Archaeology Is History

Another find:

Israeli archaeologists uncover ancient Roman pool in Jerusalem

Pool, estimated to date from the Roman occupation of the city in 70 A.D., was found while excavating the site for a planned new mikveh.


While excavating the site for a planned new ritual bath for Jews in Jerusalem, Israeli archaeologists uncovered a pool belonging to the Roman legion that sacked the city nearly 2,000 years ago.

The discovery announced Monday sheds a rare light on the city the Romans built after destroying the second Jewish Temple in 70 A.D. and expelling the Jews from Jerusalem following their revolt.

Ofer Sion, the director of the excavation in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, said...
"It is very important because in all the excavations in the Jewish quarter [we have] never found a building from the 2nd and 3rd century," he said Monday.

The archaeologists found steps leading to the pool's white mosaic floor and hundreds of terra cotta roof tiles stamped with the name of the Roman unit - the famed Tenth Legion - that built the pool. Sion suggested the site was part of a larger complex where thousands of soldiers once bathed.

The official announcement is here with this:

Dr. Sion adds, “Another interesting discovery that caused excitement during the excavation is the paw print of a dog that probably belonged to one of the soldiers. The paw print was impressed on the symbol of the legion on one of the roof tiles and it could have happened accidentally or have been intended as a joke”.

And this:

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Ah, Britain

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Reported

LONDON (AP) — A BBC documentary says Saudi textbooks containing anti-Semitic and homophobic material are being used in British classrooms.

The BBC's "Panorama" program found the books in use for weekend education programs teaching the Saudi national curriculum to about 5,000 Muslim children in Britain.

The show, to be aired Monday, says the books include claims that some Jews were transformed into pigs and apes, teach that the penalty for sodomy is execution and show the correct way to chop off the hands and feet of thieves.

The government said it would tighten regulation of part-time classes. Education Secretary Michael Gove says anti-Semitic and homophobic sentiments have "absolutely no place in English education or in public life in Britain."

The BBC:

Saudi school lessons in UK concern government

The government says it will not tolerate anti-Semitic and homophobic lessons being taught to Muslim children in the UK.

BBC Panorama found that more than 40 Saudi Students' Schools and Clubs are teaching the official Saudi national curriculum to about 5,000 pupils.

One text book shows how the hands and feet of thieves are chopped off.

...Education Secretary Michael Gove said there was no place for the Saudi teachings with regard to Jews or homosexuals in Britain: "To my mind it doesn't seem to me that this is the sort of material that should be used in English schools."

...One of the text books asks children to list the "reprehensible" qualities of Jewish people. A text for younger children asks what happens to someone who dies who is not a believer in Islam - the answer given in the text book is "hellfire".

...Neal Robinson, an expert in the Koran, said the context in which the materials are presented comes with risks.

"To present it cold, as it seems to be here, just part of the teaching of Islam, no it's not wise. In the wrong hands I think it is... ammunition for anti-Semitism."

The use of these materials in Britain comes three years after a BBC investigation found a Saudi-funded school in west London was using texts that referred to Jewish people and Christians in derogatory terms. That prompted assurances at the highest diplomatic levels that the materials would be removed...

They just don't learn, it seems.

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Yesha Council Press Release

Yesha Council Announces Plans for

Massive Public Campaign Opposing Freeze Resumption

“We will not stand idly by as a US President forces Israel to commit national suicide.”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(JERUSALEM- November 21, 2010) Following a mass demonstration Sunday held adjacent to the Prime Minister’s Office, the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria announced that the pressure on the government against renewing any building freeze would only intensify in the comings days.

“This is an effort which is critical not only for the people of Judea and Samaria but is one that should be embraced by all Israelis,” said Danny Dayan, Chairman of the Yesha Council. “Our very national credibility is at stake.”

“Any resumption of a building freeze is a troubling signal of our Government’s weakness and will achieve absolutely nothing in advancing our relations with the Palestinians,” Mr. Dayan said. “Our Government must remember that it was elected to fulfill the will of the people of Israel and not that of the US President.”

