Israel's Growth Defending Themselves AS Israel Defense Force (IDF)

 Nadene Goldfoot                                   

A past dinner with American, Israel and Palestinian Flags-there is no Palestine as such as yet...no agreement of peace.  Gazan Palestinians still shoot rockets, mortars and missiles into Israel. 

2022

November 3	4 Rockets	Four rockets were fired from Gaza, one was intercepted by Israeli air defense systems while three landed inside Gaza.
August 5-8	1,100 Rockets	An estimated 1,100 rockets were launched from Gaza by Islamic Jihad. At least 200 malfunctioned and exploded within the Gaza Strip, and the Iron Dome intercepted 380.
July 16	4 Rockets	Four rockets were fired from Gaza, one was intercepted by Israeli air defense systems while three fell into open areas.
June 18	1 Rocket	One rocket fired from Gaza toward Ashkelon was intercepted.
April 22	3 Rockets	Three rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel, with two exploding inside the enclave.
April 20	1 Rocket	One rocket fired from Gaza landed in Sderot. No injuries were reported but several people were being treated for shock.
April 18	1 Rocket	One rocket fired from Gaza was intercepted by Iron Dome.

The picture shows when John Kerry was Secretary of State 2013 to 2017.  The Jerusalem Post had this to say about Kerry:  "Kerry might very well be telling the truth. But he would do well to reflect on why accusations surrounding his attempts to undermine Israel, not to mention the US, are completely plausible."  In other words, he did not favor Israel in his talks at all. Barack Hussein Obama II was then president of the USA.   

Israel is called "Little Satan" by Iran, the country who is so aggressive in wanting to eliminate the State of Israel.  Because the USA has been Israel's big brother in helping her with President Harry S. Truman recognizing her first in the United Nations roll call, the USA is the Big Satan.

  Aluf (General) Bar Kokhba held Jerusalem for 3 years, angering the Romans

Jews have the known valid and verified history of living in Judea and Samaria for the past 4,000 years except from 70 CE onwards for a period when the Romans, after burning down Jerusalem, forbade them from living there anymore.  One try at it was made by the Jewish General Bar Kokhba in 132 who took Jerusalem and kept it for the next 3 years before being overcome again by the Romans.  There were Jews living there who were not detected by the Romans as they were only interested in Jerusalem.  So we've had Jews who had never left Judah.  

Dividing up the Ottoman Empire after WWI with Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1914-1916-before the war even ended of Britain, France and Russia, including Italy later, providing for complete chopping up with Upper Galilee under French, Hamran becoming French-protected Arab State, Haifa Bay to British control and central Palestine from Nazareth to Hebron an Anglo-French-Russian control.  Zionists heard about this by 1917 and it wasn't the deal they had made at all.  None of this chopping had any connection to biblical information. 

They had agreed in the March 1915 Constantinople Agreement to give Russia Constantinople (Istanbul) and areas around it, which would provide access to the Mediterranean Sea. France, meanwhile, had a number of economic investments and strategic relationships in Syria, especially in the area of Aleppo, while Britain wanted secure access to India through the Suez Canal and the Persian Gulf. It was out of a need to coordinate British and French interests in these regions that the Sykes-Picot Agreement was born. 

The Ottoman Empire held much of the Middle East, Palestine in particular .  Throughout history, Palestine has been ruled by numerous groups, including the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Fatimids, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Egyptians and Mamelukes. From about 1517 to 1917, the Ottoman Empire ruled much of the region. 

It was from 1880 on that Jews started to return on a large scale in groups called Aliyote, and there were 5 such groups through the next years, the 1st major group of Aliyah in 1881.  (The historic novel, THE SETTLERS by Meyer Levin is a must to read). 

WWI ended with the Ottoman Empire, who had been holding land for 400 years, losing as they tagged along with the German side-the Axis, and Paris was the city of making deals with heads of state.  Prince/Emir Feisal was the friends with Chaim Weizmann and planned peaceful deals together.  But they were foiled by Haj Amin al-Husseini, Sherif of Jerusalem, who wanted to keep his important status-awarded to him through the British by a Jewish nobleman, mind you, so he instigated riots in 1929 against the Jewish people that included killing them in great enough numbers to cause the Jews to start protecting themselves.

