Israel's Ariel Sharon and Lebanon's Sabra/Shatila Massacre

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

Minister of Defense Sharon (right) with his US counterpart Caspar Weinberger, 1982

Then-Israeli defense minister Ariel Sharon, foreground, rides an armored personnel carrier on a tour of Israeli units advancing to the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon, June 15, 1982. (AP Photo)

Sabra and Shatila massacre: What happened in Lebanon in 1982?

The Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia was responsible for the massacres that occurred at the two Beirut-area refugee camps on September 16-17, 1982. Israeli troops allowed the Phalangists to enter Sabra and Shatila to root out terrorist cells believed located there. It had been estimated that there may have been up to 200 armed men in the camps working out of the countless bunkers built by the PLO over the years and stocked with generous reserves of ammunition.

It  was thought that Israeli-backed Phalange militia killed between 2,000 and 3,500 Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians in two days.  Shatila, a Palestinian refugee camp, and the adjacent neighbourhood of Sabra are located SW of Lebanon’s capital city,  Beirut, but the numbers were all wrong.   

As the civil war of Lebanon unfolded, Israel and the PLO had been exchanging attacks since the early 1970s until early 1980s.

From 1975 to 1990, groups in competing alliances with neighboring countries fought against each other in the Lebanese Civil War.

 Infighting and massacres between these groups claimed several thousand victims. Examples: the Syrian-backed Karantina massacre (January 1976) by the Kataeb and its allies against Kurds, Syrians and Palestinians in the predominantly Muslim slum district of Beirut; Damour (January 1976). 

Also by the PLO against Christian Maronites, including the family and fiancée of the Lebanese Forces intelligence chief Elie Hobeika; and Tel al-Zaatar (August 1976) by Phalangists and their allies against Palestinian refugees living in a camp administered by UNRWA. The total death toll in Lebanon for the whole civil war period was around 150,000 victims.

By June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon with the intention of rooting out the PLO. 

By 30 August 1982, under the supervision of the Multinational Force, the PLO withdrew from Lebanon following weeks of battles in West Beirut  shortly before the massacre took place.

 Lebanese politician Elie Hobeika, whose family and fiancée had been murdered by Palestinian militants and left-wing Lebanese militias during the Damour massacre in 1976, itself a response to the Karantina massacre of Palestinians and Lebanese Shias at the hands of Christian militias was in command.

IDF chief of staff, Raphael Eitan (11 January 1929 – 23 November 2004) age 53 then, was an Israeli general, former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (Ramatkal) and later a politician, a Knesset member, and government minister.  Rafael Eitan was born Rafael Kaminsky in the moshav of Tel Adashim near Nazareth in 1929, to Eliyahu and Miriam Eitan, Ukrainian Jewish immigrants to Palestine. His father was one of the founders of the Jewish defense organization Hashomer.

On the night of 14/15 September 1982 the IDF chief of staff, Raphael Eitan, flew to Beirut where he went straight to the Phalangists' headquarters and instructed their leadership to order a general mobilization of their forces and prepare to take part in the forthcoming Israeli attack on West Beirut.

On the evening of 14 September, following the news that Bachir Gemayel had been assassinated, Prime Minister Begin, Defense Minister Sharon and Chief of Staff Eitan agreed that the Israeli army should invade West Beirut.

 The public reason given was to be that they were there to prevent chaos. In a separate conversation, at 20:30 that evening, Sharon and Eitan agreed that the IDF should not enter the Palestinian refugee camps but that the Phalange should be used. The only other member of the cabinet who was consulted was Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir.   

On morning of Wednesday 15 September Israeli Defence Minister, Sharon, who had also travelled to Beirut, held a meeting with Eitan and others at the IDF's forward command post, on the roof of a five-story building 200 meters SW of Shatila camp.  It was agreed that the Phalange should go into the camps.

The Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia did the killings which were perpetrated to avenge the murders of Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel and 25 of his followers, killed in a bomb attack earlier that week.

