestine be established or maintained.”----Ben Bradley, “The secret files: Washington, Israel and the Gulf,” videocassette (60 min.), Washington, D.C.: WETA, 1991.
“Even in 1946, when the horrors of the Holocaust were still raw, [Albert] Einstein’s views were unchanged. In an interview with the Forverts, Einstein warned that a “Jewish commonwealth” where a majority of the population is Arab would be “unjust and impractical.” Testifying in Washington that same year to an international committee examining the Palestine question, Einstein said, “The state idea is not in my heart.” If Einstein’s opposition to a Jewish state was disappointing for Zionists, then his religious views disappointed religious Jews as well as atheists.” Forward, 11/22/2015, http://forward.com/news/325189/what-was-einsteins-relationship-to-judaism-and-zionism /
The Palestine question was the main concern during the historic encounter between President Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud in 1945
“President Roosevelt took the initiative of inviting Ibn Saud to meet with him for the first time in February 1945 on board of the USS Quincy on Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal. At the meeting, following warm pleasantries and evidence of mutual goodwill (including Roosevelt's gift to the king of one of his wheelchairs), the entire meeting became a vigorous exchange on the Palestine question. This had been the central theme of earlier correspondence between the two leaders, beginning with a letter from Ibn Saud to the president dated November 29, 1938, and the president’s reply of January 2, 1939. In July 1943, Roosevelt had ordered Harold Hoskins, the son of American missionaries and a speaker of Arabic, to Saudi Arabia to determine by personal contact with Ibn Saud whether the king would be willing to meet with Chaim Weizman or other representatives of the Jewish Agency. The purpose would be to seek a ‘solution of basic problems affecting Palestine acceptable to both Arabs and Jews.’ Hoskins was personally well received. His report to Roosevelt recounted a weeklong visit to Riyadh, where he held frequent sessions alone with Ibn Saud. The king was appreciative of the opportunity Hoskins offered to speak frankly on many sensitive topics without an interpreter. The subject dealt with were many, but Palestine was the main concern. The king chose his words to the president with the utmost care. He said he could neither enter into such talks himself nor authorize a representative to do so. He feared a stage-by-stage wipeout of the Palestinian Arab population; also, he revealed a personal hatred of Weizman, based on Weizman’s alleged attempt to bribe him with 20 million pounds sterling, to be ‘guaranteed’ by President Roosevelt. The king later told me that Weizman’s proposed intermediary was H. St. John Philby.” Hoskins made his report to Roosevelt in person in a one-hour breakfast talk on September 27, 1943, only a few days before the scheduled arrival in Washington of Princes Faisal and Khalid. To Hoskins, Roosevelt expressed full understanding of the reason for the king’s refusal to meet with Weizman, and the president also showed irritation that his name had been mentioned as a guarantor, for which, he said, there was no basis in fact. The nearest he ever came to bordering on a discussion of this subject, Roosevelt said, was a suggestion he made several years earlier to Stephen Wise, chairman of the American Zionist Emergency Council, that if the Jews wanted to get more land in Palestine, they might well think of buying arable land outside of Palestine and assisting Arabs financially to move from Palestine to such areas. Roosevelt also told Hoskins that he favored an international trusteeship for Palestine, as recommended by the Department of State.”
Source: Parker Hart, Saudi Arabia and the United States: Birth of a Security Partnership, Indiana University Press, 1998, pp. 38-39
See also William Eddy’s memorandum of the conversation printed in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1945, vol. 8, pp. 1-3 and 7-9 , and in Eddy’s personal account, F.D.R. Meets Ibn Sa’ud, published in 1954.
Ethnic cleansing & River Diversion
* Israeli historian and political scientist Ilan Pappe describes and documents the planning and execution of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by 11 Jewish settlers sitting in a room beneath Marxist-style posters that carried slogans such as ‘Brothers in Arms:’
* “In this building [the Red House in the Jewish settlement of Tel-Aviv], on a cold Wednesday afternoon, 10 March 1948, a group of eleven men, veteran Zionist leaders together with young military Jewish officers, put the final touches to a plan [Plan Dalet] for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”
* “The orders came with a detailed description of the methods to be employed to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centres; setting fire to homes, properties and goods; expulsion; demolition; and, finally, planting mines among the rubble to prevent any of the expelled inhabitants from returning. Each unit was issued with its own list of villages and neighbourhoods as the targets of this master plan.”
Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oxford: Oneworld, 2006, p. xii-xiii.
Diversion of the only river (The Jordan River) in an arid country away from its 20 million-year-old natural course.
The 1948 ethnic cleansing of native Palestinian Muslims and Christians by incoming Jewish settlers is known in Arabic as the Alnakba or the Catastrophe:
Alnakba English P1, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bm7dMhE80dw
Alnakba English P2, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYvimRnlTqE#t=6117
CC
National Water Carrier of Israel, by AdamHej, 15 March 2015, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:National_Water_Carrier_of_Israel_- en.svg
Source: Jeff Gates, Guilt by Association, page 180
“Sometime in the late 1950s, that world-class gossip and occasional historian, John F. Kennedy, told me how, in 1948, Harry S. Truman had been pretty much abandoned by everyone when he came to run for president. Then an American Zionist brought him two million dollars in cash, in a suitcase, aboard his whistle-stop campaign train. ‘That’s why our recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast.’”---Gore Vidal, Quoted in Grant F. Smith, Spy Trade: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy, Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc., Washington, DC, 2008, page 27
U.S. President Harry Truman recognized Israel 11 minutes after its proclamation,
but he recognized it as a “provisional” government and a “non-Jewish” state
Palestine Refugees Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs , House of Representative , Eighty-First Congress on Senate Joint Resolution 153 A Joint Resolution for the Authorization of a Contribution by the United States to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East Washington, DC, February 16 and 17, 1950
Mr. [John M.] Vorys [House Committee on Foreign Affairs]. Looking at the Path of Immigration it would appear that 800,000 Jews came in , and 750,000 Arabs went out. Would that be a statement, nearly, of the cause and effect?
Mr. [George C.] McGhee [Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs]. No, sir, I do not think you can say there is a direct cause and effect relationship. Of course there was a considerable movement into Palestine, starting in 1919. One might reason that there is an indirect cause and effect.
Mr. Vorys [Ohio]. I have no further questions.
Chairman John Kee [West Virginia]. Mr. Battle?
Mr. [Laurie C.] Battle [Alabama]. I have no further questions.
Chairman Kee . Mr. Merrow?
Mr. [Chester E.] Merrow [New Hampshire]. I have no further questions.
"The United States is committed to continuing its partnership with UNRWA [United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] to assist the more than 5.4million registered Palestinian refugees and other registered persons assisted by UNRWA until a just solution is achieved and UNRWA’s mandate ends... UNRWA is committed to taking all possible measures to ensure that funding provided by the United States to support UNRWA is not used to provide assistance to, or otherwise support, terrorists or terrorist organizations."
Framework for Cooperation Between the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and the Government of the United States of America for 2015, 2015 UNRWA-U.S. Framework for Cooperation, Report, November 28, 2014, http://www.state.gov/j/prm/releases/frameworknew/234468.htm
Palestinian Dispossession and Dispersal 1948-2000
Palestine/Israel (4,715,000), Jordan (2,540,000), Lebanon (500,000), Syria (443,000), Saudi Arabia (334,000), Iraq (87,000), Egypt (72,000), Kuwait (35,000), Libya (31,000), Other Arab States (570,000). Source: De Blij, H.J. and Muller, P. O. (2002), Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts, 10th Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Page 314.
At the end of 2016, the estimated number of Palestinians in the world was 12.70 million, of whom 6.41 million in Palestine-Israel and 6.28 million in foreign countries, Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics,
الجهاز المركزي للإحصاء الفلسطيني، الفلسطينيون في نهاية عام 2016
http:// www.pcbs.gov.ps/Downloads/book2242.pdf
Jewish Settlers in Palestine/Israel 1919-1999
About 3,237,000 Jewish settlers/immigrants arrived in Palestine/Israel between 1919 and 1999: Euro-American (71.2%) and Afro-Asian (28.8%). Source: Goldscheider, C. (2002), Israel's Changing Society: Population, Ethnicity, and Development. Colorado: Westview Press. Page 51.
At the end of 2017, the estimated Jewish population in Palestine-Israel was 6.5 million, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 1/10/2018 http ://cbs.gov.il/reader/? MIval=cw_usr_view_SHTML&ID=705
Jewish settlers dispossessed and displaced most native Muslim/Christian Palestinians
CNN
14
At the end of 2016 there were 6.4 million Jewish settlers or Jewish Israelis who came from over 100 countries and who live in Palestine-Israel. There were also 12.70 million Muslim and Christian Palestinians who are the native of Palestine and who live inside and outside Palestine-Israel (millions of them living in 58 UN registered Palestinian refugee camps in Palestine-Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon for more than six decades). The Palestinian refugees continue to struggle to return to the homes from which they were expelled or fled in 1948 and thereafter. Israel continues to deny the Palestinian refugees the right to return to their country because they are not Jewish. This is the core of the Palestine-Israel conflict. Review carefully the geography of the Palestine refugees and refugee camps as mapped by the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) at: http://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/2011011352710.pdf/
The Core of the Palestine-Israel Conflict
Percentage Distribution of [5.9 million] Palestinian Refugees by the Residential Country 2016, (According to the data of UNRWA on the Palestinian Refugees))
PCBS, 6/20/2017, http ://www.pcbs.gov.ps/portals/_ pcbs/PressRelease/Press_En_IDRef2017En.pdf
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) provides assistance and protection for millions of registered Palestine refugees.
The Gaza Strip is home to a population of approximately 1.9 million people, including 1.3 million Palestine refugees
Facts & Figures
•1.3 million registered refugees out of 1.9 million total population (approximately 70%)
•8 refugee camps
•Almost 12,500 staff
•267 schools for over 262,000 students
•21 health centres
•16 relief and social services offices
•3 micro-finance offices
•12 food distribution centres for almost one million beneficiaries
Figures as of 31 October 2016,
https:// www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/gaza-strip
Geography of UNRWA-registered Palestine refugees in Gaza Strip
While the West Bank has the largest number of recognized Palestine refugee camps in the five UNWRA fields, the largest of them, Balata, has a population similar to that of the smallest camp in Gaza.
Facts & figures
809,738 registered Palestine refugees
•19 camps
•96 schools, with 48,956 pupils
•2 vocational and technical training centres
•43 primary health centres
•15 community rehabilitation centres
•19 women’s programme centres
Figures as of 31 December 2016, UNRWA, https:// www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/west-bank
Geography of UNRWA-registered Palestine refugees in West Bank
Facts & figures
•526,744 registered Palestine refugees
•Nine camps
•42 schools(76 schools are unusable due to damage, inaccessibility or because they are housing IDPs. 43 alternative school buildings are used in afternoon shifts)
•46,385 tsudents (An estimated 10,000 UNRWA students in Syria are not currently in school and an estimated 10,000 Palestine refugees from Syria are attending UNRWA schools in Lebanon and Jordan)
•Damascus Training Centre
•23 primary health centres (Nine health centres are unusable; UNRWA has established an additional 12 health points)
•Eight community rehabilitation centres
•16 women's programme centres
Figures as of 1 January 2011.
UNRWA, https:// www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/syria
Geography of UNRWA-registered Palestine refugees in Syria
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) provides assistance and protection for millions of registered Palestine refugees. Some 450,000 refugees are registered with UNRWA in Lebanon, with many living in the country’s 12 refugee camps.
Facts & figures
449,957 registered Palestine refugees
12 camps
69 schools, with 32,350 pupils
Two vocational and technical training centres
27 primary health centres
One community rehabilitation centre
Nine women’s programme centres
Figures as of 1 July 2014
UNRWA, https:// www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/lebanon
Geography of UNRWA-registered Palestine refugees in Lebanon
More than 2 million registered Palestine refugees live in Jordan.
Facts & figures
•2,175,491 registered Palestine refugees
Ten official camps
•171 schools, with 121,368 students
One Faculty of Science and Educational Arts
•Two vocational and technical training centres
25 primary health centres
Ten community-based rehabilitation centres
14 women’s programme centres
Figures as of 1 December 2016
UNRWA, https:// www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/jordan
Geography of UNRWA-registered Palestine refugees in Jordan
Munther J. Haddadin, a senior negotiator in Jordan’s delegation to the Middle East Peace Process, once suggested that “the Kingdom of Jordan should perform a detailed assessment of the costs it has incurred in housing the waves of people it has received since 1948, along with the natural growth this has caused, including the increased cost of providing utilities. It should seek compensation for its expenses when the issues of refugees are addressed in the context of Middle Eastern peace.” Munther J. Haddadin, “Conclusions,” in Water Resources in Jordan, edited by Munther J. Haddadin, Resources for the Future, Washington, DC, USA, 2006, pp. 264-284, p. 268.
“The Israeli Knesset passed The Law for Safeguarding the Rejection of the Right of Return, 2001”---Israeli historian and political scientist Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), page 244
In 2003, the Israeli Knesset passed a law prohibiting Palestinians from obtaining citizenship, permanent residency or even temporary residency when they marry Israeli citizens”---Pappe, page 249
“No refugee can enter Israel as part of the peace process.”--- Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish organizations, 2/16/2009, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129979
The refugee problem must be solved outside of Israeli borders. Their return goes against the principle of Israel as a Jewish state.—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, BBC, 6/14/2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8099757.stm
“It was not as if there was a Palestinian people in Palestine and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.”—Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (1969), Sunday Times, 6/15/1969. The Guardian, 6/6/2003 2003Ghada Karmi, “The map must show a way home: The Middle East plan will fail unless it allows the right of return,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,971664,00.html
“What are we doing in the villages that were abandoned… by friends without a battle…? Are we ready to protect these villages so that their residents may return, or do we want to erase all evidence that a village ever existed at the site?—Golda Meyerson (Meir) before the central committee of the Mapai (Land of Israel Workers Party), May 11, 1948. Source: Quoted in The Invention of the Land of Israel: From Holy Land to Homeland, Shlomo Sand, Translated by Geremy Forman, Verso, 2102, page 257.
“I worked with David Ben-Gurion [first prime minister of Israel] and was at his side for eighteen consecutive years, including the War of Independence. Not only was Ben-Gurion against the Arabs leaving Israel, he did everything he could to keep them from departing and prevent them from feeling discriminated against.”-- Israeli President Shimon Peres (2008), An Interview with Shimon Peres,” In Israel on Israel, 2008, edited by Michael Korinman and John Laughland, London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2008, pages 10-14, page 10.
[Israel Defense Minister] Liberman: World should forget about Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Tuesday called on the entire international community to “forget about” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, arguing that the world’s “over-involvement” does nothing to help achieve peace. “What I propose to everyone — to the Europeans, the Americans, the Russians — is first of all not to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Forget about it,” he told a conference of the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv." Times of Israel, 1/24/2017, http://www.timesofisrael.com/liberman-world-should-forget-about-israeli-palestinian-conflict /
Universal Declaration of Human Rights December 10, 1948
Article 13:
Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
United Nations Resolution 194 of December 11, 1948 Backs the Right of Return for the Palestinians
The UN General Assembly Resolution 194:
11. Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible; Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations.
At the end of 2015, the number of Palestinians in the world was 12.37 million, of whom 4.75 million were in State of Palestine, 1.47 million in Israel, 5.46 million in Arab countries, and around 0.685 million in foreign countries. Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, http://www.pcbs.gov.ps /
23
The Israeli Law of Return July 5, 1950
1. “Every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh [a Jew immigrating]”
4. Every Jew who has immigrated into this country before the coming into force of this Law, and every Jew who was born in this country, whether before or after the coming into force of this Law, shall be deemed to be a person who has come to this country as an oleh under this Law.
“Palestinians saw through the euphemisms that emerged between 1950 and 1952: the Law of Return blocked Palestinian return, the Law of Entry blocked Palestinian entry, and the Law of Nationality blocked Palestinian nationality. These “laws” deleted Palestinian rights. While Jews from anywhere in the world could enter and gain citizenship as a right under the Law of Return, today close to ten million Palestinians are denied that right and need a permit to enter, a permit to reside, a permit to work, a permit to move, a permit to exist, and so on.” Nadia Abu-Zahra and Adah Kay, Unfree in Palestine: Registration, Documentation and Movement Restriction, PlutoPress, 2013.
24
The Israeli Law of Return (Amendment of 1970)
4A. (a) The rights of a Jew under this Law and the rights of an oleh under the Nationality Law, 5712-1952***, as well as the rights of an oleh under any other enactment, are also vested in a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew, except for a person who has been a Jew and has voluntarily changed his religion.
4B. For the purposes of this Law, "Jew" means a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion."
25
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee finances legal and illegal Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe
At the end of World War II, an agreement was reached between David Ben-Gurion, then chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, and Joseph Schwartz, chairman of the [American Jewish] Joint Distribution Committee’s European Executive Committee (AJJDC), stipulating that the AJJDC “would finance legal and illegal Jewish emigration from Eastern Europe.”
Michael Beizer, Translated from Russian by I. Michael Aronson, “American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee,” The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/American_Jewish_Joint_Distribution_Committee
Source: Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFA-Archive/2002/Pages/Aliyah.aspx
Immigrants by Year of Immigration 1948-1996 1948-51 688,000
1952-59 272,000
1960-69 374,000
1970-79 346,000
1980-89 154,000
1990-96 737,000
Immigrants to [Israel] by Continent 1948-1996
Europe 58%
Africa 18%
Asia 15%
America & Oceania 8%
Unknown 1%
Between 1989 to 2009, 1,274,574 people immigrated to Israel from the Former Soviet Union (996,059), Latin America (39,669), U.S.A & Canada (54,633), UK (11,205), France (39,505), Ethiopia (68,862), and Other countries (64,641). Source: Knesset Research and Information Center (February 2011), Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/People/Pages/SOCIETY-% 20Jewish%20Society.aspx
This Zionist flow to Palestine after 1948 is comparable to Jihadist flow to Afghanistan after 1979
Israel Bares 200,000 Documents in Yemeni Baby-Kidnapping Scandal
ERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel inaugurated an online database of some 200,000 pages of declassified documents about the long-controversial “Yemenite children affair” in a ceremony in this city.
By making the documents public Wednesday, the state hopes to end the controversy, which has persisted in Israel for decades.
Since the 1950, more than 1,000 Israelis families have alleged their children were systematically kidnapped from Israeli hospitals and put up for adoption in the country and abroad. The claims of the families, mostly immigrants from Yemen, were generally dismissed by authorities... Three government-appointed committees have looked into the Yemenite children affair, and each concluded that the majority of the children died in the hospital and were buried without the families being informed...
Nurit Koren, a Knesset member for the ruling Likud party who chairs the Knesset panel tasked with researching the affair and whose cousin disappeared, welcomed the release of the documents but said it was “just the beginning of the path,” in a radio interview. Koren said the database included just half of the 400,000 documents generated by the three investigative committee. She also pointed out that one committee found the Yemenite children affair continued until 1966, while the database only includes documents from 1948 to 1954.
http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/358520/israel-bares-200-000-documents-in-yemeni-baby-kidnapping-scandal /
“Jewish experience with Palestinian colonisation has proved that for every family settled on the land, four additional families can be settled in towns and villages, to live from industry, commerce, maritime trades, transportation, the professions, etc. … Thus the total absorptive capacity of Palestine, even within present mandate frontiers, can easily reach 5 millions[sic]. Abraham Revusky [American Jewish journalist], “The absorptive capacity of Palestine,” In Palestine can take millions, Issued by the Information Department, The Jewish Agency for Palestine, November 1944, page 8.
“The region of the Jordan Valley offers an opportunity for the construction of one of the most striking and unique power and irrigation projects in the world. I propose the name Jordan Valley Authority, of the United States, to include all the drainage of the Jordan River and the maritime slope of Palestine.” Walter Clay Lowdermilk [American soil expert], “Palestine’s prospects and the Jordan Valley Plan,” In In Palestine can take millions, Issued by the Information Department, The Jewish Agency for Palestine, November 1944, page 19.
Israel Marks First-Ever National Day Remembering Jewish Exodus from Arab Lands 850,000 Refugees Forgotten No More
(Haaretz) — For Meir Kahlon, chairman of the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries, this is a historic week. For the first time, Israel has officially recognized his suffering, that of his family and some 850,000 other Jews who left, were expelled or fled from their homes in Syria, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon and other Arab and Muslim countries around the time of the founding of the State of Israel and afterwards.
“Until now, they spoke about the Arab refugees and not the Jewish refugees. Today we are marking the remembrance day commemorating the expulsion of the Jews of Arab lands,” shouted Kahlon emotionally into the microphone at Bar-Ilan University, where a seminar on the topic was held last Thursday with the title “Exodus, Emigration, Expulsion and Uprooting.”
November 30 is the official day the State of Israel marks for the first time as the national day of commemoration for Jewish refugees from Arab lands and Iran, based on a law sponsored by MK Shimon Ohayon (Yisrael Beiteinu) and passed this summer by the Knesset. The date has a special meaning – it is the day after November 29, the day in 1947 that the United Nations General Assembly approved the partition plan for the Palestine Mandate and the creation of a Jewish state. November 30, the day after the decision, is the day the Arabs started their concerted attacks on the Jews.
