TBR News February 25, 2018

Feb 25 2018

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C. February 25, 2018:Guest editorial by Christian Jürs “The Crusades were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims started primarily to secure control of holy sites considered sacred by both groups. In all, eight major Crusade expeditions occurred between 1096 and 1291. The bloody, violent and often ruthless conflicts propelled the status of European Christians, making them major players in the fight for land in the Middle East. Now, given the growing attempts on the parts of the Israeli government to expel Christians and Moslims from Jerusalem, there are plans being formulated for a Ninth Crusade dedicated to liberating the Holy Land from alien forces i.e, the Ashkenazi Jews, Turkic converts to Judaism, who seized the land in 1948 by acts of terror and who have been killing Muslim Palestinians and stealing their land since that time.

The concept of another Crusade apparently has been formulating for some time and parties known to have knowledge or it or participating in it are Opus Dei, a well-connected group of Russian Orthodox people, two Christian groups in Italy, one in Germany and one in the United States and two Muslim groups.

Opus Dei, it should be noted has members are in more than 90 countries.

The concept of this movement is that the current Israelis are 95% Ashkenazi with no previous ties to the Holy Land and whose activities from 1948 onwards are savage and brutal and who have used their associates in the United States to support them against all resisters.

Reference:Timeline for the Crusades and Christian Holy War to c.1350: United States Naval Academy.

Table of Contents

Church leaders shut Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre in land, tax protest
Jewish Extremists’ Attacks Rattle Christians in Holy Land
Why Don’t Jews Like the Christians Who Like Them?
Laying the groundwork for a Third Temple in Jerusalem
California Democrats Deny Dianne Feinstein Their Endorsement for Senate
‘Bibi go home!’ Israelis demand Netanyahu resignation over looming corruption charges
The Bunche Report
The terrifying phenomenon that is pushing species towards extinction

Church leaders shut Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre in land, tax protest

February 25, 2018

by Ori Lewis

Reuters

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Church leaders in Jerusalem shut the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Sunday in protest at a new Israeli tax policy and a proposed land expropriation law which they called an unprecedented attack on Christians in the Holy Land.

Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian church leaders said the holy site, a popular stop for pilgrims and where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried, would remain closed until further notice. After the protest move, an Israeli cabinet committee delayed by a week its scheduled consideration on Sunday of a bill that would allow the state to expropriate land in Jerusalem sold by churches to private real estate firms in recent years.

The stated aim of the bill is to protect homeowners against the possibility that private companies will not extend their leases of land on which their houses or apartments stand.

The churches are major property owners in the city. They say such a law would make it harder for them to find buyers for church-owned land – sales that help to cover operating costs of their religious institutions.

“This abhorrent bill … if approved, would make the expropriation of the lands of churches possible,” said the statement by Theophilos III, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Francesco Patton, the Custos of the Holy Land, and Nourhan Manougian, the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Rachel Azaria, the lawmaker who sponsored the legislation, said in a statement she agreed to delay the committee’s discussion by a week so that “we could work with the churches” to try to resolve the dispute.

The churches’ protest was also aimed at the recent cancellation by Israel’s Jerusalem municipality of a tax exemption it has granted to church-owned commercial properties in the city.

“This reminds us all of laws of a similar nature which were enacted against the Jews during dark periods in Europe,” the church leaders said.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said on Twitter it was illogical to expect that church-owned commercial property, including hotels and retail businesses, would continue to enjoy tax-exempt status.

“Let me make it clear: we are not talking about houses of worship, who will still be exempt from property tax, according to law,” he wrote.

Outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, pilgrims voiced their disappointment at finding its doors shut.

“I am very upset. It’s my first time here and I made a big effort to get here and now I find it closed,” said Marine Domenech from Lille, France.

Reporting by Jeffrey Heller and Ori Lewis; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky, William Maclean

Jewish Extremists’ Attacks Rattle Christians in Holy Land

Assaults on churches by right-wing Jews, a new phenomenon, raise concern about movement’s increasingly aggressive tactics.

by Andrew Lawler,

National Geographic

Nazareth, Israel—Father Matthias Karl hoped to begin rebuilding his shattered church complex on the shores of the Sea of Galilee after Christmas.

But following an arson attack six months ago that left one Catholic monk hospitalized and caused nearly $1.8 million in damage, the Israeli government, while strongly condemning the incident, has yet to provide promised financial compensation or put the two right-wing Jewish suspects on trial.

The June assault was the latest and most dramatic sign of tension between Christians in Israel and a growing movement of Jewish extremists who seek to cleanse their nation of religious minorities.

The attacks have become more brutal and more aggressive,” said Father Nikodemus Schnabel, a Benedictine monk at the Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion in Jerusalem that has been subject to several attacks. “And we have not been happy with the political response.”

Taking a page from the Islamic group ISIS operating in neighboring Syria, a small group of young fundamentalist Jews influenced by radical religious leaders target Christian sites as centers of heretical idol worship and unwelcome missionary activity. In the past three years, a dozen churches and monasteries have been bombed, burned, or vandalized. Until the June firebombing, no one was charged in any of these incidents.

Attacks on mosques by extremist Jews and assaults on synagogues by radical Arabs is a longstanding problem in the region. Targeting Christian sites, however, is a new phenomenon, say Israelis who monitor hate crimes.

“This is Jewish terror, and it is a threat not only for Muslims and Christians, but for the state of Israel itself,” says Gadi Gvaryahu, who directs Tag Meir, an organization that opposes extremist violence. “The attitude of the government was that this was just graffiti, and then just a few burned cars. Now there is violence.”

Multiplying Attacks

On the night of June 17, according to court documents, 20-year-old Yinon Reuveni and 19-year-old Yehuda Assraf left Jerusalem in a Subaru they had just bought in the West Bank, where they live in a Jewish settlement.

The two men stopped to buy gasoline at a filling station outside Tel Aviv, and arrived at the Church of the Multiplication along the Sea of Galilee that night.

The white stone church, built on top of a 5th-century sanctuary, commemorates the place where tradition says Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes to feed a large crowd. It features 6th–century mosaics that are among the earliest Christian mosaics in Israel. Six monks and six nuns manage the complex that includes guest accommodations and is overseen by Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem.

Israeli officials say that the two men waited until three in the morning to pour and light gasoline at the entrance to the monastery and in the reception area for pilgrims. They also spray painted in red the Hebrew words from a Jewish prayer denouncing idols.

An elderly monk, awakened by the noise of fire, began battling the blaze. Resident volunteers and dozens of Jewish guests quickly joined him. “The guests were able to give firefighters precise directions to the monastery in Hebrew,” Father Matthias said during a recent visit, as he pointed out blackened walls and floors.

Father Matthias recalled that a 79-year-old monk crawled out a second-story window and used a hose to spray the church roof, preventing the fire’s spread to the sanctuary before firefighters arrived. The monk was subsequently hospitalized for two days, along with a volunteer, for smoke inhalation.

A delegation of German rabbis and Catholic bishops visiting Israel rushed to the site that morning, along with foreign media. The rabbis denounced the attack, noting that German Jews had experience with the burning of their holy places in Nazi times. “There was too much pressure for the Israeli government to dismiss this,” said Father Nikodemus.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly designated the fire as a terrorist attack, making the church ineligible to draw on insurance but paving the way for government compensation. Two months later, the Israeli Tax Authority declared that the violent event did not qualify as terrorism, and therefore could not receive government funding.

When Israeli President Reuven Rivlin visited the church in early September, just before meeting Pope Francis in Rome, he promised to help reverse that decision. “He was shocked by the extent of damage,” said Father Matthias. “Since then there have been a lot of meetings with the government, but no compensation.”

In the meantime, a group of Israeli rabbis started a crowd-funding campaign that raised $13,000 so that the church can start work on a new reception area for pilgrims. Rabbi Alon Goshen-Gottstein, director of the Jerusalem-based Elijah Interfaith Institute, led the effort that included the head of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.“Israel still protects the rights of minorities, and events like this overshadow this fact,” said Rabbi Goshen-Gottstein, noting that Iraq and Syria are in the midst of ethnic cleansing. “These are disenfranchised youth with very few leaders who are messianic activists riding on waves of suspicion and ignorance.”

On Trial in Nazareth

Some Israelis fear that the small group of violent extremists, made up mostly of young West Bank settlers, has been emboldened by the lack of prosecutions. Father Nikodemus described tense encounters with what he called “hippy Jews—they are young and cool looking, wearing cargo trousers and t-shirts.”

Assaf Sharon, a philosophy professor at Tel Aviv University who has written about the history of Jewish terrorism, said the youth “are surrounded by institutions that condone, protect, and support them. And there is certainly authority behind them, including rabbis they look up to.”

A 2009 book written by two Israeli rabbis called The King’s Torah suggests that Jewish law legitimizes violence against Gentiles. Tag Meir director Gvaryahu was part of a legal effort to ban the volume, but the Israeli Supreme Court earlier this month rejected that plea as an infringement on free speech.

There have been no major attacks since June. But on December 17, right-wing activist Bentiz Gopstein, who leads the Lehava organization, published a column denouncing Christians as “blood-sucking vampires,” and added that “Christmas has no place in the Holy Land.”

Givaryahu, Rabbi Goshen-Gottstein, and Father Nikodemus, however, are optimistic that prosecution of the suspects in the Church of the Multiplication case will put a damper on the rise in violence against minorities. One of the two suspects is in jail, while the other is under house arrest. A trial is slated to take place in Nazareth early next year.

“Things have changed in the past three or four months,” said Rabbi Goshen-Gottstein. “Israeli forces are applying tougher measures.” Added Gvaryahu: “This is a struggle for what this country will be in the future, and the trial is a very important step.”

For Father Matthias, the destruction at the church complex has also brought benefits. “There’s a second fire—the fire of solidarity and love,” he said. “Jewish friends have been showing up here for the past six months to offer their support and to assure us that the extremists will not win.”

Why Don’t Jews Like the Christians Who Like Them?

Liberalism can’t abide conservative evangelicals.

by James Q. Wilson

city journal

In the United States, the two groups that most ardently support Israel are Jews and evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. Jewish support is easy to explain, but why should certain Christians, most of them politically quite conservative, be so devoted to Israel? There is a second puzzle: despite their support for a Jewish state, evangelical and fundamentalist Christians are disliked by many Jews. And a third: a large fraction of African-Americans are hostile to Israel and critical of Jews, yet Jewish voters regard blacks as their natural allies.

The evidence about evangelical attitudes is clear. In 2006, a Pew survey found that evangelical Christians were more favorable toward Israel than the average American was—and much more sympathetic than either mainline Protestants or secularists. In another survey, evangelical Christians proved much likelier than Catholics, Protestants, or secular types to back Israeli control of Jerusalem, endorse Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and take Israel’s side in a Middle Eastern dispute. (Among every religious group, those who are most traditional are most supportive of Israel. The most orthodox Catholics and Protestants, for instance, support Israel more than their modernist colleagues do.)

Evangelical Christians have a high opinion not just of the Jewish state but of Jews as people. That Jewish voters are overwhelmingly liberal doesn’t seem to bother evangelicals, despite their own conservative politics. Yet Jews don’t return the favor: in one Pew survey, 42 percent of Jewish respondents expressed hostility to evangelicals and fundamentalists. As two scholars from Baruch College have shown, a much smaller fraction—about 16 percent—of the American public has similarly antagonistic feelings toward Christian fundamentalists.

The reason that conservative Christians—opposed to abortion and gay marriage and critical of political liberalism—can feel kindly toward Jewish liberals and support Israel so fervently is rooted in theology. One finds among fundamentalist Protestants a doctrine called dispensationalism. The dispensationalist outlook, which began in early-nineteenth-century England, sees human history as a series of seven periods, or dispensations, in each of which God deals with man in a distinctive way. The first, before Adam’s fall, was the era of innocence; the second, from Adam to Noah, the era of conscience; the third, from Noah to Abraham, of government; the fourth, from Abraham to Moses, of patriarchy; the fifth, from Moses to Jesus, of Mosaic law; and the sixth, from Jesus until today, of grace. The seventh and final dispensation, yet to come, will be the Millennium, an earthly paradise.

For dispensationalists, the Jews are God’s chosen people. For the Millennium to come, they must be living in Israel, whose capital is Jerusalem; there, the Temple will rise again at the time of Armageddon. On the eve of that final battle, the Antichrist will appear—probably in the form of a seeming peacemaker. Fundamentalists differ over who the Antichrist will be (at one time he was thought to be Nero, at another time the papacy, and today a few have suggested the secretary-general of the United Nations), but dispensationalists agree that he will deceive the people, occupy the Temple, rule in the name of God, and ultimately be defeated by the Messiah. Many dispensationalists believe that how a person treats Israel will profoundly influence his eternal destiny.

Christian dispensationalists were early Zionists and continue to support Israel today, for it is there that they believe Christ will return. In 1878, William Blackstone, a well-known dispensationalist and the author of Jesus Is Coming, wrote a document that argued for a Jewish state in Palestine. It appeared in 1891, five years before Theodor Herzl called for a Jewish state and six years before the first Zionist Congress. Blackstone got more than 400 dignitaries to sign his document, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, the Speaker of the House, John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, and several other prominent Americans, almost all of them Christians. After President Benjamin Harrison ignored the petition, Blackstone tried again in 1916 with President Woodrow Wilson, who was more sympathetic—and who supported the British foreign minister, Arthur Balfour, a devout Protestant, when in 1917 he issued his famous declaration calling for a Jewish home in Palestine.

Evangelical and fundamentalist Christian preachers enthusiastically promote this pro-Israel vision. In a study of preachers in 19 denominations, political scientist James Guth of Furman University found that evangelicals were much likelier to back Israel in their sermons than mainline Protestants or Catholics were, a difference that persisted after controlling for age, sex, party identification, and type of media used to reach congregations. Guth also showed that self-described evangelicals who attended church regularly, and thus heard their ministers’ sermons, were much more inclined to support Israel than were believers who did not attend regularly.

