Bundist Henryk Ehrlich on Ze'ev Jabotinsky

 Poland's Bundist leader Henryk Ehrlich:

"An eventual Jewish state cannot offer itself as a spiritual center to the Jewish masses of the 'goles' lands, and as a center for immigration (the natural growth alone of the Jewish population of Poland significantly exceeds the absorption capacity of Palestine)... The anti-Semitic Czas [newspaper] opened its columns wide for any topic of the "Duce"; the anti-Semitic Kurier Warszawski transformed Jabotinsky’s book, Di Yidishe Melukhe ["The Jewish State"], into almost the greatest literary event of our time."

Di Tsukunft, October 1938

and

In 1933, the Bundist leader Henryk Ehrlich offered a prophetic censure: “If Jewish nationalism, as a general rule, is not bloodthirsty, this is only out of necessity, not virtue; if an appropriate opportunity arose, Jewish nationalism would show its sharp teeth and nails no less than the nationalisms of other nations.”

Ehrlich added: “[Ze’ev] Jabotinsky’s brown-shirt soldiers [the Irgun militia in Palestine and Betar in Europe] are nothing more than a tragicomic caricature of Hitler’s [Sturmabteilung paramilitary organization]. But the only thing missing in order for them to become the same beasts is some muscle strength, some territory, and a political opportunity … No, we are not a chosen people. Our nationalism is just as ugly, just as harmful, and has the same inclination to fascist debauchery as a nationalism of other nations.”

Quoted in The Guardian from Molly Crabapple who sources Ehrlich's "We are Not the Chosen People”, Ehrlich's 1933 essay:

Factoid: "[Simon] Dubnow’s daughter and Erlich’s wife, Sophia Dubnow Erlich, was once courted by Ze’ev Jabotinsky."

And how did Ehrlich end his life?

Here:-

Following the outbreak of World War II, Erlich left Warsaw, as did many other Jewish public figures. Jewish Communists denounced him to the Soviet authorities in October 1939; Alter was arrested as well. Erlich was imprisoned and interrogated for two years, and was forced to write a long and comprehensive essay on the activities of the Polish Bund in which he provided a host of information on the operations of the party’s institutions. In August 1941 he was sentenced to death for participating in anti-Soviet activities, but a few weeks later the sentence was commuted to a 10-year jail term, and immediately after that he was released from prison...

For about three months in 1941, Erlich was involved in setting up what eventually became the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. The Soviet leadership viewed this committee as an important propaganda vehicle for gaining support among Western Jews, especially Jewish workers’ organizations, for Soviet war efforts against the Germans. Erlich, however, wanted the organization to have a wider scope, and wished to unite Jewish socialist groups from around the world, including the Polish Jewish Underground, to form a political bloc against Nazism. This goal worried the Soviet authorities, who were especially suspicious of the independent channels that Erlich and Alter established with British diplomats stationed in the Soviet Union. In October 1941, Erlich and Alter were rearrested. For a second time, Erlich endured harsh interrogations, which severely affected his health. Bund activists in New York and London made untiring but futile efforts to discover their fate. On 15 May 1942, a drained, tired, and ailing Henryk Erlich ended his life by hanging himself from the bars in his Kuibyshev (mod. Samara) jail cell. An official notice of his death was not published by the Soviet leadership until February 1943.

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Jabotinsky Describes Meeting Herzl

 From his translated autobiography:-

"A very amusing comedy could be written about my adventures at the congress. First of all, I was not entitled to participate in it, as I was almost a year and a half too young with respect to the legal age for a delegate, and I do not remember who the friendly false witnesses were who attested to my being twenty-four years old; my face was that of a boy, and the official in charge of the delegates’ cards did not want to accept me until I brought the witnesses. After that I loitered by myself in the corridors of the casino; I did not know anybody except those bigwigs I had seen in Kishinev, but they were members of the executive committee and were busy with secret meetings inside. I was introduced to a thin and tall young man—with a black triangular beard and a shining bald head—called Dr. Weizmann, and I was told that he was the leader of the opposition: I felt immediately that my place was also in the opposition, although I did not know yet why. So when I saw that young man sitting with a group of his friends around a table in a café, engaged in a conversation full of intensity, I came toward them and asked, “I hope I am not intruding?” Weizmann answered: “You are”—and I went away

I tried to ascend the podium of the congress and to speak precisely on a burning question: Some months before that, Herzl had gone to Russia and talked with the minister of the interior, Plehve; the same Plehve whom we considered the instigator of the Kishinev pogrom. A passionate discussion broke out among the Zionist circles in Russia—whether it is admissible or forbidden to conduct negotiations with a monster such as him. True, both sides had agreed not to touch on this dangerous subject from the tribune of the congress, and I also knew it. Nevertheless, I decided that the interdiction did not apply to me because my experience—the experience of a journalist in Russia, skilled in the art of writing on a risky question without irritating the censor—would help me on this occasion, too, to steer clear of the reefs

My turn came when the time allotted to the speakers had already been limited to fifteen minutes, but I was not allowed even that quarter of an hour for my eloquence. I began to demonstrate that the two issues of ethics and tactics ought not to be confused. The delegates in the corner of the opposition sensed immediately what was in the mind of that young man, unknown to everybody, with a black head of hair, speaking a polished Russian as if he were reciting a poem at a gymnasium examination, and began to stir and to shout: “Enough! No more!” Panic broke out in the hall. Herzl himself, who was busy in the adjoining room, heard the noise, came out hurriedly to the tribune, and asked of one of the delegates, “What is it, what does he say?” It so happened that delegate was the same Dr. Weizmann, and he replied briefly and emphatically: “Quatsch” (“Nonsense”). At that, Herzl came toward me from behind the podium and said: “Ihre Zeit ist um” (“Your time is up”), and these were the first words and the last I ever had the privilege to hear from him. Dr. Friedman, one of the close associates of the leader, emphasized these words with the outrageous bluntness of his native Prussian: “Gehen Sie herunter, sonst werden Sie heruntergeschleppt” (“Come down or else you will be hauled down”). I came down without finishing the defense unwanted by the man in whose defense I had taken the floor.

