A New Secure Community Network (SCN) For American Jews Since 2004

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

Michael G. Masters is the National Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Secure Community Network (SCN), founded in 2004;  the official homeland security and safety organization of The Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.  Michael as worked on this for the past 19 years.  

They have built a shield over Jewish communities.  It saved lives in the Texas Synagogue attack.  It happened last year on the 23rd of January.  When the survivors of last weekend’s attack on a Texas synagogue talk about why they’re alive today, they point to two factors.

One is the work of law enforcement. 

The second is the training and preparation they 

got from the Secure Community Network, a 

nonprofit safety and training organization that is 

“working to build a protective,

proactive shield over the North American Jewish community,” as its national director and CEO told

CNN.

Prior to joining SCN, Mr. Masters served as the Senior Vice President of The Soufan Group, a strategic advisory firm that assists public and private sector organizations to address emergent threats, and as the CEO of CivicScape, an advanced analytics company.

Did you know about this organization who is providing security for Jews?  The Secure Community Network (SCN), a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, is the official homeland security and safety initiative of the organized Jewish community in North America. Founded in 2004, under the auspices of The Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, SCN serves as the central organization dedicated exclusively to the safety and security of the American Jewish community, working across 146 federations, 50 partner organizations, over 300 independent communities as well as with other partners in the public, private, non-profit and academic sectors.

It was just May 25, 2023 that  the Biden-Harris Administration was releasing the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. This strategy includes over 100 new actions the Administration will take to raise awareness of antisemitism and its threat to American democracy, protect Jewish communities, reverse the normalization of antisemitism, and build cross-community solidarity.  The United States has recently experienced an alarming increase in antisemitic incidents, among other acts of hatred. American Jews account for 2.4% of the U.S. population, but they are the victims of 63% of reported religiously motivated hate crimes, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).  A lot has happened such as October 7, 2023 in Israel, the attack of Hamas on civilian homes and citizens when 1,400 Jews were slaughtered. All over the world one sees people siding with Hamas and causing anti-semitic attacks on nearby Jews.    

Through its operations center and Duty Desk, SCN provides timely, credible threat and incident information to both law enforcement and community partners, serves as the community’s formal liaison with federal law enforcement and coordinates closely with state and local law enforcement partners. SCN works with communities and partners across North America to develop and implement strategic frameworks that enhance safety and security of the Jewish people, developing best practice policies and procedures, undertaking threat and vulnerability assessments, coordinating training and education, offering consultation on safety and security matters and providing crisis management support during critical incidents.

Mr. Masters previously served as the Executive Director of the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management for Cook County, Illinois, as the Chief of Staff for the Chicago Police Department and as an assistant to former Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Mr. Masters has held faculty appointments at both the John Marshall School of Law and at Northeastern University, serves on a number of Task Forces for the United States Department of Homeland Security, previously served on the Executive Board of the FBI’s Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force, and sits on the Boards of a number of non-profit and civic organizations.

A Truman and a Gates Cambridge Trust Scholar, Mr. Masters received his B.A. from the University of Michigan, MPhil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge and his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he served as managing editor for the Harvard International Law Journal.

Certified as a sworn peace officer and SWAT operator, Masters served as a Captain in the United States Marine Corps.                              

He has outstanding credentials.  The Middle East Forum has an article saying that Michael G. Masters, director and CEO of the Secure Community Network (SCN), the official safety and security organization of Jewish organizations in North America, has also served on the payroll of the Soufan Group, a company that provides security consulting, training, and military advising to Qatar, a key sponsor of Hamas.

The Middle East Forum is an American conservative think tank founded in 1990 by Daniel Pipes, who serves as its president. MEF became an independent non-profit organization in 1994. It publishes a journal, the Middle East Quarterly. I trust Daniel Pipes and know it is a dependable and honest source.  

