Antifa in the USA: Facts

The beginnings of the Antifa movement in the USA is directly associated with the UK Anti-Fascist Action (AFA), a militant anti-fascist group founded in 1985. Antifa's stated long-term objective, both in America and abroad, is to establish a communist world order.
Currently the objective of Antifa in the United States, is to bring down the Trump administration through incitement and massive civil disobedience.

Academics and media outlets sympathetic to Antifa have been cynically manipulated to argue that the group cannot be classified as a terrorist organization which is the direct result of the super-secret KGB discipline called dezinformatsiya.
Empirical and anecdotal evidence shows that Antifa is, in fact, a highly networked, well-funded global presence.

Antifa can be described as a transnational insurgency movement that endeavors, often with extreme violence, to subvert liberal democracy, with the aim of replacing global capitalism with communism.
The ideological origins of Antifa can be traced back to the Soviet Union nearly a century ago to 1921 when the Communist International (Comintern) developed the so-called united front tactic to "unify the working masses through agitation and organization...against "capitalism" and "fascism" at the international level and in each individual country." Therefore, for all true communists their nemesis has always been "capitalism" and "fascism".

A German-language pamphlet — "80 Years of Anti-Fascist Actions" (80 Jahre Antifaschistische Aktion)" — describes in minute detail the continuous historical thread of the Antifa movement from its ideological origins in the 1920s to the present day. The document states:

"Antifascism has always fundamentally been an anti-capitalist strategy. This is why the symbol of the Antifaschistische Aktion has never lost its inspirational power.... Anti-fascism is more of a strategy than an ideology."

The modern Antifa movement derives its name from a group called Antifaschistische Aktion, founded in May 1932 by Stalinist leaders of the Communist Party of Germany. The group was established to fight "fascists", a term the Communist Party used to describe all of the other pro-capitalist political parties in Germany. The primary objective of Antifaschistische Aktion was to abolish capitalism, according to a detailed history of the group.

The chief nemesis of Antifa has always been local law enforcement who in a democracy guard the civil order. In order to destroy law enforcement and democracies from within, Antifa employs the tactics of the communist insurgents in the United States and Europe to goad the police into a reaction through the means of extreme violence and destruction of public and private property, which then "proves" Antifa's claim that the government is "fascist."

"Out of cowardice, its members cover their faces and keep their names secret. Antifa constantly threatens violence and attacks against politicians and police officers. It promotes senseless damage to property amounting to vast sums." — Bettina Röhl, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, June 2, 2020.

Lately we have heard how the Democratic Party witch hunt for Russian conspiracy in the elections and the attempted Impeachment has led to the true source of the Russian Conspiracy.

"The federal government has evidence that Antifa "hijacked" legitimate protests around the country to "engage in lawlessness, violent rioting, arson, looting of businesses, and public property assaults on law enforcement officers and innocent people, and even the murder of a federal agent." -U.S. Attorney General William Barr

Antifa uses the KGB discipline of dezinformatsiya to hide their intent by "claiming" to be opposed "fascism," a term that they use frequently to discredit those who hold opposing political beliefs.
When in actuality they are the classic textbook definition of "communists: "advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs." 
They hide the real truth from their duped and brainwashed followers that a communist country;" is run by a totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism, and often racism."

Antifa holds to the strict Marxist-Leninist definition of fascism which equates it with capitalism. According to the German Antifa group, Antifaschistischer Aufbau München; "The fight against fascism is only won when the capitalist system has been shattered and a classless society has been achieved.".
Antifa advocates for a class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

Germany's BfV domestic intelligence agency, in a special report on left-wing extremism, noted:

"Antifa's fight against right-wing extremists is a smokescreen. The real goal remains the 'bourgeois-democratic state,' which, in the reading of left-wing extremists, accepts and promotes 'fascism' as a possible form of rule and therefore does not fight it sufficiently. Ultimately, it is argued, 'fascism' is rooted in the social and political structures of 'capitalism.' Accordingly, left-wing extremists, in their 'antifascist' activities, focus above all on the elimination of the 'capitalist system.'"

Matthew Knouff, author of An Outsider's Guide to Antifa: Volume II, explained Antifa's ideology this way:

"The basic philosophy of Antifa focuses on the battle between three basic forces: fascism, racism and capitalism — all three of which are interrelated according to Antifa.... with fascism being considered the final expression or stage of capitalism, capitalism being a means to oppress, and racism being an oppressive mechanism related to fascism."

Few realize that Germany's Antifa movement throughout the 1960s and 1970s manifested itself as a Marxist urban guerrilla group called the Red Army Faction (RAF) which was also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang that had been given training, shelter, and supplies by the Stasi, the secret police of the former communist regime. This was a common KGB ploy used to "deflect" the true source of the support for radical terrorists. As mentioned by Lt. Gen. (ret.) Ion Mihai Pacepa a former three-star general in the Securitate, the secret police of Communist Romania, who defected to the United States in July 1978 from his book, “Red Horizons,” published in 1987

Germany's BfV domestic intelligence agency explains Antifa's glorification of violence:

"For left-wing extremists, 'Capitalism' is interpreted as triggering wars, racism, ecological disasters, social inequality and gentrification. 'Capitalism' is therefore more than just a mere economic order. In left-wing extremist discourse, it determines the social and political form as well as the vision of a radical social and political reorganization. Whether anarchist or communist: Parliamentary democracy as a so-called bourgeois form of rule should be 'overcome' in any case.

"For this reason, left-wing extremists usually ignore or legitimize human rights violations in socialist or communist dictatorships or in states that they allegedly see threatened by the 'West.' To this day, both orthodox communists and autonomous activists justify, praise and celebrate the left-wing terrorist Red Army Faction or foreign left-wing terrorists as alleged 'liberation movements' or even 'resistance fighters.'"

What we are seeing in the USA today is the culmination of the Soviet Plan to undermine America that was laid out by the leaders of the KGB in the 1960's.

The Deep State and the Six Day War

What IS on my mind is just how fickle the memory of the world is towards Israel today.

"Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave, When First We Practice to Deceive!" (Sir Walter Scott, 1808)

As historians we have the opportunity of hindsight. There is much written and their are many, many lies of conspiracies spread of the USS Liberty incident of the Six Day War. Much has been written about the "unprovoked" Israeli attack and there are many questions that are still unanswered today regarding this sad episode.

One major question that has never been thoroughly discussed is just why LBJ stated that his National Security Adviser (Walt Rostow as National Security Adviser, 1966-69) never told him exactly just why the USS Liberty a "spy ship" was deployed to the area with not only naval intelligence personnel but CIA and NSA personnel as well.

The answer can be found in the often untold truth of the "unofficial" US State Department and US Security Agencies CIA and NSA) policy which was to prevent a close relationship with Israel so as to prevent the Arab countries deepening their ties with the "Soviet Block".

The "Unofficial" -read "deep state" - policy of US and United Kingdom Governments was created before World War One when militaries became dependent on the fossil fuels to propel their ships and vehicles - tanks and support vehicles.
It became crucial to ensure the continual access of this needed commodity at ALL costs to the United Kingdom and later the United States and it's Western Allies. It was due to this policy that the United Kingdom fought against the Ottoman Empire and created the "New Middle East".

