Hamas was established in 1987, and has its origins in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood movement, which had been active in the Gaza Strip since the 1950s and gained influence through a network of mosques and various charitable and social organizations. In the 1980s the Brotherhood emerged as a powerful political factor, challenging the influence of the PLO, and in 1987 adopted a more nationalist and activist line under the name of Hamas. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the organization conducted numerous suicide bombings and other attacks against Israel.
Their try at melding Fatah and Hamas together as one ruling party that keeps on failing. Notice the front row and who has been since assassinated as one of the worst terrorist leaders; Ismail Haniyeh (1962/1963 – 31 July 2024) was a Palestinian terrorist leader who was the political leader of Hamas that has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007.
In the Palestinian legislative election of January 2006, Hamas gained a large majority of seats in the Palestinian Parliament, defeating the ruling Fatah party.After the elections, conflicts arose between Hamas and Fatah, which they were unable to resolve.In June 2007, Hamas defeated Fatah in a series of violent clashes,and since that time Hamas has governed the Gaza portion of the Palestinian Territories,while at the same time the unity government of which they formed a part in the West Bank was dissolved by the Palestinian Authority (PA).Israel and Egypt then imposed an economic blockade on Gaza and largely sealed their borders with the territory.
Israeli Plans for the after-the war leadership of Gaza are backed by a broad consensus: removing Hamas as the governing authority and destroying its military infrastructure to the point where it is incapable of operating in anything other than small groups, thus making it incapable of carrying outmore October 7–style assaults.
Israel’s current transition to aless intense style of warfarebased on targeted raids and special operations will not alter this objective. This phase of the war has been expected to last six to nine months. Now that Israel is forced by the USA to wait out Iran's known vow to attack big-time till Israelis are attacked first may have changed this plan.
In principle, the Israeli public would also like to see the expansion of the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia. In fact, it was earlier expected that the Saudis would join the accords already, but they seem to hold out, wanting a state of Palestine created first, which to me is a dead issue after October 7ths horrid events.
Skepticism that a Palestinian state will seek to coexist peacefully with Israel is both deep and widespread. Nonetheless, many in the defense establishment argue that Israel needs to articulate a political and diplomatic horizon for Gaza and the Palestinian issue more broadly. That was already done in the beginning. Israelis had high hopes for a peaceful life between them but it was the Arabs who snubbed their noses as the idea and shot at Israel with rockets, mortars and missiles instead. What Hamas is, is most disappointing to all of us.
I repeat; there never has been a country of Palestine. There was nothing other than a new name for Eretz Yisrael in the Roman language; Palaestina-named by Romans for the worst enemy of the Israelites, the Philistines. There are at least 49 Muslim majority states already in the world and only one Jewish state; that is Israel. Israelis waited for 2,000 years to regain what they lost to the Romans. Arabs have only waited for what? 75 years? We're waiting to see signs of a peaceful nation; not mad killers for a neighbor.
Then US senator Joe Lieberman speaks during a press conference about their report on the Benghazi consulate attack, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on December 31, 2012. DREW ANGERER / AFP:
In August 2000, Vice President Al Gore announced that he had selected Lieberman as his vice presidential running mate. Lieberman became the first practicing Jew to run for the nation's second-highest office. Lieberman was selected from a group of potential running mates that reportedly included Senators John Kerry and John Edwards, the team that would form the Democratic presidential ticket four years later.
The former US senator of Connecticut, known for his close vice presidential race on the Democratic ticket with Al Gore in 2000 and nearly being Republican John McCain's running mate in 2008, has passed away, his family announced, at age 82 on March 27th"due to complications from a fall," his family said in a statement carried by US media..
Lieberman was the first Jew to be chosen on one of the country's major party tickets. He was famous for his independent streak in sharply divided Washington politics. He unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 but was then considered seriously by Republican candidate John McCain as a running mate when he mounted his own failed bid for the presidency in the 2008 race won by Barack Obama.
A national security hawk, Lieberman broke with many in his Democratic party over support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, while also ardently supporting liberal social views – including on gun rights and abortion. In 2006, Lieberman lost the Democratic primary to get reelected to the Senate. However, he still won the contest that year, keeping his seat, by running as an independent.