Ali H. Soufan (born 1971) is a Lebanese-American former FBI agent who was involved in a number of high-profile anti-terrorism cases both in the United States and around the world. A 2006 New Yorker article described Soufan as coming closer than anyone to preventing the September 11 attacks and implied that he would have succeeded had the CIA been willing to share information with him. He resigned from the FBI in 2005 after publicly chastising the CIA for not sharing intelligence with him which could have prevented the attacks.  In 2011, Soufan published a memoir which includes some historical background on al-Qaeda: The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda. In 2017, he published Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of Bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State.

 He is the CEO of The Soufan Group and founder of The Soufan Center, "a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving as a resource and forum for research, analysis, and strategic dialogue related to global security issues and emergent threats." Soufan is a Phi Kappa Theta alumnus and winner of the Kennedy award in 2018.  Masters was vice president of the Soufan Group.  

Soufan resigned from the FBI in 2005 and founded the Soufan Group. He continues to be frequently called upon to serve as an expert commentator. Soufan was a former member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council.

"Why, then, has Mr. Masters been part of management and on the payroll of a company (the Soufan Group) that provides security consulting, training, and military advising to Qatar, a key sponsor of Hamas?"  Daniel Pipes asks this question.

 My input is this:    Qatar is not a 2-faced country;  it is at least a 5-faced country, doing business with everyone.  They are the money country, the country helping to get the hostages out of Gaza.

 What bothered me about Qatar long ago was their radio/TV program that Qaradawi used to announce his his hatred for Jews and Israel from Qatar.  "Yusuf al-Qaradawi was an Egyptian Islamic scholar based in Doha, Qatar, and chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. His influences included Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Qayyim, Sayyid Rashid Rida, Hassan al-Banna, Abul Hasan Ali Hasani Nadwi, Abul A'la Maududi and Naeem Siddiqui."  He died September 26, 2022 at the age of 96, spewing hatred all those years.  

In December of 2022, President Biden established the Interagency Policy Committee on Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Related Forms of Bias and Discrimination, led by the White House Domestic Policy Council and National Security Council. As its first order of business, President Biden tasked this group with producing the first-ever U.S. national strategy to counter antisemitism in the United States.

To support the whole-of-society call to action, today the Biden-Harris Administration also announced commitments to counter antisemitism and build cross-community solidarity by organizations across the private sector, civil society, religious and multi-faith communities, and higher education.  This is where so much hatred is coming from, our colleges and universities, especially certain professors who teach false facts leading to anti-Semitism.  

Today’s announcements include commitments from the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, Asian American Foundation, Black Jewish Entertainment Alliance, College of William & Mary, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Foundation to Combat Antisemitism alongside six professional sports leagues, Interfaith Alliance, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, National Action Network, National Basketball Players Association, National Urban League, Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab at American University, Recording Academy, Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, Sikh Coalition, Southern Poverty Law Center, and UnidosUS. The Administration calls on additional organizations to join this existing group in establishing their own impactful initiatives to counter antisemitism.

  Right now Hezbollah terrorists of Lebanon, an arm of Iran and the Ayatollah's hatred for Jews and Israel, are shelling Israel, another front to fight besides Gazan Hamas terrorists. 

                                            

NYPD officers work to restore order in Times Square, New York on May 20, 2021, as violence erupts during Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestinians protests in connection with the conflict in the Gaza Strip.

Steve Sanchez/Pacific Press/Shutterstock

  

The ADL is the Anti-Defamation League is a New York-based international Jewish non-governmental organization and advocacy group that specializes in civil rights law and combats antisemitism and extremism. It was founded in late September 1913 by the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith, a Jewish service organization, in the wake of the contentious murder conviction of Leo Frank. 