The Yesha Council announced a series of measures and activities that will go into effect beginning the morning of Monday, November 22nd including:

- At 10:00 Monday, the Yesha Council will begin operating an emergency situation center adjacent to the Prime Minister’s Office. The center will be staffed by local council heads, Yesha Council executives and residents of Judea and Samaria. The center will orchestrate all efforts aimed at exacting pressure on the political establishment and the general public to prevent imposing any building freeze in Judea, Samaria or any part of Jerusalem.

- The Yesha Council will significantly expand its effort to lobby senior Likud members against any support for the US Government’s proposal to reinstate the building freeze.

- On Tuesday, November 23rd at 1:00 PM, a meeting of all Council heads will take place at the emergency situation center to assess the situation.

“We will not allow our nation to be bribed by a country that we long thought to be a trusted friend and partner. Whatever his intent, the reality is that President Obama is asking Israel to commit national suicide by severely jeopardizing our security needs and we cannot stand quietly by and allow this to happen, “Mr. Dayan said.

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Did I See The "Obama Force" Coming?

Reported here in 2004:

Yisrael Medad, a resident of the West Bank settlement community of Shiloh, is voting (*) for President Bush, even though he has been disappointed by the President’s identification of settlements as the cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “He is still our best hope,” said Mr Medad, a 57-year-old educator and media-monitor.

“My main reason,” he said, “is because the Democratic Party as a whole would be detrimental to Israel’s security future. I view Kerry as the tip of a melting iceberg, which has extreme radicals and anti-Semitic forces, which have linked themselves to the party.”

Hmm.


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(*)

Incidentally, I could not obtain an Absentee Ballot.

This year I did, so I am back to being enfranchised.

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Ten Years Later - And I Was Right

From The Jewish Chronicle archives six weeks into the Second Intifada:

Can the centre hold?
20/10/2000
Eric Silver

"We are able to deal with this situation," says Yisrael Medad, a veteran, American-born settlement activist, "because we remember what happened in 1947 and '48. We are returning to our history."

"Everywhere there is fighting," says Janet Aviad, a veteran, American-born Peace Now activist, "it's the settlements that are in the middle. The bypass roads, built for them, have become bloody roads. The logical conclusion is that the sooner settlement activity is stopped and the most problematic settlements are removed, the better."

The violence of Bloody October has united most Israelis behind a shared sense of being under attack and misreported - except for the militant right and the militant left.

The settlers are hunkering down behind their barricades...

But if I was a "veteran" in 2000, what am I now?

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I've Been Noticed

Here.

And here.

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A Reminder on the Worth of US Guarantees

My friend and fellow Betar member, Attorney Yitzhak Heimowitz makes the following pertinent points:

...One of the first things [Obama] did when becoming president was to declare that the letter of guarantees which Pres. George Bush gave to Arik Sharon did not bind him or the U.S. So who can believe that any letter of guarantees he gives now will be any more binding than that?

...he will certainly give a counter letter of guarantees to the Palestinians [and] promises...he won’t ask for any further extension after 90 days...

In 1956-7, in order to get Israel to withdraw from Sinai, the U.S. guaranteed that if Egypt would ever again close the Straits of Tiran to Israel bound shipping, the U.S. would open them.

In May 1967 when Nasser expelled the UN from Sinai and closed the Straits, Abba Eban, Israel’s Foreign Minister, rushed to Washington to ask them to fulfill their guarantee. In the State Department they searched high and low and ransacked all the cupboards, but they couldn’t find the guarantee!

After the Americans made some half-hearted efforts to put together an international flotilla to open the straits, Israel rescued the U.S. from its embarrassment by winning the Six Day War and opening the straits by itself.

[in] the summer of 1970 at the height of the War of Attrition. In order to get Israel to agree to cease fire, the U.S. promised that Egypt would not move its Soviet SAM 3 missiles from Cairo to the Suez Canal...As soon as the cease fire went into effect, Egypt began to move its missiles to the Canal and the American satellites went blind...

...“Does Israel really want to rely on U.S. guarantees after that record?”

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It Should Be Formulated Differently

Yoram Ettinger has a very good piece, "Does freeze deal make sense?", over at YnetNews where he writes on The complex nature of Jewish construction in the communities:-

If Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria prejudges the outcome of negotiation, wouldn't Palestinian construction in Judea and Samaria have the same effect?!

If the uprooting of Jewish communities advances peace, why would the uprooting of Arab communities undermine peace?! The call for uprooting Arabs is immoral; Isn't the uprooting of Jews just as immoral?!

If the 300,000 Jews, among 1.5MN Arabs, in Judea and Samaria constitute an obstacle to peace, how would one define the 1.5MN Arabs, among 6MN Jews, within pre-1967 Israel?!

If Jewish settlements/communities in Judea and Samaria (est. 1967) constitute the obstacle to peace, why was the PLO established in 1964?! Why did anti-Jewish Palestinian terrorism flare up during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s?!

Why did the Arab-Israel wars erupt in1948/9, 1956 and 1967? Why did an unprecedented Palestinian terrorism surge following the 1993 Oslo Accord and the 2005 uprooting of 25 Jewish communities in Gaza and Northern Samaria?!

Past freezes, slowdowns and dismantling of Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria intensified pressure and exacerbated terrorism – what would be the impact of another -freeze?!

But he errs.

In the international context, to compare Jews in Judea & Samaria and rights and restriction with the Arabs of the same territory is a mistake. First of all, as wrong as it is - and it must be challenged in another manner - most of the world accept the idea that there is a separate and distinct nation called "Palestinians" and they had a country called "Palestine" which they "lost" to the Jews, quite unfairly. Moreover, the Jews really aren't a nation and shouldn't have national claims on a territory but simply realize that due to antisemitism and the Holocaust, maybe they be allowed to live in the 1947 lines or better, as a minority within the future-to-be-established state of Palestine.

Many Jews and non-Jewish Zionist simply cannot fathom the full extent of the idiocy and meanness and animosity with which Jews are treated when they seek to assert national identity forms. Some may wish to ignore that situation, make fun of it, respond in irrational forms, but that is the situation.

But be that as it may, I wish to suggest another formulation in Ettinger's imagery. He writes:

If Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria prejudges the outcome of negotiation, wouldn't Palestinian construction in Judea and Samaria have the same effect?!

That should be formulated:-

If Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria prejudges the outcome of negotiation, wouldn't Arab construction in the state of Israel have the same effect?!

Notice the difference? Ettinger does this but only in his third paragraph.

I have suggested that Arab residential locations within Israel be referred to as "Arab settlements". That will establish the more correct balance between the competing narratives and claims.

If persons demand a total removal of Jews from Yesha and the dismantlement of their homes there, then that framework must apply equally to the Arab population of Israel. If there is proposed a transfer, it works both ways and for both population groupings.

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Abbas and Shas

So, is Abbas trying to prop up Shas?

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said on Sunday that any American proposal for restarting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations must include a complete halt in Israeli settlement building, including in East Jerusalem.

It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Abbas’s position, which is consistent with Palestinian policy, would scuttle a proposed deal that the Americans hope will lead to resumption of the negotiations.

Why Shas?

Well,

...ministers from the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, have threatened to vote against the deal unless they are assured that building could continue in East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed East Jerusalem after capturing it from Jordan in the 1967 war

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When Cardinals Walked the Temple Mount Grounds

Reported:-

Cardinal O'Connell, of Boston, arrived in Rome after a visit to the Holy Land. The Osservatore Romana, Vatican journal, commented upon the warm reception accorded to the Cardinal in Jerusalem. "This attests two things: First, the prestige which accompanies a Cardinal of the Roman Church wherever he goes, and second, the great value Palestine attaches to the interest America takes in her recent new destiny. With Cardinal O'Connell on his pilgrimage went the good wishes of millions of Americans." Said Cardinal O'Connell: "There is darkness in the Near East, where the peoples do not enjoy the blessings which Christianity has brought to the people of the West."

Another reference found here:

Palestine has welcomed a number of distinguished visitors during the year, including...their Eminences Cardinal Bourne, Cardinal O'Connell, and the late Cardinal Giorgi...