In 2023, Lieberman returned to high-level politics as one of the most visible faces of No Labels, which says it wants to give Americans a feasible third choice in presidential elections.
President Joe Biden's supporters have repeatedly warned that the organization could eat into the Democrat's base, thereby risking handing what is expected to be a tight election this November to Donald Trump.
Lieberman was born on February 24, 1942, in Stamford, Connecticut, the son of Henry, who ran a liquor store, and Marcia (née Manger) Lieberman. His family is Jewish; his paternal grandparents emigrated from Congress Poland and his maternal grandparents were from Austria-Hungary.
Joe Lieberman served as one of the greatest exemplars of Modern Judaism. Observant Jew, Senator, almost Vice President, approachable, pious, knowledgeable, down to earth, principled, Zionist, bipartisan, centrist, a mensch. These are just some of the words being used in numerous tributes to a great American. Joe Lieberman personified both the “average Joe” and the Ultimate Modern Orthodox Jew.
Satan is found in the Bible. What we Jews think about him is different from the Christian viewpoint or the Islamic viewpoint.
Satan occupies a prominent place in Christianity, which generally regards him as a rebellious angel and the source of evil who will meet his ultimate demise in battle at the End of Days, which Judaism, Christianity and Islam all believe we are now immersed in.
Balaam and the Angel (1836) by Gustav Jäger. The angel in this incident is referred to as a "satan".The Bible contains multiple references to Satan. The word appears just twice in the , both times in the story of Balaam, the seer who is asked by the Moabite king Balak to curse the Jews. When Balaam goes with Balak’s emissaries, God places an angel in his path “l’satan lo” — as an adversary for him.
Jewish sources, commencing with Moses (born c 1391 BCE) on the whole don’t dwell as much on the satanic, but the concept is nonetheless explored in numerous texts. In Hebrew, the term Satan is usually translated as “opponent” or “adversary,” and he is often understood to represent the sinful impulse (in Hebrew,yetzer hara) or, more generally, the forces that prevents human beings from submitting to divine will. In the earlier biblical books, e.g. 1 Samuel29:4 (possibly written by King David or a friend) , it refers to human adversaries, but in the later books, especially Job 1–2 and Zechariah 3, to a supernatural entity.
He is also sometimes regarded as a heavenly prosecutor or accuser, a view given expression in theBook of Job, where Satan encourages God to test his servant. Job is the 3rd book in the hagiographic section of the Bible (the writing of the lives of saints. biography thatidealizesits subject. "a hagiography which is designed to serve a political agenda."
The Talmud (books of discussion of Jewish law) explains that Job was never a real person but was simply a parable; a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson.Satan makes many appearances in the Talmud. A lengthy passage in the tractate Sanhedrin accords Satan a central role in the biblical story of the binding of Isaac. According to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, it was Satan that caused the Jewish people to despair of Moses returning from Mount Sinai by showing them an image of the prophet on his deathbed. A passage in the tractate Megillah says that Satan dancing at the party of the Persian King Ahasuerus is what led to the killing of Queen Vashti in the Purim story.
It tries to answer the problem of the suffering of a good or righteous people. Job is an example of a good person. He is a native of Uz who Satan tries to tempt to do bad things. His friends think that his suffering is the result of his wickedness, but Job says that he has not done anything bad. G-d finally steps in from a whirlwind explaining the Divine cosmic order of things and the pettiness of human understanding. The author of Job is unknown, possibly thought to be by some Edomite who wrote it between Mosaic and early 2nd Temple times. The book was not then read but recited by the high priest of the Temple on the eve of the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur.
Only twice in the Hebrew Bible does Satan appear as a specific figure, as HaSatan — the Satan. One is the Book of Job and the other is a brief reference in the Book of Zecharia, where the high priest is described as standing before a divine angel while Satan stands at his right to accuse him.
Satan has a central role in the story as an angel in the divine court. According to the biblical narrative, Satan — here too commonly translated as the Adversary — seems to urge God to create hardship for his righteous servant Job, arguing that Job is faithful only on account of his wealth and good fortune. Take those away, Satan claims, and Job will blaspheme. God permits Satan to take away Job’s wealth, kill his family and afflict him physically, none of which induces Job to rebel against God.
