Turkey Is Not Israel's Friend; Never Has Been

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

WWI  ruined the Ottoman Empire in that they lost all their holdings to the Allies because they had taken the Axis side of the war in their picking sides to fight with.  That meant they lost Palestine which the Romans had given the name for the Jewish enemy, the Philistines.

 In 1516, the Ottoman Empire —founded by Turkic tribesmen in Anatolia , who then established their capital on the ruins of the Byzantine Empire in Constantinople —moved against the Mamluk rule in the Levant . The Ottoman forces defeated the Mamluk armies and conquered Bilad al-Sham, including Palestine. The Ottoman Empire officially ended in 1922 when the title of Ottoman Sultan was abolished, marking the end of the empire and the rise of the modern Republic of Turkey.  They had held it for 406 years.  

I recommend reading The Settlers by Meyer Levin at this time.  

Or, start reading THE SOURCE, by James A. Michener.  Acclaimed as the Jewish War and Peace, The Settlers, along with its sequel The Harvest, marks the crowning achievement of the author Norman Mailer hailed as "one of the best American writers working in the realistic tradition."  The Settlers is a fabulous novel about a family who settles in Israel before World War I. There are far too few books written about early Aliyot to Israel. This book gives a fabulous insight to the struggle and hard work that it took to build Israel. You'll meet some Ottoman Turks in this story that the settlers must deal with.  

 On the other hand, The Source tells Israel's story through the discoveries of modern archaeologists excavating the site of Tell Makor. Michener vividly re-creates life in an ancient city and traces the profound history of the Jewish people—from the persecution of the early Hebrews, the rise of Christianity, and the Crusades to the founding of Israel and the modern conflict in the Middle East.    In his signature style of grand storytelling, James A. Michener transports us back thousands of years to the Holy Land. Through the discoveries of modern archaeologists excavating the site of Tell Makor, Michener vividly re-creates life in an ancient city.   An epic tale of love, strength, and faith, The Source is a richly written saga that encompasses the history of Western civilization and the great religious and cultural ideas that have shaped our world. 

During the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Palestine from 1516 to 1917, the end of WWI, the region was part of the larger Ottoman Syria, and the Ottomans acknowledged the religious significance of Jerusalem, allowing Christians and Jews access to holy sites. 

It was during this period that many eastern European Jews fled the countries due to anti-Semitism that led to pogroms against their villages. Jews wentto England and had meetings about gaining their homeland back in Palestinesince the British held the 30 year mandate over it.   

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan speaks during a news conference in Ankara, Turkey, March 18, 2020. © AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici.  

Erdogan’s comments of Israel wanting claiming that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin’s Netanyahu government harbored ambitions that include the capture of Anatolia as part of “Greater Israel,” warned of a war between the two states. 

This comes shortly after Jerusalem responded to a year of near-daily rocket and drone attacks from Hezbollah against northern Israel by launching a ground offensive into Lebanon and successfully killing the terrorist group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah. 

Iran fired 181 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation. The Israeli government has vowed to respond to the Iranian attack.    

Turkey happens to be a member of NATO.  Yes, Turkey has been a member of NATO since February 18, 1952. Turkey joined NATO alongside Greece. Turkey has been a member of NATO since 1952, has its second largest army and is the host of the Allied Land Command headquarters. The Incirlik and Konya Airbases have both been involved in several NATO military operations since their establishment. The current ambassador to NATO is Zeki Levent Gümrükçü.                                                    

I think it's egotistical of Erdogen to think that Israel is about to attack Turkey.  Hasn't Israel got enough on her plate to deal with that the world can already see?  Erdogen is just poking Israel to get attention so he can go in and attack her.  What a terrible man, he is! Netanyahu is balancing Trump on one hand while dealing with Hamas and Hezbollah on the other hand and his own goverment's demands with his left foot all at the same time.      

