History of Memorial Day

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women's groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, "Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping" by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication "To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead" (Source: Duke University's Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it's difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860's tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.
Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 - 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis' birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.
In 1915, inspired by the poem "In Flanders Fields," Moina Michael replied with her own poem:

We cherish too, the Poppy red That grows on fields where valor led, It seems to signal to the skies That blood of heroes never dies.

She then conceived of an idea to wear red poppies on Memorial day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need. Later a Madam Guerin from France was visiting the United States and learned of this new custom started by Ms.Michael and when she returned to France, made artificial red poppies to raise money for war orphaned children and widowed women. This tradition spread to other countries. In 1921, the Franco-American Children's League sold poppies nationally to benefit war orphans of France and Belgium. The League disbanded a year later and Madam Guerin approached the VFW for help. Shortly before Memorial Day in 1922 the VFW became the first veterans' organization to nationally sell poppies. Two years later their "Buddy" Poppy program was selling artificial poppies made by disabled veterans. In 1948 the US Post Office honored Ms Michael for her role in founding the National Poppy movement by issuing a red 3 cent postage stamp with her likeness on it.
Traditional observance of Memorial day has diminished over the years. Many Americans nowadays have forgotten the meaning and traditions of Memorial Day. At many cemeteries, the graves of the fallen are increasingly ignored, neglected. Most people no longer remember the proper flag etiquette for the day. While there are towns and cities that still hold Memorial Day parades, many have not held a parade in decades. Some people think the day is for honoring any and all dead, and not just those fallen in service to our country.
There are a few notable exceptions. Since the late 50's on the Thursday before Memorial Day, the 1,200 soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery. They then patrol 24 hours a day during the weekend to ensure that each flag remains standing. In 1951, the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of St. Louis began placing flags on the 150,000 graves at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery as an annual Good Turn, a practice that continues to this day. More recently, beginning in 1998, on the Saturday before the observed day for Memorial Day, the Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts place a candle at each of approximately 15,300 grave sites of soldiers buried at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park on Marye's Heights (the Luminaria Program). And in 2004, Washington D.C. held its first Memorial Day parade in over 60 years.
To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the "National Moment of Remembrance" resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans "To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to 'Taps."
The Moment of Remembrance is a step in the right direction to returning the meaning back to the day. What is needed is a full return to the original day of observance. Set aside one day out of the year for the nation to get together to remember, reflect and honor those who have given their all in service to their country.
But what may be needed to return the solemn, and even sacred, spirit back to Memorial Day is for a return to its traditional day of observance. Many feel that when Congress made the day into a three-day weekend in with the National Holiday Act of 1971, it made it all the easier for people to be distracted from the spirit and meaning of the day. As the VFW stated in its 2002 Memorial Day address: "Changing the date merely to create three-day weekends has undermined the very meaning of the day. No doubt, this has contributed greatly to the general public's nonchalant observance of Memorial Day."
On January 19, 1999 Senator Inouye introduced bill S 189 to the Senate which proposes to restore the traditional day of observance of Memorial Day back to May 30th instead of "the last Monday in May". On April 19, 1999 Representative Gibbons introduced the bill to the House (H.R. 1474). The bills were referred the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Government Reform.





http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html

THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

In 1947, in the case Everson v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court declared, "The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach." The "separation of church and state" phrase which they invoked, and which has today become so familiar, was taken from an exchange of letters between President Thomas Jefferson and the Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut, shortly after Jefferson became President.

The election of Jefferson – America's first Anti-Federalist President – elated many Baptists since that denomination, by-and-large, was also strongly Anti-Federalist. This political disposition of the Baptists was understandable, for from the early settlement of Rhode Island in the 1630s to the time of the federal Constitution in the 1780s, the Baptists had often found themselves suffering from the centralization of power.

Consequently, now having a President who not only had championed the rights of Baptists in Virginia but who also had advocated clear limits on the centralization of government powers, the Danbury Baptists wrote Jefferson a letter of praise on October 7, 1801, telling him:

Among the many millions in America and Europe who rejoice in your election to office, we embrace the first opportunity . . . to express our great satisfaction in your appointment to the Chief Magistracy in the United States. . . . [W]e have reason to believe that America's God has raised you up to fill the Chair of State out of that goodwill which He bears to the millions which you preside over. May God strengthen you for the arduous task which providence and the voice of the people have called you. . . . And may the Lord preserve you safe from every evil and bring you at last to his Heavenly Kingdom through Jesus Christ our Glorious Mediator. ^[1]

However, in that same letter of congratulations, the Baptists also expressed to Jefferson their grave concern over the entire concept of the First Amendment, including of its guarantee for "the free exercise of religion":

Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty: that religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals, that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions, [and] that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. But sir, our constitution of government is not specific. . . . [T]herefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights. ^[2]

In short, the inclusion of protection for the "free exercise of religion" in the constitution suggested to the Danbury Baptists that the right of religious expression was government-given (thus alienable) rather than God-given (hence inalienable), and that therefore the government might someday attempt to regulate religious expression. This was a possibility to which they strenuously objected-unless, as they had explained, someone's religious practice caused him to "work ill to his neighbor."

Jefferson understood their concern; it was also his own. In fact, he made numerous declarations about the constitutional inability of the federal government to regulate, restrict, or interfere with religious expression. For example:

[N]o power over the freedom of religion . . . [is] delegated to the United States by the Constitution. Kentucky Resolution, 1798 ^[3]

In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general [federal] government. Second Inaugural Address, 1805 ^[4]

[O]ur excellent Constitution . . . has not placed our religious rights under the power of any public functionary. Letter to the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1808 ^[5]

I consider the government of the United States as interdicted [prohibited] by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions . . . or exercises. Letter to Samuel Millar, 1808 ^[6]

Jefferson believed that the government was to be powerless to interfere with religious expressions for a very simple reason: he had long witnessed the unhealthy tendency of government to encroach upon the free exercise of religion. As he explained to Noah Webster:

It had become an universal and almost uncontroverted position in the several States that the purposes of society do not require a surrender of all our rights to our ordinary governors . . . and which experience has nevertheless proved they [the government] will be constantly encroaching on if submitted to them; that there are also certain fences which experience has proved peculiarly efficacious [effective] against wrong and rarely obstructive of right, which yet the governing powers have ever shown a disposition to weaken and remove. Of the first kind, for instance, is freedom of religion. ^[7]

Thomas Jefferson had no intention of allowing the government to limit, restrict, regulate, or interfere with public religious practices. He believed, along with the other Founders, that the First Amendment had been enacted only to prevent the federal establishment of a national denomination – a fact he made clear in a letter to fellow-signer of the Declaration of Independence Benjamin Rush:

[T]he clause of the Constitution which, while it secured the freedom of the press, covered also the freedom of religion, had given to the clergy a very favorite hope of obtaining an establishment of a particular form of Christianity through the United States; and as every sect believes its own form the true one, every one perhaps hoped for his own, but especially the Episcopalians and Congregationalists. The returning good sense of our country threatens abortion to their hopes and they believe that any portion of power confided to me will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly. ^[8]

Jefferson had committed himself as President to pursuing the purpose of the First Amendment: preventing the "establishment of a particular form of Christianity" by the Episcopalians, Congregationalists, or any other denomination.

Since this was Jefferson's view concerning religious expression, in his short and polite reply to the Danbury Baptists on January 1, 1802, he assured them that they need not fear; that the free exercise of religion would never be interfered with by the federal government. As he explained:

Gentlemen, – The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me on behalf of the Danbury Baptist Association give me the highest satisfaction. . . . Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God; that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship; that the legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and Creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association assurances of my high respect and esteem. ^[9]

Jefferson's reference to "natural rights" invoked an important legal phrase which was part of the rhetoric of that day and which reaffirmed his belief that religious liberties were inalienable rights. While the phrase "natural rights" communicated much to people then, to most citizens today those words mean little.

