Recalling Africa’s harrowing tale of its first slavers – The Arabs –

David Livingstone, the British missionary/traveller/explorer was so upset by the way the Arabs treated their African slaves that he wrote back home in 1870:

“In less than I take to talk about it, these unfortunate creatures — 84 of them, wended their way into the village where we were. Some of them, the eldest, were women from 20 to 22 years of age, and there were youths from 18 to 19, but the large majority was made up of boys and girls from 7 years to 14 or 15 years of age.

“A more terrible scene than these men, women and children, I do not think I ever came across. To say that they were emaciated would not give you an idea of what human beings can undergo under certain circumstances. “Each of them had his neck in a large forked stick, weigh ing from 30 to 40 pounds, and five or six feet long, cut with a fork at the end of it where the branches of a tree spread out. “T he women were tethered with bark thongs, which are, of all things, the most cruel to be tied with. Of course they are soft and supple when first striped off the trees, but a few hours in the sun make them about as hard as the iron round packing-cases. The little children were fastened by thongs to their mothers. “As we passed along the path which these slaves had travelled, I was shown a spot in the bushes where a poor woman the day before, unable to keep on the march, and likely to hinder it, was cut down by the axe of one of these slave drivers. “We went on further and were shown a p lace where a child lay. It had been been recently born, and its mother was unable to carry it from debility and exhaustion; so the slave trader had taken this little infant by its feet and dashed its brains out against one of the trees and thrown it in there.”

Such was the brutality meted out to the Africans by the Arabs.
⬇️ Over the years, global focus and discourse on slavery has concentrated on the Trans-Atlantic trade that featured American and European merchants. One other trade has however remained largely ignored, and at times has even been treated as a taboo subject, despite being a key component of African history owing to the devastating impact it has had on the continent, its generations and its people’s way of life.

The Arab Muslim slave trade, also known as the trans-Saharan trade or Eastern slave trade, is noted as the longest slave trade, having occurred for more than 1,300 years while taking millions of Africans away from their continent to work in foreign lands in the most inhumane conditions.



⬇️fairplanet.org/dossier/beyond…

The Jewish People of Iran

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Today, Iran is the world’s largest Shiite Muslim state, with a theocratic regime that espouses religious fanaticism. But religious diversity and tolerance were some of the cornerstones of ancient Persian history.
Before Islam, Zoroastrianism was the official state religion of several major Persian dynasties. Judaism predates Islam in modern-day Iran by over 1,000 years, and Jews are one of the oldest religious minority communities in the country, known until 1935 as Persia.
The first Jews arrived as Babylonian captives after the fall of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E., when the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, conquered Jerusalem.
When Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon in 539 B.C.E., he felt a divinely-inspired responsibility to enable his Jewish subjects to return to Jerusalem and build the Second Temple. The Book of Isaiah says that Cyrus was appointed by G-d, while the Book of Ezra offers an account of Cyrus’s words upon his decree of building the Second Temple as follows:
“All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord, the G-d of heaven, has given to me and he has also charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.”
Incredibly, Cyrus even sent his returning Jewish subjects sacred vessels from the First Temple (which had been destroyed decades earlier) & a large sum of money for rebuilding purposes. Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, is mentioned in a number of ancient Jewish texts, and by allowing Jewish to return to Jerusalem, he brought the First Exile to an end.
The Cyrus Cylinder, an ancient clay cylinder, has been hailed as the earliest recorded declaration of human rights, and references Cyrus’s decree that all deported people and slaves be allowed to return to their homes.
Cyrus the Great was killed in battle in 529 B.C.E. and his son, Cambyses II, who was less friendly toward Jews, suspended construction of the Second Temple. But the work was resumed under King Darius, who would come to have a very special daughter-in-law, Queen Esther.
Queen Esther was the beloved wife of Darius’s son, King Xerxes, known in the Scroll of Esther as Ahasuerus. Iranian Jews believe that the tomb of Esther and Mordechai is located in the northern Iranian city of Hamadan, and it remains a site of Jewish prayer, especially during Purim, when some Iranian Jews make an annual pilgrimage there.
For centuries, Jewish as well as Muslim and Christian women in Iran have also visited the tomb to pray for fertility. Jewish worshipers often wrote notes and placed them near the tombs, similar to the practice at Jerusalem’s Western Wall.
In recent years, the building has been targeted by antisemites, including an arson attempt in 2020, but damage was not done to the tombs.
in October 2023, Revolutionary supporters of the Islamic Republic of Iran burned an Israeli flag on the compound of the holiest site for Jews in Iran, the Tomb of Esther and Mordechai in Hamadan. The regime forced its tiny Jewish community to support Tehran’s pro-Hamas policies.
The advent of Islam forever altered life for the Jews of ancient Persia until today. The Muslim conquest of Persia in the seventh century, including a battle in 642 that Arabs called the “victory of victories,” effectively brought an end to the overall safety and tolerance that Jews enjoyed under most of the Persian kings (the battle also ended 2,000 years of Persian independence).
As Islam rapidly spread, Muslim leaders were forced to find ways to deal with non-Muslim communities, including many Jews, some of whom comprised the majority of several cities. As restrictions and humiliations grew, the Pact of Umar made life even more difficult for Jews, who were forbidden from holding government office, serving in the military or even riding white donkeys (a symbol of purity). Persian Jews were also forced to wear yellow armbands; Christians wore them in blue.

