Richard Falk and “residency rights."

As I was reading this supposed "enlightened" UN BS artist’s article by Ynet and as per usual UN representatives like Falk do not check into fact before spread the lies of the “Falestinians”. Let us review his statement Falk said "that more than 11,000 Palestinians had lost their right to live in Jerusalem since 1996 due to Israel imposing residency laws favoring Jews and revoking Palestinian residence permits." And that Israel is practicing “Ethnic Cleansing” So what are the real facts?

 

View of the two large Synagogues in the Old City prior to their destruction by the Jordanians in 1948

Arab respect for the Jewish Synagogue Tiferet Yisrael in 1948

Hmm first of all Mr Falk before spreading lies one should know facts. As to “Ethnic Cleansing” I would love to have the answer to the question; “Where was the UN when the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and the Jews from the settlements of the Gush Etzion Block who were ethnically cleansed by the invading Jordanians in 1948?? Also where was the UN during the entire illegal Jordanian Occupation of the “West Bank” from 1947- 1967?

Ethnic Cleansing of Jews from Jerusalem and Gush Etzion

It is a recorded fact that between 100,000 to 200,000 of the Arabs of the Mandated Area moved to the Mandated Area in the years of prosperity during the British Mandate. What is not mentioned, is that most of them were not land owners but only those renting or leasing of homes. Property disputes have always existed, especially since the first land registration -Tabu - law was promulgated from the days of the Turks in 1858. It is a historical and documented fact that most of those Arab inhabitants do not have actual ownership / title to the land they claim is theirs. 

“A few months after my family and I moved to Shiloh in 1981, I witnessed a
microcosm of the land problem between Jews and Arabs. A section of land was
to be put aside for security purposes and, as the legal procedure dictated,
the mukhtars of nearby villages were informed and asked to make sure that
any resident claiming private ownership rights should show up on a certain
day to stake his claim.
 Sure enough, at the appointed hour, seven Arabs walked onto the area and
then were asked to stand on what each claimed as his private plot. Within
minutes a difficult situation developed when two villagers stood on the same
fertile section, insisting that each owned it. A minute later and they were
throwing stones at each other.
 We, the residents of Shiloh, the IDF officers and legal officials all stood
around amazed. In the end, with no documents, no tax receipts, no maps nor
any other reliable proof of ownership, the land was confirmed as "state
land" and assigned to its new use.” Yisrael Medad, THE JERUSALEM POST Nov. 22, 2006

The Turks and later the British attempted to register land ownership -by census - but only those who paid taxes could get ownership. Therefore many Arab inhabitants hid or lied to not have to pay taxes and thereby did not admit to ownership. Many -whole primarily Moslem -villages were virtual "serfs" or indentured servants to wealthy absentee land owners residing in Beirut or Damascus. And it is well known that most Arabs of the area immigrated to the Mandatory Areas after the Liberation in 1918 and establishment of the Mandate. So in essence they are squatters and as in most civilized countries of the world you cannot stay on land that is not legally yours.

Jews had purchased 6 to 8 percent of the total land area of Palestine. This was about 20% of the land that could be settled and cultivated. About 46% of the land was registered in the tax registers to Arab villages, to Arabs living on the land, or absentee owners, and about the same amount was government land. However, most of this land was not privately owned. The Arabs of Palestine had received much of their land in leases conditional upon cultivation or used land that was part of village commons.

During the Turkish census according to Beinin and Hajjar there was no administrative district of Palestine. Turkish census figures were for various districts, including the Jerusalem, Acco and Nablus districts for example. The Acre district included areas in Lebanon, outside the modern borders of Palestine in which there were no Jews. So the figure for the Turkish census for 1878 which listed 462,465 Turkish subjects in the Jerusalem, Nablus and Acre districts: 403,795 Muslims (including Druze), 43,659 Christians and 15,011 Jews. Simply cannot represent the population of the Arabs of the Mandated areas.Prior to the British conquest in 1917 of the city of Jerusalem it had a Jewish majority of 70%. since about 1896 - The city of Jerusalem itself there was a Jewish majority since about 1896, but probably not before. The district of Jerusalem (as opposed to the city) comprised a very wide area in Ottoman and British times, in which there was a Muslim majority. This included Jericho, Bethlehem and other towns.  Within the Jerusalem district, there was a sub district of Jerusalem that includes many of the immediate suburbs such as Ein Karem, Beit Zeit etc. In that sub district, the Jews remained a minority, with only about 52,000 out of 132,000 persons in 1931 for example.

Population of Jerusalem until 1945

Year	Total	Muslim	Jewish	Christian	% Jews
1841	15,510	5,000	7,120	3,390	45.9
1876	25,030	7,560	12,000	5,470	47.9
1896	45,420	8,560	28,112	8,748	61.9
1922	52,081	13,411	33,971	4,699	65.2
1931	90,451	19,894	51,222	19,335	56.6
1945	164,330	33,680	99,320	31,330	60.4

1. This figure is quoted widely on the Web and is apparently the Ottoman census figure. It is given for example here.

2. John Oesterreicher and Anne Sinai, eds., Jerusalem, (NY: John Day, 1974), p. 1

3. British Mandate Census of 1922 and 1931

4. Anglo American Survey, 1945

There are those who place the population of the Arabs of the “Mandated Area” in 1893 before the arrival of the waves of Zionist Aliyah at 410,000 Arab Muslims and Christians in Palestine because both Arabs and Jews avoided the Turkish census. Foreigners who were without residence permits did not want to make their presence known. Arabs wished avoid taxes and in the 19th century, only Muslims were subject to the draft, and accordingly, Muslims tended to avoid the census. The British carried out only two censuses - in 1922 and 1931. The Bluebook figures were apparently last compiled in 1945 and reflect figures from 1944 or 1945. The Report of the Anglo American Committee of Inquiry used those figures and others to estimate the population of Palestine at the end of 1946, by projecting birth rates apparently. Between 1946 and the announcement of partition in November 1947, there was significant emigration of Arabs from Palestine.

