Thursday, January 31, 2013

Israel's Flood of Jewish Immigrants From Arab Countries

Nadene Goldfoot
Why are there still Arab refugees in camps all over the Middle East since 1948 living on the the money from the UN?  Why haven't they become citizens of the Arab country that they came from?  It's been 64 years.

In May 1948  Israel was created through the United Nations with 650,000 people for a Jewish Homeland   It had been 2,000 years that they had gone without a homeland of their own.   Jews had been suffering from anti-Semitic activities since 70 CE through the present time with pogroms in Russia and the Holocaust that killed 6 million of them.   Jews were forced out of their Middle East homes and had to emigrate to Israel as soon as it was created.  Given a choice, they might have wanted to wait for the fighting to stop, first.

Besides fighting for their life the minute they announced the recognition of their state, they had to deal with immigration, which meant housing, feeding and clothing people coming into the country.  They received refugees from the Holocaust in Europe.  Many were the remnants of the Jewish communities in Poland, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia.  They came on ships.

Entire Jewish communities came from Arab countries including 121,000 out of the 130,000 Jews of Iraq; 44,000 out of the 45,000 Jews of Yemen of which Ofra Haza, the singer, was one; and  30,500 out of 35,000 Jews of Libya.   Often tents had to be put up for a temporary housing.

Between 1955 and 1957 there were 165,000 Jews that came from Morocco, Tunisia, Poland and other countries.  A large number of Jews from Romania arrived in Israel under a family reunification plan.    Between 1961 and 1964 there were 215,000 Jews that came, mainly from Eastern Europe and North Africa.

Since the Six-Day War in 1967, there has been a new wave of immigration, mainly from countries in North and South America, Western Europe and the Soviet Union.  By the end of 1972, about 200,000 immigrants had arrived.  Russian immigrants were settled on the Sinai Desert and Ethiopians were settled in Safed, which was cold in the winter.  It all depended on where housing existed.

This ended the life of ancient Jewish communities of Iraq, Yemen, Egypt and Libya who all had a history of of living there for the past 2,000 years. They were the Sefardi and Mitzraim Jews.   They had lived as 2nd class citizens with rules and regulations to follow because they were Jewish.  They had been held back and came with a completely different culture from the Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews.  That was an adjustment that Jews of Israel had to make.  Altogether nearly 700,000 immigrants, almost half the total -came as destitute refugees from Moslem countries.  That number matches that of the Palestinian Arabs who became refugees in 1948.    Israel had to manage 1,400,000 immigrants over their first 24 years along with the wars of :

1. November 29, 1947- 1949:   War of Independence: Arabs responded with war to the UN resolution on Palestine and continued until the Armistice Agreement  By April 1948 the land was invaded from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt to reinforce local Arabs attacking communities and blocking main roads.  Then on May 14, 1948 Israel was invaded by the armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and a Saudi-Arabian contingent.  The next day the head of the Arab League,  Azzam Pasha,  proclaimed from Cairo that "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and Crusades."  They're still in the attempt.
2. October 29 1956-November 5, 1956:   The Sinai War (Suez crisis) 
3. June 4-11, 1967:  The Six Day War
4. August 7,1968- August 7-8, 1970  The War of Attrition
5. October 6-25,  1973 The Yom Kippur War

There was an armistice and a cease fire between wars.  Even times between wars were filled with clashes along the frontier lines.  Arab terrorists, known as fidayun who were supported by Arab governments, made forays into Israel committing acts of terrorism and sabotage.

Several Eastern European countries also saw the removal of the remnant of Jews not killed in the Holocaust like Poland, Hungary and Romania where Jews had lived for centuries.  Today only a small number of Jews are there.  As a result, most Jews today live in Israel with 6 million and the United States with 6 million and 2 million more scattered through the world in places like France, England, South Africa, Canada and such.  Many from Russia were able to finally leave Russia well into the 1980's and had not been allowed to practice any religion at all.  In 1980 I was in Hebrew classes in Haifa with many Russian teachers, making up a class of 40.  I must admit that they were far more capable than I of learning a new language.

Talk about a melting pot!  This was more than the vast USA had ever thought of handling.  All these people coming in this short period of time and all speaking different languages with one common denominator, Hebrew.  The problem was that they all used it in synagogue services but not for daily communication.  Ulpans had to be set up where they went to school and learned to speak Hebrew.  Immigrants keep coming in.  Wars keep rising.  Remnants of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel are reuniting and coming to Israel.