I realized that my task in that congress was to keep silent and to observe, and that is what I did. I found a lot of things to observe there. The Sixth Congress, the last in Herzl’s life, was perhaps the first congress of adult Zionism. The name of that examination of maturity is known as Uganda. I was one of the minority that voted against Uganda and, together with the rest of the “Neinsagers” [“the no sayers”], walked out of the hall. I wondered myself at the motive hidden deep within my soul that prompted me to vote against, in spite of what I had told my electors. I had no romantic love for Eretz Yisrael then—I am not sure that I have it now—nor could I have known whether there was a danger of a split in the movement. I did not know my people, I saw my delegates for the first time, and I did not yet have time to approach any of them; and the great majority of them, among these many who, like myself, came from Russia, raised their hand to vote “for.” Nobody tried to persuade me to vote as I did. Herzl made a colossal impression on me—this word is no exaggeration, no other description would fit: colossal—I am not one of those who will easily bow to a personality. In general I do not remember, out of all the experiences I have had in my life, one man who made any impression on me whatsoever either before Herzl or after him. I felt that truly there stands before me a man of destiny, a prophet and leader by the grace of God, deserving to be followed even through error and confusion. And even today it seems to me that I hear his voice ringing in my ears, as he swore to all of us, “Im eshkachekh Yerushalayim. . . .” [“If I forget thee, o Jerusalem”]. I believe his oath; everyone believed. Yet still I voted against him, but I do not know why: “just so”—that same “because” that is stronger than a thousand reasons

It is a strange thing: I felt that, after that vote, the congress reached such a height that the level at which it began simply could not be compared to it. In spite of the split, the tears, and the indignation, some deeper inner cohesion between the “Neinsager” and the “Jasager” [“the yes sayers”] came about. Perhaps they learned to have more respect for one another or for the movement than they had before; and it seems to me the movement as a whole also attained greater elevation on that day, when the delegates of the people mourned their first political victory. I am sure that Chamberlain, the author of the Uganda proposal, and Balfour and many more statesmen in England and in other countries, only on that day realized what Zionism meant, and that the same is true also of many veterans of the movement."

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Yes, Palestine Was Considered Southern Syria

"the Arab Independence Party (Ḥizb al-Istiqlāl al-‘Arabiyya). Al-Istiqlāl was created with three goals, as expressed on the official statement registering it as a political organization on 13 August 1932: 

“1) The independence of the Arab countries; 2) The Arab countries are one and inseparable; 3) Palestine is an Arab country and an integral part of Syria.”...as the idea of a “Greater Syria” (Sūriya al-Kabīra or Bilad al-Sham) – of which Palestine comprised the southern section..."

Source

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Anti-Zionism in Parliament, 1923

On June 21, 1923, Lord Islington, among others, spoke in the British House of Lords to move to reconsider the Mandate over Palestine.

One of his points was to separate "Zionism" from the Jews residing in the area, as if Zionism is not the Jewish national liberation movement, as if Jews do not want an independent polity in their historic homeland and as if Zionism is illegitimate.  And as if only super isolationist insular religious messianic-beleiving Jews are the only 'true' and 'genuine' Jews. As if only non-Jewish anti-Zionists have the right and privilege of telling the vast majority of Jews that they're wrong about the centrality of Israel.

Here is how he phrased it:

The Jewish people in Palestine have lived in the past in harmony with the Arab community. They have enjoyed in largo measure the same privileges as their Ottoman fellow subjects and, I venture to say also as a fact, they never agitated for Zionism. I do not think—I speak subject to correction—that there has ever been a demand from the Jewish Community in Palestine for the introduction of a Zionist Home in that country. The whole agitation has conic from outside, from Jews in other parts of the world. I go further, and say—I think I have said it before; if so, I repeat—that a very large number of the Jewish community in Palestine to-day look with considerable aversion not only upon the Zionist Home but upon the Jews who are being introduced into the country from Eastern Europe.

That claim, as presented, continues to be voiced, by Jews and non-Jews to this day - and we'll ignore his historical untruths and prejudice against East European Jewry.

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David Ben-Gurion Talking with Brit Shalom

David Ben-Gurion to the members of the binationalist "Brit Shalom" in November 1929:

"But if in your formula you want to establish the equal value of the land for Jews and Arabs, then you are again missing the point and distorting the truth. Israel for the Jewish people and Israel for the Arab people are not the same thing.

The Arab nation is holding a multitude of vast countries, whose area in Asia alone is about a third of the area of ​​all of Europe. The economic, cultural and political existence of the Arab nation, its national identity and statehood are not tied to and do not depend on the Land of Israel. Our country is but a small region in the vast and gigantic territory inhabited by Arabs – and, by the way, exceptionally sparsely. Only one fragment of the Arab people – perhaps seven or eight percent (if we consider only the Arabs of Asian countries), lives in the Land of Israel and is tied to it. This is not the case with the Jewish people.

For the entire Jewish nation – in all its generations and diasporas – this is the one and only land with which its fate and historical future as a nation are tied. Only in this land can it renew and sustain its own life, its national spirit and its unique culture, only here could it establish its sovereignty and state freedom. And whoever obscures this truth – determines the soul of the nation.

We are commanded to preserve the rights and equality of our Arab neighbors, but we would be lying to ourselves if we said that Israel is the same for the Arab people as Israel is for the Hebrew people. If this comparison is what the formula of binationalism refers to, then it is nothing but a distortion of the truth and a neutering of the purpose. Instead of this distorted formula, I say: Israel is destined for the Hebrew people and the Arabs who live within it."

Sounds like Jabotinsky to me.

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Jabotinsky's London Residence

From 1915 and until the beginning of 1918, Ze'ev Jabotinsky resided in London in order to promote the idea of a Jewish fighting force within the British Army that would participate in the campaign in Ottoman Palestine. It finally was authorized in the summer of 1917 and the announcement was published in the London Gazette on August 23, 1917.

During the years 1915 - 1917, Jabotinsky lived on Justice Walk and for two months, Chaim Weizmann moved in to share lodgings. During 1917, Yosef Trumpeldor moved in for a while.

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Belated Cordoba Cathedral Update

(ZENIT News / Córdoba, 09.19.2025).- The Cathedral of Córdoba, one of Spain’s most iconic religious monuments, faced an unsettling episode last month when repeated bomb threats forced police to sweep the site and activate emergency protocols. Authorities later arrested a man in Palencia, hundreds of kilometers away, accusing him of public disorder and hate crimes linked to the incident. On August 12, the cathedral’s security staff received nearly twenty threatening phone calls over several hours, warning of explosives in the building. For more than an hour, the vast medieval complex—visited daily by thousands of tourists and pilgrims—was combed by officers and evacuated in parts, until investigators determined the alarm was false. While no explosives were found, the caller, according to Spain’s National Police, used racist and xenophobic language alongside his threats. Tracing the calls eventually led officers to the north of the country, where the suspect was taken into custody.

Who was the suspect?

Background. Additional background.

"...the building evokes a supposedly harmonious past, when Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived together in peace, an idea that the Spanish refer to as convivencia, or “coexistence.”

If the above is true and a genuine ex‎pression of Islamic "tolerance", why not apply it to Jerusalem's Temple Mount?"

  

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Is Anti-Zionism to be Considered Anti-Semitism?

Anti-semitism is the hate of Jews for being Jews.

Being Jewish includes the belief that the Land of Israel is the covenanted homeland of the Jewish nation.