“The Arab nations did not accept the UN partition plan, and the riots against the Jews started. We want to remember this day as the Nakba [catastrophe in Arabic, used to refer by Palestinians to Israel’s Independence Day] Day of the Jews of Arab lands,” Kahlon told Haaretz. “It is not just the Nakba of the Palestinians – it is also our Nakba, Jews of Arab lands who were expelled and slaughtered.”
Almost a million Jews lived in Arab and Muslim countries in 1948 when Israel was founded. The largest Jewish community was in Morocco, with 250,000 Jews. Today are only a few tens of thousands of Jews left in all the Arab countries together...
“Every time the world talks about refugees from the Middle East [they] only emphasize the Palestinian refugees. The fact is there were two populations of refugees,” says Dr. Stanley Urman. Urman, a founder of JJAC, its current executive vice president and former executive director, lives in Montreal. The organization’s goal is make sure that the narrative of the suffering and rights of the Jews from Arab lands are also on the negotiating table, since they were also refugees as part of the same struggle, at the same time and in similar numbers, he says.
In recent years, Urman has been researching the UN’s activities concerning the refugees, and points out the lack of equality in the UN’s treatment of Palestinian and Jewish refugees. He counted 197 UN General Assembly and Security Council decisions between 1946 and 2014 concerning Palestinian refugees. Yet there is not a single UN resolution that emphasizes the suffering and rights of the Jews from Arab lands, he points out.
The exception is the famous Security Council Resolution 242 passed in November 1967 after the Six-Day War. “Achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem,” states section 2(b) of the resolution, without providing any details of which refugees it is talking about. Representatives of Britain and the United States said afterwards that they used this wording intentionally so as to also recognize the rights of the Jewish refugees, says Urman.
Ofer Aderet, "Israel Marks First-Ever National Day Remembering Jewish Exodus from Arab Lands," Forward, December 01, 2014, http://forward.com/articles/210138/israel-marks-first-ever-national-day-remembering
Israel secretly working to redeem Jewish property in Arab world and Iran, Arutz Shiva, 7/17/2016,, http :// www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/215067
“The Interior Ministry [of the State of Israel] recently granted citizenship to a non-Jewish gay man married to a Jew, for the first time applying the Law of Return [emphasis added] to a spouse in same-sex marriage… The case of Bayardo Alvarez, who is not Jewish, and Joshua Goldberg, both U.S. citizens who married in Canada four years ago, made headlines earlier this year, after the couple threatened to sue the ministry for refusing Alvarez citizenship. According to the Law of Return, every Jew and his or her spouse have the right to immigrate to Israel as citizens, but until the ruling, this had only applied to heterosexual couples… With same-sex marriage being recently being legalized in New York State, the ministry may soon see many more cases like Alvarez's, according to Rabbi Seth Farber, whose Itim organization helps immigrants. "There is a significant Jewish homosexual population in New York, many of them very strongly identify with the State of Israel.” Haaretz, 9/2/2011, http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/anglo-file/ministry-grants-citizenship-to-gay-spouse-of-immigrant-1.382066
Ministry grants citizenship to gay spouse of immigrant
Gay Jews have “higher souls” than gentiles, says [Israeli] deputy minister [Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan] ----Haaretz, 12/29/2013, http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.566021
30
Pictures: 38 Members of 'Lost Tribe' Make Aliyah From India
“Tears flowed freely as a group of 38 Bnei Menashe, descendants of a Lost Tribe of Israel, were greeted by relatives at Ben Gurion Airport after making Aliyah yesterday from India.
The immigrants, who hail from the northeastern Indian state of Mizoram, were brought to Israel by the organization, which recently received permission from the Israeli government to bring 900 Bnei Menashe to the Jewish state over the next 15 months.
The Bnei Menashe are descendants of the tribe of Menashe (or Manasseh), one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel which were exiled by the Assyrian empire after the death of King Solomon more than 2,700 years ago.” Israel National News, 12/27/2013,
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/175620#.Ut7YYbYo5LM
10 Indian-Jewish ‘lost tribe’ couples remarried in Israel, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 4/4/2017,
http:// www.jta.org/2017/04/04/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/10-indian-jewish-lost-tribe-couples-remarried-in-israel
France largest source of immigration to Israel so far in 2014 Jewish Telegraphic Agenct, 9/5/2014 http://www.jta.org/2014/09/05/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/france-largest-source-of-immigration-to-israel-so-far-in-2014
“(JTA) – Reaching a 25-year high, immigration to Israel from France has become the largest single source of newcomers to Israel so far this year.
Some 4,566 French immigrants arrived in Israel from January through Sept. 1, surpassing Russia, with 2,632 immigrants, and Ukraine, with 3,252 immigrants. The United States, whose Jewish population is more than 10 times that of France, has sent 2,218 new immigrants to Israel so far this year.”
France agrees Holocaust SNCF rail payout with US
“France and the US have agreed a compensation package for Holocaust victims deported by a French rail company during World War Two.
The two sides announced a $60m (£40m) compensation fund, paid for by the French government, on Friday.
Reparations will be paid to those transported by state rail company SNCF to Nazi concentration camps.
US lawmakers have previously attempted to bar SNCF from rail contracts due to its actions in WW2.
The rail company moved 76,000 Jews to Nazi camps during the Holocaust.
However, the company, and some historians, have argued that SNCF was forced to assist the deportations by the occupying German army.
In 2010, the SNCF chief executive expressed "profound sorrow and regret" for the consequences of the company's actions.
Under the deal, both Holocaust survivors and their spouses or descendants will receive compensation. Officials say thousands could be eligible.
The agreement still needs to be voted on by the French parliament.
SNCF is currently bidding on US rail contracts, including in the state of Maryland, where lawmakers have pushed for reparations for survivors.”
BBC, 12/5/2014, http:// www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30351196
NBA star Amar'e Stoudemire heads to Israel after discovering Jewish roots
“U.S. Basketball star Amar'e Stoudemire is apparently on his way to Israel for a voyage of discovery after learning he has Jewish roots… According to an Army Radio report, Stoudemire plans to spend time in Israel learning Hebrew, having recently learned he has a Jewish mother”-- Reuters, Haaretz, 7/28/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/nba-star-amar-e-stoudemire-heads-to-israel-after-discovering-jewish-roots-1.304552
“Stoudemire seeking Israeli citizenship”, JTA, August 2, 2013, http://www.jta.org/2013/08/02/arts-entertainment/stoudemire-seeks-israeli-citizenship
Israel to ramp up Birthright investment
NEW YORK (JTA) -- Israel's government will more than double its investment in the popular Birthright Israel program. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the announcement Thursday night before 3,000 program participants in Jerusalem, The Jerusalem Post reported.
"My government will give more than double its investment in Birthright, and over the next few years we will invest more than $100 million in Birthright," said Netanyahu, according to the Post. "Together with private donations we can increase the number of people to 50,000 a year."
Considered one of the most successful initiatives in the Jewish world, Birthright Israel provides free 10-day trips to Israel for Jewish young adults aged 18-26. Some 30,000 people participate in the program each year; more than a quarter-million have participated since its inception in 2000.
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/01/06/2742445/israel-to-ramp-up-birthright-investment
“All together, 16,465 people around the world moved [as Jewish settlers] to Israel in 2010, 16 per cent higher than the previous year. The number of North American Jews rose from 3,767 in 2009 to 3,980 in 2010”—Jewish Chronicle, 12/29/2010,
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/43060/aliyah-figures-uk-drop
[Israel’s] Cabinet agrees last Ethiopian Jews can move to Israel
The remaining members of the Ethiopian Jewish community are to move to Israel.
After years of wrangling, Israel’s cabinet voted in favour of giving the more than 7,800 Falash Mura Jews citizenship. The Jewish Chronicle,
http://www.thejc.com/news/israel-news/41254/cabinet-agrees-last-ethiopian-jews-can-move-israel
Israel Approves Aliyah for 899 Bnei Menashe from India,
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/278396
'Hidden' Polish Jews Embrace Their Heritage in Israel,
“Ethiopian-Israeli lawmaker’s rejection as blood donor has Knesset seeing red JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli lawmakers called for an examination of Magen David Adom blood donation policies after an Ethiopia-born Knesset member was rejected as a donor.
Pnina Tamano-Shata of the Yesh Atid party tried to donate during a special blood drive Wednesday at the Knesset but was told she could not because she had “the special kind of Jewish-Ethiopian blood,” according to Ynet, which first broke the story.
Tamano-Shata was told subsequently that she could donate but the blood would be frozen and never used.
“I am good enough to serve the state and in the Knesset,” Tamano-Shata told Ynet. “But for some reason to give blood I am not good enough. This is insulting.”
The Knesset’s Labor, Welfare and Health Committee will meet in emergency session on Monday to discuss the issue.
Tamano-Shata has lived in Israel since she was 3 years old and served in the Israel Defense Forces. As a youth she protested the MDA practice of discarding Ethiopian blood donations, according to Ynet.”
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 12/11/2013,
http://www.jta.org/2013/12/11/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/controversy-erupts-over-mda-refusal-to-take-ethiopian-israeli-lawmakers-blood
Ethiopian-Israeli lawmaker’s rejection as blood donor has Knesset seeing red
The New Jewish Diaspora?
Israeli-American Michael Freund told an Israeli Ministry of Diaspora Affairs committee: “We are on the verge of a tidal wave of return,” Forward, 4/28/2016, http ://forward.com/news/339682/the-new-jewish-diaspora/? attribution=articles-hero-item-text-1
Vatican memo: Mideast conflict driving Christians out of region By The Associated Press Haaretz, 1/20/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1143691.html
“A Vatican document released Tuesday [1/19/2010] blamed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the occupying of lands for fomenting most of the conflicts in the Middle East, driving Christians out and making life difficult for those who remain.”
“Political conflicts in the region have a direct influence on the lives of Christians, both as citizens and as Christians. The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories makes daily life difficult with regard to freedom of movement, the economy and religious life (access to the Holy Places is dependent on military permission which is granted to some and denied to others on security grounds).” SYNOD OF BISHOPS, SPECIAL ASSEMBLY FOR THE MIDDLE EAST, THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE EAST: COMMUNION AND WITNESS. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_synod_doc_20091208_lineamenta-mo_en.html
Defining 'Jewish state': For many, term has different meanings By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post Staff Writer, Saturday, October 2, 2010 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/01/AR2010100104177.html
Nine years ago, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered a speech on the Middle East in which he briefly called on Palestinians to recognize Israel as a "Jewish state." Powell doesn't recall how the phrase ended up in his speech, but David Ivry, then the Israeli ambassador to the United States, says he persuaded an aide to Powell to slip it in…
President George W. Bush picked up the "Jewish state" concept in his speeches and used it in a controversial exchange of letters with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2004. Obama has also adopted the phrase, most recently in a speech last month before the U.N. General Assembly…
For the Israeli government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Palestinian recognition of Israel as a "Jewish state" would mean acceptance that the Jews have existed in the Middle East for thousands of years - and that Palestinian refugees have no claim to return to property they fled or were forced to flee when Israel was founded six decades ago.
Palestinians see their "right of return" as a sacred tenet. They regard a "Jewish state" as a trap, a new demand that did not come up during years of negotiations in the 1990s or in peace treaties reached with Egypt and Jordan. The Palestine Liberation Organization recognized the State of Israel as part of the Oslo Accords in 1993…
Obama, when he was running for president in 2008, told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that "any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state." …
In the eyes of Israelis, Obama stumbled when he delivered his 2009 speech to the Arab world in Cairo because he appeared to link the creation of Israel to the Holocaust, which goes against the Zionist narrative that Jews have always been a part of the Middle East.
In his U.N. General Assembly speech last month, Obama tried to address that concern. He referred to "the Jewish state" and added: "After thousands of years, Jews and Arabs are not strangers in a strange land. . . .Israel is a sovereign state and the historic homeland of the Jewish people."
President Jimmy Carter’s book describes the situation in the Palestinian occupied territories:
“Utilizing their political and military dominance,” the Israelis “are imposing a system of partial withdrawal, encapsulation, and apartheid on the Muslim and Christian citizens of the occupied territories.”
Israel “has 150 nuclear weapons”
President Jimmy Carter, BBC, 5/26/2008, http:// news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7420573.stm
[Former US Secretary of State] Colin Powell leaked emails: Israel has “200 nukes all pointed at Iran,” former US secretary of state says, The Independent, 9/16/2016, http:// www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/colin-powell-leaked-emails-nuclear-weapons-israel-iran-obama-deal-a7311626.html
Iranian President Ahmadinejad Greeted by Anti-Zionist Jews in New York in 2007
https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_XAeqtY7Sk
Larry King asks Iranian President Ahmadinejad about the Holocaust, Zionism and Israel - 22 Sept. 2010, https :// www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_MegAmVPSE
Iranian President Ahmadinejad on Jews, Larry King, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ vYXcna8Pxw
FlashPoint Interview: Jeff Blankfort (part 1: 7mn; part 2: 6mn), https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNf2SntA3pk
Rare Video: Nelson Mandela Speaking on Palestine [Extracts] (12 mn), https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5TiUhhm7cQ
The Iranian Revolution and the Palestine-Israel Conflict
Under the Shah monarchy, Iran had close ties with Israel. Iran was the second Muslim-majority country to recognize Israel after Turkey.
January 1979: The Shah was forced out of Iran
February 1979: Khomeini returned from exile to Iran
Iran ended its alliance with Israel, severed all diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel, expelled the Israelis from Iran, and considered Israel an illegitimate state.
Iran began its support for the Palestinians by turning over the Israeli embassy in Tehran to the Palestine Liberation Organization
Khomeini was quoted (5/10/1979): “Moses would have nothing to do with these pharaoh-like Zionists who run Israel... We recognize our [Iranian] Jews as separate from those godless, bloodsucking Zionists.” Tablet, 12/30/2014, http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/187519/how-iran-kept-its-jews
"Our concerns with Iran extend far beyond the nuclear issue... We will not relent in our efforts to confront Iran’s destabilizing behavior... That is exactly why Secretary Kerry was in the UAE yesterday, and it is exactly why the President will visit Saudi Arabia next month." U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns, Washington, DC, February 19, 2014, http://www.state.gov/s/d/2014/221809.htm
Iran's allies, not atoms, preoccupy Israeli generals
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/05/us-iran-nuclear-israel-allies-idUSKBN0NQ1CC20150505
Saban Forum 2013: A Conversation with President Barack Obama, http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVRZOazaWKQ
[Former US Secretary of State] Colin Powell leaked emails: Israel has '200 nukes all pointed at Iran', former US secretary of state says, The Independent, 9/16/2016, http:// www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/colin-powell-leaked-emails-nuclear-weapons-israel-iran-obama-deal-a7311626.html
Therefore Iran’s main “problem” with Israel is Iran’s support for Palestine, NOT Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s main “problem” with the United States is Iran’s main “problem” with Israel. Iran’s main “problem” with Saudi Arabia is Iran’s main “problem” with the United States.
39
Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons
Exclusive: Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons
…“The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.” The Guardian, 5/24/2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-weapons
In 1961, South African prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd declared to the U.N. General Assembly that “Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state”-Sasha Polakow-Suransky, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa, New York: Pantheon Books, 2010, page 241. See photos on pages 82, 91, and 92.
Similarities between Zionist Israel and Apartheid South Africa
Both were founded on exclusive ethnic foundations
Both developed exclusive ethno-national political systems
Both exercised exclusive ‘democracy’ or restricted ‘democracy’ for the ethnic group in power
Both continuously regenerate their respective ideologies—apartheid and Zionism
Membership is based on belonging to the exclusive ethnicity of the Volk, or on being a Jew
Claiming rights to land is based on settlement, biblical texts and historical connections
There is a felt need to have power and control over their own destiny
Both developed national identities in light of past trauma
Both held convictions and/or feelings of superiority (being God’s chosen people, and being culturally superior)
Both political systems developed to become highly centralized, i.e. strong states vis-a-vis their societies
Both cases fit with Gramsci’s argument on state-society and state-civil society relations , where hegemony of the political elite is achieved in a sophisticated manner, leading to voluntary consent
Both systems continue/d to exert almost total control over the moral order of their respective societies
Both political systems developed similar strategies towards the dominated side, adopting policies of discrimination and oppression
Discrimination by law has been widely used (in Israel, discriminatory laws included the ethnic-based citizenship or naturalization law (1952), the law of return (1950) and the state’s arrangements for land distribution (early 1950s). There are many more examples in the South African case, including the Native Act of 1913 for land distribution and the Population Registration Act of 1950
Policies of discrimination against the indigenous people were also translated by enforcing the settler society’s ethnic-national symbols while diminishing those of the natives
Both political systems which represented ethnic-national ideologies (have) also developed into highly militarized ones
Both political systems developed indoctrinated societies both before and after they had come to power in 1948 Education policies and the media contributed heavily to this task. They promoted the national ideological aims of the state, stressed the rightness of self-ethnic goals, prioritized security, de-legitimized the opponent, and projected a positive image and perception of themselves as being simultaneously heroes and victims.
Both political systems also adopted the vision of ‘separation’ as the prime option for reaching a settlement of the existing conflicts with the Other.
The author concludes that Zionist Israel represents another form of apartheid (more sophisticated, more subtle in some aspects, and more vicious)
Amneh Daoud Badran, Zionist Israel and Apartheid South Africa: Civil Society and Peace Building in Ethnic-National States, New York: Routledge, 2010, p 175-176.
Richard Boyd Barrett TD (Irish Parliament)--- Israel is not a normal state and should not be treated as such, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RYBV1X7_CM
French pied noir settlers in Algeria
Shortly after the conquest of Algeria by France in 1830, one French general observed (in 1834) that “nearly all the Arabs can read and write; in each village, there are two schools.” p. 29
French Marshal Bugeaud said before France’s National Assembly in 1841: “Whenever there is fresh water and fertile land, there one must locate colons [settlers], without concerning oneself to whom these lands belong” p. 30
In 1847 de Tocqeville observed that “we [the French] have rendered Muslim society much more miserable and much more barbaric than it was before it beccame acquainted with us.” p. 29
“In the outer world, the most obvious kinsmen to the pied noir are the whites of South Africa, Rhodesia and the “Deep South” of the United States” p. 54
The pied noir would habitually tutoyer any Muslim—a form of speech reserved for inmates, domestics or animals—and was outraged were it ever suggested that this might be a manifestation of racism. Commenting on this, Pierre Nora (admittedly a Frenchman often unduly harsh in his criticism of the pieds noirs) adds an illustration of a judge asking in court:
“Are there any other witnesses?”
“Yes, five; two men and three Arabs.” p. 55
When the Algerian National Liberation won the eight year-war (1954-1962) against the pieds noirs settlers and 600,000 French troops [p. 506], French settlers began to exit Algeria. “When the exodus was all over it was estimated that 50,000 pieds noirs had gone to Spain; 12,000 to Canada; 10,000 to Israel; and 1,550 to Argentina. But the huge mass, 1,380,000 strong (which included the luckier Muslim refugees)—equivalent then to the combined population of the two biggest French cities after Paris—had flooded into France. Only 30,000 stayed bravely, or hopelessly, behind.” P. 533
“Algeria adopts the round figure of one million as representing her war dead” p. 538
Source: Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962, New York: The Viking Press, 1977.
“Il était rare que les prisonniers interrogés la nuit se trouvent encore vivants au petit matin. Qu’ils aient parlé ou pas, il étaient généralement neutralisés. Il était impossible de les remettre dans le circuit judiciaire. Ils étaient trop nombreux et les rouages de la machine se seraient grippés… Plus de vingt mille personnes son passées par ce camp: trois pour cent de la population de l’agglomération d’Alger. Comment confier tous ces gens à la Justice?”--- Paul Aussaresses, Services Spéciaux: Algérie 1955-1957, Saint-Amant-Montrond: Perrin, Mai 2001, pages 153-154
Paul Aussaresses, ancient de la France libre, général de la brigade de l’armée française, engagé dans les services spéciaux, est envoyé par le général de Gaulle dans les opérations secrètes les plus délicates. Après avoir participé à la guerre d’Indochine et à la formation du Sdece [Service de documentation extérieure et de contre-espionnage], il exerce des responsabilités importantes au Service Action. Mais c’est en Algérie que Paul Aussaresses, qui deviendra ensuite instructeur des forces spéciales américaines, a dû accomplir sa mission la plus douloureuse.
43
Human Right Watch Report: Separate and Unequal: Israel’s Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, December 19, 2010
"Palestinians face systematic discrimination merely because of their race, ethnicity, and national origin, depriving them of electricity, water, schools, and access to roads, while nearby Jewish settlers enjoy all of these state-provided benefits. While Israeli settlements flourish, Palestinians under Israeli control live in a time warp - not just separate, not just unequal, but sometimes even pushed off their lands and out of their homes."---Carroll Bogert, deputy executive director for external relations at Human Rights Watch.
"This report shows that Israel operates a two-tier system for the two populations of the West Bank in the large areas where it exercises exclusive control. The report is based on case studies comparing Israel’s starkly different treatment of settlements and next-door Palestinian communities in these areas. It calls on the US and EU member states and on businesses with operations in settlement areas to avoid supporting Israeli settlement policies that are inherently discriminatory and that violate international law."
