Why Lebanon Fell For Hezbollah ?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                       

Why was it that Lebanon fell for Hezbollah and lost their government to them?  It's Hezbollah that rules.  How is the Lebanese army every going to stand up to Hezbollah and be a barrier for Israel if that is to be the intention?

Lebanon was a unique country in this sea of an Islamic population.  A neighbor of Israel, Jews have had homes there since bible days.  They had good relations with the king when Solomon built the Temple, buying cedar tree wood from Lebanon.  Lebanese forces invaded Israel during their War of Independence of 1948, though.  In 1944 there were 6,261 Jews living there.  Syrian Jews then joined them.  By 1964 there were 5,000 to 7,000 Jews living in Lebanon.  After 1967 most moved to Israel.  1,000 remaining by 1975 left during the Lebanon Civil War and by 1990 only 100 remained.

Politics in Lebanon is based on a sectarian power-sharing structure created on independence from France in 1943. The constitution guarantees all 18 religious sects in the country are ensured representation in government, the military, and the civil service.

Christian Lebanese made up a minority population that existed alongside the Muslims. Religion plays a crucial and somewhat paralyzing role. 

A Maronite Christian must serve as president, 

a Sunni Muslim as prime minister and

 a Shia Muslim as the speaker of Parliament. 

Pierre Amine Gemayel, also spelled Jmayyel, Jemayyel or al-Jumayyil ( 6 November 1905 – 29 August 1984), was a Lebanese political leader. A Maronite Catholic, he is remembered as the founder of the Kataeb Party (also known as the Phalangist Party), as a parliamentary powerbroker, and as the father of Bachir Gemayel and Amine Gemayel, both of whom were elected to the presidency of the republic in his lifetime.

                                                                   Gemayel in 2012

Amine Pierre Gemayel born 22 January 1942) is a Lebanese politician who served as the 8th president of Lebanon from 1982 to 1988.   At the age of 40 years, Amine was the youngest president to take office.

He was born in Bikfaya to Pierre Gemayel, the founder of the Christian Kataeb Party (also known as the "Phalanges"). He worked as a lawyer, then was elected as a deputy for Northern Metn in 1970 by-election, following the death of his uncle, Maurice Gemayel, and once again in the 1972 general election. At the start of the Lebanese Civil War, the Phalanges were a member of the Lebanese Front, allied with Syria against the leftist National Movement. However, Syria became their enemy, while they started receiving the support of Israel. 

This phase saw the rise of Amine's brother, Bachir, who had disputes with Amine about the military leadership, such as uniting the Christian militias by force.  Endorsed by the United States and Israel, he was elected on 23 September as the eighth president.

In 1982,his brother,  Bachir,  was elected to presidency, but was assassinated before taking office. Bachir Pierre Gemayel  ( 10 November 1947 – 14 September 1982) was a Lebanese militia commander who led the Lebanese Forces, the military wing of the Kataeb Party, in the Lebanese Civil War and was elected President of Lebanon in 1982.  He founded and later became the supreme commander of the Lebanese Forces, uniting major Christian militias by force under the slogan of "Uniting the Christian Rifle".

                                       Gemayel with USA President Ronald Reagan

Gemayel allied with Israel and his forces fought the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Syrian Army. He was elected president on 23 August 1982, but he was assassinated before taking office on 14 September, via a bomb explosion by Habib Shartouni, a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.  Gemayel re-organized the Lebanese Army, receiving support from the Multinational Force in Lebanon and despite fierce internal opposition, he reached the May 17 Agreement with Israel in 1983, which stipulated the withdrawal of the Israeli forces and ending the state of war between the two countries, but didn't ratify it. Under his command, the army, allied with the Lebanese Forces, clashed with Jammoul, a Syrian-backed alliance led by the Druze Walid Jumblatt, in what is known as the Mountain War. By the end of the conflict, the government suffered heavy defeat, and lost control over wide areas of Mount Lebanon. It was followed by February 6 Intifada, where the army was expelled out of West Beirut, and disintegrated into sectarian groups.

All religious sects are represented in the government, the military and the civil service, and political parties are "defined more by religious affiliations than economic or social policy".

The system may look like an attempt to "ensure equality", but it is more of a "division of power between the elites" rather than a recipe for "ensuring good governance". The effect is a "weak, corrupt, patronage-based system", and a government "largely made up of competing bureaucratic fiefdoms rather than a single unit attempting to govern the Lebanese state".                                                          

Hezbollah is the "dominant Shia force in Lebanon's politics" – and the "most influential political organisation" in the country. "It probably could take over the Lebanese state by force, but it is far more effective to exercise power in Lebanon's weak state without taking on responsibilities of office."  The group effectively operates as a "state within a state", said The Times in an editorial. Its "heartland" is Southern Lebanon, a predominantly Shia Muslim area where the group stays within "easy striking distance" of Israel. That border area is a "no-go zone" for Israeli civilians, thanks to Hezbollah's Iran-supplied rockets – tens of thousands have already fled. 

Resource:

https://theweek.com/politics/who-controls-lebanon

The Political Side of American Jewry: Democrats or Republicans?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                             

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , b: January 30, 1882  d: April 12, 1945. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage while sitting for a portrait.  He had had poor health, including bronchitis, heart problems.  Most of his adult life was spent as an invalid from having polio.  He was only 63 when he died.  

In 1938 he created the Evian Conference and talked about the plight of Jews in Germany.  By 1944 he set up a War Refugee Board to rescue survivors of Nazism.  He had shown sympathy for Zionism but one meeting with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, and he changed his attitude toward Jews.  Many outstanding Jews happened to be connected to his New Deal, such as Bernard Baruch, Henry Morgenthaugh Jr., and Felix Frankfurter.  On the other hand, Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), his wife and distant cousin, was a patron of Youth Aliyah.   

The Evian Conference had 32 nations called because of Germany's attacking and the inadequacy of the League of Nations and voluntary bodies to takle the problem.  Only the Dominican Republic offered to accept sizable numbers of refugees, and an Inter-Geovernmental Committee for Refugees was established and continued to operate until the outbreak of WWII.  

• Before Jews came to the land of America, they were 2nd class citizens of other countries ever since they lost their own land of Judea in 70 CE.  That's over 2,000 years of actually being homeless without having a chance for their people to have a say in how they should be governed.  Much of the population had been under Russia's Czarina, Catherine II., confined to certain areas, forcibly taken into the army and placed on the front lines because they were Jews.  Because they were Jews, they had been kicked out of countries, such as Germany, and England where they were expelled for  a 365 year period from 1290 to 1655.  

They saw a chance to live a free life in America. The political parties from George Washington's day onward were that of the Federalist, Democratic Republican, Democrat, Whig, Republican, Democratic Union, and just Democrats, Republicans and Independents.  

Along came World War I and Thomas Woodrow Wilson was our 28th president from 1913 to 1921.  He was a Democrat.

Along came WWII  and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was our 32nd president from 1933 to 1945.  He was president from the time I was born on...when he died it was like my father had died.  Our whole grade school was in shock.  He was a Democrat, and not only that, but was from New York, which would have had the largest population of Jews of the USA.  Jews were led to believe that it was Roosevelt who let them come into the US, and they owed him their lives.  

The big immigration of Jews from Europe took place at the turn of the century and afterwards, with the door closing on them with new immigration laws of entrance in 1921 and again in 1924 allowing only a few Jews from eastern Europe. This was at a most precarious period as Europe was stoking up for anti-Semitism that would start by 1930 and just grow worse and worse till the Holocaust took place.  Russian Jews had been suffering from pogroms, which my own grandmother had suffered from.  Luckily, my paternal grandparents immigrated to the USA just before 1900.  

Since then, Jews have remained loyal Democrats, regardless.  It's become like your religion, hard to get a Democrat to let go of his party.  

Not so the USA Population as a whole:   our 33rd Truman Democrat;  34th Eisenhower of New York, Republican;  35th Kennedy Democrat;  36th Johnson Democrat;  37th Nixon Republican;  38th Ford Republican;  39th Carter Democrat (and very anti Israel) from Georgia;  40th Reagan Republican;  41st GHW Bush Republican;  42nd Clinton Democrat;  43rd GWB Bush (son) Republican;  44th Obama II Democrat;  45th Trump Republican;   46th Biden Democrat.  

Since Franklin Delano Roosevelt of New York, a Democrat, we have had 7 Democrats and 7 Republicans.  Is Trump going to run this time for the Republican Party or on the Independent ticket?  Another?  Who would run on the Democrat ticket?  What criteria will most Jews be using for their vote?

Jews are a very small minority population in the USA, about 2,4%.  Yet our people are leaders and very vocal and mostly quite well educated.  

Our country has grown in population by 7% in the last 10 years, going from 309,327,143 in 2010, to.....331,893,745 in 2021.  Even with  1,04 million COVID deaths, we've had immigration and natural procreation.  By 2020, our USA population was 329.5 million.  

Our Jewish population in the USA in 2020  was 7.6 million , made up of 4.9 million Jewish adults  whose religion is Jewish, and 1.2 million Jews  who claim no religion (atheists ?), and 1.6 million children.  Our choice of political party will be as different from each other as our religious views.  It depends on our presidential criteria and what they think is important either to repair or to continue. 

 

Resource: 

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

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

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

Facts About the 1.7 Million Israeli Arabs in Recent Election

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                          

Prime Minister Netanyahu was caught saying that the Arabs were coming out to vote in force and that he wanted his people to get out and vote!  That put him in deep hot water with Europe and the USA.  What many don't realize is that for once, the Arabs were voting in one block instead of many broken up ones, and were being groomed by the USA's Obama to vote for Labor's Herzog, known to be much to the left and most likely very pliable, Obama thought, to his ways of thinking, which actually turned out to be wrong.  There are many political parties that Arabs have organized.  "This time, the  political alliance of four Arab-dominated parties in Israel—Hadash, Balad, United Arab List, and Ta'al. would have gone over to 

be with Labor,  which was the fear.  
                                                                             

Arab women vote in Israel, too.  

The list is ideologically diverse and includes communists, socialists, feminists, Islamists, and Palestinian nationalists.  Where Netanyahu has been concerned with being wiped out by Iran, others have been concerned by high prices of living.  

Security won out in the end with Netanyahu remaining to finish out a term he had stopped after 

2 years when he called for new elections.  Netanyahu had to apologize to his Arab citizens for 

that remark, not meaning the way it came out.  

                                                                                

10 of 12 tribes of Israel being led away in battle 721 BCE

Let's look at the Arabs and Jews and their history in Israel.  Long ago, what came to be called Palestine, was the Jewish states of Israel and Judah.  Israel was attacked and its best citizens were carted away by the Assyrians in 722 BCE.  The Babylonians took over the Assyrians and they also attacked and took the best people in 597 and 586 BCE.  King Solomon had died in 920 BCE which is when Judah was carved out of Israel's southern section.
                                                                             

Jerusalem Destroyed in 70 CE by Romans 

In 70 CE, the Romans had attacked Jerusalem after occupation and destroyed the 2nd Temple.  In 132 CE General Bar Kokhba made his last attempt to retake his land in a 3 year war lasting till 135 when he was killed in battle.  To get even with the Jews, who hadn't had to engage in such a long battle before, they renamed the land as Palaestina, the name of Jews' enemy, the Phoenicians.  There had always been Jews who had never left Eretz Yisrael throughout the Roman Period and all the other conquerers who came along, but many had when Jerusalem fell, becoming Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mizrachi Jews, depending on where they went to live.
                                                                           

Abraham Stern (1907-1942), Jewish fighter for Israeli Independence, leader of the Stern Group.Stern was born in Suwałki, Poland (then part of the Russian Empire) where my grandmother was born and raised. Stanley Goldfoot, my 3rd cousin,  became the Chief of Intelligence of the Stern Group-called the Stern Gang by the British who shot Abraham dead at age 35.  Not only were they trying to protect the Jewish population from Arab attacks, but were attacked by the British for doing so.  The British were given the mandate to help Jews create their Jewish Homeland.  Instead they kept out Jews and helped Arabs enter illegally.  

                                                                     

Arabs from Lydda fleeing in 1948 from war

In 1949, at the end of the Israeli War of Independence, there were only some 160,000 Arabs in the new Jewish state of Israel, created on May 14, 1948. Being also a declared state made up of other religions and many nationalities, it was important to keep a Jewish population as the major group, for that was the purpose it was created.

 In 1972   there were 3.2 million people in Israel which were made up of
2.7 million Jews (85.1%)
359,000 Muslims (11.2%)-most all Arabs
 80,000 Christians (2.4%)-most all Arabs
 39,000 Druzes (Arabs that broke away from Islam in 10th Century)
 478,000   non Jewish Arabs

The population increase was due to natural growth and to the readmission of thousands of Arabs who fled when the Arab states attacked Israel.  Many remained in refugee camps and have stayed there to this day, now in very large numbers.

Today there are 6 million Jews living in Israel and 1.7 million Arabs.  They all know that Israel's basic constitutional document is the Proclamation of Independence written in 1948.   It provides complete equality of social and political rights for all citizens regardless of creed, race or sex, and guarantees freedom of religion and conscience, as well as of language, education and culture.  It specifically invites Arabs living in Israel to help build the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all institutions.  There is no institutionalized discrimination against Arabs or other minorities.  All groups may freely exercise all citizen right, including the right to vote and to run for public office.  Netanyahu was not  stopping them from voting; just yelling to his own contingent of Likud to get out and vote.  

Anyone who lived in Israel in 1948 after May 14, 1948 and has stayed there since is an Israeli citizen, not matter if a Jew or Arab.  So is anyone born in Israel since 1948 who continues to live there.  People may come to Israel to live and may become citizens after a waiting period of 3 years in most cases.  However, because it is the established Homeland for the Jewish people who had been without a homeland for over 2,000 years from 70 CE till May 14, 1948, Jews can become a citizen immediately through the LAW OF RETURN.  I didn't realize that it could be immediate for me when my husband and I made aliyah (immigrated) in September 1980.  We waited for the 5 year period expected of new citizens in the USA before filing to have dual citizenship.  I suppose we passed up some voting rights by doing that.
                                                                         

Wherever you go in Israel, you see signs in 3 languages; Hebrew, Arabic and English.  We had gone over as teachers from the USA to be teachers of English in Israel.  I had the occasion to vote for our mayor of Safed (Tzfat) before I left.  Notice the bars on my living room window in Safed.  They are to keep out terrorists since I lived in the ground floor apartment.  We just moved in and I'm waiting for my lift to arrive from the dock in Haifa.  I had turned a twin bed into a sofa of sorts.  Another English teacher at my junior high was an Arab.  He translated the Hebrew in teacher's meetings for me since I understood nothing.  When I left, he got my position.  I believe he lived in Ramallah and traveled quite far to get to our school.

Resource: Jewish Digest 1976,  Israel:  A Pluralistic Democracy -status of Arabs in Jewish State page 22 from American Jewish Committee Background Memorandum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_List
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/11490945/Netanyahu-apologises-to-Arab-voters-in-Israel-election.html