Israeli Elections

"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say ‎it." From "The Friends of Voltaire", 1906, by S. G. Tallentyre (Evelyn Beatrice Hall) ‎

On March 17th,2015 we Israelis –Jews and Arabs alike- will go once more to the polling stations ‎and vote for a new government, yet again after less than two years. In respect to the ‎subject of elections there are many things here I could speak about. The most important ‎of them being the drastic need for a change in the Israeli electoral system which, I may ‎add, has been a problem since the creation of the state. Israel is unique in that it is one of the few a true democracies. This is quite evident  by the many varied and different views that are realized at election time. We have our ‎mainstay large political parties but we also have political parties from all walks ‎and spectrum's of life.

Ever since Moses came down with the Ten Commandments and in ‎a fatherly “pissed off at the kids urge” move and smashed the Tablets of God’s Ten ‎Commandments. We Jews have had a problem with leaders and taking orders since we ‎are truly the “stiff necked” people. Israeli politics reflects this part of our Jewish psyche. As humans have done ever since before the "Tower of Babble" we have expressed our ‎need to argue and to be different. I guess that is why we have so many political parties.‎

As the years go by it seems, at times, that it only gets worse. Though in the past Knesset the ‎members did vote in favor of raising the percentage of votes for a party to receive ‎representation. Alas as in the Middle East bazaar, this has created a farcical market for ‎small parties to sign agreements for favors for their “Lost” votes with larger parties. ‎

In addition to the drastic need for electoral change is the need for the writing of a constitution for the ‎establishment of a set of Israeli laws – many do not realize that we still use British and ‎Mandatory Laws.‎

Clarification

Before I continue I wish to clarify. Here in Israel there are two main groups / camps that are labeled either "Leftists" or "Rightists". There are extremists on both sides of this spectrum and the intensify of the level of hysteria that one holds in regard for the other is despicable in it's blindness of human reasoning. It is literally biblical Cain versus Able. At times there is almost no possibility of civil debate between the two sides. However whenever the two sides begin a discourse the tone of speech is laced with epithets of blind hatred to the point of violence at times.

So very few people alive today remember that the dream of a Homeland for the Jewish people was only achieved a mere 67 years ago. The memory of it's foundation blackened and distorted by the tidal wave of abject anti-Jewish hatred and jealousy by a some of the people who resided here. But also by those who have loathed and despised the Jewish people through out history. In the beginning some of the Arab leadership even welcomed the return of the Jewish people, while those of the old Islamic ways hated our arrival from the beginnings and disapproved of our return. That the country's foundation is derived from the dire need to find a safe haven in the world for our people in our ancient homeland. The fact that finally and reluctantly occurred only after the systematic murder of six million of our relatives in Europe at the Partitioning of the Mandate by the United Nations vote of November 1947 will be forever a blight on the face of mankind.

On the Left of the political sphere in Israel are those who are from the original Communists secularist movements of the Haskalah movement from before the creation of the state who grasped the idea of society as expressed in the 'Critique of the Gotha Program'  by Karl Marx:

"In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

The first pioneers in the 1880's to Israel were believers in the dream that all men are equal and that all must be shared. That is the meaning of the commune or the Kibbutz. Those young idealist pioneers who came to farm and build the land of  Israel had learned in the Haskalah movement. They had rejected the Orthodox Jewish traditions and teaching but instead grasped the Biblical concept of reclamation of our homeland by hard physical labor and not by religious religious study. They also believed that religion and belief in God is abhorrent and that it leads to the base hatred between not only men/women but nations and peoples as well. They attempted to live and share with their Arab neighbors but they learned very quickly that not All Arabs were keen to the idea and because of this they formed Militias or Guard Movements to provide for the defense of their communities from Arab marauders.

On the other hand a large part of the Old Yishuv spent their time studying the Torah and lived off Ma'amodot (stipends), donated by Jews in the Diaspora. The Old Yishuv religious Jews, lived mainly in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Hebron. Smaller communities were in Jaffa, Haifa, Peki'in, Acre, Nablus, Shfaram and until 1779 also in Gaza.

The parties of the far "Left" "Mapam" "Hadash" and "Meretz" are vilified and despised to the point of hatred and even violence by those on the right. They are widely vilified for their willingness to bend over backward to appease the Arabs in their rush to sue for Peace. They are not interested in the "Jewishness" of the link to the land. They see themselves merely as inhabitants who reside here.  They are hedonists and believers of "Gay" Liberal rights. The believe in a classless society. I call it the 'Kumbaya belief", a totally unrealistic view, since man's inner hostilities and fears of others have not developed enough throughout mankind to exist. One need only to look no further that the events of the ISIS in Syria and Iraq to understand the stupidity of this thought at this time. And regretfully as Mr Spock would surely believe we are not living in some science fiction movie of the future in space.

As to the "rightist" we have those religious Jews of the "Greater Israel" movement and their backers from the Fundamentalist Christian Messianic sects. They are the religious Jews of Orthodox heritage many from the "Knitted" kippah (Hebrew word for the skullcap traditionally worn by Jewish men it is also called a yarmulke or koppel in Yiddish.) of the National Religious Party (Hebrew: מִפְלָגָה דָּתִית לְאֻומִּית, Miflaga Datit Leumit, commonly known in Israel by its Hebrew acronym Mafdal, (Hebrew: מפד"ל))

The National Religious Party (NRP) was created by the merger of two parties—Mizrachi and Hapoel HaMizrachi—in 1956. It was a political party in Israel representing the religious Zionist movement. Formed in 1956, at the time of its dissolution in 2008. Throughout the NRP's existence it attempted to preserve the relevance of Judaism on issues such as Israeli personal status laws, education, culture, and municipal issues such as prohibitions on the selling of non-Kosher food (in prescribed areas, and occasionally throughout a given municipality), prohibiting transportation and public activities on the Shabbat.

After the victory of the 1967 War messianic trends among religious Israeli Jews were reborn and with the "Liberation" of ancient Judea and Shomron, in the June 1967 War many religious Jews affiliated with the Beitar and pre-state Etzel and Lechi have returned from abroad to make their homes in our ancient Jewish Homeland of Judea and Shomron.

The resettlement of communities ethnically cleansed in 1947 and 1948 resulted in many members of the NRP moving further right. Many descendants of the ethnically cleansed Jews from the Jewish Old City Quarter of Jerusalem, the settlements of "Gush Etzion" and Hebron began to return to their homes and lands. Many falsifiers of history have deleted the truth that Jews owned land and had homes beyond the 1949 "Ceasefire" or "Green Line". To this end their communities are vilified by being termed "Settlements" and the residents are labeled "Settlers" when in essence the area was once inhabited by Jews and owned by them. On the "Left" are those who attempt to negate the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel and 
euphemistically refer to the area as the "West Bank". 

