Grief: All of Palestine belongs to the Jews
Howard Grief is the author of The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law and is the leading expert on the subject. He co-copied me with three powerful letters in defence of our rights, which follow.
To Mr. Leonello Gabrici
The Head of the Division,
Middle East II: Israel, Occupied Palestinian Territory,
Middle East Peace Process,
European External Action Service
Brussels, Belgium
Dear Mr. Gabrici,
I am appalled and dumbstruck by the fact that you are the Head of a Division of the European External Action Service whose jurisdiction explicitly deals with “Middle East II: Israel, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Middle East Peace Process”. This title is an insult to the Jewish People, to Zionism and the valiant struggle that the Jews waged to reclaim their ancient homeland, a struggle that began in earnest with the convocation of the first Zionist Congress at Basel, Switzerland in 1897. The country of Palestine was created in April 1920 at the San Remo Peace Conference for one purpose only – to be the Jewish National Home, and the term “Occupied Palestinian Territory” is thus an oxymoron since Palestine was never intended to be an Arab land under international law now supposedly “occupied” by Israel, as the title of your office implies, but rather was always intended to be a Jewish land that was to reconstitute the ancient Jewish State of Judea destroyed by Rome in the first century C.E. It takes staggering ignorance or ingrained hostility to the Jewish People and Zionism to believe that the land known to the Jews as Eretz-Israel since the time of Joshua Bin-Nun, long before it was called Palestine, belongs to the local Arab inhabitants who have falsely re-branded themselves as “Palestinians”.
To disabuse yourself of the notion that there is such a thing in international law as “Israel-Occupied Palestinian Territory”, I would highly recommend that you read the pronouncements made by two eminent British statesmen who were instrumental in creating Palestine as the Jewish National Home and future independent Jewish State, namely, Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour, as well as those of Balfour’s successor, Lord Curzon, who did not favour the concept of Zionism but nevertheless admitted that Palestine was to become a Jewish country. I would also recommend that you read the statements made at the San Remo Peace Conference at the two sessions of April 24 and April 25, 1920 dealing with Palestine by the French Prime Minister Alexandre Millerand and the Director of the French Foreign Ministry, Philippe Berthelot, who, though vehemently opposed to establishing Palestine as a Jewish State, nevertheless conceded that was the actual purpose of the Balfour Declaration that was adopted in a new format by means of the San Remo Resolution that henceforth became part of international law and the foundation document of the State of Israel.
You condescendingly state that I am “fully entitled to express [my] particular historic and legal interpretations regarding Israel’s territorial rights”, as if I am formulating a non-legal, individualistic argument that is not in accord with the facts or the truth. I have in my correspondence with Mr. Ilkka Uusitalo enumerated all those acts, principles and norms of international law which evidence the fact that an undivided Palestine was to be established as a Jewish State, without the creation of an Arab state in any part of the country. I will thus not repeat these arguments here. What I wrote is not “particular” to myself but is based solidly on the texts of various acts of international law that were approved by all the victorious Allied powers that dismantled the Ottoman Empire, including three prominent states of the European Union today, namely: Britain, France and Italy.
Upon the re-birth of the Jewish State on May 15, 1948, Jewish legal rights to Palestine were devolved upon the State of Israel. Whatever you may think, those rights never lapsed, were never annulled or voided and never validly or legally transferred to an Arab people known as “Palestinians”, as you so wrongly assume. Moreover, subsequent events – such as the 1947 Partition Resolution, Security Council Resolution 242, the Israel-PLO Agreements or the Road Map Peace Plan – have not superseded or curtailed the rights of the Jewish People to former Mandated Palestine, since none of those documents constitute acts of binding international law, despite the impression given to the contrary by advocates of the Arab “Palestinian” cause, including leading officials of the European Union and its bureaucratic apparatus, that includes your own office.
Mr. Gabrici, the acts and provisions of international law as well as the legal principles and norms I cited earlier to Mr. Uusitalo are not my “interpretations” of international law; they were what the law clearly states or connotes, without the necessity for “interpretation”, as you so glibly tell me. An interpretation of a specific law or that of an international agreement or treaty is only required when their plain meaning is unclear or ambiguous. That is certainly not the case for the relevant documents of international law pertaining to the legal status of former Mandated Palestine and Jewish legal rights thereto. It is you, not I, who prefers to “interpret” international law to favour the artificial and fabricated Arab “Palestinian” claim to Palestine. You ought to open your mind to the legal truth that you have never learnt or assimilated and the accompanying legal facts which underpin and confirm the ironclad Jewish case to the Land of Israel. If you do so, you will no longer be associated with a European office that falsely asserts that “Palestine” is “Israel-occupied Palestinian territory”.
I shall follow your advice and desist from any further exchanges with the European External Action Service, in particular with the Division you head. Perhaps you will be so kind as to place this letter in the hands of Lady Catherine Ashton to dispel her ignorance in addition to your own.