"The case studies in this report show that discriminatory Israeli policies control many aspects of the day-to-day life of Palestinians who live in areas under exclusive Israeli control and that those policies often have no conceivable security justification. For example, Jubbet al-Dhib is a 160-person Palestinian village to the southeast of Bethlehem that is often accessible only by foot because its only connection to a paved road is a rough, 1.5 kilometer-long dirt track. Children from Jubbet al-Dhib must walk to schools in other villages several kilometers away because their own village has no school. Jubbet al-Dhib lacks electricity despite numerous requests to be connected to the Israeli electric grid, which Israeli authorities have rejected; Israeli authorities also rejected an internationally donor-funded project that would have provided the village with solar-powered streetlights. Any meat or milk in the village must be eaten the same day due to lack of refrigeration; residents often resort to eating preserved foods instead. Villagers depend for light on candles, kerosene lanterns, and, when they can afford to fill it with gasoline, a small generator.
Approximately 350 meters away is the Jewish community of Sde Bar. It has a paved access road for its population of around 50 people and is connected to Jerusalem by a new, multimillion dollar highway—the “Lieberman Road”—which bypasses Palestinian cities, towns, and villages like Jubbet al-Dhib. Sde Bar operates a high school, but Jubbet al-Dhib students are ineligible to attend; for Palestinians, settlements are closed military areas that may be entered only with special military permits. Residents of Sde Bar have the amenities common to any Israeli town, such as refrigerators and electric lights, which Jubbet al-Dhib villagers can see from their homes at night." Human Right Watch Report, December 19, 2010, http://www.hrw.org/node/95061
“Is Judaism a race? Ask Israelis--Can Israeli racism be eliminated through law, trial and punishment, or is it already part of the Israeli identity? The recent demonstrations in Bat Yam, Tel Aviv's Hatikva Quarter and Zion Square, in Jerusalem, featured a motley medley of paradoxical partners in racist positions: ultra-Orthodox rabbis and "liberal" rabbis standing together against the rental and sale of apartments to Arabs; working-class folk demanding that foreigners be deported; members of the middle class who "fear for our daughters' welfare" and male chauvinists carrying signs that say "Jewish women for Jewish men." This demographic array poses an impossible burden on the law: Using legal means to stifle the trend would be tantamount to putting Israeli identity on trial.” Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz, 12/26/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/is-judaism-a-race-ask-israelis-1.332977
Supreme Court rejects citizens' request to change nationality from 'Jewish' to 'Israeli‘, Haaretz, 10/2/2103, http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/. premium-1.550241
Palestine/Israel-relevant sections of The Platform for the Movement for Black Lives [2016] https://policy.m4bl.org/platform /
"The US military accounts for over 50 percent of discretionary federal spending, a total of 598.5 Billion dollars spent annually, as compared to 70 billion spent on education, 66 billion spent on healthcare, $63.2 billion spent on housing and 29.1 billion spent on social security and unemployment. In addition, approximately 3 billion dollars in US aid is allocated to Israel, a state that practices systematic discrimination and has maintained a military occupation of Palestine for decades. Together with aid to Egypt — Israel’s most important regional ally — this figure represents nearly 75 percent of all US aid dollars. As these figures demonstrate, resources and funds needed for reparations and for building a just and equitable society domestically are instead used to wage war against a majority of the world’s communities...
The US justifies and advances the global war on terror via its alliance with Israel and is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people. The US requires Israel to use 75 percent of all the military aid it receives to buy US-made arms. Consequently, every year billions of dollars are funneled from US taxpayers to hundreds of arms corporations, who then wage lobbying campaigns pushing for even more foreign military aid. The results of this policy are twofold: it not only diverts much needed funding from domestic education and social programs, but it makes US citizens complicit in the abuses committed by the Israeli government. Israel is an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people. Palestinian homes and land are routinely bulldozed to make way for illegal Israeli settlements. Israeli soldiers also regularly arrest and detain Palestinians as young as 4 years old without due process. Everyday, Palestinians are forced to walk through military checkpoints along the US-funded apartheid wall...
Federal Action: Build invest/divestment campaigns that ends US Aid to Israel’s military industrial complex and any government with human rights violations...
State Action: Fight the expanding number of Anti-BDS bills being passed in states around the country. This type of legislation not only harms the movement to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine, but is a threat to the constitutional right to free speech and protest. Platform of The Movement for Black Lives [2016], https:// policy.m4bl.org/invest-divest /
Israel Lobby Smears Black Lawmaker for Meeting Palestinians, IMEMC News, 8/25/2016, http://imemc.org/article/israel-lobby-smears-black-lawmaker-for-meeting-palestinians /
[US Secretary of State] Kerry: Israel risks turning into an 'apartheid state'
If a two-state solution isn't agreed upon soon, Israel will risk becoming "an apartheid state," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday while speaking before a closed forum.
Kerry used the term while speaking at the Trilateral Commission before senior officials from the United States, Europe, Russia and Japan, The Daily Beast reported.
It is the first time a U.S. official of Kerry's importance has used the contentious term "apartheid" in the context of Israel, even if only as a warning for the future.
“A two-state solution," Kerry said, "will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second class citizens—or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state.
“Once you put that frame in your mind, that reality, which is the bottom line, you understand how imperative it is to get to the two-state solution, which both leaders, even yesterday, said they remain deeply committed to.” Haaretz, 4/28/2014, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.587698
“The US […] is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people,” the platform reads. “Israel is an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people […] Everyday, Palestinians are forced to walk through military checkpoints along the US-funded apartheid wall,” the platform states urther. RT, 8/5/2016, ttps ://www.rt.com/news/354770-israel-blm-palestine-genocide/
Jewish groups outraged after Black Lives Matter accuses Israel of genocide,
“By his own account, KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks]'s animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experience there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. policy favoring Israel” p.147
When someone asked why he and Atta [one of the 9/11 hijackers] never laughed, Shehhi [one of the 9/11 hijackers] retorted, “How can you laugh when people are dying in Palestine” page 162, The 9/11 Commission Report (2004), http :// www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf
Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America' (Q1) Why are we fighting and opposing you? (Q2) What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you? As for the first question: Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple: (1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us. a) You attacked us in Palestine: The Guardian, 11/24/2002, ttp://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver
Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton (co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission) wrote: “Commissioners who argued that al Qaeda was motivated primarily by a religious ideology—and not by opposition to American policies—rejected mentioning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the report. In their view, listing U.S. support for Israel as a root cause of al Qaeda’s opposition to the United States indicated that the United States should reassess that policy… Since neither U.S. policy in the Israel-Palestinian conflict nor U.S. policy in Iraq was covered in our mandate, we were not required to discuss the issues at length. Had that been the case, reaching consensus would have been difficult.” Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton with Benjamin Rhodes, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2006, p. 284.
A passage from Bin Laden's 'letter to America'
“As for the first question: Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple:
(1) Because you attacked us and continue to attack us.
a) You attacked us in Palestine:
(i) Palestine, which has sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals. And of course there is no need to explain and prove the degree of American support for Israel. The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased. Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution towards this crime must pay its*price, and pay for it heavily.
(ii) It brings us both laughter and tears to see that you have not yet tired of repeating your fabricated lies that the Jews have a historical right to Palestine, as it was promised to them in the Torah. Anyone who disputes with them on this alleged fact is accused of anti-semitism. This is one of the most fallacious, widely-circulated fabrications in history. The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed. Muslims believe in all of the Prophets, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon them all. If the followers of Moses have been promised a right to Palestine in the Torah, then the Muslims are the most worthy nation of this.
When the Muslims conquered Palestine and drove out the Romans, Palestine and Jerusalem returned to Islaam, the religion of all the Prophets peace be upon them. Therefore, the call to a historical right to Palestine cannot be raised against the Islamic Ummah that believes in all the Prophets of Allah (peace and blessings be upon them) - and we make no distinction between them.
(iii) The blood pouring out of Palestine must be equally revenged. You must know that the Palestinians do not cry alone; their women are not widowed alone; their sons are not orphaned alone.”
The Guardian, 11/24/2002, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver
Five Guantánamo detainees claim responsibility for September 11 attacks The Guardian, 10 March 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/10/guantanamo-detainees-september-11-2001
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Al-Hawsawi, say the terrorist killings were a response to US support for Israel
U.S. policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict feed anti-Americanism
“perceptions of U.S. policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict feed anti-Americanism. A 2003 Pew Global Attitudes poll found that enormous majorities in Arab and Muslim countries (at least 90% in Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Morocco, and Lebanon) believed the U.S. favors Israel too much. Although our most recent survey did not ask this same question, it did find strongly negative views towards Jews in the Arab world. For example, no respondents in either Lebanon or Jordan had a favorable view of Jews (on the other hand, 91% of Lebanese and 58% of Jordanians had a favorable view of Christians)”--Testimony of Andrew Kohut, United States House of Representatives, International Relations Committee Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations November 10, 2005, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/congress/koh111005.pdf
One example of how U.S. Middle East Policy feed anti-Americanism:
1. Congressmen Joe Walsh (R-IL) and Joseph Crowley (D-NY) sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a bi-partisan letter urging her and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to veto the upcoming Security Council resolution condemning Israel (110 Democrat and Republican members co-signed the letter), Congressional Documents and Publications, Feb 18, 2011.
2. U.S. vetoes U.N. resolution declaring Israeli settlements illegal, CNN, 2/18/11.
3. US Veto on Settlements Undermines International Law, Human Rights Watch, 2/18/11.
4. Israel 'deeply appreciates' U.S. veto on UN resolution condemning settlements, Haaretz, 2/19/11.
5. Palestinians plan 'Day of Rage' to protest U.S. veto on UN settlement resolution, Haaretz, 2/19/11.
“Not a day goes by -- not one -- when my colleagues and I do not work hard to defend Israel's security and legitimacy at the United Nations”—Obama's Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, http :// www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/06/aipac-susan-rice-obama-israel_n_1323398.html
President Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice: "we have spent seven and a half years of the Obama administration fighting and defeating efforts to delegitimize or otherwise single out Israel unfairly. I spent four and a half years of my life doing that at the U.N., and Ambassador [Samantha] Power is doing the same — all at President Obama’s direction." Forward, 6/6/2016, http://forward.com/news/342068/susan-rice-says-foolish-to-rule-out-backing-un-resolution-on-israel /
The Palestine-Israel Conflict and America’s image problem
Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Charlotte Beers resigned in March 2003 after acknowledging before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that “the gap between who we are and how we wish to be seen, and how we are in fact seen, is frighteningly wide.”
CNN.com, “Bush's Muslim propaganda chief quits,” March 4, 2003.
51
The Palestine-Israel Conflict and America’s image problem
From 2005 to 2007 Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes made substantial efforts to
(1) increase the public diplomacy budget to nearly $900 million,
(2) energize the government-funded/Arabic language Radio Sawa, Alhurra satellite television, and Hi magazine,
(3) focus on winning the hearts and minds of Arabs and Muslims for the sake of the war on terrorism, and
(4) spend some time touring key Middle Eastern countries and speaking directly to the people.
CBS News, “Karen Hughes To Leave State Department:,” October 31, 2007.
The Palestine-Israel Conflict and America’s image problem Karen Hughes said the Iraq war was usually the second issue that Muslims and Arabs around the world raised with her, after the Palestine-Israel conflict. Hughes said she advised Mr. Bush and Rice two years ago that U.S. help in ending the six-decade old fight over Israel would probably do more than anything else to improve the U.S. standing worldwide. CBS News 10/31/07, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/31/politics/main3436792.shtml
George Mitchell stepping down as Middle East envoy, CNN, 5/13/2011, http:// www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/05/13/mitchell.mideast.envoy/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1
53
Moran steps down from leadership post Lawmaker under fire for saying Jews push war with Iraq CNN, March 14, 2003. http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/14/moran.remarks/index.html
Lawmaker under fire for saying Jews support Iraq war Moran apologizes; White House blasts comments
CNN, March 11, 2003, http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/11/moran.jews/index.html
Watch [Former US Congresswoman] Cynthia McKinney: US Lawmakers FORCED to Support Israel!
54
Karen Hughes, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs , said she was tired of seeing the president presented as a “caricature.”
The New York Times, 10/31/2007
President Bush told the AEI neoconservatives: “You are some of the best brains in our country and my government employs about 20 of you.” …"Employs" is too weak a verb,” wrote James Atlas.
The New York Times, May 4, 2003
Israel
USA
Al-Majalla , 4/21/2001, http://www.al-majalla.com/ar/
A representation of the stereotypical view of US-Israel relations
55
America
Palestine
Iraq
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Libya
Lebanon
Syria
Sudan
Yemen
Iran
Islam
Etcetera
Israel
Adapted from Work by Ian Antonio, http://www.creative-holidays-spain.com/painting.html
A representation of the stereotypical view of US-Israel relations
“I know what America is.. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.”--Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, 1996-99 & 2009-present, “Fibi Netanyahu, In 2001, PM boasted of manipulating Oslo accords,” Tablet: A New Read on Jewish Life, http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/39692/fibi-netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister, 1996-99 & 2009-present, when asked what 9/11 would mean for American-Israeli relations, responded: "It's very good." Realizing his maladroit gaffe, he then added: "Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy" for Israel from the United States: http://www.counterpunch.org/sugg10252005.html
“The U.S. can no longer afford $725 billion each year for defense, much of it borrowed. Given the poor return on our investment, it’s clear we need another strategy, one free of Zionist goals that advance behind serial conflicts and the debt incurred to fund them. We know what to do. What’s required is the leadership to do it.” Jeff Gates, 12/29/2010, http://criminalstate.com/2010/12/a-commonsense-solar-defense/
“There’s no question in my mind that months before 9/11, some ranking leaders at the top of the government already anticipated this strike scenario, and decided that Iraq would pay the ultimate price if and when this 9/11 style of attack occurred. They were already prepping parts of the Intelligence Community to accept the inevitability of War with Iraq in the aftermath….
In mid June [2001], an Al Qaeda video became public, in which Osama bin Laden announced, “Your brothers in Palestine are waiting for you. It’s time to penetrate America and Israel, and hit them where it hurts the most”—[“U.S. Asset”] Susan Lindauer, Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq , 2010, Made in the USA, Lexington, Kentucky, May 3, 2011, pages 21, 24.
“Of course, while Israel employs many proxies in the service of its security interests, the proxy of choice, and by far the most powerful and capable of these proxies, is the United States… America, in the eyes of those who formulate Israeli security policy, is but a tool to be wielded in support of the larger Israeli interest” --- Scott Ritter, Target Iran: the Truth about the White House’s Plans for Regime Change, New York: Nation Books, 2006. page 33-34.
"only by force can a Jewish state in Palestine be established or maintained"--US Army Lt. Col. Harold Hoskins, 1943
Attorney Brian Shaughnessy wrote, “Ms. Lindauer was always competent to stand trial, only the Justice Department wanted to avoid embarrassing revelations from her case”, page vii
‘a minnow swallowing a whale’ ‘the tail wagging the dog’
56
Islamic world
Israel
USA
alabonline, http://www.alarab.co.uk/
A representation of the stereotypical view of US-Israel relations
President Bush Middle East Tour
A representation of the stereotypical view of US-Israel relations
The Israelis
The Americans
The Arabs
What Do Israelis Think About Americans? Start With Disdain
View Ally as Naive, Especially on Middle East Issues
…… “I know what America is,” Netanyahu, then on political hiatus after an election defeat, told the settlers when one asked whether his proposal for a “large scale” attack on the Palestinians would be met with global condemnation. “America is a thing that can be easily moved, moved in the right direction. They will not bother us… Let’s suppose they [the Bush administration] will say something. So they say it — so what? Eighty per cent of the Americans support us. It’s absurd! We have such [great] support there! And we say… what shall we do with this [support]?”
The Jewish Daily Forward, 3/8/2015, http://forward.com/articles/216074/what-do-israelis-think-about-americans-start-with /
The United States government is strongly involved in the Palestine-Israel conflict, which continues to define US relations with other countries and contributes to US isolation from the international community as indicated by the most recent United Nations General Assembly vote on the "right of the Palestinian people to self-determination': 177 countries in favor, 7 against (Canada, Federated States of Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, United States), with 4 abstentions (Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, South Sudan, Tonga). United Nations, 12/19/2016, https:// www.un.org/press/en/2016/ga11879.doc.htm
Citing anti-Israel bias, U.S. to withdraw from UNESCO [United Nations’ Paris-based cultural, scientific, and educational organization], Politico, 10/12/2017, https :// www.politico.com/story/2017/10/12/united-states-withdraws-unesco-243708
"One by one, 14 members of the U.N. Security Council spoke out against President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel [the UN Security Council has only 15 members, including the US], Fox News, 12/9/2017, http:// www.foxnews.com/world/2017/12/09/14-security-council-members-criticize-us-action-on-jerusalem.html
"U.S. vetoes U.N. resolution rejecting Trump’s decision on Jerusalem... All 14 other members supported the resolution, underscoring the U.S. isolation on the issue." The Washington Post, 12/18/2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-vetoes-un-resolution-rejecting-trumps-decision-on-jerusalem/2017/12/18/4e683732-e421-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html?utm_term=. 684214f9ebce
“Most Israelis think Americans are pro-Israel and we can sell them anything, especially mud from the Dead Sea. Or — just regular mud with a ‘Dead Sea’ sticker on it.”
Israeli Embassy Official Caught on Camera Discussing 'Taking Down' British Lawmakers, Haaretz, 1/8/2017, http:// www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.763613
The 193-member United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly voted [128 in favor; 9 against: Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Togo, and United States; with 35 abstentions and 21 absences] to declare US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel "null and void" and must be cancelled. BBC, 12/21/2017, http:// www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-42446027
The Christian Zionist Branch of the Israel Lobby
(1) provides financial support to the Jewish settler movement
(2) opposes any territorial concession to the Palestinians
(3) contributes to tourism in Israel, a lucrative economic sector generating $2.8 billion in 2004 p138 and 400
(4) Yet the influence of the Christian Zionists should not be overstated
(5) In sharp contrast to the groups like AIPAC, Christian Zionists lack the organizational capacity to analyze national security topic
(6) They lack the organizational capacity to offer specific legislation guidance on concrete foreign policy issues
(7) They also lack the financial power of the major pro-Israel groups
(8) They do not have the same media presence when it comes to the Middle East issues
(9) Therefore Christian Zionists “are best seen as a significant adjunct to the Jewish elements of the lobby, but not its most important part”---Source: John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel lobby and U.S. foreign policy (2007), p. 132-139
Former Congressman Paul Findley notes the paradox: “Mainline Christians who accept the legitimacy of the Jewish faith but question some policies of the Jewish state are branded anti-Semitic, while evangelical Christians who back Israel but doubt the theological validity of Judaism are welcome as allies.” The Christian Science Monitor, August 2, 1985, http :// www.csmonitor.com/1985/0802/bfindl-f.html
The Evangelical-Jewish Alliance, The Christian Century, June 28, 2003, http://www.religion-online.org/article/the-evangelical-jewish-alliance /
Evangelicals Declare Trump A Friend Of The Jews, Forward, 12/12/2017, https://forward.com/fast-forward/389860/evangelicals-declare-trump-a-friend-of-the-jews /
[Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu] Bibi: Christian Zionists our top friends, Jerusalem Post, 4/7/2008, http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Bibi-Christian-Zionists-our-top-friends
Stephen Bannon [executive chairman of Breitbart News]: “I’m a Proud Christian Zionist”, VT, 11/15/2017, https://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/11/15/stephen-bannon-im-a-proud-christian-zionist /
Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism, VT, 11/28/2017, https:// www.amazon.com/Allies-Armageddon-Rise-Christian-Zionism/dp/0300116985?tag=veteranstoday-20
Leader of Christian Zionists Named Head of Campus Anti-BDS Group, Forward, 7/8/2015, http ://forward.com/news/311662/leader-of-christian-zionists-named-head-of-adelson-campus-anti-bds-group /
Jonathan Farrell: Why I'm a Christian Zionist, The Global Jewish Channel (GJC), 9/10/2017, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0w06Ro5pcY&list=PLEVTqoofQtWO7topNOIO8EDp1c3PNwCxi&index=10
Noor Dahri: I'm a Muslim Zionist. Here's why… Thankfully, the Arab countries of the Gulf are slowly realizing that Israel is not an enemy, GJC, 11/5/2017, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC9GlA55sCI&list=PLEVTqoofQtWO7topNOIO8EDp1c3PNwCxi&index=2
Dr Shadman Zaman: I am the first Bangladeshi to visit Israel, GJC, 8/29/2017, https :// www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGEFL9MNaXw
US Senator Biden: “I am a Zionist …You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist”, Shalom TV, 3/27/2007
Mike Pence's message to Jerusalem rally, https :// www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9cRk10AZWg
‘Christian Zionism’ Grabs Spotlight As Mike Pence Addresses CUFI-
Forward, 7/18/2017, http://forward.com/news/377223/christian-zionism-grabs-spotlight-as-mike-pence-addresses-cufi/
Evangelicals Led Drive To Name Jerusalem As Capital, AIPAC Stayed On Sidelines... Vice President Mike Pence, has served as Christian Zionists’ main channel to the White House, Forward, 12/6/2017, https://forward.com/news/national/389233/evangelicals-led-drive-to-name-jerusalem-as-capital-aipac-stayed-on-sidelin/
“US Vice President Michael] Pence Prepares Mideast Visit, but Neither Palestinians nor Christians on Agenda... The Christian Arab refusal to meet with Pence, an evangelical Christian, is also likely to be perceived by the White House as a step back in the administration's attempts to facilitate peace talks," Haaretz, 12/12/2017, https:// www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/1.828330
[US Vice President Michael] Pence will be the first sitting vice president or president to speak to the Christian Zionist organization in its 11-year history, The Washington Post, 7/17/2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/07/17/what-you-need-to-know-about-mike-pences-speech-to-christians-united-for-israel/?utm_term=.cb4e4e2efa51
The Scofield Bible—The Book That Made Zionists of America’s Evangelical Christians, https:// www.wrmea.org/2015-october/the-scofield-bible-the-book-that-made-zionists-of-americas-evangelical-christians.html
60
Palestinians and Israelis killed since 9/29/2000
9,510 Palestinians (including 2,167 children) and 1,242 Israelis (including 134 children) have been killed since September 29, 2000 [as of 9/22/2017, If Americans Knew]
Palestinian women and children fight off Israeli soldier with boy in chokehold, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrrbyGtNfEg
Heated Debate: Norman Finkelstein vs Ken Spiro - Is Israel held to double standards? The Global Jewish Channel, Published on Nov 14, 2016, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWlxH7dypZs
During Fiscal Year 2016, the U.S. is providing Israel with at least $10.1 million per day in military aid and $0 in military aid to the Palestinians. Source: If Americans Knew (IAK), http://www.ifamericansknew.org / http ://www.ifamericansknew.org/stat/usaid.html#source http://israelpalestinetimeline.org/charts /
Some Israelis see $38 billion U.S. military aid offer as a failure, The Washington Post, 9/19/2016, https:// www.washingtonpost.com/world/some-israelis-see-38-billion-us-military-aid-offer-as-a-failure/2016/09/19/2a2c298c-f878-4213-8e65-fcde59032f4c_story.html
Israel “has received far more US aid, both military and economic, than all 42 Latin American and Caribbean countries combined,” Kirk Beattie, Congress and the Shaping of the Middle East, Seven Stories Press, 2015, page 393
61
Palestinians and Israelis injured since 9/29/2000
95,299 Palestinians and 11,895 Israelis have been injured since September 29, 2000 [as of 7/22/2017, If Americans Knew]
Israel has been targeted by at least 77 UN resolutions and the Palestinians have been targeted by 1 between 1955 and 1992
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
Causes of Deaths of Israeli Soldiers in 2005
Committed Suicide 30
Illness 14
Accidents 26
Terror Incidents 6
Source: Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, Oct. 10, 2005, p. 6. Note: The paper also reported that since 1992, 459 Israeli soldiers have committed suicide.