After the creation of the British Mandate for Palestine, the Jewish population increased due to immigration, especially in the 1930s. The population of the Arabs of the “Mandated Area” also increased at an exceptional rate. When there were more or less reliable records we can see that about 18,000 non-Jews entered Palestine between 1930 and 1939 while in the same period, about 5,000 non-Jews left. This does not count illegal immigration of course, or immigration prior to 1930.  Economic analyses show that by the 1930s the standard of living of Arabs of the “Mandated Area” was approximately twice that of Arabs in surrounding countries, whereas in Ottoman Turkish times it was lower than in surrounding countries.

Some of the farm population may have suffered economic hardship, characteristic of any industrializing and urbanizing society, but in the main, the standard of living improved, and it improved much faster than it did in surrounding countries. There is no doubt that this improvement in conditions was an attractant for immigrants as well as resulting in improved health and larger families. Additionally, British activity in building the port of Haifa during the 1920s and in operating it during WW II undoubtedly attracted new Arab workers from outside of the Mandate. However, there is no hard evidence to show that the actual figure of the Arabs of the “Mandated Area” prior to 1948 numbered between 700,000 to 800,000. It is impossible to determine the exact number since economic conditions did not improve until mandatory times, it is unlikely that the bulk of the immigration occurred under Turkish administration. 

"The area was under populated and remained economically stagnant until the arrival of the first Zionist pioneers in the 1880's, who came to rebuild the Jewish land. The country had remained "The Holy Land" in the religious and historic consciousness of mankind, which associated it with the Bible and the history of the Jewish people. Jewish development of the country also attracted large numbers of other immigrants - both Jewish and Arab. - The report of the British Royal Commission, 1913

In the book "Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata" - a detailed geographical survey of Palestine in 1696 written in Latin by Adriaan Reland published by Willem Broedelet, Utrecht, in 1714. It states that residents of the REGION mainly concentrated in cities: Jerusalem, Acre, Safed, Jaffa, Tiberias and Gaza. In most cities, the majority of residents are Christians, Jews and others, very few Muslims who generally are Bedouin, seasonal workers who came to serve as Seasonal workers in agriculture or building.

Nablus: 120 Muslims, 70 Samaritans

Nazareth: 700 people - all Christians

Umm al-Fahm: 50 people-10 families, ALL Christian

Gaza: 550 people- 300 Jews,250 Christian(Jews engaged in agriculture ,Christians deal with the trading and transporting the products) note* (no Muslims in Gaza)!

Tiberias:  300 residents, all Jews.

Safed: about 200 inhabitants, all Jews

Jerusalem : 5000 people, most of them (3,500) Jews, the rest - Christian (1000) Muslim (500)

 

Shiloah Jerusalem from the south 1930

Jewish Yemenite migration to the Land of Israel took place in 1881-1882 when a group of Jews of Yemen arrived by foot to Jerusalem.  They belonged to no "Zionist movement." They returned out of an age-old religious fervor to return to Zion. The new immigrants settled on Jewish-owned property in the Shiloah Village outside of the Old City walls of Jerusalem. The Jews of Shiloah were the targets of anti-Jewish pogroms during the anti-Jewish riots in 1921 and again during the 1936-39 Arab revolt when they were evacuated by the British authorities. These Jewish families returned to Silwan/Shiloah after Israel reunited the city of Jerusalem in 1967 to reclaim the Jewish-owned property.

Shiloah/Silwan Today

Joan Peters, in her book "From Time Immemorial," argues that most of the increase in Arab population was in fact due to illegal Arab immigration. Her figures are not accepted by most demographers and historians, including Zionists. Norman Finkelstein and others have criticized her thesis and shown evidence of poor scholarship. Finkelstein's analysis also shows that the largest increases of Palestinian Arab population occurred close to Jewish population centers in Palestine, which would argue against the Palestinian contention that the Zionists were dispossessing Arabs. We do not know if this increase was due to population shifts in Palestine or immigration from outside Palestine.  It is certain that there was at least some illegal Palestinian-Arab immigration, as noted in British mandatory reports. Immigration from Transjordan was not illegal, and was not recorded as immigration at all until 1938. Beginning in the 1920s when they built Haifa port, and especially during and just prior to  World War II, the British recruited Arab workers from the Houran in Syria and elsewhere. Arabs also came to Palestine before the war, attracted by higher wages. However, since much of the depletion of Palestinian population that had occurred in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was due to migration to neighboring countries, many of these returning Arabs may have been families returning to Palestine.

Falk and his bosses at the UN ignore the historical fact and International Law that the "West Bank" territory, was part of the "Mandated Area" given to the British to control in 1919. This area was offered to and refused by the "Arabs of the Mandated Areas" in the partition plan of 1948 that opted for open combat in defiance of the Partition Agreement of the UN. This disputed area refused by the "Arabs of the Mandated Areas" was illegally captured by the "Trans-Jordanian" Army in 1948 and occupied by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan until their defeat in 1967. With the establishment of the border, between Israel and Jordan in the negotiated 1995 peace accords, the "West Bank" officially became Israeli territory as per Der Jure International Law.

Justice Stephen M. Schwebel, who spent 19 years as a judge of the International Court of Justice at The Hague including three years as President. explained; "...modifications of the 1949 armistice lines among those States within former Palestinian territory are lawful (if not necessarily desirable), whether those modifications are, in Secretary Rogers's words, "insubstantial alterations required for mutual security" or more substantial alterations - such as recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the whole of Jerusalem.." and in a footnote he added "It should be added that the armistice agreements of 1949 expressly preserved the territorial claims of all parties and did not purport to establish definitive boundaries between them". Therefore the 1949 Armistice lines are not fixed, as purported by the Palestinians and their supporters. 

