John Campbell’s biography of Great Britain’s former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher (1979 to 1990), has just hit the big screen. Meryl Streep is already being talked about for another academy award for her portrayal of the Iron Lady.

Like her nation’s overwhelming and centuries’ old imperial past, there are multiple ways of viewing Prime Minister Thatcher’s own actions.

Ask people which empire in all of recorded history was the largest, and see if they know…

To save you the task of researching this, the British Empire beats them all by far, at one time comprising nearly a quarter of the land mass of the earth and about a quarter of its population up until the post-World War II era in the last century.

Name the location…all North America; British West Indies; Egypt, and much of the rest of the Middle East and elsewhere in North and sub-Saharan Africa; Australia and New Zealand; Hong Kong; the former Burma, Ceylon, and the Indian sub-continent and its environs; islands off of South America; etc. and so forth… not to mention the earlier forced acquisition and consolidation of the Scottish, Welsh, and Irish peoples’ lands.

His and Her Majesties’ realm dwarfed all others, and despite many of the Brits’ former possessions now having attained independence, the legacy of that imperial experience is still very much with those former subjects today with impacts on much of the rest of us as well. The late 19th century poem by Rudyard Kipling, speaking of the White Man’s Burden, sums much of this up nicely. While addressing America’s new dabbling in such enterprise after its war with Spain, it was indeed originally written with Great Britain in mind.

With this as background, let’s turn now to just a few events which transpired during the Iron Lady’s days as Prime Minister…

A few years into Thatcher’s administration, in 1982 Argentina once again got peeved at the audacity of British imperial and colonial policies which had resulted in its earlier grabbing islands a few hundred miles off the Argentine coast.

Almost 8,000 miles away from Great Britain, Las Malvinas–aka, the Falkland Islands–were perceived as a thumb in the eye of Argentina. Imagine, for example, the latter staking claim to the Isle of Wight or the Hebrides off of “Great Britain”…Scotland’s coast.

Anyway, after the Argentine invasion, the Iron Lady’s Brits went to war to re-conquer the islands in the name of British national interests…almost a third of the circumference of the world away from home.

Let’s turn the clock back now to the days of the June (”Six Day”) War in the Middle East. And, to really understand the point, we have to go back even further, to the break-up, after World War I, of the Ottoman Turkish Empire which controlled much of region for some four centuries.

The Brits made a lot of conflicting promises to lots of different peoples during those days.

Giving them the benefit of the doubt–and going beyond those would claim just neo-colonial, divide to still remain in control policies–there was also a sincere feeling, in at least some circles, that long-suppressed, different peoples should at long last get a taste of freedom and independence

Arabia for the Arabs, Judea for the Judeans (Jews), Armenia for the Armenians, and Kurdistan for the Kurds was one way of expressing this view, and President Woodrow Wilson’s famous “Fourteen Points” emphasized this as well.

Having said this, that view often clashed with the actual folks running the British Foreign Office and such.

So, to not anger Arabs, for example, the Brits, whose imperial navy had recently switched from coal to oil, reneged on promises to the Kurds–currently some 35 million truly stateless people who pre-dated Arabs by millennia in the Mandate of Mesopotamia.

After receiving a favorable decision from the League of Nations regarding the northern oil fields in 1925–London supported only Arab nationalist interests in what would soon become a united Arab Iraq instead. Specially designed British Hawker-Hunter (anti-guerilla) attack aircraft took care of the Arabs’ Kurdish headaches afterwards.

A few years earlier, the Brits were involved in similar imperial shenanigans…

While Jews had earlier been promised that they would be able to live throughout the Brits’ other, smaller Mandate of Palestine, in 1922 almost 80% of the land was handed over to Arab nationalism instead. Transjordan was thus virtually severed from the remaining 20% of the original April 25, 1920 Mandate of Palestine’s territory while still technically being a part of the Mandate until gaining independence in 1946.

Led and formed by the Brits’ Sir John Bagot Glubb (”Glubb Pasha”), Transjordan’s Arab Legion seized lands west of the Jordan River in its attack on a minuscule reborn Israel in 1948 and, now holding territory on both banks, soon renamed itself Jordan instead.

Note please…the conquest of Judea and Samaria (only recently thus being dubbed the “West Bank” as well), was an illegal occupation of non-apportioned (not “purely Arab”) territory in the Mandate, and no nations besides Pakistan and the Brits themselves recognized this.

Having been blockaded at the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba by Egypt and shelled by the Jordanians a bit later (casus belli), when Israel took the land in its war for survival in 1967, it was thus taking it from an illegal occupier.

In his book upon which the movie, Iron Lady, is based, John Campbell refers to and/or insinuates that Israel’s defensive actions on the West Bank amounted, instead, to the illegal acquisition of “Palestinian” lands. It’s a bit confusing as to whether those words in his book are his own thoughts or are actually those of the Iron Lady…Either way, they’re simply wrong.

The disputed lands in question were indeed non-apportioned, and all of the Mandate’s residents were allowed to live there…not just Arabs. Much, if not most, of the area was state lands, and Jews had lived and owned property there until they were slaughtered by Arabs in the 1920s and 1930s and Transjordan officially made the territories Judenrein (as it made itself) after 1948.

Again, the Brits are a mixed blessing on all of these matters, wavering back and forth between issues of real politik and just reasoning…And the Iron Lady was no exception, despite her relative friendliness to Israel compared to what it faces coming out of her nation these days.

Thatcher’s Britain–which could fight Argentina 8,000 miles from home in the name of Her Majesty’s national (if not also still imperial) interests–would constantly press Israel to return the territories used to launch attacks against it and on which Jews (unlike the Brits on the Falklands) have thousands of years of connecting history to.

A Great Britain, which acquired territories and conquered peoples all around the globe while grabbing their natural resources for its own good as well, saw and still sees no trouble complaining about an allegedly “expansionist” Israel because, having been repeatedly attacked by Arabs who want it destroyed, says it needs to become something beyond the nine-to fifteen mile wide sub-rump state that it was left as after 1949…in other words, needs the very territorial compromise the British Foreign Secretary, as will be discussed below, had promised Israel just a bit earlier himself.

“Land for peace” became the constant lecture even from the friendly Iron Lady…even though it was quite clear to all with eyes open and neurons intact that the only “peace” the vast majority of Arabs had in mind for Israel was the peace of the grave–regardless of its size.

What makes this all the more confusing is that it was an earlier British Foreign Secretary himself, Lord Caradon, serving as chief architect of the final draft of UNSC Resolution 242 in the aftermath of the June ‘67 War, who deliberately built in a territorial compromise over the disputed territories so that Israel would, at long last, get more secure, defensible, and real political borders instead of the armistice lines imposed upon it in 1949 after the combined Arab invasion the year before. Again, those lines had left Israel a mere 9-15 miles wide at its waist, where most of its population and industry were concentrated…an irresistible temptation to its rejectionist enemies.

Here were the Iron Lady’s colleague, Lord Caradon’s, very words on the subject…

It would have been wrong to demand Israel return to positions of June 4, 1967 … those positions were … artificial … just places where soldiers of each side happened to be on the day fighting stopped in 1948 … just armistice lines. That’s why we didn’t demand Israelis return to them.

