Rabbi JB Soloveitchik on Settling the Land of Israel

Taken from here:-

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Chaim Weizmann and TransJordan

Ze'ev Jabotinsky demanded Palestine. All of Palestine. Including TransJordan.

That's what the 1923 Zionist Congress decided:

Trans- and Cis-Jordan are "one historical, geographic and economic unit" and "in accordance with the legitimate demands of the Jewish people", the Congress expects that an expression of such will be achieved in Transjordan and eventually it will be carried out.

He declared 

that the opening of Transjordania to Jewish settlement is an essential condition no longer opposed by the Transjordanian Arabs but by the mandatory administration.

“A Transjordania which would have the same population density as Palestine has room for one and a half million immigrants, while a Palestine on both sides of the Jordan would harbor five or six millions,” Jabotinsky asserted. “A political regime which would promote settlement instead of hindering it would in a few decades solve the tragic problem of the Jews without harming their non-Jewish neighbors.”

Jabotinsky's 1935 list of the obligations a friendly mandatory power to the Jews and of the Jews to themselves should included

1. A land reserve for agricultural colonization following a geological survey of uncultivated land in Palestine and a loan for reclaiming land.
2. A similar survey in Transjordania.

If not granted land, then Jews should be able to purchase them.

Unlike Chaim Weizmann, his rival, you may have thought.

Really?

He held, for a while at least, similar views.

Here - 

"Transjordania must be opened to Jewish endeavours"

Earlier, there was a scandal when the Mizrachi representative Yehoshua Farbstein revealed negotiations for purchase of lands on the east side of the Jordan River in which he was quite involved.

And here:

(For Weizmann background, see here.)

How much was Weizmann pro-Transjordan?

Well, he said in May 1926

I openly and explicitly stated here as well as in London that we see in Transjordania the eastern part of Eretz Israel. However, we will build the bridge across the Jordan not with soldiers, we will make our way there by Jewish work, with the plough and not with the sword, only through the good will of the two nations, the Jews and the Arabs, will we cross the Jordan.

He pressed the first High Commissioner Herbert Samuel on the matter and latter replied in a December 20, 1936 item:

Sir Herbert Samuel, first British High Commissioner for Palestine, explained last night why Transjordan was not included with the Holy Land under the Balfour Declaration. He told the Anglo-Palestine Club that a pledge had been given to king Hussein that Transjordan was, like Iraq and Hedjaz, to be included in the Arab domains.

The explanation was indirectly a reply to Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, who recently raised the question in Jerusalem before the Royal Commission now conducting hearings there. Sir Herbert said the Arabs claimed that Palestine was also included in the Arab domains, but the British would not admit this.

And, as this book relates, he valiantly attempted to complete purchases but the British viewed that effort with displeasure and he never asserted the Jewish claim after that, as Herbert Samuel had declared in October 1934:

“The rumors that Transjordania will be annexed to Palestine are unfounded. Transjordania is a part of the British mandatory area and negotiations are now under way between the Government of Great Britain and Emir Abdullah, ruler of Transjordania, as to the conditions and form of administration of the country”

Weizmann eventually wilted.

The story:

History aside, Jordan is Transjordan is part of historic Palestine.

P.S.

Abba Hillel Silver, in January 1935, published a piece entitled "Land Hunger" which include this:

This calls for the opening up of Transjordania at the earliest possible moment for Jewish settlement. On this pivotal issue of Transjordania all the energies of the Zionist movement should now be concentrated. 

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Another Jewish "settlement"?

An archeological discovery near the Sea of Galilee may prove the presence of a Jewish settlement at the site 1,500 years ago.

An ancient tablet featuring Hebrew letters has been excavated and is the best proof yet of a former Jewish town at the site.

Do Jews ever live in homes, towns, villages or communities?

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Yikes! Another 'Settlement' Expected?

Well, it reads that way in the NYTimes:-

but it's a story on

Banking regulators [who] are said to be close to a $10 billion settlement with 14 banks that would end the government’s efforts to hold lenders responsible for foreclosure abuses.

