HAMAS, Enemy of Israel, Decides to Create Gaza but Continue Attacking Israel

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                  

Khaled Mashaal of Hamas

The word this morning from writer Khaled Abu Toameh  is that Hamas is making plans to turn Gaza into a separate state.  Of course Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah leader, considers this a blow to the 2 state idea that the USA still hopes to see created.  He only has himself to blame.  He's the one that united with these extreme terrorists to create a state.  At this point in time, Netanyahu is not the only one ready to take a break from the plan that has failed for the past 66 years since 1947.  The Arabs have been unwilling  to create their own state of late and live in peace.  I see they have a hard time living in peace with each other.  This is the 3rd or 4th divorce.   I always wondered how a 2 state solution came out of 3 pieces of land.  Modern Math!
                                                                         

Recent marriage of Fatah and Hamas terrorists

Fatah and Hamas have had several "marriages" and "divorces" from each other in the past, and now this shows there has been another break in their union.  Hamas lets us know that this will not stop them from attacking Israel.  They said they "would not end its struggle to destroy Israel and replace it with the State of Greater Palestine."  This is what I have feared all along.  Forcing a state would only place them closer to Israel and they would find weapons more available if they were a state.  They are not ready to be peaceful.
                                                                           

This is not a matter of allowing Palestinians to have their own land for a  
state.  It's not like the situation for Israel.  Palestinians never "had" Palestine.  They were simply nomadic Arabs, with a few among them being landowners on land belonging to the Ottoman Empire for the past 400 years.  There were Jewish and Arab Palestinians.  The Jews became Israelis on May 14, 1948.  The Arabs declined the offer, following their charter of destroying Israel and killing Jews.

Their Article 20 is perverse which is in the PLO covenant Against Israel, showing this disinterest in peace stems from Fatah as well. 

 "The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate  Document, and everything based upon them are deemed null and void.  The claim of historical or religious ties between Jews and Palestine does not tally with historical realities, nor with the constituents of statehood in their true sense.  Judaism, in its character as a religion, is not a nationality with an independent existence.  Likewise, the Jews are not one people with an independent identity.  They are rather citizens of the states to which they belong. "1

This is what the USA has been forcing Israel to accept as a neighbor; people who believe such an untruth.  This is what J Street, an organization,   expects Jews in Israel to put up with.  Even an open letter printed in the magazine, The Jerusalem Report, berates Netanyahu for his denial of support for a Palestinian state and his election day warning from a Jew in Australia!  He expects the 2nd state to appear!

Let me take this one Article step by step in explanation.
1. The Arabs are disregarding any laws from the end of WWI where the Ottoman Empire lost, meaning they lost their empire as well.  When you go against the whole world in a war and join up forces with the Axis, you are taking a chance-a gamble.  This brought in the Mandate of France and of England to be the authorities for 30 years.  Like it or not-Hamas, Fatah and ISIS refuse to accept reality.

2. Jews are tied to Israel.  Arabs have not evidently read the 5 Books of Moses found in the beginning of the Bible or Old Testament.  That should be proof of our history right there.  At least half of the world has read it or has heard about it.  Abraham had 2 sons; Ishmael who was father of the Arabs and Isaac, father of the Jews.  DNA testing today is giving proof of our claims and our history in the Bible.  At least half of the Jews today are walking around with the same DNA haplogroup as many of the Arabs, J1....called THE COHEN GENE,  .with some detail showing they are from the Jewish branch.  Our ancestors lived for 400 years in Egypt with most of that time being slaves to the Pharaoah building a couple of storage cities.  Too bad the Arabs can't bring themselves to learn about us.

3.  Now we come to who we are; a people or a religion.  We are unique.  We are both.  We started with Abraham and his son Isaac and his wife, Sarah,  who was actually his niece as a family.  Our little family grew into a tribe and then a clan and finally with King Saul, a nation.  Our clan was in Egypt and when Moses brought us out (one of the prophets also found  in Islam, and when he did, other slaves came with us.   I suppose we really cleaned out the slaves from the old Pharaoah, didn't we?  We were all together when we listened to the proclamations from Moses as to what we were to follow from then on and why; clan and others.  The others probably married into our clan, just as American Indians did with each other.  Moses led out 600,000 people.  Moses had us go back to where Abraham's grandson, Jacob, had been living; Canaan.  We were told that G-d was displeased with these very tall people as they were doing unsightly things as it was, some cannibalism, and especially the sacrificing of people.  That had to go.

We are a people with our own language (Hebrew) and our own language we use when outside of Israel of Yiddish used by Ashkenazis and (Ladino) used by Sephardis.  We have our own culture including foods.
                                                                         

We all love bagels and cream cheese! We have our own history.
                                                                       

We have our own marriage customs and certifications.    Our own self-identity tells it all.  We are Jews.  We still hold onto our nationality of being from Israel without realizing it.   In fact, the USA listed us on immigration forms and census forms as Israelites or HEBREWS instead of as Jews.  We're an ancient race.  We are, however, in danger of losing much through intermarriage.
                                                                           

 Moses saw to it that we wouldn't with instructing us to celebrate Passover (Pesach) each year along with other religious holidays.  How can we forget our roots by living through the Exodus each year as a Seder (family dinner gathering) goes through the history for hours on end as a lecture and even a role playing session  magnified with foods?
                                                                                 

A sukkah alongside a synagogue

If we are really up to it, those of us in the Galut should take part in Succot where we role play living in the booths and eating in there as those on the Exodus did 3 thousand years ago.  They do this beautifully in Israel where they rarely have to worry about rain spoiling their tradition.

I heard a story the other day.  A lady called collecting money for the Jewish Federation.  The man asked if the money would go Judea or Samaria.  She asked, "What's Judea and Samaria?"  I rest my case.  Many of us lack a decent education of who we are.

4.  Our King Solomon died in 961 BCE  (about 3,000 years ago) and that's when the southern part of Israel, where the tribe of Judah lived and was still whole, broke off from the remaining part of Israel to create the state of Judah.  High taxes and involvement with other countries were the reason.  Judaeans were more like isolationists and didn't want to be involved.  We didn't leave Israel, but rather many of our brightest and best people were kidnapped from there  when the Assyrians attacked in 721 BCE and took men and women away.   Then the Babylonians from Nebuchadnezzar, who had taken over the possessions of the Assyrians, came for more slaves and riches in 597 and 586 BCE.  Jews remained on the land even after 70 CE when the Romans took over the land and burned down our 2nd Temple in Jerusalem, destroying almost the whole city.


                                                                         

This is when some were able to hide from the Romans while many ran for their lives to nearby lands and others headed out towards Rome itself where other Jews were already living.  A thousand years later finds many of the descendants of these Jews living in France and mostly in Germany.  Worms, of the Rhineland (Germany) was a big center for many rabbis.

Thus, Hamas's position denies the very right of self-determination to Jews!  The PLO, including Hamas, claims that Jews are  NOT a people, but only members of a religion.
                                                                             
While I was growing up and running into anti-Semitism in my high school and in life in general, I also thought this.  Why, we were just a religion.  Why are people so hateful towards us?  That shows that young people simply have little understanding.  Israel was re-born when I was 14 years old.  I had yet much to learn about our history and what and who we were.  Finally, I have understood and have written the article listed in references:  Jews:  A People Founded By a Religion.
                                                                         

I didn't know then about DNA, either, nor how we can trace our family back so far and how we really are connected.  I've since found out that our men have something in their cells called a haplogroup that is like a tag.  It tells scientists what family group they came from.  Many Jews have the Cohen gene  of J1 which comes from Moses's brother, Aaron, the first Cohen in the Jewish assembly in the Temple, later in the synagogue.  I know a man, a relative of a 1st cousin who is a J1 and actually is a Cohen in the synagogue fulfilling the duties of a Cohen.  Not all Jews are Cohens, but then the other few haplogroups that are different are common with the Jewish people. Remember, we did have others accompany us from Egypt's slave holdings on the Exodus.  They probably also intermarried with us, too.  But their tag lives as a haplogroup.   Read about it in my article listed below, What Haplogroup We Be?  2

Israel is a very little state as we all know made up of 8,000 square miles. By contrast, Portland, Oregon, Oregon's largest city,  is about 133.43 square miles in the state of Oregon made up of 95,988.01 square miles.  Portland does not face any undo dangers of terrorists, either, only occasionally today like there was almost one in 2010, stopped by the FBI during the Christmas season.  No, I don't believe that Oregon's Jewish population has much of a connection between what Israelis' lives are like and understanding them as part of their family as a nation, unfortunately.3

There is a big split growing between the Orthodox and Conservative and Reformed Jews right now, led by J Street's  Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) and the J Street leader, Ben-Ami.  They, safely in the USA away from harm, are telling other Jews that "you, as the institutions of the community, need to stand up and make clear that the continued growth of settlements and the continued occupation across the Green Line are not acceptable."  They follow in the footsteps of President Obama, and I dare say that most are Democrats like the President.

 This is a split due to the fact that Judea and Samaria were the original land of Israel and Judah where Orthodox Jews and others have moved to with the blessing of Israel at various times under certain Prime Ministers.  The Orthodox are especially interested in living here due to the historical significance of the land.  This was all to become part of the Jewish Homeland in the original doctrines.  This is land gained back from the 1967 Six Day War which Israel did not start nor want.  It took G-d himself to help Israel win this one and must have with the odds they had to win.  This was one of those miracles that happened.  So we have Jews in the USA not standing up with Israel's decisions, Jews who don't live there or probably even see themselves anything other than a religion; not a people.  At least they're not acting like a people necessarily by always bucking Israel's decisions.

It seems to me that if you live in a country and vote there, you have a democracy.  J Streeters are rather like the English telling the Americans back in 1774 what they can and can't do, and telling them while across the pond.  Jews only make up 0.02% of the world population and Israel's 6 million Jews and 1.7 million Arabs are being threatened.  You'd think for once that we would unite and stand by our new nation.  J Street fulfills Obama's idea about what Israel should be like and also go along with the Arabs' opinion of Jews.
                                                                             

What I would like to see is J Street making a really good try at understanding Israel's position and why they are living where they are outside this so called Green line that is not edged in stone from 1967.  Eugene Rostow, a former Undersecretary of State of Political Affairs in the Johnson Administration, and Dean of Yale Law School, said that it was Resolution 242 that gave Israel a legal right to be in the (West Bank/JUDEA AND SAMARIA).  The resolution allows Israel to administer the territories it won in 1967 until a just and lasting peace in the Middle East is achieved, and look whose charter is against such a thing!  Not Israel but Hamas and Fatah.

 Rostow is also an international lawyer and there are others in agreement.   In fact, many feel that settlement activity should be the stimulus to peace because it forces the Arabs to question their tenet of not accepting Israel as a state.  Without the backing of the rest of the world who appease their objectives such as J Street or the EU, this has not been working, nor will it ever with the Arabs' one goal continuing of the destruction of Israel.
                                                                           

Professor Eugene Kontorovich is another international lawyer who says that Israel's building is legal.  Professor Kontorovich’s research spans the fields of constitutional law, international law, and law and economics. He's with the NW University School of Law.  His lecture is online about it and is listed in one of my blog articles about him.   Here is his website.  Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub2x5UvjUs4

J Street has made sure that liberals are not backing settlements.  They  go along with Kerry's work with Iran and see no danger to Israel or themselves.  They think Israel should make all the concessions in any process but not the Palestinians.  They have me very confused with their motto of being Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace.  How do they think this will happen without folding up Israel completely?

Resource:The Jerusalem Report, April 20, 2015, page19-21 by  Jan Jaben-Eilon, Washington:  J Street's Green Line Challenge.
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2013/01/ariel-samarias-green-line-problem-for.html
  1 Myths and Facts, page 308.268-269
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/02/jews-people-founded-by-religion.html
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Portland_car_bomb_plot
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/01/liberal-american-zionism
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/12/part-8-rebutting-chomsky-on-gush-etzion.html...Prof. Kontorovich
2 http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2010/01/jewish-genes-what-haplogroup-could-they.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2013/01/international-law-professor-eugene.html  Kontorovich and the website for the lecture