Sephardi Jews also read the book on the 9th of Av (Tisha B'Av) found on the Jewish calendar.'The ninth of Av') is an annual fast day in Judaism, on which a number of disasters in Jewish history occurred, primarily the destruction of both of Solomon's Temples; in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar; (After the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, the Jews of the Kingdom of Judea went into exile. The 2nd Temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire during the First Jewish-Roman War. in 70 CE.)
The Romans subsequently crushed Bar Kokhba's revolt and destroyed the city of Betar, killing over 500,000 Jewish civilians (approximately 580,000) on 9 Ab 135 CE.[9]
Following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Roman commander Quintus Tineius Rufus plowed the site of the Temple in Jerusalem and the surrounding area.[10]
Over time, Tisha B'Av has come to be a Jewish day of mourning, not only for these events, but also for later tragedies that occurred on or near the 9th of Av. References to some of these events appear in liturgy composed for Tisha B'Av (see below). Note that dates prior to 1582 are in the Julian calendar, not the Gregorian calendar.
The Jews were expelled from Spain on 31 July 1492 (Av 7, AM 5252).[10]
Germany entered World War I on 1–2 August 1914 (Av 9–10, AM 5674), which caused massive upheaval in European Jewry and whose aftermath led to World War II and the Holocaust.[9]
On 2 August 1941 (Av 9, AM 5701), SS commander Heinrich Himmler formally received approval from the Nazi Party for "The Final Solution," which marked the beginning of the Holocaust during which almost one third of the world's Jewish population was murdered.[13]
On 23 July 1942 (Av 9, AM 5702), the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka began.[13]
The AMIA bombing on the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, killed 85 and injured 300 on 18 July 1994 (10 Av, AM 5754).[14]
The 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza, according to some Religious Zionist rabbis like Yaakov Ariel and Dov Lior.[15][16]Kinnot have been composed about the withdrawal,[17][18] and the connection to Tisha b'Av was emphasized in 10-year anniversary commemorations.[19][20] The disengagement's timing lent itself to symbolic interpretation both by Religious Zionists and by wider Jewish culture.[21] However, even within Religious Zionism, Chaim Navon holds that the disengagement did not rise to the level of a calamity[22] and Shlomo Aviner has written that mourning the disengagement on Tisha b'Av is forbidden because it incites political division. Yona Metzger, then Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of Israel, ruled in 2006 that the disengagement was a tragedy but mourning rituals should not be integrated into Tisha b'Av, while Howard Jachter permits it in narrow fashion.
While the Holocaust spanned a number of years, most religious communities use Tisha B'Av to mourn its 6,000,000 Jewish victims, in addition to or instead of the secular Holocaust Memorial Days such as Yom HaShoah. On Tisha B'Av, communities that otherwise do not modify the traditional prayer liturgy have added the recitation of special kinnot related to the Holocaust.
The year of 5784 (2024) has Tisha B'Av on August 13.We are under a high alert
with Iran's Ayatollah giving the order to attack Israel and all Jews. Nine days from
now, what calamity might happen if any? Western intelligence sources told Sky News Arabia that they had evidence Iran plans to attack Israel on Tisha B’Av in response to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which begins on August 12 and ends on August 13, the site reported on Friday. Iran’s attack will reportedly be coordinated with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terror group embedded in Lebanon.
Satan is explored in detail in Jewish mysticism, orKabbalah.
According to Kabbalah, God is Ein Sof, or "without end," and is never depicted in human form or as having a gender. Instead, Kabbalah defines God by describing what God is not.
Kabbalistic sources expand the view of Satan considerably, offering a rich and detailed portrayal of the demonic realm and the forces of evil in the world, which are to be warded off in some cases with various forms of magic, from amulets to exorcisms. Among the most prominent forms of Jewish mysticism is Kabbalah, which emerged in the 12th century and has since become a central component of Jewish mystical thought. Other notable early forms include prophetic and apocalyptic mysticism, which are evident in biblical and post-biblical texts.
The Jewish mystical tradition has much to say about Satan. Indeed, kabbalistic texts offer a rich description not merely of Satan, but of an entire realm of evil populated by demons and spirits that exists in parallel to the realm of the holy. Satan is known in Kabbalah as Sama’el (rendered in some sources as the Great Demon), and the demonic realm generally as the Sitra Achra — literally “the other side.” The consort of Sama’el (who is mentioned in pre-kabbalistic Jewish literature as well) is Lilith, a mythic figure in Jewish tradition more commonly known as the rebellious first wife of Adam.
The kabbalistic sources portray the demonic as a separate and oppositional realm in conflict with God. Kabbalah even offers explanations of the origins of the demonic realm, the most common of which is that this realm emerges when the attribute of God associated with femininity and judgment, is dissociated from the attribute of God associated with grace and masculinity, and becomes unconstrained. Evil, in this reading, results from an excess of judgment.
Many of these ideas would later find expression in Jewish folk beliefs and in the works of the Hasidic masters. Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Poloniye, one of the chief disciples of Hasidism’s founder, the Baal Shem Tov, wrote in his Toldos Yaakov Yosef that God would eventually slaughter the angel of death during the messianic age — a belief that clearly echoes the Christian view of a final showdown between God and Satan at the End of Days. Hasidic folk tales are replete with descriptions of demonic forces, among them a famous story in which the Baal Shem Tov defends a group of children from a werewolf.
Even today some Hasidic Jews will seek out protections from such forces in the form of amulets or incantations. Some Jewish communities, particularly in the world, also prize amulets as protection from evil spirits and maintain a number of customs and rituals aimed at keeping those spirits at bay. Jewish sources dating back to biblical times including formulas for exorcisms to free the possessed of an evil spirit, known as a dybbuk.
The term appears in multiple other instances in the Prophets, often in a similar context — referring not to a specific figure as the Satan, but rather as a descriptor for individuals who act as a satan, i.e. as adversaries.
In Islam, Satan is called Iblis, and is also known as ʿAduw Allāh ("Enemy of God"), al-Aduw ("Enemy"), or al-Shayṭān ("Demon"). Iblis is the leader of the devils, or shayāṭīn, and is often compared to the Christian Satan.
Some of these Christian ideas are echoed in Jewish tradition, but some also point to fundamental differences — most notably perhaps the idea that, in the Hebrew Bible at least, Satan is ultimately subordinate to God,carrying out his purpose on earth. Or that he isn’t real at all, but is merely a metaphor for sinful impulses.
The kabbalistic and Hasidic literature complicate this view, offering a closer parallel to Christian eschatology. Both the kabbalistic/Hasidic and Christian traditions describe the forces of the holy and the demonic as locked in a struggle that will culminate in God’s eventual victory. According to some scholars, this is born of the considerable cross-pollination between Christian and Jewish thinking in the so-called “golden age” of Jewish culture in Spain during the Middle Ages, from whence many of the early kabbalistic texts, including the Zohar, emerged.
I'll conclude with Maimonides's thoughts. The word Satan, Maimonides writes, derives from the Hebrew root for “turn away.” Like the evil inclination, Satan’s function is to divert human beings from the path of truth and righteousness.Maimonides seems not to believe Satan actually exists, but rather that he is a symbol of the inclination to sin. The entire Book of Job, he writes, is fictional, intended merely to elucidate certain truths about divine providence. And even if it is true, Maimonides continues, certainly the portion in which God and Satan speak with each other is merely a parable. Maimon Ben Joseph (1110-1165) dayyan in Cordova, Spain, which he left in 1148 with his family because of persecution and went to Fez, upholding the faith of Jews who had been forced to convert to Islam; eventually settled in Egypt.
Rome's verification: The Arch of Titus showing Jewish slaves forced to carry spoils of war from Jerusalem to Rome from 70 CE.
Anyone into history knows that the Romans occupied Jerusalem for years, then took it and burned it down in 70 CE after starving the Jews, who were then taken as slaves to Rome.