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
Palestinians and Israelis currently imprisoned
6,279 Palestinians are currently [9/22/2017] imprisoned by Israel, while 0 Israelis are being held prisoner by Palestinians.
“Since the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory in 1967, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been detained under Israeli military orders in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). This number constitutes approximately 20 percent of the total Palestinian population in the oPt and as much as 40 percent of the total male Palestinian population… 8,000 Palestinian children have been arrested since 2000.”Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
Gaza's first 'prison baby' on way after jailed Palestinian smuggles out sperm
Boy named Hassan to join three infants delivered in West Bank following IVF treatment for mothers with husbands held by Israel
Hana al-Za'anin and her husband, Tamer, have not set eyes on each other, let alone had physical contact, for almost seven years. But the young Palestinian couple are delighted to be expecting their first child in January.
The baby – a boy already named Hassan – is not a modern-day miracle but the result of medical science combined with old-fashioned subterfuge. He was conceived after Tamer's sperm was smuggled out of an Israeli prison, across a stringent military checkpoint into Gaza, and impregnated into an egg harvested from Hana at a fertility clinic in Gaza City. The resulting embryo was transplanted into her uterus. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/13/gaza-first-prison-baby-palestinian-smuggles-sperm
A classified report by the Israel Bar Association obtained by Haaretz provides a glimpse into the harrowing conditions prisoners separated from the main jail population must endure. According to the document, which is the first external review of the Prison Service, the isolation wings at the Ayalon and Shikma prisons are not fit for human habitation and "look more like a dungeon," while most solitary cells in prisons across the country are "crammed, rancid with smells of sewer and mold, and infested with insects." "It's difficult to ignore the feeling that isolation as practiced today serves a function of punishment rather than imprisonment," wrote the authors of the report, Michael Atia - chairman of the prison service committee at the Israel Bar Association, and Moran Kabalo - chief of criminal law for the IBA... The report noted that prolonged stay isolated from the general prison population has profound psychological impacts. "Many isolated inmates testified to have developed paranoia, a tendency for uncontrollable fits of rage, and eyesight problems because of the lack of natural light through most hours of the day," the lawyers wrote...The report provides a rare insight into life in isolation wings. "Most such cells are windowless and are lit by cold fluorescent lights," the report says. "The meals are brought on trays and are inserted through a latch that is shut immediately afterwards, to prevent poisoning." Haaretz, 12/27/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/groundbreaking-report-details-israel-s-inhumane-conditions-for-isolated-prisoners-1.333107
Legal barbarism: Israel's moral suicide
In Israel 2014, if you're a Palestinian, you're not even allowed to commit suicide in protest. That’s the significance of a bill that will allow force-feeding of hunger-striking prisoners, which is being pushed toward its second and third readings in a marathon debate in the Knesset. Haaretz, 6/18/2014, http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.599505
'Shin Bet tortures prisoners and denies access to lawyers'
As many as 90% of Palestinian prisoners are denied this basic right despite civilian and military legislation, says study produced by Public Committee Against Torture and Palestinian Prisoners' Society. Haaretz, 12/28/2010,
Palestinian and Israeli homes demolished
48,488 Palestinian homes have been demolished by Israel and 0 Israeli homes have been demolished by Palestinians since 1967
"It is impossible to know how many homes exactly because the Israeli authorities only report on the demolition of 'structures,' which may be homes or may be other structures. When a seven-story apartment building is demolished containing more than 20 housing units, that is considered only one demolition.“
In addition to the homes demolished by Israel, thousands of Palestinian homes have been destroyed or significantly damaged by Israeli bombing and shelling. Perhaps over 20,000 in the Dec 2008/Jan 2009 assault on Gaza. Americans Knew
On the 16 March, 2003, 23-year-old American Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer, while she stood between the Israeli bulldozer and a to-be-demolished Palestinian house
According to the most recent United Nations OCHA report on home demolitions by Israeli forces, in the West Bank during the first two months of 2016: At least 320 structures, including 88 homes, were destroyed. IMEMC News, 7/27/2016, http://imemc.org/article/israeli-troops-demolish-12-homes-near-jerusalem-attack-locals-trying-to-block-the-demolitions /
Palestinians and Israelis killed in Gaza Strip 12/27/2008-1/18/2009
As of 1/31/2009, Israeli air/land/sea raids on the blockaded Gaza Strip (12/27/2008-1/18/2009) killed 1,380 Palestinians, of whom 431 are children. The number of injuries stands at 5,380, of whom 1,872 are children.
Three Israelis have been killed and 183 injured by rocket and mortar fire outside the Gaza Strip. Eleven Israeli soldiers have been killed and 340 wounded.
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org/
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
“The Jordanian suicide bomber who killed several CIA agents in Afghanistan last week fooled Amman’s intelligence agency into believing that he was a reliable informant spying on the al-Qaeda leadership.
But Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi was a triple-agent leading an extraordinary life on the front line of America’s war against militant Islam. An investigation by The Times has revealed that the trainee doctor became an open and public supporter of al-Qaeda, secretly pretended to work for Jordanian intelligence but ultimately sacrificed his life for the cause of jihad.
On December 30 al-Balawi infiltra-ted Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province near the Pakistan border. He detonated explosives strapped to his body and killed seven CIA agents and his Jordanian handler, Ali bin Zaid, an army captain and distant cousin of King Abdullah II. The Hashemite monarch, his wife, and other Royal Family members attended bin Zaid’s funeral on Friday.”
Jordanian suicide bomber who killed CIA agents ‘was triple agent’
TimesOnline, 1/6/2010
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6977047.ece
Al-Balawi practised medicine at this UN clinic in the Hittin Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan
He vowed to “take up arms, and to wear an explosive belt, to avenge the killing of children and women in the Gaza War”.
Israel’s Estimated Costs of the 3-Week Gaza War 12/27/2008-1/18/2009
“War costs take into account ammunition, reserves soldiers’ salaries, direct and indirect damage to towns and property, losses to businesses, and more. Total costs of the war are roughly estimated at 5.5 billion shekels ($1.43 billion).”
Source: Israel National News, 1/19/2009, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129502
Gaza economic losses estimated at 1.9 billion dollars
Preliminary estimates by Dr. Loai Shabana (the head of the Palestinian central bureau of statistics) indicated that the Israeli assault led to the complete and partial destruction of over 14 percent of the 147,437 buildings and facilities in the Gaza Strip [that would be over 20,600 buildings and facilities]
Source: The Palestinian Information Center, 1/19/2009
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7y2gM99H%2bLE0HpdGNrBjOgAeW6NbBC2iKkBjQoXWjiHsgesZ0cEJxP3zBHHGB2UByaXglnhD%2bqM%2fLFQbqNWUNgNYklve5lKRuN1rv00VyPYY%3d
Gaza Strip
Population: 1.5 million
Area: 360 sq km
Population density: 4,166/sq km
Unemployment rate: 41.3%
Land boundaries: Israel 51 km
Egypt 11 km
Mediterranean coastline: 40 km
Refugee Registered
Camps Refugees
Jabalia 106,691
Beach 78,768
Nuseirat 57,120
Bureij 28,770
Deir al-Balah 19,534
Maghazi 22,226
Khan Younis 63,219
Rafah 95,187
Source: UN (May 2005) and CIA (July 2008)
The map shows the main areas attacked in the three weeks of violence, BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7812136.stm
Impunity for War Crimes in Gaza and Southern Israel a Recipe for Further Civilian Suffering, 2 July 2009, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/impunity-war-crimes-gaza-southern-israel-recipe-further-civilian-suffering-20090702
'Most Cast Lead damage not repaired‘--UNDP: Small-scale repairs done using rubble, smuggled materials. As an eight-ship 'Freedom Flotilla' began to make its way from various Mediterranean ports toward Gaza Sunday morning, a UN agency said about three-quarters of the damage inflicted by Operation Cast Lead more than a year ago had not been repaired. Israel continues to bar construction material from entering Hamas-ruled Gaza as part of an overall blockade of the territory. The UN Development Program (UNDP) said in a report Sunday that Gazans have carried out small-scale repairs worth $173 million with recycled rubble or material smuggled through border tunnels. Jerusalem Post, 5/23/2010, http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?ID=176184 Israel rejects Qatar bid to restore diplomatic ties
In exchange for renewed ties, Qatar demanded it be allowed to carry out a series of reconstruction projects in Gaza. Israel has rejected two proposals from Qatar to restore diplomatic relations and let Israel reopen its office in the capital of Doha. A senior source in Jerusalem said that in return for renewed diplomatic relations, the Qataris demanded that they be allowed to carry out a series of reconstruction projects in the Gaza Strip and to import the necessary construction materials. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman were unwilling to agree to this, he said. Haaretz, 5/18/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-rejects-qatar-bid-to-restore-diplomatic-ties-1.290866
A woman and a child made homeless after the destruction of their home, Gaza, January 2009 © Amnesty International
“Israeli forces killed hundreds of unarmed Palestinian civilians and destroyed thousands of homes in Gaza in attacks which breached the laws of war, Amnesty International concluded in a new report published on Thursday. Operation 'Cast Lead': 22 days of death and destruction, is the first comprehensive report to be published on the conflict, which took place earlier this year.”
Rights group: IDF killed Gazans waving 'white flags' during war Haaretz, 8/13/2009 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1107286.html
“Human Rights Watch called on Israel on Thursday [8/13/2009] to investigate seven incidents in which it said Israeli troops shot and killed Palestinian civilians who were flying white flags during the war in the Gaza Strip in January.”
UN urges Israel to investigate alleged torture
“Israel should investigate the secret detention facility known as 1391, halt punitive housing demolitions, investigate Operation Cast Lead and improve its treatment of security detainees, the United Nations Committee Against Torture said on Friday [5/15/2009] in Geneva.”
Jerusalem Post, 5/17/2009 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1242212388431 http://www.aljazeera.com/news/articles/34/UN_Calls_on_Israel_to_Reveal_Secret_Torture_Center.html
Sweden denies Israel request to condemn IDF organ harvest article The Associated Press and Haaretz Service, 8/20/2009 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1109008.html
“Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has rejected Israeli calls for an official condemnation of a recent article by a top Swedish newspaper that alleged that Israel Defense Forces soldiers kill Palestinian civilians in order to harvest their organs. Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had asked Bildt to print a a state rebuttal to the piece, which was published earlier this week in Sweden's top newspaper Aftonbladet. Israel's Ambassador to Sweden Benny Dagan was expected to make a similar request during a meeting Friday with Sweden's Deputy Foreign Minister.”
Police smash Israeli organ-trafficking ring--A retired army brigadier general is among six suspects arrested by Israeli police investigating an organ-trafficking ring, police say. The organisation offered as much as $100,000 (£65,600) for kidneys, which were transplanted by doctors in poor countries, a sting operation uncovered. Police said they had been "shocked" by the extent of the smuggling ring. Retired Gen Meir Zamir, arrested in connection with the trafficking, won a medal of valour in the Yom Kippur War. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8608053.stm
Israeli Organ Harvesting--Last week Sweden’s largest daily newspaper published an article containing shocking material: testimony and circumstantial evidence indicating that Israelis may have been harvesting internal organs from Palestinian prisoners without consent for many years. Worse yet, some of the information reported in the article suggests that in some instances Palestinians may have been captured with this macabre purpose in mind. http://www.counterpunch.org/weir08282009.html
The organ harvesting controversy: Did Sweden fumble or Israel overreact? JTA, August 24, 2009, http://jta.org/news/article/2009/08/24/1007429/did-israel-overreact-in-swedish-newspaper-controversy
“A Swedish newspaper is pushing forward with its far-fetched claims that the Israeli army harvested body organs from Palestinians. But for many Israel watchers the debate has shifted to whether the Swedish government fumbled the controversy or the Israeli government went overboard with its incensed reaction.”
“Our sons are plundered of their organs” aftonbladet, 8/26/2009 http://www.aftonbladet.se/kultur/article5691805.ab
“Palestinians accuse the Israel Defense Forces of taking organs from their victims. Donald Boström writes about an international organ trafficking scandal – and about the time he saw the cut-up dead body of a nineteen-year old Palestinian.
You could call me a ”matchmaker”, said Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, from Brooklyn, USA, in a secret recording with an FBI-agent whom he believed to be a client. Ten days later, at the end of July this year, Rosenbaum was arrested and a vast, Sopranos-like, imbroglio of money-laundering and illegal organ-trade was revealed in New Jersey: Rabbis, politicians and trusted civil servants had for years bin involved in money laundering and illegal organ-trade.
Rosenbaum’s matchmaking had nothing to do with romance. It was all about buying and selling kidneys from Israel on the black market. Rosenbaum says that he buys the kidneys for 10 000 dollars, from poor people. He then proceeds to sell the organs to desperate patients in the States for 160 000 dollars.
The accusations have shaken the American transplantation business. If they are true it means that organ trafficking is documented for the first time in the US, experts tell the New Jersey Real-Time News………………..”
Bilal Achmed Ghanan, 19, was shot and taken away by Israeli soldiers. The body was returned stitched together from the belly to the neck.
Foto: Donald Boström
U.S. Congress members to EU: Condemn IDF organ harvesting article Haaretz, 9/4/2009 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1112191.html
“Members of the U.S. Congress on Friday urged European foreign ministers to denounce an article published in the Swedish daily Aftonbladet alleging that Israel Defense Forces soldiers kill Palestinians in order to harvest their organs.”
Jenny Tonge stripped of Lords role
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has sacked controversial peer Jenny Tonge as the party’s health spokesperson in the Lords over her demands for an investigation into allegations of body parts harvesting by the Israeli Defence force in Haiti. The Jewish Chronicle, http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/27160/jenny-tonge-stripped-lords-role
Israeli doctors, patients accused of involvement in trafficking kidneys Jewish Telegraphic Agency, June 24, 2013 http://www.jta.org/2013/06/24/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/israeli-doctors-patients-accused-of-involvement-in-trafficking-kidneys
JERUSALEM (JTA) — An international organ trafficking ring that sold kidneys to patients in Israel and Eastern Europe was broken up by Costa Rica police and Interpol.
The ring also worked with Israeli doctors who have not yet been named, according to Haaretz. Israel’s Health Ministry denied any knowledge of the organ trafficking ring.
The Costa Rican Attorney General’s Office said last week that Israeli doctors had performed kidney-removal operations on some Costa Ricans who sold their organs, according to Haaretz.
Israeli patients have paid up to $20,000 for a black market kidney.
UN rights body adopts Goldstone Gaza Report Haaretz, 10/16/2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121610.html
The UN Human Rights Council on Friday endorsed a Gaza report that accused both Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas of committing war crimes in their December-January conflict. In a special session, 25 of the body's members voted in favor of the resolution that chastised Israel for failing to cooperate with the UN mission led by South African jurist Richard Goldstone [who is Jewish]. Another 6 voted against and 11 abstained.
U.S. Senate unanimously calls on U.N. to rescind Goldstone
Haaretz, 4/15/2011, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/04/15/3086892/senate-unanimously-calls-for-goldstone-rescinsion
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The U.S. Senate unanimously approved a resolution calling on the United Nations to rescind the Goldstone report... Similar legislation is now circulating in the U.S. House of Representatives. Unlike the non-binding Senate resolution, those bills would tie U.N. funding to rescinsion of the Goldstone report".
Israel rations Palestinians to trickle of water
Amnesty International has accused Israel of denying Palestinians the right to access adequate water by maintaining total control over the shared water resources and pursuing discriminatory policies…
“Israel allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, which lie mostly in the occupied West Bank, while the unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies. In Gaza the Israeli blockade has made an already dire situation worse,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s researcher on Israel and the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories]. ..
In a new extensive report, Amnesty International revealed the extent to which Israel’s discriminatory water policies and practices are denying Palestinians their right to access to water. Israel uses more than 80 per cent of the water from the Mountain Aquifer, the main source of underground water in Israel and the OPT, while restricting Palestinian access to a mere 20 per cent. The Mountain Aquifer is the only source for water for Palestinians in the West Bank, but only one of several for Israel, which also takes for itself all the water available from the Jordan River. While Palestinian daily water consumption barely reaches 70 litres a day per person, Israeli daily consumption is more than 300 litres per day, four times as much. In some rural communities Palestinians survive on barely 20 litres per day, the minimum amount recommended for domestic use in emergency situations. Some 180,000-200,000 Palestinians living in rural communities have no access to running water and the Israeli army often prevents them from even collecting rainwater. In contrast, Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, have intensive-irrigation farms, lush gardens and swimming pools. Numbering about 450,000, the settlers use as much or more water than the Palestinian population of some 2.3 million. In the Gaza Strip, 90 to 95 per cent of the water from its only water resource, the Coastal Aquifer, is contaminated and unfit for human consumption. Yet, Israel does not allow the transfer of water from the Mountain Aquifer in the West Bank to Gaza. ….“Over more than 40 years of occupation, restrictions imposed by Israel on the Palestinians’ access to water have prevented the development of water infrastructure and facilities in the OPT, consequently denying hundreds of thousand of Palestinians the right to live a normal life, to have adequate food, housing, or health, and to economic development,” said Donatella Rovera. Israel has appropriated large areas of the water-rich Palestinian land it occupies and barred Palestinians from accessing them.
Source: Amnesty International, 10/27/2009, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/israel-rations-palestinians-trickle-water-20091027
Viva Palestina Aid Convoy to Gaza moves on in 2010
Jan 1 2010: A delegation of Religious Orthodox Jews who joined British MP George Galloway in another Viva Palestina convoy to deliver aid to the citizens of Gaza report on their journey into Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Palestine. http://www.nkusa.org/
“Neturei Karta [a group of Orthodox Jews who refused to recognize Israel] is always committed to voice the traditional Religious Jewish opposition to the philosophy of Zionism and the existence of the state of "Israel". According to the Torah teachings, Jews are in exile by divine decree. They are forbidden to leave exile and create their own state by physical means. Secondly, Jewish law forbids Jews to rebel against any other nations. Jews are required to be loyal citizens in the countries in which they reside. Hence, the state of "Israel" is forbidden.” http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Statements/20080123.cfm
| A cloud of smoke billows over Gaza after an Israel Defense Forces strike during the 2009 war. |
| Photo by: AP / Archive |
Amnesty: U.S., Europe shielding Israel over Gaza war crimes
In its annual report, the rights group accuses Israel of continually violating human rights in Gaza with its ongoing economic siege.
Amnesty International complained in its annual report released Thursday that the U.S. and members of the European Union had obstructed international justice by using their positions on the UN Security Council to shield Israel from accountability for war crimes allegedly committed during last year's Gaza war.
