TRUTH BE TOLD

by Amil Imani

  Amil Imani has written an excellent summary of the Islamic threat throughout the world: "Islamists are hell-bent on imposing their Stone-Age system on everyone." They consider it -- including their master-slave model for a well-run society and their brutal tactics in achieving their goal -- a religious duty, which rids them of guilt and hesitancy. "Islam, by the nature of its very doctrine, appeals to man’s baser nature." This is so alien to other religions and to secular humanism, that there is a tendency to disbelieve the reality.

WHAT'S THAT ABOUT DAUGHTERS?

by Sarah Honig

 Sarah Honig states bluntly what many in the West would like to ignore: "Hamas anchors its Jew-revulsion in the Koran." As the Hamas Charter asserts, "there is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad." Nevertheless, no matter how openly Hamas states its intent, Westerners, with all the evidence against them, continue to act as if Hamas can be gentled, that we can all reason together, if we but make the effort -- again. Honig suggests, using the Swiss as example, that either they "know what Hamas is but just [don't] really give a hoot" or ... "don't wish to burden their selective conscience with excess information — as per precedents from Third Reich days about other genocidal harangues"

HOLOCAUST SPEAKER TOO CONTROVERSIAL FOR PURDUE CALUMET?

by Arnold Ahlert

 Self-censorship is an excellent way to deny the threat of resurgent Islam. If we never get into a confrontational situation, we don't have to think about the consequences of standing up -- or not standing up -- for our way of life against a group that places no limitations on what it will do to win. One excellent indicator that self-censorship is at work is when Muslims object to the Holocaust being taught, and the school or local school board accede to their demand. Or often, they cut the course or lecture series when no one has yet complained, but they are aware that Muslims objected to it somewhere else. This has become commonplace in Europe, especially England. But it is still fairly new in this country. In this essay, Arnold Ahlert chronicles a recent example that occurred at Purdue University. What makes it particularly appalling is that Jewish Federation, a major Jewish organization, went along with the action.

THIS PASSOVER, FREE US FROM A FAILED JEWISH LEADERSHIP

by Stella Paul

 This being the season in which we celebrate the Passover and our deliverance from slavery into becoming a free people, we present Stella Paul's special prayer for deliverance from an American Jewish leadership which for many years has shown itself to be "A clueless bunch of mini-Pharaohs, strutting around proclaiming their moral superiority"... This being the season of the Passover, she frames her prayer in the format of dayena, "It would have been enough, O Lord." Actually, considering the tone of the essay, a better translation might be the Yiddish-English "genug, already." (Enough already!)

JIHADIST INFILTRATION -- THEY ARE WINNING

by David Meir-Levi

 David Meir-Levi provides us with is a detailed summary of how far the Islamists have come in softening us up so that we won't resist their next phase of attack on western civilization. They have effectively used a variety of procedures from lawfare to terrorism. Almost unnoticed is "the quiet, gradual and peaceful infiltration of Muslim operatives and their supporters into our social, legal, educational and political systems under the guise of legitimate democratic activism..." What makes all of this so depressing is that like lobsters slowly subjected to increasing heat, we seem to adapt and remain quiescent. We show no alarm.

THE SPIRIT OF GEERT WILDERS

by Mark Steyn

 Mark Steyn tells us how important Geert Wilders is in the fight for all of us in the West to retain our freedom of speech and thought. Wilders was put on trial for committing the sin of describing Islam accurately in its own words. Unfortunately, in Europe, "[t]hose who seek to analyze Islam outside the very narrow bounds of Eutopian political discourse wind up either banned (Belgium’s Vlaams Blok), forced into exile (Ayaan Hirsi Ali), or killed (Fortuyn, van Gogh)." "In 21st-century Amsterdam, you’re free to smoke marijuana and pick out a half-naked sex partner from the front window of her shop. But you can be put on trial for holding the wrong opinion about a bloke who died in the seventh century." Fear of Islamic intolerant reactions to what they call Islamophobia -- i.e., any criticism of Islam -- has made European officialdom intolerant of those of their citizens who question Islam's assessment of itself.

AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS

by Bruce Bawer

 Bruce Bawer writes of the Obin study of the impact of Islam on the educational system published in France in 2005. It contains a litany of refusals by Muslim children to participate in anything or eat anything or accept anything or study anything at odds with their religion -- this in a country that prides itself on its multicultural integration. Hand in hand with this, the Muslim children were thoroughly-indoctrinated Jew-haters. "Muslim students objected to anything having to do with Judaism. Holocaust denial was common." It noted that "...there is no school in France — not even a Jewish school! — where Jewish children are safe from the pernicious evil of Muslim Jew-hatred." If anything, the situation has worsened for Jews. France itself is unlikely to remain a democracy much longer, given that this Muslim population is rapidly increasing, they will not assimilate, and the French leadership shows no signs of takings measures to reverse the situation.

MAINSTREAM AMERICAN MUSLIM JURISTS' BLUEPRINT FOR UNDERMINING AMERICA'S LEGAL SYSTEM

by Andrew Bostom

 Whoever is blueprinting the takeover of the West by resurgent Islam must think it is a powerful tool to say exactly what Islam plans to accomplish. Andy Bostom recounts the dream of that patriotic American, Salah al-Sawy, who is willing to live briefly under American law until he has sufficient resources to change things to their proper state, where everyone lives under Allah, and Muslims are in control. Eventually, the Islamic Umma expects to "supercede Western conceptions of human rights as enunciated, for example, in the US Bill of Rights, and the UN's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights." If they don't succeed, it won't be for want of trying. For "Muslims serving as judges in non-Muslim (including US) legal systems: It is permissible to work as a judge in an infidel nation or a nation which rules by infidel law, even if that leads to ruling by their law, if by so doing one is able to increase the good and decrease the bad as much as possible." As it is said, "he judges by the rulings of the Shari'a as much as possible, even if by a ruse." So now we know.

THE HISTORICAL REALITY OF THE MUSLIM CONQUESTS

by Raymond Ibrahim

 "Because it is now almost axiomatic for American school textbooks to whitewash all things Islamic", Raymond Ibrahim undertakes to gives us a more accurate picture of the Muslim Conquest of the vast land area from the Middle East and Spain to central Asia and India. The inhabitants were offered the usual Muslim choices: conversion, dhimmitude or a fight to the death. This is taught proudly in the Muslim world. But Western textbooks would have you believe the conquered people couldn't wait to accept Islam.

ONLY WORDS

by Edward Cline

 A major objective of resurgent Islam is to criminalize any criticism of Islam that any Muslim might object to. Their campaign has been sufficiently successful that we have become infected with the fear of saying anything that can be considered Hate-Islam-speech. It easily overrides our supposedly-irrevocable and guaranteed-by-the Constitution free speech. It has indeed become dangerous to verbalize a whimsical or logical train of thought that might be politically distasteful. Muslims that aren't too squeamish to decapitate a human apparently are too sensitive, too delicate, to be subjected to hurtful words. In this essay Edward Cline describes the stigmata of the disease with which we are afflicted. If virtue still has power, this essay will become a classic.

I'M BACK!

by Al Skudsi bin Hookah

  Mr. bin Hookah is foreign correspondent and roving reporter for The Gaza Gajeera. In this column, he recounts his experience as an unwilling resident in an Israeli jail these past few years.

THE MIDDLE EAST'S REAL APARTHEID

by Efraim Karsh

  Israel has been accused of killing a handful of human shields in 2009 in Gaza. Syria has in fact murdered some 12000 of its own citizens within the past year, including some 400 children that were jailed and tortured. Yet the Anti-apartheidniks rage against Israel and ignore Syria's barbaric behavior. Efraim Karsh points out in this essay that Syria's human rights record is not atypical. Apartheidism is endemic in the Arab states -- as is religious intolerance, ethnic inequality, racism, gender discrimination, slavery and other practices that Western liberals condemn in theory but ignore when they are done by their proteges, the Muslims of the Middle East.

