Dear Family & Friends,

Much valuable & interesting useable information. Having given you all this, I retire for the night. Have a pleasant night, a very good day. Fight for our safety & freedom with your words.

All the very best, Gail/Geula/Savta/Savta Raba x 2/Mom

[Sorry the ‘anchorlinks’ are not working very well tonight. Only 5 out of 11. Still working on it. Gail]

1. Rivers & Borders By Sha’i ben-Tekoa

2.The Jewish Calendar: More Awful News During the Tragic “Three Weeks”

3. Population Registry Shows 800,000 Jews in Post-67 Territories, As Arab Births Decline Sharply

7. Jerusalem was never an Arab City by Eli E. Hertz

10.Why the Jews Are the Canary in the Coal Mine by J. P. Golbert

1.Rivers & Borders By: Sha’i ben-Tekoa

JewishPress.com Published: July 16th, 2015 Latest update: July 14th, 2015

A funny thing happened to the map of Palestine after the League of Nations drew up its version of what country looked like. (It was not the classic map, but that is another story.)

What happened was the disappearance of the idea of the Jordan River as a border between two sovereign territories, one Jewish, the other Arab. According to today’s so-called Two-State Solution, the River should be the border between two Arab states; Arab Jordan on the east bank and a new State of Arab Palestine on the west, with its western border the Jewish state confined with the cease-fire line with Jordan of 1949.

This is not what the League foresaw, whose Mandate remains a living, legal document embedded in the Charter of the United Nations Organization that succeeded the League.

The League initially consulted historical maps of Palestine that never depicted the Jordan River as a boundary between two nations; that was to be a League innovation. Historic Palestine (a.k.a. the Holy Land) was synonymous with the land promised to the Jews in the Bible who settled on both banks. For centuries, maps of Eretz Yisrael a.k.a. Palestine showed the Jordan River not as a border near the country’s middle.

When the League drew its own map, it incorporated into its Mandate for Palestine the Balfour Declaration calling for the creation of a country called Palestine – that never existed under Muslim rule – as a Jewish homeland. When the Great War (World War I) broke out in 1914, there was no Palestine on the ground because the Muslim Turks who had ruled for four hundred years at that point never recognized such a country.

The League, pressured from several directions after the War by Arabs, Jews, Britain and France, decided to cede Palestine east of the River to the Arabs and turn western Palestine into the homeland of the Jews. Thus, the Jordan River would become a border between the vast Arab nation one side and the tiny Jewish nation on the other.

This idea of making the Jordan River the frontier between the Jewish homeland called Palestine and Araby seemed like a good and reasonable one at the time. Rivers have commonly served not only as sources of water and fish and waterways to travel on and transport freight; they also serve as borders between nations — the nation being the largest form of group identity known to man. For example, the Rio Grande separates the United States from Mexico; the St. Lawrence separates Canada from the United States; the Rheine separates France from Germany.

Rivers also serve as boundaries between smaller jurisdictions. Nine U.S. states border the Mississippi River (none them extending political control over to the other side.) The Mississippi is the border between Louisiana and the State of Mississippi; it also is the boundary between the State of Mississippi and Arkansas; between Arkansas and Tennessee; Kentucky and Missouri; Missouri and Illinois; Illinois and Iowa; Iowa and Wisconsin; Wisconsin and Minnesota. What is more normal than a river serving as a political boundary?

In fact, when on January 3, 1919 in London Chaim Weizmann, successor to Theodor Herzl as head of the Zionist Organization, signed an agreement with Prince Faisal of Mecca, the two of them envisioned two states, one called “The Arab State,” one called “Palestine.” The former was obviously intended for Arabs and Palestine for the Jews. Faisal did not mind. Played by the great English actor Alec Guinness in the classic film Lawrence of Arabia), he was cut from very different cloth than most Arabs today. He did not deny the historic connection between the Jewish people and their ancient homeland. Never in history had Arabs used the name Palestine. It appears nowhere in the Koran and over fourteen centuries of Islam Muslims never conceived of such a country. Only recently, in the 20^th century, did they start calling it Falastin. Its traditional name in Arabic has been Bilad al-Sham meaning “Damascus territory.”

The Weizmann-Faisal agreement then became the model for the League of Nations Mandate that also imagined a homeland explicitly created for the Jewish people in Palestine west of the Jordan River — to be called “Palestine” — with eastern Palestine on the other side of the River given to the Arabs as part of an even larger state.

And in the decades to come, the world would refer to eastern Palestine as Trans-Jordan (from a Latin word meaning “on the other side”), as Palestine west of the River was called Cis-Jordan (from a Latin word meaning “on this side.”)

The League of Nations thus assigned Palestine east of the River to the Arabs, which later evolved first into the Emirate (princedom) of Trans-Jordan and later the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, with everything west of the River left for the Jewish homeland. In the Weizmann-Faisal Agreement, “Palestine” was meant for the Jews, “The Arab State” meant for the Arabs, and the League of Nations went along with that.

In other words: what could be more natural today — and in keeping with the letter and the spirit of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine of 1922 — than saluting Arab sovereignty east of the River, today’s already existing state of Jordan, and Jewish (Israeli) sovereignty west of it? The League simply did not conceive of one Arab state east of the river and a second Arab state west of it as well.

That is the real meaning of the Two-State Solution. The Arabs then would have two states in Palestine and the Jews only one; and once-again, the Jews would be squeezed into a state only 9 to 15 miles wide.

In 1948, when Israel declared independence, King Abdallah in his capital of Amman (a mispronunciation of its Biblical Hebrew name Ammon) launched his army across the River, he had no mandate from the United Nations to do that.

His army called The Arab Legion, led by an imperialist British officer General John Glubb, captured Holy Jerusalem and expelled all of its Jews who had been the largest community in it for centuries.

Jordan’s army also overran most of Samaria to the north and the hills of Judea to the south and remained in place for the next 19 years. Moreover, a year after this unauthorized invasion, King Abdallah declared his conquest now annexed, part of his kingdom, and bestowed on its Arab residents citizenship as full-fledged Jordanians.

When the king was assassinated a year later by agents of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, his Islamist rival Haj Amin al-Husseini, Abdallah’s son took over but with serious mental problems was soon removed and instead Abdallah’s teenage grandson Hussein became king and ruled until his death in 1999. And at no time did either Abdallah or Hussein ever consider the Arabs west of the River to be “Palestinians” with a separate national identity and a right to national independence.

Today, though, Israel is supposed to do that; that’s the Two-State Solution. Israel is supposed to honor the groundless notion that today’s “Palestinians” west of the River and “Jordanians” east of the River belong to two distinct nationalities when there is not an eyedropper’s worth of difference in national characteristics between them.

Jordan’s kings are recognized as direct descendants of Islam’s founding Prophet Muhammad, and if they never considered the Arabs in Judea and Samaria to be a separate nationality deserving of an independent sovereign state, why must Israel?

Ergo, instead of employing the tactic of today’s Netanyahu administration — recognizing a “Palestinian” nation with a right to independence and sovereign ownership in the heart of the Land of Israel (albeit with impossible conditions attached), Israel might stop trying to “make nice” to its enemies and the world and start demanding its rights to hold onto Judea and Samaria as ownership authorized by 1) the League of Nations and 2) the natural right of victors to keep the spoils of war, especially when the victors had been the victims of their enemy’s aggression.

Shakespeare’s play title Measure for Measure may have been a direct translation of the Biblical Hebrew expression mida kaneged mida. In 1967, the Arabs attacked Israel to take land away from the Jews; they lost, and as punishment – punitive damages for their aggression — they deserved to lose land to their victims. Mida kaneged mida.

After World War II, the victorious Allies handed over to Germany’s victimized neighbors some 44,000 square miles of pre-War German territory; after the Mexican War with the United States (1846-48), Mexico lost half of its pre-war territory. Why the double standard when it comes to the world’s only Jewish state?

Israel’s leaders, mostly secularized and de-judaized, are simply unaware of the ugly, covert antisemitism behind the demand that Israel give back the spoils of war taken in 1967. Since when do the victors have to return the spoils of war to their aggressors?

And as for the fate of the Arabs living on this land: legislation found in the Jewish people’s constitution a.k.a. Bible and Talmud regarding the ger toshav/resident alien, his rights, obligations and limitations, is a good, moral, intelligent and virtuous place to start looking for civilized solutions.

About the Author: Sha’i ben-Tekoa’s PHANTOM NATION: Inventing the “Palestinians” as the Obstacle to Peace is available at Amazon.com and www.deprogramprogram.com

2.The Jewish Calendar: More Awful News During the Tragic “Three Weeks”

By: Batya Medad JewishPress.com Published: July 16th, 2015

“View of Mikdash from East to West, dominated by the gold facade of the Main Sanctuary (Heichal), as described by Josephus.” (Temple model built by Catriel Sugarman)

Ten years ago, Disengagement was added to the list of tragedies that happened during the “Three Weeks” between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av.” And now, the already notorious Obama-Nuclear Iran Deal has joined the list.

