A Lesson From Kosovars And Palestinians For Atlasians...

A Lesson From Kosovars And Palestinians For Atlasians...

by Gerald A. Honigman

Now tell me…What would you do in the age of nationalism--which came relatively late to the Middle East--if your national group already had almost two dozen states on over six million square miles of territory (conquered mostly from other national groups), wanted to create at least one more, but another people’s sole, tiny, resurrected nation state stood in the way?

Well, please take a look--like many of us have over the decades--at the answer through the oft-quoted words of a spokesman for that above national group itself, PLO executive committee member Zuheir Mohsen, on March 31, 1977, in the Dutch newspaper Trouw.

The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese… Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‘Palestinian people’ to oppose Zionism…

Before having to deal with the politics and sensitivities of at least some in the West, Arabs simply gave no thought to Mohsen’s tactics.

As I deliberately like to reemphasize time and again (for those who like to place Israel under the high power lens of moral scrutiny while playing deaf, dumb, and blind to what surrounds it), millions of native peoples were simply conquered and forcibly Arabized in the name of the Arab Nation and the spread of its Dar ul-Islam--imperialism and colonialism, pure and simple--and millions of native Egyptian Copts, black Africans, Kurds, Imazighen (Berbers), Jews, and others are still suffering the consequences of this murderous subjugation.

In a post-Holocaust age, however, in the struggle to win over hearts and minds from abroad, how could Arabs demand twenty-two states while denying Jews their one?

The answer--as Mohsen so correctly stated above: Reinvent yourselves.

From now on, you’re “Palestinians.” And then depend on the ignorance of most of the rest of the world to back your claim, “If Jews can have a state, why not Palestinians?” And, don’t you know, “Palestinians” are the new formerly stateless Jews.

Forget the facts…

Like most Arabs never saw the land of the Jews--Judaea--until their own murderous imperial conquests brought them out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century C.E. when they spread out in all directions.


Or that the very name “Palestine” was dubbed upon Judaea by the Roman Emperor Hadrian after the Jews’ costly second revolt for freedom. To pour salt onto their wound, he renamed the Jews’ land after their historic enemies, the Philistines--a non-Semitic sea people (i.e. not Arab) from the area around Crete. Tacitus, Dio Cassius, and other contemporary Roman historians wrote all about Judaea and Judaeans--not “Palestine” or “Palestinians.” Listen to one of my favorite telling quotes about the Jews’ first revolt in Vol. II, Book V, The Works of Tacitus:

Vespasian… succeeded to the command.… it inflamed his resentment that the Jews were the only nation that had not yet submitted…Titus was appointed by his father to complete the subjugation of Judaea… he commanded three legions in Judaea itself… To these he added the twelfth from Syria and the third and twenty-second from Alexandria… amongst his allies were a band of Arabs, formidable in themselves and harboring towards the Jews the bitter animosity usually subsisting between neighboring nations.

Or that, not having endured the forced exile and diaspora of many (but not all--many still remained in the hill country and elsewhere clear up to the Arab conquest) of the Jews, still...so many Arabs were newcomers themselves to the Mandate of Palestine after World War I and the breakup of the Ottoman Turkish Empire which had controlled the land for over four centuries, that when the United Nations Relief Works Agency--UNRWA--was set up to assist Arab refugees (after a half dozen Arab states invaded a nascent Israel in 1948 to nip it in the bud and their attempt backfired), the very word “refugee” had to be redefined from its prior meaning of persons normally and traditionally resident to those who lived in the Mandate for a minimum of only two years prior to 1948 to assist these people. Hamas’s own patron saint, for whom its terror brigade and rockets are named for, Sheikh Izzadin-al-Qassam, was born in Latakia, Syria. Arafat was from Egypt. And both “native Palestinians” had plenty of company, pouring into the Mandate because of the economic development going on due to the Jews.

And so forth.

Now, using this same tactic, Serbs have been similarly shafted.

Albania is an independent nation southwest of the former Yugoslavia. The Serbs fought their first major battle for Kosovo against the spread of the Dar ul-Islam (this time led by Turkish imperialism) in 1389--over six centuries ago.

Albania had become at least nominally converted to Islam via the Ottoman conquest. Over the centuries, ethnic Albanians encroached upon traditionally Serbian lands.

Enter the late 20th century…

Everyone knew that with the death of Tito, Iraq’s twin, artificially glued together state of Yugoslavia would fall apart.

Now, if you’re an Albanian in Serbia and you already have an ethnic Albanian state in existence (so you can’t claim “statelessness"), how do you stake your claim for additional territory--at another people’s (Serbs’) expense?

Hitler played a somewhat similar game with the large population of ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland. World War II soon followed, as his sights were set far beyond the Czechs’ and Slovaks’ domain.

According to this reasoning, America also better watch its own southwest very carefully--especially since it really was once part of Mexico anyway. And what’s Russia up to these days, since we’re on this subject? Think non-Russian peoples’ lands, with Russian ethnic minorities, and how this game could be played out.

The answer, however, regarding Albanians in Serbia is…You follow Zuheir Mohsen’s advice.

But instead of renaming yourselves “Palestinians,” you, of course, call yourselves Kosovars instead. And then get assorted Jihadis from the rest of the Arab/Muslim World to assist you--along with America and NATO.

There is no doubt that too much of the conflict regarding the breakup of Yugoslavia was deliberately biased against the Serbs.

Atrocities occurred (as they had for centuries)--but on both sides, with Serbs often the victims…victims the American State Department ignored as it sought Muslims it could point to as championing while America was fighting others in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. American bombers led the final dismemberment.

There’s a lesson here…and Jews, Kurds, Imazighen, and others need to pay close attention.

Instead of demanding just the rebirth of their one state, Jews need to demand others as well.

Jews have a long history in Morocco, as just one example--long before Arabs conquered both Jews and Imazighen alike there.

Over 600,000 Moroccan Jews now live in Israel--part of the other side of the Middle East refugee problem few ever talk about...more Moroccan Jews than Arabs who got their own nation states in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, etc. when they were created. Additionally, many more Moroccan Jews live in America, France, and elsewhere today, including Morocco.

Why multiple states for Arabs and not Jews?

As early as Roman times, Jews fleeing the Roman wars in Judaea began to travel inland in North Africa and forged both economic and cultural ties with the Imazighen--especially in the Atlas Mountains. Some of the latter folks even adopted the faith of their Jewish neighbors.

When Arab Muslims invaded, Jews and Imazighen fought them together. Across the Atlas Mountains, Queen Dahlia al Kahina (whom the famed Muslim scholar, Ibn Khaldun, called “the Jewess” ) led both Jews and Imazighen in battle against invading Arabs, who would later massacre and subjugate both peoples.

Why not states for the Atlasians--at least one for Jews and one for the Imazighen--in North Africa?

Why “Palestinians” and “Kosovars,” but not “Atlasians?”

While we’re at it, some thirty-five million stateless Kurds need to jump aboard as well.


Kurds predate Arabs in “Arab” Syria as well as in “Arab” Iraq…and in “Turkish” Turkey. But we all know what happened/happens when Kurds try to assert their rights there. Their best hope right now is in the place where they were indeed promised independence after World War I--in northern Mesopotamia, part of today’s renamed Iraq.

While I don’t really expect that much of the above will happen, it’s worth asking those academics, State Department folks, left-wing knownothings, and other hypocritical practitioners of the double standard… Why not?

If Kurds played the Arab game regarding trading “Arab” for “Palestinian,” how many Kurdish states might they be entitled to?

The reality, of course, is that all of these peoples are still struggling to maintain or obtain basic political and human rights in what Arabs call “purely Arab patrimony.”

That others buy into their subjugating mindset is the real travesty.

Of Arabs And Kurds: Beyond Ignorance

Of Kurds And Arabs: Beyond Ignorance…The Allegedly Free Press
by Gerald A. Honigman

If it was just another State Department travesty, I could accept it.

After all, I’m used to the Foggy Folks doing such things as fighting President Truman over his supporting Israel’s very rebirth; concocting latter day Arafatian Fatah “good cops” to force down Israel’s throat (knowing that on the issue of a permanent Jewish Israel, Abbas’s boys totally agree with the Hamas “bad cops”); demanding that Israel itself supply weapons to Fatah--which has as much, if not more, Jewish blood on its hands than Hamas--only to see such things as yeshiva students later massacred as a result; setting up equivalency standards whereby murderer and those in pursuit are placed on the same moral plane; and so forth.

