An IDF Medic’s Hebron Memoir: My Time with Dr. Baruch Goldstein

What is on mind mind were some comments regarding Dr Baruch Goldstein.

Allow me as someone who is very secular and in the visceral reality of the "boots on the ground" experience had served many years in the IDF first in regular service and later many many long years as a combat medic in reserves to comment.

I served in Gaza, Lebanon and in the "Shtachim" (Territories)....

I was a delegate of the Labor Party -under our long time Mayor and Labor Party Member of Knesset Shlomo Bouchbout from the Western Galilee. I knew Shimon Peres, Yossi Sarid, Yossi Bellin (aka "The Poodle") of the "Peace Camp". 

I was an associate of the Rabin "Hawk" camp of Yigal Allon- who I knew from my days on Kibbutz Ashdot Yakov, "Fuad" Ben-Eliezer and Avraham "Beiga" Shochat. 

I worked together with Faud on the "Good Fence" and became acquainted with Rav Seren (Major South Lebanese Army) Sa'ad Hadad.

Many years ago following the signing of the Oslo Acords of September 1993 my resrve unit was assigned in January 1994 to do guard duty in the old city of Hebron.(Beit Levinson and the Casbah). 

During my reserve stint I met several of the the most outspoken and visible leaders e activists of Gush Emunim (the Bloc of the Faithful), the "Greater Israel" (Eretz Yisrael Hashlema) movement. 

Rav Moshe Levinger who led the "illegal" resettlement of Hebron in 1968, Daniella Weiss, Hanan Porat of Kfar Etzion, Beni Katzover and Menachem Felix leaders behind the Elon Moreh settlement attempts in Samaria.

I remember the "anti-Secular anti-Labor Party antagonists" extremism of some of the Orthodox inhabitants who labeled us as being "anti Eretz Yisrael"!

As I walked the Alley ways of the Casbah at sunset or at dawn during that the Moslem holy month of Ramadan and it was the Jewish holiday of Purim. I remembered what had been before in the horrific pogrom of 1929. 

I also remembered the words of David Ben Gurion of how one of his deepest regrets was the inability -lack of men and weapons to free Hebron.

David Ben-Gurion who was the titular head of the Labor Party and many of the first leaders never were originally "anti-land." It was a movement of pioneers (Halutzim) who understood the historical and spiritual weight of Hebron just as much as the Gush Emunim activists did, even if they differed on the "how" and "when" of settlement.

Ben Gurion even wrote the introduction to the book Sefer Hebron (The Book of Hebron) by Oded Avisar (1970), about the Religious Significance of Hebron to the Jewish People.

I was present, several times, at the aftermath of terrorist attacks in Hebron and the area. I treated those injured alongside Dr Goldstein.

During the times I spent there we had several occaisions to talk.

Though I did not really appreciate some of the "extremist" views he possessed, I witnessed how he lived in a state of constant, unremitting trauma from murderous - barbaric attacks, constant harassment and provocations by Arabs which had affected him. 

The murder of a close friend of his Mordechai Lapid played deeply upon his soul. Dr Goldstein had reached his "breaking point" that Friday morning of February 25, 1994 in the Cave of the Patriarchs (Ma'arat HaMachpelah).

After two weeks even the members of my reserve unit and my medic team were affected by the extremism in the local Arab population.

As for the foreknowledge of a possible attack from the "Machpelah" we would hear the daily Adhan (the call to prayer) by the "Wazin"-Muezzin (the crier).

One of my medics was a Syrian Jew and he had heard their conversations as we made our patrols through the Casbah as well as the calls from the Minarets. We notified our superiors but they only listened.

What really ticked me off -and my fellow reservists were all those snide B'Tselem "Joos" and those Western Elitist Pro Palestinian  sympathizers who came and were horrifically antogonistic and offensive to me and my fellow IDF reservists - some of whom were even from "Leftist"  Kibbutzim who were called up to serve.

Allow me to tell you that prior to being sent to the "Stachim" to serve -some of my men were anti-settler and anti-occupation but after a month of abuse from aholes from "The Greater Tel Aviv Area" minds changed.

As to the actions of Dr Goldstein, his attack on innocent Arabs at prayer I fully understand the "human" cost that motivated him.

Seeing a doctor—someone sworn to save lives—becoming a perpetrator of a massacre is a harrowing transformation.

As for the "Stain" from perspective of the "Purity of Arms" (Tohar HaNeshek) doctrine of the Left in Israel, Dr Goldstein's act was a breakdown of the system.

But from my perspective as someone who stood in those infirmaries and walked those alleys, I saw it for what it truly was: an explosion within a pressure cooker.

When you are a doctor sworn to heal, yet you are constantly forced to triage the victims of barbaric, unremitting provocations—while the 'higher-ups' listen to the warnings but refuse to act—the human soul reaches a breaking point.

The stain wasn't just on one man; it was on the naivety of a leadership that thought they could manage the pressure without it eventually blowing the lid off."

The events of October 7th 2023 caused a radical shift in the Israeli psyche as the entire nation saw what happens when that pressure is ignored by those who prefer 'conceptual maps' over the visceral reality of the Shtachim.

October 7th has finally shown the rest of the country what we as reservists in the Shtachim felt decades ago: that 'Purity of Arms' cannot exist in a vacuum when the enemy views your very existence as a 'main meal.'

The events of  that terrible October 7th has forced many who identified with the "Peace Camp" or organizations like B'Tselem to confront the reality of the uncompromising nature of the conflict within the framework of Dar al-Islam.

HOW MANY of those "anshe Meretz" and B"Tselem activists -who I knew that were horrifically butchered and burned, their wives and daughters raped, children and grandchildren...

Yes, not ALL arabs are "bad".

I still live and work here in the Ma'alot area. I speak with my Arab neighbors daily, and we share the same air and the same soil. But I no longer have the luxury of the 'Peace Camp' delusions I once witnessed in the halls of the Labor Party.

