Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: 1947

Showing posts with label 1947. Show all posts

Thursday, December 01, 2022

Jewish suffering is always the moral choice (ElderToons)

This was made in response to a ridiculous (but popular) thread by an anti-Israel fanatic Josh Ruebner where he claims that the 1947 partition plan was an act of unmitigated evil.

It's amazing how every moral, ethical decision by these "experts" ends up placing Jews in dire danger.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

"Palestine" is nothing more than a weapon

During the UN partition negotiations in 1947, the Arab side said they wanted a single Arab state. When that didn't fly, they said they wanted am Arab state that would protect Jewish rights. And when the partition vote passed, within hours, Arabs attacked Jews on the streets, showing how much they would have respected those Jewish rights.

Meanwhile, as I reported this morning, the Arab states had no interest in a Palestinian Arab state - they were planning to divide up Palestine as soon as they could after the British left.

And also, as always, the Palestinians themselves want their "refugees" not to help build their state - but to "return" to what they consider a criminal, apartheid, racist state.

Of course, these same Arab states didn't say a word about an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza when they controlled those areas.

If the goal of Palestine is to have an independent state for Palestinian Arabs, why didn't they do it then? If the goal is to give Palestinians rights, then why do Arab states not give them rights today? Why did they pivot between the ideas of a Palestinian state and none, and back again in 1968?

If we take the Arabs and Palestinians at their word, none of this makes sense. Their claims as to what they want - independence, freedom, justice - do not fit with their actions. Especially since they have rejected every plan that would have given them exactly that.

There is only one consistent thread that explains all of this - the unifying theory of Arab attitudes towards Israel. And that is antisemitism.

The goal has never been to build a Palestinian state. Even the Palestinians don't want that. They have had more time between Oslo and today than the Zionists had between the Mandate and 1948 to build the functioning apparatus of a state - and unlike the Zionists, they have had lots of aid and EU consultants to do exactly that. Yet today their government is a joke, a dictatorship under the control of one person, with institutions that are corrupt or incompetent. It is all window dressing, not a serious attempt at building a real government.

Two recent cartoons in Felesteen illustrate a great truth, especially on the 75th anniversary of the UN Partition resolution.

"Palestine" is not meant to be a state, and it never was. It is meant to be a weapon, a means to end the Jewish state. That's what it was in 1947 and that's what it is today.

That's how Palestinian leaders look at it. That's how Jordan and Egypt and Syria still look at it.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Arab pretense of wanting a Palestinian Arab state evaporated immediately after the UN partition vote 75 years ago

During the UN debates before partiotion in November 1947, st the very same time that Arab leaders were at the UN insisting that they wanted an independent Palestinian Arab state, they were already planning on dividing the area up between themselves.

This article in the Palestine Post is from November 27, 1947:

There was a similar article in the Palestine Post on November 30, 1947, the day of the partition, from a completely different source.

ARAB STATES PREPARE TO FIGHT ABDULLAH

By JON KIMCHE, Special to The Palestine Post

LONDON , Saturday —Representatives of the Arab States here express serious disquiet following reports that King Abdullah's Arab Legion will occupy the Arab State sector of Palestine when the British withdraw. One British source normally very close to these representatives has stated , however, that what will happen, according to his information, is rather different .

The Arab Legion , together with a token force from Iraq, will occupy, he said, the central sector of the Palestine Arab State. Syria and the Lebanon will occupy the coastal stretch of the Arab State north of Acre, and Egypt, with a token Saudi Arabian force, will occupy parts of the Negev and the desert frontier area. What will _happen after such a "partition of partitioned Palestine", he added, is anybody's guess, but one thing is certain : that the Arab States will not accept Trans-Jordan taking over by itself, and that TransJordan will oppose Syrian and Lebanese inroads.

Literally hours earlier the Arab leaders were posturing in the UN about how dedicated they were to a Palestinian Arab state.

I once created this map of what "Palestine" would look like today if Israel lost in 1948. It was a guess, but it is in line with this article.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

11/30 Links Pt1: Murdering Jews Should Be as Unacceptable as Murdering Druze; Biden Rewards Palestinians for Terrorism, Incitement; UNRWA Finds ‘Man-Made Cavity’ Under Gaza School

From Ian:

Israel’s UN ambassador: Mideast Jews were victims of the ‘real Nakba’

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan inaugurated an exhibit on Tuesday highlighting the expulsion of Jews from Middle East countries, calling the story of these Jewish refugees the “real Nakba.”

The Palestinians have long used the Arabic term “Nakba,” or catastrophe, to describe Israel’s creation and the resulting displacement of some 700,000 of Palestinian Arabs during the 1948 war initiated by Arab nations to destroy the nascent Jewish state.