The Arabists who wield too much say at Foggy Bottom have played such games for well over a half century now.

Demanding a second, not first, state for Arabs within the original 1920 borders of the Mandate of Palestine (Jordan, sitting on the lion’s share of the land, carved out in 1922), the State Department has no problem pressuring Israel to make one suicidal concession after another so that Arab state # 22 may arise.

One of the latest issues involved Arab students (“Gaza Fulbright Scholars”) Secretary Rice wanted Israel to allow to come to America to study. Reports stated she was fuming over Israel’s reluctance to grant this request for these particular students.

Guess what…? Turns out State has now also “seen the light” on this matter (connections to terror groups, etc.). Don’t expect any apologies, however.

What’s worse, in all the decades I’ve closely followed the Middle East, I can’t recall any Foggy Folk “fuming” over anything Arabs did--be it blowing up Jewish teens in nightclubs, students on buses, mothers and babies in pizzerias, gassing and massacring Kurds, Assyrians, Copts, black Africans in the Sudan, or Berbers in the rest of North Africa, and so forth. Nonetheless, Baker, Rice, Dulles, etc. fume/fumed a lot over Jews, however.

No doubt, America needed oil, and--like many other nations--did what it could to make nice to those who would one day be controlling the spigots. Many of the latter are Arabs. Not to mention that long before former Secretaries of State James Baker made $$$ millions and Condoleezza Rice had a Chevron oil tanker named for her, other Foggy Folks, under cover of the flag, also prospered via that oil spigot.

So, that brings me to the real problem of this current article…the press.

As with the Foggy Folks, I’m sure there are bright people in the print and other media. So, the problem cannot simply be due to ignorance…which makes it much worse.

Furthermore, far too few of us have written of this problem--as glaring as it is--and far too many academics have shamed themselves by indulging in such hypocrisy as well.

The problem I’m speaking of is the double standards the press constantly uses when covering the Arabs’ quest for state # 22 versus the plight of some thirty-five million stateless Kurds.

A free press is one of the cornerstones of a true democracy…yet ours routinely acts like it takes its cue from the State Department when it comes to the Middle East. State has the same animus and set of Arab-colored glasses when it comes to Kurds as it has with Hebrews. As just one of numerous examples, when--as National Security Advisor--Dr. Rice spoke at the U.S. Institute of Peace on August 19, 2004, here’s some of what she said about the birth of Arab state # 22:

The President believes that the Palestinian people (Arabs) deserve not merely their own state, but a just and democratic state that serves their interests and fulfills their decent aspiration.

She later went on to say something to the effect that there would be no greater cause than the birth of Palestine.

Now contrast this with how, on this same occasion, she simply brushed off a question regarding a Kurdish referendum on independence (which showed that at least 80% of Kurds wanted this) with the following disdain:

…It’s the role of leadership to convince people that they really ought to stay in the same body.

Sucking the Arab oil teat quite well since leaving office, James Baker led the Baker-Hamilton Commission (Iraq Study Group) for President Bush not long ago and proposed similar shaft the Kurds ideas. The list, unfortunately, goes on and on.

We’re supposed to expect better of our press, but it has mostly behaved as if the Foggy Folks are its mentors.

Countless editorials and op-eds have been written on behalf of the birth of Arab state # 22--knowing full well that Arabs of either stripe have no intention of living peacefully with a Jewish neighbor--regardless of its size. A visit to either good or bad cops’ maps, textbooks, websites, and so forth soon reveals this.

Yet I still have not seen the press editorial calling for the birth of Kurdish State # 1...or even for meaningful Kurdish autonomy. The same papers who call Arabs who blow up buses “militants” have no problem calling the PKK in Turkey “terrorists.” Why the double standards? Where’s the courage of a free press to confront such injustice?

Are there problems associated with addressing the aspirations of tens of millions of repeatedly used and abused native, stateless Kurds?

Sure, but no more--indeed less--than with those associated with the creation of Arab state # 22.

I have written of this many times before, such as in State Department Math...
http://www.krg.org/articles/detail.asp?rnr=77&lngnr=12&anr=6589&smap= Keep in mind that Kurds were indeed promised such a state in the north of Mesopotamia after World War I but were shafted by…guess what?

British petroleum politics and Arab nationalism.

A united, Arab-controlled Iraq was created instead in all of the former Mandate of Mesopotamia.

Among other places, you can find my work on this (while a doctoral student) on Paris’s acclaimed Institut d’Etudes Politique (Science Po) recommended reference list:

http://bibliotheque.sciences-po.fr/produits/bibliographies/question_kurde.htm

Keep in mind that all the Kurds are asking for is meaningful autonomy within a federated Iraq--far less than what they truly deserve. But to have the former, they must secure their finances as well. And that brings me to the press again…

Recently, just days apart, my local paper carried photos and articles supplied by the Associated Press (July 29th and August 3rd).

One showed a “Palestinian” (Arab) boy with “The Dome Of The Rock Mosque” in the background.

The overwhelmingly vast majority of the time, what’s missing from such reporting to mostly unaware readers is that that mosque was deliberately built--after the Arabs’ own imperial conquest of Israel in the 7th century C.E.--on the Temple Mount of the Jews. Using this case as an example, the most you’ll read is that the place is holy to three faiths and such.

The second piece, by the AP’s Robert Reid, was entitled, “Kurdish Demands Over Kirkuk Spur Protest.”

The Kirkuk and Mosul region is where the second half of Iraq’s major oil deposits are located. After the Brits got a favorable decision on the Mosul Question from the League of Nations in 1925, the abortion of promises of independence to the Kurds became complete.

Now, if Israel captured Arab oil fields, Judaized the area, and so forth, the whole world would have a hissy fit. Actually, it did develop the Abu Rodeis oil fields in the Sinai, captured as a result of the ‘67 War started when Egypt blockaded Israel at the Straits of Tiran. Subsequently, in return for a very cold peace (the arms and explosives coming into Gaza to kill Jews are entering largely via Egypt), Israel gave up its chance at energy independence by returning the whole shebang to Egypt.

Now, apply this to Iraq.

Why is it okay for Arabs and Iranians to control ‘their’ oil, but not so for Kurds?

And please don’t respond--as that second article did--that Kirkuk is composed of mixed nationalities (largely due to Saddam’s forced Arabization of the area).

Kirkuk is as Kurdish as Londonistan--er, I mean London-- is British…despite all of those other nationalities now living there. Iran’s major oil fields are in its western province of Khuzestan…but that area has been known as Arabistan for centuries…Guess why?

There is no doubt that Kurds lived in the area of the Mosul and Kirkuk oil fields for millennia before a Turk or Arab even knew it existed. As Hurrians, Kassites, Medes, Guti, and so forth, they were neighbors of the Jews. As for the presence of some Turkmen as well, recall that, besides Turkey, there are a half dozen other Asiatic Turkic states as well. It’s the Kurds who are still lacking a national liberation…

We Americans take pride in our sense of fair play.

We can’t do much about the State Department’s shameful shenanigans--except elect strong Presidents (as with Truman )--while making sure that both the latter and Congress also strongly receive our messages.

But we can demand that our press lives up to the source of pride it should be for any free nation--let alone America--which calls itself a true democracy. It should not simply become anyone’s virtual mouthpiece.

Sadly, when it comes to the Middle East, reading the news today is like reading a State Department press release…like those we’ve seen above.

That’s not what a free press is supposed to be about.

Obama's Example For Israel...

Obama’s Example For Israel…Change

by Gerald A. Honigman

Israel has a very important lesson to learn from Barack Obama…and it better do so quickly.

I checked out Obama’s official website, Obama For Change, and here’s what’s highlighted:

With the right leadership, and a change of attitude and focus, Barack Obama brings a new viewpoint to discover solutions to the problems at hand.

It’s about time...It’s about change.

Exactly.

Now, I’m a registered Independent voting for John McCain, but certainly my own country needs a good dose of proper change…in how we get energy, as just one example. McCain knows this as well.

Certainly, if this idea is important for America, it is even more so for Israel.

Jews and/or Israel have been undergoing change imposed from the outside for centuries.