By definition, "natural rights" included "that which the Books of the Law and the Gospel do contain." ^[10] That is, "natural rights" incorporated what God Himself had guaranteed to man in the Scriptures. Thus, when Jefferson assured the Baptists that by following their "natural rights" they would violate no social duty, he was affirming to them that the free exercise of religion was their inalienable God-given right and therefore was protected from federal regulation or interference.

So clearly did Jefferson understand the Source of America's inalienable rights that he even doubted whether America could survive if we ever lost that knowledge. He queried:

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have lost the only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? ^[11]

Jefferson believed that God, not government, was the Author and Source of our rights and that the government, therefore, was to be prevented from interference with those rights. Very simply, the "fence" of the Webster letter and the "wall" of the Danbury letter were not to limit religious activities in public; rather they were to limit the power of the government to prohibit or interfere with those expressions.

Earlier courts long understood Jefferson's intent. In fact, when Jefferson's letter was invoked by the Supreme Court (only twice prior to the 1947 Everson case – the Reynolds v. United States case in 1878), unlike today's Courts which publish only his eight-word separation phrase, that earlier Court published Jefferson's entire letter and then concluded:

Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it [Jefferson's letter] may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the Amendment thus secured. Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere [religious] opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order. (emphasis added) ^[12]

That Court then succinctly summarized Jefferson's intent for "separation of church and state":

[T]he rightful purposes of civil government are for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order. In th[is] . . . is found the true distinction between what properly belongs to the church and what to the State. ^[13]

With this even the Baptists had agreed; for while wanting to see the government prohibited from interfering with or limiting religious activities, they also had declared it a legitimate function of government "to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor."

That Court, therefore, and others (for example, Commonwealth v. Nesbit and Lindenmuller v. The People), identified actions into which – if perpetrated in the name of religion – the government did have legitimate reason to intrude. Those activities included human sacrifice, polygamy, bigamy, concubinage, incest, infanticide, parricide, advocation and promotion of immorality, etc.

Such acts, even if perpetrated in the name of religion, would be stopped by the government since, as the Court had explained, they were "subversive of good order" and were "overt acts against peace." However, the government was never to interfere with traditional religious practices outlined in "the Books of the Law and the Gospel" – whether public prayer, the use of the Scriptures, public acknowledgements of God, etc.

Therefore, if Jefferson's letter is to be used today, let its context be clearly given – as in previous years. Furthermore, earlier Courts had always viewed Jefferson's Danbury letter for just what it was: a personal, private letter to a specific group. There is probably no other instance in America's history where words spoken by a single individual in a private letter – words clearly divorced from their context – have become the sole authorization for a national policy. Finally, Jefferson's Danbury letter should never be invoked as a stand-alone document. A proper analysis of Jefferson's views must include his numerous other statements on the First Amendment.

For example, in addition to his other statements previously noted, Jefferson also declared that the "power to prescribe any religious exercise. . . . must rest with the States" (emphasis added). Nevertheless, the federal courts ignore this succinct declaration and choose rather to misuse his separation phrase to strike down scores of State laws which encourage or facilitate public religious expressions. Such rulings against State laws are a direct violation of the words and intent of the very one from whom the courts claim to derive their policy.

One further note should be made about the now infamous "separation" dogma. The Congressional Records from June 7 to September 25, 1789, record the months of discussions and debates of the ninety Founding Fathers who framed the First Amendment. Significantly, not only was Thomas Jefferson not one of those ninety who framed the First Amendment, but also, during those debates not one of those ninety Framers ever mentioned the phrase "separation of church and state." It seems logical that if this had been the intent for the First Amendment – as is so frequently asserted-then at least one of those ninety who framed the Amendment would have mentioned that phrase; none did.

In summary, the "separation" phrase so frequently invoked today was rarely mentioned by any of the Founders; and even Jefferson's explanation of his phrase is diametrically opposed to the manner in which courts apply it today. "Separation of church and state" currently means almost exactly the opposite of what it originally meant.

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Endnotes
1. Letter of October 7, 1801, from Danbury (CT) Baptist Association to Thomas Jefferson, from the Thomas Jefferson Papers Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. (Return)

2. Id. (Return)

3. The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, John P. Foley, editor (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1900), p. 977; see also Documents of American History, Henry S. Cummager, editor (NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1948), p. 179. (Return)

4. Annals of the Congress of the United States (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1852, Eighth Congress, Second Session, p. 78, March 4, 1805; see also James D. Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897 (Published by Authority of Congress, 1899), Vol. I, p. 379, March 4, 1805. (Return)

5. Thomas Jefferson, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Ellery Bergh, editor (Washington D. C.: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), Vol. I, p. 379, March 4, 1805. (Return)

6. Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, editor (Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1830), Vol. IV, pp. 103-104, to the Rev. Samuel Millar on January 23, 1808. (Return)

7. Jefferson, Writings, Vol. VIII, p. 112-113, to Noah Webster on December 4, 1790. (Return)

8. Jefferson, Writings, Vol. III, p. 441, to Benjamin Rush on September 23, 1800. (Return)

9. Jefferson, Writings, Vol. XVI, pp. 281-282, to the Danbury Baptist Association on January 1, 1802. (Return)

10. Richard Hooker, The Works of Richard Hooker (Oxford: University Press, 1845), Vol. I, p. 207. (Return)

11. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (Philadelphia: Matthew Carey, 1794), Query XVIII, p. 237. (Return)

12. Reynolds v. U. S., 98 U. S. 145, 164 (1878). (Return)

13. Reynolds at 163. (Return)



http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=123

MUSLIM SLAVERY IN SUDAN: A MODERN GENOCIDE

It was the kind of excitement that made children uneasy. Grownups were pointing toward the river. Others were arriving at a run. The bustling atmosphere in the market place of the peaceful African town of Nyamlell in the Dinka tribal area in the southern Sudan was changing. Worried adults could see what a seven-year-old Dinka boy, Francis Bok, who had gone to the market that fateful day with older village children to sell his mother’s eggs and peanuts, could not: “a storm of smoke” rising from a nearby village. Sellers frantically began to gather up their wares and hurry away with the buyers. The adults understood. They recognized the approaching signs of the dreaded scourge that most people believed had disappeared from the pages of African history long ago: a slave raid.
 

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Stephen Brown is a contributing editor at Frontpagemag.com. He has a graduate degree in Russian and Eastern European history. Email him at alsolzh@hotmail.com.

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http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=28698

It was 1986 and Bok was about to see his happy world of family and village shattered forever by a centuries-old, barbaric practice that has never died out: the violent capture and enslavement of black Africans by Arabs.


“The Arab militias were told to kill the men and enslave the women and children,” said the now 28-year-old Bok, who was himself captured and enslaved that day, to an audience of 80 people at the University of Toronto recently where he had been invited to speak by the campus organization, Zionists at U. of T.

Bok, who would spend the next ten years working as a child slave, then outlined for his college listeners in horrifying detail the savage hurricane of violence he next witnessed when the Arab slavers attacked.

“I saw many people on the ground, shot…I saw people with their heads cut off with swords and shot in the head. People were lying on the ground like they just wanted to relax for a moment. I saw blood pouring like a small stream,” the 28-year-old Bok recounted in a voice that still quivers with emotion.


Unknown to him at that time, Bok was also an innocent victim of the decades-long, savage civil war between Sudan’s Arab Muslim North and the country’s African Christian and animist South. Based in the capital, Khartoum, the North’s Islamist government, which also hosted Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, had promulgated sharia law in 1983 for the whole country in its quest to Arabize and Islamicize the non-Muslim South. Also as part of this goal, the Khartoum government armed Muslim militias and sent them in the 1980s and 1990s to wage jihad against the infidel southerners. However, the spears and hippopotamus shields of the South’s Dinka and Nuer tribes, the war’s main victims, were no match for the Kalashnikov-armed Muslims, who went on to kill two million southern Sudanese, displace another four million and take tens of thousands of slaves in a silent genocide.