The Jewish Calendar is an amazing combination of the solar and lunar calendars calculated to keep Jewish Holidays in the correct season. The fact that Jewish Holidays must be in the right season according to the Holy Land, the Land of Israel is an important proof of our eternal connection to the Land. Judaism cannot be fully practiced/observed any other place in the world. Many of the Mitzvot Torah Commandments by G-d to the Jewish People can only be observed here in the Holy Land.

Not only joyous holidays are connected to the Land, but the days of mourning are, too. It was in the midst of the difficult dry summer heat, thousands of years ago when Jerusalem was attacked and finally our Temple (actually both First and Second Holy Temples hundreds of years apart) were destroyed in this very season in drawn out battles. The destruction was completed on the Tenth of the Month of Av, and this year the fast day, traditionally the Ninth 9th of Av will be on the tenth because of Shabbat. We do not fast on Shabbat except for Yom Kippur, which is the only holiday (or fast day) that can override Shabbat. Following are a list of tragedies that happened during the Three Weeks (Chabad site.)

The list of tragedies associated with this time period is overwhelming. Tammuz 17, the day which starts these three weeks, is the same day when, in the year 1313 BCE, the tablets containing the Ten Commandments were broken.

1.On that same day, some 1380 years later, the legions of Rome breached the walls of Jerusalem after a 30-month siege. For three weeks the battle raged in Jerusalem, until the city was vanquished, the Holy Temple destroyed and the Jewish people driven into exile. Thus we entered the state of galut (physical and spiritual displacement) in which we still find ourselves today.

2.And yet, this was only the beginning. Three tragic weeks later we arrive at Tisha B’Av, the 9th of Av. Predominantly known as the day on which both the first and second Holy Temples were destroyed—the First Temple by the Babylonians in 423 BCE, and the Second Temple by the Romans in 69 CE—the Ninth of Av is also associated with many other horrific events, preceding the destruction of the Temples and continuing until the present.

3.(By a cruel irony, the day originally chosen by the Israeli government for the expulsion of thousands of men, women and children from their homes in Gush Katif and the other settlements in the Gaza Strip fell within the Three Weeks. But that date was changed due to tremendous pressure from Jews the world over, aghast that the government of Israel would add to the list of our sufferings during this tragic period.)

So, it’s no real surprise that the Kerry-Obama brokered “deal” with Iran was signed by the so-called free world during the Three Weeks. According to our Sages, there are no random coincidences. The timing is always Siyate d’Shmaya, in the Hand of G-d. This “deal” is another sign in the descent of the Western “free” World as we’ve known it for the past century. There is definitely a steep decline in the power of the United States, and this is further proof.

My Arab customers in the Yafiz Shoe Store, Sha’ar Binyamin usually ask me if the shoes are “originals” or “made in China.” My standard reply is that the “originals” are from China, because China today has the strongest economy in the world. They produce everything. That is further proof that the American-European alliance is in a decline.

And someday, not too far off, when all this news about Iran and China and Obama will be history, the Jewish People will reunite and build the Third Holy Temple. And then the Three Weeks, from the 17th of Tammuz until the 9th of Av will be a period of joy and celebration, G-d willing!

Temple Mount Today, Photo by Batya Medad

3. Population Registry Shows 800,000 Jews in Post-67 Territories, As Arab Births Decline Sharply By: JNi.Media JewishPress.com Published: July 16th, 2015 Latest update: July 15th, 2015

A Talmud Torah in the Israeli community of Bat Ayin (file) Photo Credit: Gershon Elinson / Flash 90

“With God’s help,” Katz writes in his Facebook page, “396,818 Jews. This is the new figure from the Population Registry we reveal today.”

The new figure, just 3,182 short of 400,000, is the number of Jews living in Judea and Samaria, not including Jerusalem, as of the end of June 2015.

When you add the other 400,000 Jews living in areas that have been annexed by Israel without international recognition—eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights—you get a whopping 800,000 Jews.

According to a comprehensive study on Jewish-Arab demographics published in 2011 by demographer Yakov Faitelson, there has been a sharp, upward surge of the Jewish population, especially among secular Israeli Jews, and a sharp decline of Arab population growth, as a result of successful Arab integration into Israel’s infrastructures of modernity.

In 2015, Faitelson issued an updated report, showing a marked decline of 36-37% in population growth among Arabs both in Israel and Judea and Samaria. At the same time, overall Jewish births have risen 47%.

The combined factors of Arab immigration to other countries in the region as well as to the West, a 44% rise in Arab mortality of the last 16 years as a result of an aging population, and the steep decline in the number Arab births is already changing the demographic reality in Judea and Samaria—where Jewish birth rates have risen by 15.16% from 1996 to 2013. Arab births in the same area and years have declined by 49.13%.

According to the Katz announcement, the Jewish population in Judea and Samaria is divided as follows:

Cities and local councils: 260,954; Gush Etzion: 22,717; Mount Hebron: 7502; Jordan Valley: 6265; Samaria: 36,580; Binyamin: 62,800.

Katz is critical of both Prime Minister Netanyahu and his former Knesset allies, the Bayit Yehudi party, of ignoring the demolition of Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria, and the freezing of settlement construction

Yesterday’s agreement should be an opportunity for most GOP presidential candidates to show up. By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu JewishPress.com 7/15/15

A mass rally that might attract tens of thousands of people is scheduled for next Wednesday 5:30 p.m. (EDT) at Times Square in New York City.

Police have planned for thousands of people to show up, but Tuesday’s agreement with Iran and the explosive opposition from Israel and the Jewish community in the United States is likely to draw much larger crowds.

The long-rage forecast is for temperatures in the 80s (Fahrenheit) and a 50 percent chance of scattered thunderstorms.

Speakers at the rally include:

Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law Professor; John Batchelor, Radio Host WABC-AM; Caroline Glick, Deputy Managing Editor of the Jerusalem Post;

David Brog, Executive Director, Christians United for Israel;

Steven Emerson, founder of The Investigative Project on Terrorism;

Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy;

Kasim Hafeez, founder of “The Israel Campaign” & Christians United for Israel’s Outreach Coordinator; Pete Hoekstra, former U.S. Congressman & Chair of the House Intelligence Committee Tony LoBianco, “The French Connection” Actor & Activist;

Clare M. Lopez, former CIA officer, Terrorism & Iran Expert at Center for Security Policy; George Pataki, former three-term governor of New York & in office during 9/11; Allen West, former Congressman & retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel;

James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA & Chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Mortimer Zuckerman, chairman and editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report & the publisher of the New York Daily News & former Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

The rally organizers have stated that their mission is:

— an end to the farce being perpetrated against the American people with a pending deal which will endanger America and our allies; — restoration of the ORIGINAL demands – NO nuclear military capability, NO centrifuges & authority for any & all unannounced inspections of all known & any future facilities discovered; &

–providing an understanding that a failure to STOP IRAN NOW will necessitate a military response later.

About the Author: Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu is a graduate in journalism and economics from The George Washington University. He has worked as a cub reporter in rural Virginia and as senior copy editor for major Canadian metropolitan dailies. Tzvi wrote for Arutz Sheva for several years before joining the Jewish Press.

5. Islamic Terrorists are Not “lone wolves” By: Yoram Ettinger

JewishPress.com Published: July 16th, 2015 Latest update: July 14th, 2015

Islamic Terror

Intra-Arab and Intra-Muslim terrorism – plaguing the Arab Street – has been a Middle East fixture since the 7th century emergence of Islam, driven by religious, political, tribal and ethnic megalomaniac aspirations and violent intolerance.

It dominated the Middle East long before, and irrespective of, the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli conflicts, the reestablishment of Jewish communities in Judea & Samaria, the controversy over Jerusalem, and the reconstruction of the Jewish State.

Against the backdrop of ruthless and persistent terrorism, which has targeted fellow-Arabs and fellow-Muslims, one should expect, at least, as ferocious Arab/Muslim terrorism against the “infidel” Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or Jew in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa, Canada, Australia and the USA. The latter is considered the chief threat to terrorist regimes, morally and militarily. Hence, the US is “the Chief Satan” and the lead target for Islamic terrorism.

The perpetrators of Arab/Muslim terrorism, in general, and Palestinian terrorism, in particular, are not “Lone Wolves.” They are the by-products of a centuries’ old intolerant ideology, supported by educational and religious infrastructures of indoctrination and incitement, operating systematically in kindergartens, schools, universities, mosques and regime-controlled media.

Arab/Muslim terrorists are not driven by social, economic and human rights grievances, but by an intense, fanatical worldview, which loathes civil liberties and considers freedom of religion, press, association and movement, including equal rights for women, an abomination. In fact, deprived groups in the non-Muslim world rarely resort to terrorism.

