Jabotinsky, Jerusalem, Jewish Defense, 1920

I am getting prepared for the upcoming centenary of the formal outbreak of political organized Arab terror and violence directed at the Jewish community in Palestine to thwart the Balfour Declaration and the future Mandate which occurred during Passover 1920.

Following the April 1920 riots in Jerusalem, when Arabs, having been agitated for the past few months and demonstrating against Zionism (as in the case of the Balfour Day dust-up of November 2, 1918* and the exploiting of the April 2, 1920 Nebi Mussa Festival), 

fell upon Jews in the city and murdered 7 while injuring 211, 18 seriously and another 193 of various degrees, the British established the first of their many inquiry commissions, named after Major-General PC Palin.

Already, in January 1919, Jabotinsky had written to his wife, 

"The Arabs draw encouragement from the fact that the British do not uphold their promises; the situation is bound to end up like Kishinev." 

 

and on February 1 that year, he resigned from the Zionist Commission. He also sent a letter to General Allenby because of "the heavy burden of disappointment, despair, breached promises and anti-Semitism". Alllenby was furious that a junior officer would criticize him, and immediately released Jabotinsky from military service. 

When Jabotinsky understood that Colonel Storrs, Governor of Jerusalem, was ignoring his warnings that the Arabs were planning to carry out a massacre of Jews on the Festival of Nebi Musa, he organized some 600 demobilized soldiers, legion veterans and volunteers, along with Pinhas Rutenberg, thereby establishing the first defense unit in Eretz Israel. 

The Palin Commission's treatment of Ze'ev Jabotinsky is in part misinformed and prejudiced that I thought it proper to lay it all out.

Russian Bolshevism is undoubtedly working underneath the surface both southwards from the Caucasus to Damascus and in Palestine itself in the very heart of Zionism. Large numbers of the Jewish immigrants hold Bolshevist views and the Paola Zion Club of which Lt. Jabotinsky is said to be the organiser, is a definite Bolshevist institution. Attention is particularly drawn to the remarkable circular issued by this club and printed by Volpert and Company of Jaffa, subsequent to the riots, which definitely throws over the Zionist leaders and declares for the "world Proletariat and the Social Revolution." The appeal is to the Arab fellah and worker and it is said that the same kind of appeal is being made to the same classes on the other side of the Jordan.

All through the early years of the Mandate, charges of Zionism as Communism ('Jewish Bolshevism') were regular staple in the British Mandate administration. Anti-Semitism, as well, was rife. One of the leading officers of the British Military Administration, General Money 

made several remarks which would have to be considered prejudicial, claiming that the Jews "... were as a class inferior morally and intellectually to the bulk of the Muslim and Christian inhabitants of the country," and on another occasion referring to the "special characteristics of the Zionist Jewsthemselves, particularly to their exclusiveness, and to the fact that while other communities are ready to act for the common weal, the Jewish view is invariably to their own advantage..."

As even Weizmann was aware, writing in late March 1920 to the Zionist Commission in London: 

Relations between the Jews and the Administration have gone from bad to worse. […] In view of possible outbreaks of hostility against us, the Military Authorities have found it necessary to take measures, but the order which has been issued to the troops is in my opinion almost a direct provocation not to do anything in case outbreaks do take place. Weizmann, according to his own definition, was actually predicting a pogrom.

Even American Jews knew this later that year as evidence in this item from September 3, 1920:

To return to Jabotinsky's treatment by the Commission on this issue, while Jabotinsky was friends with Poale Zion members, for after all, they served in the Jewish Legion, and as he was a semi-member of the Zionist Commission and was in contact with all Yishuv elements, he was no Bolshevik.

And now, back to the story of the Jewish defense.

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 Scopas 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 [by the Jaffa Gate - YM]- 

Matson Collection

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 also was a demonstration in February. Tel Chai had fallen in March. The British lied to the Commission about the preparations for and the knowledge of Jewish defense.