As I have repeated many times, as inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael, you / we need to see everything in the uncompromising nature of the conflict within the framework of Dar al-Islam.

As Major Sa'ad Hadad once told me and Faud - "You Jews are the main meal, but we Christians are the "dessert" (the sweet course)". His remark that day remains one of the most chillingly accurate summaries of that of a Middle Eastern minority experience. 

It underscores the shared fate of anyone who does not fit into the pan-Islamic vision of the region.

The Prism of Redemption: How Iran’s Pursuit of the Mahdi Shapes the Middle East

I strongly suggest reading this WHOLE blog entry and to share it to enlighten EVERYONE!

Intro:"Who is the author and his qualifications?"
Tim Orr is a religious studies scholar who has been teaching and doing research for almost 20 years. He focuses on Shia Islam and working with people of other faiths. He has six degrees, including an M.A. in Islamic Studies from the Islamic College in London. He is also working on a Ph.D. in Interreligious Studies at Hartford International University. He served as a Research Associate with both Hartford International University and the Center for Religion and American Culture, and has spoken widely in Shia institutions in the UK.

Here are the astutue words of Tim Orr:

"I did not learn about why Iran is so hostile towards Israel from reading think tank papers or intelligence assessments.

Instead, my knowledge came from being a student in a Twelver Shia institution, the Islamic College in London, where I attained an MA in Islamic Studies.

There, I was trained by Muslim scholars, immersed in Shia theology, and introduced to the eschatological framework that quietly but decisively shapes Iran’s worldview.

What became clear as time passed was that Iran’s posture towards Israel is not primarily strategic or reactive. It has theological roots. And once that theological structure is seen, much of what otherwise appears irrational once suddenly becomes coherent.

In the West, most analyses of Iran always filter what they know through secular categories such as sanctions, regional rivalry, historical grievance, or regime insecurity.

This framework assumes that Iran is like other nation-states, acting out of motives of deterrence, survival, and leverage; that is, until we take Iran’s own ideological commitments seriously.

Then, the assumption collapses. Western analyses overlook the reality that, to Iran’s leadership, Israel is not merely an adversary, but also a theological problem that threatens a religious narrative about history, justice, and the end of time.

"Twelver Shia eschatology"* is at the center of this narrative, with theology that solidifies belief in the return of the Mahdi, the Hidden Imam.

According to this theology, the Hidden Imam will appear in a moment of profound disorder, to establish divine justice.
Chaos, therefore, is not a failure of history, but a prerequisite for redemption.

Violence, martyrdom, and upheaval are not signs of a failed foreign policy, but proof that that history is headed in the right direction.

This "Twelver Shia eschatology" is a compelled by an entirely different moral logic than the one assumed by modern diplomats and negotiators.

From its revolution in 1979, Iran’s Islamic Republic’s self-understanding is as a theological movement first, and secondarily a political movement. Iran’s current Supreme Leader oversees an international multi-faith religious cult centered around Shia doomsday calculations of the return of the Hidden Imam and its patrons are required to be decent Muslims citizens.

The IRGC and special forces of its Quds (Jerusalem) division believe they are commanded by God either to provoke or respond to chaos or war, a necessary precondition for the apocalyptic return of the Hidden Imam.

Within this narrative, the United States is the “Great Satan” and Israel is the “Little Satan,” justifying the destruction of the state of Israel as a divine act of purification – in an echo of the Nazi scapegoating of Jews as the source of the world’s evil needing purification to usher in an era of final redemption and paradise.

Embracing this narrative, Iran’s Islamic state is trying to bring about the end of the world.
This is the prism through which all its actions should be assessed.

Israel, after truth in advertising and stated in the Quran as the “chosen people,” occupies a theological position with Islam’s sacred geography.
Hence, Iran’s hostility is inextricably intertwined with the anti-Jewish ideologies in mainstream Islamic teachings and within Islam’s sacred geography. A return to the land of the Quran’s “chosen people” will result in its total destruction and is justified as a cosmic act and perpetual obligation.

Obliteration of the state of Israel not only offers hope for Iran’s Islamic revolution, but also substantiates an obligational narrative that Islam will be whoever is standing at the end – as the Islam who kills the Jewish “false messiah”.

Any negotiation or normalization of the sovereign Jewish claimant on Islamic land, as a legitimacy of a people that was supposed to die at the end of time, is already interpreted in the language of the Mahdi as a death sentence, and Iran will remain at war with Israel, in a cosmic battle to the finish.

In place of strategic rationality, for Iran, its obligation to purge the Jewish interlopers from Islam’s holy land "Dar al-Islam" entails a solid belief unparalleled by Western theorists of deterrence theory, that the Mahdi cannot return until end-times and chaos exists in the land and Middle East.

The prospect of future mass death is not a threat that needs managing, it is a requirement for Iran’s proxy arm extended in the Middle East is not a tool of statecraft but a tool of faith, not to defend the state but to speed the advent of the Mahdi.

Iran’s “axis of resistance” is selected for its Christian, Jewish, and Sunni geography, on a path to accelerate Islamic history to the end of days, with mutual state and non-state actor proxies as the vanguard force.

In this way, Iran’s victory in enabling chaos and mass death does not matter if it has no rational calculation involved; it is a sign that the Mahdi is coming, or soon to be.

A theocratic regime rooted in millenarian Shi‘i Muslim messianism armed with nuclear weapons would have no normal two-man rule or physical barriers and could easily bypass built-in U.S., Russian or Chinese dual-control nuclear safeguards.

Iran’s military and proxies are not rational actors in the Western conception of rationality.

What began as Islamic apocalyptic warfare against Israel to accelerate the end of time, could combine with its stated nemesis, the United States.

Therefore, the prospect of an Islamist apocalyptic regime armed with nuclear weapons is the single most dangerous threat of the next decade.

