Annapolis: It's Not What The Gentiles Will Say...

Annapolis: It’s Not What The Gentiles Will Say...

by Gerald A. Honigman

But What The Jews Will Do.

I had my modern day, post-Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah Hebrew patriarchs and matriarchs mixed up.

I thought it was Golda Meir who stated the above. It was David Ben-Gurion.

Lots of serious concerns abound regarding the upcoming gang-up-on-the-Jews summit at Annapolis, organized by a Big Oil-connected, Arabist-dominated American State Department and supported by a President whose family has huge petrodollar ties of its own.

Headlines in newspapers repeatedly talk of Arab reluctance to attend.

In order to get those Arab “moderates” there, the Jews’ arms have been twisted near the breaking point.

Arabs aim to relive 1948 all over again.

We hear and read constantly about the need for “painful concessions” by Israel.

It’s fine for Arabs to have a 22-member Arab League, but Abbas and his fellow “moderate” Palestinian Arab participants refuse to recognize a Jewish (as in English, Irish, Danish) Israel.

Besides empty paper promises (never lived up to), what painful concessions are Arabs expected to make so that their 22nd state--and 2nd, not first, one in the 1920 original Mandate of Palestine can be created?

Arabs demand Jews relinquish their right to the secure and recognized borders, not previous armistice lines, promised by the final draft of UN Resolution 242 in the wake of the Arabs’ ‘67 attempt on Israel’s life.

And after the Jewish State does this (again requiring a magnifying glass to find it on a world map), Arabs demand Israel’s six million Jews (does that number sound frighteningly familiar?) also allow themselves to be flooded by millions of allegedly returning jihadi Arab refugees. That’s the so-called Saudi Peace (of the grave) Plan...from a key “moderate” Arab participant at Annapolis.

Recall that one half of Israel’s Jews were refugees themselves from the so-called Arab/Muslim world and fled for the same reasons their Arab counterparts did...the attack by a half dozen Arab states on a nascent Israel in 1948.

Recall, as well, that so many so-called Arab “natives” were newcomers into the Mandate that when the United Nations Relief Works Agency was set up to assist Arab refugees, the very word “refugee” had to be redefined to assist those people.

So many Arabs were recent arrivals themselves that UNRWA had to adjust the very 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. Do you really understand what this means?

Again, for every Arab who was forced to flee the fighting Arabs started, a Jewish refugee was forced to flee Arab/Muslim lands into Israel and elsewhere--but with no UNRWA set up to assist them.

In just one of many examples, greater New York City alone now has tens of thousands of Syrian Jewish refugees and their descendants. And while many, if not most, of France’s pre-World War II European Jews perished in the Holocaust, many of France’s now newly-endangered post-war Jewish population also consists of refugees from the “Arab” world.

As for those “native Palestinians,” Arafat himself was born in Cairo, Egypt. Scores of thousands of other Arabs came from Egypt earlier in the 19th century with Muhammad Ali and son’s Ibrahim Pasha’s armies and many, like Arafat a bit later, settled in Palestine.

During the Mandate period after World War I, the League of Nations Permanent Mandates Commission recorded additional scores of thousands of Egyptian, Syrian and other Arabs entering into Palestine and settling there. Indeed, this influx of Arabs into the land is well documented, but few, except scholars, usually delve into these sources. And too many of the scholars these days tend to have an anti-Israel bias and agenda, so such facts are simply ignored or downplayed.

Ready for more Arab “natives?”

Early 20th century disemboweler of Jewish babes, Hamas’ patron saint, Sheikh Izzedin al-Qassam, for whom its “militant wing” was named, was from Latakia, Syria. He, too, settled in Palestine.

It is estimated that for each one of these incoming Arabs who were recorded, many others crossed the border under cover of darkness to enter into one of the few areas in the region where any economic development was going on, because of the influx of Jewish capital. These folks later became known as “native Palestinians.”