In the 19th century, the Reform movement emerged among Jews who--among other things--were determined that the days of the imposed ghetto, degradation, and such (from which Napoleon had freed them) should never return.

Assimilation was the name of the game--to the point of recommendations to change the Sabbath to Sunday. The idea was to rid themselves of their identities as Jews. Henceforth, they would just be Frenchmen, Russians, Poles, Germans, etc. of the (much diluted) Jewish faith…not German or French Jews.

Sounded reasonable--if not a bit pathetically nauseating--no?

Too bad the Germans, Poles, French, and so forth didn’t see things this way.

Modern political Zionism, leading to the resurrection of the state of the Jews, arose because--in perhaps the most enlightened of nations in the 19th century--France--the most vile anti-Semitism proved to be alive and well, targeting even the most assimilated of Jews--whom Alfred Dreyfus, of the infamous Dreyfus Affair, symbolized. And it flourished amongst the intelligentsia as well as the rabble.

Another assimilated Jew, Theodore Herzl, was a reporter from Austria covering Captain Dreyfus’s railroaded trial. Shocked to the core at seeing mobs shouting such things as “death to the Jews,” he later wrote, Der Judenstaat--The Jewish State.

So much for that change…

It was as if G_d was saying, “ Israel will be reborn--whether you Jews like it or not!”

In the Jews’ quest for normalcy, they bent over backwards in the pursuit of modern political Zionism to create a state like all others…somewhat reminiscent of the Reform movement’s motivations, but on a national scale.

Now, don’t get me wrong, not all saw things this way. Religious Zionists saw G_d’s hand in all of this…the Hebraic prophecies unfolding as planned. I agree. And they too had many supporters.

But most of the Zionist leaders who came to rule both pre-state and post-‘48 Israel also deluded themselves into believing that the rest of the world would forget that Israel was the Jew of the Nations.

Well, since Auschwitz, it’s not proper--in at least some circles--to be “anti-Semitic.”

No problem…

Utilize absurd double and moral equivalence standards, and replace anti-Zionism for anti-Semitism, and the age-old animus now remains kosher.

All other peoples can demand national liberation except the one people who needed it the most…the condemned to wandering “G_d-killers” of the Christian West and the “slayers of Prophets and Jew Dogs” of the Arab/Muslim East.

Being the oldest, still existing victims of imperial conquest, the Jews were expected to simply remain that way.

Seeking to gain acceptance in an “Arab” world which sees them as sons of apes and pigs, too many Jews then continued to pursue this change even further in pursuit of a “post-Zionist” Israel.

Again, recall one of the key motivations of the Reform movement…What can we do to change ourselves so we’ll gain acceptance from the Gentiles?

Unfortunately, ignorance of one’s enemies has characterized too many of those who have called the political shots in Israel. The very idea that dhimmi Jews (or Kurds or Berbers or Copts or black Africans, etc.) should demand political rights in what Arabs consider to be purely Arab patrimony and the Dar ul-Islam is laughable to anyone truly familiar with this subject.

Add to post-Zionism a continued movement away from the idea of Israel as a Jewish State, and you have the mess Israel now finds itself in.

So, so much for those changes as well.

Therefore, guess what?

It’s time for Israel to try another type of change…a return to its proud roots.

It’s time for Israel to stop trying to alter itself to be accepted by others.

The values of Jews became the moral guidelines for much, if not most, of the modern world; and, despite its imperfections, Israel is still that light unto the nations the Bible asked it to be.

The national liberation of the Jewish people in the land in which they have thousands of years of continuous history--Zionism--ranks as noble as any of such movements can be. If Arabs can have almost two dozen states--conquered and forcibly Arabized from mostly non-Arab peoples--then why not one resurrected state for Jews?

No, Israel has nothing to cover up for…certainly nothing to revise its very being. If compared with the same set of lenses to the “Arab” world (rarely done), Israel should indeed be canonized. Indeed, as I write this article, black Muslim African refugees fleeing Arabs from Darfur are fleeing to Israel.

What’s needed now is change--but done the right way…

There are Jews in Israel who still have the sense of justice, passion, and compassion of Golda, Ben-Gurion, Jabotinsky, and Begin. Where are they?

Where are the leaders who will insist that Israel no longer trade live, captured, rabid butchers for the bones of dead Jews--regardless of how nice they make it sound? Where are the leaders who will institute a quick death penalty for such “heroes?” Better yet, why are they taken alive?

Where are Israeli leaders who will insist on “peace for peace” instead of “land for peace?” It’s obvious that the latter has not worked…it’s only brought closer to fruition the Arabs post-’67 “destruction in stages” plans for “their” kilab yahud--Jew dogs. Think Gaza…the same will happen after a total Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria, aka, the “West Bank.” Not to mention the Golan. Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ben-Gurion Airport, the Knesset, and so forth will receive what Sderot gets daily now.

Where is the change which will bring new Israeli leaders who will insist that Israel get a reasonable territorial compromise granting it real borders to replace former, UN-imposed, suicidal Auschwitz/armistice lines a la UNSC Resolution 242? America’s United Nations’ representative in ‘49, Ralph Bunche, openly stated that those lines were never meant to be Israel’s permanent borders.

The Arabs will never play ball, you say…

Of course they won’t. So what?

They don’t accept a 9-mile wide Israel either. Think about what other nations have done thousands of miles away from home in the name of their own national security and interests.

Israel must do what it must do to thrive--not just survive.

Demanding reasonable territorial compromise merely undoes the injustice created by the Arab invasion of a nascent Israel in 1948 and the mostly armistice lines--not borders--which emerged as a result. Those lines simply marked the points at which a half dozen invading Arab armies were turned back. As would become all-too-common later on, the UN only got involved after the Jews turned the tide and had the Arabs on the run…not before, to stop the Arabs’ initial aggression.

Where are the new Israeli leaders who will tell the State Department’s next James Baker or Condi Rice, when he or she insists on such things as Israel supplying its enemies with weapons (which were then used to massacre Jews in yeshivas, etc.), to go fly a kite?

Where’s the change which will bring to the fore proud Zionist Jews who will draw the lines beyond which no further retreat will be allowed--regardless of who is twisting the arms, turning the screws, and increasing the heat from across the sea?

If it means losing American aid, then so be it. My prediction is that such games will backfire big time on any White House which lowers itself this way.

Millions of fair-minded people will not expect the sole, resurrected Jewish State to sacrifice itself on the petroleum greased altar of international hypocrisy so that Arabs can get their 22nd state--and second, not first, in the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine. Jordan sits on almost 80% of that territory.

So, as a solid McCain supporter (despite some concerns ), I’m now hoping that Israelis will do some real soul searching and take a cue from the Obama camp.

Replacing Olmert with someone of similar ilk will accomplish nothing but a continuation of the sort of change we’ve explored earlier…the change that gave Israel its first military defeat, handed over a live Samir Kuntar, and so forth. The latter’s head needed to have been parachuted onto Hizbullah’s headquarters.

That Condi loves Tsipi Livni should send another disturbing signal as well.

Israel must get itself new leaders, at all levels, who will place the overall Zionist forest ahead of individual, parochial trees which hold fragile coalitions together. Olmert should have been dumped long ago.

The change that Israelis must insist upon may very well determine if the Jews’ long-awaited, reborn state will continue to even exist.

Hamas and Fatah’s Abbas refuse to recognize a Jewish Israel. Abbas’s “moderates” just sung praises to a returning butcher--Kuntar--who murdered a father while his 4-year old daughter watched and then beat her skull in with his rifle butt against a rock until she too was dead.

In short, the type of change that Israel must have will bring forth leaders who will know how to better address such things. And for those who care, it’s time to do all that’s legally and humanly possible to see to it that this happens sooner rather than later.

John Hagee And CUFI—Friend Or Foe?

John Hagee and CUFI...Friend Or Foe?
by Gerald A. Honigman

There’s a debate going on among Jews these days about organizations like Pastor John Hagee’s Christians United For Israel.

Millennia of forced conversions, massacres, expulsions, autos-da-fes, dehumanization, demonization, and so forth--frequently done in the name of the Christian Prince Of Peace--have taken their toll. The road to Auschwitz itself was indeed paved with many ‘religious’ stones.

A good friend of mine and myself were recently discussing Christian support for Jews and Israel. Neither of us are naïve, and both of us are seasoned observers of the Jewish scene.