It is the land where the nation, as a federation of the Twelve Tribes, settled in under the leadership of Joshua after Moshe brought the Israelites out of Egypt back into the land of the Forefathers.

It is the land in which the Monarchy ruled.

It is the land which first withstood and then was defeated when the Assyrian Empire invaded.

It is the land which revolted against the Greek-Selecuid occupiers.

The land that stood up to the Roman occupiers.

The land in which the entire ancient religious and cultural heritage of the Jewish People, in its unique Hebrew language, was formulated and fashioned.

The land to which Jews constantly and continually returned over the 18 centuries of foreign rule including the Byzantines, the Persians, the Muslim Arabs, the Crusaders, the Mamlukes, Ottomans, British and Jordanians and the loss of political indendence.

It is the land where the Two Temples stood and served as sacred sites of worship.

It is the land in which special commandments can be exclusively fulfilled and no where else.

It is the land that, ever since Talmudic times of the second Babylonian exile, Jews  felt obligated to support those living in it, especially the scholars, sending charity funds from across 70 countries of the Diaspora.

It is the land towards which Jews pray, no matter wher they may be - north, south, east, west.

It is the land mentioned in our daily prayers, our Shabbat and Festival prayers, in the Passover Haggada, Tisha B'Av elegies and more.

Anyone who seeks to sever the connection between Jews and the Land of Israel, anyone who claims there is no Torah-based directive to return to it and reside in it and make it bloom, who declares him or herself an anti-Zionist, is being anti-Jewish.

They may love Jews but to dislike and disregard the Land of Israel, ideologically, economcially, politically or security-wise, to reject the right of the Jews to establish a state in their historic homeland, is being anti-semitic.

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A Story of the Status Quo and the Prince (with apologies to Rebbe Nachman)

A story of the Status Quo and the Prince*

Once upon a time, the king's son fell into madness of being in an exiled state, which he called the Status Quo, which is similar to suffering an identity crisis, and decided that the king's palace had to be abandoned as if it had become a desolate place for his enemies, and the king's son would sit outside as if in exile.

All the doctors and prophets despaired of helping him and curing him of this, and the king was in even greater sorrow than that. Until a wise man came and said, "I will take it upon myself to cure him," and he left the palace and sat outside with the king's son. And he asked the king's son, "Who are you and what are you doing here?" And he answered him, "I am in exile, for that is what the status quo is. What are you doing here?" And the wise man replied, "I am also in exile."

And they both sat together like that for a while until they became accustomed to each other. And the Wise Man said to the king's son, "Do you think that those who are in exile cannot live in the Land of Israel under Jewish sovereignty? They can establish a state, and yet it will be a status quo." 

And he continued, "They established a state. After some time, they received a hint, and they went to war and won and conquered the mountain and the valley and Jerusalem." And he also said to him as above, "Do you think that with Jerusalem there cannot be a status quo, etc., until they have settled in Jerusalem and with the rest of the Land?"

And then they received another hint and they began to ascend the Temple Mount and pray there and bow down and he said to him, "Meynstu az aoyb men davent aoyfn har habayis ven es iz nishta keyn status kvo, ken men davenen aun aoykh habn dem status kvo, aun zikh anshtrengen aoyfn har habayis?" (Do you think that if one prays on the Temple Mount while there is no status quo, one can pray and also have the status quo, and prostrate on the Temple Mount?"

And then again the Wise Man spoke and said to the king's son, "Do you think that the status quo must be precisely without sacrifices or that there can be a status quo and there can be sacrifices as well?" And thus he behaved with him until he completely healed him and they returned and built the king's palace and expelled all the king's enemies. And the parable is understandable to those who understand.

*

This tale, whose author I am still searching for, is based on an actual Nachman of Bratslav tale:

Hebrew source.

An English translation.

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Introducing Miriam Engel (whoever "she" is)

"Miriam Engel" is to be found at Instagram.

Whoever she really is I do not know but "she" is an AI creation but with a twist.

The creator obviously is from within the Satmar (or closely related) court of Hassidim, uses largely Yiddish and deals with very Haredi/Jewish subjects and themes.

And does so in sometimes an outrageous but good-hearted and humorous manner.

"She" stretches limits but within limits.

Here is one of here more 'shocking' series, with her on a motorcycle and the results of the wind:

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The Litani River as a northern Border (Updated)

This has recently appeared:

which recalls the 1919 efforts to set the northern border of the future state of Israel.

From the Zionist Organization Statement on Palestine at the Paris Peace Conference on February 3, 1919:

"The boundaries of Palestine shall follow the general lines set out below:

Starting on the North at a point on the Mediterranean Sea in the vicinity south of Sidon and following the watersheds of the foothills of the Lebanon as far as Jisr El-Karaon thence to El-Bire, following the dividing line between the two basins of the Wadi El-Korn and the Wadi Et-Teim, thence in a southerly direction following the dividing line between the Eastern and Western slopes of the Hermon, to the vicinity west of Beit Jenn, then eastward following the northern watersheds of the Nahr Mughaniye close to and west of the Hedjaz Railway.

 

In the east a line close to and west of the Hedjaz Railway terminating in the Gulf of Akaba."

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UPDATE:

Arabe sources claim there's a suggestion to move the border northwards to the Awali River:

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More on the 1391 Martyred Monks by Muslims

Back in January 2012, I posted details on the four martyred Franciscan monks in Jerusalem, after failing to persuade Muslim officials of the truth of the Gospel.

Note the cowering Muslim figure:

There is a memorial day for them:

They were canonized, being the only Franciscans martyred in the Holy Land to be canonized. 

Extract from an academic article:

And no Jew was involved.

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..

Amit Segal Responds to Ilana Dayan

After a monolgue by Channel 12's Ilana Dayan, Amit Segal responded in his Israel Hayom weekly column:

Oiy Ilana Dayan

"Ilana Dayan was not the first to cause a stir in the middle of a war when she called for "not to normalize the death around us and insist on sanctifying life." She was preceded, albeit in a novel and not in an investigative program, by the writer S.Y. Agnon:

'A lot of things are happening and going on, every day Jews are killed, secretly and publicly, and every day the newspapers are decorated with black decorations. At first, when we would see a black stripe in the newspaper and read that an Israeli had been killed, we put down our dinner.

'Now that troubles are here, a man sits at his table and eats his fat with butter and honey, reading and saying – Another Jew was killed. Another Jewish woman was killed, another baby from Israel was killed.' 

My friend Ilana's words are worthy of discussion and not insults: 'I want to dedicate the last two minutes of our broadcast to human life. While our screens are being flooded with airstrikes and assassinations, while the Prime Minister is telling how he is once again removing an existential threat that he has already declared has been removed and is once again changing the face of the Middle East, in an apartment in the heart of Ramat Gan an Israeli couple was sitting the other day.