In fact in 1948 The Jordanian Government Army invaded the Palestinian Mandated Territory and at the end of the fighting illegally annexed the “West Bank” and East Jerusalem, a move which was recognized only by Britain and Pakistan. In terms of international law, between 1948 and 1967  the entire area of what remained of  the Palestinian Mandated Territory in the “West Bank” was terra nullius, or "land belonging to no one" over which sovereignty may be acquired through occupation. The concept of terra nullius is well recognized in international law. Therefore the “Palestinians” never had sovereignty over the “West Bank” or East Jerusalem. Justice Schwebel concluded that since Jordan, the prior occupying power of the “West Bank” and East Jerusalem had seized that territory unlawfully in 1948; Israel which subsequently took that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense in 1967 has better title to it.

With the negotiated peace treaty between Jordan and Israel in 1995 the "Mandated Area" for the Jewish Homeland (Article 8 Mandate for Palestine) was returned and therefore the "West Bank" officially became Israeli territory as per International Law termed; Uti possidetis juris or uti possidetis iuris (Latin for "as you possess under law") is a principle of international law that states that newly formed sovereign states should have the same borders that their preceding dependent area had before their independence. So legally there is no need to annex since neither the Jordanians nor the "Falestinians" never claimed sovereignty according to International Law. Thereby reinforcing Justice Schwebel's claim of  “terra nullius”, or "land belonging to no one".

In fact during negotiations for the 1995 peace agreement signed between Israel and Jordan, the Jordanian government made no claim to it. And as East Jerusalem came into Israel's possession in the course of a defensive war, Israel was entitled to annex it and create a united Jerusalem. Consequently, the Jerusalem City Council has jurisdiction over building approvals for Jewish and Arab resident in any part of the city.

HaRav Shmuel Yitzhak Churgin; Teacher Of Teachers, Lover of Zion

HaRav Shmuel Yitzhak Churgin, son of HaRav Eliahu Ben Haim Churgin, was born in 1865 in Karlin near Pinsk, Belarus, in the Polesia region of Russia. He was from a family of rabbis, biblical schloars- Torah and lovers of Zion. He was educated in the Cheder (alternatively, Cheider, in Hebrew חדר, meaning "room") which is a traditional elementary school teaching the basics of religious Judaism and the Hebrew language Shumel excelled in his studies. He had a love for the Torah and the Halachic rulings, Halakha (Hebrew: הֲלָכָה) also transliterated Halocho (Ashkenazic), the collective body of Jewish religious laws, based on the Written and Oral Torah, including the 613 mitzvot and later Talmudic and rabbinic law, as well as customs and traditions compiled today in the Shulchan Aruch, "the Code of Jewish Law." It was this great love for the Torah - the Bible, that he later taught to thousands of students at " Gates of Torah" and Mikveh Israel (Hebrew: מִקְוֵה יִשְׂרָאֵל; "Hope of Israel") the first Jewish agricultural school in Israel

At the age of twenty, in 1885. he married Chasiyah Eisenberg (Daughter of Aaron Eisenberg). A few years after his marriage in 1889, he was offered the opportunity to immigrate to America to study at a university there. HaRav Churgin and many young Jews had been affected by the wave of pogroms of 1881–1884 and anti-Semitic May Laws of 1882 introduced by Tsar Alexander III of Russia. These incidents of ant-Semitic hatred prompted mass emigration of Jews from the Russian Empire. HaRav Churgin decided to join with many other inspired young Jews to heed the call of the Lover's of Zion and to make Aliyah to Eretz Yisrael and to assist the rebuilding of the Jewish Homeland in the backward desolate portion of the dying Turkish Empire. So he became a Pioneer or Bilu (Hebrew: ביל"ו which is an acronym based on a verse from the Book of Isaiah (2:5) "בית יעקב לכו ונלכה" Beit Ya'akov Lekhu Venelkha ("House of Jacob, let us go [up]")) The Bilu'im were part of a movement whose goal was the agricultural resettlement of Eretz Yisrael - the Land of Israel.

Jewish settlers ("Biluim") in Palestine, 1880's

In 1889 he made Aliyah - immigrated to Israel. He went through some very exasperating experiences upon his arrival. as did many new comers in the early days of the First Aliyah to Eretz Yisrael. At that time the area was a sleepy backwater of the dying Ottoman Turkish Empire. Sparsely populated and filled with marauding bands of Arab Bedouin thieves. The land was treeless and barren. It was filled with rocky spaces and mosquito filled swamps with deadly malaria.

"Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent. The Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee sleep in the midst of a vast stretch of hill and plain wherein the eye rests upon no pleasant tint, no striking object, no soft picture dreaming in a purple haze or mottled with the shadows of the clouds. Every outline is harsh, every feature is distinct, there is no perspective--distance works no enchantment here. It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land.
Small shreds and patches of it must be very beautiful in the full flush of spring, however, and all the more beautiful by contrast with the far-reaching desolation that surrounds them on every side. I would like much to see the fringes of the Jordan in spring-time, and Shechem, Esdraelon, Ajalon and the borders of Galilee--but even then these spots would seem mere toy gardens set at wide intervals in the waste of a limitless desolation.
Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. Where Sodom and Gomorrah reared their domes and towers, that solemn sea now floods the plain, in whose bitter waters no living thing exists--over whose waveless surface the blistering air hangs motionless and dead-- about whose borders nothing grows but weeds, and scattering tufts of cane, and that treacherous fruit that promises refreshment to parching lips, but turns to ashes at the touch. Nazareth is forlorn; about that ford of Jordan where the hosts of Israel entered the Promised Land with songs of rejoicing, one finds only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins of the desert; Jericho the accursed, lies a moldering ruin, to-day, even as Joshua's miracle left it more than three thousand years ago; Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing about them now to remind one that they once knew the high honor of the Saviour's presence; the hallowed spot where the shepherds watched their flocks by night, and where the angels sang Peace on earth, good will to men, is untenanted by any living creature, and unblessed by any feature that is pleasant to the eye. .... The noted Sea of Galilee, where Roman fleets once rode at anchor and the disciples of the Saviour sailed in their ships, was long ago deserted by the devotees of war and commerce, and its borders are a silent wilderness; Capernaum is a shapeless ruin; Magdala is the home of beggared Arabs; Bethsaida and Chorazin have vanished from the earth, and the "desert places" round about them where thousands of men once listened to the Saviour's voice and ate the miraculous bread, sleep in the hush of a solitude that is inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes."  A section from Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad On the land of Palestine

The Jewish community in the ancient seaside port city of Jaffa was very small. It was located within the Arab Old City. From here every day at the crack of dawn he would walk the 25 kilometers to the new Jewish town of Rehovot. It was here in this newly founded colony/settlement he would work alongside other new immigrants. As the evening drew near he would walk back to Yaffo and with the dawn he would return once again to go to work. The work was physical, hard and long but he and the other young Zionists enjoyed the work. They knew that they were rebuilding the Jewish Homeland.