Arab/Muslim terrorists are adrenalized by the conviction that their actions bestow upon them the honorific title of Shaheed – a martyr on the altar of Islam – fulfilling a Muslim mission, and advancing the commandment of Jihad (Islamic struggle, resistance, war, expansion) against the “infidel” or the “apostate.” They expect to be rewarded by eternal glory, including the company of 72 pretty virgins in a sensual paradise, while women are, supposedly, rewarded by only one man.

The most effective production-line of Shaheed’s was established by Mahmoud Abbas in 1993, compliments of the Oslo Accord, through the Palestinian education system.

For example, the 7th grade’s part 2 of “Our Beautiful Language,” pages 11-13 and pages 28-29 in part 1: “We shall sow Palestine with [martyrs’] skeletons and skulls; we shall paint the face of Palestine with blood…. We are returning home to the plains and mountains [of pre-1967 Israel], led by Jihad flags, by bloody struggles and by the willingness to sacrifice ourselves as martyrs….”

Or, the 8th grade’s part 2 of “Islamic Studies,” pages 62-75: “Jihad reserves a key role for youngsters, just like those who sought martyrdom during the days of the Prophet Muhammad….” Many graduates of such an education system are potential terrorists – who unlike freedom fighters – target civilians deliberately and systematically, aiming to erode the confidence of Israelis in the homeland security capabilities of their government, frightening them into reckless concessions.

While Mahmoud Abbas does not emit the same message when speaking with Western, Israeli and Arab interlocutors, that which he teaches his children reflects his authentic worldview, reflected by the monthly allowances paid to relatives of suicide-bombers and the naming of streets, squares, summer camps and sport tournaments after terrorists. It has enticed Palestinian youth to idolize Shaheeds, Jihad, bloodshed and families of suicide-bombers, while delegitimizing the Jewish State as an immoral entity deserving annihilation.

Palestinian terrorism has been driven not by the size – but by the existence – of the Jewish State, as evidenced by the waves of anti-Jewish Palestinian terrorism before Israel’s establishment (1920s, 1930s and 1940s), before the 1967 resumption of Jewish control of Judea & Samaria, and following a series of Israeli concessions, such as the 2005 uprooting of all Jewish communities from Gaza, the 2000 proposal by Prime Minister Barak to withdraw to the pre-1967 Lines, and the 1993 Israeli importation of the PLO from Tunisia to Ramallah and Israel’s withdrawal from 40% of Judea & Samaria, as well as all of Gaza.

The battle against Palestinian terrorism is undermined by the focus on the symptoms (individual terrorists) rather than the cause (hate-education). In other words, one should not concentrate on chasing individual mosquitos; one should drain the swamp.

Counter-terrorism is further undermined by the immoral moral-equivalence applied to Palestinian perpetrators and their Israeli victims; by the knee-jerk pressure of Israel urging sweeping concessions, containment and counter-terrorism restraint, which emboldens terrorists; ignoring the terrorist/subversive track record of Mahmoud Abbas in order to promote wishful-thinking; and extending counter-productive financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, which bankrolls hate-education.

For instance, the $400mn annual US foreign aid to Mahmoud Abbas – which is larger than the combined aid from the Arab oil-producers – has not reduced terrorism and non-compliance, has failed to shift Palestinians towards peaceful coexistence, and has not eliminated hate education.

The US Congress would not support hate education within the US, but supports hate-education in the Palestinian Authority, which undermines the civil liberties of most Palestinians, who abhor the corrupt, oppressive, terroristic “Tunisian Gang” of Mahmoud Abbas that was imposed on them by the Oslo Accord.

The suspension of foreign aid to – and all communications with – Mahmoud Abbas, a hate educator, would express the realization that hate education is the antithesis of core US values; that hate educators should not benefit from the largesse of the US taxpayer; and that hate educators on the one hand, and compliance with agreements and peaceful coexistence on the other hand, constitutes a scandalous oxymoron.

About the Author: Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger is consultant to Israel’s Cabinet members and Israeli legislators, and lecturer in the U.S., Canada and Israel on Israel’s unique contributions to American interests, the foundations of U.S.-Israel relations, the Iranian threat, and Jewish-Arab issues.

6. Hotovely Says Foreign Dignitaries Must Visit Western Wall “Including the Kotel along with Yad VaShem and Mt. Herzl changes Zionism from 100 years to 3,000 years.” By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu JewishPress.com Published: July 16th, 2015

Israel finally has an honest religious Zionist as acting Foreign Minister.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely has changed protocol for foreign dignities who now will be asked to visit the Western Wall (Kotel) as well as Yad VaShem and Mt Herzl Cemetery.

The new protocol is at least the second major change she has introduced into the Foreign Ministry since her appointment by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

When she took office, she met with Foreign Ministry officials and gave them a short sermon on Torah – “Dvar Torah” in Hebrew – and instructed them to made the Jewish People’s Biblical right to Israel as part of the “Hasbara” public relations program.

Now she wants foreign dignities to understand that official visits to Jerusalem sites should not be limited to the sadness identified with the military cemetery and the Holocaust Memorial.

Hotovely told the new head of the “Ceremonies Branch” of the ministry to include the Kotel as part of the itinerary for foreign dignitaries, Yediot Acharonot reported.

She explained: “In my eyes, the fact that the Kotel will become part of official visits of foreign dignitaries in Israel is a meaningful statement that strengthens the position of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” This visit will take dignitaries from the ethos and sentiment of Yad VaShem, which deals with the catastrophe of the Holocaust, to the positive character of the Kotel that speaks of deep roots of the city. This will change the view of visits from 100 years of Zionism to 3,000 years of Zionism.

Hotovely she has taken into account that there will be some dignitaries who will refuse to visit the Western Wall because they consider it part of “disputed territories,” depending on the visitor’s political agenda.

Barack Obama anxiously visited the Kotel when he was campaigning for president in 2008. In his last visit to Israel, he refused to come near to the holy site and instead opted for Tel Aviv.

“If there are those who refuse to visit, we will try to convince them to do so, but the change is that until now, visiting the Kotel was not even a priority in the Foreign Ministry.”

She added that she will not object if dignitaries condition their visits to the Western Wall on their being able to go to the Temple Mount, presumably to visit mosques and not to utter forbidden non-Muslim prayers, or to the Holy Church of the Sepulcher.

The first foreign dignitary to come under the new protocol will be Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who will be met at Ben Gurion Airport next week by Hotovely. She will escort him to the Kotel.

Hotovely’s innovations – a Dvar Torah and now visits to the Kotel – are brilliant if not simple moves that should have been part of policy from Day One of the modern State of Israel.

The beauty in the changes is that leftist and pluralistic politicians and media cannot easily oppose them.

They may not like including a bit of Torah in Israel’s explanations to the international community, but how can they be against it without saying that the Torah should not an official part of Israel?

They may not like her including the Western Wall as a part of the protocol for visiting dignitaries, but as Hotovely said, the Western Wall is part of the Israeli consensus.

Hotovely’s real innovation is that her observance of Judaism is above politics, exactly what has been lacking in Israeli governments.

About the Author: Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu is a graduate in journalism and economics from The George Washington University. He has worked as a cub reporter in rural Virginia and as senior copy editor for major Canadian metropolitan dailies. Tzvi wrote for Arutz Sheva for several years before joining the Jewish Press.

7. Jerusalem was never an Arab City by Eli E. Hertz

Arab leaders continue to insist that Jerusalem is an Arab city. This myth is used to implement a strategy to wrest partial control of Jerusalem from Israel and to make Jerusalem the capital of a Palestinian state.

It is also part of a long-range strategy to destroy the Jewish state. This is one reason PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat rejected the unprecedented now-or-never Israeli proposal at peace talks in 2000 at Camp David. The proposal sought to solve the impasse over the status of Jerusalem by offering Arabs a share in the administration of parts of the city. Afterwards, Arafat revealed his real position in a post-summit statement that declared the PLO’s demand for sovereignty over Jerusalem including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Temple Mount mosques, the Armenian Quarter, “and Jerusalem in its entirety, entirety, entirety.”

8.Aliyah to Har HaBayit/Ascending the Temple Mount: Can Rabbis be Wrong?

By: Batya Medad JewishPress.com Published: July 14th, 2015 Latest update: July 13th, 2015

‘Bli neder’, I intend to write more about the ??? ??? Tzohar Conference I recently attended , but for now I’ll just mention one of the most explosive exchanges I witnessed there. I went to the panel discussion about ascending the Temple Mount.

Despite the obvious mutual admiration between Yehuda Glick and Rav Yoel Bin-Nun, they disagree on the importance of Jews ascending Har HaBayit.

As is very well-known, Yehuda Glick is one of the leaders of those of us who believe that it’s of the utmost importance, and permitted by Jewish Law, for Jews to enter the Temple Mount. Not long ago, he was almost killed by an Arab terrorist who shot him, using the excuse that Glick promoted Jewish presence on that Holy Place.