Okay, everyone relax.

No abuse of "Palestinianism".  No in-your-face-Obama.  No who-the-heck-are-you-EU.

Just another American economic matter.

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Dror Etkes Is So Right

Quoted:

"We could just end up with more settlements overall," Etkes said, adding that he doubted that the original Palestinian landowners would ever regain their property. "Sometimes you might find yourself in a position where you win legally but lose politically."

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Wider Settlement Demanded

No, not at Migron. Nor even Shiloh.

Here:

Labour MP [David Milliband] expressed his belief that the "Israel-Palestine question will only ever be settled in the context of a wider Arab settlement with Israel".

Why don't we Jews ever get the right to a wider settlement?

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Maen R Arekiat: No Jews Today and Tomorrow

Remember Maen Rashid Areikat, the representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organization to the United States?

No?

Well, besides being a liar, he was interviewed by USA Today saying "no Jews allowed in 'Palestine'" that was later either denied or fudged.

Well, he's back and you know what, he still doesn't like Jews in his neighborhood as he told the Chicago Sun-Times-

Hundreds of thousands of Jews live in communities in the disputed West Bank territories. To Israelis, the West Bank is known as Judea and Samaria, reflecting its crucial role in the ancient and modern history of the Jewish people. If a peace settlement is ever reached — a big if given the history of Palestinian intransigence — could some Jews living in the West Bank choose to opt to remain and pursue their lives under a new Palestinian state?

No, according to Maen Rashid Areikat, the representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organization to the United States. In a recent meeting with the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board, he condemned the Jewish residents of the West Bank — he put the number at 550,000 — as unlawful settlers and declared that all of them must leave as part of any Israeli-Palestinian settlement.

Areikat did acknowledge that a settlement would involve “minor” land swaps that could incorporate some of the communities in Israel. And he did say that at some point in the future, Jews might live in a new Palestinian state.

But a settlement would require Jews living in the Palestinian-governed West Bank to leave. In other words, a peace deal will be followed by ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, where Jewish history is measured in millennia and where Jews had lived before being expelled in the Arab world’s 1948 war to destroy Israel...

Actually, is that a pun?  That "a settlement would require Jews living in the Palestinian-governed West Bank to leave"?

Remind me, who is practicing apartheid in our region?

(k/t= ChallahHuAkbar)

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"Palestinian" Arab On Settlement

In the NYTimes:

“Reconciliation comes only after matters have been settled,” said Radwan Abu Ayyash, a veteran Palestinian journalist and former director of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, the parent of the authority’s television and radio stations with headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.


“Thinking of Jaffa and Haifa is still there as an old dream, as history,” he said, referring to the Palestinian refugees’ desire to return to the homes they occupied before 1948, “but it is not reality.”

a) wouldn't it be better if reconciliation would be a facilitating element rather than an end-term item?

b) why wasn't Abu-Ayyash facilitating a peace settlement by reducing the incitement being broadcast over his media network? the misrepresentation of history in textbooks?  can he assist even now to create a better atmosphere for coexistence?

c) if the "right of return" is non-real, can he help persuade the senior PA officials, from the President on down, to renounce it?

d) do you believe him?

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I Belong to a Settlement

No. Shiloh is a Jewish residential community. Populated by revenant Jews.  Not a "settlement".

But according to this study, I do belong to a settlement:-

Defining & Characterizing Virtual Settlements

The need to distinguish between a virtual community's CMC [computer mediated communication] messages and the virtual community itself creates a dilemma similar in form to those faced by a number other disciplines. For example, after centuries of debate over the mind-body problem, psychology now distinguishes between the act of cognition and observable behavior. Likewise, it is necessary to distinguish between a community and its material in order to determine when a series of group-CMC demonstrates the existence of a virtual community. Therefore a distinction will need to be made between the cyber-place within which a virtual community operates, which will be termed a virtual settlement, and the virtual communities themselves.