A group of people are seen as a Jewish man is assaulted amid pro-Israel and pro-Palestine protests in Times Square, New York, on May 20, 2021, in an image taken from video made on the scene and posted to Twitter by a witness.  Rob Bertrand via Twitter

Has this replaced the Jewish Defense League?  (JDL)  The Jewish Defense League started in 1968 in Los Angeles  is a Jewish far-right religious-political organization in the United States and Canada, whose stated goal is to "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary" Rabbi Meir Kahane started this one..It petered out in 1995.  Meir Kahane, who, in 1990, was assassinated in New York by an Arab extremist. He had worked on his own, and was extreme.  

                                             

What we needed was Superman, who incidentally, was a creation of two Jewish fellows, writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster.  Superman, in turn, was a copy of the Jewish folklore hero, The Golem, who according to Czech legend, the Golem was fashioned from clay and brought to life by a rabbi to protect Prague's 16th-century ghetto from persecution.

Incidents of antisemitic hate were up sharply in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest as a whole in 2022, according to new data from the ADL Pacific Northwest, a regional chapter of a national anti-hate group.  Reports of antisemitism up 63% in the Pacific Northwest in 2022; resistance is up too.  The ADL recorded 40 incidents of antisemitic hate in Oregon in its 2022 audit, the most ever, and 65 incidents in Washington, also a record. Reported incidents were up 36% nationally, according to the ADL.

Resource;

https://www.securecommunitynetwork.org/about#:~:text=Founded%20in%202004%2C%20under%20the,across%20146%20federations%2C%2050%20partner

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/23/us/secure-community-network-jewish-security/index.html

https://cns.kentlaw.iit.edu/leadership/michael-g-masters/

https://www.opb.org/article/2023/03/23/reports-of-antisemitism-up-63-in-the-pacific-northwest-in-2022-resistance-is-up-too/

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

https://www.adl.org/resources/profile/jewish-defense-league

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/25/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-releases-first-ever-u-s-national-strategy-to-counter-antisemitism/

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

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

https://mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1/messages/191092

Ori Megidish Rescued From Hamas By Shin Bet and IDF

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                    

     Captured October 7, 2023, rescued on 24th day of war,  October 30, 2023 was Ori Megidish.  Or means light, and it's wonderful that she's now again with her family, the light of this family.  

Yesterday, Israeli forces rescued Private Ori Megidish, who was taken hostage by Hamas during the Oct. 7 terror attack. Megidish was reunited with her family and appears to be in good health. No soldiers were injured in the rescue operation. Earlier, Hamas released a video showing three female hostages, in which one of them criticizes Prime Minister Netanyahu. The hostages clearly spoke under great duress. There are still 239 hostages in Gaza.

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus is the International Spokesperson of the Israel Defense Forces, responsible for the IDF’s international traditional and social media operations, public affairs and public diplomacy.  In over 20 years of military service, Lt. Col. Conricus has held a diverse array of positions in infantry, international relations and military diplomacy. Prior to being appointed as the IDF’s International Spokesperson, Lt. Col. Conricus was the first IDF officer to be seconded to the United Nations, serving in the UN Peacekeeping Operations’ Office of Military Affairs in New York.

 IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday about it.   “Ori was actively rescued” with “boots on the ground” in a joint operation between the IDF and the Israeli Security Agency (ISA) which is also known as Shin Bet, Conricus said.   “Based on intelligence” the Israeli special forces went into northern Gaza knowing her whereabouts and rescued her.“It indeed was a special operation that was targeted in specifically getting her out,” he said.

Israel is one of only a few countries where military service is compulsory for all able-bodied female citizens. Under Israeli conscription laws, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) may draft recruits from three communities: the Jews, the Druze, and the Circassians. As the latter two communities are less populous, their women are not required to serve. Women from the Jewish majority are not exempted from the conscription laws, but serve for slightly shorter terms than male conscripts.

                  Israeli women make great instructors.  

According to Israeli military statistics, 535 female soldiers had been killed while serving between the years of 1962 and 2016. The IDF's regulated integration of women is rooted in the days of the Yishuv, when Jewish women served in the ranks of various Zionist paramilitaries during the 1947–1949 Palestine War. In 1999–2000, an amendment was made to the Women's Equal Rights Law of Israel by which men and women became fully equalized — although separately — in the Israeli military apparatus.