When the subject of refugees comes up at Annapolis, the Jews must shove the other side of this coin into Arab and State Department faces.

Jewish refugees left far more valuables and property behind than Arabs, who were stuck by their brethren into camps, did. And Jews didn’t have some two dozen other states to choose from, including one--Jordan--which sits on some 80% of the original Mandate of Palestine’s territory.

We also hear that Syria--still aiming to keep Lebanon as its province and good buddy to Hizbullah, Iran, and such--might also bless Annapolis with its presence...but not unless it’s assured that the Golan will be on the holiday one-sided gift list as well.

Last May, Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice attended an international what-to-do-about-Iraq conference at Sharm el-Sheikh.

Condi met with her Syrian counterpart, Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, the first high-level contact in years.

While this was recommended earlier by the Baker-Hamilton Commission, it had largely been placed by the Bush administration onto the backburner until a marked change in Syrian behavior was forthcoming.

The Syrians or their local stooges have been eliminating one Lebanese patriot after another who dared oppose Damascus’s own vision for Lebanon. Good evidence points to Syria as being the haven for both Saddam’s missing WMDs and “militants” crossing the border into Iraq as well.

So, Washington has good reason to maintain distance.

The New York Times report about Rice’s May meeting quoted American officials as stating that they do not plan to trade away Lebanon for Syria’s help in Iraq. As State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, put it, “The Lebanese people have no better friend than the United States.”

Sounds good, correct? But here’s the problem, and what Syria’a presence at Annapolois 2007 is all about...

The State Department has long known what carrot of choice would be used at the proper moment--and it ain’t Lebanon.

As I had written often much earlier, despite Syria’s deadly hegemonic attitudes and actions towards what it sees as its Lebanese “province;” despite appalling treatment of Kurds, native Jews, and others; despite support for terrorists undermining Iraq’s attempt at democracy; despite the great likelihood that many of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction found their way to Syria; despite Damascus’ support of major terrorist organizations whose aim is the destruction of the Israel, giving safe haven to those organizations within its own borders; despite its record as mass slaughterer of any and all who dissent, author of the infamous “Hama Solution;” etc., etc., and so forth...up until now, America would have been squeezing the Jews--not the Syrians-- if circumstances were just a bit different.

You see, as with the “Palestinian” track, it’s Israel--not Lebanon--who the Foggy Folks have in mind as the main collective sacrificial offering.

Not long ago, Israel suggested, itself, that it wanted to resume negotiations with Syria--the nation which, along with Iran, used Hizbullah two summers ago in a proxy war against Jerusalem.

The Foggy Folks themselves demanded that the Jews not do this.

The time was not yet ripe as far as the State Department was concerned.

To hell with what the Jews felt their own, on the scene/in the bull’s eye interests required.

But now, despite some temporary progress, with things still a mess in Iraq, it’s time to bring out the icing on the cake as far as Syria is concerned...

Former Secretary of State James Baker III pledged to Assad I, butcher of Damascus, during George I’s administration, a total Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.

Unlike the Sinai, which Israel ceded to Egypt after the ‘67 War for a peace treaty, there’s no hundred mile or so sand trap separating Israel from Syria. It’s all down hill from the Heights into Israel proper (as it is a stone’s throw from Judea and Samaria--the “West Bank"--as well).

Dubya made Baker, Bush close family friend (whose law firm represents the Saudis and other Arabs as well), his Special Middle East Envoy.

Baker has worked behind the scenes for decades--among other things, taking good care of all of his and his buddies’ lucrative Arab petrodollar connections and has a most definite Jew problem as well (not that he’s unique, especially in the circles he hangs out in). He’s the guy behind the famous “F___ the Jews, they don’t vote for us anyway” quote.

Note that upon the breakup of the Ottoman Turkish Empire after World War I, the Golan was part of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine until Britain and France did some imperial trading. The territory had changed hands often throughout the centuries. Jews also had a long history here.