"When the alarm went off, he was probably trying to get to the walker, maybe it was waiting for him and they didn't have time to get to the shelter. The missile hit and both were killed, the mayor and the Home Front Command representative scolded the dead for not following the instructions... The responsibility should be left with those in the government who approved attack plans but forgot to check protection plans for those who have no chance of getting to the shelter in time or who have no shelter at all.' 

I will return to the rest of the monologue, but it is important to note one fundamental difference between Ilana and Agnon. He attributed the normalization of death to weakness in the face of the enemy: "And we sit with our hands clasped and surrender ourselves to killing and say, 'Restraint, restraint.' They kill and murder and burn, and we sit and restrain ourselves."

While Dayan hinted that the source of the indifference is precisely in the excessive enthusiasm of Eli Kareb: "The responsibility should be left with those who take us out to a war within a war within a war. They shoot videos full of excitement and announce that a superpower has arisen here that hits hard and always wins." And this is precisely where the disagreement lies, not only with Agnon but also with little me, with the claim. Because the opposite of the current war is not peace; the opposite is an even more bitter war in the future. After all, this was exactly the justified argument against Netanyahu after October 7: Why did you let the monster grow stronger on our borders instead of acting against it? Obviously, no one is under the illusion that in such a preventive war there would be no victims, perhaps two adults from Ramat Gan who did not have time to reach the protected area, perhaps twenty. Would that have turned such a war into something that the officers "took us out to," a hint at a war of permission to come, a war of luxury to come, perhaps a war of deception?

And in general, this is not a "war within a war within a war." Elhanan Kalmanzon, an Israeli hero who fell in Be'eri on the morning of October 8 while rescuing kibbutzniks, certainly not a sign of neglect and indifference towards human life, wrote to his wife years before: 'If I die as a martyr in the war for the land, I ask that they remember that this is not another war or intifada, this is the same long war for our country and the identity of our people that has been going on for almost a hundred and fifty years.'

'Yaron and Ilana from Ramat Gan will no longer win, and neither will we," Dayan added, "if on the way to crushing the axis of evil, we forget what we came together for. If we become indifferent to the weak and to human life... If we become equal to the lives of the children Yaakov, Sarah, and Abigail from Beit Shemesh and Amit from Petach Tikva. Human life, every human. Also the lives of Ali Wa'ad from the village of Tamon and their young children, Muhammad and Othman. They did not die from an Iranian missile, but from Israeli fire. They were on their way home earlier this week after shopping for the holiday and an undercover force sprayed their vehicle, killing all four of them. You can hear the fighters say they felt threatened, but then you have to see the look in the eyes of the child who saw his parents and siblings being shot before his eyes. Stay with him for a moment and not normalize the death around us and insist on sanctifying life. There is no more complete victory than that.'

I too would have liked to dwell more broadly on the deaths of Yaron and Ilana, or Mary Ann, or the murdered Beit Shemesh children. It seems to me that there is a discussion here about aesthetics and journalism, disguised as a discussion about morality. There is not a lack of caring in the country, but a lack of attention. Already in Tractate Berakhot it is written that "last troubles make one forget the first," and as we know, there has been no shortage of troubles lately.

As for the Palestinian family killed by undercover fire due to mistaken identification, it seems that the veiled claim is not merely a condemnation of the neglect but rather hints at the responsibility of Israeli society, a kind of causing death out of collective indifference due to too-light orders to open fire.

Clearly, the claim is not about forgetting the unfortunate children but about the shooting party, Israel. After all, last week, three Palestinian women were murdered by an Iranian missile in a bridal salon near Hebron, and to this day we don't even know their names. Gideon Levy and Amira Hess didn't bother to visit the village of Amal, Mays, and Sahira until the issue closed, and haven't written a heartbreaking article about them until now. Palestinians are only interesting in their deaths if there is an Israeli to blame for them. If we're going to mention forgotten names, shouldn't we remember them too?"

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The Mystery of the Roman Sword in the Mikveh

In the latest edition of Israel Museum Studies in Archaeology Volume 12 2025, there's an article describing the results of new efforts to investigate "A Roman Spatha Sword and Scabbard From Excavations on Mount Zion in Jerusalem" found over 50 years ago.

The authors are Shimon Gibson University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Rafael Y. Lewis Bar-Ilan University; Yarden Pagelson Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Dudi Mevorah Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Hadas Seri Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

The spatha was found south of the Zion Gate:

Here it is in situ:

And its appearance in 1971:

By all means, read it even it it can be very technical. It is dated to late Second Temple Period and its following century.

What excited my imagination, however, is its exact location when found. It "was uncovered on 3 October 1971 in earthen sediments and fills within a plastered stepped ritual bath (miqweh) inside one of the rooms of a very large Early Roman mansion exposed in Area I (Square 6, Locus 12, Basket (B) 1254). This was the first area to be excavated on the eastern side of the Armenian courtyard of the St. Saviour property, due south of the Zion Gate (Fig. 1)."

A mikveh?

We have a novel waiting to be written.

What was a Roman sword doing in a mikveh?

Was it stolen from a soldier or his corpse and stored there?

Did a Roman soldier attempt an assault there?

Did a Jewish woman belong to a Jewish fighting force and had hidden it there?

If you have any other suggestions, comment below.

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"𝙋𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙘𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙯𝙚𝙣𝙨"

I found this term in The Guardian, in a March 23, 2026 story:

"Parties that represent 𝙋𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙘𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙯𝙚𝙣𝙨 of Israel are likely to offer the only path for the opposition parties to form a government."

There is no "Palestine" and such a political entity never existed so one cannot have been or currently be a citizen of such.

One can be an Israeli Arab.

One can be a resident of the Palestinian National Authority.

Are all Israelis who were born during the period of the British Mandate for Palestine and who held Palestine nationality still be, if they are alive, a "Palestinian citizen of Israel"?

What is the Guardian newspaper doing in its magic bag of journalistic rhetoric skills?

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Going to Jerusalem in 1615

From a new book, Ottoman-era Documents from the Cairo Genizah.

A Rabbi Shmuel set off for Jerusalem from Egypt in 1615 for a 20-day trek and required a document that he coulkd present to various government officials along the way which would provide him security from the dangers of raiding Bedouin as well as food and lodging. It also afforded him escorts for his protection although once he reached Jerusalem's gates, he would be required to make a payment to enter the city.

A Jew in Egypt, not European, a country ruled by the Ottoman Empire and going to Jerusalem, in the occupied territory of the former Judea in the early 17th century to spend the Pilgrimage Festival of Passover.

Think about it.