With this in mind, Jews would obviously have to repopulate areas in Judea and Samaria in which they indeed had lived earlier…for millennia. Until the Jordanians destroyed numerous synagogues and such, this included East Jerusalem as well, the location of Judaism’s holiest of sites, the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

To get what 242 promised–that territorial compromise–it’s a no brainer, as my students would say, that Jews would have to actually live on the land. So, please explain this next alleged statement from Thatcher in 1980 recorded in a secret diplomatic cable written by Ambassador John Robinson on May 4th 1980…

Efforts to convince (Prime Minister) Mr. Begin that his West Bank policy was absurd, and that there should not be Israeli settlements on the West Bank, had failed to move him… His response was that Judea and Samaria had been Jewish in biblical times and that they should therefore be so today.

To her credit, however, she also made the following statement on page 246 in her book, Statecraft…

Israel must never be expected to jeopardize her security: if she was ever foolish enough to do so, and then suffered for it, the backlash against both honest brokers and Palestinians would be immense - ‘land for peace’ must also bring peace.

By the way, the Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations and other solid documentation show that the vast majority of Arabs were newcomers into the Mandate themselves, Arabs settlers setting up Arab settlements in Palestine.

Indeed, after the combined Arab invasion in 1948 backfired on the Arabs themselves, so many Arabs in the Mandate were indeed newcomers that the United Nations Relief Agency set up to assist Arab refugees had to adjust the very definition of that word to assist those people.

So many Arabs were recent arrivals–settlers–themselves that UNRWA had to change the definition of “refugee” from its prior meaning of persons normally and traditionally resident to those who lived in the Mandate for a minimum of only two years prior to 1948…Please understand what this is saying.

And there was no special agency set up to help numerically more Jewish refugees, fleeing so-called “Arab” lands, than Arabs who were fleeing in the opposite direction due to a war which Arabs started over Israel’s rebirth.

While the Iron Lady is missed these days for her relative fairness towards Israel, besides the troubling example above, there were some other episodes as well…like when she joined American political leaders, such as George H.W. Bush, James Baker, and others (and most of the rest of the world) in condemning Israel’s surgical destruction of Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq. Just imagine if Saddam had the bomb when he invaded Kuwait, went to war with Iran, and so forth…

Working non-stop on behalf of freedom for the Soviet Union’s Jewish refuseniks, she then made the leap, however, comparing them to allegedly “stateless” Arab refugees. The plight of the latter was mostly a self-inflicted wound…that of the former was not. Read this to see what I mean… http://www.icjs-online.org/index.php?article=263
And Arabs already had one state created for them in the lions’ share of the Palestine Mandate–Jordan. They refused another proposed partition plan in 1947 which would have given them about half of the 20% that was left. 90% was not enough for them…Jews were entitled to nothing in this vision of “justice”–the same subjugating Arab mindset which victimizes scores of millions of other non-Arab peoples in the region as well.

No doubt, it’s disappointing when folks like the Iron Lady’s fail to see such differences.

On the overall balance sheet, however, and despite the above and other “flaws” (just ask the Irish, for example), when judging world leaders, the world would be a better place if Margaret Thatcher was still in her office at 10 Downing Street.

www.geraldahonigman.com

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by Gerald A. Honigman

Why Sri Lanka, but not Samaria?

Why not Rhodesia, but the “West Bank?”

It’s admirable (don’t you think?) when a people throws off the legacy of imperial oppression to embrace their new freedom. The very renaming of nations themselves has often been a reflection of this wonderful development.

Admirable, indeed–unless those people happen to be Jews.

Among the examples of this which have occurred over the last half century are people who lived in Great Britain’s former imperial possessions of Ceylon, Rhodesia, and Burma. Those nations are now known as Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, and Myanmar.

While I’ve thought about this for decades, what brought this issue onto my own front burner was an article I read recently about Myanmar’s pro-democracy hero and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi. Too often foreign imperialism gets supplanted by home-grown despotism, as the latter knows only too well.

Here’s the problem, and admittedly, the Jews pose a unique case related to this discussion due to their forced exile in the wake of taking on the imperial conqueror of much of the known world not just once, but in two major (and other lesser) revolts recorded in depth by the Romans themselves. Before we proceed, please contemplate this thought for a moment.

Is a victim any less a victim because his victimization has been historically the longest enduring?

While the so-called “Progressives” of the world are adamant that the previous imperialist names of conquered lands be dismissed, why is it that when it comes to dealing with the oft-conquered land of the Jews, the opposite is the case?

Such sources of ethical enlightenment frequently insist instead that the millennia-old names of the land–Israel, Judea, and Samaria–be abandoned for the sake of the names Roman, British, and Arab imperialism and conquest gave to them instead.”Palestine” and the “West Bank.”

Everyone else is entitled to national liberation.but not Jews. The latter must agree to their scapegoat, victim, and preferred whipping post par excellence existence for eternity. Or just disappear.

With Christmas 2011 still very much of recent memory, a good portion of the world once again became familiar with the story of Jesus’ birth. During this season, it has also become common for Arabs to declare the alleged “Palestinian”(non-Jewish) identity of Jesus.

Since I’ve answered this with both barrels elsewhere, I won’t bother with the deliberate Arab attempt to hijack another people’s identity in this essay.

But, since the subject is directly related to the overall issue of whose nation truly needs to be liberated in the land, please read whatever version you prefer on your favorite search engine of my earlier analysis, Arafat’s Jesus. Here’s the moderate Muslim print newspaper, Pakistan Today’s, version from early 2004 http://www.paktoday.com/honig16.htm and a recent update from this year in Virtual Jerusalem http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/blogs.php?Itemid=4881.

Returning to the account of Jesus’ birth, among other places, this appears briefly in Matthew 2:1 in which Bethlehem of Judea is declared his birth place. Bethlehem (”House of Bread” in Hebrew) was also the birth place of King David, over a thousand years earlier, the site of the beautiful story of Ruth and Naomi (even earlier), and so forth. And if the Arabs (whoops–excuse me, “Palestinians”) can claim Jesus, then Ruth, Naomi, and David were theirs too.and I’m the Passover Bunny.

Note, please, that this is the same Judaea (Hebrew:Yehudah; Greek: Ioudaía; Latin: Iudaea…land of the Judeans–Jews) which the ancient Roman and Roman-sponsored historians–Pliny, Tacitus, Josephus, Dio Cassius, and others–wrote about themselves; the same Judea which Rome placed on its Judea Capta coins after defeating the first major revolt of the Jews for their freedom and independence after 70 C.E., constructed the towering, still standing Arch of Titus for in Rome, etc. and so forth.

And “Palestine”?

Shame on the “Progressives,” for sure.

While the geographical coastal region near Gaza and such had sometimes earlier been loosely designated as such by the Greeks, the name itself referred to no separate country nor nation. Indeed, there never, ever, ever was such a separate country, language, nation, or culture by that name.

The cold, cruel fact–so willingly ignored by the “Progressive” Left–is that “Palestine” became associated with Israel/Judea by one of the most blatant acts of imperial cruelty ever to be recorded in history.