Defining Characteristics

For a cyber-place with associated group-CMC to be labeled as a virtual settlement it is necessary for it to meet a minimum set of conditions. These are: (1) a minimum level of interactivity; (2) a variety of communicators; (3) a minimum level of sustained membership; and (4) a virtual common-public-space where a significant portion of interactive group-CMCs occur. The notion of interactivity will be shown to be central to virtual settlements. Further, it will be shown that virtual settlements can be defined as a cyber-place that is symbolically delineated by topic of interest and within which a significant proportion of interrelated interactive group-CMC occurs. It also follows that the existence of a virtual settlement demonstrates the existence of an associated virtual community.

(1) Minimum Level of Interactivity

It has been argued by some sociologists [(Minar and Greer 1969)] that our understanding of community begins with an examination of interaction and that leads to commitment to a given place and group. Both communities and virtual communities are composed of “groups”...

And it goes on:

Characterizing virtual settlements

Once a virtual settlement has been identified it can be characterized via an empirical description of its CMC-message-system. For example, does the virtual settlement under study have a large but unstable population? Or is it small and cohesive? Such a characterization can result from the modeling of a number of variables such as the number of subscribers; the number of posters; the density of posting; the number of topics generated over a particular period of time; the average length of postings. and so on. In a similar fashion, traditional human settlements have been characterized by archaeologists who have been interested in such issues as the development of sedentism, agrarian-based urban settlements and the growth of industrially based cities.

In both archaeology and the field of CMC, researchers focus on cultural artifacts: the archaeologist on scarabs, pots, arrow heads, the remains of cities, etc., the CMC researcher on listserv postings, web site structures, web site content, number of spams[2], Usenet content, etc. These artifacts can provide an integrative framework for a settlement's life, be it virtual or real, or they can obstruct or fail to facilitate otherwise viable, active behavior. As will be shown below the discipline of archaeology provides insights into how such characterizations of virtual settlements can be studied in order to expand our understanding of communication in general...

Well, well.

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Judge Approves Settlement

In Illinois, not Judea and Samaria.

Judge Approves Settlement in Tribune Employee Stock Suit

Disgruntled Tribune Company employees are one step closer to receiving a $32 million settlement for the company’s misguided employee stock ownership plan (ESOP).

Rebecca Pallmeyer, a federal district court judge in Illinois, granted preliminary approval of the settlement of a class action case brought about by former Los Angeles Times auto writer Dan Neil and other Tribune employees.

Tribune and its employees reached the settlement back in August, and informed the judge of that.

Now that the judge has approved it, notices go out to all potential beneficiaries. There is then a hearing, slated for Jan. 30, when any of the employees can object because they feel they are not getting enough money.

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Finally, A Negotiated Settlement

Naw, not here in the Middle East.

In LA:-

Mel Gibson and his ex-girlfriend have reached a financial and custody settlement of a bitter dispute that spawned a criminal case and left the Academy Award winner’s reputation damaged.  Los Angeles Superior Court officials said in a statement late Friday that Gibson and Russian musician Oksana Grigorieva had reached an agreement after days of negotiation. Terms and conditions of the settlement were not announced, but a hearing Wednesday will be held to discuss the financial terms.

Is anyone happy about this anti-Semite?

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"West Bank"; "Settlement"; "Historic"

What more could you want - "West Bank" and "settlement" and "historic".

But it's not in my neighborhood rather, it's in Maine:

Turner’s celebration of the Fourth of July this year included observance of the town’s 225th anniversary. This beautiful town on the west bank of the Androscoggin River has a proud history, as well as a fascinating period of settlement in the century before its formal incorporation.

Happy anniversary.

The renewed Shiloh is 34 in this modern period.

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Suspected Settlement, Ancient, Discovered

No, not a "Jewish settlement".

