Raz Segal: A "Liar-for-his-Cause"?

One Raz Segal, an Assoc Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Stockton Univ, writing in the UK Guardian, once a very pro-Zionist newspaper in Manchester before it moved down to London, among other things describes Israel thus:

"a self-proclaimed exclusionary settler state – what Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the father of revisionist Zionism, described in his well-known essay from 1923 as a settler colonial project that can only work with an “Iron Wall.”

As readers of my blog know (and others can use the search engine), Jabotinsky did not advance an "exclusionary" character for the Jewish state or the idea of "racial supremacy". Moreover, the usage of "Jewish" indicates a nationality just like all other countries. Jabotinsky, a liberal democrat, envisioned full civic equality for all resident citizens of the future Jewish state. His last testament on the matter is his 1940 "The War and the Jew".

One can read the book here.

Here's p. 215:

216

217

218

Any fair reader would necessarily come to the conclusion that Segal is either an ignoramus, or unintelligent or, most likely, a liar-for-his-cause.

The idea of an "Iron Wall" was simply an expression of a firm, impenetrable defense system, not a physical structure, that would not allow the repeat of the 1920 and 1921 Arab murderous riots against Jews in Jerusalem and Jaffa. His idea was replacing unreliable British forces with Jewish soldiers and police. And as we saw on October 7, 2023, that wall was still necessary and continues to be.

UPDATE

Although Raz mentions the "Iron Wall" essay, he leaves out the opening lines that contradict his charaterization of Jabotinsky, who wrote:

I am reputed to be an enemy of the Arabs, who wants to have them ejected from Palestine, and so forth. It is not true.

Emotionally, my attitude to the Arabs is the same as to all other nations –

polite indifference. Politically, my attitude is determined by two principles. First of

all, I consider it utterly impossible to eject the Arabs from Palestine. There will

always be two nations in Palestine – which is good enough for me, provided the Jews become the majority. And secondly, I belong to the group that once drew up the Helsingfors Programme, the programme of national rights for all nationalities living in the same State. In drawing up that programme, we had in mind not only the Jews, but all nations everywhere, and its basis is equality of rights.

I am prepared to take an oath binding ourselves and our descendants that we

shall never do anything contrary to the principle of equal rights, and that we shall

never try to eject anyone. This seems to me a fairly peaceful credo.

But it is quite another question whether it is always possible to realise a

peaceful aim by peaceful means. For the answer to this question does not depend on our attitude to the Arabs; but entirely on the attitude of the Arabs to us and to

Zionism. 

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Peter Beinart: Before and After

 Peter Beinart tweeted:

Tonight, I’m going to speak at Tel Aviv University. I know many people who I respect will think this was the wrong decision given that Israel—as widely recognized by experts on international law—practices not only apartheid but genocide. I support full equality for Israel’s Palestinian citizens, an end to the occupation and the right of Palestinian refugees to return. I support many forms of boycott, divestment and sanction against Israel and Israeli institutions. I have repeatedly advocated implementing the Leahy Law, which would radically restrict—if not end—US arms sales to Israel. I support the European Union ending its free trade agreement with Israel. I support ending Israeli participation in sports and cultural arenas like FIFA and Eurovision. I support these things because I don’t believe that Israel will end its oppression of the Palestinian people and move towards equality under the law and historical justice without outside pressure. But I believe there is value in speaking to Israelis about Israel’s crimes. I have spent much of my adult life speaking to Jews about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. In that effort, I have conducted public discussions with many people whose views I consider immoral and spoken at many institutions that are based on principles with which I profoundly disagree. These include institutions like Tel Aviv University that are in various ways complicit in Israeli oppression. I do so because I want to reach Jews who disagree with me—because I believe that by trying to convince Jews to rethink their support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians, I can contribute, in some very small way, to the struggle for freedom and justice. I don’t have many opportunities to speak to Israelis. As it is, right-wing Israeli organizations have pressured Tel Aviv University to cancel my talk. I felt I should take advantage of this opportunity to say in Israel what I’ve been saying elsewhere for the last two years. I know many people I admire will disagree with this logic. But it stems from my desire to challenge Jewish supremacy and see the end of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.

and then tweeted:

By speaking earlier this week at Tel Aviv University, I made a serious mistake. In the past, when formulating my views about Israel-Palestine, I’ve sought out Palestinian friends and interlocutors and listened carefully to their views. In this case, I did not. I really wanted to speak to Israelis. In the US, I’ve cultivated conversations with Jews with whom I strongly disagree, both to listen and in hopes of changing their minds. Over the horrifying last two years, I’ve hoped for more conversations with Israelis, to explain why I believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza and why I believe Jewish supremacy is fundamentally wrong. My motivation for giving the talk wasn’t financial; I didn’t receive an honorarium. I wanted to say certain things to an Israeli audience. Speaking at Tel Aviv University seemed to offer that chance. I let my desire for that conversation override my solidarity with Palestinians, who in the face of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide have asked the world boycott Israeli institutions that are complicit in their oppression. As Noura Erakat and others have pointed out, there are ways for me to talk to Israelis without violating BDS guidelines and undermining a collective effort against oppression. I could have had the exchange I desired while respecting a non-violent movement based on human rights and international law. Had I listened more to Palestinians, I would have realized that earlier. It’s embarrassing to admit such a serious mistake. I dearly wish I had not made this one, which has caused particular harm because international pressure is crucial to ensuring Palestinian freedom. This was a failure of judgment. I am sorry.

That reminded me of a Soviet show trial confession

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UPDATE:

Read this blog post.

And this one.

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The Jewish/Israel Left in the Eyes of Efraim Kishon

"The overt and joyful instinct for self-destruction is the national trait that has accompanied the conflicted Jewish tribe since its exodus from Egypt. The tradition of self-hatred has been woven like as a thread throughout Jewish history with its horrific consequences, as if it were a pathological curse passed down from father to son and son to grandson until the end of time. These days, this Jewish tendency is expressed in the fashionable, overt and covert skepticism regarding our right to resettle in the Land of Israel. Many people ask themselves whether the Palestinians are not entitled to demand our departure from here, and those with a conscience are tormented by the injustice we did to the refugees at the end of the Arab war of extermination that turned into a Jewish war of liberation. The Russians have no scruples about having conquered vast territories after their last war, which never belonged to them or their ancestors, and they have no scruples about tormenting the Czech people for the organized deportation of three million Sudeten people. The Poles also have no noticeable pangs of conscience about their cheerful annexations, the Turks have no scruples about wholesale 'population transfers', the Greeks have none, the Bulgarians have none, the Indians have none, the Pakistanis have none, and the Americans have none. Only the Israelis possess them.

The intellectual of conscience among us sees the expulsion of the million Jews from Arab countries as a historical process that cannot be reversed, while the flight of the Arabs, due to their campaign of killing along the lines of the Gush Etzion bloc, he sees as a terrible crime. The conscientious man believes that the twelve million square kilometers of Arab countries, an area larger than that of Europe, are not enough to absorb the refugees. The conscientious man finds that the residents of Bir'am and Ikrit were uprooted from their homes and transferred to another place in stealth and deceit, while the Jews of Hebron were massacred in a brutal manner, and therefore the people of Bir'am must be returned, but the residents of Hebron are forbidden. 

The Israeli-with-a-conscience understands the spirit of Yasser Arafat; is remarkably matter-of-fact and realistic about the national motives of this mass murderer; about our cruel and vile enemy and he is impressed by the legitimate right of the Palestinian liberation movements to chop off the heads of our children in schools with axes...

The Israeli-with-a-conscience is full of universal understanding. He hates only one thing: hate.

The Israeli-with-a-conscience is mentally ill."

From "A Smile Amidst a Drought", 1978

^

The Beinart/Nerdeen conversation

Within Our Lifetime/Palestine Nerdeen Kiswani tweeted, reacting to Zohran Mamdani's condemnation of the swastika daubings:

There’s no “scourge of antisemitism” in NYC. Acts like these, while reprehensible, are often weaponized to justify Zionist narratives and repression of Palestine solidarity. Many past “antisemitic” scares turned out to be fake, like the Israeli Jewish teenager who made hundreds of bomb threats to U.S. synagogues in 2017. Norman Finkelstein has spoken about how “antisemitism” in the U.S. is largely a political tool, not a real social phenomenon. Mamdani shouldn’t be validating this framing.

Peter Beinart responded:

Your response to a swastika at a yeshiva is to condemn the mayor for condemning it? Because that might imply that antisemitism is a "real social phenomenon?" Yes, like other bigotries, it's a "real social phenomenon." If you don't believe me, ask the 1 million people who follow Nick Fuentes on this platform

Nerdeen reacted:

Antisemitism is not a systemic structural issue in the U.S. everyone knows this except for professional victims. There is a nazi problem in the U.S. and sadly many of these Nazis are Jewish people. In fact many Jewish people proudly proclaim that 95% of Jews are Nazis (zionists) which even I said was a bit much. If you want to truly fight against the nazi problem, I suggest you start with your own community. 

 

Nerdeen continued:

You really have some nerve, grifting and writing books about “after” the genocide of my people as it’s still ongoing, to completely reframe what I was saying. I never condemned his condemnation of the graffiti, I explicitly called it reprehensible myself. I took issue with the implication that there’s an antisemitism problem in NYC and cited Norman Finkelstein on the idea that it’s not a social phenomenon. He talks about it in the context of the US, I referenced NYC.
There’s no structural disadvantage to being Jewish like there is to being Palestinian, and you know that. You’re being purposely obtuse. You can pander to the anti genocide line but you’re still a liberal zionist.

Nerdeen adds:

For those who are new here, especially the self-proclaimed anti- or “non-Zionists” (whatever that’s supposed to mean), antisemitism is not a structural issue in the United States. Jews are positioned as white in America, holding access to power, wealth, and protection under the same systems that oppress Black, brown, and Indigenous people. That doesn’t mean antisemitism doesn’t exist in individual attitudes, but it isn’t systemic in the way anti-Blackness or Islamophobia are. It’s not upheld by the state or capital, it’s weaponized by them to silence criticism of Israel and uphold Zionism.  

It may be still going on.

P.S.  Nerdeen's core belief:

For those that are new here, saying “Israel has a right to exist, just not as a Jewish state” isn’t anti-Zionism, it’s liberal Zionism. The question isn’t what kind of Israel, it’s how Israel came to exist, which is through genocide. Anti-Zionism necessitates decolonization.

P.P.S.   But is she really that bad? Here:

^

What Is Meant by Zionists by the term 'Colonization'?

 Anti-Zionists and the pro-Palestine propagandist point to the use by Zionist leaders of the term "colonization" as an indication they were, well, colonizing.

Here's a Ze'ev Jabotinsky quotation:

That's from 1922, his first visit to America at the head of a delegation of the Keren HaYesod. As an extra "bonues", he compares what is to be done in the Mandate territory to what was done to America's native population.

As can be readily comprehended, by the use of the term, Jabotinsky is referring not to a process whereby a country that does not belong to you is taken over and subjugated - militarly, economically or otherwise and its popualtion is done away with, physically or socially - but simply the various forms of rebuilding a country through agriculture and industry. It is the mechanics of how it is done not an imperial design to transfer a population from another part of the world into a territory you have no connection with as England, Holland, Belgium, Germany yand other Europeans countries did. And Arabs were involved in sharing this economic resurgence of the country even within the Histadrut but eventaully, their political opposition overroad their good sense.

^

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Who was a "Palestinian Arab"?

Aside from the argument whether the Arabs resident in the area of historic Palestine (there was never a geopolitical country of 'Palestine') conisdered themselves as "Palestinian" or "Syrian" or "Southern Syrian", or "El-Shamites" or whether others viewed them as such, I have found a 1940 reference to the term.

Interstingly enough, it comes within the framework of the application of apartheid - whether Jews could purchase land in various Zones following the adoption of the 1939 White Paper and the 1940 Land Transfers Regulations.

Article 9 reads:

For the purposes of these regulations :-

"Palestinian Arab" shall be deemed to be an Arab who is ordinarily resident in Palestine. In case of any dispute as to whether a person is an Arab or whether he is ordinarily resident in Palestine, the question shall be referred to the High Commissioner whose decision thereon shall be final;

Residency is the defining feature of identity. Not nationality, not culture, not identification, not langauge, history or religion.

As we know, it was only in 1925 that a Palestine Nationality Law was enacted for the Mandate.

By the way, on March 6, 1940, MP Noel-Baker (Derby) moved a motion in the British Parliament: 

That this House regrets that, disregarding the expressed opinion of the Permanent Mandates Commission that the policy contained in the White Paper on Palestine was inconsistent wtih the terms of the Mandate, and without the authority of the Council of the League of Nations, His Majesty's Government have authorised the issue of regulations controlling the transfer of land which discriminate unjustly against one section of the inhabitants of Palestine...

It would seem logical that if residency was the defining term, Jews were also Palestinians, at least at that time. So, was their nationality "Palestinian"?

Mamdani the Elder in 2004

It seems that I never uploaded this post from 2015. But now that his son is running for election as New York City's next mayor with his 2023 Not On Our Dime Bill lurking, I realized it should appear as better late than never.

The things one finds as in “Representing Settlers” by Assaf Harel -

Mahmood Mamdani (2004. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: Post-Apartheid Perspectives on America and Israel, PoLAR 27(1):1-15), for instance, opened a recent lecture by claiming that “The violence of the settler and the suicide bomber, more than any other, has come to define the contemporary work of terrorism and counter-terrorism.” [he establishes equality and equivalency] The settler has come to represent unbridgeable difference from the secular, liberal humanists of the West. [does the PLO, PA and/or Hamas do something to Western liberalism?] At the same time the settlement project in Israeli post-1967 occupied territories is seen as a break from the previous trajectory of the Israeli state. These depictions have become widely acceptable, especially in liberal academic circles. But they are not only analytically weak, they actually participate in a political purpose that might be unintended. As we have seen, many studies (Lustick 1988; Lustick 1993; Silberstein 1993; Sivan 1995; Feige 2003; Zertal and Eldar 2007) emphasize ideological differences or point to the settler project inthe Occupied Territories as having fundamentally altered the foundations of Israeli society. This discursive construction depicts religious settlers and their project as different from legitimate Israeli state practices by inscribing a moral high ground for those who vilify and denounce the settlers in the Occupied Territories.

The “settlers’” project, it would seem, is not really Zionism at all, [as if all that went on previously, of Jews emigrating and repatriating back to the Jewish historic homeland, resettling and creating agricultural communities throughout the centuries is not Zionism] and so the Zionism of mainstream Israel is morally elevated in its distinction from beliefs and practices in the Occupied Territories. Religiously motivated settlers are often condemned for the violence of their settlement project. This includes both the structural violence of territorial expansion and the face-to-face violence between settlers and Palestinians. Yet if we move beyond demonizing religious settlers and seek instead to apply a post-structural istanalytical framework to them, then we must seek commonalities with those who currently oppose these settlers.

Did Peter Beinart read that and become influenced? 

^

Mahmood Mamdani on Israel

Mahmood Mamdani, the father of, specializes, among other topics, in "settler-colonialsinm" and I thought I'd like to see what he thinks/writes about Israel and Zionism.

From his 2015 article, "Settler Colonialism: Then and Now":-

Walzer considered the colonial question to be a historical relic: the rights of “aboriginal peoples like the Native Americans or the Maori in New Zealand . . . are eroded with time.” This erasure in time, this dimming of memory, according to Walzer, was true also of  Palestinians inside Israel but not, for some reason, of ancient Israelites. Walzer never gives us a reason for this Israeli exceptionalism.

I'll provide a reason: Jews never yielded or surrendered their national identity, their longing for their homeland and, more importantly, the traveling to the Land of Israel, residing in it after emigrating to it and supporting it financially in all the centuries since the loss of Jewish political independence in 135 CE. Never.

Their proto-Zionism endeavors were made to and known to many non-Jewish heads of state and politicians and military leaders and religious leaders for 1800 years.

On the other hand, no one knew of a group of people called "Palestinians". In fact, "Palestine" was a replacement name for the Holy Land which was the Jewish homeland. They knew Arabs lived in the area but they came in the 7th century as conquerors and occupiers, just as the Romans, the Byzantines and the Persians before them.

A few pages later, Mamdani the Elder writes:-

"It is worth recalling the statement of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, the former president of Tanzania, to a visiting Palestinian delegation in the 1960s, that Palestinians had suffered a fate worse than had South Africans. In Nyerere’s words: We only lost our independence, you lost your country!"

They didn't actually lose a country. They rejected a state, twice, in 1937 and 1947, intending that the Jews should not have their state after partition proposals were made to reduce violence. If they hadn't gone to war on November 30, 1947, and lost, they would have been in their towns and villages - in Israel.

At the end of the 1948 war, Arabs were left in Israel despite hundreds of thousands fleeing. In the eastern neigborhoods of Jerusalem, Hebron and other locations where Jews managed to continue to reside during the Mandate period in Judea and Samaria, Jews were completely ethnically cleansed from those areas. They lost home and a country that had been promised to them by the international community of nations.

Another excerpt:-

"in Israel, the state guarantees equal political rights for Jewish and Palestinian citizens. But that is where equal treatment ends. Like American Indians in reservations, Palestinian Israelis may have the right to vote or even to be elected to office, but they live under a state of exception that denies them constitutionally defensible civil rights."

What 'civil rights' are denied? And what of the civil rights of Jews in Jordan? Syria? Libya? Iraq? And on and on. Oh, and Arabs in Israel do not live in reservations.

I won't go through his other articles but think it enough to point to crooked thinking, misleading argumenation and misrepresentation of history and the present.

As for his son, Zohran, perhaps the apple has not fallen far from the tree?

^

Taking Israelis Hostage ... in 1948

From the pages of the Palestine Post in November 1948, reporting on an event on the night of November 5:

and then the next month:

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Arabs Doing Arab Propaganda

I found this timeline here and selected on minor section to highlight how Arab propaganda works.

Item 1:

Jewish existed in Europe, and in every single location where a Jewish community existed in the Diaspora, for some 1800 cenutries since the loss of Jewish politicall sovereignty over Judea in 135 CE. Before that, Jewish nationalism caused the exiles in Babylon from the First Temple's destrauction in 586 BCE to 'return to Zion'.

Item 2:

The first wave of immigration is a misnomer. Jews constantly, consistently and continuously returned to the Land of Israel over the centuries.  Just one example, Rabbi Moses ben Nachman Girondi, the Ramban, moved to Israel in 1267 and visited several cities including Hebron.

Item 3:

The seven 'colonies' referred to are meant to indicate Jews are recent. First of all, 'colonies' is misleading as that was the term in contemporary usage for farming communities. Second, Petah Tikva, also a 'colony', was founded already in 1878 and Jews were resiiding in Jerusalem, Tiberias, Hebron and Peki'in in the Galilee for centuries in addition to other small communities.

I could make this long and detailed but I think my point is clear: Arab propaganda corrupts the facts, lies, misrepresents, leaves out anything that will distrupt their messaging and twists things about.

^

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The Naqba: Caused by Israel or by the Arabs' Own Weaknesses?

I maintain: the "naqba" was a defeat of the Arabs by their own weaknesses as asserted by Constantin Zureiq in his summer of 1948 book.

Now another source: From the U. of Chicago's The Journal of Politics, Volume 18, Number 3 (1956) review of Dynamite in the Middle East by Khalil Totah, 1955:

And another review, from Political Research Quarterly, University of Utah, Volume 9 Issue 2, June 1956:

"...his account is notable for an equal frankness concerning Arab shortcomings, particularly the corruption in Arab governments and the illiteracy and poverty of the Arab masses.

Naively or deliberately he omits the entire Jewish record of transforming unpopulated swamps and desert land into oases of human settlement in Palestine, as well as the historic fact that the Arabs themselves came as conquerors into Palestine during the eighth century and imposed their national habits as well as the Islamic religion on the conquered of the area.

At no time will Totah grant the Jews with their historic and religious connection in Palestine the right of a dignified national and cultural existence.

...This reviewer can only express his utmost bewilderment at how an educated Arab who professes to be a Christian can advocate the most ruthless power politics with complete disregard for the human and ethical problem. In spite or perhaps because of all this, this book should be widely read.

Apart from conveying a solid analysis of Arab nationalism and a vivid picture of the dynastic rivalries and economic problems in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, the book affords a most interesting insight into the mentality of the intellectual leadership of the Arab world and its position in the great East-West struggle of our time.

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What did 'colonization' mean in the 1920s?

One of the sleights-of-language employed by pro-Arab propagandists to "prove" that Zionism is colonialism is that the Zionist themselves used that term. And the even called their kibbutzim "colonies".

One favoriate example is this section from Jabotinsky's Iron Wall:

          My readers have a general idea of the history of colonisation in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonisation being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such  precedent...It does not matter at all which phraseology we employ in explaining our colonising aims, Herzl's or Sir Herbert Samuel's.  Colonisation carries its own explanation, the only possible explanation, unalterable and as clear as daylight to every ordinary Jew and every ordinary Arab. Colonisation can have only one aim, and Palestine Arabs cannot accept this aim.

As we all know, language usage alters and means one thing in one period and another in a different period.

Here is an example from this 1927 issue of a progressive magazine:

I've excerpted from one page and you can see that the term colonialization is used too describe what Russian Jews are doing in Birobyzhan, which is agricultural work. Zionism's first stage was returning Jews to their land in a very physical sense - becoming farmers. Socialist Zionists made it a "religion of labor". It did not mean intentionally taking over a country that one did nt have a claim to and ot kick the residents out but rather simply to bring the Jews back in.

The charge of settler-colonialism is false and misleading.

^

Palestinian Arabs Mentioned 1946

The Arabs of the Mandate for Palestine very rarely related to themselves as "Palestinian Arabs". The documents show that after the end of World War One and into the 1920s, they preferred to be termed Syrians and demanded that the territory of "Palestine" be "reunited with Syria". A Palestinian nationality only came into being officially in 1925, due to Zionist pressure.

Even the representative groups used the term "Arab" rather than "Palestinian", the most prominent example being the Arab Higher Committee which led the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939. I refer to the term as an example of inventivity.

"Palestinians" for the most part were the Jews.

Nevertheless, I have found the term "Palestinian Arabs" used by Arabs if very sparingly.

One additioonal source is this booklet, The Palestine Reality, by Jabir Shibli, first published in 1946 to counter the post-World War Two claims by the Zionist movement. Only 32 pages long, only two out of the three useages of "Palestinian" refer to the Arab population of the Mandate, and both are on page 23.

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The Smol Emuni Letter on Gaza

 The Smol Emuni Letter on Gaza

A Call for Moral Clarity, Responsibility, and a Jewish Orthodox Response in the Face of the Gaza Humanitarian Crisis

(This statement was authored by Rabbi Yosef Blau and signed by many Torat Chayim rabbinic members although he is not a member and some of the others below are also not members)

​​The humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza is one of the most severe in recent history. While it began with the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023—a brutal act that justifiably demanded a strong military response and demand for the release of the hostages—this does not absolve Israel’s government from assuming its share of the responsibility for the profound suffering of Gaza’s civilian population.

Hamas’s actions have repeatedly shown a cynical disregard for the lives of the people it claims to represent, using civilians as human shields and rejecting ceasefire proposals. However, Israel’s prolonged military campaign, now approaching two years, has devastated Gaza. The death toll is rising with very significant losses of lives, and Israel’s limiting of humanitarian aid, at times completely halting the entry of food and medical supplies, has raised the specter of coming starvation. We affirm that Hamas's sins and crimes do not relieve the government of Israel of its obligations to make whatever efforts are necessary to prevent mass starvation.

There have been months when Israel blocked humanitarian convoys on the mistaken premise that increased suffering would bring about Hamas’s surrender. Instead, the result has been the deepening of despair. The justified anger toward Hamas has dangerously expanded by some extremists into blanket suspicion of the entire population of Gaza—children included—tarnished as future terrorists. Meanwhile, in Yehuda and Shomron (the West Bank), extremist settler violence has resulted in the murder of civilians and has forced Palestinian villagers from their homes, further destabilizing the region.

Amid this devastation, the absence of a clear post-war vision from Prime Minister Netanyahu has allowed the most extreme voices in the Israeli government—including ministers from the religious Zionist community—to fill the vacuum with disturbing proposals. These include the forced “voluntary” exile of Palestinians from Gaza and the sacrifice of remaining Israeli hostages in the pursuit of an elusive “total victory.”

This moment demands a different voice—one grounded in our deepest Jewish values and informed by our traumatic history of being victims of persecution. 

Orthodox Jewry, as some of Israel’s most devoted supporters, bears a unique moral responsibility. We must affirm that Judaism’s vision of justice and compassion extends to all human beings. Our tradition teaches that every person is created b’tzelem Elokim—in the Divine image. We are the spiritual descendants of Avraham, chosen to walk in the path of Hashem, “to do righteousness and justice” (Bereshit 18:19). Allowing an entire people to starve stands in stark contrast to this teaching.

As we reflect on Tisha B’Av, the words of our prophets ring with renewed urgency. The Haftorah of Shabbat Chazon reminds us: “Zion shall be redeemed through justice, and those who return to her through righteousness” (Yeshayahu 1:27). And on the morning of Tisha B’Av, the voice of Yirmiyahu echoes through our prayers: “Let not the wise glory in their wisdom...but in this: that they understand and know Me, that I am the Lord who practices kindness, justice, and righteousness on the earth—for in these I delight” (Yirmiyahu 9:23).

These are not just poetic phrases. They are the foundations of our ethical obligation—to demand policies that uphold human dignity, to provide humanitarian aid wherever possible, and to speak out when our government’s actions contradict the Torah’s moral imperatives, no matter how painful this may be to accept.

The future of Israel depends not only on its military strength but on its moral clarity. Let us be resounding voices for justice, righteousness, and peace for all people—even and especially in the hardest of times.

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Evelyn Waugh on Journalism

Look at it this way. News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read. And it's only news until he's read it. After that it's dead...

But you do think it's a good way of training oneself - inventing imaginary news?

"None better," said William.

__________________________________

Apparently they think you've been murdered. Why don't you send them some news.'

'I don't know any.'

'Well for heavens sake invent some.

__________________________________

"'They don't seem very pleased with me in London. They seem to want more news.'

'How silly. Are you upset?'

'No... Well, yes, a little.'

'Poor William. I will get you some news. Listen, I have a plan...Listen; all the journalists who were here had men in the town they paid to give them news...'

'Do you really think you can get some news.'

'Why, yes, of course."

Scoop

"You see it's rather depressing sometimes, day after day and none of one's stories getting printed. I'd like to be a foreign correspondent like you. I say, would you think it awful cheek if I showed you some of the stuff I write? In my spare time, I do it. I imagine some big piece of news and then I see how I should handle it...Shall I show it to you?'

'Please do,' said William, 'some time. But I think we ought to be going now.'

'Yes, I suppose we should. But you do think it's a good way of training oneself--inventing imaginary news?'

'None better,' said William.

^

The Arab League's Quite Useful Idiot

Ralph Wilde is an academic with expertise in public international law. He is a faculty member at University College London (UCL). His 2008 book International Territorial Administration examines international territorial administration in consideration of Third World approaches to international law and postcolonial theory. Last year, he presented an Oral Submission of the League of Arab States to the ICJ.

Just recently, I saw a very short Instagram clip (and here on X) of an interview he made in April and here are a few reactions:

Wilde insists the Mandate was the result of a "covenant of the League of Nations, part of the Versailles Treaty". Besides him slurring the name of the treaty, The Covenant of the League of Nations, he is stretching things a bit. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles indirectly impacted Palestine in that he worked for a League of Nations mandates system. "Palestine" is not explicitly mentioned in the treaty. The mandate system is.

Nevertheless, it is true that the question of Palestine was deliberated. On February 3, 1919, the Zionist Organization presented a memorandum and draft resolutions for the consideration of the Peace Conference. It was clear to European diplomats who were representing the countries that liberated the Ottoman Empire that a state of Arabia would be formed but that a Jewish state would also be created.

And so, following the 1915 Hogarth Correspondence, the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1919 Weizmann-Faisal meetings and, as it turned out, the tentative agreement and, finally, the 1920 San Remo Conference, British and French mandatory control over Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Transjordan and Palestine was established in 1922.

Wilde claims "a state was to be provisionally recognized".

That is very encouraging. The term state does not appear there although the British confimred that, at that time, that was their eventual intention. If Wilde says a state was to be recognized, well, his ignorance is abysmal.

And that 'state' was not to be "for a particular racial group" and "there is no legal basis for a specifically Jewish state".

The 1922 Mandate for Palestine decision does not mention Arabs at all. It does mention the need to assure the rights of "non-Jewish community" members. But it is full of the term "Jews" (4x) and "Jewish" (11x). Here's but one example:

The Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home - Article 2.

The clip has him asked about Israel's longstanding historical ties and Wilde denies those and adds, there's no legal foundation to such a claim based on those ties.

Let's see what the preamble contains:

Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country

Did Jews enjoy a special position, even a unique guarantee of certain rights? Article 6 reads:

The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall 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 not required for public purposes.

In other words, Jews were awarded a privileged position. As they had been expelled from their homeland 1800 years previosuly and that country had been subjected to conquest, occupation, further limitations on residency, suppression of rights and economic disadvantages, they were to be assisted to repatriate and reestablish themselves in the country, recreate normal national life and reconstitute their national home.

"Reconstitute"?

See above:

recognition has thereby been given...to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country

Even Wilde knows that to reconstitute is to effect a change so that the object or thing or construct returns back into its original form. There was a tribal federation of Israel, two monarchies and a commonwealth from circa 1350 BCE until 135 CE. That geopolitical entity would be reconsituted.

Despite yielding up some 75% of historic "Palestine" territory in 1922 for it to be transferred to a Saudi Arabian refugee, agreeing to partitioning what was left in 1937 and 1947, offers twice refused by Arabs (who had identified into the 1920s and later as "Southern Syrians", not "Palestinians"), the Arabs refuse to recognize any Jewish national rights.

Wilde is a purposeful idiot.

If you agree with my brief, pithy response (there is so much more wrong and false and nonexistent in his 'facts' and 'logic'), let Wilde know.

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Did Jews Participate in the Early Muslim Raids and Battles?

From "Non-Muslims in the Muslim Conquest Army in Early Islam"

a. The ḥadīth from al-Zuhrī, narrated via four different channels, says that some Jews used to raid with the Prophet, and he would give them and the Muslims the same shares of the booty (kāna yahūd yaghzūna maʿa al-nabī fa-yushim lahum ka-sihām al-muslimīn).

b. The ḥadīth from al-Wāqidī says that the Prophet took along with him to Khaybar ten Jews from Medina and gave them and the Muslims the same shares of the booty.  This possibly deals with the same occasion spelled out less clearly in the ḥadīth from Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī, which says: “I came with a party of the Ashʿarīn to the Prophet at Khaybar and he gave us shares like those who conquered it.”

c. The ḥadīth from Ibn ʿAbbās that the Prophet sought the assistance of the Banū Qaynuqāʿ (of the Jews) in an unidentified battle; he gave them a little but did not give them shares (i.e., as he did to the Muslims; istaʿāna rasūl Allāh bi-yahūd Qaynuqāʿ faraḍakha lahum wa-lam yushim).

d. It is related that Saʿd b. Mālik (= Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ) led a campaign in which there were Jews. After the battle, he gave them a little of the booty (raḍakha lahum). This report elicited the following comment from Ibn Ḥazm: “We know of no one of the Companions who went against Saʿd in this [matter].”

e. It is narrated on the authority of al-Awzāʿī that the basis for his position is not only that the Prophet gave shares (of the booty) to those who fought with him from the Jews, but also that the people in charge of the Muslims (wulāt al-muslimīn) after the Prophet gave shares to the Jews and Magians (majūs) whose assistance they sought against their enemies.

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Who Was Responsible for the "Refugee" Phenomenon in 1948?

Palestine Media Watch brings us a refugee from Mandate Palestine, Muhammad Khana, who complains that those that left were ill-served by lying Arab propaganda and media that made the Arabs leave in 1948 during Israel's War of Independence.

He was interviewed on the official Palestinian Authority TV's program "Source of the Story" on May 13, 2025 and declared:

"[In 1948, the Arab] propaganda and media had a central role in us leaving. The media and propaganda, the propaganda [claimed] that there is a horrifying [Jewish] force coming."

In a previous interview in 2022 with Khana, he was more explicit: The Arab media "lied and deceived" people, claiming that the Jews "killed and slaughtered," which made Arabs flee.

Having him on a second time obviously points to the PA considering him reliable.

Moreover,  a "Palestinian settlement affairs" expert Khalil Al-Tafakji recently confirmed Arab responsibility for the refugees leaving, saying they left because the Arab leaders told people to leave in 1948, promising them they would return shortly.

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That 1942 Lord Moyne Speech

Lord Moyne was serving as Britain's Minister for State for the Middle East from January 1944 in Cairo, Egypt and was assassinated by two member of the Lechi undergound on November 5 that year.

In a 2012 interview, Yitzchak Shamir, the main commander over the operation was adamant why he was killed:

because we fought against the British in this area, we took him for a target. This was the main reason for his assassination. Certainly, we had known about his hostile attitude towards Zionism, towards the idea of ingathering of the Jewish people here. He was against any Jewish aliyah, any Jewish immigration. He didn’t believe that there exists such a thing like a Jewish nation, or a Jewish people … and therefore, we decided to make this operation.

At the Lechi Veterans' web site, one can read this:

In the House of Lords in June 1942, he expressed his support for the White Paper and limitations on Jewish immigration. He found the Zionist vision narrow, advocating a solution of a federation of Arab lands.

When he came to serve as minister of state in Cairo, Lord Moyne launched extreme plans to strangle the Yishuv. He openly spoke of Palestine as an Arab land; Jews were a mixed race, and the Jews of Palestine could be relocated to another land in Africa.

Bernard Wasserstein, in a 1980 article, reprinted in Midstream ("New Light on the Moyne Murder," Midstream 26, March 1980: 30-38), sought to debunk the "racial" elements of that speech and wrote:

When Moyne states that Jews are racially mixed he is putting them into the same category as every other European people, including the British. To interpret his speech as signifying that he considered the Jews as inlerior alter the Nazi fashion is therefore nonsense. Indeed, by arguing that the most "primitive" of known races is racially "pure" whereas the most "advanced" are racially intermixed, he is precisely contradicting one of the basic premises of Nazi racialist ideology. From allthis it will be evident that there is no substance in the charge of racialist antiSemitism made against Moyne on the basis of his House of Lords speech.

What did Moyne declare on June 9, 1942 in the House of Lords? Here:

Since the Mahomedan invasion of 632 the Arabs have occupied Palestine for practically the same period. To these Arabs the Jews are not only alien in culture but also in blood. It is very often loosely said that Jews are Semites, but anthropologists tell us that, pure as they have kept their culture, the Jewish race has been much mixed with Gentiles since the beginning of the Diaspora. During the Babylonian captivity they acquired a strong Hittite admixture, and it is obvious that the Armenoid features which are still found among the Sephardim have been bred out of the Ashkenazim by an admixture of Slav blood.

The Zionist movement has its main spring among those Jews of Poland and Eastern Europe.

Be that as it is understood, or misunderstood, the speech is important in other ways.

The speech was delivered on the background of another speech, one delivered by Lord Wedgwood who was a strong supporter of Zionism and actually a supporter of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who had adopted Wedgwood's Seventh Dominion idea in 1927. The Irgun at the time of its reprisal raids during the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939 made effective use of a letter Wedgwood wrote on May 30, 1938 which advocated an armed Jewish civil revolt in Palestine. 

That May 1942 speech can be found in this file. And see here, on page 161.

It caused quite a ruckus. Wedgwood defended himself and Moyne participated in the debate.

It deserves to be quoted in its entirety.  The text is taken from Hansard.

Lord Wedgwood did not mean what he said. Anybody who heard the broadcast which Lord Wedgwood read out must attach the ordinary meaning to the language, and interpret it as a direct incitement to the Jews of Palestine to seize political domination and the land from the present inhabitants. I am always amazed at the attitude of Lord Wedgwood. He boasts of his patriotism and he parades his love of England, and I cannot see how he can reconcile himself to the role of abusing and libelling his own country and his own countrymen.

Lord Wedgwood's incitement to Zionists to seize the land of Palestine. In considering this treasonable appeal to the Jews to levy war on their own legal Government it is, of course, reasonable to consider whether the Jews have, as the noble Lord suggested, any well-founded complaint against the administration of the Palestine Mandate. The Zionist claim has raised two burning issues: firstly, the demand for large-scale immigration into an already overcrowded country, and, secondly, racial domination by these newcomers over the original inhabitants.

In 1922, when the present Prime Minister was Colonial Secretary, he issued a statement on British policy in Palestine which is very much to the point in regard to the Jewish claim to political domination and the swamping of the Arab population by immigration to-day. Mr. Churchill stated that His Majesty's Government had not at any time contemplated the subordination of the Arabic population, language or culture in Palestine. Attention was further drawn to the fact that the terms of the Balfour Declaration do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded in Palestine. It was also laid down that immigration cannot be so great in volume as to exceed whatever may be the economic capacity of the country at the time to absorb new arrivals. "It is essential," the statement went on, "to ensure that the immigration should not be a burden on the people of Palestine as a whole." It was stated that up to that time immigration had fulfilled these conditions, the number of immigrants since the British occupation having been about 25,000.

Your Lordships should bear in mind that figure of 25,000 immigrants, which Mr. Churchill considered reasonable for the four years after the end of the last war, and compare that with the demand, backed by the noble Lord, for bringing in 3,000,000 Jews immediately after this war to swamp the population of Palestine. The inhabitants of that small country—about the size of Wales, but much less fertile—are already threatened with conditions of grave congestion. At the present rate of increase, the Arab population will double within twenty-seven years. All the fertile soil is not only occupied but very closely cultivated. At the end of the last war, the Jewish community numbered 80,000. It now numbers about 450,000; and yet the Zionist Organization have indignantly refused the terms of the White Paper, under which further immigration should be allowed up to another 75,000 in five years. They have also rejected the proposal 1o co-operate in a Joint Government by taking over responsibility for certain departments in proportion to the respective populations, as they claim not merely equal citizenship but political ascendency.

There is certainly no basis for these demands under the Mandate. There is no question of this country having broken faith. The Mandate obliges the Mandatory to ensure that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced. Over and over again Commissions and White Papers have expressed the opinion that neither the Mandate nor the Balfour Declaration intended Palestine to be converted into a Jewish State against the will of the Arab population. The tragedy of the Palestinian question is, as was said by the Royal Commission, that it is a conflict between two rights. When Jerusalem was destroyed and its site ploughed up in the year 135 A.D., the Jews had occupied the country for about 1,300 years. Since the Mahomedan invasion of 632 the Arabs have occupied Palestine for practically the same period. To these Arabs the Jews are not only alien in culture but also in blood. It is very often loosely said that Jews are Semites, but anthropologists tell us that, pure as they have kept their culture, the Jewish race has been much mixed with Gentiles since the beginning of the Diaspora. During the Babylonian captivity they acquired a strong Hittite admixture, and it is obvious that the Armenoid features which are still found among the Sephardim have been bred out of the Ashkenazim by an admixture of Slav blood.

The Zionist movement has its main spring among those Jews of Poland and Eastern Europe. Their leaders demand that an already overcrowded Palestine should be trebled in its population by the admixture of another three million Jews immediately after the war. Now it is not a matter of putting a quart into a pint pot, it is a matter of putting exactly three pints into a pint pot. Successive inquiries have shown that immigration on this scale would be a disastrous mistake, and is indeed an impracticable dream. A far smaller measure of immigration led to the Palestine disturbances which lasted from 1936 to 1939, and showed that the Arabs, who have lived and buried their dead for fifty generations in Palestine, will not willingly surrender their land and self-government to the Jews. We may deplore it, but there is the stark naked fact, and you cannot get away from it by sentimental appeals to the hardship on the Jews. This country is responsible for law and order in Palestine, and we cannot possibly wash our hands of the country and let Jews and Arabs wage a civil war, as suggested by Lord Wedgwood.

But Lord Wedgwood's effort has a far greater power of mischief in being addressed to America. It must surely have a deplorable effect upon our Allies to be told by an ex-Cabinet Minister that the Palestine Administration do not like Jews, and that there are enough Anti-Semites in Great Britain to back up the Hitler policy and spirit. This suggestion is a complete reversal of the truth. If a comparison is to be made with the Nazis it is surely those who wish to force an imported régime upon the Arab population who are guilty of the spirit of aggression and domination. Lord Wedgwood's proposal that Arabs should be subjugated by force to a Jewish régime is inconsistent with the Atlantic Charter, and that ought to be told to America. The second principle of that Charter lays down that the United States and ourselves desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned; and the third principle lays down that they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of Government under which they will live.

Surely it is time for the Zionists to abandon this appeal to force, and to seek a settlement with the Arabs by consent. The Zionist leaders expect about 7,000,000 Jews to be surviving in Eastern Europe at the end of the war, and they reject the policy of re-establishing Jewish communities under civilized conditions in Europe. They apparently expect the loss of half this number if the other half can get control of Palestine. The war will end with the heavy problem of trying to resettle these most pitiable victims of Nazi abominations. Millions of people cannot be left indefinitely the objects of charity in refugee camps. A merciful settlement must be a quick settlement. We ought, therefore, to look at once in all directions to find means to re-establish these martyrs to Nazi oppression in a new life. The Zionists look only to Palestine. On May 25, at the annual dinner of the Anglo-American Palestine Committee, Dr. Weizmann again declared that Palestine alone could absorb and provide for the homeless and Stateless Jews uprooted by the war. It is to canalize all the sympathy of the world for the martyrdom of the Jews that the Zionists reject all schemes to re-settle these victims elsewhere—in Germany, or Poland, or in sparsely populated regions such as Madagascar.

But even in their wish to occupy the pre-Christian home of the Jewish race, the Zionists are far too narrow in their outlook. Palestine itself is but a small fraction of the ancient land of Syria. I do not believe that the problem of overcrowding applies to Syria and the Lebanon and Transjordan as it does to Palestine. It would be physically possible for those States, if they were willing, to absorb large numbers of Jews to mutual advantage, and without any threat to their own political independence. If the fear of Jewish domination could be removed they might indeed be glad to welcome the Jewish immigrants, with their well-known industry and intelligence and with their capital. So far as I know, no effort has been made to explore these possibilities, and we ought surely, without waiting for the peace, to see how far the regions to the north of Palestine can offer asylum for the Jewish immigration, within the old limits of historic Syria. I hope the Government will give serious consideration to the possibility of negotiations with the neighbouring States of the Levant to take part in re-settling the Jews. It is obvious that the fear of political domination by immigrant Jews will be decreased if they can be spread over a wider area and shared among different Administrations. A Federation of the Northern Arab States might well assist such a solution, but federation may be long in coming, and we ought at once to discuss with the Governments concerned to what extent and under what conditions they could admit Jewish immigration without swamping their own nationalities and independence.

I trust that the revelations in Lord Wedgwood's broadcast will have finished once and for all with the idea of arming the Jews in such a way as would encourage the attempt to seize the land of Palestine. This is quite a different matter from legitimate arming in their own defence, and I think it is hardly necessary for the Government to assure the Arabs that they would not be a party to such an assault upon their rights as has been suggested. But I hope there will be no mistake in America that Lord Wedgwood is speaking only for himself in the suggestion that we ought to give up the Palestine Mandate to the United States, in the hope and expectation that she would repudiate our binding obligations. It seems to me the broadcast of Lord Wedgwood is most of all deplorable because the salvation of civilization depends primarily upon a good understanding between us and the United States. All through his broadcast runs the suggestion that we are not only unjust but feeble and incompetent. I can imagine no greater disservice than to have planted such suspicions in the minds of millions of American listeners. How are we to plan the peace if British spokesmen are to sow distrust and contempt in the minds of our Allies?

Judge for yourselves how pro-Zionism was Moyne.

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See also my previous post regarding this here.

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