When the Safavids came to power in the early 1500s, they introduced some of the harshest practices against non-Muslims and forcibly converted the country’s Sunni population to Shiism.
With Safavid rule, Jews and other non-Muslims faced severe discrimination based on false accusations of being “najes,” or ritually impure (thereby posing a threat of physical and ritual contamination for Muslims).
Jews were not allowed to leave their homes during rain or snow, lest the wind and water spread their contaminants; they were not allowed to touch foods at bazaars, build their doorways higher than those of Muslims, or even be offered something to eat, drink or smoke in a Muslim’s house, due to their perceived impurity.
As late as the 20th century, Jews who escaped Iran after the 1979 revolution have recounted stories of not being allowed to touch fresh fruit at outdoor markets, for example, or worse, being wrongly accused of touching foods by sellers who demanded that they pay for whatever they had allegedly touched and “contaminated.”
If you’ve ever benefited from the help of a Persian Jewish doctor, lawyer, entrepreneur, teacher, author, or philanthropist, it is partly due to the extraordinary kindness that French Jewish philanthropists offered the Jewish communities of the Middle East over 100 years ago through the famous Alliance Israélite Universelle. The Paris-based international Jewish organization (founded in 1860) believed that Jewish self-sufficiency and self-defense could best be achieved through education and vocational training.
Known simply by Jewish communities in the Middle East as “Alliance,” the organisation established French-language schools that offered Jews in countries such as Iran, Morocco, Iraq, Turkey, Tunisia, Syria and elsewhere their first exposure to secular studies, in addition to Jewish education. Alliance was particularly life-changing for Jewish children from poor families, and over 60 Alliance schools were founded in Iran, North Africa and the then-Ottoman-controlled Middle East, including Mandatory Palestine, years before the establishment of the modern state of Israel.
The presence of Alliance schools in Iran effectively helped bring Persian Jews out of poverty and into the educational and vocational opportunities of greater society. It also explains why so many of our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents spoke fluent French!
Today, Iran’s Supreme Leader uses Twitter to deny the Holocaust. But in the early 1940s, a Muslim Iranian diplomat named Abdol Hossein Sardari, who represented the government of the secular Shah (King) of Iran, saved thousands of Jews in Europe using his power at Iran’s diplomatic mission in Paris to issue passports and other travel documents. Through a great deal of painstaking talks with Nazi leaders, Sardari was able to secure exemptions from the notoriously deadly Nazi race laws for over 2,000 Iranian Jews who were in France at the time, claiming that they were Iranian and did not have blood ties to European Jewry.
He was eventually stripped of his diplomatic immunity and consul status. After the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, Sardari lost his properties in Tehran as well as his ambassador’s pension. He died in England in 1981 without having asked for any recognition for his life-saving work during the Holocaust. In a 2004 ceremony, the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles posthumously recognized Sardari’s sacrifice and humanitarian work. A 2011 book, In the Lion's Shadow: The Iranian Schindler and His Homeland in the Second World War by Fariborz Mokhtari, recounts the amazing details of Sardari’s work.
The survivors were sheltered in tents on the former military barracks of the Iranian Air Force; the refugee camp eventually became known as the “Tehran Home for Jewish Children.” The Tehran Jewish community, as well as the Hadassah Women’s Zionist Organization and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee supported the camp and the kids became known as the “Tehran Children.” The Jewish Agency eventually relocated over 860 children to moshavim (cooperative farming villages) and kibbutzim (collective farms), but the journey from Iran to then-Mandatory Palestine was arduous and exhausting. Several years later, some of those “Tehran Children” fought as youth in Israel’s War of Independence; 35 of them died as soldiers or civilians.
With Hitler’s troops dangerously close to Iran’s borders and Nazi propaganda (in Persian) infiltrating Iran through daily radio broadcasts, Iran nevertheless offered refuge to over 1,000 Jews, mostly children, from Poland during World War II. Many children (and adults) perished upon arrival in Iran due to illness and malnutrition, which explains why there remains a dedicated Polish section in a Jewish cemetery in Tehran today.
Under the rule of the Pahlavi dynasty, which began with Shah Reza Pahlavi (reigned 1925-1941) and continued under his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (reigned 1941-1979), Iranian Jews experienced tremendous educational, vocational, cultural and social development. Both men sought to establish Iran as one of the most secular and Westernized states in the Middle East. Before the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted Shah Mohammad Pahlavi and established a fanatic Shiite theocracy led by a radical cleric named Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s Jewish population was over 100,000.
But after the 1979 revolution, over 90% of the country’s Jews fled. Those remaining Jews, whether in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Hamedan or elsewhere, were forced to comply with Muslim mandates that turned Iran into an official Shi’ite theocracy.
Beginning in the early 1980s and continuing today, Iranian females, whether 5 or 50, were forced to wear the hijab, or mandatory Islamic head covering for women; Jewish children at schools all over the country were forced to chant “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel,” even at schools that were founded by Jews before the 1979 revolution; and Zionism became a capital offense, punishable by death. Today, Jews are permitted to run synagogues and Jewish learning programs for youth, but portraits of Ayatollah Khomeini (and after his death, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s current Supreme Leader), as well as artistic renderings of the Shiite prophet, Ali, are usually found in Jewish centres and classrooms, due to the theocratic rule of the regime.
Roughly 8,500 Jews remain in Iran (from a population of over 100,000 before the 1979 Islamic revolution), with the largest communities in Tehran and Shiraz. They have access to synagogues, kosher butchers and food, mikvahs and several centers of learning. But the Jews in Iran today are extremely careful not to publicly identify with Israel in any way, as support of Zionism is punishable by death. Habib Elghanian, a wealthy Jewish industrialist and philanthropist, was charged with being a Zionist spy, due to charitable contributions he made to Israeli organizations, and assassinated in May 1979. His shocking death forced tens of thousands of Jews to flee Iran. Over the last four decades, other Iranian Jews have also been falsely accused of spying for Israel; some of them served prison sentences and were eventually freed, while others were not as lucky.
As for Israel, it is home to the largest population of Iranian Jews in the world, with roughly 250,000 Israelis today being descended from Iranian Jewry that left Iran in a first wave of migration to the Jewish state in the early 1950s and a second, smaller wave that escaped Iran during the 1979 revolution and made aliyah.