After the Jews’ costly second revolt for freedom in the second century C.E., the Emperor, Hadrian, decided to try to squash the Jews’ hopes once and for all by renaming the land itself after their historic enemies, the Philistines–a non-Semitic (let alone non-Arab) invading “Sea People” from the islands near Crete.

Below are two of my oft-quoted favorite excerpts from contemporary Roman historians once again.

After the first revolt…

It inflamed Vespasian’s (the Emperor) ire that the Jews were the only nation which had not yet submitted.Titus was appointed by his father to complete the subjugation of Judaea. he commanded three legions in Judaea itself. To these he added the twelfth from Syria and the third and twenty-second from Alexandria. amongst his allies were a band of Arabs, formidable in themselves and harboring towards the Jews the bitter animosity usually subsisting between neighboring nations. Vol. II, Book V, The Works of Tacitus.

Please note: the Arabs mentioned in the above account were foreigners to the land, acting virtually as vultures, looking to grab a share of the main Roman kill. They were not “native Palestinians.”

And, after the second revolt…

580,000 men were slain, nearly the whole of Judaea made desolate. Many Romans, moreover, perished in this war (the Bar Kochba Revolt). Therefore Hadrian in writing to the senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors, ‘ I and the legions are in health’. Dio’s Roman History.

The Emperor was so enraged at the Jews’ struggle for liberation from their imperial oppressors that, in the words of the esteemed modern historian, Bernard Lewis…

Hadrian made a determined attempt to stamp out the embers not only of the revolt but also of Jewish nationhood and statehood. obliterating its Jewish identity.

To reiterate this important point, wishing to end, once and for all, Judean/”Jewish” ( as in Danish, Irish, Swedish, English, etc.) hopes for independence from their imperial conqueror, Hadrian renamed the land itself from Judaea to “Syria Palaestina”–Palestine–after the Jews’ historic enemies, the Philistines, a non-Semitic “Sea People” from the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.

Yet, one is hard pressed to discover any of the above these days.

Again, no people–besides Jews–had ever established an enduring, separate identity in the land.

After the fall of Judea, only one imperial conqueror after another (including that of the Arabs during the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, ruled from Damascus and Baghdad respectively) grabbed hold of the land–ruling it from afar and colonizing it with their own invading armies. Before the modern era, the Ottoman Turks were the latest to do this, ruling the land for about four centuries until after World War I.

Arabs who both earlier and later came to settle on the land were part of a greater Arab–not “Palestinian”– identity. They spoke Arabic, their culture was Arab, their loyalties were to family, clan, and tribe, and later–in the 20th century age of nationalism in the region (and largely to oppose the resurrection of Israel)–those who were politically active gave their loyalty primarily to a Greater Syria or Pan Arab identity.not to “Palestine.”And that’s what Republican presidential hopeful, Newt Gingrich, was also referring to in his recent comments on the subject

As with Palestine, the story evolved in a similar way regarding the imperial renaming of Judea and Samaria to the “West Bank” as well.

In one account after another about Bethlehem, Hebron, East Jerusalem, and other places in historical Judea and Samaria, those towns have been designated by statesmen, journalists, academics, and others the “West Bank” instead–or, “the occupied” West Bank, to add insult to injury. Judeans/Jews living in those areas are now the alleged “imperialist occupiers” of the land.

And those who beg to differ are more often than not simply dismissed as reactionary Zionist fanatics.

With few exceptions, however, it’s easy to discover that almost all the towns on the “West Bank” were re-named from their original Hebrew sites.

Check out these excerpts from this source http://www.forward.com/articles/6134/ (”What’s In A Town’s name?”) for starters. After the Arab imperial conquests of the 7th century C.E.,

as with Dor and Tantura, the original name-changers in Palestine were the Arabs, who Arabized hundreds of Hebrew place names when they replaced the Jewish population of the country after the Muslim conquest.

In the great majority of cases, Arabization took place by adjusting old Hebrew names to Arabic phonetic patterns. Sometimes these changes were minor, leaving the old names recognizable.

Biblical Anatot near Jerusalem, the birthplace of the prophet Jeremiah, became the Muslim village of Anata; Modi’in, where the revolt of the Maccabees broke out, turned into Midia; Bet-She’an, in the Jordan Valley south of Tiberias, was called Beisan.

Often, however, the changes were great enough to obscure the original name. One might never guess from the sound of it that Jenin, the West Bank town that was so controversially in the news a while ago, was once the Hebrew Ein-Gannim; that the Palestinian village of Jib was the biblical Giv’on, where the sun stood still so that Joshua could finish routing the Amorite kings; or that Bet-El, “the House of God,” the name given according to the Bible by Jacob to the site on which he dreamed of a ladder to heaven, is now the Palestinian Beitin.

Add to the above the Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations and other solid documentation which show that the vast majority of Arabs were indeed newcomers into the land themselves (i.e., Arab settlers setting up Arab settlements), and the picture becomes even clearer.

Judea and Samaria–the names the disputed territories now constantly making news were known as for thousands of years–became designated the “West Bank” in the wake of World War I and the official break-up of the Ottoman Turkish Empire.

After Great Britain’s handing over some 78% of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine’s territory to Arab nationalism in 1922 with the creation of Transjordan, a quarter century later the latter’s British-led army then grabbed the non-apportioned part of the Mandate of Palestine west of the Jordan River upon its invasion of a minuscule, reborn Israel in 1948. Holding both banks of the river, it soon changed its name to Jordan.

And to distinguish the east bank from the newly-conquered territory across the river acquired as a result of the newest imperial shenanigans in the land, the name “West Bank” was thus born.

Jews had owned land and lived in Judea and Samaria until they were massacred by Arabs in the 1920s and 1930s. Upon the establishment of the first Arab state in Palestine in 1922, its whole area was declared off limits to Jews. When it illegally seized Judea and Samaria in 1948, it did likewise there as well.

Keep in mind that when those above Arabs then also bulldozed dozens of ancient synagogues, used ancient Jewish tombstones to pave roads and build latrines, and took other measures to erase the Jews’ millennial connections to the land as well, barely a word was spoken in protest, besides those of the Jews themselves.

And today, the only thing that “Progressives” do about all of this is turn truth on its head. Jews and others who dare call the land by its historic names and insist that Jews should also have the right to once again live in their historic lands (displacing no one in the process on the still non-apportioned–not “purely Arab”–lands of the original 1920 Mandate) are branded the colonialists and imperialists instead.

Here’s another thought, while we’re at it.

If Judea must become, as many insist and, as the Nazis liked to say, Judenrein (free of Jews), then why should the one fifth of Israel who are Arabs (the freest Arabs living anywhere in the region) not also get the boot out of Israel? Many of such folks indeed compose a very dangerous, treasonous fifth column.

Despite the tragedy of the Roman Wars and the expulsions and Great Diaspora which followed, Jews remained in the land, in varying numbers, clear up to the rebirth of Israel in 1948.

While this does not give Jews exclusive rights to the land since others have conquered and come to settle it over the centuries, it does mean that Jews are anything but strangers there. Indeed, the historic names of the land itself are named for one of the Patriarchs of the Jewish people–Jacob, whose name was later changed to Israel, and Judah, one of Jacob’s sons. On the other hand, Arabs claim exclusive rights to virtually the entire region, calling it “purely Arab patrimony” due to their own former imperial conquests and despite scores of millions of subjugated, non-Arab peoples still living there.