I remember, as a small child, having Christians knocking on my door telling me that my family was going to Hell…in Philadelphia, no less--with some 400,000 Jews in its environs. Imagine what it’s like out yonder ways.

As a doctoral student, I remember studying Christian theology as part of my interest in 1st century C.E. Judaism and the revolt against Rome. So I know the theological reasons for some Christians’ support of Israel as well as the fate of Jews after the 2nd Coming in that theology.

While doing those graduate studies, I also worked for years for an organization which monitored Christian proselytizing groups (among other things). So, when it comes to skeptics on this issue, I’m no greenhorn.

Having said this, I’m convinced that groups like Pastor John Hagee’s Christians United For Israel (CUFI) and Christian Action For Israel (CAFI) are among the best friends both Israel and Jews have right now…at a time when any of such friends are indeed a rarity.

CAFI has helped me spread such articles as Thinking Jerusalem around for years now http://christianactionforisrael.org/thinking.html And check out CUFI’s Nights To Honor Israel and tell me you see something other than good here… http://www.cufi.org/site/PageServer?pagename=events_honor_israel

Few things are ever clear cut or risk free, and many Christians still embrace replacement theology.

But, here in the States, tens of millions of these folks have more clout than a relative handful of Jews--over half of whom don’t really care about Israel anyway. I deal with the latter too. They’re funding Obama, crying about the poor ‘Palestinians’ Israel allegedly abuses, asking Israel to make suicidal concessions, etc. and so forth. I worry about such tribal members more than Evangelicals right now--especially since there are plenty of similar Hebrew morons in Israel too.

I’ve worked with local pastors involved in John Hagee-type activities (’Peace For Israel’ celebrations, interfaith pilgrimages to Israel, and so forth) for years now. I’ve seen tears in their eyes as they and their flocks embraced Jews and asked them for forgiveness for past Christian sins towards the Jewish People. Thousands of folks--mostly Christians--attended these local events. Not a Jewish dime was involved--all Christian sponsored, raising huge amounts of $$$ for Israel at same time.

But, again, as I stated, I’m not naive. I understand Christian theology quite well.

They believe what they believe, we believe what we believe.

But, as long as they’re not forcing it up our derrieres (as was done far too often in the past) and focusing on what they’re focusing on instead, I don’t know what else one can ask for.

These particular folks are not actively proselytizing us...indeed, I have openly discussed this with them. And they have rejected replacement theology and frequently speak of this rejection.

Do some other Christian groups engage so--including some associated with CUFI?

I’m sure…

But, again, that’s more our problem than theirs.

Would they like us all to be good Christians. Probably...And we’d like them all to see where they strayed as well.

So what?

On this particular issue, the real question is, what are Jews doing wrong if the beauty and messages of our Hebraic Prophets, Psalms, and Torah are being ignored or simply bypassed by our own people?

Sorry, but if you want someone to blame, then start with our own religious leaders.

If our Bible teaches “Love thy neighbor as thyself;” “What does the Lord require of thee but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy G_d;” “Offer Me not vain sacrifices if ye do not justice for the widow and the orphan;” etc. and so forth, and our kids still think they have to go elsewhere to find a G_d of love, then--again--whose fault is it? Not CUFI’s…that’s for sure.

If one has never seen thousands of Christians at a rally for Israel, lobbying Congress, the President, etc., then please try to imagine this. I have…Such support is critical here in the States--and thus for Israel too. We have too many Hebrews like James Baker’s “Jew Boy,” Dan Kurtzer (now Obama’s Middle East point man), in the Government instead who, to get ahead, accept the oil-tainted State Department’s view that to be pro-America one has to be hostile to Israel.

I’ll take my chances with John Hagee any day over such fellow tribal members.

CUFI, CAFI, et al are fighting for a better here and now for Israel--something such above Jew landsmen don’t think twice about undermining. Are they concerned about the Hereafter too.? Sure! But the deal is that they don’t get the latter without the former...

So, along with my Christian friends (and not all Christians are our friends), I’ll worry about the World To Come after this one is made safer for Israel and Jews in the here and now.

6 6 6 — The Mark Of The Beast...

666--The Mark Of The Beast...One Jew’s Interpretation

by Gerald A.Honigman

Over the decades, I’ve heard several different interpretations of my Christian friends’ New Testament’s ‘mark of the beast,’ usually associated with the number 666.

Listening to various news commentators lately, I couldn’t help but think of yet another twist to this.

Fox News is usually the television station most balanced when it comes to dealings with Israel and the Middle East. So, if the Jews can’t get a fair hearing on this channel, they’re in real trouble.

Regarding the world’s current energy crisis (and America’s in particular), the subject of continuously increasing oil prices repeatedly is being discussed in the same breath as Iran’s non-stop nuclear ambitions.

Whether the particular program is the business news or Bill O’Reilly, the audience hears one variation or another of the following…

Israel better not dare to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities because, if it does, Americans will be pointing the finger at it for six dollar a gallon gasoline.

6…6…6

Now, let’s see…

It took six million dead Jews--1/3 of all in existence at the time--to serve as a down payment for at least part of the world’s fleeting sympathy for the rebirth of the Jewish State.

Of Israel’s roughly seven million people today, about six million are Jews.

And, while Ahmadinejad and the Iranian mullahs openly call for Israel’s obliteration, Israel’s best friends in the media warn that it must be willing to take a nuclear first hit so that gasoline won’t hit six dollars.

Now, I don’t want to see the price of gasoline go that high either, but understand that an Israel--over thirty of which fit into President Bush’s home state of Texas--that takes a nuclear first strike virtually ceases to exist.

What would America--3,000 miles wide, with two huge oceans buffering it, and a population over three hundred million--do with an enemy which promises to end its existence, and one already supporting deadly proxies as a step in that direction? America, or anyone else for that matter…

I seem to remember another story from my Christian friends’ New Testament…one about Jesus being sold out for thirty shekels of silver.

But, along with this, I have to also share a Jewish interpretation of a famous quote that Christians like to use from the Jews’ own Hebrew Bible, aka the ‘Old Testament.’

For us, you see, Israel--the Jewish People itself--is the Suffering Servant of G_d.

Just how high does the price of gasoline have to go before that fleeting support for the Jew of the Nations vanishes completely? Do we really need a second Holocaust Remembrance Day so folks can momentarily show sympathy for more dead Jews? And have others claim that it never happened afterwards?

How about empathy for live Jews instead?

Alas, it seems that that’s too much to ask for.

So, let’s see, just how many shekels does it take to equal six dollars these

How Did We Let It Come To This? Sderot And Beyond...

How Did We Let It Come To This?

by Gerald A. Honigman

I received a phone call this morning from a friend.  Ron wanted me to listen to Chabad’s Jewish radio program in town, where the plight of Sderot’s children would be discussed…the town in the Negev that’s under constant bombardment by Arabs years after Israel’s total withdrawal from adjacent Gaza. The plan evidently involves moving the kids elsewhere, out of harm’s way.

Like many other Diaspora Jews, I’m also deeply concerned about the resurrected Jewish State. But Israel itself has been making serious blunders over the last few decades--and, especially, the past several years--which greatly exacerbates its situation.

Something about this rubs the wrong way… big time.

I know, it’s easy for me to be brave when it’s not my own town in Florida being targeted. But it goes far beyond this…

The Arabs have always planned to make life so unbearable for Jews in Israel that they’d want to abandon the Zionist dream.

When a pressured Prime Minister/ General Ariel Sharon came up with his controversial unilateral withdrawal plan for Israel from Gaza a few years back, many of us had mixed feelings. One of our main fears was that it would just bring Arab terror that much closer to Israel proper, while caving into yet another step in the Arabs’ post-’67 War destruction-in-phases plans for Zion. We instinctively knew that Arabs would not take advantage of this to begin a state-building process for their 22nd state and second, not first, within the original 1920 borders of the Mandate of Palestine (Jordan created from almost 80%of this back in 1922).

Yet, we hoped we would be proven wrong.

And, after all, David Ben-Gurion himself looked to Israel’s own Negev Desert as a major area for a growing Jewish population, not Gaza--despite the latter being used as an invasion route to attack Jews from since the days of the Pharaohs.