Shortly after 6.00 am 15 September, the Israeli army entered West Beirut, This Israeli action breached its agreement with the United States not to occupy West Beirut and was in violation of the ceasefire.

When Israeli soldiers ordered the Phalangists out, they found hundreds dead (estimates range from 460 according to the Lebanese police, to 700-800 calculated by Israeli intelligence). The dead, according to the Lebanese account, included 35 women and children. The rest were men: Palestinians, Lebanese, Pakistanis, Iranians, Syrians, and Algerians. The killings came on top of an estimated 95,000 deaths that had occurred during the civil war in Lebanon from 1975-1982.

Israel had allowed the Phalange to enter the camps as part of a plan to transfer authority to the Lebanese, and accepted responsibility for that decision. The Kahan Commission of Inquiry, formed by the Israeli government in response to public outrage and grief, found that Israel was indirectly responsible for not anticipating the possibility of Phalangist violence. Israel instituted the panel’s recommendations, including the dismissal of Gen. Raful Eitan, the Army Chief of Staff. Defense Minister Ariel Sharon resigned on February 8, 1983.

Shatila had previously been one of the PLO's three main training camps for foreign fighters and the main training camp for European fighters. The Israelis maintained that 2,000 to 3,000 terrorists remained in the camps, but were unwilling to risk the lives of more of their soldiers after the Lebanese army repeatedly refused to "clear them out." No evidence was offered for this claim. There were only a small number of forces sent into the camps and they suffered minimal casualties. Two Phalangists were wounded, one in the leg and another in the hand.

 Investigations after the massacre found few weapons in the camps. Thomas Friedman, who entered the camps on Saturday, mostly found groups of young men with their hands and feet bound, who had been then lined up and machine-gunned down gang-land style, not typical he thought of the kind of deaths the reported 2,000 terrorists in the camp would have put up with.

Of course, the Hezbollah, represented by aljazeerea most likely, paints a picture that may not be as true as they write.  It was a bad massacre, all right but Sharon got the most blame for it as I remember.  The Christian Lebanese were furious at the time and more violent than Sharon could have guessed.  It turned out to be NOT a shooting but really getting even!  Two of the Christian Presidents had been assassinated !  They were of the same family line of Gemayel, like a royal line.  

By contrast, few voices were raised in May 1985, when Muslim militiamen attacked the Shatila and Burj-el Barajneh Palestinian refugee camps. According to UN officials, 635 were killed and 2,500 wounded. 

During a two-year battle between the Syrian-backed Shiite Amal militia and the PLO, more than 2,000, including many civilians, were reportedly killed. No outcry was directed at the PLO or the Syrians and their allies over the slaughter. International reaction was also muted in October 1990 when Syrian forces overran Christian-controlled areas of Lebanon. In the eight-hour clash, 700 Christians were killed – the worst single battle of Lebanon’s Civil War.

Resource:

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/massacres-at-sabra-and-shatila

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/16/sabra-and-shatila-massacre-40-years-on-explainer

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

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

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

https://www.timesofisrael.com/journalist-reckons-with-israeli-blame-for-1982-sabra-and-shatila-massacre/

How Hebron, An Ancient Jewish City Became Palestinian

 Nadene Goldfoot                                              

                                            Old City of Hebron

Hebron was called Kiriath Arba in the Bible. Some Jewish traditions regarding Adam place him in Hebron after his expulsion from Eden. Another has Cain kill Abel there. A third has Adam and Eve buried in the cave of Machpelah.                     

Hebron is an ancient city of Judah and is 18 miles South of Jerusalem.  Before Abraham's time, it was under control of the Hittites, an ancient people inhabiting Asia Minor.  They were also overrun by the Assyrians.  Some lived in Canaan at an early period.  Esau took wives from among them.  The Hittites were one of the 7 peoples from whom the Israelites conquered Canaan.  Later, David had Hittite warriors, and Solomon, Hittite wives.   It looks like some of us Jews could have a few segments of Hittite DNA.                           