Howard Grief
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Dear Mr. Sherman,
I congratulate you on your excellent column published in The Jerusalem Post on Friday, February 24, 2012 on the misjudgments and detrimental concessions made by Israeli decision-makers dating from the Six-Day War that were also urged on by various prominent Israelis in our relations with Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, the “Palestine Liberation” Organization and its offshoot created by Israel itself, the “Palestinian Authority”.
You rightly stated that the Israeli leadership displayed “moronic myopia” and blindness in proposing a total withdrawal from the Golan Heights and South Lebanon and even earlier from Sinai, and you backed up your appraisal by quoting the exact words of those who fit into this embarrassing category. No doubt you stand on solid ground in reminding ordinary Israeli and their government leaders of the folly of the “land for peace” formula – or as you also aptly call it, the “Nirvana-Now” formula – an unattainable goal with the Arab haters of Israel infused with the tenets of Islam, particularly those found in Islam’s oral tradition known as the Hadith. This tradition defines the whole of the Land of Israel as Muslim or Waqf territory which, as one Islamic scholar, a Moslem himself, Professor Khaleel Mohammad of the Department of Religious Studies at San Diego State University, has said is “is to be wrested from the accursed Jews in a brutal and bloody eschatological battle”.
While I salute you for naming those public figures who have made “appallingly inaccurate assessment[s] of Israel’s adversaries”, particularly in regard to negotiating a peace agreement with Syria’s Hafez Assad and, after his death, with his son, Bashar Assad, to wit: former IDF Chief-of-Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, former Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, former Director-General of the Foreign Ministry Dr. Alon Liel and the celebrated but anti-nationalist, extreme left-wing author Amos Oz, what I found lacking in your otherwise astute column was that you failed to mention at all the worst culprits, who recklessly and I may add illegally proposed giving up either all or most of the Golan Heights to Syria as part of a “land-for-peace” agreement, that as we know now would have put Israel in the most precarious position possible requiring no less than a new Six-Day War to recapture it. In this regard, the first Prime Minister to propose withdrawing from the Golan was Yitzhak Rabin in the early to mid-nineties, who told U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher that Israel would be willing to cede the Golan in return for ending the war with Syria, as confirmed by Rabin’s military aide, Danny Yatom, who sat in on the meeting between the two where this subject was discussed.
That proposed cession was in my legal opinion a clear violation of Sections 97 and 100 of the Penal Code dealing with treason. Rabin’s offer to Syria was made without the consent of the Cabinet and at a time when there was no law or procedure that allowed the cession of Israeli territory to another state for any reason whatsoever. Rabin’s alleged act of treason was then pursued by Shimon Peres when he succeeded Rabin as Prime Minister. Even Prime Minister Netanyahu in his first term of office (1996-1999) was reported in the press to have made a similar offer that would have entailed a treasonous withdrawal from most of the Golan. What good then are the laws of treason in our law books if they are not enforced or prosecuted by the Attorney-General against those in positions of power or influence who make offers or devise plans to cede sovereign Israeli territory to another state or entity – that is expressly prohibited by the Penal Code? The Attorney-Generals who did nothing when these offers were made – Michael Ben-Yair and Meni Mazuz – should themselves have been prosecuted for dereliction of duty and failure to uphold the laws of the State they swore under oath to uphold.
As regards Dr. Liel, I take the liberty to mention that several years ago I tried to convince MK Professor Arieh Eldad to file treason charges under the aforementioned Sections 97 and 100 of the Penal Code against Liel for cooking up, without lawful authority to do so, a private or unofficial peace agreement with a Syrian representative who was an American citizen, Ibrahim (Abe) Suleiman, under which Israel would crazily surrender the entire Golan to the young and brutal tyrant, Bashar Assad, as evidenced by a document to that effect, termed a “non-paper”, dated August 29, 2005, thus committing an act to impair Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan according to our law, punishable by the death penalty or life imprisonment. However, I never heard back from MK Eldad though I know he later made use of the legal information I gave him on the treason provisions of the Penal Code to accuse Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of committing treason for his ludicrous offer to the PLO to re-divide Jerusalem and surrender practically all of Yosh, separate and apart from conceding all of the Golan to Syria in a failed bid to satisfy all alleged or imagined Arab grievances against Israel., grievances that can never be satisfied except by the disappearance of the Jewish State.
The Golan Heights, of course, was not the only case where land was relinquished to “buy peace” with our adversaries. We have to go back as you rightly pointed out to Prime Minister Menahem Begin, who, upon winning power after 29 years in the Opposition, decided to surrender Sinai to Egypt even though Sinai had never in the modern period been a recognized sovereign part of Egypt under international law. It is clear today that this cession has caused enormous harm to Israel since Sinai, thanks to Begin’s foolish and illegal “land for peace” treaty with Egypt, is now a terrorist and smuggler’s paradise that threatens Israel’s security and has also become an open door for tens of thousands of African migrants to enter Israel with all the social problems this will cause us in the future.