The rights group also accused Israel of continually violating human rights in the Gaza Strip. It cited Israel's ongoing economic blockade as violating international law, leaving Gaza residents without adequate food or water supplies . Haaretz, 5/27/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/amnesty-u-s-europe-shielding-israel-over-gaza-war-crimes-1.292505
'Israel is a Lunatic State' - Finkelstein on Gaza Flotilla Attack
Trigger-Happy
Israel’s use of excessive force in the West Bank
Report by Amnesty International
February 2014,
Amnesty International Report, February 2014: Trigger-Happy, Israel’s use of excessive force in the West Bank
“Out of nowhere many soldiers jumped out and ambushed Samir. They shot him first in the leg, yet he managed to run away towards the village. But how far can an injured child run? Twenty, maybe 30, metres? They could have easily arrested him, especially when he was injured, but instead they shot him in the back with live ammunition… To me this is premeditated murder... [Samir Awad was just 16 years old when Israeli soldiers shot and killed him],” page 5....
Israeli soldiers have repeatedly committed serious human rights and humanitarian law violations, including unlawful killings, in response to Palestinian opposition and protests in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The cases documented in this report represent only a minority of the cases that have occurred over recent years and which follow a general pattern, in which Israeli forces use excessive, often lethal, force against Palestinians who pose no threat to their lives or the lives of others. Soldiers are permitted to do so effectively with impunity – inasmuch as the official system established to investigate alleged human rights violations or other abuses by Israeli soldiers is neither independent nor impartial. This creates a situation of absolute absence of justice and the growing environment of impunity which the Israeli army and police enjoy. As the occupying power in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Israel is responsible for the welfare of the inhabitants of the occupied
territories, all of whom are protected persons. It must respect and protect the rights of Palestinians. Instead, Israeli forces routinely violate their obligations under international human rights law and the law of occupation by unlawfully killing and injuring civilians, including children, who are posing no threat to their lives or those of others. This has carried on for decades with the full knowledge of the Israeli government and military command," page 70.
Report by Amnesty International, February 2014, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/002/2014/en/349188ef-e14a-418f-ac20-6c9e5c8d9f88/mde150022014en.pdf
Examples of Systematic Bias and Distorted Media Coverage of the Palestine-Israel Conflict in the United States In the next 3 slides, compare and contrast:
Children’s Deaths Reported and Omitted in Headline or First Paragraph by The New York Times, First Year of Intifada 9/29/2000-9/28/2001
Percentage of Deaths Reported by ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news, First Year of Intifada 9/29/2000-9/28/2001
Percentage of Children’s Deaths Reported in Headline or First Paragraph by Associated Press newswire, 2004
Source: If Americans Knew
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org
Source: If Americans Knew, http://www.ifamericansknew.org
We're being molded by our information environment
In his book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains [2010], Nicholas Carr argues that we are losing our capacity for concentration and contemplation because of the impact of the Internet on our cognition. He stresses that the technologies we use to find, store, and share information can literally REROUTE our neural pathways. He concludes that "we're being molded by our new information environment" and "as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence” (page 224)
CNN “The Situation Room” Anchor Wolf Blitzer News program and politics Monday-Friday 5-7 pm ET, Saturday 6-7 pm ET http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/situation.room /
In his book Myths and Facts 1978: A Concise Record of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Wolf Blitzer wrote:
“Myth: Arabs were displaced by Jewish settlements. Fact: British inquiry showed that these complaints were groundless.” page 8.
Wolf Blitzer: From AIPAC Lobbyist to CNN's Chief News Anchor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xatMfqa_C0
Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People
Mark Green and Wendy Campbell noted that since Ashkanazi Jewish immigrants created Hollywood’s studio system nearly a century ago, “business there still retains a Yiddish accent.” For example, Hollywood distribution moguls Bob and Harvey Weinstein brothers did elect to distribute Michael Moore’s “much ballyhooed” Fahrenheit 9/11 because the film “actually managed to sidestep mentioning Israel, Zionism or neoconservatism throughout the entire film!”…. Michael Medved was quoted saying “It makes no sense at all to try to deny the reality of Jewish power and prominence in popular culture. … Any Martian monitoring American television … would view Seinfeld, Friends, The Nanny, Northern Exposure, Mad About You, and other shows and be surprised to learn that fewer than 1 in 40 Americans is Jewish.” --Mark Green and Wendy Campbell, “What about Mel? Hollywood’s Passionate Attachment,” In Mark Green, ed., Persecution, Privilege & Power: Reconsidering the Zionist Narrative in American Life, Thirty Essential Articles on the Most Pressing Issue of our Time, 2007, pp 93-100, page 93, 98. Edmund Connelly, “The Jews of Prime Time,” In Mark Green, ed., Persecution, Privilege & Power: Reconsidering the Zionist Narrative in American Life, Thirty Essential Articles on the Most Pressing Issue of our Time, 2007, pp 101-126, page 101.
See the video/book “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People.”
“Reel Bad Arabs takes a devastating tour of the American cinematic landscape, moving from the earliest days of silent film to today's biggest Hollywood blockbusters to reveal an astonishing and persistent pattern of slanderous Arab stereotyping. Featuring acclaimed author and Hollywood film consultant Dr. Jack Shaheen, the documentary exposes American cinema's long love affair with Arab villainy and buffoonery, from over-sexed Bedouin bandits and submissive maidens to sinister sheiks and blood-thirsty terrorists.”
Egypt bans 'inaccurate' Exodus film
Egypt has banned a Hollywood film based on the Biblical book of Exodus because of what censors described as "historical inaccuracies". The head of the censorship board said these included the film's depiction of Jews as having built the Pyramids. BBC, 12/26/2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30605059
Journalists and Diplomats Under Fire For Israel-Related Remarks
Helen Thomas: Bitter end for 'dean' of press corps
She is the only reporter to have had her name engraved on a chair in the White House press briefing room.
But after five decades of covering the White House, Helen Thomas, 89, retired under a cloud on Monday - caught on camera saying Israeli Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Germany, Poland and America.
BBC, 6/8/2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10260512.stm
CNN sacks editor over Muslim cleric Twitter remark:
CNN has sacked a veteran Middle East editor after she wrote on Twitter that she "respected" a late senior Lebanese cleric said to have inspired Hezbollah.
BBC, 7/8/2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10549106.stm
UK envoy's praise for Lebanon cleric draws Israel anger:
Israel has criticised Britain's ambassador to Lebanon for eulogising a recently deceased Lebanese cleric said to have inspired Hezbollah. Frances Guy wrote on her personal blog that Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was a "decent man" who rated among the people she most admired ["When you visited him you could be sure of a real debate, a respectful argument and you knew you would leave his presence feeling a better person"--Frances Guy, British ambassador to Lebanon]...The UK foreign office says it has taken down the blog after "mature consideration".
BBC, 7/9/2010,
CNN sacks Sanchez after dig at Jews CNN fired anchorman Rick Sanchez after he suggested that Jews run the news business
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- CNN fired anchorman Rick Sanchez after he suggested that Jews run the news business.
Sanchez made his remarks in a freewheeling exchange Sept. 30 with Pete Dominick, a Latino stand-up comedian and radio show host who is friends with Jon Stewart, the faux-news Comedy Central star who has made Sanchez' robust style the butt of many jokes.
Sanchez, a native of Cuba, alleged that Stewart singled him out because of white bigotry.
Dominick pushed back, saying that Stewart, because he is Jewish, is himself a member of a minority.
"I’m telling you that everybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? Yeah," he said.
On Oct. 1, Sanchez's 3 p.m. broadcast did not appear. At 6 p.m., in a short statement, CNN said he no longer worked for the network.
JTA, October 2, 2010 , http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/10/02/2741092/cnn-sacks-sanchez-after-dig-at-jews
Ex-mayor of London suspended from Labour for saying Hitler was Zionist
(JTA) -- Britain’s Labour Party suspended former London Mayor Ken Livingstone on Thursday for saying Adolf Hitler was a Zionist... In a radio interview with the BBC on Thursday, Livingstone said, “Let’s remember when Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism.” He made the remarks in defense of Labour lawmaker Naz Shah, who was suspended a day earlier over a Facebook post in 2014 suggesting Israelis should be moved en masse to the United States. JTA, 4/28/2016, http :// www.jta.org/2016/04/28/news-opinion/world/labours-ex-mayor-of-london-hitler-was-a-zionist
Anti-Semitic Campaign in Basel is Traced to a Jewish Student, JTA, 3/8/1983, https:// www.jta.org/1983/03/08/archive/anti-semitic-campaign-in-basel-is-traced-to-a-jewish-student
Jewish Center Bomb Threat Suspect Is Arrested in Israel, The New York Times, 3/23/2017, https:// www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/us/jcc-bomb-threats.html
Zionism Should be on Trial, Not Ken Livingstone
What is Zionism? This is the question that millions of people across the United Kingdom will undoubtedly have been asking themselves over recent days in light of the political crisis and media firestorm that’s been whipped up over allegations that the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Party has a problem with antisemitism. It is a crisis that has seen Labour MP Naz Shah suspended by the party, along with former mayor of London and Labour Party veteran Ken Livingstone – the former over Facebook comments that came to light, the latter over comments made in an interview he gave defending Shah during which he brought up the existence of the Haavara Agreement between the Nazis and Zionists in Germany to arrange the transfer of Jews from Germany to Palestine…
In taking things this far, however, in subjecting Ken Livingstone to trial-by-media over his comments on Zionism, his detractors have also unwittingly placed Zionism itself on trial, with the question of Zionism, as mentioned, undoubtedly now being pondered by millions of people who previously would have had zero interest in the subject. And what most of those people will inarguably find if they delve deep enough into that question, despite the determined efforts of Israel’s supporters to conflate Zionism with Judaism, is that this is a political doctrine and ideology responsible for crimes against humanity on a grand scale. By John Wight, Counterpounch, 5/3/2016, http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/03/zionism-should-be-on-trial-not-ken-livingstone /
Leno will make first visit to Israel to emcee Genesis Prize ceremony GTA, May 1, 2014 12:51pm, http://www.jta.org/2014/05/01/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/leno-will-make-first-visit-to-israel-to-present-genesis-prize-2
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Former “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno will visit Israel to host the presentation of the inaugural Genesis Prize.
The May 22 ceremony in Jerusalem will honor former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg with the $1 million award.
“Jay Leno is a comedic icon who has entertained millions of people around the world for over 20 years,” said Stan Polovets, board chairman of the Genesis Prize Foundation. “What many don’t know, however, is that he is also a great friend to Israel.”
Facebook IPO: Good for the Jews?
“…On the eve of Facebook’s initial public offering, scheduled for Friday, Jews -- like everyone else -- are still figuring out how Facebook can serve their personal or professional needs.
What started out in a college dorm room in 2003 as a way for Harvard students to rate women’s comparative “hotness” (it was then called Facemash.com) has morphed into a medium for more than 900 million people worldwide to communicate with each other, rally support or opposition, publicize news, make money, flirt and fulminate in ways both profound and mundane about the million and one things happening at any given moment…”
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, May 15, 2012, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/05/15/3095541/facebook-ipo-good-for-the-jews
“BERLIN (JTA) — A caricature of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in a German newspaper has drawn charges of anti-Semitism against the artist and newspaper.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center protested the depiction of Zuckerberg by artist Burkhard Mohr in the Suddeutsche Zeitungas daily Feb. 21 featuring the 29-year-old Jewish entrepreneur as an octopus reaching with its tentacles to control social media — a comment on Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp announced last week... Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, told the Algemeiner newspaper that the cartoon was “an outrage” that proves the artist is anti-Semitic.”
http ://www.jta.org/2014/02/25/news-opinion/world/caricature-of-mark-zuckerberg-in-german-newspaper-called-anti-semitic
http ://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2567167/Cartoon-German-newspaper-depicting-Mark-Zuckerberg-octopus-taking-world-starkly-reminiscent-Nazi-anti-Semitic-propaganda.html
Mark Zuckerberg Sues to Make His $100M Hawaii Estate Even More Private:
“Mark Zuckberg might have started the world’s premier social network, but he’s not in the mood for new friends when’s he on holiday at his 700-acre estate on Kauai. He’s now suing hundreds of Native Hawaiian families who own small plots in the middle of his estate, giving them the right to traverse his lands, reported the Honolulu Star Advertiser. If the legal action succeeds, the families will be forced to sell their property — inherited over the generations in some cases — to the highest bidder (presumably Zuckerberg) at a public auction... Zuckerberg bought the estate in 2014, paying $100 million in total. He is worth a total of $44.6 billion." Forward, 1/19/2017, http://forward.com/fast-forward/360470/mark-zuckerberg-sues-to-make-his-100m-hawaii-estate-even-more-private /
Caricature of Mark Zuckerberg in German paper called anti-Semitic
UK paper posts anti-Israel cartoon on Holocaust day [2013]--On Holocaust Memorial Day, 'Sunday Times' publishes cartoon depicting [Israeli] PM [Netanyahu] paving wall with Palestinian blood. The Jerusalem Post, 1/27/2013, http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=301128
Holocaust denier ordered to visit concentration camps and write about them--A court in Brussels has ordered a former Belgian lawmaker to visit five Nazi concentration camps and write about his experiences as punishment for publicly denying the Holocaust, a crime in Belgium, The Washington Post, 9/25/2017, https ://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/25/holocaust-denier-ordered-to-visit-concentration-camps-and-write-about-them/?hpid=hp_hp-morning-mix_mm-denier%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=. 1407690b9873
http://www.jpost.com/HttpHandlers/ShowImage.ashx?ID=21
“Will cementing peace continue?”
Israeli "skunk" fouls West Bank protests http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/03/us-israel-palestinians-skunk-idUSBRE88208W20120903
(Reuters) - Imagine taking a chunk of rotting corpse from a stagnant sewer, placing it in a blender and spraying the filthy liquid in your face. Your gag reflex goes off the charts and you can't escape, because the nauseating stench persists for days.
This is "skunk", a fearsome but non-lethal tool in Israel's arsenal of weapons for crowd control. It comes in armored tanker trucks fitted with a cannon that can spray a jet of stinking fluid over crowds who know how to cope with plain old tear gas.
While the army calls skunk an attempt to minimize casualties, rights groups dismiss it as a fig-leaf for the use of deadlier force against protesters in the occupied West Bank.
IDF legal adviser: Detention of 5-year-old Palestinian boy was legitimate
The Israel Defense Forces' detention of a five-year-old Palestinian boy in Hebron earlier this month was a legitimate step in order to “thwart the threat posed by the activities of a minor,” the IDF’s legal adviser in the West Bank has ruled. Haaretz, July 31, 2013, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.538995
Israel’s connection to Ukraine crisis
[Ukraine and surrounding countries are the original homeland countries of the overwhelming majority of contemporary Jews, including almost all Israeli prime ministers and presidents]
The ex-Israeli soldier who led a Kiev fighting unit
'Delta' has headed 'the Blue Helmets of Maidan' of 40 men and women - including several IDF veterans - in violent clashes with government forces--- Haaretz, 2/28/2014, http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.577114
‘Death to Jews’ graffiti sprayed on Crimean synagogue -- JTA, 2/28/2014, http://www.jta.org/2014/02/28/news-opinion/world/death-to-jews-graffiti-sprayed-on-crimean-synagogue
Russia supports Syria against Israel and its allies
Crimea
Autonomous republic within Ukraine
Transferred from Russia in 1954
Ethnic Russians - 58.5%*
Ethnic Ukrainians - 24.4%*
Crimean Tatars - 12.1%*
****************************************
Russia supplies discounted natural gas to Ukraine and Ukraine allows Russia to station:
161 aircraft at Kasha and Gvardeyska airbases
388 warships and other vessels in Ukraine’s waters
25,000 officers and sailors at Sevastopol and Feodosia
BBC, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26387353
Delta, the nom de guerre of the Jewish commander of a Ukrainian street-fighting unit, is pictured in Kiev earlier this month. Photo by Courtesy
Russia's Black Sea Fleet has its historic base at Sevastopol
John McCain addresses Ukrainian protesters in Kiev:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93eyhO8VTdg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlbN2GEYW9w
Bernard Henri Levy en Ukraine en 2014 -VS- Brzezinski en Afghanistan en 1970. Similitude?
Jewish mogul Vadim Rabinovich running for Ukraine presidency
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27308526
Ukrainian president taps Jewish politician to be next prime minister
Jerusalem Post, 4/13/2016, http://m.jpost.com/Diaspora/Ukrainian-president-taps-Jewish-politician-to-be-next-prime-minister-451215#article=6017QzE5NEI0OTNDRDk0QThBN0Q3NjYxQTM3NkIyNzFFQ0E=
The Jews who said 'no’ to Putin In Ukraine they categorically deny the Russian propaganda that they are under threat, and directly address Putin and his credibility as a protector of the Jews and other minorities. By Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz, 3/14/2014, http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/jerusalem-babylon /.premium-1.579733
“Ukrainian Jews have got to be the most frustrating Jewish community to cover as a journalist, and that’s saying a lot. No one knows how many of them there really are; their numbers range from 70,000 in official censuses to anywhere around 500,000 or more according to unofficial assessments. At least three men claim to be the chief rabbi of Ukraine and at least four national organizations claim to represent and speak on behalf of the country’s Jews. Their identities are complex: Ukrainian citizens, Russian speakers, holders of Israeli and American passports and owners of homes in Geneva and London. And that’s before we get to the many Ukrainians who are rumored to be at least part Jewish but would never identify themselves as such.”
Wounded Ukrainian protesters airlifted to Israel for medical treatment
A wounded individual is transported to a waiting plane, where he will be flown to Israel to receive medical care. (Shimon Briman)
TEL AVIV (JTA) – For 17-year-old Bolodimir Bedyuk, a Ukrainian who was severely wounded in clashes with Ukrainian police on Feb. 18, Israeli medical care may be his only hope.
After a pitched battle with Ukrainian police forces on Institutskaya Street in Kiev, Bedyuk suffered chest wounds and extensive liver damage — his brother Aleksei said Bolodimir’s liver “was torn practically in half.” In that confrontation, Ukrainian police forces advanced with automatic weapons on protesters, leaving dozens dead. Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 3/7/2014, http://www.jta.org/2014/03/07/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/wounded-ukrainian-protesters-airlifted-to-israel-for-medical-treatment
ADL survey: More than a quarter of the world is anti-Semitic JTA, By Uriel Heilman, 5/13/2014, http://www.jta.org/2014/05/13/news-opinion/world/survey-more-than-a-quarter-of-the-world-hates-jews
NEW YORK (JTA) – A lot of people around the world hate the Jews.
That’s the main finding of the Anti-Defamation League’s largest-ever worldwide survey of anti-Semitic attitudes.
The survey, released Tuesday, found that 26 percent of those polled — representing approximately 1.1 billion adults worldwide — harbor deeply anti-Semitic views. More than 53,000 people were surveyed in 102 countries and territories covering approximately 86 percent of the world’s population.
“Our findings are sobering but, sadly, not surprising,” ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said at a news conference Tuesday morning at ADL’s national headquarters in New York. “The data clearly indicates that classic anti-Semitic canards defy national, cultural, religious and economic boundaries.”
Among the survey’s key findings:
• Some 70 percent of those considered anti-Semitic said they have never met a Jew. Overall, 74 percent of respondents said they had never met a Jew…
• Thirty-five percent of those surveyed had never heard of the Holocaust. Of those who had, roughly one-third said it is either a myth or greatly exaggerated.
• The most anti-Semitic region in the world is the Middle East and North Africa, with 74 percent harboring anti-Semitic views. Eastern Europe was second at 34 percent. The least anti-Semitic region was Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) at 14 percent.
• The three countries outside the Middle East with the highest rates of anti-Semitic attitudes were Greece, at 69 percent, Malaysia at 61 percent and Armenia at 58 percent.
• About 49 percent of Muslims worldwide harbor anti-Semitic views, compared to 24 percent of Christians.
• The West Bank and Gaza were the most anti-Semitic places surveyed, with 93 percent of respondents expressing anti-Semitic views. The Arab country with the lowest level of anti-Semitic views was Morocco, at 80 percent. Iran ranked as the least anti-Semitic country in the Middle East, at 56 percent.
• The least anti-Semitic country overall was Laos, where 0.2 percent of the population holds anti-Semitic views. The Philippines, Sweden, the Netherlands and Vietnam all came in at 6 percent or lower.
• Approximately 9 percent of Americans and 14 percent of Canadians harbor anti-Semitic attitudes.
• Thirty-four percent of respondents older than 65 were deemed anti-Semitic, compared to 25 percent of those younger than 65. Men polled were slightly more anti-Semitic than women.
“The ADL’s Global 100 index will serve as a baseline,” Foxman said. “For the first time we have a real sense of how pervasive and persistent anti-Semitism is today around the world.”
The survey gauged anti-Semitism by asking whether respondents agreed with an index of 11 statements that the ADL believes suggest anti-Jewish bias: Jews talk too much about what happened to them during the Holocaust; Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the countries they live in; Jews think they are better than other people; Jews have too much power in international financial markets; Jews have too much power in the business world; Jews have too much control over global affairs; people hate Jews because of the way Jews behave; Jews have too much control over the U.S. government; Jews have too much control over global media; Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars; Jews don’t care about what happens to anyone but their own kind.
Respondents who agreed that a majority of the statements are “probably true” were deemed anti-Semitic.
Over the years, the ADL has been criticized for overstating what qualifies as anti-Semitism, with critics suggesting that some of the statements used to measure bias actually are more indicative of admiration for Jews than anti-Jewish hostility.