     Israel's women watching over all.  The mandated military service requirement for Jewish-Israeli women is 24 months, apart from specified roles that instead require a service length of 30 months. Women may be exempted from military service for reasons of religious conscience, marriage, pregnancy, or motherhood.

"Israel Security Agency, known as Shin Bet (Shabak)  duties are safeguarding state security, exposing terrorist rings, interrogating terror suspects, providing intelligence for counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, counter-espionage, personal protection of senior public officials, securing important infrastructure and government buildings, and safeguarding Israeli airlines and overseas embassies."

 That's a tall order for such a tiny country whose population is about 9 million now that includes 20% Arabs and the main body, Jews.  It's the onlyJewish country in the world, a reservation for a people in their ancient landthey waited over 2,000 years to regain. 

Resource:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/31/middleeast/idf-ori-megidish-rescue-hamas-hostage-intl-hnk/index.html

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

Lt. Col. Richard Kemp Rises to Occasion Again Defending Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

                                    Lt. Col Richard Kemp b: April 14, 1959

Here's a man who stands on his ground in defending Israel twice now that I know of.  which seems to be an unfathomable effort for most people world-wide today.  He came to be the best of the UK's strident advocates of the IDF today.  

I wrote about him extensively  in 2021 about how he stood up against the UN's Goldstone Report of April 2009.  I remember first being impressed that he knew so well the lengths the IDF went to in following every code of an ethical war-be as it is;  a war.  He was a soldier, better than that, a Lt. Col in another country, Britain's army.  

He is keen to point out that the IDF is “very similar to us”, not surprising because of its early history and what it learned from the soldiers of the British mandate. But he adds that its hallmark is “an independence of thought and refusal to be contained by tradition and history”, frequently a characteristic of the British army, too.

Primarily, Kemp suggests, the ability to “think creatively” is a trademark of the IDF.                                                  

                                Lt. Col. Richard Kemp in 2003 at 44

Let's backtrack just a bit. Richard Kemp, a British Army veteran, served in active duty from 1977 to 2006, during which time he held the position of an infantry battalion commanding officer. His tenure included leading Operation Fingal in Afghanistan from July 2003 to November 2003.

And that's where Kemp comes in. In front of the UN Commission on Human Rights he said: "I have first-hand knowledge of what Hamas and the IDF have done and I gave evidence to the Commission of Inquiry. I told them from my professional experience the reality on the border, and they did not listen to one word that I said. This report is a tissue of lies, abuse, prejudice and distortion and is not worth the paper it is printed on."

"I told the UNHRC that Hamas’ objective is to slaughter and kidnap Israeli civilians on the border. Hamas is the only army in history deliberately inciting its enemy to kill its own people. The United Nations has played straight into the hands of Hamas," Kemp also said.

"The UNHRC has failed to condemn the oppressor of the Palestinian people – Hamas. Those are the people getting the pass by the UNHRC. The UN has played directly into the hands of Hamas and the UNHRC has become an instrument of Hamas terrorism."

Children of Palestinian population already wearing Hamas headbands

In the mid-1990s, Kemp visited Israel for the first time, making two holiday visits to the country. But it was not until 2002, when he was working on secondment to the Cabinet Office, that he had his first professional encounters with Israel — and that was in the delicate field of counter-terrorism.

Kemp provided intelligence assessments on international terrorism to the prime minister in the immediate aftermath of 9/11; and because he was aware of Israel dealing with Hizbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda, he sought to incorporate its experience into British responses.

It was not all plain sailing, he says. “There was an institutional opposition to Israel within the Foreign Office. That remains today, and they have failed to keep up with events, and recognise that the Arab world is changing, too. Israel is no longer the primary enemy in the region — it is Iran.”