What is necessary for policymakers to temper irrational optimism about Iran’s ability to moderate is that future deterrence prospects with Iran must take account of what “rationality” means in modern Iran, understanding its culture of defeatism, victimhood, and the longing for redemption.

As Israel plays a central role in this apocalyptic narrative, Israeli analysts are less optimistic than US and European counterparts in Iran’s “rational” ability to self-restrain."

In conclusion:

Orr’s thesis relies on several core concepts of Twelver Shia theology that he argues are misread by Western secularists:

1. The Role of the Mahdi (The Hidden Imam)
In Twelver Shia Islam, the 12th Imam entered "occultation" in the 9th century. His return is expected to bring absolute justice to the world. Crucially, Orr emphasizes that this return is predicated on universal chaos (fitna).

Western View: Chaos is a sign of state failure.

Orr's View of the IRGC: Chaos is a "liturgical" requirement to hasten the Hidden Imam's appearance.

2. The Redefinition of Deterrence
Traditional deterrence theory (like MAD—Mutually Assured Destruction) assumes both parties value national survival above all else.

The Conflict: If a regime views martyrdom and apocalyptic upheaval as a "redemptive" necessity, the threat of "mass death" loses its power as a deterrent. It becomes, instead, a milestone.

3. Sacred Geography vs. Political Borders
Orr argues that Israel is viewed not as a neighboring state with a border dispute, but as a theological anomaly.

Dar al-Islam: The concept that once land is under Islamic rule, it must remain so.

The "Chosen People" Paradox: The presence of a sovereign Jewish state in "sacred geography" contradicts the narrative of Islamic supersessionism, making its removal a cosmic obligation rather than a strategic choice.

The Nuclear Question
The most chilling aspect of this analysis is the application to nuclear weapons. If a state views the "end of the world" as a desirable religious event (the ushering in of paradise), the standard safety protocols and "dual-control" safeguards used by secular states might be viewed as obstacles to a divine mandate rather than protections against catastrophe.

*Twelver Shia eschatology centers on the return of the twelfth and final Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who is believed to be in occultation (hidden) and will reappear at the end of time to establish justice and peace on Earth, ending a period of spiritual darkness, with his arrival signaling the end of the world and divine judgment. This doctrine is a core aspect of Twelver Shia belief, focusing heavily on the Mahdi's redemptive mission, rather than solely on the general Islamic concepts of resurrection and judgment.

The truth of the "Nachba" Myth-making to Political Realism.

A comparison of the leaflet by the Grand Mufti in 1948 to that of Mahmoud Abbas in 1976 reveals a transition from the mobilizing, martial Arabic of the Mufti to the introspective, critical prose of Mahmoud Abbas.

The most striking difference is in the "Focus of blame". The shift from externalizing blame (1948) to internalizing it (1976) represents a massive psychological and political evolution within the Palestinian movement.

The Mufti (1948):  The Mufti frames the disaster as an external "unjust resolution" imposed by the UN and the "brutal Zionist entity" which makes the catastrophe feel like an act of nature or a foreign crime. 

The Mufti removed agency from the Arab leadership By framing the 1948 events through the lens of "Fate" and "External Aggression.

In his narrative, the Palestinians were victims of a "natural disaster" or a "foreign crime." This allowed him to maintain a facade of infallible leadership even in the face of total military collapse.

His document is a "Call to Arms" of blame as a that ignores internal failures. 

In the 1948 leaflet, blame is used as a mobilization tool. The Mufti directs 100% of the responsibility toward external actors:

• The United Nations: Blamed for the "unjust resolution" (Partition).
• The Zionists: Blamed for "brutal colonialism."
• Fate/Providence:
• The blood of the ancestors "determined its fate."

The Goal of this Focus: 

To create a unified front. By blaming only the outsider, the Mufti attempted to gloss over the tactical weaknesses and internal divisions of the Arab Higher Committee.

In contrast to the leaflet of the Mufti, Abbas’s article uses the Active Voice to describe the "Active Betrayal" by the Arab League states.

Abbas "Post-Mortem" serves a specific 1970s political purpose as he deconstructs the "Myth of the Nachba", becuase in actuality it was the Arab states who were the ones who "displaced" and "imprisoned" the Palestinians.

Abbas stated that the Arab states have no moral or political right to dictate the future of the Palestinian movement.

Abbas, writing in the PLO’s central newspaper, 28 years later, places the blame as a "Post-Mortem" as he turns the lens inward toward self-criticism and regional betrayal. 

In his article Abbas uses an "Active Voice" when discussing the Arab states ("They displaced them," "They threw them into prisons," "They succeeded in tearing apart"). 

This shift in grammar reflects a shift in political accountability as he targets:

The Arab Armies: He explicitly blames them for the physical act of displacement ("they forced them to emigrate").

The Arab States: Blamed for the "political and intellectual siege" and the "ghettos." The use of the word "Ghetto" and it's associated imagery is the ultimate internalization of blame.

By comparing Arab refugee camps to European Jewish ghettos, he accuses the Arab world of adopting the tactics of the very "Zionist entity" they claimed to be fighting. It transforms the Arab states from "brothers" into "occupiers" of a different sort. 

It suggests that the Arab world did not just fail to defeat the Zionists; it adopted the very methods of the "enemy" (European-style Jewish ghettos confinement) by forcing Palestinians into refugee camps to control them.

Arab Propaganda: 

Abbas critiques and mocks the Arab leadership, for their "blaring broadcasts" that promised victory accusing them of "putting the Arab public to sleep" with empty radio broadcasts about "throwing the Jews into the sea"

This is a direct jab at Ahmad Shukeiri (the first chairman of the PLO) and Sawt al-Arab (Voice of the Arabs) radio in Cairo. Abbas argued that rhetoric the use ofthe phrase  ("throwing Jews into the sea") was actually a weapon used against the Palestinian people to keep them docile while their interests were being sacrificed by regional powers.