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Describing Shiloh in...1898

 

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An Insight into Whether Arabs are Indigenous to 'Palestine'

From "The Nusseibeh Family: Khazraj Roots That Grew and Blossomed in Jerusalem", July 10, 2024:

"The origins of Jerusalem’s Nusseibeh family trace back to the large Banu Khazraj tribe, one of the tribes of Mazin ibn al-Azd, originally from southern Arabia. Along with their cousins from the Banu Aws tribe, the Banu Khazraj supported the Prophet Muhammad and welcomed him and his Muslim followers in Medina after they fled Mecca during the hijra in 622 CE....

The Nusseibehs were named after Nusseibeh bint Ka‘b of Medina, also known as Umm ‘Ammara, one of the earliest women to convert to Islam. During the Battle of Uhud near Medina in 625 CE between the early Muslims and the tribe of Quraysh, Umm ‘Ammara is said to have treated and cared for the wounded at night and fought alongside the Prophet during the day, sustaining wounds herself...

The detailed origins of the family are recorded by Hafiz Abdul Rahim Nusseibeh al-Khazraji in his book The Khazraj Nusseibeh Family: Custodians of History and the Present. Extensively researched and drawing on more than 830 Ottoman documents related to the family, the book traces 600 years of the family’s lineage since the advent of Islam. The sources used to tell these elaborate details also depict the family’s high social and religious status in Jerusalem, owing in large part to its members participating in the Islamic conquest of the city under the leadership of Caliph Umar in 638 CE.

Arrival in Jerusalem

Regarding the family’s arrival in Jerusalem, Hafiz Nusseibeh explains that, among the warriors in Caliph Umar’s army was Abdullah ibn Nusseibeh, the son of Umm ‘Ammara. The Umari conquest of Jerusalem, which included a four-month siege of the city, led to the capitulation of the Byzantines under Patriarch Sophronius. But upon conquering the city, Caliph Umar instructed his Muslim army to protect the churches and other non-Muslim shrines, assigning Abdullah ibn Nusseibeh the responsibility and honor of protecting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from any attacks by Muslims or others. This was part of a treaty, known as the Pact of Umar, reached in 637 CE between the invading Muslim army and the non-Muslims of the Levant. As part of the pact, non-Muslims were granted security, protection, and rights under Muslim rule in exchange for loyalty..."

"...Jerusalem Story sat down with one of the eldest members of the Nusseibeh family, 70-year-old Wajih Nusseibeh, who has been responsible for opening and closing the door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for more than 40 years. We met in his home in the Wadi al-Joz neighborhood of Jerusalem, in the presence of a younger family member, Munir Nusseibeh, to recount the family’s enduring presence in Jerusalem for nearly 14 centuries.

Wajih was born in 1949 in the Nusseibeh family home in the Musrara neighborhood of Jerusalem near the Damascus Gate...Wajih described his Khazraj origins, explaining that the Nusseibeh family’s roots go back to Medina, and that their ancestor, Umm ‘Ammara, was a devoted fighter who stood by the Prophet Muhammad. 

“We came to Jerusalem as conquerors during the time of Umar ibn al-Khattab..."

Arabs in 'Palestine' - since the 7th century, as conquerors.

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How Did the Palin Commission View Jabotinsky's Role in the 1920 Defense of Jerusalem?

Extract from the 1920 Palin Report on the "Disturbances" of April 1920 in Jerusalem:

"...A singular incident was the offer by Mr. Jabotinsky and Mr. Ruthenberg to place at the disposal of the local authorities the volunteer bands which had recently been raised by these two gentlemen in anticipation of some such catastrophe as had occurred that day. The whole history of this movement is extremely unsatisfactory. It seems scarcely credible that the fact that these men had been got together and were openly drilling at the back of the Lemel School and on Mount Scopes should have been known as it undoubtedly was, to the population during the month of March - it was organised after the demonstration of the 8th - and yet no word of it reached either the Governorate or the Administation until after the riots. Yet this is what is alleged and this ignorance can only be attributed to the curious defects in the intelligence system which the evidence occasionally reveals. There was no attempt at secrecy. Mr. Ruthenberg actually went to Brig. General Waters Taylor in March and asked permission to arm the force. Brig. General Waters Taylor's answer to this is that he understood Mr. Ruthenberg to be referring to the question of arming outlying colonies of Jews.

He admits that towards the end of March, Colonel Bramley reported that the Jews were drilling on Mount Scopes, but neither of them appear to have associated this with the idea of a defence force. At any rate as the result of his interview, Mr. Ruthenberg appears to have understood that he must not arm his force. After this, Lieut. Jabotinsky asked Colonel Storrs for permission to arm the force - he was at the time drilling daily behind the Lemel School - but he also appears to have left Colonel Storrs under the impression that what he wanted was arms for outlying colonies and to have failed to have made it clear that he had raised a defence force. Dr. Eder in backing this application apparently made it no clearer. The organisers decided to arm their men in spite of the Administration although they were unable to raise more than about thirty pieces - so convinced were they that trouble was coming. It is claimed that the force kept guard in the city on the 2nd, but the police deny all knowledge of this.

On Sunday morning, as soon as they heard of the trouble, Messrs. Ruthenberg and Jabotinsky went to the Military Governor and offered the services of themselves and the force they had raised to assist in restoring order. What actually took place is narrated by Mr. Ruthenberg and as Colonel Storrs admits its general accuracy, it may be accepted. In the course of conversation both men admitted having arms; Mr. Jabotinsky as an ex-British officer - Mr. Jabotinsky was principally concerned in raising the Jewish Battalions which served with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in Palestine - surrendered his arm when ordered to do so. Mr. Ruthenberg was persuaded to give his up and it was not returned to him. A discussion ensued in which Ruthenberg and Jabotinsky refused to surrender the arms their men possessed but asked for the men to be armed by the Administration and used. Colonel Storrs said he must refer the matter to the Chief Administrator and arranged a meeting for the afternoon. At 4 p.m., they again met and Colonel Storrs tried to restore confidence in the Administration by relating the measure taken to protect the Jews. Messrs. Ruthenberg and Jabotinsky approved, but insisted on the Arab police - against whom by this time there were many complaints - being disarmed and the Jewish youth being armed under their responsibility if the Administration considered it necessary.

As a compromise, Colonel Bramley suggested the formation of a body of special constables to which Ruthenberg and Jabotinsky agreed, but Colonel Storrs refused. A number of other propositions were discussed and agreed on. During the evening and night the Jewish leaders made use of their men in a limited way as Colonel Storrs had promised that nobody should be arrested if they did not collect in bands. (It is only fair to state that Colonel Storrs denies giving any such promise), They patrolled the city and collected information. The events on Monday and Tuesday decided the authorities to use the force and on Tuesday Mr. Ruthenberg was summoned to the Governorate and informed by Colonel Storrs and Colonel Beddy, O.O. Troops, that the Administration had decided to use his men and asked how many he could produce. It was explained they were to be used as special constables not armed. Late that night Mr. Ruthenberg was asked for a hundred men to be presented at 8 a.m. the next day. These they succeeded in presenting at the time and place named. Two companies of about fifty men were actually sworn in when the Administration decided to suspend the order and it was not proceeded with. It was Mr. Jabotinsky who selected the men and he was in constant consultation with the officials up to the time of his arrest on April 7th.