Kemp was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), Military Division, on 25 April 1994 in recognition of his intelligence work in Northern Ireland in 1993, and was awarded the Queen's Commendation for Bravery for service as a commander in the United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia in 1994. He was promoted Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), Military Division, in the New Year Honours 2006. He received an honorary doctorate from Bar-Ilan University in 2015.             

    Hamas terrorists hiding behind black masks 

In July 2017 he received criticism for his usage of the term "taig", a racial slur for Catholics of Irish descent, during an exchange on Twitter, including from former Labour MP and British Army officer Eric Joyce who questioned if he knew it was a "racist term of abuse". In his defence, Kemp mentioned that he is a practising Catholic and, having often been subject to the term as a result, he did not consider it a term of abuse.

Kemp was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in 1997 and commanded the 1st Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment in Oakington and Derry from 1998 to 2000. After this command, he was appointed commander of the Operational Training and Advisory Group and then spent six months as Counter Terrorism and Security Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.

     Hamas terrorists showing their colors

Over the course of several decades, the Israel Defense Forces, the military branch of the state of Israel, has been accused of committing war crimes. Israel ratified the Geneva Conventions on July 6, 1951, and on January 2, 2015, the State of Palestine acceded to the Rome Statute, granting the International Criminal Court jurisdiction over war crimes committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Human rights experts argue that actions taken by the IDF during armed conflicts in the OPT fall under the rubric of war crimes. Special rapporteurs from the United Nations, organizations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and human rights experts have accused Israel of war crimes.  Kemp is the IDF's defender, a British soldier who knows the 

truth.  

Col. Kemp noted that "the health ministry is controlled by Hamas and obey their every command. Their lies have been exposed in past wars. For example, during this conflict, hundreds of Hamas rockets have fallen short and landed inside Palestinian territory. Some of these have caused deaths among Palestinian civilians and all are reported as deaths caused by Israel by the ministry of health. Hamas demands that, because their entire strategy is built around the deaths of their own civilians. That is why they start these fights, not to defeat Israel which they cannot, but to persuade the world that Israel is responding disproportionately and committing war crimes. This is so that Israel becomes vilified and isolated in the world, including by the UN and EU. Hamas is the first “army” in history to use their own civilian population as a primary weapon of war."

To sum it up, Kemp has defended the IDF to the UN in 2009 and again now  to the UNHRC (The United Nations Human Rights Council) 

Resource:

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2021/03/braving-anti-israel-tide-colonel.html

https://www.thejc.com/news/israel/hamas-terror-chief-openly-supports-civilian-deaths-in-gaza-6tT8D7x7VDUyvWBDEvVuT2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Council#:~:text=The%20United%20Nations%20Human%20Rights,on%20a%20regional%20group%20basis.

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

Who Were Oldest Unified People in Middle East?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

First Pharaoh of Egypt was created long before others in the Middle East.  Egypt's first pharaoh of importance was Narmer who lived from 3273-2987 BCE.     A study found that the Y-chromosome haplogroup of the family was R1b. Haplogroup R1b is carried by modern Egyptians. Modern Egypt is also the only African country that is known to harbor all three R1 subtypes, including R1b-M269.  

                      Today's Middle East 

Amorites were living in today's Saudi Arabia.  The term Amorite refers broadly to an ethnic group of nomads who likely emerged from Mesopotamia, modern-day Syria, Iraq, Jordan or perhaps Arabia, in the third millennium BCE. Their earliest mention came about 4,400 years ago in an Akkadian cuneiform tablet that describes them as the enemy of the Sumerian kingdom of Ur where Abraham and his father, Terah had lived.                    

Amorites is one of the biblical names for the people of Canaan before the Israelite conquest.  After the mid-2nd millennium BC, Syrian Amorites came under the domination of first the Hittites and, from the 14th century BC, the Middle Assyrian Empire.

