Is Norway Fit to Mediate?

Actually, we could just as well ask whether the European Union is fit to mediate. By the way, to cut the suspense, the answer in both cases is NO. But let's stay with Norway in this post. Norway is a relatively small country with a population smaller yet, that is rather sparsely distributed throughout much of the country. Nevertheless, Norwegian diplomacy has very big ambitions. It wishes to take up the role of unversal peacemaker. A Norwegian journalist here in Jerusalem once explained to me that this aspiration derived from a very big egotism. Be that as it may, the Norwegian diplomats have been active in the Land of Israel promoting Arab fascists and Nazis who could make the Quislings, the native Norwegian Nazis, look like pacifist school girls by comparison. Besides interfering in the Land of Israel, the militantly pacifist descendants of the Viking marauders arranged truces in Sri Lanka, and modestly volunteered to supervise the truce between the government and rebels there. As one can imagine, based on our own experience with the consequences of Norwegian mediation, bloody warfare and terrorism still go on in Sri Lanka, with Norwegian-mediated truces from time to time to give both sides a chance to regroup and rearm.

Before we forget, some of Quisling's supporters too were militantly pacifist and that's why they supported Hitler. It was for the sake of peace. Further, it was a Norwegian, apparently a Quisling supporter and German agent, who helped found and suggested the name for the original "peace now" group. The original "Peace Now Movement" militated against the war on Nazi Germany in the 1940s. They wanted the United States to make peace with Hitler. The "Peace Now Movement"/"Peace Now Committee" shut down operations in 1944 when its financing was being investigated by a US congressional committee. The Norwegian founder of this original "Peace Now" group was one John Collett, whose father was a Norwegian factory owner.
[Source: look for "peace now" in New York Times index for 1942-1944; also see this article on the Net for more sources]

Norway's history is Judeophobic, like that of all of Western Europe. The Norwegian Legal Code promulgated by the sovereign ruler of Norway, King Christian V of Denmark, in 1685, forbid Jews to come into Norway without a special permit. Otherwise, the Jew was to be arrested, fined, and deported. Some Jews were jailed for violation of this rule in 1734, although they were allowed into Denmark. Norway's supposedly liberal constitution of 1814 excluded Jews from the country, and stipulated that all children in the country must be educated as Lutherans. The ban on Jews was repealed in 1851. In the 1930s, Norway severely restricted the admission of Jewish refugees. The collaborationist pro-Nazi government of Vidkun Quisling facilitated persecution of Jews and the deportation of Jews to German death camps, although many escaped to Sweden with the help of Norwegians. [see "Norway" in Encyclopedia Judaica]

After WW2, there seems to have been a sense of contrition among some Norwegians. Trygve Lie, a Norwegian and first secretary-general of the UN, was sympathetic to Israel. The flurry of sympathy for Jews and Israel seems to have lasted into the early 1970s. However, the anti-Israel forces in the West, making use of the "palestinian people" notion, and working in Norway through socialist parties, have succeeded in making Israel a pariah in Norway. By the way, the anti-Israel stance of Norway's socialist parties does not seem to derive from a need for Arab oil. Norway has plenty of oil of its own. Pro-Arab, pro-PLO indoctrination has been carried out through the educational system and the media. Nevertheless, Israel does have some friends in Norway, particularly among the conservatives and some of the churches.

All in all, Norway has no right to mediate between Israel and the Arabs. We are still suffering the results of Norway's earlier mediation in bringing about the horrendous Oslo accords.
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Coming: More on Hebron, Jews in Jerusalem, peace follies, etc.

Time Magazine's Photo Distortions -- More on Propaganda & Psy War

Time Magazine is probably not as expert in psy war tricks as is the BBC [discussed in earlier posts], but Time's photo editors are no slouches in this trade. The 12-18-06 issue of Time was a year end photo special. It supposedly featured the best, most significant pix of the year. Only three photos in this issue dealt with Israel, all three concerned the summer's Israel-Hizbullah war. Two were of destruction in civilian areas of Lebanon and injury to civilians in the war. The third, the only one to show Israelis, was of the funeral of an Israeli soldier. What's the message? In Lebanon civilians suffered. In Israel soldiers were killed.