Marking the 75th anniversary of the U.N.’s adoption of a resolution to create Israel, Erdan said that “those who really suffered from ‘Nakba’ following the decision were Jews—almost a million were expelled from Arab countries and Iran. Since the vote [on Nov. 29, 1947,] which the Arabs rejected, the United Nations has been telling a completely false story about the ‘disaster’ the Palestinians brought upon themselves,” he added.

While the vast majority of Jewish refugees from Arab countries were absorbed into Israel, the United Nations, by contrast, created the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to tend uniquely to Palestinian refugees. Today, the organization recognizes some 5 million Palestinians as “refugees,” having effectively transformed the status into a hereditary trait applicable only to Palestinians.

“A day after the [partition] decision, Jews were violently and cruelly expelled from Arab countries and Iran. This year, after a long struggle, we managed to place an exhibition with photos that document the story of the real Nakba. I will continue to fight for the truth and against the false narrative that the Palestinians and their supporters spread,” said Erdan.

#OTD, as we celebrate 75 years since the #PartitionPlan, I am at the United Nations, with a reminder that, 75 years later, whereas #Israel continues to say Yes to peace, the Palestinian leadership is still saying: No, No, No! @The_ILF pic.twitter.com/ICXyh8Z8yM
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) November 29, 2022

75 years ago today, the UN General Assembly voted on and passed Resolution 181. Watch the historic vote that laid the groundwork for the establishment of the State of Israel: pic.twitter.com/nouCKB91bS
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) November 29, 2022

On this day in 1947, the UN passed #Resolution181, paving the way for the establishment of the State of Israel as well as an Arab state, with Jerusalem under international control.
33 countries voted in favor; 13 voted against; and 10 abstained. pic.twitter.com/NI0yznDRJU
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) November 29, 2022

11/29 Links Pt2: What happened to the 1947 UN Partition Plan?; The Failed British Double-Cross of Israel; Kanye walks out of interview after being questioned about antisemitic beliefs

From Ian:

What happened to the 1947 UN Partition Plan?

Today, Nov. 29, 2022, is the 75th anniversary of the 1947 UN Partition Plan – UN General Assembly resolution 181 - which divided the geographical area to the west of the Jordan River, into two states: A Jewish state and an Arab state. In its essence, the Partition Plan was a fundamental breach of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, which placed that entire area under the governance of Great Britain, for the sole purpose of creating a Jewish state on all of the land.

The 1922 Mandate for Palestine had already taken the entire geographical area then referred to as “Palestine” and divided it in two: The eastern part of Palestine - the Arab country - was placed under the rule of the Hashemite family and changed its name to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The western part of Palestine was to become the Jewish state.

Despite the breach of the Mandate, the Jewish leadership of the day – represented by David Ben Gurion - accepted the plan. The Arab leadership and countries, on the other hand, rejected the plan and immediately started planning how to eradicate the Jewish state before it even came into existence.

75 years later, speaking at the UN, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has now decided to accept the plan and even demand its implementation:
“Therefore, I present today to this UN organization, the title of international legitimacy in this world, with a formal request to implement General Assembly resolution 181, which formed the basis for the two-state solution in 1947…”

[WAFA, English edition, Official PA news agency, Sept. 23, 2022]

In making this demand, Abbas ignores a number of fundamental realities.

First, Abbas is demanding the implementation of a plan that has been defunct for 75 years. Living up to their promises, even before the British Mandate came to an end on May 14, 1948, the Arab countries attacked the nascent Jewish state.

[Boston Evening Globe, May 1, 1948]

While Israel managed to survive and expand in a war in which 6.000 Israeli men, women, and children were killed, a full 1% of the population most of the areas allocated for the Arab state - Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip - were occupied by Jordan (which was not yet recognized by the UN as a state) and Egypt, respectively.

In its original charter from 1965, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is now headed by Abbas, disavowed its connection to the areas provisionally allocated for the Arab state openly declaring:
“This Organization [The PLO] does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area”.

Indeed, while Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip and Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria (which it renamed “The West Bank”), from 1948 to 1967, they and the other Arab countries refrained from creating what could have been the “Palestinian” Arab state.

The Failed British Double-Cross of Israel

When the warrior poet Avraham “Yair” Stern founder and leader of Lohamei Herut Israel (Lehi, “Fighters for the Freedom of Israel”) who believed that the British had to be forced out with assassinations and bombs and would never leave voluntarily, was killed after being captured and handcuffed by British detectives on Feb. 12, 1942, no Jew could celebrate his death.

