The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO)...affirmed its rejection of what the so-called religious authority of the Israeli occupation army in the occupied city of Al-Quds did when they published a photo of Al-Aqsa Mosque without the Dome of the Rock. This photo, ISESCO underlined, depicts the true intention of the Israeli occupation authorities to judaize the city and establish the alleged Temple in the so-called “Temple Mount” on “the ruins” [?} of Al-Aqsa Mosque, especially as a model of the Temple has been built in front of Al-Aqsa Mosque [??], and the calls of the Jewish rabbis to demolish the First Qibla and the Third Holy Mosque have increased [???]...Likewise, ISESCO called upon the international society and competent bodies to preserve the historically proven rights of Muslim and Christian Arabs in Al-Quds’ Islamic and Christian sanctities, which are considered a red line that cannot be crossed.
What are they referring to?
So, let's add incitement to prevarication and denial.
Here is one of the most concise and stunning statements - it's from 1936 when the "Arab Revolt" was declared - that explain the Arab-Israel conflict, its background, its complexity, its own internal contradictory and mendacious framework in which the Arabs enwrap it:
Zionists never sought to replace Arabs with Jews but simply to bring Jews home. As have been proven by today's reality, millions of persons could live in this country and so all the Arab claims then were just to keep the Jews out. And the Arabs would still be in the country if they hadn't adopted the path of violence and terror from the start.
b) "principles" (16-18 secs.)
While the Arabs promoted a claim of 'self-determination' and 'democracy', they would not permit the Jews to practice the same and predicated their hostility and violence on a nationlist paradigm I term inventivity which denies Jews those rights when Jews possessed primacy as regards history, culture, religion and other aspects over and in this land. Moreover, almost 60 nations, all the civilized world in the post-World War I period, decided in the League of Nations that Jews would be granted the political rights in Palestine while non-Jews would be granted their rights in other areas of the Middle East and in Palestine only civil and religious rights. And that was only fair and just.
c) "Balfour Declaration abhorred" (19-25)
Well, that's true but the Arabs themselves, through their allegiance with Great Britain, their correspondence with MacMahon, their negotiations with Lawrence, etc., were doing exactly what the Zionists were doing. They fought in the desert and the Jews fought in Palestine. No difference. The British, faced with two options, elected to give Palestine to the Jews and backtracked out by awarding, in 1921, TransJordan to one of three brothers, Abdullah, while the other brother, Feisal, first was King of Syria and then King of Iraq (and who was sympathetice to Zionist aims, to an extent). Ali, the thrid brother, was for a very short time King of Saudi Arabia. We Jews abhorred that act of diplomatic treachery.
d) "forgot" (34 sec)
The British did no such thing. Besides the truncatation of the Jewish National Home by suspending their Mandate provisions to TransJordan, they suggest an Arab Agency, parity proposals, failed to provide adequate security for Jews against Arab violence and later, sought to partition, again and again, the rest of the territory that was to become the Jewish National Home.
e) "stoppage of immigration" (44-46 secs.)
Not only was that demand of a halt to Jewish immigration totally immoral at the time when Hitler had been in power three years, and illegal, but in flies in the face of the 1800-year history of the Land of Israel which always received its returning Jews.
f) "essential change in government policy" (50-53 secs.)
The British were always changing their policies to the detriment of the Jews and jin 1939, with the St. James Conference and the White Paper, completely reneged on the Balfour Declaration and League of Nations commitments.
There you are. In less than one minute almost all the basic points you need to understand why Arabs are wrong. And in insight into the perversion of their thinking.
P.S.
I am fairly sure that spokesman is Jamal el-Husseini and if so - On Jamal.
The Israel Antiquities Authority on Sunday presented a rare clay seal that appears to be linked to religious rituals that took place at the Second Temple 2,000 years ago. The coin-sized seal found underground near the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City bears two Aramaic words meaning "pure for God."