My 2nd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot, graduated from a high school Yeshiva in Johannesburg, South Africa and boarded a ship in 1933 at age 18 for "Palestine."  In the middle of the ocean a swastika flag went up, and he didn't know if he'd make it or not.  When he did, he was greeted by members of the Stern Group just like in the movie, "Exodus" starring Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint and Sal Mineo.  I believe Sal was playing the part of a Stern Group member. The only difference was that Stanley was very tall and Sal was short.    He was immediately indoctrinated and given work to do.  He became a news reporter, as he had a gift of writing, and  somehow wound up in prison in Acco, having been arrested by the British.  Stanley wound up finally living in Jerusalem and was one of the fighters for Israel, having served as the group's Chief of Intelligence.

Resource: Facts About Israel 1973 booklet published by the division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem, Israel.
Genesis 1948 by Dan Kurzman






Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Israel Hit Convoy of Missiles Headed for Shelling Israel

Nadene Goldfoot
NBC TV news just reported that Israel's jets almost flew as far as Damascus today and bombed a convoy of huge missiles waiting to be used against Israel.  They may have even carried chemicals in the nose.  The missiles were shown on the report.  To my eyes they were huge.

Israel National News reported that the Syrian army has accused Israel of launching a dawn strike with fighter jets  and hitting a military research centre in Jamraya, near Damascus.   This center, they said, is in charge of raising their level of resistance and self-defense.  That's jibberish for the missiles that Iran wants aimed at and used against Israel by Hizbollah..

Evidently they are saying that Israel had damaged the building when we know it was the whole convoy of missiles.  They are denying the reports that the convoy was from  near the border with Lebanon.   The USA is not commenting, either.  Israel's military intelligence chief is Aviv Kochave who is in Washington to talk with General Martin Dempsey.   Jay Carney from the White House is passing any questions and giving them to Israel.  Reports earlier said the convoy was carrying Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles.  That could be, but they come from Iran.

A report that has come in from last Friday, the day of Israel's elections, was that Fordow, the atomic plant in Iran, had had an explosion.  Iran has been denying that also.  Israel has been announcing this event.  Afterwards, "A request was made to [Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah to vacate southern Lebanese villages.
Islamic Republic Guards are on their way there. A decision has been made to prepare for missile launch from a certain area in Lebanon against Israel,” he said."  I believe this has been what's been going on. The convoy went  from Lebanon to Syria.  
Whatever caused the Fordow explosion is not known.  Everyone except Israel has been denying the event.  Whoever or whatever the cause is, is a blessing as it must set back Iran's plans to make an A bomb to use against Israel.  We just had a 3.7 earthquake where I live.  It could even have been an earthquake way under the mountain where Fordow is.  We'll never know.  The story is that the elevator and stairs are in shambles and that several hundred people are trapped inside.  Smoke has been seen coming from the area.  
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/164749#.UQnS6x1LXqE
NBC News, 5:00pm

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Two Palestinian States? Oy!

Nadene Goldfoot
It looks like Khaled Mashaal of Hamas and Mahmoud Abba of Fatah, both Palestinian terrorist leaders, fight each other as much as they both do with Israel.  They've had an on and off love affair with each other, but right now it must be divorce time as Jordan and Qatar's leaders are pushing  for Mashaal to be chair over a future PLO  while Abbas still has his sights set on this role of being their next president or prime minister.  Abbas is the present PA chairman.

They can't come to any agreements, but the governments of the world  expect Netanyahu to pull out miracles and get both in agreement with him.  It's almost hilarious.

Hamas is in Gaza on the west side of Israel and Judea-Samaria is in what they call the West Bank, which is on the eastern side of Israel but west of the Jordan River.  Hamas has their charter which is almost the same as the Muslim Brotherhood in which they both have the goal of destroying Israel.  The Palestinians still are sniping at Israeli citizens when they can, which was today when a Palestinian from Judea stabbed a 17 year old Jewish teenager for nationalistic reasons at Tapuah Junction, he said.  .

Ten years ago Mashaal and other Hamas leaders were expelled from Jordan and lost their citizenship there for acts unbecoming a citizen, so King Abdullah certainly doesn't want them back, but instead has been restoring relations by allowing visits.  This is because of the Hamas promise of refraining from meddling in the King's internal affairs.