According to the League of Nations resolution for the establishment of the Mandate for ‎Palestine, the area of Judea and Shomron the “West Bank”, were illegally conquered and seized ‎by Jordan in 1947. The area had been recognized as a cestui sue trust  for the Jewish Homeland ‎in April, 1922 in the Treaty of Sèvres (Section VII, Art 94-97) by 52 countries at the San Remo ‎Conference which granted the Palestine Mandate to Britain. The League of Nations officially ‎granted Britain the Palestine Mandate on July 24, 1922.‎

Therefore Jewish communities that existed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip prior to 1919 were ‎recognized as legitimate by the Mandate for Palestine, which was adopted by the League of ‎Nations. The only administration that completely prohibited Jewish communities from existing ‎in the captured “West Bank” was that of Jordan from 1948 to 1967. ‎

Regarding Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Israeli government has not forcibly ‎transferred its population into the territories. The return of Jews to the Judea and Samaria (West Bank) is voluntary and does not displace local inhabitants. ‎The land that was being to build new residential areas, villages and towns never had been ‎under the legitimate sovereignty of any state beforehand.

There are no clauses in the Fourth ‎Geneva Convention that can be used to prohibit the voluntary return of individuals to towns and ‎villages from which they or their ancestors had been previously ejected by forcible means. ‎The Jewish communities of;  Hartuv, Kfar Etzion, Hebron, and the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem had ‎only been re established after exhaustive investigations making sure none were built on private ‎land. Israel also argues that some of the communities are built in areas purchased by a Jewish ‎land holding company in 1925 and where Jewish communities that existed before the 1948 Arab-‎Israeli War when many "West Bank" Jewish Communities were destroyed and the residents ‎massacred or expelled, It seems reasonable to refer to the land of these communities as liberated ‎as it was freed from the illegal occupation of Jordan and was returned to possession of its ‎owners, the Jewish People. Therefore in these cases the application of the Geneva Convention is ‎an entirely different issue.

 Now here is my brief introduction of the political parties.‎

The two largest parties are the Likud and the Labor Party cum “Zionist Camp”. These ‎two fractions are mainstays since before the creation of the country based on two ‎divergent Zionistic thoughts: ‎

The “Revisionists” of  Revisionist Zionism ie Likud –(pre-State Irgun and LECHI some ‎call them “Freedom Fighters and some call them "Terrorists") ‎

and the “Socialists”or Labor Zionism  / Socialist Zionism – the Labor Party of The ‎‎“Zionist Camp”- (who are identified with the The Hagannah and the Palmach)‎

The other parties are:‎

Agudat Yisrael representative of the Religious; Ashkenazic (Western) “G” or Gimmel ‎and the Sephardic Shas movement of HaRav Ovadiah Yoseph the (“Jews of Arab lands”) ‎‎[or if you prefer Matza Balls and Gefiltte Fish versus Mofletot and Dag Harif.] They ‎want Torah Judaism, Yeshivot –seminaries for learning. They lead pious lives and want ‎to be left alone to study. They usually do not serve in the Army. The men study and the ‎great majority of them do not work. The wives work and provide meager incomes. They ‎live very simply with no modern “luxuries”. They ask to receive government subsidies ‎for their schools and centers of learning. ‎

“Yisrael Beitanu” The Russian Strong Man party of Avigdor Lieberman . It primarily ‎represents immigrants from the former Soviet Union.  It takes a strong line towards the ‎peace process and the integration of Israeli Arabs, characterized by its 2009 election ‎slogan "No loyalty, no citizenship"‎. 

‎“Yesh Atid” –there is a future – the party of Yair lapid basically a continuation of the party of his father Tommy Lapid. “Shinui” which was based on the Liberal Party - were derived from the “Second Aliyah” business class bourgeoisie who migrated to “Palestine” during the Mandate period from 1920. Basically they represent the middle class and the small businesses. Yesh Atid wants to reduce the financial burden –taxation on the middle class and young families especially those of small business owners.

“Meretz”, which was originally formed in 1992 with the union of Ratz, Mapam, and ‎Shinui. Meretz defines itself as a Zionist, left-wing, social-democratic party. They see ‎themselves as the political representative of the Israeli Peace movement in the Knesset. ‎They are against “settlement” in the “Occupied Territories. They believe in Gay rights ‎and in secularization of the Israeli lifestyle.‎

 HaBeit HaYehudi – The Jewish Homeland- Naphtali Bennet they basically are what is ‎left of the Religious Labor Zionist movement and the Greater Israel “Settler Movement ‎of Judea and Shomron. They do not want to be removed from the “West Bank” and they ‎are active to defeat the establishment of a 23rd Arab nation called Palestine. They believe ‎in annexing the area to Israel.‎

‎“Colanu” - All of us It is a breakaway party of ex-Likudnik Moshe Kachlon who was instrumental in ‎creating some major changes in the control of monopolies on several businesses in Israel ‎primarily the Mobile Phones monstrosity that charged ridiculously high inflated prices ‎for their use. His reforms changed and revolutionized how monopolies do business in ‎Israel. He was ousted from the Likud by “Bibi” more than probably at the urging of the ‎financial Mongols who pull the strings of the “Likud” leadership.‎ ‎

Now as to the main adversaries we have the Prime Minister Benyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu  ‎leader of the Likud Party - Hebrew: ‎הַלִּיכּוּד‎  "Consolidation". Prior to the 1973 elections an alliance of several right wing parties; Herut, the Liberal Party, the Free Centre, the National List and the Movement for Greater Israel was formed as a secular party by the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin. The " Likud" (Hebrew: הַלִּיכּוּד ) or "Consolidation", as it is called represents the consolidation of the right wing of the spectrum of politics in Israel. Once more the Herut or Freedom Party became the senior partner as they had been in a previous coalition with the Liberals know as " Gahal" since 1965. From its establishment in 1973, Likud enjoyed great support from blue-collar Sephardim who felt discriminated against by the ruling  "Ashkeniazic" Alignment.