It should interest you to know that Begin was explicitly forewarned by two of his brightest advisers at the time of the Camp David negotiations not to proceed with his ill-conceived plan to cede Sinai to Egypt, a territory which was really a part of the historical Land of Israel mentioned in our Torah, that was also formerly included in the Independent Sanjak of Jerusalem under Turkish rule before Britain, in a famous incident of gunboat diplomacy against the Ottoman Sultan in 1906 forced him to relinquish direct Turkish rule over this territory and hand it over to British administration, who then appended it to Egypt. That is how Sinai, a non-Egyptian land, became “Egyptian”, contrary to the historical and geographical truth. Those aforesaid prescient advisers were Hebrew University Professor Moshe Sharon and, of course, the late Shmuel Katz. However, Begin, in his desire to be remembered as a great “peacemaker”, listened not to the sage advice proferred by Sharon and Katz, but rather to the injurious advice tendered by Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan, Defense Minister Ezer Weizmann, Agriculture Minister and Chairman of the Ministerial Committee for Settlement, Ariel Sharon, as well as that of Law Professor Aharon Barak, the future President of the Supreme Court and Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., Meir Rosenne.
Unfortunately, the “moronic myopia” and shallow thinking exhibited by Begin, Rabin and Peres was afterwards manifested to the same degree by their successors: Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and, surprisingly enough, Binyamin Netanyahu, all of whom made tentative offers to Syria to cede all or most of the Golan. Netanyahu who, not content with his concessions under the Wye Plantation Agreement, during his first term of office, has formally adopted the anti-Likud and suicidal Two-State Solution as a cornerstone of his policy. I am aware that Netanyahu’s advisers and supporters pretend it is only a Machiavellian tactical move to fend off relentless pressure on Israel applied by U.S. President Obama and the European Union. What will happen, though, if the next non-Likud Prime Minister of Israel adopts Netanyahu’s course as a firm and unchangeable policy? Netanyahu’s deception will then become reality, though that may truly never have been intended by Netanyahu himself.
I hope your great column will bang some common sense into the minds of those directing Israel’s Government now or in the future as to why we should never cede, under any circumstances, any more of our precious territory to Syria nor, for that matter, to the “Palestinian Authority” for the sake of a mirage “peace”. However, I admit that that is a forlorn hope.
Howard Grief
Copies: Rich Frostig
Prof. Moshe Sharon
Arieh Stav
Dr. Netta Dor-Shav
M,K. Prof. Arieh Eldad
Dr. Alex King
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Mr. David Lee
Kingston-upon-Thames
London, England
Thanks for sending me the article that appeared December 13, 2011 in Front Page Magazine on “An Invented People, the so-called ‘Palestinians’”, by David Meir-Levi, an American-born Israeli, currently living in Palo Alto, California, who serves as the Director of Peace and Education at Israel Peace Initiative.
Meir-Levi uses several sources to substantiate Gingrich’s truthful statement, particularly that of Daniel Pipes, who incidentally has a copy of my book, The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law, where I expatiate at length on this subject in Section Four entitled “The Switch of National Identities and Names”, and an additional segment in Appendix II entitled “The Historical Origin of the Name ‘Palestine’ and Related Regional Terms”.
All of Meir-Levi’s sources are from internet websites, as appears from his footnotes, with only two quotations in the text of his article culled from actual books. No serious scholar or researcher would rely exclusively or almost exclusively on that source to elucidate a subject he or she wishes to write about. The internet has not yet replaced traditional sources found in books, documents and archival material. Not everything has been digitalized for use on the internet. Meir-Levi would certainly have learned more about the newly-invented Arab “Palestinian” People, one of the greatest hoaxes, if not the greatest, of the latter half of the 20th century, had he consulted my own book, which incidentally may also be accessed – I am told – on the internet. It contains a lot more background information on the evolution of the name “Palestine” and its derivative, “Palestinians”, from first connoting the Jews of Mandated Palestine until May 14, 1948, and today, the Arab inhabitants of the Land of Israel and also the so-called “refugees” who are resident in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and elsewhere.
It is incorrect for Meir-Levi to state that the “Palestinian national identity was invented in 1920 and midwifed by Zionism”. No such thing! There was no Arab Palestinian national identity in 1920 despite the fact that a small number of Arabs out of the larger Arab population then living in Mandated Palestine may have also accepted this appellation for themselves especially for legal purposes as a citizen of the country. However, the great majority of Arabs rejected this name since they knew this was how the Jews of the land were identified by one and all. They definitely did not want to have the same name as that applied to the “hated Jews”.