Now the King of Jordan has been living peacefully since 1972's war with Israel in which Arabs lost.    He's saying that he thinks Hamas is ready to soften their position and live peacefully next to Israel!  They're becoming a little more realistic.  Yahya Moussa al-Ebadsh of Hamas  had a come-back with a statement on their website saying that their relationship with Israel would not change.  "The only relationship with this enemy is the resistance,"  he vowed.

Religion should be used as a prescription for getting along peacefully with one's neighbors, but Hamas is using their religion as a dictum for war and death.  How can John Kerry ever deal with people in this state of belief?  I think it would take the highly evolved  James T. Kirk and  Spock from the USS Enterprise to deal with such characters.  They do not compute in my mind at all.

Resource:  http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=301391&rz=n_20Jan13 by Khaled Abu Toameh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_(film)
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=301402&rz=n_20Jan13

Monday, January 28, 2013

Richard Falk, Hamas's Patsy

                                                                French Resistance Helping American Paratroopers                        
Nadene Goldfoot                                                              
The French Resistance Fighters from WWII have been compared to Hamas terrorists by the Jewish American Richard Falk b: 1930, a recently expelled member of the Human Rights Watch Committee in December.  This UN Special Rapporteur  has held this position since 2008.  This certainly is a slap in the face for these brave Frenchmen of whom most must be deceased by now.

He's a Jew attacking Israel and siding with Palestinian terrorists.  For a lawyer, he's just throwing out nonsense.  Palestinians were immigrants coming to find jobs from the newly arrived Jewish immigrants who were joining up with Jews that never left the land.  They were building and the Arabs wanted jobs.  Most had no connection to the land and had no ideas of creating a state until 1967. Only a few had land and most were nomads.   Jews had lived in this land since Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and into the land, then called Canaan.  Saul was their first king in the 11th Century BCE..  David followed and then his son, Solomon.  Jews have a history here which is part of their religion, culture and history never forgotten.  Never forgotten except by Richard Falk, that is.

 He also compared Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to the actions of the Nazis and told others that the US government may have had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks.   He is an 82 year old  former professor of International Law at Princeton U. which is amazing considering the stand he has taken against Israel that differs from many other international lawyers.  This man has been so critical of Israel that Israel had to finally say he wasn't even allowed in their country.

He makes anti-Israel statements that are picked up by the Liberal Democratic Friends for Palestine that attacks Israel and defends Hamas.

Falk wrote about Meshaal's visit to Gaza last month and offered excuses for this terror chief's pledge to recover the whole of historic Palestine no matter how long it might take by saying that Meshall used a fiery language in Gaza but was far more moderate in several interviews with Western journalists.  Evidently he believes only the moderate speech.

The moderate tone was of Meshal is highly impossible anyway.    He was offering a truce if Israel ended their occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza and agree to uphold Palestinian rights under international law.

This was the Right of Return in which 4-5 million Palestinian refugees could flock into Israel.  He modified this by saying that "It would threaten the Jewish majority presence in Israel."  Evidently he's not concerned about that.  It's something that Israel will not go along with.

Falk wrote that Israelis should take the Gaza speech of Khaled Meshaal not as an expression of the Hamas creed but as outlining a unified and secular Palestine governed with human rights standards and the rule of law with respect to international law if there is going to be a 2 state solution in the near future.  I think Falk lives in La La Land.  There is no evidence at all that a terrorist organization such as Hamas who sacrifices its own people to gain their goals would do anything fit and proper.

The USA is not dealing with this terrorist organization.  Israel is not dealing with them, either.  It has been Abbas of Fatah who is the one that Netanyahu has wanted to speak with.  What on earth is Falk doing, playing up to Meshaal?  Well, something got him expelled from the UN position.  He wrote on his blog that he had been asked to resign by the organization "Human Rights Watch Committee." He tought it was because of his connection with the UN, which is contrary to HRW policy.  How nice to know for sure that they are contrary.  The difference is that we are on the Human Rights side and he isn't.  Certainly Hamas isn't.

Resource: http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/01/28/un-representative-richard-falk-compares-terror-group-hamas-to-wwii-french-resistance/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Falk
http://www.standwithus.com/Charter/     Stand With Us has a Free Copy of the  Hamas Charter.
Request your free copy of this StandWithUs booklet about the Hamas Charter! Write to shipping@standwithus.com
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/12/watch-human-right-watch-a-tribute-to-professor-richard-falk/
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/12/18/3114871/richard-falk-removed-from-human-rights-watch-committee
From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters; tells just who the Palestinians were and where they came from.


Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Election In Israel with Netanyahu the Winner

                                                                                   Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu            
Nadene Goldfoot
Barack Hussein Obama had his hands full in a two-party race between Republicans and Democrats.  Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu of the Likud party (The Consolidation) of Menachem Begin, a combination of right and left wing parties, had 32 parties that were competing in a much different type of race; more like English Democracy.  It's a system of proportional representation for the 120 -seat Knesset. Netanyhu was Prime Minister before from June 18, 1996 to July 6, 1999.  He has been Prime Minister again since March 31, 2009 and won again just now, ready to do his 2nd term, just like Obama.

 Netanyahu  b: October 21, 1949 in Tel Aviv, won in the elections in Israel but with a few changes.  His majority of right wing alliances has been reduced.  This 63 year old Prime Minister will now reach out to other parties to create a wide coalition which might take weeks.    His pledge is that "tomorrow we start anew."

The results showed that Likud and the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Home) group made up of more secular Russian speakers who follow the past hero, Zev Jabotinsky and now led by Avigdor Lieberman, would still be the biggest bloc in the assembly with 31 seats. They believe in holding to a harder line with the Palestinians.   This is 11 less than the 42 they held in the previous parliament.

Second in the lead was the centrist Yesh Atid party.  This was led by a former TV talk show host, Yair Lapid, b: November 5, 1963 in Tel Aviv.  He's a good looking 49 years old journalist, author, play writer as well as actor and son of another journalist.  They got 19 seats which was a surprise for this newcomer.  . Lapid created this new party which means "There is a Future" or "Future Party."  It is centrist.

Netanyahu got pluses for drawing the world's attention to Iran's nuclear program that he and most of us are very suspicious about.  We don't have to actually be there to understand that Iran doesn't like Israel and is too intent on working on something that must not be medical supplies.  I don't think either Netanyahu or I are paranoid.  There is good reason to feel they want a special kind of bomb.

He got some minuses because internationally he has continued to clash with "allies" over his handling of the peace process, but I certainly don't fault him for that.  It's really the Palestinians who have quit on Israel and refuse to come to the peace table.  It's ridiculous to keep harping on Israel to bring peace about.   Some feel, and certainly the USA is one, that says the peace talks are stalled because of his continued construction of Jewish homes in Judah and Samaria and East Jerusalem.  I happen to agree with him in that legally, and he has consulted with international lawyers, Jews have the right to build in these pre-decided areas.

Israel has 1.4 million Arab citizens.  They vote through many of the parties, including some strictly Arab parties.  One such party is the United Arab List, known by the Hebrew acronym, Ra'am.

What many of our politicians forget about is the law had already been laid down after WWI.  Netanyahu is only standing up for what is the rights coming to Israel instead of cowering and forgetting about them.  It may be an  inconvenient truth for the nations' politicians, but that it is to be.  Israel is not about to be squashed,   shrunk again and destroyed. It's people are not about to be tricked and  burned again in another Holocaust.   Netanyahu is another Bar Kokhba, and I believe he is even more astute than Bar Kokhba had been.  He's a fighter for Israel's rights.

Resource: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/372671?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesh_Atid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yair_Lapid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yisrael_Beiteinu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likud
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_members_of_the_Knesset
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_List
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knesset


Monday, January 21, 2013

Jews Cheated Out of Land to be Jewish Homeland: Facts of History of Palestine and Israel

                                                                                                                                                                                   
Nadene Goldfoot
All of Palestine was designated as a "Jewish National Home."  This was done legally through international law at the end of WWI in the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917.  What happened and how come the Jews wound up with only 20% of land to be theirs once again?  The Jews even had the agreement of King Feisal, king of Iraq and Syria  that it would work out for the Jews to return to their land.  He was one of the leaders who fought against the Ottomans.

"Understanding that Jews and Arabs would have to live together in the Land of Israel, Weizmann strove to create peaceful coexistence between the two peoples. Thus he met in Aqaba with Emir Faisal, leader of the Arab national movement. Faisal expressed sympathy for the Zionist cause, which he felt was similar to the Arabs’ national aspirations."  Weizmann was influenced by Theodore Hertzl, a secular Jewish Austrian reporter  who envisioned a Utopia for Jews.  Hertzl had written "Der Judenstaat" (The State of the Jews) outlining his ideas.

