Who was Ernie Pyle?

Ernest Taylor Pyle was born on a tenant farm near Dana, Indiana on August 3, 1900 and he was “KIA"- killed in action on Ie Shima, an island off Okinawa, after being hit by Japanese machine-gun fire on April 18, 1945.  As a 1944 Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist, Ernie Pyle wrote as a roving correspondent for the Scripps Howard newspaper chain from 1935 until his death in combat during World War II. All of his articles were written in a folksy style, much like a personal letter to a friend. His stories were about the out-of-the-way places he visited and the ordinary people who lived there. His various articles were printed in columns in some 300 newspapers.

Pyle became a war correspondent following the entry of the U.S. into World War II, he reported stories from the United States, Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. As a war correspondent Pyle applied his intimate “folksy” style to relate his stories from the “Front”. Pyle strove to write “tales” from the perspective of the common soldier, instead of stories from “behind-the-lines” of movements of armies or the activities of “The Brass”. His literary approach of telling the story from the point of view and in the language of the “common man/soldier GI Joe” won him not only further popularity but also the Pulitzer Prize.  His stories of the GI’s won him their love and affection.

From his time spent in the front lines and in fox holes of the combat soldier, he wrote a column in 1944 urging that soldiers in combat get "fight pay" just as airmen were paid "flight pay." The members of Congress were so pressed by their constituents that they passed legislation, known as "The Ernie Pyle bill" authorizing $10 a month in extra pay for combat infantrymen.

Many now attribute the actual first publicized case of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome to that which Pyle publicly apologized to with his readers in a column on September 5, 1944, for being hospitalized with a “war neurosis”. He stated that he had "lost track of the point of the war" and that he hoped that a rest in his home in New Mexico would restore his vigor to go "war horsing around the Pacific”.

Among his most widely read and reprinted columns is "The Death of Captain Waskow." His wartime writings are preserved in four books: Ernie Pyle In England, Here Is Your War, Brave Men, and Last Chapter.

When Pyle decided to cover events in the Pacific, he admitted that his heart was with the infantrymen in Europe. Pyle’s comments, of the “soft life”, of the sailors of US Navy in comparison to the infantry in Europe, was openly criticized by fellow War correspondents in newspaper editorials, and even by his beloved GI’s for giving apparent short shrift to the difficulties of the war in the Pacific.

On April 18, 1945 Pyle was traveling in a jeep with Lieutenant Colonel Joseph B. Coolidge (commanding officer of the 305th Infantry Regiment, 77th Infantry Division) and three other men. The road they were on ran parallel to the beach two or three hundred yards inland.  As the vehicle reached a road junction, an enemy machine gun located on a coral ridge about a third of a mile away began firing at them. The men stopped their vehicle and jumped into a ditch. Pyle and Coolidge raised their heads to look around for the others; when they spotted them, Pyle smiled and asked Coolidge "Are you all right?" Those were his last words as Pyle was struck in the left temple and was killed instantly.

Pyle was noted for having premonitions of his own death and predicted before landing that he would not be alive a year hence. Though a war correspondent Pyle was among the few American civilians killed during the war to be awarded the Purple Heart.

He was buried with his helmet on, laid to rest in a long row of graves among other soldiers on Ie Shima, with an infantry private on one side and a combat engineer on the other. The remains of Pyle and the other fallen Americans was later reburied at the Army cemetery on Okinawa and then moved to Honolulu in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. After the war, when Okinawa was returned to Japanese control the Ernie Pyle monument was one of only three American memorials allowed to remain in place.

The Death of Captain Waskow

AT THE FRONT LINES IN ITALY, January 10, 1944 – In this war I have known a lot of officers who were loved and respected by the soldiers under them. But never have I crossed the trail of any man as beloved as Capt. Henry T. Waskow of Belton, Texas.

Capt. Waskow was a company commander in the 36th Division. He had led his company since long before it left the States. He was very young, only in his middle twenties, but he carried in him a sincerity and gentleness that made people want to be guided by him.

"After my own father, he came next," a sergeant told me.

"He always looked after us," a soldier said. "He’d go to bat for us every time."

"I’ve never knowed him to do anything unfair," another one said.

I was at the foot of the mule trail the night they brought Capt. Waskow’s body down. The moon was nearly full at the time, and you could see far up the trail, and even part way across the valley below. Soldiers made shadows in the moonlight as they walked.

Dead men had been coming down the mountain all evening, lashed onto the backs of mules. They came lying belly-down across the wooden pack-saddles, their heads hanging down on the left side of the mule, their stiffened legs sticking out awkwardly from the other side, bobbing up and down as the mule walked.

The Italian mule-skinners were afraid to walk beside dead men, so Americans had to lead the mules down that night. Even the Americans were reluctant to unlash and lift off the bodies at the bottom, so an officer had to do it himself, and ask others to help.

The first one came early in the morning. They slid him down from the mule and stood him on his feet for a moment, while they got a new grip. In the half light he might have been merely a sick man standing there, leaning on the others. Then they laid him on the ground in the shadow of the low stone wall alongside the road.

I don’t know who that first one was. You feel small in the presence of dead men, and ashamed at being alive, and you don’t ask silly questions.

We left him there beside the road, that first one, and we all went back into the cowshed and sat on water cans or lay on the straw, waiting for the next batch of mules.

Somebody said the dead soldier had been dead for four days, and then nobody said anything more about it. We talked soldier talk for an hour or more. The dead man lay all alone outside in the shadow of the low stone wall.

Then a soldier came into the cowshed and said there were some more bodies outside. We went out into the road. Four mules stood there, in the moonlight, in the road where the trail came down off the mountain. The soldiers who led them stood there waiting. "This one is Captain Waskow," one of them said quietly.

Two men unlashed his body from the mule and lifted it off and laid it in the shadow beside the low stone wall. Other men took the other bodies off. Finally there were five lying end to end in a long row, alongside the road. You don’t cover up dead men in the combat zone. They just lie there in the shadows until somebody else comes after them.

The unburdened mules moved off to their olive orchard. The men in the road seemed reluctant to leave. They stood around, and gradually one by one I could sense them moving close to Capt. Waskow’s body. Not so much to look, I think, as to say something in finality to him, and to themselves. I stood close by and I could hear.

One soldier came and looked down, and he said out loud, "God damn it." That’s all he said, and then he walked away. Another one came. He said, "God damn it to hell anyway." He looked down for a few last moments, and then he turned and left.

Another man came; I think he was an officer. It was hard to tell officers from men in the half light, for all were bearded and grimy dirty. The man looked down into the dead captain’s face, and then he spoke directly to him, as though he were alive. He said: "I’m sorry, old man."

Then a soldier came and stood beside the officer, and bent over, and he too spoke to his dead captain, not in a whisper but awfully tenderly, and he said:

"I sure am sorry, sir."

Then the first man squatted down, and he reached down and took the dead hand, and he sat there for a full five minutes, holding the dead hand in his own and looking intently into the dead face, and he never uttered a sound all the time he sat there.

And finally he put the hand down, and then reached up and gently straightened the points of the captain’s shirt collar, and then he sort of rearranged the tattered edges of his uniform around the wound. And then he got up and walked away down the road in the moonlight, all alone.

After that the rest of us went back into the cowshed, leaving the five dead men lying in a line, end to end, in the shadow of the low stone wall. We lay down on the straw in the cowshed, and pretty soon we were all asleep.

Epilogue: In his last will and testament, Waskow wrote:

“ God alone knows how I worked and slaved to make myself a worthy leader of these magnificent men, and I feel assured that my work has paid dividends—in personal satisfaction, if nothing else.... I felt so unworthy, at times, of the great trust my country had put in me, that I simply had to keep plugging to satisfy my own self that I was worthy of that trust. I have not, at the time of writing this, done that, and I suppose I never will."