 The story of Abraham's purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs ((Hebrew: Meʿarat ha-Makhpelah) from Ephron the Hittite (Genesis 23). constitutes a seminal element in what was to become the Jewish connection to the land in that it signified the first "real estate" of Israel long before the conquest under Joshua. Sarah was buried here.  Often people of today visit the grave of a dearly departed.  Abraham may have, too.

                                                 

The building covers the Cave of Machpelah, the place the Bible refers to as the burial ground for the Hebrew patriarchs and their wives (Genesis 23:19; 25:9; 49:30; 50:13). In the first century BC, Herod the Great constructed a massive wall around the cave—a beautiful edifice with construction techniques similar to those of the Temple Mount.  As with Jerusalem’s Western Wall Tunnel, the massive size of the foundation stones surrounding Machpelah inspires awe to all who see them. With Herod’s signature relief framing the edges, each stone sits slightly offset from the one beneath it, providing the optical illusion of both loftiness and grandeur. Inside the wall, the pavement also dates to Herod’s day.

This became a family sepulchre. According to tradition, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with their wives Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah, were buried in the cave.  They are our Patriarchs, our origins,  the most important People in our religion and family tree.

In settling here, Abraham is described as making his first covenant, an alliance with two local Amorite clans who became his ba’alei brit or masters of the covenant.  It’s ironic that the only part of the land Abraham actually owned—though God promised him all of it—was this burial plot in Hebron. In fact, Abraham lived for sixty-two years in the Promised Land before owning any of it. Abraham haggled for the purchase and ultimately paid 400 silver shekels for the cave. 

                                                

  Our Jewish story begins with the death of Sarah at age 127. This happened in Hebron, in what Genesis calls Canaan and today is called the Palestinian Territories. The key fact in the story is that Abraham and Sarah were not from around there. They were from Mesopotamia, from a city called Ur in what is today Iraq; they had traveled about a thousand miles before coming to Canaan. Because we think of Abraham as the first Jew, we may assume that he was always at home in Israel, but this was not the case. Israel did not exist except in the imagination of God. Abraham and Sarah were immigrants without land and without a country. Abraham says, “I am a stranger and a foreigner living among you.” He was a wealthy man with cattle and servants, but still he was an outsider and he could say , “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”                                

Joshua assigned Hebron to Caleb, and it became a Levitical city and a city of refuge.  Caleb was one of the leaders of the tribe of Judah on the Exodus and a member of the Kenizzite family. They were an ancient nation in the Promised land as told in Gen.15:19, possibly a Central Syrian people mentioned in Egyptian and Hittite inscriptions.   He and Joshua were the only spies out of the 12 dispatched by Moses to reconnoiter the land of Canaan who brought back a favorable report.  As a reward, they were the sole survivors of the Exodus from Egypt to enter Canaan.                                     

According to biblical tradition, there were giants living in Canaan long before it was conquered by Joshua and the Israelites.  They were called the Anakim, which today just means in Hebrew: giants.

Promised an inheritance at Hebron, Caleb captured the place and expelled its inhabitants, the Anakim. The Anakim were people who according to biblical tradition, lived in Canaan before its conquest by the Israelites.  They inhabited the mountainous area of Judah and also the Southern coastal zone, but were exterminated in the time of Joshua.  

The Anakim have not yet been identified;  they were tall in stature.  (Num. 13: 32-33) and the word "Anakim" in Hebrew has come to denote giants.   A region of the Negev and a leading family of Judah were long known by his name.  

David reigned there for 7 1/2 years before transferring his capital to Jerusalem.  Hebron was together with Jerusalem, Tiberias and Safed, one of Palestinian Jewry's 4 sacred towns.                                              

Ottoman Empire in Palestine

A Jewish community continued in Hebron in the Byzantine Period and under Arab rule.  The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople.  From 1517 to 1917, what is today Israel, along with much of the Middle East, was ruled by the Ottoman Empire.                         