The British held the mandate and were trusted to follow out the rules.  Instead, they gave state domain lands, allocated for the "Jewish National Home,"  to those Arabs who were landless.  They did not own any land, but they claimed they were being "displaced by Jews" in Western Palestine.  The outcome was that land outside the limited Jewish-settled area of Western Palestine was then treated as "Arab" land which was more than 80% of the promised to the Jews' land.

These same Arabs did not think of themselves or even call themselves "Palestinians."  The bulk of all the Arab peasantry in the area came from East Palestinian, Syrian, Iraqi, Egyptian and other neighboring states and had been landless due to the feudal-like societal structures of their own native-born people.  That, along with natural disasters, heavy taxation and corrupt loan sharks kept them poor.  It was not the Jews who were native to the land or the Jews who arrived in the 1880's that who made the Arabs landless.

The traditional land of Palestine included land both east and west of the Jordan River.  The few Arabs that lived there thought of themselves as Ottomans or Turks, as the land had been held by the Ottomans for the past 400 years.  Some also thought of themselves as southern Syrians or as Arab people..  None said they were Palestinians.

They were imbued with religious prejudice, and erupted into anti-Jewish violence often whenever their Muslim leaders would incite them.  This happened way before Israel was created in 1948.   After 1917 with the British in the area, they were referred to by the British as being "Nationalistic"-which was in truth subterfuge  to be  anti-Semitic.  The effendis and the Mufti tried to also incite this "nationalism" which meant attacks on Jewish civilians.  T.E. Lawrence did his part also in creating nationalistic feelings among the Muslims, a leftover from inspiring them to fight with him.

The charges from Palestinian leaders of today that the Palestinian people have had an identity with the land that goes back thousands of years is false.  A few nomadic people lived in the land in the 1860's (note Mark Twain's book "The Innocents Abroad".)  It was he and his friends who were the innocents, wanting to visit Palestine who answered the flier saying to join the excursion to the Holy Land and Egypt, the Crimea, Greece, and intermediate points of interest starting in Brooklyn, February 1, 1867.  They took a first-class steamer that would hold 150 passengers.  He gave an excellent description of what he saw.

The charge that alien Jews returned after 2000 years in 1948 to "displace" the Arabs in the new Jewish state is not true.  First of all, Jews hadn't all left in 70 CE.  There were a remnant who remained and were there to greet newcomers who returned throughout the 2,000 years.  Secondly, the plans Chaim Weizmann drew up for Israel included Arabs who were on the land at the time.  It was to be a state second to none as a Utopia. Instead, they were consistently greeted with gunfire.

Palestinians charge that there was no place for them in 1948.  The land to which Arab refugees moved in 1948 included lands that many Arab refugees had only recently left in order to gain the economic  advantages of the small Jewish region within Palestine.  These homelands where they originated included Jordan.  Those who deprived these Arab refugees of homes were the Arab-Muslim leaders.  Neighboring Arab states refused to grant citizenship to those they called their Arab brothers, so they wound up in camps where they reside today.  .  Arab who did not leave when their leaders told them to became citizens of Israel.

Unfortunately, the British treated the land designated to be the Jewish National Home as Arab Land.  The Jews who tried to immigrate during WWII before and after were brutally restricted while the Brits allowed illegal Arab immigration to enter.  Therefore the Brits violated the International League of Nations Mandate by facilitating Arab settlement onto Jewish-settled land and treating the Jews terribly.  (Read "Exodus" by Leon Uris).  They helped to build up the Arab population this way.
                                                           Weizmann and King Feisal
Perhaps King Feisal was not alone in his ability to see that Jews re-entering and developing their homeland would be good for Arabs as well, but these good people have been overcome by religious zealots who have pieced out the anti-Semitic clauses in the Koran and uphold them more than even the Arab countries that hosted Jews for the past 2,000 years as Dhminnis.  All good intentions of Weizmann and other Zionists of his day have been attacked by hatred from the Arab people, except that we see 1.4 million Arabs living as citizens in Israel today and living far better than their neighbors.    Weizmann and Feisal's dreams are working.