As just one of many examples which could be cited of this continuous Jewish presence, clear up to the dawn of the Arab conquest in the 7th century, Euthychius, the 10th century Patriarch of Alexandria, wrote in his book of history (Annals of Euthychius I, 216) about tens of thousands of Jewish warriors who aided the invading Persians against the hated Byzantine successors to the Romans in the area.

Regardless of the hypocrisy of the Progressive Left and others who should know better, in Judea and Samaria–as in Israel–the Jews are, at long last, home.

The Judean Hills and the Judean Wilderness will not be renamed the West Bank Hills nor the West Bank Wilderness for the sake of the Jimmy Carters, Michael Moores, Reverend Wrights, and the Noam Chomskys.nor for the Nicholas Sarkozys, Barack Hussein Obamas, or Hillary Rodham Clintons either (let alone the Arabs and their assorted other rah rah squads).

Furthermore, despite the hostility towards Israel practiced by many of the mainline Christian churches today, the birthplace of Jesus will remain in Bethlehem of Judea…not the West Bank.

Matthew 2:1 will not be edited.

Unless folks like black Africans in Zimbabwe and Asians in Myanmar (who, despite other problems, were not largely massacred and expelled by their own imperial conquerors who gave their lands other names–as were the Jews) are expected to call themselves Rhodesians and Burmese and not be allowed to live on their own historic lands, then the duplicity routinely practiced towards Jews in Israel, Judea, and Samaria on these same issues must come to an end as well. And, if not, then the Jews must do what they must do to thrive–not just survive–anyway.

www.geraldahonigman.com

by Gerald A. Honigman

It’s been decades since I played the game.

I remember watching older college friends mastering the Pinochle deck, and then later becoming pretty good myself.

Four-handed Pinochle, pitting opposing pairs of players against each other, was the most popular version, but I soon learned the far more personal three-handed variety as well. The latter involved each player working just for himself; inevitably, this led to two teaming up against the player in the lead…for the time being at least. I recall my late father, of blessed memory, getting upset with me and my younger brother over this. We tried to explain that it was nothing personal…but to no avail.

Keep this in mind as we proceed.

As promised, President Obama has pulled all American troops out of Iraq before the end of the year…for good or for bad. Washington’s war in Mesopotamia is now officially over.

I’ve written lots about this subject over the decades, and my work has been showcased in scores of analyses in print and web publications all over the world. Some examples include the heavily Nobel Laureate-sponsored, Fall 1981 academic journal, Middle East Review ; inclusion on the recommended reference list of Paris’s acclaimed Institut d’Etudes Politique (Sciences-Po); my interview in The Kurdistan Tribune; analyses in the Kurdistan Regional Government’s own publication; dozens of op-eds in web publications such as ekurd.net. Kurdishmedia.com, the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria, and others as well; major print newspaper articles; etc. and so forth.

Before continuing, for the reader new to Iraqi politics, a review of the following sample articles should prove to be useful. I’ll start out with the latest, before this current analysis, and then provide several earlier op-eds from different sources as well…

Iraq: What Not To Do … http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2011/10/article110.htm

State Department Math … http://www.krg.org/articles/detail.asp?rnr=77&lngnr=12&anr=6589&smap

Why The Double Standards? … http://www.kurdmedia.com/article.aspx?id=9279

Who Won’t Be Making Jokes About WMD … http://www.turkishdigest.com/2005/01/gerald-honigman-who-wont-be-making.html

What’s Your Plan B ? … http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/5793

Okay, enough of the background stuff…let’s move on.

The power-sharing plan in Iraq’s post-Saddam, American-backed federal games gave representatives from each of the three major religious and ethnic blocks key positions in government–Shi’a Arabs, Sunni Arabs, and Kurds.

To no one with functioning neurons’ surprise, no sooner did America exit the scene, there was a return to an upsurge in sectarian violence. Scores of Shi’a were recently blown apart by Sunni suicide bombers.

At the same time that the above was happening, the Sunni Vice President, Tariq al-Hashemi, had taken refuge in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north–a guest of Iraq’s President, and one of the two main Kurdish leaders, Jalal Talabani. The Shi’a Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, accused him of orchestrating hit squads against Sunni enemies.

As I’ve written often before, if ever there was a counterpart to the now extinct non-nation nation of Yugoslavia, Iraq is it.

Millions of diverse peoples who hated each other were brought together after the break-up of empires in the wake of World War I. And just as the glue which held together the former was manifested in a powerful, feared dictator (Marshal Tito), the same held true for decades in Saddam’s Iraq. When Tito passed on from Earth, Yugoslavia’s days as a unified state were numbered. Likewise, I wouldn’t place bets on the long-term unity of Iraq with Saddam now gone either…short of massive outside intervention, once again, to further others’ interests.

Throughout millennia, Mesopotamia had been fought over by powerhouses to its east and its west.

During the past several centuries, Turks and Iranians faced off in this arena. Don’t be surprised if they both make grabs on it once again. The Turks have already made intrusions into northern Iraq going after Kurds from Turkey taking refuge there.

Keep in mind that the Iraqi (Arab)-Iranian war of the ’80s was largely fought over the oil-rich real estate to Iraq’s east (Iran’s Khuzestan/”Arabistan” province), and the Turks have long felt robbed because of the award of the oil-rich area of Mesopotamia’s (Iraq’s) largely Kurdish north to the British Mandate via the League of Nation’s Mosul Decision in 1925. Add to this mix the fact that Kurds were promised independence after World War I in at least part of Mesopotamia–until the Brits abandoned them and solely embraced Arab nationalism instead–and the fire burns even hotter.

Given the right circumstances, anything becomes possible.

Back to the pinochle deck…

Sunni Arabs have been slaughtering Kurds in Iraq since the 1920s.

In just a few months in1988, Saddam Hussein’s Sunni Anfal Campaign killed almost 200,000 Kurds. When his cousin was presented with this figure, “Chemical” Ali Hassan al–Majid protested, claiming “it could not have been more than 100,000.” Numerous other Sunni Arab genocidal blood baths against Kurds preceded Anfal. The late New York Times journalist, William Safire, for example, did a whole series in the ’70s about an earlier American sellout of the Kurds and its horrific consequences. Another would follow in the ’80s…

In February 2004, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, of Sunni al-Qaida fame, wrote a letter that was intercepted by U.S. forces in Iraq. He’s the guy–until his own death–who was believed responsible for the slaughter of Shi’a in places like Baghdad and Karbala.

In the letter he listed four main enemies. America, of course, was No. 1. But No. 2 were the Kurds. Here’s what he says about them…

Kurds, these are a pain and a thorn, and it is not time yet to deal with them. They are last on our list, even though we are trying to get to some of their leaders. God willing.

Iraq’s majority Shi’a, long suppressed by the Sunni minority and fourth on al-Zarqawi’s hit list, were basically handed Iraq as a result of America’s defeat of Saddam.

While America has struggled to create a balancing act whereby Sunnis, Kurds, and others have equal rights in a united federal state, the reality is that centuries of bloody relations and memories between the various groups have taken their toll. There is little, if any, trust between them–and for good reason.