source : Tabby Refael A more in-depth look at Sardari:
Abdol Hossein Sardari, an Iranian diplomat stationed in Paris, went to extraordinary lengths to protect Iranian Jews from falling into the clutches of Nazi persecution.
Born in 1914, Sardari was a member of the distinguished Pahlavi family. He left Teheran as a teenager to continue his education in Europe, while in 1925 his family in Iran took control of the country in what was known as the start of the Pahlavi dynasty. In 1936 he graduated in Law from Geneva University in Switzerland and joined the diplomatic service, assigned to Iran's prestigious Paris embassy in 1940 - just as Hitler invaded.
France was carved up; the Nazis took over the north of the country and a pro-Nazi French regime under Marshal Philippe Petain in the south which established its headquarters in the town of Vichy. Most of the Iranian embassy staff fled to the relative calm of the Vichy sector, and while the Ambassador, Sardari's brother in law, returned to Iran, Sardari remained behind as Consul General, heading up a scaled back staff in Paris. It was in this position he was driven by a sense of duty and personal responsibility to assist several hundred Iranian Jews in the city, at risk of Nazi persecution.

Iran was a useful ally for Germany on the Soviet Union’s south-western border. The countries had an existing close relationship with Germany Iran’s biggest trading partner. However, ties deepened after 1933, with Hitler’s rise to power amid his worldview of racial hierarchy, where he cultivated the idea that Iranians, like the Germans, had superior blood. This view became policy when in 1936 Hitler declared Iran as an Aryan state. This served to massage the egos of Iranian nationalists. Diplomatic and business exchanges continued throughout the years of Hitler’s rule.
That same year, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, the German Finance Minister and President of the Reich bank, paid a visit to Reza Shah the ruler of Iran, and a year later Hasan Esfandiari, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, visited Berlin.
Jews had been living in Persia for thousands of years with the earliest Jewish presence dating to the exile following the destruction of the first temple in 586 BCE. Under the new rule of the Pahlavi dynasty, which had ushered in a wave of modernization and new reforms, the Jewish community saw greater protection. As such Reza Shah informed Hitler that he considered Iranian Jews to be fully assimilated Iranians and would take offense to them being black listed in any way.
Despite his annoyance, Hitler begrudgingly accepted, at least in the short term while it was expedient for him that Iranian Jews not be officially classified as enemies of the Reich.
This move would be exploited to maximum effect by Sardari, now the Consul General in Paris, who eyed an opportunity to protect his countrymen living under German occupation.
One of his first steps was to help Jews hide behind the elevated status given to Iranians in general by issuing new passports which made no reference to their religion. Later he would make the case that although the Jews of Iran did follow some of the traditions of Moses, they had lived in Persia so long and become so assimilated into Persian culture, they were no longer racially distinguishable as Jews. He classified them under a new term, ‘Jugutus’ - a group who followed some Mosaic practices but were not actually racially Jewish.
“Only by virtue of their observance of the principal rites of Judaism,” Sardari wrote in 1940, could the Jugutus be confused with Jews. “By virtue of their blood, their language, and their customs, they are assimilated into the indigenous race and are of the same biological stock as their neighbors, the Persians and the Sartes (Uzbeks).”
Backed up with pseudo-scientific research, and playing on Hitler’s machinations towards Iran, as well as wining and dining Nazi officers in the city, Sardari managed to convince several senior Gestapo bureaucrats of his logic. Historian Fariborz Mokhtari explains that his efforts led to a directive that Iranian Jews in Paris be exempt from wearing the yellow-star of David.
“Sardari, with his legal education, diplomatic experience and considerable wit, exploited the classification courageously as far as it was possible, to the point of angering people such as Adolf Eichmann,” Mokhtari writes.
According to Mokhtari, Sardari issued hundreds and perhaps thousands of passports and forms of documentation for Iranian Jews who turned to him for help.
Ibrahim Morady, who had been a friend of Sardari and a recipient of his help, said of the diplomat, “He was told by his government to go back to Persia, but replied, 'I cannot leave a bunch of Iranian Jews, they will be deported.'” He added, “He was very, very active.”
He also helped Jews who weren’t of Iranian descent. Morady explained in one case that an affidavit issued by Sardari helped a Russian Jewish doctor in Paris who had been stopped and questioned by the Nazis. “It saved his life,” Morady said. “The affidavit said these people are not Jewish; they are Jugutus.”
Eliane Senahi Cohanim, Morady’s niece, recalls as a seven-year-old girl relying on the passports Sardari issued to her father, George Senahi, a prosperous textile merchant, to successfully escape the country.
The family had once previously tried to leave occupied France and return to Iran but had been turned back. Frightened, they first hid in the countryside before turning to Sardari in Paris - now with a heavy Gestapo presence - who issued them new documentation.
"I remember everywhere, when we were running away, they would ask for our passports, and I remember my father would hand them over and they would look at them. And then they would look at us. It was very, very scary."
"At the borders, my father was always really trembling," recalls Mrs Cohanim, who now lives in California.
Another Iranian Jew, Haim Sasson was a beneficiary of Sardari’s kindness, with the diplomat offering to hide his antique collection in the basement of his home after Sasson fled. After the war, Sardari sent word to Sasson that he could return to retrieve his property.
After the war, Sardari had to return to Teheran where he faced disciplinary action for issuing unwarranted Iranian passports. It took him ten years to clear his name, whereupon he retired from diplomatic service and moved to London where he had family.
In 1979's Iranian Revolution forces loyal to Ayatollah Khameini overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty ushering in a new era of religious Islamic rule. Amid the fighting, Sardari learned of the execution of his nephew who had been a leading politician and that much of his own property in Iran had been ransacked and destroyed.
As rumors began surfacing of his war time actions, some of those he saved stepped forward to testify on Sardari's behalf, while Sardari refrained from speaking publicly. Following an enquiry from Yad Vashem in 1978 Sardari wrote back simply, "As you may know, I had the pleasure of being the Iranian Consul in Paris during the German occupation of France, and as such it was my duty to save all Iranians, including Iranian Jews." He died three years later in 1981.
In 2004, the Wiesenthal Center posthumously honored Sardari with an award presented to his nephew, Fereydoun Hoveyda, a previous Iranian ambassador to the UN during the 1970s. The ceremony was attended by the late Ibrahim Morady, who finally had a chance to express his thanks to the courageous diplomat who saved his life.