Resource:

israelAM

History of Palestine, Wikipedia

https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2024/10/07/erdogan-accuses-israel-of-intending

-to-invade-turkey/

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

BOOK REPORT ON MEYER LEVIN'S HISTORICAL LIFE IN PALESTINE TO ISRAELI STATEHOOD

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                         

My love and admiration goes out to Meyer Levin, author of a 2nd book of his that I have read.
Here's what the encyclopedia Brittanica said about him; short and sweet.

"WRITTEN BY: 

• The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

LAST UPDATED: Oct 4, 2019 See Article History

Meyer Levin, (born October 8, 1905, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.—died July 9, 1981, Jerusalem), American author of novels and nonfiction about the Jewish people and Israel.                                        

Levin first became known with the novel Yehuda (1931). In 1945 he wrote and produced the first Palestinian feature film, My Father’s House (book, 1947), which tells of Jews who are driven out of Poland and reunite in Palestine. Other major works are Citizens (1940)—about the 1937 steel strikes in Chicago, in which 10 strikers were killed—and Compulsion (1956)—about the Leopold-Loeb murder case.  

""He also authored the best-selling documentary-novel Compulsion, based on the Leopold-Loeb murder case.  Levin was involved in litigation for many years against Otto Frank, father of Anne, over the right to have his dramatic adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank performed. Additionally, Levin made several highly acclaimed documentary films highlighting the plight of Jewish refugees in Europe after the Holocaust, and their efforts to resettle in the soon to be state of Israel."                                               

From 1933 to 1939 Levin worked as an associate editor and film critic with Esquire magazine and was a reporter of the loyalist side in the Spanish Civil War. He was also a war correspondent during World War II. Other works include The Settlers (1972) and The Illegals (1977), a film telling the story of the journey of Jewish immigrants from Poland to Israel." He tells all about what he went through to make this film in his book, IN SEARCH.  

I'm almost to the end of his autobiography, titled: IN SEARCH, a hardback black cover, no illustrations book.    The book came from amazon.com; old, slightly wrinkled pages, so I was lucky to get it.  It's the most amazing book I've ever read!  Being Jewish born in 1905, he was slightly older than my mother, and wondered about his Jewishness.  He wasn't orthodox, which made him wonder even more so.  Something about this nagged him and he wound up making aliyah to Palestine, and doing it several times, always thinking about writing.  Finally he got into the attacks in the world war, and then in Palestine by the Arabs.  He was there and wrote most descriptively.  He made aliyah at a period in time when it was dangerous to go over there.  That he was American born made it even more surprising.  

The first book of his that I read was THE SETTLERS, a book I found in Good Will's store marked way down, and it was also the most important book I have ever read.  It tells about the first aliyah of people from Russia to Palestine in the 1880s and what they had endured, written as historic fiction.  It's a very long book, ending up in WWI.  After reading it, I felt I had gone through all they had as well.

Oh how I would love to see what he had filmed.  After reading IN SEARCH, I know what he and his crew went through to film this.  Never before have I appreciated what our settlers went through to get us our Israel.  All this from a man who was shaky about being Jewish who explored his fate in life to appreciate it all the more and risk his life in so many ways and document so many of the special moments during our extraordinary history.  In reading this book, I can see even more how terrible the British were towards the Jews trying to settle in Palestine and what lengths they went to prevent Jews from settling to the point of cruelty.  Thank you so much Meyer Levin.  You should go down in history along with Israel's founding fathers.    

Here's THE OLD BUNCH, that he wrote in 1946.      It's a rare copy, selling right now for $125.   "One of the most significant and controversial Jewish Chicago literary figures of all time, Meyer Levin wrote the The Old Bunch, the classic novel of Chicago’s Jewish West Side during the 1920s and 1930s."                                         

"Meyer Levin admitted a sort of kinship with Leopold and Loeb as another "young, intellectual Jew," but one who made very different choices: "I... had turned my precocious energy into accomplishment; they, the rich south siders, turned the same qualities toward destruction." In his introduction, Gabriel Levin notes that "this wary kinship... would provide my father with the analytic and sympathetic tools [to enter] the mind of Judd Steiner."