Presuming that the Cardinal was the same that married Rose and Joe Kennedy in Boston, then his name was William Cardinal O’Connell.  Or William Henry O'Connell (here) who signed a protest petition against the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

The picture:

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Not Quite 'Junk' in Jerusalem

The origin of 'junk':

'Don't touch my junk' passenger sparks revolt against airport searches

US man who refused a groin pat-down inspires campaign to stop intimate searches and full body scans

Well, look at how things were in Jerusalem after the November 2, 1921 riots in Jerusalem which were

...a result of the Disturbances of 1921 [after which] an Arab delegation, headed by Musa al Hussein who was former mayor of Jerusalem, visited London to confer with the Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill. During their visit on November 2, the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, new disturbances broke out in Palestine. These disturbances were clearly designed to strengthen the hand of the delegation in its negotiations. During this time, four Jews and one Arab were killed.:-

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The Beginning of the Loss of Eretz-Yisrael

On April 17, 1921, High Commissioner for the Palestine Mandate proclaimed Abdallah as Emir over TransJordan, the first concrete step of separating that territory from the Jewish National Home, a decision taken at the Cairo Conference and confirmed in Jerusalem.

A photograph of the event:

More background:

His Britannic Majesty is the Mandatory for Transjordan to which the terms of the mandate for Palestine, with the exception of the provisions dealing with the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people, are applicable. The declaration of His Majesty's Government with regard to its Mandatory obligations in Transjordan, made to the Council of League of Nations in September, 1922, (Cmd. 1785) was in the following terms:--

"In the application of the Mandate to Transjordan, the action which in Palestine is taken by the Administration of the latter country, will be taken by the Administration of Transjordan under the general supervision of the Mandatory.

"His Majesty's Government accept full responsibility as Mandatory for Transjordan, and undertake that such provision as may be made for the administration of that country in accordance with Article 25 of the Mandate shall be in no way inconsistent with those provisions of the Mandate which are not by this resolution declared inapplicable."

The Mandatory is represented in Transjordan by the Chief British Representative, assisted by two British officers and a small clerical staff. The Chief British Representative acts under the instructions of the High Commissioner for Palestine.

On the 25th April, 1923, at Amman, the High Commissioner announced that, subject to the approval of the League of Nations, His Majesty's Government would recognise the existence of an independent Government in Transjordan under the rule of His Highness the Amir Abdulla, provided that such Government was constitutional and placed His Britannic Majesty's Government in a position to fulfil its international obligations in respect of the territory by means of an agreement to be concluded between the two Governments.

The agreement has not yet been concluded.

3. The Amir Abdulla arrived in Transjordan in February, 1921, and the territory, at that time divided into three separately administered districts, Ajlun, the Balqa and Kerak, was brought by him under a central government. A Council of Ministers was formed, a Governor appointed to each district, and each district subdivided into a number of sub-governorates. Most of the officials appointed were men who had occupied similar positions in Syria under the regime of King Feisal.

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The British Disguised as Zionists 1921

First, we had them as "occupiers".

Now, meet them as Zionists - High Commissioner Herbert Samuel and Minister for Colonies Winston Churchill planting a tree in the Land of Israel, the Jewish National Home:

March 28, 1921.

Bibi Comes Up Short

Well, short in the sense that he thinks the Western Wall below the Temple Mount is more important:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that, "The Western Wall is the Jewish People's most important heritage site. We are committed to developing and maintaining it so that it may continue to the focus of visits and a source of inspiration for millions of visitors, tourists, young and old, from Israel and around the world."

From:

Cabinet Approves NIS 85 Million Western Wall Development Plan


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Scenes from Today's Rally

Outside the Prime Minister's office, in the street between the Ministry of Commerce & Industry and the Bank of Israel:

Orit Rappaport and my wife, Batya:

Al-Jazeera cameraman shading himself:

Another film crew:

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The Anti-Neeman Poster

Yaakov Neeman, religious, is Minister of Justice and the claim is that, as a play on his name (Ne'eman = Faithful), Neeman is not faithful to anything.  Not to the Land of Israel, not to those persecuted by the judicial system, nor to the Jewish revenants and an integral Jewish Jerusalem.

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On IBA English News At Today's Demo

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Here, at 4:40 for some half-minute until tomorrow, Monday.

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A New "Green-Lined" Post

On the one-state solution, at the Jerusalem Post.

Here.

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The Occupiers of Palestine

Here:

Sergeants Sedgewich & Hurcomb, with Maj. Barry, one of the first officers to enter Jerusalem, Dec. 9th 1917, as part of the conquering British army.

As for "occupation" read this:

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Who Said Germans Have No Humor?

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