The GI’s Cartoonist of WWII Bill Mauldin by Ernie Pyle

As a cartoonist foe the Stars And Stripes Bill Mauldin may have felt guilty that he was able to get out of combat. So when he drew his cartoons for the front line soldiers who did the actual fighting and dying. Along with the humor he was able to capture the grim and cynical side of the everyday routine of a soldier He incorporated some of the inside jokes of the “you had to be there nature” from their comments from his time spent among them. From his experiences and conclusions from his talks with the average “GI JOE” his cartoons showed an anti-war, anti authoritarian or pessimistic point of view. Though they were drawn for an army newspaper these cartoons were an honest and sympathetic view of the real combat soldier. Mauldin later wrote a book, Up Front, from these encounters were he attempted to explain what the average soldiers on the front line were like and what they were going through.

Ernie Pyle wrote this about Bill Mauldin:

IN ITALY, January 15, 1944 – Sgt. Bill Mauldin appears to us over here to be the finest cartoonist the war has produced. And that’s not merely because his cartoons are funny, but because they are also terribly grim and real.

Mauldin’s cartoons aren’t about training-camp life, which you at home are best acquainted with. They are about the men in the line – the tiny percentage of our vast army who are actually up there in that other world doing the dying. His cartoons are about the war.

Mauldin’s central cartoon character is a soldier, unshaven, unwashed, unsmiling. He looks more like a hobo than like your son. He looks, in fact, exactly like a doughfoot who has been in the lines for two months. And that isn’t pretty.

Mauldin’s cartoons in a way are bitter. His work is so mature that I had pictured him as a man approaching middle age. Yet he is only twenty-two, and he looks even younger. He himself could never have raised the heavy black beard of his cartoon dogface. His whiskers are soft and scant, his nose is upturned good-naturedly, and his eyes have a twinkle.

His maturity comes simply from a native understanding of things, and from being a soldier himself for a long time. He has been in the Army three and a half years.

Bill Mauldin was born in Mountain Park, New Mexico. He now calls Phoenix home base, but we of New Mexico could claim him without much resistance on his part. Bill has drawn ever since he was a child. He always drew pictures of the things he wanted to grow up to be, such as cowboys and soldiers, not realizing that what he really wanted to become was a man who draws pictures. He graduated from high school in Phoenix at seventeen, took a year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago, and at eighteen was in the Army. He did sixty-four days on KP duty in his first four months. That fairly cured him of a lifelong worship of uniforms.

Mauldin belongs to the 45th Division. Their record has been a fine one, and their losses have been heavy. Mauldin’s typical grim cartoon soldier is really a 45th Division infantryman, and he is one who has truly been through the mill.

Mauldin was detached from straight soldier duty after a year in the infantry, and put to work on the division’s weekly paper. His true war cartoons started in Sicily and have continued on through Italy, gradually gaining recognition. Capt. Bob Neville, Stars and Stripes editor, shakes his head with a veteran’s admiration and says of Mauldin: "He’s got it. Already he’s the outstanding cartoonist of the war."

Mauldin works in a cold, dark little studio in the back of Stars and Stripes’ Naples office. He wears silver-rimmed glasses when he works. His eyes used to be good, but he damaged them in his early Army days by drawing for too many hours at night with poor light.

He averages about three days out of ten at the front, then comes back and draws up a large batch of cartoons. If the weather is good he sketches a few details at the front. But the weather is usually lousy.

"You don’t need to sketch details anyhow," he says. "You come back with a picture of misery and cold and danger in your mind and you don’t need any more details than that."

His cartoon in Stars and Stripes is headed "Up Front . . . By Mauldin." The other day some soldier wrote in a nasty letter asking what the hell did Mauldin know about the front.

Stars and Stripes printed the letter. Beneath it in italics they printed a short editor’s note: "Sgt. Bill Mauldin received the Purple Heart for wounds received while serving in Italy with Pvt. Blank’s own regiment."

That’s known as telling ‘em.

Bill Mauldin is a rather quiet fellow, a little above medium size. He smokes and swears a little and talks frankly and pleasantly. He is not eccentric in any way.

Even though he’s just a kid he’s a husband and father. He married in 1942 while in camp in Texas, and his son was born last August 20 while Bill was in Sicily. His wife and child are living in Phoenix now. Bill carries pictures of them in his pocketbook.

Unfortunately for you and Mauldin both, the American public has no opportunity to see his daily drawings. But that isn’t worrying him. He realizes this is his big chance.

After the war he wants to settle again in the Southwest, which he and I love. He wants to go on doing cartoons of these same guys who are now fighting in the Italian hills, except that by then they’ll be in civilian clothes and living as they should be.

Upon Remembering A Lost Chance At Peace

After reading an article in Haaretz by Ephraim Sneh, I am reminded of the times when I ‎sat at Labor party meetings in Tel Aviv after the 1993 Oslo accords when the hopes for a ‎real peace where still alive. At that time we knew that there was a window of opportunity ‎to reach a peaceful solution to the “Palestinian Issue” and Yitzhak Rabin was brave and ‎understanding enough to attempt it. His vision was one of a peace built on the ‎understanding that a step must be made to advert continuous bloodshed and to give hope ‎to both our peoples.‎

"We can continue to fight. We can continue to kill – and continue to be killed. But we can ‎also try to put a stop to this never-ending cycle of blood. We can also give peace a ‎chance. We also promise that the non-Jewish citizens of Israel – Muslim, Christian, ‎Druze and others – will enjoy full personal, religious, and civil rights, like those of any ‎Israeli citizen. Judaism and racism are diametrically opposed.
‎...We view the permanent solution in the framework of the State of Israel, which will ‎include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British ‎Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity, which will be a home to most of the ‎Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank…We would like this to ‎be an entity which is less than a state, and which will, independently, run the lives of the ‎Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent ‎solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not ‎return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

‎

Yitzhak, as was in the case of most the Labor Party and it's members were against,“…the ‎establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria...” by those of the religious movements and their Likud associates who aspired to ‎the revisionist policy of the Greater Israel. ‎

It must be clearly stated here that ALL of Israel was created by re-settlement and yes the ‎pre-state settlement policy was similar in many cases. And it is true fact that ANY Jewish ‎presence in the “Palestinian Mandated Areas” was cause for Arab resentment and acts of ‎violence for over 100 years. The influx of Jewish refugees from Europe in Holocaust era ‎and most particularly that of the 900,000 displaced Jews of Arab lands, has fanned the ‎fires of hatred in the Arab world.
 ‎
What is ignored in all this debate is the fact that the disputed area of Judea and Samaria ‎was once part of the “Palestinian Mandated Area” allocated to the still born “Palestinian ‎State of 1947 whose leaders created the tragedy of the “Nachba” or Debacle. It was only ‎after it’s capture and occupation by Jordan from 1947 to 1967 that the area was termed ‎the “West Bank”.‎ And it was only after the defeat and withdrawal of the Jordanian Occupation forces that the Arab residents of the "West Bank" begin to consider themselves different as "Palestinians".