                                                  

The Assyrian Empire, an aggressive kingdom in the 20th century BCE, expanding in the 13th and 10th centuries BCE.  Ashurbanipal II (883-59 BCE overran Syria and Phoenician cities in 876 BCE. 

Shalmaneser III of Assyria  attacked Ben Hadad II of Damascus.At the time, Ahab of Israel was on the Damascus side in the battle at Karkar.  

The Exodus, which is figured to had been led by Moses, has a date going way back at least 3,000 years ago.  Moses is figured to have lived from 1391-1271 BCE.  Others believe the Exodus took place from 1579-1445 BCE.  Some say we entered Canaan by 1250 BCE. Moses left his him at age 80 and went to Egypt.  The Exodus ended outside of Canaan for him at age 120. He was an old man during the Exodus.    

1800 BC. Early Bronze Age. Traditional rabbinic dating of the patriarchs. Many clay tablets were also found in Ebla; tablets that tell of  a wealth of information on Syria and Canaan in the Early Bronze Age, and include the first known references to the "Canaanites", "Ugarit", and "Lebanon"..  The tablets were discovered by Italian archaeologist Paolo Matthiae and his team in 1974–75 during their excavations at the ancient city at Tell Mardikh. The tablets, which were found in situ on collapsed shelves, retained many of their contemporary clay tags to help reference them.   4,700 fragments, and many thousands of minor chips found in the palace archives of the ancient city of Ebla, Syria.

Ashur-uballit I, (reigned c. 1365–30 BC), king of Assyria during Mesopotamia’s feudal age, who created the first Assyrian empire and initiated the Middle Assyrian period (14th to 12th century BC). With the help of the Hittites he destroyed the dominion of the Aryan Mitanni (a non-Semitic people from upper Iran and Syria who had subjugated Assyria), ravaged Nineveh (near present Mosul, Iraq), and sent off the image of Assyria’s deity Ishtar to the Egyptian pharaoh (early 14th century). Later, allied with the Kassite successors in Babylonia, Ashur-uballit ended Hittite and Hurrian rule. By intermarriage he then influenced the Kassite dynasty and eventually dominated all of Babylonia, thus paving the way for the Neo-Assyrian mastery during the Sargonid dynasty (12th to 7th century).

The first king of the Babylonian Empire was Sumuabum and the only thing we really know about him was that he was an Amorite king and that he conquered the city-states of Dilbat and Kish, thus carving out a small kingdom in the middle of Mesopotamia.  Sumu-Abum (also Su-abu) was an Amorite, and the first King of the First Dynasty of Babylon (the Amorite Dynasty). He reigned between 1830 and 1817 BC (short chronology) or between 1897 and 1883 BC (middle chronology).

Nebuchadnezzar II -King of Babylonia ( was the 2nd  Neo-Babylonian emperor, ruling from the death of his father Nabopolassar in 605 BC to his own death in 562 BC. Historically known as Nebuchadnezzar the Great (605-562 BCE) , he is typically regarded as the empire's greatest king. He inherited the Assyrian Empire.   Nebuchadnezzar remains famous for his military campaigns in the Levant, for his construction projects in his capital, Babylon, including the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and for the role he plays in Jewish history by exiling 8,000 of the Jewish aristocracy to Babylon. Ruling for 43 years, Nebuchadnezzar was the longest-reigning king of the Chaldean dynasty. By the time of his death, he was among the most powerful rulers in the world.

"According to a later Mesopotamian tradition enshrined in the Sumerian King List, the first king was Alulim, ruler of the city of Eridu.   Alulim) was a mythological Mesopotamian ruler, regarded as the first king ever to rule. He is known from the Sumerian King List, Ballad of Early Rulers, and others....The tablet of Old Babylonian period (c. 1900-1600 BC) from Ur describing the divine appointment of Alulim by the gods notes that he was chosen among "vast and many people,"and appointed by gods for the "shepherdship of the entirety of the many people".