Archaeologist Ronny Reich of Haifa University said on Sunday that this was the first discovery of such a seal from the period and a unique artifact from the Temple practice. He said the seal was likely used by Temple officials assigning an object for ritual use — oil, perhaps, or an animal intended for sacrifice. Materials used by Temple priests had to be ritually pure.
Reich added that the seal dates from between the 1st century B.C. to 70 A.D., when Roman forces destroyed the Temple.
While the purifying process has been documented extensively, it was never been fully proven until now. The seal impression clearly attests to the special purity measures that worshipers subscribed to in and around the Temple and the great lengths they went to in order to prepare themselves for the privilege of entry to the Temple area.
Jews. In Jerusalem. At the Temple.
What will the Arabs say?
"Invented history"?
___________
UPDATE
One thing that puzzles me about the recently discovered seal from Jerusalem is its Aramaic inscription. The seal reads דכא ליה (‘pure to Yah[weh]‘), and evidently has some sort of ritual significance...The one thing that surprises me about this, however, is
that the inscription is clearly in Aramaic, not Hebrew. This would be highly unusual for a priestly item. Deutsch offers an alternative theory that the seal was a token used in the monetary exchange for a libation offered in the temple. The use of Aramaic in this case would make more sense, as a lay person was involved in the exchange. However, the phrase ‘pure for Yaw(weh)’ seems a little peripheral to the exchange itself. I want to propose a slightly different understanding of this little seal.
We know that the moneychangers in the Jerusalem temple exchanged ordinary coins with Tyrian silver coins. These Tyrian coins were noted for the purity of their silver. While most silver coins in the Roman Empire were only 80% silver, the Tyrian coins were approximately 94% silver—the highest purity level of all coins. They were, therefore, deemed as fit for monetary exchanges in the temple, as well as the
collection of the famous half-shekel temple tax...The Tyrian coins were minted in Tyre for over a century, until the Romans closed the Tyrian mint in c. 18 BC—just after Herod’s renovation of the Jerusalem temple began...
Since all monetary purchases in the temple were made in Tyrian silver, it seems reasonable that there was some kind of system in place to guarantee that pilgrims were using the correct currency exchanged at the temple. The recently discovered seal from the Old City of Jerusalem may have served this purpose. A pilgrim would come to
Jerusalem with whatever coins they had, and would go to an officially sanctioned moneychanger in or near the temple complex. They would hand over their coins, receive Tyrian silver in exchange, as well as a token (the seal) guaranteeing the purity of the silver they were receiving...the token was written in Aramaic so that a lay person (a pilgrim) might understand that they had received pure currency that was officially endorsed by the temple authorities. The pilgrim would then take these Tyrian silver coins, along with the accompanying token, and use them to make purchases, such as sacrificial animals or libations, within the temple itself.
GEORGE ATHAS
Director of Postgraduate Studies,
Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)
Sydney, Australia
^
An open letter to CNN presenter Piers Morgan
From Maurice Ostroff December 18, 2011
Dear Mr. Piers Morgan
I always enjoy your programs, even your recent interview with Lewis Black when he said that Newt Gingrich’s widely reported statement about Palestinians was a psychotic thing to say.
As a stand-up comedian Black's ignorance is understandable, but I was disappointed that as a knowledgeable and respected TV presenter and veteran journalist you did not correct him and point out that far from being psychotic, Newt Gingrich’s statements "Remember there was no Palestine as a state -- [it was] part of the Ottoman Empire. I think we have an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs[.]" are substantiated by historical facts.
The essential historical facts are that when the status of the Ottoman Empire’s former possessions was determined at the San Remo conference in 1920, Syria and Lebanon were mandated to France while Mesopotamia (Iraq) and the southern portion of the territory (Palestine) were mandated to Britain. Jews as well as Arabs who lived in the mandated territory were regarded as Palestinians, not by virtue of nationhood, but by virtue of living in what was then designated as Palestine.
See here.