source : Adam Ross

Let’s talk about Yishuv Kehilati יישוב קהילתי which is a type of town or village in Israel and in Judea & Sameria (West Bank.) they are referred to by western media as ‘settlements’ which is actually an incorrect translation of the words. For the sake of this article I will use the western terminology so as not to confuse. However , be on notice that it is not the correct term.
I have addressed the term 'West Bank’ in the thread :

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MYTH

Israeli 'settlements' are illegal.

FACT

On November 18, 2019, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo expressed the Trump administration’s position that “the establishment of Israeli civilian 'settlements' in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.”1 The media inaccurately described this as a reversal of longstanding American policy. In truth, the record is more complicated.

Jews have lived in Judea and Samaria—the West Bank—since ancient times. They were prohibited from living in the territories only during Jordan’s occupation from 1948 to 1967. Jews began to settle in the area again after it was captured by Israeli forces in the defensive war fought in 1967.

The idea that these Jewish communities are illegal derives primarily from UN resolutions and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), an arm of the UN. The UN does not make legal determinations, only political ones tainted by the overwhelming anti-Israel majority. The ICJ “does not have jurisdiction over all disputes between UN member-states,” according to the Congressional Research Service. In fact, “with the exception of ‘advisory opinions,’ which are non-binding, the ICJ may only resolve legal disputes between nations that voluntarily agreed to its jurisdiction.”

Opinions of the ICJ are routinely ignored by the countries they are directed at, and the Europeans would never accept the idea that they trump the decisions of their judiciaries. Likewise, the United States, Russia, and China never signed the treaty establishing the court and do not accept its jurisdiction.

Israel does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction on the settlement issue. Like other democracies, Israel has an independent judiciary. As Pompeo noted, its Supreme Court has “confirmed the legality of certain settlement activities and has concluded that others cannot be legally sustained.”

Legal scholars dispute the ICJ opinion that the settlements violate international law. Stephen Schwebel, formerly president of the ICJ, notes that a country acting in self-defense may seize and occupy territory when necessary to protect itself. Schwebel also observes that a state may require security measures to ensure its citizens are not menaced again from that territory as a condition for its withdrawal.

Furthermore, UN Security Council Resolution 242 gives Israel the legal right to be in the West Bank. According to Eugene Rostow, a former undersecretary of state for political affairs in the Johnson administration, “Israel is entitled to administer the territories” it acquired in 1967 until “a just and lasting peace in the Middle East” is achieved.

The United States has not regarded Israeli settlements as illegal. The oft-cited exception is the opinion of State Department legal adviser Herbert Hansell in the Carter administration. He argued that establishing settlements in the “occupied territories,” which included the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights, is “inconsistent with international law.” This conformed to the views of President Carter at the time, who was critical of the Israeli settlement policy. Legal scholar Eugene Kontorovich noted, however, that Hansell said the state of occupation would end if Israel entered into a peace treaty with Jordan, which it did in 1994. Nevertheless, the State Department never updated the memo.

Ronald Reagan rejected Hansell’s opinion of settlements. On February 3, 1981, he said, “I disagreed when the previous Administration referred to them as illegal; they’re not illegal.”

Secretary of State James Baker was asked if the Bush administration regarded the settlements as illegal, and his answer was, “this is not our policy.”

The Obama policy has also been mischaracterized. Secretary of State John Kerry and President Barack Obama were very critical of Israel’s settlement policy, but Kerry did not call them “illegal”; he said they were “illegitimate.” His only statement regarding their “illegality” was when he mentioned “settler outposts that are illegal under Israel’s own laws.” Obama abstained rather than veto the UN Security Council resolution labeling settlements illegal, which was generally interpreted as an endorsement of that view; however, it did not affect U.S. policy since he left office shortly thereafter.

In response to criticism that the Trump administration’s decision on the legality of settlements would harm the peace process, which at the time was moribund, Pompeo said the Carter formulation “hasn’t advanced the cause of peace.”

By making explicit that the settlements are not illegal, the United States sent a message to the Palestinians and their supporters that their misinterpretation of international law cannot be used to coerce Israel to capitulate to their demands. A change in Israel’s settlement policy will only come if that is the will of the Israeli people and advances the peace process.