But the leaders of the Jews of British Mandatory Palestine, already then led by David Ben-Gurion, viewed Stern’s death as a gain for the national cause rather than a loss—and not only because the poet and his followers were reckless political dilettantes: Some fantasized alliances with Mussolini, even the Nazis, as well as Arab nationalists in a common anti-British cause.

At a time of maximum danger—Rommel seemed to be on the verge of conquering Egypt, with Palestine next—Ben-Gurion and his allies doggedly pursued cooperation with the British in spite of bitter disappointments. Perhaps the worst of these was the May 1939 White Paper which limited the immigration of Jews to 75,000 over five years, sentencing countless European Jews to death at the hands of the Nazis. Yet Ben-Gurion believed, and rightly so, that the British were the least-bad allies the Jews could have.

Nor did Ben-Gurion have much choice. The Americans had refused to enter the war even after the Germans had conquered most of Europe. They still refused to act when the Germans seemed on the verge of defeating Russia, which would soon mean Britain’s defeat, too. On Dec. 2, 1941, German tanks were 14.7 miles from Moscow’s Red Square. America was only at war when Stern died in 1942 because the Japanese had attacked them.

It was unimaginable that the Americans would intervene on behalf of the Jews in the distant Middle East—indeed the U.S. only lifted its total weapons embargo on Israel in August 1962!—to allow the sale of defensive antiaircraft missiles, seven years after the Soviets had agreed to deliver bombers to Nasser’s Egypt (part of a huge Soviet weapons gift package misrepresented as “Czech” at the insistence of the CIA to avert hostility from their own man Nasser: That always-wrong agency was betting on Nasser’s mighty Arab nationalism rather than on seemingly puny Israel).

When Avraham Stern was killed, the communists still gave all their loyalty to Stalin. According to Ben-Gurion and the majority of Jewish leaders in Palestine, Churchill was still the best bet the Jews could have, even after the exposure of his crass duplicity toward the Yishuv. Having vehemently condemned the May 1939 White Paper to please his Jewish benefactors while out of office and short of ready cash, Churchill refused to change the policy once he became prime minister—thus denying escape from death to millions, and incidentally preventing my father, mother, two brothers, and myself from leaving Arad, Romania, to reach safety by a comfortable Orient Express ride to Istanbul and thence Haifa. A 5-inch-by-2-inch Palestine entry slip was enough to obtain Bulgarian and Turkish transit visas, but the British refused to issue them, even in 1944—by which point detailed eyewitness accounts and impeccable documentation of the operation of every part of the Nazi killing machine had reached London and Washington.

In spite of all that, on the evidence available at the time, Ben-Gurion was still mostly right and Avraham Stern was still mostly wrong. The British did eventually, and very reluctantly, agree to the U.N.’s termination of their mandatory rule on May 15, 1948, thus allowing the Jews to fight for their state. The qualifier is necessary because a factor in the British decision was the terrorist attacks inspired by Stern, including the July 22, 1946, bombing of the British headquarters in the King David Hotel whose 91 killed set a deadliest-attack record that lasted for decades.

I Was Robbed of 70% of the Land of Israel

Jordan ruled over Judea and Samaria, Egypt ruled over Gaza and Syria ruled over the Golan Heights. For those that do not understand the importance of the sentence above, it means that all the lands that the Arabs call “occupied” were under Arab control between 1948-1967! Was there peace?

It was Jordan, Egypt, and Syria that built the refugee camps and stuck their own Arab brothers and sisters in them to create a refugee problem in order to bash Israel. If creating a new State called Palestine was the goal and all the Arab countries are in favor of such a State, why didn’t Jordan Egypt and Syria help the “Palestinian” Arabs start a State during those 19 years (1948-1967).

Israel liberated Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan from Arab States occupation and it has nothing to do with an Arab people who call themselves (since 1964) Palestinians. We never occupied an Arab place called Palestine and there never was an Arab place called Palestine before Israel that could have been occupied.

You are probably saying this is enough to completely destroy the anti-Israel propaganda, but it gets much better (or worse). Today, Jordan is ruled by a king.

Over 75% of Jordan’s population are Arabs who call themselves “Palestinians”! So why hasn’t the majority of “Palestinians” taken over? Because Jordan does not give them full rights!

In fact, Jordan has the largest “Palestinian” refugee camps!

Where is the UN? Where is UNWRA? Where are the SJWs? Where are all the Leftists who care about Human Rights?

Just to sum up, Jordan sits on 77% of British Palestine and has a majority of over 75% of Arabs who call themselves “Palestinians”. Why aren’t the Arabs, who so want to create a Palestinian State, not fighting over 77% of the Land where they are a 75% majority? Why are they fighting over a small sliver of 23% where they are the minority? The answer is simple.