     A drawing of Hebron done in 1839 by David Roberts, in The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia.

The modern city is situated somewhat to the East of the historical location.                                     

  Yeshiva in Hebron.  

Jews lived there throughout recent centuries and in 1890, numbered 1,500 with yeshivot and religious schools.  For economic reasons, their number subsequently declined, although the great Lithuanian yeshivah of Slobodka was transferred there in 1925.  

How did this very Jewish city which includes all our Patriarchs burial site become such a Palestinian Arab city? Several reasons come into play.

Today a mosque stands on the reputed burial site.  When the Rashidun Caliphate Of the Ottoman Empire established its rule over Hebron in 638, the Muslims converted the Byzantine church at the site of Abraham's tomb into a mosque.  The site is considered to be the second-holiest place in Judaism after the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem.  Both Jews and Muslims revere Abraham.  Being Abraham's tomb is in Hebron, that is a draw to both populations.  

In modern times, Hebron was administered as part of the British mandate of Palestine (1920–48); after the first of the Arab-Israeli wars in 1948–49, it was in the territory annexed by Jordan (1950). Following the Six-Day War of June 1967, it was part of the West Bank territory that came under Israeli land.

                                                

The Grand Mufti met with Hitler and his henchmen in dealing with Jews.

The Hebron Massacre had happened  in the year 1929.   The Hebron massacre refers to the killing of 67 or 69 Jews on 24 August 1929 in Hebron, then part of Mandatory Palestine, by Arabs incited to violence by rumors that Jews were planning to seize control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. (It's always rumors that start violence.) It was Haj Amin al- Husseini, the Sherif of Jerusalem, called the Grand Mufti who was the instigator of this massacre.   The event also left scores seriously wounded or maimed. Jewish homes were pillaged and synagogues were ransacked. Some of the 435 Jews who survived were hidden by local Arab families, although the extent of this phenomenon is debated.    Hitler declined to grant al-Husayni’s request for a public statement--or a secret but formal treaty--in which Germany would: 1) pledge not to occupy Arab land, 2) recognize Arab striving for independence, and 3) support the “removal” of the proposed Jewish homeland in Palestine. The Führer confirmed that the “struggle against a Jewish homeland in Palestine” would be part of the struggle against the Jews. Hitler stated that: he would “continue the struggle until the complete destruction of Jewish-Communist European empire”; and when the German army was in proximity to the Arab world,                                             

                            Downtown Hebron

Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank, and the 2nd largest in the Palestinian territories after Gaza;  it has a population of over 215,000 Palestinians (2016), and seven hundred Jewish settlers concentrated on the outskirts of the Old City of Hebron. The Hebron Governorate is the largest Palestinian governorate, with an estimated population of around 782,227 as of 2021. It includes the Cave of the Patriarchs, which Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions all designate as the burial site of three key patriarchal/matriarchal couples. Judaism ranks Hebron the 2nd holiest city after Jerusalem. 

The Hebron Protocol of 1997 divided the city into two sectors: H1, controlled by the Palestinian Authority, and H2, roughly 20% of the city, including 35,000 Palestinians, under Israeli military administration. All security arrangements and travel permits for local residents are coordinated between the Palestinian Authority and Israel via the military administration of the West Bank, officially named Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT). The Jewish settlers have their own governing municipal body, the Committee of the Jewish Community of Hebron. 

 Ramallah is the administrative capital for the Palestinians where government institutions and foreign representative offices are located. Jerusalem's final status awaits future, but it looks like Israel will never give part of it over as aa capital to the Palestinians though many live in East Jerusalem.  Ramallah is a Palestinian city, earlier a Christian city,  in the central West Bank located 10 km (6 miles) north of Jerusalem at an average elevation of 880 meters (2,890 ft) above sea level, adjacent to al-Bireh. It currently serves as the de facto administrative capital of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). While historically an Arab Christian town, Muslims constituted a majority of Ramallah's 27,902 residents by 2007, with Christians making up a significant minority.