Sad to say, the Arab leopard does not change its spots, and the whole area--despite scores of millions of non-Arab Kurds, Berbers, Copts, Jews, black Africans, and so forth--is still regarded as “purely Arab patrimony.” Episodes such as the Gaza withdrawal only confirm the success of the overall Arab game plan for the region. The Arabs’ ANFAL campaign against Kurds in Iraq and genocide against black Africans in the Sudan are just a few of many other examples.

So, back to Sderot...

I’m all for building strong defenses and shelters to try to keep the town’s citizens as safe as possible from Arab mortars, rockets, and such. But evacuating Jews in Israel proper because of Arab terror is a line which I believe will lead us down a very dangerous slippery slope. Today Sderot, tomorrow Ashkelon, etc. and so forth as Arab missiles gain in range and power.

Jews should not be the ones having to evacuate…

Imagine, as Presidential hopeful John McCain, has said himself, that it was an American border town in Arizona, Texas, or elsewhere being subjected to this terror.

Would the world expect an America which dwarfs Israel to evacuate its own land, or would it expect the aggressors to halt their destructive, murderous behavior? Certainly Mexico has its grievances with America…McCain and President Bush’s home states were once part of Mexico.

Now, what do you think we--or any other nation--would do (have done) under such circumstances?

Okay? So now here’s the plan…

Since Prime Minister Olmert’s crew lacks the backbone (and a few other analogous body parts) to spell it out and carry it through (letting the Arabs’ good buddies in the American State Department dictate most of Israeli policy instead), let me propose that a major, well-advertised , televised news conference be held to which many of the world’s leading media and diplomats will be invited. It will be broadcast live all over the world, carried by radio too, in many different languages, will explain much of what I have already covered above, and will be delivered by a handsome orator with the talent of the late Abba Eban. Yep, the John F. Kennedy factor won’t be ignored either.

After this general overview of the situation Israel faces, the following will next be stated…

My friends...Please understand that Israel would love nothing more than to be able to live in a true, mutually respectful, peace with our Arab neighbors. Unfortunately, the problem has never been how big Israel is, but that Israel is. For this problem, there is no compromise solution, and poll after poll conducted amongst Arabs has shown this to still be the case. Continuous unilateral Israeli concessions only convince Arabs of Israel’s weakness and the success of their own long term strategy for Israel’s demise.

In light of this, and in consideration of the current main Arab target of terror, please note the following…

Sderot will not undergo any evacuations.

If evacuations are called for, then they will not be those of Jews.

We will soon be delivering to our Arab neighbors one last call for them to begin their own # 22 state-building process, rather than continuing to persist in their quest to destroy our one, tiny, sole state. Gaza was a test of what the future might hold…and the Arabs have flunked it--pure and simple.

If, as we fear, they ignore our plea and continue to wage terror, destruction , bodily harm, and murder, then we will be forced to respond to these open acts of war the way others have and would respond.

Indeed, we have been far more patient than any other nation regarding those who openly seek our destruction. And, in this, the Hamas-led Arabs only differ in timing with those led by Abbas’s Fatah…by the latter’s own words. The quarrel between the two factions is largely about who will control the billions of dollars that will be pouring in from abroad--not over acceptance of a permanent Jewish neighbor.

Those ruling Gaza were openly elected by that Arab population--the same population which shields them as they launch their terror. Furthermore, the same situation awaits us in Judea and Samaria, aka the “West Bank,” unless a reasonable territorial compromise is arrived there as well. Secretary of State Rice might wish us to believe otherwise, but it is our children in the line of fire--not hers.

Let it be known that the next act of Arab terror launched against us will be met by the following sequence of events. We will not pursue tit-for-tat or targeted responses any longer, for those have proven to be virtually useless.

When the next mortar or rocket lands, we will proceed as follows:

We will drop by air--as we’ve done elsewhere before--numerous warnings, in Arabic, to the Gaza population. Unlike Arab terror, we will let Arabs know where not to be in advance.

They will be told that two days following the next terror attack will be answered by a massive artillery bombardment of the entire width of the area in Gaza from which mortars or rockets may be launched from. This is similar to what America calls its Powell Doctrine. The two-day grace period will provide time for Arab evacuation of the area. Note also that we put ourselves at risk by doing this, with the probability of being subjected to massive foreign pressure, and so forth.

Because of the latter, it has also been discussed that we carry out our plan according to the Arabs’ own rules, and launch our response unannounced--without telegraphing our plans or punch. Unlike our neighbors, however, we cannot get ourselves to behave as such.

The day afterward the artillery assault will bring a massive aerial bombardment.

As the Perfidy and other clauses of the Geneva Conventions openly state, warring parties cannot use their civilian populations as human shields, and when they do so, this will not remove such locations as legitimate targets…Any civilian casualties will thus be on the Arabs’ own shoulders.

Article #51/7:

The presence of the civilian population shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attack...

Article #58b:

The parties to the conflict shall...avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas.

There will be no massive infantry invasion, subjecting Jewish soldiers to the deadly surprises Arabs think they have in store for them.

After the bombardment, a fifteen-mile buffer zone will be created which will be a mine field, posted for all to see and keep out of.

If terror continues after our initial responses, we will repeat the above process, extending the mine field, and so forth.

Next…

We advise our Arab foes to forget about crying to their hypocritical friends in the United Nations, the American State Department, and elsewhere. We have already displayed a patience far beyond what any of those folks would display themselves given the same circumstances which we have daily faced.


Finally, we are holding this news conference today because we truly hope that we will not have to put these plans into motion.

But we refuse to put up with the murder and destruction any more.

Now, I will open the floor to questions from this distinguished audience…

Time For Diaspora To reconsider Its $$$ Support Of Israel?

Is It Time For The Diaspora To Reconsider Support Of Israel ?

by Gerald A. Honigman

It’s like a broken record…the same story being replayed over and over again…truly, ad nauseam.

Israel captures live Arab disembowelers, plotters, and murderer wannabes of Jews, and other Jews have to pay to keep them alive in Israeli jails.

That is, until the inevitable happens, and Arabs later capture some more live Jews. They then offer a swap in exchange for hundreds of their comrades. If the Jews are lucky, they get back a live prisoner or so.  In just one example, in 1985 they exchanged almost 1,200 Arabs for three of their own. In January 2004, Israel handed over more than 400 Arabs in return for one Israeli businessman and the bodies of three soldiers abducted along the Lebanese border in 2000.

Usually, the deal involves a few dead Jews for hundreds of Arab killers and collaborators--who are soon back in the Jew-killing business.

And I bet you thought Jews were smart…

Well, guess what? Here we go again.

This time, the potential swap is for a few more Israeli soldiers kidnapped from within Israel by Hizbullah in another cross border raid. Recall the war that this triggered back in 2006.

Among the other prizes Israel holds alive is Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese who the Jews have supplied room and board to for almost three decades. Good way to spend Jewish Diaspora funds, heh?

Kuntar’s relevant bio is educational--and only emphasizes how dumb Jews really can be.

On April 22, 1979, Kuntar led a team who entered Israel from Lebanon by boat. All were members of the Palestine Liberation Front.

Around midnight they reached the coastal town of Nahariya. After killing a policeman, the team entered a building and split into two groups. One of these next broke into the apartment of the Haran family. Danny Haran was taken hostage along with his four-year-old daughter, Einat. Danny’s wife, Smadar, hid in a crawl space with their two-year-old daughter, Yael, and a neighbor.

Kuntar’s group next dragged Danny and Einat down to the beach, where a shootout with Israeli forces erupted.

Kuntar shot Danny at close range in front of his daughter and drowned him in the sea to ensure that he was dead.

Next, he smashed the four year old girl’s head on beach rocks, crushing her skull with the butt of his rifle.

Meanwhile, back in the crawl space, 2-year-old Yael Haran had been accidentally suffocated to death by her mother’s attempts to quiet her whimpering so as not to reveal their hideout…a story right out of the Holocaust.

While Kuntar’s exploits rank “up there” with Arabs as far as his heroics against Jews go, he is by no means an exception to the rule.

Back in May 2004, Arabs gunned down a pregnant Jewish mother and her four terrified little daughters in their station wagon.

After spraying the car with gunfire, they next ran up and blasted each of their victims’ heads to make sure they had finished the job.