After graduating from the University of Chicago, Meyer became a reporter for the Chicago Daily News. He wrote 20 fiction and nonfiction books, including a novelization of the life of Frank Lloyd Wright, The Architect, published in 1981, the year he died."  "Levin died of a stroke Thursday night in Jerusalem. Mr. Levin, who lived in New York and spent his summers in Israel, was 75 years old.   Mr. Levin always had a new book in the works. In November, his novel ''The Architect,'' a roman a clef about the life of Frank Lloyd Wright, will be published by Simon & Schuster. It is described as the story of a Wisconsin youth who comes to Chicago in an era of robber barons and muckrakers and reshapes the American landscape.

I just realized that Meyer Levin died 0n July 9, 1981 when I was living in Israel.  I had made aliyah in September 1980.  I had the opportunity to meet for the first time my 3rd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot in Jerusalem who lived on Dor Vdor Street (generation to generation), also a famous man in his own right.  If I had known about Meyer, I might have been able to meet him.  

Resource: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=dugmnudab&oeidk=a07ecenlzxwe7abe741

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/11/obituaries/meyer-levin-writer-75-dies-books-included-compulsion.html
https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-adk-adk_sbnt&hsimp=yhs-adk_sbnt&hspart=adk&p=Gabriel+Levin#id=1&vid=4a785bfc9b25ca591d21a9aa51a68ef2&action=click interview of Gabriel Levin about father's book Compulsion-Leopold and Lobe

UPDATE: Added lines in IN Search.  

Does Israel Occupy Judea and Samaria?

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                        

                                                                                                          

The answer to the question, "Does Israel Occupy Judea and Samaria, is NO. Juan Williams was very wrong today when he stated such a fact when talking about Netanyahu winning the election in Israel.  Juan is a member of the 5 on Fox News, a very interesting panel made up of different opinions.  He needs a brush up on facts and probably is not the only person who thinks this.  So here's some background.  

 Judea was the original land of Judah.  Judah, in turn, was the southern part of Israel that broke away after King Solomon died in 920 BCE. The tribe of Judah lived in Judah.  It was the largest of the 12 tribes.  This is how Jews get their name of the Jewish people.   Judaea was the name given to the land by the Romans.  The land had become their vassal kingdom under their rule in 63 BCE.  The Romans named the entire land Palaestina (Prima and Secunda)  "Palestine" after 135 CE after the 3 year war with Bar Kochba, general of the Jews in their last stand against the Romans.  Samaria is in the center and was the surrounding land of Jerusalem, and Galilee is in the north.  Israelites and later, Jews,  refer to the land as Eretz Israel (the land of Israel.)

When Jews returned to Palestine in the late 1800s, they came by ship which let them off right at the water's edge, and they had procured land from the Ottoman Empire who owned the land.  There, they built Tel Aviv.  Other Jews spread out creating developments.
                                                                             

 Read  THE SETTLERS by Meyer Levin of 832 pages to get the feel of being pioneers in this country." It's set in Palestine from the turn of the century to the Balfour Declaration and encompasses over a quarter of a century of turbulent events:  the hardships of the first Jewish pioneers, the spasmodic tyranny of the Turkish overlords, the blighted relationship between neighboring Jews and Arabs, in which the wars of the present were foreordained in the blood feuds and hatreds of an earlier generation, the vast upheaval of the 1st World War and the Russian Revolutions, the creation of a Jewish fighting force, and the triumphant laying of the foundations for a new land."

The Ottoman Empire lost the land  with WWI since they sided with Germany, who lost the war.  That's when the British got the Mandate of 30 years to be the policemen of the land.  The Jews were promised the land and the Arabs were promised the same land.  This is the problem.

The territory of Judea and Samaria, also known as the "WEST BANK" OF THE Jordan River, had been until 1948 part of the British Mandate of Palestine.  Between 1948 and 1967, it was ruled by Jordan, which annexed it illegally in 1950.  They had taken it during the war of Israel's Independence; land designated to be part of the Jewish Homeland.