The Herut or “Freedom “ party is the ‎outgrowth of the political beliefs of Zev Jabotinsky and the movement for “Eretz Yisrael” ‎and the militant Jewish Beitar –Etzel Lechi group. The “non-apologists” group for the ‎resettlement of Eretz Yisrael. The other part that formed the Likud was the Liberal Party ‎who were derived from the “Second Aliyah” business class bourgeoisie who migrated to ‎‎“Palestine” during the Mandate period from 1920.‎

The center-left is identified with the Workers party the “Poalim” the Israel ‎Labor Party. The current leader of the Labor Party is  Issac (Yitzhak) “Bougie” Herzog  The party of the Labor ‎Land movement Ohavei Zion who came in the 1880’s and established  the communal ‎farms the Kibbutzim and the Moshavim. It's ideological vision for Israel is based upon ‎the values of the Jewish labor movement, the social experience and cultural heritage of ‎the Jewish people. The Labor Party is pragmatic in its approach. It recognizes the ‎necessity to compromise in both the domestic arena and in foreign affairs in order to ‎promote political stability and the advancement of Israel's fundamental interests.‎ 

The rise to power of the Likud with it's victory in 1978 was based on the failures of the "Labor" lead government during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and the cynical use of the "Sephardic" card to garnish votes. Few of them realized that the "Likud" is manipulated by the Herut, who they themselves were on the whole "Ashkenazim". 

The whole episode of the white skinned "Ashkenazi Labor Party" animosity was an out growth from the reality of the early development of the state when housing, money and building supplies were far from enough to keep pace with the young countries post independence immigration waves.

David Ben-Gurion, who had been head of the Jewish Agency, and later president of the Jewish Executive, thereby became the de facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine. Be Gurion Led the Jewish Agency in its struggle for an independent Jewish state under the British Mandate.  As the country's first leader he realized that it's first meager resources were urgently needed to foot the cost of the War of Independence. Ben-Gurion knew the crucial importance that an effective properly trained and armed army was needed to defend the fledgling state. Means of production were urgently needed and as all tested leaders in times of crucial leadership Ben Gurion made decisions which were not popular but helped to form a nation. In the post War of Independence years Israel began to develop but under an iron fist of draconian financial measures. A nation with no real natural resources and nearly bankrupt had to build the infrastructure of a state. Ben-Gurion who was a member of Socialistic Mapai (Labour) party won the largest number of Knesset seats in the first national election, held on 14 February 1949 and was elected Prime Minister of Israel. He would remain in that post until 1963, except for a period of nearly two years between 1954 and 1955. 

During the first two decades of Israel's assistance it had no extra income to splurge on "luxuries" the lifestyle was extremely "Spartan". There were few job opportunities. Many places of work were government or labor Union- Histadrut financed factories. Farming and produce came from co-operatives with Kibbutzim to provide badly needed foodstuffs for the country. As Prime Minister, he presided over various national projects aimed at the rapid development of the country as he oversaw the establishment of the state's institutions, the construction of the National Water Carrier, rural development projects and the establishment of new "Development towns" pioneering settlements that housed the mass immigration of Jews from Arab lands -"Sephardim" in outlying areas, especially in the Negev and the Galilee peripheral areas.

The animosity of the Sephardim developed from the program to settle them in Maabarot- Transit Camps of these "Development Towns" far from the center of the country due to the housing shortage. The level of education was inferior in the outlying areas due to the level of the overall population. Public and medical services were few and far between. Transportation was nearly non existent. The Government -represented by the Labor party was occupied with the building of a viable state under the constant threat of war. It was not until after the June 1967 War that the economy began to flourish and with it cases of abuse also identified with those aligned with the Labor Party.

Since its birth Israel has been plagued by a series of prolonged ‎systemic failures that have affected our civil system of governance, law enforcement, ‎justice, education, welfare and health. With the formation of the Likud governments they allowed the new survival-of-the-fittest capitalistic economics to develop at the cost of government subsidized businesses. Which were the only companies or businesses that existed in peripheral Development Towns. Those businesses that did open in peripheral areas took the government subsidies and paid minimum wage to workers. And as soon as the government benefits finished they would close leaving tens of families unemployed.

The “Free economy policy” of the Likud has allowed ‎multinational corporations and obscenely wealthy individuals to manipulate the economy ‎to their gain against the benefit of the Israeli populace and society on the whole.‎ 

At an increasing speed over the past decade - Israel has had its sense of purpose and ‎solidarity eroded by the insatiable greed of its economic elite of the descendants of the Bourgeoisie class of ‎the Liberal Party who formed part of the Machal for inflated profits at the cost of the Israel workers. Politicians of the Likud  have benefited from serving them. ‎Israel's original Labor party orientated socialist roots have been washed away to form a society that has the ‎largest gap in income between rich and poor of any Western country. The development of multiple political parties each with their own agenda, have created through the wheeling and dealing to achieve political office in pass elections led to large cabinets packed with ministers who were empty chairs. Therefore there is a drastic need to reduce the size of the cabinet to enable government to manage its vital ‎tasks, such as law enforcement and security.

Thousands of new Israeli millionaires were given blanket tax exemptions on stock ‎exchange earnings, while hundreds of thousands of us in the middle classes can barely ‎eek out a living for our family’s, while having large amounts of our income confiscated ‎for taxes. Many Banks and companies, pay their executives obscene wages and ‎retirement packages through government guarantees and subsidies. Small businesses ‎must be liberated from strangling regulation and taxation. Educators are paid next to ‎nothing. Our schools have forty children to a classroom. Only parents who can afford to ‎finance the extra hours of "gray education" can insure their children's future. 

We have borne witness to government officials rushing to "privatize" the land that ‎Zionist pioneers and their supporters sacrificed so much to redeem. These unscrupulous ‎officials sell the land off to wealthy contractors in order to build suburban housing for the ‎offspring of the well-off. Young couples are being strapped with ever increasingly high ‎mortgages. Public housing for the poor has been ignored or placed at the very bottom of the social ‎agenda. A public transportation system and a highway system that would connect the ‎peripheral areas to places of job opportunities are slow to develop or go under-funded and under-developed for the sake of new roads in the "West Bank". The ‎only reason that there is any movement in developing the transportation system is to ‎satisfy the greed of car importers and building contractors who want to put up ‎McDonalds and shopping malls off the highway exits like on the new toll road highway Kvish 6 or the Haifa bypass tunnel.‎

Today's pampered Israeli hedonistic teenage children of the very rich in Herzilya or Ramat Aviv can ‎afford to hang out in malls, they can have a bite at McDonalds ‎or Pizza Hut while texting to their friends on their newest iphones. They sit around discussing their latest ‎purchases of electric powered bicycles and their trips to Europe and beyond. You will not ‎be hearing that many of them plan on going to the army. They don't have too much ‎feeling for Zionism, and most could not care less. Like their parents many have a deep ‎and profound identification with Western “Liberal” values.