THE PALESTINIAN HUMAN RIGHTS NIGHTMARE

by P. David Hornik

 When a culture is built on aggression and conquest, it's not surprising that the same lack of respect for others spills over into family relations and clan interactions, where brutality is also the norm. David Hornik tackles an important subset: Arab on Arab violence. Ignoring the phenomenon allows Arab propagandists to balloon out grievances against Israel that are likely the expression of the resentment Arabs feel against Jews being in control, when in their perfect world, Jews -- and everybody else -- should be dhimmis. Given their religion-based culture of violence, as Hornik notes, "...the idea that upgrading the West Bank and Gaza to statehood would be a step toward peace, let alone democracy, is surely in need of a reality check."

PALESTINIAN SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR SELLING A HOME TO JEWS

by Daniel Halper

 In keeping with the discussions in the previous articles, a grave problem is that Palestinian Arabs are in danger from their own leaders, who consider it is a capital crime to sell property to a Jew. This has had consequences. Sales have been handled between Arab and Jew surreptitiously. They avoid filing papers and out of fear of their own leaders the Arab seller can't own up to the sale. Now the Israeli Supreme Court is jeopardizing the use of this outlet.

WHO MAKES THE LAW?

by Moshe Dann

 Moshe Dann writes of the highly discriminatory rulings against Jews in Israeli court cases when a Jew and an Arab have a property dispute, As he notes, "This ruling should send shivers down the spine of everyone who respects the rule of law. It means that Israel's Supreme Court has been compromised by a political agenda that discriminates against Jews. By abandoning the Ottoman rules, the High Court may well have undermined the rule of law, by changing the age-old principles of land occupancy in Judea and Samaria by sudden judicial fiat."

SEX AND SHARIA: MUSLIM WOMEN PUNISHED FOR FAILED MARRIAGES

by Charlotte Rachael Proudman

 A reader of the original article, Michelle Brooks, wrote: "I am always absolutely incredulous to find instances where British laws are broken over and over again without penalty ... Well done Charlotte Proudman for shedding more light on such a dark corner of our judicial system - and for those who will say that Sharia councils are not courts -- we know! However, because thousands of vulnerable Muslim women don't know, these operations continue to bring in a steady flow of cash to a sinister bunch who have callous disregard for the welfare of women who are often sent back to their abusive husbands as they haven't been beaten enough to warrant a divorce."

ACID ATTACKS: JUST A CULTURE THING OR JUST ISLAMIC?

by Gadi Adelman

 As Gadi Adelman points out, acid attacks are not unique to Islam, but they are commonly used in the Islamic culture as punishment or retaliation. In Jewish law, 'an eye for an eye' became the foundation for tort law, where an equivalent monetary recompense was substituted for retaliation. In Islamic countries, one can find recent court decisions where someone found guilty of blinding another has his own eye removed. Acid attacks are commonly used against women and children by husbands and fathers angry that they are not obeyed; and these are seldom punished. I was going to say it was a dog's life for women in Islam, but that's not true. Women don't get eaten. They are just brutalized and regarded as inferior creatures.

FORCING WOMEN TO MARRY THEIR RAPISTS

by Arnold Ahlert

 Arnold Ahlert writes about a ruling under Sharia law that seems insane to Westerners. A young Muslim woman aged 16 was ordered by the court to marry the man who had raped her a year before. The important issue in that culture is not that a young girl suffered psychological and physical damage. What matters is that in losing her virginity before marriage, the victim causes her family to lose honor. So says Sharia. Since Sharia law blames the woman when there's a rape, the family often feels marriage to the rapist is the only way to restore the family's honor -- it's that or killing the woman that was raped. In this case, after suffering several months of beatings after marriage, she committed suicide. There is a stark difference between Western and Islamic law and attitudes; and stories such as this one cut through the nonsense that "all cultures are equally viable," all ideologies equally acceptable.