It is a very large miracle that Glick is alive today.

As Glick mentioned yesterday, it was also a great miracle that in 1967, two million Israelis 2,000,000 succeeded in defeating two hundred million 200,000,000 Muslims. Please remember that the war aim of Egypt, Syria and Jordan was the destruction of the State of Israel. Not only did we survive and were victorious but we liberated the holiest and most important places in the Jewish Homeland.

Yehuda Glick brought up the terrible situation in which Torah observant (aka Orthodox and Chareidi) rabbis have participated in the conspiracy to brainwash the Jewish People into believing that the Kotel HaMa’aravi, the Western Wall is the holiest place for the Jewish People, and that the Temple Mount is holiest for Islam.

IDF soldiers are now brought up to tour the Temple Mount and are only shown it from a Muslim perspective.

At the end of the program, one of the audience asked Glick how it could be that he is accusing prominent rabbis, including Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook, ZaTza”L, of being wrong.

Glick answered exactly the way my mind was going. He reminded the audience of how many of the great European rabbis prior to World War Two, when the Nazis were taking over, had told their congregations to stay put. And before then, with the beginning of the Zionist movement, most rabbis had declared it evil and told their followers not to join. Glick also brought up an important point, that the earlier Rav Kook, ZaTza”L, had been in the minority among rabbis and had been condemned for his stands re: Zionism and the Land of Israel. Davka, Tzohar follows the Jewish teachings of Rav Kook, so they shouldn’t be afraid to be in the minority.

Considering that the main rationale of those rabbis who forbid ascending the Temple Mount is that one may accidentally enter areas of the Kodesh Kodeshim, Holy of Holies, I must say that my biggest surprise when I ascended the Temple Mount was to discover how enormous it it and how small a section is forbidden even by the most stringent measurements.

About the Author: Batya Medad blogs at Shiloh Musings. The author’s opinion does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Jewish Press.

Aliyah to Har HaBayit/Ascending the Temple Mount: Can Rabbis be Wrong?

9.Scary Times By: Yehudit Tayar Jewish Press.com Published: July 16th, 2015 Latest update: July 15th, 2015

To refer to the Iran “Agreement” as an agreement is a misconception of what the true situation is. Let us consider the parties involved and who is supposed to ensure that there will be no nuclear weapons in Iran or military facilities there. Consider the UN and the history of inspection, prevention of violence and in general the UN and what they represent and who they represent especially in regards to Israel.

When you purchase something in an “agreement or contract” two parties are involved and one pays for the purchase and the other supplies what was purchased. Two sides are committed to this agreement whether referring to buying vegetables, a car or a signed agreement between two parties.

Remember the Oslo Accord signed on the White House Lawn where the US committed that this agreement was based on “reciprocity”? No more violence directed against Israel by the PA – neither verbal or physical- and Israel would be committed to making concessions to the PA in territory, finances and follow the “Two State Solution Plan”.

What is the result of this? Israel making concessions both in land and finances continuing by releasing terrorists, freezing building in Yesha and even in Jerusalem while the violence escalates , both verbal and physical with the encouragement of the PA and the terrorists who perpetrate and execute terror resulting in injuries and murders of innocent Jews are made into martyrs and they and their families rewarded and paid both by being given honor and money.

OK now back to the Iran Deal- US guarantees, United Nation inspections, and the safety and security of Israel- history has proven that all of this is a misconception to be kind, or to be truthful, a lie and deception . The UN has a track record of concentrating on attacking Israel and ignoring all of the global terror, while even their facilities are used as bases of terror. Now this is not a situation that allows Israel to trust that inspections by the UN will prevent the Iranians from continuing to develop their nuclear weapons- on the contrary.

Israel cannot rely on the Agreement to guarantee our security or safety not now and certainly not in the future as Iran will most probably race ahead with the nuclear weapons, which by the way are not only a danger to Israel, but to the entire world.

About the Author: Yehudit Tayar was born in Chicago Illinois and served as a councilor in Bnei Akiva Youth Organization. She has lived with her family in Bet Horon in the Benjamin Region for over 30 years, serves as an emergency first response medic, on the Board of Directors of Hatzalah Yehudah and Shomron,and is a spokesperson for the Jewish pioneers in Yesha. Married to Ami, mother of four children, and grandmother.

Jews have been called the “canary in the coal mine.” Miners used to take canaries into the mines with them because the canary would die from coal gas escaping into the mineshaft before the level of gas could kill the men or become explosive. When the canary stops singing, it is a warning to the men to get out of the mine. How is that an apt metaphor for the Jews? Underlying the metaphor is the realization that what happens to the Jews will befall everyone. Why should that be so? This is the subject of this essay.

PART ONE: THE ROOTS OF DEMOCRACY: THE HEBREW BIBLE

Many academics and intellectuals seem attracted to totalitarian ideologies: fascism, Communism, Che Guevara, “Cuba si, Yanqui no.” There seems to be an admiration today for the “Palestinian” cause, and tireless apologetics for Islam in the face of spreading jihad. The awe and solicitude shown Iranian President Ahmadinejad when he spoke at Columbia University should cause one to wonder why the leader of a regime in which death penalties are a daily occurrence — a regime that massacres its own people and threatens another state with genocide — should be accorded such solicitude at a major American university.

Academics and other intellectuals are steeped in the roots of Western Civilization, whose roots originate in Greece and Rome. In the Greek republic, glorified as the wellspring of democracy, maybe two percent of the inhabitants participated and enjoyed its benefits. All the other inhabitants of the realm were beggars, slaves or nearly slaves, peasants who were one crop-failure from losing their lands to creditors and becoming debt slaves whose debts would never be paid off and would be inherited by their children. They had no say in public matters. It is much like calling Saudi Arabia a democracy because the emirs all vote. One emir, one vote. Democracy in the Greek model.

There is really not much practical difference between Roman rule and Stalinist or Nazi rule except that the Stalinists and the Nazis had better technology. There is no practical difference between Communist rule and fascist rule. Only the rhetoric and other trappings differ. Likewise, there is not much practical difference between Islamic rule and Stalinist or Nazi rule. Hence, Western intellectuals seem to be quite comfortable with jihad denial. The Catholic Church legitimated and sanctified tyranny since the Fourth Century. Over the course of the last three hundred years, however, as a result of the Enlightenment (as discussed below), it lost the ability to do that. So the forces of tyranny have lost that support. Islam is just the totalitarian religion they needed. The ceremonies and other trappings seem bizarre but it is otherwise perfect for sanctifying tyranny. In fact, it is even better than the Church ever was, for reasons that will also be discussed.

At the same time, there is a certain academic antipathy for Jewish sources, Jewish perspectives, the role and impact of Israel in history and for Judaism itself. The significance of anything the Jews ever did is to be minimized, covered up entirely, if possible, or simply ignored. Look how much was done in the ancient world, according to the academics, by the Phoenicians. In fact, there was never a people who called themselves “Phoenicians.”

That is what the Greeks called the people who lived along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. The “Phoenicians” were the Sidonians, the Tyrians, the Beirutis, etc, and the Israelites. In fact, King Solomon of Israel and King Hiram of Tyre merged their navies. Where the Tyrians went, they went together with the Israelites. Where the Israelites went, the Tyrians went with them.

There are two responses to that from the academics: the Bible, they will say, is unreliable as history. Their response, however, seems to be “accepted truth” that survives any number of corroborations of the historical accuracy of the Hebrew Bible, and any number of disproofs that have been offered attempting to show that the Hebrew Bible is not reliable history. For one example, the great pioneer of archeology, Heinrich Schliemann successfully used it as his guide for major excavations.

So their second response is to ignore it. Do not address it at all. People who sometimes come out on the side of the historical accuracy of the Hebrew Bible often find their careers sidelined.

Historians raised serious objections to Hitler’s War Against the Jews 1933-1945 by Lucy Dawidowicz, because the name implies that the destruction of the Jews was Hitler’s primary goal and not an incidental secondary aspect of the war. Academicians cannot accord the Jews that much importance. They have to point out that others died in the gas chambers, not only Jews but also Gypsies, genetically defective persons, homosexuals, trade unionists, Communists and others, designated as degenerates. Indeed they did, but the Jews were truly a special case, targeted with special attention. The Holocaust was the highly extraordinary case of an entire nation mobilized to the systematic, meticulously planned, industrialized mass murder of an entire people, down to the last baby. It entailed the commitment of massive resources to locate every Jew in every neighborhood of every city and every town and village under German occupation, round them up, and either kill them on the spot or transport them from all over Europe and North Africa to Poland to be murdered en masse, and finally to dispose of the corpses. The resources devoted to the annihilation of the Jews were the equivalent of a third front.

Dawidowicz was right. The task of annihilating the Jews took preference over the navy, even as Germany was going down to defeat. The German general staff met every week and allocated all the resources at the Reich’s disposal, including every piece of rolling stock in the railway system, to specific tasks according to priorities set by the generals. The navy ran out of petroleum long before the death camps did.