One of the Arab heroes next deliberately shot the swollen belly of the eight-months pregnant mother, Tali Hatuel, at point-blank range. Rescuers found Tali’s dead baby still strapped in her car seat.

Note, please, that all of these Jewish victims were/are deliberately targeted--not accidentally caught in the middle because their own folks used them as human shields--a favorite tactic used by so-called Arab “militants.” And Jews don’t throw Arab children out of school windows, blow them up on buses, in pizzerias, ice cream parlors, shopping malls, and restaurants, murder them in their beds, and so forth.

Now, combine the above lunacy (knowing the costly predictable blackmail that awaits, the Samir Kuntars should never be taken alive, and if they are, after a quick trial, should be executed soon afterwards) with the additional death wish of still too many Israelis who believe that if they just keep on making concession after concession to Arabs on crucial security issues (checkpoints, territory, etc.), the Arabs will finally let their microscopic Jewish rump state live in peace.

Peace alright…peace of the grave. And it’s that obvious.

That others pressure Israel to act against its own basic needs and interests is no surprise--the American State Department, Dhimmi Europe, and so forth. So the Jewish State should be used to this by now.

That Israel allows itself to be bullied this way--regardless of the aid issue and such--is beyond pathetic. It truly borders on suicidal, and such behavior should not be repeatedly rewarded.

Why is Olmert still in power, for example? Why can’t the selfish portions of his fragile coalition not see the forest of their miniscule State’s survival and existence for their own individual trees?

How much longer must it take before a new Israeli leadership arises which will not behave like someone else’s collective stooge and fool?

Olmert now seeks to appease Baby Assad--the late Butcher’s son--with the gift of all the territory Syria has repeatedly used to attack Jews from --the Golan.

Think of how borders constantly have changed all over the world due to such aggressive, murderous behavior as Syria’s…not to mention the fact that the Golan was to be part of the original 1920 Mandate Of Palestine after World War I until the Brits and the French did some imperial trading. Or that numerous peoples besides Arabs ruled the Golan Heights over the centuries…including Jews.

And what of Syria’s oppressive shenanigans in Lebanon, burying the hopes of those who wanted a better, independent, and more peaceful path for their country? Or their continued murderous suppression of millions of Syrian Kurds?

Should Israel also simply ignore all of this too in its quest to become a state like all others, with no friends, just interests? That’s where it’s anti-Jewish, post-Zionist path has been leading it.

So, how to get the message across that such consistent self-destructive behavior cannot continue?

Think about it…

Perpetually victimized and demonized Jews waited for millennia to finally live to see the Hebraic Prophetic resurrection of Israel, only to see spineless leaders with head-in-the sand Jewish supporters undo the dream.

Perhaps the time has come to send a real wake up call…and it will indeed be a hard one for Diaspora Jews to deliver.

Yet I do believe that such things as the refusal to enact the death penalty for the deliberate butchers of innocents (and please don’t sing me the tune about allegedly stooping to their level) and the refusal to demand the reasonable territorial compromises which were allowed by UNSC Resolution 242 require drastic action at this time.

Diaspora Jews have poured many billions of dollars into Israel for well over a century now.

While this doesn’t give them the right to tell Israel what its policies should be, on the other hand, the Diaspora does not have to continue to support policies which are obviously dead end, both figuratively and literally.

Israel doesn’t have to continuously prove how much “better” it is than much of the giant dung heap which surrounds it. Yet it continues to act this way…not that it makes any difference to the world’s hypocrites. If Samir Kuntar was a Jew, Kurd, Berber, Copt, Black Sudanese, etc. and committed these acts against any of those “Arab” states in which those non-Arab people live or have lived, he would not have lived to see the light of day.

Yet as I write this, Islamist student organizations are intimidating Jews on Israeli college campuses, Jews are being attacked by Israeli Arab neighbors, treasonous Arab members of the Israeli Parliament side with Hamas against Israel and so forth. Again, imagine any of the almost two dozen Arab countries allowing anything like this…

The Diaspora does not have to continue to pump money into a post-Zionist state which insists it’s going to out Christian the Christians by turning cheek after cheek after cheek to enemies which will never accept a permanent Jewish neighbor, regardless of size. Forget about those Arab Knesset members...The actions of recent Israeli leaders who have played along with the Arabs’ well-known destruction in phases plans borders on treason itself--regardless of who is tightening the screws from abroad.

Something is needed to open up the eyes of too many in Israel who have forgotten what life was like for Jews all over the world before the miraculous Phoenix arose from the ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Perhaps a severe shock is what’s really needed right now to bring the forest back into vision...and one long enough to drive home the message.

I realize it’s controversial. It’s hard to say “no” to the many worthy charities and such pulling at Diaspora heartstrings.

But if business stays as usual regarding current Israeli behavior, Iran’s Ahmadinejad will be correct regarding his death forecast for the Jewish State. And the Jews will largely have done it to themselves.

If Israel can no longer count on Diaspora money to fill the many gaps in society which depend upon it, and it then has to use funds targeted for defense and elsewhere to cover those costs, perhaps the message will finally get through.

The heirs of Ben-Gurion, Jabotinsky, Golda, Begin, and a younger Arik must now come to the fore and take their rightful place. And an Israeli public finally awoken from its slumber must know how to respond.

Florida and Michigan's Primaries—Deuces Wild Or Aren't They?

So--Are Deuces Wild Or Aren’t They?
by Gerald A. Honigman

Hey, I need to get my mind away from international politics for a while…especially the Middle East.

How’s a game of poker sound?

Deuces wild, you say?

Alright, let the game begin…

Nice--I’ll bet a hundred bucks on my hand.

You’re seeing me and raising me another hundred?

We’ll, hey…I’m just a Florida teacher, with three of my four kids in college at the same time, and the other not far behind. Two ’Gators and a Seminole so far…

Okay… I’ll pay to see you.

Full House, Queen high?

Ugh…

I have two pair, King high.

Hey, Wait a minute!

Where’s the Full House, Chum?

I just see two Queens, two sixes, and a two of hearts…

What...You say deuces are wild?

Since when? Who says?

What…I agreed to that?

Well, that was before you drew the deuce…

Forget about all the legal gobbledygook that went on until recently regarding the Florida and Michigan primaries. It all comes down to a poker game.

Were deuces wild or weren’t they?

Well, all parties indeed knew the rules of the game prior to play time. If there were any questions, the time to have debated them was prior to the primaries.

Sour grapes doesn’t cut it afterwards. And if they do, then we’re all in for trouble down the road.

I get a charge out of alleged liberals crying about disenfranchisement in the aftermath.

Where were their worries when the rules were being expressed loudly and clearly to all parties prior to the vote? How about the folks who played by the rules and didn’t even show up because of them...candidates and voters alike?

The time to question or change the way the game is to be played is prior to its start--not when you don’t like the hand you’re dealt afterwards.

The main issue here is not disenfranchisement (as real as it is), but chaos…and it doesn’t take a lawyer to figure that one out.

If expressed rules and laws set up by legitimate representatives are allowed to simply be tossed aside by disgruntled parties after the fact, then watch out for any and all other types of agreements arrived at as well.

Even I know that precedent is important in law.

And the precedent even the compromise decision recently arrived regarding these two states, which knowingly and deliberately disobeyed the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee, stinks like a rotten egg.

What President Bush didn't say about appeasement...

Right Concept, Flawed Analogy, Done Purposely…

by Gerald A. Honigman

Speaking before a special session of Israel’s Parliament in honor of the 60th anniversary of the resurrection of the Jewish State, President Bush stressed the idea that appeasement doesn’t work.

He used the example of Hitler’s attack on Poland in 1939, which ushered in World War II in Europe, and the words of an American senator who expressed that if he’d only had the chance to chat with Hitler, things might have been different.

Another time, another place, perhaps Bush’s words would have sounded more sincere and had more meaning.

Iran, North Korea, Syria, and other aggressive dictatorships must indeed be confronted unabashedly…much better than the world is doing right now. Witness the pitiful response to what’s happening to those who truly sought independence for Lebanon.

But this was the wrong analogy for the President to bring up before the Knesset.

You don’t have to be the best student of history to know what the appropriate analogy was/is regarding Israel and those who would see her destroyed. Many of us have written about it, and the President has undoubtedly seen or heard of this more accurate comparison one way or another himself. So, why bring the subject--appeasement--up if your choose to ignore your own advice?

