By Ted Belman Mar 26/17
One hundred years ago the British government published the Balfour Declaration which stipulated,
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
In 1920, the WWI victorious allies met in San Remo for the purpose of allocating the captured Ottoman Empire. It was decided, among other things, to put Palestine under British Mandatory rule. Thus the Allies confirmed the pledge contained in the Balfour Declaration concerning the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine and made it a legal obligation on Britain and a legal entitlement for the Jews.
When the Palestine Mandate was drafted by the League of Nations pursuant to the San Remo Resolution, it added this important recital,
“Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”
This addition was of great importance as it affirmed the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine, which, by the way, the PA and the UN today are doing their best to deny. In addition, the Jewish right to “reconstitute” their national home was recognized. Thus the Jews were in Palestine as a matter of right and not sufferance.
The Mandate provided,
“The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co¬operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.“
The first betrayal of that promise and right came in 1921 before the Mandate was signed. The Arabs had rioted and Britain decided to reduce Jewish immigration to “absorptive capacity” and told Chaim Weizmann that the mandate wouldn’t be signed if the Jews didn’t agree to delete temporarily, the east bank of the Jordan. The Jews had no choice but to agree and the Palestine Mandate was signed in 1922. This territory amounted to 78% of what was promised to the Jews and it ultimately became Jordan. The deletion of the east bank became permanent contrary to Article 5 which prohibited any removal of land from the Mandate.
While the British Cabinet was generally sympathetic to the Zionist project, the Civil Administration appointed by it to manage the mandatory was antisemitic. It restrained the Jews and emboldened the Arabs thereby violating its pledge to use its best efforts to facilitate the creation of a homeland. Whenever the Arabs rioted, the Jews were made to pay the price. Sound familiar?
After the Arab riots of 1929. A White Paper was issued by Britain that stated that because of the shortage of arable land, Jewish settlement would be permitted only under stringent government supervision. Thus, another betrayal.
From 1936 to 39, The Arab Revolt against the British took place which led to the Peel Commission being appointed to study the matter and make recommendations. The Commission recommended that the Mandate be partitioned between Arabs and Jews thereby further diminishing what was promised to the Jews and what they had the legal right to. This recommendation was passed by the British Parliament but ultimately abandoned.
In and by virtue of the 1939 White Paper, Jewish immigration to Palestine was limited to 75,000 for the first five years, subject to the country’s “economic absorptive capacity”, and would later be contingent on Arab consent. Stringent restrictions were imposed on land acquisition by Jews.
This betrayal was all the more egregious as Hitler, who had been in power for six years had systematically denied Jews their rights and their property and removed them from their jobs and their professions. The Jews were is dire straits and needed to emigrate.
The Jewish Agency for Palestine issued a scathing response to the White Paper, saying the British were denying the Jewish people their rights in “darkest hour of Jewish history. It was to no avail.
During WWII, Hitler attempted to exterminate the Jews, by first transporting them to extermination camps, like Auschwitz, and then killing them with the use of poison gas. Britain still refused to allow more Jews into Palestine.
In effect, Germany was herding the Jews into barns before setting fire to them and Britain was guarding the burning barns to make sure no Jews escaped, metaphorically speaking.
The British also bombed and torpedoed many ships of refugees, with the express purpose to kill Jews. Thus continuing the work of Nazi Germany upon those that had escaped the Nazis.
Tens of thousands of ‘additional’ Jews were murdered intentionally and with malice aforethought by the Government of Britain.
After the war, Britain still wouldn’t let the survivors in. Instead they were housed in “displaced persons” camps in Europe until Israel’s declaration of Independence on May 19. 1948.
Just imagine the millions of Jews who would have emigrated to Israel during the holocaust had Britain adhered to her obligation in the Mandate.
But before leaving Palestine, Britain once more betrayed the Jews by turning over all their military equipment and police stations to the Arabs. This was after they had confiscated all weapons in the hands of the Jews that they could find.
To make matters worse, the US imposed an embargo on all US weapons to either the Arabs or the Jews, making it very difficult for the Jews to get the arms needed to defend themselves.
Upon Israel declaring independence, six Arab countries invaded Israel intent on destroying the state and killing the Jews. Pres Truman believed that the Jews would be defeated within four months but still maintained the arms embargo. The Jews succeeded in turning the war around and began conquering additional territory. Only then was it possible to arrange a permanent ceasefire. In the Ceasefire Agreement with Jordan, Jordan insisted that the ceasefire lines were never to be construed as a border between Jordan and Israel. Israel agreed. This didn’t stop Pres Obama from demanding that the border between Israel and Palestine be the said ceasefire lines.
In 1956, Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran, an international waterway, and Israel, in response to this causes belli, conquered the Sinai in concert with the Britain and France who were interested in reclaiming the Suez Canal. President Eisenhower forced them all to retreat. Part of the deal was that the US, Britain, France and Russia would guarantee that the Straits would remain open to Israel.
In 1967, Nasser again closed the Straits of Tiran and the Guarantors were nowhere to be found. Another betrayal.
In response to this causes belli and the massing of Arab armies on all Israel’s borders, Israel pre-emptively attacked and defeated Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 6 days.
Considering that this was the third time in 20 years that Israel was forced to defend itself, you would think that Israel would be entitled to keep all land conquered in such a defensive war pursuant to international law. But no, the best it could get from United Nations Security Council was Res 242 which began by “Emphasizing the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war “ in total disregard to this war being a defensive war which permits it. It required Israel to withdraw from territories acquired (but not all territories) in exchange for “secure and recognized boundaries free from acts or threats of force”. Thus it was recognized that secure boundaries would necessitate Israel retaining some of the territories.
Subsequently, the international community has embraced the Arab Peace Initiative, which has no legal standing whatsoever, and which requires 100% withdrawal. Another betrayal.
In addition, the international community interpreted this, ex post facto, to include unsecure borders which can be made secure by arrangements rather than borders which are inherently secure as was originally intended. Again, a betrayal.
In 1973, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel and in the first 2 or 3 days came close to destroying Israel. I took Israel this long to fully mobilize. It quickly ran low on ammunition and parts and appealed to the US for resupply. Henry Kissinger, Pres Nixon’s Foreign Secretary, refused immediate delivery as he wanted Israel to suffer a bloody nose so that she would be more pliable in future negotiations. Fortunately, without this much-needed resupply, Gen Ariel Sharon managed to create a beach head on the west side of the Suez Canal from which he started for Cairo which was undefended. Most of the Egyptian Army had gone to the east side to fight Israel. Russia threatened to intervene and Nixon stood up to them and ordered Kissinger to affect the resupply immediately and to arrange a ceasefire. The resupply was made more difficult as the various European countries denied the resupply planes with landing rights on their way to Israel. I would say that Kissinger’s delay of resupply and Europe’s withholding landing rights were two more grave betrayals.