This has never been a struggle to build a new state called Palestine, it’s a struggle to destroy the one called ISRAEL.

Now, can we start fighting for truth and stop giving into false diplomacy that is based on lies?

#OTD in 1947, Jews around the world celebrated as the @UN adopted Resolution 181 in favor of creating independent Jewish and Arab states.

These are all of the countries that voted in favor:

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— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 29, 2022

Find out why UN Resolution 181 remains very relevant today for 3 critically important reasons????https://t.co/IbF6B2PsZX
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 29, 2022

In the hours before the UN voted to partition Palestine into a Jewish and Arab states, the Secretary General of the Arab League, Abdul Azzam Pasha, warned that such a decision would result in a war of genocide against Jews in the Middle East.

This is the most complete text I can find of what he said, as the representative of the entire Arab world. speaking in English to a Western audience.

It is worth studying, because it is a blueprint for virtually every Arab statement about Israel since then, including those of Mahmoud Abbas today.

The speech is a combination of threats, bullying, fearmongering, hyperbole and incitement to genocide against Jews.

From the International News Service, November 29, 1947:

Arab Official Says Partition To Mean War Against Jews

Abdul Azzam Pasha. secretary general of the Arab League, warned today that a United Nations decision to partition Palestine could mean only one thing for Arabs —war against the Jews."

In a statement made as the UN general assembly prepared to vote on the explosive issue he declared:

"Such a decision would mean the end of the first phase of the Arab struggle to have Palestine become an independent Arab state. The second phase of the struggle will now begin . . . the Arabs will have a long run of victories even it it takes us until 1950 or 1960.

"We have justice. time and numbers on our side—everything but arms— and we shall get them too."

He said that tribesmen in Iran. Iraq and Saudi Arabia are "itching to fight."

Azzam Pasha. just back from a six-weeks' tour of Arab states. said a meeting of the Arab League is scheduled for the near future. He added: "There is no question of the Arab countries leaving the United Nations or severing diplomatic relations with nations which vote for partition."

The Arab spokesman said that if Haganah. army of the Jewish agency for Palestine. tries to enforce a partition decision after the British leave and Palestine Arabs seek the help of other Arab states "we shall not hesitate."

He declared: "Every Arab from Morocco to Afghanistan would rise in answer to the call of their Arab brethren."

He forecast "disturbances" and "persecution" of Jews in neighboring Arab countries "in an atmosphere of hatred and animosity which will prevail in case of trouble." The spokesman added:

"Palestine Arabs will not stop to find out who is Zionist and who is not. They will be fighting one enemy--Jews."

Azzam Pasha said it is impossible to estimate the strength of Arab volunteers who would fight for Palestine.

He explained that Arab men will not rally in great numbers if the Arabs are victorious from the start but that "if we suffer any defeats in the beginning then the Arabs will rally in huge numbers because it will be a question of racial pride."

Let's analyze this.

"The Arabs will have a long run of victories even it it takes us until 1950 or 1960" - As always, Arab predictions are wrong - but the intent behind them has not changed. Arab media today, outside of those from the Abraham Accords countries, still has the subtext that Israel is an aberration that will be wiped out as soon as the Arabs can get their act together. Instead of saying Israel will be destroyed in a decade, they often point to the Crusades, where it took about 200 years to reverse the Christian control of Jerusalem, saying that they are equally patient as their ancestors were.

"We have justice. time and numbers on our side—everything but arms— and we shall get them too." The theme of "justice" has been taken up by the Left against Israel, even though in this speech we see what it means - the total destruction of Jews in the Middle East. It is brilliant rhetoric meant to obfuscate genocidal intent.

"There is no question of the Arab countries leaving the United Nations or severing diplomatic relations with nations which vote for partition." This was a baseless threat, but Arabs can engage in hyperbole in threatening the West without consequence. And the Western world still remembers the oil shock of the 1970s: when the Arab nations had the power to use economic means to seriously threaten Western support of Israel, they did so. The repercussions, combined with the threat of Palestinian terror in Western cities, continue today.

"Every Arab from Morocco to Afghanistan would rise in answer to the call of their Arab brethren." This entire speech is part of pattern of the past 150 years where Arabs and Muslims take advantage of Western perceptions of them as irrational savages. The spectre of hordes of Arabs, willing to die for their cause, brandishing scimitars under a flag of jihad, is one that the Arabs have played to the hilt - and the West still falls for it.

