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From:          Paul Jablonowski
To:              heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject:       Middle East History & Myths


CRASH COURSE IN MIDDLE EAST HISTORY
from http://www.facts4peace.com


NATIONHOOD AND JERUSALEM

Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C.E., two thousand years before the rise of Islam.

Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

Since the  Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C.E. the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years.  The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 C.E. lasted no more than 22 years.

For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital,  Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity.  Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem, they never sought to make it their capital, and Arab leaders did not come to visit.

Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran.

King David founded the city of Jerusalem. Mohammed never came to Jerusalem.

Jews pray facing Jerusalem. Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem.

ARAB AND JEWISH REFUGEES

In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews.  Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier. The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms.

The number of Arab refugees who left Israel in 1948 is estimated to be around 630,000.  The number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands is estimated to be the same.

Arab refugees were intentionally not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory.  Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples' lands. Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey.

THE ARAB - ISRAELI CONFLICT

The Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not including the Palestinians. There is only one Jewish nation.

The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. Israel defended itself each time and won.

The P.L.O.'s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.

Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them with weapons.

Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths.

THE U.N. RECORD ON ISRAEL AND THE ARABS

Of the 175 Security Council resolutions passed before 1990, 97 were directed against Israel.

Of the 690 General Assembly resolutions voted on before 1990, 429 were directed against Israel.

The U.N was silent while 58 Jerusalem Synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians.

The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians systematically desecrated the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives.

The U.N. was silent while the Jordanians enforced an apartheid-like policy of preventing Jews from visiting the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.

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MYTHS OF THE MIDDLE EAST
by Joseph Farah c 2000 WORLDNETDAILY.COM
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_btl/20001011_xcbtl_myths_brmi.shtml

If you believe what you read in most news sources, Palestinians want a homeland and Muslims want control over sites they consider holy. Simple, right?

Well, as an Arab-American journalist who has spent some time in the Middle East dodging more than my share of rocks and mortar shells, I've got to tell you that these are just phony excuses for the rioting, trouble-making and land-grabbing.

Isn't it interesting that prior to the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, there was no serious movement for a Palestinian homeland?

"Well, Farah," you might say, "that was before the Israelis seized the West Bank and Old Jerusalem."

That's true. In the Six-Day War, Israel captured Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem. But they didn't capture these territories from Yasser Arafat. They captured them from Jordan's King Hussein. I can't help but wonder why all these Palestinians suddenly discovered their national identity after Israel won the war.

The truth is that Palestine is no more real than Never-Never Land. The first time the name was used was in 70 A.D. when the Romans committed genocide against the Jews, smashed the Temple and declared the land of Israel would be no more. From then on, the Romans promised, it would be known as Palestine. The name was derived from the Philistines, a Goliathian
people conquered by the Jews centuries earlier. It was a way for the Romans to add insult to injury. They also tried to change the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina, but that had even less staying power.

Palestine has never existed -- before or since -- as an autonomous entity. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their homeland.

There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the landmass.

But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today. Greed. Pride. Envy. Covetousness. No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough.

What about Islam's holy sites? There are none in Jerusalem.

Shocked? You should be. I don't expect you will ever hear this brutal truth from anyone else in the international media. It's just not politically correct.

I know what you're going to say: "Farah, the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem represent Islam's third most holy sites."

Not true. In fact, the Koran says nothing about Jerusalem. It mentions Mecca hundreds of times. It mentions Medina countless times. It never mentions Jerusalem. With good reason. There is no historical evidence to suggest Mohammed ever visited Jerusalem.

So how did Jerusalem become the third holiest site of Islam? Muslims today cite a vague passage in the Koran, the seventeenth Sura, entitled "The Night Journey." It relates that in a dream or a vision Mohammed was carried by night "from the sacred temple to the temple that is most remote, whose precinct we have blessed, that we might show him our signs. ..." In the seventh century, some Muslims identified the two temples mentioned in this verse as being in Mecca and Jerusalem. And that's as close as Islam's connection with Jerusalem gets -- myth, fantasy, wishful thinking. Meanwhile, Jews can trace their roots in Jerusalem back to the days of Abraham.