The Machiavellian colonization and occupation of Iran (Persia) as well as the post World War One Mandated Areas of the OETA (Occupied Enemy Territory Administration)  were of primary concern to the United Kingdom so as to have direct access to Arab oil reserves which were of a vital strategic need.
This secretive position is further reinforced by the actions of British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith and Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of State for War in World War I who established a Committee under Sir Maurice de Bunsen on 8 April 1915 to determine their policy toward the Ottoman Empire during World War I and to determine it's fate in the aftermath.
Though the the British bamboozled the Jews and Zionists by making the Balfour Declaration of ‎‎1917.

"His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

They did ALL that they could to NOT allow it to happen so as to appease the Arabs. This is why 3/4 or 72% of the "Mandated Area of Palestine" was abruptly handed over to Hashemite Emir Abdullah I bin al-Hussein, elder son of Britain's wartime Arab ally Hussein bin Ali and the brother of the deposed King Faisal, in 1922. In 1915 Henry McMahon had exchanged letters with Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca in which he had promised to recognize the independence of the Arabs.
The British Machiavellian plot went ahead and played lip service to the Jews while abiding by all the measures to prevent the entry of Jews to "Palestine" at he behest of the Arabs even during the dire times of the Holocaust by "White Papers".

The British continued their acts against the "Zionists" by not allowing the Jews to enter after the Holocaust and by depriving the Jewish Underground Army the Haganah the opportunity to arm itself despite the onslaught by armed Arab irregulars and marauders prior to the establishment of the state.

When we Jews, we Israelis despite all the disadvantages placed in our way to create our new state of Israel did succeed in repelling and defeating the combined forces of the seven members of the Arab League and the Irregular armies of the two major "Palestinian" fractions/ The "Western" world closed the doors to us in our requests for arms. It was the Soviet Block of nations who initially allowed us the ability to arm ourselves. What "Western" arms we did succeed in obtaining was done clandestinely. This was carried out with the secretive help of the Jewish Mafia, Jewish scrap yard owners, the Longshoremen and Truckers who worked in tandem to bring all the machinery components and tool parts being scrapped by US WWII industry to Eretz Yisrael to form TASS the Israeli Military Industries.
There are also the famous stories of the Jewish war veterans who worked with Al Schwimmer  to smuggle aircraft out of the US to help create the Israeli Air Force and later the Israel Aircraft Industries.

This anti-Israel "Deep state pro Arab Policy" was exacerbated in the early 1950's by the desire of the West to contain the radical Arab Nationalism that Gamal Abdul Nasser was instigating in the Arab world and was viewed as a highly destabilizing force. It was during this time in history when Nasser's Arab Nationalism movement was being infiltrated by the secret forces of the KGB the head of Soviet foreign intelligence, Gen. Alexander Sakharovsky through it's client countries like Romania under dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

This desire of the "Deep state" to protect this policy from the "episodic nature" of American policy-making from the changes brought on by each progressive administration was "guaranteed NOT to be altered" by those unelected members of the US State Department members of the "Deep State".

Under the Truman administration the US State Department with White Hall worked vigorously to prevent the president's plans to resettle Jewish Holocaust survivors in the immediate Post WWII period. With the creation of Israel the US State Department together with White Hall  continued to oppose aid to Israel under the Eisenhower administration as well. This was the basis for the formation of AIPAC in 1954 to circumvent State Department opposition through legislation in Congress to aid Israel.
President John F Kennedy was one of the first presidents to stand against the "Deep State" and opposed the State Department's highly anti-Semitic and highly anti-Israel stance

So, when looking back many are puzzled as to the exact role played by the Soviet Union in the turmoil that led to the Six Day War. Few remember that Stalin and the USSR were highly supportive over the creation of Israel and remained steadfast in support until 1954. It was during this "Heyday"that the Israeli Communist's and their political parties Maki for example flourished.
In the defeat of the Suez Canal 1956 "Sinai War" the Soviet Union became totally anti-Israel yet there remained many die hard Stalinistic supporters in Israel.

So just why did the USSR invest so much money in advanced SAM missile systems and Armour (Tanks) T-71 and T-72, BTR -advance armored personnel carriers which had not even been given to Iron Curtain countries in the aftermath of the Sinai War defeat?

One of the best and latest recounts of the Soviet Unions deep involvement in the Middle East was the book of the Six-Day War "Foxbats Over Dimona" by Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez. Their book based on historical records, as well as "... every snippet of relevant information from an extraordinary range of sources, most effectively Soviet military personnel who can recall what they were up to in 1967." ...demonstrates..." how anxiety about Israel's imminent nuclear capability and an unwarranted confidence in Arab military strength led Moscow to develop a plot to provoke the Israelis into striking first before being overwhelmed by a devastating riposte, in which Soviet forces would participate."
Their book opened the "Pandora Box" of the treat of nuclear nonproliferation in the Middle East and relays many discrepancies as well as unknown stories of the conflict of Cold War intrigue that shaped the Middle East.

As the review in Google Books states;

"The authors (who are), award-winning Israeli journalists and historians; had investigated documents and testimonies from the former Soviet Union, cross-checked them against Israeli and Western sources, and arrived at fresh and startling conclusions."

Furthermore:

"Contrary to previous interpretations, Ginor and Remez’s book shows that the Six-Day War was the result of a joint Soviet-Arab gambit to provoke Israel into a preemptive attack. The authors reveal how the Soviets received a secret Israeli message indicating that Israel, despite its official ambiguity, was about to acquire nuclear weapons. Determined to destroy Israel’s nuclear program before it could produce an atomic bomb, the Soviets then began preparing for war--well before Moscow accused Israel of offensive intent, the overt trigger of the crisis."

Ginor and Remez’s startling account details how the Soviet-Arab onslaught was to be unleashed once Israel had been drawn into action and was branded as the aggressor. The Soviets had submarine-based nuclear missiles poised for use against Israel in case it already possessed and tried to use an atomic device, and the USSR prepared and actually began a marine landing on Israel’s shores backed by strategic bombers and fighter squadrons. They sent their most advanced, still-secret aircraft, the MiG-25 Foxbat, on provocative sorties over Israel’s Dimona nuclear complex to prepare the planned attack on it, and to scare Israel into making the first strike. It was only the unpredicted devastation of Israel’s response that narrowly thwarted the Soviet design."

In conclusion here is what we Israelis have learned:

"During the Holocaust we learned in the Ghetto that as Jews we can no longer hide and exist with bended knees. From the Torah we were taught; "Behold the Guardian of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep!" So I say as I said then, that we can not allow ourselves any longer be led to slaughter! Today, we must be on guard all the time and to take arms and fight as free men." Abba Kovner in a speech to the Iftach Brigade of the Palmach 1948.

Yom HaShoah "THE" Holocaust

What is on my mind? Yom HaShoah aka "THE" Holocaust. 

As a secular assimilated Jew born in "The Golden Medina" of America I became a proud Zionistic Israeli after I first arrived in 1974 to volunteer on Kibbutz. I can remember all those encounters and things that I experienced when I first "came home". That changed me and my life forever.

When I left Kibbutz Gonen in March of 1976 and moved to Maalot before my call up as a Single Soldier to the IDF in September of 1976. I would take my laundry to the WIZO laundry center which was run by two older "Ashkenazic" settlers of the Townlet of Maalot which was founded as a Transit Camp "Maabara" in 1957, here in the very north of Israel in the "peripheral area".