MYTH*

'Settlements’ are an obstacle to peace.

FACT

Settlements have never been an obstacle to peace.

From 1949 to 1967, when Jews were forbidden to live on the West Bank, Arab leaders refused to make peace with Israel.
From 1967 to 1977, the Labor Party established only a few strategic settlements, yet Arab leaders were unwilling to agree to peace with Israel.
The fact that a Likud government committed to greater settlement activity took power in 1977 did not stop Egypt from signing a peace treaty with Israel or Prime Minister Menachem Begin from removing the Jewish settlements in the Sinai.
Israel froze settlement building for three months in 1978, hoping the gesture would entice other Arabs to join the Camp David peace process, but none did.
In 1994, Jordan signed a peace agreement with Israel, and settlements were not an issue.
Between June 1992 and June 1996, under Labor Party–led governments, the Jewish population in the territories grew by approximately 50%. This rapid growth did not prevent the Palestinians from signing the Oslo accords in September 1993 or the Oslo II agreement in September 1995. Those agreements left the question of settlements for final status negotiations and did not put any restrictions on them in the interim.
In 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to dismantle dozens of settlements, but the Palestinians still would not agree to end the conflict.
In 2005, Israel evacuated all Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in Northern Samaria, but terror attacks continued.
In 2008, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered to withdraw from approximately 94% of the West Bank, but the deal was rejected.
In 2010, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu froze settlement construction for ten months, and the Palestinians refused to negotiate until the period was nearly over. After agreeing to talk, they walked out when Netanyahu ended the freeze and had still not returned to negotiations by August 2022.
The settlements do not displace Arabs living in the territories. The media sometimes gives the impression that several hundred Palestinians are forced to leave for every Jew who moves to the West Bank. The truth is that most settlements have been built in uninhabited areas, and even the handful established in or near Arab towns did not force any Palestinians to leave.

Contrary to Palestinian-inspired hysteria about settlement expansion, only five settlements were built in the 2017, work began on the first new settlement in 20 years.

Settlement activity may stimulate peace because it forces the Palestinians to reconsider the view that time is on their side. “The Palestinians now realize,” said Bethlehem Mayor Elias Freij, “that time is now on the side of Israel, which can build settlements and create facts, and that the only way out of this dilemma is face-to-face negotiations.”

Many Israelis question the wisdom of expanding settlements. Some consider them provocative; others worry that the settlers are particularly vulnerable and note they have been targets of repeated terrorist attacks. To defend them, many soldiers are deployed who would otherwise be training and preparing for a potential future war. Some Israelis also object to the money that goes to these communities and special subsidies provided to make housing more affordable. Still, others feel the settlers are providing the first line of defense and developing land that rightfully belongs to Israel.

The disposition of settlements is a matter for negotiations. The question of where the final border will be between Israel and a Palestinian entity will likely be influenced by the distribution of these Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria (the border with Gaza was unofficially defined following Israel’s withdrawal). Israel wants to incorporate as many Jews as possible within its borders, while the Palestinians want to expel all Jews from any territory they control.

Ezoic
If Israel withdraws unilaterally or as part of a political settlement, many settlers will face expulsion from their homes or voluntary resettlement in Israel with financial compensation.

The impediment to peace is not the existence of Jewish communities in the disputed territories but the Palestinians’ unwillingness to coexist with Israel instead of replacing it.

In the meantime, despite their complaints, thousands of Palestinians work in settlements.

Settlement Growth Over Time

MYTH

‘Settlements’ violate the Geneva Convention.

FACT

The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the forcible transfer of people of one state to the territory of another state that it has occupied due to war. The Convention was never meant to apply to a case like the settlements. Morris Abram, one of its drafters, said they were concerned with the types of crimes committed by the Nazis, such as the forcible eviction of Jews for purposes of mass extermination.

This is in no way relevant to the settlement issue. Jews are not being forced to go to the West Bank; on the contrary, they are voluntarily moving back to places where they, or their ancestors, once lived before being expelled by others.

The International Court of Justice’s opinion about the illegality of settlements was based on a fallacious interpretation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The ICJ presupposes that Israel is now occupying the land of a sovereign country; however, as former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dore Gold notes, “there was no recognized sovereign over the West Bank prior to Israel’s entry into the area.” Jordan had previously occupied the area.

A country cannot occupy territory to which it has sovereign title; hence, the correct term for the area is “disputed territory,” which does not confer greater rights to Israel or the Palestinians. The Palestinians never had sovereignty in the West Bank, whereas the Jews did for hundreds of years.

“The Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the local population to live there,” according to Professor Eugene Rostow, former undersecretary of state for political affairs.

Legal scholar Eugene Kontorovich argues that “Israel has the strongest claim to the land” because “international law holds that a new country inherits the borders of the prior geopolitical unit in that territory. Israel was preceded by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, whose borders included the West Bank.”

Adam Baker, a former legal adviser to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adds that the “Oslo Accords instituted an agreed legal regime that overrides any other legal framework, including the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention.”

The effort to apply the Convention to Israel reflects a clear double standard. Kontorovich notes that “the significant migration of settlers into an occupied territory under the auspices of the occupying power is a ubiquitous feature of prolonged territorial control.” He adds that no one has ever been prosecuted for violating the Convention and, except for a few sentences in an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, “its interpretation has been confined to academic and political statements – entirely within the particular context of Israel.”

MYTH

Israel must dismantle all the ‘settlements’ for peace.