Despite brief interludes in between despots and during the British Mandate era, in modern times Arab nationalism has always won out over a more inclusive “Iraqi” nationalism…and the latter is the only real hope for the success of a federal Iraq.

As for the Shi’a, now largely in control of the new American-built military, the influence of the Shi’a Islamic Republic of their Iranian neighbor is the looming question at hand. Given the artificial nature of the Iraqi state–as discussed earlier–this becomes even more serious.

Despite hating each other, Arabs of both major stripes still see Iraq as “purely Arab” and have called the potential birth of Kurdistan “another Israel.” How this plays out in a post-Saddam, ascendant Shi’a era in Iraq when confronting incursions by other non-Arab Iranians is yet to be seen. The Shi’a are split regarding ties with Iran.

Since the fall of Saddam, Shi’a Arabs have needed Sunni Kurds as a counterweight to Sunni Arabs–who like to blow both of them up.

Kurds have worked closely with the Shi’a in the recent past. But the Kurds’ insistence on real economic and political autonomy in their own oil-rich region (Kirkuk, in particular) will be a major cause of friction as the Shi’a Arabs increasingly come to run most of the show in Iraq. This was something that the Sunni Arab Vice President addressed recently as well from his safe haven among the Kurds in Sulaimaniyah. And the latter have not ruled out secession if the Shi’a power grab continues.

The Kurds represent the party with the most to lose in this ordeal.

While there is a giant Iranian state to the east, a powerhouse of a Turkic state to the west (and a half dozen others in the adjacent area as well), and almost two dozen Arab nations in the neighborhood, the only place where some 35 million truly stateless Kurds have at least some semblance of autonomy–not independence–is in Iraq. And ironically, they predate their Arab and Turkish conquerors in the region by millennia.

So, the reality is that playing a game of 3-handed pinochle will obviously only get the Kurds so far if it’s not completed.

At some point, it will no longer be two against the lead hand…and that lead hand–Sunni Arabs–which massacred and terrorized both Shi’a and Kurds, while still a serious threat, is now also on the verge of changing identities. While Sunnis, for now at least, still remain more of a physical threat to Kurds, the power in the country has definitely shifted to the Shi’a.

If the Shi’a Arabs opt for the same “purely Arab patrimony” approach to Iraq that their Sunni Arab neighbors followed and bloodily adapted, then the Kurds must assert their own rights to full sovereignty. They lost this chance due to a collusion of British petroleum politics and Arab nationalism in Mesopotamia almost a century ago. Providence has perhaps now delivered to them another opportunity. Who knows if it will ever come again…

No doubt, many other players will be upset about this eventuality–Turks, Arabs, and the Kurds’ cousins, the Iranians, in particular. And if a federal, egalitarian Iraq survives America’s departure, then a Kurdish secession may not be necessary (especially when considering the cost that will surely come with it).

But at some point in 3-handed pinochle each player must finally come down the home stretch and play to win.

Tens of millions of repeatedly used and abused Kurds finally deserve to win…

And finally, would it not be great to see others–both in and out of the region–at long last step up to give the Kurdish people the same support that genocidal Arabs–bent on Israel’s destruction–routinely get from most of the rest of the world in their quest to create a 22nd state of their own?

www.geraldahonigman.com

by Gerald A. Honigman

The latest news coming out of Syria told of at least a hundred protestors being mowed down in the streets by Assad’s military. Conservative estimates claim that over 5,000 such folks have already lost their lives this way since the Arab Spring sprung in that country.

Pouring salt onto the wound, the history of such Syrian Arab barbarism, towards both Arabs and non-Arabs alike, has long been known–at least to those who wanted to know. But, too many didn’t…and when they did, acted like they didn’t.

Arab atrocities and subjugation of millions of Kurds, for example, in the Syrian part of geographical Kurdistan date back well over half century. The title of Ismet Cherif Vanly’s book, The Syrian ‘Mein Kampf’ Against The Kurds…(Amsterdam 1968), is indeed revealing. And before the elder Alawi Assad went after the Sunni Arab Muslim Brotherhood stronghold in Hama several decades ago (massacring 20,000 to 40,000 people in short order), what was left of Syria’s ancient Jewish community was also living in its own tenuous nightmare. There were others with their own tragic stories to tell as well.

There is no doubt that Syria’s human rights record has been nothing less than atrocious; but again, most of the world simply opted–until very recently this past year–to basically look the other way. If Israel was not the alleged villain, nobody wanted to know anything–not the American State Department, nor the United Nations, nor the Russians, European Union, mainstream media, academia, or whomever. A few of us tried to sound the alarm over the years, but it was mostly wasted effort. Here were a few of my own attempts: Hunting Quail and Sitting Ducks (2004) http://www.israelnationalnews…….aspx/3870 ;Syria…Seriously (2005) http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/ar…..tan57.htm; and Wrong War…(March 2011)
http://www.kurdnas.com/en/inde…..;Itemid=55

Indeed, despite Syria’s deadly hegemonic attitudes and actions towards what it still sees as its Lebanese “provinces;” despite its appalling treatment of Kurds, native Jews, and others as well; despite its recent support for terrorists undermining Iraq’s attempt at democracy; despite the great likelihood that many of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction (poison gas and so forth) found a home in Syria; despite Damascus’ support of major terrorist organizations whose aim is the destruction of the Jew of the Nations and giving safe haven to those organizations like Hamas within its own borders; despite its long term record as mass slaughterer of any and all who dissent, author of the infamous “Hama Solution;” etc., etc., and so forth, the cold, hard fact of life is that America would be squeezing Israel right now (even more than it is already indeed doing)–not Syria–if circumstances were just a bit different.

Sad…but all too true.

Had Syria not opposed America in Iraq and become bosom buddies with the Iranian mullahs (the enablers of Hizbullah in Lebanon), the Foggy Folks would be pressing forward with former Secretary of State James Baker III’s earlier pledge to Hafez al-Assad of a total Israeli retreat from the Golan Heights. Baker, Presidents Bushs’ close family friend (whose law firm represents the Saudis, including against American 9/11 victims), was made the younger Bush’s Special Middle East Envoy. I’ve written much about Baker’s Jew problem elsewhere (see the Hunting Quail article above), so I’ll drop it for now.

Shortly after President Obama moved into the White House, he sent his friend Robert Malley for a visit to the younger Assad to reassure him along these lines as well.

Obama has repeatedly stated that Israel should return to the ‘49 armistice lines (which made it a mere 9 to 15-miles wide at its waist), the main provision of the so-called Saudi Peace Plan which the President said Israel “would be crazy” not to accept. The President demands that Israel abandon the promise of UNSC Resolution 242, enacted in the wake of the ‘67 War (which the Syrians were largely responsible for starting), that those fragile “Auschwitz” lines be replaced by real, more secure borders instead. That’s what the whole fuss over building freezes and settlements is all about. A total return of the Golan–used by Syria to repeatedly shell Israel from prior to ‘67–is part of that same deal.

And that brings us back to today’s news of a hundred more Syrians being slaughtered in one day on the streets.