Judea (land of the Judeans--Jews) and Samaria--also known, as a result of British post-World War I imperialism, as the “West Bank” (in contrast to the Jordan River‘s east bank)--are roughly Israel’s Sudetenland. They have thousands of years of Jewish history and presence connected to them…including in modern times, until the Arab massacres.

Forced expulsions, forced conversions, horrendous wars, repeated conquests, and such took their tolls, but until the 1920s and 1930s--and after 1948 when Transjordan, created itself in 1922 from the lions’ share of the original 1920 Palestine Mandate on the “East Bank,” grabbed Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) and made it Judenrein, the Jews never renounced their claims.

The Arabs themselves ruled, colonized, and settled the land earlier after their own imperial armies burst out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century C.E. and spread in all directions…conquering and forcibly Arabizing (going on to this very day) millions of non-Arab peoples and spreading the Dar ul-Islam. Those who did not consent were slaughtered.

The two Arab Caliphal empires based in Damascus and Baghdad had replaced the Byzantine Empire which had succeeded the Roman Empire. And there were others later on in between as well. The last of Israel’s imperial conquerors were Turks, who ruled for over four centuries prior to the Brits’ victory in World War I.

The land was thus conquered by a series of imperial powers upon the fall of Israel/Judea to Rome. I like to cite two quotes from key contemporary Roman sources themselves related to this, one dealing with the first major revolt of the Jews for their freedom (66-73 C.E.), and the other dealing with their second major revolt (133-135 C.E.).

Tacitus Vol. II, Book V, The Works of Tacitus:

Vespasian… succeeded to the command.… it inflamed his resentment that the Jews were the only nation that had not yet submitted…Titus was appointed by his father to complete the subjugation of Judaea… he commanded three legions in Judaea itself… To these he added the twelfth from Syria and the third and twenty-second from Alexandria… amongst his allies were a band of Arabs, formidable in themselves and harboring towards the Jews the bitter animosity usually subsisting between neighboring nations.

Dio’s Roman History (Dio Cassius):

580,000 men were slain, nearly the whole of Judaea made desolate. Many Romans, moreover, perished in this war ( 133-135 C. E., the Bar Kochba Revolt against Hadrian ). Therefore Hadrian, in writing to the senate, did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors, ‘ I and the legions are in health.’

After that last major revolt, in order to further pour salt on the wound, Hadrian renamed the land itself after the Jews’ already well-known historic enemies, the Philistines--the “Sea People” from the area around Crete. Iudaea (Judea) thus became known--at least in some circles--as Syria Palaestina.

Towns such as Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1-4, Bethlehem--not West Bank, not Palestine--of Judea…King of the Jews{not “Palestinians”}; 1 Samuel 16, Samuel anoints David; etc.), Hebron, Bethel, Schechem, Jericho, Gilboa, and so forth should ring a bell. 

Here’s the real analogy both the President and the Foggy Folks purposely ignore…

After World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was defeated and fell apart. Among the various peoples yearning to gain political freedom were Czechs and Slovaks, bringing about a very imperfect--but necessary--union (until relatively recently) for the good of both.

Czechoslovakia was created in 1918. While other peoples also lived in various parts of the new country, those folks (Germans, Poles, etc.) already had ethnic national homelands of their own.

But the fact that many ethnic Germans had earlier spread elsewhere within the Austro-Hungarian Empire would come back to haunt the new nation. Much of its Bohemian and Moravian border regions--the Sudetenland in German--was occupied by Germans. Furthermore, much of the area’s important industry was controlled by them as well.

Indeed, Czechoslovakia was constantly plagued by problems involving its large number of Sudeten Germans having “other plans.” After Hitler annexed Austria in 1938 in the Anschluss, he turned to other “German” areas as well.

Again, as has been often referred to, by threatening war in September 1938, Hitler cowed Czechoslovakia’s “friends” to force it to agree to give up its rich and strategically important Sudetenland to the Nazis…with Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain claiming in Munich that he had thus gained “peace for our time.” Czechs were expelled from the border regions. The irony is that the Czechs had a good army, and backed by the Allies could have put up a good fight. They were shafted instead.

Now, that’s appeasement.

Before long, Hitler grabbed what was left of Czechoslovakia, bombed Poland, and the world was at war again anyway.

So, again, why did the President--with the whole world watching--skip over this and begin his lesson with Poland instead?

Why? Because the real analogy here stinks to High Heaven…

Substitute Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank") for the Sudetenland.

Yet, from the getgo, a hostile American State Department--which rejected Israel’s rebirth in the first place--has sought to force Israel to accept armistice lines artificially imposed upon it in 1949 which turned the nation of the Jews into a 9-mile wide rump state. Those lines merely represented the points at which the combined Arab assault from a half dozen different countries was halted. Having failed--thanks to President Truman and the sacrifice of the Jews themselves--in nipping Israel in the bud, the Foggy Folks tried their best to see it go belly up afterwards.

The State Department routinely employs hypocritical double standards along with an absurd moral equivalency and routinely acts in ways which endanger Israel’s very existence.

After Israel was once again forced to fight for its life in the 1967 Six Day War, the Arab goal of annihilation backfired big time, and Israel ridded itself of those Auschwitz lines. The only thing the latter temptation had achieved was to constantly invite yet more Arab aggression.

As I and others have written before, this conflict has never been about how big Israel is, but that it is…

A reading of the U. N. ’s Ralph Bunch’s ’49 armistice line dealings would help understand this better as would those of Under Secretary of State Eugene Rostow, U. N. Ambassador Arthur Goldberg, Britain’s U. N. Ambassador, Lord Caradon, and other architects of U. N. Security Council Resolution # 242. The latter all explained why Israel was not expected to return to the status quo ante after ‘67 and was entitled to secure and recognized borders--not indefensible armistice lines. Yet that’s what the Foggy Folks, Presidents Carter and Clinton, and even President Bush (on again/off again) have expected and pressured the Jews into doing.

Here’s Lord Caradon...

It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of 4 June 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial. After all, they were just the places where the soldiers of each side happened to be on the day the fighting stopped in 1948. They were just armistice lines. That’s why we didn’t demand that the Israelis return to them.

A bit earlier, here’s what a few other fellas had to say about this…

President Lyndon Johnson, June 19, 1967:

A return to the situation on June 4 (the day before outbreak of war) was not a prescription for peace but for renewed hostilities. He then called for… new recognized boundaries that would provide security against terror, destruction, and war.

President Ronald Reagan, September 1, 1982:

In the pre-1967 borders, Israel was barely 10-miles wide...the bulk of Israel’s population within artillery range of hostile armies. I am not about to ask Israel to live that way again.

Secretary of State George Shultz, 1988:

Israel will never negotiate from or return to the 1967 borders.

The unfortunate reason Bush conveniently left out the model of appeasement--the ‘38 Munich travesty--is because it’s too close to what America (Israel’s best friend) has recently been pressuring the Jew of the Nations to do unto itself.

As Hitler had designs far beyond a Czechoslovakian (but heavily ethnic German) Sudetenland, if you believe that all the Arabs wanted/want is Gaza and the “West Bank,” I have not one but ten bridges to sell you. As the President was delivering his speech in Israel, Arabs were blasting Jews shopping in a mall in Ashkelon. A bit earlier another one was massacring students in a yeshiva with weapons Secretary of State Rice insisted that the Jews provide for Abbas’s “moderates” themselves.

Knowing full well that southern Israel got nothing but thousands of mortar and rocket attacks launched from Gaza in exchange for its full withdrawal, Rice & Co. (with Bush on again, off again) insist that the same thing happen to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and elsewhere in Israel’s narrow waist (adjacent to Judea and Samaria) where most of its population lives. That, indeed, is the more-than-likely scenario if Israel caves in to what its “friends” have been pressuring it to do regarding the heavily Arab-populated “West Bank.”

Any observer of this conflict with functioning neurons knows the post-’67 Arab destruction in stages game plan for Israel. They also know--by even the alleged Arab “ good cops’ ” own words--that their hudnas (ceasefires) are only designed to gain strength and time in order to deliver the final blow later on down the road. Arafat called this tactic the “Peace of the Quraysh,” copying what Muhammad did to his Meccan enemies some fourteen centuries ago. Abbas’s Fatahniks are Arafatians in suits and have stated the same thing. Abbas “the moderate” ran on a platform for Israel’s destruction--but by more “acceptable” means. Blown buses bring bad press.