The goal of this focus on the "blaring broadcasts" was in the blaming of the Arab states for the 1948 disaster.

The Haifa C.I.D. report report notes that Arab leaders "reiterated their determination to evacuate" and requested British trucks to do so. 

Abbas’s 1976 article effectively admits what the British police recorded in real-time in 1948—an admission that the Mufti’s 1948 rhetoric was designed to obscure serves as a "confession" that validates the 1948 British intelligence reports. By dismantling the externalized blame of the Mufti, Abbas effectively verified the reality on the ground in Haifa that the British C.I.D. and Golda Meir had documented decades earlier.

Abbas identifies the Arab League not as failed saviors, but as active participants in the displacement. When he writes that the Arab armies "forced them to emigrate," he aligns his narrative with the C.I.D. report’s observation of Arab leaders’ "determination to evacuate."

In conclusion:

The Haifa C.I.D. Report is the "smoking gun" of 1948, showing the logistical reality of the evacuation. 

The Mufti’s Leaflet is the "propaganda shield" that attempted to hide that reality behind a curtain of sacred duty and external blame. 

Mahmoud Abbas’s 1976 Article is the "historical reckoning" .

The UNRWA LIE of the False Narrative: “Right of Return for Refugees”

This blog post presents a strong, polemical argument centered on the demographic origins of the 1948 refugees and a comparison with the Jewish exodus from Arab lands.

"The refusal of the Arab League—specifically Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt—to absorb their fellow Arabs stands in stark contrast to Israel’s absorption of 900,000 Jewish refugees. While the world funds the perpetuation of the 'refugee' status through UNRWA, the historical reality suggests a migration driven by employment under the Mandate, followed by a strategic flight encouraged by Arab broadcasts."

The “former Arabs of the Mandated Areas,” today’s so-called “Palestinians,” claim that there are 5 million descendants of those who fled in 1948. This entry effectively utilizes the "migrant worker" narrative (supported by the Ivor Wilks excerpt) to challenge the definition of what is a "Palestinian". That this is a myth based on the some 750,000 “forefathers” who fled the British Mandated Areas during the 1947-1948 period.

The burning question is: HOW MANY of the original refugees were ACTUALLY land-owning (holders of land titles— “Taboo”) verifiable long-time residents, and NOT those who migrated to the area AFTER the beginnings of the British Mandate for reasons of employment?

The Witness of History: Ivor Wilks

Excerpt from Page 16 of Ivor Wilks’ A Once And Past Love: Palestine 1947, Israel 1948 - A Memoir:

"Balad esh-Sheikh straggled up the lower eastern slopes of Mount Carmel. Not many years before it had been much smaller... the old 'feudal' families still lived in Balad esh-Sheikh, under their mukhtar... but most of the people were recent immigrants, drawn to the area by the petroleum industry. They were 'proletarians'... many of them were not Palestinians but Syrians, particularly from Hawran... There were also immigrants from Lebanon, Iraq, even Egypt."

In Chapter 2, page 20, Wilks notes:

"We should understand, he said, that most of the Arabs who worked at the refineries were not true Balad esh-Sheikh people. They were immigrants, many of them not even Palestinians but Syrians.”

The British Perspective: Sir Ronald Storrs & The Peel Commission (1937)

Even the British authorities recognized this regional dynamic.

 Sir Ronald Storrs, the first British Military Governor of Jerusalem, provided a candid assessment in his memoirs, Orientations (1937). 

Storrs identified a "magnet effect," where the infrastructure built by Zionist investment and British administration drew workers from across the region.

This was officially confirmed in the 1937 Peel Commission Report. 

The Report documented that while Jewish immigration was strictly regulated, Arab immigration from Syria, Transjordan, and Egypt was unrecorded and porous. 

The Commission noted that the "Hourani" influx from Syria alone accounted for thousands of new arrivals annually, drawn by wages that were double or triple those in neighboring countries. 

Storrs famously articulated the British strategic interest in supporting a Jewish National Home, stating it would create:

"...for England a 'little loyal Jewish Ulster' in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism."

This observation identifies the "Arabism" of the time as a broad, regional sentiment rather than a specific "Palestinian" national identity. 

Storrs noted that while Zionism was a "world movement," Arab grievances were "essentially local in character." This confirms that the population was a collection of long-settled families mixed with a constant influx of migrant laborers who were "proletarians" from the surrounding Arab world.

The Gellhorn Testimony: Gaza is Egyptian

The transformation of these migrant workers into a permanent "refugee" class was documented by the legendary war correspondent Martha Gellhorn. In her 1961 Atlantic Monthly report, "The Arabs of Palestine," she exposed the cynical nature of the refugee status.

Gellhorn was remarkably specific regarding the Gaza Strip, identifying its population as essentially Egyptian in character and origin.

She described Gaza as a "closed box" maintained by the Egyptian government, noting that the "refugees" there were ethnically and culturally indistinguishable from the Egyptians of the Sinai and the Nile Delta. Gellhorn concluded:

"The unique misfortune of the Palestinian refugees is that they are a weapon in what seems to be a permanent war... Their function is to hang around and be constantly useful as a goad."

Her report confirmed that the "Great Hate" taught in the camps was a deliberate policy to prevent the integration of these people into their "host" countries—specifically Egypt, which refused to allow "its own people" in Gaza to move into the underpopulated regions of the Nile to work.

The Weaponization of "Dezinformatsiya"

The clear and unapologetic policy of the Palestinian Authority was stated in a New York Times article from 1966. Ahmed Shukairy, then-chairman of the PLO, declared:

“The Arab states will not integrate the Palestine refugees because integration would be a slow process of liquidating the Palestine problem.”

The Palestinians have used dezinformatsiya to place the onus of suffering on Israel. 