Now speak to any of the approximately 50 percent of Israeli children who will ‎never have a chance to graduate from high school with a matriculation degree because of ‎slashed funding to schools and the lack of funds to pay for enrichment after school ‎programs. Those kids to those who reside in Ramle, in the neighborhoods of Jaffa or in ‎Hadera, in Shlomei, in Shechuna Dalet of Beersheva or a hundred other impoverished and lower class ‎neighborhoods and Development Towns. Let us not forget that many of the family’s of these children will not be able to ‎afford to pay for food let alone enrichment classes for their children.

Many of these disadvantaged young people will not be able to go to the army because ‎some of them will already have police records, meaning the army won't even want them, ‎and some because they don't want to fight for a country that can't be bothered to give ‎them an education. They cannot see a positive future for themselves or their families.‎

Yes, we do have a values problem here in Israel. Our children learn quickly. They see what is going on in this country, and that is what determines their ‎attitudes. The media here idolizes those who have "made it" they all know of the reality shows and escapism it offers from the reality of the Israeli situation. They spend their childhoods under the very real threat of annihilation. That wars are fought on a regular basis because our neighbors have an insatiable thirst for ALL the land. Our children have witnessed dear ones: close friends, brothers, sisters and fathers go off to fight and die.They know the sounds of "Code Red" and the Iron Dome. They have seen the torn flesh and damage wrought upon our civilian population by "Falestinian" mortars and rockets. Yet still we still desire peace but NOT just at ANY cost. 
Oh yes there are many successes in Israel technology and in start ups, but what is equally as important is to strengthen the Jewish identity of the youth. Above all we need to elect government officials who will take bold steps not just in the quest for a just and lasting peace but those who will strive to make our lives and those of our children better.

We Israelis will not continue to allow economics based ‎on naked greed and ignore the educational, health, ‎employment and housing needs of millions of Israelis. Do not expect to us to continue voting for those who will not change. We need new leaders who will show us the way out of the financial quagmire and to help us improve our image and standing in the world.So we do not need rhetoric alone we need action.

  

US Aid to Israel

"Don't threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid." 

Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin during his Senate Foreign Relations committee testimony June 22 1982, regarding Senator Joe Biden threatening to cut off aid to Israel.

A Facebook friend of mine asked me about a photo comment reply of mine to the libelous lie that has been told for years; by those seriously demented mentally deprived anti-Israeli trolls  group of ignoramuses who sufferer from Falestinian Bamboozled Derange Syndrome (BDS), regarding the "Level of US Aid to Israel, I have replied that before ranting, raving and screaming at Israel they should consider this tidbit:

"Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip receive one of the highest levels of unrecorded aid in the world. Aid has been offered to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and other Palestinian Non-governmental organizations (PNGOs) by the international community, including International Non-governmental Organizations (INGOs) and the funds are largely unaccounted for.

According to certain analyses, Palestinians are the largest per capita recipients of international development assistance in the world (Lasensky [2004], 211, Lasensky-Grace [2006])."

"Until his death in November 2004, former PA President Yasser Arafat controlled Palestinian finances and faced widespread criticism for his lack of transparency, corruption, and misuse of foreign aid. Some observers described Arafat’s use of the PA treasury as his “personal cashbox” and allege that almost half of the $7 billion provided to the PA since its creation in the early 1990s may have been diverted by Arafat to political patronage and kickbacks."

Although the extent of Arafat’s misuse of PA money was never fully known, Israeli leaders, Palestinian reformers, and others repeatedly accused Mohamud Abbas and his inner circle of corruption; nevertheless, his total domination of Palestinian political life made him indispensable to those seeking his cooperation in achieving regional peace and many were forced to ignore such charges." David Samuels, “ In a Ruined Country,” Atlantic Monthly, September 2005.

So here is the truth behind US foreign military aid to Israel and how it actually benefits the US Taxpayer.

 "Currently, Israel receives $3 billion annually in US assistance through Foreign Military Financing (FMF). Seventy-four percent of these funds must be spent on the acquisition of US defense equipment, services, and training. Thus, "United States military aid to Israel is seen by many as a subsidy for U.S. industries", according to Kenneth M. Pollack."

Though President Harry Truman is fondly remembered for his part in the creation of Israel, few note that he had an unwillingness to supply arms to the Jews fighting for independence.

This total arms embargo, continued from 1948 until 1966 despite persistent pressure from US supporters of Israel, until the Kennedy Administration.

It was finally in 1962 that Israel was "allowed to purchase cash on the barrel", the HAWK anti-aircraft missiles system, its first major weapons system from the United States.

The State Department which was led by highly anti-Semitic members, was opposed to the sale. 

Kennedy felt justified in ordering it's execution after he failed to dissuade Egyptian President Nasser from escalating the arms race and after he learned that the Soviet Union had supplied Nasser with long-range bombers. 

The HAWK sale was significant not only because it was the first major direct arms transfer to Israel but also because that system required that Israeli soldiers be given extensive training in the United States and that spare parts be supplied to Israel. These were the first steps on a path which made Israel increasingly dependent on U.S. arms.

Very few remember the "next deal" of the sale of USED -read post US Military use "surplus" A-4 Skyhawk and how the decision to do so came only seven months after the United States had, for the first time, sold Israel offensive arms 200 NEW US Manufactured M-60 "Patton" tanks from a sales contract with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) had withdrawn. 

President Lyndon Johnson and his "administration" did not want to add jets to the hardware that it had already sold Israel. The Johnson administration, like its predecessors dating back to 1948, wished to avoid, if possible, entering into any strategic partnership with Israel. 

However, by early 1966 the United States decided that strategic exigencies, principal among them that of selling combat jets to Jordan in order to block Soviet influence in the region, dictated the transfer of these aircraft to Israel.  

The significance of the sale was explained by Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Warnke in a discussion with Yitzhak Rabin.

The United States had avoided becoming Israel's arms supplier, he said, because it wanted to reduce the risk of a U.S.-U.S.S.R. confrontation in the Middle East. 

The U.S., he said, would have preferred to continue that policy but could not because of the refusal of the Europeans, especially the French, to arm Israel. 

"We will henceforth become the principal arms supplier to Israel, involving us even more intimately with Israel's security situation and involving more directly the security of the United States" (emphasis added). 

It was not just the agreement to provide 50 Phantoms that was significant, he said, but also the sale of the Phantoms plus 100 Skyhawks and other equipment requested by Israel, which made the policy a distinct change from that of the past.

The sale was announced on December 27,1968. Israel was to receive 16 Phantoms in late 1969 and another 34 in 1970. It was the largest single arms deal signed to that point by Israel. The cost was $285 million and Israel paid in cash to avoid the need to pay interest on loans.

President Johnson's reluctance to sell Phantoms to Israel was based  on the reluctance to harm America's relations with the Arabs, particularly Nasser, whom the U.S. was still trying to court.