Resource: book:  From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters page 392-393.
The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~samuel/feisal1.html  about King Feisal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
http://www.mygen.com/users/ufo/Israel_gets_the_Bomb.html
http://suite101.com/article/theodor-herzl-the-dreyfus-affair-and-modern-zionism-a407378

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

The Holiest Places to Jews: In Judea and Samaria

Nadene Goldfoot
Israel was originally designed by G-d as found in the Bible (Torah, Old Testament) . Moses, living in about 1271 BCE was led there by G-d.   The original Promised Land covered about 58,000 square miles and was occupied by the Israelites under Kings David and Solomon The total surface was 17,500 square miles of which 45% was in Transjordan.  It included most of Syria. .  Under the British Mandate, it was formed by the area west of the Jordan.  The armistice agreements of 1949 left Israel with 8,000 square miles.  After the 1967 Six Day War Israel came to occupy all of Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights and the Sinai up to the Suez Canal.  The Sinai has been given back to Egypt for peace.

Judea and Samaria (West Bank)  is home to about 500,000 Jews who are living in East Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.  These 2 areas are said to be the places where the Palestinians want their state of Palestine.  The huge problem with this is that they want no Jews to continue living here.  They want  all 500,000 to be moved out.  They also want to include East Jerusalem as well, which is a part of the whole city of Jerusalem, the capital of Israel.  It was in the past and is now the Jews' eternal city.

Brandon Marlon's article printed in the Jewish Press about Judea and Samaria is well worth reading today.  Why these 2 places are not included in the whole package of Israel was not Chaim Weizmann's fault.  They were included and should have been the boundaries of Israel being they were the very places Israel existed and was attacked by the Assyrians  back in 722 BCE when 10 of the 12 tribes were taken away.  Unfortunately, our leaders lost 80% of the land intended by world opinion to become the Jewish Homeland to Transjordan, which became Jordan and the world did not raise the rebellion about it that they should have.  The Brits had flubbed up by promising land to both Jews and Arabs at the same time.  They also flubbed up because they were to be the ones to create the Jewish Homeland and did not bring this about with the promised larger section of land.

The report is that Jewish young men living in these places  are now our best Israeli warriors.  Their parents dared to settle there where Arabs have taken up residence as well.  The areas are loaded with holy places for Jews.  It has meaning.  This was the very  heartland of the Jews.

First there was Israel in the 11th century BCE. .  King Saul of the tribe of Benjamin was Israel's first king.  David followed and then his son, King Solomon.   Later on they divided the Israel , sort of like a Democrat-Republican problem, into Israel and Judah.  Judah was where Jerusalem was.

Judah was the southerly of the 2 kingdoms.  It was divided into the 2 kingdoms in 933 BCE when King Solomon died.  The tribe of Judah and most of Benjamin as well as a lot of Simeon lived here.  It held Jerusalem so was important.  The rulers were from the house of David.  The Assyrian attack in 722 was checked before the walls of Jerusalem, but fell to the Babylonians in 586 BCE.  The name was changed by the Romans around 135 CE to Judea.

 Samaria was also called Shomron and was the capital of the of the then northern kingdom of Israel.  It was founded in 880 BCE by Omri on a hill bought from Shemer.  It was on a piece of elevated land that dominated a wide countryside and sat on 25 acres.  Omride kings of Israel such as Omri, Ahab, Joram, etc ruled there.  It was the ancient center of the wine and oil industry.  It had wonderful orchards.  The city was later ruined and owned by King Alexander Yannai, a Hasmonean and renamed Sebaste, then Sabastiyah by Herod the Great.  Finally it was under Roman occupation and settled by others.  The prophet Elisha is buried there.  So is John the Baptist.

Gilgal is the first camp and base of Joshua and the Israelites when they entered Canaan.  Joshua erected 12 stones there from the Jordan River.  People came here to celebrate Passover and they circumcised those born in the desert.  Samuel the prophet judged Israel here.  King Saul was crowned at this site.  It was a city of the Levites in the time of Nehemiah.  It is very very Jewish.

Mount Ebal or Eval is where Joshua built an altar to G-d after the fall of Ai and where  the Torah was read to all the Israelites in the presence of the Ark of the covenant, a very sacred Jewish event.  Mt. Gerizim is where the other half of Israel stood listening to Joshua.  These places are holy only to Jews.  These are only a few of the special places within Judea and Samaria.

The history of the Jews is what brought serious aliyah back home after at least 2 thousand years of  suffering from anti-Semitic nations.  No one should wonder why people are sticking their necks and lives out from living in Judea and Samaria today.  It was all planned to be done as peacefully as possible with benefiting the natives who might not be Jewish but instead have been met with hostility every inch of the way.  Of course Jews remember how they were met in foreign lands.  They followed their own Golden Rule to do unto others as they want to be done to, but these others certainly have not been cooperative.

