Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Shumsky's Fooling Us on Jabotinsky


The chapter on Jabotinsky permits a different reading from the usual interpretation. In 1906, at the Helsingfors Zionist Conference (which took place right after the failed Russian Revolution of 1905), Jabotinsky formulated a conception of minority rights based on the writings of Rudolph Springer (Karl Renner). In this conception, minorities would have full national autonomy to develop their character through separate cultural, educational, and legal institutions. Although these ideas were designed to reconfigure the Russian Empire along national lines, Jabotinsky saw them as applicable to any multicultural politic. Thus, he conceived of Jewish-Arab coexistence in the Ottoman Empire during the period of the Young Turk Revolution, and then in Mandate Palestine. Jabotinsky placed his stress on the development of the nation in concrete territory rather than the construction of a nation-state. In this interpretation, Jabotinsky showed himself as a believer in something like a binational Palestine in which the country would contain Arabs who would have equal civil and national rights, albeit as a national minority.

That is misleading.

Jabotinsky forcefully oppose binationalism (I have just translated two oof his articles on the subject).

I also have posted on his famous 1940 article, "The Arab Angle - Undramatized". Here is a copy and the article begins on page 211.

His willingness to afford national minorities rights extended to the non-political for those who refused to see themselves as part of the political entity they resided in.

The Arabs, and others, were not nationalities but ethno-communitites.  And these are the areas of activity:

The following matters shall be delegated by the State to each ethno-community with regard to its members: 
(a) religion and personal status; 
(b) education in all its branches and grades, especially in the compulsory elementary stages; 
(c) public relief, including all forms of social assistance; 
(d) settlement of ordinary law cases arising out of the above-mentioned matters. 
3. Each ethno-community shall elect its National Diet with the right to issue ordinances and levy taxes within the limits of its autonomy, and to appoint a national executive responsible before the Diet. 
4. A permanent Minister of Cabinet rank, independent of all parties, shall represent each ethno-community in the country's government. 

And he added this:

Whether the Arabs would find all this a sufficient inducement to remain in a Jewish country is another question. Even if they did not, the author would refuse to see a tragedy or a disaster in their willingness to emigrate. The Palestine Royal Commission did not shrink from the suggestion. Courage is infectious. Since we have this great moral authority for calmly envisaging the exodus of 350,000 Arabs from one corner of Palestine, we need not regard the possible departure of 900,000 with dismay. The writer, as he has already said, cannot see any necessity for this exodus: it would even be undesirable from many points of view; but if it should appear that the Arabs would prefer to migrate, the prospect can be discussed without any pretence of concern.

Sorry, but he is reinterpreting Jabotinsky according to his own world-view.

Stephen Wise's 'Fallacious Reasoning"

In this September 23, 1929 Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs, Gardiner Howland Shaw, who rose to become Deputy Secretary of State, some 7 weeks after the riots in Mandate Palestine, he details being contacted by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise. Wise, then head of Keren Hayesod, wanted to know the views of the Secretary of State, Henry L. Stimson, no friend of Jews and Zionism, "with respect to the American Zionists retaining the services of a prominent American lawyer to assist in presenting the Jewish point of view before the Shaw Commission of Investigation".

Wise pointed out that as American citizens had been murdered during those riots and their property damaged, "this move would be eminently proper". 

The response:


The Secretary said he could see no objection to Rabbi Wise’s suggestion, it being distinctly understood that the American lawyer chosen had no official status and that the steps necessary to enable him to appear before the Shaw Commission should be taken by the American Zionist Organization in collaboration with the Jewish Agency in London and the British Colonial Office. 

It was pointed out to Rabbi Wise that the presenting of the Jewish or Zionist point of view before the Commission of Investigation was one thing and the presentation before the competent authorities of private claims for damages on account of the killing of American citizens was something quite different and the two should not be confused. It was suggested to Rabbi Wise that to argue that because eight American citizens had been killed in Palestine therefore the American Government was under some sort of obligation to assist in presenting the Zionist side before the Commission of Investigation was clearly fallacious reasoning

Why should the American Government assist in presenting either the Jewish or the Arab side? If on the other hand the competent Zionist authorities desired to retain the services of an American, a German or a Polish lawyer to assist Sir F. Boyd Merriman, that was entirely a matter to be settled through the Jewish Agency and the Colonial Office.