In my opinion, the term “Palestinians” in its present usage and form was derived from or was a direct by-product of the founding of the “Palestinian Liberation Organization” in 1964 whence the term started to appear first in UN resolutions beginning in 1969, then afterwards in the media. It was the UN, aided and abetted by the Arab League states, rather than Zionism, that “midwifed” the “Palestinian national identity” in the new guise as used today. In actual fact, it was part of a successful public relations scheme to change the nature of the Arab war against Israel, the so-called “conflict” from that of pitting 21 Arab states against the lone Jewish State to a more equitable ratio of one alleged “Palestinian” nation seeking its pretended self-determination in conflict with the existing State of Israel, i.e., one against one. The linguistic problem that then resulted from the fallacious use of “Palestine” and its derivative “Palestinians” was that the name of Palestine had already officially ceased to exist as a geographical term when the State of Israel was reborn in May 1948. Furthermore, the part of former Mandated Palestine that was not included in the State of Israel was no longer called “Palestine” after the Jordanian annexation in April 1950, but was designated the “West Bank” of the Kingdom of Jordan, which also controlled the East Bank, east of the Jordan River, that had originally also been designated for inclusion in the Jewish National Home.
It is a pity that no one has yet uncovered or exposed the name of the American Madison Avenue public relations firm which first advised the Arab League state and the PLO a year or so after the Six-Day War of June 1967 to change the designation of the Arab “refugees” who had been resident in former Mandated Palestine to “Palestinians” if they wanted to shift world public opinion in their favor against Israel. That is how the Arab-Israel “Conflict” was transformed from 1969 onwards into the new formula – the “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”. Kindly note the position of the word “Israeli” before “Palestinian”, when previously the word “Arab” preceded the word “Israel”, a subtle inversion of the nature of the “conflict” and Israel’s supposedly equal responsibility for it. In the old formulation, Israel was perceived as the biblical David, but in the new formulation it was now Goliath in the eyes of the world, denying the oppressed “Palestinians” of their alleged right of self-determination in regard to Palestine. Hence, thanks to this unknown American public relations firm, an instant nation – the so-called “Palestinians” – came into being as a new tactic to destroy the Jewish State that has succeeded magnificently as a propaganda ploy.
It is well to remember the fact, as I have just noted above, that contrary to Meir-Levi’s assertion, the designation of “Palestinians” for the Arabs of former Mandated Palestine did not come into widespread use until 1969 and the early 1970s, a fact I have documented in my book. As evidence of this fact, Meir-Levi should know that as late as November 22, 1967, UN Security Council Resolution 242 still referred to those Arabs who had left Mandated Palestine or the new-born State of Israel as “refugees” and not as “Palestinians”. This change of nomenclature demonstrates how instant nations are born in the Arab world, such as the fallacious “Jordanian” nation, the “Iraqi” nation, the “Kuwaiti” nation, etc., separate and apart from the invented “Palestinian” nation.
I myself denounced the fraudulent usage of this term of “Palestinians” for Arabs when it first emerged in those early years (the 1970s) and I often mentioned this point in various articles I composed that appeared in the Hebrew-language Nativ Journal in the 1990s. It is incorrect therefore for Meir-Levi to heap undue praise on Daniel Pipes for being “the first to say so” when he certainly was not the first.
Meir-Levi would do well to read the revealing column written by ex-Prime Minister Golda Meir for the New York Times on January 14, 1976. She demolished the myth of the existence of the so-called “Palestinian People”. She said everything that needed to be said about the invention of this false moniker for Arabs. Most of what she wrote in her New York Times article is re-produced in my book (see pp. 511ff). In addition, it should be noted that as far back as June 1969, Golda Meir told the London Sunday Times”:
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It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country from them. They did not exist.
Thus, as you can see, Golda Meir preceded Gingrich’s statement by 43 years that Pipes fails to mention. Though it is true that many Israeli left-wing people and Labour Party supporters accepted the idea of the “Palestinian” People as a new nation on the world stage once that idea gained currency in the 1970s, it was definitely not Zionism that acted as a “midwife” for the forged “Palestinian national identity” as Meir-Levi asserts, but more accurately that was the work as noted above of the Arab League states and the PLO in conjunction with the U.N. where they have a dominant influence, especially in the General Assembly and the blatantly pro-Arab organ today ludicrously called the Human Rights Council. Finally, it fell to Shim’on Peres to give added credibility to this fraudulent usage of the term “Palestinians” for Arabs, when he accepted the idea in April 1986 as Chairman of the Labour Party that “Palestinians” are a distinctive people among the other Arab peoples just as Arieh “Lova” Eliav mischievously said in his 1972 book Land of the Hart.
In conclusion, while I commend Meir-Levi for making the valid and incontestable point that the “Palestinians” are, as Gingrich correctly stated, an invented people, his presentation, however, is far from comprehensive, lacks proper depth and relies much too much on internet sources instead of the primary or first-hand sources that are not posted on the websites.