Rechovot 1912

After a few short years he was able to bring Chassiyah and their three children to be with him in Eretz Yisrael. They lived in Jaffa, since the new Jewish City of Tel Aviv had not yet been founded. There were no living quaters available so they rented in the old city of Jaff/Yaffo. Because of this the Jewish women were forced to go out veiled dressed in burqas (an enveloping outer garment worn by Moslem women to cover their bodies) whenever they ventured into the streets out of fear of attack from their Arab neighbors.

HaRav Churgin who had once dreamed of becoming a farmer settling in one of the agricultural settlements, was forced to abandon his dream due to financial considerations and the severity of life in the Yishuv. To feed his family he returned with fervor to his first love as a teacher in the Talmud Torah -"Sharei Torah" or "Gates of Torah". "Sharei Torah" had just been founded and it was the only institution of it's kind for Jewish children in Jaffa. He remained a teacher there for decades eventually moving with them to it's new quarters in Neve Shalom. Thousands of students learned from him his passion for the Halachic rulings and  especially the Torah / Bible. He was able to also inspire in them his love and passion for Torah as well as for the Land of Israel.

In my research I found that it was a high probability that when HaRav Kook moved to Ottoman Palestine in 1904 to assume the rabbinical post in Jaffa, which also included responsibility for the new mostly secular Zionist agricultural settlements nearby. He may have been in contact with HaRav Churgin since they both shared a love for Halacha and the rebirth of Jewish life in Eretz Yisrael. As a respected teacher he may have influenced HaRav Kook as he engaged in kiruv ("Jewish outreach"), creating a greater role for Torah and Halakha in the life of the city and the nearby settlements.

Talmud Torah Sharei Torah 1912 -1938

What is notable of HaRav Churgin is that he had been educated in the writing style of the ancient Hebrew writers. So in his leisure time he began writing poems in the long forgotten oratorical style of the ancient Jewish writers. He soon became recognized throughout the reborn Jewish settlement in Eretz Yisrael as a famous scholar in the rebirth of the Hebrew language and grammar. Dozens of private students from the best houses in the new Jewish city of Tel Aviv flocked to take lessons from him in the reborn language of modern Hebrew. These students -as well as his son Yakov later formed the original core group of new Hebrew speakers and writers.

Despite all the hardships of eking out a living and having a large family. HaRav Churgin was able to participate in public affairs in the Yishuv. As the years moved on and his health began to fail him only than did he stop his love of writing and teaching but not before leaving his contribution to the re-establishment of the Jewish home land in Eretz Yisrael and his love for Torah and Zionism was passed on.



I include below a picture of the daughter of HaRav Shmuel Yitzhak Churgin and Chasiyah Eisenberg (Daughter of Aaron Eisenberg) Rachel Churgin the wife of David Blick and their daughter Esther Blick -wife of Chaim Brownstein grandmother of my wife Rena.

Roosevelt’s Solution For Palestine

‎With the rise of Nazi Germany  during the years 1933 -1938 the Nazi regime free ‎immigration of the Jews of Europe was of the utmost issue for Jewish circles. The critical ‎period of 1938-1941 was the period of the beginnings of war in Europe. It was also the ‎period of British appeasement to the Arabs of the severe restrictions of Jewish ‎immigration in the White Paper of 1939.‎

President Roosevelt's interest in transferring Arabs from Palestine began in ‎‎October 1938 after a meeting with Justice Louis Brandeis. ‎‎Brandeis reported on this meeting to Felix Frankfurter who in turn passed on the report to ‎‎Stephen Wise and to presidential adviser and script-writer Ben Cohen. Brandeis pointed ‎out in his report of this meeting how Roosevelt appreciated the ‎significance of Palestine, ‎‎“the need of keeping it whole and of making it Jewish". He was ‎tremendously interested - ‎and wholly surprised - on learning of the great increase in Arab ‎population since the First ‎World War; and on learning of the plenitude of land for Arabs in Arab ‎countries, about ‎which he made specific inquiries.”‎

The Historian Zaha Bustami commented that it was, “…difficult to tell who brought up ‎‎this subject during the meeting, but the information on Arab demography was provided ‎‎by Frankfurter.” Who had met with FDR a few days earlier a meeting to discuss the ‎‎Palestine situation; however there are no records of what Roosevelt said at this meeting. ‎

On 25th of October 1938, Roosevelt had a meeting with the British Ambassador to the ‎‎U.S. Sir Ronald Lindsay. Lindsay wrote that the President was “impressed by the fact ‎‎that the Arab population had increased by 400,000 since the establishment of the [League ‎‎Of Nations] Mandate.” ‎

FDR also contemplated the creation of a program of well-digging ‎across the Jordan. ‎Roosevelt firmly believed that, “we ought to be able to find that money ‎for the purpose”. ‎FDR believed that once a large quantity of water would be made ‎available for irrigation ‎and the cultivable land thus created in Trans-Jordanian territory it;

‎‎“should be set apart ‎for Arabs from Palestine. They should be offered land free, and that ‎ought to be enough ‎to attract them; and failing the attraction, they should be compelled to ‎emigrate to it. ‎Palestine could thus be relieved of 200,000 Arabs”.‎