In this issue of Time [12-18-2006], "Best Photos of 2006" on the cover, we read on page 3,

"Time presents a selection of the most compelling images of 2006, from ruination in Beirut to rebirth in New Orleans; the ifs and buts of Germany's World Cup; stem cells up close; and above, the real O.C."

So Time makes it seem like "the ruination of Beirut" was the most significant event of the year. In fact, little damage was done in Beirut outside Hizbullah strongholds like the dahiyah of Haret Hreik, where Hizbullah had its headquarters in underground bunkers. Then, on page 15, Time lets us know how much the rag fundamentally hates Jews. We read under the heading "Rethinking History":

Holocaust skeptic and Iranian Prez Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has invited scholars from 30 nations to a conference this week in Teheran to debate issues like whether the Nazis used gas chambers.

Some might want to believe that Time was merely being tongue-in-cheek. But the Holocaust was an event that forbids tongue-in-cheek humor. Time is read worldwide, whereas millions of people in Iran and other Muslim countries --especially Arab lands-- not to mention some people in the West, already have a built-in prejudice against acknowledging the reality of the mass murder of six million Jews, and millions of other people. Nor would Time use an irreverent tongue-in-cheek approach to the Hague war crimes tribunal, for example [which is solemnly praised], nor would Time use that approach against a Communist-organized international gathering. When Castro held his propaganda congresses in Havana, did Time treat these events with anything less than open contempt? In the case of the Holocaust, however, Ahmadinejad is called merely a "skeptic." He is identified in a friendly way as "Prez." And those he invited are not fanatic haters of Jews. Rather they are described as "scholars" who are going to "debate issues."
When it comes to up to date Nazis, like the Hizbullah --and here there is a wealth of documentation of Nazi-like utterances by the Hizbullah press and leadership (seldom published in the USA), plus its subservient relationship to the Teheran Nazis-- Time tries to portray them in a soft, rosey light.

. . . Iran and Syria, longtime backers of Hizballah --part political party, part social welfare organization, part militia. [p 46]

This description does not mention Hizbuallah's Nazi-like ideology regarding Jews, nor that it is terrorist, nor even that it bombed to death about 250 American marines in Beirut in 1982 [when it was called "Party of God," the translation of its Arabic name].
On p 46, Time features a photo of what is captioned as: "An injured Lebanese boy seeks comfort from his mother. An Israeli rocket hit their van as they fled through the coastal city of Tyre in southern Lebanon." Then, in Israel, instead of scenes of destruction in civilian areas and of civilian deaths, we are shown a two-page spread [pp 50-51] of a soldier's funeral. "Here his family grieves during his funeral in Haifa." The message seems double. Israel is a destructive force causing suffering in Lebanon, while some Israeli soldiers died, not protecting their own country and Israel's civilian population, but harming Lebanon. Hence, Israelis should not serve in their army.
On the other hand, in order to defuse potential critics, Time publishes some text confirming Israel's positions:

It started as morning rocket fire from Lebanon into northern Israel, a distraction [p 46]

for kidnapping two Israeli soldiers. Time also describes in text the ruins in Haret Hreik [al-Dahiyah], as ". . . what remains of a neighborhood, a Hizballah stronghold" [pp 48-49]. The problem is that the picture conveys the main message to most people, not to the more sophisticated or better informed perhaps, but to most folks. The picture is clearly of a ruined civilian urban area. The word "stronghold" has too many meanings to fully convey the reality. "Stronghold" could refer to an area where a certain political party has overwhelming strength among voters in elections. "Stronghold" does not convey that the underground command bunkers of a terrorist army were located beneath the streets and buildings.
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Good News on the Archeological Front בשורות טובות

Biblical minimalists ought to be troubled by recent discoveries in the City of David area of Jerusalem near the Shiloah Pool. The discoveries do not directly concern what Jews consider the Biblical period, rather they are from the Second Temple period. Tunnels have been discovered near the Shiloah Pool that apparently served as hiding places for Jewish warriors and civilians as the Romans were conquering Jerusalem and destroying the Temple. The findings confirm Josephus Flavius' account of Jews hiding in tunnels as the Roman legions and their allies [including Arabs] conquered Jerusalem in the year 70 CE. The findings include intact objects/artifacts, as well as the virtually intact tunnels. Films of the tunnels and some artifacts were shown on Israel TV [Channel One] on 1-24-2007. The findings do not confirm our Hebrew Scriptures but rather Josephus' account of the Jewish War. However, the minimalists ought to ask themselves how this elaborate, well-developed culture in Judea [IVDAEA] came to be without earlier centuries of Israelite/Jewish civilization leading up to it. Here is a quote from Tacitus' account of how Arab auxiliary troops helped the Roman conquerors.
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Coming: more on peace follies, Jews in Jerusalem, archeological discoveries, propaganda techniques, etc.