The brazen acts of many members of the “Settler” movement policy of “In your Face” or ‎‎“this was ours and will always be” heavy handed settlement policy in most cases did not ‎instill good neighborly relationships. It was and in many cases still is, the total lack of tact; by many of these New ‎Immigrant ‎settlers to the “West Bank”- the historical heartland of Judea and Shomron ‎whom ‎attributed to the rising Arab animosity and inspired the local “West Bank” ‎population to ‎rise up in the “Intifada. The brashness, defiance of any authority and superiority complex ‎of these Settlers who had no prior knowledge of the orient have made life unbearable to ‎most secular Israeli’s. ‎
The Arabs on the other hand have not been the perfect angels either. They have reacted ‎with some of the most heinous and revolting barbarous acts of violence.‎

Yes Israel should be able to create land swaps with the Palestinians as was proposed in ‎the Oslo Accords and to turn over some intensely Arab populated areas, such as Wadi ‎Ara and in compromise receive Rabin’s envisioned plan for the future border between ‎Israel and the new “Palestinian State” “...Changes which will include the addition of ‎Gush Etzion, Efrat, Beitar, and other communities, most of which are in the area east of ‎what was the "Green Line," prior to the Six Day War.‎"

Knowing Yitzhak personally through my meetings with him in the framework of the ‎Labor Party, as assistant local party secretary and as a backer of his, I knew of the deep ‎personal commitment he had to the people of Israel. Many of Rabin’s detractors ‎conveniently forget or choose to ignore the fact that Yitzhak was not naïve. He was born ‎in Jerusalem; to a Russian Born mother Rosa Cohen and an American father Nehemiah ‎Rabin, who was a veteran of the “Jewish Legion”- the 39th Royal Fusilier unit that helped ‎liberate Eretz Yisrael from the Ottoman Turks. As someone born in Jerusalem Rabin ‎knew the importance of Jerusalem

".‎..First and foremost, united Jerusalem – which will include both Ma'ale Adumim and ‎Givat Ze'ev – as the capital of Israel, under Israeli sovereignty, while preserving the ‎rights of the members of the other faiths, Christianity and Islam, to freedom of access and ‎freedom of worship in their holy places, according to the customs of their faiths."‎

As a Sabra and a Jew growing up during the 1930’s in the “Palestinian Mandate” he was ‎well aware of the growing Arab hatred of the Jews lead by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, ‎Amin al Husseini. He experienced first hand the murderous attacks upon innocent Jewish ‎residents by Arab “Marruaders” specifically during the "Arab revolt" in Palestine, which ‎took place between 1935-6 and 1939. Rabin knew fully well the difference between the ‎Moslem and Christian Arab mentality. ‎

"The primary obstacle today, to implementing the peace process between us and the ‎Palestinians, is the murderous terrorism of the radical Islamic terrorist organizations, ‎Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are joined by the rejectionist organizations…We are ‎also repeating our demand that the Palestinian Authority fulfill its obligation, in ‎accordance with the agreements that we have signed with it, ..to intensify its actions ‎against the murderers and enemies of peace in the area under its control…"

Rabin had been raised in a pre-state culture of the Hagannah and the Palmach and he was ‎well aware of the price for Israel’s birth. These pre-state Sabras gained unique toughness ‎and a resilience from their clashes in defiance of the British rule. The oppressive ‎Imperialist British occupation force imposed upon the Jews of Palestine restrictions and ‎hardships in deference to the Arabs. These restrictions on weapons for defense forced the ‎Jews to use their wits to combat their Arab enemies.‎

Bravery in the face of death was known to Rabin as it is by all of us who have been in ‎combat. The famous term –“with you backs to the wall” is part and parcel of the ‎Israeli/Jewish mystic. Our knowledge of this term in Israel and as Jews is far greater. We hear ‎it constantly in the hysterical chants of the Islamists in all of the Arab countries that surround us who cry for our blood almost daily as ‎they cry to “Drive them into the Sea” or "Death to the Jews". As Israelis we know the truth of genocide when we ‎stand in reverence on Holocaust Remembrance Day in memory of SIX million ‎coreligionists who were murdered in cold blood simply because they were Jews and that there was no homeland to go to. The Arabs under the Grand Mufti made sure that the British kept the doors of the promised "Homeland Of the Jews" closed.

Yitzhak bore his sadness at the full knowledge of the cost that his soldiers under his ‎command paid for the establishment and continuation of the Jewish people in our ‎homeland inside of him. At a ceremony for the fallen soldiers I once noticed his deep ‎personal pain in his eyes, the quote often used 'Ut imago EST animi voltus sic indices ‎oculi'-"The eyes are the window to the soul" best describes what I saw that day in his ‎face.‎

In a conversation that we once had at the party offices on HaYarkon Street before his re-‎election to become head of the party and his subsequential election as PM, I told him ‎about the 26th president of US Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919) and I mentioned to ‎him two of my favorite quotes of Teddy’s from his Speech in Chicago, 3 Apr. 1903; ‎‎"The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything" and ‎in reference to speaking with Arafat and the PLO I recommended to him; "Speak softly ‎and carry a big stick; you will go far.".‎

We are also repeating our demand that the Palestinian Authority fulfill its obligation, in ‎accordance with the agreements that we have signed with it, ..to intensify its actions ‎against the murderers and enemies of peace in the area under its control…

Being a smoker is odious habit yet it allowed me to share many cigarettes together with ‎him in close conversation. Our times spent together were exceedingly short, with the ‎exception of a long conversation that I had the rare privilege of experiencing prior to a ‎meeting he had in the Birmingham JCC in 1983. His warmth, his honesty and ‎humbleness were exceptional for a man of his stature. On a personal basis one of my ‎greatest regrets is that I did not accept his invitation to be in Tel Aviv that fateful night.‎

If Yitzhak had not been murdered by assassin “the little man” Yigal Amir there would ‎have been a solution to the conflict. Yitzhak knew the Arabs, like Yigal Allon and ‎Alexander Zaid did and he knew how to pin Arafat down and make him understand. (In ‎the fashion of the original settlers of Eretz Yisrael) ‎

..From the depths of our heart, we call upon all citizens of the State of Israel, certainly ‎those who live in Judea, Samaria, ..., as well as the Palestinian ‎residents, to give the establishment of peace a chance, to give the end of acts of hostility a ‎chance, to give another life a chance, a new life. We appeal to Jews and Palestinians ‎alike to act with restraint, to preserve human dignity, to behave in a fitting manner – and ‎to live in peace and security.
..We are embarking upon a new path, which could lead us to an era of peace, to the end ‎of wars. "That is our prayer. That is our hope

It is too bad that dreams do not come true except in fairy tales. Where have all the real ‎brave leaders gone? The post Oslo scandalous and nefarious actions of the “Leader” of the Palestinians, ‎Yasser Arafat, destroyed the future of not only his own people but will cost the lives of many future ‎innocent Israelis and Palestinians.‎

A Modest Proposal

A glooming peace this morning with it brings;‎
The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:‎
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;‎
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:‎
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.‎
Shakespeare "Romeo And Juliet" Act V, Scene III‎

I propose a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict/ problem based on the ‎‎‎Marshal Plan used in post WWII Europe and the creation of a Confederation between the ‎‎‎Palestinian controlled areas of the “West Bank” and Jordan as it was during the Period of ‎‎‎‎1948 -1967. Though painful this plan is to the Arab side it is the right and only ‎‎humanitarian solution ‎to end the conflict. The reactionary Arab’s constant refusal to ‎‎accept the State of Israel as ‎a Jewish state an entity in the Middle East is a forgone ‎‎conclusion and for the long ‎suffering of the Palestinian refugees there should be a ‎‎resolution as predetermined in ‎UNR194 Article 9 to absorb them as Israel did for the ‎‎Jews that were made refugees in ‎post WWII Europe and from the Arab countries of the ‎‎Middle East.‎

‎UNR194 Article 9:‎

"Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their ‎‎‎neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that ‎‎‎compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for ‎loss ‎‎of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, ‎should ‎‎be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible."‎ ‎

My proposal is based on that put forward in the late 1930’s, by US President ‎‎Franklin D ‎Roosevelt, on the absorption and resettlement of the stateless and homeless ‎‎Palestinian ‎refugees just as Israel did for the Jewish refugees. All six Arab countries that ‎‎were then ‎represented at the UN and voted against UNR194; Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, ‎‎Saudi Arabia, ‎Syria and Yemen, and were active participants to the conflict in ‎question.‎Should lead the ‎way in resolving the issue by each absorbing the Palestinians as ‎fellow ‎citizens as ‎stipulated in UNR194 Article 9.‎
‎The plan encompasses a two step solution.‎ ‎‎

‎Step One‎:
Those Palestinian refugees within the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza ‎‎‎Strip should be offered a comprehensive resettlement and financial package in return for ‎‎‎a long term peace based on a total cessation of conflict and a forgoing of their “right of ‎‎‎return”.‎
‎Step Two:‎
As to the Palestinians that have lived in squalid stateless refugee camps throughout the ‎‎‎region, in those states that have confined them there, should be allowed two choices. ‎‎‎Either to stay and be absorbed into their adoptive countries as full citizens or they should ‎‎‎be allowed free passage to “return” to the lands of the Palestinian Authority. If they do so ‎‎‎chose this option they should be included in the comprehensive resettlement and financial ‎‎‎package.