Recall how Syria used the Heights to rain death and terror on Israelis below prior to the 1967 War--which it also largely instigated. In 1973, Israel was attacked on its holiest day,Yom Kippur, from the Syrian side of the Heights. This time, the combined Arab assault almost succeeded in Israel’s destruction. Today, the Syrians have even better weaponry and the same murderous intentions as far as Jews are concerned. It is likely that Israel recently destroyed a North Korean nuclear facility in Syria recently as well. Guess who that was meant for?

Not long ago, an Israeli Prime Minister offered, as was done after 1967, an almost complete return of the Heights in exchange for true peace. The exception would cover a tiny stretch of land protecting Israel’s water sources.

Think about what usually happens to such land when others are attacked from it. Are the victims that generous and understanding in the aftermath of wars launched from those territories aimed at their very destruction?

Think about how much territory--including land acquired by the United States far away from home--has changed hands this way...

Israel currently controls the passes Syrian tanks would use to roll down hill to kill Jews. From the Golan, Israeli artillery can send Assad II and friends a calling card if need be. Right now Syrian artillery and gunners can’t do this anymore to Jews. And right now Israel is assured that an enemy sworn to its death will not be in control of its water supply.

That’s what’s at stake with Syria attending Annapolis.

Etc., and so forth...

So, the bottom line--what Ben-Gurion and many of us have been saying--is not what the Gentiles will say, but indeed what the Jews will do...despite the horrendous pressure Israel will come under from its “friends’ as well as its enemies.

“Wandering Jews” did not suffer and yearn for two thousand years for Israel’s Prophetic rebirth, only to witness a weak-kneed Israeli leadership cave in at Annapolis to those who still seek--one way or another-- the destruction of the Jew of the Nations.

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"Proclaim Liberty Throughout The Land"...The Israel Aid Issue

Proclaim Liberty Throughout The Land…The Israel Aid issue

by Gerald A. Honigman

Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof…
Leviticus 25:10, Hebrew Bible



I’m a proud Philadelphia boy.

My great grandfather, Benjamin, eloped with his fourteen year old bride, Esther, married in Elkton, Maryland, and proceeded to sire my grandfather and over a dozen of my grand uncles and aunts…Philly’s Esther and Benjamin Honigman Family Circle.

My Grandfather served in WWI and my Dad in WWII. Dad later put in almost three decades with the Philadelphia Police Department, retiring as a lieutenant.

Now, let’s begin…

I often hear folks complaining about all that aid we give the Jews “over there.”

True, Israel has received two to three billion dollars in aid each year from us for some time now. That aid is much appreciated, is largely returned to us via purchases in America, and comes with a big down side as well--as is most recently being manifested in the suicidal concessions Dubya, Condi, and the State Department expect Israel to make in Annapolis to alleged Abbas “good cop” Fatah terrorists who still refuse to recognize the Jewish State. It’s fine for Arabs to have almost two dozen of their own (most forcibly Arabized from non-Arab peoples) in their Arab League, but how dare Jews have their resurrected one…

Please take a good look at the opening quote above from the Hebrew Bible, aka “Old Testament.”

That’s the inscription on the symbol of America’s Revolution, the Liberty Bell, which sits within almost a stone’s throw of where I was born.

There is no people who share--indeed gave--the values Americans so cherish more than the Jews. Indeed, when Europeans arrived here, they saw America as the “New Zion.” The all-American holiday fast approaching, Thanksgiving, was modeled on the Hebrews’ fall holiday of Sukkot, the Feast of the Tabernacles.

Israel--the resurrected Jew of the Nations, as the Hebrew Prophets foretold--is a shining “light unto the nations” (as G_d wanted it to be, the definition of its choseness), with all of its admittedly human imperfections.