Resource:http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/10/judeasamarias-jewish-population-growing.html
 http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/front-page/what-judea-samaria-mean-to-the-jewish-people/2013/01/16/
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/164243#.UPcD5R1LXqE
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://ivarfjeld.wordpress.com/category/israel-jews-in-judea-and-samaria/
http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_77.html

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Jordan's King Abdullah II Offers Help in Peace Process

Nadene Goldfoot
King Abdullah II  of Jordan is working with European countries to get negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel back on track.  He said that "Settlements are eating up all of Palestinian lands!

Is he talking about land thought about for a Palestine state way back in 1948 when Arafat was offered the chance to have his own stateand refused it?  Is this the land that has been repeatedly offered by Israel through left and right governments with negotiations, of course ever since then and refused by Arafat and now Abbas?    Is this the same land that Abbas wants with conditions going his way first before he will deem himself to sit down in the presence of Netanyahu?

Is this part of the land that was planned originally for the Jewish Homeland after World War I with all the nations of the world in agreement?

This is the same land that Jordan stole after being rewarded with Transjordan?   In 1948 they just helped themselves to the Jewish Homeland in an aggressive action and took Judea and Samaria  along with east Jerusalem.  The Jews wound up with only 20% of the original Homeland promised not only by Britain but by all the nations at the San Remo Conference.

Palestinians were Jews and Arabs, so evidently "Palestinian land" should include Jews as well, since there was no state of Palestine ever.  It was simply the name of the former land of Judah and Israel.    We can blame the Romans for giving it that name in 135 CE when Judah lost the last battle in which Bar Kokhba made a last stand against Rome after they burned Jerusalem in 70 CE.

For 64+ years Israel has waited and offered  peace but instead have received mortars, rockets and missiles from people who had a chance for peace and their own state.  For every rocket hitting Israel, Israel should build another city in this "so called Palestinian land."  For Israelis  haven't built pioneer settlements and stockade but cities; nice sized cities in these past 64 years.  Israel is building in the legitimate area that was cordened off to be a part of Israel.

Israel hasn't remained the size of the original 600,000 in 1948 but have taken in all the Jews from around the world, especially from the Muslim countries who were treated as 2nd class citizens or worse as dhminnis.  France and every other country where anti-Semitism has been blatent have driven Jews back home along with religious Jews who swore never to forget Jerusalem and haven't.   From being treated by religious fanatics as unwanted and unforgiven,  to suffering from pogroms and finally  almost wiped out through a holocaust,  our 6 million are going to fight for their rights as a people.  There are no other people on the face of this earth who have suffered as much as the Jews have and deserve their own home again.  The mirror-image of this is that there are no other people who have offered so much to the world, either.  So go figure that one out; from the 10 Commandments to Nobel prizes to medical discoveries that are beneficial to all.

The only thing that has come out of the Muslim world for Israel is the action and word of wiping Israel off the map.  In fact, who among them even prints Israel on their maps these days?  Israel may only consist of 6 million Jews and are up against a Muslim world of billions, but they are as essential to this world as anyone else and are not about to be wiped  out.  Israel is aware of a people who call out that what Hitler didn't accomplish, they will.

So it's good that King Abdullah b: 1962  sees that the longer the Palestinians hold out for what they  demand  without regard to Israel's legitimate international legal rights and history, the more they are losing land.  His own father, King Hussein,  didn't fare so well when he joined the gang in attacking Israel in 1967.  It was Jordan who lost the West Bank and East Jerusalem.  After all, Jordan has their own hand's full being a kingship over a big population of Palestinians himself.  His country even fought against them.  Now that he governs so many, he knows that he doesn't want to take anymore into his country. He even has protesters trying to get rid of him in the sweep of the Arab Spring.   He wants them to have their own space, and so does Netanyahu.  I imagine King Adbullah has enjoyed peace between Israel and Jordan since 1967. He has never known war, having been only 5 years old in the last one.

Resource: Jerusalem Post http://www.jpost.com/
http://maurice-ostroff.tripod.com/id350.html San Remo Conference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussein_of_Jordan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_II_of_Jordan
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/16/world/la-fg-jordan-protests-20121117