Those adoptive countries which welcome the refugees as full citizens should be enticed ‎‎‎to do so with incentives and financial compensation. Those Arab countries that refuse ‎‎‎should be severe penalized and should face punitive actions.

As to the Jewish settlers on the West Bank they should be offered the choice to become ‎‎‎‎“law-abiding” citizens of the Palestinian State or withdrawal. The same will be said for ‎‎‎Arab citizens of Israel who wish to leave Israeli territory.

Mutual assistance in the re-education of the population from that of war, religious ‎‎‎intolerance and terror must be encouraged. Should one of the countries in the region fail ‎‎‎to comply to the re-education and to co-existence in peace than that body should face ‎‎‎world wide condemnation, boycott and cessation of all assistance.‎

Additionally any state which threatens the existence of another state or should propose ‎‎‎genocide should be met with the fullest enforcement of the entire UN body under ‎‎Article ‎‎2 of the UN Charter with a total economic embargo and if ‎‎necessitated by a full scale ‎military operation of all parties concerned for world peace.‎

Additionally a proposal should be made to the Egyptians to forgive her national debt in ‎‎‎return for a ceding of parts of northern Sinai to the Palestinian Authority or for the ‎‎‎resettlement of stateless Palestinians wishing for land to live on there.‎
The same could be said for the resettlement of Palestinians in the sparsely inhabited ‎‎‎eastern regions of Jordan. In order to make this decision feasible than those Arab ‎‎‎countries willing to participate should adopt Israel’s Development Town settlement plan ‎‎‎used in it’s resettlement of the displaced Jews in the 1950’s. This plan based on collective ‎‎‎farming villages inhabited by those Palestinians who have farming skills, will be given ‎‎‎assistance to build homes as well as basic essentials to begin their farms. ‎

Needless to say that those who accept the resettlement plan will be given title “Tabo” to ‎the land and full citizenship. Those ‎‎Palestinian refugees with small business skills and ‎occupations who wish to resettle in the ‎‎‎“Development Towns” of these areas will be ‎given apartments and financial aid to begin ‎‎small businesses as well as long term loans.
What was the Source for my plan.‎

My plan is not new nor was it never contemplated before. The thirty-second President of ‎‎‎the United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who held this office for an ‎‎‎unprecedented thirteen years until his death in 1945 also put forth a similar plan ‎‎‎BEFORE the decision for Partition of the Mandate was made in November of 1947.‎
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 advisor ‎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 ‎plentitude 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 pay 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."‎

Oliphant sent a reply to Lindsay saying that the British ‎government would not even ‎‎contemplate such an idea, and it would be “thoroughly ‎unjust” to compel the Arabs to ‎‎transfer from Palestine “to make room for immigrants ‎‎[Jews] of a totally different race ‎‎who have had no connection with it [Palestine] for at ‎least 2,000 years.” He also brought, ‎‎in his words, the “fallacy” which Roosevelt was ‎using to try and solve the Palestine ‎‎problem.‎‎‎

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.”‎ But in truth the "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 British Ambassador 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.”‎

‎What is not mentioned here in all of this discussion and debate is the background of the ‎‎rise of Nazi Germany occurring during the years 1933 -1938. During this period the 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.‎

Until the Wannassee 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 was fearful 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. ‎His Majesty's ‎Government realized that they would be ‎accused of “unjustly trying to ‎force a long-established community ‎to leave its country in ‎order to make room for ‎immigrants of a race which has, in great ‎part, not lived in ‎Palestine for many ‎centuries.” 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, “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 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 ‎Wannassee ‎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. ‎

Karski’s testimony of this conference, with Roosevelt, Frankfurter and Wise was ‎recorded with a theatrical fervor that embodied the shock and the moral challenge that ‎presented Frankfurter with the human inability to "conceive the unconceivable" when ‎told of the methodical extermination of the Jewish people and to recognize what Karski ‎calls ' the unprecedented' extent of the genocide, in an interview titled "The Karski ‎Report” for the 1978 documentary film "Shoah" - "Holocaust", by Claude Lanzmann ‎

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. After telling Roosevelt of their ‎‎‎difficulties regarding Palestine, Stettinius wrote in his diary, that Roosevelt felt confident ‎‎‎that he would be able to “iron out” the whole Arab-Jewish issue. “He thinks Palestine ‎‎‎should be for the Jews and no Arabs should be in it”, continued Stettinius, “and he has ‎‎‎definite ideas on the subject. It should be exclusive Jewish territory.”‎‎ ‎

Roosevelt developed his ideas for the transfer of the Arabs from Palestine during the last ‎‎‎six or seven years of his life through his insight on the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany. ‎‎Some believe that Roosevelt's views had become more extreme as time progressed as he ‎heard from State Department ‎officials and Military Intelligence reports of the events ‎happening in Eastern Europe ‎against the Jews.‎Originally recommending the transfer of ‎two hundred thousand Arabs, he eventually ‎‎stated unequivocally that “Palestine should ‎be for the Jews and no Arabs should be in it.” ‎

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 ‎‎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 .

The Jewish people wherever they are aspire for peace. For over two thousand years, our ‎‎people ‎have known discrimination, bigotry, death and destruction with no place to run ‎to.The chief American Zionist leaders at that terrible time Louis Brandeis, Felix ‎Frankfurter ‎and Henry ‎Morgenthau knew that the fate of millions of Jews were at stake. ‎But the ‎world’s apathy and closed doors and most importantly Arab hatred epitomized by ‎the ‎Grand Mufti of “Palestine” Haj Amin Al-Husseini lead to the death of SIX million ‎‎innocent Jewish lives.‎

No thinking intelligent ‎individual whether he be Jew or Gentile desires the horrors of ‎‎death and destruction ‎caused by war and terrorism. Tolerance and the willingness to sit ‎‎down with one’s former ‎arch enemy for the sake of peace initiated by the late Itzhak ‎‎Rabin z”l who gave his life ‎in an attempt to bring peace to the Middle East calumniated ‎‎in the 1993 ‘Oslo Accords’. ‎The quest for peace during the past decade was the keystone ‎‎of the administrations of ‎former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and even Arik Sharon.‎

However at every instance the Palestinians have opted for more and more violence.‎

The tremendous desire for a true peace and an end to the cycle of violence between our ‎‎‎two peoples has led Israel to make endless and painful concessions to the Arabs with NOTHING in return.We Israeli’s ‎‎‎have evacuated the Sinai and it’s settlements for Peace with Egypt. We also “disengaged” ‎‎‎from the Gaza Strip, a step which severely traumatized parts of our people, for no ‎‎‎concessions in return other than that the Palestinian people acknowledge our right to ‎‎‎exist. It is sadly regrettable that the Palestinian people have continued to react to the ‎‎‎Israeli concessions with over 12,000 rockets and mortar rounds. ‎

Recently, the Palestinian Authority's ambassador to the US publicly said. "No Jews should ‎‎‎be allowed to live in" any part of a future Palestinian state. If ‎he had said "no Israelis," that would be one thing; however, he excludes all Jews ‎‎‎‎(presumably even the handful of ultra-orthodox Neturai Karta who are anti-Zionist), and ‎thereby reveals ‎‎the full truth behind the conflict.‎