Compare it, for starters, using the same lenses of moral scrutiny to what’s in its neighborhood, and the anti-Semitism of Mr. Peanut’s latest book becomes all too real. There are Arabs serving in Israel’s Parliament who openly side with other Arabs who call for Israel’s destruction. Find the Arab country with freedom like that…

America helps Israel because it’s in its own interests to do so--despite all the petrodollar connections, including those in the State Department and at the highest levels of government.

President Bush I and his appointed fellow petrodollar buddy at State, James Baker, supported Saddam until the latter made his moves on that giant oil well known as Kuwait. Killing, gassing, and maiming hundreds of thousands of Kurds and dispatching others made no never mind prior to this.

And yet, some proclaimed we went to war with Iraq to save the Jews…again.

I’m sure Israel felt this way when it was told by Bush I that it had to keep its hands tied behind its back while Saddam sucker punched it with about forty missiles aimed at Jewish civilian populations. Did anyone know then whether or not Saddam would have those warheads topped with biological or chemical materials he possessed? Had Israel responded, there likely would have been no need for Bush II’s Iraq II.

And remember Bush and Baker’s ire over Israel’s taking out Saddam’s nuclear reactor at Osirak in Operation Opera?

Decades earlier, like-minded bigots claimed that America fought WWII to “save the Jews.”

Reality check…

Germany declared war on the United States on December 11, 1941…not vice-versa.

We fought the war to save Europe--not Jews--and very likely ourselves afterwards.

American bombers were given orders not to bomb Nazi Final Solution facilities or railway tracks leading to Auschwitz, while flying over them to get to the area’s industrial targets.

Jews fleeing Nazis were denied entry into America while Nazi butchers like Dr. Mengele were aided by us to escape to South America and elsewhere…including to the United States. The Jews’ saint, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, gave orders which had the United States send the German ocean liner, S. S. Saint Louis, away from Florida. It was loaded with prominent German Jews trying to escape the Holocaust. Many, if not most, wound up dying in gas chambers and such. A movie, The Voyage Of The Damned, would later be made about this.

So, let’s cut the manure about America fighting to save Jews.

Next…let’s return to the aid issue.

The current war in Iraq--whether you support it or not--is costing America more, for the sake of Arabs, in one week than Israel gets in foreign assistance in one year. America has already spent about $400 billion dollars for Iraq, with much more set to come. It would take Israel centuries to get this from America. And Israel doesn’t ask for American blood and souls to be shed on its behalf or to be bribed to display America’s own values and democratic inclinations. How long will the latter last among Arabs after America’s exit from Iraq?

Ironically, the one people in Iraq who better share those values--the Kurds--are the folks the James Baker types in the State Department are determined to shaft (again) on behalf of their Arab friends who want to be sure oil fields in Kurdish lands remain part of the “purely Arab patrimony.”

“F_ _ _ the Jews, they don’t vote for us anyway” Baker’s law firm represents Saudi Arab interests in the United States--including defending them in a law suit filed by America’s 9/11 victims. Baker’s law partner is America’s ambassador to Riyadh (and current Secretary of State Rice has an oil tanker named after her…etc., etc. and petrodollarly so forth).

Egypt gets almost the same amount of aid as Israel, and many of the other overtly or covertly mostly despotic, anti-democratic Arab countries get bundles as well.

Mind you, this does not count places like non-Arab, but Muslim, Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Together, Iraq and Afghanistan will cost Americans about $700 billion by the end of 2008. And what about the trillions of dollars America has given to Europe over the years? Why do the same folks who complain about America “saving Jews” not mention any of this?

Having stated the above, I believe that before one cent in aid is given to anywhere, no American should be going to bed hungry, homeless, or worrying about the family going bankrupt due to health problems. We do need to take care of the home front first--especially if we have this kind of money to spread around…including to those who hate us.

But, when the issue of American aid to Israel arises, fairness indeed demands the broader perspective.

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The 1002nd Arabian Night...

Tales Of The Modern Arabian Nights…Or, Abu Alaa And The Tightening Screws

by Gerald A. Honigman

Forget Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad, & Co., those wondrous tales of yore.

Have you heard about Abu Alaa?

Well, his story really begins, for those non-Arabians reading these tales, when Israel’s Rabin shook hands with his dear friend and colleague, Arafat, at President Clinton’s prompting.

During that subsequent 1990’s “Oslo Peace,” Ahmed Qurei’--Abu Alaa--was one of Arafat’s chief marionettes. Prior to that, he was just another Fatah plotter or disemboweler of Jews…Diplomacy as war by another means.

Predictably, Israel got non-stop barbarism for each unilateral, concrete concession it was pressured to make. A similar scenario would take place a bit later at Camp David and Taba when Clinton, seeking to salvage his stained reputation, gave Israel’s Barak an offer he couldn’t refuse. And Barak did offer to give away the store…despite the Arab spin masters’ twist of this today.

While the late Egyptian ghoul, Arafat, confirmed by refusing Taba that it makes no difference how big Israel is, but that Israel is that is the Arab problem--I mean, how dare Jews want in one tiny, resurrected state in which they have thousands of years of continuous history, what Arabs have created almost two dozen of for themselves on over six million square miles of territory, mostly by conquering and forcibly Arabizing non-Arab peoples--the ghosts of Arafat and Taba still haunt us today.  Taba is now the Arabs’ starting point for “negotiations.”

In the Arab vision of justice, virtually the entire region is “purely Arab patrimony.” Hence the millions of dead, intimidated, subjugated, and so forth Kurds, Copts, Berbers, black African Sudanese, native kilab yahud--Jew dogs--and so forth. Dr. Butros Butros Ghali--Egypt’s Sadat’s Uncle Tom Copt Foreign Minister--put it to Israel this way. I’ll paraphrase him: If you want to gain acceptance, you must consent to Arabization.

And that brings me back to the 1002nd Arabian nights tale…

A translation by the highly respected Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) on July 3, 2003 dealt with an interview with Abu Alaa. Among other things, he was asked about the Arabs’ problem with having the word “Jewish” placed in front of the words “State of Israel” at the summit leading up to the evolution of the current Roadmap. Here was his response:

“What is the meaning of a Jewish state? Do we say...Sunni state...Shi’ite state....Christian state? These are definitions that will bring...turmoil.”

It is not unusual to hear critics of Israel, even some academics, proclaim, “if Jews can have a state, then why not Catholics, or Protestants, or Hindus, and such?” a la Alaa.

Now think about this for a minute…

Someone from England is English, from Poland is Polish, from Ireland is Irish, from Sweden is Swedish, from Denmark is Danish, and so forth.

Indeed, while there are other ways of describing one’s nationality or ethnicity (i.e. we’re not Americanish), the addition of the suffix “-ish” denotes this as well. That’s how Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary primarily defines it.

So what’s Abu Alaa’s and his buddies’ problem here?

It’s really very simple…

If they admit that Jews are a nation or a people, it makes Arab rejection of their national movement--Zionism--more difficult to defend; i.e. how could Arabs demand a twenty-second state for themselves--and second, not first, one in “Palestine” (Jordan carved out of the lion’s share of the land) while denying Jews their one?

When the Roman historian, Tacitus, wrote the following amid the Jews’ struggle for independence against their imperial Roman conquerors, ask yourselves if he was only referring to a religion or to a people who coincidentally had specific religious beliefs. Tacitus and other contemporary Roman historians, like Dio Cassius, wrote extensively on this topic, and I quote them frequently to those who babble as Abu Alaa and his fellow Arabs do…

“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)”

So, Abu Alaa’s tale is the ongoing saga of Arabs denying anyone and everyone in “their” region even a miniscule portion of the very same rights they demand for themselves. That’s what the Anfal Campaign was against Kurds in Iraq; what Ismet Cherif Vanly wrote about in his book, The Syrian Mein Kampf Against The Kurds, (Amsterdam, 1968); what Arab genocide in Darfur and the Sudan is about today, along with murder and intimidation of Copts in Egypt, Berbers in North Africa, and what’s left of native Jew dogs, in “their “ lands. The latter now make up one half of Israel’s Jewish population…the refugees no one ever talks about.

On October 31, 2007, the Associated Press wrote of Abu Alaa--now the Arabs’ chief negotiator at yet another American President’s attempt to improve his legacy before leaving office by consenting to traditional State Department Arabist arm-twisting of Jews--“raising the stakes” prior to the proposed gang-up-on-the Jews “peace” summit at Annapolis.

Dalia Nammari wrote…“Queria tightened the screws Tuesday” and demanded a specific deadline for establishing a Palestinian state. “We will not accept negotiations without a timetable…”

The quoted response given by the Israeli spokeswoman was all too typical of the spineless crew now running the show at that end, “ negotiations should be held behind closed doors, not through the media.”

Since Olmert and the Israeli leadership are now incapable of responding to Abbas, Querei’ and all the other State Department alleged Arab good cops properly (Condi knows how to twist such Jews’ arms well too), let me propose the following Israeli response to Abu Alaa’s modern Arabian tale…

No nation is obligated to take part in its own suicide…despite what Czechoslovakia was forced to do by its “friends” via Munich in 1938.

Israel is not obligated to withdraw to the U.N.-imposed 1949 armistice lines, which made it 9-miles wide in parts and a constant invitation to be attacked. Those lines merely marked the point where invading Arab armies were stopped after the rebirth of Israel in 1948 on roughly 11% of the original 1920 Palestinian Mandate created after the collapse of the Ottoman Turkish Empire which ruled it for the previous four centuries.

After the latest Arab attempt on Israel’s life in 1967, UN Resolution 242 made this quite clear. A reading of all of its final draft architects, quotes from Presidents Johnson and Reagan, Secretary of State Shultz, and others understood this well.

Israel was to get “secure and recognized borders”--not armistice lines--in return for any withdrawal from territories it came to occupy in a defensive war and this was to be done in the context of real peace treaties, not hudna-type ceasefires.

Regardless of State Department Arabist attempts to bury this over the years (the same folks who fought Israel’s very rebirth in the first place), Israel must hold its ground and demand that Judea does not once again become Judenrein, and seek a fair territorial compromise on that “West Bank.”

Again, Arabs are already controlling over three quarters of the original territory--just in Jordan alone. All of Gaza has since been handed over as well--with Arab mortars and rockets constantly launched from there against Israel anyway. This occurred under Fatah’s watch as well as Hamas’s, for those bent on excusing the good cops. Much of the “West Bank” is now also under Arab control , courtesy of the one-sided concessions of Oslo.

There will be no timetable for the creation of Arab state # 22.

As Arabs show themselves true partners for a true peace--not their well known “hudna” games --then more steps can be taken towards that Arab goal.

No nation would consent to being a partner with another whose school text books, maps, television and radio stations, children camps, religious leaders, etc. and so forth are unrelenting in calling for the other “partner’s” destruction. All of this was supposed to change as of Oslo. None of it did. And Abbas, Abu Alaa, & Co. insist that they will flood a miniscule Israel, after it withdraws to the ’49 armistice lines, with millions of jihadist alleged Arab refugees. Recall Abu Alaa’s problem with a “Jewish” Israel…

The Arab leopard does not change its spot on this “purely Arab patrimony” issue.

And it won’t after Annapolis 2007 either.

The Jews will once again be pressured to cave in to the Arabs’ well-known, post-‘67 destruction in stages plans, courtesy of their American friends. Munich 2007...

Hopefully, Israel will quickly snap out of its stupor and have its own say at how this latest tale of the Arabian Nights will end.

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