Moreover, former speaker Gingrich’s views are substantiated by many authoritative Arab opinions. For example, in 1937 Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdel-Hadi, said of Palestine to the Peel Commission in Jerusalem “There is no such country. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria. “Palestine” is alien to us; it is the Zionists who introduced it.”
Testifying at the 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, , the distinguished Arab historian, Prof. Philip K. Hitti, author of the authoritative book "The Arabs", stated “There is no such thing as 'Palestine' in history, absolutely not.”
Addressing the UN security council in 1956 in his capacity as the Arab League’s ambassador to the UN , Ahmad Shukeiri, the first chairman of the PLO and one of its founders declared “Such a creature as Palestine does not exist at all. This land is nothing but the southern portion of Greater Syria.. It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria".
In 1970, no less than Yasser Arafat told Italian journalist Orianna Falacci, “What you call ‘Trans-Jordan’ is nothing more than Palestine”. And at a conference in Amman in 1987, then Syrian President, Hafez al-Assad, said, “A state named ‘Palestine’ has never existed.”
On March 31, 1977, in an interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw, Zuheir Mohsen, leader of the as-Sa'iqa faction of the PLO, said “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”.
And more recently a high profile critic of the Israel government, Arab former member of Knesset Azmi Bishara, who has fled Israel, declared categorically during a interview on Israel's Channel 2 TV "There is no Palestinian nation. It's a colonial invention... When were there any Palestinians? ...until the 19th century Palestine was the south of greater Syria..." .
See here.
It is obvious from the above that far from being zany or psychotic Mr. Gingrich is far better informed than Mr. Black and that the former speaker’s views on Palestinian nationhood are supported not only by historical FACTS but also by solid authoritative Arab opinion. It is relevant to emphasize that my objection to Mr. Black’s misrepresentation of historical facts in no way detracts from my support for a two state solution of the Israel-Arab conflict.
And as I'm sure that CNN does not wish to misinform viewers, I trust that you will correct the misinformation conveyed during the above mentioned interview with Mr. Black.
This letter is being publicized as will the considered response I hope to receive from you
In 1949, Princeton University Press, published the Fifth Revised Printing, of the original 1943 history book “The Arabs: A Short History” by Professor Philip Khuri Hitti, Professor of Semitic Languages and Chairman of the Department of Oriental Languages at Princeton University. Credited with almost single handedly created the discipline of Arabic Studies in the United States, Hitti, born in Ottoman Syria (now modern day Lebanon), was the preeminent scholar of Islam and the Arab world of his day.
A proponent of the Arab cause against the Jews and Zionism, Hitti was the first Arab to testify against the Partition Plan at the 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, where he took Ben-Gurion to task for his testimony about “Palestine” (referring to the Jews). Hitti declared: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history, absolutely not.” And in fact, in the aforementioned “The Arabs: A Short History” there is no mention of whatsoever of an Arab “Palestinian People” even though the particular volume in this writer’s possession was printed in 1966. Despite its numerous revisions, including after the founding the 1948 founding of the State of Israel, Professor Philip K. Hitti, a world renowned spokesman for the Arab cause for many years, made no revision to include the now oft-mentioned Arab “Palestinian People” in later editions of his book on Arab history.
In 1944 before a U. S. House committee, Hitti gave testimony in support of the view that there was no historical justification for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. His testimony was reprinted in the Princeton Herald. In response, Albert Einstein and his friend and colleague Erich Kahler jointly replied in the same newspaper with their counter-arguments. Hitti then published a response and Einstein and Kahler concluded the debate in the Princeton Herald with their second response
THE PALESTINIAN NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT emerged in the early 1960s with the primary goal of “liberating the land and the people” from Zionist settler-colonialism. Today, with colonization accelerating throughout Palestine and with Palestinian refugees—mostly deprived of their national, civil, and human rights—still dispersed around the world, this aim sounds like an embarrassing echo of a distant past [1]. The failure of the strategy of armed struggle to deliver its maximalist (pre-1967) or even more limited (post-1988) goals became patently clear with the quelling of the second intifada. Meanwhile, the alternate strategy of seeking to liberate a fraction of historical Palestine by negotiations and diplomacy has proven equally futile.