Palestinian children play in a damaged building with a swastika and the Star of David painted on it in a Gaza refugee camp in 2005. (Abid Katib/Getty Images)
The Jewish Question of integration (assimilation) versus separation (Zionism*) continues to persist despite:
Over 100 years of Jewish emancipation in Europe
Nearly 100 years of Jewish emancipation in Russia
Over 100 of effective Jewish lobbying in America
Over 60 years of Jewish statehood in the Arab world
*Zionism refers more specifically to the international colonial movement designed to make Palestine an extraterritorial nation-state for world Jewry.
The Jewish Question continues to haunt and preoccupy the Jews themselves, the Europeans, the Russians, the Arabs and the Americans
Jewish integration
Jewish separation
Jewish assimilation
Jewish emigration
Anti-Semitism
The State of Israel
The Israel lobby
The Essence of the Jewish Question Integration versus separation
Israel defines itself as the Jewish State
Israel defines itself as the State of the Jews
Israel regards itself as the work of the whole Jewish people
Israel speaks and acts on behalf of world Jewry
Israel considers itself the center of Jewish loyalty
Israel treats its friends and enemies on behalf of the Jews
Israel prosecutes Nazis & collects reparations on behalf of Jews
Israel gets tremendous support from world Jewry
Israel imports Jews from almost all countries around the world
Israel’s Law of “Return” is taken for granted by most Jews
Israel relies heavily on Jewish foreign lobbies and sayanim
Israel does not consider its non-Jewish citizens as nationals
Israel is designed specifically for Jews living in it and in other countries
The fine line between criticizing Israel and anti-Semitism: Only Jews are allowed to speak of the effect lobbying and political donations have on U.S. policy in the Middle East; all others are dabbling in anti-Semitism, says former Knesset Member Einat Wilf. Haaretz, 10/31/2013, http ://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/. premium-1.555468
Think critically about how one can/should talk about the State of Israel without talking about the Jews or without being open to the charge of anti-Semitism
Currently there is a political debate about ‘granting’ all the Jews in the world the right to vote in Israeli elections.
Haaretz, 7/10/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/moshe-kantor-s-house-of-lords-1.238607
The Essence of the Jewish Question Integration versus separation
The Israeli Knesset enacted the Zionist Organization Status Law (5 December 1952) which declares that “The State of Israel regards itself as the work of the whole Jewish people…Under this law, the job of the State of Israel and the Zionist movement “calls for continuous efforts by the Jewish people in the countries of the Diaspora.”--David Ben-Gurion, Israel: a personal history, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1971, page 409.
David Ben Gurion wrote: “I believe that every Jew belongs to the Jewish people, and only to the Jewish people.”…“the moral greatness of Zionism in Germany and the other countries of Western Europe lay in the fact that by the force of the Zionist ideology it succeeded in uprooting many Jews from the German, French, or Italian worlds in which they had been immersed since the Emancipation.” --David Ben Gurion, “Zionism and Pseudo-Zionism,” in Carol Diament, ed., Zionism: The Sequel, New York: Hadessa, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc., 1998, pp. 45-49, pages 46-47.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, Jewish Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann wrote a letter to the British prime minister in which he declared that the Jews [implying clearly all Jews] will "stand by" Great Britain in the war:
“Dear Prime Minister, In this hour of supreme crisis, the consciousness that the Jews have a contribution to make to the defence of sacred values impels me to write this letter. I wish to confirm, in the most explicit manner, the declarations which I and my colleagues have made during the last months, and especially in the last week: that the Jews ‘stand by Great Britain and will fight on the side of the democracies.’ Our urgent desire is to give effect to these declarations. We wish to do so in a way entirely consonant with the general scheme of British action, and therefore would place ourselves, in matters big and small, under the co-ordinating direction of His Majesty’s Government. The Jewish Agency is ready to enter into immediate arrangements for utilizing Jewish manpower, technical ability, resources, etc. The Jewish Agency has recently had differences in the political field with the Mandatory Power. We would like these differences to give way before the greater and more pressing necessities of the time. We ask you to accept this declaration in the spirit in which it is made.” Mrs Edgar Dugdale, The Balfour Declaration: Origins and Background, Published by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, 77, Great Russell Street, London, W.C.1. March, 1940, page 31.
The “American Jewish Question”
Editorial Page Editor Saul Singer carefully reported that an American Jewish Committee panel “distilled” what he called the “Jewish predicament” or the “American Jewish Question” in these terms:
“We as a people remain ensconced in exile like a bug trapped in sap and may not survive if we cannot extricate ourselves”---Saul Singer
The Jerusalem Post (5/12/2006) and The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California (5/19/2006)
In November 2013, the State of Israel continues to combat rising Jewish assimilation---Sam Sokol, "Israel enters battle against assimilation at American Jewry conference," The Jerusalem Post, 11/10/2013, http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Israel-enters-battle-against-assimilation-at-American-Jewry-conference-331194
‘Up, Up and Away’ for North American Jews
American and Canadian Jews resumed their annual one-way trek to Israel Wednesday morning, with 232 new immigrants arriving on the first of nearly a dozen flights that will bring 2,500 Jews to their new home this summer [2010]. IsraelNationalNews.com, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138476
What’s your idea to save U.S. Jewry?
The recent Pew survey showing American Jews assimilating in droves has prompted deep concern for the future of our community. But maybe we’re just a few good ideas away from reversing those negative trends. We want to hear your strategies for stemming the tide of American Jewish disengagement. Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 10/10/2013, http://www.jta.org/2013/10/10/news-opinion/united-states/whats-your-idea-to-save-u-s-jewry
Netanyahu halts distribution of 'loyalty' poll to U.S. Jews, Israeli expats Haaretz, 10/27/2013, http:// www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.554651
Netanyahu halts distribution of 'loyalty' poll to U.S. Jews, Israeli expats
Prime minister's order follows Haaretz report of questionnaire being distributed in America asking respondents to indicate where their allegiance would lie in case of Israeli-U.S. crisis. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday ordered Israel’s immigrant absorption and foreign ministries to cease distribution of a controversial questionnaire already sent to tens of thousands of Israelis living in the United States and Jewish Americans, asking them to indicate where their allegiance would lie in the...
Israel suspends plan for building database of US Jewish students---"The idea is to set up a database of all Jewish students in the United States (some 350,000 students) and to map daily all the Jewish/Israel events taking place on campuses", i24News, 10/16/2017, https:// www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/157830-171016-israel-suspends-plan-for-building-database-of-us-jewish-students
Israel asks U.S. Jews, Israelis: Where do your loyalties lie?
PM orders ministries to stop distributing the survey, which asks questions about dual allegiance and the Jewish lobby in America. Two sensitive and potentially explosive issues have always clouded the relationship between the Jewish community in the United States and the State of Israel. The first relates to claims of “dual allegiance” to both Israel and the United States; the other concerns the pro-Israel, American “Jewish lobby.” Haaretz, 10/27/2013, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.554541
Israeli-American Council Opens Vegas Office for Growing Israeli Population
The Israeli-American Council has established an office in Las Vegas as part of a drive to expand from its Los Angeles base to U.S. cities with major concentrations of Israeli expatriates. Miriam Adelson, born in Haifa and wife of billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson, is chair of the new IAC Las Vegas regional council established this week. Inauguration of the Las Vegas office follows on the heels of similar openings in Miami and Boston... Estimates of the number of Israelis and their children in the United States vary widely, from a likely 500,000 to IAC’s figure of 800,000. http://forward.com/articles/195938/israeli-american-council-opens-vegas-office-for-gr/?
Where does ‘Russian’ tycoon Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor’s loyalty really lie?
Viatcheslav Moshe Kantor:
Is President of the European Jewish Congress
Is President of the Russian Jewish Congress
Is President of Russia's largest fertilizer company (Acron agrochemical company)
Is President of the World Holocaust Forum Foundation
Is Chairman of the European Jewish Fund
Is Co-Chairman of the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation
Holds Israeli citizenship and splits his time between Israel and Switzerland
Holds Honorary Doctorate from Tel-Aviv University
Compares his position in Russia to Joseph's in Egypt & Esther's in Persia
Grant Slater, “Kantor: European Jewry has bigger problems than Russian Jewry,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 2/12/2009, http://jta.org/news/article/2009/02/12/1002981/russian-jewry-chief-stepping-down-to-focus-on-europes-woes
President [Kantor]’s Page, European Jewish Congress, 1/16/2009, http://www.eurojewcong.org/ejc/section.php?id_rubrique=97
Amiram Barkat, “Putin ally is frontrunner to head European Jewish Congress ,” Haaretz, 6/23/2007, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/873804.html
Some polls indicate that 82 to 85 percent of American Jews support Israel
According to a poll commissioned by The Israel Project (a pro-Israel public advocacy group) and conducted by pollster Frank Luntz, among the 800 American Jews that took part in the survey, 82% said they support Israel---Jerusalem Post, 1 December 2005.
According to a survey, commissioned by Stand for Israel, a project of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, polled 1200 Americans, with an oversampling of Jews and Evangelicals, and found that 85 percent of Jews expressed support for Israel, as did 62 percent of "conservative church-going Christians“----Carl Schrag, “American Jews and Evangelical Christians: Anatomy of a Changing Relationship,” Jewish Political Studies Review 17:1-2 (Spring 2005)
According to Reuven Firestone, “most observant Jews now support Zionism and the State of Israel with great enthusiasm… the Orthodox see the secular Zionists as unknowingly doing God’s will by beginning the process of ultimate redemption”---- Reuven Firestone, Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Judaism for Muslims, A publication of the Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Institute for International Interreligious Understanding of the American Jewish Committee in association with Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 2001, page 141.
Europe's Jews get a political lobby THE JERUSALEM POST, 10/18/2009 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1255694829571&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
BRUSSELS - Europe once had 80 to 90 percent of the world's Jews, until the 20th century's calamities brutally cut that figure down to the current estimate of 10%. Two very different societies - Israel and the United States - have replaced Europe as home of the major centers of Jewish life.
But Europe's Jews are apparently no longer satisfied with accepting this verdict of history. They are increasingly organized and increasingly vocal. And now they have a lobby.
The inauguration in Brussels of a new branch office of the European Jewish Congress last week marks a dramatic development in European Jewish political activism, believes EJC president Moshe Kantor.
"In Europe we see both too much tolerance" - for example, toward the Iranian regime's genocidal ambitions - "and too little" when it comes to Europe's religious and ethnic minorities, Kantor says.
The office in Brussels will be charged with "triggering important processes in legislation, legal issues and research to advance tolerance. The goal is not to talk about tolerance, but to [engage] in a wide spectrum of real action," he adds.
According to Raya Kalenova, the director of the new office, it will also focus on "educating against anti-Semitism and for reconciliation between the three great monotheistic religions."
The message of the new Jewish presence in the heartland of European government "is that Europe's Jews are European citizens with European values," Kalenova explains.
The opening of the Brussels office on Wednesday seemed to suggest the organization already possessed the ability to reach the highest echelons of European politics. In attendance at the celebratory cocktail reception and dinner were Europe's most senior officials, including European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, Commission Vice President for Justice, Freedom and Security Jacques Barrot, and some 50 MEPs.
Israel also sent a high-ranking representative, in the person of National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau.
According to observers, however, it is too early to tell whether the new office will be influential or significant.
A comparison with the United States may be instructive, some argued. Mainstream American Jewish organizations maintain lobbies in Washington, but rarely are they influential if they don't represent the broad consensus of American Jews.
Among the most powerful of the Jewish advocacy lobbies is the Washington office of the Jewish Federations of North America, which is focused almost exclusively on making US tax policy favorable to charitable giving. This is because American Jewish life does not exist outside its non-profit institutions, which include all its synagogues, schools, old-age homes and charities.
Also in keeping with the wide consensus of the American Jewish community, Jewish groups in Washington have been instrumental in developing civil rights legislation and in advocating in broad terms for American support for Israeli security. But they shy away from dealing with issues that lack an overwhelming Jewish consensus, such as the Afghan deployment, sex education or international trade policy.
What, one might ask, are the consensus issues of European Jewry?
Asked about the European Jewish "constituency," Yossi Lempkowicz, founder of the European Jewish Press, a pan-European news agency based in Belgium, noted that it is not easy to pin down such issues of consensus.
"Europe's Jews are citizens of Europe," he says. "They care about many different issues as Europeans," not in clearly defined Jewish blocs.
"For example, there is disagreement on the question of the expansion of Europe, or on [the rights of states to limit the wearing of] the Muslim veil," he says.
Furthermore, domestic issues affecting the daily life of Europe's Jews - taxation, law enforcement, regulations on religious life - are not handled at the European level, but in each country's national institutions.
An even greater obstacle to European Jews' ability to conduct political advocacy is their extreme diversity. One may fairly ask if Jewish Latvians, Belgians and Italians can really share an overarching agenda that can be represented in pan-European institutions.
In a sense, this question of a Jewish agenda for Europe is a microcosm of the larger question of European identity.
What does it mean to be "European?" asked one attendee at the reception. Is this an authentic popular identity or, as some complain, an invention by activist bureaucrats?
Another layer of complexity lies in the EJC's own structure, which is also the umbrella for many communities outside the EU, including Russia, Macedonia and Norway. Can EJC Brussels have a position on EU-Russian energy spats? Or can it oppose Russia's Iran policy within EU institutions without harming the political situation of the Russian Jewish organizations ostensibly represented in the Brussels office?
All these issues will have to be resolved in the new office's first months of operation. It is not likely to be an easy task, and there are no guarantees of success.
Yet, according to many participants, the mere existence of the new office is a telling symbol of a nascent European Jewish consciousness that is emerging alongside the development of a broader European identity.
New European Jewish parliament riles existing European Jewish leaders
BERLIN (JTA) -- A new European Jewish parliament is set to open in Brussels this week, the brainchild of two businessmen philanthropists on a mission to shake up the status quo.
Igor Kolomoisky and Vadim Rabinovich, the Ukrainian Jewish moguls behind the body, founded the European Jewish Union last spring and will fete their new parliament in ceremonies at the EU Parliament on Thursday. According to their invitation, 120 Jewish members of parliament have been chosen by 403,810 voters from all over Europe.
But who are these representatives? And what exactly will they do? That remains a mystery.
Among the candidates in the elections were soccer star David Beckham, filmmaker Roman Polanski, comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen and fashion designer Diane von Furstenburg, as well as other famous and less-famous European Jews -- many of whom never expressed an interest in running and didn’t know anything about the planned parliament.
Toby Axelrod, “New European Jewish parliament riles existing European Jewish leaders,” JTA, February 14, 2012, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/02/14/3091671/new-european-jewish-parliament-riles-existing-european-jewish-leaders
European Jewish Parliament Convenes for Second Day: European Parliament Holds Panel Discussions http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQdqI5uC3C4
May 17, 2012 In the command center of pan-European politics, the European Jewish Parliament convened for a second day... At the European Parliament, panel discussions were held on the economic crisis in Europe and its impact on extremism, populism and anti-semitism... Dr. Antonyia Parvanova, a member of the European Parliament from Bulgaria, moderated... Parvanova says she and her colleagues are aware that baseless hatred for Jews is rearing its ugly head again in violent acts, in anti-Israeli sentiment and in politics... Igor Kolomoisky, the President of the European Jewish Union, was the guiding light behind the first-ever Parliament for Jews and forging ties with other European leaders is one of its priorities. The European Jewish Parliament was modeled in some ways after the European Parliament. Its members are elected osein contrast to how other Jewish leaders in Europe are chosen which is usually by those inside existing organizations. The European Jewish Parliament hopes its system can attract young, unaffiliated Jews with fresh ideas. A Jewish woman from Washington joined the EJP's meetings...but she's not an American working for President Obama or Republican candidate Mitt Romney...Her boss is King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain... Hoodah Nunu is the Bahraini Ambassador to the US, a Jewish woman who represents her Muslim country. EJP members also expressed hope that they can help build bridges between Jews and Muslims wherever they clash. Nunu's colleague -- the Bahraini Ambassador to the EU -- attended the panel discussions. Tomorrow these new Jewish reps of Europe will head back to their home countries after two days of sharing ideas, solutions and meeting like-minded politicians. Jordana Miller, JN1, Brussels
British scholar and political analyst Dr. Rodney Shakespeare: Zionists control British government’s policy http :// www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/08/03/478345/Israel-UK-Zionism-Daesh-Saudi-Arabia-Saddam
Historical Background: Theological and commercial interest in European Jews began to emerge with the Reformation and Mercantilism
The Protestants were interested in the Jews
as ammunition against the Catholics
as leaders of the interest-based economy
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2.pdf
Hannah Arendt states in The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) that the key to understanding “the rise and fall of the Jews” is “the relationship between Jews and the state.” Historically, in response to the hostile attitudes and actions of their neighbors, Jews frequently sought the protection of the state. As Ginsberg argues in The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State, for their own purposes, rulers often were happy to accommodate the Jews in exchange for their services, resulting in “the rise to great power by Jewish elites, but creating conditions for their subsequent fall.” Eric Walberg, Geopolitics and the Great Games, Clarity Press, 2011, pages 161-162.
Theological and commercial interest in European Jews began to emerge with the Reformation and Mercantilism
Martin Luther’s Jewish-friendly writings
Oliver Cromwell’s readmission of the Jews
The quasi-Judaization of the Puritans
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2.pdf
German Martin Luther’s Jewish-friendly pamphlet: “That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew” 1523
“I will cite from Scripture the reasons that move me to believe that Christ was a Jew born of a virgin, that I might perhaps also win some Jews to the Christian faith... Accordingly, I beg my dear papists, should they be growing weary of denouncing me as a heretic, to seize the opportunity of denouncing me as a Jew.”
Source: Luther, Martin., The Christian in Society II, ed. Walther Sherman.Vol. 45 of Luther’s Works, ed. Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1971, pp. 200-201.
English-Dutch trade wars and Cromwell’s invitation of Amsterdam Jewish merchants (1650s)
Oliver Cromwell invited Amsterdam Jewish merchants to London in order to strengthen England in its trade war against Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands, whose Jewish communities were known for their wealth, commercial skills, and business contacts abroad.
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2.pdf
French Zionism & Napoleon’s Attempt to Estrange the Jews from their European & Ottoman Rulers
French National Assembly boosted Jewish emancipation (12/24/1789)
Napoleon Bonaparte’s Jewish “Proclamation” promised Palestine to the Jews (1799)
Emperor Napoleon I summoned representatives to the Jewish Great Sanhedrin in Paris (1807)
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2.pdf
In reaction to Napoleon’s Great Sanhedrin in Paris (1807), the British established the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews (1809)
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2.pdf
The British reinvented Napoleon’s Zionist idea and linked the Eastern Question and the Jewish Question
“That which Napoleon designed in his violence and ambition, thinking “to destroy nations not a few,” we may wisely and legitimately undertake for the maintenance of our Empire”
Alexander Crawford Lindsay (Lord Lindsay), “Letters on Egypt, Edom, and the Holy Land,” The Quarterly Review 125 (Dec.):166–92, 1838, pages 188-190.
Britain Stations a Vice-Consul in Jerusalem (1838)
“…his residence will be fixed at Jerusalem, but his jurisdiction will extend to the whole country within the ancient limits of the Holy Land; he is thus accredited, as it were, to the former kingdom of David and the Twelve Tribes.”---Quarterly Review of 1838
“The soil and climate of Palestine are singularly adapted to the growth of produce required for the exigencies of Great Britain”
“The soil and climate of Palestine are singularly adapted to the growth of produce required for the exigencies of Great Britain; the finest cotton may be obtained in almost unlimited abundance; silk and madder are the staple of the country, and oil-olive is now, as it ever was, the very fatness of the land. Capital and skill are alone required: the presence of a British officer, and the increased security of property which his presence will confer, may invite them [the Jews] from these islands to the cultivation of Palestine” Alexander Crawford Lindsay (Lord Lindsay), “Letters on Egypt, Edom, and the Holy Land,” The Quarterly Review 125 (Dec.):166–92, 1838, pages 188-190.
British Zionism opposed assimilation and preached separation for the Jews
An article in The Times of 24 January 1839 attacked the idea of assimilation and naturalization (“amalgamation”) of the Jews, of whom Numbers 23:9 says: “the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations”
In 1972, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir declared that in her view when a Jew marries a non-Jewess he joins the six million victims of Nazism--Shlomo Sand, Comment le people juif fut inventé, Paris: Fayard, 2008, page 402.
Jewish assimilation is referred to in today’s Israeli media as “la bombe a retardement de l’assimilation” [the time-bomb of assimilation] Sand, p 402
The London Memorandum on the Restoration of the Jews (1839)
The Memorandum “urges upon the consideration of the powers addressed what may be the probable line of duty on the part of Protestant Christendom to the Jewish people in the present controversy in the East.”
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2.pdf
British Colonel Charles Churchill’s letter to Moses Montefiore and Western Jewry (1841)
“MY DEAR SIR MOSES…I cannot conceal from you my most anxious desire to see your countrymen endeavour once more to resume their existence as a people. I consider the object to be perfectly attainable. But, two things are indispensably necessary. Firstly, that the Jews will themselves take up the matter universally and unanimously. Secondly, that the European Powers will aid them in their views. It is for the Jews to make a commencement. Let the principal persons of their community place themselves at the head of the movement. Let them meet, concert and petition. In fact the agitation must be simultaneously throughout Europe.
Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2.pdf
[British] Lieutenant-Colonel Gawler's Tranquilization of Syria and the East: Observations and practical suggestions, in furtherance of the establishment of Jewish Colonies in Palestine, the most sober and sensible remedy for the miseries of Asiatic Turkey (1845) “Reduced to its practical form the question [of the tranquillization of Syria] becomes one of colonization [of Palestine]. There is a fertile country, nine-tenths of which lies desolate. Elsewhere, are civilized men, for whom it is desired to make of that almost forsaken country, an established home. For successful colonization three things are, in the highest degree, indispensable. The probability of safe settlement in the colony—the facility of transit to it—and the will, or the obligation to embrace these opportunities. … On any other principle, the will of the proposed settler would be wanting. No members of the Jewish persuasion, worth sending to Palestine, would accept the boon so tauntingly proffered. We cannot, if we would, force them into colonization as convicts, under the moving agency of compulsory obligation, and must therefore carefully consult their feelings as well as our own desires” Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2.p
Thomas Clarke’s India and Palestine: or, the Restoration of the Jews, viewed in relation to the nearest route to India (1861)
Thomas Clarke attempted to prove that the restoration of the Jews to Palestine “was not only a Prophetical but Political necessity.” With such a project, “England need have no fear of her darling Indian possessions.” Like his Zionist predecessors, he believed that planting Jews in Palestine would be inexpensive for the British, would serve British imperial interests, and would deny access to Britain’s rival powers.
Source: T. Clarke, India and Palestine, or the Restoration of the Jews viewed in Relation to the Nearest Route to India: In two parts, with a map, Manchester: William Bremner & CO., 11, Market Street; London: F. Pitman, 20 Paternoster Row, 1861, pages 1-2.
The Zionist novel Daniel Deronda (1876) By George Eliot (the pen name of Mary Ann Evans)
Daniel Deronda tries to pull out the “Semite” Jew from the “German” and the “Sclave” of Europe as one pulls a hair out of dough. This novel raised awareness about a new racial realignment and could indeed be viewed as another major milestone on the road to the anti-Jewish “agitation” of the late nineteenth century in Europe and Russia
The Jews Did Not Invent Zionism. Rather Zionism Invented the Jews
“During the Reformation and mercantilist era, Protestants were interested in the Jews as ammunition against the Catholics and as leaders of the interest-based rising capitalist sector. Martin Luther’s Jewish-friendly writings in 1523, Oliver Cromwell’s readmission of the Jews to England in 1655, and the quasi-Judaization of the Puritans are graphic examples. With the Industrial Revolution and the European Enlightenment, Napoleon boosted the emancipation of the Jews in an attempt to estrange them from their European and Ottoman rulers as part of his unsuccessful plans to destroy the power of England and Russia and dominate Europe. After Napoleon, the British articulated a complex set of imperialist and religious motives designed to make the Eastern Question fit the Jewish Question. Obviously all of this took place before the alleged founder of Zionism (Theodor Herzl) was born in 1860, as well as before anti-Semitism was encouraged as a propelling machine for Zionism.” Source: Mohameden Ould-Mey, “The Non-Jewish Origin of Zionism,” International Journal of the Humanities 1(1):591-610, 2005, http://faculty.isuad.indstate.edu/mouldmey/The%20Non-Jewish%20Origin%20of%20Zionism2.p
"Great exertions will hardly be necessary to spur on the movement. Anti-Semites provide the requisite impetus. They need only do what they did before, and then they will create a desire to emigrate where it did not previously exist, and strengthen it where it existed before." Source: Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State, 1896, http:// www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-jewish-state-quot-theodor-herzl
“You can’t build a cultural heritage on a lie”
Hebrew University Professor of History Yehoshua Porath was quoted: “You can’t build a cultural heritage on a lie. Because when young people discover the truth, they can become cynical” ---Fletcher E R (1995) ‘New’ Israeli History Gets Reviewed in the U.S. Press. Middle East Labor Bulletin (Spring):16
The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology
Anonymous. Arab Studies Quarterly; London35.3 (Summer 2013): 333-334.
The Genealogical Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology by Nadia Abu El-Haj is reviewed.
This work critically explores the genomic practices that increasingly inform and reconfigure the past focusing primarily on analyzing the construction of genomic past in researching the Jewish origin... Abu El-Haj analyzes the implications of the work and its cultural and political effects. It is also richly perceptive about the epistemological, political, and cultural presuppositions of the scientific work itself. It discusses how human population genetics not only reproduces existing concepts of race and creates new ones, but also how it biologizes notions of human diversity... Abu El-Haj 's book examines three distinct moments in science and politics: race science, circa 1900, population genetics, circa 1950, and genetic history starting in the 1990s. Abu Al-Haj "analyzes studies undertaken by European and American Jewish scientists at the turn of twentieth century on the racial composition of the Jews." This, she argues, "fashioned a particular and ultimately enduring understanding of Jewish peoplehood, which articulated fundamental hurdles to be overcome for a new Hebrew nation and individual to be born" (4). Next, Abu El-Haj analyzes the work of Israeli population genetics in the 1950s and 1960s after the establishment of the state. Abu El-Haj reads this work "as expressing a desire - indeed, a need - to find 'content' for the a priori nationalist belief in the fact of Jewish peoplehood." Finally, and the central quest of the book, Abu El-Haj explores genetic history projects "to identify the origins of contemporary Jewry that have been carried out, by and large, by self identified Jewish scientists." In this section, she pays special attention to the "nexus of epistemological commitments, epistemic objects, the commerce in ancestry testing, and the making of genetic historical selves" (4)... The final and concluding part, "The Things We Carry: History through the Molecular Optics" (2 1 9-247), goes beyond the earlier arguments about "epistemological politics of contemporary studies in genetic history" and considers the implications of "treating the DNA as a 'history book' for our understandings of both 'history' and of its relationship to the self."
Bennett Greenspan: Your Jewish Identity (July 13, 2012) , https :// www.youtube.com/watch?v=O42hXF6RB3U
Crowd Sourced Genealogy and Direct-to-Consumer DNA Testing: Implications for the Jewish People, http:// jppi.org.il/uploads/Crowd_Sourced_Genealogy_and_Direct-to-Consumer_DNA_Testing-Implications_for_the_Jewish_People.pdf
How DNA Testing Can Reveal Jewish Ancestry, Bolster Zionist Narrative, Breaking Israel News, 10/15/2017, https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/22424/dna-testing-can-reveal-jewish-ancestry-bolster-zionist-narrative /
In Search of the Origin of the Jews
For a long time, the biblical narrative held sway. Now scholars seek to distinguish historical fact from religious myth—if it is possible to do so.
Can we grasp the essence of something by laying bare its origins? “An origin is not just a beginning,” Steven Weitzman writes, “it is a ‘beginning that explains.’ ” In “The Origin of the Jews,” Mr. Weitzman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, aims to find one nation’s elusive starting point. “The Jews have one of the longest and most intensively studied histories of any population on earth,” he notes, “but the beginning of their history, how it is that the Jews came to be, remains surprisingly unsettled.” WSJ, 7/10/2017, https:// www.wsj.com/articles/in-search-of-the-origin-of-the-jews-1499726881
At the outset of this nearly 400-page book, the author asked the core question about “the origin that connects all Jews into a single people, religion, or community; the very beginning of their collective story” p. 1
Towards the end of the book, the author came full circle and asked: “Is there a way for scholars and scientists to truly progress in the search to understand the origin of the Jews when there is more than one way to think about the question and no possibility of reconciling the different perspectives [anthropologists versus geneticists].” p. 316
2017
Sand's account dissects the concept of 'historical right' and tracks the invention of the modern geopolitical concept of the 'Land of Israel' by nineteenth century Evangelical Protestants and Jewish Zionists. This invention, he argues, not only facilitated the colonization of the Middle East and the establishment of the State of Israel; it is also what is threatening the existence of the Jewish state today. Amazon.com
Exploding the myth that there was a forced Jewish exile in the first century at the hands of the Romans, Israeli historian Shlomo Sand argues that most modern Jews descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Amazom.com
2010
2012
The Non-Semitic Origins of Contemporary Jews The “Semitic” ancestry and “inheritance” claimed by Zionism and Israel in the name of contemporary Jews have been questioned, rejected, and exposed by many scholars, including:
Hungarian Ashkenazi Jew Arthur Koestler in his book The Thirteenth Tribe: The Khazar Empire and its Heritage
Egyptian writer Abd Errahman Shakir in his book Dawlat al-Khazar al-jadidah aw Isra’il (The New Khazar State Or Israel)
British archaeologist Michael Rice in his book False Inheritance: Israel in Palestine and the Search for a Solution
Tel Aviv University Professor Paul Wexler in his four books (a) The Ashkenazic Jews: A Slavo-Turkic People in Search of a Jewish Identity, (b) The Non-Jewish Origins of the Sephardic Jews, (c) Two-tiered Relexification in Yiddish: Jews, Sorbs, Khazars, and the Kiev-Polessian Dialect; (d) Jewish and Non-Jewish Creators of “Jewish” Languages
Lebanese writer Farajullah Salih Deeb in his two books (a) Ettawrat Elarabiya wa Urshleem Elyemeniya (The Arabic Tawrah and the Yemenite Jerusalem) and (b) Kithbat Essamiya wa Haqiqat Elfiniqiya (The Semitic Lie and the Phoenician Truth)
American University of Beirut Professor Kamal Salibi in his book The Bible Came from Arabia
Tel Aviv University Professor Shlomo Sand in his two books: Comment le peuple juif fut inventé: de la Bible au sionisme (How Was the Jewish People Invented), and The Invention of the Land of Israel
The “Semitic” claim was essentially invented and used to ultimately ‘justify’ the dispossession, displacement, and impersonation of the native Muslim/Christian/Arab Palestinians by Jewish settlers in one of the most blatant and arrogant form of ethnic identity theft.
See also “The Non-Semitic Origins of Contemporary Jews” manuscript: http://faculty.indstate.edu/melyassini/NSOCJ.PDF
The Non-Semitic Origins of Contemporary Hebrew
“Eight conclusions follow from this study:
Modern Hebrew is a Slavic language.
Language revival is an impossibility.
The Ashkenazic Jews have a tradition of cyclical partial language shift.
The diglossic relationship between Yiddish and Yiddish whole Hebrew both resembled and differed from other instances of diglossia in Europe
Modern Hebrew is a fusion language in the sense that its Hebrew lexicon comes from two genetic stocks: Semitic and Slavic
The external history of a language provides indispensable clues for the interpretation of the internal history of a language.
The role of children in the development of Modern Hebrew differs from that in other speech communities.
The partial language shift from Yiddish lexicon (of all etymological components, including many hebraisms-aramaisms) to Biblical /Mishnaic Hebrew lexicon has altered the position of Yiddish within the Sprachbund of European languages.”
Paul Wexler, The Schizoid Nature of Modern Hebrew: A Slavic Language in Search of a Semitic Past, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1990, page 99.
Israeli scholar Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi observed: “Israel looks like a place that more often than not replicates the Diaspora malaise through a pervasive feeling of existential insecurity. If Diaspora Jews were insecure, tense and nervous, being in their own homeland was supposed to cure all that. Today, Israelis are recognized as being an extremely tense people, leading a nervous existence. Tourists in Israel note the nervousness of Israelis and the serenity of Arabs, as do Israelis themselves. Most Jews in the world today are still subject to the Jewish condition, and their existence is still abnormal. The Israeli condition, offered as an alternative, is still abnormal, and likely to remain that way. In reaching for its main goal of creating a normal nation-state for the Jewish people, Zionism faced two major political problems. The first was that of redefining and creating the Jews. The second was that of removing the natives of Palestine, so that a new nation-state could be created there. The problem of the natives has led to colonialism and to permanent war” page 213.
“Israel is now a [world] problem and a trap as the Israeli question is heir to the Jewish question.” page 220.
“Justifications for the injustice involved in Zionism have been many and varied. Sometimes what we get are excuses, not justifications. The excuses, which are encountered often enough in our daily lives, usually take the following forms:
Denial— “I didn't do it.”
Reduction— “It wasn’t so bad.”
“Yes, but …” Page 167
Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, Original Sins: Reflections on the History of Zionism and Israel (New York: Olive Branch Press, 1993)
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006)
by
Israeli historian and
political scientist
Ilan Pappe
http://ilanpappe.com/
Israeli historian and political scientist Ilan Pappe describes and documents the planning and execution of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by 11 Jewish settlers sitting in a room beneath Marxist-style posters that carried slogans such as ‘Brothers in Arms:’
“In this building [the Red House in the Jewish settlement of Tel-Aviv], on a cold Wednesday afternoon, 10 March 1948, a group of eleven men, veteran Zionist leaders together with young military Jewish officers, put the final touches to a plan [Plan Dalet] for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.”
“The orders came with a detailed description of the methods to be employed to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centres; setting fire to homes, properties and goods; expulsion; demolition; and, finally, planting mines among the rubble to prevent any of the expelled inhabitants from returning. Each unit was issued with its own list of villages and neighbourhoods as the targets of this master plan.”
“The Faculty Club of Tel-Aviv University is called the Green House. Originally this was the house of the mukhtar of the village of Shaykh Muwannis, but you would never be able to tell that if you were ever invited there to have dinner, or to take part in a workshop on the history of the country or even on the city of Tel-Aviv itself. The menu card of the Faculty Club’s restaurant mentions that the place was built in the nineteenth century and used to belong to a rich man called ‘Shaykh Munis’ –a fictious and faceless person imagined in a fitious, placeless location, as are all the other ‘faceless’ people who once lived in the destroyed village of shaykh Muwannis, on whose ruins Tel-Aviv University built its campus. In other words, the Green House is the epitome of the denial of the Zionists’ master plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine that was finalized not far away along the beach, in Yarkon Street, on the third floor of the Red House. Had the campus of Tel-Aviv University been dedicated to proper academic research, you would have thought that its economists, for example, would have assessed by now the extent of the Palestinian properties lost in the 1948 destruction, providing and inventory that could enable future negotiatiors to start working towards peace and reconciliation.” p. 257
Residents of Syria's besieged Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, south of Damascus, crowded a destroyed street during a food distribution led by the UNRWA, on January 31, 2014.
http://en.alalam.ir/news/1579967
Many of the survivors of the massacre committed by Jewish militias at the Palestinian village of Tantura on May 22, 1948 are among the current residents of the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus. Pappe, The Ethnic cleansing of Palestine, p. 133-137
Palestinian Bedouin feed their animals near the Maale Adumimm Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank
As Jewish settlers move into the desert to make it 'bloom', an ancient way of life is under threat. In Alsra, Catrina Stewart speaks to Arab families on the fault line
Israel's bulldozers vs the Bedouin Arabs
At the top of an unmarked track leading into the small village of Alsra, in the Negev desert, somebody has placed a triangular road sign barring the entry of bulldozers. They will come, nevertheless, for every family in this village has been served with a demolition order by the Israeli authorities
The indigenous Bedouin Arabs have eked out an existence in the desert for generations, but despite being citizens of Israel, their communities do not exist officially. Alsra, and others like it, does not appear on any official map; does not connect to any roads, and does not receive basic services from the state, such as electricity or sewage treatment.
By contrast, Jewish families have been encouraged to settle in this part of the country to make the desert "bloom" and small, gated farming communities – fully serviced with water and electricity – have sprung up close to the Bedouin villages. Belfast Telegraph, 11/4/2011, http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/israels-bulldozers-vs-the-bedouin-arabs-28676938.html
Negev: Bedouin-owned Properties Demolished by Israeli Forces, IMEMC News, 8/19/2016, http ://imemc.org/article/negev-bedouin-owned-properties-demolished-by-israeli-forces /
A Southern Israeli Village's Fate: Bedouin Out, Jews In, Haaretz, 9/8/2017, http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/. premium-1.811082
'This is our land': Protests at plan to remove Bedouins from ancestral villages
Stun grenades, tear gas, flying rocks and a dispute over land – the scene might be familiar, but the players are less so. Used to running battles with Palestinians over territory, Israel is now facing opposition from another group of people who do not want to leave their homes: the Bedouin. In northern Israel, a plan to remove tens of thousands of Bedouins from their ancestral villages and resettle them in specially designed towns is meeting resistance. Israel’s Bedouin do not want to move. And that is increasingly becoming a problem, not only for the Bedouin themselves, but also for the Israeli government, which is behind the unpopular plan. The protests are getting bigger, and they are attracting more attention. Last Thursday, more than 1,000 largely Arab protesters, many of them bused in from towns and cities across the country, held demonstrations against the so-called “Prawer plan”, which, if implemented, will lead to the removal of between 40,000 and 70,000 – depending on who you ask – Bedouin from 35 of their traditional villages. The Independent, 8/7/2013, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/this-is-our-land-protests-at-plan-to-remove-bedouins-from-ancestral-villages-8748966.html
The so-called 'Prawer plan' is being fought in and outside Israel
Palestinian village demolished for the ‘100th time since 2010’
Israel has demolished the Arab village of Al-Araqeeb in the Negev “for the 100th time since July 2010” and the second time since the beginning of Ramadan, locals and activists say. “A large number of Israeli police accompanied with bulldozers stormed the village [on Wednesday] at dawn and demolished all the houses, tents and other facilities,” local activist Aziz Al-Touri told The Middle East Monitor media outlet. Israeli authorities claimed that they leveled the village because it was constructed on state land and didn’t have the necessary building permits… The residents of these villages are full Israeli citizens, but the state doesn’t provide them with water, electricity, infrastructure, or sewage systems. RT, 7/4/2016, https://www.rt.com/news/349419-israel-palestinian-village-demolishion
Bedouins attend Friday prayer under a tent in the Al-Araqib village, located between Beersheba and Rahat in the Israeli Negev desert. © Hazem Bader / AFP
Israel okays 800 new homes in East Jerusalem, West Bank, Times of Israel, 7/4/2016, http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-okays-800-new-housing-units-in-east-jerusalem-surrounding-area /
They came, they razed, they left: A visit to a destroyed Palestinian village The tiny village of Homsa was the latest victims of Israel's systematic policy of destruction of Palestinian homes in the Jordan Rift. Haaretz, 4/12/2014, http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/twilight-zone/.premium-1.585009
Israel is continuing to destroy systematically the villages of shepherds who live in the Jordan Rift. Last week, the Civil Administration demolished Homsa, another tiny Palestinian village. In January, 160 residents of the valley were made homeless; last year, twice as many were left homeless as in the year before.
Report: 75,000 Bedouin in Negev have limited or no running water----Health Ministry does not supervise water quality in the Bedouin villages, yet they pay a higher water rate, report claims. Tens of thousands of Bedouin living in rural Negev communities that the government does not recognize as legal have no running water. Many others have restricted access to water and pay much more for it than other communities, a recent report finds.
Haaretz, 7/6/2014, http://www.haaretz.com/news/national /.premium-1.603248
Israel steps up pace of Bedouin home demolitions
The targeted area, east of Jerusalem, is slated for an expansion of the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim.
The Civil Administration in the West Bank has stepped up demolitions of Bedouin buildings in the E-1 area east of Jerusalem since April. The area is slated for an expansion of the settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim. Haaretz, 9/24/2014, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.617537
Palestinians waiting to cross through the Hawara checkpoint near Nablus. Photo by Nir Kafri. February 11, 2011
Israel has 101 different types of permits governing Palestinian movement
Over the decades permit regimen grows into vast, triple-digit bureaucracy
Haaretz, 12/23/2011, http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-has-101-different-types-of-permits-governing-palestinian-movement-1.403039
Amnesty International warns Israel against use of force in 'Land Day' demonstrations
Amnesty International made a public statement on Saturday strictly warning, "Israel must not use violence to quash Land Day demonstrations on Sunday." The press release made open the organization's fear that Israeli security forces plan to "launch a violent crackdown on planned Palestinian protests."
Israeli Arabs will mark the annual Land Day on Sunday, with protests planned across the country.
The annual event commemorates six Israeli Arabs killed by security forces during riots on March 30, 1976, which were held to protest the state appropriation of Arab land in the Galilee.
Last year protesters around the country numbered in the thousands with many carrying Palestinian flags and chanting “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “with blood and fire, we will liberate al-Aksa,” among other chants.