The "Maabara" that has become the City of Ma'alot, was for those "Jews of Arab Lands" who had been ethnically cleansed from their homes by Arab hatred, was comprised mainly of Moroccans -from the French controlled as well as Spanish controlled (and YES there is a difference) and other "Jews of Arab Lands" Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and Yemin.

I met these two wonderful women, who treated me as a long-lost nephew, when I first went to get my laundry done. Hannah (z"l) was married to Mordecai Rosen(z"l) and Hassiya (z"l) was a widow. I never learned anything about Hassiya's husband. Hannah and Hassiya, had met while slave laborers of Birkenau. Mordechai was a survivor of Auschwitz.

Hannah (z"l) and Hassiya (z"l) had gone out of their way to help me many, many times as a "Chayal Boded".

I will never forget one time, while on a short leave from the IDF. I helped Mordechai move some items in his workshop-he was a welder and machinist. Without prompting him one day as we sat drinking coffee, Mordecai told me this story regarding his arrival to the hell known as Auschwitz to pass on. Here are his words:

"Before my family and I were rounded up and shipped from the Ghetto in Lodz. I had been a young naive Yeshiva Boucher, an Orthodox Jew, who lived by the commandments and the Mitzvout in happier pre-war days.

My family and I had just turned 17 when we arrived at Auschwitz on a very cold rainy winter evening in 1943 after a long train ride in a cramped cattle car, packed in like sardines so that we could not sit.

We were undernourished, freezing and starving. We had not eaten for days it seemed, nor did we have water to drink. During the train ride those who stood near the windows would break the icicles off the bars and pass them to others to suck on for water. When we stopped on the way the two buckets that served us toilets were dumped and rotten vegetables were thrown in to feed us by the SS guards.

When we arrived at Auschwitz my mother and father were very weak, they could hardly stand. The SS guards screamed as we were forced down from the train, beaten and whipped into line.

As we got off, we passed some of my friends' parents who had died of starvation while on the journey. Their stiff frozen bodies were thrown off the train like you would sacks of potatoes.

The uniformed guards on the railroad siding held whips or clubs in one hand and some, their dogs in the other. There were Jews in stripped uniforms who picked up the dead and loaded them on trolleys while some gathered our meager belongings on the platform.

One of the scarecrows in stripped uniforms came close and whispered to me; "If you wish to live tell them that you are a cabinet maker! Do not tell them you are a Yeshiva Boucher!"

I couldn't understand, at that moment, just why my mother, father and younger sister were separated from us and what would happen to them. The stern looking Nazi Officer in a SS uniform with a mere flick of his hand motioned them away.

I moved forward towards the man in the well-kept uniform with cold eyes with my younger brother, who with the flick of his hand would motion "left or Right" - "Life or death".

As the night sky turned darker the lights came on and we shuffled forward. The Officer with the cold eyes spoke. My 15-year-old younger brother and I were asked our profession I said cabinet makers. We were experienced carpenters and expert cabinet makers. So, with a "flick" of his gloved hand we were pushed and beaten towards the camp.

I never saw my other family members again....

Of all the hundreds of Jews who arrived on our train, religious and non-religious ALL vanished.

Later as we stood outside in the freezing cold in the issued flimsy "stripped pajamas" with the wooden clogs that passed for shoes waiting before being beaten and sent to our barracks. It appeared that as the wind shifted towards us that white flakes like snow began to fall on us. And as I stood there I could remember seeing the chimneys, of what I learned later to be the crematorium glowing red against the darkening night sky. Occasionally red-hot sparks of ashes flew out from the chimney to the sky, adding more flakes that floated in the air swirling around us.

One of the Jewish Kapos pointing to the red-hot pieces of flesh rising in the air to the sky said to us; "You see that, that is your loved ones fleeing to heaven."

And as he said this, I bowed my head and said the Kaddish for my parents and siblings that I now realized I would never see again. And as I stood there I made a vow that I would survive to honor their memory and the memory of all who died."

So the next time that you meet or encounter one of these non-Zionistic "Non-Jew" Jews remind them of Mordecai Rosen's story that hatred does not see Secular, Orthodox or Zionists they see ONLY Jews. And when the haters murdered our family members and cremated them the haters did so mereky because they were Jews. They do not care if you deny your Jewishness. For them Jews of all forms are made into the same ashes!

In the words of Abba Kovner; "Trust No One!! Be AWARE, be on your guard and be ARMED! Strike first and strike quickly. Do not stop to mourn your fallen until victory is ours!"

This is THE message we MUST remember on this day Dahm Yisreal Nokem!!! Never means Never Again!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mODTRvz7RL0

I Will Always Remember You

As sun down the day before Erev Yom HaZichron - memorial day for the fallen of the IDF- approaches we in Israel sadly remember; our brothers and sisters, our fathers our uncles and aunts who unselfishly gave to create and defend OUR nation. 

For those who mourn it is always a time of memory. 

As the days after Passover pass occaisionally your mind reminds you of the memory of the person that once sat in that space around the Seder table. As the mind is given sometimes, especially in the evening, you smile and remember. 

Sometimes it is a song he liked sometimes it is simply triggered. In the stillness you hear his voice his laugh and in your mind you see that smiling face. Sometimes you see a boy walking, running or playing like him on the street. 

For me, my wife and my children, Yom HaZichron is a special day. For we took it upon ourselves as a bond of honor to be the family of a fellow American immigrant and a young man who was, like a little brother to me, David Sklar z"l.  

David Sklar z"l was the son Chaya Sklar z"l who was mortally wounded on the outskirts of Beirut in June of 1982 in the "First War in Lebanon". 

After the death of his mother David Sklar z"l has no family left in Israel and it was with honor that I and my family readily volunteered to "adopt" him.

David was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on the 4th of June 1962 and at the age of 9 his "family" made Aliyah to Hertzliya. 

David and his family; his older sister Deborah and his mother Chaya, who was divorced, moved to Maalot a very short time before I had entered the IDF as a "Chayal Boded" in September of 1976.

His mother Chaya Sklar z"l worked at that time as a secretary to Elaine Kopp - later Levitt another recent divorcee, had also recently move to Maalot from Jerusalem with her two teenaged children Mike and Marla. Elaine was in charge of a Jewish Agency Volunteer for Israel program.

It was Chaya z"l, who stopped to talk with me as I walked home from the "WIZO" laundry center early that Thursday morning while on a 72 hour pass from the IDF during "Operation Litani" in March of 1978. 

Chaya, the omnipresent "Jewish mother", told me that there was a new single American Olah (Immigrant) named Rena who had made Aliyah from Far Rockaway NY who had recently arrived in Ma'alot. Chaya and Elaine both urged me that I should "Make an effort" to meet Rena.

It is a common story that our children all know of how I waited that fateful Thursday evening, on the "advise of Chaya", for the transit that transported the workers home from Nahariyah Hospital to arrive in front of the Merkaz Klita. As I was exhausted from being in Lebanon I fell asleep on the bench. 

Rena ,a registered nurse(RN) who had just begun to work at Nahariyah Hospital, was returned "home" after working an evening shift at 10:30 PM. The noise of the slamming of the sliding door of the van woke me.

As I sat on the bench opposite the building I allowed her a few moments to enter her apartment before going into the building and knocked on her door to do as Chaya advised; "Introduce yourself".  