The latest round of violence in Israel erupted when Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon tried to visit the Temple Mount, the foundation of the Temple built by Solomon. It is the holiest site for Jews. Sharon and his entourage were met with stones and threats. I know what it's like. I've been there. Can you imagine what it is like for Jews to be threatened, stoned and physically kept out of the holiest site in Judaism?

So what's the solution to the Middle East mayhem? Well, frankly, I don't think there is a man-made solution to the violence. But, if there is one, it needs to begin with truth. Pretending will only lead to more chaos. Treating a 5,000-year-old birthright backed by overwhelming historical and archaeological evidence equally with illegitimate claims, wishes and wants gives diplomacy and peacekeeping a bad name.

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U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT Editorial 10/23/00
By Mortimer B. Zuckerman editor-in-chief

ARAFAT TORCHES PEACE

The terrorist attack on an American ship in Yemen and the mob barbarism that saw Israeli soldiers beaten and stabbed to death in a modern-day lynching only compound the ongoing tragedy in the Middle East. It is a double outrage. The first outrage is Yasser Arafat's crass betrayal of the hopes of peace. He had the chance to move toward an agreement, or toward a confrontation. Sadly, he chose the latter. The second outrage is the way the media misrepresented the crisis, which encouraged Arafat in his despicable power play.

The riots have been presented as a spontaneous popular uprising to protest the visit to the Jewish shrine at Temple Mount by Ariel Sharon and a group of Israeli members of Parliament. In fact, the Arab violence was premeditated. Sharon's visit had been approved the day before by Jibril Rajoub, the head of the Palestinian Authority's Preventive Security service. Rajoub stated there would be no reaction. There wasn't-at least at first. Sharon's visit went without incident, but the next day the Arabs seized on it as a pretext for massive waves of rock-throwing attacks on Jews at prayer at the Western Wall plaza, which is adjacent to and below the Temple Mount. It was organized violence, carried out by a mob abetted by Tanzim militiamen, the shock
troops of Arafat's Fatah faction, who had kicked off the violence several days before with a roadside bomb attack. The Arafat-controlled media exhorted the Palestinians to come defend the al-Aqsa Mosque as if it were under attack.

Orchestrated attack. The Muslim mullah at the mosque on Temple Mount called for Muslims to "eradicate the Jews from Palestine." Schools were closed; students and others were bused to the Temple Mount to participate in rioting. After hurling rocks at the Jewish worshipers, the mob then attempted to break through the western gate of the Mount in order to descend to the Wailing Wall, menacing a throng of Jewish worshipers celebrating the Jewish New Year. The threat to the worshipers prompted a forcible defensive reaction by Israeli forces.

The Arab leadership did nothing to calm the rioting and its spread. On the contrary. Their police forces joined the Tanzim in opening fire on Israelis while putting Palestinian children forward at points of confrontation, hoping to create television images that would provoke worldwide sympathy. A European film crew managed to get footage of Arafat's Tanzim militia handing out Molotov cocktails to Palestinian teens. The journalists were arrested, their film confiscated.

The Washington Post did report, correctly, that "there is evidence to support the claim by Israelis that the Palestinian leadership has orchestrated the militia, as well as civilians and armed Palestinian police, in the rioting." But the media generally reinforced the impression that the powerful Israelis were using excessive force to suppress the underdog Palestinians. This impression was false. Take, for example, the picture of a young man, bleeding heavily, being approached by an angry, baton-wielding police officer, which carried this caption in the New York Times: "An Israeli policeman and a wounded Palestinian."

It was nothing of the kind. The wounded man was a young American Jew. With two of his friends, he had been trapped in an Arab taxi, riding through an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem. They were dragged out of the car and beaten with rocks, and the victim in the picture was thrown to the ground and stabbed twice. He was able to break away but was pursued by his assailants and was in danger until he encountered an Israeli policeman-who was wielding a club protectively, thus saving the life of an innocent Jewish bystander. Yet the Israeli policeman was pilloried in the press as a brutal attacker. This goes right to the top in the long history of distortion in the reporting from the Middle East.