Prominent in the news were reports of Iran flying commercial, not military, airliners into Syria to provide Damascus with arms, other supplies, and men. Keep in mind that Assad’s Syria is a crucial link between the Shi’a mullahs in Iran and the would-be Hizbullah Shi’a masters of Lebanon.

The Syrian-Iranian-Hizbullah alliance got me thinking about the irony of all of this.

All three players habitually target Jews, vilify, and call for the destruction of their sole, virtually microscope state. With the other two’s help, Hizbullah now has scores of thousands of rockets and missiles pointing at Israel.

So, since oil-rich Iran is, in many ways, the main player here, it’s time to once again expose Ahmadinejad and the Twelver Shi’a Ayatollahs for what they undoubtedly are…

When Ahadinejad murdered Iranians in the streets after stealing the election in 2009, besides blowing a little hot air, no one–including the new American President and his State Department–did a thing. They were too worried about Jews building homes in Jerusalem instead–where Jews have been doing such things for over three thousand years.

Back on May 8, 2006, Ahmadinejad sent a letter to President Bush in which, among other things, he proclaimed Israel’s alleged original sin and the need to create yet another state for Arabs in the region. He has repeated this frequently over the years.

Having given this some serious reflection, I’ve come up with a way to at least meet some of his demands… well, sort of.

Let’s begin…

As the lion’s share of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine was handed over to Arab nationalism in 1922, with the creation of what would later be renamed Jordan, a more than just partition of the land favoring the Arabs had thus already been completed between the two nationalisms competing for it. Indeed, Arabs wound up with some 80% of the total area.

So, the real place where justice for Arabs has not yet been addressed is in–now hold onto your seats–Iran itself.

During the 7th century CE, Arab Caliphal imperialist armies burst out of the Arabian Peninsula and colonized, settled, forcibly Arabized, and spread the Dar ul-Islam by a conquering sword in all directions.

Judaea–renamed Syria Palestina (for the Jews’ historic enemies, the non-Arab Philistines) by conquering Romans after the Jews’ second revolt for their freedom–became occupied by Arabs at this time.

And so did Iran.

Using southern Iraq as a springboard, southwestern Iran–Khuzestan province in particular–traded back and forth between invading Arab and Iranian rulers. While it became subsequently linked to Iran despite repeated Arab invasions over the centuries, Khuzestan became so extensively Arabized that, in Safavid times (16th-18th centuries CE), the province was commonly known as “Arabistan”. In modern times, not until Iran’s Reza Shah Pahlavi defeated him in 1924, the Arab Sheikh of Muhammarah ruled much of the area.

Arabs remembered all of this very well. Indeed, latter-day, Iraqi-based Arabs, under Saddam’s banner, launched the long and bloody Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. It was fought largely over this oil-rich and strategically important area…Khuzestan for Persians, Arabistan for Arabs.

To deal with this “Arab problem,” Iran has ruthlessly suppressed any manifestations of Arab nationalism by any and all means necessary. By the early 20th century, a proposal had been put forward to even outlaw the Arabic language. Here are some excerpts as to how the British Ahwazi Friendship Society reported the situation on July 29, 2005:

The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO) released a statement condemning the recent violent repression of ethnic minorities in Iran following the election of right-wing hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. …Pointing to clashes between security forces and Ahwazi Arabs and Kurds, Nicola Dell’Arciprete, UNPO Assistant General Secretary, said: “The UNPO condemns the Government’s repressive policies against all the Iranian citizens. Iran is a multi-ethnic country in which half of the population belongs to ethnic minorities such as Azeri, Gilaki and Mazandarani, Kurds, Arabs, Lurs, Balochis, Turkmen….

And more recently still, see this April 2011 account…

http://gulfnews.com/opinions/c…..b-1.786524

Now, recall how Ahmadinejad likes to sit on his high moral horse lecturing Israel about such things.

“Palestine” underwent partition, as did the Indian subcontinent (with the creation of predominantly Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan, and later Bangladesh as well). Since the current rulers in Iran are so quick to point fingers elsewhere, please tell me why the human and political rights and aspirations of other peoples should not also be addressed in Iran itself?

Had Arabs accepted the additional 1947 partition plan, they would have wound up with about 90% of the territory of the original 1920 Palestine Mandate. They rejected the 1947 division of the remaining 20% of the land left after purely Arab Jordan was created from the rest of it in 1922, because, in Arab eyes, there is no justice other than their own. Jews–like Kurds or Imazighen (”Berbers”) or Assyrians or Copts or black African Sudanese and so forth–were entitled to nothing in what Arabs like to call their exclusive “purely Arab patrimony” instead. Note that the vast majority of Arabs themselves were newcomers into the Palestine Mandate, as the Minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League Of Nations and other solid documentation testify to.

Ahmadinejad refuses to acknowledge any of this, claims all Israeli Jews were from Europe (tell that to Israel’s former Iranian-born President and chief of staff) and the like; yet, he answers the political aspirations of millions of non-Iranians living on his own soil only with massacre and repression. Again, hypocrisy at its worst.

Turning to the Arabs of Khuzestan/Arabistan in particular, at any hint of unrest, Iran has been quick to act in its own national interests. Arabs have been ethnically cleansed from the area and replaced by others. As just one of many examples, when Arabs of the Nahda (Renaissance) movement bombed Iranian targets several years back in Ahwaz and elsewhere, Iran arrested thousands of them and set out to “fix” the problem by any means necessary. Iranians continuously do likewise to Kurds, Baluchis and others who dare to assert their own political rights. Thousands have been killed as a result over the years in the name of Iranian nationalism. There has been a wave of hangings of Iranian Kurds of late for daring to demand basic rights.

So, this all begs the question of both the man and the nation he represents…

As they continue to bolster their butcher friends in Damascus, why does justice supposedly demand that the sole, resurrected state of the Jews–half of whom were refugees from the “Arab” and Muslim world–consent to national suicide so Arab settlers and colonizers can have their 22nd state, and second, not first, one in Palestine, but millions of Arabs in Khuzestan/Arabistan should not gain independence from Iran?

If a Palestine much smaller than Iran could undergo partition in the name of justice for competing national groups, then why should the same principle not apply for millions of Ahwazi Arabs, millions of Kurds, and other oppressed peoples in Iran as well?

It’s time to stop mincing words and for the duplicity to end…

The next time Ahmadinejad or the mullahs open up their mouths on such issues, there is but one response that they should get, for it is indeed time for that 22nd state for Arabs that they demand to be born…

Long live Arabistan !

http://www.youtube.com/user/HonigmanG?feature=mhee

 Edward Shlapak
Administrator, CFO

By now, Republican presidential hopeful, Newt Gingrich’s, remarks about the non-existence of “Palestinians” and “Palestine” (apart from the greater Arab identity) are well known.

Realizing that Arabs already had almost two dozen states (conquered and carved out of mostly other, non-Arab peoples’ lands– including one on almost 80% of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine which today is known as Jordan), to negate the Jews’ claims to their sole, minuscule, lone state, yet other Arabs (most of whom were newcomers themselves into the Mandate) decided that it made for better public relations and such to rename themselves “stateless Palestinians” than just calling for yet an additional state for Arabs on the ashes of the Jews’ resurrected one. See these two articles for further explanation http://www.teapartytribune.com…..oes-1-1-3/ and http://www.kurdmedia.com/article.aspx?id=14996

I’ve chosen to weave some of my own additional reactions to this controversial issue in with the fast-approaching holiday of Chanukah–the first war ever recorded fought over religious liberty and fought by the Jewish nation.