Howard
It’s amazing that the world treats the “West Bank” as Arab territory. It was never recognized as such. The border after 1948 was simply a ceasefire line, not a final border. The Arabs seized territory that was given to the Jews by the UN. They expelled the Jews living in those areas.
These are not “occupied” territories, unless you consider what Jordan did between 1948 and 1967 to be an occupation.
The territories now described as “occupied” by the Israelis, should instead be described as “recovered” by the rightful owners: the Israelis.
The Israelis have been very, very generous in even being willing to negotiate giving up some of these territories to the “Palestinians” despite the fact Israel has a legal right to the “West Bank” and, I believe, even part of the “East Bank.”
I even used to believe the fiction that the Israelis had no right to the territory in what is called the “West Bank.” In fact, they are really the rightful owners of a good part, if not all, of that area.
The truth does not matter to those who hate Jews and Israel–so trying to reason from that perspective is in large measure a waste of time!
God chose the borders of Israel and he gave Israel to his people the Jews.
Those who hate Israel–ultimately will not prevail–but rather they will all be destroyed.
Genesis: 13:14-17 14 And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward:
15 For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.
16 And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.
17 Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.
Genesis 17:8 And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
Grief is correct.
I would add that of all our myopic pygmy leaders the worst of the worst was Begin. If ever a politician was unqualified for the position of PM of Israel it was Begin. Except for his decision to bomb the Iraqi reactor everything he did, every policy foreign and domestic turned to crap and set us back decades not to mention the lives lost,wasted and the needless suffering of thousands of Israeli families for nothing.
Israel’s Sinai evacuation set Israel’s economy back decades.
Let us not short change ourselves. Israel is entitled to to what is erronously named Jordon, most of Syria, most of Iraq, the Sinai region. ALL OF LEBANON. FOR G-D’S SAKE, READ YOUR BIBLE.
@ yamit82:Israel has never had a decent leader-they were all incompetents and knaves.
The treaty of San Remo has full validity despite what this Nazi piece of shite claims. It was validated at a rare time in the history of the Jews. It was a time when there was a strong movement for each ethnic group or people to have their own nation and not as had been the previous practice to have large empires where many ethnic groups were less equal than others. It was also before the nations of Europe , the US , Canada etc felt due to the vile racism and bigotry of the vermin of the world :the Arabs, these nations had to choose between having access to oil or standing up for a powerless ethnic group that had nothing comparable to enormous deposits of oil to offer. I have wondered why the League of Nations was so “fair” and just towards the people who are the international scapegoats and have always been pariahs. I then realized the year of the treaty of San Remo 1922 was prior to internal combustion engine becoming such a crucial, prominent part of modern ,prosperous nations or those nations that were striving to become modern and prosperous. The enormous Arab oil reserves were not discovered until the 1930s. Therefore, the incredible ass-kissing of these backwards ,hateful, people who remain in the middle ages had not yet begun. So in my opinion, the League of Nations was being objective towards the question of the Jewish National homeland. This worm Gabrici , I suspect is influenced as almost all non Jews when the subject is Israel by Arab oil.
Yisrael Medad comments on On The Usage of “Palestinian Arabs” in the 1920s
Oh Yamit, dearest Yamit.
Do you feel like expounding on the Essenes at all?
@ leonard white:
To be exact, Leonard, Israel’s inheritance includes Israel & Lebanon, the southern quarter of Syria including Damascus, and NE Sinai. Eilat was actually not part of the inheritance, but it’s worth hanging on to because of the Indian Ocean access. Transjordan (aka Jordan) was not part of the original inheritance, nor was it spoken of in prophecy by the meticulous ezekiel.
The problem with Israel today isn’t not enough land; it’s that they don’t have enough Jews there to fill the land they already have. (along with other Jew-Jew problems).
“To your descendants I have given this land, from the Egyptian River as far as the great river, the Euphrates.”
Bereshit (Genesis) 15:18
This Map: is mostly based on the commentaries of Rashi and Malbim about the boundaries of the future described in the Book of Ezekiel, chapters 47-48. The details of the future map of the Land of Israel are mentioned only cryptically in the Tanach and various Talmudic sources.
“Therefore say unto the House of Israel… I do this, not for your sake, O House of Israel, but rather for My holy name which you desecrated through the nations whither you came. And I will sanctify My great name that was desecrated amongst the nations… and the nations shall know that I am the Lord when I shall be sanctified through you before their eyes. And I shall take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries and I will bring you into your own land.” Ezekiel 36:22-24
YAMIT Before the destruction and Yamit http://www.ynet.co.il/PicServer2/01082004/534492/D356-010_wa.jpg being destroyed by the IDF
“You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place.”
“Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.”
“These Gadites were army commanders; the least was a match for a hundred, and the greatest for a thousand.”