At the end of WWI in 1917, the British received a 30 year mandate to rule over Palestine.  They were told by the League of Nations and the United Nations to help the Jews create a Jewish Homeland out of it.  They didn't.  Instead they helped the Arabs take over the land.  They still evidently held anti-Semitism against the Jews for religious reasons that did not touch upon the Arabs who had oil in Saudi Arabia just discovered, changing the dimensions of their energies.  Whoops--the Arabs were now most important and whoever studied the Old Testament anyway?  Not these Brits.   

The Haganah (Defense in Hebrew) was a clandestine organization set up by the Jews in English- controlled Palestine who were holding the 30 year mandate since the English just let these attacks happen.  They succeeded their Ha-Shomer (The Watchmen founded in 1909)  group in 1920 who had been protecting roaming Arabs attacking Jewish settlements.  Things were getting worse against the Jews so the Haganah divided their efforts by 1931.     Some of the groups reunited with the Haganah in 1936 and formed the Irgun Tzevai Leumi group.  There were great disturbances from 1936-1939 and the Supernumerary  Police Force (noterim) of 120,000 was established in 1939, recruited by Haganah out of desperation.                                

                                         Palmah soldier

Out of Haganah came the group, the Palmah, the striking arm or peluggot mahatz in May 1941 during WWII, active till May 1948, like combat soldiers.  

          Abraham Stern  known as Yair b: 1907 in Suwalki Lithuania/Poland where my paternal grandmother, Zlata Jermulowsky was from and -d: in 1942 in Palestine)  at age 35; lived in my father's day of 1908-1959. . During the First World War his mother fled the Germans with him and his brother David. They found refuge with her sister in Russia. When he was separated from his mother the 13-year-old Avraham earned his keep by carrying river water in Siberia. Eventually, he stayed with an uncle in St. Petersburg before walking home to Poland. At the age of 18, in 1925, Stern emigrated on his own to Mandatory Palestine.  That's the same age that Stanley Goldfoot immigrated from South Africa to Palestine.  

 Abraham Stern  was the leader, and had left the group  in 1931 of Irgun Tsevai Leumi (IZL) and they smuggled weapons into Palestine when he was their leader because it refused to continue anti-British activities in Palestine during WWII.  He formed an underground organization later known as Lohame Herut Israel  of which the British just called it the Stern Gang.  They carried out sabotage.  Stern was said to be killed while arrested by the British-the British Criminal Investigation (CID) on February 12, 1942.  (Stanley told me to please just call it the Stern Group).  They weren't a gang.  

Lohame Herut Yisrael-Lehi- (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), called The Stern Group by the British for its founder, Abraham Stern,  was created out of them and my cousin, Stanley Goldfoot, became their chief of Intelligence. The Stern group  had split in 1940  from Lehi  feeling that Britain also much be fought as well as the Germans.  Stern died during  battles when he was arrested.  The operational commander was Yitzhak Jazarnitsky (Shamir).  They had about 300 men.  Murders attributed to this revolutionary group were Lord Moyne-the British Minister in the Middle East in 1944;  Count Bernadotte in 1948, and an attack on the main Hotel, the King David Hotel.  On July 22, 1946, the Irgun Zvai Le'umi (National Military Organization) a Jewish terrorist organization opposed to Britain's continued rule of Palestine, bombed Jerusalem's King David Hotel. It's where I met Stanley Goldfoot in 1980-81.   

In 1948 Palmah people were sent throughout Palestinian labor villages and towns where they worked and trained.  In 1942 Palmah had a few hundred.  By 1945 they had 2,500.  By 1948, they had 5,500 people.  From 1945 to 1947  they concentrated on the struggle against the British by defending village and town projects and by armed actions against the British.  