One (very important) aspect of that nation–besides its unique culture, language, and so forth–included a religious dimension.

Jews had a very unique set of religious beliefs and ethical standards which they were supposed to adhere to. One could join the nation/peoplehood of the Jews by conversion to the religious faith of that people. The story of Ruth and Naomi in the Hebrew Bible is a moving, beautiful example of this…

Whither thou goest, I shall go, your people will be my people, and their G_d, my G_d.

Chanukah begins this year on the evening of December 20th. It changes each year because the Hebrew calendar is lunar. Additionally, the Bible tells us that ” the evening and the morning were the first day”–so Jews measure days from eve to eve in the 24-hour cycle.

With Chanukah less than a week away, I decided to share with my many non-Jewish readers some relevant historical facts that many Jews likely do not even know–let alone non-Jews.

Since in America we are all (regardless of our different religions) well-versed in the Christmas story, I felt that the Judeo portion of our nation’s Judeo-Christian heritage deserves more than just the usual potato pancakes, dreidle, and menorah-treatment we usually give to Chanukah…if that.

So, here we go–and you’ll see how Newt’s comments fit in as well…

The year was 1887.

An Egyptian woman discovered a treasure-trove of over three hundred clay cuneiform tablets that would shake the world of religion and the study of ancient history.

Named for a local Bedouin tribe, the Tel el-Amarna tablets (which can now be found mostly in the Berlin and British Museums) were mostly the official correspondence between Pharaoh Amenhotep IV–Akhenaten–and his governors and vassals from places such as Canaan, Syria, Babylonia, etc. They date mostly from around 1380 B.C.E. and were written in Akkadian, the language of diplomacy of the era.

So, what does all of this have to do with Chanukah?

Patience, please…

Now, guess what repeatedly comes out in this official correspondence between Pharoah and his vassals in Canaan and the surrounding areas?

Complaints about invasions of the Habiru…at least one branch of which became associated with the Hebrews.

While some scholars debate some details, most agree that the time–with even newer confirmations by excavations in Jericho–fits into the period of Joshua’s conquests of Canaan.

Like many other accounts in the Hebrew Bible, we indeed have good supporting evidence from elsewhere to support the Jews’ own version of these events. And what makes it even better is that this often comes from those viewing the events from the “other side” of the picture…often their enemies

This is no small point.

Corroboration is very important to any serious scholar. And not many religious texts can match the historical corroboration found in those of the Jews.

Jumping ahead about eight centuries, Babylon became a powerhouse, and the Jews’ remaining southern kingdom, Judah, fell captive to Nebochadnezzar. The northern kingdom, Israel, fell to the Assyrians a few centuries earlier, and many of the folks there largely became known afterwards as “the ten lost tribes of Israel.” There are now people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, and elsewhere who trace their lineage back to those earlier Israelis/Israelites.

Returning to the Babylonian ordeal, the Jews would next find a hero in…hold onto your seats…an Iranian ruler, Cyrus the Great, who allowed their return to Judah in 539 B.C.E. Not exactly the current Iranian mullahs’ and President Ahmadinejad’s type–if you know what I mean. And again, while the Hebrew Bible gives the Jews’ own account of this episode, we also have it from the “other side” as well.

Take a look at this ancient quote from an Iranian source, The Kurash Prism, courtesy of the Iran Chamber Society and other historical sites…

I am Kurash (“Cyrus” ), King of the World, Great King, Legitimate King, King of Babilani, King of Kiengir and Akkade, King of the four rims of the earth, Son of Kanbujiya…I returned to these sacred cities on the other side of the Tigris the sanctuaries of which have been ruins for a long time, the images which used to live therein and established for them permanent sanctuaries. I also gathered all their former inhabitants and returned them to their habitations.

Furthermore, I resettled upon the command of Marduk, the great lord, all the gods of Kiengir and Akkade whom Nabonidus had brought into Babilani to the anger of the lord of the gods, unharmed, in their former temples, the places which make them happy.

Now, check out the Jews’ own version of this in Ezra 1: 1-8 in the Hebrew Bible…

In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord inspired King Cyrus of Persia to issue this proclamation throughout his kingdom, both by word of mouth and in writing: “Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia: “All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord, the God of heaven, has given to me, and he has also charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever, therefore, among you belongs to any part of his people, let him go up, and may his God be with him! Let everyone who has survived, in whatever place he may have dwelt, be assisted by the people of that place with silver, gold, and goods, together with free will offerings for the house of God in Jerusalem.

Corroboration.

The names of Israel, Judah/Judaea, Hebrew kings, etc. and so forth are also found in the records of the Jews’ ancient neighbors. The Egyptian Pharaoh, Merneptah, left the first non-Biblical record of Israel that has been discovered so far… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merneptah_Stele.

There are indeed many examples of this, but the last one I’d like to review for now before tying all of this together with Chanukah is one of my favorites. It involves the Arab claim that they were the original “Palestinians”–the issue Newt Gingrich seized upon recently.

Follow carefully…

There was no country nor nation known as “Palestine” during the time of Jesus. The land was known as Judaea and its inhabitants were Judaeans…Jews.

Tacitus and Dio Cassius were famous Roman historians who wrote extensively about Judaea’s attempt to remain free from the Soviet Union of its day, the conquering Roman Empire. They lived and wrote during, or not long after, the two major revolts of the Jews in 66-73 C.E. and 133-135 C.E. They make no mention of this land being called “Palestine” nor its people “Palestinians.” And they knew the differences between Jews and Arabs as well.

Listen to this quote from Vol. II, Book V, The Works of Tacitus:

Titus was appointed by his father to complete the subjugation of Judaea… he commanded three legions in Judaea itself… To these he added the twelfth from Syria and the third and twenty-second from Alexandria… amongst his allies were a band of Arabs, formidable in themselves and harboring towards the Jews the bitter animosity usually subsisting between neighboring nations…

Note, please, that the Romans called their Arab allies Arabs…not “Palestinians.” And the Arabs mentioned by the Romans above were outside invaders attacking the Jewish nation which was fighting for its freedom and independence against the conqueror of much of the known world. Putting it bluntly, the Arabs were simply acting like vultures moving in for a portion of the mainly Roman kill…

After the 1st Revolt, Rome issued thousands of Iudaea (Judaea) Capta coins which can be seen today in museums all over the world. Notice, please… Iudaea Capta… not “Palaestina” Capta. Additionally, to celebrate this victory, the Arch of Titus was erected and stands tall in Rome to this very day. Open here to see a Judea Capta coin http://q4j-middle-east.com and the Arch of Titus http://www.bing.com/search?q=a…..;form=QBRE .

When, some sixty years later, Hadrian decided to further desecrate the site of the destroyed Temple of the Jews by erecting a pagan structure there, it was the grandchildren’s turn to take on their mighty conquerors.