Think about what Iran and Syria have done to Lebanon via Hizbullah, and you’ll get a glimpse at what’s in store for a “West Bank” in which Israel has not been granted a meaningful territorial compromise a la 242.

Israel’s great air force won’t do it any good when it has to bomb itself because there was no adequate buffer preventing a massive Arab invasion (as occurred in 1948 and was attempted later as well).

And would America permit enemies sworn to its destruction to set up missile bases and such within a stone’s throw of its own borders?

Who will stop Iran from doing this--as they’ve supplied Hizbullah and Hamas already?

Keep in mind that thirty-eight Israels fit into just the President’s home state of Texas...not to mention a comparison to all of America.

The President was indeed correct about appeasement.

But now...

Teacher--Teach thyself.

Nakba Crapka

Nakba Crapka…

by Gerald A. Honigman

Honigman… How can you be so insensitive!!!???

Perhaps the following will help explain…

The lunar Hebrew calendar date for Israel Independence Day (May 14, 1948) falls on May 8th this year. The resurrected nation of Christianity’s alleged Deicide People, the “Wandering Jews,” and the Arabs’ kilab yahud (“Jew dogs”) and myself both turn sixty, G_d willing, on the exact same day.

Shortly after the festivities, the world will face another “celebration” of sorts…the Arabs’ “Nakba” day, on May 15th of each year. That’s what the Arabs call their catastrophe…Israel’s rebirth, placing a guilt trip for their own post-’48 predicament on Jews.

They’ll demonstrate all over--including in Israel itself--and assorted media will give them as much if not more coverage than they did for Israel Independence Day.

While I don’t deny Arabs attention, would the same protests of scores of millions of black Africans (in the Sudan and elsewhere), Copts, Imazighen (Berbers), Kurds, Assyrians, Jewish refugees from Arab/Muslim lands (and the few Jews still remaining there), and other non-Arab victims of Arab imperial conquest, forced Arabization, murder, expulsion, and so forth over years get the same media publicity?

Of course not.

None of the Arabs’ multitudes of victims dare to even demonstrate without placing their own lives on the line. And when they rarely do, few--if any--people elsewhere in the world usually get to see or hear about such things anyway. It takes Arab mass murder of such folks as in the Anfal campaign in Iraq or in the Sudan before anyone even notices. So forget about what Arabs are doing to Kurds in Arab Syria right now without anyone saying a word. The murdered aren’t numerous enough yet, I guess…forget about their on-going subjugation.

All right…but, still, didn’t Arabs also suffer because of the Jews’ insistence on casting off their perpetual victim and statelessness condition?

Yes, some did, but here’s the main point…

The Arab nakba was a catastrophe which didn’t have to be.

Arabs were mainly victims of self-inflicted wounds which occurred due to their own subjugating, racist attitudes towards all others daring to stake a claim, no matter how small, after the break up of the four century-old Ottoman Turkish Empire in what Arabs proclaimed to be--as a result of their own earlier imperial conquests--purely Arab patrimony.

While no one is squeaky clean once hostilities erupt, the post-‘48 Arab predicament was sired overwhelmingly by themselves.

When bullets and bombs start to fly and comrades start to fall, too often all Hell breaks loose.

But if Arabs had not repeatedly attacked Jews and invaded a reborn Israel in 1948, the Arab nakba would not have come to pass. Massive non-Zionist contemporary evidence (including from Arabs) testifies to this. And some Arabs (most new-comers themselves into the Palestine Mandate) would have come to live (as many now do) in one Jewish State--which made Arabic a second official language and where Arabs who side with Hamas sit in Israel’s Parliament--as millions of non-Arabs (including many Jews) have lived in almost two dozen “Arab” states. Contrast the Israeli Arab example with many non-Arabs who had their own languages and cultures outlawed in “Arab” lands.

In the State Department’s current darling, Mahmoud Abbas’s, own words, as quoted in March 1976…

The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians...but instead they abandoned them, forced them to leave...and threw them into prisons (refugee camps) similar to the ghettoes in which Jews were earlier forced to live ( Falastin a-Thaura ).

So, then, when is a catastrophe not so?

When it is--or was--totally avoidable and brought about primarily by oppressive attitudes and actions of the alleged victims themselves.

While tragedy occurred, it was born of subjugating, racist attitudes and mindset which declared that none besides Arabs were worthy of political rights in the region. For Arabs, colonialism and imperialism are nasty only when someone besides themselves are the perpetrators.

Unlike Arabs, who were offered repeated compromises over the land, no such accommodations were ever offered to the Arabs’ national competitors. Think hundreds of thousands of murdered and gassed Kurds, even greater genocide in the Sudan, burned down Egyptian Coptic churches, what the real struggle is largely about in pre-Arab Lebanon (King Solomon built the Temple of the Jews in Jerusalem from his Phoenician ally, King Hiram’s, famed cedars in Lebanon), and so forth.

In 1922, Arabs were handed over three quarters of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine when they received all of the east bank of the Jordan River from the Brits. In 1947, they were offered about half of what was left in a second partition.

Arabs rejected the above because dhimmi Jews --as “People of the Book,” one of the protected peoples who, after paying Mafia-style “protection money” via a special poll tax (the jizyah), were at least usually not massacred and forcibly converted en masse like others were with the spread of the Dar ul-Islam--were entitled to no political rights whatsoever in Arab eyes.

Had Arabs accepted the ‘47 partition, they would have wound up with two Arab states covering about 90% of the original territory of “Palestine.” Thirty-five million truly stateless Kurds are still struggling to have the world recognize their own plight, with America’s State Department Arabists--key proponents of Arab State # 22--leading the opposition.

The very name “Palestine” came to be only after the Roman Emperor, Hadrian, got so fed up with the Jews after their second major revolt for freedom and independence that he renamed Judaea “Syria Palaestina” after the Jews’ already well-known, historic enemies, the non-Semitic “Sea People” originally from the area around Crete, the Philistines, in order to pour salt onto the wound. Rome’s own contemporary historians wrote much about this themselves--Tacitus, Dio Cassius, etc.

Check out Dio…

580,000 men were slain, nearly the whole of Judaea made desolate. Many Romans, moreover, perished in this war ( 133-135 C. E., the Bar Kochba Revolt). Therefore Hadrian in writing to the senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors, ‘ I and the legions are in health.’

Hadrian was so enraged that, in the words of the esteemed modern historian, Bernard Lewis, Hadrian made a determined attempt to stamp out the embers not only of the revolt but also of Jewish nationhood and statehood… obliterating its Jewish identity.

Despite all the whitewash, Arabs--Abbas’ Fatah Arafatians, Hamas, etc.-- still insist that their new State (again, second, not first, in “Palestine”) will arise in place of Israel—not along side of it—as a quick look at any of their maps, websites, and such shows. Or try listening to or reading a sermon given by one of “moderate” Abbas’ imams. He simply plays the Jew-baiting game better…i.e., with more dishonesty. Say one thing to the West, and another thing to your own folks in Arabic…although nowadays, much if not most of dhimmi Europe usually doesn’t even expect that.

Would that Jews possessed some two dozen other states like Arabs have, perhaps, one could argue, there would have been no need for the rebirth of Israel.

But the Jew did not possess even one state, let alone two dozen. And, unlike Arabs, the plight of the Jew prior to 1948 was a nakba not of his own making--despite the unfortunate “theological” claims of some.

The sad reality is that the Arabs’ misfortunes occurred because they insisted that the millennial nightmare of the Jews should continue into perpetuity. No compromise was feasible with “their” dhimmi Jew dogs in the Dar ul-Islam. And this goes beyond “merely” religious stuff…as fellow Muslim--but non-Arab--Kurds, black Africans in Darfur, Berbers, and others know only too well.

Summing it up, had Arabs been willing to grant Jews a miniscule slice of the same human dignity and justice that they so forcefully demand for themselves, the Arab nakba could have been resolved decades ago.

The day Arabs confess their own much greater original sin for all the above is the day they gain the right to protest others’ imperfect struggles to obtain a modicum of justice for themselves.

Until then, regardless of how politically incorrect it sounds...

Nakba crapka.