Biden Administration Follows Communazi Example, Falsifies History

 The Biden Administration is bringing the USA in line with the Nazi and Communist regimes. It is falsifying history, specifically the history of the ancient Land of Israel, the land that Greeks and Romans called Judea. It is now viewing parts [or all?] of the ancient Land of Israel, Judea, as "palestine." It did so in a series of statements linked to the delivery to the "palestinian authority" of an ancient archeological finding. 

American and Palestinian officials gathered on Thursday at the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Bethlehem for what was described as “the historic repatriation of a rare Palestinian cultural object.”

During the ceremony, the Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm (Homeland Security Investigations) delivered a 2,700-year-old cosmetic spoon to the Palestinian Authority. [World Israel News, 1-7-2023 ]

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There is no indication as to what makes this object culturally Palestinian. Yet the head of the U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs, George Noll, stated that his office “is proud to facilitate the return of this rare antiquity, an example of Palestinian cultural patrimony.” [ibid.]

Now when they use the words "repatriation" and "return", they are saying that somehow the so-called Palestinian Authority," a body set up under the Oslo Accords, is the legitimate owner of this ancient artifact. Now, according to the PA's minister of tourism, Rula Maayah, 

 “The artifact that is being delivered today is a cosmetic tool that was used to pour incense and it dates to the Assyrian civilization 700-800 BC.” [ibid.]

Hence, according  to the PA's own expert, the artifact is Assyrian, not specifically "palestinian." Yet the US Govt is handing over the object to the PA, claiming that it is somehow "palestinian." 

 So the US Govt is not only recognizing a "palestinian people" that emerged after the rise of the State of Israel, it is going along with this corrupt political entity in the latter's claim to represent a "palestinian people" that existed in ancient times. To be sure, not even the Quran and traditional Arab historians make that claim. The Quran recognizes Jewish ownership --as assigned by Allah-- in several Quranic verses. The respected Arab historian Ibn Khaldun also recognizes the Jewish population of and sovereignty over the land, as well as "Syria."

By recognizing the "palestinian people", itself a notion invented in the mid-20th century by British psychological warfare experts, the US Govt is canceling the ancient Israelite/Jewish people, which is however well-documented in ancient Greek & Latin writings as well as in Assyrian and other ancient texts. 

The US Govt is now collaborating with the "palestinian authority" in  doing what the Israeli scholar, David Bukay, described as 

"Rewriting the history of the Land of Israel by erasing Jewish history and replacing it with a fabricated Palestinian history [here] & [here ]

 This is shameful of course. But it is also highly dangerous, worthy of Communists and Nazis as I indicate above. It is genocidal towards Jews. After all, if Jews are erased from their own ancient history, then what right do they have to make any territorial claims in modern times? The so-called "indigenous" people of "palestine" have the right to take back their ancient land. 
The genocidal implications for Jews are obvious. Yet the Jewish leadership --both genuine and self-styled-- has not apparently realized the harm done to Jews by the fabrication of ancient history. It needs to be acknowledged that the Democratic administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a silent partner of hitler in the Shoah. Roosevelt himself hated two peoples, Jews and Japanese. Japanese Americans were put into what were in fact concentration camps though not comparable in their functioning to the Nazi German camps. Yet there is great reason to doubt any decent motive in the action of the Biden administration  by handing ancient artifacts over to the PA.

Why Do the Arabs Oppose Recognizing a Jewish State?

Prime Minister Netanyahu suggested to US  secretary of state John Kerry that the framework he was drawing up for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority include Palestinian Arab recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Kerry did intend to include this Israeli proposal but since has backed away from it in view of Arab opposition, first of all from Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah and Palestinian Authority. Just today, the Arab League voted its support for Abbas' position.

One of the justifications for this opposition that apologists for the PA/PLO present is that by Israel being a Jewish state, the civil rights of Arab citizens of Israel would be adversely affected. However, all states belonging to the Arab League define themselves as Arab states. All Arab League member states but Lebanon define themselves constitutionally as Islamic states in one way or another. This does not stop them from opposing Israel being defined as a Jewish national state. The arguments against Israel as a Jewish state could logically be applied to Arab and Islamic states, and with more justification, since we have the benefit of hindsight to know just how non-Arabs and non-Muslims have been treated in Arab states.

The explanation for the Arab position lies, I believe, in the traditional Arab-Muslim view of Jews as an inferior dhimmi people, a millet [see below] devoid of national rights, and only entitled to live if they pay a yearly head tax on dhimmis called the jizya. The dhimma system applied to all non-Muslims who were subjects of the Islamic state, with individual exceptions. Within this system, the Jews were at the bottom of the barrel, at least in the Fertile Crescent  countries, including the Levant, where the Jews' status was inferior to that of their fellow dhimmis, the Christians.

