Is Palestine a Country?
If you are so sure that "Palestine” is a country that goes back through “most of recorded history," I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine:
When was it founded and by whom?
What were its borders?
What was its capital?
What were its major cities?
What constituted the basis of its economy?
What was its form of government?
Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat?
Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation?
What was the language of the country of Palestine?
What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine?
What was the name of its currency?
Choose any date in history and tell - what was the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against the US dollar, German mark, GB pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese yuan on that date?
And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur?
Food for Thought. by Steven Shamrak
I am not against Arabs, Christians or even Muslims. I am just pro-Jewish and support Zionism – Jewish national independence movement! Israel can easily stop terror and change the future by recognising and resolving mistakes of the past. Decisively defeating enemies would be the best first step!
"Sinai Option - Road to Permanent Peace!"
Please, read and distribute!
Ceasefires with Fakestinians do not Work - Removal Will!
The first Palestinian rocket launch since Nov. 13 landed on Friday in Shear Hanegev after ten balloons from Gaza, some with explosive devices attached were located next to a kindergarten and dismantled in the Sdot Negev Council region. An IDF helicopter blasted a Hamas position in reprisal. Gazan rioters again clashed violently with Israeli forces along the Gaza border – although in smaller numbers than usual. They claimed one killed and 5 injured from Israeli fire. So will the next $15m monthly instalment of Qatar funding, for buying a Palestinian “ceasefire,” be allowed to pass into Gaza in January? The two instalments delivered until now have earned Hamas more than $652,000 for every day of ‘calm’.(For how long will Israel allow financing of the enemies instead of removing them from the Jewish land?)
Early Election Delays Trump’s 'Peace Process'
Israel’s ruling coalition moved to dissolve the country’s parliament after its members disagreed over a bill to draft ultra-Orthodox men (good excuse as any) into the military. The decision to bring the election forward to April from November could complicate the Trump administration’s hopes to begin a (another useless) peace process between Israel and the Palestinians in the coming months. (Interestingly, nobody is upset about it!)
Hezbollah Leaders Killed in IAF Attack
Israeli fighter pilots have allegedly targeted senior members of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization in a surgical strike. An earlier strike targeted at least three weapons depots used by Iranian and Hezbollah forces in areas west of Damascus. An arsenal of Iranian Fajr-5 missiles was being stored in at least one of the weapons warehouses.
Erdogan spokesman says Turkey’s purchase of Patriot missiles will not affect its deal to acquire S-400 missiles from Russia.
President put down Erdogan's threats of military operations to “deal with” the Syrian Kurds, as soon as the Americans were gone. Trump tweeted: “I just had a long and productive call with President Erdogan of Turkey. We discussed ISIS, our mutual involvement in Syria & the slow & highly coordinated pullout of US troops from the area. After many years, they are coming home.” In other words, the US was slowing down the troop withdrawal from northern and eastern Syria to such time as it suited the administration – not Erdogan and his plans.
Quote of the Week:
"Control your own destiny or someone else will." - Jack Welch, a former Chairman and CEO of General Electric
by Herbert Pagani, November 11, 1975
http://www.factsofisrael.com/blog/archives/000215.html
(He was a French/Italian poet and singer, communist and Jewish, popular in the 70’s. He eventually became an enthusiastic Zionist and wrote the text below.)
Last Night, I was in the subway when I heard two ladies say:
"Did you see these Jews with their stories at the U.N.? What jerks! "
It’s true. We are jerks. For centuries we have been the world’s jerks. It’s in our nature, what can you do?
Abraham with his single God, Moses with his 10 Commandments, Jesus with his second cheek always available for a second slap, then Freud, Marx, Einstein, all were intruders, revolutionaries, enemies of the Order.
Why?
Because no order, whatever the century, could satisfy them - since they were always excluded. To call everything in question, to see further, changing the world to change their destiny, such was the destiny of my Ancestors.
This is why the defenders of all established orders hate them.
- The anti-Semite of the right blames the Jews for having executed the Bolshevik revolution. It’s true: there were many of them, in 1917.
- The anti-Semite of the left blames the Jews for owning Manhattan. It’s true: there are many Jewish capitalists.
The reason is simple: religion, culture, and the revolutionary ideal on the one hand, stocks and banks on the other, are the only transportable values, the only possible country for those that do not have a country.
And now that there is a country, Anti-Semitism reappears from its ashes... - Sorry! From OUR ashes - and it’s called anti-Zionism! It used to be applied only to individuals; it is now applied to a country.
Israel is a ghetto - Jerusalem is Warsaw... The Nazis who besiege us speak Arabic! And if their crescent is sometimes disguised in a sickle, that’s simply for better trapping the liberal leftists of the world.
I, who am a Jew of the left, I don’t care about a certain left that wants to free all men of the world at the expense of some of them - because I am precisely one of these!
I support class struggle, but I also support the right to be different. If the left wants to count me among its members, it cannot exclude my problem.
And my problem is that since the Roman deportations of the 1st century after Jesus-Christ, everywhere we went we were expelled, dishonoured, banished, tracked, denounced, crushed, burned and converted by force!
Why?
Because our religion - i.e. our culture was dangerous! Some examples:
· Judaism was the first to create the Shabbath, the day of God, i.e. the day of weekly mandatory rest. You imagine the joy of the Pharaohs, always late in building the next pyramid.
· Judaism prohibits slavery. You can imagine the sympathy of the Romans, the most significant wholesalers of free labour of the Antiquity.
· It is said in the Bible: "The earth does not belong to man, but to God." From this sentence a law is created, the automatic handing-over of real-estate every 49 years. You imagine the effect of such a law on the Popes of the Middle Ages and the builders of empires during the Renaissance.
It was imperative that the people do not learn the truth.
They started by banishing the Bible, then there were the libels: walls of defamation that became walls of stone that were called ghettos.
Then it was the Inquisition, the flames and later the yellow stars.
Auschwitz is only an industrial example of genocide, but there were thousands of hand-made genocides. It would take me three days only to name all the pogroms of Spain, Russia, Poland and North Africa.
By continuing to flee and to move, the Jew went everywhere. One extrapolates: he ends up being from nowhere.
We are among the people like the welfare child. I don’t want to be adopted any more. I don’t want for my life to depend on my owners’ mood any more. I don’t want to be a “citizen-renter” any more.
I have enough of knocking at History’s doors and waiting until I’m told: "Enter". I enter and I yell! I am at home on earth and on earth I have my land: she was promised to me, she will be mine!
What is Zionism? It’s reduced to a simple sentence: "Next year in Jerusalem."
No, it’s not a slogan of the Club Med. It's written in the Bible, the book that has sold more copies and has been misunderstood more than any other book in the world.
And this prayer became a roar, a roar that is over 2000-year-old, and the fathers of Columbus, Kafka, Proust, Chagall, Marx, Einstein, and even Mr. Kissinger, repeated this sentence, this roar, at least once a year, on Passover.
Then, is Zionism equal to Racism? Don’t make me laugh! Is "Soft France, dear country of my childhood" (“Douce France, cher pays de mon enfance”) a racist anthem? Zionism is the name of a struggle for freedom!
In the world, everybody has its Jews. The French have theirs: they are the Breton, Occitans, Corsicans, and the immigrant workers. The Italians have Sicilians; the Americans have their Blacks; the Spaniards their Basques.
We, we are EVERYBODY’S Jews.
To those that tell me: "And the Palestinians?" - I answer: "I am a 2000 year-old Palestinian. I am the oldest oppressed man in the world."
I will negotiate with them, but I will not yield my place to them. There’s enough space there for two people and two nations. The borders are to be determined together. But the existence of one country cannot in any case exclude the existence of the other. And the political options of a government never called into question the existence of a nation, whatever the nation.
Then why Israel?
When Israel is out of danger, I will choose among Jews and my Arab neighbours, those who are my brothers by ideas.
Today, I must be united with all of my people, even those whom I hate, in the name of this insurmountable enemy: RACISM.
Descartes was wrong: "I think, therefore I am" doesn’t mean anything. We have been thinking for 5000 years, and we still don’t exist!
I defend myself, therefore I am!