Judea and Samaria became administered areas occupied in the course of the Six Day War (1967) when the Israel Defence Forces defeated the massed Arab armies which menaced Israel's frontiers.  They included Judaea and Samaria, The Gaza Strip, The Sinai Desert and the Golan Heights.  East Jerusalem was reunified in June 1967 with West Jerusalem.

Up until 1972, almost a million Arabs lived in the administered areas.  640,600 of them lived in Judaea and Samaria in land 2,270 sq. miles.  Israel itself is only 8,000 sq miles in size.  By comparison, Oregon is 98,380 square miles in size.  Metropolitan Portland, the largest city in Oregon,  is 6,684 sq. miles. (The Portland metropolitan area or Greater Portland is a metropolitan area in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington centered on the principal city of Portland, Oregon. The U.S. Office of Management and Budget identifies it as the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA Metropolitan Statistical Area, a metropolitan statistical area used by the United States Census Bureau and other entities.)   It's hard for Americans to understand that the whole state of Israel  is just a little larger than Portland, Oregon.

Because the Arabs had moved into Judea and Samaria during the time Jordan's government had taken over the land, they are still there along with Jews who moved there who are more religious, being reverent about the history of the land and wishing to keep it in Jewish hands.  Otherwise, many special areas would have been destroyed by people wishing to erase the Jewish history.  The total number of Israelis who had settled in the administered areas between 1967 and 1972, including Nahal military settlements, was 4,200.  Then war broke out again in 1973.

The basic policy of Israel has been that until a peace settlement  is obtained, there will be no ceding over the areas to Arabs who want it for their state of Palestine which would include eastern Jerusalem.  Israel needs to have conditions of security for both Arabs and Israelis.  The people must be able to live normal lives without losing contact with Arabs or Jews in other countries.  Israel wanted to make possible the land's rapid economic development-a reason for peace.  They have tried to encourage co-existence and cooperation between the Arabs of the areas and Israelis, as an example for relations to come between the 2 peoples.
                                                                             

Judea and Samaria have been under the auspices of Abbas while Gaza has been under Hamas terrorists who took it over in their first democratic election.  Israel kept the right of policing the area for terrorists.  "Following the signing of the Oslo accords, the Israelis withdrew from nearly half of the territories, including the cities where 98.5% of Palestinian Arabs reside. The notion that the Palestinian Arabs are living under "Israeli occupation" is simply false. The areas from which Israel has not withdrawn are virtually uninhabited, except for the 2% where Israelis reside." 

"Finally, it should also be noted that the Oslo Accords recognize Israel's right to remain in the territories, at least until a final settlement is reached. The Oslo accords accept Israel's presence in the territories at least until an Israel-PA agreement on the final status of those areas. Chapter 2, Article X, Clause 4, specifically recognize that in the disputed territories, "Israel shall continue to carry the responsibility for external security, as well as the responsibility for overall security of Israelis for the purpose of safeguarding their internal security and public order" until a final accord is reached. Furthermore, the Oslo accords from August 20, 1993 do not require Israel to dismantle any of the Israeli communities in Judea-Samaria-Gaza--in effect, an acknowledgment of Israel's right to maintain those communities, at least until a final-status agreement is reached."
                                                                   

Union of Fatah and Hamas leaders

Instead, we've had Intifada after Intifadas.  We've had Gazans attack and tunnel and kidnap and be walking suicide bombers.  Nevertheless, Europe and the UN  have given in to the Palestinian demands and have done everything to accept them as a state.   What remains to be done is a peace treaty that has not come about, the same problem Israel has faced since 1948.

The Palestinians want a state without Jews in it (Judenrein).  That's like the Nazis wanting all of Europe to be without Jews- the whole world, as a matter of fact.   This means all Jews would have to leave.  Israel has not said that to their 1.7 million Arab citizens.  Do you think that Israel wants to give up their homeland written about in the Bible?  It's like letting your parents be taken away by terrorists to be slaughtered.  This is not just any old land.  This is the heart and soul of the Jewish people.

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_metropolitan_area
Facts About Israel, Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.takeapen.org/Takeapen/Templates/showpage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=84&FID=1001
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_I_Accord