Arafat's motives are transparent. He hoped that "spontaneous" rioting might be read as popular frustration and swing public support back in his favor since he was thrown on the diplomatic defensive by Ehud Barak's unprecedented concessions to reach peace. It is a familiar ploy of Arafat's, and it seemed to be working. But Arafat overplayed his hand.

Barak, after a meeting with Arafat in Paris convened by the United States, relied on Palestinian promises that their security would keep the peace on the Temple Mount. But once again, provoked by calls for jihad against Israel, a mob raced to the edge of the compound, throwing huge stones down to the plaza at the side of the Western Wall that the Jews revere. They then attacked an Israeli police post, set it ablaze, and hoisted the Palestinian flag atop the Dome of the Rock, until Israeli reinforcements were able to re-establish security.

An even worse incident took place at Joseph's Tomb, which Arafat had personally promised to make secure if the Israelis pulled back their forces. As soon as the Israelis withdrew, Arab youths desecrated and destroyed the tomb. Joseph, you may recall, was the son of Jacob who received the coat of many colors and was ultimately sold to the Egyptians. His bones were actually returned to this resting-place, at the request of Moses.

But the most powerful evidence that we are witnessing a modern-day pogrom came when an Arab mob at Ramallah pushed aside police guards in a prison where two Israeli soldiers had been incarcerated. They beat and stabbed the Israelis, then threw them out the window where they were brutally beaten to death with pipes, while the police did nothing.

It is all of a piece. Just as the Arabs deny the Holocaust, they now deny the existence of the First and Second Temples on the Temple Mount. Arafat said, "That is not the Western Wall at all, but a Muslim shrine." Arafat's minister of information said, "Jerusalem is not a Jewish city, despite the biblical myth implanted in some minds." He added: "The location of the Temple Mount is in question. It might be in Jericho or somewhere else." This despite the fact that the Temple Mount had been the geographic heart and spiritual soul of the Jewish people for over 3,000 years. On the Jewish New Year, the Jews read the account of Abraham's test of faith when he was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac. That took place on the same holy site, the Temple Mount.

Even doves are skeptical. The idea broached at Camp David to leave Palestinians in control of security at Temple Mount is a dead letter. Such an act would make it impossible for the Jews praying at the Western Wall ever to feel safe from attack on their sacred grounds. Since the rioting began, Arafat has done nothing of substance to contain it. Instead, he blames it all on what he described as the excessive reaction of the Israeli soldiers. Yet the Israelis were under instructions not to fire unless fired upon, not to initiate but just to react to restore order. Responding to mobs attacking them with rocks, Molotov cocktails, and live ammunition, the Israelis had to show firmness, sometimes even disproportionately, for if they were to appear weak to their attackers, they would create an invitation for more violence. No wonder even the doves in Israel now doubt that the Palestinians want peace. If anyone questions Arafat's complicity, consider the communiqué, issued this month, by the Supreme Committee of his Faith faction: "The Fatah movement calls upon its courageous sons to continue their struggle and escalate it even more. It calls for suspending security coordination with Israel. The movement blesses our people on the liberation of Joseph's Tomb by the fighting arms of the Faith, on the way toward the liberation of all sites of the homeland."

President Clinton tried bravely at Camp David to bring about peace. No wonder he is furious with Arafat. But has the administration acted wisely? American officials are reluctant to go public with their frustration on the grounds that it would end their role as peace brokers and reduce the leverage they may have on the Palestinians. That is their rationale for abstaining from the one-sided U.N. Security Council resolution that condemned Israel. But this was too tactical a response. Such a failure to speak the truth dishonored U.S. integrity. It was craven. It did not win respect in an Arab world that respects power above all and despises conciliation, which the Arabs see as appeasement. No wonder Arafat was willing to continue to extend the violence.

A world that wants peace will have to understand that it will have to be tough, really tough, with Arafat and his cohorts. When they get tolerance or sympathy, they use it as a license to pursue diplomatic goals by violence.

Israel, which took unprecedented risks for peace, deserved better from the world and especially from the United States. It's time for Clinton to follow through on comments he made after Camp David: to decide by the end of the year to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and to help Israel enhance its military superiority in the region.