Evangelical preachers are reinforced by popular Christian books. In 1970, Hal Lindsey published The Late Great Planet Earth; in 1995, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins followed with Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days, and went on to write 11 more volumes on the same theme. Lindsey can claim more than 35 million sales, and the Left Behind books have sold 60 million. These bestsellers tell the dispensationalist story, discuss Armageddon, and argue for the protection of Jews and of Israel. Lindsey argues that, based on the book of Revelations and related biblical sources, “some time in the future,” there will be “a seven-year period climaxed by the visible return of Jesus Christ” but that this will not happen until the Jewish people have reestablished their nation in their ancient homeland.

Whatever one makes of his prediction, Lindsey is unambiguous about the importance of Israel to him—and, by extension, to his millions of readers. Reinforcing the preachers and writers are various pro-Israel evangelical organizations, including Bridges for Peace, the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, and the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel.

Mainstream Protestant groups, such as the National Council of Churches and the Middle East Council of Churches, have a very different attitude toward Israel. The NCC, for example, refused to support Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967, and immediately afterward began to protest victorious Israel’s expansion of its territory. From that point on, the NCC’s positions ran closely with Arab opinion, urging American contact with the Palestine Liberation Organization, for instance, and denouncing the Camp David Accords because they supposedly ignored the Palestinians’ national ambitions. In 2004, the Presbyterian Church decided to study a proposal to divert its investments from firms doing business with Israel. Within a year, the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, and parts of the Methodist Church followed suit. As Paul Charles Merkley sums up in his book about Christian Zionism, mainline Protestant churches’ “respectable leadership had backed away from Israel; all of her constant friends were seated below the salt.”

Why do mainline Protestant leaders oppose Israel? That question becomes harder to answer when one recalls that Israel is a democratic nation with vigorously independent courts that has not only survived brutal attacks by its Arab neighbors but provided a prosperous home for the children of many Holocaust survivors. As with any other nation, Israel has pursued policies that one can challenge. Some may criticize its management of the West Bank, for example, or its attacks on Hamas leaders. But these concerns are trivial compared with Iran’s announced desire to wipe Israel off the map by using every weapon at its disposal, including (eventually) a nuclear one.

The answer, I think, is that many Christian liberals see Israel as blocking the aspirations of the oppressed—who, they have decided, include the Palestinians. Never mind that the Palestinians support suicide bombers and rocket attacks against Israel; never mind that the Palestinians cannot form a competent government; never mind that they wish to occupy Israel “from the sea to the river.” It is enough that they seem oppressed, even though much of the oppression is self-inflicted.

After the Marxist claims about the proletariat proved false and capitalism was vindicated as the best way to achieve economic affluence, leftists had to stop pretending that they could accomplish much with state-owned factories and national economic plans. As a result, the oppressed replaced the proletariat as the Left’s object of affection. The enemy became, not capitalists, but successful nations.

That shift in focus has received encouragement from certain American academics, such as Noam Chomsky, and from the European press, including the BBC, the Guardian, the Evening Standard, and Le Monde. All tend to denounce Israel in the most unrestrained terms. When Israeli ground forces sought to root out terrorists hiding in a Jenin refugee camp, they lost 23 soldiers and killed 52 Palestinians. Among other press critics, the British writer A. N. Wilson, uninterested in the facts, called the episode a “massacre” and a “genocide.” The Left will always have its enemies; Israel has merely replaced John D. Rockefeller at the top of the list.

But why do so many Jewish groups and voters abhor their Christian evangelical allies? To answer that question carefully, we would need data that distinguish among Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and secular Jews. It is quite possible that Orthodox Jews welcome evangelical support while Reform and secular ones oppose it, but I could find no data on which to base a firm conclusion. Most Jews are political liberals, devoted to the Democratic Party and liberal causes generally. As Milton Himmelfarb once put it, “Jews earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans.” Such voting habits are not hard to explain in a population that historically includes victims of discrimination, oppression, and mass murder. By contrast, evangelicals tend to be conservatives to whom politics seems less important than their dispensationalist beliefs.

That liberal politics trumps other considerations—including worries about anti-Semitism—for many American Jews becomes clearer in light of other data. The most anti-Semitic group in America is African-Americans. This wasn’t always the case. Many early black leaders, including W. E. B. Du Bois and Ralph Bunche, were quite supportive of American Jews. Du Bois even criticized Bunche for being “insufficiently pro-Zionist.” The NAACP endorsed the creation of Israel in 1948, and the Jewish state received continued support from Paul Robeson, Bayard Rustin, and Martin Luther King, Jr. But by the time of the 1967 war, much of that leadership had left the scene. Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, James Forman, Malcolm X, and Shirley Du Bois (widow of W. E. B. Du Bois) were critical of Israel. At a New Left convention in the late 1960s, black delegates insisted on passing a resolution condemning the “imperialist Zionist war.” Nowadays, according to several polls, about one-third of U.S. blacks have very anti-Semitic attitudes, and this hasn’t changed since at least 1964, when the first such poll was conducted. And it has been African-American leaders, not white evangelicals, who have made anti-Semitic remarks most conspicuously. Everyone recalls Jesse Jackson’s reference to New York as “Hymietown,” to say nothing of Louis Farrakhan, a great admirer of Hitler, who has called Jews “bloodsuckers.”

Yet African-American voters are liberals, and so often get a pass from their Jewish allies. To Jews, blacks are friends and evangelicals enemies, whatever their respective dispositions toward Jews and Israel.

But another reason, deeper than Jewish and evangelical differences over abortion, school prayer, and gay marriage, may underlie Jewish dislike of Christian fundamentalists. Though evangelical Protestants are supportive of Israel and tolerant of Jews, in the eyes of their liberal critics they are hostile to the essential elements of a democratic regime. They believe that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and worry about the decay of morality; they must wish, therefore, to impose a conservative moral code, alter the direction of the country so that it conforms to God’s will, require public schools to teach Christian beliefs, and crush the rights of minorities.

Christian Smith, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina, analyzed four surveys of self-identified evangelicals and found that, while they do think that America was founded as a Christian nation and fear that the country has lost its moral bearings, these views are almost exactly the same as those held by non-evangelical Americans. Evangelicals, like other Americans, oppose having public schools teach Christian values, oppose having public school teachers lead students in vocal prayers, and oppose a constitutional amendment declaring the country a Christian nation. Evangelicals deny that there is one correct Christian view on most political issues, deny that Jews must answer for allegedly killing Christ, deny that laws protecting free speech go too far, and reject the idea that whites should be able to keep blacks out of their neighborhoods. They overwhelmingly agree that Jews and Christians share the same values and can live together in harmony. Evangelicals strongly oppose abortion and gay marriage, but in almost every other respect are like other Americans.

Whatever the reason for Jewish distrust of evangelicals, it may be a high price to pay when Israel’s future, its very existence, is in question. Half of all Protestants in the country describe themselves as evangelical, or born-again, Christians, making up about one-quarter of all Americans (though they constitute only 16 percent of white Christian voters in the Northeast). Jews, by contrast, make up less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, and that percentage will shrink: as many as half of all Jews marry non-Jews. When it comes to helping secure Israel’s survival, the tiny Jewish minority in America should not reject the help offered by a group that is ten times larger and whose views on the central propositions of a democratic society are much like everybody else’s. No good can come from repeating the 1926 assertion of H. L. Mencken that fundamentalist Christians are “yokels” and “morons.”

Laying the groundwork for a Third Temple in Jerusalem

The Temple Institute creates vestments and ritual items for use in future temple, and lobbies for more Jewish access to the Temple Mount

by Ben Sales

The Times of Israel

JTA – No praying. No kneeling. No bowing. No prostrating. No dancing. No singing. No ripping clothes.

These are the rules that Jews must abide by when visiting the Temple Mount, the site where the First and Second Holy Temples once stood, located above and behind the Western Wall in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Although the area is under Israeli sovereignty, the mount — known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif — is controlled by the Islamic Wakf, a joint Palestinian-Jordanian religious body. As the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, whose golden dome overlooks the city, the Temple Mount attracts daily crowds of Muslim worshipers.

Under Wakf regulations, Jews may only access the mount for 4 1/2 hours per day and are forbidden from praying there.

But when Rabbi Chaim Richman stands only feet from the Dome of the Rock, surrounded by Muslim visitors, he whispers a chapter of Psalms.

“God will answer you on your day of trouble,” he mutters on a recent visit. “The name of the God of Jacob will protect you.”

On previous visits to the mount, Richman says he’s sung the entire Hallel prayer under his breath.

A frequent presence on the mount who knows the guards by name, Richman is the international director of the Temple Institute, an organization based in the Old City with a singular goal: to rebuild the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

Ahead of Tisha B’Av, the fast day next week that commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples, the institute released a video showing Jewish children donning tool belts and leading their fathers out of synagogue to begin construction of the Holy Temple.

“Our goal is to fulfill the commandment of ‘They shall make a Temple for me and I will dwell among them,’ ” Richman says, quoting Exodus. “The basis of a Torah life is action.”

Following the Second Temple’s destruction in 70 C.E., most rabbis adopted the position that Jewish law prohibits reconstructing the Holy Temple prior to the age of messianic redemption, or that the law is too ambiguous and that the messiah must come first.

The Temple Institute takes a different position.

“There are no Jewish legal barriers” to rebuilding the temple, Richman says, only political ones.

The institute isn’t shy about advocating what many see as a radical goal: replacing the mosque at the Dome of the Rock with a new Jewish Holy Temple. A painting in the institute’s exhibition depicts this scenario, with the city’s light rail line taking residents to the Temple Mount. The Temple Institute is dedicated to laying the groundwork for this vision.

The organization has formulated a program for where the temple will stand and what its vessels will look like, aided by 20 men who study Temple law full-time. The products of this research — 40 ritual objects — are on display in Plexiglas cases at the institute’s headquarters in the Old City.

Silver trumpets to be blown by priests and a wooden lyre are perched next to two deep pans with long handles — one for collecting blood from small sacrificial offerings and another for large sacrifices like the Passover lamb.

In another room, mannequins with beards wear the respective vestments for deputy priests and the high priest. The high priest’s outfit, with azure weaves, gold thread and a breastplate with 12 precious stones, took 11 years of research and $150,000 to complete. Next to it stands a massive 12-spigot sink with electric faucets — technology that Richman says will be permitted in the Third Temple.

The institute’s crowning achievement — the Temple’s golden, 200-pound, seven-branch menorah — stands outside in a case overlooking the Western Wall. Unlike art or history museums, the institute’s goal is to remove the objects from their cases and bring them to the mount for use as soon as possible.

Many Israelis view the goal as a danger to the status quo that has kept this site holy to Muslims and Jews from turning into a tinderbox.

In 1984, Israel’s security services stopped a group of Jewish terrorists conspiring to blow up the mosque at the mount who reportedly got very close to achieving their goal. Ever since, authorities say they have kept a close watch on any attempts to disturb the peace on the mount.

Though observant Jews pray thrice daily in the Amidah prayer for the Temple to be rebuilt, few do anything about it. That’s as it should be, says Michael Melchior, an Orthodox rabbi and former Knesset member who is considered a religious moderate.

“We pray for holiness, but we also need to be careful of others’ desire for holiness,” Melchior said. “The moment you want to translate that into building a Temple, you upset the sensitive balance we’ve created here, by which we exist here.” He called Temple construction advocates “irresponsible.”

Given the obstacles to breaking ground on a Holy Temple, the institute also has taken up a more modest cause: expanding Jewish rights on the Temple Mount to allow unrestricted access and prayer. In that endeavor, Richman is joined by several right-wing Knesset members and a group of archaeologists who say the Wakf is reckless with archaeological remains at the site.

“It has exceptional historical importance,” Eilat Mazar, a Hebrew University archaeologist, said of the site. “There needs to be access for everyone. Authorities don’t take care of it.”

Moshe Feiglin, a nationalist Likud Knesset member, made a practice of visiting the Temple Mount monthly until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu banned him from the site in order to prevent provocations there. Last month, Feiglin wrote on Facebook, “Whoever turns his back on the Temple Mount is also giving up on construction in the city.”

Richman says support for the institute’s goals is growing. For him, the issue involves far more than politics, archaeology or even Jewish legal research. The Temple Institute, he says, is doing God’s work.

“The point is that we can’t live without the Temple,” Richman says. “It’s not about building, it’s about a concept: the idea that all of human experience can be elevated to a sense of divine purpose.”

California Democrats Deny Dianne Feinstein Their Endorsement for Senate

February 25 2018

by David Dayen

The Intercept

SAN DIEGO — Despite over a quarter-century representing California in the Senate, Dianne Feinstein in a humiliating setback was denied the endorsement of the California Democratic Party on Saturday, signaling a shift away from moderates at the highest levels of the state political infrastructure.

State Sen. Kevin De León, offering the strongest challenge to Feinstein since her election, garnered 54 percent of the vote of nearly 3,000 delegates gathered here at the state convention, compared to just 37 percent for Feinstein. The state party endorsement gives candidates coveted placement on state party mailers and can raise the profile of candidates who may have a deficit in fundraising. It’s not like Feinstein has a need to raise her profile in the state, and has plenty of money to get her message out. But denying the party endorsement to a sitting U.S. Senator is a remarkable turn of events for a lawmaker who has been a fixture in California politics going back to her days as a San Francisco board supervisor, where she was first elected in the late 1960s.

Had De León hit 60 percent, he would have won the endorsement outright. As it is, neither can claim it.

Feinstein, who would be 85 by the time she is sworn in for another term, does have a checkered history with the state party. In 1990, she famously gave a speech endorsing the death penalty during a campaign for governor, drawing loud boos from the hall. State delegates gave their endorsement in that governor’s race to Attorney General John Van de Kamp. Feinstein then used the footage of delegates booing her in campaign ads to prove her political independence. She won the primary, but lost the general election to Pete Wilson. (She then won Wilson’s vacated Senate seat.)

But that was long ago, and Feinstein has consistently earned the state party’s support for U.S. Senate in the 28 years since.