The keystone of the new Hamas led Palestinian Government is the denial of the ‘Oslo ‎‎‎Accords’and the Iranian policy of the total extermination of the State of Israel and of the Jews within. Their ‎‎‎leaders make endless speeches of hatred and there is a total lack of the teaching of ‎‎‎tolerant and peace among their youth.‎

Moderate and “Educated” Arabs as well as those Arab countries who wish to live in a “Just and ‎‎‎Lasting “ Peace for the Middle East, need to prove to the Jews of Israel their willingness to enter ‎‎‎a new “Golden Age”. All hatred and death must stop now.‎‎

Epilogue:‎

Following the First World War, Emir Feisal, son of Sherif Hussein (Husayn) of Mecca, ‎and the leader of the Arab movement, met in Aqaba with Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the head ‎of the Zionist Commission to Palestine. Later, at the Paris Peace Conference, the two ‎negotiated and signed an agreement, which spoke of full cooperation in the development ‎of the independent Arab state in present-day Syria and Iraq (as promised by the British to ‎Feisal) and the Jewish home in Palestine (from the Balfour Declaration), and encouraging ‎‎"the immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale". The agreement was not carried ‎out, mostly due to the change in Allied policy regarding the Arab State which Feisal had ‎planned to establish. ‎

The two defining articles of the agreement were:‎

Article I ‎:
The Arab State and "Palestine" (Note: Feisal is referring here to the Jewish State) in all their relations and ‎undertakings shall be controlled by the most cordial goodwill and understanding and to ‎this end Arab and Jewish duly accredited agents shall be established and maintained in ‎the respective territories.
 ‎
Article IV:
All necessary measures shall be taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews ‎into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants ‎upon the land through closer settlement and intensive cultivation of the soil. In taking ‎such measures the Arab peasant and tenant farmers shall be protected in their rights and ‎shall be assisted in forwarding their economic development. ‎

Also during the peace conference following World War I, the Emir Feisal exchanged ‎letters with Justice Felix Frankfurter, professing his support for Zionist aims. In the light ‎of later history and the current characterization of the Zionist movement, it is significant ‎that Feisal wrote: ‎

‎“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.”‎

‎“People less informed and less responsible than our leaders and yours, ignoring the need ‎for co-operation of the Arabs and Zionists have been trying to exploit the local difficulties ‎that must necessarily arise in Palestine in the early stages of our movements. Some of ‎them have, I am afraid, misrepresented your aims to the Arab peasantry, and our aims to ‎the Jewish peasantry, with the result that interested parties have been able to make ‎capital out of what they call our differences.” ‎

These promises above are forgotten by today’s “Moderate” Palestinians Sari Nusseibeh ‎recently wrote: “The Israeli government's current mantra is that the Palestinians must ‎recognize a "Jewish State".”‎

‎"[The] Jewish State is the state of the Jewish people … it is a state in which every Jew ‎has the right to return …” former president of the Supreme Court of Israel, Aharon Barak

Palestine

‎In all actuality the word Palestine or “Phlistine” comes from Hebrew ‎פְלִשְׁתִּים‎, p'lishtim,which literally means "invaders",was meant to indicate that the Philistines, those who settled the coastal area of Gaza and Ashkleon  were a sea ‎people from the isles of Greece who had invaded the Eastern Mediterranean. The only time this "Palestine" or  "Falestine" as in (False / Lie) existed was during the reign of the Roman Empire in 70 AD after the destruction of the ‎Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and in order to show their total victory and conquest of ‎Judea and Israel. Throughout history there never was a country called "Palestine". There was for a period of time a Roman Provence called Palaestina -Latin term for the Roman province Syria Palaestina,the Byzantine Palaestina Prima and the Umayyad and Abbasid province of Jund Filastin.

During the negotiations of the Versailles peace agreement, the the Ottoman Turkish Empire was divided by the preconceived lines drawn up in the Sykes–Picot Agreement that was concluded on 16 May 1916. When called upon to administer the area for the League of Nations the British recalling the long lost glory of the Roman Empire out of their obsession for "greatness and grandeur", called the area conquered from the Ottoman Turkish Empire in World War I the "Mandated Area for Palestine" -which included today's Kingdom of Jordan in memory of the term used by the Romans (Arabic: Filastin, Greek: Palaistine; Latin: Palaestina) It is a recorded historical fact that the "Arabs of the Mandated Area" refused to be identified as "Palestinians" while the Jewish population had embraced it. It was not until the aftermath of Israeli liberation of the Jordanian Occupied area of Judea and Shomron in 1967.

“Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Falestinian?”‎ ‎“We did not particularly mind Jordanian rule. The teaching of the destruction of Israel was a ‎definite part of the curriculum, but we considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to ‎Jerusalem. Then all of the sudden we were Falestinians - they removed the star from the ‎Jordanian flag and all at once we had a Falestinian flag”.‎ Walid Shoebat

The Arabs only began to "Identify" themselves as "Falestinians" after 1967 in their KGB orchestrated mis-information campaign to delegitimatize Israel. Võ Nguyên Giáp, a General in the Vietnam People's Army and a politician; “Stop talking about annihilating Israel and instead turn your terror war into a struggle for human rights. Then you will have the American people eating out of your hand.”

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means ‎for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today ‎there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for ‎political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian ‎people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct ‎Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.‎ For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise ‎claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, ‎Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, ‎we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."‎ -Zahir Mohsen- Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member

A direct outcome of the speeches by “Presidente” Mahmoud Abbas of the “Palestinian ‎Authority” and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UN has been the talk of ‎will negotiations begin, yes or no.The major issue that will be discussed at the UN over the next few days is the “Not If” ‎but “When” the UN will grant recognition to the “State Of Palestine”. ‎

The acceptance of this one-sided recognition, of what was granted previously to the ‎‎“Arabs of the Mandated Territory”, in 1947 but was never accepted and initialized by ‎them. Is sure to be accepted since the 22 already existing Moslem Arabic countries and ‎there third world “lackeys” already outnumber the one lone “Jewish State”. ‎

Abba Eban, the father of Israeli statesmanship, former foreign minister and ambassador ‎to the United States and United Nations once stated: "Lest Arab governments be tempted ‎out of sheer routine to rush into impulsive rejection, let me suggest that tragedy is not ‎what men suffer but what they miss.” This quote of his was misquoted and it has been ‎used to distinguish the Palestinian ineptitude to settle for peace with Israel time and time ‎again as the; "Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."‎

When I “Googled” the simple question: ‎‎“Why did the “Palestinians” fail to create a state in 1947”‎‎ ‎
My question was immediately changed from one of blame on the Arabs themselves to a ‎query that lays the blame on others! ‎
I got;‎‎ ‎
‎“Why did the UN fail in its plan to create a Palestinian State in the late 1940s?”‎
Very interesting indeed, isn't it? ‎Why does my simple question which asks;‎
‎“Why did the “Arabs of the Mandated Area fail to immediately establish a “Palestinian ‎State” with the passage of UNR181?‎

Suddenly and miraculously becomes changed by Google into blame for failure on the ‎UN?‎
If you look at the partition map, on the left, and the full "Mandated Area" map on the right, you can see that the Arabs by far received the larger part of the Mandated Territory than the Jews in UNR181? It begs to differ? So why didn’t “The Arabs ‎of the Mandated Areas” proclaim the “State Of Palestine” there and then?‎

The Jews who received the smaller and widely dispersed part did not hesitate they ‎established the “State Of Israel” on May 15, 1948.‎

Let us first look at the source of the term “Palestine”?‎
The word "Palestine" was first used by the Romans to signify the destruction of the ‎Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and in order to show their total victory and conquest of ‎Judea and Israel. The war against the Jews had been so costly in Roman lives and money ‎that Vespasian the Roman Emperor had stolen the wealth of the Temple to build the Coliseum ‎in Rome and the “Grand Arch of Victory” that is in his name. As you may see, in the following picture of the inner part of the ‎arch, that image of this looting of the Temple still exists! The Romans who had changed the name from Judea to Syria-Palestina used the word to ‎describe a conquered ‎region never a nation nor a country!‎
‎

The Roman coins of the era labeled “Judaea Capta” were a series of commemorative ‎coins originally issued by the Roman Emperor Vespasian to celebrate the capture of ‎Judaea and the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem by his son Titus in 70 AD ‎during the First Jewish Revolt.