President GW Bush put a lot of energy into convening the Madrid Conference in 1991 in which peace negotiations could start. He tried to have the PLO included in the talks but PM Shamir insisted that only Palestinians from the West Bank could participate as part of the Jordanian delegation. Bush also insisted that Jerusalem be put on the table for final status negotiations. Shamir resisted this as well but in the end agreed. He needed a US guarantee for $10 billion in order for Israel to be able to finance the massive aliya from Russia.
After this, Shimon Peres had an opportunity to negotiate with the PLO in secrecy to see what could be negotiated and PM Rabin gave his approval. This resulted in the Oslo Declaration of Principles for Interim Self Government being signed in 1993. It awkwardly described the Palestinian party to the agreement as “the PLO team (in the JordanianPalestinian delegation to the Middle East Peace Conference) (the “Palestinian Delegation”), representing the Palestinian people,”. Quite a mouthful.
“The aim of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations within the current Middle East peace process is, among other things, to establish a Palestinian Interim SelfGovernment Authority, the elected Council (the “Council”), for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, for a transitional period not exceeding five years, leading to a permanent settlement based on Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973)”
What is important to note is that the Council was “for the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza” thereby excluding the refugees outside of the West Bank. Furthermore, it was intended to lead to “a permanent settlement based on Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973)”. Nevertheless, the entire world takes the position that the goal of the Oslo Accords is the creation of a Palestinian state. This is a lie and a betrayal.
Of further note, the Accords in no way limited settlement construction, though they did define the settlements as a “final status issue”. Nevertheless, the world demands a freeze on settlement construction because they imperil a two-state solution. But the Accords made no mention of a two-state solution. PM Netanyahu has always said that they are not an impediment because they can always be removed. Besides, the Palestinians have no right to a state.
From day one, the Palestinians have been in default of the Accords because that engaged in incitement and violence which they are committed not to do.
In Sept 2000 they started the Second Intifada in which they murdered well over 1000 Israelis. Pres George Bush sent Sen George Mitchell to the territories on a fact-finding mission and he, in his report, you guessed it, recommended that Israel stop settlement construction. Once again, the West made the Jews pay the price for Arab violence.
Though Saudi Arabia played a major role in the perpetration of the attacks on 9/11 in 2001, Pres Bush felt he had to appease them by calling for a Palestinian state in his vision speech in 2002. This was a betrayal of Israel who had always rejected the creation of such a state.
He also introduced the Roadmap for Peace which also was a further betrayal of Israel for a number of reasons: 1) It began by reciting the Arab Peace Initiative which called for 100% withdrawal by Israel contrary to Res 242 and 2) It called for Israel to freeze all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements) and 3) for the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state none of which had Israel agreed to. These were included in the 14 reservations raised by Israel to the Plan and Colin Powell insisted that the Plan be accepted, after all it was only a process he said, and promised that the State Department would give serious consideration to them which it never did.
Because of the pressure put on Israel by the US to create a Palestinian state, PM Sharon thought he had to initiate solutions before he was forced to do what the west wanted. Thus he proposed the Disengagement Plan. Bush gave him a letter in 2004 in support which committed the US to certain things including US support for the retention of the settlement blocs and a solution based on Res 242 rather than the API. It also committed the US to not allow any other Plan to be imposed. This letter was carefully drafted as it was considered to be binding on the US. One of the first things Pres Obama did after his inauguration was to disavow this letter so he would be free to impose terms on Israel if not a full plan. I would say that was a major betrayal.
As part of the Disengagement in 2005, Condi Rice negotiated the Rafah Agreement to remove Israel from manning the Rafah Crossing and to replace them with the Europeans as the arabs had demanded. Shortly thereafter the Europeans hightailed it, leaving no outsider in charge. And thus the smuggling was facilitated.
At the end of the second Lebanese War in 2006, Condi Rice got the UNSC to pass Res 1701 which was intended to prevent Hezbollah from rearming in Lebanon south of the Litani River. It did no such thing due to the lack of commitment and now Hezbollah has stashed 150,000 missies there. A betrayal of massive proportions.
Pres Obama betrayed Israel in many ways during his presidency including forcing Israel to institute a settlement freeze and to support a two-state solution which she wasn’t legally obligated to do. Rather than leave all final status issues to be negotiated directly as had been agreed upon, he attempted to influence the parameters of an agreement by insisting on a division of Jerusalem and the ’67 lines as the borders.
During the last Gaza War in 2014, Obama refused to resupply Israel with needed ammunition and he ordered that US commercial flights to cease during this war. It only was in force for a day but was very dramatic in its implications. Both actions undercut Israel.
His parting shot was to refrain from casting his veto to UN Res 2334 which thoroughly attacked the settlements and demanded a permanent freeze. If that weren’t bad enough, it went on to apply these demands to communities in Jerusalem east of the ceasefire lines.
The Iran Deal requires special mention as a betrayal of major proportions.
The driving force behind all these betrayals is the desire on the part of the West to appease the Arabs due to their 300 million population, their oil and gas exports and to their one billion co-religionists. It matters not, what the facts, history, agreements, values, guarantees are.
It remains to be seen whether Pres. Trump will put an end to this 100 year betrayal.
@ YJ Draiman:
I’d like to get this book. Could you provide the citation please? Title, Author, location, date. There are too many books with similar titles out there.
@ Edgar G.:
Is it plausible that President Johnson really did care and didn’t send any help in 1967 because of the demands of the Vietnam War? Recall, It was Senator Johnson who blocked Eisenhower from outlawing voluntary contributions to Israel – “Ike” even wanted to get the UN to do it — in 1956, and negotiated the “guarantees” in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal.
Or, do you think it was just a game of soft cop/hard cop by Eisenhower and Johnson to fool Israel into complying in 1956 and Senator Johnson was insincere at that time?
@ yamit82:
I think you have laid out and summed up exactly right. This nonsense about Jerusalem…it belongs to US not them..All out holy Jerusalem sites from ancient times are right there, it is thr REAL Jerusalem, the rest was only begun to be added on around Montefiore’s Windmill in the 1870s, filling up the intervening areas towards the City, I think.
@ Edgar G.:
@ Edgar G.:
Many Jews say, why don’t we partition Jerusalem with the Palestinians, since they control East Jerusalem, anyway? Accepting the de facto situation de jure is not the only option. The other option is to change the de facto. What kind of nation accepts the division of its capital with a defeated aggressor? Berlin was partitioned by occupational powers, but re-united at the first opportunity. What kind of nation would surrender its holiest place, which it has fought for and regained, to the defeated enemy?
Muslims took Israeli withdrawal from Gaza for triumph, and stepped up their military efforts. Surrender of Jerusalem would be a major victory for the Muslims, and inflame violence rather than quell it. Muslim youth, full of discontent and nationalism, will smell victory and fight for the total solution.
The surrender of Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria won’t establish Israel’s resolve to desperately fight for the rest, as many Jews hope. The red line in Jewish mentality is very flexible. In 1967, the Israeli consensus was that we needed to annex Sinai. The settlements were thought to anchor the Gaza Strip for the Jews forever.
Even leftist Israeli politicians originally rejected the partitioning of Jerusalem. Concessions poison the will to fight. Israel won’t politically defend her 1948 borders any better than the 1967 borders. The 1948 borders are already compromised from the inside by Arab demographic explosion. Whether an Arab state takes Israeli land, or Israel becomes an Arab state, the result is the same: there is no Jewish country. After giving Sinai, Gaza, Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem to Muslims, Israel will still have de facto Muslim autonomy in Galilee, and a fifth column of Muslims in Israel.
There is no way of living safely in this land, but Rome, a garrison state, lived comfortably for centuries because it dealt with the threats as they appeared without waiting for them to mushroom.
Israelis convince themselves that we submit to world opinion, not to the Palestinian guerillas, when we abandon Jewish lands to our Islamic enemy. They reason that the world doesn’t want us to oppress the Palestinians, and after we withdraw to a ghetto-sized Israel, the world will protect us against the Muslims. Well, the Jews have an experience of others guarding our ghettos.
The world doesn’t care whether Israel or the Palestinians hold Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Most people didn’t even know those names two decades ago. The world’s indifference offers an opportunity to Israel, but it also has another side: the world won’t care if the Muslims seize that opportunity. The civilized world sat idle when the Russians in 1906, the Ukrainians in 1918, and the Germans in 1942 were exterminating the Jews, and offered Israel no help in her wars against Muslim aggressors.
Given the pregnant situation in the Middle East, and the unending claims of Muslims against Israel, NATO will not accept Israel. The current rapprochement is flimsy: Israel participates in the empty Mediterranean Dialogue agreement along with her sworn enemy, Egypt, and other Arab countries. Even if Israel withdraws to its pre-1967 ghetto borders, and is surprisingly accepted into NATO, NATO won’t protect Israel in any war if Israel preempts—and she could not do otherwise.
Contrary to the common thinking, Israeli concessions paint Muslims as righteous defenders of their land rather than aggressors. In human mentality, a strong military power does not give away its core land. If Israel does give it away, then the land is not core Jewish, and is indeed occupied.
Withdrawal from the core Jewish lands would bring disdain, but no security. God gives Jews chances, several chances. Totally irrationally, the Arabs fled Israel in 1948 instead of staying and democratically voting the Jewish state out of existence. In a matter of weeks, Arabs reduced from 45 to 25% of Israeli population. At that point, Ben Gurion’s government rested, and allowed the rest of Arabs to stay and breed. Ben Gurion similarly didn’t push Jordan out of Jerusalem.
The second chance came by in 1967. Arabs fled Judea and Samaria – again, for no apparent reason. Moshe Dayan stopped the refugees, and gave the Arabs every Jewish sanctuary from the Cave of the Patriarchs to the Temple Mount.
Now is the third chance. Hamas does the Israeli job of creating unbearable conditions for the Palestinians. Why help Fatah for an elusive peace process? Help Hamas. Let Hamas fight Fatah and win. Let Hamas run primitive workshops for primitive rockets. Let it at Israel. Let it turn Gaza into fundamentalist Muslim state full of training camps. Show the world that the Palestinians – as any Arabs – are incapable of governing themselves with any decency.
Then run the Palestinian Arabs off to Jordan. Cleanse Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Leave no Arab trace there: no house, no mosque, no olive tree. Help Hamas. End the Arab presence in the Land of Israel.
davida e rosenberg Said:
jesus was not the Messiah
Veritas Vos Liberabit “The Truth Shall Set You FREE!!!! Haaaaa
Great article, Ted, by the way! One small constructive suggestion. Next time, you might want to throw the Story of Glubb Pasha in with the section on the British betrayal, it seems to me.
SIR JOHN GLUBB IS DEAD AT 88; COMMANDED THE ARAB LEGION
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/18/obituaries/sir-john-glubb-is-dead-at-88-commanded-the-arab-legion.html
“We want civilization”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAUAA8jkF4k
@ Steve Klein:
Another perhaps not well known point about the Sinai was that Woodrow Wilson regarded it as a separate territory from Egypt, although there had been a little fighting there between the British and Turks. He had it canvassed so as to offer them self rule, or self determination, but, as the total population were only a handful of tribes who moved from oasis to oasis, that could be found, and they didn’t know anything about countries or borders being extremely primitive in a world of their own, he let it go, So up to that time Sinai was a “no-mans Land:…
I’ve read several articles which I immediately classed as amongst the best on the subject I’d seen. But this one by Ted is better.., Clear, easy to understand, pulls no punches, concise, focused, with very little more to add to make it perfect.
Just one thing….I distinctly recall that when Nasser expelled the UN force (always a useless bunch) which departed so quickly and meekly, closed the Straits in 1967, a declaration of war, Lyndon Johnson, the President at that time, tried his very hardest to collect a convoy from several nations who were part of the original agreement,, I saw him on TV, actually distraught-I believe- unless he was a brilliant actor.
If I’d had any input to him, I’d have asked him why he himself did not collect a group of American ships including a couple of battleships, and break the blockade himself.
So were his teary eyes real, or crocodile……….
@ YJ Draiman:
The Palestine Police were recruited from, in many cases, the British Black and Tans, who created a horrific record of cruelty and murder in Ireland. They were formed by Churchill for Ireland. Many had been in army prisons etc. brutal and brutish. you know the rest.
Good summary of all the nice things they did to us in the last 100 years. I cannot understand how we continue to allow British interference under whatever guise in the so-called peace process. By the way, none of the other interferes are really better. I really love the way our friends in Scandinavia love to “demand” that we give up our land and serenity to appease the Arabs, not to talk of recent French, German, Canadian, Australasian, South African etc attempts to “demand” the same thing. What really takes the biscuit is of course the Israels that “demand” the same thing while trying continuously to bring down Netanyahu and his government. As many people already reported on this site, only God will save us, maybe with a little help from Trump.
@ David:
Wonderful article, beautifully itemized. I’ll keep it for resource material; thank you for your work.
Tabitha
All of this discussion is interesting but irrelevant: This is 2017, and the question is where to go from here. After a cumulative 12 years in power, it is obvious that Netanyahu is not the statesman his predecessors were; there is no “Netanyahu Plan,” even though conditions for Israel have never in its history been this positive. I am an American Jew, supportive of Israel, but do not beleve that I can fully understand the Palestinian and Israeli mentalities. However, I do understand the realities of demographics and about 2.5 Million Palestinians in the West Bank, and 1.5 million in Gaza. it seems to me that neither Abaas nor Netanyahu has the ability nor the will to move forward, which by definition will require thinking outside of the box. Here’s one from an unqualified American: How about a modofication of the Kedar Plan, creating six or seven tribal West Bank emerites, with the PA providing policing and other services that cannot be provided at the local level. This would be accompanied by a plan to replicate the promise of Rawabi — a series of new towns throughout the West Bank, with funding from the Sunni Arab states and Israel. Israel would furnish water and energy (electricity and natural gas) and control of international air and water commerce, through something similar to New York/New Jersey’s Port Authority. I obviously can’t work out details, such as a phased withdrawal of the IDF, a common currency, EU-type legislation, and so on. Even so, it is something that could be discussed. What is intolerable to me is that both Abaas and Netanyahu seem content to accept the tired old status quo. DAYAENU!!!
Trump was willing to move the Embassy,but Bibi quickly got him distracted with one state 2state games. Who should supposedly be more interested in moving the Embassy …..and who should be talking about ONE STATE…Then again,Bibi likes 2 States,so he can stick around forever with policies that keep him in power,but diminish our goals to be and act like the Real owners of the land.ALL OF IT!.We don’t get it!Sad for us because I believe Trump would do whatever we asked and we are missing the boat. We&Bibi don’t get it!
The English are now paying the price for not supporting ISRAEL, along with the rest of the EU.
G-D will not be mocked.
If President Trump doesn’t fulfil his campaign promise for Jerusalem America will also pay the price of the moslum hoards.
in 1967, Nasser again closed the Straits of Tiran and the Guarantors were nowhere to be found. Another betrayal.
In response to this causes belli and the massing of Arab armies on all Israel’s borders, Israel preemptively attacked and defeated Eqypt, Syria and Jordan in 6 days.
the IAF flew French made fighter jets made by company owned by a French JEW.
@ yamit82:
Thanks for the extra detail. Very interesting.
The US establishment, culturally and financially close to the Jews, acquiesced in establishing Israel but offered no practical help. In 1948, America did not force the Arabs to stay out of the war . American companies went on working with Arabs during the war. America did not sell Israel weapons. When Israel began to win, America quickly got involved and arranged an armistice. America perceived Israel as a Soviet proxy, and did not want an expansion of Soviet influence.
In 1956, the story is well known. Russia did not support Israel, and America felt free to press for Israeli withdrawal. America never exerted such pressure on Egypt or other Arab countries at war with Israel. In 1963, Arabs conducted an undeclared war of attrition. The number of victims was close to a conventional local war. Seven years before that, Israel proved her ability to deal with the strongest Arab army. Why did not Israel mobilize in response to incessant provocations? The memoirs are available, and a few years ago one could still talk to cabinet ministers of the time. America strongly urged Israeli government to desist from war, and warned of international isolation if Israel starts it. In 1967, America did not prevent Egypt from re-militarizing Sinai (compare that with American tolerance of Germany re-militarizing Alsace-Lorraine). America, however, twisted hands of Israeli government, pushed it to wait, wait, and wait, perhaps Arabs won’t attack. Again, America expressly prohibited Israel to preempt. Only in the nick of the time,the Israeli government broke free from its American masters and let the IDF to smash the Arabs. America forced Israel to stop short of Cairo and Damascus – when every military strategist agreed that repelling aggression without disarming the enemy is a recipe for a new war. And it came in 1973. Russia supported Egypt and Syria with military shipments years prior to the war and during it. Russians manned SAM batteries and piloted Egyptian planes. America did nothing to help Israel. Only when Israelis crossed the Suez, clearly winning the war, the first American aid arrived – too late to be used. In return for its non-existent help, America forced Israel to stop at the Suez, rather than flatten Cairo, as the Egyptians would have done with Tel Aviv.
The Israeli War of Independence was protracted and bloody. America had plenty of opportunities to intervene. It did not. A little later in 1956, America applied diplomatic pressure and threatened military action to stop an Israeli-Franco-British strike against Egypt. Both Israel and Egypt were economically irrelevant to America, but it helped Egypt, not Israel. America has not hesitated to support colonialist powers against their vassals: France received US aid to fight in Vietnam. Egypt and Vietnam had similar communist regimes, but America supported the Egyptians. Its attitude to Egypt stems from a built-in dislike of Jews. The US establishment does not hate Jews enough to exterminate them but is sufficiently contemptuous of Jews to neglect helping them even in grave danger, whether by bombing Nazi death camps or supporting the newborn Jewish state against six regular Muslim armies.
Post WWII shock cannot explain America’s failure to help Israel. The US jumped into a conflict with the USSR in 1948 over the West Berlin blockade. America risked escalation with an ally over a minor problem with a former enemy. America stood behind the Germans but not the Jews.
The US attitude to Israel changed concurrently with its attitude to China and for the same reason: to counter the Soviets. Dissatisfied with insufficiently orthodox Israeli socialism, her affinity with France, and driven by Russian anti-semitism, the USSR abandoned Israel and stood by the Muslims. The US responded by supporting Israel. The American rapprochement with Israel was a one-man—Kissinger—show, not a culturally or politically predetermined development. In fact, many high-ranking American military opposed cooperation with Israel.
American assistance to Israel has always been meager. It was altogether negligible before 1971, increased in the closing days of the 1973 war, and peaked shortly after the Camp David capitulation. Inflation and the rising cost of the American weapons Israel bought made the assistance insignificant. The aid was important only to big Israeli brass who boosted their egos with expensive, unnecessary military toys from the United States. The changes in aid level show that the US was most interested in Israel at the peak of her strength after the 1967 war, less interested during the cold confrontations with the Soviets in the mid-70s, and uninterested when Israel showed her weakness by giving the Sinai to Egypt.
America, as usual, veiled its realpolitik support of Israel in moral terms, and the moralizing stuck. The aid, eroded by inflation, went on long after its rational basis evaporated.
The Jews who oppose Israel are, like their martyr Leon Trotsky, Marxists. 3 Marxists to every religious Jew. A depressing ratio.
Steve Klein Said:
was this really not a continuation of the 56 war? both times the fuzzy wizzes closed off the straits of tiran which the lying IKE promised to keep open all international shipping lanes to ISRAELI ships.
Ted Belman Said:
was/is not most of the Golan legally owned by the Rothschild family? ownership of land almost to Damascus? the land was purchased from the ottomans, deeds left to the JEWISH agency passed onto the jnf who politically lost them.
@ Birdalone:
Algmeiner blocks all comments if you do not pay for the right to comment. I also found this out.
Email received,
Stephen Kruger wrote,
Leopards don’t change their spots.
Snakes crawl on their bellies.
Scorpions live on dark craggy rocks.
Foxes kill sheep.
The World is at enmity with Truth. The God of Israel is Truth.
The President of the USA has forces over his will.
The World belongs to the Babylonian Elites who never went away.
Leaders wear costumes and masks; so do ‘The Religious.’
Every white washed wall will be uncovered, and meanwhile, “do not sit down to the table with your enemies.”
But, did they listen?
My people perish for lack of knowledge.
All peace accords were an insult to Truth and Israel’s leaders
helped crush it’s own people… to this very day, sacrificing us for false peace, lies and deception.
Too much talk is a form of evil, and actions not taken brought
death. ” IF you don’t do to them what I am telling you to do, I will turn and do to you… what you were instructed to do to them.” My, that is simple to understand.
Speak the truth and hide it not.
We need a King David desperately; we need The son of David.
davida.expressit@gmail.com
Ted, this is one of the clearest, most concise histories of the subject I’ve seen in my seventy years. I will go to American Thinker now.
I have one small quibble with this excellent piece.
Mr. Belman, you wrote: “…Israel preemptively attacked and defeated Eqypt, Syria and Jordan in 6 days.
Considering that this was the third time in 20 years that Israel was forced to defend itself, you would think that Israel would be entitled to keep all land conquered in such a defensive war pursuant to international law….”
I think it is critical to emphasize Israel repossessed (or liberated) these territories from Jordan and Egypt who illegally occupied them between 1949 and 1967. Judea, Samaria, Gaza belong to Israel by right, according to international law. These treaties and instruments Mr. Belman mentioned above are all protected by the United Nations charter, Article 80.
The late Howard Grief wrote: ‘As a practicing attorney in Montreal since 1966, it was natural for me, sooner or later, to interest myself in Israel’s legal foundation and in the rights of the Jewish People to Palestine and the Land of Israel. This became a matter that required great attention after the Six-Day War of June 1967, since Israel’s legal position in Judea, Samaria, Gaza, the Golan and Sinai were topics of daily debate and acrimony. Israel was constantly being assailed in the 1970s, as it still is today, for its “occupation” of Arab territories, the implication being that it had no right to the territories it had repossessed or liberated from enemy occupation in the Six-Day War. To my sorrow, no satisfying legal rebuttal was forthcoming to offset this false accusation, even by committed advocates of Israel’s cause. The best response offered was that either Israel had a better “claim” to these territories than did the surrounding Arab states, or that in any case everything would be eventually settled in future peace agreements and that in the meantime the status quo could continue. Not a single jurist ever voiced the opinion, with supporting evidence, that Israel, as the agent and assignee of the Jewish People, was the actual sovereign of Judea, Samaria and Gaza or that the Golan was really an historical part of the Land of Israel rather than of Syria illegally ceded to France in a 1922 agreement that took effect the following year or finally that the Jewish People’s long connection with Sinai dating back to the days of Moses, as confirmed in the Torah, gave Israel a right to retain Sinai, a territory which historically was never a part of Egypt except by virtue of conquest during various periods in history…’
“The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel Under International Law,” by Howard Grief (pp. 8-9)
@ dreuveni:
Yes, this makes sense. I was left with a feeling of “so what do we do now” after reading this damning history of the west, and wondering why do we engage in the charade that the “US is our best friend”? Truthfully they owe us more than the billions of aid attached to massive strings. All we in Israel can do is rely on G-d and His word to always rescue us from our enemies. And though they may be slow in coming, the curses on those who curse us are being delivered. Europa and especially the UK are dying and won’t recover unless they repent. Germany is undergoing massive chaos, according to what we read in the media anyway. The US is seeing the liberals who followed Obama destroying what was left after his 8 years. Poor Pres. Trump is like the boy trying to hold back the flood with his fingers in the dike that has more than 10 holes. The curses are being delivered but the libs are too blind to recognize them for what they are. While all the while, Israel, the one they tried to destroy, is getting better and better. May Netanyahu stand firm and refuse to give in. Now the US is sending a Jewish traitor to strong-arm him, a man who is using the ADL to attack the very people it is supposed to defend. It can’t get any lower than that.
We can whine and weep but that will not change anything. We need to take an example from the Israelis themselves. Whatever happens, they always pick themselves up and continue doing what they do best – survive.
The history lesson was excellent, but if no-one is willing to listen, we can save our breath. None of these figures from the past who betrayed the Jews will ever admit to it. The only result will be to give them the opportunity to think up fantasy excuses for whatever they may have done or not done and provide more ammunition to the “Palis” to bolster their arguments.
Pick yourselves up and do it the Israeli way!
Some other betrayals that I left out of this narrative, include,
1) Res 1701 at end of the last Lebanon war which provided to a UN force to maintain the peace and most important to prevent Hezbollah from rearming. Condi Rice who negotiated the resolution, never did anything to make sure that it was complied with.
2) The Europeans agreed to man Rafah Crossing at southern Gaza replace Israel as THE aRABS HAD DEMANDED.. Shortly thereafter the Europeans hightailed it leaving no outsider in charge.
3) Obama refused to resupply Israel with needed ammunition during the last Gaza violence.
4) Obama also ordered that US commercial flights would cease during this war. It only was in force for a day but was very dramatic in its implications.
A scholarly friend of mine wrote,
xx
TED,
In answer to your appeal for support in one of the early posts on this page, I must tell you that as soon as I was part way through your exposition and analytical explanation of the whole process from beginning to end.(which if course I afterwards read on) I sent out at leas t6-7 copies to my children and friends. I am going to do the same again, this time pointing out Draiman’s second post which reproduces the newspaper report which indeed should blacken the British name for ever and ever. I actually have Samuel’s book in which he tries to justify himself, etc,including appointing Hadji Amin in the invented office of The Grand Mufti…..
I remember as a small kind in the 1930s and 40s living in Ireland, where the Black and Tans were always named with curses, they also used to say that they were as bad as the Palestine Police, (not knowing that in fact that the British recruited Black & Tans into the Palestine Police at high pay as was learned later), this was a well talked about fact by the Goyim, some of whom knew these dogs.
So that’s where many of them came from, former Black and Tans from the Irish Rebellion, chased out in fear of their lives from Ireland especially after the Civil War ended. There was then nothing for them to do. It was only whilst writing this very post that I suddenly remembered about them and knew you’d want to know. Many were British who had moved to Ireland and many just were sent over from England to Ireland. They used to terrify disobedient kids with threatening to bring in the Black & Tans… so there. .
@ Ted Belman:
Kudos on your excellent historical recap. concise, truthful. I have NO explanation for why certain “right” talk radio commentators, e.g. Mike Rivero (“what really happened”) are willfully and irrevocably blind when it comes to Israel. They strenuously resist the “anti-Semite” charge, support BDS!! but call MEMRI Israeli propaganda. There are SO MANY Israel haters on the internet! WHY? are the Arabs (sharia/genital mutilation/throwing gays off bldgs/stoning women to death…etc..) so lovable? I cannot fathom it. Lists of Jewish Nobel prize winners, technological advances? – none of these accomplishments moves their compass. Jewish lives don’t matter. It’s all about delegitimizing a Jewish state.
An excellent article, Ted.
Thanks for disclosing the historical record so clearly.
Ted,this article is very interesting and informative. It is also a reminder of all the attempts by the Jews to bring solutions to achieve a peaceful homeland. It has become abundantly clear by now that there is no solution:those set forward by the nations always involve sacrificing Israel,any solution that might be favorable ti Israel are quickly neutralized, every hope and commitment by “friends“ turn into betrayal and disappointment.
I know this is not a religious site, nor should it be. But if one looks into the Bible, there are loads of situations where Israel is experiencing humiliation and defeat. But the Bible tells why this is so. There is also the relating of glorious victories and one can understand the reason for the victories. If today`s Israelites are the children of the ancient Israelites, it may be that the Tanach still has the answers. For example, biblical Jews were warned not to rely on Egypt which was compared to a splintered cane, which when you lean on it, it pierces your hand. Could it not be in our days that the modern Egypt for Israel is the USA? Consider the hope engendered by Donald Trump`s election.
I would like to see articles where current events and situations are interpreted by rabbis or other Tanach-oriented scholars. I don`t think the book is outdated at all and further that it could offer new paradigms and real solutions. Till now if any idea provides hope for Israel, it is shot down. If it is to Israel`s detriment, it is forced upon them. Because it is a vicious circle, the results are always foreseeable. Just a suggestion. This is how I see it. Thanks.
Governments betray their own people.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that they screw tolerated minorities and foreigbes.
Thank you for a profound analysis about the West’s betrayal of Israel.
And what about the East bloc?
Curiously, without the heavy lifting of the Soviets during World War II, and had Stalin not instructed his satellites to supply Israel during its War of Independence, the Jewish resurrection might have stopped cold.
The Russians caused a lot of grief before, and much mischief afterwards, but their support at a critical junction saved Israel.
*NO JEWS NEED APPLY’ – The British discrimination in Palestine
Had the British Government seriously wished to pursue the policy of the Mandate, it would have engaged itself in training Jews for its administrative and executive departments against the day when the manifest purposes of that document had been fulfilled.
Simple logic would have recommended the appointment to high position of only those Arabs who could be relied on to carry out the policy to which the Mandatory was pledged. But the official cabal had quite other ideas. Hence we discover, among
the other ‘benefits’ conferred on Jews in Palestine, their derogation to a sub-human species who at all costs must be kept out of the Government itself.
As in Nazi Germany, virtually the only Jews who can get Government positions are the old soldiers — and their lives are made so miserable that they prefer anything else if they can get it. Though European Zionists proclaimed their happy relationship with Britain, local Jewry suffered from no such illusion. The Vaad Leumi Memorandum to the League of June 15, 1931, referring to the exclusion of Jewish workers on all governmental projects, declared pointblank that “this exclusion, which is in effect a boycott, provides additional evidence of a Government policy calculated to ignore the interests of the Jewish community in all its needs. . .”
When Samuel came after the 1920 pogrom which almost lost the Mandate for England, a number of high-ranking Jewish officials had been appointed with him as evidence of London’s good faith. The most important of these was Norman Bentwich, the Attorney-General. As was true of Samuel, Bentwich leaned over backward so far that he favored the Arabs like the other officials. But this did not save him and he was retired by ‘comrade’ Passfield because he was a Jew, eight years before his pension able age. 28
The resignation in 1932 of A. M. Hyamson, Director of the Department of immigration, eliminated the last Jew who served as a department head in Palestine. Hyamson had managed to hold on to his job by outdoing even the English in severity to Jews. This did not save him either. The Administration simply did not want anyone remotely suspected of being a Jew in a position of authority. The Jews, who had come to detest this man, were also glad to see him leave. Said the Hebrew press politely at the time: “Mr. Hyamson’s departure from Palestine will not be viewed with regret.” 29
British policy has turned Palestine into a paradise for petty Arab officials, who have been encouraged into bold disloyalty to the very Mandate which feeds them. To understand all the implications contained in this shoddy situation, the character and
training of the average Arab must be borne in mind. Like the Garrote of Luzon, he is still in the tribal stage of development.
He still lives in the atmosphere of the Ghazzu, the night raid. Lawrence, and everyone else who has had any experience with him, was quick to grasp his hopeless inadequacy for any kind of modern organization. In all of Palestine but 73,000 Muslims are able to read and write. To these may be added 43,000 Christians, making 116,000 non-Jews who can sign their own names.
Against this miserable showing, almost one hundred percent of the Jews in Palestine are literate. They not only possess a heavy majority of the trained and educated population but have in their midst some of the greatest minds in the world. Included in their ranks is a vast amount of ability that has fled from oppression, a concentration of so many scholars, engineers, economists, thinkers and distinguished figures generally, that they probably represent the highest group level of culture and ability in existence. Here was apparently the perfect source to draw on, in this land inexperienced in self-rule, for the purposes of efficient government.