I knocked on the door and after a few moments Rena opened the door slightly and peeked out. I quickly said; "Hi my name is Yakov, and Chaya said we should meet." Whereby Rena instantly replied; "Hi, I am Rena and I am tired" and she closed and locked the door. That was March 23rd 1978 we were married January 16th 1979 in Ma'alot. We are the only two American Jews so far who have met and married in Ma'alot.

David, his sister Debra and Chaya lived in the "New Binyan HaMalit"-"the elevator building" near today's Shouk (Marketplace). It is the only multi (8) storied building to have been built in Maalot and it's saving grace one can say or novelty, was that it had an elevator.

It is located on the street below where my first apartment was. As a "New Single Immigrant" I was "issued" a small one room 42 sqm apartment by the Amidar Government Housing Authority across the hall from my neighbor and good friend Kenny Sherman. 

Kenny was also a new inductee to the IDF but he was in the paratroopers as  a Chayal Boded. When we happened to be home on leave at the same time we would sit and talk for hours drinking beer and listening to my extensive album collection.

David had only recently entered Yad Netan Junior High School near Akko and he was like a little brother to me. David would relate to me his experiences and secrets in life as any younger brother would to an older one. Our friendship was close since it was quite evident he was badly treated and ignored as a child by his father who abandoned them before divorcing Chaya. 

David was in need of an "older" brother a father figure to be there for him. And yes my being there also alone with no family also drew me close to him as well.

In the months before my induction into the IDF I was working at a local factory and in the evening when I came home sometimes David would come around to visit and talk since I had a fairly extensive collection of books and albums that I had brought with me from the USA. 

Upstairs in the same Amidar apartment building 431 Jabotinsky lived Ilana Black a divorced woman from England who was a painter. Ilana had a teenage daughter Sharon who was away at a boarding school. Ilana would invite Kenny and me to share Shabbat evening meals with her. Occasionally, David and Sharon -when she was not in school would  come to visit, to talk or just to listen to the music.

As a 14 year old fatherless boy growing up in Ma'alot, David drew close to me as though a "big brother" because of our background as Americans and of course the ability to converse in English. 

On Shabbat our very small "Anglo -Saxon" community would meet for a football, softball or baseball game near the water tower (symbol of the township) of Ma'alot near the infamous Netiv Meir Elementary school -scene of the horrific Massacre in Maalot in May of 1974.

After I completed my army service in 1978 I had worked in factories in warehouse and supply management. I was not thrilled with the job and the pay. So, in April of 1982 the wife and I decided to go back to the USA for me to complete my University degree that I had stopped when I supposedly left to "volunteer" on Kibbutz for "only" six months in Sept. 1974.

Rena and I knew that "tensions were high" and we Israelis were embittered by the highly apparent and consistent failure of UNIFIL to prevent terrorist incursions into Israel. 

It was only a matter of time that something serious would occur because of the constant threats and intermediate mortar and artillery shelling from what was euphemistically called "Fatahland" - the area south of the Litani river in Lebanon. 

Over the period of time since "Black September" of 1970 when the PLO was kicked out of Jordan and became entrenched in "Fatahland" in southern Lebanon. 

The UN, like today, has consistantly failed in their mandate to prevent terrorism. 

In 1982 "Fatahland" had become a PLO "no-go zone" after the Lebanese "Civil War" in 1975. Lebanese civilian residents had fled and the neutered Lebanese Government had given Fatah free run over the area.

As David Sklar z"l sat there on our couch with our son David, I could feel his deep sadness of our upcoming departure. My last words to him were like those of any "Older big brother" to watch out. I warned him to make sure and promise me that he would wear his body-armour vest!

As I mentioned we left Israel with our oldest son David in April of 1982 and moved in with my parents in Birmingham, Alabama, so I could restart University to complete my degree. We choose to go to Birmingham mainly because of the expense of University and available housing. 

Rena was able to find immediate employment as an RN in the Children's Hospital in the large University of Alabama Birmingham Medical Center, as we looked for an Apartment. We finally found a nice apartment not far from my parents and moved in. 

I had just started my first semester in a local Junior College to "get back into the rut of learning" when the conflict began. At first, I had thought of going back to my unit, but my commanding officer said for me to stay in the USA. 

I was not at home when the wife Rena received the phone call that fateful June day. The call had come from another ex-American friend Daphne Even-Zohar who was living in her father's apartment on the floor below our apartment building located at 327 Keren Hayesod Street in Ma'alot. Daphne called to inform us of the sad news about David's death. 

When I came home from school and Rena told me that David was killed. All I could think of was to rush back to my unit but I realized that to do so would overturn all the plans we had made to improve our family. We stayed and we of course missed the burial and the "Shiva- mourning period" in Israel.  Both Rena and I mourned his passing.

Members of David Sklar z"l IDF tank crew

I later learned from his commanding officer and his tank crew the sad events of his death....

It was a hot July morning in Southern Beirut. There was a lull in the fighting. His tank was parked to guard a road block. 

David had eagerly volunteered to be in "communication" -to listen to the radio chatter. 

The commander of the tank crew related to me that David sat outside on the engine cowling of the hot tank on the front near the driver seat.

The Palestinian "Alphabets"-one of the various terrorist organizations- had been raining down mortar fire all day and all the previous night. The tank crew was exhausted. They had been "buckled up" inside their old stifling humid modified US Made M-60 Abrams tank during the shelling. 

Suddenly the shelling ceased. Evidently the PLO terrorists had exhausted their supply of mortar rounds and they had to resupply. The lull lasted several hours, so the soldiers began to relax.

It was hot and very humid the soldiers became too lax. They opened or removed their old heavy Viet Nam War vintage surplus -read US AID - body Armor vests.... suddenly they could hear the echo of the "thump" sound as a mortar round is fired. David who was wearing the VRC helmet of the communications didn't hear it. The round landed nearby throwing a long piece of shrapnel from the 122 Soviet made mortar round that pierced his body as he unsuspectingly sat there.

His fellow crew members rushed him across the crossroads underfire to the IDF medical unit casualty station. The doctor immediately saw the long shard and how it had seared and cauterized in David's chest. He called for immediate air evac to Rambam in Haifa. A special medic evac helicopter that had been on standby in the air arrived.

David lingered on for another 24 hours or so...his mother and sister were able to see him before he died...and was buried in the Military part of the cemetery of Ma'alot which is between the Arab village of Tarshiah and Moshav Meona where the photo of his tank crew, Rena and I was taken.

Chaya angered over David's death argued non-stop with Deborah the daughter and she became fed up and left for America. 

After David's death Chaya grief stricken had become very religious and extremous in her views and had moved to Kiryat Arba. She died of cancer not long after and is also buried in the civilian part of the cemetery in Ma'alot.

Because David had no family to represent him on Yom HaZichron (Memorial Day)  I notified the Municipality that my family would gladly "adopt" him and represent him at the ceremonies on Remembrance Day. 

All our children who have also served in the IDF have willingly participated in the evening memorial day for the fallen ceremony by lighting his candle on the stage over the years. 

We do not want David's sacrifice to be forgotten and we as fellow American Immigrants took the mantle with pride to be his family.

Though most of my children have moved on to the "Greater Tel Aviv" area the wife and I will still attend the ceremony in his honored memory.