Barak can no longer justify to Israelis how his far-reaching concessions on Jerusalem and on the West Bank will accomplish peace with the Palestinian population, whose deep-seated hostility against Israelis became so menacing that it could not be masked any longer. The Palestinians have not built a foundation for peace but one for hatred and rage. The most powerful argument for the peace process has always been, "There is no alternative." But the peace process is no longer an alternative because Arafat, as Barak said last week, is not a partner for peace.

Israel can hardly be expected to put itself into a position of increasing danger by further concessions to the Palestinians. The burden will now be on the Palestinians to show they are genuinely willing to compromise for peace, to educate their people, in Arabic, about their commitment to peace, and to recognize that what was on the table in Camp David is no longer on the table. Peace is very much in the interests of the Palestinian people, but not for the first time they have chosen to wound themselves.

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USA TODAY Newspaper Stories Page 21 A 10/25/2000

Palestinian radio: All the news that fits the cause Israel says the broadcasts are nothing but lies and propaganda. Listeners say the station is the only information source they can trust.

By Jack Kelley
USA TODAY

JERUSALEM -- For the third time in a day, a news bulletin interrupted the Arabic music on the Voice of Palestine radio: Israeli jets had just bombed the West Bank town of Bethlehem, the report said.

''The Israeli criminals have fired missiles into the homes of innocent Palestinians,'' a breathless correspondent said. ''Palestinian blood is flowing in the streets! Oh God, God, how can the criminals kill our innocent children?''

A trip to the town immediately after the report, however, found no evidence of an attack.

An hour earlier, another breathless Voice of Palestine correspondent had reported that the West Bank town of Hebron was ''under siege'' by armed Jewish settlers who were ''shooting Palestinian women and children.''

A visit to Hebron found calm and quiet there, too.

Same thing in the West Bank town of Nablus, where the correspondent reported that Israeli troops were ''burning homes.'' No such thing, residents there said.

Despite Israeli demands that it stop inciting the public, the Voice of Palestine radio, controlled by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, is delivering a daily diet of news, commentary and propaganda aimed at rallying the Palestinian masses into a confrontation with Israel.

Nationalistic songs, anti-Israeli commentary and flowery tributes to Palestinians killed in clashes with Israelis are being broadcast around the clock, and they appear to be more popular than ever.

''Jerusalem will be our capital. We will fight until the end,'' a Voice of Palestine commentator said earlier this week. ''No more negotiations. Just give us our guns.''

Palestinian officials say the news service is simply keeping its people informed and getting the Palestinian message out to the world. They also insist that their reports are factual, despite the
discrepancies.

''Look, when there's peace, I'll broadcast that,'' said Radwan Abu Ayyash, chairman of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corp., parent group of the Voice of Palestine. ''But when (the Israelis) make war on us, that's what will be on the air. I'm not inventing all this.''

Israel says the station, which is broadcast throughout the West Bank of the Jordan River and the Gaza Strip, is inciting violence. Israel blames the station for the recent killing of two of its army
reservists in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Israeli officials also complain that Arafat has not ordered the station to halt its rhetoric as required by a recent U.S.-negotiated cease-fire agreement. More than 120 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed in the past three weeks in the worst outbreak of violence here in recent memory.

''Make no mistake about it: Our two reservists were lynched because the mob was incited for days before by the Palestinian Authority in newspapers, television and radio,'' Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Ranaan Gissim said.

''That station is nothing but propaganda radio,'' says Shalom Goldstein, advisor on Arab affairs to Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert. ''The Palestinian Authority operates like a communist, Bolshevik regime and uses this misinformation to indoctrinate its people. Before the message was 'Israel is bad.' Now the message is 'Get Israel.' ''

In retaliation for the slayings of the two soldiers, Israeli helicopter gunships blasted the Voice of Palestine's transmitters in Ramallah.

The missile attack, which caused more than $3 million in damage, knocked the station off the air for only 30 minutes, Director General Bassem abu Sumaya said. Radio transmission resumed through local FM stations.

Even if Arafat did order the station to stop its alleged incitement, there's little chance Palestinians would accept it. Many say they've stopped watching satellite television news channels such as CNN and the BBC because they consider their coverage to be pro-Israeli. They now keep their radios tuned to the Voice of Palestine.