The two sides of the same coin are the attraction to tyrannical government and the insistence on marginal attention, if any at all, to the Jews.

Democracy grew out of the Jewish Bible (also known as the Hebrew Bible or the Torah, which Christians call the “Old Testament.”) It is a profoundly seditious document. It teaches equality, and that the natural, ideal condition of mankind is freedom. It also teaches that it is the duty of everyone in the society, especially the rulers, to protect and care for the weakest members of the society. Widows and orphans are emblematic.

Equality in Judaism derives from the common origin of humanity. Sometimes the message is delivered subtly but it comes across very clearly, for example, in the following comparison. With reference to Egyptian society, the Torah says:

It came to pass at midnight, and the Lord smote every firstborn in the land of Egypt,from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who is in the dungeon, and every firstborn animal. (Ex. 12:29)

The order is hierarchical, from top to bottom.

With reference to Israelite society, the Torah says:

You are standing this day all of you before the Lord your God: your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the stranger that is in the midst of your camp, from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water; (Deut. 29: 9-10)

The order, “from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water” is not from top to bottom. Rather, they stand before God as a social circle, from one person all the way around the circle to the one standing next to him.

Slave owners in America made much of the fact that slavery exists in the Bible. It is true, something called ‘eved exists and has the essential meaning of “slave,” as does its derivative, “‘avdut,” meaning “slavery.” It is the word used to refer to slavery in Egypt, which was classic, real chattel slavery.

In the Torah system, however, the laws concerning ‘avdut are vastly different from chattel slavery as it was practiced in America and still is elsewhere. “Slaves” in the Torah system are not chattel. Slaves have rights. The most striking single difference on the face of the actual text of the Hebrew Bible is the provision concerning a runaway slave. In America, the Constitution, no less, required that the slave be returned to his master in the master’s home state. In Torah, the law is diametrically the opposite, right on the face of the text:

You shall not deliver a slave to his master if he seeks refuge with you from his master. [Rather,] he shall [be allowed to] reside among you, wherever he chooses within any of your cities, where it is good for him. You shall not oppress him. (Deut. 23:16-17)

There are other differences in the specific laws. In the Torah system, if a master strikes his slave and wounds him, the slave goes free. If a master has enough food for only one, he is obligated to give it to the slave. If he has only one blanket, the slave sleeps under it, not the master.

There are two general categories of slave in Torah: Hebrew slaves and Canaanite slaves.

Hebrew slaves went free at the beginning of every shmitta (Sabbatical) year. The shmitta year is every seventh year from the entry of the Israelites into the Land, not the seventh year of the slave’s slavery. Furthermore, the master must give him what today is called “severance pay” to start his independent life. The Hebrew slave has the right to decide he doesn’t want to be free, in which case, he remains a slave until the next shmitta year. At the beginning of the Jubilee Year (every 50^th year from the entry of the Israelites into the Land), however, he cannot decide to remain a slave. He goes free by operation of law, with “severance pay.”

The Canaanite slave is nearer to a chattel slave, but nevertheless possessing rights such as those above. In addition, the master is obligated to influence the Canaanite slave to convert to Judaism. If he does, his status changes to Hebrew slave and he goes free at the beginning of the next shmitta year, with “severance pay.” If the master is unable to influence him to accept Judaism, then he should sell the slave. In either category, to be a slave to an Israelite master is to be on track toward freedom.

In fact, the very goal of “slavery” in Torah is freedom. This sounds absurd, oxymoronic or even Orwellian, but it is not.

People in the Torah system became slaves in several ways. Most commonly, they incurred debts that they could not pay. People who fall into those straits lived as “slaves” to families of freemen where they could observe and learn the discipline and mindset of freemen and how they manage their lives.

The goal is freedom. Slaves do not know how to be free. The Israelites had God Himself to teach them, through Moses as His spokesman. Even so, in forty years in the desert, the lesson was learned only imperfectly. Since the entry of Israel into its land, the master and his family became the teachers of the ways of freedom.

Even in the matter of “slavery,” the Torah works toward the natural and ideal condition of each and every individual person, which is freedom.

PART TWO: THE HEBREW BIBLE AND REVOLT IN EUROPE

The first translation of the Bible into a European vernacular, the “Wycliffe Bible,” was done in England in the late 14th Century from the Catholic Bible. That was before printing was invented. Every copy had to be written by hand and it was vigorously suppressed everywhere in Europe.

Despite that, once people could read the Bible, or have it read to them, it began the ferment of a real revolution, especially in England. Out of the Wycliffe Bible, around 1382, came the “Lollards,” a political and religious movement that grew and spread despite extremely determined efforts to suppress it. It was the main influence on Jan Hus and his proto-Reformation in Bohemia. According to historian Francisco Gil-White, “Why is there antisemitism?
“…. [T]here has been and still is so much antisemitism in the West because Judaism is the original mass movement of the political left. It is the original movement of progressive politics, preaching freedom, justice, equality, ethics, and compassion. This is precisely why the Western ruling classes have always persecuted the Jews and taught ordinary gentiles to hate them, lest ordinary people learn from the Jews that they have a right to live in freedom and equality. Once this is understood, the history of the West, with its endless sequence of anti-Jewish massacres, will, for the first time, make sense. [1]

Hus was burned at the stake as a heretic and the Hussite movement was vigorously suppressed, but its influence spread, including the imperative of making the Bible available in the vernacular to everyone.

The Wycliffe translation was followed, about 150 years later, by the Tyndale Bible, translated from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek sources. Tyndale was executed in Belgium as a heretic. About two years later, Henry VIII broke with the Church of Rome and set up his own church, the Church of England. He needed an official Bible for his new Church and seized upon the Tyndale translation, which he then had printed in large numbers. That publication and dissemination fully legitimated Bible study in England. The revolution accelerated and the ranks of the Protestant fundamentalist Puritans swelled year by year, despite Puritan worship being banned on pain of death.

Within less than 100 years, there were radical, fundamentalist Protestant groups, such as the Diggers and the Levelers, who rejected the legitimacy of nobility and, of course, of divine right of kings, all based on the common origin of humanity, (“When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?”), and the Puritans, who refused to distinguish in speech between noblemen and commoners. That is why the familiar form, thee and thou and thine and ye and hast and thinkest, disappeared from the English language before the close of the 17^th Century. Everyone came to be addressed as “you” in the manner of a nobleman, including husbands and wives, the children, the slaves and the dogs and cats and horses and mules.

Around the same time as the Tyndale translation, Martin Luther translated the Bible into German. Out of this came what might be the only peasant revolt in German history. The peasants mistakenly believed that Luther wanted social change.[2] Luther did not want social change but, as the peasants correctly perceived, God wanted social change.

The American Revolution is replete with rhetoric and doctrine which come from Hebrew Scripture; the image of America as a replay of the Israelites free in their land, which was an island of freedom surrounded by a sea of brutal tyranny. The Atlantic Ocean was openly compared with the Jordan River that separated Israel from the benighted world of tyranny. The Geneva Bible, with commentaries of Knox and Calvin and other Protestant luminaries, was to be seen everywhere, and the colonies were awash with pamphlets and tracts about “Hebrew governance” and how it should be applied to the colonies. People were conversant on the subject of Hebrew governance. Universities established in that period have, to this day, Hebrew slogans on their seals because they taught the Hebrew Bible in the original Hebrew and Aramaic. (Some of it, including part of the Book of Daniel, is in Aramaic.) The “classical languages” in those times were Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin and Greek.

The notion of man being “endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights” comes from Jewish Scripture, certainly not from Greek or Roman political philosophy. The Liberty Bell is inscribed with a quote from Jewish Scripture (Lev. 25:10). “Proclaim liberty throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof.” One would be at pains to find a quote from Plato’s Republic.

Professor Gil-White goes further and states categorically that, going back to the first clash of Greek and Jewish civilizations some 2,500 years ago, all notions of humanism, all doctrines of the sanctity of human life, of equality, of freedom as an ideal state of society and the duty of the king to nurture and protect the rights and welfare of the masses, all have their origin in Jewish sources and in Jewish thinkers.[3]

Tyrants have overwhelmingly been aware of that and, with some exceptions such as Henry VIII, have sought to denigrate and demonize the Jews, Jewish sources and Jewish thought, and to uproot Jewish influence from their culture. The way to accomplish this was difficult for the tyrants to learn. There was some trial and error.

Titus destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, massacred half the Jews in the land and exiled many others into slavery in all parts of the Roman Empire. It did not work. The Jewish communities in Europe responded by raising money to redeem as many as possible out of slavery, thereby establishing Jewish communities in places such as the Rhineland, Pannonia (Hungary) and Dacia (Romania), among others. The problem of Jewish rebellion only spread, changing into the destabilizing influence of the Jews.