‎FDR also added that it would “be necessary to prescribe that no Arab should be ‎allowed ‎to immigrate into Palestine, and no Jew into the Arab lands.” ‎‎

The Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle, later recalled that,” The President was full ‎‎of Palestine” and that FDR called on Ronald Lindsay to call a conference of Arab ‎‎princes. FDR was adamant in having them lay down; “say ‎‎$200,000,000 buying a farm ‎for every Arab who wishes to leave Palestine, the money ‎chiefly to be used in digging ‎wells, which is perfectly possible in the Hedjaz.” Here, it is ‎quite clear that Roosevelt ‎intended the Arabs to "foot the bill" for the transfer of the Arabs of ‎Palestine.‎

‎

British Ambassador Lindsay therefore asked Lancelot Oliphant of the British Foreign ‎‎Office to have someone prepare a “short answer to this scheme” to have in readiness, ‎‎although he stressed that he would not take the initiative in sending a reply to the ‎‎President. Lindsay’s request was first dealt with by Lacy Baggalay of the Foreign Office. ‎He first ‎quoted experts, who held that the possibilities of finding water in quantity by ‎boring in ‎Transjordan were, “quite restricted”. He then continued, “But even assuming ‎that water ‎could be found in large quantities, it is now out of the question that any Arabs ‎should be ‎‎'compelled' to emigrate to the lands thus brought into cultivation.

"Whatever ‎else may ‎remain uncertain about the problem of Palestine, the impossibility of ‎compulsion on this ‎scale is now beyond dispute."‎

There are those who blame the genesis of Roosevelt's idea of a forcible or voluntary ‎eviction of Palestinian Arabs ‎to Trans-Jordan or other neighboring lands on Roosevelt’s ‎contacts with Zionist circles in the summer of 1938 perhaps in discussions with Brandeis ‎and ‎Frankfurter.

So "Who" actually had given Roosevelt the idea that irrigation of the Transjordan desert would create a ‎‎suitable location for the Arab transferees? The indications are that it came from the State ‎‎Department where at that period Edward Norman was in contact with government ‎‎officials to advance his own transfer plans. Although Norman was at the time in contact ‎‎with the State Department, his plans were in fact to irrigate Iraq by means of the dams it ‎‎had recently constructed.‎‎ ‎

Roosevelt summoned Lindsay for a further meeting, presumably during the first half of ‎‎November. At this meeting, the President said that he thought that “the British should call ‎‎in some of the Arab leaders from Palestine and some of the leaders from the adjoining ‎‎Arab countries.”‎

"The British should explain to them that they, the Arabs, had within their ‎‎control large territories ample to sustain their people.” He also pointed out that Jewish ‎‎immigration to Palestine and Transjordan would not harm the Arabs since there was ‎‎plenty of room for everyone. Roosevelt then went on to propose transfer of Arabs, “Some ‎‎of the Arabs on poor land in Palestine could be given much better land in adjoining Arab ‎‎countries."

British Ambassador ‎‎Lindsay answered Roosevelt by saying that there was opposition in both the Arab and ‎‎Moslem world but the President “belittled this opposition and thought it due ‎largely to ‎British indecision and conflicting policy.”

Roosevelt had also thought of ideas of how to finance this transfer. He thought that “if a ‎plan was ‎devised for a settlement of 100,000 families costing $3,000 a family or ‎‎$300 million the ‎funds might be raised” by the American Government, the British and ‎French ‎Governments, and private subscriptions - largely Jewish; each of these bodies ‎would ‎contribute $100 million.‎‎

Towards the end of December the British Charge d'Affaires in Washington met with ‎‎Sumner Welles and handed him a memorandum on transfer received from the British ‎‎Government, adding that Roosevelt would probably be interested in it.‎‎ ‎After pointing out that the latest available evidence did not bear out the belief that any ‎‎considerable quantity of water could be obtained in Transjordan at shallow levels by ‎‎boring wells, the memorandum continued,

“Suggestions have also been ‎made that if the ‎free offer of cultivable land in Transjordan did not suffice to attract the ‎Arabs from ‎Palestine; they might be compelled to emigrate from it, with the object of ‎vacating land in ‎Palestine for settlement by Jews.”

Until the Wannssee conference of January 1942 there was still hope in Jewish / Zionistic ‎circles that the Nazis would allow mass Jewish immigration. With the inevitable invasion ‎of Poland by the Nazis in September 1939 the doors of Europe began to close and the fate ‎of European Jewry was sealed.

The British Government “Complicity” can be found in Whitehall’s fear of the repercussions in Britain, India and the ‎Moslem world if they should back Roosevelt's plan of Arab "resettlement". They saw the threat to the sources of raw materials and oil for the Empire ‎in agreeing to Roosevelt’s proposals. Their Empire would be in jeopardy due to their ‎promises made to the Jews. 

Lancelot Oliphant of the British Foreign ‎‎Office brought, ‎in his words, the “fallacy” which Roosevelt was ‎using to try and solve the Palestine ‎problem in a reply sent to Lindsay saying that the British ‎government would not even ‎contemplate such an idea. That  His Majesty's ‎Government would be ‎accused of such a thing. That it would be “thoroughly ‎unjust” to compel the "long-established community" the Arabs to ‎transfer from Palestine “to make room for immigrants ‎‎[Jews] of a totally different race ‎who have had no connection with [Palestine] for at ‎least 2,000 years.”

The British Government also felt that the ‎problem of ‎‎“redistribution of the Arab and Jewish communities in Palestine and across ‎the Jordan”, ‎was not one of finance but rather of politics.‎On two occasions, Roosevelt raised his plan with British representatives but he was ‎‎‎“firmly told that no amount of financial inducement would move the Palestinian ‎Arabs.” ‎Roosevelt however, was unconvinced by this British reply.