In Lebanon, UNRWA claims 479,000 registered refugees, yet only 45% live in camps. If the Lebanese government forbids them from living outside camps, where is the other 55%, and where is that funding going?

The Gaza Reality and the Bedouin Connection

Ever since the "Great Nakba," no Arab country has been willing to absorb their fellow Arabs—many of whom were originally from those same countries. 

As Martha Gelhorn related an outstanding example, that a vast number of residents in the Gaza Strip are originally residents of Egypt. 

The Doghmush clan, for instance, came to Gaza from Turkey via Egypt, while many others are sub-clans of the Tarabin—the largest Bedouin tribe in the Sinai and Egypt, with over 500,000 people.

The Forgotten Jewish Refugees

Israel has consistently failed to raise the issue of nearly 900,000 Jews expelled from Arab lands. On May 16, 1948, The New York Times reported: "Jews in Grave Danger in all Moslem Lands." 

Unlike the Palestinian refugees, these 900,000 Jews of Arab lands were absorbed by Israel and became viable citizens. They ceased being refugees because of Jewish charity and national resolve—as these refugees were not given a status of the perpetual UNRWA receipients.

Conclusion: The Failure of Holocaust Guilt

This Western sense of guilt for the Holocaust, which codified a "perpetual victimhood" for Arab refugees to "balance the scales," has been the major source for the failure to achieve a just and lasting peace. By subsidizing a permanent grievance through UNRWA, the international community incentivized the Arab world to never resolve the refugee issue.

The blame for the current situation—specifically regarding the plight of the "innocent residents of Gaza"—rests entirely with the Arab Muslim nations, namely Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, for their refusal to absorb their fellow Arabs. 

We must return to the historical and legal facts: was Judea and Samaria not explicitly included in the League of Nations Mandate as an area designated for a "future Jewish Homeland"? 

Furthermore, this "disputed territory" was never claimed by a "Palestinian" entity during the decades it was under Ottoman or British control. 

If an Arab can live as a full citizen inside the "Green Line" in Israel, why should a Jew not have the inherent right to live in the heartland of the Jewish people?

The resolution to this conflict lies in finishing what was started with the Abraham Accords. 

By completing these historic agreements and supporting President Trump’s plan to end the war, we move away from the UNRWA-funded cycle of dependency. 

Real peace will only be achieved when the surrounding Arab nations take responsibility for their own, acknowledging that the "Right of Return" is a political fiction designed to prevent the very stability the Abraham Accords seek to build.

---

Works Cited 

Ennab, Wael R. Population and Demographic Developments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip until 1990. UNCTAD, 1994.

Gellhorn, Martha. "The Arabs of Palestine." The Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 1961, pp. 45-65.

Great Britain, Palestine Royal Commission. Report (Peel Commission). Cmd. 5479, H.M. Stationery Office, 1937.

"Jews in Grave Danger in all Moslem Lands." The New York Times, 16 May 1948, p. 1.

League of Nations. Mandate for Palestine. 24 July 1922.

Shukairy, Ahmed. Quoted in "The Arab-Israeli Conflict." The New York Times, 1966.

Storrs, Ronald. Orientations. Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1937.

United Nations General Assembly. Resolution 181 (II). Future Government of Palestine. 29 November 1947.

UNRWA. "Palestine Refugees." UNRWA Official Site, 2024.

Wilks, Ivor. A Once And Past Love: Palestine 1947, Israel 1948 - A Memoir. Horizon Books, 1994.

 

Libelous fabrication of documented factual truth and Quora

What's on my mind? For three days now I have had the two "Old Guys" arguing in my head ever since I saw an aborrent horrifically horrendous libelous fabrication of documented factual truth posted by a Rami Canaan on Quora. entitled "The Ethnic Cleansing of Haifa":

"Testimony of Aisha Al-Furani, a Palestinian refugee from Haifa. The story of a Palestinian refugee from the village of Sheikh Haifa District."

As I read this highly falsified "Testimony" I sat in stunned silence realising that members of the "computer-based illiterate - cellphone dependent" generation outside of Israel are exposed to this outrageously falsification of a well documented incident that occured on December 30, 1947 at the, then British owned Mandatory oil refinery in the Haifa bay area.

What is NOT mentioned - ad nausem- as it flies in the face of their mendacious tale of the events of their Nachba- and is ALWAYS "blissfully omited" by apologists for the “Arabs of the Mandated Areas” such as Rami Canaan in this story of this “poor refugee Aisha Al-Furani” is the WELL documented recorded true facts from the

achived British Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and administrative records from the late 1940s and in C.RASC Ivor Wilks’ "A Once And Past Love: Palestine 1947, Israel 1948" - "A Memoir" and Balad Al-Sheikh. (* C.RASC stands for Commander, Royal Army Service Corps.)

These "neutral" records provide a specific, often clinical perspective on these events. Because the British were the sovereign power at the time, their records are now housed in the National Archives in Kew (UK) or within the Israel State Archives. They focus on the timeline of British Mandatory law enforcement failure and the sequence of escalation.

According to these British CID archived reports we learn the REAL DOCUMENTED HOSTORICAL TRUTH regarding the “poor refugee Aisha Al-Furani's” village Balad al-Sheikh and NOT mendacious revisionist history by the perpetual UNWRA refugees.

One of the reasons that led to Balad al-Sheikh being depopulated during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (also known as the Nakba) was because the village was the home of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, who even before the establishment of the state, acted against the Jewish Yishuv and was a leader who inspired local villagers to commit brutal murderous attacks on the Jews of the area of Haifa.

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam was killed by the British Mandatory authorities in 1935, following his role in the killing of a Mandatory policeman and was buried there and his grave became a “Palestinian” symbol of resistance and of Palestinian terrorism.
Even today members of the Hamas terror organization fight in his name and carried out the October 7th massacre with green headbands bearing his name on their foreheads!