Conversion to Judaism was rampant among all social classes all over the empire. Slaves were thrilled by the notion that slaves have rights, that God cares about slaves and wants them to be free. The poor and miserable were moved by God’s commandments of caring for the weakest members of society. The patrician classes were hungry for deeper and more substantive notions of the spiritual dimension of man than the old mythology provided. Titus’ own nephew, Onkelos, converted and became a great Torah scholar, to whom we are indebted for the authoritative translation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic, which was the spoken language of the Jewish people at that time. It is unusual, to this day, to find a Hebrew printing of the Five Books of Moses without Onkelos’ translation.

Sixty-two years after Titus destroyed Jerusalem and slaughtered or exiled most of the Jews, the Jews in Judea revolted again, led by a man known as Bar Kokhba. The war was a desperate and bitter four-year struggle, and after the Romans won, they perpetrated another genocide.

In addition, the Emperor Hadrian also ordered forests burned, orchards uprooted and salt plowed into the land, Jerusalem renamed Aelia Capitolina and the country renamed Syria Palaestina, “so that the name of Judea the Rebellious should be remembered no more.” The same treatment had utterly finished Carthage, but it did not finish the Jews.

Within two hundred years, Rome had a problem again with the Jews, even though the genocide had been ongoing. No matter how many rabbis and Torah scholars the Romans killed, or how many Jews they crucified or sent to the lions in the Coliseum, conversion to Judaism was again so rampant in all social classes of Roman society that the Emperor Constantine feared that through conversion, the Empire would be lost to the Jews.

PART THREE: CONSTANTINE’S SOLUTION TO SAVE ROMAN TYRANNY FROM THE JEWS AND THEIR SEDITIOUS BIBLE

Constantine decided that he needed an official religion for the Empire, one that looked sufficiently like Judaism to hold the Romans, especially the “patricians” [ruling classes], but sufficiently foreign to Judaism that Jews would not accept it. He also needed a doctrine that required demonizing the Jews. Constantine and his mother, Helena, created it.

Christianity may still have been a sect within Judaism, but two centuries earlier, contrary to the direct instructions of Peter and James, Paul had opened the “inner court” to the non-Jews. During all that time, the roads to Jerusalem were lined with crucifixions, but the Christians who were crucified or sent to the Coliseum to be killed by gladiators or lions were sent to die because they were Jews, not because they were Christians.

Non-Jewish Christians were mainly unaffected by those depredations. By the time of Constantine, the Romans had murdered so many Jewish scholars that the leadership of the Church had passed from Jews, who were learned in Torah, to non-Jews, who were not. By insisting on the divinity of Jesus, Constantine ensured that the Jews would reject the doctrine and be alienated from the Church, but Romans, including the non-Jewish leaders of the Church, would have no trouble accepting it.

Constantine convened a conference of all Christian groups at Nicaea, to canonize the tenets of the faith. There was a group of Jews, known as Ebionites (in Hebrew, ‘Evyonim), who learned the Torah, kept the commandments and believed Jesus was Messiah. Being Jews, however, they honored the First Commandment, “Thou shat have no other gods before me,” refused to believe that Jesus was God, and rejected any notion of a Trinity. So Constantine was able to insist that they be excommunicated.

That was pretty much the end of Christianity among the Jews, and Constantine got exactly what he wanted: (1) an official religion which he could present as the real, valid Judaism which (2) the Jews would not accept, (3) a Church doctrine which would condemn the Jews for heresy and Deicide, and (4) a Church leadership that would willingly assume its place in the power structure of the Empire and enthusiastically take on the task of persecuting the Jews.

This solution became the pattern for Western Civilization. It set the Jews apart, depicting them as utterly depraved creatures of abysmal and absolute evil, the enemy of all that is good and holy; diabolically insidious and dangerous to the realm and to decent folks; who will take over the land and enslave the people (projecting Caesar’s own motivation and the whole of Roman governance onto the Jews). It made the people fear and loath the Jews and clamor for the king and the Church to protect them, and to keep the Jews and their influence suppressed.

Suppressing the Jews and their influence brought everyone under suspicion, of course; and that persisted for fifteen centuries. It served the Inquisitors in extending their reign of terror to everyone, both Jews and non-Jews. No one could speak for fear of his words being misinterpreted to appear to reflect Jewish influence and cause him to be summoned before the Inquisitors. The Inquisition did not wind down in Spain until the 1830’s, more than three hundred years after there were no longer even any Jews in Spain. The last auto de fé in Mexico occurred in the 1880’s, four hundred years after the Inquisition was instituted to make sure that recent Jewish converts were not practicing Judaism in secret.

Meanwhile, the Enlightenment had taken hold. It had been introduced by Benedict Spinoza, a Jew in Amsterdam writing tracts about reason and freedom. Out of the Enlightenment came the French Revolution. What with the destruction of the nobility, ghetto walls being thrown open and Jews being allowed to actually mingle with Christian folk, the Enlightenment threw the tyrants and the Churches into a panic. The tyrants of Europe tried to fight the Enlightenment by denouncing it as the nefarious work of the Jews to undermine Christian civilization.

Then came the uprisings that swept Europe in 1848, all demanding what the French Revolution had demanded; “liberty, equality and fraternity.” Even though they were successfully suppressed, the Church and the ruling elite of Europe were shaken to the core.[4] Denouncing the Enlightenment as a Jewish plot was not gaining traction. Popular pressure for universal citizenship and universal suffrage (which is to say, equality), constitutions, parliaments, human rights and freedom for all, separation of Church and State, etc., (meaning liberty) continued and increased. To maintain public order, the autocratic governments of Europe found it necessary to speak in the language of the French Revolution, and over the course of the 19^th Century, democratization increased.

Eventually, early in the Twentieth Century, the elite rulers found the tool they needed to turn back the demands for democratization that arose from the Enlightenment. The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion was a forgery, a plagiarism of a play produced in Paris several decades earlier, which depicted a conspiracy to take over the world and enslave it through use of money to corrupt governments into tyrannizing the people, mass media to mislead the people, and banking to break countries with usury. The conspirators in that play, however, were not the Jews, but the Masonic Orders.

No matter. It was reworked by a servant of the Czar who, after Russia’s humiliating defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, needed something to distract the restive masses, who were demanding rights, a constitution, and a parliament with real power with which to confront his reign.

The Protocols are full of infantile scenarios, such as oaths signed in blood in a cemetery at midnight. The Czar, saying that even the most ignorant peasants would never believe something so obviously infantile and that disseminating it would make the Czar himself a laughing stock, threw the servant out with his Protocols.

Little did the Czar imagine how many people would believe it, or how smart many of those people would be. It is the second best-selling book in the history of the world — second only to the Bible. It was the bedrock of virulent strains of anti-Semitism, including Nazism. Henry Ford reworked it and published it as The International Jew. It is a best-seller in the Islamic world and is easily found on the internet. Its tropes continue to surface in the media, in political arguments and even in academic publications by university dons at institutions as august as Harvard and the University of Chicago.[5] Despite being proven in the early 1920’s to be counterfeit, plagiarized from an identified source,[6] the Protocols continues over the internet, and especially in Muslim countries. The world simply cannot believe it is not true. After all, it comports perfectly with all the calumnies that the Church has been drilling into the heads of Christians since Constantine.

The use of the Protocols succeeded in containing and reversing democratization by convincing the European masses that they need authoritarian government to protect their civilization from corruption and destruction by the Jews, and to protect them from Jewish enslavement and degradation. The Protocols took root especially among Germans after the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles. Seeing how Jews rose to prominence in the Weimar Republic, the ground was fertile for incitement of hysteria about democracy being a Jewish plot to seize power, and for a strong government and Church to protect society from them.

PART FOUR: USING THE ENLIGHTENMENT AGAINST THE “SEDITIOUS” BIBLE

Other elements of the ruling elites had found a more subtle way of uprooting Jewish influence, not in conjunction with the Churches but in a secular way. The tool was science and pseudo-science, actually using the Enlightenment to pull up the Jewish roots of Western Civilization. The official narrative is that science (reason) debunks the Torah. Whatever corroborates that narrative gets prominent treatment by the universities, publishing houses and the rest of the “enlightened” intellectual establishment.

There are, for example, crates of evidence supporting the validity of the Theory of Evolution, which seems quite clearly to contradict the Bible’s account of the creation of the world in six “days.” Christian fundamentalists played right into their hands by insisting that the Bible — which is both literal and mystical, a text written in layer upon layer of “code” — can be read and understood the way we read and understand the morning paper. The Scopes trial, derisively called the “Monkey trial,” was made to order for propagation of the view that only dolts are religious. William Jennings Bryan, who defended Creationism in the Scopes trial, was a brilliant man and a dedicated humanitarian, twice the Democratic Party candidate for president, and who served as Woodrow Wilson’s Secretary of State. He is remembered, however, only for this anti-scientific defense and also for advocating that both gold and silver be used as legal tender, a proposal that was not adopted. Those defeats, which are easily marginalized, made it easy to bury and forget his principled warning during the Spanish-American War, that the methods of political control to support an authoritarian government in the Philippines would undermine American democracy. That is exactly what happened and is still happening.[7] The people in power do not want people noticing this and thinking about it.

Much the same has occurred in the school of “Higher Biblical Criticism.” Again, there is an official narrative: the Bible is not “true,” not “historical,” was written and compounded over centuries by different authors, and eventually edited (badly) and canonized. No matter how many of their proofs have turned out not to be correct, the narrative that the Bible has little, if anything, accurate in it acquired the status of received truth, or at least agreed upon dogma. Those who contradicted it would see their careers evaporate.

The Hebrew Bible has also been attacked on moral grounds, because it is aggressive and militaristic, denigrates current “cause of the day” matters such as homosexuality, and seems to be in favor of separate nations, all of which, according to current politically correct code, is immoral.

The Hebrew Bible also seems, at a superficial reading, to approve of slavery, as did other cultures at the time, including Periclean Athens. Besides that, it seems as if at the moment many think that that religion — all religion, any and every religion — is the cause of so much war and oppression that it should all be shunned, not even to be looked into. To do so would be anathema — but as that word has no place in science, we do not call religion anathema, but it is anathema all the same.

These schools of thought, dubbed by their followers “progressive,” by ostensibly embracing the Enlightenment, seem to have succeeded in uprooting Western Civilization from the Biblical source of equality and freedom. The result is increasing efforts to suppress free speech on campus, in the media and, especially in Europe, by legal prosecution. The Enlightenment, meant to free people from tyranny, now seems to become, perversely, the new enforcer of it.

By sometime in the 19th Century, the forces of tyranny, both the progressives and those aligned with the Churches, had managed to put the Hebrew Bible back into the bottle and to confine the category of the “classical languages” to Latin and Greek, shunting aside the languages of the Hebrew Bible, Hebrew and Aramaic. This de-emphasis of the Hebrew Bible meant that, once again, it was to be read, not on its own, but only through the gloss of Emperor Constantine’s Bible, the “New Testament.” This ensures that the connection of Western Civilization to the root of democracy, namely, the Hebrew Bible, would wither and that Western Civilization would once again be rooted solely in the authoritarian societies of Greece and Rome.

Admittedly, it was from the Christian Bible that Europeans learned that God intends that people should live in freedom and equality, which caused all the revolutionary ferment since the 14^thCentury, described above. Nevertheless, if the authorities of the churches can prevent the people from reading the Hebrew Bible themselves, they will have the ability to interpret the Hebrew Bible for everyone solely through the filter of the Christian Bible. It makes a difference.

For example, in Constantine’s Bible, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.” (Matthew 22:21). What does the Hebrew Bible say? “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” (Psalm 21:1). Then what is Caesar’s? Absolutely nothing. He too belongs to God. Tyrants hate that. There is a clear reason why the Catholic Church, the extension of the Roman Empire, forbade anyone but the priests to learn the Hebrew Bible.

By now, the Bible has acquired a bad name, regarded as primitive, morally inferior, benighted superstition. The Bible has been effectively driven from public discourse. The marginalization of the Bible has made the Western world safe once again for the resurgence of tyranny, the default position of all civilizations, including Western Civilization.

I once heard the director, Orson Welles, in a radio interview, say that without the contributions of the Greeks and the Romans, we would have a much poorer civilization; without the contributions of the Jews, we would not have a civilization at all. He was right, but that is the direction in which Western Civilization is going. It seems to be divesting itself of its Jewish roots and reverting to its default position, rooted in autocracy of ancient Greek and Rome.

PART FIVE: CONSTANTINE’S SOLUTION RIGHT DOWN TO OUR TIMES

By now, Europe may have abandoned Christianity but its hatred of Jews and of Judaism has been deeply internalized. In our multicultural age, Westerners, especially Europeans, can no longer see total evil in people. Islam cannot really be as evil as it appears. Nazism could not have been as evil as we have been told. Surely the Holocaust has been exaggerated. No one can be totally evil, apart from maybe a few deranged individual psychopaths.

All that changes, however, when the Jews are being accused. Suddenly, any accusation is automatically believed, no matter how depraved or lurid. Deliberately massacring Palestinian children, racism, “apartheid,” systematic oppression, waging of genocidal wars and harvesting organs from the victims are all believed, just as Christians in another time believed — and might still believe, as many Muslims today do believe — that Jews murder non-Jewish children and collect their blood to make matzah for Passover.

These ghoulish and horrifying fabrications are believed with no need of proof, no matter how many times the accuser has been proven in the past to have lied. The assertion that the Zionists are “worse than the Nazis” should have the world rolling on the floor holding their sides in derisive laughter, Europeans especially, as the Nazi horrors were perpetrated in their “front yard,” on their streets, in their town squares and railway platforms, with cattle cars stuffed full of screaming Jews rolling through their towns. But no, it is considered by many a respectable proposition with which one may reasonably agree or disagree.

An Arab member of the Knesset [Israeli parliament] spoke in Finland, where he denounced Israeli rule as worse than apartheid. “Give us apartheid,” he said, as if that would be better than what they actually endure. He was cheered with outrage and gusto. No one seems even to have thought how many black members of the South African parliament came to speak to them during apartheid days. There were, of course, no black members of South Africa’s Parliament in the days of apartheid. Did anyone feel any fear and anguish over what terrible retributions would happen to the speaker, that poor, oppressed man, when he returned home to fascistic, racist, genocidal, worse-than-apartheid Israel? Not likely. At some level, they know full well that nothing would happen to him. It is all lurid fiction, and deep down they know that; but believing it gives Europeans the freedom to give full-throated expression to the Jew-hatred that has been indoctrinated into them by the churches for the last seventeen centuries.

In the search for a way to protect tyranny from the “seditious” influence of the Jews, there is a progression — from Titus’s solution through Hadrian’s and Constantine’s solutions — to Hitler’s “Final Solution to the Jewish Question;” and we can already begin to see what is developing as the next phase.

Titus massacred half the Jews in the land and exiled many more as slaves. That was the beginning of Jewish presence in the Rhineland, Pannonia (Hungary), Dacia (Romania) and other places. Sixty-two years after Titus’s genocide, the Jews in Judea responded with another revolt.

The Emperor Hadrian not only perpetrated another genocide but also destroyed the land itself and attempted to detach it from all reference to the Jewish people. Few Jews remained and nearly all of those that did, remained as slaves. Unlike Carthage, however, which had only its land to unify its people, the Jewish people had another source of national coherence: the Torah and its underlying learning. The Torah was given in the wilderness, and with it, the Jewish people and Jewish civilization were able continue even without land. From ancient Rome’s point of view, the “disease” of freedom, equality and sanctity of human life merely metastasized and spread by conversion.

Constantine therefore, sought to defeat the “pernicious” influence of the Hebrew Bible by superimposing a sequel, presented as its fulfillment, therefore subjecting the Hebrew Bible to interpretation through the filter of the “New Testament,” and supplanting the Jewish people, who would be reviled and dehumanized in the eyes of Christian believers.

That worked for a thousand years (a period called the “Dark Ages”), during which no one but the Christian priests were permitted to learn the Bible. There was, however, a problem. Because Constantine had needed to hold Romans, who were attracted in massive numbers to Judaism,[8]his new religion had to look like the “Improved Judaism,” the fulfilled Judaism. It therefore needed to include the Hebrew Bible to show what it was fulfilling. Eventually, Wycliffe let the genie out of the bottle with his translation of the Bible into English. People were able to gain direct, unfiltered access to the text of the Hebrew Bible. What resulted was the revolutionary ferment described above.

If even Jews like Benedict Spinoza, who was excommunicated by the rabbis, and even assimilated Jews in our time militate passionately for the ideals of freedom, equality and sanctity of human life, then it seems to be in the very bones of the Jews. As long as Jews are around, tyrants will never be safe. In their view, both the Jews and their seditious Bible have to be done away with utterly. For the tyrants, all else had failed.

PART SIX: THE NEXT PHASE – ISLAMIC TYRANNY

The Nazi “Final Solution” inexorably followed but it also failed. Germany could not conquer the entire world and wipe out every last Jew down to the last baby. Furthermore, it could not have succeeded absolutely if the Churches remained, because the Churches carry the Hebrew Bible around as part of their own Bible, and they have to deal with its terms and doctrines. Ultimately, in order to rid the world of the seditious Hebrew Bible, the Nazis would have had to destroy Christianity as well.