In the most recent poll from the Public Policy Institute of California, taken in early February, Feinstein held a 46-17 lead over De León, with about one-third of likely voters undecided. De León is expected to land in the top two with Feinstein and move to the general election in November, although Justice Democrats-endorsed activist Alison Hartson has earned the most small-dollar donations in the race, even more than Feinstein. Hartson was not on the Senate endorsement ballot, though another challenger, attorney Pat Harris, was.

The party also chose endorsements for statewide offices, as well as congressional and legislative races. There was no endorsement in the closely contested gubernatorial race, between Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, Treasurer John Chiang, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin.

In Congressional races, Bryan Caforio, a Democrat with support from leaders in the party running in the winnable 25th District, fell short of an endorsement against progressive challenger Katie Hill amid rumors that the party brass flipped on the race because of Hill’s fundraising prowess. In the 45th District, former Chuck Schumer aide and Center for American Progress fellow Dave Min got more than the required 60 percent support for an endorsement, in a race that includes foreclosure fraud expert Katie Porter.

Feinstein competed hard for the endorsement, holding conference calls and a scrambled egg breakfast with delegates, sending them numerous mailers and text messages, and appearing at party caucus meetings for the first time in decades. She reportedly received a smattering of boos at the party’s labor caucus when she said she voted with labor on “every vote I know.”

At the state environmental caucus, Feinstein signed a pledge that she would not take campaign contributions from the oil industry, and claimed that she indeed never took them, according to the state party environmental chair, RL Miller. While this approaches reality – Feinstein has received $3,600 from oil and gas interests in the 2013-2018 cycle – the story changes if you widen out to the entire energy sector. The number one donor to Feinstein’s campaign committee in this cycle is Edison International, the state’s electric utility. Overall, electric utilities have donated $127,975 to Feinstein since 2013, the number two industry behind law firms and lawyers.

At a speech on Saturday afternoon, De León touted the progressive accomplishments of the state legislature and said, “In your state Senate, Democrats act like Democrats.” He indirectly singed Feinstein for voting for NSA surveillance legislation and the war in Iraq. “Real leadership, moral clarity is always doing the right thing when no one is watching,” De León said, alluding to Feinstein’s sharp turn leftward during the primary.

On the other hand, Feinstein outsourced much of her time to Secretary of State Alex Padilla, her former aide, effectively drafting off a more popular politician. After getting some applause for her work authoring the assault weapons ban in 1994 and a vow to try to reinstate it, Feinstein ran out of her scheduled time for the speech. “I guess my time is up,” Feinstein said, to snickering.

“Damn right!” jeered critics in the crowd. “Time’s up!”

‘Bibi go home!’ Israelis demand Netanyahu resignation over looming corruption charges

February 25, 2018

Some 1,500 people have rallied in central Tel Aviv demanding the resignation of Benjamin Netanyahu over corruption allegations and a recent Israeli police recommendation that charges be brought against the Prime Minister.

The “Bibi Netanyahu go home” slogan once again united the Israeli crowd holding their weekly anti-government corruption protest in Tel Aviv. Waving signs that read “Bibi, you are not above the law,”“Love Israel, separate from Netanyahu,” they chanted, “A mafia country and a corrupt Prime Minister.”

Earlier this month Israeli police recommended that Benjamin Netanyahu be indicted over allegations of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Despite the pressure and daily calls to resign, Netanyahu maintains his innocence, further exacerbating the public anger.

“In the past, whenever there was an indictment recommendation with the police, politicians used to resign,” one protester told RT’s Ruptly video agency. “It’s very difficult to see Bibi resigning. He’s not the kind of [person] who resigns.”

I came here to protest and to defend the democracy in Israel because it’s important that people will fight corruption wherever it is because the government here forgot that they need to serve us and not we need to serve them,” noted another activist present at the rally.

Police earlier announced that they gathered sufficient evidence to start legal proceedings against the premier in two separate probes – Case 1000 and Case 2000. Although the recommendations were submitted to the attorney general, it may take months before the decision is made.

Case 1000 alleges that Netanyahu, along with his wife Sara, received lavish gifts worth thousands of dollars from Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan and Australian billionaire James Packer, in exchange for favors. The other probe revolves around suspicions of Netanyahu conspiring with the owner of the top-selling Israeli newspaper, Arnon Mozes, to get a more positive coverage of himself. The Prime Minister has repeatedly denied the allegations as “baseless.”

The Bunche Report

Foreword: In view of the tragic assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte by identified Jewish terrorists on September 17 of this year, the following report has been prepared for the use of Dr. Bunche, Count Bernadotte’s immediate replacement.

This report is a compilation of all identified terrorist attacks on British, American and Arab individuals and entities in the assassination of the British Resident Minister in the Middle East on November 6, 1944 by members of the terrorist Jewish Stern gang to the assassination of Count Bernadotte on September 17, 1948 by members of this same gang of fanatics.

This information is compiled from reports of the US Department of State, the British Foreign Office and various American and British press services.

New York, October 1, 1948

Chronology

1944

1 November 6, 1944, Cairo. Lord Moyne, British Resident Minister in the Middle East, and his driver were assassinated outside the minister’s Cairo residence. Two murderers were involved. One was injured, and both were immediately arrested.

1945

2 January 10, 1945, Cairo. The British supreme military court today put on trial Eliahu Bet-Tsours from Tel Aviv and Eliahu Hakim of Haifa, both admitted members of the Jewish terrorist Stern gang.

3 January 18, 1945, Cairo. The British supreme military court sentenced the murderers of Lord Moyne to death. Both killers admitted their act and also admitted their membership in the Stem gang which they said ordered the killings as a warning to the British not to interfere with future Jewish immigration to Jerusalem.

March 22, 1945, Cairo. The two convicted Jewish Stern gang terrorists who murdered Lord Moyne and his driver were hanged today in the Cairo prison British authorities announced.

1946

January 12, 1946, Palestine. A train was derailed by Jewish terrorists at Hadera near Haifa by a bomb and robbed of £35,000 in cash. Two British police officials were injured.

January 18, 1946, Haifa. Over 900 illegal Jewish immi¬grants were captured off Haifa by the British Royal Navy

January 19, 1946, Jerusalem. .Jewish terrorists destroyed a power station and a portion of the Central Jerusalem prison by explosives. Two persons were killed by the police.

January 20, 1946, Palestine. Jewish terrorists launched an attack against the British-controlled Givat Olga Coast Guard Station located between Tel Aviv and Haifa. Ten persons were injured and one was killed. Captured papers indicated that the purpose of this raid was to take revenge on the British for their seizure of the refugee ship on January 18. British military authorities in Jerusalem questioned 3,000 Jews and held 148 in custody.

April 25, 1946, Palestine. Jewish terrorists attacked a British military installation near Tel Aviv. This group, which contained a number of young girls, had as its goal the capture of British weapons. British authorities rounded up 1,200 suspects.

June 24, 1946, Palestine. The Irgun radio “Fighting Zion” warns that three kidnapped British officers are held as hostages for two Irgun members, Josef Simkohn and Issac Ashbel facing execution as well as 31 Irgun members facing trial.

June 27, 1946, Palestine. Thirty Irgun members are sen¬tenced by a British military court to 15 years imprison. One, Benjamin Kaplan was sentenced to life for carrying a firearm.

June 29, 1946, Palestine. British military units and police raided Jewish settlements throughout Palestine searching for the leaders of Haganah, a leading Jewish terrorist agency The Jewish Agency for Palestine was occupied and four top official arrested. At the end of June, 1946 2,000 were arrested and four Jews and one British soldier were killed.

July 1, 1946, Palestine. British officials announced the discovery of a large arms dump hidden underground at Meshek Yagur. 2,659 men and 59 women were detained for the three day operation in which 27 settlements were searched. For were killed and 80 were injured.

July 3, 1946, Palestine. Palestine High Commissioner Lt. General Sir Alan Cunningham commuted to life imprisonment the death sentences of Josef Simkhon and Issac Ashbel, Irgun members.

July 4, 1946, Tel Aviv. British officers, Captains K. Spencer, C. Warburton and A. Taylor who had been kidnapped by the Irgun on June 18 and held as hostages for the lives of Simkohn and Ashbel, were released in Tel Aviv unharmed. At this time, Irgun issued a declaration of war against the British claiming that they had no alternative but to fight.

July 22, 1946, Jerusalem. The west wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem which housed British Military Headquarters and other governmental offices was destroyed at 12:57 PM by explosives planted in the cellar by members of the Irgun terrorist gang. By the 26 of July, the casualties were 76 persons killed, 46 injured and 29 still missing in the rubble. The dead included many British, Arabs and Jews.

July 23, l946, Jerusalem. The Irgun Zvai Leumi terrorist group takes responsibility for the King David bombing but blames the British, calling them “tyrants.”

July 24, 1946, London. The British government released a White Paper that accuses the Haganah, Irgun and Stern gangs of “a planned movement of sabotage and violence” under the direction of the Jewish Agency and asserts that the June 29 arrest of Zionist leaders was the cause of the bombing.

July 28, 1946, Jerusalem. The British Palestine Commander, Lt. General Sir Evelyn Barker, banned fraternization by British troops with Palestine Jews whom he stated “cannot be absolved of responsibility for terroristic acts.” The order states that this will punish “the race . . . by striking at their pockets and showing our contempt for them”

July 29, 1946, Tel Aviv. Police in Tel Aviv raided a workshop making bombs.

July 30, 1946, Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is placed under a 22-hour-a-day curfew as 20,000 British troops began a house-to-house sweep for terrorists. The city is sealed off from the rest of Jerusalem and troops are ordered to shoot to kill any curfew violators.

July 31, 1946, Tel Aviv. A large cache of weapons, extensive counterfeiting equipment and $1,000,000 in counterfeit Government bonds were discovered in Tel Aviv’s largest synagogue.

July 31, 1946, Haifa. Two ships have arrived at Haifa with a total of 3,200 illegal Jewish immigrants.

August 2, 1946, Tel Aviv. British military authorities ended the curfew in Tel Aviv after detaining 500 persons for further questioning. A second arms dump was discovered on July 1 in a school building.

August 2, 1946, Jerusalem. The Palestine Government disclosed that 91 persons were killed and 45 injured in the King David bombing.

August 2, 1946, Jerusalem. Jerusalem police announced the arrest of Itzhak Yestemitsky second man in the Stern gang.

August 12, 1946, London. The British Government announced that it will allow no more unscheduled immigration into Palestine and that those seeking entry into that country will be sent to Cyprus and other areas under detention. Declaring that such immigration threatens a civil war with the Arab population, it charges a “minority of Zionist extremists” with attempting to force an unacceptable solution of the Palestine problem.

August 12, 1946, Haifa. Two ships carrying a total of 1,300 Jewish refugees arrived at Haifa. The port area was isolated on August 11 by British military and naval units. The first deportation ship sailed for Cyprus with 500 Jews on board.

August 13, 1946, Haifa. Three Jews were killed and seven wounded when British troops were compelled to fire on a crowd of about 1,000 persons frying to break into the port area of Haifa. Two Royal Navy ships with 1,300 illegal Jewish immigrants on board sailed for Cyprus. Another ship with 600 illegal immigrants was captured and confined in the Haifa harbor.

August 26, 1946, Palestine. British military units searched the coastal villages of Casera and Sadoth Yam for three Jews who bombed the transport “Empire Rival” last week Eighty-five persons, including the entire male population of one of the villages were sent to the Rafa detention center.

August 27, 1946, Palestine. During the searches conducted on August 26, an explosive limpet mine similar to the one used on the “Empire Rival” was found.

August 29, 1946, Jerusalem. The British Government announced the commutation to life imprisonment of the death sentences imposed on l8 Jewish youths convicted of bombing the Haifa railroad shops.

August 30, 1946, Palestine. British military units discovered arms and munitions dumps in the Jewish farming villages of Dorot and Ruhama.

September 8, 1946, Palestine. Zionist terrorists cut the Palestine railroad in 50 places.

September 9, 1946, Tel Aviv. Two British officers were killed in an explosion in a public building.

September 9, 1946, Haifa. An Arab constable was killed.

September 10, 1946, Palestine. British troops imposed a curfew and arrested 101 Jews and wounded two in a search for saboteurs in Tel Aviv and neighboring Ramat Gan. Irgun terrorist group took the action against the railways on September 8, as a protest.

September 14, 1946, Jaffa. Jewish terrorists robbed three banks in Jaffa and Tel Aviv, killing three Arabs. Thirty-six Jews were arrested.

September 15, 1946, Tel Aviv. Jewish terrorists attacked a police station on the coast near Tel Aviv but were driven off by gunfire.

October 2, 1946, Tel Aviv. British military units and police seized 5O Jews in a Tel Aviv cafe after a Jewish home was blown up. This home belonged to a Jewish woman who had refused to pay extortion money to the Irgun terrorist gang.

October 6, 1944 Jerusalem. An RAF man was killed by gunfire

October 8, 1946, Jerusalem. Two British soldiers were killed when their truck detonated a land mine outside Jerusalem. A leading Arab figure was wounded in a similar mine explosion in Jerusalem and more road mines were found near Government House.

October 31, 1946, Rome. The British Embassy in Rome was damaged by a bomb, believed to have been planted by Jewish terrorists.

November 3, 1946, Palestine. Two Jews and two Arabs were killed in clashes between Arabs and a group of Jews attempting to establish a settlement at Lake Hula in northern Palestine.

November 4, 1946, Rome. Italian authorities released a letter in which the Jewish terrorist gang, Irgun, took credit for the October 31 embassy bombing.

November 5, 1946, Palestine. British authorities released the following eight Jewish Agency leaders from the Latrun concentration camp where they had been held since June 29: Moshe Shertok, Dr. Issac Greenbaum, Dr. Bernard Joseph, David Remiz, David Hacohen, David Shingarevsky, Joseph Shoffman and Mordecai Shatter. A total of 2,550 Haganah suspects have also been released as well as 779 Jews arrested in the wake of the King David bombing.

November 7, 1946, Palestine. Railroad traffic was suspended for 24 hours throughout Palestine following a fourth Irgun attack on railway facilities in two days.