FACT

When serious negotiations begin over the final status of the West Bank, battle lines will be drawn over which settlements should be incorporated into Israel and which must be evacuated. In August 2005, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon acknowledged that “not all the settlements of today in Judea and Samaria will remain,”while leaked Palestinian negotiating documents indicate the Palestinians were prepared to accept that some settlements would be incorporated into Israel.

In Gaza, Israel intended to withdraw completely; no settlements were viewed as vital to Israel for economic, security, or demographic reasons. The situation in the West Bank is completely different because Jews have strong historical and religious connections to the area stretching back centuries. Moreover, the West Bank is an area with strategic significance because of its proximity to Israel’s heartland, and roughly one-quarter of Israel’s water resources are located there.

The disengagement from Gaza involved only 21 settlements and approximately 8,500 Jews. Today, nearly 500,000 Jews live in 128 communities on the West Bank. More than 40% of these settlements have fewer than 1,000 citizens, 23% have fewer than 500, and only 13% have more than 5,000. Approximately 71% of the Jews in the West Bank live in five settlement “blocs,” four of which are near the 1949 Armistice Line – the “Green Line” (it is incorrect to refer to a 1967 border). Another 330,000 live across Green Line in East Jerusalem.

these are large communities with thousands of residents. Evacuating them would be the equivalent of dismantling major American cities such as Annapolis, Maryland; Olympia, Washington; or Carson City, Nevada.

Ma’ale Adumim is not a recently constructed outpost on a hilltop; it is a 46-year-old suburb of Israel’s capital, barely three miles (five km.) outside Jerusalem’s city limits, that is popular because it is clean, safe, and close to where many residents work. It is also the third-largest Jewish city in the territories, with a population of more than 40,000. Approximately 10,000 people live in surrounding settlements included in the Ma’ale bloc.

The Gush Etzion Bloc consists of 13 communities with a population of roughly 40,000, just ten minutes from Jerusalem. Jews lived in this area before 1948, but the Jordanian Legion destroyed the settlements and killed 240 women and children during the 1948 War. After Israel recaptured the area in 1967, descendants of those early settlers reestablished the community. The city of Betar Illit, with nearly 70,000 residents, is part of this bloc.

The Givat Ze’ev bloc includes five communities just northwest of Jerusalem. Givat Ze’ev, with a population of more than 20,000, is the largest.

Modiin Illit is a bloc with four communities. The city of Modiin Illit is the largest in all the disputed territories, with more than 83,000 people situated just over the Green Line, about 23 miles (37 km.) northwest of Jerusalem and the same distance east of Tel Aviv.

Ariel, with a population of more than 20,000, is now the heart of the second most populous bloc of settlements. The city is just 25 miles (40 km.) east of Tel Aviv and 31 miles (50 km.) north of Jerusalem. Ariel and the surrounding communities expanded Israel’s narrow waist, which was just 9 miles (15 km.) wide before 1967, and ensures that Israel has a land route to the Jordan Valley in case Israel needs to fight a land war to the east. It is more controversial than the other consensus settlements because it is the furthest from the Green Line, extending approximately 12 miles (19 km.) into the West Bank. Nevertheless, Ariel is expected to be annexed to Israel if a peace agreement is reached.

Most peace plans envision Israel annexing sufficient territory – 4 to 6% – to incorporate 75–80% of the Jews in the West Bank. In exchange, the Palestinian entity would get the same amount of land from Israeli territory (possibly in the Negev adjacent to the Gaza Strip). Based on the figures in the table above, only 71% of the settlers would be within Israel’s borders if these five blocs were annexed. Roughly one-third of the remaining Jews are expected to move into Israeli territory, bringing the total to 80%. Israel would still have to evacuate approximately 100,000 people.

This would involve another gut-wrenching decision that many settlers and their supporters will oppose with even greater ferocity than the Gaza disengagement. It is hard to imagine any Israeli government agreeing to such a mass transfer of its citizens.
MYTH

Israel plans to annex all the settlements.

FACT

Israel could have annexed the entire West Bank or the settlements at any time since 1967 but has not done so. It is still a possibility, but those are just two options that have been discussed for the disposition of the West Bank. Others include:

Israel unilaterally delineates its border and determines which settlements it will annex.
Israel establishes its border along the route of its security fence, incorporating the settlers on its side within Israel and forcing those on the other side to move inside the border.
Israel annexes the settlement blocs.

Israel annexes the settlements in the Jordan Valley.
Israel annexes the settlements in the Jordan Valley and the blocs.

Israel negotiates a peace treaty with the Palestinians that specifies which Jewish communities will remain intact within the mutually agreed border of Israel and which, if any, will be evacuated.
In 2020, the Netanyahu government considered applying Israeli sovereignty to some or all the settlements but decided not to as a condition for the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.

MYTH

Settlements preclude the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state.

FACT

As the map attached indicates, it is possible to create a contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank even if Israel incorporates the major settlement blocs. The total area of these communities is less than 2% of the West Bank. A kidney-shaped state linked to the Gaza Strip by a secure passage would be contiguous. Some argue that the E1 project linking Ma’ale Adumim to Jerusalem would cut off East Jerusalem, but that is not necessarily true, as Israel has proposed constructing a four-lane underpass to guarantee free passage between the West Bank and the Arab sections of Jerusalem.

The map also illustrates that Israel would have its contiguity interrupted by the passageway between Gaza and the West Bank.

MYTH

There are no Palestinian settlements.