WIFE BEATERS AND THEATER CRITICS IN BANGLADESH

by Mohshin Habib

 Not that long ago, Bangladesh, a Muslim country, was noted for being democratic, secular, tolerant and modern in outlook; the attitude was reinforced by its Constitution. But as in Turkey and in Egypt and Iran, the fundamentalists took over and the country has become conventionally Islamic. Mohshin Habib gives us a look at how the Muslim religion influences some every-day matters.

WHO ARE THE PALESTINIAN-ARABS?

by Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger

  Yoram Ettinger provides definitive information on the origin of the name and region called Palestine and the quite-separate origin of those we now call "Palestinians. The article is noteworthy for using population statistics from various sources. They make it clear, in the words of Dr. Carl Hermann Voss, that "[t]he Arab population of Palestine was small and limited until Jewish resettlement restored the barren lands and drew to it Arabs from neighboring countries." When England was given the League of Nations Mandate to help the Jews develop the area into a Jewish state, she called it Palestine. She betrayed her trust, splitting off the 78% of the territory that was on the east side of the Jordan river to and giving it to the Hashemites to administer, then encouraging Arab immigration into the remainder of the land while making difficulties for Jewish immigrants, "until Arab demography was sufficiently enhanced". Palestinian is a recent name intended to lend support for the false claim that these Arabs are a separate people. But thanks to the multiplicity of cultures, nationalities and races that never assimilated -- the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica counted 51 -- and the chronic internecine warfare of a volatile and ever changing population in the region, no nation or people had crystallized in all the years since the Arab conquest. Nor had the population increased significantly. "In 1554, there were 205,000 Moslems Christian and Jews in Palestine. In 1800, the total population was 275,000." Then the Jews came. And the Arab population figures increased steeply.

HOW MANY PALESTINIANS ARE THERE?

by David Ha'ivri

 The West invests so much media promotion, economic resources, and political capital on the Palestinian Arabs, one would suppose determining reliably how many Arabs actually live in the Territories would be a simple lookup. It isn't. David Ha'ivri lays out the problem and suggestions possible reasons why the data are sequestered. He refers to "reputable, independent studies" that use accurate statistics to estimate Arab population. We suggest googling articles by Yoram Ettinger on demographics to obtain these. To understand the implication of these data, we also include an article by Ettinger contrasting current fertility rates for Arabs and Jews in Israel and the Territories. Most surprising.

THE DEATH OF OSLO AND THE REBIRTH OF JORDAN-IS-PALESTINE

by Matthew Hausman

 Matthew Hausman elegantly demolishes the notion that the Oslo Process was a vehicle for peace, and suggests an alternative procedure -- declaring Jordan, which already has a Palestinian Arab majority, as the Palestinian state.. He makes clear that the Jews have had a historic and religious attachment to their homeland for thousands of years and in point of fact never completely left it. The Palestinian Arabs, in contrast, "had no ancestral connection", nor were they a nation or a people. They were mostly immigrants from the neighboring countries, attracted by the economic opportunities created by the Jews and the British. That being the case, moving them to nearby Jordan does not sever them from their homeland. Just the opposite -- it gives a motley group of Arabs, the local Arabs and for the millions living in the refugee camps in the various Arab countries, land that could become their homeland.

A VIABLE ALTERNATIVE FOR THE FUTURE OF ISRAEL

by Dr. Mordechai Kedar

 Dr. Kedar has written, “Tribalism, which may be understood as ‘loyalty of individuals and groups to a traditional framework, such as a clan, sect, ethnic or religious subgroup’, ... forms the basis of much of the social structure of the Arab and Islamic world. ... tribal or family alliances endure intact even after tribal territory has been incorporated into a state system." Building on this observation, Dr. Kedar suggests a novel suggestion for solving the Palestinian Arab problem and thus bringing peace and stability for at least a small part of the Middle East.