On the 18th April, Mr. Ruthenberg writes to Colonel Storrs stating that calm having been restored to the city, he had demobilised the "Self Defence", to which Colonel Storrs replied with the decidedly disingenous letter of the 21st April, asking what was meant by "Defence Corps" as the Administration had no cognisance of such a body. Mr. Ruthenberg admits that in arming the corps "the wishes of the Administration were disregarded for the reasons already alleged - but subsequent events proved we were right". The Administration disclaims all responsibility for Mr. Jabotinsky's arrest and places the onus upon the Military - yet the Legal Officers of the Administration were employed to draw the charges. This Court is unable to extend its mission into an inquiry into the conduct of the subsequent Military Court; but in view of the preceding circumstances into which the Court has been obliged to probe very thoroughly: the undoubted cause for anxiety among the Jewish Community, the admitted purely defensive intention of the organisers of the force, the constant consultation into which both the local officials and the Military entered with its leaders after the disturbances had broken out, the actual enrolment of a portion of the force as special constables with the active help of Mr. Jabotinsky: taking all these matters into account, together with Mr. Jabotinsky's record as the organiser of the Jewish Battalions for the service of the British Army, the Court feels itself obliged to record its opinion that the arrest and prosecution of Mr. Jabotinsky was ungenerous.

No doubt the persistent impression that the Jews were in some way concerned as aggressors as well as the Arabs, in spite of the fact that the Arab casualties were practically negligible, is largely responsible for the attitude of the Military Authorities; and undoubtedly the repeated attempts of the Zionists to take action irrespective of the Authorities was embarrassing and a cause of exasperation, but other and milder methods might well, in view of all the circumstances, have been adopted."

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Guttersnipe Antisemitism Masquerading as Political Commentary

Candace Owens

Max Blumenthal

Nick Fuentes

Tucker Carlson to be uploaded soon.

Why do mainstream/legacy media outlets ignore the content of their remarks, what they portend in a socio-political sense as hate speech?

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UPDATE

"Now that Trump has allied with Israel in a war for Iranian regime change, there’s no made-up story wild enough for the anti-neocon gang to pretend that either Trump is “with them” or neocons are in despair. They feel boxed out, and they’re enraged.

Tucker Carlson has called Operation Epic Fury “absolutely disgusting and evil.” Marjorie Taylor Greene responded by saying that the Trump administration was packed with a “bunch of sick f--king liars.” Nick Fuentes instructed his simian audience to vote for Democrats in the midterms. Blackwater founder Erik Prince said, “I don’t see how this is in keeping with the president’s MAGA commitment.” And on and on it goes...they’re lost in their own fantasy roleplay game where motives are disguised or inverted, double agents are showing their faces, and state-backed cabals wield wizardly powers of influence—you know, it’s the Jews’ fault. Megyn Kelly simply confessed, “This feels very much to me like it is clearly Israel’s war.”...Vance, after all, once assured a groyper at a live event that “Israel doesn’t control this president.” And in downplaying the rise of the right-wing Jew-haters he was courting, he claimed that the whole issue of anti-Semitism on the right was made up by pro-Israel conservatives to distract Americans from discussing the supposedly problematic U.S.-Israel relationship.

Three days ago, that relationship showed the world the most successful single day of warfighting in history...the real question is how Vance tries to explain to the hate-peddling right his own involvement in the most ambitious U.S.-Israel military effort we’ve ever seen. Another is how he tries to justify his association with the hate-peddlers to the rest of us. This is a dilemma of his own making. Vance thought he could court the right’s Tucker wing without losing conservatives. And he thought he could distance himself sufficiently from Trump’s pro-Israel stance to keep the Tucker wing happy. 

The war in Iran could turn in any number of directions. At the moment, it looks far more promising than Vance’s battle for the future of the right.

Abe Greenwald,  the executive editor of COMMENTARY.

What to do about Jerusalem's "Holy Places" - 1918

With the conquest by British military forces of Jerusalem in December 1917, both British diplomatic and political figures, as well as Zionists, began to plan for the future administration of the territory. The Balfour Declaration made it a clear government policy that the country would develop into a homeland for the Jews. Nevertheless, as the Sykes-Picot negotiations had shown, there were multiple interests that needed to be attended to including economic, strategic and religious in natre.

In December 1918, Ze'ev Jabotinsky penned a long essay and part of it discussed the issue of the Holy Places. It follows in its original form, with Jabotinsky's editing and crossing out:

          A few words chaned the choice of the protecting Powers “Trustee” – the protecting Power to be put by the peace conference in charge of Palestine. This choice is a matter to be decided by international agreement.

          The Holy Places should be carefully

          We suggest

          Whether this scheme of government, when applied, would leave any real and genuine need for special arrangements safeguarding the Holy Places of the New Testament, of Christianity Holy Places is a question to be decided in the first place by Christ the Christians Powers themselves. As outsiders we can only say that, with a Christian Power holding the supreme authority over Palestine, there does not seem to be any need for proclaiming them “extra territorial” “ex territorial”. The intersects of the different Churches into which Christianity is divided could be protected by placing certain localities, town-guarders, or holding under special joint Boards representing all the sections concerned. However, Zionists never intended to put forward object even to extra exterritorialization provided it should be strictly limited to places where really constitutional areas which really and palpably constitute places of Christian pilgrimage and worship.

          As to the holy places the Old Testament, their exterritorialization from a Jewish “National Home” would of course be out of the question. We fully admit the and appreciate the interest right of all monotheistic religions to consider them as our and their common property are entitled to, take in them, but it would be really monstrous to deny that Jews’ connection with them is incomparably the most intimate. Here again joint Boards could be instituted to secure Christian and Mohammedan as well as Jewish representation, but the places themselves should remain for even incorporated into the Jewish national patrimony.

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Jabotinsky's 1935 'Band Wagon'

This is the first of a series of three articles by Vladimir Jabotinsky, the Revisionist leader, written specially for the Jewish Daily Bulletin. The second of the series will appear in tomorrow’s Bulletin.

It is not only difficult but probably impossible to bring home to American Jews the intensity of Zionist feeling in the Zone of Jewish Distress—Eastern and Central Europe. That is a terrible and cruel intensity; it looks irrational, for there is the impression that Palestine (they now call Palestine simply “certificate,” for short) is wanted at once and for every single individual out of a crowd of several millions, and yet it is realistically wise because there actually is no other way out for all those millions but Palestine. During my present tour I have many a time thought of trying somehow to convey to the American audiences this tangible, immediate mass hunger - but had to renounce the attempt for fear of dropping into sob-stuff.