After the United Nations voted for the Partition Plan (Resolution 181) in November of 1947, Arab attacks on Jews were escalating rapidly across British Mandatory Palestine. Jewish Kibbutzim, agricultural Villiages and transportation in various parts of British Mandatory Palestine were violently and murderously attacked by "local Arab villagers" -according to the recorded British CID documents "Under the guidance of the Grand Mufti Haj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini".
During December 1947, tensions had reached a boiling point.

According to the archived British CID reports Balad al-Sheikh, which stood on the road between Haifa and Jewish kibbutzim and farming villages Afula and Beit Shean in the Yizrael valley, was a center for attacks on Jewish transportation.

The village was "depopulated" during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (also known as the Nakba).
The events occurred in three main stages: increasing attacks by village and area Arab residents on Jewish civilian buses and trucks, retaliatory raid at the turn of the year and the final capture of the village in April.

The spark, that led to the Irgun (Etzel) attack was "An eye for an eye" attack on the Arabs working at the British owned oil refinery for the increasing Arab "resistance" against the Jewish civilian residents of the area of Haifa.

Prior to the incident at the oil refinery on December 30, 1947, 1700 Arabs and 470 Jews worked their, not including the British management.

At approximately 10:20 AM exactly one month after the United Nations voted for the Partition Plan (Resolution 181), British CID police reports recorded, that two bombs were thrown from a passing vehicle (identified as a black car or taxi) into a crowd of roughly 100 Arab day-laborers outside the refinery gate who were waiting at a bus stop or seeking employment. Six Arabs were killed and 42 were wounded.

One of the most critical aspects of the British records is the admission of a delays in intervention.British records show that although the refinery was owned by the British (Consolidated Refineries Ltd), it took nearly an hour for police and military units to arrive after the Arab riot began inside the gates.

In the internal reports, CID Summary, they recorded a a "spontaneous reaction" and scene of "uncontrolled mob violence" within minutes of the Irgun's bombs exploding outside the gate, where Arab workers inside the refinery (who previously had relatively good relations with their Jewish coworkers) turned on the Jewish staff and used "industrial tools, iron bars, and pickaxes" to attack Jewish coworkers. The CID noted that the British management was unable to exert any authority once the riot began.

In the ensuing riot, 41 Jewish workers were killed and 49 were injured.
After the the murderous attack on the Jewish workers of the refinery, many of those Arabs who carried out the debauchery returned to Balad Al-Sheikh.
Despite condemning the Irgun's initial bomb attack as an "act of madness".

All of this is recorded in the British CID records as recounted by Zachary Lockman in his book "Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906–1948" whe he focuses on how the violence at the Haifa Oil Refinery shattered a rare instance of inter-communal labor solidarity.

In his book, Lockman analyzes the 1947–1948 events in a section titled "The Descent into Madness" where he provides specific casualty figures and observations that sometimes differ slightly from other contemporary sources.

British records provide the "official" version of the Haganah/Palmach attack on the village of Balad al-Sheikh Raid (Dec 31, 1947).
The Haganah launched a massive retaliatory raid on the village of Balad al-Sheikh where those Arab refinery workers who participated in the murder of their Jewish co-workers lived.
In the Haganah’s retaliatory raid on the village, according to "Arab testimony" recorded by the CID, the Haganah attackers used mortars and explosives to demolish houses while residents were inside the attack "killed some sixty men, women, and children and destroyed several dozen houses".

According to records cited by historians like Benny Morris and Yoav Gelber, from the official history of the Haganah (specifically the Sefer Toldot HaHaganah) and the internal reports of the Palmach units involved.
The official operational order issued to the 170 men of the First Battalion of the Palmach( Hebrew Plugot Maḥatz, "Strike Companies") who were the elite combined strike forces, the orders were quite specific:
"To encircle the village, and to inflict harm on the largest possible number of men, to damage property, but to refrain from attacking women and children."

Furthermore the Hebrew records often use the term "טוהר הנשק" (Purity of Arms) to discuss these incidents in hindsight—debating whether the "deviation" at Balad al-Sheikh was a failure of this moral code or a tragic necessity of the 1948 conflict.

The retaliatory raid on the village of Balad al-Sheikh began in the dark of night (it was a 2:00 AM raid). 170 members of the Palmach that carried out the attack were "forced to deviate from the line agreed upon" because they were met with severe resistance from within residential structures in the village by the village residents and elements of the Grand Mufti's Army of the Holy War (Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas) who used the civilian structures as their combat positions.
Due to the "heat of battle" those Palmach commanders claimed they could not distinguish between "combatants" and "non-combatants" once a house was identified as a source of fire.

And because the Arabs used their homes as implacements the fighters of the Palmach unit fired into these houses and used explosives to silence the resistance, resulting in "unintentional" civilian deaths.

The Palmach and the official Haganah General Staff (HGS) internal report initially claimed 21 killed (including 2 women and 5 children) at under the stress of close-quarters urban combat were "regretfully" killed due to the military necessity and the tactical chaos.
Arab records say 60-70 dead (many women/children). The Times (London), January 2, 1948: contemporary report, titled "17 Killed In Attack On Arab Village," initially provided lower figures. The discrepancy arose from whether the count only included identified "combatant" males or every body found in the destroyed homes.

In the "Testimony of Aisha Al-Furani" she states:
"On their way to fetch water, a group of the Haganah gang caught them and executed them behind the port and they were added them to the 600 Men, Women, and Children massacred in my village."
However, according to WO 261/573 and the RASC War Diaries, the Haifa Port was a "sealed military enclave." The idea that a "Haganah gang" could enter this hyper-guarded military zone, execute civilians at a water point, and leave without the RASC or the Royal Marines recording a major security breach is historically untenable. If there had been mass executions at the port—Wilks have recorded it exposing the Quora testimony as a fabric of lies.