FACT

Whenever Israel announces plans to build in the West Bank, an international furor erupts with false claims about their illegality. Meanwhile, the world was silent when the Palestinian Authority announced plans to violate the Oslo Accords unilaterally by canceling the West Bank’s division into Area A, B, and C and treating the entire area as sovereign Palestinian territory. Even before that announcement, the Palestinians built settlements in Area C, where Israel must approve any construction.

Illegal settlements and infrastructure have spread across 250 Area C locations occupying more than 2,000 acres. The PA has offered incentives, such as tax exemptions, discounts for vehicle registration, and jobs for those who settle in Area C.
While Israel is pilloried anytime it suggests moving Bedouins from their encampments to another location or permanent housing, nothing is said about the PA’s efforts to do the same.

European countries, which routinely criticize Israeli settlements, provide funding for constructing the illegal Palestinian settlements. “European countries – individually, and through the European Union – have pumped hundreds of millions of euros annually into scores of illegal state-building and related projects – called Area C ‘interventions,’” according to investigative journalist Edwin Black.

People who would ordinarily be concerned about water and other environmental issues have ignored the Palestinian building projects, which Black notes “are not natural Arab urban growth or urban sprawl.” He says they are meant to “carve up Area C, sometimes surround Jewish villages, and sometimes push onto Israeli nature or military reserves.”

Palestinians have complained about the slow process of obtaining building permits from the Civil Administration and the high rejection rate. Black related that the number of applications has dropped because the Palestinians “deny Israel’s right to issue them” and “just start building.”

The courts hamstring Israel’s efforts to stop the illegal construction. Despite lacking citizenship, Palestinians can petition Israeli courts, including the Supreme Court, and do so with the help of well-funded NGOs. A military spokesman told Black, “It can take years to decide …. Meanwhile, they are still building. We can’t do anything about it.” If the court ultimately rules in Israel’s favor, the government is denounced by critics for demolishing the illegal structures.

Another troubling aspect of the Europeans’ funding is their reluctance to look carefully at the organizations they are funding to build up Area C, which includes supporters of the anti-Semitic BDS movement with connections to terror organizations. Black reports, for example, that European governments have funded the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, which is linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Consider the impact on the peace process of the European-backed activities by the PA. By building settlements, the Palestinians are trying to prevent Israel from creating a contiguous area for its future borders, precisely what Israel’s critics accuse it of doing. The Palestinians often complain that a future state would look like Swiss cheese because of the geographic distribution of Jewish communities, but they are creating the holes themselves by establishing isolated settlements separated from the main population centers and nearer Jewish towns. Moreover, by claiming sovereignty in Area C, the Palestinians have violated the Oslo Accords, further undermining Israeli confidence that they can be trusted to honor the terms of any future agreement.

New towns established by the Palestinians in the West Bank should be referred to as “settlements” and condemned with the same ferocity as critics of Israeli construction for creating “facts on the ground.” The West Bank is disputed territory; the Palestinians have no sovereign rights there today, nor have they had any in the past which would justify their incursion into Israeli-controlled territory. Those who constantly bemoan the disappearing two-state solution and unilateral actions should be outraged by the Palestinian campaign of creeping annexation and brazen efforts to predetermine the border of any possible state by their illegal construction in areas that Israelis have an equal right to claim as their own.

MYTH

The E1 project threatens the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state.

FACT

Initially formulated by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin just months before his assassination, the EI plan is to populate the roughly 4.6 square mile (12 sq. km.) valley between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, which Palestinians agree will be part of Israel in any future agreement. This “settlement” of some 50,000 people is essentially a suburb just three miles (5 km.) outside the capital. The E1 project envisions the construction of three residential neighbourhoods and a commercial-industrial zone. Critics claim the E-1 project would cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank and doom a two-state solution.

In one case, Italy began to openly support the illegal Bedouin encampment of Khan al-Ahmar, including by moving the residents from tents to new structures and building a school for all the Bedouins in the vicinity. The site is located near E-1 to block Israel’s plans for the area. Israel’s Supreme Court approved the demolition of the illegal structures and the relocation of the Bedouins; however, international protests and the Israeli elections in 2019 delayed implementing the decision. Still undecided, the government asked for more time to formulate a position in March 2022 and still had not taken any action by August.

Source : Jewish Virtual Library.1990s.In From Israel’s perspective the project is critical for the long-term security of Jerusalem and necessary to prevent Ma’ale Adumim from becoming an isolated island surrounded by a Palestinian entity. To solve the issue of contiguity, Israel has proposed a bypass road to allow Palestinians to travel from north to south in the West Bank without security checkpoints.

The Israeli prime minister announces his intention to complete the plan every few years. Usually, within days, he backtracks under pressure from the United States. The project remains on the drawing board, and much of the infrastructure is already in place, but the project remains in limbo.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians have been furiously building without opposition from abroad to prevent E1 from being completed. The EU illegally finances hundreds of structures in the Adumim area, which is part of Area C, which the Oslo Accords put under the sole control of Israel.

The financial world is bracing for a significant upheaval following Saudi Arabia's decision not to renew its 50-year petro-dollar deal with the United States, which expired on Sunday, 9 June, 2024.
🧵 The lapsed security agreement, signed by the USA and Saudi Arabia on 8 June 1974 - establishes 2 joint commissions, one on economic co-operation & the other on Saudi Arabia's military needs, & was said to have heralded an era of close co-operation between the 2 countries.
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The organisations leading the pro-Hamas demonstrations in Britain since the outbreak of Operation Iron Swords :

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terrorism-info.org.il/en/the-organiz… Pro-Palestinian protesters are backed by a surprising source: Biden’s biggest donors
Some of the most outspoken groups against Biden and Israel get funding from foundations attached to some of the biggest names in Democratic circles.

politico.com/news/2024/05/0…

Dear University students , when a tyrant says you are on the right side of history , you must know that you are being played by a sinister & nefarious force .