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre

https://www.blockislandtimes.com/affiliate-post/buying-cave-sarahs-grave/47235

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/film/hajj-amin-al-husayni-meets-hitler

Second Shabbat Attack on Synagogue Congregants

Nadene Goldfoot                                               

Cousin Rabbi Abraham Goldberg on left
Rabbi Moshe Twersky on Right

                                  On Remembering Our History So As Not To Be Repeated

"On the morning of 18 November 2014, two Palestinian men from Jerusalem entered Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue, in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel, and attacked the praying congregants with axes, knives, and a gun. They killed four dual-nationality worshippers, and critically wounded a responding Druze Israeli police officer, who later died of his wounds. They also injured seven male worshippers, one of whom never woke up from a coma and died 11 months later. The two attackers were then shot dead by the police. " One of those killed was my cousin, Rabbi Avraham Goldberg, my partner in genealogy searches who had a Goldfoot on his tree. " 

"Killed were American-Israelis Rabbi Moshe Twersky (59; head of the Toras Moshe kollel, son of Harvard professor Rabbi Isadore Twersky, and part of a Boston rabbinical dynasty); Rabbi Calman Levine (55); and Rabbi Aryeh Kupinsky (43); and British-Israeli Rabbi Avraham Shmuel Goldberg (68), the first four rabbis resided in Har Nof; and Master Sergeant Zidan Saif (30), the Druze police officer shot in the head during the attack and rescue response, who later died from his wounds.   Saif lived in the Northern Israeli Druze village of Yanuh-Jat, and was father of a 4-month-old daughter.
                                                    

At approximately 07:00, during the weekday Shacharit morning prayer, as the worshipers were saying the silent amidah standing prayer, two Arab men from Jerusalem entered Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue, in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel, and attacked the worshippers with axes, meat cleavers, and a gun.

One of the worshippers fought back and hit a terrorist on the head with a chair twice, before escaping upstairs.

The terrorists killed four dual-national worshipers and a responding Druze Israeli police officer, and injured seven male worshipers, one of whom never woke up from a coma and died 11 months later. It was the deadliest terror attack in Jerusalem since the Mercaz HaRav massacre in March 2008.

Two traffic policemen who heard gunfire came running to the synagogue, and engaged the attackers in a gun battle. A third policeman arrived shortly after, and shot both attackers dead. Two policemen were wounded, one of whom subsequently died from his injuries.

The first responder was a Druze Israeli police officer, Zidan Saif. He was critically wounded when he was shot in the head during the ensuing gun battle, and later died.

The perpetrators shouted "Allahu Akbar!" as they attacked the worshipers."

Ironically, this past October 28. 2018 but in the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh, 

Pennsylvania's "Tree of Life" Synagogue was hit by an anti-Semitic hater, Robert

Bowers,  who managed to massacre 11 Jews attending  Bris-the naming of an

8 day old boy which attracted his family to attend this morning's service. This

large Conservative synagogue was very popular within a Jewish community with

nearby Carnegie Mellon University, where another cousin of mine had attended

many years ago.  They immediately went on lockdown as did surrounding homes.

Bowers was a true white supremecist, hating all who weren't in his opinion; 

Blacks, Jews, who screamed at the congregants, ALL JEWS MUST DIE!  He

had been obsessed with an old group called HIAS, which stood for Hebrew

Immigrant Aid Society which started in 1881 till 1945. 

 and then  the State Dept asked HIAS to aid in resettling 3600 Vietnam refugees.  He

had hit some boiling point when he wrote on facebook that "THEY ARE KILLING ALL MY

PEOPLE.  I'M GOING IN!.  Obviously, that meant going into the synagogue to kill. 

So there Robert was, all prepared to kill Jews.  There was no security system at the door.