There was no attempt at secrecy. Mr. Ruthenberg actually went to Brig. General Waters Taylor in March and asked permission to arm the force [!!! - YM]. 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 [Lt.] Colonel [Percy B.] Bramley [formerly Deputy Inspector-General of Police of the United Provinces of India,an assistant to Storrs and, later, until 1923, Head of Public Security and which time he was fired due to anti-Zionist opinions] reported that the Jews were drilling on Mount Scopas [sic], 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 [April 4], 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;

Jabotinsky spent the rest of April, having been arrested on April 7, 

all of May and June in Acco Prison with another 19 of his fellow self-defense activists.

They were released on July 7:

Here is a report on his speech after returning to Jerusalem:

Description from the Hebrew press, Haaretz, of the riots:

_____________

* From Jabotinsky's letter to Weizmann of November 12, 1918:

But all came to a head on the 2nd November. As you know, we had orders from you to celebrate the day – I must confess I personally was not in a mood for celebration, but since it was desired in London, efforts were made to arrange the thing decently. In both Jerusalem and Jaffa, Arab notables made representations to the government protesting against the proposed festivities. In Jerusalem, the Mufti, the Mayor and the Inspector of Education told Col. Storrs  that there was a “movement” among the Arabs to attack the procession. He answered that offenders would be put in prison and made wear prison garb whoever they might be. So they promised to discourage the “movement”. No one of the Arab notables came to the manifestations either in Jerusalem or in Jaffa. The procession was advised by Major Hadad Bey not to pass the Jaffa Gate, which they obeyed, but two schools – all children living in the Old City – had to go that way anyway. They were attacked by a group of Arabs, children and teachers were beaten and blue-white banners torn. Two of the ruffians were arrested and sentenced to 4 months imprisonment...But in the meantime the same Arab notables made a step of much greater importance. On the morrow of the celebration a deputation of about two hundred Arab leaders, Moslem and Christian, headed by the Mayor of Jerusalem Kazim Husseini  (the Mufti did not go this time) presented to the Governor a petition..."

UPDATE:

From the diary of the Spanish Consul in Jerusalem, Antonio de la Cierva y Lewita, Count of Ballobar:

^

Professor Clay Answered Abbas Already in 1921

Mahmoud Abbas called them "Canaanites".

So, who are the people who populated the area that would become the Mandate of Palestin in 1921?

Here is Albert T. Clay in The Atlantic Monthly (on Clay):

The inhabitants of the land should be called Syrians — or Palestinians, if Palestine is to be separated from Syria. True, there are many Arabs living there, more, for example, than Greeks, Germans, or Latins, because of the proximity of Arabia; but these are not the real Palestinians, nor do they represent the bulk of the substantial part of the nation. The people whom the Jews conquered when they entered Palestine were called by the general name of Amorites or Canaanites. While many were massacred by the Jews in certain cities, still only a portion of the country was conquered. Even after David took Jerusalem, Amorites continued to live in that city; besides, many foreign peoples, as the Hittites and Philistines, also lived in the land. There can be no question that the blood of the present Palestinian, or Syrian, includes that of the Jew as well as of the Amorite, Hittite, Phoenician, Philistine, Persian, Greek, Latin, and Arab. Such a fusion is not unlike that found in the veins of many Americans whose ancestors have lived here for several generations. When the whole population of Palestine became Mohammedan, there is little doubt that a large percentage of the Jews were also forced to accept this faith; their descendants are now classed by the Political Zionists as ‘Arabs.’ The Yemenites, who we know migrated from Arabia, and who in every respect resemble the Arab in physique, appearance, and bearing, they, none the less, call Jews, because of their faith. Then, also, in such Christian cities as Bethlehem and Ramallah a type is seen that is distinctively European, and doubtless largely represents remnants or descendants of the Crusaders, or of Christians who migrated to the Holy Land in the past centuries. Moreover, the Palestinian or Syrian is a composite race, largely Semitic, which has developed from the association of the different racial elements inhabiting the land for at least five thousand years past. And while the Arabs have in all periods filtered in from Arabia, and the language, as in Egypt and Mesopotamia, is Arabic, it is a deliberate misrepresentation to classify the inhabitants as ‘Arabs’.

 ^

Palestine Arab Rejectionism: The Beginning

The Arabs who resided in the area to become the Mandate of Palestine, intended originally to become, through the historic connection of the Jewish people to that country, the Jewish national home, adopted from the very beginning a diplomatic pose and policy of rejectionism. In essence, the later 1967 Khartoum Resolution adopted by the Arab League, of "no recognition", no peace" and "no negotiations", was the consistent framework of Arabs in their response to Zionism for the past century.

Already in late 1919, April 1920, May 1921 and November 1921, they were agitating, demonstrating, rioting and, of course, employing murderous terrorism, to further their political goals.

In those early years, these were the most prominent examples of that rejectionism.

1922: 

When the League of Nations awarded Great Britain the Mandate to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine, Article 25 separated from the territory the Zionist presumed they would be permitted to settle in in accordance with previous discussions. All the area east of the Jordan River would become an apartheid state for Jews.

Despite a loss of 75% of the land, the Arabs, instead of accepting that first partition, which had excluded much of the area of historic Palestine, denying Jews the right to purchase land there and creating a fake monarchy, instead, they insisted they wanted all the remaining territory west of the Jordan River also to be transformed solely into an Arab state.

The Arabs of Palestine, who preferred to be termed Southern Syrians and demanded that "Palestine" be joined to the French Mandate over Syria, rejected any "territorial compromise" and were unsatisfied with a possible "two-state solution". They wanted the Jews to completely "withdraw".

1923: 

Herbert Samuel, the first High Commissioner, following the Mandate decision to  foster the "development of self-governing institutions", proposed in August 1922 the establishment of a legislative council. It was to be made up of 23 members: 11 British, all appointed, and twelve elected members — eight Muslims, two Christians and two Jews. Despite the fact that this make-up would have doomed Jews to a permanent minority status in any future government, Arabs declared participation in the council as acceptance of the British mandate and Balfour policy as well as considering they should be granted further limitations on Jewish immigration. 

A boycott campaign of the council elections, scheduled for February 1923, was launched. The Jews, by the way, had accepted the proposal. The very low turnout dashed the proposal.

The Arabs rejected a possible political resolution of the conflict, based on democratic values.

1926: 

A dampening of the religious element of the focus was possible, one that could have avoided the later 1929 riots, when serious attempts were made to purchase or lease the Western Wall courtyard area. In fact, already in 1919, an offer was made.

As sourced here:

In 1919 Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann approached the British Military Governor of Jerusalem, Colonel Sir Ronald Storrs, and offered...approx. £5m in modern terms to purchase the area at the foot of the Wall and rehouse the occupants. Storrs was enthusiastic about the idea because he hoped some of the money would be used to improve Muslim education. Although they appeared promising at first, negotiations broke down after strong Muslim opposition. Storrs wrote two decades later:

"The acceptance of the proposals, had it been practicable, would have obviated years of wretched humiliations, including the befouling of the Wall and pavement and the unmannerly braying of the tragi-comic Arab band during Jewish prayer, and culminating in the horrible outrages of 1929"

In early 1920, the first Jewish-Arab dispute over the Wall occurred when the Muslim authorities were carrying out minor repair works to the Wall's upper courses...In 1926 an effort was made to lease the Maghrebi waqf, which included the wall, with the plan of eventually buying it. Negotiations were begun in secret by the Jewish judge Gad Frumkin, with financial backing from American millionaire Nathan Straus...However, Straus withdrew when the price became excessive and the plan came to nothing. The Va'ad Leumi, against the advice of the Palestine Zionist Executive, demanded that the British expropriate the wall and give it to the Jews, but the British refused

The Arabs leaders and their followers preferred to run a zero-sum game.  All rejection. No compromise.

They lost.

^

Arabs Meet Jews at the Kotel June 1967

From Childhood Memories of a Jerusalemite by Nazmi al-Jubeh 

As soon as the curfew was lifted for an hour to enable residents to get food supplies,

my father rushed to gather us from all around the house, like a shepherd gathering his

flock, announcing that we will return to our house outside the gates in Wadi Hilwa in

Silwan, amidst the protests and dismay of everyone, horrified by my father’s irrational

and irresponsible decision. My father, however, was ill with worry over his new house

which he had not yet enjoyed, and that is why he insisted on going back. He said that

he would die only in his house and that he would never leave it, and neither he nor any

of his offspring would ever become refugees anywhere. We left my grandfather’s house

quickly to face the unknown. Afraid, we headed slowly and cautiously north towards

Bab al-Silsila Street. We went down the steps, steps we had trodden thousands of times

in the past, and knew so well that we could walk down even blindfolded. We saw nothing

suspicious along our way: we did not see any soldiers or any destruction despite the

sound of bulldozers and explosions that we had heard while at my grandfather’s house.

We did encounter, however, people running silently without uttering a word, with anger

and fear written all over their faces. Some of them were carrying heavy suitcases, while

others were dragging children behind them and even an older woman who couldn’t walk.

Given the circumstances none of this raised our suspicions. As soon as we reached Bab

al-Silsila Street we turned right toward the east, and continued for fifty meters before

turning south to enter Abu Madyan al-Ghawth’s Ascent, where we walked through a

small alley and then began descending down the stairs.

What we saw upon reaching Zawiyat Abu Madyan al-Ghawth, facing east, was

indescribably horrific. Right there, at the bottom of the stairs, we saw soldiers, so many

of them, heavily armed from head to toe, dancing and singing in a language that we did

not understand, and behind them − emptiness. The Moroccan quarter no longer existed.

The fig and pomegranate trees were gone, and so were the alleys I used to walk and

play in. Muhammad, Sa‘id, Si Yusif, Masluhi and his fig tree were not there, the only

thing visible under June’s hot sun was a cloud of dust hovering over a heap of rubble.

Bulldozers, which I had never seen before in my life, were roaring along their metal

chains to the tunes of victory music, completing a job as yet unfinished. That day I saw

Ashkenazi rabbis for the first time; they were there in their black attire and strange hats

(shtreimels), dancing over the rubble … dancing over my memories, over the homes of

my friends and the paths that I so often frequented. For the first time in my life, I saw

the Buraq Wall so huge. It looked unfamiliar, because it had been small, and difficult to

see without going down an alley and through a gate first. But now the wall was in the

center of the scene, and it was even possible to see al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of

the Rock from that point, which had never been possible before, blocked by the crowded

buildings in the Moroccan quarter.

I cannot say that any of us, the twelve people walking in the ruins of the Moroccan

quarter, grasped what was going on, and I still don’t know how it was that no one fainted, other than the fact that we were already expecting the worst. Within seconds soldiers surrounded us, raising their guns to our faces. They forced us to stop and bombarded us with words that we did not understand. Arrogantly, a soldier whose face was blue and indistinguishable from the dust that covered it, inspected us slowly and finally selected my eldest brother, who was in his late-twenties, and pulled him away from us, blindfolded him, and ordered us to continue walking. We walked without my brother, heading towards Bab al-Maghariba, leaving behind us a neighborhood reduced to rubble, dancing soldiers, a huge jarring wall, rabbis swaying their heads in front of it, bulldozers razing what was left of the quarter, and an arrested brother whose fate was unknown. We carried with us our humiliation, disgrace, tears and defeat, glancing back every now and then until the whole scene disappeared from behind us as we descended to the unknown, down the hill to the southern gate to leave the Old City through Bab al- Maghariba. Soldiers were everywhere. 

^

Revisiting "Palestine is Southern Syria; Palestinians are Southern Syrians"

I see Elder of Ziyon has found more interesting material confirming my assertion that "Palestine" was never an independent entity in Arab history (and if it weren't for the Zionists, Palestine would have disappeared from out memory).

He quotes Nazmi Al Jubeh, Bir Zeit University's Associate Professor of History and Archaeology and the director of Birzeit University Museum.

Elder quotes from this article: "Palestinian Identity and Cultural Heritage" and I will limit my quotations to a few excerpts:

The Palestinian people are not different from other Greater Syrian (Bilad al-Sham) peoples. They are the result of accumulated ethnic, racial, and religious groups, who once lived, conquered, occupied, and passed through this strip of land. Wars and invasions have never totally replaced the local population in any period of history; they rather added to, mixed with and reformulated the local identity. The Palestinian people are the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Jabousites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Aramaeans, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Turks, the Crusaders, and the Kurds, who once settled, conquered, occupied or just passed through Palestine. [no Jews. or Israelites, or Judahides? In another section he complains that the "treatment of the history of Palestine starts with abstaining from deliberately marginalizing or even erasing the history of others."]

...The artificial division of Greater Syria [after World War One] was imposed on the people. If there had been no Sykes-Picot Agreement, I am not sure that the Palestinian people would have chosen an independent state as a container of their identity...The idea of an independent Palestinian state was raised quite recently; as a matter of fact, the Palestinian national movement continued to market the conflict as an “Arab-Israeli” one and not as a “Palestinian-Israeli” one. The idea of the Palestinian independent state was raised in 1973 in the aftermath of the October War and specific international, regional, and national political developments;...

Oh, and as regards "Palestine" being the name of a country, he notes:

the word “Palestine” is not clear; there are different interpretations of its meaning. (Brug 1985, Deger-Jalkotzy 1983, p. 99-120). As an administrative terminology, it was used since the Greco-Roman period in the first and second centuries BC. It is worth mentioning that Herodotus (ca. 490-430 BC) had already written about Palestine, meaning of more or less the now familiar land of Palestine...Herodotus extends the term “Palestinian Syria” to the entire coastal strip between Phoenicia (roughly today’s Lebanon) and Egypt. The Greek term “Palestine” was then transferred into Latin: “Palestina”. This Latin term, starting from 135 A.D., meant to the Romans the entire province of “Judea” and was introduced in order to erase the use of the term “Judea” after they had put down the Jewish rebellion against the Romans, to challenge the memory of the Jews. Jerusalem was renamed “Aelia Capitolina” (Wilkinson 1975, p. 118-136).

Thank you Prof. Al-Jubeh who, I am positive, I heard at lectures I attended at the Abright Institute (and about which I may have blogged).

___________

P.S.

On the Syria aspect:

The Peace Conference, as a result of the dissatisfaction, appointed [in 1919] an inter-Allied commission to ascertain the wishes of the people. France, who claimed the whole of Syria, which included Palestine, declined to send out her representatives; and her example was followed by England. The work of the Commission, therefore, devolved upon the two American representatives, Ambassador Crane and President King. This Commission held a most impartial and exhaustive inquiry, hearing delegates from almost every town and village. In order to be ready to give useful information before the Commission, branches of the Moslem and Christian League were formed at Jaffa, Gaza, Hebron, Djenin, Nablus, Acre, Haifa, Safed, and other places. All branches worked under a constitution approved by the Military Governor of Jerusalem. It was decided to draw up three resolutions to be presented to the Commission:

1. The independence of Syria, from the Taurus Mountains to Rafeh, the frontier of Egypt.
2. Palestine not to be separated from Syria, but to form one whole country.
3. Jewish immigration to be restricted.

The entire Christian and Moslem population agreed to these resolutions.

And at IV here:

"It should be said here that there is no justification, from an ethnological or geographical point of view, for dividing Syria into the northern part under the French and a southern part, namely Palestine, under the British. This has already been pointed out by the greatest authority on the history and geography of Palestine, Sir George Adam Smith. One race, the Syrian, or Palestinian, is dominant throughout the territory, from Aleppo to Beersheba; and there is no natural frontier that can divide the two halves of this land."

^

A Matter of Origin

The EU guidelines on wine seem to inist on a "region" as the geographical identification unit as to where a product is made where as where the grapes are grown is another matter: 

"For most products, at least one of the stages of distillation or preparation takes place in the region. However, raw products do not need to come from the region". 

You might then ask why then does the EU insist on "Palestine" when "Judea & Samaria", regions, would do?

Well, it doesn't actually.

But in the first instance, those guidelines above refer solely to EU countries.  

In other words, what is good for the EU is not good for other countries.

The official EU position as regards Israel, however, as clarified for me from an official spokesperson, is this

The indication of origin of products from territories occupied by Israel is a technical consumer protection issue, based on the EU recognising Israel within its 1967 border. Goods of origin from these territories, as  other goods for import into the EU, need to be correctly labelled so that consumers in the EU have full clarity where the products come from.  

The EU does not support any elements of the so-called ‘BDS’ approach (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel, and hence also not the boycott of products from Israeli settlements.  

An Interpretative Notice of the European Commission was issued in November 2015 and it provides some clarity on the existing EU rules. The main purpose is to be helpful to a consumer in that an improper labeling would "mislead the consumer as to the true origin of the product".  It demands that the mandatory indication of origin be "correct and not misleading".  As they note

"Made in Israel" used for the products coming from Israeli settlements would mislead the consumer and therefore is inconsistent with existing EU legislation.

And further,

'product from Israel' should not be used for products from the Golan Heights or the West Bank (including East Jerusalem). For products from West Bank or the Golan Heights that originate from settlements, an indication limited to 'product from Golan Heights' or 'product from West Bank' would not be acceptable. In such cases the expression 'Israeli settlement' or equivalent needs to be added

Before we deal with why that instruction is in place, one more element need be emphasized. The EU asserts that the geographical area of origin must be "internationally recognised" and for the EU, Israel was and continues to be internationally recognized as defined by its "pre-1967 borders' so

In line with UNSC resolution 2334 of 2016, the EU considers Israeli settlements in occupied territories as illegal under international law.

Let's deconstruct this.

In the first instance, we need be clear there were no "borders" prior to 1967. They were, as defined in an internationally recognized Armistice Agreement and those lines were specifically categorized in Article II that being demarcated,

no military or political advantage should be gained

Furthermore there,

no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question

In other words, Israel and Jordan could both put forward territorial claims beyond those lines. Indeed,

The basic purpose of the Armistice Demarcation Lines is to delineate the lines beyond which the armed forces of the respective Parties shall not move

Nothing political but rather a simple marking at which point the military forces had stopped operations.

Moreover, those lines were temporary in the extreme, with no permanancy as per

Article XII 3 which reads

The Parties to this Agreement may, by mutual consent, revise this Agreement or any of its provisions, or may suspend its application, other than articles I and III, at any time.

Jordan, invading Israel in June 1967, effectively put an end to the legitimacy of those lines.

To sanctify, as it were, the "pre-1967 borders" is an act of nonsense.

Now, between you and me, everyone knows Israel has extended its administrative rule to those regions of the Land of Israel that were under British Mandate rule until 1948, a rule quite legal and internationally recognized. That is the meaning of "belligerent occupation", that it si the rrsult of military engagement. Israel, in an act of self-defense, thwarted the intentions of the invaders and assumed administrationn over Judea and Samaria, as well as Gaza.

Those regions were geographically part of the area of 'historic Palestine' the League of nations awarded to the Jewish people to, among other purposes:

encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency. referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews, on the land, including State lands and waste lands

From 1922 until 1967, no recognized country or state legally ruled those areas except the Mandate. In Hebrew, the Mandate was translated as "Land of Israel". Jordan was an illegal occupier. 

All this leaves us with a simple solution for the requirement of the EU to note the origin of the product: the Land of Israel.

^

The Neo-Yevsektsyists

As I have blogged previously, the involvement of American Jews in anti-Zionist and anti-Israel activities preceded claims of an "illegal occupation" by over a half-century.

Many groups were involved. From assimilationists to Reform rabbis. The American Council for Judaism. Bundists and other various socialists and communists. Then Breira. On on to today's IfNotNow, JVP, et al.

One group I left out, mainly because I felt uneasy including them because of the immoral actions they were involved in and the operations they themselves initiated against the their fellow brethren was the Yevsektsyia.  It was founded in 1918 and abolished in 1930, when their appointed task was achieved - the destruction of the traditional framework of Jewish life.

The Tarbuth Hebrew educational system was suppressed while Yiddish was elevated. Zionist activity was prohibited. Immigration to Mandate Palestine was severely restricted. By the way, it was for a Hungarian non-Jewish communist, László Rajk in 1949, that the phrase 'international Zionism' was coined.

At the Yevsektsiya's second conference in July 1919, it demanded that the Zionist organisations be dissolved. After an appeal from the Zionists, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued a decree in that the Zionist organisation was not counter-revolutionary and its activities should not be disrupted. The campaign continued, however. In 1920, the first All-Russian Zionist Congress was disrupted by members of the Cheka and a female representative of the Yevsektsiya. At its third conference in July 1921, the Yevsektsiya demanded the "total liquidation" of Zionism.

David Collier has noted the parallels between then and now as regards a renewed Yevsektsyia phenomenon. 

I just hope these neo-Yevsektsiyists remembered that the Communists eradicated the old ones, usually through torture, show trials and hangings.

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Move Over Cordoba, Here Comes Reccopolis

You know of my posts regarding Cordoba, where Muslims are attempting to take back a mosque built on a church that the Spanish reestablished as a cathedral.

Now, I have been alerted, there's an earlier mosque in Spain.  From the article:

Finally, the orientation of several buildings appears to be influenced by ideological considerations....One large (approximately 20 × 40m) newly discovered feature is certainly oriented quite differently from the palatine church (Figure 3.6); indeed, it is the only building with this particular orientation so far discovered. What appears to be its broad side faces towards the south-east (Figure 5a–b). In light of the site’s early Islamic phase, this feature requires further exploration. 

The earliest mosques in Iberia date to the eighth century...The two eighth-century mosques in Iberia at present identified archaeologically correspond to the first phases of the Umayyad Great Mosque of Cordoba (AD 785–788; Ewert 1995) and the Great Mosque of Zaragoza (Hernández Vera 2004: 75). The tendency in Islamic Iberia was to orient mosques between south-east and south (Rius 2000: 105).Insofar as can be discerned from the geomagnetic data, the plan of the large structure at Reccopolis recalls those of Umayyad mosques in the Levant, particularly that at Jerash, Jordan...Although the geomagnetic survey is inconclusive, the Reccopolis structure might also indicate a three-aisled hall (Figure 5b); such features are characteristic of Levantine Umayyad mosques—notably the Great Mosque of Damascus, the newly discovered mosque in Tiberias, and that of Khirbat al-Minya (Figure 5d), 14km north of Tiberias (CytrynSilverman 2009: 49–51, 2012).

But getting back to church-mosque-cathedral and its relevance to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, I was astounded to read this about Cordoba:

Moors created an inclusive and pluralistic society where religion was important but did not dictate public policy.

If that is true, why cannot Jews share the Temple Mount with Moslems? 

And by the way, that Islamic Professor, S. Amjad Hussain in the article writes

By 1492 all the Moor-controlled areas had been wrestled back by Christian kings. Muslims and Jews were given the choice of either converting to Catholicism or leaving the country. Hundreds and thousands of Jews and Muslims took refuge in Morocco across the Straits of Gibraltar. Countless others were burned at stake for refusing to convert.

Did that burning-at-the-stake relate to Muslims as well?

So I asked an expert and received this reply:

Muslims, who ruled a portion of the Iberian peninsula until the demise of the Kingdom of Granada (Eastern Andalusia) in January 1492, were expelled from the Kingdom of Castile and the Catalan-Aragonese confederation in 1609 (mainly in order to crush the economy of the latter and substitute the Muslim population by Castilian nationals), but normally no Muslims were burnt at the stake. After 1492, no Jews remained in Spain...Some of them were indeed burnt at the stake, as Christian apostates (in fact all of them were Jewish apostates), were burnt at the stake. According to their own laws, Christians cannot burn Jews. 

This article tries to substitute the Jews with a mix of Jews and Muslims, and, in addition, it adds a spin of a Spanish imperialistic idea (that the three cultures lived together in harmony). In fact, when the Almohad Berbers invaded the Iberian peninsula in the second half of the Twelfth century CE, Jews were harshly persecuted. The Jewish community of Lucena, which once was called "the Jerusalem of Al-Andalus", totally disappeared, and the Rambam had to flee with his family from Cordova, like many others. In the Iberian peninsula, according to Jewish Chronicles, good places for Jews were Cordova (between the Seventh and the Eleventh centuries), Toledo (between the Eleventh and the Twelfth centuries, Gerona and Barcelona (between the Ninth and the Fourteenth centuries) and Narbonne (in France today, but also within the Jewish concept of Sepharad, during all the Middle Ages until the end of the Thirteenth century).

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Abbas Goes Crazy for Canaan

As published:

Abbas Says Palestine For Canaanites...Outsiders Will LeaveSunday, 11 August, 2019 

Ramallah - Kifah Ziboun
Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday that outsiders will be deported from the Palestinian land to the "dustbin of history" because this land is for the Canaanites.

“We are the Canaanites,” he stressed.

Addressing the crown in Jalazone refugee camp in Ramallah, Abbas said the Palestinians will remain “steadfast, patient and resilient.”

“We will remain in our homeland, and the outsiders on this land has no right in this country. The land is for its inhabitants, this land is for the Canaanites who were here 5,000 years ago, and we are the Canaanites.”

Abbas’s rhetoric was sharp compared to his usual diplomatic speeches...Abbass added that Jerusalem will remain Palestine’s capital, stressing that all Palestinians and Islamic and Christian Arab nation will visit this capital one day.

Screenshot:

[and now at PMW]

So, what do we do with Saeb Erekat's Natufian theory from 2014?

As Arabs arrived here from Arabia (h/t IMRA), does he kick out his own people?

I treated that Canaanite twist here ten years ago.

Is he going crazy?

P.S.  This is ridiculous.

UPDATE

The national soccer team of Palestine is nicknamed...Lions of Canaan. And it has Israeli Arabs on the squad.

P.S.S.  He's done this before.

Background.

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GraphicZionism

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Comments on Dimitri's Diatribe

The sacrastic, hate-dripping diatribe of Dimitri Verhulst 

Credit

caused some criticism and I bring you some exceprts:

Because God has His darlings and His chosen ones should have their privileges, the Palestinians were driven out of their homes in 1948 in favor of God's little ones. Moses had written it down, the chosen people heard there and nowhere else, so that did count as an argument. 

Serge Gainsbourg, himself with a bloodline where anti-Semitics are going to law their knives, was more laconic about it and said: “Being a Jew is not a religion; there is not a single God who would give His creatures such an ugly nose."*
Talking to the chosen is difficult. As soon as you start talking about Israel and the fate of the Palestinians, they look at you as if you have subscribed to the Holocaust, which is your purest quatsch...The crooked reasoning: I am a racist because I denounce that 2.3 million Palestinians are dependent on emergency aid, and 1.6 million of them are malnourished...[and Israelis in] the last 17 years have killed around 10,000 Palestinians. Israeli bullets don't know ten commandments.
There is no promised land. There is stolen land. There are stolen lives.

*
A Belgian daily that published an op-ed describing Jews as land thieves with “ugly noses” and superiority complexes removed the facial feature reference on Wednesday amid international criticism.


Comments:

1. God loves us so much that he caused the Holocaust is what he is writing? Or, maybe the Arabs of Palestine brought their calamity on themselves? No compromise and constant rejection of diplomatic efforts while terrorizing Jews since 1920, killing many hundreds, 525 between 1936-1939 along? This is not serious thinking or knowledge of the Arab conflict with Zionism.

2. We do have privileges. We have the simple right as all other nations do to live in our national homeland and establish therein a state. Moreover, that right was recognized by the League of Nations in 1922 and by the UN in 1947.

3. Not all Arabs who resided in Palestine, many thousands recent arrivals by the way (as otherwise, why does UNRWA define a Palestine refugee has living but two years in the Mandate area?), were driven out. Most had left by May 1948 before the invasion by seven Arab countries, perhaps to avoid the heavy fighting or maybe even as they knew the Arabs not only were in the wrong, but that they were bound to lose.

4. We Jews don't really need God (although it helps) to convince a non-Jew of our rights. The Mandate was based on the Jewish people's historical connection with that territory, in fact, going back 3000 and more years. A tribal federation, two monarchies, Jews coming to the Land of Israel over the centuries in all sorts of conditions and, a mention in the New Testament and the Quaran. That this Dmitiri is ignorant, besides being boorish and hateful, is not a new discovery of the type of people who hold his views. 

5. And neither was the Holocaust a justification. It proved the need for a state prior to the mass murder.

6. The Arabs are their own worse enemy and it is they, through their rejectionism and goal to eradicate Jews, who obring upon them suffering.

7.  The 'stolen land' is that which Arabs stole from us in the 7th century.

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