Commemoration: 31 Years since Yamit was destroyed.Yamit being destroyed by the IDF
31 years since Yamit destroyed
A Day Of National Disgrace In Israel
@ leonard white:
A politician need not be comp1imented when he does what he was elected to do and does it well. I criticize those who don’t do the job they were elected to do and they certainly did not perform well.
@ HCQ:
Essen’s? 2 recent but credible theories.
1-Jerusalem Theory on the Origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Recently some scholars have argued that the Dead Sea Scrolls, also known as the Qumran Library, came from Jews fleeing Jerusalem at the time of the Roman conquest in 70 A.D. Norman Golb contends the scrolls came from the libraries of several Jewish scholars in Jerusalem, while Karl Heinrich Rengstorf has argued they represent the remains of the library at the Jerusalem Temple.
Still other scholars say that the diverse religious thought and the different scripts of the scrolls indicate they came from multiple sources, a variant of Golb’s theory. Supporters of the multiple-origin theory think that the Qumran ruins are the remains of a fort from the Hasmonean period of Jewish history, a view consistent with the dating of some artifacts at the site. However, the dating consistencies do not necessarily confirm this theory.
2-The ‘No Essenes’ Theory on the Origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls
In 2009, Israeli scholar Rachel Elior, a professor of Jewish mysticism at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, put forth a theory reported in Time magazine that the Essenes never existed at all. Instead, Dr. Eilor claims that Josephus made them up. She said she bases her theory on the fact that in all 900-plus scrolls found in the caves near Qumran, there is no mention of the word “Essene” or “Essenes.” Like Dr. Schiffman, Dr. Elior said she thinks that Josephus’ “Essenes” were really Zadokites banished from Jerusalem by Seleucid rulers in the 2nd century B.C. Members of this exiled priestly caste took their writings with them when they left, she argues.
@ yamit82:
Yamit,
You’ll notice that I actually POSTED this here, taking the trouble MYSELF so that you, the reader, don’t have to go through the bother of checking links. You, on the other hand, prefer to connect outlandish headlines to links, then complain that I only read the headlines. You do very little, expect me to do much, then complain about what I do. If you really want to COMMUNICATE to me, do not use links. If you use links, I take that to mean you don’t really want to talk to me.
I posted about Windhoek, because the whites of Windhoek have gone through the same things the Jews of Yamit and Gush Katif had to go through, but with not a scintilla of sympathy from any Jews — including Yamit82. I showed the early expulsion of whites that the German missionaries went through. The city revived under the South African Dutch, and whites again formed a majority up until 1989. Then, a coalition of activists, most of them Jews and White Americans and Dutch, had them driven out and gave the place over to SWAPO. Whites are outnumbered there, at last count, 67:16.
Last night, PBS aired yet another program about South Africa, which, if they are down to their ususal standards, portrayed white South Africans as neo-Nazis. Small wonder, that such a program should air in an atmosphere that also has former US President Jimmy Carter calling the State of Israel an “Apartheid” state. I notice that nobody here actually came forward and defended the Afrikaaners, in their failed attempt to maintain their nationhood and identity. Instead, Ted Belman and others here took pains to SEPARATE Jews from the Dutch — as though the two came from entirely different planets. This is not the case: Both the Jews and the Dutch have very legitimately settled in largely unoccupied land, creating a fluorishing society in the midst of comparatively primitive peoples; and those people subsequently swarmed the place and demanded ownership, proceeding to demand expulsion of the “colonialists” (a bad word, so I am tutored by today’s PC press).
There is a very active conspiriacy going on in the world today, targeting:
1. Jews
2. White Europeans, and especially
3. American Christians.
Those at the forefront of this conspiriacy are
1. Jews
2. White Europeans, and especially
3. American Christians.
Go figure, and try to get it into your head whose side you’re actually on.
@ BlandOatmeal:
First of all get something straight. I don’t want sympathy from anyone not over Yamit, not over Israel’s travails or for being Jewish. I personally resent much of the support we get based on how desperately alone we are and the myth that we need your support which in fact boils down to verbal support based on cockamamie pagan beliefs inimical to Jewish beliefs; especially if carried to their expected apocalyptic conclusions. War is serious business and people die and I’m not being flippant. We may have to go to war and many of us will die, so it better be for the right reasons and done with the utmost professionalism with clear war aims and attainable goals.
I expect no help from you armchair warriors when it goes down which sooner or later whether we want it or not will come. It’s we who will pay the heavy price and do the heavy lifting, so I hope you understand that I have just a bit of resentment for outsiders egging us on to war.
Personally I don’t give a shoot about anyone except Israel and other Jews. That’s a full boat which does not allow consideration for others unless it directly effects us.