Memories and History

"Each moment in history flashes by us. Many are precious and unique, yet some are vile, some vulgar and some are ugly ones."

As I sit here in my #COVID-19 Safe-space, in front of the Facebook prompt "What is on my mind". I sit here in deep contemplation of human existence -mortality if you may-and the direct link between historical incidents and the human mind to remember those fleeting moments in History and the fickle memory of man

When I first sat down, after making my morning cup of coffee, in front of my computer. I had noticed a post on Facebook this morning regarding today being the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald near Weimar in Germany. A camp that was judged second only to Auschwitz in the horrors it imposed on its prisoners it was "Liberated" on the 11th of April 1945 the newspaper headlines glared at that time: "US Army reaches Buchenwald ... It was the very first camp to be liberated by American troops".

WOW...

And then I remembered as a historian that some four months before on January 27th, 1945, the horrific Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army during the Vistula–Oder Offensive.

And as I sat there, with the coffee in front of my computer I began to contemplate just how many reading this post know this or even care to know this?

I then thought of the "first person human memory" link to Yom HaShoar (Holocaust Remembrance Day) and specifically those Holocaust survivors, who experienced first hand the horrors and how they are slowly dying away. That the physical link to the actual experienced events; the scenes, the smells, the emotions, the human touch those factors of humanity are being slowly lost to eternity.

As I was sitting here, I the son of a "baby boomer" a child of a GI who served his country in WWII, realized we are also getting nearer to VE Day. VE Day (Victory in Europe Day) celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on the 8th of May 1945.

THAT day that was the long anticipated day of the defeat of Nazi Germany. It was, according to the allowed Western point of view, what "ALL" the Allies aspired for in Europe in WWII.

For those Jews in hiding in Nazi Occupied Western Europe they prayed and looked forward to "D-Day", that needed first step to Victory in Europe and defeat of the dreaded Nazi Regime.

Those of occupied Europe especially the Jews lived day by day in deep and agonizing anticipation to their "deliverance". We can read these feelings expressed to "Kitty" in the "Diary of Anne Frank". For Anne and for very many other Jews regretfully D-Day was already too late.

For those too young to know, WE privileged Jews, the "baby boomers" the son's and daughter's of the greatest generation in America, Canada, Great Britain. WE can still hear the voices. Those voices of our Momma's or Dad's sometimes speaking in somber tones of "it". That "IT" which is mark of Cain on humanity.

As a young child I remember helping my grandfather with his millinery business and how one day I found him sitting in the office holding a letter sobbing. As he saw me quickly removed the letter and pictures and stuffed them in a drawer of his large roller top desk. When I asked him, "Why are you crying?" I never learned why but I can guess that like many of "US"-"WE" the "luckier" Jews, those whose grandparents who had left the "Pale of settlement" in the 1880's or before had family members somewhere in Europe whom our families never heard from again. Those family members who oh so desperately tried in vain to leave Europe but were not given visas to enter many countries and above all the Homeland promised to us in Eretz Yisrael, where the gates where sealed by Arab hatred and British complicity in their "White Paper".

As to history -You, our son's and daughter's and especially our grandchildren. YOU DO know the meaning of (...-) dot dot dot dash the 'V' for victory” motto derived from the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and the famous message in two parts in the poem broadcast by the BBC to the FFI or French Forces of the Interior which referred to the French resistance fighters in France from Paul Verlaine's poem "Chanson d'automne."

Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l'automne
"When a sighing begins / In the violins / Of the autumn-song".

Then, on June 5, to signal that sabotage efforts should begin, the next three lines were sent:

Blessent mon coeur
D'une langueur
Monotone
"My heart is drowned / In the slow sound / Languorous and long."

You may not or may never have heard the infamous line, "The Longest Day"; those words uttered by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel recalled in a book by Cornelius Ryan published in 1959, telling the story of D-Day, the World War II invasion of Normandy and later in the classic black and white movie.

Ask any millennial today, "What do you know about WWII? or What is the importance of June 6th? and at the most they will show an uncaring or unwillingness to listen...to grandpa....

With the wave of Jews finally allowed to leave Russia in 1990 the full extent of the Russian military's participating in the capturing and releasing of some of "OUR" family members became fully known. Very few are aware of the extent of the Jewish "Resistance"- the "Partisans" made famous recently in the 2008 movie "Defiance" with Daniel Craig.

For many of us raised in the school systems in the West we do not know of the contribution of our fellow Jews of the Soviet Union. We do not fully know the true importance of WHAT this day means to "US". Not just ALL freedom loving people but specifically to "US" ...."WE" Jews the wandering Jews.



What this day means is expressed here in this rare BBC recording from April 20th 1945, where inmates at Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp freed from death sing what they now longed for in OUR anthem of hope 'Hatikva' to finally have a land of our own.

Facebook and Our 41st Wedding Anniversary

Upon seeing the "Facebook" memory reminder of my wedding anniversary the first thing that came to my mind was how the wife Rena came into my life. 

I had been released from my unit  on a 72 hour pass from the IDF at 15:00 (3PM) near Tebnine in Southern Lebanon during "Operation Litani" in March of 1978. 

In my desire to "get out" and reach my empty "single soldier" apartment, I had grabed the first "Tramp" (ride) out which took me to Biranit an Israeli army base just over the northern border in Israel. Another ride took me to the crossroads and bridge near the Druze village of Hurfeish.  

In those days there was no means public transportation nor were there hardly any vehicles, especially at night! So in order to get "home" I walked in the moonlight for three hours along that very same long curving road from the crossroads near the Druze village of Hurfeish where just three years previously, the same three terrorists who committed the "Massacre in Maalot",walked and ambushed a Peugeot tender that carried eight Christian women back to their home in the Northern Arab Christian village of Fassuta murdering Hasibah  Shalala and six women who had sat in the rear of the tender were severely wounded and according to the forensic report the vehicle was it by over 170 AK-47 rounds.

As I walked home in the darkness on the moonlit road I knew of the imminent threat that still existed at that time from Palestinian Terrorists and despite my exhaustion I forced myself to remain awake and ready,

I finally reached my darkened 42 Square meter one bedroom "Amidar" read subsdized Government apartment. Having no money to pay the rent or electricity bill the power was shut off. I opened the door- at 1AM and "crashed out" on my "signed for" immigrant bed.

Around 9AM I awoke- still exhausted- and took a cold shower and gathered up my dirty laundry and went to the "WIZO" run laundrymat for our development town. 

The two women who ran the laundrymat Chassiya and Chana were two Holocaust survivors, some of the handful of "Ashkenazic" non Mizrachi Jews in our "development town" settlement "created from scratch" in the pherphical area of the Western Galilee in 1957 mainly for the tremendous influx of "Jews of Arab lands" who had been ETHNICALLY CLEANSED -deprived of all that that they owned and possessed by the vengeful Moslem world. 

When I arrived in Ma'alot in March of 1976 before entering the IDF as a "Chayal Boded" -single soldier. I had met Chassiya and Chana and they "adopted me" and helped me greatly as I struggled with my period of immigration after the collapse of my Garin for Kibbutz Ketura. 

Both of these women Chassiya and Chana went above and beyond to help me by allowing me to have my clothes cleaned. Before the IDF I found employment at several low paying jobs and did not have enough money for my bills -rent, city tax, water bill and electricity and food. There were many who tried to help and it was embarrassing to be poor. 