The word "Palestine/filistin" is not even a word in Arabic. Ask any scholar of ‎lingquistics how do you say "Palestinians" in Arabic? Since the letter "P" doesn't even ‎exist in Arabic! There isn't a word called Palestine in Arabic they pronounce it ‎‎"(B)alestine" or "(F)alistine".
In all actuality the word Palestine or “Phlistine” comes from Hebrew ‎פְלִשְׁתִּים‎, p'lishtim,which literally means "invaders",was meant to indicate that the Philistines were a sea ‎people who had invaded the Eastern Mediterranean. Archaeological digs in the area of ‎Gaza and near Ashdod and Ashkelon in Israel indicate that the Philistines were part of the‎ Minoan civilization from the island of Crete in Greece and not- Moslem ‎Arabs!! The Mycenaean civilization flourished during the period roughly between 1600 BC, ‎when Helladic culture in mainland Greece was transformed under influences from ‎Minoan Crete, and 1100 BC, when it perished with the collapse of Bronze-Age ‎civilization in the eastern Mediterranean

The eruption of Thera, also referred to as Santorini eruption, was a major ‎catastrophic volcanic eruption which is estimated to have occurred in the mid second ‎millennium around 1700BCE. The eruption was one of the largest volcanic events on ‎Earth in recorded history. The eruption devastated the Minoan civilization on the island ‎of Thera (also called Santorini), including the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri, as well as ‎communities and agricultural areas on nearby islands and on the coast of Crete.‎

‎“Originally of Greek Mycenaean origin, the Philistines, along with other "Sea Peoples," ‎swept across the lands of the eastern Mediterranean shortly after 1200 B.C., displacing ‎the previous inhabitants and carving out their own territory in southern Palestine. We ‎know that they came from the Aegean area because their pottery is closely related to ‎Mycenaean pottery produced during the Late Bronze Age in mainland Greece and the ‎Greek islands. During the earliest period of their occupation of Palestine, the Philistines ‎used local clays to produce a monochrome pottery, decorated with either red or black ‎paint, that is very similar to the Mycenaean pottery of the Aegean.”‎ (*)

After the victory of the British army over the Turks the British began to use the term ‎Palestine as the name for the captured region so as not to show preference either to Jew ‎or Arab. In the context of the "White Paper issued by Mr. Churchill, the Colonial ‎Secretary," stated that "the nationality to be acquired of all citizens of Palestine, whether ‎Jews or non-Jews, whether for purposes of internal law or international status, would be ‎Palestinian and nothing else...."‎

During the Gulf War, the Observer published a photograph of the assembled delegates at the 1921 Cairo Conference, which redrew the map of the Middle East after the First World War. This conference, amongst other things, created Iraq and installed Faisal as its head of state. The author of the accompanying article, Lawrence Marks, wrote of the delegates: "They had been summoned by Winston Churchill to put the finishing touches on the carve-up of the collapsed Ottoman Empire. Their faces shine with imperial confidence…Behind [Churchill and Percy Cox] stand T.E. Lawrence (who had complained of acute boredom) and Gertrude Bell (in rampant flowered hat and fur stole), two of the free-booting scholars the British Government had mobilized to advise on Middle Eastern policy.

The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.; XI:93; 1989) indicates that the earliest known ‎literary citation for the term "Palestinian" is in the “Old Testament Apocrypha” which ‎refers "books...not contained in the Jewish or Palestinian Canon, i.e., in the Hebrew ‎Bible" (II:181). There is mention of "Palestinian biblical kings" in the article Palestine in ‎the 11th edition of Encyclopedia Britannica (1910-11), older references usually apply to ‎cultural objects and in the article entitled “Palestine” in the 13th edition (1926). This ‎article had the first specific reference in Encyclopedia Britannica to Palestinians (Jews ‎and non-Jews) as a distinct group (III:22). It cites a A section on the new territory's ‎Constitution also referred to an advisory council "consisting of 10 British officials and 10 ‎Palestinians.‎

Now let us look at this idea of the “Palestinian State” and from whence it began.‎

On November 29th, 1947 at Lake Success the “United Nations” which was the post World ‎War II answer to the defunct “League Of Nations” took action to redress the issue of the ‎plight of Jewish refugees especially after the magnitude of the Holocaust became known. ‎These homeless refugees survivors of the horrors of the NAZI regime’s intricate and ‎detailed plan to exterminate world Jewry, as laid out in the Wannssee Conference of ‎January 1942, had no “Homeland” to return to. These refugees who were sailing towards ‎the one place in the world where they believed they could go and live without persecution ‎were blocked by the ships of the Royal Navy who intercepted these stateless Jewish ‎refugees en route to Palestine after the war and either returned them to Europe or interned ‎them in Cyprus. The British authorities in Whitehall, who had done nothing to alleviate ‎the plight of the Jews seeking refuge in Palestine at their greatest moment of peril briefly ‎glanced and opened it’s eyes. The British realizing that their actions were causing ‎difficulties turned to the new world council of the UN.‎

The Arabs as a whole as then and until today still see the Holocaust, solely as a barbaric ‎event on European soil for which the innocent Palestinians were made to pay. Their ‎vision of the time was that the flotsam and jetsam of surviving European Jewry was being ‎imposed on the Arabs of Palestine unfairly. The Arabs belief is if the Europeans felt guilt ‎about their Jews, than they should have assumed the burden of accepting Jewish refugees, ‎rather than imposing them on the indigenous Arabs and calling for the establishment of a Jewish state, if even in only part of Mandated Palestine.‎

‎[Grand Mufti Of "Palestine" Haj Amin Al-Husseini] - "The Mufti" was one of the ‎initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator ‎and adviser of Eichmann and Himmler in the execution of this plan... He was one of ‎Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination ‎measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas ‎chambers of Auschwitz." --- Testimony Of Deiter Wisliceny At The Nuremberg Trials in ‎July 1946.‎

The Grand Mufti Haj Amin el Husseini arrived in Europe in 1941 following the ‎unsuccessful pro-Nazi coup which he organized in Iraq. He met German foreign minister ‎Joachim von Ribbentrop and was officially received by Adolf Hitler on November ‎‎28,1941 in Berlin. Nazi Germany established for der Grossmufti von Jerusalem a Bureau ‎from which he organized the following: 1) radio propaganda on behalf of Nazi Germany; ‎‎2) espionage and fifth column activities in Muslim regions of Europe and the Middle ‎East; 3) the formation of Muslim Waffen SS and Wehrmacht units in Bosnia-‎Hercegovina, Kosovo-Metohija, Western Macedonia, North Africa, and Nazi-occupied ‎areas of the Soviet Union; and, 4) the formation of schools and training centers for ‎Muslim imams and mullahs who would accompany the Muslim SS and Wehrmacht units. ‎As soon as he arrived in Europe, the Mufti established close contacts with Bosnian ‎Muslim and Albanian Muslim leaders. He would spend the remainder of the war ‎organizing and rallying Muslims in support of Nazi Germany.