I have been to S. Africa 3 times and worked for a S. African company for a few years and have some hands on knowledge of the country and the people. The Afrikaners became within the white population a small minority mostly landed farmers. Call them the Lumpen-proletariat . The English immigrants and Asians built the modern elements of S Africa. The Afrikaners, made the classic mistake of not liquidating or driving out the aboriginal population but kept them in a quasi slave state socially and politically. They made the classic mistake of educating some of the brightest of the indigenous populations who a generation later like in colonialist enterprises returned from University to lead the insurrection against their colonial masters. S. Africa should have used Australia as their model, but when they realized their mistake it was too late. They were too greedy and exploitative using the natives but creating the explicitly racist policy of apartheid. They wanted their cake and to eat it as well.
The Jews here used to joke saying the only thing the Arabs ever created was the desert. The Arab retort was “But it’s our desert”. The same thing happened in S Africa with or without some Jews in the vanguard anti apartheid effort.
Jews created the NAACP only to see a generation later that the Jews were expunged from their history and the blacks make up the most virulent and pervasive antisemitic group in America. I was against the ANC, not on racial grounds because I knew they would become anti Israel if they gained power. I was right. I was against the civil rights movement for the same reasons and here to I was right.
I am on my side`
@ yamit82:
Uncle, it’s time other Jews feel the same way.
You know me, I fully support Israel and the Jewish Nation, as an arm chair supporter my daily prayers are for Israel, that I can offer.
Having said that, I believe Israelis and Jews throughout the world need to feel as you.
Jews throughout the world need to be on the same page, the world has yet to demonstrate they are in your corner.
Time to unify.
Uncle, it’s time other Jews feel the same way.
You know me, I fully support Israel and the Jewish Nation, as an arm chair supporter my daily prayers are for Israel, that I can offer.
Having said that, I believe Israelis and Jews throughout the world need to feel as you.
Jews throughout the world need to be on the same page, the world has yet to demonstrate they are in your corner.
Time to unify.
@ rongrand:
ron, I don’t think HP (babara)likes us.
@ rongrand:
“Acheinu,” a prayer from the siddur [Jewish prayer book] that starts, “Our brothers”
Acheinu kol beit yisrael, han’nutunim b’tzara uvashivyah, haomdim bein bayam uvein bayabasha. Hamakom Y’racheim Aleihem v’yotziem mitzra lirvacha um’afaila l’orah umishiabud lig’ulah, hashta ba’agala uvizman kariv.V’nomar: Amen
Our brothers, the entire family of Israel, who are in distress and captivity, whether they are on sea or dry land—may the Omnipresent One have mercy on them and remove them from distress to relief, from darkness to light, from subjugation to redemption, now, speedily , and soon—and let us say, Amen.
Acheinu kol beit yisrael
Jewish Unity requires us to care about every Jew. There can be no Jewish unity, however, without loving Jews we don’t admire, don’t agree with, and don’t even like. Loving other Jews doesn’t mean not loving anyone outside the family. But it does mean loving every single member of the Jewish family, no matter how much we might despise their actions or their attitudes. Which is really tough.
@ yamit82:
This prayer is worth repeating.
I had the same feeling. There is something about HP that is recognizable. Shows up every now and then.
@ rongrand:
During the last days of Yamit we adopted the song by Naomi Shemer For All These Things
For All These Things
Over the honey and the stinger
Over the bitter and the sweet
Over our daughter, our baby
My God, watch over what is good
Over the flame that is burning
Over the water running pure
Over the man returning home
from far away
Chorus:
Over all these, Over all these
God please watch over them for me,
Over the honey and the stinger
Over the bitter and the sweet
Do not uproot what is planted
Do not forget the hope
Return me, and I will return
to the good land.
Watch over this house for me, my God,
the garden, and the wall
protect them from pain, from sudden fear
And from war.
Watch over for me the little I have
The light, the baby
over the fruit that has not ripened
and over what has already been reaped.
~Al Kol Eileh~ with English lyrics
It’s some bigtime propoganda at work if people who claim to have read the Bible think all of Palestine belongs to barbaric, 7th century mongrels. It ain’t in the Book. Moslems are a despicable people and it has been said that they don’t care if they held all of Palestine, they would still kill all the jews, wherever they might be. That’s Bush and Obamas’ “Religion of Peace”-it ain’t even a religion at all: ISLAM IS SLAVERY.