But there is a grain of truth to it. Most Arabs just want to raise their families in peace, and have little interest in fighting wars for "Palestine." However, decades of antisemitic incitement in their media and schools results in a small percentage who swallow that narrative. These are the ones who join ISIS and Islamic Jihad and Hamas. This is useful to the Arab leaders, as Pasha continues:

"He forecast 'disturbances' and 'persecution' of Jews in neighboring Arab countries 'in an atmosphere of hatred and animosity which will prevail in case of trouble.'" The Arab leaders may not support the fanatics, but they are quite willing to keep them around for a game of good cop/bad cop. Their consistent message is that if world doesn't do what they demand, they cannot stop the crazies (or the "Arab street") from doing horrible things. If the fanatics slaughter the Jews, the Arab leaders who incite that slaughter in Arabic cannot be blamed - it is the West's fault for not listening to their sage advice.

"Palestine Arabs will not stop to find out who is Zionist and who is not. They will be fighting one enemy--Jews." Pasha is again pretending to distance himself from the Palestinian Arab fanatics when Arab leaders were directly inciting exactly such a bloodbath in Arabic. And note how he tries to manipulate the West in the aftermath of the Holocaust: his message is that "you didn't protect the Jews for the past decade, if you want to avoid another Holocaust you should do what we demand."

"It will be a question of racial pride" - this is what passed for politically correct antisemitism in 1947. Of course Arabs cannot accept Jews in positions of power, for racial reasons. He is saying that Arabs are a racial group and Jews are considered inferior - it would be an insult to Arab pride to accept Jews as equals.

This Nazi ideology made some inroads into mainstream Arab thought, and Abdul Azzam Pasha was still comfortable enough after World War II to evoke that same ideology.

In the end, though, it wasn't Nazi racial theories that animated this speech. It was age-old antisemitism.

When Mahmoud Abbas threatens that there will be worldwide terror unless Palestinians get their demands met, he is engaging in exactly the same threats that Pasha did. When Arab leaders pretend that Western capitulation to their demands will weaken, rather than embolden, Islamist terrorists, they are using Pasha's playbook. When an Arab leader like King Abdullah only yesterday threatens the West with more "escalation, violence, and extremism" unless Palestinian demands are met, he is copying Pasha's tactics.

The Arabs keep using that methodology because it works.

As mentioned, the predictions by Arab leaders are often way off, but the intent behind these threats are not. And that is a problem the West continues to ignore.

The Western reaction to these kinds of genocidal threats haven't changed in 75 years. There is no direct response, but the message becomes accepted. The myth of "linkage" of the Palestinian issue to every other Middle East problem comes from statements like Pasha's, and the West never called the Arab world on it. Instead, they believed it.

These statements are threats and incitement, and the Western world should respond with outrage, not meek acquiescence and winks that "they don't really mean it."

Finally, the other thing that hasn't changed in 75 years is that the "anti-Zionism"stated here was indistinguishable from antisemitism. The threats were of genocide against Jews, both within and without Palestine, with barely a pretext of the coming bloodbath being about Zionism.

Apologists will keep trying to draw a tortuous line between the two, but they are the same thing. And they always have been.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

When the UN banned Jews from the Partition Commission

The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle reported on December 12, 1947:

The original JTA story was dated December 9.

The UN Palestine Commission was created as a result of the Partition resolution of November 30, so the policy of "no Jews, no Arabs, no Britons" must have only existed for a week or so.

Even so, this is remarkable. The UN at the time met in Lake Success, in Long Island, NY, and there would have been very few Arabs or Britons available for the commission; the only practical effect of this rule would be to ban Jews.

Meaning that, for a short time, the UN banned American Jews from membership of a high profile commission, because they were Jews.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

1947 Jaffa newspaper: "Arabs must stop being publicly antisemitic in front of the world"

I came across this snippet in an article in the Palestine Post, May 20, 1947:

"Was it advisable to say in front of an international body that we hate the Jews because they are Jews?" asked thc Jaffa daily Ash-Shaab yesterday in its leading article.

It is no secret that the Arabs were completely unprepared in their evidence before various inquiry Commissions , and also before the UN meeting, the paper stated. "We must select very carefully the people who are to defend us."

In short, Arab antisemitism was a given - the article admits that Arabs hate Jews because they are Jews - but allowing that hate to be shown in front of international bodies is not smart, because the other dhimmis aren't as tolerant of antisemitism as the Arabs are.

So the emphasis must be on how Arabs are welcoming to Jews and treat them well, and it is only Zionism that they have a problem with.