The Grand Mufti el-Husseini was venerated as a respected educator and leader hero by ‎Yasser Arafat and the PLO. It should be noted, that Faisal Abdel Qader Al-Husseini (July ‎‎17, ‎‎1940–May 31, 2001) who was once ‎the PLO's top figure in east Jerusalem. Was the ‎son of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, commander ‎of local Arab forces who was killed during ‎hand-to-hand fighting for control of Kastel Hill on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road, on 8 ‎April 1948 during the siege of Jerusalem. Faisal Abdel Qader Al-Hussein was born in ‎Baghdad Iraq and he was the grandnephew of the Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el-‎Husseini, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
‎
The members of the UN had been aware that their inheritance of the “Mandate for ‎Palestine” from the League Of Nations was a issue of grave proportions. Great Britain, ‎though nearly bankrupt from the cost of World War II, held steadfastly to their rapidly ‎shrinking post war Empire. The British government feared the loss of the “Mandate” if ‎they sided with the Jews for fear of upsetting the petroleum imports and their increasing ‎exportation of goods and services to Arab countries. During this period the British and ‎their government had turned a blind eye to the suffering of the Jews as they, at the same ‎time, distanced themselves from their promises made by Lord Balfour in 1917.
‎
The British were in dire need of the immense revenues to be had through the oil pumped ‎from the British Petroleum oil fields in Iraq through the Trans Arabian Pipeline to the ‎refineries that they built in Haifa. They supposedly tried to work out an agreement ‎acceptable to both Arabs and Jews. However the British promises to the Arabs ‎guaranteed failure because the Arabs would not make any concessions. The British ‎realizing that their anti Jewish immigration policy stemming from the Peel Commission ‎report of 1937 and the White Paper of 1939 was causing immense criticism subsequently ‎turned the issue over to the UN in February 1947 in the belief that this would defuse the ‎issue and they would receive the continuation of the Mandate.‎

The UN established a Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) which was sent to the ‎area to devise a solution and found that the Jews of the “Yishuv”(the settlements”), both ‎old and new immigrants, were imbued with the sense of right and were prepared to plead ‎their case for a homeland in “Eretz Yisrael” before any unbiased tribunal. On the other ‎hand the Arabs remained divided between the followers of the Grand Mufti and the other ‎leading clans in the area. These “Arabs of the Mandated Area” were too divided along ‎tribal and clan relations, from neighboring Arab countries, to form a central leadership. ‎

‎"Palestine was part of the Province of Syria [...] politically, the Arabs of Palestine were ‎not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity."‎
‎(Representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations in a statement to ‎General Assembly in May 1947.

Arab demonstration, Jerusalem, 1919/1920. The banner on the left reads "We resist Jewish immigration", the banner on the right reads "Palestine is part of Syria".

One of the biggest issues as reflected in today’s “Palestinian” refugee status is that many ‎of these “Native” Arabs were not really “Native” at all but were migrants from other ‎areas in the Arabian peninsular as was common during the Turkish era. Here are just a few examples of common "Palestinian" family names that reveal their true country of ‎origin:‎
‎"Masri" or "al-Masri" = from Egypt , Hamas member of Parliament in Gaza, Mushir al-‎Masri (the word "Masri" literally means "the Egyptian" in Arabic !).‎
‎"Khamis"= from Bahrain "Salem Hanna Khamis"‎
‎"al-Ubayyidi" or "al-Obeidi"= from Sudan "al-ubayyid"‎
‎"al-Faruqi"= Mosul Iraq
‎"al-Araj" = Morocco, a member of the Saadi Dynasty "Hussein al-Araj"‎
‎"al-Lubnani" =the Lebanese
‎"al-Mughrabi" = the Moroccan ("Maghreb" – meaning "West" in Arabic, and usually ‎referring to North Africa or specifically to Morocco),"Dalal Mughrabi"‎
‎"al-Djazair"=the Algerian
‎"al-Qurashi"=Saudi Arabia "clan of Quraish"‎

Prior to the ‎Mandate in 1922, Palestine’s Arab population had been in a decline. However during the ‎Mandate period the Arabs were free to come to take advantage of the rapid development ‎stimulated by Zionist settlement. The Arab population grew exponentially as Jewish ‎settlers improved the quality of health conditions in Palestine as they worked the Malaria ‎infested swampy areas and instituted General Sick Funds for the workers.‎

‎"As I lived in Palestine, everyone I knew could trace their heritage back to the original ‎country their great grandparents came from. Everyone knew their origin was not from the ‎Canaanites, but ironically, this is the kind of stuff our education included. The fact is that ‎today's Palestinians are immigrants from the surrounding nations! I grew up well ‎knowing the history and origins of today's Palestinians as being from Yemen, Saudi ‎Arabia, Morocco, Christians from Greece, Muslim Sherkas from Russia, Muslims from ‎Bosnia, and the Jordanians next door.” -Walid Shoebat ‎

What the UN Special Commission had found in their trip to the region was what had been ‎apparent all along; that the conflicting national aspirations of Jews, who never had a ‎chance of reaching a majority in the country given the restrictive immigration policy of ‎the British and Arabs could not be reconciled. This same conclusion was found also in ‎‎1937 with the Peel Commission, that the only logical solution to resolving the ‎contradictory aspirations of the Jews and Arabs was to partition Palestine into separate ‎Jewish and Arab states. ‎

‎"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." From the report of the British Royal Commission.

The Arabs as usual had rejected this plan because it forced them to accept the creation of ‎a Jewish state, and required some Palestinians to live under "Jewish domination." The ‎Zionists opposed the Peel Plan's boundaries since they would have been confined to little ‎more than a ghetto of 1,900 out of the 10,310 square miles remaining in Palestine. ‎Nevertheless like with the UNSCOP decision the Zionists decided to negotiate with the ‎British, while the Arabs refused to consider any compromises.‎

Once again in 1939 with the British White Paper, which called for the draconian measure ‎limiting Jewish immigration to no more than 75,000 over the following five years and ‎afterward, no Jews would be allowed in without the consent of the Arab population! ‎Once again a plan that called for the establishment of an Arab state in Palestine within 10 ‎years, and granted the Arabs a concession on Jewish immigration, and been offered the ‎goal of Arab independence they repudiated the White Paper.‎

The leaders of the varied Arab clans were active in their rivalries but the one driving ‎issue that united them all over and over again was the desire to eliminate the Jews. It is ‎this innate rivalry and their own greed for leadership has prevented them over and over ‎again from the establishment of a State of their own. ‎

Although most of the Commission's members acknowledged the need to find a ‎compromise solution, it was difficult for them to envision one given the parties' ‎intractability. In any case, under British rule, there were various Arab bodies to ‎coordinate the interests of the Palestinian community. Why didn’t these bodies evolve ‎into entities that might have paved the way for a Palestinian state, or at least provided the ‎necessary leadership to guide the Palestinians in moments of crisis? Surely the Arabs of ‎Palestine did not need a stamp of approval from the Mandatory authorities to wield these ‎institutions for their own purposes. Moreover, the Palestine civil service, judiciary, and ‎even elements of the police force were staffed by Arabs who could have formed the basis ‎of a civil administration within an Arab state. These Arabs were, after all, the employees ‎of the Mandatory Authorities, as were Jews who served in similar positions. ‎

When the Special Commission on Palestine returned, the delegates of seven nations — ‎Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, The Netherlands, Peru, Sweden and Uruguay — ‎recommended the establishment of two separate states, Jewish and Arab, to be joined by ‎economic union, with Jerusalem an internationalized enclave. Three nations — India, ‎Iran and Yugoslavia — recommended a unitary state with Arab and Jewish provinces. ‎Australia abstained.‎

The Palestine Arab Higher Committee rejected the Special Commission ‎recommendations out right because it did not meet their “All or nothing” attitude. This ‎decision of theirs was supported in their rejection by the states of the Arab League. In a ‎communication to the United Nations Palestine Commission dated 19 January 1948, the ‎Arab Higher Committee for Palestine stated that it was "determined [to] persist in ‎rejection [to the] partition and in refusal [to] recognize UNO resolution [with] this respect ‎and anything deriving there from".‎