The Amorite ruler Hammurabi (unknown–1750 B.C.), crowned king of Babylon around 1792 B.C., was both an avid warrior and a shrewd administrator who honored the traditions of Sumer, Akkad, and other lands he brought under his authority.

Bad-Tibira

Shuruppak

Sippar

Kish

Eridu

Mari

Adab

Isin

Ur

Uruk

class=notpageimage|

Map of Iraq showing the cities that are mentioned in the Sumerian King List and that have been identified archaeologically. Akkad, Awan, Akshak and Larak have not yet been securely identified. Gutium is located in the Zagros Mountains.  I see listed: Mari, Sippar, Kish, Adab, Isin, Shuruppak, Uruk, Bad-Tibira, and  Eridu and Ur which are close to each other.          

                  Eridu: The Earliest City in 

Mesopotamia and the World--- 

• Eridu is among the earliest permanent settlements in Mesopotamia, with a consistent occupation of some 4500 years.Eridu (called Tell Abu Shahrain or Abu Shahrein in Arabic) is one of the earliest permanent settlements in Mesopotamia, and perhaps the world. Located about 14 miles (22 kilometers) south of the modern city of Nasiriyah in Iraq, and about 12.5 mi (20 km) south southwest of the ancient Sumerian city of Ur, Eridu was occupied between the 5th and 2nd millennium BCE, with its heyday in the early 4th millennium.

  Archaeologists visit the site of the Mesopotamian city of Eridu (now called Tell Abu Shahrain), located about 22 kilometers south of Nasiriya in Iraq.

Wearing their traditional cassocks and scarlet fascias, and with large golden crosses around their necks, members of the Vatican delegation to Iraq paced across the ruins of the House of Abraham in the ancient Sumerian city of Ur.

Dating back to the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages, Sumer was the earliest civilisation known to mankind, which saw the development of the earliest form of writing and the invention of the wheel more than 5,000 years ago.

The city of Ur was the home of Abraham, Terah-his father, and family.  Abraham lived during the 2nd millennium BCE, most likely born in 1948 BCE.  

"In Ur, Mesannepada became king; he ruled for 80 years. Meskiagnun, the son of Mesannepada, became king; he ruled for 36 years. Elulu ruled for 25 years. Balulu ruled for 36 years. 4 kings; they ruled for 171 years. Then Ur was defeated and the kingship was taken to Awan".

Then we had the War of Independence from November 29, 1947  to the Armistice of February 1949.   Israel and the Arab states did not reach any formal armistice agreements until February. Under separate agreements between Israel and the neighboring states of Egypt, Lebanon, Transjordan, and 

Syria, these bordering nations agreed to formal armistice 

lines.                                     

        Iran's Ayatollah's in cahoots with Russia's Putin  

       Former President of Iran,Ahmadinejad,  hatred for Israel 

Israel gained some territory formerly granted to Palestinian 

Arabs under the United Nations resolution in 1947. Egypt and 

Jordan retained control over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank respectively. These armistice lines held until 1967. The 

United States did not become directly involved with the armistice negotiations, but hoped that instability in the Middle East would not interfere with the international balance of power between the Soviet Union and the United States.

Now we have Syria and Iraq terrorists of Hezbollah shooting again at Israel by Hezbollah, an arm of Iran.  Hamas is another arm.  Hezbollah was founded by Iran's Revolutionary Guards.  They do shootings, rocket attacks, bombings, kidnappings, and suicide bombings.  They support Palestinian terrorist groups with cells in Judea and Samaria and Gaza.  

Resource: 

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

https://www.historyinthebible.com/supplementary_pages/geopolitics-bible-maps.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumu-abum#:~:text=Sumu%2DAbum%20(also%20Su%2D,1883%20BC%20(middle%20chronology).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebla_tablets#:~:text=The%20tablets%20were%20discovered%20by,tags%20to%20help%20reference%20them.