Indeed, two months later the Arab delegates to the UNSCOP meeting insisted that there was no discrimination against Jews in Arab countries, and even that the Mufti of Jerusalem was not a Nazi supporter.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

75 years ago: A survey of Arab persecution of Jews

This article was published in August, 1947 in the Edmonton Journal:

Life Of Jews In Arab Lands
By Gerold Frank

JERUSALEM - The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, now deliberating at Geneva, may ponder the true situation of Jews in Arab states—their treatment, discrimination against them, the entire suffocating framework in which the average Jew finds himself.

Arab spokesmen. seeking to prove the idyllic status of a Jewish minority in the independent Arab Palestine they demand, are always ready to point out the general lack of anti-Jewish laws on the books in the Arab States. But there is a long step between statute and practice. The fact is that the lives of Jews in all Arab states range from generally unenviable to intolerable; from Egypt where the situation of Jews, many of whom are wealthy, is comparatively the best, to Yemen. a backward country where the Jews are the lowest of the low.

It must be remembered that religion in the Middle East is a much more divisive factor than ,in the West, Religion is the basis of social mores: communities are religious communities. Fear, suspicion and hate have deep roots. Add to this the fact that Jews in Arab lands are mainly in commercial pursuits, vulnerable economically and subject to envy if successful; add also the nationalistic propaganda and anti-Zionist movements, and one better understands the Jewish plight.

Take the roll-call of countries.
First, Iraq. Here is the largest Jewish population of any Arab state-130,000 Jews out of 4.000,000 inhabitants. Of the Jewish total, 100,000 live in Bagdad. There were frightful pogroms in Bagdad in June. 1941. The temper of the Iraqi was best expressed by Pedal Jamaili, minister of foreign affairs. who declared, according to the Iraqi Times of March 3, 1946. "The problem of i protecting the Jews of Iraq when disturbances occur in Palestine often is a cause of anxiety and restlessness in Iraq. No Iraq government can for long maintain peace and quiet unless justice is rendered the Arabs of Palestine." This last sentence may not constitute official incitement, but it comes suspiciously close to it.

Today, Iraq Jews are unable to leave the country on the grounds that they might go to Palestine. When a Jew can leave—a medical student, for example—he must pay 2,000 dinars ($8.000) as warrant for his return and his passport is stamped "not valid for Palestine." In Iraq. anti-Jewish laws are kept off the records. but Iraq's raw materials are not currently permitted to be exported to Palestine; the government has begun a boycott of the Haifa port by insisting that exporters send their goods to Europe through Beirut. in the Lebanon. There is a campaign of vilification against Jewish merchants, charging they are trying to break the boycott, in league with Jewish colleagues in Palestine.

In Iraq today there is no Jewish magistrate, and no Jews of any country. including the United States, are granted transit visas.

Second. Syria. Here are 10,000 Jews-2.500 in Damascus, 7,500 in Aleppo. The Damascus Jews are in a sorry state. Half live on charity funds contributed by Jewish societies. Eighty percent of the Jews are peddlers. 15 percent are in the middle class and five percent, are '"wealthy." There are six Jewish physicians, but no Jewish industrialists, lawyers. architects or other professionals. Discrimination is practiced in many ways. Thousands of Syrians flock to Palestine in times of emergency, but if one Jew is caught on the border, the entire press launches a campaign. Today Syria makes it virtually impossible for Jews to go to Palestine. There are almost no Jewish officials in the Syrian government. Jewish newspapers are not permitted to enter Syria, and when the Syrian press has occasion to speak of Jews it is often derogatory.

In June. 1946, a regulation was adopted, reading: "Any person who imports. sells. buys or smuggles or tries to smuggle Zionist goods into Syria is liable to life imprisonment or death." In recent elections based on the new constitution, Jews were accorded one parliamentary seat out of 137. At first they refused this, not wishing to have the responsibility. They turned out to be prophetic, for when Jewish Deputy Wahid Mizrachi was elected, he declared he would be faithful to his people and his fatherland. The newspaper Alif Ba of July 15, 1947, demanded, "What people and what fatherland?"

Third, the Lebanon. Jews from Palestine are not freely allowed Into the Lebanon. Even when the United Nations committee went there, it took official protests to force the Lebanese government to grant visas to a handful of Palestinian Hebrew journalists. The Lebanon today has 6.000 Jews in a population of more than 1,000.000. with the Jews mainly concentrated in Beirut. There is outwardly less discrimination than in other Arab countries because of various population groups such as the Sunnites, Kurds, Armenians and indigenous Christians. The Maronite Patriarch Aridas is a friend of the Jews, Nevertheless. when Jewish students from the United States came to Palestine last year, they were not permitted to disembark at the port of Beirut although other passengers were. Today, large signs on the Palestine-Lebanese border warn against bringing in "Zionist" goods, which means any Jewish-made goods of any kind.