A doctor in the neighborhood could hear the shooting from his home, so he hurried to help.

Past president Michael Eisenburg also rushed to help when he realized what was going on.

Rabbi Jeffrey Meyers had heard a commotion sounding like the hangers in the closet  of

crashing metal  at about 9:45am when the service started. He had never heard gunfire in his

whole life, but instantly knew this was it and yelled to his congregents to get down.  The

sanctuary's walls filled with pock marks from gunfire.  The shooter was coming up the stairs.

Eight congregants were in the back in the line of fire. 

 The rabbi, standing and in line of fire,

(Photo: Jeff Swensen, Getty Images

ran towards the bathroom area and hid where SWAT found him and got him out to safety, but 4 of them were shot.  Others in another closet had opened their door thinking all was safe, but he was right there and shot those hiding.  

In the end, Robert was shot and taken to the hospital.  NBC had a survey this morning wondering if places of worship needed armed guards.  The vote was about 90 to 10

against the idea from this one morning survey.  

As long as this is not a perfect world, we will need protection from crazies who go off the

edge into deadly behavior towards others.  All want to live in an open society, but who is

going to protect us as it isn't?  Isn't this why our police are armed?  As long as anti-Semitism

continues, Jews are at risk.  As long as hatred towards Blacks exist, Blacks are at

risk.  Evidently we have a lot of trust that we will remain protected.  So the answer is to

watch a society and its attitude towards both people.  When people are becoming tense

and are apt to blame all problems on the smallest of different groups such as Jews, who are only 2% of the USA population and the most selected for hatred, be prepared.  

There's so much left unsaid to Rabbi Goldberg.  At the time, I hadn't discovered DNA testing. I didn't find out who his Goldfoot was, but knew it was on Stanley Goldfoot's line.  He told me to look for an Abraham and that would connect the 2 lines of South Africa and

the USA together.  He was right; my father's 3rd brother who died in infancy was an Abraham.  Chances are that Abraham was my 3rd cousin.  We'll never know now.  He

hadn't even told me he was a rabbi.  That was such a shock to find out after this horrific

shooting that he was the one and the same person.  Without him, I wouldn't have known

that our family had come from Lithuania, knowing only that it was Russia as listed on census

information.  At the time, the Pale of Settlement countries had been taken over by Russia. 

"The Anti-Defamation League said it was the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in US history."  This was the 3rd massacre on Jews; 2008, 2014, and 2018.  

UPdate:  
There was a previous Rabbi Abraham Goldberg.  I wonder if he's related to the other. Avraham Goldberg (Hebrew: אברהם גולדברג, January 22, 1913 – April 13, 2012) was an Israeli talmud scholar. "Goldberg was born in Pittsburgh, and was educated at yeshivot Torah V'Daat and Chafetz Chaim, as well as at the University of Pittsburgh, where he studied English literature. He was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1941.

After serving as a chaplain in the United States armed forces during World War II, Goldberg moved to Israel to study at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he remained until his retirement. In 1952 Goldberg received a PhD in Talmud from Hebrew University, with a critical edition of Massechet Ohalot serving as his dissertation.

After graduation, Goldberg served at the Hebrew University as professor and professor emeritus of Talmud, as well as chair of the Talmud department. He also served as visiting professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary and University of Pennsylvania."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avraham_Goldberg

Books

  

Resource:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Jerusalem_synagogue_attack

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/son-boston-rabbi-killed-jerusalem-synagogue-article-1.2014515

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/18/synagogue-murders-binyamin-netanyahu-despicable-murderers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIAS
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/middle-east-unrest/three-americans-among-four-rabbis-slaughtered-jerusalem-synagogue-n250556

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/10/29/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-what-we-know/1804878002/
https://www.thejc.com/news/world/photo-gallery-many-dead-in-tree-of-life-synagogue-shooting-in-pittsburgh-1.471617

NBC morning news on TV