November 9 through November 13, 1946, Palestine. Nineteen persons, eleven British soldiers and policemen and eight Arab constables, were killed in Palestine during this period as Jewish terrorists, using land mines and suitcase bombs, increased their attacks on railroad stations, trains and even streetcars.

November 14, 1946, London. The Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned Jewish terrorist groups who threatened to export their terrorism to England.

November 18, 1946, Tel Aviv. Police in Tel Aviv attacked Jews, assaulting many and firing into houses. Twenty Jews were injured in fights with British troops following the death on November 17 of three policemen and an RAF sergeant in a land mine explosion.

Five persons were injured when a bomb exploded in the Jerusalem tax office.

December 2 through December 5, 1946, Palestine. Ten persons, including six British soldiers, were killed in bomb and land-mine explosions.

December 3, 1946, Jerusalem. A member of the Stern gang was killed in an aborted hold-up attempt

December 26, 1946, Palestine. Armed Jewish terrorists raided two diamond factories in Nathanya and Tel Aviv and escaped with nearly $107,000 in diamonds, cash and bonds. These raids signaled an end to a two- week truce during the World Zionist Congress.

1947

January 1, 1947, Jerusalem. Dov Gruner was sentenced to hang by a British military court for taking part in a raid on the Ramat Gan police headquarters in April of 1946.

January 2, 1947, Palestine. A wave of terror swept Palestine as Jewish terrorists staged bombings and machine gun attacks in five cities. Casualties were low. Homemade flame-throwers were used in several cases. Pamphlets seized warned that the Irgun had again declared war against the British and Arabs of Palestine.

January 4, 1947, Jerusalem. British soldiers have been ordered to wear sidearms at all times and were forbidden to enter any cafe or restaurant

January 5, 1947, Egypt ,Eleven British troops were injured in a hand grenade attack on a train carrying troops to Palestine. The attack took place near Benha, 25 miles from Cairo.

January 8, 1947, Palestine. British police arrested 32 persons suspected of being members of the Irgun terrorist gang’s “Black Squad” in raids on Rishon-el Zion and Rehoboth.

January 12, 1947, Haifa. A single terrorist drove a truck filled with high explosives into the central police station and exploded it, killing two British policemen and two Arab constables and injuring 140 others. The terrorist escaped. This action ended a 10-day lull in the violence and the Stern gang took the credit for it

January 13, 1947, Haifa. British soldiers and police screened 872 persons in Haifa and detained 10 for further questioning as Arabs and Jews both condemned the bombing.

January 14, 1947, Jerusalem. Yehudi Katz is sentenced to life in prison by a Jerusalem court for robbing a bank in Jaffa in September of 1946 to obtain funds for the terrorists.

January 21, 1947, London. Dr. Emmanuel Neumann, vice president of the Zionist Organization of America, declared US. Zionists would spend “millions” to finance illegal immigration of Jews to Palestine. A Haganah spokesman in Paris claimed that 211,878 Jews entered Palestine illegally during the past 15 months.

January 22, 1947, Palestine. Sir Harry Gurney, Chief Secretary, stated that the British administration was taxing Palestine $2,400,000 to pay for sabotage by the terrorists.

January 22, 1947, London. Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones informed the House of Commons 73 British subjects were murdered by Palestine terrorists in 1946 and

“no culprits have been convicted.”

January 27, 1947, London. Britain’s conference on Palestine, boycotted by the Jews, reconvened. Jamal el Husseini, Palestine Arab leader, declared that the Arab world was unalterably opposed to partition as a solution to the problem. The session then adjourned.

January 29, 1947, London. It was officially announced that the British Cabinet decided to partition Palestine.

January 29, 1947, Jerusalem. Irgun forces released former Maj. H. Collins, a British banker, who they kidnapped on January 26 from his home. He had been badly beaten. On January 28, the Irgun released Judge Ralph Windham who had been kidnapped in Tel Aviv on January 27 while trying a case. These men had been taken as hostages for Dov Bela Gruner, an Irgun member under death sentence for terrorism. The British High Commissioner, Lt Gen, Sir Alan Cunningham, had threatened martial law unless the two men were returned unharmed.

January 31, 1947, Jerusalem. General Cunningham ordered the wives and children of all British civilians to leave Palestine at once. About 2,000 are involved. This order did not apply to the 5,000 Americans in Palestine.

February 3, 1947, Jerusalem. The Palestine Government issued a 7-day ultimatum to the Jewish Agency demanding that it state “categorically and at once” whether it and the supreme Jewish Council in Palestine will call on the Jewish community by February 10 for “cooperation with the police and armed forces in bringing to justice the members of the terrorist groups.” This request was publicly rejected by Mrs. Goldie Meyerson, head of the Jewish Agency’s political department

February 4, 1947, Jerusalem. British District Commissioner James Pollock disclosed a plan for military occupation of three sectors of Jerusalem and orders nearly 1,000 Jews to evacuate the Rehavia, Schneler and German quarters by noon, February 6.

February 5, 1947, Jerusalem. The Vaad Leumi rejected the British ultimatum while the Irgun passed out leaflets that it was prepared to fight to the death against the British authority. The first 700 of some 1,500 British women and children ordered to evacuate Palestine leave by plane and train for Egypt. British authorities, preparing for military action, order other families from sections of Tel Aviv and Haifa which will be turned into fortified military areas.

February 9, 1947, Haifa. British troops removed 650 illegal Jewish immigrants from the schooner ‘Negev” at Haifa and after a struggle forced them aboard the ferry ‘Emperor Haywood” for deportation to Cyprus.

February 14, 1947, Jerusalem. The British administration revealed that Lt Gen. Sir Evelyn Barker, retiring British commander in Palestine, had confirmed the death sentences of three Irgun members on February 12 before leaving for England. The three men, Dov Ben Rosenbaum, Eliezer Ben Kashani and Mordecai Ben Alhachi, had been sentenced on February 10 to be hanged for carrying firearms. A fourth, Haim Gorovetzky, received a life sentence because of his youth. Lt Gen. G. MacMillian arrived in Jerusalem on February 13 to succeed Gen. Barker.

February 15, 1947, Palestine. The Sabbath was the set¬ting for sporadic outbreaks of violence which included the murder of an Arab in Jaffa and of a Jew in Bne Brok, the kidnapping of a Jew in Peta Tikvah and the burning of a Jewish club in Haifa.

March 9, 1947, Hadera. A British army camp was attacked.

March 10, 1947, Haifa. A Jew, suspected of being an informer, was murdered by Jewish terrorists.

March 12, 1947, Jerusalem. The British Army pay corps was dynamited in Jerusalem and one soldier killed.

March 12, 1947, Palestine. British military units captured most of the 800 Jews whose motor ship “Susanna” ran the British blockade and was beached north of Gaza on this date. A British naval escort brought the “Ben Hecht,” the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation’s first known immigrant ship, into Haifa, and its 599 passengers were shipped to Cyprus. The British arrested the crew, which included 18 US. seamen.

March 13, 1947, Jerusalem. British authorities announced 78 arrests as a result of unofficial Jewish cooperation, but two railroads were attacked, resulting in two deaths, and eight armed men robbed a Tel Aviv bank of $65,000.

March 14, 1947, Palestine. Jewish terrorists blew up part of an oil pipeline in Haifa and a section of the rail line at Beer Yakov.

March 16, 1947, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency building was bombed.

March 17, 1947, Jerusalem. British authorities ended martial law which had kept 300,000 Jews under house arrest for 16 days and tied up most economic activity

March 17, 1947, Palestine. A military court sentenced Moshe Barazani to be hanged for possessing a hand grenade.

March 18, 1947, Palestine. Terrorist leaflets admitted the murder of Michael Shnell on Mount Carmel as an informer.

March 22, 1947, Palestine. British officials announced the arrest of five known terrorists and the discovery near Petah Tikvah of the body of Leon Meshiah, a Jew presumably slain as a suspected informer

March 26, 1947, London. Britain’s Privy Council rejected the appeal of the death sentence against Dov Bela Gruner.

March 28, 1947, Haifa. The Irgun blew up the Iraq Petroleum Co. pipeline in Haifa.

March 29, 1947, Palestine. A British army officer was murdered by Jewish terrorists when they ambushed a party of horsemen near the Ramle camp. A raid by terrorists on a Tel Aviv bank yielded $109,000.

March 30, 1947, Palestine. Units of the British Royal Navy, answering an SOS, took the disabled “Moledeth” with 1,600 illegal Jewish refugees on board under tow some 50 miles outside Palestinian waters.

March 30, 1947, Tel Aviv. The Stem gang killed the wife of a British soldier.

March 31, 1947, Haifa. Jewish terrorists dynamited the British-owned Shell-Mex oil tanks in Haifa, starting a fire that destroyed a quarter-mile of the waterfront. The damage was set at more than $1,000,000, and the British government in Palestine has stated that the Jewish community will have to pay for it

April 2, 1947, Cyprus. The “Ocean Vigour’ was damaged by a bomb in Famagusta Harbor, Cyprus. The Haganah admitted the bombing.

April 3, 1947, Jerusalem. A court in Jerusalem sentenced Daniel Azulai and Meyer Feinstein, members of the Irgun terrorist gang, to death for the October 30 attack on the Jerusalem railroad station. The Palestine Supreme Court admitted an appeal of Dov Bela Gruner’s death sentence.

April 3, 1947. The transport “Empire Rival” was damaged by a time bomb while en route from Haifa to Port Said in Egypt

April 7, 1947, Jerusalem. The High Court denied a new appeal against the death sentence of Dov Bela Gruner, and a British patrol killed Moshe Cohen.

April 8, 1947, Jerusalem. Jewish terrorists killed a British constable in revenge for the Cohen death.

April 9, 1947, Palestine. The Palestine Government abandoned “statutory martial law” in the face of unfavorable publicity but granted itself military dictatorship powers in “controlled areas” it may impose.

April 10, 1947, London. The British Government requested France and Italy to prevent Jews from embarking for Palestine.

100

April 11, 1947, Jerusalem. Asher Eskovitch, a Jew, was beaten to death by Moslems when he entered the forbidden Mosque of Omar.

101

April 13, 1947, Jerusalem. Guella Cohen, Stern gang ille¬gal broadcaster, escaped from a British military hospital.

102

April 14, 1947, Tel Aviv. A British naval unit boarded the refugee ship “Guardian” and seized it along with 2,700 passengers after a gun battle in which two immigrants were killed and 14 wounded.

103

April 16, 1947, Haifa. In spite of threats of reprisal from the Irgun, the British hanged Dov Bela Gruner and three other Irgun members at Acre Prison on Haifa Bay. Jewish communities were kept under strict curfew for several hours. Soon after the deaths were announced, a time bomb was found in the Colonial Office in London but was defused.

104

April 17, 1947, Palestine. Lt Gen. C. Macmillan con¬firmed death sentences for two more convicted terrorists, Meier Ben Feinstein and Moshe Ben Barazani, but reduced Daniel Azulai’s sentence to life imprisonment

105

April 18, 1947, Palestine. Irgun’s reprisals for the Gruner execution were an attack on a field dressing station near Nethanaya where one sentry was killed, an attack on an armored car in Tel Aviv where one bystander was killed and harmless shots at British troops in Haifa.

106

April 19, 1947, Haifa. British naval units exploded depth charges in Haifa harbor to prevent an underwater assault by Jewish “frogmen” on three British deportation vessels that took the “Guardian’s” passengers to Cyprus.

107

April 20, 1947, Tel Aviv. A series of bombings by Jewish terrorists in retaliation for the hanging of convicted terrorist Gruner injured 12 British soldiers.

108

April 21, 1947, Jerusalem. Meir Feinstein and Moshe Barazani, condemned terrorists, killed themselves in prison a few hours before they were scheduled to be hanged. They blew themselves up with bombs smuggled to them in hollowed-out oranges.

109

April 22, 1947, Palestine. A troop train arriving from Cairo was bombed outside Rehovoth with five soldiers and three civilians killed and 39 persons injured.

110

April 23, 1947, London. The British First Lord of the Admiralty, Viscount Hall, defended the Labor Government’s policy in Palestine and he acknowledged in the House of Lords that Britain would not “carry out a policy of which it did not approve” despite any UN action. He blamed contributions from American Jews to the Palestine terrorists as aiding terrorism there and cited the toll since August 1, 1945: 113 killed, 249 wounded, 168 Jews convicted, 28 sentenced to death, four executed, 33 terrorists slain in battles. Viscount Samuel urged increased immigration.

111

April 23, 1947, Palestine. The Irgun proclaimed its own “military courts” to “try” British troops and policemen who resisted them.

112

April 24, 1947, Palestine. Lt. General Sir Alan Cunningham, Palestine High Commissioner flew to Egypt and requested Lt General Sir Miles Dempsey, Middle-East land force commander, for more troops to be sent to Palestine.

113

April 25, 1947, Tel Aviv. A Stern gang squad drove a stolen post office truck loaded with explosives into the Sarona police compound and detonated it, killing five British policemen.

114

April 26, 1947, Haifa. The murder of Deputy Police Superintendent A. Conquest climaxed a week of blood¬shed.

115

May 4,1947, Acre. The walls of Acre prison were blast¬ed open by an Irgun bomb squad and 251 Jewish and Arab prisoners escaped after a gun battle in which 15 Jews and 1 Arab were killed, 32 (including six British guards) were injured and 23 escapists were recaptured. The Palestine Government promised no extra punishment if the 189 escapees still at large will surrender.

116

May 6, 1947, Jerusalem. former British Commando Sgt Dov Bernard Cohen, head of the Acre bomb squad, was fatally wounded in the attack.

117

May 4, 1947, New York. The Political Action Committee for Palestine ran a series of advertisements in New York newspapers seeking funds to buy parachutes for young European Jews planning to crash the Palestine immigration barrier by air.

118

May 8, 1947, Tel Aviv. A Jew was ambushed and shot to death by an Arab group near Tel Aviv, and three Jewish-owned Tel Aviv shops whose owners refused to contribute money to Jewish terrorist groups were burned down.

119

May 12, 1947, Jerusalem. Jewish terrorists killed two British policemen.

120

May 12, 1947, Jerusalem. The British authorities announced that 3l2 Jewish political prisoners were held in Kenya, East Africa, 247 in Latrun and 34 in Bethlehem, Palestine.

121

May 15, 1947, The Stern gang killed two British lieutenants and injured seven other persons with two derailments and three bridge demolitions.

122

May 16, 1947, Palestine. On the fifth day of another terrorist drive, Haifa Assistant Police Superintendent, Robert Schindler, a German Jew, was murdered by the Stern gang, and a British constable was killed on the Mt. Carmel-Haifa road near Jerusalem.

123

May 17, 1947, Haifa. The 1,200-ton Haganah freighter “Trade Winds” was seized by the Royal Navy off the Lebanon coast and escorted into Haifa, and over 1,000 illegal immigrants were disembarked pending transfer to Cyprus.

124

May 19, 1947, London. The British government protested to the United States government against American fund-raising drives for Palestine terrorist groups. The complaint referred to a “Letter to the Terrorists of Palestine” by playwright Ben Hecht, American League for a Free Palestine co-chairman, first published in the New York ‘Post” on May 15. The ad said, “We are out to raise millions for you.”

125

May 22, 1947, Palestine. Arabs attacked a Jewish labor camp in southern Palestine, retaliating for a Haganah raid on the Arabs near Tel Aviv, May 20. Some 40,000 Arab and Jewish workers united the same day in a one-day strike against all establishments operated by the British War Ministry

126

May 23, 1947, Palestine. A British naval party boarded the immigrant ship “Mordei Haghettoath” off South Palestine and took control of its 1,500 passengers. Two British soldiers were convicted in Jerusalem of abandoning a jeep and army mail under a terrorist attack.

127

May 27, 1947, Germany. Jewish underground migration officials in Frankfort-am-Main declared they hoped to transport 1,000,000 Jews from Europe to Palestine, 30,000 of them this summer. The Costa Rican ship “Colony Trader” has been detained at Gibraltar under suspicion of its use for smuggling illegal immigrants into Palestine. London is investigating reports that non-Jewish Poles and Slavs in DP camps are being recruited for the Palestine army. Other investigations are being conducted into persistent reports that Soviet Russia has been supplying technical advisors to The Jewish terrorist groups.

128

May 28, 1947, Syria. Fawzi el-Kawukji who spent the war years in Germany after leading the 1936-39 Arab revolt in Palestine, told reporters in Damascus that an unfavorable decision by the UN inquiry group would be the signal for war against the Jews in Palestine. “We must prove that in case” of an Anglo-American war with Russia, “we can be more dangerous or useful to them than the Jews,” he added.

129

May 28, 1947, Haifa. Jewish terrorists blew up a water main and a shed in the Haifa oil dock areas and made three attacks on railway lines in the Lydda and Haifa areas.

130

May 31, 1947, Haifa. The Haganah ship “Yehuda Halevy” arrived under British naval escort with 399 illegal Jewish immigrants, the first from Arab territories. They were immediately transshipped to Cyprus.

131

June 4, 1947, London. The terrorist Jewish Stern gang sent letter bombs to high British governmental officials. Eight letter bombs containing powdered gelignite explo¬sive were discovered in London. Recipients included Ernest Bevan, Anthony Eden, Prime Minister Attlee and Winston Churchill.

132

June 5, 1947, Washington. President Truman asked all persons in the US. to refrain from helping Palestine terrorists. The American Jewish Committee and Jewish Labor Committee condemned Ben Hecht’s campaign for Palestine terrorist funds.

133

June 5, 1947, Tel Aviv. Jewish terrorist mines wrecked two trains near Tel Aviv and Haifa and the Athlit railroad station but without casualties.

134

June 6, 1947, London. Scotland Yard official now acknowledge that a total of 20 letter bombs have been found.

135

June 6, 1947, New York. Secretary General of the UN, Trygve Lie has forwarded a request to all countries a request by the British that they guard their frontiers against departure of illegal immigrants bound for Palestine.

136

June 18, 1947, Tel Aviv. Haganah disclosed that one of its men was killed by a booby trap which foiled an Irgun plot to blow up British Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv.

137

June 19, 1947, Jerusalem. Major Roy Farran, held in connection with the disappearance of a 16-year-old Jew, escaped from custody in the army barracks in Jerusalem.

138

June 28, 1947, Palestine. The terrorist Stern gang opened fire on British soldiers waiting in line outside a Tel Aviv theater, killing three and wounding two. Another Briton is killed and several wounded in a Haifa hotel. This action was claimed by Jewish terrorists to be in retaliation for British brutality and the alleged slaying of a missing 16 year old Jew, Alexander Rubowitz while he was being held in an Army barracks on May 6.

139

June 29, 1947, New York. The UN Committee votes 9-0 to condemn the acts of terrorism as “flagrant disregard” of the UN appeal for an interim truce as Stern terrorists wounded four more British soldiers on a beach at Herzila. Major Roy Alexander Farran surrendered voluntarily after his escape from custody in Jerusalem on June 19. He had been arrested in connection with the Rubowitz case.

140

June 30, 1947, Jerusalem. The Palestine government permitted oil companies to raise prices of benzene nearly 10% to pay for $1 million damage suffered when Jewish terrorists blew up oil installations at Haifa on March 31.

141

July 1, 1947, Jerusalem. The British Government rejected the UN Commission’s move to halt the execution of three Irgun members convicted of terrorism and also said that the UN Assembly truce resolution of May 15 had no bearing on “the normal processes of the administration of justice” in Palestine.

142

July 2, 1947, Haifa. Irgun members robbed a Haifa bank of $3,200 while both the Stem gang and the Irgun warned the British that their “provocative” acts in Palestine must end before a truce can be effected. The Guatemalan and Czech members of the UN Commission visited two Jewish convicts in Acre Prison. In Pretoria, South Africa, Prime Minister Smuts, who was a party to the Balfour Declaration, said “the promise of a national home in Palestine never meant the whole of Palestine.” He favored partition into Arab and Jewish states.

143

July 12, 1947, Jerusalem. Dr. Ariem Altman, president of the United Zionist Revisionists, told a party rally in Jerusalem that the Revisionists would settle for nothing less than an unpartitioned free Jewish state in Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Irgun announced in Jerusalem that two British sergeants kidnapped in Nathanaya are being held in Tel Aviv and have been sentenced to death by Irgun court-martial.

144

July 14, 1947, Nathanya. The British imposed martial law and placed the 15,000 inhabitants of Nathanya under house arrest. They made 68 arrests and sentenced 21 persons to 6 months each in the Latrun detention camp.145

July 17, 1947, Nathanya. The Irgun in five mine opera-lions against military traffic to and from Nathanya killed one Briton and injured 16.

146

July 17, 1947, Nethanya. Mines killed a second Briton and injured seven.

147

July 18, 1947, Haifa. The American-manned Haganah refugee ship “Exodus 1947” (formerly the ‘President Warfield”) was escorted into Haifa by British naval units after a battle in which the American first mate, William Bernstein and two immigrants were killed and more than 30 injured. The blockade runner itself was badly damaged. The remainder of the 4,554 passengers, the largest group of illegal immigrants to sail for Palestine in a single ship, were put aboard British prison ships for removal to Cyprus. The American captain, Bernard Marks, and his crew were arrested. The ship sailed from France.

148

July 19, 1947, Haifa. Rioting, quickly suppressed, broke out among the passengers of the “Exodus 1947” when they learned they were to be returned to France

149

July 19, 1947, Jerusalem. The Palestine Government charges that a Jewish “campaign of lawlessness, murder and sabotage” has cost 70 lives and $6 million in damage since 1940.

150

July 21, 1947, Jerusalem. Before officially admitting that 4,529 passengers of the “Exodus 1947” who had been transferred to three British ships, were being sent not to Cyprus but back to France, the Palestine Government took the pre-caution of first placing Jerusalem’s 90,000 Jews under nightly house arrest.

151

July 23, 1947, Haifa. Haganah sank the British transport “Empire Lifeguard” in Haifa harbor as it was discharging 300 Jewish immigrants who had officially been admitted to Palestine under quota. Sixty-five immigrants were killed and 40 were wounded. The British were able to refloat the ship.

152

July 24, 1947, Amman, Trans-Jordan. Seven members of the UN Palestine Commission flew to Amman and were informed by Jordanian Premier Samir Pasha el Rifai that: (1) Palestine belongs to the Arabs; (2) the Arabs never accepted the Balfour Declaration; (3) the Jews are imperialistic invaders whose immigration “must be stopped forthwith”; (5) Palestine should get unpartitioned independence under the Arab majority; (6) the plight of European refugees does not concern Palestine; (7) the Arabs will justly resist with force any unfavorable decision.

153

July 26, 1947. Jewish terrorists blew up the Iraqi Petroleum Co. pipeline 12 miles east of Haifa and destroyed a Mt. Carmel radar station.

154

July 26, 1947, Palestine. Two British soldiers were killed by a booby trap near Jerusalem, raising the week’s violence toll to 12 killed and 75 wounded.

155

July 26, 1947, Palestine. Menachem Begin, leader of the Irgun, announced from his secret headquarters that Haganah had planned the King David Hotel bombing in Jerusalem on July 22, 1946 in which 91 persons were killed.

156

July 27, 1947, Palestine. An ambush and mines cost the British seven more casualties, all wounded.

157

July 28, 1947, Haifa. Two small Haganah ships loaded with 1,174 Jews from North Africa were intercepted by British naval units off Palestine and brought into Haifa. The illegal immigrants were transshipped aboard British transports and taken to Cyprus.

158

July 29, 1947, Palestine. The British authorities hanged three Irgunists in Acre prison despite appeals from Jewish leaders. The condemned, Myer Nakar, Absalom Habib and Jacob Weiss, had fought in the Czech underground during the war. They were convicted of blowing up Acre Prison on May 4 and liberating 200 Arabs and Jews.

159

July 29, 1947, France. The 4,429 “Exodus 1947” illegal immigrants who sailed from Sate, France, July 11 for Palestine only to be shipped back by the British aboard three transports, refused to debark as the vessels anchored off Port de Douc, France. Only a few who were ill went ashore. The French government informed the refugees that they do not have to debark but will be welcomed if they do. The transports are the “Runnymede Park,” “Ocean Vigour” and “Empire Valour”

160

July 30, 1947, Palestine. Irgun terrorists announced that they have hanged two British sergeants, Marvyn Paice and Jifford Martin, whom they had held as hostages since July 12, for “crimes against the Jewish community.” The two were seized when death sentences on the three Irgun members were confirmed by the British authorities. Two more British soldiers were killed by a land mine near Hadera. British troops attacked the Jewish colony of Pardes Hanna in revenge for the murders.

161

July 31, 1947, Nathanya. The bodies of the two murdered British sergeants were found hanging from eucalyptus trees one and a half miles from Nathanya about 530 AM. A booby trap blew Martin’s body to bits when it was cut down. Enraged British troops stormed into Tel Aviv, wrecked shops, attacked pedestrians and sprayed a bus with gunfire killing five Jews: two men, two women and a boy.

162

August 1, 1947, Tel Aviv. Thirty-three Jews are injured in an anti-British riot at Tel Aviv during the funeral procession of five civilians killed by British soldiers on July 31. In Jerusalem a Jewish terrorist attack on the British security zone in Rehavia was repulsed with one attacker killed and two captured.

163

August 2, 1947, Tel Aviv. The body of an unidentified Jew was found on a road near Tel Aviv. He was believed to have been kidnapped by men in British uniforms two weeks ago. Total casualties in Palestine since mid-July: 25 persons slain, 144 wounded. The dead include 15 Britons, two Jewish terrorists, eight civilians. Anti-British slogans, swastikas and dollar signs are painted onto British consulates in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles.

164

August 3, 1947, Palestine. Haganah warned in Jerusalem that the Britons who killed five Jews in Tel Aviv On July 31 will be found and punished.

165

August 4, 1947, Paris. An Irgun leader in Paris states that his organization has sentenced high British military and civilian officials in Palestine to death “in absentia” and will hang them upon capture.

166

August 4, 1947, Palestine. British troops blew up a Jewish house in a Jerusalem suburb in which arms were found. Jewish terrorists robbed Barclays’ Bank in Tel Aviv of $5200 and a Haganah member was killed.

167

August 5, 1947, Palestine. Striking at dawn, British secu¬rity forces arrested 35 leading Zionists and sent them to the Latrun detention camp in an attempt to wipe out the Irgun leadership. In reprisal, Irgunists blew up the Department of Labor in Jerusalem, killing three British constables. Those arrested included Mayor Israel Rokach of Tel Aviv; Mayor Oved Ben Ami of Nathanya; Mayor Abraham Krinitzki of Ramat Gan, Arieh Altman, president of the radical Revisionist Party; Menahem Arber, leader of the Revisionist youth organization, B’rith Trumpeldor, which is outlawed; Max Kritzman, Dov Bela Gruner’s attorney, and David Stern, brother of the late founder of the Stem gang.All those arrested except the three mayors were Revisionists. Among many papers confiscated was corre¬spondence from Soviet Russian agents in Italy and Bulgaria and extensive plans to poison the water supply of the non-Jewish parts of Jerusalem with botulism, anthrax and other bacteria. Bacteria was supplied by Soviet sources through Bulgaria.

168

August 5, 1947, England. Anti-Semitic outbreaks slackened after five days of rock throwing, window-smashing and other incidents including daubing Jewish businesses with swastikas and numerous assaults on British Jews. These incidents occurred in Liverpool, Manchester, Cardiff (Wales), Leeds, London and Birmingham as retaliation for the murder of two British sergeants in Palestine. Thirty-eight persons were arrested in Liverpool but in the main, the British police ignored the rioters and permitted them to run their course.

169

August 8, 1947, Palestine. The Bank of Sharon in Ramat Can was robbed by Jewish terrorists of $8,000.

170

August 14, 1947, Geneva. The UN Special Subcom¬mittee on Palestine returned to Geneva after a seven-day tour of DP camps in Austria and Germany. The tour took the group to Munich, Vienna, Berlin and Hamburg. In Berlin it heard reports August 13 from General Lucius D. Clay, US. Military Governor. Clay testified that anti-Semitism is growing very sharply among the ranks of the US. military units in the US. Zones of Austria and Germany because of the violent, asocial and criminal behavior of the Eastern European DPs, all of whom are Jewish. He recommended that these DPs be allowed to enter Palestine before some incident with American soldiers, who have been beaten, robbed and killed by Jewish DPs, leads to severe spontaneous reactions on the part of other soldiers. His views were seconded very strongly by Sir Brian Robertson, Deputy British Military Governor.

171

August 15, 1947, Palestine. A mine derailed a Cairo-Haifa troop train north of Lydda, killing the engineer, and Irgun terrorists claimed the incident was part of its campaign to disrupt all the Palestine rail traffic.

172

August 16, 1947, Palestine. Arab-Jewish clashes have brought death to l2 Arabs and l3 Jews and heavy property destruction this week in the regions of Jewish Tel Aviv and Arab Jaffa. Interracial strife was renewed on August 10 when Arabs killed four Jews in a Tel Aviv cafe, in reprisal for the deaths of two Arabs in a Haganah raid in Fega two months ago. Haganah responded to the Arab actions by bombing a house in an Arab orange grove near Tel Aviv, killing eleven Arabs, including a woman and four children. British military curfews imposed on August 13 on slum districts between modern Tel Aviv and Jaffa have failed to prevent mounting casualties. British military authorities, citing captured intelligence and statements from Jewish defectors from terrorist organizations, state that it now appears that the Jewish terrorists are beginning to attack Arabs where ever they found them because Jews wish the Arabs to be driven out of Palestine entirely.

173

August 18, 1947, Palestine. The shops of five Jewish merchants in Tel Aviv were destroyed by the Irgun because the owners refused to give money to that organization.

174

August 23, 1947, Jerusalem. British authorities reported that five Arabs in one family; two men, one woman and two children, were murdered by Jewish terrorists as retaliation for the British arrest of two Irgun leaders on August15.

175

September 9, 1947. Hamburg, Germany. In a bitter three-hour fight aboard the “Runnymede Park,” 350 British troops completed a two-day forced debarkation of 4,300 “Exodus 1947” illegal Jewish refugees from three ships in Hamburg, Germany. First ashore yesterday were the “Ocean Vigour’s”1,406; a few put up token resistance and five passengers sustained minor injuries. Early today, the “Empire Rival’s” 1,420 passengers debarked peaceably after a home made bomb was found in the ship’s hold. Many of the “Runnymede Park’s” 1,485 passengers fiercely resisted the debarkation process and British military units had to use fire hoses and truncheons to rout resisters below decks. The Jews were taken ashore screaming “Nazis” to the British. “Runnymede Park” casualties, officially, were 24 Jews and three Britons injured, with 50 leaders of the resis¬tance on that ship taken to jail. German police broke up a Hamburg demonstration by 1,300 Jewish DPs from the Bergen-Belsen camp, where British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin was hanged in effigy on September 7. The debarked “Exodus” passengers were interned in Poppendorf camp near Luebeck for screening by nationalities and at first all of them refused to cooperate with British authorities until the passengers were threatened with a diet of bread and water.

176

September 10, 1947, Washington D.C. Secretary of State George C. Marshall disclosed that the US. had urged Britain to reconsider sending the “Exodus” group to Germany, but Britain replied that there were no facilities for housing them elsewhere because the French did not want them and there were a number of vacant detention camps in Germany.

177

September 11, 1947, Paris. The French government has now announced that it would admit the “Exodus” refugees if they were not forcibly deported from Germany and on the understanding that they will be admitted eventually to Palestine.

178

September 7, 1947, Paris. French police state a Stern gang plot to attack London with home-made fire extinguisher bombs from the air was thwarted through the cooperation of Reginald Gilbert of St Louis, Missouri, a student and wartime RCAF and AAF pilot. He was taken into custody with Rabbi Baruch Korif, of New York, co-chairman of the Political Action Committee for Palestine, and Judith Rosenberger, Hungarian-born Stern gang member, as the three started to enter a private plane last night at Toussus-le-Noble field near Versailles. Gilbert informed French police that Korif had approached him in Paris a week ago with an offer for flying a bombing mission over London the day of the“ Exodus” illegal immigrant landings in Germany. Gilbert accepted for some other pilot who would actually perform the mission. He at once notified Paris police, then worked with them and Scotland Yard while pretending to go through with the Stern gang’s plot. Korff was charged in Paris on September 9 with illegal possession of bombs he was intending to drop on London. He began a hunger strike. Paris police state that nine other conspirators were in Acustody.

179

September 12, 1947, Palestine. Irgun has threatened to assassinate British representatives in the US. Zone of Germany and all British delegations there are under 24-hour guard, the US. Command announced in Frankfurt-on-the Main. A probe of Irgun thefts from US. Army ammunition depots in Germany was reported on September 7.

180

September 20, 1947, Jerusalem. British raids September 16-19 uncovered several arms caches and terrorist hideouts in the Jerusalem area. The home of David Ben-Gurion, Jewish Agency executive chairman was robbed of important papers September 18. In Paris, Rabbi Baruch Korff, leader of a Stern gang plot to bomb London, ended a hunger strike in Sante prison on September 15.

181

October 13, 1947. Jerusalem. A terrorist bomb damaged the US. consulate general in Jerusalem, injuring two employees slightly. Similar bombings occurred at the Polish consulate general last night and at the Swedish consulate on September 27.In Baghdad, the Iraq foreign office advised an American House Foreign Affairs Committee group not to make a projected visit there because of “high feeling” over US. endorsement of partitioning of Palestine. The State Department in Washington announced it will issue no passports to American citizens who want to take part in terrorism in Palestine; Americans so involved will forfeit protection normally due US. citizens abroad.

182

October 18, 1947, Palestine. The Palestine Government states that Palestine Arab forces have been sent from the Trans-Jordan frontier to the Syrian and Lebanon borders to replace a British brigade which recently left Palestine. Zionists protested having Arab troops on the border of northern Palestine.

183

November 14, 1947, Palestine. Jewish terrorists killed two British policemen in Jerusalem and two soldiers in Tel Aviv to raise the total casualties in three days of violence to 10 Britons and five Jews killed and 33 Britons and five Jews wounded. The outbreaks began after British troops killed three girls and two boys in a raid on a farmhouse arsenal near Raanana on November 12. The terrorists retaliated yesterday by throwing hand grenades and firing a machine gun into the Ritz Cafe in Jerusalem.

184

November 15, 1947, London. The British Foreign Office denied Jerusalem press reports that Britain planned to take over any financial surplus left in Palestine’s treasury to pay for the costs of evacuation and combating unauthorized Jewish immigration.

185

November 16, 1947, Palestine. About 185 European Jews landed near Nahariya from a small schooner and escaped before the British could intercept them. A larger vessel, the “Kadimah,” was seized and brought to Haifa where 794 Jews were transshipped to a British transport for Cyprus.

186

November 17, 1947, Jerusalem. The British administration disclosed that it will sell state-owned real estate along the Haifa waterfront, from which it expects to make $8 million. It will also invest in England about $16 million from bonds that had been sold to Palestinians. Zionists strongly protested this as they said it would denude Palestine of its assets. There was no comment from the administration to these charges.

187

November 22, 1947, Haifa. Another Arab was murdered in Haifa by the Stern gang following their execution of four Arabs near Raanana November 20 in retaliation for the British shooting of five Stern gang members on November12. Arabs retaliated against this killing at Raanana by wounding five Jews on a bus near Tel Aviv on November 20.

188

November 30- December 6, 1947, Palestine. A week of disorders brought on by Arab wrath over the UN’s deci¬sion to partition the Holy Land ended with at least 159 killed in the Middle East, 66 in Palestine. While Jews in Palestine, Europe and the US. celebrated and began planning their new state and the UN moved to implement its plan, war talk was rife throughout the Arab world. The Arab League announced on December 1 that pre¬miers and foreign ministers of seven Arab states would meet in Cairo next week to plan strategy against partition. In Palestine: Jerusalem and the Jaffa Tel Aviv boundary zone were centers of week-long strife which began when seven Jews were killed throughout Palestine on November 30 and the mayor of Nablus, Arab nationalist center, proclaimed jihad or a holy war. British High Commissioner Sir Alan Cunningham warned the Arab Higher Command on December 1 that Britain was determined to keep order so long as it held its mandate, and police stopped Arab agitators from raising crowds in Jerusalem. But Jewish celebrations there were stoned. Arabs looted and burned a three-block Jewish business district in Jerusalem on December 2, the first day of a three-day Arab general strike during which 20 Jews and l5 Arabs were killed. When British troops failed to intervene, Haganah (unofficial Zionist militia) came into the open for the first time in eight years to restrain large-scale Jewish retaliation and also guard Jewish districts. Some Haganah men were arrested for possessing weapons. The day’s strife caused $1 million worth of damage and resulted in a 24-hour curfew being applied to Arab Jerusalem for the rest of the week. The curfew was extended to outlying roads on December 3 to stop stonings of Jewish traffic and keep rural Arabs out of the capital. Max Pinn, head of the Jewish Agency’s Trade and Transfer Department was killed on December 2 when Arabs stoned his auto near Ramleh. On this day Jews stoned Arab buses in Jerusalem. On the Jaffa-Tel Aviv boundary, which also is under around-the-clock curfew, the week’s heaviest battle was a six-hour clash between Hagariah and Arabs on December 3 in which seven Jews and five Arabs were killed and 75 persons injured. On December 2, Haganah claimed to have mobilized 10,000 men in the intercity trouble zone, and the Arab Legion of Trans-Jordan reported on this date that it had reinforced Jaffa. Seven Jews were killed in Jaffa-Tel Aviv on this date. There were lesser attacks in Haifa this week. It becomes clearly evident that the partition is not going as planned and that although the Jews are pleased, the Arabs are not. There appears to be no way to control the Jews or their determination to drive all of the Arabs out of Jerusalem by force if necessary. The Arabs, initially living in peace with the Jewish minority, have been increasingly victimized by the Jews who, now that the British are leaving, are turning their savage behavior against them. The Jews have redoubled their efforts to build a military force and arm them. They claim that this force is to protect the Jewish population against attacks from the Arab countries as well as the Arab population of Jerusalem but an even stronger argument can be made that the Zionists are determined to drive out the Arab population by armed force. The initial Arab response to Jewish harassment over the past year has been very slow in coming but it seems to be quite inevitable and a terrible civil war is foreseen. The United States Department of State announced on December 5, 1947 that they were placing an embargo on all American arms shipments to the Middle East It appears that the Soviets have been sending weapons- mostly captured German pieces, to assist the Zionists and accompanying these clandestine arms shipments the Soviets have also sent a very sizable contingent of instructors and advisors to Palestine in months past As many of the Zionists are Russian or Polish in origin, these Communist Russians have been received gladly by the Jewish extremists and quickly blend in with the local populations. Soviet interest in Middle East oil and an overriding interest in obtaining warm-water ports are a prime factor in their interest in a Jewish state in Palestine. The most violent reactions in the Arab world to the UN partition idea are Syrian and Egyptian. However, it is noted that the worst outbreak of anti-partition violence outside Palestine occurred in Aden, a British colony at the entrance to the Red Sea. On December 5, British military reinforcements were sent to Aden after four days of Arab-Jewish fighting in which 5O Jews and 25 Arabs were killed. In Syria, public demonstrations by the Arab population paralyzed business in Damascus earlier this week. The Soviet cultural center and Communist headquarters in Damascus were wrecked on November 30 with four persons killed. The Syrian Communist Party was officially dis¬banded by the government and the US. and British Embas¬sy flags were torn down. On December 1, Syria introduced military training into all boys’ schools and on December 2, the Syrian Parliament enacted a draft law and voted $860,000 for the relief of Palestinian Arabs. On the same day Arabs attacked the Jewish part of Aleppo. In Egypt the Chamber of Deputies resolved on December 1 to help keep Palestine a totally Arab state and to support the Arab population of Palestine against attacks by the Jewish minority. There were repeated anti-US. And British demonstration in Egypt’s main cities, and the British Institute in Zagazig was burned on December 2. All public meetings were banned in Cairo after Egyptian police fought with 15,000 people on December 4.In Lebanon, Arab students smashed the windows of the US. Legation in Beirut on December 1 and Lebanese Communists demonstrated against the partition of Palestine and all schools were closed to prevent student disorders. In Iraq, students in Baghdad wrecked the US. Information offices on December 4. In Saudi Arabia, anti-American demonstrations by Arabs in the oil fields were restrained by the government

189

December 13, 1947, Palestine. Jewish terrorists shifted from defense to attack in the second week of conflict with the Arabs since the UN voted for partition of Palestine. The death toll for the past 14 days was at least 220 in Palestine and 336 in the Middle East, including 111 in Aden. Arab retaliatory raids at Jaffa and Tel Aviv had killed 30 Jews and Arabs when local businessmen on both sides arranged for a truce on December 10 to effect an orange harvest On December 11, however, the Arabs renewed their assaults in the Old City of Jerusalem, which was the worst day of the current strife with 41 fatalities throughout Palestine. On December 12, Haganah launched attacks on both the Arabs and British with a death toll of 20 Arabs, five Jews and two British soldiers killed. On December 13, bombings by the Irgun killed at least 16 Arabs and injured 67 more in Jerusalem and Jaffa and burned down a hundred Arab houses in Jaffa. In Syria, an anti-Jewish attack in retaliation for the Irgun actions burned down a 2,750-year old synagogue in Aleppo and destroyed the priceless Ben-Asher Codex, a 10th century Hebrew Bible of original Old Testament manuscripts.

190

December 14, 1947, Lydda. Regular troops of the Arab Legion of the Trans-Jordan Army killed 14 Jews and wounded nine Jews, two British soldiers and one Arab when they attacked a bus convoy approaching their camp near Lydda. The Arabs said the Jews attacked them first

191

December 17, 1947, Cairo. Premiers of the seven Arab League states called on the Arabs to “prepare for the struggle.” They promised to “prosecute the fight until victorious” General Nuri as-Said Pasha, president of the Iraqi Senate, accused the US. of breaking a promise of neutrality.

192

December 17, 1947, Nevatim. British troops came to the aid of police standing off a raid by 100 Arabs on the Jewish settlement of Nevatim, seven miles west of Beersheba.

193

December 18, 1947, Khisas. Haganah killed 10 Arabs, including five children in a reprisal raid on Khisas in Northern Palestine.

194

December 19, 1947, Damascus. Reliable reports from Damascus state that Arab guerrillas are massing there in preparation to launching an attack into Palestine before the first of the year.

195

December 20, 1947, Palestine. Haganah carried out another raid on Arabs by attacking the village of Qazasa near Rehovoth. One Arab was killed and two were wounded.

196

December 21, 1947, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency gave official approval for Haganah to make reprisal raids on Arab villages and “exterminate nests of brigands.”

197

December 25, 1941, Haifa. Emir Mohammed Zeinati, an Arab landowner, was killed in Haifa for selling land to the Jews.

198

December 25, 1947, Tel Aviv. Stern gang terrorists machine-gunned two British soldiers in a Tel Aviv cafe.

199

December 26, 1947, Palestine. Armed Jewish terrorists raided two diamond factories in Nazthaanya and Tel Aviv and escaped with $107,000 in diamonds, cash and bonds.

The Stern gang distributed leaflets reporting that Israel Levin, a member, was murdered in Tel Aviv on December 24 for trying to betray a Stern gang member.

200

December 29, 1947, Palestine. Irgun members kidnapped and flogged a British major and three sergeants in retaliation for the flogging of Benjamin Kimkhim who was also sentenced to 18 years in prison on December 27 for robbing a bank. The major, E Brett, was seized in Nathanya and the sergeants in Tel Aviv and Rishon el Siyon. Each got 18 lashes, the same number Kimkhim received.

201

December 29, 1947, Jerusalem. An Irgun terrorist bombing at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem killed 11 Arabs and two Britons.

202

December 30, 1947, London. The Dollis Hill Synagogue in London was set on fire and 12 sacred scrolls were destroyed by angry British citizens who scrawled on the burned edifice “You whip—we burn.”

203

December 21-31, 1947, Palestine. Arab- Jewish conflict in the Holy Land increased the death toll to 489 from violence in Palestine in the 33 days since the UN decided on partition.

1948

204

January 3-10, 1948, Palestine. Extensive Jewish Agency purchases of US. war surplus high explosives with which to fight Arabs were disclosed in the New York City area. While 191 tons of TNT and the more powerful M-3 were seized before shipment, 73 tons cleared New York for Palestine. The TNT shipment was accidentally discovered when longshore men loading the American Export Lines freighter “Executor” in Jersey City on January 3, dropped a box marked “industrial machinery” and while attempting to repair the box, found cans of TNT bearing US. Army markings. The “machinery” proved to be 32 1/2 tons of TNT, which the US. Customs impounded as contraband because of the ban on American arms shipments to the Middle East On January 10, the FBI was attempting to trace the source of the contraband. The Jewish Agency for Palestine acknowledged on January 10 that it had purchased 199 tons of M-3 from the War Assets Administration at the Army’s Seneca Ordnance Depot near Romulous, New York Federal and state agents recovered 126 tons from a farmhouse and trucks near Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Barclay Heights and Saugerties, New York on January 8-9 but 73 tons were believed to be en route to Palestine. The Jewish Agency called its transaction with the WAA legal, admitted having set up “Foundry Associates, Inc.” in New York with a Haganah agent in charge, to buy explo¬sives for their war on the Arabs. The FBI said Leonard Weisman, president of three New York firms (Pratt Steamship Line, Material Redistribution Corporation and Paragon Design and Development Co.) gave the Haganah agent office space but did nothing illegal.WAA stopped all deliveries on unfulfilled orders on January 9 in the New York area. It said Foundry Associates, Inc., had sworn that it was a normal trader in explosives, thereby qualifying to buy the M-3, and that the export question was a US. Department of State matter.

205

January 4, 1948, Jaffa. A series of Jewish terrorist bombings inflicted heavy Arab casualties. 14 were killed and 100 injured when the Stern gang destroyed the Arab National Committee headquarters in Jaffa.

206

January 5, 1948, Jerusalem. 15 Arabs were killed after Haganah bombed the Semiramis Hotel.

207

January 6, 1948, Jerusalem. The British Government denounced the Semiramis attack as “wholesale murder of innocent people” but the Jewish Agency alleged that “Arab gangs” used the hotel and asked why attacks on Jews had not been equally denounced.

208

14 Arabs were killed by two Irgun terrorist bombs at Jerusalem’s Jaffa gate.

209

January 10, 1948, Jerusalem. The official death toll in Palestine since November 29 (when the UN voted for partition) had risen to 646.

210

January 12, 1948, Tel Aviv. Stern gang members looted Barclays Bank in Tel Aviv of $37,000.

211

January 13, 1948. Washington. The US. War Assets Administration received orders from Army Secretary Kenneth Royal to cancel its sale of 199 tons of M-3 explosive to a purchasing agent of the Jewish Agency, which got 73 tons out of the country before the rest was seized.

212

January 14-15, 1948, New York. The FBI arrested six Newark men on charges of trying to ship Haganah 60,000 pounds of TNT, which was seized in Jersey City after having been bought from the Letterkenny Arsenal Ordnance Depot in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

213

January 16-17, 1948, Haifa. Zionists claimed they had murdered 82Arabs, mostly civilians, in a 24 hour period. In retaliation for the massacres, Arabs machine-gunned 35 Haganah men who were en route to attack another Arab farming settlement.

214

January 17, 1948, Jerusalem: The official death toll of Arabs killed by Jewish terrorists since November 29 had risen to 831.

215

January 25, 1948, Jerusalem. Following the deaths of ten Jews and two Arabs killed in a battle outside Jerusalem, British authorities stated that 721 Arabs, 408 Jews, 19 civilians and 12 British policemen (a total of 1,160) had been killed in an eight-week period that 1,171 Arabs, 749 Jews, 13 civilians and 37 British officers had been wounded.

216

January 26, 1948, Palestine. Mrs. Gold Meyerson, Jewish Agency political director in Jerusalem, and Mote Sheraton, chief of all Agency political operations, told the UN Palestine Commission that Jews must arm against possible Arab threats and Sheraton demanded a UN policy that would compel the US. to lift its embargo on arms destined

for Jewish groups in the Middle East

217

January 28, 1948, Jerusalem. Rabbi Hillel Silver, chief of the Jewish Agency’s American division, cut short a trip to Jerusalem to return to the US. and campaign for American public support of armed Jewish backing for partition and eventual Zionist control of all Palestine. On January 27, his agency called upon 15,000 young men and women to join Haganah by February 15. British intelligence reports indicate that Haganah had grown from 3,500 to 12,000 full-time members since December 1.

218

January 31, 1948, London. British Foreign Office officials revealed that over 1,000 Soviets, all Russian-speaking Communist military technicians, had been intercepted on the immigrant ships “Pan York” and “Pan Crescent”

219

February 1, 1948, Jerusalem. Arab groups took credit for a bombing that destroyed the “Palestine Post” building. The newspaper had an extensive history of inciting the Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem to “destroy Arabs and force them out” of Palestine.

220

February 1, 1948, Milwaukee. WI, Moshe Shertok, Jewish Agency political director, stated that statements that Communist agents were among the intercepted “Pan York” and “Pan Crescent” immigrants from Bulgaria were untrue. Shartok cited a statement from Cyprus refugee camp commissioner, Sir Godfrey Collins, confirming his statement Collins subsequently denied making such a statement. Shertok further said that the Jews of Palestine welcomed all Jews into their country and that Jewish Communists were equally welcome. He denied rumors of Soviet clandestine assistance to various Jewish terrorist groups.

221

February 3, 1948, Jerusalem. Stern gang terrorists killed two British policemen because the bombers of the “Post” had allegedly worn police uniforms. Arabs attacked the Jerusalem Central Prison but were driven off by the guards.

222

The British Foreign Office sent Bulgaria a note of rebuke for “deliberately conniving” in the transshipment of illegal Soviet immigrants to Palestine.

223

February 10, 1948, Jerusalem. British military units prevented Arabs from bringing dynamite and firebombs into Jerusalem’s Old City in an attempt to blow up its Jewish Quarter.

224

February 10, 1948, Palestine. Jewish terrorist groups murdered ten Arabs near an RAF camp in central Palestine A further 23 Arabs were murdered by Jewish groups throughout Palestine.

225

February 11, 1948, Palestine. The British Royal Navy intercepted the ship “Beleaguered Jerusalem” off Nahariya and its 679 Jewish illegal immigrants were transshipped to Cyprus.

226

February 13, 1948, Palestine. A British Army sergeant was arrested in a probe of the death of four Jewish terrorists who were arrested at their sniper post and then released in an Arab neighborhood. The Jews were immediately stoned to death by the Arabs.

227

February 15, 1948, Galilee. Jewish terrorists raided an Arab settlement in upper Galilee, killing 30 Arabs, including 10 children, and blew up bridges.

228

February 16, 1948, New York The UN Palestine Commission reported to the Security Council that it would take a UN military force to save the Palestine partition from “catastrophic” failure. The report criticized “(c)ertain elements of the Jewish community,” for “irresponsible ads of violence which worsen the security situation.” The Commission quoted official British figures on Palestine casualties during November 30-February 1:869 killed, including 427 Arabs, 381 Jews, 46 British and 15 of other nationalities; 1,909 wounded, including 1,035 Arabs, 725 Jews, 135 British and 14 others.

229

February 20, 1948, Jerusalem. Twelve Jewish terrorists, including Moshe Svorai, second in command of the Stern gang, escaped from the Central Prison in Jerusalem.

230

February 22, 1948, Jerusalem. Two truckloads of high explosives were detonated in Ben Yehuda Street in the Jewish section of Jerusalem. The blast leveled a three block Jewish business center, killing at least 60 with 20 missing and 200 injured. Jews blamed the British because armored trucks with police insignia had escorted the truck bombs into the area.

231

February 23, 1948, Palestine. Northern Palestine Arabs took credit for the BenYehuda bombing and said they had carried out the attack as retaliation for a Jewish bombing that had killed seven Arabs in Ramleh.

232

February 27, 1948, Jerusalem. Two anti-Communist Polish residents of Jerusalem were murdered by Stem gang terrorists who claimed the Poles were “pro-Arab.”

233

February 29, 1948, Rehoveth. The British Mandate Government denounced the Jewish Agency after 28 British soldiers were killed and 35 seriously injured when a Haifa-bound train from Cairo was blown up. Stern gang terrorists took credit for the bombing of the British train as revenge for the Ben Yehuda Street bombing in Jerusalem.

234

March 1, 1948, Jerusalem. The British Mandate government accused the Jewish Agency of circulating false charges that Britons had committed the BenYehuda bombing and of tolerating Jewish terrorists “for political reasons.” It warned that “continuance of indiscriminate murder” would mean “forfeiture by the Jewish community of all right . . . to be numbered among civilized peoples. ”Immediately after issuance of this statement, the car of British Commander Lt. Gen. McMillan was bombed near Jerusalem but the general was not in the car at the time.

235

March 2, 1948, Haifa. Stern gang terrorists detonated a truckful of explosives at an Arab office building in Haifa, killing at least 14 Arabs.

236

March 4, 1948, Ramallah. In retaliation for the Haifa bombing of March 2, Arabs ambushed and killed 17 Haganah youths near RamaIlah

237

March 5, 1948, Tel Aviv. Haganah killed 15 Arabs near Tel Aviv in revenge for the March 4 ambush of their members

238

March 5, 1948, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency stated that large-scale Jewish arms shipments were ready in various Mediterranean ports destined for the arming of Jewish partisans in Palestine to “fight and drive out” the Arab population of what the Agency stated “was eternal Jewish land” that could not be occupied by either the British or the Arabs.

239

March 11, 1948, Jerusalem. The Jewish Agency’s building in Jerusalem was bombed with 13 persons killed and 84 injured. An American car, believed to have been stolen from the US. consulate by an Arab chauffeur, was driven through the agency’s elaborate barricades with a load of explosives. The driver escaped.

240

March 11, 1948, New York. Communist and their left wing labor unions turned out over 10,000 persons in a protest rally against US. “betrayal” of partition.

241

March 12, 1948, New York Columnist Drew Pearson said in his “Washington Merry-Go-Round” column that President Harry Truman had given Democratic party leaders the following reason for holding back on enforcement of Palestine partition after having championed this in the UN last year: Russia was after a US. Army-built railroad north from the Persian Gulf, plus all Arab oil regions and the Eastern Mediterranean. On March, Pearson had stated in the same forum that President Truman had told a New York publisher that New York Jews were “disloyal” to the United States.

242

March 12, 1948~ New York An Arab Higher Command paper was issued that charged the Jewish Agency with massing Soviet trained and equipped illegal immigrants in Eastern Europe for war service in Palestine and had “set up laboratories for bacteriological warfare.”

243

March 30, 1948, Palestine. British authorities released the latest casualty figures: In March, 566 persons, including 271 Jews 256Arabs, 39 British and others were killed.

244

March 30, 1948, New York Soviet and Jewish groups informed the UN Security Council that they defended the UN’s previous decision for a separate Jewish state. Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, told the Security Council that partition was “a just solution,” that he was not convinced that it could not be carried out peacefully and that by “wrecking” it the US. would have to take the full blame for “a serious blow upon the UN organization”

245

April 1, 1948, New York The UN found that it had transversed a circle—from one special General Assembly session to another—in its year-long effort to solve the Palestine problem. Britain referred the Holy Land dispute to the UN April 2, 1947, and asked for a special Assembly session, Events since then:

April 28-May 15, 1947. Assembly met, decided on spe¬cial committee inquiry into the Palestine situation.