Fourth, Egypt. There are 70.000 Jews in a population of 17.000,000. Their situation is economically good, but their future is uncertain because of the "Egyptization" of commerce and industry and intensified xenophobia. All accountings of companies, for example, must be written in Arabic, which means that many Jews are replaced. Many Jewish companies are compelled to take Egyptian partners.

Many Jews do not have Egyptian nationality. This correspondent has seen one Jew proudly unlock a safe and show a certificate of his Egyptian nationality, saying. "This is my most precious possession. very hard to obtain; it is my safeguard for the future." Without this certificate, Jews have no defence against the government.

There are currently intense nationalistic anti-Jewish campaigns. Only three months ago the newspaper Al Saw. adi denounced Jews in terms reminiscent of Goebbels.

Fifth. Yemen. Here is an incredible situation for 45 000 Jews in a population of 1,000,000. The treatment of Jews is so bad that even the Arabic paper Aid Ba of Damascus attacked it, pointing out on January 2. 1945, that Jews are not permitted to ride horses—only donkeys: that if a Jew riding a donkey sees a Moslem ahead of him, he must dismount 30 paces away, wait until the Moslem passes, then mount the donkey again when the Moslem has gone another 30 paces; that a Jew must pass only to the right of a Moslem, and if he does otherwise the Moslem is entitled to force him to return and pass correctly.

Saudi Arabia and Transjordan need no discussion because they have no Jews and no Jews are permitted.

The things cited here are examples only. but where such things are tolerated, where Jews are continuously and relentlessly held up to ridicule, denounced as dangerous, called a menace to the community and segregated by word, deed and act-in such a framework the life of the average Jew is an endless ordeal of accumulating cruelty and helplessness. (Copyright 1947. Overseas News Agency)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

100 years of the antisemitic boycott movement

(From a Twitter thread)

BDS in 1922.

The American Israelite, Cincinnati, Ohio, 09 Nov 1922 (JTA)

BDS in 1923.

The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, 30 Mar 1923 (JTA)

BDS in 1925.

The Tablet, Brooklyn, New York, 11 Jul 1925

BDS in 1929.

Lansing State Journal, Lansing, Michigan, 19 Dec 1929,

BDS in 1936.

The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, 30 Oct 1936

BDS in 1937.

Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, the Evening News, 18 Feb 1937

BDS in 1945.
The Daily Telegraph, London, 04 Dec 1945

BDS in 1946.

AP, July 16, 1946

BDS in 1947.

AP, October 16, 1947

BDS in 1950.

AP, May 16, 1950

BDS in 1956.

St. Louis Jewish Light, 27 Jul 1956

BDS, 1963.

The Boston Globe, 10 Dec 1963

BDS, 1975.

Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, Mississippi (AP), 13 Feb 1975

And even as late as 1986, it was obvious that the Arab boycott was against Jewish goods and services - not "Zionist."

The Daily Telegraph, London
31 Jan 1986,

All of these articles are clear that the boycotts were against Jews, not "Zionists" or "Israelis." And it became even more obvious after 1948, when Arab nations asked potential partners whether they had any Jewish officials before doing business with them.

BDS today claims not to be antisemitic, but as these news clips show, it is a direct extension of the older boycotts.

And BDS today does not boycott Arab Israeli businesses - only Jewish.

The BDS movement is a century-old antisemitic movement.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

HRW and the Goldstone Report authors both claimed, falsely, "no substantive criticism" to their falsehoods [Daled Amos]

By Daled Amos

With the ongoing talk about apartheid, I was reminded of a report that targeted Israel for war crimes.
Not the B'tselem report.
Not the HRW report.
Not even the Amnesty International report.

Instead, I was reminded of the 2009 Goldstone Report.

Of all the issues and topics that were going back and forth back then, one thing that stood out in my mind was the denial -- the denial from one of the judges on the Goldstone commission.

Desmond Travers, a retired Irish Army colonel, was part of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. Whatever else Travers may have contributed to the group, one thing he seemed to make it his job to do was offer implausible deniability.

Yes, implausible deniability

In an interview at the time with the Middle East Monitor, Desmond Travers came up with the following response to Hanan Chehata:

So far, no substantive critique of the report has been received?

Well, one of the easiest ways to rebut a criticism is to deny that it was ever made (this was back in the day, before it was fashionable to rebut criticism by accusing the other person of being a racist).