Zachary Lockman in his book "Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906–1948" on page 353, he explicitly states:
"The Jewish attackers killed some sixty men, women, and children and destroyed several houses." His research relies heavily on labor records and press reports from the time, noting that the sheer scale of the funeral processions in Haifa the following day supported the higher casualty figures

The Haganah recorded that the objective was to destroy the homes of "refinery rioters." They argued that because the attack was a surprise raid intended to destroy property and "punish" the adult male population, the collapsing of houses with explosives inevitably led to deaths among family members who had not or could not flee.

Some internal diaries and later testimonies from Palmach members - some of whom were related or friends of the 39 butchered Jewish refinery workers. Later admitted that the "retaliatory zeal" emotional intensity of the previous day's refinery massacre led to a "harshness" in the field.

The following file series contain the primary cables, police summaries, and high-level reports from the British administration in Palestine to the Colonial and Foreign Offices in London:

CO 537/3855: This file contains "Palestine: Situational Reports" from 1948. It includes detailed telegraphic correspondence from the High Commissioner describing urban and rural violence.

CO 733/477: This series often covers police reports and local intelligence summaries (CID reports) during the final months of the Mandate.

FO 371/68502: Foreign Office records that include "intelligence summaries" regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Haifa sub-district.

WO 261/573: War Office monthly historical reports for the Palestine Command, which provide the British military's perspective on the Balad al-Sheikh raid and the subsequent refinery investigation.

The success of Dyzinformation The Passive Reader and Gullibility

 The success of Dyzinformation:

 “A lie can get halfway around the world in the time it takes the truth to get its pants on." - A quote widely attributed to Mark Twain.

The Passive Reader and Gullibility:

 "For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic."

This quote is taken from a speech delivered by JFK during his 1962 commencement address at Yale University and it remains a profound observation on how societies process information.

“By far the most vicious and hate-filled pathological liars are those people that today's TikTok generation imitate, “parrot” and admire.” (the author) Yakov Marks 

The “Active Measures” (aktivnyye meropriyatiya) campaign of the KGB is often described by intelligence historians as the most successful propaganda campaign of the 20th century.

This campaign has outlived the Soviet Union and has metamorphosized into the digital "mythmaking" that JFK warned about in his speech.

By my referring to Kennedy's terminology, you can realize that Operation SIG (Russian: Sionistskiye Gosudarstva or "Zionist Governments") was the mechanism used to transform a “deliberate lie” into a “persistent myth”.

The very name of the operation reveals the intent: to create a global perception of a shadowy, controlled "Zionist Government" (a direct echo of the virulently antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion), which Kennedy would have classified as a "contrived" and "dishonest" construction.

From Print to Pixels: The Digital Hegemony

The utter success of "Operation SIG" is in the transition from the KGB's 1970s print propaganda to today's social media landscape and is reflected in the "corruption" of the major influencers in the passive mind of todays "computer- based illiterate - cellphone dependent" generation and demonstrates a move from disinformation (manufacturing a lie) to hegemonic narrative (rewriting history until the lie is the default truth).

In the "moral binary" created by Operation SIG, the truth is branded as "hate speech" because it disrupts the myth.

The minds of the "computer-based illiterate - cellphone dependent" generation confirmed biased audience generation of today has been corrupted by the overly corrupt algorithm-driven social media platforms just as JFK mentioned.

For once a "myth" is established, the digital ecosystem feeds the user more of the same, creating a hermetically sealed reality where the "negation" of the other becomes a moral duty.

We, older "Highly (non) paid" Hasbaraniks, have witnessed over the years, how the followers of the "False Narrative of Palestine", have rewritten, reprogrammed and subverted ALL the social media web sites to demonize, defame and to cause the "negation" Israel / the Jewish State.

Semantic Engineering: The "Big Red Lie"

When I look at modern political discourse, as a member of the older generation, I see the fulfilment of a masterclass in "Semantic Engineering" seen in the 1975 "Zionism is Racism" UN speech (Resolution 3379) to "de-legitimize through categorization".

This "historical "Ground Zero" was achieved when operatives for Operation SIG and the "False Narrative of Palestine”, successfully moved the conflict from a territorial dispute to a moral binary by the labeling of Zionism as "racism”.

Over the years, I have readily witnessed the intentional connotative shift in words like "Zionism" or "Imperialism" to corrupt the minds of the naïve “corruptly taught” uneducated " "computer-based illiterate - cellphone dependent" generation to make it beyond their comprehension to distinguish between historical fact and "persistent myth".

Only those of us from the older generation can recall the powerful defense of truth against "persistent and persuasive" propaganda in the now forgotten responses by Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog and U.S. Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan on that 10th of November 1975.

Even fewer today can remember how Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog pointed out in his speech the staggering irony of the date—November 10, 1975—which was the 37th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

He famously told the assembly:

"For the Jewish people, this is no more than a piece of paper, and we shall treat it as such," before tearing the resolution in half at the podium.”

And even fewer remember U.S. Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan "masterclass in linguistic precision" when he recognized that the UN was not just passing a resolution, but redefining language itself to serve an ideological goal (exactly what I have noted about the "corruption" of influencers).

"The United Nations is about to make anti-Semitism international law... The lie is that Zionism is a form of racism. The overwhelmingly clear truth is that it is not."

Moynihan warned that if we “destroy the words that were given to us... we will not have words to replace them."

Today, we see those replaced words: "Settler-Colonialism," "Apartheid," and "European usurpers." These terms bypass the analytical mind and trigger an immediate emotional response—the ultimate success of Operation SIG.

The Holocaust Inversion

The "False Narrative" of an entity and a "people" who never existed in documented -albeit written history, framed in the language of "liberation" and "justice," has now become the persistent worldview among today’s "computer based illiterate - cellphone dependent" generation because they have a hard time reading (illiteracy), lack of vocabulary and the lexical meaning of words as well as reading comprehension. They do not -are literally unable -as they do not possess the ability to actually read and to do fact checking in texts of historically provided documented written “book / text” facts for the "truth".