After the slave raid, Bok, a Christian, told the audience he was taken to the Muslim North to work for one of the Arab raiders’ families as a child slave for the next decade. During the pitiless trip north, the little Dinka boy witnessed the depth of racism, cruelty and religious hatred of his captors and their world towards black Africans when an Arab slaver cut off the leg of a Dinka girl who would not stop crying because she had seen her parents butchered in the market place. Upon his arrival at his master’s home, Bok was to experience himself this racial viciousness when he was immediately surrounded and beaten by the masters’ children who called him “abeed” (slave), an Arabic word also used for black Africans in general.


And a slave Bok was in every sense of the word as he worked for his master without a day off and without payment for the next ten years, often laboring from four in the morning until after the family had gone to bed that night.


“I was supposed to look after the goats; there were about two hundred goats,” Bok told listeners of his first days as a seven-year-old slave. “My master knew all the goats. He would ask: ‘Where is this goat? Where is that goat?’ If I answered: ‘I don’t know. He would beat me…He had a favorite stick to beat me. When I had done something wrong, even when I had done nothing wrong, he beat me.”

Lonely and isolated, Bok said he was made to sleep in a shelter near the animals and was never allowed to talk to the Dinka slaves owned by other Arab families. The child slave even received a beating, Bok told the audience, when he asked his master one day why he calls him ‘abeed’ and why no one loves him. He was told never to ask that question again.



The treatment Bok received from his master’s wife, however, was even worse. She would, he related, not allow her ‘abeed’ to look her directly in the face and would spit in his, often calling on her children to spit on the Dinka boy too.


“That hurt,” said Bok. “I asked her why? She said: ‘You are my slave and this is my house.’ She would also grab a knife and say she would kill me like a chicken.”

For ten long years, Bok told his listeners, he would lie awake at night and wonder who was going to come and free him from this hopeless, helpless life of a slave where he was told he was just an animal. Even his forcible conversion to Islam, outwardly in Bok’s case, did not bring any improvement in treatment. Only his faith in God, the Dinka slave stated, and his desire to see his parents again kept him going.

“I hated the way they treated me and the way they treated the other slaves,” said Bok, recounting his humanity was never once recognized during all those years with the Arab family, his only value being the work he could do.


This was hideously emphasized by a nightmarish incident that convinced Bok to take matters into his own hands and escape. On a visit with his master to his master’s friend, Bok said he was instructed to talk in the Dinka language to another boy-slave, who had had his leg cut off.

“I asked him what happened,” Bok remembers. “He started crying and said he had refused to go to work for one day. He told his master he was sick and wasn’t going to work. His master told him he had to go to work. There was no excuse. The boy continued to argue with his master, so his master cut his leg off.”

At age 14, Bok told a silent audience he was caught escaping twice and badly beaten, and nearly killed the second time. Waiting until he was 17 to make another attempt, Bok successfully made it to Khartoum with the help of a kindly Muslim truck driver who took him home and bought him a bus ticket. From Khartoum, the young Dinka made it to Cairo where he was eventually allowed to come to America as a United Nations refugee in 1999. Today, the former African slave is a proud American citizen.


In 2000, sponsored by the American Anti-Slavery Group, Bok began speaking of his experiences to audiences across the United States, especially at schools and colleges, giving as his reason the fact he could not forget those Dinka slave boys he remembered seeing in the Sudan. In his anti-slavery advocacy, Bok became the first escaped slave to appear before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and has spoken to other politicians, including Colin Powell and George Bush, whom he and most Dinkas, he says, hold in high regard for his assistance to the southern Sudanese cause. The new African American, grateful to America for the second life it has granted him as well as for the opportunity to speak about his people, also wrote a highly engrossing book about his days as a boy slave, Escape From Slavery: The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity – and My Journey to Freedom in America, that should be required reading in every high school.


About the only setback for Bok in America occurred when he discovered his father had been killed and his mother and sisters went missing in the same Muslim militia raid that saw him enslaved. His brother, however, was still alive and a member of the southern Sudanese, anti-government army.

As for the Sudan today, Bok says the problem remains the same in that the government is still trying to impose sharia law on its non-Muslim citizens, whom, he says, will never accept it and the second-class status it confers on non-Muslims. Bok, who is not against independence for the African South Sudan, also says he did not believe in the 2005 peace treaty between the North and the South that ended the war.

“It was a big deal for the Sudanese; but I didn’t even smile,” he said. “I knew it wasn’t the real thing. I don’t see it as a real peace. Why is it a peace when there is still a war (Darfur) in the country? They (the government) shifted the war to another region.”



Bok says he plans to return next spring to the Sudan for the first time since his escape and would like to teach English to refugees in Darfur. Asked what he would say to his former master if he was standing in the same University of Toronto lecture room with him at that moment, the supposedly ‘half savage’ ex-slave said he would tell his former tormentor that he was “absolutely wrong” to do what he did and never to do it to another person.


“I don’t want to do anything bad to him or to his wife who hit me,” he said. “The only thing I could do is point a finger at him and say: ‘This is the man who took my childhood away from me.’ Other than that, I forgive him.”

THE PLAIN TRUTH ABOUT ISRAEL

In other times, Hearst Newspapers White House Correspondent Helen Thomas's demand that the Jews "get the hell out of Palestine," and go back to Poland, Germany and America would have been front page news in every newspaper in the US the day after the story broke.

In other times, had the dean of the White House Correspondents Association expressed such hatred for the Jews, the White House would have immediately removed her accreditation rather than wait three days to criticize her.

In other times, the White House Correspondents Association would have expelled her.
In other times, her employer -- Hearst Newspapers -- would have fired her.
But in our times, it took days for anyone other than Jews and conservatives to condemn Thomas's vile statements to Rabbi David Nesenoff. And she was not fired. She was allowed to retire.

Our times are times of Jew hatred. Our times are times when hatred breeds strategic madness. Our times are times when we need to recall basic truths about Israel and the Jewish people. Specifically, we must remember that the US is privileged to count Israel as an ally – whether Americans like Jews and our state or hate us.

This week, Anthony Cordesman from the respected Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies joined the bandwagon of Israel bashers. In an article titled, “Israel as a Strategic Liability?” Cordesman asserted that Israel “is a tertiary US strategic interest.” And given its alleged insignificance, Israel must “become far more careful about the extent to which it test[s] the limits of US patience and exploits the support of American Jews.” Cordesman argued that Israel is only an asset to the US when it is giving its land away to its neighbors. He calls for Israel to constrain its military actions and demands that it “not conduct a high-risk attack on Iran in the face of the clear US ‘red light’ from both the Bush and Obama administrations.” The fact that Cordesman’s article reflects an increasingly popular school of thought in the US is not testimony to its accuracy. Indeed, his arguments are completely wrong.
The plain truth is that Israel is the US’s greatest strategic asset in the Middle East.

Indeed, given the strategic importance of the Middle East to US national security, Israel is arguably its greatest strategic asset outside the US military.
Cordesman allows that “Israel is a democracy that shares virtually all of the same values as the United States.” But he fails to recognize the strategic implications of that statement. As a democracy, unlike every Arab state, the US does not need to worry a change in leadership in Jerusalem will cause it to abandon its alliance with the US. This of course is what happened in Iran, which until 1979 was the US’s most important ally in the Persian Gulf. As Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak ages, the US faces the prospect of a post-Mubarak Egypt led by the Muslim Brotherhood similarly abandoning its alliance with America.
The fact that the US and Israel share the same foundational values also guarantees that the alliance is stable. No government in Jerusalem will ever sway the Israeli people away from America as has happened in Turkey since the Islamist Erdogan government took office in 2002.

Finally, since as the Jewish state Israel is the regional bogeyman, no Arab state will agree to form an open alliance with it. Hence, it will never be in a position to join forces with another nation against a third nation.
In contrast, the Egyptian-Syrian United Arab Republic of the 1960s was formed to attack Israel. Today, the Syrian-Iranian-Turkish alliance is an inherently aggressive alliance against Israel and the non-radical Arab states. Recognizing the stabilizing force of a strong Israel, the moderate states of the region prefer Israel to remain strong.