So it probably will have to be accepted as inevitable - that the largest and most powerful of Jewish communities should remain in a state of just sympathetic aloofness while the zone of distress across the ocean is traversing a period of acutest mass agony.

Some readers may here feel shocked by the term “sympathetic aloofness,” they may find it unjust, may claim that theirs is much more than mere “sympathy,” and the claim may be true: but I cannot help it - compared with the tremendous immediacy of that painful “certificate-hunger” out there the American attitude strikes me as condolence by remote well-wishers, rather skeptical as to all those stories about a “frozen stampede” to Palestine.

This is probably also why American Jews can play with pink leftism just at a moment when all the Jewish “middle class” in the zone of distress is up in revolt against the present left wing hegemony in Zionism. What is fanning that revolt into real white heat is, naturally, the monopoly over “certificates.” The “mittelstand” (eighty per cent of the whole ghetto) can no longer afford to renounce them for the benefit of “halutzim;” it needs them for itself, too.

No Jew of the “mittelstand” imagines that Palestine can absorb shopkeepers or luftmenschen: he knows that, apart from people with money, only laborers are wanted; but he is himself, in many cases, an artisan, and in any case believes himself fully capable of becoming a laborer, and quite rightly so in most cases. Yet he is debarred from even asking for a “certificate” because he does not belong to the monopolist party and (being a man above 25, probably already married) cannot go to a “hachsharah” place (where, as everybody by now admits, they learn nothing of any use). He realizes, moreover, that there are too few “certificates” to go round, that it is a lottery with hardly one lot for 10,000 applicants -  but for him there is even no lottery ticket, and resents it bitterly; and as conditions grow worse his bitterness threatens to degenerate into hate.

There is, of course, also the ideological controversy about “class war;” even without the “certificates” complication it has ever been an irritant. The ordinary poor shul-goer who, as long as he could spare a cent, has been feeding the funds that fed the Halutzim and has made the Histadruth what it now financially is, feels profoundly insulted being treated as white trash by those very Halutzim. The small and medium capitalist whose initiative, since 1925, has endowed Palestine with hundreds of factories providing work for 20,000 Jewish workers, stands bewildered in discovering that even in Zion he is nothing else but a class enemy, an exploiter, and altogether a social nuisance. All that has long been causing a great deal of resentment; but now, added to the non-admission of the “mittelstand” to that “lottery,” it makes people see red.

American Jewry is also mittelstand, but their life is paradise in comparison, they do not feel that searing pain, and sears can never be “explained.” So they have chosen just this moment for getting infatuated with the party whose domination is gall and wormwood to four-fifths of distressed European Jewry, chosen this moment for no other reason, I fear, than a purely local coincidence - the fact that just now “Labor” catchwords happen to be popular in America.

American Zionists are under the impression that this is a very noble and very liberal spiritual departure. I see in it something quite different. There was no trace of such infatuation when Palestinian labor was poor and helpless, in those days of the “stone breakers” when Halutzim were really “pioneers” in the heroic sense of the term, suffering untold material privations and ready to stand even more the glory of Zion. Yet in those days American Zionism, though generous with its money for the improvement of their position, never dreamed of accepting their ideological leadership. Today Palestinian left wing labor gets wages that would make English working men envious; they have abandoned en masse the agricultural colonies, partly even the Dead Sea, because they are better paid in towns; a quarter of the membership of the left-wing Histadruth either live in neat little houses of their own, or else are already listed to get such houses as soon as donations from the bourgeoisie will permit it.

The Histadruth cooperatives employ hired Jewish labor just like capitalist enterprises do: at last year’s Histadruth convention a special report on this painful subject was read by a Mr. Garfinkel from which we learned some really piquant facts, e.g., that more than 50 per cent of those Histadruth members working for Histadruth employers get wages of “from one to six pounds” a month (the Trade Union minimum in Palestine is seven pounds a month); or that some of those cooperatives, whose shares originally cost 100 to 200 dollars, now refuse to sell them, owing to the boom, for less than “two to three thousand dollars.”

Individual members of the left wing Histadruth also employ hired labor - the proletarian “boss” working for high wages in town, but letting his vegetable plot in a nearby colony to be tended by another proletarian for a lower wage; after which, of course, he will sell those vegetables to the bourgeoisie and pocket the profit. In short, belonging to the left wing Histadruth is nowadays rather a comfortable social position.

The Histadruth itself, and the “Mapai” (the Socialist Party) which dominates it, are also very “comfortable:” in proportion to membership, probably one of the richest trade unions throughout the world. Beside the ordinary Keren Hayesod sources, and the “Gewerkschaft” campaigns, the Histadruth now also enjoys a nice steady clean income from the Transfer Agreement between some of its organs and Hitler’s government, helping Germany to import her wares into our Holy Land. This is why left wing labor has at its disposal such a mighty war chest for sending delegations across all the oceans, and for election campaigns to Zionist Congresses.

This is the moment when America’s middle class intelligentsia has chosen to . . . to jump on the band wagon.

_____

This is the second of a series of three articles published in the JTA by Vladimir Jabotinsky, the Revisionist leader, written specially for its Jewish Daily Bulletin. 

Foreign words should be used with a bona fide knowledge of what they really mean. Fasces was the Latin term for a bunch of rods with an axe in the middle. Roman “lictors” used to carry them ostentatiously, to remind the citizens that if they don’t obey orders they will be beaten, or their heads chopped off. Fasces was the symbol of coercive discipline, of the State’s resolve and power to enforce obedience on all dissenters, no matter whether wicked criminals or honest conscientious objectors. Italian Fascism is an attempt to reaffirm the principle that the State has the right and the duty to "coerce” and the actual power, too.

Right or wrong, all this can have no application to Jewish social phenomena. There is no Jewish government, and no Jew can be administratively “coerced” to obey orders issued by any Jewish leader or committee of leaders. Jewish political organizations are voluntary associations and can be nothing else. Should one of them conceive the whim of imposing on its membership the strictest kind of “compulsory” discipline, that would simply mean that all its members choose to agree to this kind of game: all of them, for if you or I suddenly cease to agree we can simply walk out of that organization and cannot be “coerced.” When a minority of that membership say “We submit to the will of the majority,” they simply mean that they voluntarily condescend to submit. The doctrine of Fascism is rooted in the opposite principle; the individual will be made to agree whether he agrees or not. In Jewish life this doctrine is simply unreal, as unreal as “depth” in a two-dimensional oil painting.

As to the very old principle that the interests of a nation should supersede those of an individual, a family, or a “class” - to describe this idea as “Fascism” is silly. This is everyman’s view, including ninety-nine per cent of all Socialists, probably also of all Communists if ever put to the test.

The really “Fascist” addition to this world-old idea is, again, only that thoroughness of coercion which Fascism applies to social relations. It refuses to rely on the workers or the employers’ own patriotism: it simply commandeers all the workers and all the employers, treats them as battalions of the State, orders, forbids and punishes. This again, cannot be initiated in our Jewish life. When we Jews speak of “compulsory” arbitration in Palestine, what we mean is a free pledge by all concerned to renounce voluntarily any other method of settling industrial disputes and to accept (voluntarily) the arbitrators’ judgment however unpalatable.

Whether such a covenant is a possibility (as I believe) or a dream (as pessimists affirm) is beside the point: the point is that this program is the reverse of Fascism. Fascism says to both Labor and capital: “I don’t ask you to be patriotic, you may go on feeling selfish: but you will have to accept the State’s ruling or go to jail - and even if you do go to jail, it won’t help you, for the State’s ruling will be enforced in your enterprise all the same.”

There is, on the other hand, also this difference - that, while in Fascism any concrete form of “class war” is only verboten, in Zionism (where nothing can actually be “verboten”) the very idea of “class war” is immoral. The national funds which support the proletarian Halutzim are being provided by the. bourgeoisie. That bourgeoisie is being daily urged to leave the Galuth and come and build factories in Palestine, because there “you can be among your brethren. When a bourgeois starts a workshop in Palestine, he is being urged to employ expensive Jewish labor instead of cheap Arab labor - because “the Jewish workmen are his brethren.”

All this is absolutely fair: they are brethren, and partners in the great enterprise of building the Homeland, and comrades in Zionist ideology: brethren, partners, comrades in a sense incomparably more intense and more concrete than it can be said of capital and labor in any other country. That is why it is unfair and immoral to import “class war” ideas into Palestine - even though it cannot be “verboten.”

Fascism is wholly and organically inapplicable to any aspect of Jewish lfe; it is therefore simply dishonest to call any Jewish party “Fascist.” In many cases, it is even akin to hitting under the belt. In liberal or democratic countries Fascism is looked upon as politically subversive, governments have been known to take active measures for suppressing it by police action, and may have to do so in the nearest future with considerable severity. In view of all this, decent opponents should be very chary of stamping a Zionist party as “Fascist.” It is just as indecent as calling Socialists “Communists,” and likely to lead to the same kind of outside interference.

In countries like Austria, where the term “Marxist” is equally dangerous, we Revisionists have instructed our followers never to apply that term to left-wing Zionists, quite regardless of whether that would be scientifically true or untrue; and, though we officially disbanded our German branches when we decided to join the boycott movement, that wing of Zionists in Germany who share our Herzlian views also know that “Marxist” is a word never to be used in Polemics.

_____

And I finally figured out to find the third section, here.

When a man in America says, “I am not a Republican,” it means that he is an adherent of some other party, probably a Democrat. When a man says the same thing in England, it means that he is a Monarchist. Which is a reminder that the same term can often cover quite different phenomena: another example is the word “petition.”

The officially prescribed way in which a private group or individual in Palestine can approach the Permanent Mandate Commission in Geneva, is by sending their request or memorandum through the High Commissioner: and the document thus forwarded is called “petition.” It may bear many signatures or one only: the Revisionist memorandum was signed by Mr. A. Weinshal on behalf of the Palestinian Revisionists.

This has nothing to do with the “Petition Movement” initiated by the Revisionists a year ago. That movement demands signatures en masse: between April and June, 600,000 signatures were collected, and this year we intend to raise the number up to several millions. The mass petition is not addressed to the Mandate Commission or to the League of Nations: its four different texts are explicibly addressed (a) to his British Majesty, (b) to the British Parliament, (c) and (d) to the government and parliament of the country where the petitioners reside. And, in fine, this mass petition has not yet been “presented” either in London or in any other capital, but will only be presented after many preliminary manifestations, culminating probably in a World Congress of the petitioners themselves.

Those who are genuinely interested should, therefore, remember that anything that may have happened in Geneva to Dr. Weinshal’s memorandum, officially described as “petition,” or may subsequently happen to his next memorandum to Geneva, has no bearing whatsoever on the progress of the real petition - the mass movement petition.

The two have also different aims. The mass petition is primarily meant to register all those who actually and personally want and need repatriation to Palestine. Secondly, - to impress upon the governments of those countries where the Jewish distress has become a grave local problem that it is in those governments’ interest to start a friendly talk with the British Mandatory about facilitating Jewish immigration. Thirdly, - to bring home to British Jews’ suffering, and to British public conscience the discrepancy between a pledge and a reality.

The memorandum to the Mandates Commission had another aim, to “draw” that body into a discussion on that all-important subject: what is the true meaning of a “national home” -  is it a Jewish State or just a new Jewish minority?

I know, of course, that there are people who consider such a discussion undesirable. We Revisionists consider it necessary and intend to go on promoting it until we obtain the inevitable final result: an admission, on the part of the League’s organ supervising the Mandates, that “a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine” means Palestine transformed into a self-governing commonwealth with a Jewish majority; that this was the intent of the Balfour Declaration and of the Mandate. As I said, such an admission is inevitable provided there is a discussion: wherefore, we will see to it that the discussion should continue.

In forwarding to Geneva Mr. Weinshal’s memorandum we knew, of course, that the first reaction of the Mandates Commission would be negative. For the last seven years or more I have been quoting in my public addresses a proverb current in one of the Mediterranean countries: “In politics, just as in true love, it is only after the seventh ‘no’ that you can hope to hear the bashful ‘yes.’ No important political advance has ever been reached in any other way but via several preliminary refusals: the first very dry and curt, the second probably angry. This is how the Jewish Legion was formed: the story began with Kitchener’s “no.” The same applies to the story of the Balfour Declaration, or to any political story worth telling. Whoever fears that preliminary cold drop had better renounce all hope of ever getting anywhere.

The Mandates Commission has said its first “no.” That important body must forgive me for pointing out that this answer clashes with the Commission’s own attitude with regard to all the problems implied in our question. Logically, the present situation in Palestine can only end in one of the following three ways: (a) the Mandatory withdraws, leaving Palestine a State with an Arab majority; (b) the Mandatory stays on forever and ever; (c) a State with a Jewish majority.

As to the first eventuality - the Permanent Mandates Commission at half a dozen of its sessions, when dealing with the question of a Legislative Council for Palestine has always stubbornly maintained that any kind of majority rule by the Arabs would endanger the Jewish national home, would therefore be contrary to the Mandate, and was therefore inadmissible - which all, and a fortiori, applies to an Arab State.

As to the second eventuality (“the Mandatory strays on forever”) - that would be tantamount to annexation, therefore contrary to the very letter and essence of the League of Nations’ Covenant. Some people in England may desire it, but there is at least one body under the sun which simply cannot admit such a perversion of the Covenant - and that body is (last part couldn't copy text, so here:)

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