"emerged in the early 1960s"? "pre-1967 armed struggle"?
But we know this movement is ancient, old, no? And we know the "settlements" cause the terror.
That's what they tell us.
Who wrote that?
Raja Khalidi and Sobhi Samour.
Who is Raja?
He's Chief, Office of the Director, Division on Globalisationa and Developmen Strategies, Geneva.
And Sobhi?
He's a Ph.D. candidate in economics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
The Journal of the Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS), an institute exclusively devoted to documentation, research, analysis, and publication on Palestinian affairs and the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is an academic organization dedicated to protecting the integrity of the historical record. IPS is looked upon as the major source of accurate information and analysis on Palestinian affairs and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Dr. Mezu’s theory is “Creative Inventivism”… The will and ability to make a way out of no way - the capability of taking a mess, a wall, a bottomless pit, and constructing a rope, a ladder, a bridge across the expanse of impossibility… a future out of hopelessness, oppression, and submission.
For Simondon’s thought to resonate, constructivism has to make room for an integral inventivism (if such a word exists). An inventivism that is not afraid of nature and its [own] creativity.
if you want to know why not identity or sameness can be found by Deleuze in these operation of the intellect...the problem so is to MAKE the connections when identity is seen as illusion of the 'megamachine'. between disparate differencial flowing elementary objects of desires, AND illusions of the intellect as blockers starting to run loose out of human mind origins. [inventivism of passions].
"Constructivism" is a term, actually, that has been applied to Jewish nationalism. But I'll get to that later.
...the notion of "Constructivist Realism", which combines both the realist and constructivist* approachs. With regard to the Zionist Right, the argument would be that, while its core beleifs about the nature of the world could indeed be found in realism, the core beleifs could not be understood as objective, given or natural, but as constructed and invented, part and parcel ofd the identity of those who have held the se beleifs for generations...national power [is a ] belief system [that] in its entirety has been grounded in a broader identity construct...Jabotinsky's myth constuction...
Of course, the theory has little to do with the realism of what is and has been proven about the actual historical record of the Jewish people and its relationship with the Land of Israel.
*
Constructivism is a theory of knowledge (epistemology) that argues that humans generate knowledge and meaning from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas. During infancy, it was an interaction between human experiences and their reflexes or behavior-patterns.
Constructivists see such identities and interests as not objectively grounded in material forces (such as dictates of the human nature that underpins Classical Realism) but the result of ideas and the social construction of such ideas. In other words the meanings of ideas, objects, and actors are all given by social interaction. We give objects their meanings and can attach different meanings to different things.
...theories of the formation of ethnic groups are driven by the constructivist assumption that ethnic identities can change over time, theories of the effect of ethnicity on economic and political outcomes are driven by the primordialist assumption that these identities are fixed.
which, however, is tempered in a too fluid way here:
The idea that principles of justice should be reconstructed from existing social practices – and not treated as facts of reason, Platonic forms or divine commands – has a long and established pedigree in political theory, from G.W.F. Hegel to John Rawls. In recent years, the requirement that principles of justice be “practice-dependent” has received fresh attention from a young generation of political theorists, putting a methodological principle, along with the associated ideas of moral and political constructivism, at the top of the agenda of contemporary political theory.
American born, my wife and I moved to Israel in 1970. We have lived at Shiloh together with our family since 1981. I was in the Betar youth movement in the US and UK. I have worked as a political aide to Members of Knesset and a Minister during 1981-1994, lectured at the Academy for National Studies 1977-1994, was director of Israel's Media Watch 1995-2000 and currently, I work at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. I was a guest media columnist on media affairs for The Jerusalem Post, op-ed contributor to various journals and for six years had a weekly media show on Arutz 7 radio. I serve as an unofficial spokesperson for the Jewish Communities in Judea & Samaria.
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