The Arabs blame the inability of the Palestinians to establish an independent state before ‎the momentous and tragic events of 1947–49 on a variety of factors, including the public ‎commitment of the British government to establishing a Jewish polity in a land that had, ‎according to the Arabs, had been inhabited by an overwhelming Arab majority for ‎centuries. To the Arabs it was them that the British should have given the exclusive right ‎to self determination when Great Britain contemplated carving up the Ottoman Empire ‎during World War I. According to the Arabs of the Mandated Areas it was the British ‎who denied the Palestinians a formal representative body, a parliament of sorts that might ‎have given them practice at democratic rule and set them on the path to future ‎independence. However the British officials made the creation of that elective body ‎conditional upon Arab recognition of Jewish claims of the Yishuv [the Jewish ‎community] as their “national home.” The Palestinians boycotted joint governing bodies ‎which they were invited to participate in due to this “British” commitment.‎

Although the Jewish community of Palestine was not happy with the fact that Jerusalem ‎was severed from the Jewish State and that the territory allotted to them by the ‎Commission was very small they nevertheless welcomed the compromise. The partition ‎plan took on a checkerboard appearance largely because Jewish towns and villages were ‎spread throughout Palestine. This did not complicate the plan as much as the fact that the ‎high living standards in Jewish cities and towns had attracted large Arab populations, ‎which insured that any partition would result in a Jewish state that included a substantial ‎Arab population. Recognizing the need to allow for additional Jewish settlement, the ‎majority proposal allotted the Jews land in the northern part of the country, Galilee, and ‎the large, arid Negev desert in the south. The remainder was to form the Arab state.‎

The Partition boundaries were based solely on demographics. The borders of the Jewish ‎State were arranged with no consideration of security; hence, the new state's frontiers ‎were virtually indefensible. Overall, the Jewish State was to be comprised of roughly ‎‎5,500 square miles 60 percent of which was to be the arid desert in the Negev and the ‎population was to be 538,000 Jews and 397,000 Arabs. ‎

The Arab State was to be 4,500 square miles with a population of 804,000 Arabs and ‎‎10,000 Jews. Though the Jews were allotted more total land, the majority of that land was ‎in the desert.‎

Further complicating the situation was the UN majority's insistence that Jerusalem remain ‎apart from both states and be administered as an international zone. This arrangement left ‎more than 100,000 Jews in Jerusalem isolated from their country and circumscribed by ‎the Arab state.‎

As the partition vote approached, it became clear little hope existed for a political ‎solution to a problem that transcended politics: the Arabs' unwillingness to accept a ‎Jewish state in Palestine and the refusal of the Zionists to settle for anything less. In a ‎meeting with Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha on September 16, 1947, Jewish ‎Agency representatives David Horowitz and Abba Eban attempted to reach a ‎compromise with the Arab League Secretary who told them bluntly:‎

‎“The Arab world is not in a compromising mood. It's likely, Mr. Horowitz that your plan ‎is rational and logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational logic. Nations ‎never concede; they fight. You won't get anything by peaceful means or compromise. ‎You can, perhaps, get something, but only by the force of your arms. We shall try to ‎defeat you. I am not sure we'll succeed, but we'll try. We were able to drive out the ‎Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia. It may be that we shall lose ‎Palestine. But it's too late to talk of peaceful solutions.”‎

Post Script

In all of the recent Arab “Palestinian” narratives the blame for the creation of the modern ‎State of Israel is laid upon the “Messianic Christians” in England who carried forward the ‎project culminating in the declaration by Lord Balfour in 1917.‎

However in historical fact it was actually Napoleon Bonaparte who first broached the idea nearly 100 years before the birth of Zionism!! While encamped with ‎his Army, outside of Acre on April 20th, 1799, Napoleon issued a letter offering "Palestine" as a ‎homeland to the Jews under French protection. The project was stillborn because ‎Napoleon was defeated and was forced to withdraw from the Near East.

The letter, cited ‎below, is remarkable because it marks the coming of age of enlightenment philosophy, ‎making it respectable at last to integrate Jews as equal citizens in Europe and because it ‎marked the beginning of nineteenth century projects for Jewish autonomy in Palestine ‎under a colonial protectorate. ‎

General Headquarters, Jerusalem 1st Floreal, April 20th, 1799,‎
in the year of 7 of the French Republic‎

BONAPARTE, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMIES OF THE FRENCH ‎REPUBLIC IN AFRICA AND ASIA, TO THE RIGHTFUL HEIRS OF PALESTINE.‎

Israelites, unique nation, whom, in thousands of years, lust of conquest and tyranny have ‎been able to be deprived of their ancestral lands, but not of name and national existence!‎

Attentive and impartial observers of the destinies of nations, even though not endowed ‎with the gifts of seers like Isaiah and Joel, have long since also felt what these, with ‎beautiful and uplifting faith, have foretold when they saw the approaching destruction of ‎their kingdom and fatherland: And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to ‎Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness ‎and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isaiah 35,10)‎

Arise then, with gladness, ye exiled! A war unexampled In the annals of history, waged ‎in self-defense by a nation whose hereditary lands were regarded by its enemies as ‎plunder to be divided, arbitrarily and at their convenience, by a stroke of the pen of ‎Cabinets, avenges its own shame and the shame of the remotest nations, long forgotten ‎under the yoke of slavery, and also, the almost two-thousand-year-old ignominy put upon ‎you; and, while time and circumstances would seem to be least favourable to a ‎restatement of your claims or even to their expression, and indeed to be compelling their ‎complete abandonment, it offers to you at this very time, and contrary to all expectations, ‎Israel¹s patrimony!‎

The young army with which Providence has sent me hither, let by justice and ‎accompanied by victory, has made Jerusalem my headquarters and will, within a few ‎days, transfer them to Damascus, a proximity which is no longer terrifying to David's ‎city.‎

Rightful heirs of Palestine!‎

The great nation which does not trade in men and countries as did those which sold your ‎ancestors unto all people (Joel,4,6) herewith calls on you not indeed to conquer your ‎patrimony; nay, only to take over that which has been conquered and, with that nation¹s ‎warranty and support, to remain master of it to maintain it against all comers.‎

Arise! Show that the former overwhelming might of your oppressors has but repressed ‎the courage of the descendants of those heroes who alliance of brothers would have done ‎honour even to Sparta and Rome (Maccabees 12, 15) but that the two thousand years of ‎treatment as slaves have not succeeded in stifling it.‎

Hasten! Now is the moment, which may not return for thousands of years, to claim the ‎restoration of civic rights among the population of the universe which had been ‎shamefully withheld from you for thousands of years, your political existence as a nation ‎among the nations, and the unlimited natural right to worship Jehovah in accordance with ‎your faith, publicly and most probably forever (Joel 4,20).‎

Exactly when did Napoleon's involvement with the Jews come about?

It started on the ‎‎9th of February 1797. When Napoleon occupied Ancona and he saw some people ‎wearing yellow bonnets and arm bands on which was the "Star of David." He asked some ‎of his officers why these people were wearing the bonnet and arm bands and what was its ‎purpose. When he was told they were Jews and they had to be identified so they could ‎return to the ghetto in the evening, he immediately gave an order that they should remove ‎the yellow bonnet and armbands. He then authorized the closing of the ghetto and ‎allowed the Jews, to live wherever they wanted, and to practice their religion openly.‎

In 1816 when Napoleon was asked why he posted the letter he stated: “My primary desire was ‎to liberate the Jews and make them full citizens. I wanted to confer upon them all the ‎legal rights of equality, liberty and fraternity as was enjoyed by the Catholics and ‎Protestants. It is my wish that the Jews be treated like brothers as if we were all part of ‎Judaism.” ‎