On that morning as I was returning from WIZO I encountered Chaya Sklar z"l another recent arrival to Ma'alot an American divorcee who worked at that time as a secretary to Elaine Kopp -later Levitt, also an American divorcee who had also recently arrived in Maalot and was in charge of a Jewish Agency Volunteer for Israel program.

Chaya, the omnipresent "Jewish mother", told me that there was a new single American Olah (Immigrant) named Rena who had recently arrived in Ma'alot and urged me that I should "Make an effort" to meet her.

I waited outside the old Aliyah Center on Ma'ale HaBenim Street since Rena was working the evening shift as an RN at Nahariyah Hospital. I saw her get off from the transport that brought her "home" at around 11PM+ that night. Since I was on a short leave and time was of importance and though the hour was now very late I waited until she entered the apartment before I went and knocked on her door. She answered who is it? I introduced myself she opened the door slightly and she replied; "Very nice my name is Rena and I am tired" and she then closed the door. That is how we met thanks to Chaya.

In this picture standing with me and the wife next to David's grave are the members of the IDF tank crew of David Sklar z"l  who come to every annual Memorial Day ceremony for fallen soldiers

I had written a previous post on David Sklar z"l who was the son of a divorced mother Chaya Sklar z"l who was mortally wounded on the outskirts of Beirut in 1982 in the "First War in Lebanon".

David was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on the 4th of June 1962 and at the age of 9 his family made Aliyah to Hertzliya. David and his family his older sister Deborah and his mother Chaya, who was divorced, arrived in Maalot a very short time before I had entered the IDF as a "Chayal Boded" in September of 1976.

David and his family lived in the "New Binyan HaMalit"-"the elevator building" near today's Shouk (Marketplace) and it was the only multi (8) storied building in Maalot. It was located below my small one room 42sqm apartment on the hill side. It's saving grace one can say or novelty, was that it had an elevator.

David had only recently entered Yad Netan Junior High School near Akko and he was like a little brother to me.David would relate to me his experiences and secrets in life as any younger brother would to an older one. Our friendship was close since it was quite evident he was badly treated and ignored as a child by his father who abondoned them and divorced Chaya. David was in need of an "older" brother to be there for him. And yes my being there also alone with no family drew me close to him as well.
As a 12 year old fatherless boy growing up in Ma'alot, David also drew close to me as though a "big brother" because of our background as Americans and of course the ability to converse in English. I also had a fairly extensive collection of books. David would come to visit, to talk and listen to my "extensive" album collection that I had brought from the USA.

My neighbor and good friend Kenny Sherman, who lived across the hall in our building, was also a Chayal Boded. We would sit and talk for hours drinking beer on leave listening to the music.
Upstairs in the same Amidar apartment building 431 Jabotinsky lived Ilana Black-the painter and her teenage daughter Sharon. Ilana would invite Kenny and me to share Shabbat evening meals with her.
On Shabbat our very small "Anglo -Saxon" community would meet for a football, softball or baseball game near the water tower (symbol of the township) of Ma'alot near the infamous Netiv Meir Elementary school -scene of the horrific Massacre in Maalot in May of 1974.

In April of 1982 the wife and I decided to go back to the USA for me to complete my University degree that I had stopped when I supposedly left for six-months as a volunteer for Israel in Sept. 1974.

The Shabbat before we left David came by our apartment he held our oldest son also named David on his knee, he loved the fact they had the same name and he once told me how he could not wait to play games like a "big brother" with him. Rena and I knew that "tensions were high" and we Israelis were embittered by the apparent failure of UNIFIL to prevent terrorist incursions into Israel. It was only a matter of time that something serious would occur because of the constant threats and intermediate mortar and artillery shelling from what was euphemistically called "Fatahland" the area south of the Litani river. The UN force failed in their mandate to prevent "Fatahland" and it had become a PLO "no-go zone" as Lebanese residents fled and the neutered Lebanese Government had given Fatah free run over the area.

As David Sklar z"l sat there on our couch with our son David, I could feel his deep sadness of our upcoming departure. My last words to him were like those of any "Older big brother" to watch out and I warned him to make sure and promise me that he would wear his body-armour vest!

As I mentioned we left Israel with our oldest son David in April of 1982 and moved in with my parents in Birmingham, Alabama, so I could restart University to complete my degree. We choose to go to Birmingham because of the expense of University and available housing. Rena was able to find employment as an RN in the Children's Hospital in the large Medical Center. And we were looking for an Apartment -which we finally did  and moved in. I had just started classes at a local Junior College and was not at home when the wife Rena received a phone call that June day. The call came from an ex-American friend Daphne Even-Zohar who was living in her father's apartment on the floor below in our old apartment building 327 Keren Hayesod. Daphne called to inform us of the sad news about David's death. I had just started my first semester in a local Junior College to "get back into the rut of learning" when the conflict began. At first, I had thought of going back to my unit, but my commanding officer said for me to stay in the USA. So when I came home from school and Rena told me that David was killed. At first I wanted to rush back but I realized that to do so would overturn all the plans we had made to improve our family. We stayed and we of course missed the burial and the"Shiva- mourning period" in Israel but I mourned together with Rena his passing. 

It was a hot July morning in Southern Beirut. There was a lull in the fighting. His tank was parked to guard a road block. He eagerly volunteered to be in "communication" -to listen to the radio chatter. The commander of the tank crew related to me that David sat outside on the engine cowling of the hot tank on the front near the driver seat.

The Palestinian "Alphabets"-various terrorist organizations- had been raining down mortar fire all day and all night. The tank crew was exhausted. They had been "buckled up" inside their old stifling humid modified US Made M-60 Abrams tank. Evidently the PLO terrorists had exhausted their supply of mortar rounds and they had to resupply. The firing suddenly ceased for several hours so the soldiers began to relax.

It was hot and very humid the soldiers became too lax. They opened or removed their old heavy Viet Nam War vintage surplus -read US AID - body Armor vests.... suddenly they could hear the echo of the "thump" sound as a mortar round is fired. David who was wearing the VRC helmet of the communications didn't. The round landed nearby throwing a long piece of shrapnel from the 122 Soviet made mortar round that pierced his body as he unsuspectingly sat there.
His fellow crew members rushed him across the crossroads underfire to the IDF medic unit casualty station the doctor immediately saw the long shard and how it had seared and cauterized in David's chest. He called for immediate air evac to Rambam in Haifa. A helicopter special medic evac that had been on standby in the air arrived.
David lingered on for another 24 hours or so...his mother and sister were able to see him before he died...and was buried in the Military part of the cemetary of Ma'alot which is between Tarshiah and Moshave Meona where the photo of his tank crew, Rena and I was taken.
Chaya angered over David's death argued with Debrorah the daughter and she left for America. Chaya died of cancer not long after and is also buried in the civilian part of the cemetary.
Because David has no family to represent him I notified the Organization for Fallen soldiers that I and my family would gladly "adopt" him and represent him at the ceremonies on Rememberance Day. All our children who have also served in the IDF have participated in the evening memorial day for the fallen ceremony by lighting his candle on the stage over the years. We did not want David's sacrifice to be forgotten and we as fellow American Immigrants took the mantle with pride to be his family.