‎

Chaim ‎Weizmann had his first meeting with Roosevelt in February 1940. At this ‎meeting, Roosevelt put forward ‎the idea of bribing the Arabs, asking Weizmann “What ‎about the Arabs? Can't that be ‎settled with a little baksheesh?” Weizmann replied that “it ‎wasn't as simple as all that. Of ‎course the Jewish people would compensate the Arabs in a ‎reasonable way for anything they got, but ‎there were other factors appertaining to a ‎settlement.”‎

In December 1942 two and a half years later, Roosevelt told Treasury Secretary, 

Henry ‎‎Morgenthau, “I actually would put a barbed wire around Palestine, and I would begin to ‎‎move the Arabs out of Palestine.... I would provide land for the Arabs in some other part ‎‎of the Middle East.... Each time we move out an Arab we would bring in another Jewish ‎‎family.... But I don't want to bring in more than they can economically support.... It ‎‎would be an independent nation just like any other nation.... Naturally, if there are 90 per ‎‎cent Jews, the Jews would dominate the government.... There are lots of places to which ‎‎you could move the Arabs. All you have to do is drill a well because there is a large ‎‎underground water supply, and we can move the Arabs to places where they can really ‎‎live.” ‎

‎

In October 1943, the question of “barbed-wire” around Palestine came up again in a ‎‎conversation between Roosevelt and Judge Samuel Rosenman, Justice of the New York ‎‎Supreme Court and speechwriter and counselor to Roosevelt. Roosevelt had spoken of ‎‎the “possibility of settling the Palestine question by letting the Jews in to the limit that the ‎‎country will support them - "with a barbed-wire fence around the Holy Land.” Rosenman ‎‎thought that this would work but only “if the fence was a two-way one to keep the Jews in and the ‎‎Arabs out.”

What should be mentioned here is that Roosevelt already knew full ‎well of the extent Nazi program of mass genocide. He had been informed by Churchill in the ‎Casablanca Conference January 14 to 24, 1943, of the entire text of the Protocols of the ‎Wannssee conference gleaned from the transmission of the file through the Abwehr ‎G312 “Enigma” program at Bletchley Park. ‎Roosevelt had also read the Polish Foreign Minister Count Edward Raczynski's note which had been addressed to the Governments of the United Nations on 10 December 1942 entitled, "The mass extermination of Jews in German occupied Poland", which provided the Allies with the earliest and most accurate accounts of the Holocaust.

In addition to being informed by documents and Intelligence reports during the course of 1943 an officer in the Związek Walki Zbrojnej (abbreviation: ZWZ or Union of Armed Struggle) of the Polish underground, Jan Karski, traveled to Washington as an emissary of the Polish Resistance to meet with President Franklin Roosevelt and report directly to the President on the European conflict and specifically conditions in his own country, Poland.

In 1942 Karski was selected by Cyryl Ratajski, the Polish Government's Delegate at Home, to perform a secret mission to gather information about Nazi atrocities in occupied Poland. In order to gather evidence, Karski met Bund activist Leon Feiner and was twice smuggled by Jewish underground leaders into the Warsaw Ghetto for the purpose of showing him first hand what was happening to the Polish Jews. Karski had visited Bełżec death camp disguised as a Ukrainian camp guard and had gained first hand eyewitness to the extermination of the Jews of Europe. Karski reported to the Polish, British and U.S. governments in 1942 on the situation in Poland and especially on the the extermination of the Jews. He had done so by smuggling out a microfilm with further textual information in German as proof from the Underground Movement on the extermination of European Jews in occupied Poland.

Karski met with Polish politicians in exile including the Polish Prime Minister Władysław Sikorski , as well as members of political parties such as the PPS, SN, SP, SL, Jewish Bund and Poalei Zion. He also spoke to Anthony Eden, the British foreign secretary who reported the meeting directly to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in a detailed statement on what Karski had seen in Warsaw and Bełżec. Karski then traveled to the United States to report to President Franklin D.Roosevelt. Roosevelt requested that Karski meet with Justice Frankfurter and Rabbi Stephen Wise, as it would be of vital concern for them to be apprised of the horrors befalling their fellow Jews in Poland. Frankfurter and Wise listened to Karski’s detailed eyewitness accounts from Belzec concentration camp of the program of extermination of the Jewish people carried out by the Nazis.

When Roosevelt, Frankfurter and Wise were told by Karski’s of the,“the unprecedented' extent of the genocide”, Felix Frankfurter stated that he was unable to "conceive the unconceivable" of the full extent of the methodical extermination of the Jewish people.

In April 1944 two prisoners, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, managed to escape from Auschwitz and the Polish Underground once more provided information that they gave to the Allies – together with intelligence gained from two other prisoners who escaped shortly afterwards. This information formed the basis on the workings of Auschwitz that became known as the “Auschwitz Protocols”. This was the first absolute and conclusive proof the Allies received that mass murder was taking place at Auschwitz.

Limited information about the camp had reached the West before this date, but the Auschwitz Protocols removed any reasonable doubt about the scale and nature of the crime, and the Western media were quick to report the news. On 18 June the BBC broadcast a radio story about Auschwitz, and on 20 June the New York Times carried a report which explicitly mentioned the ‘gas chambers’ at Auschwitz/Birkenau.

At the beginning of November 1944, Roosevelt was elected President for an ‎‎unprecedented fourth term. A few days later, Roosevelt discussed the Palestine situation ‎‎with the Under-Secretary of State, Edward Stettinius. Roosevelt had developed his ideas for the transfer of the Arabs from Palestine as time progressed as he heard from State Department ‎officials and Military Intelligence reports of the events happening in Eastern Europe ‎against the Jews. ‎Some believe that Roosevelt's views had become more extreme in his criticism of British policy in Palestine, which was ruled by Whitehall’s  pro-Arab Middle Eastern stance as Arab "complicity" with the Nazi regime became more apparent.