A FAULTY INTELLIGENCE REPORT LIVES ON

by Thomas Joscelyn

 Thomas Joscelyn writes that the 2007 NIE report was "flat wrong about Iran's covert work," in that it ignored Iran's ongoing work on "civilian" uranium conversion and enrichment. It did grave damage in that it supported the notion that Iran wasn't all that warlike in its nuclear ambitions, a conclusion many politicians and 'let's give negotiations and sanctions a chance' ideologues, including the present American administration, welcomed. When dealing with a group of fanatics who wasted some 100,000 to 500,000 of their own children, who were sent to blow-up land mines (and themselves), it would seem more intelligent to err on the side of suspicion of Iran's claims of innocence, particularly when it announces its intent to blow up Israel as soon as it has a bomb. Or maybe it will attack the USA directly. Or just cow its neighbors into political surrender. When the bomb goes off or is used as political blackmail, will Obama blame it on Bush?

THE IRANIAN DECISION ON THE PRODUCTION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

by Ephraim Asculai

 Ephraim Asculai provides the basic facts about Iran's ability to produce nuclear weaponry. We are certain of these facts or, at the very least, can make educated guesses about them. He concludes "Iran has the technical know-how and the facilities to enrich its LEU (3.5 and 20 percent uranium) to high enriched uranium (HEU) of about 90 percent enrichment." "the Iranians can, If the technicians receive the order to do so, quite quickly produce HEU for the first core of a nuclear explosive device."

Brett Stephens in a March 19, 2012 Wall Street Journal article entitled "The Bogus Iran Intelligence Debate" uses a less technical way to make the same point: given that the Iranians have the components, focusing on when they will be ready to produce bombs is bogus. He explains the actual core issue (no pun intended) this way: "You may not be able to divine whether a drinker, holding a bottle of Johnnie Walker in one hand and a glass tinkling with ice in the other, actually intends to pour himself a drink. And perhaps he doesn't. But the important thing, at least when it comes to intervention, is not to present him with the opportunity in the first place. [...] To have sufficient quantities of enriched uranium is, so to speak, the whiskey of a nuclear-weapons program. By contrast, 'weaponization'—the vessel into which you pour and through which you can deliver the enriched uranium cocktail—is merely the glass."

HEZBOLLAH DONORS, AGENTS OPERATING IN U.S.

by Alana Goodman

 Alana Goodman makes a chilling but compelling observation that pierces the unstated belief of many an antisemite that Iran might take over the Middle East, even blast Israel, but they won't attack America. Based on the fact that Hezbollah agents -- tools of Iran -- are in the USA and have a sufficient network of donors to be effective, she asks, "the argument from the appease-Iran crowd is so counter-intuitive. If there's broad concern about the threat of Hezbollah operatives in the U.S. now, why would we expect them to be less of a threat if they were backed by mullahs with nukes? Or are we just supposed to that pray Israel and our other allies don’t do anything that might offend the regime once it obtains nuclear weapons, lest its Hezbollah allies retaliate against us domestically?"

CUT AND RUN REDUX

by Karen Mckay

 Karen McKay reminds us that we are repeating the cut and run tactics we used in Vietnam, instead of staying the course and fighting effectively the war that radical Islam is waging against us. We need also to understand that the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War are not separate wars; they are components of the global war Islam is waging around the world. As McKay writes, "We are at war with an implacable enemy who intends to cleanse the world of Jews and destroy Western civilization. Mealy-mouthed speeches, attempts to excuse or “understand” those who are dedicated to destroying us, and limp-wristed responses to threats—such as negotiations and feel-good sanctions--will doom us. Our enemies respect only strength, decisiveness and fearlessness."

LICENSE TO MURDER: THE ENDURING THREAT OF THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION

by Alex Grobman

 Responding to a number of people have asked if they can use the introduction of his book License to Murder: The Enduring Threat of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Dr. Alex Grobman had made it available. Here below is a copy. As Kenneth Bialkin, Chairman of the America-Israel Friendship League, puts it, "Dr. Alex Grobman seeks to explore how and why a vicious lie, a warrant for genocide, first written in the early 1900s, aided endemic antisemitism and then morphed into anti-Zionism.