This actual FACT is revealed, for example, in Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearings held on June 9, 1967 

" It is a fact, is it not, that neither Soviet Russia nor the United States has given any material amounts of arms to Israel, and, if that is true, are they not relatively independent in their thinking at this point?

US Secretary of State Dean Rusk (from 1961-1969):

No, we have provided tanks and Hawk missiles and certain other kinds of equipment to Israel , but their principal arms supplier has been France ... The Israeli air force is almost all French supplied."

The Israeli lobby and its supporters in Congress saw the national interest from a different perspective asserted that U.S. -Arab relations would not be hurt by the sale of arms to Israel since the Arabs already considered U.S. policy unbalanced, and since repeated efforts to bring Nasser into the Western camp had failed. Finally, the notion that supplying Phantoms to Israel would undermine efforts to limit arms sales to the region was rejected as hypocritical because both the Soviet Union and the United States were pouring weapons into the Arab states.

Today when the US Government gives out military aid the great majority of it does not leave the shores of the US: for example the latest news of the F-23 sale. 

Trillions of hard earned dollars from US taxpayers are used to fund the Defense Department each fiscal year. Much of the money goes to buy new weaponry. 

In order to provide up to the date equipment, all arms manufacturers of the US military industrial complex and military contractors need to make sells of arms abroad. They do this in order to raise enough funds to continue their research and development and to make a profit to employ thousands of US taxpaying citizens. 

These US Defense Contractor employees salaries go to purchase necessities and services from companies and businesses in their hometowns that employee thousands of other tax paying US residents.

The funds allocated to foreign countries each year by Congress, go to shore up regimes "Friendly" to the USA. Countries like Iraq and Lebanon receive millions in US AID that is NOT ever spent in the USA or returned. 

There are NO demands made to them to REPAY.

Yet, when it comes to Israel the AID package money goes to purchase US military equipment, some new and some surplus. Like these mothballed F-14 Tomcat fighter jets awaiting demolition at 

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, in Tucson, Ariz. U.S.

For example, basic necessities like ammunition -from 5.56mm bullets to 155mm Artillery shells, Hellfire missiles and even army boots and uniforms MADE IN THE USA by US employees. Israel uses it's "AID Package" to purchase so as to not forgo any alloted funds. 

If you have a basic knowledge of production you would know that in all forms of production you do not produce, or put into production the exact amount of items needed. Due to the strict demands of "ISO" quality control restrictions you always add, let us say 10 to 15% more to your production line in case of rejection or ruin.

So what happens to those let us say one thousand extra boots or ten Humvees or M-16's? 

What do you think? The US Government sells them off as surplus.

As US Citizens please note, YOU paid the company with your tax money to produce them, by contract. Ergo in order to recuperate your investment the US Government earmarks them as military aid for Egypt or Lebanon. Then you deduct the money from "their" aid package, however unlike with the "AID" givent the "Jewish State" these "Gifts" are never repaid.

As for Israel, Israel orders from US suppliers and their orders give jobs and taxes back into the US economy. 

In addition to which the US military gains valuable research and development knowledge from the usage performed under combat conditions by the IDF. 

Of course you will not like this part but this exchange of technical knowledge has saved hundreds of millions of US tax dollars and US military lives.

Since the US military orders the production each year of numerous items for strategic reserve it cannot keep some equipment for extended periods in storage without renewal. Many of these items are sold off at reduced prices to recuperate partial production cost. 

This cycle of renewal prevents the closure of many factories and production lines, thereby giving jobs to many good hard working patriotic Americans.

Through the US AID packages the United States had gained the needed leverage on Israel by 1975 in its resupply of badly needed military supplies and equipment through the air-lift. 

The Yom Kippur war made it clear to Israel that the scale of military engagements in the Middle East had altered radically since 1967, and that it could therefore no longer be independent militarily. 

The dramatic lesson that was learned by Israel in the intensive fighting of the Yom Kippur War was that the quantities of arms and materiel consumed in just a few days of fighting demanded an industrial capacity that could not be provided by the Israeli military industries. 

The technological innovations that were needed at that time were beyond the capabilities of Israel. 

Kissinger may have persuaded Nixon to resupply the Israelis in 1973, however Kissinger then used this leverage purchased by resupply to push for Israeli withdrawals in Sinai. 

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was apparently the only one who had read the Middle East policy map correctly. He understood that if he could move Egypt into the American orbit and offer a "diplomatic horizon" for peace, he would be able to get back the Sinai Peninsula.

For the standard anti-Zionists of all kinds, it is very convenient to point to the large amounts of foreign aid given to Israel as Mr. Dean alludes to. Of course, that aid is given to ensure that Israel will remain compliant with US wishes, and prevent a repetition of the Six Day War scenario, as mentioned above in the Senate hearings, which was a nightmare for the US State Department. 

Israel's' appearance as an independent regional player in 1967 showed that it was in a position to dictate the course of it's own affairs. This was in direct contradiction to what an imperialist power could allow.

It is a historically documented fact that Israel paid cold hard cash for all military equipment it received up until the Yom Kippur War of 1973. 

Israel uses it's "Military Aid Package" to purchase fighter aircraft, like the F-23, made in America by American workers at the cost of billions of US tax dollars. 

What the "Haters of Israel" fail to mention is that the billions in US aid given to Israel allows Israel to use the “credit loans” or "monetary aid funds" to purchase military supplies and equipment made in American factories by American Working men and women thereby creating a need/market to keep Americans at work!

What is never mentioned is that Israel's purchases of new equipment, light arms ammunition, shoes and clothing in the US has been done at the expense of the closure of Israeli businesses and industries. This has caused the lost of jobs for thousands of Israelis many of whom were from financially depressed "Development Towns".

Just this year the US House committee approved the additional $175 million for funding the Iron Dome missile defense system on condition that parts and components are purchased from American contractors thereby returning more than half of the funds provided for it by the Pentagon to the US economy!

Meaning that the US employees of those contractors, who pay taxes, are actually keeping their jobs thanks to Israel!

Another item the "Haters of Israel" consistently fail to mention is that the "Palestinians" have received billions in “humanitarian aid" which has disappeared into private Swiss accounts of corrupt "Palestinian" Authority officials or it goes to buy Russia, Chinese and North Korean weaponry. 

Neither do these detractors mention that the Arab countries around Israel have consistently ignored the plight of their "Palestinian" Arab brothers and have kept those displaced in the 1948 Israeli War of Independence in squalid UN (read hundreds of millions in US funding over the past 70+ years) refugee camps.