As for our wedding in January of 1979:

Prior to our "big day" I had been on duty 24/7, four days before our wedding as second in charge of the Civil Guard in Ma'alot. I had left my bride to be Rena in our apartment and had answered the call for duty as a volunteer to help protect the residents as I had over the years since my arrival in Ma'alot.
Initially we were not told of terrorists in the immediate area by the police or the army because of the psychological effect that many residents had from the horror of the previous incident just five years before in May of 1974.

Two days before the attack, my in-laws Chaim z"l and Esther Brownstein boarded an EL AL flight from New York to come for our wedding, unknowing of the incident in progress.

I stayed at the roadblock at the single entrance to Ma'alot until around 6:45AM then I took the jeep and drove to the Synagogue, which at that time was located in the mid-sized building of the original "Yehiva Hesder" near what was then the edge of the townlet near "Schunat" Cohen.  I had been invited for the traditional "Aufruf"- Yiddish for “calling up” by Cyril Atkins and several young religious men affiliated with the new Ashkenazic Synagogue. The "Aufruf" is a pre-wedding "Aliyah" to the Torah by the groom to be on the Sabbath before a wedding.
Just as we finished the reading of the Torah we could hear the sound of rapid machinegun fire (M-16s and deep throated AK-47s) and then a massive explosion. I grabbed my M-1 carbine and ran to the jeep and sped to the Guest House.

The guest house at Maalot served both as a resort and as a convalescent home, which at that time was operated by Kupat Holim, the Histadrut sick-fund. It had been occupied by about 230 people, most of them elderly, and also by a group of IAI employees with their families who were spending the weekend there.
During the previous evening most of the Hotel guests were told to evacuate and they did so in buses to another in the chain of guest houses. Only the IAI group refused to leave.

During the night the three heavily armed terrorists from Naif Hawatmeh’s Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine entered the Histadrut guest house just before dawn.
Pictured here -above left- is the contents of the backpack of the terrorists. Notice the amount of RPG shells and grenades they carried.

As they had in previous incidents the terrorist seized hostages for the release of other terrorists imprisoned in Israel. Regretfully, the only casualty in the attack was Miriam Alfasi, 31, of Beersheba who was killed while trying to escape through a window.(see the photo below)

Cpl. Itzhak Ravivo; 20, who was the hero of the hour, gave this account of the action. Ravivo had been the radio man of the IDF unit assigned to Ma'alot.

At about 6:30AM the excutive officer of the battalion entered the local townlet Army post (HaMaarbach) and received the notification, of a sighting of shadows of figures that had crossed in the lone street light of the road that led to the Guest House from 02:30 that morning.

Angered by not being informed sooner the excutive officer ordered the "alert force platoon" to "mount up" on their truck while his jeep driver together with him and Ravivo raced up to the Guest House.
Upon arrival the executive officer had gone to a lower level of the rooms as Ravivo and the driver ascended to the hallway of the upper floor of rooms.

Upon entering the lower hallway the executive battalion commander noticed a dark faced man with a large handbag, and had asked him who he was and for his ID. The terrorist mumbled something in Arabic and drew the Kalatchnik of AK-47 he had over his shoulder. The excutive officer scuffeled with him and grabbed the rifle from him.

Simultaneously as this occured:

The two other terrorists luckily both came out of one of the rooms in the upper hallway where the hostages were being held and opened fire on Ravivo and the driver. who immediately returned the fire.
The first terrorist who was closest to them threw a hand grenade as he and his accomplice turned and fled. Ravivo smacked the grenade in mid-air with his hand back towards the fleeing terrorists.
It exploded near the attackers who had been racing downstairs and out of the building. Just as the two terrorist exited the stairwell and managed to get some meters from the building. They were gunned down by other soldiers about 150 yards from the door. One had an explosive suicide belt which he either set off or it was hit by the Alert force. That explosion was the explosion we heard in the Yeshivat Hesder.

Later that day exhausted I rode in the Subaru station wagon of Ron Soloman- an immigrant to Ma'alot from Australia, to Ben Gurion Airport to pick up my in-laws, who had been totally unaware of the drama that occured in Ma'alot until they saw the headlines of the Jerusalem Post; "Terrorist Attack in Ma'alot"

The next very next day, a Sunday-which is the first day of the new week in Israel it was a very unseasonably warm January evening. We had a very nice wedding with our new friends and co-workers that we had made in our short time in Ma'alot.
My parents had not come, so the Atkin's Cyrill and Flora kindly volunteered to stand in for them.
The two "Ashkenazic women" Hanna and Hasiyah, survivors of Aushwitz-Berkinau, who managed the WIZO center and had assisted me during my Army service like two doting Aunts by doing my laundry in the laundry center. They lovingly helped prepare the small hall of the center into a real "wedding hall".(As can be seen in the photos)
I had purchased the flowers and much of the food and decorations but it was

Hanna and Hasiyah's love that made it a real wedding.
My good young neighbor and friend Avi Peasch was the "DJ".

The Hupa was held outside the hall as the evening drew into night. It was an unseasonably warm January and a very pleasnt evening as our friends held candles Rena and I were married by HaRav Kaufman -a young English Rabbi from the all new Kiryat Chinuch religious boarding school and it was "watched over" by HaRav HaRashi of Ma'alot Yoseph Gabai.

As we danced -to the music of the Bee Gees and Saturday Night Fever and enjoyed the good company of our friends Shabbati Alon the commander of the Mishmar Azrachi notified me around 10PM that we would need to head for home since word had come down that there may be more terrorists in the area.

Chanah and Hasiyah had planted a pine tree where our chupa stood but a disease that effected several pine trees in the area killed it and all that remains is the stump.

Thus we began life in our new old home...some 41 years ago.

                                                                     

The Mendaciousness of the "Palestinians"

The word "mendacious" is THE word that best describes the spurious use by the "Palestinians", those "Arabs of the Mandated Areas"  who once overly identified themselves as "Syrians".

The name "Palestine" was given, in what many considered to be a malicious and malevolent manner, by Mark Sykes who was an astute student of Middle Eastern history. However this is may not be true for Sykes also showed interest in the Zionist cause as a way of improving life for the Arabs.

Sykes KNEW of the true meaning of the term "Palestine" from his studies at the Jesuit Beaumont College and Jesus College, Cambridge. He was fully aware of Hadrian's infamous speech in front of the Senate in Rome, where upon announcing the "Pyrrhic Victory" over Shimeon bar Kosiba in 135CE he forbade the mention of Judea. In it's stead referred to the area in the name of the peoples who were the ancient arch enemies of the Jews as mentioned in the Bible as the Philistines.

However that is NOT why Sykes referred to the future Mandated Area as "Palestine" he instigated the use of the term "Palestine" to designate the neutrality of British interests in the area.
So when he relayed to the Bunsen Committtee his findings, he deferred to designate the future British Mandated area as ""Palestine", since it was the wishes of  Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur J. Balfour and the Prime Minister David Lloyd George who held sympathetic, as well as humanitarianism, messianic Protestantism and pro-Zionistic wishes towards the creation of a "Homeland for the Jews".

It is a historical fact that much of the geopolitical drive behind the Balfour Declaration can be traced back to long established British interest in the security of the Suez Canal and communication with India.
Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur J. Balfour and the Prime Minister David Lloyd George believed they could successfully merge humanitarian philo-semitism with pragmatic geopolitics securing a better future for an oppressed people-the Jews of Eastern Europe by backing the new "Zionist movement" of Theodore Hertzl and their own empire simultaneously.
Another major factor was the news of the appallingly horrific pogroms in: Odessa and of Warsaw (1881), Kishinev (1903), Kiev (1905), and Białystok (1906) against the defenseless Jews which was foremost on their minds.