Carter's Big Lie Campaign in High Gear

Carter's tongue has been unleashed by the powers that be in the US electronic media. He is being invited onto talk shows in order to give him the opportunity to smear Israel as "racist" and as an "apartheid" state. Carter --as an anti-Jewish racist-- denies the right of Jews to live in parts of the ancient Jewish homeland, which were recognized in international law as belonging to the Jewish National Home. So the racist Carter is calling Israel "racist." Somehow he is not bothered by the Nazi-like anti-Jewish agitprop coming out of the Arab mass communications media, such as "Jews are the sons of apes and pigs." His recent "book" has been widely criticized for gross errors of fact. But that does not deter him nor does it deter the media from giving him a platform. It is no longer only the "leftist" fringe groups that call Israel "racist." Establishment voices --like Carter-- and Establishment institutions are doing the same. It is interesting how the smear of "apartheid" began on the "Left" and then passed to Establishment tongues. Now, just as Carter's immense funding [donated to the Carter Center in Atlanta] by super-rich Arabs in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf ought to be researched and brought to public attention, the sources of funding for many of the "Leftist" groups and grouplets ought to be researched. The results might be interesting, even surprising in some cases.

The links below are from CAMERA and consist of
1-- a roundup of criticism of Carter and his book, including letters from former associates of Carter and his Center
2-- a summary of errors in his book
3-- Carter's mistaken interpretation of UN Security Council resolution 242
Here & Here & Here

4- 14 resignations from the Carter Center
5-- The original meaning and purpose of UN SC res 242:

Funding by the Saudi Bin Ladin Group and other Arab Sources for the Carter Center Published in the Carter Center's Annual Report for 2003-2004 [this is a pdf file; see page 33]

Since the Arab-Muslim world has a history of oppressing and exploiting Jews in accord with Muslim law, in a manner similar to apartheid [based on religion and ethnic descent, rather than skin color], and since Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates continue to treat non-Muslims in an oppressive, discriminatory way [particularly the millions of foreign workers in those places], it is extremely hypocritical of Carter to accept funds from them in order to smear Israel.

Here is a previous post on this blog about Carter.

The Jewish National Home and the right of Jews to live throughout that area [called the Land of Israel in Jewish tradition; called Palestine in the West] were recognized by the San Remo decision and by the League of Nations endorsement of the Jewish National Home in 1922].
See these articles and links to documents and articles on the issue of the Land of Israel in international law.
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Coming: More peace follies, more on Hebron, on Jews in 19th century Jerusalem, etc.

Big, New Lies that the West Supported Israel & Zionism All Along & the USSR Was Opposed to Them

One of the major big lies about Israel today is that Western, imperialist powers like the United States and Britain always supported Israel and Zionism, whereas the Soviet Union was opposed to them. Indeed, the new USSR declared in late 1917, not long after the Bolshevik takeover in Russia, that it supported nationalist movements among Muslims against non-Muslim peoples in the Middle East and Asia. On the other hand, Britain's support for the Jewish National Home project mandated by the San Remo Conference and endorsed by the League of Nations, withered away as the British too, like the Soviets and Communists, came to support the Arabs, more surreptitiously perhaps than the USSR. However, in the 1946-1949 period, the Communists supported Israel as Jews fought the British, whereas the British fairly openly supported the Arabs. Here are quotes from an American Communist book at the time:

Israel, like the United States, was born in blood. . . [it] routed enemies vastly superior in numbers and arms. Again, as in our Revolution, aid from abroad, this time from the countries of socialism and transition to socialism [in eastern Europe], played a major role in bringing victory and freedom. [p 18]