August 31. Special Palestine Committee (UNSCOP) rec¬ommended partition, internationalized Jerusalem.

November 29. Assembly approved partition, 33-13 (10 abstentions): US. led the fight for a separate Jewish state. Intensified Arab-Jewish fighting in Palestine.

December 11. Britain set May 15 as the date for surrender of its mandate over Palestine.

February 16, 1948. Assembly’s Palestine Commission asked for UN army to enforce partition over Arab resistance.

February 24. US. Side-stepped endorsing forcible partition, asked the Council to seek Arab-Jewish agreement

March 19. After the Big Five conciliation efforts failed, the US. abandoned its partition plan and proposed UN trusteeship over Palestine.

April 1. The Security Council agreed (Russia abstaining) to US. proposal for a special Assembly session to reconsider the Palestine problem and passed the US. resolution urging an Arab-Jewish truce.

246

April 4, 1948, New York A Zionist rally in New York’s Madison Square Park was attended by 100,000 persons, including 40,000 Jewish war veterans.

247

April 6, 1948, Palestine. Jewish terrorists invaded the British Army’s largest Palestine camp near Pardes Hannan south of Haifa in a raid for firearms and murdered seven British soldiers.

248

April 9, 1948, Washington The US. Department of State refused to lift its embargo on arms shipments to the Middle East

249

April 9, 1948, Jerusalem. Irgun and Stern gang terrorists stormed an Arab suburb of Jerusalem, Dir Yashin, killing 250 Arabs, half of them women and children.

250

April 25, 1948, Jaffa. The Irgun launched an attack on Arab Jaffa claiming that it was a stronghold for Arabs. They also attacked Tel Aviv with 2,000 men, armored cars and mortars and captured the Arab district of Mansielt. Their advance was halted when British fighter planes and light artillery were used against the Irgun.

251

April 27, 1948, Palestine. Initially condemning the Irgun for its attack on Jaffa, the Haganah reached an agreement with Irgun and the latter agreed to operate under Haganah control. Both groups then attacked, Haganah seizing Jaffa’s eastern and southern suburbs. The Arab city was encircled by April 29, and all but 15,000 of Jaffa’s Arab inhabitants had been driven from the city, although the town was officially termed an Arab area. In Tel Aviv, the Stern gang robbed Barclays Bank of $1 million.

252

April 30, 1948, Jerusalem. Haganah scored victories against the Arab residents after fruitless UN efforts to arrange a truce that would protect historical shrines in the ancient Walled City. Jewish extremists threatened to dynamite the Arab Dome of the Rock Mosque unless all Arabs immediately evacuated Jerusalem. The British response was that if this happened, they would blow up the Wailing Wall, the last remnant of the destroyed temple. The Haganah agreed to respect both Arab and Christian monuments but insisted all Arabs and Christians must leave Jerusalem. In a move they described as “defensive,” the Haganah overran the Christian Arab Katamon quarter in southwestern modern Jerusalem and captured most of the Moslem Mamilla cemetery. Jewish workers seized the general post office in Jerusalem. In Katamon, Haganah captured St Simon’s Greek Orthodox Monastery, drove out the monks and vandalized the building. British troops stepped in to prevent further massacre of the Arabs.

253

May 2, 1948, Jerusalem. The British finally halted wide-spread strife in Jerusalem by rushing several thousand mechanized army units and Royal Marine commandos back to Palestine. Their primary purpose was to protect Arab civilians who were being slaughtered by rampaging Zionists.

254

May 5-8, 1948, Palestine. The Haganah, now styling itself a “Jewish Army,” struck Upper Galilee in northeastern Palestine and claimed to have crushed any Arab resistance by the end of the week. Safad, capital of Upper Galilee and normally a city of 15,000 Arabs, was reported by the Jewish Agency as having been “cleansed” of Arabs by May 6. The only remaining occupants of the town were 2,000 Jews. Haganah announced that all Arab property had been confiscated from the owners and would be given to Jewish settlers.

255

May 4, 1948, Tel Aviv. The 37-man Jewish Legislative Council met in Tel Aviv and heard Premier-designate David Ben-Gurion declare that 150,000 Arabs had been driven from their homes in the past five months but that the Jews “haven’t lost a single settlement” The Stern gang resumed “direct war” against the British for protecting the Arab population of Jerusalem. Seven British soldiers were killed near Nethanya. At the same time, the Stern gang took credit for a letter bomb which killed the young brother of a British army officer in England.

256

May 6, 1948, Jerusalem. Haganah was redesignated as the Jewish State Army and reported that 200 aircraft, later revealed by British authorities as having come from Czechoslovakia, whose new communist government is almost entirely composed of Zionists and who have been pouring weapons into Palestine, are slated to reinforce the new army. The army will be increased to 85,000 immediately.

257

May 16, 1948, New York The number of states recognizing Israel increased to eight this week, and the new country applied for admission to the UN. Russia immediately granted recognition on May 17, implying that it recognized Israel’s government as the de jure (legal) government while the United States recognized Israel only as the de facto (in fact) government

258

May 22, 1948, Jerusalem. Thomas Wasson, US. Consul General in Jerusalem and a member of the Council’s Truce Commission, was fatally wounded by a Stern gang sniper near the US. Consulate. Two other Consulate members were also assaulted, one dying the next day.

259

September 17, 1948, Jerusalem. Angered by his order to readmit 8,000 Arab refugees driven from three villages near Haifa by attacks of Jewish terrorists, the Stern gang assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte, UN mediator for Palestine. Also killed in the attack was French Col. Andre Serot, chief of France’s 100-man contingent in the unarmed UN truce-observer team.

The terrifying phenomenon that is pushing species towards extinction

Scientists are alarmed by a rise in mass mortality events – when species die in their thousands. Is it all down to climate change?

February 25, 2018

by David Derbyshire

The Guardian

There was almost something biblical about the scene of devastation that lay before Richard Kock as he stood in the wilderness of the Kazakhstan steppe. Dotted across the grassy plain, as far as the eye could see, were the corpses of thousands upon thousands of saiga antelopes. All appeared to have fallen where they were feeding.

Some were mothers that had travelled to this remote wilderness for the annual calving season, while others were their offspring, just a few days old. Each had died in just a few hours from blood poisoning. In the 30C heat of a May day, the air around each of the rotting hulks was thick with flies.

The same grisly story has been replayed throughout Kazakhstan. In this springtime massacre, an estimated 200,000 critically endangered saiga – around 60% of the world’s population – died. “All the carcasses in this one of many killing zones were spread evenly over 20 sq km,” says Kock, professor of wildlife health and emerging diseases at the Royal Veterinary College in London. “The pattern was strange. They were either grazing normally with their newborn calves or dying where they stood, as if a switch had been turned on. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

The saiga – whose migrations form one of the great wildlife spectacles – were victims of a mass mortality event (MME), a single, catastrophic incident that wipes out vast numbers of a species in a short period of time. MMEs are among the most extreme events of nature. They affect starfish, bats, coral reefs and sardines. They can push species to the brink of extinction, or throw a spanner into the complex web of life in an ecosystem. And according to some scientists, MMEs are on the rise and likely to become more common because of climate change.

The MME that has pushed the saiga closer to extinction struck in 2015. Kock was part of an international team studying the animals as they gathered for the calving season. For most of the year, saiga are on the move, able to avoid predatory wolves and human poachers by sprinting at more than 40mph, making them one of the fastest ungulates, or hoofed animals. But once a year they put their migration on pause to calve in vast groups when the grass is at its lushest, before it is scorched by the sun.

In 2015, the main gathering in the Betpak-Dala region of central Kazakhstan, an area roughly the size of the British Isles, numbered 250,000. Nearby, other groups were thousands strong. Saiga are remarkable animals. Their bulbous noses, which hang over their mouths, give these antelopes an almost comical appearance. The nose is flexible and can be inflated, helping them to breathe warm air in the freezing winters and filter air in the arid summers as they sprint with their heads down in a cloud of dust. The species has been hit by mass die-offs before. In 1981, around 70,000 died suddenly in a few days, while in 1988 another 200,000 died. The creatures are also victims of poachers.

“In 2014, we believed there were about 250,000 adults and they produced a good number of calves – perhaps a couple of hundred thousand. It looked a viable population and we’d expected a population of a million soon. There was even talk of them coming off the critically endangered list,” Kock says.

But as the scientists watched a year later, the mothers fell sick and began to drop dead. “It wasn’t as if the disease started at one end and spread – there was no time for transmission of the pathogen from animal to animal. It was too quick,” he says. “Within two or three days, everything was dying. By the end of the week, every single one was dead.”

The scientists on the ground pinpointed blood poisoning as the cause, but were puzzled as to why whole herds were dying so quickly. After 32 postmortems, they concluded the culprit was the bacterium Pasteurella multocida, which they believe normally lives harmlessly in the tonsils of some, if not all, of the antelopes. In a research paper published in January in Science Advances, Kock and colleagues contrasted the 2015 MME with the two from the 1980s. They concluded that a rise in temperature to 37C and an increase in humidity above 80% in the previous few days had stimulated the bacteria to pass into the bloodstream where it caused haemorrhagic septicaemia, or blood poisoning.

The weather link raises the spectre of climate change. Just as it is rarely wise to link a single extreme weather event – whether it’s the Australian heatwave, last summer’s Hurricane Harvey or this winter’s North American cold snap – to climate change, it is equally difficult to blame an MME on global warming. But what can be said with confidence is that the sorts of extreme weather events linked to MMEs – such as the temperature and humidity rise that nearly wiped out the saiga – will become more frequent.

Australians know all about extreme weather. While much of Europe and North America has endured a bitter start to the year, the Australian summer has been a scorcher. In January, temperatures in Sydney topped 47C, the city’s highest since 1939. The toll on wildlife has been devastating. As the mercury rose, corpses of critically endangered flying foxes – or fruit bats – began to pile up under the trees in New South Wales. Horrified wildlife campaigners at one colony in Campbelltown, south of Sydney, discovered 400 dead bats. Some were still hanging from trees. Many were babies, abandoned by their parents in their own desperate search for shade.

Flying foxes are well adapted to normal Australian summers. But above 40C, they are unable to regulate their body temperature and can die from overheating. This year’s deaths were grim enough, but they were dwarfed by the MME of 2014, when at least 45,000 flying foxes were killed on one hot day in south-east Queensland. Some colonies had more dead bodies than living bats. Their corpses were piled thick on the ground as the three species there – the black, little red and grey-headed – were hit.

Events like the disaster that struck the flying foxes and saiga appear to be growing in number. The most thorough study of its kind published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2015 uncovered 727 accounts of MMEs involving 2,407 animal populations since 1940. It found that not only are reports of MMEs on the increase – by about one event a year – but the number of animals killed in each event is on the rise for birds, fish and marine invertebrates.

Adam Siepielski, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Arkansas and a co-author of the paper, became fascinated by the phenomena after hearing a radio report of millions of sardines and anchovies dying. “These reports of MMEs are probably underestimates in terms of occurrence and sheer magnitude,” he says. “There is additionally a challenge in trying to understand whether this increased occurrence is a real event, or whether there are more people observing these things and [they are] more likely to report them. We call this the epidemic of awareness.”

The study found that disease was the biggest factor in MMEs, playing a role in a quarter of them. Around 19% were directly linked to human behaviour such as pollution. Factors linked directly to climate – including extremes of hot and cold, oxygen stress and starvation – collectively contributed to about a quarter.

Untangling the causes – and working out the role of climate change in MMEs is difficult. “In many cases, there are multiple stressors – such as, in the case of the saiga, a low-lying bacterial infection, slightly higher humidity and higher temperatures,” says Siepielski.

“There are some mass mortality events linked directly to extreme heatwaves or cold snaps. In other cases there could be indirect changes, where shifts in temperature cause diseases to be more common and which lead to an MME.”

That kind of temperature-related outbreak is now thought to lie behind one of the biggest die-offs ever observed in the natural world, in which hundreds of millions of starfish off the west coast of America began to “melt” into white gloop. More than 20 species of starfish along the coast from Mexico to Alaska were hit by the sea star wasting disease, a condition caused by a parvovirus – the group of viruses that cause gastrointestinal problems in animals. The virus left the starfish vulnerable to bacterial infection. Within one or two weeks of infection, white cuts appeared on their bodies and the creatures became listless. Some ripped off their infected arms and tried to walk away. But for most the disease was deadly. Like the bacteria that triggered the MME in saiga, the virus appears to have been present in starfish for decades – if not longer. Samples stored in museums since the 1940s tested positive.

An MME can push a species closer to extinction. But it can also have knock-on effects elsewhere in the fragile food web. In tidal pools on the west coast, where once there was a healthy mix of species, mussels – food for starfish – are starting to dominate. Off California, another source of starfish food, sea urchins, are also on the rise – causing a fall in the availability of kelp, the sea urchins’ main food source. That decline could hit species that depend on it for shelter, food and protection.

A paper published last year in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society concluded that the die-off was probably linked to warmer seas. The team, led by Morgan Eisenlord at Cornell University, looked at the links between ocean temperatures and disease in the most common species on the west coast, the ochre sea star, as well as testing the effects of warmer water in the lab. Warmer than usual water didn’t just put the starfish under stress, it also made infectious agents more prevalent, they concluded.

Kock is confident that climate change will lead to more MMEs – pushing vulnerable species closer to extinction and altering the food web. He believes that conservationists should be on the lookout for other mortality events in species such as reindeer and elk. “The tragedy is, we will probably see more events like the event that affected the saiga,” he says. “Evolution takes millions of years and if we have a shift in environmental conditions, everything that’s evolved in that particular environment is under different pressures. Microbes adapt and can respond to changes quickly, but mammals take hundreds of thousands of years or millions of years to adapt. That’s the real worry.”

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TBR News February 25, 2018

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