Has any one EVER pointed out or asked WHY the Arab countries; Lebanon, Syria and Jordan that these "refugees" live in, forcibly keep them in the camps and NEVER allowed them to become viable citizens of Arab countries? 

Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph published on Sept. 6, 1949, stated:

"The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agree upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem.”

Lies and Falestine

Regarding Lies:

O ye who believe! If a wicked person comes to you with any news, ascertain the truth, lest ye harm people unwittingly, and afterwards become full of remorse for what ye have done. (Koran, Sura 49:6)

"One of Satan's most deceptive and powerful ways of defeating us is to get us to believe a lie. And the biggest lie is that there are no consequences to our own doing. Satan will give you whatever you ask for if it will lead you where he ultimately wants you." Charles Stanley

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic." John F. Kennedy

“The most enduring and destructive legacy of five centuries of European colonialism are borders that were drawn for the sake of political and military expediency but which, given the region’s underlying history, culture, and ethnicity, make no sense today.” Joseph V. Micallef

"The British chose to call the land they mandated Palestine, and the Arabs picked it up as their nation's supposed ancient name, though they couldn't even pronounce it correctly and turned it into Falastine a fictional entity." — Golda Meir quoted by Sarah Honig, Jerusalem Post, 25 November 1995

And now the lie that is "Falestine":

"Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. 
Tiny Israel represents one-tenth of one percent of the landmass. But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today . . . No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough. — from "Myths of the Middle East", Joseph Farah, Arab-American editor and journalist,WorldNetDaily, 11 October 2000

A while ago I came across a paper written by JeremyR.Hammond entitled“The Myth of the U.N. Creation of Israel”. In his diatribe he begins his bitter prolonged discourse based on the assumption; purveyed by those ever so sad losers of Nachba fame, that there was an entity or a "country", if you may, called "Palestine". So allow me to debunk the false claim of a existence of a country whose sole inhabitants were "unjustly" usurped of "their" land known as “Falestine”.

Here are true historical facts regarding "Palestine".

The name "Palestine" is derived from the biblical name for the Philistines who were called "Plishtim" from the Hebrew term for invaders or (Hebrew: פלשת‎, Pleshet), according to Joshua 13:3 and 1 Samuel 6:17, these "Sea Peoples" arrived on the coastal area of Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza around 1525 to 1500 BCE.

The origins of the Philistines are not clear and is the subject of considerable research and speculation in biblical archaeology. Some scholars have connected the Biblical Philistines with the Egyptian "Poleshet" inscriptions of "Sea Peoples" and since 1873 comparisons were drawn between them and to the Aegean "Pelasgians".
Archaeologists who once worked on Philistine sites on the western coastal areas of Israel, and in the past in Gaza, have shown that the Philistines were part of the Minoan-later the Mycenaean civilization, from the island of Thera (also called Santorini) in Greece.

Archaeologists have shown that the word "Philistia" or "Peleshet”was first recorded by the ancient Egyptians strengthens the evidence that they were a member of the invading "Sea Peoples".

The first actual written historical text reference is by Herodotus around.450 BCE in his "The Histories" Book 7 and it clearly states that the Philistines were descendant from invaders from the Mediterranean Sea.

"The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestina, according to their own account, dwelt anciently upon the Erythraean Sea, but crossing thence, fixed themselves on the seacoast of Syria, where they still inhabit. This part of Syria, and the entire region extending from hence to Egypt, is known by the name of "Palestina"."

The term never was used to refer to the whole land of Israel. Therefore it would be generally accurate to say that the southwestern coastal area was called Philistia(the "Way of the Philistines", or "Palestina"), while the central highlands were called the "Land of Canaan".
Both the Canaanites and the Philistines had been assimilated and disappeared as distinct peoples at least by the time of the Babylonian Captivity of Judea (586 B.C.), and they no longer existed.

The word 'Palestinian' itself, is never found in Scripture. The term 'Palestine' is used four times in the King James Version (Exodus 15:14) Philistia (פְּלָשֶׁת);Isaiah 14:29, 31 O Philistia but never as synonymous with either the land of Canaan or the land of Israel.
The Hebrew word is פְּלִשְׁתִּים, Plištim and referred to a small region also known as Philistia (Psalms 60:10, 87:4, 108:10), the land of the Pelishtee, or Philistines. It occurs 286 times in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew bible (of which 152 times in Samuel 1), whereas in the Greek Septuagint version of the Hebrew Bible, the equivalent term phylistiim occurs only 12 times, with the remaining 269 references instead using the term "allophylos" ("of another tribe").

"In the New Testament, the term Palestine is never used. The term Israel is primarily used to refer to the people of Israel, rather than the Land. However, in at least two passages, Israel is used to refer to the Land: (Matt. 2:20-21)

In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

20: Saying, Arise, and take the young
child and his mother, and go into
the land of Israel: for they are dead
21: which sought the young child's life.
And he arose, and took the young child and
his mother, and came into the land of Israel.

The World English Bible translates the passage as:

20: "Arise and take the young child
and his mother, and go into the
land of Israel, for those who sought
the young child's life are dead."
21: He arose and took the young child and
his mother, and came into the land of Israel.

And in the Aramaic Bible in Plain English (Matt. 10:23)

But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another: for verily I say to you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man shall have come.

"The first passage is when Joseph, Mary and Jesus returned from Egypt to Israel, and the second has reference to the proclamation of the Gospel throughout the Land of Israel. Jesus, Matthew and the angel speaking to Joseph use the term Israel with reference to the Land, even though the term was not then recognized by the Roman authorities.It is clear, then, that the Bible never uses the term Palestine to refer to the Holy Land as a whole, and that Bible maps that refer to Palestine in the Old or New Testament are, at best, inaccurate, and, at worst, are a conscious denial of the biblical name of Israel." Dr. Thomas McCall

When Titus destroyed Jerusalem, in 70 CE, the Roman government struck a coin with the phrase “Judea Capta,” meaning Judea has been conquered. All Roman references used the terms Judea, Shomron and Galilee to refer to the Land of Israel 135CE.
It was not until the Romans crushed the second Jewish revolt under Bar Kochba against Rome in that year 135CE that Emperor Hadrian applied the term "Palestina" to the Land of Israel.

Hadrian, like many dictators since his time, realized the propaganda power of terms and symbols. He replaced the shrines of the Jewish Temple and the Sepulchre of Christ in Jerusalem with temples to pagan deities. He changed the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitalina, and changed the names of Judea, Shomron and Israel to "Palestina".