The historic speech of the Soviet representative, Andrei Gromyko, before the United Nations General Assembly on May 14, 1947, ignited the imagination and the hope of mankind. He alone among the spokesmen of the great powers recalled the sufferings the Jewish people had undergone at the hands of the fascist hangmen. . . [p 25]

The UN proposed, but Anglo-American imperialism attempted to dispose after its own fashion despite the fact that the United States had participated in this solemn international decision. While Britain cynically set about to obstruct partition, create chaos, and incite bloody Arab assaults on the Jews, the American government's more oblique sabotage grew bolder. . . [A B Magil, Israel in Crisis (New York: International Publishers, 1950), p26]

This will not convince today's "Leftist" anti-Zionists, who are ordinarily immovable fanatics. However, the historical facts should be known. The anti-Jewish USSR decided to support a Jewish state for whatever reasons.
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Coming: more on Soviet support for Israel, Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, peace follies, etc.

The Prince of Wales Visits Hebron, 1862

In the aftermath of the Crimean War [1854] in which Britain and France had defended the Ottoman Empire against the Russian Empire, the British and French felt that the Ottoman state owed them favors. They wanted favors particularly in Jerusalem, perhaps because the ostensible reasons for the war had focussed on the Church of the Holy Sepulcher here. France received as a favor the ruins of St Anne's Church dating from the Crusades. This church is located inside the Lions' Gate on a street continuing into or becoming what Christians began to believe in the Crusader period was Jesus' Via Dolorosa. The St Anne's site also happens to sit on top of the remains of the Jewish Beyt Hisda [Bethesda] Pool dating from Second Temple Times. Bathing in the pool was believed to have healing powers and that's probably why the United States armed forces named a hospital outside Washington, DC, Bethesda.

Of course, the French received other favors as well, as did the British. The Prince of Wales, the British crown prince, was allowed to visit the Tomb of the Patriarchs [Cave of Machpelah] in Hebron in 1862. Later on, other titled dignitaries were allowed to visit, although the Tomb was ordinarily banned to non-Muslims. The Mamluk sultan Baybars had established the ban on non-Muslims going into the Tomb circa 1263. Obviously, it had long been a favorite place of Jewish pilgrimage but Christians too visited the Tomb before Baybars' decree.

The entrance [to the Cave of Machpelah] is by a staircase, to which access is forbidden to Christians [and to Jews too of course], though we succeeded in running up and peeping in at dawn, without being detected. But this is a rash and rather dangerous experiment. It is only within the last few years that two or three royal and princely parties have been permitted to enter [Charles Wilson, ed., Picturesque Palestine, Sinai, and Egypt (London, 1882) vol 3, p 186; Also quoted in Bat Ye'or, The Dhimmi (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press 1985) pp 227-228]

The entrance to the mosque is most jealously forbidden by the Muhammedans to any but their fellow-worshippers; by special firman [decree] of the Sultan, an exception was made in favor of the Prince of Wales in 1862, the Marquis of Bute in 1866, the Crown Prince of Prussia in 1869, and the sons of the Prince of Wales in the present year, 1882.
Of these occasions the most noteworthy was the visit of the Prince of Wales, His Royal Highness was accompanied by the late Dean [of Westminster Cathedral, Arthur Penrhyn] Stanley, who thus describes the event: -- Before our arrival at Hebron, the Governor of Jerusalem, Suraya Pasha, had made every preparation to ensure the safety of the experiment. Accordingly, as the protracted file wound through the narrow valley by which the town of Hebron is approached, the whole road on either side, for more than a mile, was lined with soldiers. The native population, which usually on the Prince's approach to a town streamed out to meet him, was invisible, it may be from compulsion, it may be from silent indignation. . . We started on foot, two and two, between two files of soldiers, by the ancient pool of Hebron, up the narrow streets of the modern town, still lined with soldiers. Hardly a face was visible as we passed through: only here and there a solitary guard, stationed at a vacant window, or on the flat roof of a projecting house, evidently to guarantee the safety of the party from any chance missile. It was, in fact, a complete military occupation of the town. At length, we reached the south-eastern corner of the massive wall of enclosure, the point at which enquiring travellers, from generation to generation, have been checked in their approach to this, the most ancient and the most authentic of all the Holy Places in the Holy Land [vol 3, pp197-198]

This passage shows that the Ottoman authorities wanted to take no chances with the tolerance of their fanatical subjects for an important foreign dignitary, a non-Muslim most significantly. An earlier attempt to allow an important foreigner, another non-Muslim, less important than the Prince of Wales, had ended disastrously, as we relate below. Now, we continue with the British royal visit.