The Jerusalem Post, 3/30/2014, http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Amnesty-International-warns-Israel-against-use-of-force-in-Land-Day-demonstrations-346859
Child throws stone during Land Day protest Photo: Marc Israel Sellem
A Palestinian woman touches her face after an Israeli border police officer sprayed her with pepper spray during confrontations at a Land Day protest outside Jerusalem's Old City March 30, 2014. REUTERS/Baz Ratner, http://blogs.reuters.com/fullfoc us/2014/04/03/editors-choice-34/#a=6
Land Day
The 1967 Six-Day War:
http:// www.washingtonreport.me/a-pre-planned-war-of-choice.html
http:// www.washingtonreport.me/six-days-in-june.html
http:// www.washingtonreport.me/uss-liberty.html
http:// www.washingtonreport.me/the-golan-heights.html
Stages of Ethnic Cleansing of Muslims and Christians from Palestine by Jewish Settlers:
1948 war: (1) creation of Israel, (2) the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from 13 cities and 600 villages (i.e.., Deir Yassin massacre 4/9-11/1948), and (3) the birth of Palestinian refugees
1967 war: (1) Israel occupied all of Palestine and (2) continued the ethnic cleansing
After 1967: the Israeli government and Jewish settlers built settlements in the conquered territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip & continued the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians through (1) eviction, (2) expropriation, (3) border closures, (4) abuse at checkpoints, (5) house demolitions, (6) olive tree uprooting, (7) sanctions, (8) assassination of military and political activists, (9) large military operations (in the West Bank in 4/3-11/2002 and in the Gaza Strip in 12/27/2008-1/17/2009); (10) mass arrests, (11) walls of separation, (12) discriminatory legislation, (13) denial of right to return, and (14) other mean means (see the headline story below):
3,000 trees to be planted in Israel to memorialize Newtown victims: NEW YORK (JTA) – More than 2,000 people have donated funds to plant a grove of more than 3,000 trees in Israel in memory of the victims of the Newtown shooting... The idea for the Newtown grove grew from a request made by Veronique Pozner, whose son, Noah, was the only Jewish victim of the shooting at the Connecticut school. --Jewish Telegraphic Agency, December 31, 2012, http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/12/31/3115736/3000-trees-to-be-planted-in-israel-to-memorialize-newtown-victims
149
Arab-Israeli Wars and other conflicts have cost the Middle East trillions of dollars
Six major Arab-Israeli wars
1948
1956
1967
1973
1982
2006
A January 2009 study by India’s Strategic Foresight Group concluded that 20 years of conflict has cost the Middle East $12 trillion.
Reuters, 1/23/2009, http://in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINLN69708120090123
Top Left: President Clinton appears to pause while drinking from a cup with an Israeli flag printed on it--Al-Majalla Magazine’s cover-page photo, 11/2000
Top Right: President Bush offers chocolates wrapped in Israeli flags to Israeli Prime Minister Sharon during their meeting at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, 4/11/2005, Palestine Report, http://www.palestinereport.ps/article.php?article=733 4/11/2005,, http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2005/04/bush-and-sharon.html
“Why Do They Hate Us?” President George W. Bush
“It is critical that we send a message around the world we will stand with Israel, we want them around not just for 60 years, but for 600 years. ” --- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (CNN.com, 5/8/2008)
أوباما يصلي أمام ما يسميه اليهود حائط المبكى في القدس المحتلة
“Obama prays facing what the Jews call the Wailing Wall in occupied Jerusalem” Aljazeera.net, 7/21/1429 AH
“a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils.” President George Washington’s Farewell Address, 1796
“For these reasons America does not like us”
“[Israel is] the most cruel and racist regime… Wasn’t the military action against Iraq planned by the Zionists and their allies”? ---Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, UN anti-racism conference, Geneva, Switzerland, 4/20/2009
“Palestine is Arab” were the final words of Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein
“We swore that America wouldn't live in security until we live it truly in Palestine” ---Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden “So [you believers], say, ‘We believe in God and in what was sent down to us and what was sent down to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and what was given to Moses, Jesus, and all the prophets by their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we devote ourselves to Him’” Quran 2:136
“Let him [Bush] tell us why we did not strike Sweden, for example”--- Bin Laden
151
Presidential candidate John McCain views the Iraq war in light of Israel’s security
“If you believe that the State of Israel will be more secure if the United States fails in Iraq, you and I have a disagreement.” ---
Republican presidential candidate John McCain (JTA, 10/30/2007) in Jerusalem
“The threats to Israel's security are large and growing and America's commitment must grow as well.”--McCain, Haaretz, 10/29/2008 http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1032258.html
Google, http :// www.ccun.org/images/2008/July/24%20p/john%20mccain%20at%20the%20Western%20Wall%2019mar8ap.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRx7naNRs5w
UNESCO votes to condemn Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 5/2/2017, http:// www.jta.org/2017/05/02/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/unesco-votes-to-condemn-israels-presence-in-jerusalem
Trump 'seriously considering' moving U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, VP Pence says, i24 news, 3/27, 2017, https:// www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/diplomacy-defense/141158-170327-u-s-stands-without-apology-for-israel-vp-pence-says
UNESCO declares Hebron's Old City Palestinian World Heritage site, BBC, 7/7/2017, http:// www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-40530396
“I am a Zionist …You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist” ---Biden, Shalom TV, 3/27/2007
Vice President Joseph Biden was a Senator from Delaware for 36 years—The White House
Senator Biden speaks his mind and makes no gaffe
“With all the change you will hear about, there is one enduring, essential principle that will not change; and that is our commitment to the peace and security of the state of Israel.”--Vice President Joseph Biden, 5/5/2009 http://www.aipac.org/Publications/SpeechesByPolicymakers/VicePresidentBidenPC09.pdf
“There is no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security, and for that reason and many others addressing Iran’s nuclear program has been one of our administration’s priorities” –Vice President Joseph Biden, 3/9/2010, JTA, http://jta.org/news/article/2010/03/09/1010996/biden-no-space-between-us-israel
UN votes for new sanctions on Iran over nuclear issue
The UN Security Council has voted in favour of fresh sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme. The council voted 12 to two, with one abstention, in favour of a fourth round of sanctions, including tighter finance curbs and an expanded arms embargo. US President Barack Obama said the sanctions were an unmistakable message on stopping the spread of nuclear arms. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the sanctions should be thrown in the dustbin like a "used handkerchief". The US and its allies fear Iran is secretly trying to build a nuclear bomb, but Tehran insists its programme is aimed solely at peaceful energy use. BBC, 6/9/2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/10276276.stm
Israel Makes Case to China for Iran Sanctions
“JERUSALEM — During the many months China has wavered over whether to join the American-led effort to impose sanctions on Iran, Israeli officials have been waging their own quiet campaign to convince the Chinese that Iran should be punished for its renegade nuclear program... 'The Chinese didn’t seem too surprised by the evidence we showed them, but they really sat up in their chairs when we described what a pre-emptive attack would do to the region and on oil supplies they have come to depend on, said an Israeli official with knowledge of the meeting and who asked for anonymity so as not to upset his Chinese counterparts... Israel’s outsized allure also stemmed from China’s regard for the country’s military prowess and a deeply held affection for Karl Marx and Albert Einstein, cornerstones of a Chinese fascination with Jews." The New York Times, 6/8/2010
“They hate us because of things they see us doing to their part of the world that they definitely do not like”
“So we will mercilessly, viciously, effectively attack and destroy all kinds of symptoms. When the rubble has settled and the dust is gone, the disease is still going to be out there untouched. Because we don't want to look at why, why it is that all of these people hate us. It's not because of freedom. It's not because Britney Spears has a belly button or because we export hamburgers. They hate us because of things they see us doing to their part of the world that they definitely do not like.” ---Edward Peck, former chief of mission at the American embassy in Iraq, former ambassador to Mauritania, deputy director of covert intelligence programs at the State Department and deputy director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism in the Reagan Administration, in a CNN interview on October 11, 2001.
Leonard Fein, “If We Judge a Man by His Words,” Forward, New York, 4/4/2008 (Vol. 111, Iss. 31699; pg. 14, 1 pgs).
“Hillary Clinton kissing Suha Arafat [wife of Palestinian President Arafat], a November 1999 political mistake that she recovered from”
Source: Wikipedia, 3/20/2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_New_York%2C_2000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hillaryandsuha.jpg
Hillary Clinton's rival defends handshake with Arafat NEW YORK (AP) -- First the kiss, now the handshake. Hillary Rodham Clinton's rival for New York's open senate seat found himself under fire after a photograph of him shaking Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's hand two years ago resurfaced. he photograph, which appeared in Sunday's New York Post, was taken by a White House photographer in 1998 when Rep. Rick Lazio visited the Mideast with President Clinton and other U.S. officials. Source: CNN, 9/11/2000, http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/09/11/lazio.arafat.ap/
The flashpoint in the area of foreign policy in the New York Senate race can be summed up in one word: Israel
Rick Lazio and Hillary Rodham Clinton disagree more sharply about other foreign-policy issues - such as whether the United States should be isolationist or try to be the world's policeman - but the Mideast, and the quest for the Jewish vote, has gotten most of the attention. New York Post, 10/31/2000, http://www.nypost.com/p/news/item_UufpsL70tsPX9r8UBXCOxO
Lazio's controversial handshake with Arafat
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/923248.stm
“I’ve proudly stood with the State of Israel for my entire career, making sure it always has the resources it needs to maintain its qualitative military edge”—Hillary Clinton, JTA, 4/18/2016, http://www.jta.org/2016/04/18/news-opinion/united-states/ahead-of-ny-primary-hillary-clinton-links-her-policies-to-ancient-lessons-of-passover
“Haim Saban, who’s a friend, a colleague, a mentor, an inspiration to so many of us here tonight. He certainly has always challenged me to make the most of America’s place in the world and especially our close friendship with Israel... President Obama and I stood before the international community and supported Israel’s right to defend itself from a threat no country would tolerate. The Iron Dome system – invented by Israel, underwritten by America – knocked rockets out of the sky like never before.” U.S. Secretary of State, November 30, 2012, http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2012/11/201343.htm
During 2000 Senate campaign, Hillary Clinton "once took a Yiddish lesson” as a way to relate to her Jewish supporters, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 12/24/2015, http://www.kveller.com/hillary-clinton-learned-how-to-say-kvell-during-2000-ny-sen-campaign / , CPAN, 11/8/2001, http ://www.c-span.org/video/? c4569711/2000-senate-campaign-hillary-clinton-took-yiddish-lesson
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton visits the Western Wall—11/14/2005, http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/no-kisses-for-suha-as-hillary-condemns.html
EXCERPTS from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speech to AIPAC Policy Conference 2010
"Given the shared challenges we face, the relationship between the United States and Israel has never been more important. The United States has long recognized that a strong and secure Israel is vital to our own strategic interests. We know that the forces that threaten Israel also threatened the United States. And we firmly believe that when we strengthen Israel's security, we strengthen America's security."
"We know that to make progress in this region, there must be no gap between the United States and Israel on security. And there will not be. For President Obama, for me, and for this entire administration, our commitment to Israel's security and Israel's future is rock solid."
"Guaranteeing Israel's security is more than a policy position for me. It is a personal commitment that will never waiver."
"This administration will always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself."
"The Iranian leadership funds and arms terrorists who have murdered Americans and Israelis alike.
"The United States is determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons."
"Our aim is not incremental sanctions, but sanctions that will bite."
"We will not compromise our commitment to preventing Iran from acquiring these weapons."
"It is true that heightened security measures have reduced the number of suicide bombings"
"Hizballah has amazed tens of thousands of rockets on Israel's northern border. Hamas has a substantial number in Gaza."
"Our message to Hamas is clear: renounce violence, recognize Israel, and abide by previous signed agreements. And I will repeat today what I have said many times before: Gilad Shalit must be released immediately and reunited with his family."
"A comprehensive peace that is real and not a slogan, that is rooted in genuine recognition of Israel's right to exist in peace and security, and that offers the best way to ensure Israel's enduring survival and well-being."
Regarding Israel's Arab neighbors and the peace process, "their rhetoric must now be backed up by action."
"We commend Prime Minister Netanyahu for embracing the vision of the two-state solution and for acting to lift road-blocks and east movement throughout the West Bank."
"From addressing climate change and energy to hunger, poverty and disease, Israel has so much to offer. Look at the spread of high-tech start-ups, the influx of venture capital, the number of Nobel laureates."
AIPAC, http://www.aipac.org/PC2010/webPlayer/mon_clinton10.asp
EXCERPTS from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speech to AIPAC Policy Conference 2010
And let me assure you, as I have assured you on previous occasions with large groups like this and small intimate settings, for President Obama and for me, and for this entire Administration, our commitment to Israel's security and Israel's future is rock solid, unwavering, enduring, and forever. (Applause.)
And why is that? Why is that? Is it because AIPAC can put 7,500 people into a room in the Convention Center? I don't think so. Is it because some of the most active Americans in politics and who care about our government also care about Israel? That's not the explanation. Our countries and our peoples are bound together by our shared values of freedom, equality, democracy, the right to live free from fear, and our common aspirations for a future of peace, security and prosperity, where we can see our children and our children's children, should we be so lucky - and as a future mother of the bride [emphasis added], I'm certainly hoping for that - (applause) - to see those children, those generations come of age in peace, with the opportunity to fulfill their own God-given potentials.
Americans honor Israel as a homeland for a people too long oppressed and a democracy that has had to defend itself at every turn, a dream nurtured for generations and made real by men and women who refused to bow to the toughest of odds. In Israel's story, we see our own. We see, in fact, the story of all people who struggle for freedom and the right to chart their own destinies.
That's why it took President Harry Truman only 11 minutes to recognize the new nation of Israel - (applause) - and ever since, our two countries have stood in solidarity. So guaranteeing Israel's security is more than a policy position for me; it is a personal commitment that will never waver. (Applause.). AIPAC, http://www.aipac.org/PC2010/webPlayer/mon_clinton10.asp
It's official - Chelsea Clinton to wed Jewish boyfriend By Haaretz Service and The Associated Press, 12/1/2009
“Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of America's most powerful political couple will soon wed a "member of the tribe," according to various media reports. Clinton is set to marry her Jewish boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky, ABC News reported on Monday. Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, met Mezvinsky when both were teenagers in Washington, according to reports. They also both attended Stanford University in California.”
“It is critical that we send a message around the world we will stand with Israel, we want them around not just for 60 years, but for 600 years. And when I am president of the United States they will have an unwavering ally in me.” --- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (CNN.com, 5/8/2008)
“I think when this is all over, people are going to say that Barack Obama is the first Jewish president.”–--Abner Mikva, former Congressman, Federal Judge, and White House Counsel to President Bill Clinton, Pauline Dubkin Yearwood , “Obama and the Jews,” Chicago Jewish News, 10/24/2008, http://www.chicagojewishnews.com/story.htm?sid=212226&id=252218
“I've got a Chief of Staff named Rahm Israel Emmanuel. My top political advisor is somebody who is a descendent of Holocaust survivors. My closeness to the Jewish American community was probably what propelled me to the U.S. Senate”---President Obama, Haaretz, 7/10/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/obama-israelis-suspicious-of-me-because-my-middle-name-is-hussein-1.300793
“Obama to pick Jew for Supreme Court”--Jerusalem Post, 5/10/2010, http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=175155
"U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday picked Jacob Lew, an Orthodox Jew, as the new White House budget chief"--Haaretz, 7/13/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/obama-nominates-jacob-lew-for-white-house-budget-chief-post-1.301772
“I have shown repeatedly my commitment to Israel’s security and I feel it deeply.... I believe it would be a moral betrayal for the world not to protect and secure a homeland for the Jewish people.”---US President Obama, Forward, 1/12/2017, http://forward.com/news/359744/barack-obama-s-2-farewells-urging-americans-and-israelis-to-defend-their-va/? attribution=articles-hero-item-text-1
أوباما يصلي أمام ما يسميه اليهود حائط المبكى في القدس المحتلة
“Obama prays facing what the Jews call the Wailing Wall in occupied Jerusalem” [my translation]--Aljazeera.net, 7/21/1429 AH هـ
“Let me be clear. Israel's security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable.”--- Presidential candidate Obama, 6/4/2008, http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/27/obama.aipac/index.html
"Obama pushes ahead with plan to rejuvenate black-Jewish alliance"—JTA, January 13, 2009, http://www.jta.org/2009/01/13/news-opinion/politics/obama-pushes-ahead-with-plan-to-rejuvenate-black-jewish-alliance
“Jews made him. Wherever you look, there is a Jewish presence” – Chicago Jewish News , 10/24/2008
http://www.chicagojewishnews.com/story.htm?sid=212226&id=252218
“I first became familiar with the story of Israel when I was 11 years old”-- Obama, NPR, 6/4/2008
“Close to 70 percent of American Jews who voted in the 2012 presidential election cast their ballots for Barack Obama, an expression of the resiliency of the black-Jewish alliance"---Forward, 1/25/2013, http://forward.com/articles/169571/dr-kings-memory-and-the-jewish-conscience/
President Obama’s approval rating among U.S. Jews was 60 percent in June 2011, an average of 14 percentage points above the general public. Jewish Telegraphic Agency,
161
“Obama to pick Jew for Supreme Court” By ASSOCIATED PRESS, 5/10/2010 , The Jerusalem Post, 5/10/2010, http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=175155
[If confirmed] She would be the third Jewish justice along with six Catholics. With [Justice John Paul] Stevens' retirement, the court will have no Protestants, the most prevalent denomination in the US. The Jerusalem Post, 5/10/2010, http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=175155
Photo by: Associated Press
U.S. political commentator Pat Buchanan on the campaign trail in 1999.
Photo by: Elise Amendola
Pat Buchanan suggests: Too many Jews on U.S. Supreme Court bench
American conservative political commentator decries Obama nomination of Elena Kagan, laments absence of Protestants in Supreme Court.
Haaretz, 5/16/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/pat-buchanan-suggests-too-many-jews-on-u-s-supreme-court-bench-1.290692
"The evidence points to a purely political appointment... Elena Kagan’s appointment certainly was not based on “diversity”… Prima facie evidence strongly suggests that Kagan’s ties to the staunchly Zionist faculty at both Chicago and Harvard Law Schools (and not her intellectual prowess) account for her meteoric promotions to tenure, deanship and now the US Supreme Court, over the heads of hundreds of other highly qualified candidates with far superior academic publication records and broader practical judicial experience... Elena Kagan joins a long list of key Obama appointees who have long-standing ties to the pro-Israel power configuration. Like Barack Obama, Elena Kagan started her legal apprenticeship with the Chicago Judge Abner Mitva, an ardent Zionist, who hailed the newly elected President Obama as “America’s first Jewish President”, probably his soundest judgment." Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University James Petras, "Elena Kagan and the Supreme Court: A Barnyard Smell in Chicago, Harvard and Washington," 05.13.2010, http://lahaine.org/petras/articulo.php?p=1806&more=1&c=1
Jewish groups file Jerusalem brief with U.S. high court: (JTA, August 7, 2011) -- American Jewish groups asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow Jerusalem-born American citizens to have their birthplace listed as Israel on their birth certificates and passports. http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/08/07/3088875/jewish-groups-file-jerusalem-brief-with-high-court
“A superb day for the Jewish people”: U.S. Senate approves Kagan as Supreme Court judge—Haaretz, 8/7/2010, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/a-superb-day-for-the-jewish-people-u-s-senate-approves-kagan-as-supreme-court-judge-1.306278
Supreme Court Judges Laud 'Wonder' of 3 Jewish Justices at Federation G.A.
Oxon Hill, Maryland — Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer and Elana Kagan talked about their Jewish identities at the opening plenary of the 2014 General Assembly conference of the Jewish Federations of North America. Speaking before a crowd of more than 2,000 at the conference center just outside Washington, Breyer said the most remarkable thing about there being three Jews among the nine Supreme Court justices is how unremarkable it is in America today. Forward, 11/10/2014, http://forward.com/articles/208941/supreme-court-judges-laud-wonder-of--jewish-justi/
Supreme Court justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan speak at the 2014 General Assembly conference of the Jewish Federations of North America
Could Merrick Garland Become the Fourth Jewish Supreme?
Merrick Garland grew up Jewish in the Chicago suburbs, worked his way to Harvard Law School and investigated the Oklahoma City bombing as a federal prosecutor… After twice being passed over for the Supreme Court, he is now aiming to become an unprecedented fourth Jew on the nine-member top court… Forward, 3/16/2016, http :// forward.com/news/336091/merrick-garland-offers-poignant-story-about-anti-semitism-as-supreme-court
Obama nominates Jewish judge, Merrick Garland, to Supreme Court, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 3/16/2016, http://www.jta.org/2016/03/16/news-opinion/united-states/obama-to-name-jewish-federal-judge-to-supreme-court
Supreme Court strikes down aggregate campaign donation caps
Supreme Court strikes down aggregate campaign donation caps
(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down a key pillar of campaign finance law by allowing wealthy donors to give money to as many political candidates, parties and committees as they wish. On a 5-4 vote, the court struck down the overall limits on how much individuals can donate during the federal two-year election cycle. Before the ruling, donors could not exceed a $123,200 overall limit during the two-year period. The ruling allows donors to contribute nearly $6 million in the same period, according to public advocacy groups. Reuters, 4/2/2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/02/us-usa-court-election-idUSBREA3116V20140402
In politics, money is speech
"In American democracy, this free speech plays two vital roles. The first is well recognized. It is to shape public opinion and to influence elections that, in turn, determine the social climate and steer government... Free speech’s second function is less understood. It buttresses the political system’s legitimacy. It helps losers in the struggle for public opinion and electoral success accept their fates. It helps keep them loyal to the system, even though it has disappointed them.” The Washington Post, 4/6/2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-j-samuelson-in-politics-money-is-speech/2014/04/04/075df4ec-bc18-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html?hpid=z2
'Ex-U.K. FM: Jewish money biggest obstacle to Mideast peace'
Jack Straw, a British lawmaker and former foreign secretary, said “unlimited” funds available to U.S. Jewish groups are used to control American policy in the Middle East. Haaretz, 10/27/2013, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.554717
Hypocrisy & Deception “Only 6% of Israelis see US gov't as pro-Israel” according to a Jerusalem Post-sponsored Smith Research poll.---Jerusalem Post, 6/19/2009 http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1245184872947&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
يهود في مظاهرة منددة بباراك أوباما في تل أبيب الشهر الماضي ---الجريرة---7/14/2009
Breakdown of the Jewish vote in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, according to initial exit polling data—Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 11/5/2008