Then in 135 CE, the Romans called the land, Palestine, out of meanness. They named it after the Jews' worst enemy, the Philistines. There was no government then, and many people trampled over it, thinking it was theirs for a while. Finally, Turkey-who became the OTTOMAN EMPIRE, held it from 1516 until the end of World War I in 1918, with the exception of a nine-year period between 1831 and 1840 when Egypt's Muhammad Ali captured the region. They were not Palestinian Arabs.
Those Palestinians who managed to buy some land sold it to returning Jews at very high prices, but the Jews bought it anyway, all legally. They had left Europe and pogroms going on there against Jews.
1917: The British army in Palestine at end of WWI
During the war, the British captured Palestine from the Ottomans, who were allied with the Germans and were on the verge of defeat. That's how the Arabs lost the land; by losing in World War I.
If the Ayatollah in Iran is trying to drive people like me, who know their Middle East history, most angry, he is succeeding, for I am sick and tired of hearing his lies about Palestine and Jerusalem being places belonging to the Palestinian Arabs.
The book by Joan Peters, From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Palestine (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), is the best piece of journalism. Joan was not Jewish or Islamic, but was an excellent journalist who went to original sources for information. She said she started her research actually sympathizing with the Arabs, but changed after finding factual information.
This monumental and fascinating book, the product of seven years of original research, should change the terms of the debate about the conflicting claims of the Arabs and the Jews in the Middle East, but there seems to be a shortage of people with the patience to go through her many pages of facts minus pictures.
The weight of the comprehensive evidence found and brilliantly analyzed by historian and journalist Joan Peters answers many crucial questions, among them: Why are the Arab refugees from Israel seen in a different light from all the other, far more numerous peoples who were displaced after World War II?
Why, indeed, are Palestinian Arabs seen differently from the Jewish refugees who were forced, in 1948 and after, to leave the Arab countries to find a haven in Israel?
Who, in fact, are the Arabs who were living within the borders of present-day Israel, and where did they come from? They came from nearby countries and were looking for work. At the time, Jews were building and could use the manpower.
Joan Peters' highly readable and moving development of the answers to these and related questions will appear startling.
Peters demonstrates that Jews did not displace Arabs in Palestine-just the reverse: Arabs displaced Jews;
that a substantial number of the Arab refugees called Palestinians in reality had foreign roots;
that for every Arab refugee who left Israel in 1948, there was a Jewish refugee who fled or was expelled from his Arab birthplace at the same time-today's much discussed Sephardic majority in Israel is in fact composed mainly of these Arab-born Jewish refugees or their offspring;
that Britain, the Mandatory power, winked at and even encouraged Arab immigration into Palestine between the two World Wars;
that by disguising the Arab immigrants as "indigenous native Palestinian Arabs," the British justified their restrictions on Jewish immigration and settlement, dooming masses of European Jews to destruction in the Nazi camps.
Israel went through all the legal steps of becoming a state on May 14, 1948. The Palestinians did nothing of the sort. At midnight on May 14, 1948, the Provisional Government of Israel proclaimed a new State of Israel. On that same date, the United States recognized the provisional Jewish government as de facto authority of the Jewish state (de jure recognition was extended on January 31, 1949).On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day.
Soon after President Truman took office, he appointed several experts to study the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946, Truman established a special cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady, an Assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a parallel British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. In May 1946, Truman announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000 displaced persons into Palestine and in October publicly declared his support for the creation of a Jewish state. Throughout 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine examined the Palestinian question and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end. Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by the United Nations. With Arabs attacking, that was no longer viable. Arabs showed there would be no peace. They cooked their own goose.
Later, as the date for British departure from Palestine drew near, the Department of State grew concerned about the possibility of an all-out war in Palestine as Arab states threatened to attack almost as soon as the UN passed the partition resolution.
Despite growing conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews and despite the Department of State’s endorsement of a trusteeship, Truman ultimately decided to recognize the state Israel. It has lasted 70 years and 3 months.
Am Yisrael Chai !!! The people of Israel live!!!
Israel's secret weapon: We have nowhere else to go - comment
Golda Meir’s words are as relevant as ever today, and the past
weeks of another "mini"-war with Hamas and the accompanying spike
of antisemitism have only further proven her point.
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