For tyrants, Islam is the perfect solution. Whereas Christianity claims to be the fulfillment of what is set forth in the Hebrew Bible, and therefore must proclaim its validity, Islam claims to be the true text of what Allah gave to Moses. Islam claims that what the Israelites would have given the world, if the rabbis had not corrupted the manuscript, would have been the Quran. To Islam, the Hebrew Bible is made by man and not by Allah; it has no validity and therefore there is nothing to confront. It is just garbage, together with its message of freedom, equality, the sanctity of human life and the obligation and commitment of everyone, especially the rulers, to help the weakest members of society and protect the general safety and welfare.

Islam is the perfect religion for making the world safe for tyranny. Furthermore, Islam makes no secret of its intention to murder every last Jew in the world.[9] In addition, Islam also fully intends to destroy Christianity, as is clear from its doctrines. In the Qur’an alone, disbelievers are to be beheaded (47:4), terrorized (8:12), annihilated (6:45), killed (4:91) and crucified (5:33). It is also clear from the consistent actions of those waging jihad. Could tyrants possibly ask for more?

This is the nexus of the “Red-Green Alliance.” How can the Marxist “progressive” left and the Islamic jihadis join forces, when the jihadis only want to return to pure seventh-century tribal Islam, and Marxism is all about progressive ideals like equality, social justice and peace? Look at their positions and what they stand for. What do they have in common?

That is actually easy. Marxism is not about equality or social justice or reason or freedom or peace. Marxism is about power. The positions that Marxists advocate and the causes they support are no more what Marxism is about than the excessive uniforms of the 1920’s, ’30’s and ’40’s are the essence of fascism. They are only the mask that is presented in order to enlist the support of people at a particular time and place. Just as there is no practical difference between Communist rule and fascist rule, so there is not much practical difference between Islamic rule and Nazi rule. Only the rhetoric and ceremonies and other trappings differ. Both Marxism and Islam, however, are about brutal tyrannical rule.

Ask a “progressive” what it is that they would have us “progress” toward. The response will usually be a blank stare. The answer, in the history of “Progressivism,” is, at its base, a notion that arises out of Marx and Darwin: that mankind is still evolving and can be perfected, and that the appropriate instrument to direct that evolution is government. In the Soviet Union, homo sapiens were self-consciously evolving into a morally and socially superior homo sovieticus. Seriously. Google it and see for yourself. You could not make that up. Furthermore, the belief seems to be that man can be directed to this perfect state by the ruthless, unrestrained use of force and brutality — exactly what the world is witnessing at the hands of the Islamic zealots every day. On their side, the Communists in the last century murdered more than a hundred million people.

Is it any wonder that “progressive” Western leaders and establishment journalists consistently cave in to Islamic demands to curtail freedom and have given Islam a special status among religions? They protect it against criticism, vilify its detractors and continually serve as public relations flacks for Islam: they keep explaining that the burgeoning global jihad and its expanding horrors “have nothing to do with Islam.” One could contend, with far greater justification, that the Inquisition had nothing to do with Christianity. One could claim that the Inquisition was actually anti-Christian, perpetrated by people who twisted the doctrines of Christianity. No one says such an inane and ridiculous thing, except in defense of Islam.

CONCLUSION

When tyrants target the Jews and incite the people against them, the real target is everyone’s freedom. It is a mistake to point out that the same fate befell others, that non-Jews were also gassed and cremated, that the Inquisition persecuted “everyone,” so why are the Jews feeling sorry for themselves. The whole purpose of taking down the Jews is precisely to enslave everyone. If Jew-bashing is being stoked once again, it is because the enemies of liberty are ready to make a move on everyone’s liberty.

The Jews are like the canary in the coal mine, not because the Jews, like the canary, succumb to the poison before everyone else. It is because the enemies of liberty know that all humanism, all doctrines of liberty and sanctity of human life in Western Civilization come from the Jews; from Jewish sources and from Jewish thinkers. In order to put those ideas to rest, they have to eliminate the Jewish roots, the Jewish frames of reference and the Jews, whose very presence is a reminder that people have the God-given right to live in freedom and equality. The goal of Jew-bashing is the destruction of everyone’s freedom, and that is why everyone should take warning.

In historical terms, democracy has not lasted long: fewer than three hundred years in America; two hundred fitful years in France, punctuated by the occasional resurgence of tyrannical rule; one hundred and fifty years in Britain, and barely a hundred troubled years on various parts of the European Continent, where it was interrupted by fascism and its Nazi variant for as long as twenty of those years, and by Communism for more than seventy years. This record means that most of those countries – except Czechoslovakia, briefly, and the Scandinavian countries — never really experienced democracy. The rest of Europe had fascist regimes with only some of the trappings of democracy at most.

In the Islamic world, only Iran experienced democracy, and only briefly. The CIA and British intelligence destroyed it because they feared the socialist government that the Iranians elected. The people liked democracy and they remember it, as was clearly evidenced by the failed 2009 “Green Revolution.”

Democracy in Europe appears to be nearly finished by now, falling rapidly to Islamic tyranny on one side and autocratic rule by unelected, unaccountable, faceless European Union bureaucrats on the other, with a resurgent Imperial Russia in the wings. I fear America may not be far behind. And I fear that if liberty fails in America, it will fail everywhere.

Prof. J.P. Golbert has practiced law in New York, California and Israel for a multi-national clientele, including Israeli NGO’s, and was also a law professor in Los Angeles. He has practiced law in Jerusalem since 1986 and has contributed numerous opinion pieces to various media outlets.

[1] I am indebted for this information to the historian, Prof. Francisco Gil-White. His book, The Crux of World History, which used to be online, is undergoing revision. It will be online again.

[2] Again, I am indebted to Professor Gil-White for this information.

[3] See, for example, the discussion of Spinoza in the next section.

[4] Gil-White, “Psychological warfare and political grammar”, Part 9, “Why do enemies of democracy attack the Jews?“

[5] John Meersheimer and Steven Walt, “The Israel Lobby.”

[6] Gil-White, “Psychological warfare and political grammar,” footnote 13.

[7] Gil-White, in “Psychological warfare and political grammar”, Part 1, “Psychological warfare, communication research, and the media” and the rest of the sequence, treats in depth the ultimate development of these techniques.

[8] Francisco Gil-White, The Crux of World History, citing Shaye Cohen.

[9] See for example the Hamas Charter.

Perhaps you think the war is over. Perhaps you think that if Iran becomes a “friend” of the United States and the possibility of an American-led war against the Islamic Republic recedes, the need for a militarily capable ally such as Israel also recedes. Maybe the U.S. doesn’t want to associate with the “militaristic” Jewish State. That’s quite possible from the vantage point of July 2015 and if you think the only reason to befriend anyone is for the military advantages it brings to the relationship.

But there is a reason military-to-military cooperation between the U.S. and Israel has remained almost untouchable, and the American military proudly touts its relationship with Israel.

With the President of the United States behaving as if Iran can be an ally and a pro-Western player, it might help to recall the “quick reference guide” to the capabilities Israel brings to U.S.-Israel security cooperation, first published by JINSA in 1979, detailing that Israel has:

• A secure location in a crucial part of the world
• A well-developed military infrastructure
• The ability to maintain, service, and repair U.S.-origin equipment
• An excellent deep-water port in Haifa
• Modern air facilities
• A position close to sea-lanes and ability to project power over long distances
• A domestic air force larger than many in Western Europe and possessing more up-to-date hardware
• Multilingual capabilities, including facility in English, Arabic, French, Farsi and the languages of the (former) Soviet Union
• Combat familiarity with Soviet/Russian style tactics and equipment
• The ability to assist U.S. naval fleets, including common equipment
• The ability to support American operations and to provide emergency air cover
• A democratic political system with a strong orientation to support the United States and the NATO system.

In 1996, R&D capabilities and intelligence cooperation were added. Post 9-11, urban counterterror training was added.

Nothing has been deleted.

After the 2003 allied invasion of Iraq, American military personnel were being introduced to Israel’s bomb-sniffing dogs. The U.S. wanted such dogs, but the training period is fairly long. The IDF made Israeli dogs available, but they only took commands in Hebrew. There were some interesting scenes in Baghdad.

Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey is one of many American military officers willing to praise Israel’s concern for enemy civilian casualties. Dempsey sent a senior American delegation to Israel to learn tactics after last summer’s Gaza war.

But more important than planning for combat is planning for the strengthening of democracies. We cannot make democracies out of Iraq or Libya or Syria, but when democratic countries are united, the world becomes a safer place for all. As I wrote in 2006,

“Israel and the United States are drawn together by common values and common threats to our well-being. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction across the Middle East and Asia, and the ballistic missile technology to deliver systems across wide areas require cooperation in intelligence, technology and security policy. Terrorism and the origins and dissemination of violent Islamic radicalism also need to be addressed multi-laterally when possible.

“In a volatile region so vital to the U.S., where other states cannot be relied upon, it would be foolish to disengage — or denigrate — an ally such as Israel. The war against terrorists and the states that harbor and support them will be long and hard, and success will depend in no small measure on the allies who stand with us and with whom we stand.”

The message was good in 1979, better in 2006 and better yet in 2015.