Among the papers and articles that came out rebutting the Goldstone Report on issues of law, fact and bias were those from:

o  The Israeli government
o  Alan Dershowitz
o  David Matas (international human rights lawyer)
o  Richard Landes (historian and author)
o  Yaacov Lozowick (historian)
o  CAMERA
o  Intelligence and Terrorism Resource Center

[As well as EoZ.]

But you would never know it from Travers, who made it his business to assure everyone that there was nothing to see -- no criticism, no errors of fact and no controversy in the definition and application of the law.

Fast forward to 2021.

When the HRW report came out, the group apparently adopted the same strategy of denying that anyone could come up with a credible critique of what they wrote. On July 9, 2021, Omar Shakir, HRW's Israel and Palestine Director, tweeted:

One week later, Shakir repeated his claim in an interview with Al Jazeera:

Strawmen?

Anne Herzberg, a legal advisor for NGO Monitor, notes the irony in Shakir's use of the term:

Moreover, the invocation of “strawmen” is ironic, given that neither Shakir nor Roth provided any identification of who or what those strawmen might be, in order to avoid having to refute the substantive arguments.

More to the point, Shakir claims that he did not receive "almost any" counter-arguments on questions of law or definitions.

He is ignoring Eugene Kontorovich's paper, which oddly enough does address the issues of both law and definitions that Shakir claims are lacking -- as well as addressing errors of fact. Kontorovich has a shorter post as well.

CAMERA is apparently guilty of the kind of ad hominem attacks that Shakir condemns. They note that Joe Stork, HRW's Deputy Director for Middle East and North Africa who joined the group in 1996:

Before being hired by HRW, Stork openly supported Palestinian terror attacks against Jewish civilians, and opposed any and all peace treaties between Israel and Arab states.

But pointing out the anti-Israel bias of Stork is done as the context for the factual errors in the HRW report that follow in CAMERA's analysis.

Joshua Kern, a lawyer in international law who has defended clients at the ICC, also wrote one of those posts criticizing the HRW report that Shakir missed. One of the points he makes is that the report appears to water down the concept of "domination" in the context of apartheid from outright "supremacy" down to an Israeli policy designed “to engineer and maintain a Jewish majority in Israel” and to “maximize Jewish Israeli control over land in Israel and the OPT” (A Threshold Crossed, p. 49). Kern notes

With respect to Israel, a policy intended to safeguard the Jewish character of the State and to protect its citizens’ security scarcely reflects the racism of baasskaap [an Afrikaans term for "supremacy"]. On the contrary, recognition of Israel as a Jewish State has been integral to how the international community has addressed issues arising from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1947 at the latest (when the General Assembly recommended partition between the “Jewish” and “Arab” States). [emphasis ]

Will Human Rights Watch now condemn the UN General Assembly as encouraging apartheid?

So how is it Shakir can claim that he is not aware of challenges to the HRW report?

Herzberg may have the answer.

She notes that in the actual report, Shakir's role in creating the report is mentioned:

Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, was the lead researcher and author of this report. [emphasis added]

Yet in a symposium last year designed to allow for HRW and critics of its report to confront each other -- Shakir was not to be found. Instead, Clive Baldwin and Emilie Max provided HRW's response.

According to the report, Baldwin is a senior legal advisor at HRW who provided program and legal review, while Max is a consultant who contributed research.

So Shakir is the lead person responsible for the report -- yet did not show up to actually answer for it. Lawyers who had a secondary role in creating the report were there instead.

No wonder Shakir has no idea of the challenges to his report.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Original sources of the Arab threat to "drive the Jews into the sea"

Back in 2014, I looked at the origins of the phrase "drive the Jews into the sea," because some have claimed that the expression was a hoax by Jews and Arabs never used that phrase in reference to Jews in Israel.

I found solid evidence that it was used after 1948, and then saw that the phrase was documented in the book "O Jerusalem" as having been used first by a Jerusalem police chief Kamal Irekat, adopted by the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem and then used by Fawzi el Kaukji, an Arab League field commander.

Yisrael Medad looked at the issue and found a British memo from August 1948 from Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin:

It is quite untrue to suggest that we have let the Arabs down or failed in any obligations towards them. We did not urge them to intervene by force in Palestine, nor did we promise them support if they did so. They went in of their own accord, in most cases without telling us beforehand. Very small measure of military successes which they achieved shows that their forces, while capable perhaps of occupying friendly territory, were not prepared for and incapable of undertaking major military operations, which would have been necessary to achieve the announced object of the Arab states, namely to drive the Jews into the sea.

I wanted to see if I could find an earlier version in contemporary newspapers.

An AP dispatch from June 10, 1948, said that Jews were amused at Arab claims that they already had thrown Jews into the sea: