"The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth." Edith Sitwell (1887 - 1964)
Every free morning when I am not in a rush to go to work, I have a ritual of preparing a leisurely morning cup of coffee and then opening my computer. Once the computer is booted I open my email in-boxes. Through these portals to the world I receive items from around the world daily. The items I receive range from personal items and Blog comments to the usual bills and advertisements. As I read through the items I pause and ponder, "Is it worth while for me to reply or to elaborate my personal point of view in a Blog?" I wonder. "Is my Blog entry readable or even interesting to those whom I send my reply to?" What will my words do? Will they have any effect? Will the reader agree with me?"
Then when I open Facebook there is always the space where you enter your comment as to "What's on your mind?". It stares at me and I always stare at the space and think to myself "Gawd I sure as hell would like to say all that is on my mind!" I sit and ponder upon the minions of things that flow through my brain from the personal to the political and from the trivial to the intricate. I think about all the news that is occurring daily in the world and of course on those news items concerned with Israel. I am reminded of the saying. "All the news that is fit to print".
Next I open the news pages of the leading Israeli dailies in English; Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post and Yediout Achronout to read the latest in news headlines. I especially like trying my mental patience by occasionally reading the writings of Mr. Gideon Levy and MS. Amira Hass. These two consistently profess their self-hating delusions of how the Israeli leadership and the religious and extreme right control the feelings of ALL Israelis. They never dare to criticize the "Palestinians" for their flagrant use of violence it is ALWAYS Israel's fault. Their personal views are those of the Shenkin crowd tainted by self hating Homosexual-Lesbian Jewish anarchist leftist – read old time communist thought who hide in the Greater Tel Aviv area and never venture in the peripheral areas of Israel.
As I read through the news articles and commentaries I also read the Talkbacks to these articles. Occasionally the editorial staff of Haaretz slip up and allow a positive Talkbacker reply such as; "If those Turks, who died, had been peaceful like those on the other five ships of the "flotilla" they would have received no harm and would have arrived back home safely as the others." Wow! you mean we are humans?
So very many times these comments against Israel are so far fetched and based on totally absurd facts that it appears that common sense/knowledge are thrown out the window. Many of the Talkbackers are frequent commentators who readily leave their vile lies and false accusations for the gullible non-informed to read on a daily basis in any Talkback that they can. The fact that their totally depraved ranting's and raving's are accepted and printed in the free democratic press of Israel is lost by them and overlooked by the left-wing "humanitarian" camp. These same critics of Israel are totally silent should they even dare to insinuate any trivial wrong doing in one of the neighboring Arab countries.
As I read these "Talkbacks" I am consistently amazed at those who thrive on absurd pro-Palestinian hatred who visit these Israeli English web sites to spread their comments gleaned from their personal hatred of Jews and Israel. These "readers' comments" are veritably filled with such virulent "pro-Palestinian" and anti-Semitic hateful propaganda rantings that the effort to read them can range from the tedious to the laughable.
As someone who has studied history in an American University I was taught by my professors to base statements and writings on researched historical fact. As someone who has lived in the Middle East and has experienced first-hand many of the historical events over the past 37 years here I am astounded by the amount of historical documented fact that is literally ignored and distorted by these pro-"Palestinian" Talkbackers. On most occasions these anti-Israel rantings that are made have absolutely nothing to do with the article that they ascribe to comment about! The majority of these HOIZs-"Haters of Israel and Zion" are so despicable in their replies one wonders, what exactly is the purpose behind their publication by the "mediators" of the talkbacks? I also wonder how much do these pretentious and preposterous lies affect the naïve "least knowledgeable" readers? The Talkback section of Haaretz is specifically heinous for not only its own "left-wing" commentaries but for it's predominance in truly notoriously spiteful and hate filled "pro-Palestinian" "Talkbackers".
To these "Talkbackers" who appear on a regular basis, Israeli IS an Apartheid State, the IDF means the IOF or Israeli "Occupation" Force, Israel IS a racist state thereby associating that ALL Jews are racists and all who serve to defend Israel in the IDF ARE blood thirsty murderers of innocent women and children.
Israel's lack of counter propaganda – the relaying of facts and truths are left for the volunteers whose knowledge of Judaism and the pro-Zionistic concepts vary from the extreme right to the middle. The Israeli left and especially the far left are on a mode of self-destruction and appeasement. The average secular Israeli Sabra is too busy thinking of himself/herself and the daily routine of his/her family to care about what the world thinks.
Let us look for a moment at where this "pro-Palestinian" propaganda mis-information campaign originated.
In Arafat's visit to Viet Nam during the height of the war in Viet Nam, North Vietnamese General Giap, advised Arafat and his subordinates to redefine the terms of their struggle. Giap told Arafat to learn from their struggle in Viet Nam and to work in a way that would concealed the organizations stated goals in it's charter for the elimination of the Jewish State through strategic deception.
Giap advised Arafat to reflect an image of moderation and to publicly deny that the PLO wishes to annihilate Israel. Giap told him to turn the PLO terror war into a struggle for human rights. That once you had distanced yourself and the PLO from acts of violence then you will have the liberal left wing Europeans and Americans eating out of your hand.
General Giap and the KGB advisors told Arafat to develop proxies that he could command to perform terrorist missions but be distanced enough from to shuffle off blame to. The best example of this is the Black September organization made infamous for their attack and murder of the Israeli Olympic Team members in 1972.
Muhammad Yazid, who had been minister of information in two Algerian wartime governments had also advised Arafat:Wipe out the argument that Israel is a small state whose existence is threatened by the Arab states, or the reduction of the Palestinian problem to a question of refugees; instead, present the Palestinian struggle as a struggle for liberation like the others. Wipe out the impression …that in the struggle between the Palestinians and the Zionists, the Zionist is the underdog. Now it is the Arab who is oppressed and victimized in his existence because he is not only facing the Zionists but also world imperialism.
The new "pro-Palestinian" propaganda approach has been wildly successful since its inception in the wake of the expulsion of the PLO by Jordan to Lebanon in 1970 and the infamous United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, adopted on November 10,1975 that "determines[d] that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination"
Ever since the 2001 UN Durban Conference on Racism and in the aftermath of the construction of the "Security Wall", this virulent hatful "pro-Palestinian" propaganda approach was refined, focused and amplified. Throughout the world in all of the "leftist" camp Israel is now presented as not only denying Palestinians their rights, but as doing so out of racism. The false analogy with South African apartheid, which has become espoused especially by the moderate "Left", are now calling for similar actions that caused the fall of the South Africa against Israel. These actions include; de-legitimization, boycotts, divestment, etc.
In addition to the potent element of racism the "HOIZS" and their pro-"Palestinian" lackys have added the slanderous "labeling" of Israel with the colonialist theme. They do so through the repetitious use of the term "Settlements" to denote the Jewish villages and towns established in the areas of Mandated Territory that was previously occupied from 1948 – 1967 by Jordan. The unique historical fact that the area of the "West Bank" was designated as the historical Jewish Homeland guaranteed in the Mandate for Palestine and ignored in UN Resolution 181 is conveniently forgotten.
What is also forgotten is that Jews had been living in the area of Judea and Shomron for hundreds of years. The fact that the Arabs ethnically cleansed the Jews out of their homes in Hebron in a massacre in 1929 is never mentioned nor is the ethnical cleansing of the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem in 1948. Let us not forget the massacre and liquidation of the four kibbutzim (communal settlements)of the Jewish Gush Etzion Block in 1948. In the Six day war of 1967, the old City Jewish Quarter and the rest of Jordanian occupied Jerusalem and Mandated Territory East of the 1949 Rhodes Armistice agreement ceasefire "Green" line was finally liberated by Israeli forces. It is very important to note here that there is NO documented historical reference to a border since the "West Bank" was a Jordanian Occupied area from May 1948 until June 4, 1967. This slanderous lie of branding Israel as an "Occupier" through the omission of documented historical fact has achieved great results among the youth of Europe. This accusation has been especially heinous especially in the US, where those "Liberal" leftist supporters who had generally supported the somewhat socialist state of Israel in the past have now began to work in earnest against Israel.
It must be remembered that the "Palestinians" chose war in 1948 and they were not united to form a pseudo government to accept the transferral of their assigned part of the Mandated area from the United Kingdom -the Mandatory Power - so they ended up as refugees under a Jordanian occupation. The area of the "West Bank" and Jerusalem which HAD a Jewish presence was ethnically cleansed by the Jordanian Legion.
My question to these HOIZs and the world is; Why do the Palestinians wish to remove Jewish "settlements"? Why do they not accept the Jews as we in Israel have Arab citizens with their villages and citizens? The denial of a Jewish presence is the true face of the Palestinians as reflected in their Charter. If the Palestinians are true believers in peace the new "Palestinian State" must accept Jews as equal citizens just as we in Israel accept OUR Arab neighbors!
The brunt of the full liberal "leftist" camp's discontent towards the Israel settlements or "Occupation" has brought Israel’s enemies to make anti-Zionism almost a religious experience on the Left, especially on college campuses. What has consistently been ignored by these "Palestinian" HOIZ sympathizers is the Palestinian Charter itself which calls for; "an armed struggle, to deny the legitimacy of the establishment of Israel, to deny the existence of a Jewish people with a historical or religious connection to Palestine, and to label Zionism a racist, imperialist, fanatic, fascist, aggressive, colonialist political movement that must be eliminated from the Middle East for the sake of world peace.
The extent of the absurdity of these "Haters of Israel and Zion" "Talkbackers" in their quest for the deligitimatization of Israel has recently led them into the realm of the absurd. They are now utilizing fantasy and outright lies to further their claims that Israel has never existed. They have contorted historic fact to show that only they are the rightful heirs to the land as true descendants of the Canaanite people!(?)
As part of the "Palestinian Charters" plan, the HOIZS and their pro-"Palestinian" followers accuse Israel of being an illegitimate country established on the lands belonging to the native Arab inhabitants. To usurp the "Jewish Biblical" claim they have recently embraced the whimsical claim that the "Palestinians" are the descendants of the Canaanites and not the "Philistines=Palestine".
The reason for this change of "national origin" comes from their "enlightened" discovery that the source of the term "Palestina", as used by the occupying forces of the Romans and the British, comes from the Hebrew biblical term "Plishtines" or "Invaders". The archaeological finds in the area of Ashkeleon and Gaza, of the Biblical area held by the Philistines, reveal a source from the Greek island culture of the Minoans who fled in the wake of the Thera or Santorini catastrophic volcanic eruption which is estimated to have occurred in the mid second millennium BCE.
The HOIZS and their pro-"Palestinian" have embraced this "Canaanite" heritage farce in order to further their claim that All Israelis are "Settlers" and we are ALL blood thirsty land grabbing religious fanatics.
Please note that these absurd claims, as mentioned, are part of the plot of the "Palestinian Charter" to; "deny the existence of a Jewish people with a historical or religious connection to Palestine.". These "Hater's of Israel / Zion" have recently discovered that by calling themselves "Palestinians" in the past they are themselves the usurpers to the land and not the Jews/Israelis!
So where does this "Palestinian" business begin? I will now quote historical fact.
Herodotus the Greek historian called the eastern coast of the Mediterranean "Philistine Syria" using the Greek language form of the name. The Emperor Hadrian wanted to blot out the name of the Roman "Provincia Judaea" in AD 135after putting down the second major Jewish revolt against Rome led by Bar Kochba. So he renamed it "Provincia Syria Palaestina", the Latin version of the Greek name and the first use of the name as an administrative unit. The name "Provincia Syria Palaestina" was later shortened to "Palaestina", from which the modern, anglicized "Palestine" is derived.
The Christian Crusaders employed the word "Palestine" to refer to the general region of the "three Palestines." After the fall of the crusader kingdom, Palestine was no longer an official designation. The name, however, continued to be used informally for the lands on both sides of the Jordan River.
The Ottoman Turks, who themselves were non-Arabs but religious Muslims, ruled the area for 400 years (1517-1917). Under their Empire the "Palestine" region was attached administratively to the province of Damascus and ruled from Istanbul. At the Versailles Peace conference the Christian fundamentalist leadership decided to use the Roman term "Palaestina" to identify the land conquered from the former Ottoman Turkish Empire and assigned to the Mandatory power the "United Kingdom".
In the draft of the Mandate for Palestine, which was formally confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations and came into effect on 26 September 1923, the indigenous Arab population is referred to in Article 22 simply as the "existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine". (Please note here that they are not referred in this often quote historical document as "Palestinians".)
Awni Abd al-Hadi (1889-1970) born in Nablus testified in 1936 before the Peel Commission, "There is no such country [as Palestine].... Palestine is a term the Zionists invented.... Our country was for centuries part of Syria."
It was not until after the debacle of the Israeli War for Independence in 1948 did the "indigenous Arab" people who had fled as refugees were suddenly officially referred to as "Palestinians" by the United Nations. This occurs when UNWRA –the United Nations Work Relief Agency was established following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War by the United Nations General Assembly under resolution 302 (IV) of 8 December 1949. Where it states that;
"The sole beneficiaries are those who had lived in the British Mandate of Palestine for at least two years before fleeing and must have lost both their home and livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, or be the descendant of someone who had."
I wish to point out here that if one reads this definition closely it does not refer to Arabs it refers to," sole beneficiaries". May I point out that UNWRA is thereby discriminating against the Jewish inhabitants of the Jewish Quarter and the Jewish settlement Bloc of Kfar Etzion in the area of Judea who "lost both their home and livelihood".
Awaking to their dilemma after the failure of the Arab countries to destroy the infant nation, those "indigenous Arab inhabitants" choose to identify themselves as the legitimate descendants picked the name "Falastin, as their nation's supposed ancient name. The irony of it all is that the name "Falastin" – "Palestine" is not even an Arabic name/term is purposely overlooked by the Arabs, as I mentioned previously.
In January 1964 at the first summit of the Arab League, held in Cairo, Egypt, and attended by all thirteen member states of the Arab League. The "indigenous Arab inhabitants" are referred to as the "Palestinian fedayeen". Gamal Abdel and the Arab states in attendance gave a mandate to the "Palestinian fedayeen" to initiate contacts aimed at establishing a "Palestinian entity". It was at this meeting that Ahmad al-Shuqayri (1908 - 1988), was chosen to become the first chairman of the "Palestine Liberation Organization".
The rest is all history but hey if you’re a HOIZ then the "Truth is NOT out there!"
During the past 37 years of my life here in Israel I have served through six national elections as a representative of the Labor Party at a local polling station. During my tenure as a member of the polling stations I have witnessed that democracy in Israel is a real true democracy, the type of democracy that the world press now exalts in the "democratic uprisings" that have only recently occurred in the Arab world. I have witnessed that the democratic right to vote by secret ballot in Israel was beyond reproach for its totally free and democratic format. In the polling station where I sat, both Jews and Arabs, from our joint municipality Ma'alot-Tarshicah, voted in a quiet and a disciplined manner. The process of voting rivaled only my own voting experience in the United States.
Some seventeen years ago the elections that brought the Labor Party and Itzhak Rabin back into office also brought a wave of optimism in Israel that arose from the first real positive real steps towards peace in the Middle East. This optimism of the "left" and the secular majority was shattered by the political murder of Itzhak Rabin z"l and the subsequential betrayal of Arafat to the Oslo Peace accords. Arafats instigation of the "Intifada" with its terrible wave of suicidal murderous attacks on innocent Israeli citizens hardened the Israeli publics view on the plight of the Palestinians and brought a right wave backlash.
The resulting effect has been the total lack of apathy of the secular centrist voters in comparison to those on the extremes – both left and right. The dilemma we face in Israeli politics today is a direct outcome of the failure of the Palestinian leadership to cease the use of violence and their mulishness to deal directly with Israel. The resounding refusal of the surrounding TWENTY-TWO Arab countries to resolve their complacency in the tragedy of the "Palestinian" refugees is also a factor that influences the Israeli electorate.
The continuous negative image shown by the world media of Israel in the outside world has no influence on the vast majority of Israeli voters. Many Israelis have grown immune to the world's constant myopic one-sided condemnations and criticisms since the infamous United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, adopted on November 10, 1975 that "determine[d] that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination".
The same heinous accusation of Israeli "racisms" from this infamous vote has been incorporated into the new anti-Israel lies since the building of the security wall, which by the way the cause for its construction is never mentioned by those I term "Haters of Israel". Here are some REAL facts;
From 1967 until the beginnings of the second Intifada in September 2000 the population of Israel and the West Bank were free to move without any inhibitence and to have free commerce.
I personally can remember that when I first came to Israel, in September of 1974, I used to take an East Jerusalem bus company bus to Jerusalem via Jericho from the kibbutz and back. We used to go shopping and to eat in Jenin there was no hatred and no road blocks there was freedom of movement. Thousands of "Palestinians" had jobs in Israel until 1987 when the first "Intifada" –Uprising began.
With the instigation of the Second Intifada, which was a gift from Arafat for signing the Oslo "Peace" Accords, the "Palestinians" carried out 73 suicide attacks, murdering 293 Israeli civilians'; men, women and children and wounding 1,950.
Between August 2003 and the end of 2006 "Palestinian" terrorist organizations operating from Samaria, the northern part of the "West Bank", carried out another wave of 12 suicide bombing attacks, killing 64 Israeli civilians; men, women and children and wounding 445.
What these liars and purveyors of mis-information fail to mention is that a "Peace" agreement was signed on the front lawn of the White House overlooked by President William Jefferson Clinton , Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat and that the agreement was never honored by the "Palestinians" is forgotten and ignored. The "Palestinian" commitment to non-violence and "Peace" brought nothing but wave after wave of suicide bombings, striking throughout Israel, killing scores of civilians and soldiers.
Mousa Abu Marzouq , deputy chairman of Hamas's political bureau in Damascus , was asked by a group of Egyptian intellectuals and politicians why the suicide bombing activity had decreased during since the Hamas government came to power. He said that “ [carrying out] such attacks is made difficult by the security fence and the gates surrounding West Bank residents ” 2 (Abd al-Muaz Muhammad, Ikhwan Online, the Muslim Brotherhood Website, June 2, 2007 ).
Since the August 2003 completion of the first section of the security fence and buffer zone, the so called "Apartheid" Wall there has been a drastic reduction in the number of mass-murder suicidal attacks carried out in Israel to ZERO. So for us Israelis is the world's condemnation and scorn bothering us over the discomfort of the "Palestinians"? As a father I will answer with a resounding NO to Roger Water's accusations.
The continuous murderous attacks of the Palestinians /Hamas on innocent Israeli civilians has turned Israeli public opinion to that of hatred, distain and total apathy to the plight of the Palestinians.The resulting UN sponsored Goldstone Commission Report of the actions of Israel in the "Operation Cast Lead" is a resounding example of negative imagery based on one sided lies and distortions of truth. The simple fact that the world press totally ignored the reason for the operation, which had made life on the Israeli side of the separation line from Gaza unbearable is inexcusably one-sided. The Goldstone and HRW reports which have belittled the effect of more than 9000 Kassam rocket attackslaunched from UNOCCUPIED Hamas controled Gaza together with the plight of Cpl. Gilad Shalit has further distanced Israeli public opinion.
Let me now present some important factors in the history of Israel that form the background on Israeli political history.
The first movement for the return to Zion was established in the early 1880s. It was manifested in the Lovers Of Zion or Hovevei Zion (Hebrew: חובבי ציון). It was composed of Jews from Eastern European countries whose sole aim was to promote Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. Their primary objective was to found agricultural settlements.
The socialistic values, of the equality of the workers to have a decent income with proper and convenient lives based on fair wages, was once the standard of the Histadrudt Labor Union from before the creation of the state. These socialistic and even communistic beliefs were brought to "Eretz-Yisrael" by the second group of Jewish pioneers, who came to settle the land during the end of the 19th century 1870 -1925.
The members of this later wave of Zionistic immigration came from the Haskalah - Educational Enlightenment movement. The word HasKalah is derived from the Hebrew word sehkel, “the intellect,” and it refers to the attitude of attraction to general knowledge, secular learning, and Western culture. The "Haskalah" movements aim was for the broadening the intellectual and social horizons of the Jews to enable them to take their place in Western society away from the strict adherence to Orthodox beliefs.
The followers of the Haskalah movement were called "maskilim"; from the word meaning “the wise,”or "men of wisdom" taken from the Book of Daniel 12:3: “And the intelligent [hamaskilim] shall shine as the brightness of the firmament”, The original "Mitnagdim" or "rejectionists" believed that by renouncing Orthodox Judaism and by adopting Secular appearance the Jews would be accepted in the wider society.
When they arrived in "Eretz Yisrael" these Jewish Pioneers became known as the Bilu'im, from the Hebrew acronym Bilu: ביל"ו whose goal was the agricultural settlement of the Land of Israel. "Bilu" is based on a verse from the Book of Isaiah (2:5) Lekhu Venelkha ("House of Jacob, let us go [up]- בית יעקב לכו ונלכה ).
Herzl the "father of modern Zionism" was moved to create the "Zionistic" Movement by the cries of anti-Semitism at the disgracing of Captain Louis Dreyfuss during the court martial and in the terrible anti-Semitic outburst in Russia known for the infamous pogrom of Kishnev in 1905.
The wave of pogroms of 1881-1884 and anti-Semitic May Laws of 1882 introduced by Tsar Alexander III of Russia inspired the young enthusiastic pioneering Jews of Eastern Europe to go to Eretz Yisrael. They came to escape anti-Semitism and to build a new-old national homeland out of the swamplands and desolate desert regions of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. One of the first examples was the founding of Rishon LeZion ("First to Zion") as an agricultural cooperative on land purchased from the Arab village Ayun Kara.
The original pioneering period was glorified in the foundation of the collective settlements "communes" of the Kibbutz movements through the Kibbutzim and Moshavim. This period of relative peaceful Jewish resettlement in Eretz Yisrael died in 1929 with the Arab Revolt and with the imposition of the "White Paper" by the British and the "Arabs of the Mandated Territories".
The riots of 1929 as in the post Oslo period changed the attitudes of many Jews who had once advocated for a binational state. The famous Israeli writer Shai Agnon wrote about Jewish-Arab coexistence; "I do not hate them [the Arabs] and I do not love them; I do not wish to see their faces. In my humble opinion we shall now build a large ghetto of half a million Jews in Palestine, because if we do not, we will, heaven forbid, be lost."
With the creation of the "White Paper" free Jewish immigration was severely limited. Jews wishing to flee Europe could not and Hitler instituted the "Final Solution" that resulted in the systematically planned genocide "Holocaust" of European Jewry.
The Jews of the "Yishuv"- Jews living in the Palestinian Mandated Areas- volunteered to serve in the allied armies to liberate their relatives in Europe, as well as prevent their own destruction by the Axis armies that were encroaching on Egypt and Iraq.
With the fall of Nazi Germany in May of 1945 the extent of the destruction of European Jewry became known. Those Jews that remained basically had nowhere to return to. Their homes and property had been confiscated. Their families murdered. Those Jews who dared to return were murdered by their neighbors. So where could they go? Many of these survivors looked to the west but for many there was only Palestine, the promised Jewish Homeland.
Though the Arabs and the British tried to keep the doors closed these survivors of the horrors of the Holocaust persisted and their persistency brought the UN to vote for partition in November 1947. Many of the Holocaust survivors who served in the "Lechi" and "Etzel" units were conditioned to oppression by their experiences in the "Holocaust". (The “IZL” or Irgun Tzvai Leumi BeYisrael (National Military Organization in Israel), was led by the later Prime Minister Menachem Begin, from the Likud Party, and the “LECHI”- Acronym for Lohamei 'Herut Yisrael - Freedom Fighters of Israel was led by another later Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Likud Party.)
Just before the Partition went into affect on May 15, 1948 Jews were murdered by the roaming gangs of Arab marauders such as in the infamous attack on the Hadassah Convoy. The butchery and barbarity of these attacks hardened the hearts of the Jewish fighters who had survived the Holocaust. The responses of these "hardened" fighters were never in any way comparable to those of the barbarity of the marauding Arabs.
The archives of The Palestine Post, now known as The Jerusalem Post, reported that sixty-two Jews were murdered by Arabs in the first week after the UN partition plan was passed, and by May 15, 1948, a total of 1,256 Jews had been killed, most of them civilians. The attacks succeeded in placing Jerusalem under siege and eventually cutting off its water supply. All Jewish villages in the Negev had been attacked, and that Jews had to go about the country in convoys. In every major city where Jews and Arabs lived in mixed neighborhoods the Jewish areas came under attack. This was true in Haifa's Hadar HaCarmel (The middle section on the northern slope of the Carmel mountain), Safed, as well as Jerusalem's Old City. Every place of Jewish inhabitation in Palestine was attacked by marauding militias, gangs, terrorists and units from regular Arab armies of Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.
Massacres (of Jews) were not uncommon.
Thirty-nine Jews were killed by Arab rioters at Haifa's oil refinery on December 30, 1947.
On January 16, 1948, 35 Jews were killed trying to reach Gush Etzion.
On February 22, 44 Jews were murdered in a bombing on Jerusalem's Rehov Ben-Yehuda.
And on February 29, 23 Jews were killed all across Palestine, eight of them at the Hayotzek iron foundry.
Thirty-five Jews were murdered during the Mount Scopus convoy massacre on April 13.
And 127 Jews were massacred at Kfar Etzion on May 15, 1948, after 30 others had died defending the Etzion Bloc.
The Arab (Palestinian) apologists on the other hand have accused Israel for the infamous massacre at "Deir Yassin" which was contradicted by an Arab eye-witness in a 1998 BBC interview. Hazem Nusseibeh, an editor of the Palestine Broadcasting Service's, admitted that on the instructions of Palestinian notable Dr. Hussein Khalidi, he fabricated a false press release stating that the supposed atrocities that were committed included the murder of children and rapes of pregnant women. Another interviewee in the same program, Abu Mahmud, emphatically denied the atrocity and rape stories. Nusseibeh, told the BBC that the fabricated atrocity stories about Deir Yassin were "our biggest mistake," because "Palestinians fled in terror" and that "They had left the country in huge numbers after hearing the atrocity claims."
As to the lies of the Arab (Palestinian) apologists that all Israeli attacks on Arab villages were unprovoked, I strongly recommend that they visit Arab villages, which remained neutral in 1948 such as the flourishing village of Abu Ghosh. Mohammed Abu Ghosh was quoted as saying;
"What we did, we did for Abu Ghosh, for nobody else. Others who lost their land, hated us then, but now all over the Arab world, many people see we were right. If everyone did what we did, there'd be no refugee problem . . . And if we were traitors? Look where we are, look where they are."
With the creation of the state of Israel there were two real major political parties. There was the Mapam-Labor Party which had been created by the mainly Ashkenazic socialist secular Jews. Many formidable members of the Labor Party were from Kibbutzim and the descendants of the Biluim. They were the leaders of the Haganah and the Palmach. They were voted out of power in that election of 1978 for the populist free economy and materialistic views inspired by the descendants of the "Second Aliyah" who were the shop owners and small business bourgeoisie that had arrived in the 1920's to Israel. They had founded the Liberal Party based on their capitalist views. They later merged their party with Menachem Begins "Herut" or Freedom party to create the Likud. They Herut Party was directly descended from the pre state Irgun who believe in the "Greater Israel" philosophy of the Revisionist movement started by Zev Jabotinsky
Over the years I have witnessed the animosity and hatred that has deepened within Israeli society through the eternal blindness and fixed myopic world view possessed by the old Ashkenazic Jewish Orthodoxy against the secular mainstream and the birth of the "Eretz Yisrael HaShlema"-"the Greater Israel - movement.
Those members of the old Ashkenazic Modern Orthodox camp, the "knitted Kipas" of the National Religious Party know as "Mafdal", that since the creation of the State ruled together with the Labor Party, have diminished in power and both parties have basically vanished from the political spectrum of Israeli politics due to the issue of control over the "Occupied" areas.
The Ashkenazic Haredi Orthodoxy, which for years attempted to increase it's numbers by allowing certain select Sephardim to learn in their Yeshivot, helped to inspire the rebirth and revitalization of religion among young Sephardic Jews. In the historical 1978 elections the leaders of the Liberal Party movement manipulated the "crowd"-(HaSifsuf), a derogatory term to describe lower class primarily Sephardic Jews to vote out the old and despised and corrupt Labor Party Coalition.
The abject failure in the election of 1978 of the "Old" Labor Party elite can be directly associated with the rejection of the values that had been once imposed by the Eastern European "Ashkenazic"on the nation. By 1978 these "Ashkenazic" values were no longer in step with the needs of the larger population of "Sephardic" youth who were now coming of age. These descendants of Jewish immigrants from Arabic lands had only recently expressed their outrage in their demonstrations for equality in Israeli society in the "Sephardic Black Panther" movement.
The new found pride brought by the "Sephardic Black Panther" movement together with the Sephardic religious movement together evolved into the relatively new phenomena in Israeli society the (SHAS) political party. Since the birth of the party "SHAS" has played a dominant role in the position of "King Maker". The SHAS party leadership has determined through political negotiations just who would serve as Prime Minister and therefore rule Israel.
The original pioneering Zionism that brought forth the rebirth of the Jewish state ended in that election of 1978.
I have witnessed the lack of leadership of "honest" politicians and real political leaders in Israel I believe that this lack is due to the fact that political leaders are chosen from party hacks. Real leaders who grow up within a political landscape as in America where you have a truly representative democracy is lacking here in Israel.
To be an honest politician is to be someone with popular support and the backing of the people that means electoral as well as financial. An honest politician is one who will not need to depend on "big business" corporate money. However this is not possible in today's modern world unless the educated mass of voters do not stop their mundane lives and get out of there homes and become active themselves.
Here in Israel for the last thirty years after the signing of the peace accords with Egypt there has been a terrible wave of apathy caused by the intransigence of the Palestinians to truly seek peace. The two shinning moments of the Israeli democracy were after the election of Itzhak Rabin z"l. Under Itzhak Rabin's government peace with Jordan was made and the attempt to seek peace with the Palestinians in the Oslo Accords was made. The total rejection and return to terror by Arafat and his Palestinian minions brought the religious right in Israel to inspire the "smiling assassin" to commit his cold blooded act. The act of this madman and those who inspired him together with the resounding stupidity of the Palestinians, to abide by their signed obligation to cease acts of terror, sealed the fate of hundreds of innocent lives. The resounding answer of Israel's apathy towards the Palestinian hatred has resulted in the construction of the "Security Wall".
As negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are still dragging on to bring forth a Palestinian state which will recognize Israel as a Jewish State and will be willing to live side-by-side with Israel in peace. The most difficult point to be resolved is the Arab refugee issue. The major question is why should Israel take in ANY of the so called Palestinian refugees? What about the rights of the 900,000 Jews of Arabic lands? They cannot just as the Jewish Holocaust survivors cannot go back. Their former property and homes are gone. So why not require the surrounding Arab Nations ( 22 in all) simply provide citizenship to the grandchildren of the "refugees". And as to the settlements those that are near the Line of Armistice from the 1949 Rhodes agreement should be absorbed into Israel. We could give some Arab Villages also on the armistice line such as Umm Al Fahm over to the Palestinian Authority in trade since they are so vocal in there displeasure of life in Israel.
So now what? We will have to wait for the next elections since it appears everyone here is simply tired of all the issues and all we Israelis really want is to live our lives in peace.