A thread 🧵 Despite UN warnings, Iran’s execution of Kurds and political dissidents continues unchecked.
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When the war started , I felt immense sorrow. Not only for Israel but for the civilians in Gaza caught up in the conflict.
I tried very hard to remain focussed on my own moral compass & keep my empathy in check . As each day passed , I have seen a flood on social media & the streets of the most disgusting & hateful individuals.
With each foul thing they spew , the less empathy I can muster .

As the civil war enters its 2nd year, Sudan’s two factions remain locked in a deadly power struggle. Since the conflict began on April 15, 2023, almost 15000 people have been killed & more than 8.2 million have been displaced, the worst displacement crisis in the world.
⬇️ Nearly 2 million displaced Sudanese have fled to unstable areas in Chad, Ethiopia, and South Sudan, overrunning refugee camps and prompting concerns that Sudanese refugees could soon attempt to enter Europe.
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No matter how unlikely it may seem, radical Leftists and Islamists have come closer in recent years. Drawing on substantial ideological interchange, and operating at both gov and non-gov levels, the 2 movements are building a Common Front against the West .
⬇️ Radical Leftists and Islamists have utilised the master frame of anti-globalisation/anti-capitalism & the master frame of anti-colonialism/anti-imperialism to elicit support from the widest possible range of people. The emerging Red-Green alliance presents a complex challenge
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Regarding paragliders: Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff held the position of head of the European Union's mission to the West Bank and Gaza Strip until August and was the one who introduced Gazans to paragliders, which Hamas terrorists used to infiltrate Israeli territory during 10/7
⬇️ Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff paraglided off the coast of Gaza in the summer, telling Palestinians he was "showing them a way forward." On Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists used paragliders to infiltrate Israel.
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israelhayom.com/2023/10/15/for…

Calls for action grew louder in Iran on Wednesday, following an announcement that Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi has been sentenced to death for supporting anti-Islamic regime protests in Iran in 2022.
⬇️ Toomaj Salehi broke out of the underground rap scene in Iran with his 2021 single, Rat Hole, in which he attacked those Iranians – who choose to side with the regime or not to use their platforms to augment or relay the voice of struggling and dissenting Iranians.
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Throughout human history Jewish people have always been prominent in unique inventions that have contributed significantly to the human race. Here’s an introduction to the most prominent people of Jewish descent.
⬇️ ★ Abraham 'invented' the Jewish people

★Albert Einstein - The theory of relativity

★Andrey Citron - Citroen car

★Isaac Asimov - The Three Laws of Robotics

★Alexander Luria - neuropsychology
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On the morning of 7/10 my phone started to blow up with messages. I remember being very confused by what was being sent to me. I was desperately trying to find out what was happening at the #Nova festival site. I saw the bodies of my friends on X.
⬇️ I’m a humanist , I believed that everyone just wanted to raise their children & live in peace. The events of 7/10 shook me. It’s also woken me out of a slumber. The constant barrage of hate that started on 7/10 has been eye opening & dismantled my belief structure.
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𝗚𝗮𝘇𝗮 𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗴𝘂𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆 𝗽𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘁𝘆, 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗛𝗮𝗺𝗮𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗻𝗼 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗵. 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺?
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Hamas has an investment portfolio of worth $500 million & an annual military budget of as much as $350 million.
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⬇️ The unemployment rate in Gaza is 47% & 80% of its population lives in poverty, according to the U.N. Hamas, however, has funded an armed force of thousands with rockets & drones & built a vast web of tunnels under Gaza. Estimates of its annual military budget is $350 million.
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"Jews, Christians and Arabs lived in peace together before Zionism" is a bald faced lie.

A 🧵
622AD - 1967
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When Sheikh Abdul Palazzi, professor at Research Institute for Anthropological Studies in Rome, was a guest lecturer at Yale University during the spring of 2003, he told of his conversation with a representative of the Waqf : the Palestinian religious committee overseeing the maintenance of the Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount, during his visit to Israel in 2000:
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History is beautiful, it’s set in stone . The Jewish people have ancient ties to the land of Israel that stretch back thousands of years . The ancient city of Gamla is located in the Golan Heights. Parts of the city, including the synagogue, are likely from the 1st Century B.C
⬇️ The 1,600-year-old synagogue in the Bar'am National Park, near Israel's border with Lebanon, is one of the oldest, best-preserved ancient buildings in the country. The lintel stones are decorated with branches, vines and inscriptions in Aramaic.
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Nakba 🧵 2
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Nakba

A 🧵

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Before 7/10 I had no particular issue with Muslims . They were my neighbours , part of my community & one of my jobs involved helping refugees & asylum seekers from Afghanistan. I also worked on a team helping Afghans who were stuck in Afghanistan .
⬇️ Over the last 4 months my feelings have changed. The silence from the Muslim community is palpable . The absolutely vile antisemitism unleashed by a huge swathe of this group is beyond disgusting.
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The Jewish exodus from the Muslim world, in which the combined population of the Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa (excluding Israel) was reduced from about 900,000 in 1948 to under 8,000 today, and approximately 600,000 of them became citizens of Israel.
⬇️ Did you know the biggest Jewish community in the Middle East was in Baghdad.
Baghdad 'pauperized' its Jews and forced them to leave for the Jewish state in 1951-1952

After Adolf Hitler’s defeat in May 1945, many Nazis melted away from the Reich.
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