''I started listening after the Jews bombed the transmitter and haven't stopped,'' says Iyad Hammoudi, 45, a unemployed laborer. ''It is the most powerful tool we have in our war against Israel. It makes me proud to be a fighter.''

That feeling is shared by many of the journalists and technicians at the Voice of Palestine. They view their work as part of their struggle for a Palestinian homeland. ''With my task here, I feel I complete the work of those who throw the stones,'' says tape editor Mahi Adwan, referring to the stone-throwing youths who clash daily with Israeli soldiers as part of their uprising against the Jewish state.

Soon after she spoke, another bulletin was broadcast by the station. ''Palestinian people: Our war is about to begin,'' yet another breathless commentator said.

''Our brother and liberator in Iraq, President Saddam Hussein, has just phoned us to say that hundreds of jets and helicopters are taking-off from the aircraft carrier belonging to the criminal
occupation force. They are heading this way to destroy our --''

Suddenly, the report came to an end. Perhaps the commentator realized that Israel's navy doesn't have -- and never has had -- an aircraft carrier as part of its fleet.

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From: Arutz-7 Editor <netnews@IsraelNationalNews.com>
To:     heb_roots_chr@hebroots.org
Subject: Arutz Sheva & One Jerusalem Call to Action


Arutz Sheva Teams Up with OneJerusalem.org
Combatting the Anti-Israel Bias in the Major Networks.

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This piece includes simple instructions for receiving, via the internet, a powerful 30-second video concerning the present political situation
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By now you probably know that the IDF warned the Palestinian Authority before firing missiles into the Ramallah police station in retaliation for the two Israeli reservists who were lynched there.  What you probably did not know was that the reason the film clips of the bombing showed Palestinian Arabs running for their lives before the missiles hit, despite the fact that the warning was given a full three hours before the attack, was because the inhabitants were ordered to wait there until just before the missiles struck.

Arabs running for their lives makes for good television.

Hard to believe?  It sure is.  But the fact is that the Palestinian Authority could have cleared the building of people long before the IDF retaliated.  Instead it chose to use the three hours to
strategically place a BBC television crew opposite the building so that they could film a bunch of Palestinian Davids escaping Goliath's missiles.

The Palestinian Authority orders children out of school and buses them to confront IDF soldiers with rocks and Molotov cocktails.  If that doesn't draw enough victims, Palestinian soldiers fire their automatic weapons on Israelis from within the crowd of children, forcing the IDF troops to shoot back.  Like the sacrificing of children to the Moloch of biblical times, Arafat's henchmen prefer that their dead be children.  "The Israelis are killing our children," they will then cynically declare on CNN in order to justify any atrocity they then commit.

This propaganda war is not an easy one for us to fight.  We naturally recoil from telling lies and distorting reality.  But we do have the truth, and even though lies are rapid and truth is slow, it is the truth that we must tell, again and again and again.

Below, you will find instructions on how to receive a 30-second film entitled Hatred from the Cradle.  The film depicts the Palestinian's contemptible manipulation of children's minds and the endangerment of their lives in order to achieve political gain.  The major networks - CBS, ABC, and NBC - all refused to air it, despite a guarantee of payment up front.

The answer is for you to air it.

Show it to your family, friends, and business partners.  Show it at your local synagogue and school and at the PTA meeting.  Show it to local journalists and try to buy time on your local networks.

Follow that up with action.

Circulate the One Jerusalem international petition against the redivision of Jerusalem.  Jerusalem has been placed on the negotiation table for the first time, and it is unlikely that it will be removed in the foreseeable future.  A petition signed by millions declaring the indivisibility of Israel's eternal capital will help ensure that it will remain just that.  It can be seen and signed at:

http://www.onejerusalem.org

For more information, and to receive posters and petitions, call (212) 340-1171 (in New York) or (02) 625-2550 (in Israel).

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yechiel M. Leiter
OneJerusalem.org

To receive the video attachment, send blank email to:
<a href ="mailto:hatredfromthecradle@IsraelNationalNews.com">
hatredfromthecradle@IsraelNationalNews.com </a>

For automated response about Arutz-7: mailto:info@IsraelNationalNews.com
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