The shrine of Abraham, after a momentary hesitation was thrown open. The guardians groaned aloud. But their chief turned to us with the remark, "The Prince of any other nation should have passed over my dead body sooner than enter. But to the eldest son of the Queen of England we are willing to accord even this privilege." He stepped in before us, and offered an ejaculatory prayer to the dead patriarch: "O Friend of God [= Abraham], forgive this intrusion," We then entered. . . It was impossible not to feel a thrill of unusual emotion at standing on such a spot -- an emotion enhanced by the rare occasion which had opened the gates of that consecrated place, as the guardian of the mosque kept repeating to us as we stood around the tomb, "to no one less than the representative of England." [vol 3, p 199].

To be sure, the British Jewish philanthropist and proto-Zionist, Sir Moses Montefiore, had visited the Land of Israel in 1839 and had received permission from Muhammad Ali of Egypt, ruling Israel at the time, to go into the Tomb of the Patriarchs. This pasha, known to be more tolerant of dhimmis, including Jews, than previous rulers on the ground in Israel, had indeed given permission. However,

the Moslem authorities wished to let Sir Moses in, but they were prevented by the mob from carrying out their amiable intentions. [Israel Abrahams, The Book of Delight and Other Papers]

This attitude of the Muslim mob relates to the notorious intolerance of Hebron Arabs as discussed in previous posts on Hebron. The British crown prince, on the other hand, enjoyed the tremendous prestige of the British empire in the second half of the 19th century. Ironically, it was an arm of British power, the mandatory government in the Land of Israel, that encouraged --indeed incited [through the British-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, Husseini]-- and collaborated with local Arabs to massacre the Jews living in Hebron and remove the survivors from the city.
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Coming: More poems of Zion, Jews in Jerusalem, Hebron, peace follies, etc.

Hebron in the 19th Century -- Part IV

In 19th Century Hebron, the Jews were "a persecuted minority," according to John Kelman, who assisted George Adam Smith's geographic survey endeavor in the Land of Israel and Syria. Kelman went on to generalize beyond Hebron:

"In Syria today the lowest and most insulting term of abuse among the fellahin [Arab peasants] is to call each other Jews."[Kelman, pp 97-98; Friedman, p 136]

At that time, it was common to consider the Land of Israel part of Syria [Bilad ash-Sham in Arabic; including the Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria of today].

Getting back to our focus on Hebron, Saul Friedman points out that Arab Muslims there had persecuted the Jews there. Indeed, the Muslim authorities exploited/oppressed the Hebron Jews with the regular taxes imposed on dhimmis [jizya, kharaj], as well as huge debts to the authorities on the account of various exceptional decrees [see Encyc. Judaica "Hebron" & Sefer Hebron]. There were also persecutions in the form of expulsions and acts of anti-Jewish violence based on the blood libel [EJ]. Marian Harland wrote about Hebron:

'Father Abraham' occupies an exalted place among saints revered by the Moslems, and the jealous hatred of the Jews, never absent from the creed and feelings of the worshipper of Mohammed, is at fever-heat in Hebron. Nowhere else in the Holy Land, or out of it, are they regarded with such intolerant suspicion as in the ancient city in which David reigned over Judah seven years and six months [Hebron was David's first capital: II Samuel 5:5]. Hence, the approach of the Israelite to the tomb of the patriarchs is even more abhorrent to 'believers' than that of the 'Christian dog.' [Harland, pp 328-329; Friedman, p 136]

We learn on the grounds of the above accounts that the massacre of the Jews of Hebron in 1929 was not especially due to establishment of the Jewish National Home, the task mandated to Britain by the San Remo Conference in 1920 and the League of Nations in 1922. Many anti-Zionists, both "left" and "right," have made that claim over the years. However, we see that profound hatred and contempt for Jews were prevalent in Hebron long before August 1929. Indeed, Judeophobia goes back to the early days of Islam, according to Arab-Muslim records, the Qur'an, Hadith, etc.

If the European Union, the US State Department, the Ford Foundation, the fake peace group "Peace Now," and Russia get their way, and an Arab state called "palestine" is founded which will rule over Hebron, it is likely that, in the best case, Jews will again be excluded from entering the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. As Saul Friedman put it:

Creation of an independent Palestinian state doubtless would see a reversion to the status quo before the Six Day War --no entry to the Cave of Machpelah and probably no Jewish settlements in the area. [Friedman, p 137]

Creating a Judenrein zone within the Land of Israel [including Hebron] or creating a Judenrein zone throughout all of the Land of Israel seems to be an international desideratum for which an Arab state called "palestine" would be the instrument.

References:
Saul Friedman, Land of Dust (Washington, DC: University Press of America 1982).
Marian Harland, Home of the Bible, A Woman's Vision of the Master's Land (Philadelphia & Chicago: Monarch Book Co., 1895).
John Kelman, The Holy Land (London: Adam & Charles Black 1902).
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Coming: More on Hebron, more peace follies, Carter and his hangers on, Jews in Jerusalem, etc.

Poems of Zion by Heine & Antonio Enríquez Gómez

Poems of Zion were a popular genre among Jewish poets through the ages. Here are two poems of Zion from poets who had to live part of their lives falsely as Christians, given the pressures and oppressions of their times.

Heinrich Heine is often considered the greatest lyric poet of the German language. His native tongue was not exactly German, it was the western dialect of Yiddish spoken by Jews in Germany. Heine always considered himself a Jew and wrote a beautiful description of a Sabbath eve in the home of a poor Jew.
Here Heine starts out by contrasting Zion with Laura, a lady whom the Italian poet Petrarch [Petrarca] loved from afar.

She was not a Laura whose
Eyes, fading stars
Lit an ardent flame,
In church on Holy Friday.

Nor a noble lady
Who in the splendor of youth
Presides over a joust and awards
A laurel wreath to the lucky winner.

The woman the rabbi loves
Has a sign of mourning on her face
And despair in her heart
She is called Jerusalem.
[Heine, Hebrew Melodies, in Charles Lehrmann, Jewish Influences on European Thought (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson U Press 1976; trans. George Klin or Victor Carpenter), p 87]

May my right hand wither
If I ever forget thee, O Jerusalem!
[Heine, Hebrew Melodies, translation slightly modified by Eliyahu; in Lehrmann, p 162]

Antonio Enríquez Gómez [1660-1663] lived an adventurous life. He was born in Segovia, Spain, to a father whose family were converted Jews from Portugal. His real name was Enrique Enríquez de Paz. His rose to the rank of captain in the Spanish army and then left Spain, escaping from the Inquisition, settling in France where he became a secretary to King Louis XIII. Curiously, it was in France that most of his works were published. His plays were admired by the famous playwright Lope de Vega. Gómez later moved on to Amsterdam where he openly reverted to Judaism. Strangely enough, he returned to Spain incognito, living and writing under the name Fernando de Zarate. He was in Spain in 1660 when the Inquisition burned an effigy of him as a Judaizer. The Inquisition found him eventually and put him to death in 1663. [On his career, see Lehrmann, the Encyclopedia Judaica, Israel S Revah's writings on him, and the Wikipedia article linked to above]

I am dying for the law You wrote,
For the holy precepts that you ordained,
For the holy people that You chose,
For the commandments that you prescribed.

I die for the country that You gave me,
And the glory with which You honored Your people,
I die for Israel, but primarily
For Your true, ineffable name.

In Spanish:
Yo muero por la ley que Tú escribiste,
Por los preceptos santos que mandaste,
Por el pueblo sagrado que escogiste,
Y por los mandamientos que ordenaste,
Yo muero por la patria que me diste,
Y por la gloria con que el pueblo honraste;
Muero por Israel, y lo primero
Por tu inefable nombre verdadero.
[Antonio Enríquez Gómez, El Sansón Nazareno (a play), in Lehrmann, p 99]
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Coming: More on Hebron, more on Jews in Jerusalem, more on peace follies, etc.