Whereas the Quran and medieval Arab historiography, such as the writings of Ibn Khaldun, recognize the Jews as a nation or people, the entrenched Islamic view of Jews as an evil, inferior contemptible millet is now dominant. Moreover, in fact, in practice, that was the actual status of Jews in the Arab-Muslim countries for centuries. Even today in the 21st century Muslims believe that Jews do not deserve the dignity of having a national state of their own, the Quran and the old Arab historians notwithstanding.

This contemptuous view of Jews is clearly stated by the PLO in its charter. Article 20, already denies that the Jews are a people, claiming that they are merely a "religious" group. Jewish tradition holds that the Jews are both a people and a  religious group. Here is the relevant text of Art. 20:

"The claim of historical or religious ties between Jews and Palestine does not tally with historical realities nor with the constituents of statehood in their true sense. Judaism in its character as a religion is not a nationality with an independent existence. Likewise the Jews are not one people with an independent identity. They are rather citizens of the states to which they belong."

Note the contempt for Jews which oozes from this text. The history of Israelite/Jewish kingdoms in the country, as well as of the Roman province of Judea, is denied. The setting of much of the Hebrew Bible lies in the Land Of Israel which the PLO denies in a way reminiscent of Holocaust denial. Further, Jews do not have "the constituents of statehood in their true sense." Just by the way, the Nazis and other German Judeophobes claimed that the Jews were not capable of being a "state-forming nation." [see Francis R  Nicosia, The Third Reich and the Palestine Question (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press 1985)].

For texts of the PLO charter and the  Hamas charter, see here.
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Addition: in ancient Greek Jews were sometimes referred to as Ethnous Ioudaion, Jewish nation.
millet -- Turkish word referring to a recognized, organized religio-ethnic community within the Ottoman Empire [from the Arabic word milla or millatun, meaning originally people or nation but in Turkish usage referring specifically to the legally inferior communities of dhimmis (zimmis in Turkish), who were in turn the non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic states]. The millet was charged with keeping order among its members and often charged with collecting the jizya tax from them, and the millet enjoyed a certain religious autonomy and authority over its members, provided that Islamic restrictions on dhimmis were not violated. The traditional millets were the Armenians, Ermeni millet, like the Jews a religio-ethnic community, the Jews, a millet within the Ottoman Empire and also including Samaritans defined as Jews in Muslim tradition; as well as Greek Orthodox Christians, who were called I believe Rumi millet. The Greek Orthodox millet included Arabic-speaking Christians as well as other Eastern Orthodox Christians, such as Vlakhs [the old name for Rumanians], Bulgars, Serbs, etc. In the 19th century up to 1914, eleven millets were added to the original three, with the new millets representing ethnic subdivisions of the Greek Orthodox.There were no doubt nuances of the law in effect in different places.

Inventing a History for a "palestinian people" that never existed in history

David Bukay describes and explains the PLO/PA strategy of erasing the Jews, erasing Israel, from the history of the Land of Israel and replacing them with a concocted "palestinian history."

Bukay writes:
"Rewriting the history of the Land of Israel by erasing Jewish history and replacing it with a fabricated Palestinian history is a central goal of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and something that the early generations of Palestinian leaders, including the notorious Hajj Amin Husseini, who led the Palestinian Arabs to their 1948 defeat, dared not do. This fictitious history, which ignores all historical documentation and established historical methods, is based on systematic distortions of both ancient and modern history with the aim of denying Israel's right to exist. . . ."

Click on link for rest of article:
Founding National Myths

I comment on some of the points that Bukay makes:

1-- The PLO/PA claims that the Canaanites were Arabs. This lie is also found in certain anti-Zionist British writers active years before the rise of the State of Israel in 1948. In fact, far from speaking Arabic, the Canaanites spoke a language extremely close to Hebrew. Indeed, linguists sometimes consider Hebrew as a Canaanite dialect. Otherwise, linguists say that Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite family of languages. The Prophet Isaiah calls the language spoken by the Jews to be Canaanite [Isa. 19:18]. Josephus Flavius says that the Jews speak a Phoenician tongue [Against Apion]. But the Phoenicians were of course Canaanites too, not Arabs. Besides Hebrew and Phoenician, the Canaanite family of languages encompassed Ammonite, Moabite, and Edomite. Our post here shows some of the linguistic similarities between Hebrew and Ammonite and Moabite.

2- Bukay refers to verses in the Quran that agree with Jewish/Israelite rightful ownership of the Land of Israel, called Holy Land and other names in the Quran. See here.