The reply was marked “O K” by the Secretary of State.

^

Monday, July 29, 2019

When Did Boycotting Zionism Begin?

September 1, 1922 would be a start*:




October 1922 would follow:



We even had anti-Zionist Jews as pro-boycott, October 20, 1922:



* Nope. December 1920:



And reported on June 10, 1921:




^

Sunday, July 28, 2019

The State Department and Zionism 1917-1930

From here:


The Balfour Declaration was welcomed by the political leadership of the US, including both the president and Congress, but the State Department reacted with skepticism to it. Secretary of State Robert Lansing advised Wilson not to endorse it, citing as reasons opposition from the Turks and the dividedness among the Jews themselves on the issue of Zionism.238 Moreover, in a letter written in December 1917, Lansing warned that “many Christian sects and individuals would undoubtedly resent turning the Holy Land over to the absolute control of the race credited with the death of Christ.”239 

In their assessment of the situation, the State Department and the Protestant missionary circles overlapped. State Department correspondence of the time also reveals the existence of anti-Semitism within its ranks. Many believed that the Zionists were agents of Bolshevism, a theory which was also inspired by the publication and distribution of the English version of the ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ after World War I.240 The spread of such conspiracy theories, which experienced mounting popularity during these years, strengthened the anti-Zionist case. To those already disposed towards anti-Semitism, Zionism appeared to be an international Jewish conspiracy. Thus, the contradictory claims that the Jews sought to establish a theocracy in Palestine and that they were communist agents, were often levelled at Zionism simultaneously.241 

US support for Zionism was further undermined by a generally isolationist climate under the three republican presidents who followed Wilson, which limited US foreign involvement. In the early 1920s, the State Department thus embarked on a course of active opposition to Zionism. In a series of internal memorandums drafted in 1922, NEA chief Allan W. Dulles and Secretary of State Charles Hughes committed the State Department to a policy of non-intervention in Palestine’s affairs and a rejection of Zionist demands. This tendency became obvious during the draft negotiations for the Anglo-American Treaty on Palestine. Against British wishes and seeming US interests as well, the State Department sought to restrict US rights to intercede with the British mandate in Palestine. This was made in order to foreclose US involvement in the country. In addition, it requested the excision of the preamble, citing the Balfour Declaration. Moreover, US interests were narrowly defined as those of the missionary educational establishment and business interests in the Middle East, not as those of the supporters of Zionism.242 Already at that time it became clear that the State Department’s stance toward Zionism was significantly at odds with that of Congress.

The State Department was convinced that support for Zionism was detrimental to US interests in the region. It was apprised on the situation in Palestine through its Consul in Jerusalem, who tended to have strong opinions on the relevant issues and whose competence was not always beyond doubt. Those who filled the position were usually not well disposed towards Zionism and influenced by the ‘Red Scare’. Reverend Otis Glazebrook, who officiated in Jerusalem since 1914, favored the conservation of the Ottoman Empire under an American mandate and rejected Zionism. His stance had influenced the findings of the King-Crane commission.246 In his reports to Washington, Glazebrook showed little understanding of intra-Zionist dynamics. Probably influenced by the spread of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories after World War I, he believed the moderate Zionist Organization to be a violent, radical Jewish group, hostile to Christianity. 

A report by his successor Addison E. Southard equally described Eastern European Jewish immigrants as “potential troublemakers of Bolshevist tendencies.”247 His successor George C. Cobb showed a more impartial attitude towards Zionism.248 However, charges that the Zionists were tied to Bolshevism resurfaced with Paul Knabenshue, who acted as consul from 1928 until 1932. In 1929, Arab riots erupted in Palestine and culminated in the massacres of the ancient Orthodox Jewish communities in Hebron and Safed. In total, more than 400 Jews were killed or wounded. The State Department was generally unsympathetic to the Jewish victims of the riots. In his reports, Knabenshue ignored the incitement of the SMC and put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Zionist ‘provocateurs’. Moreover, he was of the opinion that the Jews possessed no rights at the Western Wall.249 