Actually, we find bias against these people so great that they are allowed to serve only where their appointment could hardly be prevented — as in the case of translators, or in the municipal Jewish institutions. The Government’s Works and Plans Department provides an excellent illustration. Some of the ablest engineers in the world now live permanently in Palestine but are studiously ignored. Whenever competent engineers or architects are needed, advertisements for the purpose are inserted solely in the London papers. That ‘Aryans only’ need apply, goes without saying.
In the whole Government service, Jews, who constitute one third of the population and contribute the bulk of the State’s revenues, hold less than 5% of the public jobs. Even this fraction is in the nature of a sop, thrown irritably to keep them quiet as one does a bone to a yelping dog. A bird’s-eye view of these complaints tells a vivid story. A wild cry from the Jewish Agency reveals that the percentage of Jewish labor employed on public enterprises was 1%% in 1925, as compared with 6% in 1922. 30 In the five-year period ending March 31, 1927, the average was less than 3%. The Agency avers that in Haifa where Jews were half the population, and at Jaffa where their numbers were considerable, extensive public works programs were undertaken without employing a single Jewish workman or clerk. It declares that less than 4% of those employed on public works in Jerusalem are Jews.
As early as 1926, various departments of the Government had already been made Judenrein (free of Jews) . A list of official appointments published October 11 of that year, shows the railroads, post office and police departments to be practically without Jews, though a few were appointed in ensuing years to keep a decent face. No Jews at all were named to the strategic Land Courts or to the Frontier Force. In 1930 a Customs Department investigation disclosed that in the head Government office,
of thirty-five officials, one was Jewish. In the Haifa office, of thirty-two officials, there were two Jews. Since these offices were all in strong Jewish areas, it does not require saying that in the Arab sectors there were no Jews at all.
By 1935 the condition was hardly improved. In April of that year the Hebrew press was complaining that Jewish officials in Government offices averaged less than one-half of one percent. Not a single Jew was employed in the vast Haifa Harbor extension and improvement works. There were only ten in the Government works in Jerusalem, including the Printing Press, Post Office and Police School, and only five on Jerusalem municipality enterprises. Thousands of illegal Arab newcomers were being used on these projects, but no Jews were wanted.
Evidence presented to the Peel Commission in 1937, proved that though they contribute directly sixty-five percent of the railway revenue, out of the 4300 employees in the Government railway system only 365 were Jews. The annual budget of £130,000 for road maintenance and public works was spent almost in its entirety with Arabs.
Though Jews are responsible for seventy percent of customs receipts, they are virtually excluded from labor in the ports. At Jaffa the porters are all in direct Government employ. Lighter men and stevedores must be licensed by the Authorities, who flatly refused to issue licenses to Jews. At Haifa a considerable proportion of the porters work for private firms, which hire Jews? Of the three thousand laborers regularly working in the two ports, at the beginning of 1936 only three hundred were Jews, all of whom were in the employ of Jewish importers. 31
Where a proportion of Jews is used the difference in treatment is impressive. Even the Peel Commission was compelled to remark that Jewish scavengers in Jerusalem were not supplied with winter clothes as Arab scavengers had been. 32
Partisanship of the most indefensible kind is always in evidence. Tel Aviv, with one hundred and fifty thousand people, is allowed only twenty-six postmen, who work twelve hours a day for a month. Side by side with these Jewish mail-carriers are imported Englishmen who are paid four or five times this amount. The Executive Committee of the Palestine Arab Congress comments that “salaries of Government servants are a matter of wonder and ridicule. . . A customs cashier in Jerusalem station, for instance, gets £26 per men?* He is transferred and his successor is given only £12, though he is held equally responsible. A clerk in a department gets more sometimes than his chief who is even responsible for his own work; as for example is the case in the Werko Department of Jerusalem where the director of that section gets £16 and one of his clerks gets £22, though the former is his senior in age and service, and though other clerks who carry on the same work get between £10 and £15.” 34
Sometimes official bias goes to such lengths that it backs up against itself. An amusing instance concerned a contract for a £60,000 British military camp near the Jewish settlement of Netania, assigned to a firm in Egypt. Unable to handle it, they promptly sublet the job at a profit to Jewish contractors in Palestine.
Still others took their cue from the Government and refused to employ Jews. One of them was the already mentioned Jerusalem Electric Company. Another was the important Shell Oil group, beneficiary of the tax-free Iraq Oil Company agreement.
A particularly flagrant case concerned the famous King David Hotel, one of the largest enterprises in the country and a favorite rendezvous of Government officials. On September 23, 1934 it became entirely Judenrein, the last remnant of a once-large Jewish staff having been dismissed to be replaced by imported foreign labor. Bellowed the manager: “We want no Jews in this hotel. We shall keep it clean.” 35
The average Englishman believes religiously in the incorruptible quality of “British justice.” He will tell you that the Englishman takes his whole system of equity with him wherever he goes, and that it is a great, moral, cleansing influence in the lives of the backward peoples who inhabit the far reaches of the Empire. But whatever it may be elsewhere, the British system of jurisprudence in the Holy Land has little to recommend it.
The men sent down from London to rule this martyred country proceeded at once to put into effect a number of kinds of justice for a number of kinds of people. Lowest in the categories of caste by which equity was meted out were the Jews.
The Arabs followed a few notches ahead in favoritism. Perched on top of the heap were the English, who were practically a law unto themselves.
Widespread corruption degrades every department of the Judiciary. Graft, baksheesh and rake-off are constantly in the background as in the worst days of the Roman yoke. Every-thing connected with either the police or the courts is for sale.
Even the black-list of persons to be kept under particular police surveillance at the time of the 1929 outbreak (a document so
confidential that it was even kept secret from the Parliamentary Commissions sent down later to investigate), appeared in Photostat, with admitted accuracy, in the columns of the New York Forwards and in other papers throughout the world. Thoroughly disgusted, Detective Chief Broadhurst came to the conclusion “that to put anything on paper at all was simply ‘to blow the whole gaff.’ “36 He candidly concedes that it would be impossible to operate a jury system in Palestine. Bribery and corruption infest all processes of law to such a degree that to introduce it would mean a complete end to even the bare pretense of legal justice. 37
The great bulk of appointments to the Magistracy have been drawn from clerks and interpreters, some of them semi-literates. The Government benevolently allows these incompetents ten years to pass an examination, meanwhile authorizing them to serve in a judicial capacity. “There was only one man on the High Court Bench who had any real conception of criminal law,” states Broadhurst laconically, “and he was in a district where his knowledge was only of use locally.” 38
To the outsider it is incredible that Tel Aviv has no Court. All matters involving more than £150 have to be heard in Jaffa. A court sits in such Arab villages as Jenin, Tulkarm and Acre, but the largest city in the country has no court. And if you speak anything but Arabic to the notary of clerks in the Jaffa District Court, you will be stared at as if you were some strange animal. The record of proceedings in almost all courts is kept in Arabic. Basic law is still the old reactionary Ottoman code, long ago discarded as obsolete in Turkey itself.
The prosecution of crime is almost wholly in Arab hands. The Government Advocate is an Arab. His assistant at head- quarters is an Arab. With the exception of one Jew, who does only office work, all the Junior Government Advocates are Arabs. 39
The Criminal Investigation Department is so desultory in its service that it can hardly be said to exist in practice. Here, too, official perjury is an expected occurrence and influence and baksheesh are part of the formula of justice. It is notorious that the police ‘investigators’ who compose the original ‘report’ before cases come to the examining magistrate, will prepare these documents in any way that is wanted if a proper payment is made. As for the courts, “it was possible,” says Broadhurst, “to obtain a habeas corpus for a few piastres in order to short-circuit proceedings.” 40 The style of British officialdom itself can be convincingly grasped in the trial of a Georgian Jew named Turshoili, for arson, in November 1932. Declared States Attorney; Elliot for the Government, before the highest tribunal in Palestine: “Jews are necessarily arsonists.”
The police are merciless to prisoners who meet their displeasure. Their tone may be judged from the reappointment to high position in the Police Force of Kheir El Din Effendi Besesso after he had been found guilty by the High Court, on August 9, 1928, of kidnapping a witness for the defense on the eve of a criminal trial. Says Duff who should know: “Torquemada, or the Court of Star Chamber can have had little fresh to impart to your Palestine policeman determined to extract a confession.” The arrest of two Jewish children, Simon Mizrachi, aged 9, and Haham Jacob, aged 10, on March 7, 1931, provides a ghastly example. Without their parents having been informed of the offense, the ‘criminals,’ charged with throwing stones at an Arab’s house, were flogged so unmercifully that one was reported near death. 41 The brutal medieval custom of whipping is actively followed in the jails, a matter which received some airing in Commons in June 1928, where the Colonial Secretary learnedly backed this cruel usage with the opinion that “flogging was a proper punishment.”
Not even the concentration camps of Germany can surpass in pure horror prison life in Palestine. The jail at Acre is a good example. It is the principal prison of Palestine, a massive, forbidding structure inherited from the Turks. Its foul dungeons, in which light and air rarely enter, are a relic of ages past.
2017 will be the year Israel takes Judea and Samaria under its total sovereignty and the Arabs who do not like it can move to Jordan, Gaza and the homes with the 120,000 sq. km. of Jewish owned land the Arabs confiscated when they terrorized and expelled over a million Jewish families and confiscated all their assets valued in the trillions of dollars. These million Jewish families were mostly resettled in The Land of Israel and today comprise over half the population.
The British after WWI, asked and accepted the Mandate for Palestine as trustee for the Jewish people, to rebuild the Jewish National Home in all of Palestine aka The Historical Land of Israel for over 3,000 years (as confirmed by the U.S. Congress resolution of 1922 and the 1919 Faisal Weizmann Agreement), but failed miserably and intentionally to live up to their duty and commitment, while stabbing the Jews in the back and violating international treaties and agreements. (Historical records show, the British military and police in Palestine was anti-Semitic and caused the deaths of many Jews). The British bribed the Arabs by giving them without authority three quarters of Jewish historical and allocated territory as the new Arab-Palestinian State, and provided them with weapons and military training in order to get control of the oil reserves in the Middle East (since the Arabs/Muslims received over 12 million sq. km of territory with a wealth of oil reserves). The British went to such extreme to block Jewish immigration into Palestine aka The Land of Israel, that millions of Jews trying to escape extermination by the Nazis died, and after WWII the British sent their agents to blow up Jewish Holocaust survivors refugee ships under “Operation Embarrass”. It is amazing how Britain was justified at defending itself after German V2 rockets hit London and the British and American planes went on daily bombing of German cities killing hundreds of thousand civilians, and The U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki with Atom bombs, but Israel has no right to defend itself against rockets, terror and violence by the Arabs. What a discriminatory double standard.
It is time for Israel to defend itself with no holds barred and take full control and autonomy on all the territory west of the Jordan River and take over Gaza and demilitarize it.
YJ Draiman
Ted, your historical summary of betrayal of the Jews and of Israel is incisive. Well done. What is most troubling in the West is the growing progressive, leftist Jews who engage with other leftist movements in a delusional self-righteousness which effectively proclaims that denial of Jewish and Israeli self-interest and promotion of Palestinian Arabs and acquiescence to Muslim imperialism (Shia and Sunni) and anti-Semitism is a “Jewish value or Jewish altruism.” This is not just foolish; it truly is a form of suicidal altruism.
@ Ted Belman:
Ted, I did start to comment at AmThinker – excellent chronology, but saw helen4yemen already in the comment thread. “She” is a troll who is obsessed with European DNA as ‘proof’ that Israel is a colonial project.
I finally got Paula Bolyard to block helen4yemen at PJM, because her trolling ruined every post about Israel Also got different troll ‘tecumseh’ (forget rest), who is from BLM, blocked at PJM. They are horrible trolls.
AmericanThinker needs a moderator.
Just try to NOT use the moderator at Algemeiner.com, who, for reasons I can not fathom, blocks ALL of my comments.
Anyway, glad you kept your skepticism on TeamTrump out of that piece. I did ‘recommend’ it.
In Disqus, my avatar is a snow leopard D4x.
And Boris only perpetuates this PERFIDY!
The barbaric world wants none of this alien Ethics!
In one form or another, the white race has always allied itself with the enemies of the Jews!
Not China or India!!!
Excellent article, Ted!
unfortunately the world has always been against the Jewish people, just think if the world stood up to Hitler in the begining, and all those Jews that were murdered had lived how much more would have been created and invented that would have benefited mankind.
Good Job Ted!
American Thinker also posted this article today. A lot of flak is coming my way. Please if you have what it takes join in the fray by commenting and stand up for my thesis.
Enough said.
@ MELECH david:
Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I made the necessary amendment.
Nice article.