The most "contrived and dishonest" element of this operation is "Holocaust Inversion"—labeling the survivors of a genocide as the new "Nazis." This rhetorical flip has become "persistent and persuasive" in Podcasts or on platforms like TikTok, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter).

The Choice: The Myth or The Truth?

 

The epitome of irony is that a whole generation with the world's information at their fingertips lacks the lexical depth and historical context to decode the very information they consume.

They find it abhorrent to be on the side of righteousness and truth because they wish to be accepted and loved by their fellow brainwashed and bamboozled peers.

In Conclusion: The Choice Between the Myth and the Truth

To the "Bamboozled": You believe you are part of a revolution, but you are merely repeating a script written in a 1970s Kremlin basement. You have been traded a "persuasive myth" for the "discomfort of thought." The algorithm loves your compliance; it feeds your need for peer acceptance while starving your intellect. True righteousness doesn't require a hashtag; it requires the courage to realize you’ve been conned.

The "utter success" of Operation SIG is not found in the archives of the KGB, but in the glowing screens held by a generation that has traded its analytical soul for social validation.

To my fellow survivors of the pre-digital age:

To my fellow survivors of the pre-digital age: We cannot afford the luxury of silence. We are the last generation that remembers the world before the "Big Red Lie" became the "Digital Truth." Our task is to provide the lexical armor our children lack. Do not let the "persistent myth" go unchallenged at your dinner table. If we do not preserve the meaning of words, the "negation" of our history will be complete.

The "truth" is not just hidden today—it is actively being replaced. It is time we start putting its pants back on.

Christopher Coloumbus - Was he a "Secret Jew"

 

I was asked:"IS" there proof that Christopher Coloumbus was a "Secret Jew"?

As an educator I always told my students one needs to understand the times and circumstances but more importantly to do the research "Due Diligence" by searching as many documented references /sources you can find, and ONLY then the true picture is revealed.

Additionally, all good honest historians who are worthwhile are those who see the person or incident within the confines of the time and comprehend how those influences motivate an individual. 

The theory that Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón) was a "Secret Jew" (a Converso or Crypto-Jew) is a long-standing historical debate. 

While there is no "smoking gun"—such as a birth certificate or a diary entry—there is a significant body of circumstantial evidence that historians like Salvador de Madariaga and Simon Wiesenthal have highlighted.

It is factual that there was a Colon family living in Northern Italy and that there was evan a famous Rabbi, who was one of the foremost Talmudist of Italy in the second half of the fifteenth century.

Rabbi Josef Colon, the son of Rabbi Solomon Trabbotto, known as the Maharik, in Northern Italy was born probably at Chambéry, Savoy, about 1420 .

During the reign of Isabella and Ferdinand, Columbus could have many reasons to rewrite his own personal history. 

“His past is murky — apparently purposefully so,...the idea of him blurring his past because he was of Jewish ancestry is very possible,”

This according to Prof. Ram Ben-Shalom, director of Hebrew University’s Center Hispania Judaica.

"According to a 1934 JTA article discussing then-breaking edge research indicating Columbus’s Sephardic Jewish origins, “In Spain, it was fatal to admit being a Jew, because there was more chance of being favorably accepted in Madrid as a foreigner rather than as a native from Galicia, which at that time was not in the good graces of the ruling provinces of Castile and Aragon.”"

Now for the true documented facts:

• One of the strongest arguments that Coloumbus was a "Secret Jew" comes from the language Columbus used:
• That despite claiming to be from Genoa, Columbus never wrote in Italian, even when writing to his family or the Bank of San Giorgio in Genoa. He wrote in Castilian Spanish.
• Linguists have noted that his Spanish was peppered with Ladino nuances (Judeo-Spanish) syntax and archaic terms that were common among the Jewish population of the Iberian Peninsula but not in Italy.
• Some point out Columbus’s signature was a "Hebraic" Signature in a cryptic, triangular cipher.
• Some scholars interpret the letters (S. S. A. S. etc.) as a substitute for the Kaddish or other Hebrew prayers, intended to be read by those "in the know."
• In the margins of his personal books, Columbus frequently used a unique dating system.
• He occasionally calculated dates based on the destruction of the Second Temple rather than the birth of Christ.
• In letters to his son Diego, he often included a small, handwritten mark in the top left corner that looks remarkably like the Hebrew letters Bet-He (ב"ה), an abbreviation for B'ezrat HaShem ("With the help of God").

The timing of his departure in 1492 is often cited as more than a coincidence:

• It came when the The Edict of Expulsion (Alhambra Decree) required all Jews to leave Spain by July 31, 1492.
• Columbus was originally scheduled to sail on August 2nd, but he moved his departure to August 3rd. August 2nd happened to be Tisha B'Av, the Jewish day of mourning for the destruction of the Temple—a day on which religious Jews traditionally do not begin new journeys.
• His crew included several prominent Conversos, including his translator Luis de Torres, a Jew who converted just before sailing because he was needed for his knowledge of Hebrew (which Columbus believed might be the language of the "Ten Lost Tribes").

As to financial backing and contrary to the popular myth, it wasn't Queen Isabella’s jewelry that funded the voyage. 

The venture was largely financed by Louis de Santángel and Gabriel Sanchez, both of whom were Conversos (New Christians) who held high positions in the Spanish court and were eager to find a safe haven or a new route to wealth outside the reach of the Inquisition.

On the otherhand, there are the "Counter-Arguments" by many "Mainstream historians" and the official Genoese record that argue that:

His use of Spanish and his cryptic behavior were attempts to hide his "low-born" Genoese origins and pass himself off as a member of the Spanish nobility.

That much of his writings are filled with intense, almost fanatical Catholic imagery and a desire to fund a new Crusade to Jerusalem, which some argue is inconsistent with being a "Secret Jew."