American reticence to appear pro-Zionist was also motivated by the fear that such an impression would compromise US interests in the region, which were never defined as including the interests of American Jews. Thus, Knabenshue closely monitored Arabic newspapers, highlighting those articles which were critical of US-Zionist collaboration in his correspondence with Washington.250 The anti-Zionist stance of the State Department was strengthened by the reports authored by the Shaw and the Hope-Simpson commissions, which were published in 1930. These reports investigated the reasons behind the riots. Both ascribed the responsibility for the riots largely to the Zionist policy in Palestine. They were especially critical towards the effects of the acquisition of Arab land and Jewish immigration. The findings therefore recommended a revision of the British policy towards Zionism, suggesting limiting Jewish land acquisition and immigration.251 These suggestions were in line with the thinking in the State Department. The riots in Palestine also had a great effect on public opinion towards Zionism in the US.

^

The US Consulate in Jerusalem and the Mufti

How good are diplomatic communications from the field, in this case, the American Consulate in Jerusalem, and the State Department in Washington?

Are they reliable? Reflective of the genuine situation? Incisive?

Let's make a judgment based on some excerpts from reports in the 1930s regarding the machinations and doings of the Mufti Haj Amin Al-Husseini.

Here, from Leland B. Morris from the Consulate:

A.

July 9, 1937

The intention attributed to the Nationalist Party of preparing and arming such bands, allegedly at the request of the Grand Mufti17of Jerusalem who recently visited Damascus, has been categorically denied by Nationalist leaders. They state that while they sympathize with the Arabs in Palestine there can be no question of armed intervention.

B.

July 12, 1937


In both camps divergent views are held on the recommendation [the Peel Partition Proposal]. Among Arabs Mufti refuses in principle and declines in practice to consider it; Emir Abdullah19urges acceptance on ground realities must be faced but wants modification of proposed boundary and Arab administrations in neutral enclave; Nashashibi20side-steps principle willing negotiate for favorable modifications. Among joint ownership [sic] general Zionists refuse in principle but imply would accept in practice if modifications made to include in Jewish State new Jerusalem and Jordan colonies, afford opportunity to develop Negev and avoid subvention to Arab State; important group of Labor Zionists while urging similar modification reported willing to accept what they can get.
Iraq Government’s statement categorically opposing partition believed based on combination sympathy and curiosity, [sic] strengthen internal position greatly fortifies Mufti’s stand.

C.

August 16, 1937


The Mufti of Jerusalem during a call which I made him yesterday [!] handed me a note on behalf of the Arab Higher Committee based on its understanding of the reports concerning communications exchanged in London between Ambassador Bingham and Mr. Eden with respect to America’s right to be consulted concerning changes in the mandate that might American interests. [the reference is to the 1924 Covenant] The gist of the note is contained in its penultimate paragraph.
[“] If the United States is upholding the Jews out of sympathy for them it should be remarked that the Arabs are more deserving of that sympathy as they are in the right and are the owners of the country and the victims of aggression. If on the other hand the United. States is upholding the Jews on account of their financial influence it should be remarked that the United States enjoys in Arab countries great respect and affection and a moral standing of great value which are a result of the accomplishments of groups of Americans over a great number of years. These are worthy of being safeguarded and developed. The United States has also cultural relations and widely extensive business connections with the Near East and the Moslem world which are also worthy of being safeguarded and developed. It is our belief that these possess no less present and future value than what the United States is likely to reap from supporting the fallacious Jewish cause. In fact it exceeds it by far inasmuch as it embraces far-flung eastern countries”.
Before the Mufti disclosed his intention of making any communication to me or had raised the question of the American attitude in the premises...I said that our concern in these matters was limited to the American interests involved which in the case of Palestine were as he would readily understand in large measure Jewish.
He was well pleased to discover that the American action was not unique and designed against the Arabs, a point of view which he said was heavily stressed by Jewish propaganda. He said that if the policy of the United States was the same with respect to all mandates, he could see that in this case we were not departing from that impartiality which has for many years characterized the various good works of the United States in the Near East for which the Arabs had every cause to be gratified.

D.

October 2, 1937

Attorney General explains non arrest of Mufti still in Haram area as prompted by apprehension reaction in Moslem world. It is also hoped that having clipped his wings by cutting off most important source propaganda funds he will be forced to retreat from present uncompromising attitude.

E.

From George Wadsworth

October 12, 1936

Most observers believe that next fortnight will see end of sabotage and violence and gradual dispersing of provincial terrorist bands, that Royal Commission will arrive end of this month for minimum 3 months’ inquiry, that local situation can best be described as armed truce pending action upon Commission’s findings and that as it was this situation which furnished pretext for establishing extra division of British troops in southeastern Mediterranean majority of forces now here will be retained pending clarification European situation.

And earlier:

F.

From Paul Knabenshue

August 26, 1929

Inasmuch as Moslem attacks against the Jews, although now widespread in Palestine, have not the support of their religious and other important leaders and partake of the character of mob violence, troops expected to arrive by tomorrow night should materially assist in a few days suppressing the disorders.

No comment required.

^

Friday, July 26, 2019

Addendum to US Senators Visit to Palestine

That's the 1936 visit that I blogged here.

I have now found internal correspondence that is interesting:


867N.00/358: Telegram


The Consul at Jerusalem (Wadsworth) to the Secretary of State
Jerusalem, August 22, 1936—11 a.m.
[Received August 22—9:40 a.m.]

I learned 3 days ago that Senators Copeland,14 Austin15 and Hastings,16 accompanied by their wives, a female secretary, and Isaac Don Levine as publicity agent,* will arrive Haifa Sunday morning on 2 weeks visit to investigate Palestine situation. Local inquiries elicited information that preceding day President Magnes, Hebrew University, received telegram requesting him reserve hotel accommodations and inform head Political Department, Jewish Agency; also that Hadassah, New York, has telegraphed suggesting that Dr. Copeland would wish to visit Zionist hospitals and health centers.


A local committee of five representative Americans (leading Zionists) has been formed to meet party on arrival and has planned propaganda visits to Jewish colonies before proceeding Jerusalem. Meanwhile, I asked Consul General at Alexandria where party arrived yesterday to keep me in touch with developments. Today Legation Cairo telegraphed party has been organized and financed by Hearst.17 This is confirmed by New York Times correspondent Levy who suggests junket designed to appeal to Jewish vote in coming Presidential elections through pro-Jewish propaganda and neutralization former Hearst Nazi-philia.


This afternoon Chief Secretary of the Palestine Government expressed surprise that neither he, through issuing British visa office, nor I had heard from our Governments. He is reporting matter to London and requests that I inform the Department. He takes position on grounds of safety alone that the party cannot be permitted to tour country. With this I fully concur, particularly in view of present recrudescence of terrorism and especially as Zionists are sponsoring tour.

Wadsworth
Royal S. Copeland, Senator from New York.
Warren R. Austin, Senator from Vermont.
Daniel O. Hastings, Senator from Delaware.
William Randolph Hearst, newspaper publisher.
* Archives

And arrive they did:


On September 14, 1936, this appeared:



And the trip resulted in an amazing proposal, if only Ambassador DM Friedman could know:

^

Thursday, July 18, 2019

Who Suggested Partition?


In November 1933, Chaim Weizmann, the head of the Zionist Organization, raised the possibility of partition in Palestine in a meeting with Vito Catastini, the head of the mandates section of the League of Nations secretariat.29 

Catastini's apparent support of the idea perturbed members of the Colonial Office who felt that the subject lay beyond the League's purview. Weizmann seemed to think otherwise, discussing his idea for a territorial division with the head of the Permanent Mandates Commission, Marquis Theodoli, and with Italian head of state, Benito Mussolini, who was beginning to style himself as a protector of the Jews and came out strongly in favour of partition.30

29 This was certainly not the first time that a Zionist leader had suggested partition as a possible solution. The roots of partition in Zionist thought could arguably be traced back to the notion of transferring Arabs out of part or all of Palestine. See for an early example, Theodor Herzl, The complete dûmes of Theodor Herzl, trans. Harry Zohn (New York, NY, i960), 1, p. 88; or for one during the British mandate, TNA, GO 733/231/1. See also Tom Segev, One Palestine, complete: Jews and Arabs under the British mandate, trans, Haim Watzman (New York, NY, 2001), pp. 403-8.

30 Minute, O. G. R. Williams, 4 Dec. 1933; letter from Sir Eric Drummond, British ambassador in Rome, 13 Dec. 1933: TNA, GO 733/248/20. 

Footnote 30 is inexplicable as the idea of "partition" is keeping everyone, more or less, in place but simply dividing the territory.

^

Southern Syria, aka "Palestine"

I have blogged several times (here and here;) that, historically, a specific Palestinianism, that is, an Arab nationalism based on a country called Palestine and one distinct from other forms of Arab nationalisms, was quite late in developing.

Palestine was a region of Syria. It never was an independent country or state and its borders altered over centuries as did its internal administrative boundaries.





The idea to rejoin Palestine to Syria was a staple of their propaganda.

Into the mid-1920s, the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission was receiving such requests. This line continued years later.

Here are some abstracts from a PhD dissertation relating to the subject:

...In December 1918, Hitti and George Khairalla established the New Syria National League. The group lobbied for the establishment of a Greater Syria under American protection, reaching from the Sinai to the Euphrates.229 These groups intensified their activities in light of the upcoming peace conference in Paris. Shatara and Hitti reached out to John Huston Finley, the chief of the Red Cross Commission in Palestine, asking Finley not to detach Palestine from Greater Syria.230 During the conference, Hitti’s New Syria National League also sent a telegram to Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau advocating an American protectorate over Syria. 231 Abraham Mitrie Ribhany, the author of ‘America save the Near East’ (cited above) and a member of both the Palestine Antizionism Society and the New Syria National League, attended the Paris conference. His presence allowed for direct lobbying with the American representatives in Paris and the members of the King-Crane commission. On March 15, he sent a petition on behalf of the New Syria National League to the Americans, which was also read by commission chief Henry C. King. The petition made the case for an American mandate over a Greater Syria.

... On April 21, 1922 Fuad Shatara and the New York attorney Selim Totah testified alongside anti-Zionist Jews in front of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs with regard to the Lodge-Fish resolution.236 In 1921, the Palestinian National League, the successor organization of the Palestine Antizionism Society, also published the book ‘The Case against Zionism’, a collection of anti-Zionist
articles by Jewish and Arab-American thinkers. The book ended with a call for “Palestine not be separated from her neighboring sister states.”237 The case of the Arab-Americans was still  overwhelmingly pan-Syrian and not in favor of an independent Arab Palestinian state. This focus would only change much later.

... In summer 1936, the Palestinian National League was replaced by its successor the Arab National League (ANL) in New York.335 The bulk of politically active Arab-Americans were of Syrian origin. Most of them had been followers of a pan-Syrian ideology, as seen above, before their eventual conversion to Arab or even Palestinian nationalism. The establishment of the Arab National League signified such a shift towards Arab nationalism. However, the language of pan-Syrian ideology was still present in the ANL’s publications. A manifesto published in 1937, which lays out the founding principles of the organization, for instance calls for “complete independence of the Syrian nation as a united, coherent political unit within the natural geographic borders of Natural Syria.”336 The term ‘Natural Syria’ not only includes the territory of the modern state of Syria, but also those of Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine.337 The same manifesto declared “effective resistance to Zionism, the biggest threat to Syrian Unity”, as imperative.338

...The leading spokesman for the Arab Cause in the 1950s, however, was Fayez Sayegh...who was born in 1922 in Syria, was the scion of a prominent Protestant family, which had settled in Palestine during the British mandate period. He was a graduate of AUB and Georgetown.1036 Fayez and his older brother Yusif had been active in leading positions in the Palestine branch of Antoun Saadeh’s Syrian Socialist National Party (PPS) during the 1940s, with Fayez chairing the Culture and Propaganda Committee. The party sought to spread Saadeh’s pan-Syrian ideology. By the 1940s, Pan-Syrianism  had by now lost the popularity it had enjoyed in Palestine twenty years before and the party apparently met little success, as recounted by Yusif: “There was not a great deal of readiness to accept the ideas of the PPS because it emphasized the Syrianness of Palestine; that Palestine was Southern Syria. The Palestinians always call themselves ‘Arabs’, and they thought of the Palestine problem as an Arab problem rather than a Syrian problem.”1037


226 Knee, The Concept of Zionist Dissent in the American Mind, 1917-1941, 201–2.
227 “Untitled,” New York Times, November 9, 1917; cited in Davidson, “Debating
Palestine,” 230; see also Knee, “The King-Crane Commission of 1919,” 204.
228 Davidson, “Debating Palestine,” 231.
229 The Formation of Modern Iraq and Syria (Routledge, 2013), 147.
230 Knee, The Concept of Zionist Dissent in the American Mind, 1917-1941, 205.
237 Davidson, “Debating Palestine,” 232.
335 Bawardi, The Making of Arab Americans, 187–89; Davidson, “Debating Palestine,”
230–32.
336 Arab National League of America, “Declaration of the Arab (National) League”
1937; cited in Bawardi, The Making of Arab Americans, 190–91.
337 Daniel Pipes, Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition (Oxford University Press,
1990), 142.
338 Arab National League of America, “Declaration of the Arab (National) League”;
cited in Bawardi, The Making of Arab Americans, 190–91.
1035 “The Executives’ Club of Chicago Urges You to Hear Dr. Fayez Sayegh Counselor, Arab States Delegations, ‘Arab Nationalism and the West’” September 18, 1959, FSAC Mid001 Bx 239 Fd 4,
https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=842916.
1036 Mattar, Encyclopedia of the Palestinians, 359.

Palestine is Southern Syria.

Only the Jews conceived of it as a separate entity in recognizable borders.

^

Arab-American Anti-Zionism Before Tlaib and Omar

The undermining of Zionism in America by Arabs and Muslims is not new.

As researched here, by Daniel Rickenbachert, there were early attempts and one of them was in January of 1930, when the Mufti-led Supreme Muslim Council (SMC) and the Arab Executive, sent two delegations to the US and to Britain to promote the Arab cause, this just after the murderous 1929 Riots.

As appears there, the delegation to the US consisted of the Syrian pan-Islamic activist Shakib Arslan, his brother Adel Arslan, Issa Bandak and three other members. In the US, the delegation met with the State Department, arguing that only the abolition of the Balfour Declaration could lead to a reconciliation between Jews and Arabs. The delegation also appealed to the Arab-Americans to “emulate the American Jews” by giving donations to the SMC. However, the undertaking was reportedly a financial disaster. This may explain why there were no further Arab delegations from Palestine during the next seven years.  

But the first one to speak out against Zionism was an American-Lebanese, Amin Rihani who arrived in the US in 1898.  That was in September 1917, two months before the Balfour Declaration, when he published an anti-Zionism piece. In his article




he listed anti-Zionist arguments as it being primarily a religious movement and that Arabs would not tolerate Jewish domination. He added that, echoing arguments from Reform Jews, Zionism would expose Jews to the accusation of dual allegiance.

But he could not avoid the basic truth:




Also in 1917, a Ramallah-born New York surgeon, Fuad Isa Shatara, Nazereth-born, eventually a suicide victim, and N.A. Katibah founded the Palestine Antizionism Society. 




Both of them into the late 1920s and beyond, published in their journal, The Syrian World



and see below.

And they were among the organizers of an anti-Zionist rally on November 8, 1918 in Brooklyn. The rally passed a resolution, describing the Arabs at risk of being  dominated by “a race rendered more powerful and wealthy through contact with the western civilization thus applying might against right” and protesting the “artificial importation of Zionists flooding the country against its natural capacities and thus forcing an emigration of the rightful inhabitants.”

Shatara of the Palestine Antizionism Society wrote two letters to Secretary of State Robert Lansing in November 1918 and February 1919, arguing that Zionism was in contravention to Wilson’s Fourteen Points.In December 1918, Phillip Hitti (a Maronite Lebanese) and George Khairalla established the New Syria National League. The group lobbied for the establishment of a Greater Syria under American protection, reaching from the Sinai to the Euphrates. These groups intensified their activities in light of the upcoming peace conference in Paris. Shatara and Hitti reached out to John Huston Finley, the chief of the Red Cross Commission in Palestine, asking Finley not to detach Palestine from Greater Syria.

See


And they all failed.

^

Monday, July 15, 2019

Who Attacked Fajja Village?

In a recent book, the responsibility for a deterioration in relations that eventually led to the outbreak of Arab-Jewish fighting that led to the War of Independence was placed on the Lechi. The author suggests a series of events in the late summer/early fall of 1947.

But what happened on the night of May 20, 1947 in the Arab village of Fajja (seems also spelled Fejja?

Fajja was located in east Petach Tikva, approximately in the area of the neighborhoods of Kiryat Eliezer Peri and Kiryat Alon today, west a David Remez Street at Kikar Hasas, near the Amal Aleph school:




Zochrot lists this:

a Palmach unit infiltrated the village on the pretext of apprehending thieves who had murdered two people in Petach Tiqwa. According to the History of the Haganah, shooting broke out when the unit approached the coffehouse were the thieves were allegedly hiding and two villagers were killed; “explosives experts stormed the coffehouse  under heavy covering fire, planted an explosive charege and ignited it.” The “Book of the Palmach” reports that the explosion was unnecessarily delayed and although the coffehosue was destroyed, no one was harmed.

The Palestine Post of May 22 includes this report: 






The Jewish fatality, Shlomo Miller, a Palmach member, was born in Givat HaShlosha. 



The description of the attack at an official memorial site reads:


In the spring of 1947, attacks and murders by armed Arab bands increased in the area of the Sharon moshavot...On May 18, 1947, armed Arabs, identified as gang members, were identified as concentrating near the camp of the Swarqi Arabs (Fajja village)...where police dogs had previously identified as a base for operations of the gangs. The Hagana decided to send out a unit in order to catch them. A gunfight ensued. Shlomo raced forward and was wounded in the head. Taken to Beilinson Hospital, he died on his wounds on 1 Sivan, May 20.

The Petach Tikva archives blog notes there began a series of Arab attacks that spring which wounded children and adults. Tzemach Halperin was murdered on the 19th. He was married with two children and lived at the Geula neighborhood of Sha'ariya and was attempting to defend his house from Arabs seeking to break in. Aaron Shvili from the Hasidof Qurter also was killed in an earlier incident and footprints led directly to Fajja. The cafe meeting place was attacked with guns and explosives and three Arabs were killed according to the testimony of Reuven Saperstein who took part in the reprisal raid. The Palmach site indicates that as the Arabs fled, Miller fired two warning shots in the air and then was struck by a bullet fired by an Arab.


A follow-up report:




On the background of the Nakba/Israel Archives matter, I found this interesting.


^

Monday, July 08, 2019

Who Is Being Disingenuous?

Many tout the Two-State Solution (drum-roll in the background) as the sole possibility to resolve the Arabs' conflict with Zionism, Jews and Israel.

There is no other alternative.

In response to one such article, I sent the author this:

I think allowing the Arabs of the Palestinian National Authority a quarter-of-a-century to prove they are capable and willing to both negotiate seriously and build-up state institutions while proving their desire for peace is enough and is quite a contemporary reality.

To which the author replied:

No people has ever been put through these hoops before, certainly not Israeli Jews before independence. None of them would have passed the test. The colonial mentality that developed in Israel following the triumph of the 1967 war and the inception of occupation that gave rise to such tests is by far the greater problem. But I understand that it's difficult to see that from the inside. I have always tried to work to the principle that if one's argument coincides with one's desires (or perceived interests), be suspicious of the argument. I recommend it as a useful guide to whether an argument is disingenuous or not.Over and I suggest out.

Since the author signed out of the attempted dialogue, I'll respond here:

First, the Jews actually were subjected to "hoops".   Annually.

The British Mandatory regime was required to submit reports on the progress the Jews were making as regards constructing their future state in all aspects: immigration, settlement, finances, etc.  Here's one from 1939 submitted to the Permanent Mandates Commission. Here's the prepared questionnaire. And some of its questions:


What measures have been taken to place the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the national home for the Jewish people?

What measures have been taken to place the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the development of self-governing institutions?

What measures have been taken to place the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will safeguard the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race and religion?

What are the effects of these measures?
What measures have been taken to encourage local autonomy?

When and in what manner has the Jewish agency been officially recognised?

What is the nature and extent of the co-operation of this agency with the Administration of Palestine in economic, social and other matters?
In what manner has this agency taken part in the development of the country (statistics of the results obtained)?

There's a new book devoted to the Commission with dozens of pages on Palestine.

And actually, they passed the test as proven by the UNSCOP report of 1947 and the recommendation to establish an independent Jewish state in 1947.  Yes, the Arab state was also recommended but as we all know, they failed the most simplets of tests: accepting that recommendation. 

As for "colonial mentality", that is actually the contining of the original resettlement of the Land of Israel. The League of Nations charged the Mandatory to guarantee "close settlement" for Jews in, at least, all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

And as regards the throwaway "disingenuous" dig, I return it. There are those who claim to be neutral observers, disengaged, looking from the outside but they are in their own ideological/political constructs which bear little connection either to historical truth or the actual course of events, whether a century ago or today.

Or is it just ignorance by one pretending scholarship and intelligence - that is lacking?


^

A Jew Dies and His Crazy Killer

My friend NT alerted me to some background to this story:

Police said they are still looking for the driver in a hit-and-run that killed a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor in Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles County Police Department said in a news release Thursday that the collision occurred around 5:35 a.m. on June 17 in Valley Village, a suburb of Los Angeles.
Graphic security video shows a light-colored pickup with a camper shell striking a pedestrian at a crosswalk on Magnolia Boulevard at Wilkinson Avenue.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner identified the victim as 91-year old Gennady Bolotsky.

The suspect has been arrested:

 A 68-year-old woman was charged on July 2 for allegedly killing a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Gennady Bolotsky in Valley Village on June 17 in a hit-and-run...
The woman being charged for killing Bolotsky, identified as Joyce Bernann McKinney, was reportedly arrested on June 21 in a separate incident of alleged battery and public nuisance. 


Bolotsky escaped Nazi-occupied Ukraine in 1941; he immigrated to the United States in the 1970s. 

The background of the suspect from my friend:

a weirdo former contest winner from Montana
who had gone to England and became obsessed with an English fellow who just so happened to be a Morman.  She kidnapped him and kept him chained in bed in a cottage for quite some time, until he escaped and later on she was arrested and eventually jumped bail in England and returned to the US, was not extradited.  An amazing story that made the headlines and gossip papers years back when it happened.  Too bad she wasn't extradited.   Now  she is back in the news   as two weeks ago she killed a 92 year old Holocaust survivor who was out walking his dog in LA.  Amazing story, now with a most unhappy end.  There is an entry in the Wikipedia about the 'manacled Morman'  but for whatever reason most of the LA papers have not really picked up on the suspect being the star of the manacled Morman story in England.  The second link does connect her to her past.  What a sad and bizarre story.  

 But there is some coverage.

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Linda Sarsour and Her "Jesus Was Palestinian" Routine

Have you been following Linda Sarsour's "Jesus was a Palestinian" comedy routine?

See here and here for these examples:


Jesus was Palestinian of Nazareth and is described in the Quran as being brown copper skinned with wooly hair.

Palestinian is a nationality not a religion. Your point is not negated. Jews lived with Palestinians in peaceful co-existence before there was a state of Israel.
Why so upset by the truth. Jesus was born in Bethlehem aka بيت لحم in Arabic. Bethlehem is in Palestine. It’s currently militarily occupied by Israel and home to a predominately beautiful Palestinian Christian community. Yes, the birthplace of Jesus is under military occupation.

And

Bethlehem is in PALESTINE. The erasure is repulsive.



Well, GraphicZionism responds:




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