Hadrian’s selection of "Palestina" was purposeful, not accidental. He took the name of the ancient enemies of Israel, the Philistines, Latinized it to "Palestina", and applied it to the Land of Israel. He hoped by this to erase the name Israel from all memory.
Thus, the term "Palestina" as applied to the Land of Israel was invented by the inveterate enemy of the Bible and the Jewish people, the Roman Empire under Emperor Hadrian. It may have pleased Hadrian to utilize this Hellenistic term for the Jewish land since the original Philistines were not Middle Eastern at all like the Romans. 

The Romans had referred to this land as a whole Iudaea (from the Greek Ioudaia). The land was mainly inhabited by Jews and was ruled by Jews. Therefore, Lord Robert Cecil, acting British foreign secretary, was right to use the name Judea for the whole land in his famous remark: "Our wish is that Arabian countries shall be for the Arabs, Armenia for the Armenians, and Judea for the Jews" (December 2, 1917).

The Christian Crusaders had typically called the country the Holy Land (Terra Sancta) and it was still the usual Western name for the country in the nineteenth century, although it alternated with Palestine, Judea, Zion, the Land of Israel, Land of the Bible, etc., and the Land was sometimes seen as part of Syria, the Levant, or other geographic notions. 

The highly respected Enciclopedia Italiana (Vol. 26, "Palestina"; ca. 1930) tells us that the name "Palestine" came "to prevail in modern times" over other names. This change apparently took place out of the "scientific" motive to avoid the religious connotations of Holy Land. 

This area known as the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem was created in 1872 under the Ottoman Empire . It had a special administrative status by the name the Sanjak of Jerusalem. The Ottoman Turkish Empire was basically a Sunni Islamic state founded by Oghuz Turks under Osman I in northwestern Anatolia in 1299.  The sultanate was abolished on 1 November 1922, and the last sultan, Mehmed VI who reigned  from 1918–22, left Turkey on the 17th of  November 1922. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey declared the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923 and the caliphate was finally abolished on 3 March 1924.

The Ottoman Empire that had fought on the side of the Central Powers Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I was soundly defeated. Not long after the conclusion of the First World War the allies, specifically Great Britain and France who were represented by the French diplomat François Georges-Picot and Briton Sir Mark Sykes divided up the former Ottoman Turkish Empire into spheres of influence under the Sykes –Picot agreement of 16 May 1916 into the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration.

Sir Mark Sykes had been a Protégé of Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of State for War in World War I. Kitchener placed Sykes on the de Bunsen Committee, which was established on 8 April 1915 by British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, and was headed by Sir Maurice de Bunsen. The committee was established by the British government to determine their policy toward the Ottoman Empire during World War I and to determine it's fate in the aftermath.

Though Sykes never got to really know Kitchener well, he had Kitchener’s confidence as they shared a similar outlook on affairs in the Middle East. It was due to Kitchener’s backing of Sykes that he was soon the dominant person on the de Bunsen Committee, and thereby gained great influence on the outcome of British Middle Eastern policy.

The Arab Bureau as a section of the Cairo Intelligence Department during the First World War that was created upon Sykes's instigation. It was Sykes and his fellows in this group, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence the most famous of them, who revived ancient Greek and Roman names for Middle Eastern regions. We see this in the names in common use today of; "Syria", "Palestine", "Iraq" and "Mesopotamia".

It was Mark Sykes who also designed the "Flag of the Arab Revolt", in an effort to create a feeling of "Arab-ness" in order to fuel the revolt. The horizontal colors stand for the Abbasid (black), Umayyad (white) and Fatimid (green) Caliphates. The red triangle refers to the Hashemite dynasty - who had been allies of the British in the conflict against the Ottoman Empire. After the war ended, the Hashemites achieved or were granted rule in the Hejaz region of Arabia, Jordan, formally known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, briefly in Greater Syria, and Iraq.

A combination of the colors red, green, black and white are seen today in the flags of nationalities that did not exist before the First World War. These countries are: Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Kuwait, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. 

Walid Shoebat‎ once said that the "Palestinians" are the newest of all the peoples on the face of the Earth, and began to exist in a ‎single day by a kind of supernatural phenomenon that is unique in the whole history of mankind.

“Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?”‎ that over night "...all of the sudden we were Palestinians - they removed the star from the Jordanian flag ‎and all at once we had a Palestinian flag”.‎

The OETA was a joint British and French military administration over Levantine and Mesopotamian provinces of the former Ottoman Empire established between 1918 to 1920.The area of formerly Ottoman territory was under occupation  and Field Marshal Edmund Allenby (Dec 1917 – Jun 1918) was appointed a Chief Administrator for OETA South. He divided the country into four districts: Jerusalem, Jaffa, Majdal and Beersheba, each under a military governor.

OETA South, consisted of the Ottoman Sanjaks of Jerusalem or the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, together with the Sanjak of Nablus and Sanjak of Acre, they formed the region that was commonly referred to as "Southern Syria" by the Arabs who did not see this land as a separate country but merely considered the area in question as an undifferentiated part of Bilad ash-Sham (usually translated as Syria or Greater Syria).

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

Faris al-Khoury was born in Hasbaya in southern Lebanon. He was not only a die-hard Syrian nationalist but what was remarkable about him is that the fact that he was Christian. He served as Prime Minister of Syria twice from October 14, 1944 to October 1, 1945 and from October 1954 to February 13, 1955. Faris Khoury was also the first Syrian statesman to visit the United States and represent his country at the inauguration of the UN in 1945 .

This Arab view that the name "Palestine" was not identified with the Arabs living in the Mandated areas lasted until the end of the British mandate period. As we see from Arab writings and political declarations such as that of  Prof. Philip Hitti, an Arab-American historian, who taught at Princeton University when he testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946: " There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history, absolutely not." 

At the San Remo conference, an international meeting of the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council, held at Villa Devachan in San Remo, Italy, from 19 to 26 April 1920. Attended by the four Principal Allied Powers of World War I who were represented by the prime Ministers of Britain (David Lloyd George), France (Alexandre Millerand) and Italy (Francesco Nitti) and by Japan's Ambassador K. Matsui. Resolutions were passed at this conference that determined the allocation of Class "A" League of Nations mandates for administration of the former Ottoman-ruled lands of the Middle East Resolution adopted on 25 April 1920 that incorporated 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."

The Balfour Declaration and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations were the basic documents ‎upon which the League of Nations "British Mandate for Palestine" was constructed.
The declaration was in contrast to the McMahon-Hussein correspondence, which promised the Arab independence movement control of the Middle East territories "in the limits and boundaries proposed by the Sherif of Mecca" in exchange for revolting against the Ottoman Empire.

By the Balfour ‎Declaration, the British government had undertaken to favour the establishment of a Jewish ‎national home in "Palestine" - without "...prejudice to 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." Britain received the mandate for Palestine and Iraq; France gained control of Syria, ‎including present-day Lebanon in complete disregard to other League of Nations representatives who had been opposed to the Sykes-Picot agreement.