WASH. POST'S PALESTINIAN PROPAGANDA FALSIFIES HISTORY AND THE BIBLE

by Leo Rennert

 One would think that the naming a square in memory of Dr. Dajani. "an Arab physician who treated both Arabs and Jews" before Israel became a state would be a heartwarming story. The Washington Post used it to vilify Israel, distort recent history and revise the Bible to suit Arab propaganda. As Leo Rennert writes, the Post's reporter, Joel Greenberg, "inject[ed] his piece with anti-Israel poison pills in an attempt to undermine the very legitimacy of Israel's nationhood." The Arab invasion of the new-born state is ignored and Israel is made to seem responsible for the Doctor's family leaving. "With Greenberg, the sad tale of the Dajani family is turned into Palestinian victimhood rather than the outcome of massive self-inflicted wounds by Arab leaders. The 1948 debacle was caused entirely by Arab rejectionism, not by Israel's creation." Rennert rightly concludes that its "journalistic selectivity ... tells worlds about the paper's anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian bias in its news columns."

EXPOSED: UN MEDIA OFFICIAL RESPONSIBLE FOR FALSE PHOTO TWEET

by Simon Plosker

 We are familiar with lone wolf terrorists, imbued with the peaceful messages of Islam, massacring non-Muslims with no visible instruction from a central planning group. Now we hear of lone-wolf propagandists, who, apparently independently, set up a well-structured hoax, when, usually, a successful hoax requires coordination, planning, money and authority. The al-Dura construction, for example, required one group of Arabs to distract the IDF while another crew faked the death of a 12-year old boy, Muhamad al-Dura. The cameraman, standing near the Arab snipers, reassured the network that the posed shot was of a 12-year old boy hiding behind his father, caught in the crossfire between the IDF and Palestinians. The boy's father told lies that were later discovered. The French network and its anchorman broadcast that the Jews had shot an innocent Arab child. This brilliant hoax fueled a global hatred of Israel, which was immediately condemned as the killer of innocent Arab children. Only later did it become known the Palestinians had shot at al-Dura, and, even now, few know the real story. Simon Plosker writes of this new twist on how to libel Jews.

LATHER, RINSE, AND REPEAT

by Mark Steyn

  There is one type of occasion that brings out a show of kindness and understanding in the media. When a Muslim slaughters an innocent, the press has a well-practiced, ritualistic procedure to wheedle us into believing the Muslim isn't a monster, just a good guy gone wrong because of social factors. He is another victim of society. If they had their druthers, they would keep it secret that the murderer was a Muslim. A man's religion is considered unimportant if he's a Muslim. Mark Steyn describes the steps in the procedure.

THE PLACE WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

by Dror Eydar

 On Mount Ebal, where the Jews entered the Land of Canaan some three thousand years, Adam Zertal, an archaeologist, has been excavating what likely is Joshua's Altar, the first altar built in the Promised Land for service to HaShem, in accordance with the instructions recorded in the Bible. Dror Eydar tells an exciting story on two levels. There is the awesome story the excavation is disclosing. The specific objects found, the evidence provided by the debris, the topology of the area -- all these say that the rules for sacrifice and kashruth were in place at the beginning of Nationhood. The architecture of the altar, itself, amazingly enough, mirrors the structure of the altar of the Second Temple but precedes it by a thousand years. And there is the less salutory story -- this is yet another example where new data are denigrated because they don't support the belief system of the establishment, the established religion in this case being the belief by establishment archaeologists that the Bible isn't history.