After telling Roosevelt of their ‎‎difficulties regarding Palestine, Under-Secretary of State, Edward Stettinius wrote in his diary, “He thinks Palestine ‎‎should be for the Jews and no Arabs should be in it”. Roosevelt felt confident ‎‎that he would be able to “iron out” the whole Arab-Jewish issue. Originally recommending the transfer of two hundred thousand Arabs, Roosevelt eventually ‎‎stated unequivocally that “Palestine should be for the Jews and no Arabs should be in it.” ‎and that as stated in the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate that, "The Mandated area of Palestine should be exclusive Jewish territory.”‎‎ ‎

Almost all the statements that are quoted on this subject were not written by Roosevelt ‎himself, but by the ‎various people he worked and met with. There are no recordings nor written notes ‎either. This however, is characteristic of Franklin D. ‎Roosevelt since he was a man who ‎always had one eye cocked on historians who would ‎someday assess his role in history. ‎He tried to cover his historical tracks, using ‎unrecorded telephone conversations and ‎unrecorded private interviews but we do have the recorded comments from those present with Roosevelt and their diary entries.  ‎

Franklin D. Roosevelt died on the afternoon of April 12 at the Little White House at Warm Springs, Georgia and with his death so did his Plan for a Jewish Palestine with out the Arab "Problem". Once again the infamous historic statement “What If” resounds through history…

Apartheid in Israel

There have been many furious anti-Israel claims by many of the HOIZS- Hater Of Israel and Zionism - all those pseudo intelligentsia who jump up and down, scream, rant and rave and froth at the month against Israel. Who say Israel and in particular Jewish Israelis are practicing Apartheid. What is overlooked in all these accusations of "Apartheid" is the right of the Jewish people to a land that historically was ours from 3800 years ago. That our Jewish ancestors were forced to flee this land that was once ours. Many Jews tried to stay but they were either massacred or forcibly converted. Despite the various hardships many Jews did come back over the years and resettled our homeland. In many cases the history of the Jewish people and the legality of our existence here has been questioned, erased or negated by those who wish to ignore historical fact. The map of Akko below from the Franciscan Brothers Order website does not even acknowledge the existence of a Jewish Quarter or the existence of the RaMCHaL's synagogue.

Here is a recent case of this Arab practice of Apartheid and erasing of the Jewish presence in our land. This news item is from today's -February 27th, 2014, article in the Ynet "Yediot HaZafon" entitled Arabs in Acre are opening an opposition against the Judaization of the Old City.
According to an article in today's paper by the staff reporter Yaffa Baranes, the Arabs in Akko (Acre) are demonstrating and organizing against what they call the "Judaization" of the Old City. Meetings have been recently held by public officials from Arab factions who have decided to support the fight against the sale of properties to parties intending to "Judaize" the Old City. The Rabbi for the district and the City of Akko Rabbi Yashir stated: "There is no reason why anyone should want to refuse a Jew who wants to buy an apartment"

Representatives of the Arab public" decided to hang signs on the properties and houses in the old town which state in three languages ​​- Arabic, Hebrew and English - "(This) home is not for sale." This step is a continuation of the protest against the plans of certain residents to sell assets to Jewish religious associations in the ancient -once all Jewish Harat al-Yahud, the Jewish quarter adjacent to the synagogue of the RaMCHaL הרמח"ל  before it was razed by the city's Bedouin ruler Daher el-Omar in 1758, who built a mosque on top of it. In its place, the Jews of Akko received a small building north of the mosque which still functions as a synagogue and bears the name of the Ramchal"

The chairperson for "Hadash" -the Israeli Arab Communist Party, Ahmad Odeh, said at the recently held meeting with public representatives from the Arab factions against the posting of a tender to sale the " Khan al Umdan"-)The Khan al-Umdan (Arabic: خان العمدان‎: "Caravanserai of the Pillars" or "Inn of the Columns", also known as Khán-i-'Avámid) is the largest and best preserved khan in Israel. Located in the Old City of Acre, it is one of the prominent projects constructed during the rule of Ahmed Jezzar Pasha in the Ottoman era.)

The Arab factions lead by Ahmad Odeh of the Israeli Arab Communist Party, decided to support the fight against the sale of assets as defined radical elements who intend to Judaize the Old City . Still mean Jewish organizations who get apartments in the old town.

Representatives gather every two weeks , including council members, heads of the Waqf and sheikhs to discuss matters relating to the Arabs of the city. The meetings are not political , and purpose - to handle and solve problems of Arab residents . The meetings are usually held at the community center or the central mosque , al-Jazzar . " Over ten years ago I argued that there is a trend to Judaize the Old City ," said Odeh .

"Fortunately, in recent weeks have understood representatives of the Arab population trend is growing stronger , and so it was decided to unite in order to defeat it. Decided to take steps overt and covert , the fame can ruin them. We have no intention to upset anyone. We only want to hold on to homes and our assets . Were born and grew up in the city. We All in all for ourselves. interests factors that may harm the delicate coexistence in the city, and it is not possible to us."

The Rabbi for the district and the City of Akko Rabbi Joseph Yashar, recently criticized Odeh stressing that Oded is openly inciting against Jews who want to live there .

Rabbi Yashar, "Just as the Arabs are allowed to buy homes anywhere, they wish and no one refuses them. Than justifiably there is no reason to refuse Jews who wants to buy an apartment anywhere in the city. I do not understand what the problem is . If we had come and "God forbid" incite against Arabs and did not allow them to buy homes, there would be a literal war here. We wish to live here in coexistence. Just as the Arabs are allowed to freely buy apartments, than why should Jews not be allowed to buy?"