I regret that I must take issue with Howard Grief, albeit only on two very small points. The “Palestinian Arab People” were not invented by an American Madison Avenue public relations firm. The were invented by the Soviet dezinformatsia when the Soviets drafted the first PLO Charter in Moscow in 1964. The term “Palestinian Arab People” appears there three times as if to meet the Humpty Dumpty standard of “What I tell you three times is true.” See: Alice in Wonderland by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. The only corroboration of this newly coined term is the affirmation of the first 422 members of the “Palestinian National Council”, formed contemporaneously, each hand picked by the KGB. We have this information from Major General Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest ranking officer to defect from the Soviet bloc during the Cold War. Therefore it is a statement from personal knowledge by someone who was intimately involved in the Soviet affairs in the Middle East and not the hearsay opinion of someone, no matter how learned an expert they are from training or experience that is sought to be admissible in evidence under an exception to the hearsay rule. See: Brand, Soviet Russia, the Creators of the PLO and the Palestinian People. http://www.think-israel.org/brand.russiatheenemy.html
The second point is that the terms of the British Mandate for Palestine are somewhat ambiguous in my view. But they can be interpreted by the clear and unambiguous evidence of its purpose. That was to grant to the Jews the exclusive political rights to Palestine in trust, to vest when the Jews had attained a majority of population.
Also, we should not be too hard on those who take unwarranted pity on the Arabs local to Palestine. They are afflicted with a “poetic truth”, the Narrative of Perpetual Palestinian Victimhood, that cannot be even dented by facts and logic. See: Shelby Steele, Gatestone blog, January 9,, 2012 http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2586/palestinian-victimhood-narrative
“Poetic truths like that are marvelous because no facts and no reason can ever penetrate. Supporters of Israel are up against a poetic truth. We keep hitting it with all the facts. We keep hitting it with obvious logic and reason. And we are so obvious and conspicuously right that we assume it is going to have an impact and it never does.” If you are interested in the facts, you can find hem at Efraim Karsh, “What Occupation”, Commentary (August, 2002) “Few subjects have been falsified so thoroughly as the recent history of the West Bank and Gaza.”, http://www.aish.com/jw/me/48898917.html George Gilder, “The Economics of Settlement”, June, 2011, http://spectator.org/archives/2011/06/08/the-economics-of-settlement quoting extensively from the reports of Clay Lowdermilk, Assistant Chief of the US Soil Conservation Service, also, Gilder, “The Israel Test” (July, 2009)
@ Pazuzu:
What the lord gives the Lord can take back and give it to another. You Christians should understand that; you believe the G-d of Israel lied to the Jews and said Oops I made a mistake etc.
Jews believe their G-d is omnipresent everywhere in all things including ourselves. Do Christians believe that G-d is in the heart of the devil?
If you say no as you must then your god is not everywhere and is limited. Before you dump on another faith I suggest you check your own first:
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)
As one who stood in Yamit and Gush Katiff when it was still standing, I stand with my fellow brother ‘yamit82′. I to lament the “State of Chelm” with all its chelmniks, its choices and above all its perfidious leadership, judiciary and politicians. I stand ‘shaking in my boots’ for what may yet befall my beloved people, for their collective treachery and betrayal of Israel’s rightful heritage and destiny. I fear greatly for what is yet to come.
@ yamit82:
Yamit: I am really pissed off at you. By your reckoning Rongrand is some sort of dim-witted dummy. I take real exception to that characterization. He is reasonably intelligent and a mature adult. Stop demeaning him-he is a person with real emotions, real feelings. How would you like to be treated as you treat Ron? SHOW SOME COMPASSION, PLEASE.
Volvi, I don’t fear for what is yet to come. I am not Jewish, I am a Canadian, but I have visited Israel, and my heart aches within me when I read what some are writing. Obviously, I am not a writer, but I love the Jewish people. My Saviour was part Jewish, so why would I as a devout Christian have a desdain for the Jewish people. My husband and I pray almost daily for the Jewish people and for Peace to envelop that land. I realize that there will never be complete peace in that area until Jesus returns, and when He rules, I can assure everyone that there will be Peace at that time. I just need to be sure that I am always ready for Him to return to earth.
Nina M. Lawrence
@ yamit82:
Yamit, the British Colonials have much to answer for with regard to the South African Boere and Colonial apartheid. Little is known of the attached facts, historians having failed to write about them. Thankfully the camera had just made its historic debut giving Emily Hobhouse much required evidence to take back to London.
The Boere were people of the land who had their lands ‘salted’ after this invasion, many of the POWs sent to foreign concentration camps, mostly islands, didn’t make it home. Since the ANC has taken power, more than 3,500 farmers have been killed. Little is done about these horrific facts and the famous Nobel peace prize laureate, Bishop Desmond Tutu, turns a blind eye whilst supporting the Pals against the apartheid state of Israel.
Had the British not killed so many Boer women and children in concentration camps, history would have been quite different. The figure at the time of the ANC take over was about 4 million Whites and 40 million classified Blacks.
The Concentration Camps
http://boer.co.za/boerwar/hellkamp.htm
@ Mrs. Nina M. Lawrence:
I was wondering about “My Savior was partly Jewish”. Wasn’t he entirely Jewish? That’s what I’ve always thought & heard.
Yamit what is the give away about barbara that Ted doesn’t get. Please educate him.