Of course, then Israel was created on May 14, 1948, and one member became member of  the 1st Knesset in 1949 to 1951 before disbanding for the IDF (Israel Defense Force) to be formed. It actually was in November 1948 that General Dori, Chief of the Israel General Staff, ordered the disbanding of the Palmah.  75 Palmah members had died  in action in 1945 to 1947  and 1,000 more from 1947 to 1948.  

Being a JEWISH Defense Force, these soldiers have ETHICS as their major consideration.  In fact, that's what Judaism is all about in the first place;  not  about what happens to our soul when we die like the Christians but how we treat others while we live.  The world was a pretty rotten place 4,000 years ago and people knew nothing about ethics which is why Moses was directed to teach about it to his 603,550 Egyptian slaves that he had freed.  

The sad thing is that there are still many like the Iranians who do not share our ethics and want to knock us out completely and take over our land that we have helped come back to life after becoming swamps, desert and weeds and mosquito-filled, uninhabited with only by a few fleeting Arabs on camels.  

• While Israel does all it can to protect Israelis during war, Hamas and other terrorist groups use Palestinians as human shields. As a result, Palestinians tend to suffer far more civilian casualties than Israelis do. Some in the international community exploit this to make deeply misleading accusations about IDF “war crimes” and “disproportionate force”.

• Proportionate force “cannot in any way be determined by considering the relative casualty figures between belligerents in a conflict.” Proportionality is determined by weighing the benefit of a strike against the potential harm to civilians. This can be extremely difficult to decide in the heat of battle.

•  International law stipulates that not all attacks that cause civilian casualties are evidence of criminal misconduct. Attacks targeting legitimate military objectives that unintentionally result in civilian deaths or injuries are not war crimes.

•  “Civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy [during Israel’s operations]” – Judge Richard Goldstone

•  “The Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.” – British Colonel (ret) Richard Kemp. 

The Israel Defense Forces or IDF, alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym Tzahal, is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and the Israeli Navy.

What's wrong with Iran?  Not long ago, they were called Persia.  They once tried to pull a Hitler on the Jews by a Haman who started to kill all Jews in their vast empire, but Queen Esther put a stop to that.  The land was ruled by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and were friends with Israel.  

The Iranian Revolution, also known as the Islamic Revolution, was the revolution that transformed Iran from an absolute monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, one of the leaders of the revolution and founder of the Islamic Republic. Its time span can be said to have begun in January 1978 with the first major demonstrations, and concluded with the approval of the new theocratic Constitution—whereby Ayatollah Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country—in December 1979.           

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attends a meeting with thousands of students in Tehran, Iran, November 3, 2019. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)         They are of the extreme Religious element and have changed the life-styleof the Iranians completely, with intentions of wiping out Israel.  Why?  Theirreligious reasoning.  ‘Not anti-Semitic’: Khamenei defines Iran’s goal of ‘wiping out Israel.’ Belying Tehran’s relentless threats to ensure ‘nothing left’ of Jewish state, ‘raze’ Tel Aviv and Haifa, leader says aim is to abolish ‘regime,’ get rid of ‘thugs’ like Netanyahu. 

 “Wiping out Israel means that the Palestinian people, including Muslims, Christians and Jews, should be able to determine their fate and get rid of thugs such as [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Khamenei continued, according to Iranian media, not being direct in this speech, but he  wants the Palestinians to decide where they want to live despite the fact that they are brain-washed into wanting all of Israel.  Why does the leader, the Ayatollah,  hate Netanyahu?  Probably because he's logical and truthful and knows about his plans for making nuclear bombs and bomb Israel.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avraham_Stern

https://www.britannica.com/event/Sykes-Picot-Agreement

https://www.encyclopedia.com/politics/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/stern-abraham-1907-1942

https://www.standwithus.com/factsheets-idf-ethics

https://www.timesofisrael.com/khamenei-when-iran-speaks-of-wiping-out-israel-it-refers-to-regime-not-jews/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/palestinian-rocket-and-mortar-attacks-against-israel