The result of the struggle of this tiny nation for its freedom and independence was, perhaps, as predictable as that which would have occurred had Lithuania taken on the Soviet Union during its heyday of power. Unfortunately, two thousand years later, the Jews are still in that same struggle.

Listen next to this quote from Dio Cassius:

580,000 men were slain, nearly the whole of Judaea made desolate. Many Romans, moreover, perished in this war (the Bar Kochba Revolt). Therefore Hadrian in writing to the senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors, ‘ I and the legions are in health.’

The Emperor was so enraged at the Jews’ struggle for freedom in their own land that, in the words of the esteemed modern historian, Bernard Lewis…..

Hadrian made a determined attempt to stamp out the embers not only of the revolt but also of Jewish nationhood and statehood… obliterating its Jewish identity.

Wishing to end, once and for all, Jewish hopes, Hadrian renamed the land itself from Judaea to “Syria Palaestina”– Palestine–after the Jews’ historic enemies, the Philistines, a non-Semitic sea people from the islands near Crete. Prior to this time, the coastal region around Gaza was also geographically referred to by the Greeks by that name.

Thus, as Newt points out, the Arabs’ attempt to hijack the Philistines’ identity as they’ve tried with that of the Jews won’t work either.

Corroboration.

And now (drum roll please), let’s see what all of this has to do with Chanukah…

Back in the ’70s, while doing doctoral studies at the Kevorkian Center For Near Eastern Studies (a consortium of Princeton, Columbia, and New York Universities based at N.Y.U’s Washington Square campus), I had the privilege of having Dr. F.E. Peters as one of my professors.

A leading expert of the ancient Near East (along with other related subjects as well), one of his specialties was ancient Greece.

Fluent in the language and immersed in the primary sources, Peters’s The Harvest Of Hellenism largely supports the Jews’ own accounts of their struggle for independence against their latest conqueror, the Seleucid successors to Alexander the Great based in Syria. After the latter’s death, his generals fought for the pieces of the pie. Ptolemy wound up with one of the other main prizes, Egypt.

Follow these scattered quotes from Peters, who devoted a good portion of this over 800-page book to the same subject found in the Jews’ own writings in the First and Second Books of Maccabees.

The Seleucids, like all other Hellenistic monarchs, with the exception of the Macedonian Antigonids, were worshipped as gods…Jew and Hellene clashed on the issue of conduct…Hellenism could allow almost any eccentricity in private behavior…however…the polis found it difficult to accept a large-scale and public refusal to share in its life and rites.

Whatever else may or may not have happened in Judaea during the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanies (“the god made manifest”), and while the good professor takes issue with some aspects of the Jews’ own accounts, both he and Jewish tradition agree that the clash he himself wrote about above inevitably led, as mentioned earlier, to the first war ever fought–at least partially–over religious freedom.

Proclaiming yourself a god among pagans was one thing. They could just add Antiochus to a long list.

But to do this with Jews, whose religion teaches that no man–regardless of how great–could be divine was explosive. Add to this his attempt at squashing their attempt to retain their own way of life and religious practices, and the revolt of the Maccabees became inevitable.

Here’s the Roman historian, Tacitus (Volume II, Book V), again, a few centuries later on the same subject, writing after the Jews next took on the Romans…

The Jews acknowledge one God only, and conceive of him by the mind alone, condemning, as impious, all who, with perishable materials, wrought into the human shape, form representations of the Deity. That Being, they say, is above all, and everlasting, neither susceptible of likeness nor subject to decay. In consequence, they allow no resemblance of Him in their city, much less in their temples. In this way they do not flatter their kings, nor show their respect for their Caesars.

That above passage, by the way, involving the issue of the deification of man, explains the real schism between Judaism and Christianity today as well.

Corroboration.

At a time when Israel, the Jew of the Nations (which was making history and causing a revolution in religion, ethics, and morality millennia before most other peoples even made their historical debuts), still has to fight for its right to take its place among those newcomers on the world scene, the story of Chanukah and its message of rededication is as important today as it was when Judah the Hammer (the “Maccabee”) and his brothers took on their mighty pagan rulers over two thousand years ago.

Chag sameach!

Happy Chanukah!

http://www.youtube.com/user/HonigmanG?feature=mhee

I compare the aging process to a train in motion. The train starts moving the first day we are born. As we get older the train picks up speed and as we experience more medical problems the train increases speed. If we take action regarding the medical problems the train stays on the tracks and may slow down. As we get older the same thing happens with our ability to remain independent. If one refuses assistance, the train will eventually wreck. For many adult children they can see the train wreck coming, but don’t how to stop it.

In the ideal world all members of a family live close to their parents and, with the approval of the parents, help with their parents needs. One member will do the lawn and snow removal; one will do the grocery shopping and doctor appointments, while the other will do the laundry and cleaning. The entire family works together to keep their parents’ train on the tracks. 
  
The ideal world seldom exists these days. Family members are spread throughout the world, dual income families working, and children’s activities make it difficult to be there for parents. This coupled with siblings’ inability to work together on the same agenda, and parents’ refusing to admit their own aging issues makes the train move faster. 
  
Approaching a parent about needing help can be very uncomfortable to say the least. This discussion is a family matter, not yours alone (unless you are an only child). One family member is assigned to assemble a list of concerns with input from all the siblings. Keep in mind that it is not uncommon for one family member to attempt to undermine the attempts of the other siblings for personal gain. Quite often this strategy is used when there is financial gain to be made or to position within the family. 
  
Timing is everything when discussing sensitive matters such as these. Hold the discussion in a non-threatening private surrounding; generally the privacy of their home is best. At the meeting present the list of concerns and be a specific as possible by citing examples such as falling, bills not being paid, nutrition concerns, hygiene. Be prepared to offer alternatives. Either the family can step in and share the duties or an in-home service provider can be hired to provide the help required. 
  
It is not uncommon for parents to refuse the help. Keep in mind that it is not IF the time will come, it is WHEN. It could be that the timing was not right, or the parents need time to process what is happening. Consider setting up another meeting in the near future to revisit the concerns. 
  
If your parents refuse help and are not safe, there are legal alternatives to consider. Move very carefully in this area because this may be a point of no return regarding your relationship with your parents and possibly siblings.    
In any case, do what’s needed stop the train wreck from happening.

954-707-5030

 Senior Helpers of Florida is excited to inform you that effective December 1, 2011 The Department of  Veterans Affairs has INCREASED                            Aid & Attendance Pension

 rates by 3.6%!

It has been two years since the last increase and we are thrilled to deliver this good news to you and your residents.  But please, call your Senior Helpers representative or email seniorhelpersflorida@hotmail.com to order a full supply of information.                                        Over the past years, Senior Helpers has educated Veterans families about this life changing VA benefit and we look forward to working with you to assist many more in 2012.

Wishing you a Happy Holiday Season and a Wonderful New Year!

Edward Shlapak

President, CFO

Senior Helpers of Florida.    2881 E. Oakland Park Blvd.  Fort Lauderdale, FL 33306

www.seniorhelpers.com/location/1201

Tel: (954) 707-5030 | Fax: (954) 707-5031   

 For more information on how to have that discussion and help your loved one make informed decisions about driving, please refer to Senior Helpers

954-707-5030.  www.seniorhelpers.com/location/1201