From here:
[Go there for map and pix]

Ancient Settlement Discovered in the Ethiopian Highlands

An ancient settlement has been discovered in the Ethiopian highlands using non-invasive geophysical surveys. This discovery will help tell the story of ancient indigenous cultures in the Horn of Africa and their exchange with nearby civilizations...Jorg Fassbinder from the Geophysics Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) in Munich and his colleague Margaret Schlosser of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI)...surveyed the ground of a suspected settlement in the north-western Ethiopian highland region of Tigray, home to the town of Yeha [wow, that's close to YESHA = Judea, Samaria, Gaza] which was believed to be a major centre of the Diamat Kingdom established around 700 BCE.

The team used a magnetometer to detect local anomalies in the geomagnetic field which could be indications of hidden objects...said the on-sight excavation director Pawel Wolf. “With the first test excavations, stone walls, burial sites and local waste items like animal bones and pottery shards were found dating back to different eras. Among them were also ceramic shards with characteristics from the Ethio-Sabaean Period dating back to the first millennium BCE.”

In 2008, Ethiopian archaeologists made the astonishing discovery of a perfectly preserved sacrificial altar in neighbouring Meqaber Ga’ewa, a previously unknown location near the city of Wuqro. The altar bore a remarkable royal inscription in Old South Arabian bearing the name
Yeha.

You just never know.

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Tragedy at the West Bank; A Settlement May Be Involved

The west bank of the Chicago River at Rogers Park, that is:-

...Concrete barriers and a stop sign were later installed where Roman's cab entered the water on the west bank, but no protective measures were placed on the east bank.

That's where police believe 25-year-old model Irma Sabanovic drove her car over a curb at the end of the 1100 block of West Blackhawk Street and into the river during the rainy early morning hours of May 12. Sabanovic, who drowned, was found Saturday inside her submerged Ford Focus.

"I would blame Chicago once again for not putting something up on both sides," Lorraine Roman said Monday. "Chicago should have put barriers up. They should have built something there on both sides of the river. They should have built a high cement wall."

Sabanovic, a Bosnian immigrant who lived in the West Rogers Park neighborhood, was driving to meet friends at Exit, a bar on the west side of the river on North Avenue, a few blocks north of Blackhawk. About 2 a.m., she texted a friend that she was lost. She was never heard from again.

And a settlement may be involved:-

Roman's estate sued the city and received a $500,000 settlement in 1997, according to court records. The settlement did not require the city to admit liability or require that changes be made to the street, said Jennifer Hoyle, a spokeswoman for the city's Law Department. Officials said they do not recall any lawsuits involving similar incidents at that location, Hoyle said.

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"Occupies", "West Bank", "Settlement" - This Story Has It All

Well, the story has all the terms but it's about property in Los Angeles

SCI-Arc Campus Part of Ten Property Settlement Agreement between Meruelo Maddux and Lender

SCI-Arc occupies a quarter-mile long building rebuilt from L.A.'s original 1907 Santa Fe Rail Freight Terminal.

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — SCI-Arc's quarter-mile-long campus is changing hands as one of ten Downtown properties involved in a settlement agreement approved today between bankrupt property owner Meruelo Maddux and one of its largest investors.

Seven properties, including the architecture school's campus and part of the parking lot that neighbors it, will go to Legendary Investors Group under the terms of the agreement. In return, Legendary will release its claims on three other properties in South Park.

The SCI-Arc site should change hands again quickly, however.

The school had reached a deal with Meruelo Maddux to purchase its building and part of the adjacent lot one year ago, but had been unable to move forward on the deal while the bankruptcy case continued. Legendary has told the court that it will honor the terms of the agreement, under which the school will pay $23.1 million for 4.75 acres and its 100,000-square-foot building.

“The purchase of our building is an essential step in the development of the school," SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss said in a statement given to blogdowntown. "It also affirms SCI-Arc’s commitment to downtown Los Angeles."

The school expects to close escrow on the sale by May 1, 2011.

The lot next to SCI-Arc is the most prized of the properties included in the deal. The 7.9-acre site, which Meruelo Maddux called the "Sky-Arc" property, is entitled for 635 residential units and is valued between $28 and $29 million.

Also included are 0.5 acres at 3rd & Omar, 0.6 acres at 420 Boyd, two acres at Griffith and 16th, 1.3 acres at Hewitt and 4th and 125,000 square feet at 6th and Gladys.