When the British received the mandate at the San Remo after the utter defeat and breaking apart of the Ottoman Turkish Empire in 1922 they called the land on both sides of the Jordan River, by the Roman term "Palestine". It was specifically employed to avoid the use of the name "Eretz Yisrael" by members of the British Foreign Office, who despised the Balfour Declaration. According to the Minutes of the Ninth Session of the League of Nations' Permanent Mandate Commission:

Lieutenant Colonel Sir George Stewart Symes (1882–1962)  explained; "... that the country was described as 'Palestine' by Europeans and as 'Falestina' by the Arabs. The Hebrew name for the area was the designation 'Land of Israel', and the British Government grudgingly agreed to meet Jewish wishes by allowing the use of the initials which stood for that designation 'Land of Israel' in Hebrew characters following the word "Palestine" in all official documents and monies.
As a set-off to this, certain Arab politicians suggested that the country should be called "Southern Syria" in order to emphasize its close relation with another Arab State."

During an Advisory Council meeting in 1920 his Excellency the High Commissioner of Palestine Herbert Samuel stated that:

"I was aware that there was no other name in the Hebrew language for this land except 'Eretz-Israel'. At the same time I thought that if 'Eretz-Israel' only were used, it might not be regarded by the outside world as a correct rendering of the word 'Palestine', and in the case of passports or certificates of nationality, it might perhaps give rise to passports or certificates of nationality, it might perhaps give rise to difficulties, so it was decided to print 'Palestine' in Hebrew letters and to add after it the letters 'Aleph' 'Yod', which constitute a recognized abbreviation of the Hebrew name 'Eretz-Israel'."  

Article 22 of the Mandate for Palestine states:

"English, Arabic and Hebrew shall be the official languages of Palestine. Any statement or inscription in Arabic on stamps or money in Palestine shall be repeated in Hebrew and any statement or inscription in Hebrew shall be repeated in Arabic."

As I mentioned previously above, the Arabs who resided in the area of the Mandated territories, wished to be recognized as part of 'Southern Syria'. They wanted to emphasize their close relation with other Arab States and not the word "Palestine," which the Arabs saw as applied almost exclusively to Jews. Institutions founded by new Jewish immigrants in the first half of the 20th century, before independence were all prefixed by the word "Palestine". You can see it in this opening of the famous 1935 movie made during the British mandate period:  "The Land of Promise"

Some other examples include:

• The badges that the members of the Jewish Brigade from WWII are labeled in Hebrew "Palestina" and with it the letters א"י - Aleph Yud - Eretz Yisrael!
• The Jerusalem Post, founded in 1932, was called the Palestine Post until 1948.
• Bank Leumi L’Israel was called the “Anglo-Palestine Bank, a Jewish Company.”
• The Jewish Agency – an arm of the Zionist movement engaged in Jewishsettlement since 1929 – was called the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
• The newspaper for American Zionism in the 1930s was called New Palestine.
• Today’s Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1936 by German Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany, was described as the “Palestine Symphony Orchestra, composed of some 70 Palestinian Jews.”
• The United Jewish Appeal (UJA) was established in 1939 as a merger of the United Palestine Appeal and the fundraising arm of the Joint Distribution Committee.
• And exactly "who" were the footballers in the Australia and Palestine 1939 football game
  

"...The “indigenous people” who resided in the Ottoman Turkish Empire area prior to the Mandate in 1922 where a mixed group of peoples and there was no clamor made by them to be identified as “Falestinians”. Lt. Colonel Sir George Stewart Symes 

In Conclusion

Both sides do agree that God gave the land of Canaan (which became Israel) to Abraham and to his heirs forever and that Ishmael was Abraham's firstborn son, whereas Isaac was the second but the firstborn of Sarah and of the promise.

Noor Dahri - director of Pakistan Israel Alliance (PIA) and Editor in Chief of the Newspaper Pak Israel News (PIN)

It is mandatory upon all Muslims to support Israel and her right to exist in the holy land because the holy book of Islam, the Quran supports Israel. There are many verses in the Quran which support the divine right of Jews on the land of Israel but I want to quote only three to justify the right of the existence of Israel. The first verse of the Holy Quran stipulates:
“And We said thereafter to the Children of Israel, ‘Dwell securely in the Promised Land” (Quran: 17:104)
and the second orders the people of Bane-Israel to enter the Holy-Land:
“O my people (the Jews)! Enter the Holy Land, which God has assigned unto you”, (Quran: 5:21)
in the third verse, Allah Almighty order the children of Israel to scatter and says:
“And we said to the Children of Israel afterwards, ‘scatter and live all over the world… and when the end of the world is near we will gather you again into the Promised Land” (Quran:17:104)
The above-cited Quranic verses are a solid proof that this land was divinely given to the people of Israel and Muslims have no religious or historical claim to possess this land.

The custom in Abraham's day, acknowledged in the Torah, gave the firstborn prior claim to the inheritance. In fact the Torah relays the story that Abraham was satisfied with Ishmael as his child and that he considered him to be the son God had promised. Abraham didn't even want God to give him another son as mentioned in (Gen 17:18) It is by this story the Arab descendants of Ishmael believe of themselves to be the legitimate heirs. And as the Bible tells us God brought Abraham into the 'land of Canaan...and the Canaanite [not the 'Palestinian'] was then in the land' (Gen 12:5-6). God gave that land by an everlasting covenant to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Gen 24:7) - not to Ishmael. In obedience to God, Abraham 'settled in the land of Canaan' (Gen 13:12).Therefore there was no such land as 'Palestine' in Abraham's day and thus no such people as 'Palestinians' from whom any of today's Arabs could claim descent. In actual fact, Ishmael's descendants settled in the Arabian Peninsula hundreds of miles from the land God gave Abraham.

This claim by Semitic Arabs of being descendants of a non-Semitic people who allegedly lived for thousands of years in a land called Palestine is a blatant hoax intended to delegitimize the Israelis and claim the land of Israel for themselves. True the "Land of Israel" was then inhabited by Canaanites, Kenites, Kenizites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaims, Amorites, Girgashites and Jebusites' (Gen 12:6; 13:7; 15:18-21; 23:10; etc.).

If today's 'Palestinian' Arabs are descended from the original inhabitants of the "land of Canaan", which ones of those listed above would it be? In fact, no descendants of the original inhabitants of Canaan have survived to this day. Yet the world continues to accept this fraudulent claim.  In any case, the original “Palestinians” had nothing to do, whatsoever, with any "Falestinian" Arabs.