Leopold Amery, an Assistant Secretary of the War Cabinet who was involved in moving Lloyd George’s Eastern policy, once observed how:

“England was the only country where the desire of the Jews to return to their ancient homeland had always been regarded as a natural aspiration which ought not to be denied, if its fulfillment ever fell within the power of British statesmanship."

This is why Balfour and the Prime Minister David Lloyd George were adamant in retaining the area mandated to them in the San Remo Treaty of Serves.

Mark Sykes, who was a prodigy of Lord Kitchner, the Secretary of State for War, remained a purist who shunned democratic progress, instead he vested his energy in an indomitable Arab Spirit. He was a champion of the Levantine tradition, of a mercantile trading empire, finding the progressive modernisation in the West totally unsuited to the desert kingdoms.
Because of his knownledge of the Middle East he was a star member of the Committee, formed by Maurice de Bunsen on the orders of the British government. Sykes became the dominant person on the Committee, and so garnering great influence on British Middle Eastern policy, which came down in favour of long term partnership with the Arabs as opposed to that of Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur J. Balfour and the Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

It was on the suggestion of Mark Sykes that the Bunsen Committee assigned the label of the ancient Roman territory Syria-Palestinia; "in which both belligerents and neutrals are alike interested” in case of the partition or zones of influence options. The Committee defined a British sphere of influence that included "Palestine" while accepting that there were relevant French and Russian, as well as Islamic interests in Jerusalem and the Holy Places. The French sought to secure a Greater Syria and control over Maronite areas in Lebanon.

British attitude in Middle Eastern poloicy was influenced by former Viceroy of India Nathaniel Curzon and Secretary of State for India Edwin Montagu along with several army officers in the Middle East who were not only skeptical but openly hostile to Zionism.  Gertrude Bell, the pro-Arab Foreign Office advisor and Middle Eastern traveller was an advocate of the Arab cause as well as her friends T. E. Lawrence and Sir Percy Cox in the "Arab Bureau", founded by Sykes in Cairo in January of 1916.

During the early years of the conflict in World War I, Britain had made deals with the Russians, Arabs and the French.

There was the "Istanbul /Constantinople" Agreement, which was a secret World War I agreement between Russia, Britain, and France made on March 18th, 1915 for the postwar partition of the Ottoman Empire. It promised to satisfy Russia’s long-standing designs on the Turkish Straits by giving Russia Constantinople (Istanbul), together with a portion of the hinterland on either coast in Thrace and Asia Minor. Constantinople, however, was to be a free port. In return, Russia consented to British and French plans for territories or for spheres of influence in new Muslim states in the Middle Eastern parts of the Ottoman Empire.

This first of a series of secret treaties on the “Turkish question” was never carried out because the Dardanelles campaign failed and because, when the British navy finally did reach Istanbul in 1918, Russia had made a separate peace with Germany and declared itself the enemy of all bourgeois states, France and Britain prominent among them.
The Sykes-Picot and Husayn-MacMahon correspondence (1915–16) clearly pulled in other directions from the Balfour Declaration in its pursuit of geopolitical objectives.

The failure in Gallipoli led to an increased desire on the part of the UK to negotiate a deal with the Arabs and because of this -Emir Faisal bin Hussein was presented with the Damascus Protocol in 1915 by the Arab secret societies al-Fatat and Al-'Ahd which declared the Arabs would revolt in alliance with the United Kingdom and in return the UK would recognize Arab independence in an area running from the 37th parallel near the Taurus Mountains on the southern border of Turkey, to be bounded in the east by Persia and the Persian Gulf, in the west by the Mediterranean Sea and in the south by the Arabian Sea.

During this troubled and difficult time during World War I -ten letters—five from each side—were exchanged between Sir Henry McMahon and Sherif Hussein.

However, in a private letter sent on 4th December 1915 by McMahon to Charles Hardinge, 1st Baron Hardinge of Penshurst,who was a British diplomat and statesman who served as Viceroy and Governor-General of India from 1910 to 1916 and later served as a permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, with Arthur Balfour, halfway through the eight-month period of the correspondence. We can see an inkling of possible machiavellian British duplicity that led to the failure of the 1919 agreement between Emir Feisal and Dr. Weizmann :

[I do not take] the idea of a future strong united independent Arab State ... too seriously ... the conditions of Arabia do not and will not for a very long time to come, lend themselves to such a thing ... I do not for one moment go to the length of imagining that the present negotiations will go far to shape the future form of Arabia or to either establish our rights or to bind our hands in that country. The situation and its elements are much too nebulous for that. What we have to arrive at now is to tempt the Arab people into the right path, detach them from the enemy and bring them on to our side. This on our part is at present largely a matter of words, and to succeed we must use persuasive terms and abstain from academic haggling over conditions – whether about Baghdad or elsewhere.

Sykes agreement with François Georges-Picot, which was intended to be a "temporary arrangement" between two diplomats that sketched out vague ‘zones of interest’ should the Ottoman Empire collapse suddenly, as everyone expected it to do, in 1915.
Sykes believed his agreement with Picot to be a temporary wartime measure by designating areas of likely military occupation and control that would avoid disagreements between Britain and France over their areas of responsibility.

The French for their reasons wanted a sphere in Lebanon and Syria to extend eastward towards the rich oil fields in Mosul of Iraq.
The British on their part also were highly interested in Mesopotamia for the oil of Iraq and the port of Haifa as their sphere of influence. Britain was given control of Haifa and Acre and of territory linking the Mesopotamian and Haifa-Acre spheres. The "rest of Palestine was" to be placed under an international regime.

Over time Sykes came to feel that his "agreement" with Picot gave France a better deal than expected and it bothered him. The Sykes-Picot agreement did not create any firm borders but it left most of the region in Arab hands.

Mark Sykes, championed the "British Interests" and "Pan Arab cooperation" against the Turks, remained in favour of Arab autonomy under British supervision, with some regions fully independent.

There are some items that suggest that Sykes may have had a hand in promoting the Balfour Declaration to the Cabinet. In March of 1919 he had visited Palestine in regard to the tentative agreement made between Emir Feisal, leader of the Arab movement, in Aqaba with Dr. Chaim Weizmann.
Sykes may have been converted to the cause of Zionism at that time due to the provision included in the Balfour Declaration that stated that: "... it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine..." and the feelings of Emir Feisal.
Feisal had written Felix Frankfurter, an associate of Dr. Chaim Weizmann in a lettter dated the 3rd of March 1919;

and I hope the Arabs may soon be in a position to make the Jews some return for their kindness. We are working together for a reformed and revived Near East, and our two movements complete one another. The Jewish movement is national and not imperialist. Our movement is national and not imperialist, and there is room in Syria for us both. Indeed, I think that neither can be a real success without the other. 

At the Versailles Peace Conference, in 1919, a junior diplomat present, Harold Nicolson, wrote in his diary the day after Sykes' death: "...It was due to his endless push and perseverance, to his enthusiasm and faith, that Arab nationalism and Zionism became two of the most successful of our war causes..."