In exchange, Legendary has agreed to release its liens on 425 W. 11th, the five-story Desmonds building at 11th and Hope; 336 W. 11th, a 0.7-acre parking lot at 11th and Olive; and property on both sides of Olive between 11th and 12th that contains J's Lounge and a parking lot.

Legendary had acquired the Meruelo Maddux loans from their original issuer, East West Bank.

A representative of Meruelo Maddux declined comment on today's settlement. On Thursday, the company will return to court to try and get approval for its Chapter 11 reorganization plan.

You never know.

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This Was a Settlement

The term for Jewish communities in post-1967 Judea and Samaria, at present and, formerly, in Gaza, is not "settlements". Use communities, cities, villages and towns.

And their residents are not "settlers" but revenants.

You want a settlement, here's one, as Eli Hertz has pointed out:

"[The United Nations General Assembly ]Resolution 181, in paragraph C, calls on the Security Council to:

"Determine as a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression, in accordance with Article 39 of the Charter, any attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution."

The ones who sought to alter by force the settlement envisioned in Resolution 181 were the Arabs who threatened bloodshed if the United Nations was to adopt the Resolution:

"The [British] Government of Palestine fear that strife in Palestine will be greatly intensified when the Mandate is terminated, and that the international status of the United Nations Commission will mean little or nothing to the Arabs in Palestine, to whom the killing of Jews now transcends all other considerations. Thus, the Commission will be faced with the problem of how to avert certain bloodshed on a very much wider scale than prevails at present. ... The Arabs have made it quite clear and have told the Palestine government that they do not propose to co-operate or to assist the Commission, and that, far from it, they propose to attack and impede its work in every possible way. We have no reason to suppose that they do not mean what they say." [italics by author]

Read the entire piece here.

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A New Settlement?

Yes.

But not the one you're used to reading about.

The one that involves negotiations of lump-sum final settlements for those affected by the BP oil spill.

One that is very much more messy than our "settlements", and more dangerous and costly.

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New Communities Planned for Chanukah

The Nachala Movement, with other groups, is planning activity for the Chanukah season:

Central assembly will take place on Sunday, December 5 at 4 PM at Shvut-Ami (near Kedumim).

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Condi's Great Moral Error

Here's a snippet from the Quartet Statement today as pronounced by Condoleeza Rice:-

The Quartet reiterated its call to the parties to fully implement their obligations under phase one of the Roadmap, including in relation to freezing settlement activity and the dismantlement of the infrastructure of terrorism.

These two cannot be equated and interlocked.

Terrorism has existed since the beginning of the Zionist enterprise. Arab terror does not depend nor is it related to this or that act of Jewish national effort, nor to the amount of territory under Jewish control or sovereignty nor to anything a Jew does, good or bad. Arab terror is the constant.

Arab terror is Islamic, is anti-colonialist, is Marxist or whatever but it is always anti-Jewish. Fatah was Marxist, Hamas is Islamic, PFLP was Leninist or Maoist or whatever. The important thing was that it was against Jews.

Jews could have their homeland partitioned and Jordan created, have what was left partitioned by a Royal (Peel) Commission in 1937, and again by the Woodhead Commission in 1938, by the UN in 1947, etc., etc., etc. But no Arab would agree to any border configuration.

In linking, even semantically, terror and Jewish residency, a great moral error is being made and a political failure is advanced.

We Shiloh Residents Are Not "Settlers"

We are not "settlers" and Shiloh is not a "settlement" even if this gets published:-

African-American settlers made a home in Saskatchewan

A little-known piece of Saskatchewan history is about to receive a high honour.

It's a history steeped in slavery, segregation, civil war and the emancipation of African-American families who received free land in Canada.

All that remains of Saskatchewan's only black pioneer settlement is a log church nestled in a grove of trees, a cemetery stippled with simple white crosses and a handful of descendants who've worked to save it all.

The proper term is revenant.

Revenant.