THE IRAQI JEWS – THE OLDEST DIASPORA, NOW SAFE IN ISRAEL

by Norman Berdichevsky

 Norman Berdichevsky writes of the history of the Iraqi Jews -- the Babylonian Jews of ancient times -- "Like the overwhelming majority of the large Jewish population of approximately 800,000 Jews living in the Middle East in 1948 outside of Palestine," they were "the casualties of modern Arab nationalism and religious extremism." "They are unequivocally the oldest diaspora community going back to the Babylonian captivity after the destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE. They can also claim to be the original Zionists, following the call of Ezra the Scribe to return to the land of their fathers in Judea." Berdichevsky describes their modern flight to Israel from persecution in Iraq and the period of adjustment in an Ashkenazi-dominated society. "It was particularly galling to the older generation that they "had been for many centuries the center of the Jewish world" and "in the course of just a few years [their dominance] was completely liquidated." But integration was helped by shared army experience and today Jews from the Arab countries are prominent in Israeli culture, in politics and in the military, while retaining their ancient traditions. As Berdichevsky observes, "Israelis have learned to live together and to rely less and less on simply being tagged with a label whether ethnic, racial or cultural." A fascinating story.

HEROES AND UNSUNG HEROES - THOSE WHO MOVED THE WORLD

by Victor Sharpe

 Victor Sharpe writes of two British men, both of whom loomed large in the days preceding the birth of Israel. T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, helped defeat the Turkish army fighting the twilight battles of the Ottoman Empire. He was a proponent of Arab Revolt against the Ottoman, although, given the Arab performance -- as in the taking of Beersheva -- it would seem the Arabs were after loot not nationalism. Richard Meinertzhagen was not flamboyant, but he was an excellent tactician and "an avowed Christian supporter of Jewish and Zionist aspirations working for the reconstitution of a Jewish state within the ancient, ancestral and biblical homeland." Intertwined with the activities of these men to destroy Ottoman rule was the NILI, a group of young Jews who operated in Turkish territory and acted as dedicated spies for the English. Sharpe writes, "The conquest of El Arish, Gaza, Beersheba and finally Jerusalem would have been almost impossible without the massive amount of information provided by the NILI Jewish underground."

THE FIRST DAY

by Sarah Honig

 Sarah Honig writes of the events of the first full day after the modern state of Israel was declared at 4p.m., May the 14th, 1948, before the Sabbath began. The police, who just the day before were the Mandatory Police, charged their first thief -- he had stolen a book. A ship from Europe docked, filled with Jews who just the day before were considered illegal, and the passengers, were now declared legal immigrants. But the new state did not even have that single day to be at peace as it began meeting the demands of sovereignty. Contrary to the myth that Israel was born because of Holocaust guilt, as Honig writes, "The 'Great Arab Revolt' of 1936-39 – fomented by the still-revered Haj Amin al-Husseini and financed by Nazi Germany – merely delayed Jewish independence." Now, the Arab League, "avidly pro-Nazi", declared war, and the armies of seven Arab states invaded Israel, determined to destroy the newborn, which had, thanks to England's collusion with the Arabs, only a meager amount of military armament and a population that was combat-unready. The Jews survived the onslaught and went on to build up an impressive country. The Arabs remain mired in misery, fixated on destroying the Jewish State.

VIETNAMESE BOAT PEOPLE IN THE PROMISED LAND

by Menucha Chana Levin

 When the U.S.A. abandoned Vietnam, for many of her Vietnamese allies "...hoping to escape Communist persecution and torture – there was no choice but to perilously attempt escape by sea." Many perished. Some came within sight of ships from different countries, which ignored their distress signals. One boat was lucky. The passengers were rescued by an Israeli vessel and eventually brought to Israel. 25 years have past. Menucha Chana Levin tells the story of the rescue and the aftermath.

March-April 2012 BLOG-EDS

 This is where our readers get a chance to write opinions and editorials and share articles they find informative. The Blog-Eds page for the month is updated every few days.

There is a separate file that is the index for the articles on the Blog-Ed page. You can access an article immediately from this index by clicking on the item in the index.

To access the Index, click the "Blog-Eds List" box in the Blue Strip on the top of the Blog-Ed page.

April 2012 BLOG-EDS