3- Jund Filastin which Bukay mentions was the name of a military district set up by the Arab conquerors in the seventh century. Its borders were about the same as those of Palaestina Prima, a Late Roman subdivision of the country which encompassed, roughly speaking, the south of the country, up to about the middle of Samaria and on the coast reaching up to near Haifa. Jund Filastin did not include the Galilee or the Golan Heights or northern Samaria which the Romans had, grosso modo, called Palaestina Secunda whereas the Arabs included those areas within Jund Urdunn, the Jordan military district.

4- On the Arab denial of Jewish history also see the manic efforts of Nadia Abu el-Haj here & here. When I visited the old Shim`on haTsadiq Quarter in Jerusalem, I ran into the leader of an Arab protest there, a Mr Hijazi, who likewise denied the Jewish history of that area of Jerusalem. The name Hijazi by the way refers to the Hijaz, the northwestern region of Arabia where Mecca and Medina are located. This indicates that Mr Hijazi's forefathers were migrants to the Land of Israel.

5- The ancient Jews did not call the Land of Israel "palestine," nor did the Romans call it that. The Romans called the whole country Judea [IVDAEA] until the Jewish defeat in the Bar Kokhba war in 135 CE, whereas the Jews called the country the Land of Israel. The Emperor Hadrian introduced "palestine" as the new name for the land of the defeated Jews. More exactly Hadrian called the land "Syria Palaestina" [= palestinian Syria; Palaestina is an adjective] as if it were to be considered from then on a mere section of Syria. Even after the Romans under Hadrian had officially changed the name of the country, the Jews continued to call it the Land of Israel.

6- The Arab historian and sociologist Ibn Khaldun confirms that the Land of Israel was Jewish and ruled by Jews. See here.

Jewish Leaders - Conferfence of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations-- Objects to Obama Anti-Israel Policy

EXPANDED 7-26-2009

In the Obamanoid Administration's frenetic drive to harm and humiliate Jews, they unwisely picked on a sore point for most Jews. They demanded that Israel's government prevent a Jew from building a small housing development [ca. 20 units] on a plot of land that he had legally bought in Jerusalem, a plot that had formerly belonged to the notorious Arab Nazi collaborator and Holocaust collaborator, Haj Amin el-Husseini, British-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem. The State Dept objected because the plot was under Jordanian control --in the Jordanian-occupied zone of Jerusalem-- between 1948 and 1967, what Arab propagandists and Western journalists and diplomats call "East Jerusalem" or "Arab East Jerusalem." In fact, before Israel's War of Independence was initiated by Arab forces at the end of November 1947, thousands of Jews lived in what later became "East Jerusalem." Indeed, Jews have been the majority in Jerusalem since at least 1853, according to the French diplomat and historian Cesar Famin and the British writer Bartlett.

The Jews living in what became "East Jerusalem" began to flee the attacks of Arab irregulars in December 1947. First, from the Shimon haTsadiq quarter, quite close ironically --about 100 meters-- to the plot in question where the State Dept --apparently Obama too-- does not want Jews to build homes or to live. Later Jews fled the nearby Nahalat Shimon and Siebenbergen Houses quarters. Finally, the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab-occupied "East Jerusalem" was completed in May 1948 when the Jews were driven out of the Jewish quarter of the Old City, many of the men being held prisoners by the Arab Legion of Transjordan [now Jordan] for months.

When Jews were the majority in the mid-19th century, this was a majority in the post-1948 "East Jerusalem". That was in the Old City. All of the city was the Old City at that time. The Old City became part of the latter day "East Jerusalem." The Old City was off bounds to Jews from 1948 to 1967. So in the mid-19th century, Jews were the majority in what was later to be called by Arab propagandists and their journalistic pimps: "traditionally Arab East Jerusalem."

The major leadership group of the organized American Jewish community, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations [which groups some 50 Jewish groups together] has properly issued a statement on the State Dept's insolent, racist anti-Jewish behavior. To be sure, they did not use the terms that I use, but their statement is a useful clarification of some of the issues involved. Here is the statement [through Newsmax]:

The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has long advocated and supported the unity of Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel. As such, we believe that legal construction by residents of the city should be allowed as long as it is in keeping with the standards and requirements of the municipality and the national government. We find disturbing the objections raised to the proposed construction of residential units on property that was legally purchased and approved by the appropriate authorities. The area in question houses major Israeli governmental agencies, including the national police headquarters. The United States has in the past and recently raised objections to the removal of illegal structures built by Arabs in eastern Jerusalem even though they were built in violation of zoning and other requirements often on usurped land. In addition to the Jewish housing, the project called for apartment units for Arabs as well.

It is particularly significant that the structure in question formerly was the house of the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini who spent the war years in Berlin as a close ally of Hitler, aiding and abetting the Nazi extermination of Jews. He was also linked to the 1929 massacre in Hebron and other acts of incitement that resulted in deaths and destruction in what was then Palestine. There has been an expressed desire by some Palestinians to preserve the building as a tribute to Husseini.

As a united city, Jerusalem’s Jewish and Arab residents should be permitted to reside wherever legal and security requirements allow. Hundreds of Arab families have moved into Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem and the same right should be accorded to Jewish residents in live where they choose in Jerusalem. To do otherwise would undermine and prejudge the status of the city.

No government of Israel has or can pursue a discriminatory policy that would prevent the legitimate presence of Jews in any area of its capital.

[in an article by Ronald Kessler, chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com]

Notes to the statement:
1) the plot of land is not only close to the national police headquarters and several government ministries but to the Hebrew University's sports complex, to the Hadassah Hospital, Mount Scopus branch, and to the Hyatt Hotel.
2) at least 68 Jews were massacred in Hebron in 1929, on account of mass murder incitement by agents of the mufti Husseini. Hebron is considered one of the four Jewish holy cities, along with Jerusalem, Safed, and Tiberias.
3) a massacre of Jews took place in Baghdad in the Spring of 1941, during the Shavu`ot holiday. Iraqi investigators later concluded that this massacre --called the Farhud-- had been instigated by the Judeophobic agitprop of Husseini and his associates over a period of about two years, while Husseini was living there from 1939 to 1941. It was at the time of the massacre that Husseini fled, first to Iran then to Turkey then to Italy where he met Mussolini, and finally to Berlin where he met Hitler. Husseini asked Hitler "to solve the problem of the Jews in the Arab countries as the problem was being solved in Germany." He was pleased when Hitler told him that this was his purpose too.
4) The plot in question, once owned by Haj Amin el-Husseini [Husayni], formerly called The Shepherd's Hotel, is about 75 meters south of a cluster of Israeli govt buildings, including ministries. It is about 100 meters east of the Shim`on haTsadiq Quarter, a residential quarter of poor Jews who were mostly driven out of their homes in late December 1947 [12-29-1947]. One family stayed on, fleeing only in the first ten days of January 1948. The Jews in this neighborhood were the first group in the country who were driven out of their homes and could not come back after the war, whereas Jews were driven out of south Tel Aviv in the same period but could return after the Arab attackers in neighboring Jaffa were defeated in about April-May 1948.

Many readers may be unaware of the historical facts cited by the Conference of Presidents and by me in my post. That is, they are victims of the everyday, very conventional falsification of history regarding the Jews, Israel, and the Arabs that has been going on for many years and has long infected the State Dept, whether as falsifiers or believers. The position of the State Dept, indeed of Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton, is a rejection of Jewish human and civil rights. It is unacceptable for a supposedly democratic government to take such positions.

By the way, I can attest, as a resident of Jerusalem, that my Arab fellow residents of the city delight in the several shopping centers in the city. If you visit Jerusalem, you can see Arabs riding buses with Jews, eating at Jewish restaurants in the shopping malls, shopping, trying on clothes, spending money [yes, they have money for all the poor mouthing done on their behalf by Arab propagandists, their pimp Western journalists, fake Western "human rights" and "humanitarian" NGOs (supposed "non-governmental organizations" that often, indeed usually, get funding from --- governments)], being treated in hospitals with the Jews, etc.

SOURCE ON HUSSEINI:
"German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini: Zionism and the Arab Cause" in Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, eds., The Israel-Arab Reader (Penguin Books 2008), pp 51-55.

MORE on Obama anti-Israel policy here.

Some Ideas for Bibi on What to Say about Peace to Obama & the World

Benyamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, should say a number of things to the world and Obama in his upcoming speech. He should take into consideration that some of Obama's lies and misrepresentations and distortions in the Cairo speech need to be countered.

1- He should stress the long Jewish/Israelite history in the Land of Israel going back more than 3,000 years. The kingdom of David was established around the year 1000 BCE. Jews have always lived in the Land despite massacres --mass slaughter-- by Roman and Byzantine armies, Arab invaders and occupiers [who defeated the Byzantines], and Crusaders. Jews in Exile have always tried to return to the Land when possible.

2-- It is true that Jews suffered persecution in many parts of the world, certainly in Christendom and Islam, although maybe not everywhere as Obama said in Cairo. It is also true that Jews suffered the Holocaust as a kind of culmination of centuries of Judeophobia. But Obama should not be allowed to exculpate the Arabs from guilt either for centuries of oppression/persecution/humiliation/economic exploitation of Jews or for collaboration in the Holocaust. Bibi might add that all non-Muslims under Islamic rule suffered oppression mandated by Islamic law.

3-- Arab collaboration with the Nazis and in the Holocaust was widespread among the Arab nationalists, but one man, Haj Amin el-Husseini, is emblematic of this collaboration. Husseini [Husayni] was the British-appointed mufti of Jerusalem and head of the British-created Supreme Muslim Council. The British tolerated his attacks on Jews --perpetrated by his followers-- in the 1920s and 1930s and even encouraged them. The British also enlarged the scope of Hitler's victims by preventing Jews from escaping from the Nazi-controlled domain in Europe. Hence, the British violated the international commitment they had made to the League of Nations to facilitate development of the Jewish National Home. Like Obama and his administration today, who rail against "Jewish settlements," the British forbid Jews to buy real estate in most of the Jewish National Home. The UK violated international law in harming Jews and their rights and violated their commitment to the Jewish people. How can Israel trust the UK or its cultural offshoot, the English-speaking USA? Neither power did anything major to save Jews during the Holocaust, whereas the British deliberately prevented escape.

4-- Hamas and Hizbullah, which the Obama administration wants to chat with, have clearly stated Nazi principles regarding the Jews. Hamas openly advocates genocide of Jews in its charter, Article 7. The German Nazis never openly advocated genocide of Jews. Hamas and Hizbullah must be taken at their world.

5-- It seems that the Obama administration is trying to disavow commitments made to Israel by previous administrations in return for Israeli concessions. Obama is trying to bury his forerunner Bush's understandings with Israel about the legitimacy of Jewish settlement in Judea-Samaria.

Obama Affirms Evil, Sinister Anti-Jewish Racism in Cairo Speech

More Links Added at bottom 6-5-2009 & 7-20-2009

Obama's Cairo speech reaffirmed the long-standing anti-Jewish racism of US State Department policy by opposing and denying the Jewish right to live in parts of the ancient Jewish homeland -Judea & Samaria- recognized by the international community in a series of legal acts and decisions as parts of the Jewish National Home.

The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

This is an evil, sinister position. It threatens the right of Jewish residence in all countries throughout the world. It ought to be condemned by decent people everywhere. Note that Obama used the word "legitimacy" rather than "legality." That is because the State Department is aware that the Jews have a legal right to live in those places, although these Judeophobic bigots don't want Jews in those places.

Again, bear in mind that Obama's position is not his own position particularly. John Foster Dulles back in the 1950s claimed that it was in the American interest to ally with the "staunchly anti-Communist" Arab/Muslim world [to use a term common at the time in media mouthpieces for the State Dept, such as Time and Life mags]. Dulles formed the Baghdad Pact for this purpose, an ostensibly anti-Soviet alliance that excluded Israel. The main stream media of the time praised Saudi Arabia as a "desert democracy" that was inimical to Communism.

What Obama is doing is promoting Dulles' old policy with a brown face, presumably making it less obviously Judeophobic, less imperialistic, more "leftist" and egalitarian, blah blah blah. In the 1950s, Dulles openly excluded Israel from his alliance with Arabs and Muslims, insinuating that Israel as a Jewish state was closer to Communists than the Arabs were.

Obama's speech acknowledges that

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust.

But he does not acknowledge specifically that Arabs and other Muslims persecuted Jews "for centuries" -actually since Muhammad's time, 1400 years ago-- as mandated by the tenets of their religion in the Quran, the Hadith, Muslim jurisprudence and legal writings, etc. On this point, Dulles was more honest than Obama, acknowledging in Congressional committee testimony that Arab hatred of Jews went back to Muhammad.

Nor does Obama acknowledge that Arabs collaborated in the Holocaust, attributing the Judeophobia ["anti-Semitism"] that led to the Holocaust solely to Europe, overlooking the palestinian Arab leader, Haj Amin el-Husseini [al-Husayni], British-appointed mufti of Jerusalem who collaborated in the Holocaust, urging Arabs over Radio Berlin to "Kill Jews wherever you find them." Husseini was only one of the Arab and other Muslim Holocaust collaborators. Husseini lived in Berlin for most of WW2, surrounded by an entourage of members of the leading Palestinian Arab families, including Khalidis, relatives of Obama's friend Rashid Khalidi and Arab propagandist, Walid Khalidi, who is comfortably ensconced at Harvard.

What Obama is doing is giving an old policy a new face. After all, he claims to be a "liberal," whatever that means today. He is a Democrat, claiming sympathy for the poor and the working class, whereas Dulles was a Republican, frankly avowing his sympathy for Big Business. Obama is brown-skinned, Dulles was white-skinned. Yet, the policy toward Israel and the Arabs is the same, albeit Dulles was more honest about it.

There is a lot more to say about his praise of Islam, overlooking the big blemishes like the oppression of dhimmis, like slavery, like the belief in perpetual jihad war until the whole world is brought under Islamic law. His ascription of the Renaissance and Enlightenment to Islamic civilization is ridiculously and grossly exaggerated while the destruction of older civilizations by Islamic jihad wars goes unmentioned by him. No doubt Obama's speech will get much more analysis and others will likely take up the many facets of it that need analysis and criticism. [here is one analysis-critique & Daniel Pipes' view & Hugh Fitzgerald's take & Egyptian Sandmonkey's too & Michael Rubin's & Martin Peretz' & Raymond Ibrahim's & Melanie Philips' & Barry Rubin's & Caroline Glick's & Gerald Steinberg's & Efraim Zuroff's & Giorgio Israel (in Il Foglio in Italian) & Michael Young of Beirut] & Elizabeth Berney.
& Morton Klein's take added 7-23-2009 [Klein is president of the Zionist Organization of America].

But the anti-Jewish Racism of Obama's hostility to Jews exercising their human and national rights by living in Judea-Samaria is what ought to be borne in mind at this time.
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Just as a post-script, Obama is supposed to meet in Egypt with leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood who hold frankly Judeophobic views, and indeed are hostile to all non-Muslims. This is a sinister event that may mean some very horrid outcomes in the future.

Ignoramus Western Journalists and Commentators View Hizbullah Romantically as the "Real" Lebanon

Western observers both living inside and outside of Lebanon often delight in seeing Hizbullah as the real, the authentic, the truly Third Worldish Lebanon, a land of austerity, hatred of the West, incorruptible hatred of Israel and Jews, swift and sure punishment of religious backsliders, enemies of bourgeois Western civilization, etc. This Authentic Lebanon is contrasted with the Lebanon of bourgeois prosperity & luxury, adoption of features of Western culture, insufficient hatred of Israel, free market economy, and the like. Michael Young perceptively complains about the wilful blindness about Lebanon so often compulsively demonstrated and deployed by Western observers, journalists, commentators, diplomats, policy analysts, politicians, etc.

Hizbullah also benefits from the underlying contempt among many Westerners for the baroque Lebanese system itself, all nods and winks and clandestine compromises. Here is a party that can build institutions, that means what it says and says what it means, and that in many respects defines itself against the duplicity of the traditional politicians. More interestingly, it speaks for a once marginalized community, so that it presents several ingredients to spur Western sympathy and appreciation: a social cause, methodicalness in the pursuit of its objectives, an institutional structure transcending the narrow retail politics of most Lebanese leaders, rhetorical precision, and purported honesty.

And then there is authenticity. Hizbullah is widely seen as representing a truer Lebanon than the Lebanon of confused identities lying outside the party's realm. Remember how the media in 2005 translated the emancipation movement against Syria. For three weeks after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the story was that of a liberal Lebanon revolting against an illiberal Syria and its Lebanese peons, a rare occasion during the post-Civil War period when that narrative dominated. However, its fragility was highlighted on March 8, when Hizbullah organized its mass demonstration at Riad al-Solh square. Suddenly, interpretations shifted. The "real Lebanon" had spoken, observers said, and it had spoken with verve, so that the anti-Syrian demonstrators of the weeks before, with their Occidental pretensions and designer clothes, were now dismissed as creations of the Western media. Then March 14 came, confusing the observers further and resurrecting the liberal plot line, if not for very long.

The irony is that the very attributes that make many Westerners so belittle the
Lebanese political and social order in Hizbullah's favor are actually present in Hizbullah in more concentrated ways. The Lebanese system is archaic, undemocratic and sectarian? Well then what do you call a Shiite Leninist organization, led by a leader who will probably remain in office for life, that calls itself the Party of God? And what reaction do one's Western liberal instincts provoke when that centralized religious party glorifies violent self-sacrifice and makes permanent armed struggle a centerpiece of its ideological mindset, mainly on behalf of an autocratic clerical regime in Iran, its Lebanese authenticity notwithstanding? As for corruption, those who see Hizbullah as spotless should learn a trifle more about the party's illicit networks, or those of individuals close to the party. In that regard, we can say that Hizbullah is as Lebanese as anyone else.
[Beirut Daily Star, 4-16 -2009].

Of course, the notion of Hizbullah as being opposed to Western policy is false and always has been. The Hizb was set up by the Khomeini regime in Iran which was helped to take power precisely by the US Carter Administration of cursed memory זכרונו לקללה . It must be said that "leftist" politicians in the West are usually the readiest to praise and sympathize with the Hizb. But essentially, "leftists" like Massimo d'Alema do not necessarily oppose the mainstream policy of the UK, US, & EU regarding Lebanon --or that regarding Iran for that matter [on d'Alema (former Communist foreign minister of Italy under Prodi), vedere qui & qui] .

Consider that if reports on Lebanon are falsified, whether out of prejudice which cannot or does not want to understand or perceive the reality of the country, or out of conscious lying in order to suit a newspaper's or magazine's or TV network's or government's political prejudices, then reports about Israel can be falsified for the same reasons. And even more so --a fortiori-- on account of traditional Western Judeophobia.

Just by the way, all this loving misunderstanding of Hizbullah is adding up to Western recognition of the Hizb's rightful rule over Lebanon. Who would have thought?

Lebanon: The West is ready to deal and negotiate with Hizbullah, in case it wins the parliamentary elections in June, according to the Hizbullah number 2, Shaykh Na`im Kassem. Hassan Nasrallah's right hand man stated that "the Western countries are falling all over each other to talk to us and will do it more so in the future." He insisted that his party did not fear being boycotted by the international community as was the case with Hamas in 2006.[GuysenNews 4-16-2009]

Liban : l'Occident est prêt à traiter avec le Hezbollah, en cas de victoire aux législatives de juin, selon son n°2, le cheikh Naïm Kassem. Le bras droit de Hassan Nasrallah a déclaré que ''les pays occidentaux se bousculent pour nous parler et le feront davantage à l'avenir''. Il a insisté sur le fait que son parti ne craignait pas d'être
boycotté par la communauté internationale comme ce fut le cas avec le Hamas en 2006. [GuysenNews 4-16-2009]

Now isn't this just heartwarming news? The Western powers are going to be oh so liberal, kind, democratic, generous and peace-loving as to work with the Hizbullah IslamoNazis!! It seems that they have come a long way since their 1938 negotiations with Hitler that brought about World War 2 only because Hitler had misunderstood his peace accord with that nice Mr Chamberlain!!

The Fashion Trend Is & Was to Cover Up Islamic Judeophobia

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools.

The Petro-Diplomatic Complex has long promoted a benign, innocuous vision of the Arabs in history, of Islam in history, and of Arab-Islamic treatment of Jewish subjects in the Muslim state. This falsification of history goes back as far as Muhammad's persecution and massacre of Jews in Medina and Khaybar at the very origins of Islam. I have shown in an earlier post that Prof William R Polk, a capable scholar when he wants to be, made such falsifications back in the 1950s. An embellished or edulcorated view of Arab Islam and its treatment of Jews in particular is found in many books, such as Friends in Palestine by Christina Jones [1944], an account of Quaker [Society of Friends] mssions in Israel. The case of Polk is significant because he wore another, much more influential hat in his career. Besides university teaching, he became a member of the State Dept Policy Planning Committee in charge of the Middle East. Jones' book is significant because it influenced the very politically influential Quaker religious community, many of whom have held high posts in the US foreign policy Establishment [State Dept, CIA, etc], and often serving in the Middle East. The undeservedly famous Arnold Toynbee of the Royal Institute for International Affairs [an imperialist, dare we say?] and Carl Brockelmann, the German historian of Islam, have both been guilty of whitewashing Islam and Arab history.

In his recent compilation of scholarly studies and Muslim sources on Muslim Judeophobia, Andrew Bostom has rightly complained of how the whole historical picture of Muslim & Arab/Muslim oppression of Jews has been distorted in recent journalism and supposed historical works. Shmuel Trigano points to this specific problem in his review of Bostom's very important book. Trigano points to the problem not only in the United States or in the UK, which I believe sets the pattern for the USA in this field, but in France and even Israel where the so-called "leftist" academics become enraged over efforts to write truthful history. Trigano, by the way, comes from a family that left Algeria, a country where Jews had been very much oppressed throughout history, as Jews were throughout the Arab-Muslim lands since the Arab-Muslim Conquests of the seventh century.

Trigano writes of Bostom's book [I am not happy with the translation and may modify some parts]:

I have deliberately employed the notion of “historical-philosophy” to characterize this editorial act. In effect, a strange (and understandable) phenomenon, both ideological and scientific has been produced in the domain of the history of Antisemitism in the lands of Islam: this history is quite simply eluded or ignored in the name of what an Israeli historian of Sephardic Judaism once defined to me as a “consensus among the community of historians:” the thesis of “Judeo-Arabic symbiosis.”

Rare have been the historians who have ventured down this road that would have merited them (still today) the disapproval of their colleagues. Thus some great Orientalists have resolutely neglected or minimized, if not erased, this history, and have been followed by their disciples, creating a veritable false historical truth, attested to by academia, to the point that any contestation of this dominant story finds itself censured or stigmatized, taxed with being “unscientific”. Here I mention only the Israeli and American historians interested in Jewish history, but there are also straightforward Orientalists.

The ideological motivations of both are varied. Critiques of colonialism pretend that the colonized were innocent of any fault over an eternity – but that is not the only reason. The contempt of the history and memory of the Sephardic world has played its part, in a game of seesaw between Christian antisemitism and the Holocaust, stigmatizing one in order to exalt the other, by a pre-set contrast. Some of those involved were not blameless, in this constant seesaw between Zionism and colonial guilt. Thus the “neo-Sephardic” extreme Left in Israel has invented a marvelous Arab past in order to better strike out at Zionism.

This book precisely by its massive length and accumulation of documents and theses – a veritable encyclopedia – permits attributing “ideological motivations” to this historiographic current, which are even inscribed in academic forums. The thesis of Judeo-Arabic or Judeo-Islamic symbiosis simply does not resist this avalanche of proofs that contradict it. Here we have massive historical evidence that has rediscovered its contemporary character with the unfurling antisemitic wave that has been shaking the Arab-Islamic world for several years – which is in fact very well documented (but in French). Between these two periods, in effect, lies another history altogether: the colonial period was in fact for Jews the experience of a very great freedom and of astronomic social progress.

This is why I called historical philosophical the turning point this book represents. It modifies our whole perspective on the issue, even more than it re-writes the history, this historiography of what remains to be done and what it opens up. One will no longer be able to invoke scattered and forgotten authors to contest the dogma on the subject, but be able to refer people to this book. Then will begin the real work of writing the history of antisemitism in Islamic lands,...
[a review of Bosrom's book, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, published in French in Controverse Sommaire, 9 Novembre 2008]

Hence, it is no wonder that an anti-Israel body of public opinion has developed in Western countries, and even in Israel among the "left." People whose basic beliefs or knowledge about Arab-Israeli affairs, Jewish-Arab relations, are so inaccurate, so much based on prejudice, cannot produce reasonable opinions.

Ibn Khaldun Refutes Some anti-Israel Claims Made by Arabs

Ibn Khaldun [d. 1406] was the last of the great Arab-Muslim intellectuals. I could add, "the last in the Middle Ages." But this would be superfluous, since he was the last one period. There has been no Arab intellectual who has made any contribution of major worldwide significance to science, whether the natural sciences or the humanities, since his death. Let me know if you find anyone.

His contribution was to formulate a sociology of historical change which could be studied with profit by historians, sociologists, and political scientists to this day. He is remarkable in the way that he foreshadowed later developments in Western historiography, sociology, economics and political science, just as Leonardo da Vinci foreshadowed later developments in technology and physics.

In the quotes below, Ibn Khaldun refutes two big lies of pro-PLO propaganda today, which are curiously finding a reception in the West as well. One oft-repeated lie is that the Jews are not a nation or people but merely a religious group, and they --Arab-Muslims-- respect other religions, blah, blah, blah, but cannot agree to Zionism which holds that the Jews are a historical people. What they really mean is that they want Jews to continue to be perpetually humiliated dhimmis in the Muslim state, as Jews were for more than a thousand years. And that Jews as dhimmis have no right to rule a state.

Ibn Khaldun's major work is considered to be his Prolegomena [forewords] to the Study of History. Charles Issawi excerpted passages from this work and I have put relevant ones below:

For although certain peoples have a common ancestry, e.g., the Arabs, the Jews, and the Persians, other peoples are distinguished by the regions they inhabit. . .
[Ibn Khaldun, An Arab Philosophy of History, ed. Charles Issawi ( London: John Murray 1950), p 50; Prolegomena, Part I, Third Foreword]

For a long time, Arab propagandists tried to minimize the length of Israelite/Jewish rule in the Land of Israel to "400 years." Now they try to totally eliminate any Israelite/Jewish rule or presence in Israel ever. Ibn Khaldun refutes this, as does the Quran.

In the East, however, crafts have established themselves since the days of ancient Persian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Israelite, Greek and Roman rule.
[Ibid., p 55; Prolegomena Part 5, chap. 21]

Arguing that the presence of tribes with a strong tribal spirit makes conquest difficult, he gives the example of the Israelite conquest of Canaan:

This made it very difficult for the Israelites to establish and secure their rule. . .
[Ibid., p 113; Part 3, chap. 9]

He also confirmed the Quranic teaching [Sura 5:12, 20-22, inter alia] that God had promised the Holy Land to the Jews. Here he sees the land promised to the Jews as all Syria, Bilad ash-Sham in Arabic, although the Bible generally specifies the Promised Land as Canaan, only a part of Syria in the broad sense used by the Greeks and later by the Arabs.

An illustration of this is provided by the Israelites when Moses, peace be upon him, urged them to conquer Syria, assuring them that God had decreed that they should be victorious.
[p 60; Part 2, chap 19]

Hence, the denials nowadays by Arab and pro-Arab spokesmen --for the PLO/PA in particular-- that the Jews had ever ruled or were ever even present in the Land of Israel before modern Zionism, are simply lies not supported either by the Quran or by traditional Arab historiography. For the Quran, see the previous essay on this blogsite.

It is of interest for those concerned with very ancient history, the history of the early Biblical period, that he identifies the Amalekites [b'ney `Amaleq] as Arabs.
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Coming: More poems of Zion, the Jews' status in Jerusalem before Zionism, etc.