From the US perspective, far from impairing its alliance-making capabilities in the region, by providing military assistance to Israel, America isn’t just strengthening its most stabilizing force, it is showing all states and non-state actors in the greater Middle East that it is trustworthy.
But every time the US seeks to attenuate its ties with Israel, it is viewed as an untrustworthy ally by the nations of the Middle East. US hostility toward Israel causes its neighbors to hedge their bets by distancing themselves from the US lest America abandon them to their neighboring adversaries.
The Obama administration’s willingness to effectively back Turkey and Hamas against Israel at the UN Security Council last week forced Vice President Joseph Biden to drop everything and fly to Egypt this week. Watching the US abandon Israel and strengthen the most radical actors in the region, the Egyptians are terrified that they can no longer believe in US security guarantees.

A strong Israel empowers the relatively moderate actors in the region to stand up to the radical actors because they trust it to keep the radicals in check. When it is weakened, the radical forces are emboldened. Regional stability is thrown asunder. Wars become more likely. Attacks on oil resources increase.
The most radical substate actors and regimes are encouraged to strike.
Cordesman claims that Israel only advances US strategic interests when it works toward the creation of a Palestinian state. But this is wrong. To the extent that the two-state solution assumes that Israel must contract itself to within the indefensible 1949 cease-fire lines and allow a hostile Palestinian state allied with terrorist organizations to take power in the areas it vacates, the two-state solution is predicated on making it weak and empowering radicals.

In light of this, the two-state solution as presently constituted is antithetical to America’s most vital strategic interests in the Middle East.

In our times, when Jew hatred has become acceptable and strategic blindness and madness are presented as nuanced sophistication, it is essential to maintain a firm grip on the truth. And that truth is that love the Jews or hate us, the US’s alliance with Israel has been and remains America’s most cost-effective national security investment since World War II.

(for a complete article, click below)
http://www.aish.com/jw/me/95851549.html

WHY ISLAM FOSTER SUICIDE BOMBERS

http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=33756
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dr. Syed Kamran Mirza, the author of Roots of Islamic Terrorism and co-author of Beyond Jihad and Leaving Islam-Apostates Speak Out.



FP: Dr. Syed Kamran Mirza, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Mirza: Thank you Jamie.

FP: I would like to talk to you today about suicide bombing as a phenomenon in Islamic warfare. We are witnessing this horrifying pathology in Gaza today, as Hamas militants are carrying out different forms of suicide operations, using their children and women as human shields, etc.

Let me begin with this question: many apologists of Islamic suicide bombing point out that other cultures and groups employ suicide bombing and that, therefore, no one has a right to point a finger at Muslims or Islam in this regard. What would you say to that?

Mirza: Yes, Islamic apologists often argue that suicide bombings are not just committed by the Muslims, but by many other nations – among them Tamils and the Japanese. According to these apologists, since these groups engaged in suicide bombings for the cause of freedom in their eyes, then it means that Muslims are doing the same. The implication here is that Muslims are committing suicide for a freedom struggle and their suicide bombings have nothing to do with Islam. But a serious question can be asked here: Are all those past suicide bombings the same as Islamic suicide bombings? Are their patterns the same? Let us examine the facts:

The so called Tamil Tigers or Japanese Kamikazes may have used a technique of suicide bombings very rarely in their desperate quest—but only, in their view, to defend or free their own motherland, and their suicide acts were absolutely limited to targeting soldiers and leaders; they never targeted innocent civilians.

Tamils or Kamikazes never blasted bombs in other countries outside their own geographical boundary; they only primarily blasted bombs within their own border or on enemy troops. Rarely, an isolated single bomb went off in the vicinity of the border, such as in the Tamils’ killing of Rajiv Gandhi, for his support of the Sri Lankan Government. But they never came to America, Britain, Spain, Indonesia, Tanzania, Uganda, Yemen, Saudi Arabia etc. to blast suicide bombs inside restaurants, buses, trains, metros, ocean beaches, tourist resorts etc. None of them engaged in suicide bombings throughout the whole world like Islamists vigorously do today. How many Tamils blasted suicide bombs in Europe or America? Was there any global jihadi phenomenon of suicide bombings by Tamil Tigers like there is the one waged by Islamists?

FP: Apologists for Islam also argue that the Qur’an prohibits suicide.

Mirza: It’s a lie to say that the Qur’an prohibits committing suicide. The Qur’an only prohibits taking one’s life for no holy purpose. The Qur’an condemns killing one-self only out of frustrations and for no good reason. But to die in the process of killing non-muslims/kaffirs for the cause of Islam is considered a good deed for believers, and Allah promises many rewards for it.

FP: Ok, so expand for us on the place of suicide bombings in Islam.

Mirza: There is one most important and appropriate quote that we must consider in beginning a discussion on this issue: “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” (Blaise Pascal, 1670).

The Holy Qur’an and Sahih (pure) hadiths do encourage believers to commit suicide if necessary, in order to kill infidels/kaffirs, for the sake of Islam. The Qur’an repeatedly promises terrestrial handsome rewards for those who can kill kaffirs (enemy of Allah and His messenger) and dreadful punishing hellfire for those who refuse to kill kaffirs.

Muslims believe that their actual life starts after death and they have very little desire to prolong their life in this material world. The Qur’an also incites followers to sacrifice their lives in order to kill kaffirs in exchange of a much better and lucrative after life. In the Qur’anic verse 9:111, we find the incentive for jihadis to die in battle: the rewards of paradise, which involves sex with virgins. There are many other verses that promise rewards in paradise for death in jihad (i.e. 4:74, 4:95, 3:169). Such verses clearly order devout Muslims to kill and be killed. Allah is teaching Muslims to sacrifice their own lives, to commit suicide, in His cause in order to kill infidels (enemies of Allah).

The verse 9:111 says: “Allah has purchased of their faithful lives and worldly goods, and in return has promised them the Garden. They will fight for His cause, kill and be killed.”

This verse very precisely justifies suicide bombing - the most lethal, terrifying, inhuman and successful weapon Islamic terrorists are using today to kill Allah's enemies. It is the perfect example (without any ambiguity) of the suicidal method Allah has prescribed for devout Muslims. In verse 9:111 Allah is clearly saying that He has purchased life and property of believers in exchange of lustful and unimaginable lucrative heavenly pleasures for those who will die (commit suicide) for the cause of killing kaffirs. And the Qur’an is loaded with many more verses ordering the ardent followers to carry out endless killing of infidels/unbelievers until only Muslims remain to inhibit this Earth owned by the Islamic Allah (i.e. 8:39, 9:29, 3:85, 9:39, 9:73, 8:65, 8:66, 4:78, 2:193, 2:216, 5:33, 4:89, 9:5, 9:28, 8:67, 8:17, 9:23, 3:28, 5:45, 47:4, 9:123, 2:191, 8:12).

FP: The hadiths preach the same thing, yes?

Mirza: Absolutely. Killing and dying for the cause of Allah (Jihad) was sanctioned widely in sahi hadiths, which often incite Islamic suicide terrorists. Almost one-third of the fourth of nine volumes of Bukhari, Islam's principal collector of Hadith, focused on jihad as physical war. In Sahi Bukhari: Volume 4, Book 52, Number 44, for example, Abu Huraira narrated: “A man came to Allah's Apostle and said, "Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward)." He replied, "I do not find such a deed." Then he added, "Can you, while the Muslim fighter is in the battle-field, enter your mosque to perform prayers without cease and fast and never break your fast?" The man said, "But who can do that?" Abu- Huraira added, "The Mujahid (i.e. Muslim fighter) is rewarded even for the footsteps of his horse while it wanders bout (for grazing) tied in a long rope."

Many other hadiths stress the same themes: Sahi Bukhari: Volume 4, Book 52, Number 53, Mishkat al-Masabih, Vol. 1:814, Sahi Bukhari 35, page-102. etc.

Now, does it take a rocket scientist to understand the source of the fanatical will of the September 11 terrorists? Does it ring a bell from where Islamic terrorists all over the world get their inspiration and hope? Will our Islamists still say, "Islam is a religion of peace," or that "Qur'an is full of kind and compassionate advises."?

Purely and solely—the real motivation behind suicide terrorism by Islamic terrorists is the teachings of Qur’an and Sunnah (Prophetic traditions). Western politicians erroneously and ignorantly call it “radical Islam” or “evil or distorted ideology.” This is absolutely a wrong statement by the politically correct western politicians. That ideology is nothing but the ideology of pure Islam, which is the holy teaching of the Qur’an.

Palestinian problems, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan etc. are all rooted in the Islamic plea to wage Islamic Jihad. Poverty or frustrations are not the cause of terrorism, because poverty and frustrations also exist amongst millions of poor people from other religions. Will any poor Christian, Hindu or a Buddhist bother to commit suicide to kill innocent westerners? Absolutely not.

FP: And Islamic terrorists consistently refer to the teachings of their religious texts to sanction their violence.

Mirza: Absolutely. All Islamic terrorists arrested by police in Europe – like Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam, Netherlands -- readily cited the Qur’an as their teacher to commit their crimes. Bouyeri confessed his guilt and showed no remorse for his act of Islamic slaughter. During the court trial he stated to the victim’s mother: “I don’t feel your pain because I was driven by my religious conviction.” He also said, “If I were released and would have the chance to do it again…I would do exactly the same thing.” At another point he said to the victim’s mother, “I have to admit I don’t have sympathy for you. I can’t feel for you because I think you are a non-believer.”

In the train terrorism incident in Madrid, Spain, the Islamic terrorists were all longtime residents of Spain -- and North American and Syrian born. They admitted to police that they were inspired by the Qur’an and the doctrines of Islam to rise up against their adopted host country to kill 191 Spanish innocent citizen.

During 2005-2006, in Bangladesh experienced an epidemic of bomb blasts by Islamic terrorists (homegrown in Bangladeshi) which included scores of suicide bombings to kill judges in the various court premises. In this process of suicide bombing attempts, two terrorists were captured by the police. When asked by reporters why they were going to kill people by suicide, they answered: "We were doing it by the order of the Qur’anic instructions by Allah."

When Bangladesh terrorist leaders Maulana Shaikh Rahman and Bangla Bhai were captured by police, Maulana Shaikh Rahman explained their actions: "We did it to establish Allah's laws in Bangladesh and we were doing it according to the Quran." Showing one copy of the Qur’an in his hand, Maulana said: "If I am a terrorist, then the Qur’an is also a terrorist."

In America, the 20th hijacker of 9/11 terrorism, Zacaria Moussaoui, proudly declared in court: "I wish I could kill more Americans, because my religion Islam demands that I kill infidels." Moussaoui or any other Islamic terrorist never told anyone that they had been incited to engage in terrorism for the reasons of “poverty” or “political oppression.”

FP: Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda jihadis have also frequently cited many passages from the Qur’an to justify their acts of terrorism and suicide bombings.

Mirza: Yes indeed. In his famous 'fatwa' of declared war against Americans in 1998, bin Laden repeatedly used verses from the Qur’an, that I cited earlier, to incite his followers to kill Americans and infidels -- primarily by the act of suicide bombing.

All the 9/11 Islamic terrorists left their private notes (especially Muhammad Ata) citing Qur’anic killing verses and they all committed suicide to kill American infidels and kaffirs according to the Qur’anic verse 9:111. Not a single time have they have ever claimed or mentioned any other inciting agent for their killing spree. Israel has captured numerous would-be suicide bombers (who failed to detonate themselves) and they were all interviewed by western reporters in their Israeli prison cell. All of them told the reporters that they wanted to die by killing infidels because the Qur’an instructed them to do so – and they also wanted to achieve heavenly pleasures with 72 virgin houris.

FP: Dr. Syed Kamran Mirza, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.

Mirza: Thank you sir.

Congressional Budget Justification

Congressional Budget Justification

FOREIGN ASSISTANCE

SUMMARY TABLES

Fiscal Year 2012

http://www.usaid.gov/performance/cbj/158269.pdf

STOP FUNDING ANTI-AMERICANISM

While America's standing in the Middle East couldn't get much lower, you wouldn't know it looking at the U.S. foreign aid budget. Of proposed U.S. assistance for 2012, almost two-thirds is earmarked for Muslim nations and one-third goes to Arab countries.
Yet, despite those billions in aid, opinion polls show most Arab citizens still have an unfavorable view of America and most Muslim nations routinely vote against U.S. interests in the United Nations.
"If we are giving money to countries consistently voting against our interest, we ought to cut them off," says Congressman Steve Chabot (R-OH) who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "But Congress is going to need to get some backbone here because it consistently gives Presidents the ability to waive the cutoff of that money."
Years ago, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton proposed cutting off all aid to the 30 nations who consistently voted against the U.S. in the UN. Before him, President Reagan's U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick proposed cutting off $1 million in aid for each vote an aid recipient cast against the U.S. in the U.N. In both cases, Bolton says the State Department overruled them.
"Foreign aid to a lot of countries could be readily cut and I think it's been a mistake by the U.S. government for decades not to take U.N. voting into account," Bolton said Monday.
This document, released by the State Department, examines 13 critical votes in the UN in 2010.
Compare that to this list of US aid recipients for 2012 and this poll released last week by the Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Project.
The result: some of the largest recipients of U.S. taxpayer money over the last 6 budget years consistently vote against the U.S. and harbor negative or unfavorable views of America.



 Some other Muslim countries show almost no friendship or allegiance to the U.S. but continue to see the State Department shower them with money.
Algeria has received $60 million and votes with the U.S. just 16% of the time. Oman $74 million, 18% voting coincidence. Whereas the Palestinian Territories received $3 billion dollars yet just 18% have a favorable view of the U.S.
"The U.S. has to quit being kicked around. We need to quit sending our tax dollars to countries that do not have our best interests in mind, especially in these economic times," says Chabot.
Instead, if you look at U.S. aid over time, it's largely on auto-pilot. Once a nation is on the U.S. gravy train, few are ever cut off, regardless of their loyalty, gratitude or actions.
This link allows you to see who gets aid and where it goes.
In our analysis of the numbers, of the President's 2012 foreign assistance request of $34.5 billion, 60% or $20.1 billion goes to Muslim nations, or those where a majority practice Islam. About 33% or the total budget, or $11.6 billion is awarded to Arab countries.
And while many Americans think most U.S. foreign aid goes to "humanitarian assistance" or food and medicine for the poor, an analysis shows 80% of our aid to Arab countries pays for police and the military. And despite the President's speech last week calling for closer ties with Middle Eastern nations and fostering free market, democratic principles, just 5% of our aid to the region is dedicated to 'economic development'.
While some suggest our support for repressive, autocratic regimes explains America's poor poll numbers, and should be discontinued, Bolton has a different view.
While conceding a reform of U.S. foreign aid is "way overdue" he says, "I don't think the opinions you see in foreign countries should

govern where the aid goes. It should be based on what is in our interest not what is in their interest."
Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/05/24/its-all-your-money-foreign-aid-muslimarab-nations?test=latestnews#ixzz1NKOrb7md

Read more: http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/05/24/its-all-your-money-foreign-aid-muslimarab-nations?test=latestnews#ixzz1NKOYNEHv

http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/05/24/its-all-your-money-foreign-aid-muslimarab-nations?test=latestnews

THE TRUTH ABOUT ISRAEL "OCCUPATION"

Arab propagandists, and many Westerners all too willing to take at face value their lies, blame the sufferings of the Palestinians on the Jews, specifically on Israel’s supposedly “brutal occupation” of Gaza and the West Bank. But do the facts justify this claim? Israel occupied these territories in 1967, as a result of Israel’s defeat of the aggression launched by Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq. Israel was forced to maintain its sovereignty over these territories after the war because of the subsequent refusal of the Arab states to sign a peace treaty. (Egypt finally signed one in 1979 in exchange for the entire Sinai peninsula, and Jordan did the same in 1994 in exchange for thousands of acres of formerly Israeli land east of the Jordan River).

Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip lasted until 1994, when the Oslo peace accord brought Arafat and his terrorist army back from Tunis and established him as the head of the Palestinian Authority over Gaza and the West Bank. A brief review of neutral third-party analyses of Israel’s twenty-seven years of rule creates quite a different picture than the one presented by Arab propaganda, and establishes beyond reasonable doubt that under Israel’s rule, the Arab inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip enjoyed more political freedom, were provided more educational opportunities, and experienced greater economic well-being than at any time in their history before or since.

It is, in fact, the governments of the Palestinian Authority, and now of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which have imposed a brutal, graft-ridden, dictatorship over the Palestinian people, destroying their economy and terrorizing their society, killing or imprisoning thousands of their own people, and crushing all the democratic freedoms that the Oslo Accords demanded. It is they, not Israel, who have shut down every opportunity to create a state for the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.


http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=28080
Contrary to the Arab propaganda myth that Israel is a colonizing state that sought to expand its territories at the Palestinian’s expense, Israel extended its sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza Strip only reluctantly, and did so in the process of defending itself against Arab aggression in the 6-Day War. As soon as Israel had defeated the Arab armies, it offered to cede the captured territories in exchange for peace. Arab leadership uniformly rejected this offer. Israel was forced to retain sovereignty over these captured territories because the Arab policy had only in one objective—the obliteration of Israel.

Within a few days of the June 10, 1967 cease-fire, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Abba Eban, made his famous speech offering to negotiate the return of captured territories in exchange for three Arab concessions: diplomatic recognition of Israel; negotiations to decide on universally recognized borders and on other outstanding issues; and peace. World opinion was amazed that the victor was offering to negotiate with the vanquished and was willing to make substantial concessions (return of territories) in exchange for symbolic and diplomatic ones (recognition, negotiations, peace agreements). To formulate a response to this unexpected new reality, the Arab states called a summit meeting in Khartoum (capitol of Sudan) in August, 1967. The result was the now infamous three Khartoum NOs: no recognition, no negotiations, no peace.

The Benefits of Israeli Occupation
Despite being forced by Arab intransigence to maintain its sovereignty over the newly captured territories, and to maintain a state of war with the entire Arab world, Israel undertook the economic, agrarian, medical, and infrastructural development of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, for the benefit of the Arab population, in the expectation that such development would yield what the Israeli government called a “peace dividend.”

This Israeli “mini-Marshall plan” for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip involved investment of hundreds of millions of dollars to bring these territories into the 20th century with regard to infrastructure, roads, sewerage, sewage treatment, electricity, phones, radio and TV broadcasting, water purification and water supply. World Bank records indicate that the GDP of the West Bank grew between 7% and 13% per year between 1967 and 1994. Tourism skyrocketed, unemployment almost disappeared as hundreds of thousands of Arabs worked in Israel’s economy earning far more than their counterparts in other Arab countries. Seven universities, funded in part by Israeli and private Jewish money, grew up on the West Bank in place of the three teachers training schools that existed there before 1967.

During the decades of Israeli sovereignty, there was almost complete freedom of movement throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Israelis shopped in East Jerusalem and in Bethlehem and in Ramallah, while Arabs shopped in Tel Aviv and Haifa. Arab students from the West Bank attended Haifa University’s Arab Studies department; and Arab Israelis could re-unite with relatives among the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Although Jordan was still de iure at war with Israel, Israel permitted West Bank Arabs to retain their Jordanian citizenship, in the expectation that Israel and Jordan would reach a peace agreement and most (although probably not all) of the West Bank would revert to Jordan, and even allowed West Bank Arabs to cross freely over the Jordan River in to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Thus, West Bank Arabs on Jordanian passports could travel anywhere from Israel. In 1988, King Hussein of Jordan revoked these passports and denied the West Bank Arabs their freedom of access and travel.
And, perhaps most significant of all, free and unencumbered access to Israel’s medical infrastructure resulted in a precipitous decline in infant mortality and a rise in longevity. The infant mortality rate was reduced from 60 per 1,000 live births in 1968 to 15 per 1,000 in 2000. Under Israel’s systematic program of inoculation, childhood diseases in the Palestinian population, such as polio, whooping cough, tetanus, and measles, were eradicated. A significant percentage of today’s Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are alive and well only because they had the good fortune of growing up under Israeli sovereignty.

During the two decades preceding the First Intifada, the number of schoolchildren in the territories grew by 102%, and the number of classes by 99%. Illiteracy rates dropped to 14% of adults over age 15 (compared with 61% in Egypt, 45% in Tunisia, and 44% in Syria). The rapid growth in population as a result of access to Israeli medicine, in addition to Arab immigration into the territories from “Diaspora Palestinians” all over the Arab world, resulted in a tripling of the Arab population from around 950,000 in 1967 to more than 3,000,000 in 1994.[6]

All this time the Arab nations remained formally at war with Israel. In 1979, Egypt, alone among the Arab states, agreed to sign a peace treaty with Israel. In response to Egypt’s willingness to sign the peace, Israel withdrew its forces and civilian population from the Sinai.

Prime Minister Menahem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar es-Sadat invited Arafat to their peace table, but Arafat refused, and thus squandered what could have been yet another opportunity for Palestinian statehood. Sadat was then assassinated by Muslim radicals for making peace with the Jews.

In sum, there was not only no “brutal occupation,” there was a very fast paced, broadly implemented, and extremely successful economic and educational and medical and professional development of the Arab populations of both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip under very salutary Israeli rule, all initiated by the Israeli government, as part of Israel’s vain quest for peace with its Arab neighbors. Under Israeli sovereignty, the Arabs of these territories experienced greater personal and political freedom, and greater prosperity, than ever in their entire history.

But all of this came to a grinding halt when Arafat took over.

Arafat Takes Over and Destroys Palestinian Prosperity and Peace
When the 1993 Oslo Accords allowed Yasir Arafat to set up shop in the West Bank as the head of the newly created Palestinian Authority, the robust economy created in partnership with Israel began to grind to a halt, and then went into a steep reverse. By 2002, the West Bank’s GDP was one-tenth of what it was in 1993. Israel has been blamed worldwide for the economic plight of the Palestinians even though it was entirely the responsibility of Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. Yet, the record, as registered in annual UN Human Development Reports, clearly shows that the Palestinian people were much better off under Israeli occupation than under the Palestine Authority’s control.

Data provided by the UN Human Development program of 2005 [7] indicate that the economic difficulties experienced by the Palestinian Arabs were largely the result of policies of the Arafat regime and not from any oppression by the State of Israel. Looking at what it calls “The Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT),” the UN report cites many examples of how positive trends in human development, initiated by Israel decades before, were reversed under Arafat. For instance, the second Intifada beginning in Sept. 2000 resulted “…in a sharp deterioration in living standards and life chances.” The poverty rate nearly tripled from 20% in 1999 to 55% in 2003. The report notes that because of the Intifada, the town of Nablus, for instance, a prosperous commercial hub prior to September 2000, became an economic basket case. Shops were closed; to survive, workers had to sell their tools, and farmers were forced to sell their land. It was Arafat’s war, not Israeli rule, which destroyed Palestinian prosperity and bled its people.[8]
A cruel irony, seemingly lost on western leadership and the media, is the fact that while the Palestinians receive more aid per capita than any nation in the world except Cape Verde (Africa), the Palestinian people have experienced a severe decline in economic well-being; because of Arafat’s terror war and his embezzlement of billions of dollars of this money for himself and his terror armies. The UN report suggests that Arafat diverted almost all of the aid money to his personal accounts and to his various terrorist militias. So the aid money, rather than helping the economy and thus creating conditions that would end violence, actually promoted violence.[9] The picture that arises from the UN 2005 report is a clear continuation of trends documented in the 2004 report.[10]


CONCLUSION
The anti Israel propaganda directed at the West cannot obscure the facts: the brutal oppression and economic deprivation from which Palestinians are suffering is the direct result of Palestinian misrule, and not Israeli occupation. From 1967 to 1994, under Israel’s sovereignty, the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza Strip enjoyed the highest standard of living and freedom (economic, personal, and political) in their entire history.

The anti-Israel diatribes of Arab propagandists and the Western “progressives” seek to deceive the uninformed by conflating Israel’s defensive actions today, which do indeed prevent freedom of movement as a way of preventing suicide attacks, with the entire 40 years of Israeli rule since the 6-day war. This is a lie of monstrous proportions, blaming the victim – Israel – for defending itself.

Equally reprehensible is the utter silence of Arab spokesmen and Western leftists about the crimes committed against the Palestinian people by their own leaders and by the leaders of neighboring Arab states.

Who is responsible for the plight of the Palestinians? From the data presented above, the answer is obvious. Their own leaders, both local and external, who have betrayed, cheated, intimidated, and oppressed them. Every opportunity for Palestinian statehood was rejected by leaders who chose war over peace, because their agenda was never peace but the elimination of the Jewish state.

NOTES:
References are to sources in the bibliography, listed by author. Where pages are not noted, the information has been summarized from broad segments of the authors’ works.
Much of the data and analysis for this article is taken from Meir-Levi, David, “Who is Really Oppressing the Palestinians?” Front Page Magazine, 2.3.06.
[1] Abu-Marzouk, Mousa, “Hamas’ Stand,” Los Angeles Times, July 10, 2007 http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-marzook10jul10,0,1675308.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail (Marzouk is the deputy of the political bureau of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement)
[2] Note the Walt-Mearsheimer Report, President Carter’s recent book, and the Baker-Hamilton report -- all concluding that the “road to Baghdad is through Jerusalem.” In other words, if only we could solve the Israel-Arab conflict and end Israel’s “brutal occupation,” then we could finally have peace throughout the Middle East. As though it could be rationally argued that the barbaric internecine terror war in Iraq, Syria’s 32-year occupation of Lebanon, Sudan’s 24-year civil war in which Arab Muslim Sudanese have slaughtered nearly 2,000,000 black African Christian and Animist Sudanese and nearly another million black African Muslims, Algeria’s 10-year civil war in which more than 100,000 have been killed and nearly 2,000,000 rendered homeless, Mauritanian semi-legal slavery, Somalia’s endless chaos of warlords against warlords, el-Qaeda’s barbaric terrorism against the West, and even Iran’s threatening quests for WMDs in order to create a new world order in a world without America (and without Israel)…..would all somehow disappear if only Israel would make peace with the Palestinians.
[3] According to the 2003 UN Arab Human Development Report, “…the Israeli occupation of Palestine constitutes a severe impediment to human development. This occupation distorts policy priorities, retards human development and freezes opportunities for growth, prosperity and freedom across the region, and not in the Occupied Palestinian Territories alone. The harsh indignities arising from occupation extend to all the Arab people….The occupation of Palestinian and other Arab lands exerts a direct and continuous burden on the economies of affected countries and diverts resources from development to military and security objectives. The threat of Israeli domination also creates a pretext for deferring political and economic reforms in Arab countries in the name of national solidarity against a formidably armed external aggressor.” (emphasis mine). Source: The United Nations Development Programme, Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, The Arab Human Development Report, 2003: Building a Knowledge Society. Web: www.un.org/Publications, and Web: www.undp.org/rbas. And cf. pp. 57 ff.
[4] Gilbert “History”, Idem “Routlege Atlas”, O’Brien, Oren.
[5] Oren, Sachar, and for an analysis of the legality of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, cf. Meir-Levi, David, Remembering The Six-Day War, Front Page Magazine, June 05, 2007
[6] Summarized from articles listed in “Economy of West Bank and Gaza Strip”(see below)
[7] UN Arab Human Development Program 2005
[8] Ibid, pp. 281 ff
[9] Ibid, pp. 312, ff
[10] UN Arab Human Development Program 2004
[11] Brown; Meir-Levi, “The Missing Piece is missing pieces”, “Left Wing Monsters”, “Islamokaze war and Palestinian poverty”; and Walsh, Elsa, “The Prince,” New Yorker Magazine, March 24, 2003, pp. 49ff.
[12] Erlanger, Steven and Kershner, Isabel, “With Pressure put on Hamas, Gaza is cut off,” NY Times, July 10, 2007; and cf a variety of other news sources for Hamas’ threatening military attacks on Israeli trucks bringing produce in to the Gaza Strip.
[13] For the most recent details of the chaos in Gaza under Hamas, cf. Erlanger, Steven, “A Life of Unrest,” New York Times, July 15, 2007, New York Times
[14] Mahmoud az-Zahar, a high level leader of Hamas, was interviewed frequently after Hamas came to power in the Gaza Strip. Summaries of his interviews on el-Jazeera and ‘Ilaf (an Egyptian on-line news website), from which the comments above have been drawn, can be found at Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S), 10.09, 2005 (and cf. http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/html/final/eng/eng_n/hamastan_e.htm), in a Newsweek news summary of August 30, 2005, ( “The Last Word: Mahmoud Zahar:In Praise of 'Hamastan,'” Newsweek International, Sept. 5, 2005 issue ), and in Front Page Magazine (“The Nightmare of Hamastan,” by Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen, FrontPageMagazine.com, 10.31.2005). Osama Hamdan, an official Hamas spokesperson, stated Hamas’ goal in similarly stark terms in a recent interview on Lebanese TV (MEMRI Special Dispatch Series - No. 1682 August 16, 2007, excerpted from an interview on Al-Kawthar TV on August 6, 2007. And cf. http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1527.htm. “The Final Goal of the Resistance is to Wipe This Entity [Israel] Off the Face of the Earth").

Bibliography:
Bard, Mitchell The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Middle East Conflict
Idem Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Brown, Nathan Palestinian Politics
Gilbert, Martin The Arab-Israel Conflict in Maps (1977)
The Routlege Atlas of the Arab Israel Conflict: 2002
History of Israel
Hart, Alan Arafat: Terrorist or Peace Maker (Authorized biography)
Karsh, E Fabricating Israeli History: The “New Historians” 1997
Arafat’s War (2003)
“Arafat's Grand Strategy”, Middle East Quarterly, 8.3.04
Meir-Levi, David Big Lies (2005)
Idem articles in Front Page Magazine
“Islamikaze War and Palestinian Poverty,” 9/15/04
“The Missing Peace is missing pieces”, 11/24/04
“Left Wing Monsters: Arafat” Front Page Magazine, 9/23/05
“Occupation and Settlement”, 6/24/05
“The Big Arab Lie”, 5/15/05
“Who is Really Oppressing the Palestinians?” 2/3/06
“Remembering the Six-Day War”, 6/5/07 .
O’Brien, Conor Cruise The Siege
Oren, Michael. Six Days of War
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Bibliography for the economy of West Bank & Gaza Strip,
Under Israel,1967-1994, and under the Palestinian Authority, 1994 to 2004
Abu Toameh, Khaled & Derfner, Larry, “A state of Corruption”, Nation and World, 7/1/02
Clawson, Patrick "The Palestinians' Lost Marshall Plans", deputy director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Doron, Daniel, “The Way forward for the Palestinians”, Israel Center for Social and Economic Progress, 7/1/02, vol 7, #41
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UNDERSTANDING THE SO-CALLED "OCCUPATION"

For several decades, no term has dominated the discussion of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict more than "occupation," a reference to Israel's supposedly illegitimate presence on Palestinian lands. Critics of Israel routinely invoke this presence to explain the origins and persistence of the conflict with the Palestinians, to describe the allegedly brutal and repressive nature of Israeli policy, and to justify or rationalize terrorist atrocities aimed against Israel.

"Occupation" not only refers specifically to Israel's control of the West Bank, an area that it conquered during the Six-Day War of June 1967, but more generally to an uninterrupted narrative of "occupations" dating back to the very creation of Israel in 1948 on "stolen" land. As a propaganda tool, this narrative has an undeniable power. But in almost every particular, it is also demonstrably false.

In 1948, no Palestinian state was invaded or destroyed to make way for the establishment of Israel. From biblical times, when this area was the state of the Jews, until its occupation by the British army at the end of World War I, “Palestine” had never existed as a distinct political entity but was rather part of one empire after another, from the Romans, to the Arabs, to the Ottomans. When the British arrived in 1917, the immediate loyalties of the area's inhabitants were parochial -- to clan, tribe, village, town, or religious sect -- and coexisted with their fealty to the Ottoman sultan-caliph as the religious and temporal head of the world Muslim community.

Under a League of Nations mandate explicitly meant to pave the way for the creation of a Jewish national home, the British established the notion of an independent Palestine for the first time and delineated its boundaries. In 1947, confronted with a determined Jewish struggle for a homeland, Britain returned the mandate to the League's successor, the United Nations, which in turn decided on November 29, 1947, to partition mandatory Palestine into two states: one Jewish, the other Arab. The designated territory of the prospective Arab state was slated to include, among other areas, Gaza and the West Bank.

The implementation of the UN's partition plan was aborted by the (unsuccessful) effort of the Palestinians and of the surrounding Arab states in 1948 to destroy the Jewish state at its birth. But even if the Jews had lost that war, their territory would not have been handed over to those who are now referred to as “the Palestinians.” Rather, it would have been divided among the invading Arab forces, because none of the region's Arab regimes viewed the Palestinians as comprising a distinct nation. (The eminent Arab-American historian Philip Hitti described the common Arab view to an Anglo-American commission of inquiry in 1946: "There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not.")

The period after 1967, when the West Bank and Gaza passed into the hands of Israel, is a separate matter. This "occupation" did not come about as a consequence of some grand expansionist design, but rather was incidental to Israel's success against another pan-Arab attempt to destroy it. Israel was in the West Bank because that is where opposing armies had massed against it.

The “Oslo” peace declaration signed in 1993 by the PLO and the Israeli government provided for Palestinian self-rule in the entire West Bank and the Gaza Strip for a transitional period not to exceed five years, during which time Israel and the Palestinians were to negotiate a permanent peace settlement. During this interim period the territories would be administered by a Palestinian Council, to be freely and democratically elected after the withdrawal of Israeli military forces both from the Gaza Strip and from the populated areas of the West Bank.

By May 1994, Israel had completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip (apart from a small stretch of territory containing Israeli settlements) and the Jericho area of the West Bank. On July 1 of that year, Yasser Arafat made his triumphant entry into Gaza. On September 28, 1995, despite Arafat's failure to clamp down on terrorist activities in the territories now under his control, the two parties signed an interim agreement, and by the end of the year Israeli forces had been withdrawn from the West Bank's populated areas with the exception of Hebron (where redeployment was completed in early 1997). On January 20, 1996, elections to the Palestinian Council were held, and shortly afterward both the Israeli civil administration and military government were dissolved.

Since the beginning of 1996, and certainly following the completion of the redeployment from Hebron in January 1997, some 99 percent of the Palestinian population of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have not lived under Israeli occupation.

There remains the issue of Israeli settlements, civilian communities situated in the lands that Israel captured from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The latter two areas are officially under military occupation by the international community, though they are governed by Israeli civil law. As of November 2009, approximately 280,000 Israelis lived in 121 West Bank settlements, while another 190,000 Israelis lived in East Jerusalem. At one time, there were also 18 Israeli settlements in the Sinai Peninsula and 21 in the Gaza Strip, but Israel withdrew entirely from those areas in 1982 and 2005, respectively.

Israeli settlements fall into five distinct categories:

• Agrarian settlements for military purposes, manned mostly by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers: These settlements were established soon after the 1948 war, along what the IDF felt were crucial corridors of defense, especially along the Jordan river, near the “Green Line,” in the Golan Heights, and near Gaza. These settlements were intended primarily to serve a strategic military defensive purpose, in light of these vital facts: Egypt, Syria and Jordan remained belligerent states; the PLO was actively trying to develop bases for terrorism in the newly conquered territories; and Israel had previously been invaded across these territories.
• Settlements of Jews returning to sites (Hebron, Gush Etzion, Jewish Quarter) occupied by Jews prior to 1948: Settlement of civilian Israelis in the West Bank began shortly after the Six Day War. Jews had lived in Hebron almost continuously for some 3,100 years, and were expelled only during the violent Arab pogroms of 1929 in which hundreds were slaughtered. Jewish habitation in Jerusalem had a similar millennia-long history, with the 1948 war and the massacre of about half of the population of the Jewish Quarter terminating the Jewish presence there.
• Expanding suburbs of Israeli cities on or near the “Green Line”: Unoccupied areas near Jerusalem and Tel Aviv were used as sites for major low-cost housing projects to accommodate the expanding populations of those regions. In most cases, the land utilized for these projects was Jordanian “Crown Land,” to which no individual could lay claim of private ownership. Because of Jordan’s unwillingness to enter into peace negotiations after the war, Israel’s expropriation of these unoccupied areas was legal. In cases where West Bank Arabs legally owned land that Israel wanted for these expansion projects, Israel bought the land at fair market prices.
• Missionary settlements unrelated to the previous three types: Over time, religious and right-wing political pressure supported the creation of settlements elsewhere in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Often they were founded near ancient Jewish holy sites. These settlements proliferated under Prime Ministers Begin and Rabin. Arab spokesmen claim that these settlements, some of which were built well inside the West Bank or Gaza Strip areas, constituted a theft of land from Arab farmers. Israel claims that most of the land used for these developments was unoccupied and un-owned, thus qualifying as “Crown Land,” upon which Israel had every legal right to build and develop. Where privately owned land was needed for settlement expansion, Israel purchased that land from its legal owners at fair market values.
• Patently illegal rogue settlements: These settlements were set up by break-away settlement occupants, often contrary to IDF and/or government instructions, sometimes on privately owned Palestinian land. Palestinian complaints about such illegal land grabs have been adjudicated in the Israeli court system with decisions often rendered in favor of the Palestinians. It was almost exclusively this type of settlement on the West Bank that then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon agreed to dismantle even before peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

International law makes it clear that the first four types of settlements are entirely legal. Moreover, the impact of those settlements has been, contrary to Arab propaganda claims, extremely beneficial to Arabs in the region. From 1967 to 1992 -- that is, until the West Bank was turned over to the Palestinian Authority -- the population and economy of the West Bank grew substantially. Whenever an Israeli settlement was erected, areas around it that were hitherto uninhabited became the focus of Palestinian business enterprises. Consequently, the standard of living of the Palestinians, as well as their average per capita income, increased significantly. This was in part due to the Israeli “Marshall Plan”, which expanded the infra-structure, modernized roads and the supplies of water, electricity, and sewerage, and made 20th-century medical care available. Economic progress was also due in part to the integration of the Palestinian workforce into the Israeli economy as a result of the employment of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in a wide variety of Israeli business and agricultural endeavors. The population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip more than tripled from 1967 to 1994.

It was in 1994, when Palestinians came under the autonomous and independent control of the Palestinian Authority (PA), that the economies of the West Bank and Gaza Strip became crippled and the lives of the Palestinians were wrecked by the PA’s despotic, terrorist rule. By 2003, the West Bank’s Gross Domestic Product had shrunk by 90 percent since the PA’s initial ascent to power.


Adapted from: "What Occupation?" (Efraim Karsh, July-August 2002), and "Occupation and Settlement: The Myth and the Reality" (David Meir-Levi, June 5, 2005).