HaRaMCHaL הרמח"ל

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, also known by the Hebrew acronym RaMCHaL הרמח"ל,   Padua, Italy 1707 – 16 May 1746, Acre (26 Iyar 5506)), was a prominent Italian Jewish rabbi, kabbalist, and philosopher. His magnum opus was the Mesillat Yesharim "Path of the Righteous" (1740), perhaps the most important Jewish ethical text of the post-Middle Ages period. It is essentially an ethical treatise but with certain mystical underpinnings. Rabbi Luzzato wrote Mesillat Yesharim as a dialogue between a hakham (wise man) and a hasid (pious person).  The book is a work on a "Beraita" or "Beraisa", a tradition in the Jewish oral law not incorporated in the Mishnah, associated with the sage Pinchas ben-Yair, whose list goes in order of accomplishment: "Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair said: Torah leads to watchfulness; Watchfulness leads to alacrity; Alacrity leads to cleanliness; Cleanliness leads to abstention; Abstention leads to purity; Purity leads to piety; Piety leads to humility; Humility leads to fear of sin; Fear of sin leads to holiness; Holiness leads to prophecy; Prophecy leads to the resurrection of the dead". The book presents a step-by-step process by which every person can overcome the inclination to sin and might eventually experience a divine inspiration similar to prophecy. Another prominent work, Derekh Hashem (The Way of God) is a philosophical text about God's purpose in Creation, justice, and ethics. The same concepts are discussed in a shorter book called Maamar HaIkarim (the English translation of this book is now available on the Web). Da'at Tevunot also found its existence in the Dutch city as the missing link between rationality and Kabbalah, a dialogue between the intellect and the soul. On the other hand, Derech Tevunoth introduces the logic which structures Talmudic debates as a means to understanding the world around us. Rabbi Luzzatto left Amsterdam for the Holy Land in 1743, settling in Acre. Three years later, he and his family died in a plague.

One major rabbinic contemporary who praised Luzzatto's writing was Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna, the Vilna Gaon (1720–1797), who was considered to be the most authoritative Torah sage of the modern era as well as a great kabbalist himself. He was reputed to have said after reading the Mesillat Yesharim, that were Luzzatto still alive, that he would have walked from Vilna to learn at Luzzatto's feet; He stated that having read the work, the first eight chapters contained not a superfluous word. This is considered to be one of the highest praises that one sage can grant another.

Hatred and Palestinian Children

‎“A culture of hate has wormed its way into the very fiber of Palestinian society… No ‎peace agreement will be able to guarantee peace… if a generation of Palestinians is ‎growing up indoctrinated to hate Israel, Jews and the West.” MP British Parliament: ‎Henderson

I am really feed up and tired of the insistent approach  to focus almost exclusively on the Israeli settlement enterprise, while doing next-to-nothing to tackle the pervasive negation of Israel’s legitimacy among Arabs of the Mandated Areas (Palestinians), is a guaranteed  approach that will cause peace efforts to never succeed.
By continuously telling the Israeli people that you regard settlements (all of Israel is settlements) as illegitimate and the "Human Rights" lackeys ask for a Boycott of our goods and institutions this will never bring peace.

The main enemy of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation is the hatred for Israel that is being nurtured daily in the hearts of so many in the West Bank and Gaza — the constant narrative that says Israel has no right to exist, and that its people are rapacious invaders who must be struck down. This heartless, soulless poisoning of the young Arabs of the Mandated Areas (and I may add those whom I refer to as HOIZs-Haters Of Israel and Zionism) with anti-Israel incitement is the core problem. They are blinded and so consumed with abject rabid, utter hatred that they have blinders on and cannot see any truth. Young Arabs of the Mandated Areas aka "Falestinians" and their "Human Rights" lackeys are taught nothing but hate of the Jews as "Occupiers" and "usurpers" of the dream of Palestine" on a day by day basis.

Just check ANY text book issued by the Hamas or the PA. Day after day — in Gaza and in the West Bank, and in countries all across the region — in schools and in youthful get-togethers and in newspapers and on television and on Facebook pages and in the speeches delivered by political leaders — millions of young minds  are being gradually poisoned. Children are being persuaded by those they trust that Israel is the embodiment of iniquity, and that all Israelis must be slaughtered. This is widely reflected in the Nazi style high anti-Semitic political cartoons used to defame Israel and Jews alike.

The term “Incitement” is used on a daily basis by the "Falestinian's" and their "HOIZ" lackys as the source of many of the ills afflicting the dismal relationship between our two peoples. The term is vague and means little until you start watching, say, Hamas’s children’s TV programs, in which sweet young kids, on studio sets full of colorful backdrops and cuddly toys, unthinkingly parrot the vicious curses against Israel that their cynical elders have fed them, and vow with the earnest innocence of their manipulated young psyches that they are willing to martyr themselves — to kill and be killed — for the noble, divine cause of harming the terrible Jews.

In a recent speech from Qatar, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal urged Palestinian fathers in Gaza and around the world to instill a desire for death in their children from the youngest ages. “Jihad in the path of Allah is the pinnacle of our aspirations…it is our life,” said the Hamas leader during a ceremony honoring Palestinians killed while carrying out terrorist attacks against Israeli men, women and children. The highest honour for Palestinian children is to die in service as Martyrs for Allah to kill Israeli Jews and “liberate” the Holy Land from their presence. (The Hamas leadership had previously been headquartered in Damascus but escaped to Qatar due to the ongoing civil war in Syria).
Meshaal said that when a Palestinian joins a terror groups such as Hamas, “we are very happy”; when that same Palestinian carries out a terrorist attacks, “we are overjoyed”; and, when that Palestinian is killed in the process of murdering Israelis, “we praise Allah.”Meshaal went on to vow that a new wave of terrorist violence will soon overwhelm Israel, as such violence is the only viable way to achieve the Palestinians’ nationalistic goals.

Our Israeli children are taught that all murders are foul. All cold blooded murders indefensible. It sickening that an atmosphere and a mindset evidently prevalent, among  Arabs of the Mandated Areas in the West Bank and Gaza , that leaves no room for optimism in the short-term. And it underlines the nature of the task ahead if there is to be any substantive change for the better. Hatred must end - from both sides- but the Arabs have a long way to go.

Inconclusion:

I wish to use this excellent summary of a quote by Israel's "Yenta" Prime Minister Golda Meir

"I am also grateful that I live in a country whose people have learned how to go on living ‎in a sea of hatred without hating those who want to destroy them and without abandoning ‎their own vision of peace. To have learned this is a great art, the prescription for which is ‎not written down anywhere. It is part of our way of life in Israel.‎
When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our ‎sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons."