Ephraim's Sharon, Land of Israel

Nadene Goldfoot

Part of Israel's coastal plain is Sharon. It runs from Caesarea to Jaffa. In ancient days it was known for its fertility and was partially covered with oak forests, pasture land and swamps. Swamps resulted from choking the river mouths and neglect of outlets through the coastal ridge. In Israelite times it belonged to the tribe of Ephraim, one of our twelve tribes.

Assyrians conquered it in 732 BCE, creating Duru (Dor) there. The Persians came along and gave it to the Sidonians. Greek and Roman cities grew up in the south until it decayed in the hands of Arabs in the Arab and Mameluke Periods. It was then deserted and swamp-ridden.

Jewish settlers in the 1880's came along in groups mostly from Russia called Aliyahs. There were several waves of them.

A town called Haderah was created in N. Sharon, founded in 1891 as a farming community by Bilu Jewish immigrants who were members of a Zionist group called Hovevei Zion, from Lithuania and Latvia. . They were greeted by extensive swamps that were flanked by sand dunes. This was the source of malaria which before world War I caused the death of nearly half of the settlers. On Baron Edmond de Rothschild's suggestion, the settlers planted eucalyptus trees and they dug drainage canals. Their health improved. By 1990 Haderah had 41,600 residents. By 1948, it was a regional center with a population of 11,800. It was declared a city in 1952. With an area of jurisdiction of 53,000 dunams, Hadera is Israel's fourth largest city.

Aliyahs were still coming in the 1930's. Jews were not met by the welcome wagon and McDonald's. They had to work extremely hard to create Israel. It took their blood, sweat and tears.

Parts of the Plain are included in the Haifa, Center, and Tel Aviv Districts of Israel. In 2008 The Sharon Plain was home to 1,131,600 people[1], 965,300 of them (85.3%) are Jews, and 166,300 (14.6%) are Arabs.

We forget about all the hard work our ancestors went through to renew the land of Israel. Very few Arabs lived there as as Joan Peters explained in her excellent book, "From Time Immemorial". This journalist did actual research herself and found that the Arabs were not native to the land except for a few. Most of them came from surrounding nations, far and wide. They came to find work with the returning Jews who were building their homeland. You can't blame them and the Jewish men probably rejoiced in being able to hire some help. There was no work in their own homelands.

Jews paid for this land. They found that owners were living in Europe amid comfort, and asked high prices, which they paid. The land was dear. It was special, but only to Jews who intended to live in their ancient homeland once again. It was land neglected, waiting for the Jews to return so that it could blossom again. It did just that. Happy for tender love and care, Israel is now coveted by the Gazans called Hamas who want all of Israel to disappear.

Reference: The Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Wikipedia-Sharon Plain

The Goldstone Report Smears: A Shunda

Nadene Goldfoot

The Goldstone Report that recently came out of the United Nations as a review of the Gaza War is as expected, considering the source, only worse. Since so many participants are prejudiced against Israel, this is what the little country continually faces. If we're ever judged fairly, it'll probably mean that the Messiah has arrived.

1. Facts are that Hamas fighters did use civilian clothes when fighting Israel. Even journalists saw this.

2. The areas where attacks were being launched were known to Palestinian witnesses and video tapes. That's how Israel found them.

3. Palestinians fired from hospitals and when using ambulences. This was also seen by eyewitnesses.

4. Weapons were stored in a mosque. A 2nd explosion of mosques is consistent with the storage of explosives. There is video evidence of this.

5. Israel brought in humanitarian aid. The amount even increased months after the war ended. The terrorists assert that it decreased. This is false and disingenuous.

6. There are many documented cases of Palestinian militants being killed in clashes in the neighborhood with their own people. They try to assert that the Zeitoun area is pacifist and had no militant groups or rocket fire. If anyone believes that the young Palestinians are pacifists, I have a bridge to sell to you called the Brooklyn.

7. Palestinian eyewitnesses and Israel say that the Fakhoura area was used to fire at Israel and that combatants were killed in the Israeli strike.

The Goldstone Report is made of people that have used double standards. They have produced a very distorted and one-sided document favoring the Palestinian terrorists who have been shelling Israel for the past seven years. They have dismissed admisions of Palestinian guilt and accepted only the denials. One example is of a Palestinian fighter using human shields.

If the information given even suggests Israeli culpability, it is believed but never if information suggests Palestinian guilt.

Contradictions and lies given by Palestinians or pro-Palestinian sources are dismissed or ignored. Anything from Israel can be called a contradiction and a falsehood and is used to blast Israel's credibility.

Palestinian political leaders' statements have not been used to show evidence. The same is not held true for Israel.

Photographs from Israel are not used to determine that what they show are evidence, but no doubt was ever cast on photos from Palestinians. They said they reviewed 1,200 photographs.

They are accusing Israel of discrimination against women because it struck elements of Gaza's food and water infrastructure. It did not charge the Palestinians with violating the convention and should have.

The Goldstone Report is out to justify accusing Israel of war crimes. They have avoided anything smacking of a misdeed from the Palestinians, like the past 7 years of attacking Israel. They will not charge Hamas and other PLO groups of violating international law.

They leave out facts where it is important. Language is played with. They went back to when Sharon visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and complained that it is the 3rd most sacred place in Islam and he dared to visit it. Goodness! They left out the fact that it IS the holiest site in Judaism.

We call the recent building of a wall a barrier. It has been very successful in keeping out suicide bombers and terror attacks and was built to protect its citizens from being killed or injured. They refer to it as a wall and we call it a barrier. The majority of it is a fence. They used "wall" almost 50 times and "barrier" 3 times. They never mentioned "fence".

The report claims that Hamas recognizes Israel when in fact they refuse to and never have. Even Hamas tried to clarify this fact only to have the Report say otherwise. Are we surprised that they haven't really listened?

Reference: CAMERA Alert: Goldstone Report- a Study in Duplicity: http://www.camera.org/.

The Truth About Palestinian Refugees

Nadene Goldfoot

1800's -Jews started returning to Eretz Israel and had to drain the land as so much was swampy. They planted eucalyptus trees to soak up the water. Trees are continuallyy being planted. Never has so much been done to such undeveloped impossible land. They've invented scientific ways of farming this impossible land which they now have passed on to other undeveloped countries.

1880-1947 Arabs came into Palestine from surrounding areas such as Greece and neighboring Arab areas seeking work with Jews who were building a country.

1945 End of World War II leaving about 100,000 Jewish refugees.
EXODUS by Leon Uris is a story about getting to Israel. It was also made into a movie. “Exodus” is the story of Kitty Fremont, a Christian nurse, and her love for Ari Ben Canaan, a leader of the Jewish underground set against the background of the struggle for a Jewish homeland in Israel. They meet when he comes aboard a ship filled with refugee Jewish children trying to run a British blockade to reach Palestine in order to organize a hunger strike.

1947 The United Nations partitioned mandated Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. The Arabs rejected this. Israel is now a little smaller than New Jersey. Israel absorbed all Jewish refugees from WWII.

1948 Birth of Israel and immediate War of Independence: 7 Arab states started the war to drive Jews into the sea. They were Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Transjordan (now called Jordan).

200,000 to 570,000 to 630,000 Arabs left Palestine's area so they would not be in the way of the victorious Arab armies in their planned massacre of the Jewish defenders. Many were told by their leaders to leave.

Arab armies lost war; Arabs who fled did not return, also on advice of their leaders but settled in refugee camps. This was INTENTIONAL NOT TO BE ABSORBED OR INTEGRATED INTO ARAB LANDS. The lost war was used as a club against Israel.

They are the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands.

British counted Arabs and kept the records. If Arabs had only been in Palestine for 2 years they were called "refugees". Most were new immigrants to Israel. Only a few had been their previously with any history, and then most had not owned land but had been more migratory.

Arab countries kicked out 700,000 Jews who came into Palestine-same number of Arabs who left. This number was more than Arabs who left Palestine.

160,000 Arabs stayed in Israel. Many of the successful Palestinian Arabs are the Christians who live in Haifa. They are not terrorists.

1949 Israel's border now left 9 miles between the eastern border and the Mediterranean Sea. The distance from Gresham to Portland's Ladd's Addition is about that. From my house in Gresham to SE 12th and Division is about 12 miles.

1956 The Suez War: Israel again attacked.

1967 Six Day War: Israel won again and gained the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights, repossessed the provinces of Judea and Samaria (The West Bank) and the eastern part of Jerusalem which had been occupied by the Jordanians 19 years earlier when they invaded Israel in 1948.

1973 Yom Kippur War: Egypt and Jordan, the closest Arab neighbors, begrudgingly accepted Israel's presence, much to the horror of their Arab brothers.

1979 Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt returning the Sinai Desert to them

1980-1985 I moved to Israel. Two weeks before I moved, a rocket landed behind an apartment building in Safed " Zfat" in the upper Galilee where I was going to live.

1981-1982 Christian Lebanese were in trouble. Israel had good relations with them. Major Hadad, Christian leader, came to Israel for R&R to our hospital. We have agreement to care for his family. Arab income is the highest in Israel compared to the rest of the Arab world.
1982 Lebanon War: Lebanon Muslims had been attacking Northern Israel. Sharon of Israel had allowed Major Hadad's Christian Militia to go into the camps of Muslims and didn't know they meant to slaughter them. Sharon was held responsible. I lived very close to the action in Safed and witnessed our army going up the hill to Safed and how our army was deployed.

Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank and autonomy under the Palestinian authority and has supplied their police and security forces with weapons. Sharon was Prime Minister of Israel but had a stroke, so Olmert took over. His convergence plan means the evacuation of tens of thousands of Jewish settlers from the West Bank and the establishment of new borders between Israel and the Palestinians by the year 2010. Olmert means to relocate isolated West Bank settlements in existing large settlement blocs closer to the pre-1967 border between Israel and the West Bank. 50,000 to 80,000 settlers will be affected in the move. This is to create a separation between Israelis and Palestinians with Israelis to the west of the barrier so that it's easier for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to defend. IF Israel does this alone, we would still need international approval for the new lines it sets on its own. This plan is different from Sharon's "Disengagement" as the scale is much larger.

The evacuation of Gaza of all Jews affected about 9,000 settlers. Olmert had to decide on either full withdrawal as Gaza had or continued presence as in the northern West Bank. A continued military presence in the evacuated area could make it easier to fight terror and to minimize firing of rockets across the border.

A one state solution was decided to be out of the question as the Palestinians would become a majority. We cannot allow a situation such as a terrorist government which rejects Israel like Hamas or a weak Palestinian leader like President Mahmoud Abbas. We need a clear-cut Jewish majority in a smaller Israel. Palestinians and the Arab states all strongly oppose the Convergence plan. They fear they could be marginalized and left facing a fait accompli which serves Israeli rather than their interests. Jordan and Egypt do not want war to come into their territories which might happen. Jordan's King Abdulla complained that the plan could sound the death knell for the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Settlers are strongly resisiting. The disengagement plan could cost Israel as high as $18 billion dollars.

2005 Israel gave up Gaza Strip. Terrorists have used it to fire Kassam rockets against Israel.

2006 On May 23, 33 visiting Oregonians were on a ridge overlooking the strip and witnessed an attack. Earlier that day the rockets had hit a school in Sderot, an Israeli town near the Gaza border. The classroom was empty because the children were in another room saying their morning prayers. Other rockets landed outside the town and two people were treated for shock. Israel did not initiate any attacks.

Palestinians are demanding a full right of return of Palestian refugees who have been living in refugee camps from 1948. They practice polygamy and have multiplied many times over. They want full control of East Jerusalem or now, all of Jerusalem.. They want the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. we keep making offers and they keep refusing but then asking for more.
2008 Operation Cast Lead War December 27th Israel attacked Gaza Hamas terrorists after years of being shelled by them. They previously warned them and the world what the results of their constant shelling would lead to. Southern Israel took thousands of rockets, especially the town of Sderot. Far more Palestinians died than Israelis. Again, this is being used against Israel who works at trying to protect it's people, both IDF and civilians. Thousands of Israelis now suffer from PTSD from the constant bombardment. This was inevidable war as the constant shelling had to be stopped by Israel. No American community could take such treatment for so long. One shelling would be sufficient anywhere else.

What International Law Says About Israeli Settlements

Nadene Goldfoot

Jewish Settlements have existed from time immemorial in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and the Gaza Strip. They were recognized as legitimate the Mandate for Palestine and adopted by The League of Nations. Hebron existed throughout the centuries of Ottoman rule as a Jewish settlement. Others were established under the British Mandatory Administration before the State of Israel was created in 1948. Many of these newer settlements were on land that was originally a Jewish community in previous generations. Jewish people have deep historic and religious connections with this land.

For more than a thousand years we have not been prohibited from these settlements until the new state of Jordan was created and their illegal occupation administration from 1948 to 1967 declared the sale of land to Jews as a capital offense. The rights of Jews in these areas and the legal titles to the land that they had could not be legally invalidated by either Jordan or Egyptian occupation when they invaded Israel in 1948. These rights and titles are valid to this day.

The West Bank and Gaza Strip is territory where there are competing claims which should be settled in peace process negotiations. Israel has valid claims to title in this territory based on historic and religious connection to the land and security needs, and also that the territory was not under the sovereignty of any state and came under Israeli control in a war of self-defense. Israel understands that the Palestinians also think they have legitimate claims on the area.

There had been no prohibition whatsoever on the building or expansion of settlements up until the Annapolis Peace Conference. Earlier, the agreements said that this was reserved for permanent status negotiations which would take place in the ending stages of peace talks. It was agreed that Palestinians had no jurisdiction or control over the settlements or Israelis until the conclusion of a permanent status agreement. Are we there? Where are our peaceful partners?

The building of homes has no effect on the status of the area. Many Israeli governments so far have recognized the need for compromise and have voluntarily adopted a freeze on the building of new settlements. Sharon had declared Israel would not build any new settlements but was committed to the existing settlements' needs.

Israel was originally promised at least 4/5th more the size of a piece of land that they received in 1948, but it didn't create a war about it. It was accepted. Since then, chunks have continually been bitten off and this is continuing. We are left with a microscopic bite, and an odd shape at that that can't be adequately protected. What will happen to this little piece? Will it be swallowed whole by the Palestinians?

Reference: Jewish Virtual Library May 2001: Israeli Settlements and International Law